Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

• Retired U.S. diplomat says Palestinian disillusionment is the worse it’s been in 40 years, and US credibility is destroyed

• Palestinian journalist goes into hiding, fearing arrest by P.A. for her coverage of protest

• IDF detains 3rd member of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre

• What is Palestinian statehood up against? (US Israel lobby group organizes junket for 18 ambassadors from mostly-little countries)

• Feminist triumph in West Bank somehow escapes probing eye of western media

• Will the tent protests break out of the neoliberal-Zionist-security box?

• The nightmare of the Jewish soul

• Gazans campaign to ‘save the children of Somalia’

• Will Obama give Pollard a lift on Air Force One?

• ‘Forward’ publishes defense of boycott law and says ‘malcontented Jews’ publicly criticize Israel

Retired U.S. diplomat says Palestinian disillusionment is the worse it’s been in 40 years, and US credibility is destroyed

Aug 07, 2011

Henry Norr

A friend with much experience and wide contacts in the Middle East passed along the following evaluation of the current situation in Israel/Palestine by an anonymous (to me, not to my friend) retired American diplomat:

The following are impressions from a week of conversations with Palestinians. Everyone I spoke to seems to have totally given up on the US, now, after the next presidential election and beyond. Every Palestinian I talked to sees the US as always siding with Israel, no matter what, and unwilling to do anything positive for the Palestinians. In the forty years that I have followed this issue, I have never seen such deep disillusionment and almost contempt for the US and its policies. And I think Palestinians were more frank with me than they are with US diplomatic representatives.

The Palestinians will go to the UN in September. Abu Mazen says he will take the request to be seated as a state to the UNSC [UN Security Council], knowing full well that the US will veto the  resolution. And when the US vetoes it, the Palestinians seem fully prepared to make this an annual exercise, taking it to the UN next year and beyond. Other Palestinians, such as Salam Fayyad, think that the Palestinians can get almost everything they want (including the right to participate in the ICC [International Criminal Court] and the ICJ [International Court of Justice]) through a UNGA [General Assembly] resolution and would prefer to avoid a full-out confrontation with the US, but even Salam seems totally disillusioned with the US, and I am not sure he is right that the Palestinians can get full participation in UN agencies through the UNGA route.

Everyone told me that there will be peaceful anti-Israeli demonstrations in September by youth groups and that Abu Mazen has met with youth leaders and encouraged them to carry out demonstrations. Everyone I talked to expects that the IDF will respond to such demonstrations by shooting, wounding and killing Palestinian demonstrators. What happens after that is problematic. [Prominent Palestinian pollster] Khalil Shikaki and others say that Palestinian security services will absolutely not shoot Palestinian demonstrators. At a minimum, they will stay in the barracks and stop all security cooperation with the Israelis. There is a real fear that the Palestinian security services will somehow be caught in the middle and that the IDF will destroy them as happened during the second intifada. I detected no appetite by Palestinians for such acts of violence as occurred during the second intifada, but there is the clear expectation that the Israelis will escalate with violence and destroy much of what has been rebuilt.

Ramallah is a bubble. There has been a tremendous amount of construction, but that building boom is not matched elsewhere in the West Bank. Palestinian East Jerusalem remains stuck in a forty-year time warp with Israeli construction continuing but the Israelis refusing to allow Palestinians to build. In Ramallah, much of the building of government structures is paid for by foreign donors. If one looks closely at privately funded building, much of it remains unfinished. The economy is a mess. Commercial banks are over-extended with the PA [Palestinian Authority] and refusing to extend new loans. Private businesses are refusing to bid on PA tenders because many of them have not been paid for previous work or supplies for several years and simply cannot afford to extend credit to the PA anymore. And as Salam Fayyad finds it more and more difficult to pay salaries, that will only constrict the economy even more, since the majority of employed Palestinians have jobs with the PA.

No one could seem to explain why the Saudis have not been paying their subsidies to the PA.  They have only coughed up $30 million dollars so far (while paying $1.4 billion to the Jordanians this year) while the Kuwaitis and Emiraties have paid nothing. I wonder about the Saudis: they are pissed off at the US for letting Mubarak fall (in their perception) and for our policy towards the unrest in Bahrain. And senior Saudis have made in the past six months some remarkably strong statements about the failures of the Obama Administration on getting serious negotiations started and our continual caving in to Israel. I wonder if the Saudis have decided to stop supporting the PA altogether since continuing to do so amounts to little more than subsidizing continued and open-ended Israeli occupation. Perhaps they calculate it’s better to let the PA collapse and let the US and Israel see how they can deal with the situation then.

Reconciliation with Hamas is on hold until after the UN action.  Salam Fayyad staying on is the major stumbling block, but most seem to not hold out much hope for real reconciliation. Whether Salam will go seems up in the air.  Salam says he has made clear to Hamas that he will not tolerate any violent acts by Hamas on the West Bank and will arrest anyone the PSS catches plotting violence. Who knows what will happen if he goes, although no one doubts Abu Mazen’s commitment to non-violence.

As for Israel, even my most optimistic Israeli friends are deeply pessimistic and see Israel as an isolated, right-wing country with no hope for negotiations. Some friends, who have been there for a very long time, said if they knew what Israel has become, they would never have made aliyah.

I have been traveling to Israel, Gaza and the West Bank for forty years now. I have never experienced the depth of disillusionment that I saw on this last trip. I think the US has finally reached the end of the road and totally destroyed its credibility. It is ironic that some Israelis seem to hold the US in about the same contempt as do the Palestinians.

Palestinian journalist goes into hiding, fearing arrest by P.A. for her coverage of protest

Aug 07, 2011

Kate

and other news from Today in Palestine:

Land, resources theft and destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid
VIDEO: Wall Gate #300 – the story of Toura al-Gharbiyya
4 Aug — [The difficulties of marrying a woman from the part of the village cut off behind the Wall. Before the marriage the Israelis only allowed the man to visit his fiancée every three months for three days – but they closed the gate before he could get there from work.  When the time for the wedding arrived…. well, watch the rest of the story.]
link to www.youtube.com
PA absent from funeral of man hailed as ‘symbol of steadfastness’
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — Former Bethlehem governor Salah Tamari expressed disappointment on Sunday that Palestinian Authority officials did not attend the funeral of Hajj Ibrahim Atallah, who he praised as “a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness [sumud].” Hajj Ibrahim Atallah remained in Zakariyya, a small hamlet built on his land, until his death aged 101. He managed to stay in Zakariyya, south Bethlehem despite huge pressure from Israeli forces and settlers as the Gush Etzion settlement block was being built nearby. Shortly before his death Atallah dug a grave near Israel’s separation wall bordering his land and told his sons to bury him there “no matter what,” relatives said.
link to www.maannews.net
Beit Ommar, West Bank face serious water problems
PSP 6 Aug — The lack of access to clean water represents a major problem in the West Bank, particularly for rural farming villages such as Beit Ommar. The problem has escalated since 2005, as Israel steals more and more Palestinian water, allocating less each year to the Palestinian Authorities to distribute. For example, the settlements surrounding Beit Ommar have unlimited access, all week, to water for their many swimming pools. Simultaneously, the Israeli authorities stopped the water supply to the Palestinian village of Beit Ommar for four days each week. As a result, residents of Beit Ommar have to travel many kilometres by foot, donkey, or motor vehicle, to buy back the water which has been stolen from them by Israel. The theft and control of Palestinian water supplies is an essential part of the wider Israeli strategy: to make life so unbearably difficult for the Palestinians that they leave their lands and emigrate.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org
IOA cuts off water to Jenin neighborhoods
JENIN (PIC) 7 Aug — The Palestinian municipal council in Jenin city strongly denounced the Israeli water company Mekorot for cutting off arbitrarily the water supply for the fourth consecutive day to many neighborhoods in the city. The Jenin council stated in a press release that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) turned off the water valve in Suwitat neighborhood cutting off the water supply to the areas of Suwitat, Marah Sa’ed, and Al-Mirah as well as the eastern district.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Jerusalem
Israeli judges crack down on dissent
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 7 Aug — The bias of the Israeli judicial system has become increasingly overt in recent months, as the calls of Israeli police for the “punishment” of Silwan’s Palestinian residents appear to be answered. As Silwan’s people attempt to confront the spread of Israeli settlements and Municipality-enacted house demolitions in their neighborhoods, judges appear to be cracking down on dissent. Several residents have been convicted of fabricated charges in recent months, with judges heeding no thought for justice.
link to silwanic.net
Israeli authorities impose house arrest on Palestinian child
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 7 Aug — An Israeli court has imposed house arrest on a 15-year-old Palestinian child in Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem. The committee for the defense of Silwan said in a press release on Sunday that the child, Khaled Uwaida, was ordered to remain in his family home until 15 October and detained his ID until end of the period. It pointed out that the kid was apprehended in front of his home in Bustan suburb on 1 June at the hands of a special unit and was held in custody for 25 days during which he was constantly beaten. It added that Uwaida was banished from Silwan until 5 August when he was held under house arrest.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Sentencing of two young men deemed ‘unfair’ by residents
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 7 Aug  — Two young Palestinian men have been banished from Silwan district for a period of one year and one day by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court. The sentencing of Mazen Odeh, 26, who currently suffers injury caused by Israeli settler guards in Silwan, and Moussa Badran, 20, was branded ‘unfair’ by fellow Silwan residents. The two men were arrested from their homes by Israeli forces. Odeh’s health remains poor, with his movements remain impinged due to the injury.
link to silwanic.net
Samah Sarhan sentenced to one year and one day in prison on secret evidence
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 7 Aug — The young nephew of the martyred Silwan resident Samer Sarhan was sentenced on 4 August to one year and one day in jail. Samah Sarhan, 19, was convicted of alleged involvement in demonstrations in Silwan against Israeli oppression. A secondary court session will be held to discuss Sarhan’s supposed intention to ‘avenge the death’ of his uncle, as stated in the indictment. Samah’s relatives have stated that they were told by police that these files are confidential
link to silwanic.net
EU ‘profoundly disappointed’ by new settlement plan
BRUSSELS (AFP) 5 Aug — EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday roundly disapproved Israel’s go-ahead to the building of 900 new homes in east Jerusalem, saying new settlements damaged the prospects for peace … The new homes will expand a neighborhood in Jerusalem’s southwest that is defined as being within municipal boundaries despite lying directly next to the Palestinian West Bank town of Bethlehem.
link to www.maannews.net
Masri: Unleashing resistance forces best response against Jewish settlement
GAZA (PIC) 6 Aug — Senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri said that unleashing the West Bank resistance forces and ending [PA] security coordination [with Israel] is the best response against Israeli settlement. The statement came after the Jerusalem municipality’s recent approval for the construction of 930 new housing units in the Israeli settlement Har Homa beyond the Green Line. The decision attests that the Zionist mentality is to uproot the indigenous people, especially those in Jerusalem, Masri said in comments on Saturday.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Settlers
Rightists try to enter Al-Aqsa Mosque compound
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) — A group of right-wing Israelis tried to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem on Friday evening but were obstructed by Palestinian youth, a Ma‘an correspondent said. Ma‘an’s reporter said local youth clashed with the Israelis, who they described as settlers, at Bab Al-Majlis gate during the Tarawih, an evening prayer performed in the holy month of Ramadan. No injuries were reported
link to www.maannews.net
OCHA: Jewish settlers persistent in their attacks on Palestinian property
RAMALLAH (PIC) 7 Aug — The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in the occupied Palestinian lands (OCHA) said the attacks waged by Jewish settlers on Palestinian agricultural properties in the West Bank continued last week. According to its weekly report, the Jewish settlers set fire to agricultural lands in Turmusaya village in Ramallah city, and Burin and Awarta villages in Nablus city destroying 400 almond and olive trees. They also attacked firemen in Burin as they were trying to extinguish the fire.
The report noted that the Jewish settlers have uprooted and destroyed about 4,000 trees belonging to Palestinian farmers since the start of this year.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Do these Israeli settlers block the path to peace? / Patrick Martin
[photos] YITZHAR, Samaria, West Bank (Globe and Mail) 6 Aug — The fire started easily. Midway through July, the relentless sun had turned the grass and scrub into tinder. A couple of molotov cocktails tossed on the ground were enough to get it going. A stiff wind out of the west made sure it spread quickly. It raced across the open hillsides where sheep and goats often grazed, and leapt into the olive groves of the Palestinian farmers who live below the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar. As a reporter watched, the farmers rushed outside and tried hopelessly to tamp out the flames with olive branches … On the hillside above the fire, half a dozen young men from Yitzhar were making their way slowly back to the settlement, stopping every few minutes to turn and look back at their handiwork. Above, inside the guarded settlement, a bunch of the hilltop youth, as they are known, looked down excitedly. ‘Ayzeh yofi!’ some exclaimed (‘How beautiful!’), clapping each other on the back.
link to www.theglobeandmail.com
Israeli forces
IOF soldiers forcibly evacuate worshipers from Aqsa Mosque
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 6 Aug — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed the holy Aqsa Mosque at midnight Friday and forced Muslim worshippers out of it, the Quds media center said on its website on Saturday. It said that the soldiers encircled the mosque then broke into it forcing all those inside to evacuate the holy site at the pretext of violating Israeli police orders that no Muslim should remain in the mosque after the late night prayers until the dawn prayers the next day. [Why? It is customary during Ramadan for Muslims to spend all night in mosques praying]
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Beit Ommar invaded by Israeli military, 5 arrested
[with short video] PSP 7 Aug — Late in the night of August 6th, Israeli soldiers launches a pre-dawn raid into the village of Beit Ommar. At approximately 11:30 p.m., the Israeli military closed off Beit Ommar. Firing bullets and launching stun grenades and tear gas, 45 soldiers approached the town park near the entrance of the village. They were targeting a party celebrating the release of a prisoner that was held there. The gate to the park was closed in response to the military incursion, so the soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas.Though there was damage to the park and the party was disrupted, they did not succeed in gaining access to the park. During the raid, soldiers entered the main street of the village and invaded the homes of a number of residents, searching them and stationing soldiers on top of some. In response to the incursion, residents blockaded part of the street and set a fire to the blockade. The raid continued for an hour and forty-five minutes, with soldiers searching houses and shooting flares, tear gas, smoke and stun grenades. Many people, including women and children, were treated by ambulances for smoke and gas inhalation.
link to palestinesolidarityproject.org
Witnesses: Army declares village closed military zone
NABLUS (Ma‘an) — Israeli forces declared Iraq Burin village a closed military zone on Saturday, witnesses said. Iraq Burin, south of Nablus, is the site of weekly demonstrations against illegal settlements on village land, and activists said the closure was an attempt to thwart protests. Witnesses said soldiers surrounded the village from all sides and prevented anyone entering or leaving. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the village was only closed to Israeli civilians “to prevent riots.”
link to www.maannews.net
Sappers destroy explosive device found in Tubas
TUBAS (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Police sappers neutralized Friday a suspicious object left behind by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Tubas, ordnance disposal authorities said. The suspicious object was found near a gas station in southern Tubas. Police said in a statement that officers closed the area and destroyed the object, a 10-cm stun grenade, but it did not cause damage.
link to www.maannews.net
Violence
VIDEO: ‘Assaults mount on Palestinian reporters’
PressTV 7 Aug — Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemns assaults carried out by both Israeli military troops and Palestinian security forces on members of Palestinian media — A recent report released by the syndicate displays 18 cases of assaults on Palestinian journalists mostly carried out by Israeli soldiers so far this month, a Press TV correspondent reported. “In this report, 18 cases of violations against journalists were reported in the occupied Palestinian territories. The majority of these violations were committed by the Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian journalists,” said member of Palestinian Journalist Syndicate Omar Nazzal … Meanwhile, seven other cases of attacks on local reporters by Palestinian security forces were reported both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. “The bigger violations are usually committed by the Israeli occupation forces…,” Al-Alam reporter Fares Sarafendl said.
link to www.presstv.ir
Gaza
Report: Hamas detained rocket cell
Ynet 6 Aug — Hamas security forces detained Saturday morning two members of the al-Tawhid wal-Jihad group in Gaza as they were about to fire rockets at Israel, members of the radical organization charged in a leaflet …  According to al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, Israel Air Force drones were hovering above the area at the time of the arrest. Other cell members managed to flee the scene, the group said. Following the arrest, the Jihadist group slammed Hamas’ security forces, stressing that the “grave” arrest caused unprecedented harm while the terrorists were working “in the service of the homeland against Israel’s tyranny.” … Palestinian sources say that recent rocket attacks on Israel were the work of Salafi groups in the Strip such as al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which reject Hamas’ authority in Gaza. However, Israel struck training camps belonging to Hamas’ military wing this week in order to signal to the group that it’s responsible for any attack on Israel, even if Hamas is not directly behind it.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Hamas employees’ wages late due to cash crisis
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — Civil servants in Gaza will not receive their July salaries until the end of August due to government cash shortages, Hamas finance ministry official Ismail Mahfouz said Sunday … He said there was a deficit in support from abroad, and that Hamas officials were trying to secure more finance from outside the Gaza Strip … Meanwhile, the Hamas government had several other financial concerns, such as the electricity crisis, he said, adding that the government had paid $32 million to Gaza’s electricity company to avoid national power cuts.
link to www.maannews.net
Some of entitled medicines to arrive in Gaza within days
GAZA (PIC) 7 Aug — Munir al-Bersh, the Gaza health ministry’s director-general of pharmaceuticals, said a portion of entitled medicines are scheduled to arrive in the Gaza Strip within the next few days. Bersh said the health ministry has contacted organizations both at home and abroad in a bid to pressure the health ministry in the West Bank to dispatch Gaza’s share of medicines provided by the World Bank.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Projectile fired from Gaza lands in southern Israel
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — A projectile fired from the northern Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel on Sunday with no injuries reported, Israeli news site Ynet reported. An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that a projectile had landed in the Shaar Hanegev regional council.
link to www.maannews.net
VIDEO: Finding better solutions for Gaza’s waste
AJ 6 Aug — For years Gaza’s sewage system has been close to collapse. Beaches along the Strip’s 40km of coast are heavily polluted by waste being pumped directly into the sea – 14,000 cubic metres of it per day. And the people who depend on the Mediterranean for their livelihoods are the ones who suffer the most. Now, work on a new mutli-million dollar treatment plant is underway. People are hopeful this will mean the days of dumping waste into the sea becomes a thing of the past. Al Jazeera’s Nicole Johnston reports from Gaza.
link to english.aljazeera.net
Gaza electricity crisis ‘due to faulty power line’
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Palestinians in Gaza have been breaking their daily fast in darkness this Ramadan due to an electricity crisis in the coastal enclave. Gaza’s energy authority said the blackouts were caused by a faulty power line from Israel. Officials in Gaza said Israeli authorities were stalling maintenance of the line. Gaza’s electricity company said it was working to provide power to the worst affected areas in the west of the Gaza Strip.
link to www.maannews.net
Gaza smugglers thriving after Mubarak
AFP 5 Aug — The swarm of tunnel activity on the Gaza border raises clouds of fine dust, a sure sign of the boom in underground trafficking since the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. While the ousted president appeared in court this week on a stretcher, smugglers from the Palestinian territories — under an Israeli blockade since 2006 with Egypt’s tacit cooperation — were enjoying their newfound freedoms. “Things have changed with the situation in Egypt. It’s chaos out there,” said Mohammed, 27, who runs a tunnel where workers were hoisting bags of cement. Trade in cement, which is on an Israeli list of banned goods on grounds it could be used for military purposes, have risen by up to five-fold since the political shift in Egypt.
link to news.yahoo.com
stars and bombs
InGaza 5 Aug — We are watching the sky, sleeping on the roof to escape the heat. I flatter the clouds’ beauty and am watching sporadic shooting stars when the first F-16 appeared from the direction of the sea. No sound, just a blinking red light quite high up.  Three more follow. Their roar slowly becomes audible and they drop a couple of flares. We trace their path, above us, chilling.  The roar is normal, F-16s are normal, and reading in the news the next day that some part of Gaza was bombed is normal. They continue eastward and a bombing seems imminent.  It is. A thick cloud of black smoke blots the dim lights of houses in eastern Deir al Balah where the F-16s have struck. Their roar doesn’t disappear yet. They’re bombing Khan Younis, Emad says matter-of-factly. Not a hard guess, what else are they doing up there at nearly 2 am … Two massive blasts, the house shakes. They’ve bombed somewhere near the sea, which is only a few hundred metres away.  I remember the shakes of the Ezbet Abed Rabbo house Leila and I were in when F-16s were flattening the area during the Israeli war on Gaza in 2008-2009.  One directly behind that house, the walls ready to cave in; one across the lane some 30 metres away, leaving a massive crater.
link to ingaza.wordpress.com
New 5-star Gaza hotel has few guests
AL-SOUDANIA, Gaza Strip (AP) 6 Aug — The Gaza Strip’s first five-star hotel gleams with marble floors, five luxury restaurants and a breezy cafe overlooking the territory’s white sandy beaches and sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. The only thing missing are guests. Nearly all of the newly opened hotel’s 222 rooms, decked out with ornate metal-worked lamps, flat screen televisions, oversized beds and sea views, sit empty. The tourists whom the developers expected to flood to Gaza when they launched the project 13 years ago are nowhere to be seen. Local residents, most of them living in poverty, can only dream of staying in the gleaming complex.
link to www.msnbc.msn.com
Detention
Israeli army detains Freedom Theater actor
JENIN (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Israeli forces on Saturday detained an acting student of the iconic Freedom Theater at a checkpoint near Jenin, theater staff said. Rami Awni Hwayel, 20, was detained, handcuffed and blindfolded at Shave Shomeron checkpoint in the northern West Bank. He was returning from rehearsals in Ramallah, the theater said in a statement … Hwayel is the third member of the theater to be detained by the Israeli army in recent weeks. On July 27, Israeli soldiers detained Adnan Naghnaghiye and Bilal Saadi during a dawn raid on the West Bank city. Director Udi Aloni said Hwayel’s detention was “devastating.” “Rami is playing the main role in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and doing an amazing job, he’s so dedicated to the work. He just left rehearsals today for the weekend to see his family for Ramadan. It’s terrible, we want our Pozzo back.”
link to www.maannews.net
Israel releases PLC member Sheikh Hassan Youssef after six years
[with photos] MEMO 5 Aug — The Israeli occupation yesterday (4th August) released the Hamas leader and deputy in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Sheikh Hassan Youssef … The occupation authorities had refused to release the sheikh until he had served the duration of his sentence under the pretext that the law which allows sentence reductions had been annulled. A decision was initially made to release him on 25/08 but was later retracted. When Youssef was arrested in 2005 and sentenced to six years in prison, he had just put himself forward as a candidate in legislative elections. He received the highest number of votes in the parliamentary elections; the results were announced while he was in prison. Israel continues to imprison 20 deputies of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Dozens handed summonses, six arrested during persecution of Hamas in West Bank
AL- KHALIL (PIC) 6 Aug — Dozens have been handed summonses and at least eight have been arrested as the Palestinian Authority’s security agencies continue to target Hamas supporters in the West Bank. The West Bank security agencies nabbed two men in Al-Shyoukh, and a large number of armed elements from the agency violently raided the Al-Khalil city residence of a local there without report of arrest, sources close to the family have reported. Four more men who have yet to be identified were also seen apprehended in Al-Khalil city while dispersing after congregational prayers.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Award-winning Palestinian journalist forced into hiding
JPost 6 Aug — An award-winning Palestinian female journalist has been forced to go into hiding out of fear of being arrested by the Palestinian Authority security forces for covering a sit-in strike. Over the weekend, the PA’s Preventive Security Force in the West Bank arrested her two brothers in an attempt to put pressure on her to turn herself in. The journalist, Majdoleen Hassouneh, has twice refused to report for interrogation at the headquarters of the Preventive Security Force in Nablus. Hassouneh’s friends and colleagues have launched a Facebook campaign in solidarity with her and in protest against the PA government’s measures against Palestinian journalists and freedom of the media.
link to www.jpost.com
PA: Israel should reimburse tuition for prisoners
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — The Palestinian Authority ministry of prisoners affairs wants Israel to return tuition money paid by the PA to detained students who are no longer permitted to enroll in courses. The prison service has frozen all the money allocated for tuition on behalf of detainees enrolled in the Open University, after the government decided to deprive Palestinian prisoners of education. Of the 6,000 detainees in Israel, 280 are enrolled in Open University. Some would be graduating soon.
link to www.maannews.net
Palestinian prisoners suffer food poisoning in Israeli jail
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) — Forty Palestinian prisoners being held in an Israeli prison contracted food poisoning on Sunday, the Minister of Prisoners Affairs Issa Qaraqe quoted detainees as saying.  Prisoners being held in the Negev prison, southern Israel said they had suffered from nausea, vomiting and diarrhea after eating dairy products which had passed their sell-by date.Three of the prisoners are reportedly in a severe condition, as they already suffer from chronic ailments such as heart disease. Detainees complained that prison authorities delayed transferring sick inmates to the prison clinic, thus aggravating their symptoms further. Prisoner Amjad Abu Latifah blamed the Israeli prison administration for the food poisoning, pointing out that this is the second incident of its kind in two months.
link to www.maannews.net
B’Tselem backs right-wing activists
Ynet 3 Aug — Unlikely advocate? B’Tselem Human Rights organization on Tuesday strongly denounced the IDF for issuing administrative restraining orders against 12 West Bank settlers, barring them from the area. The organization, usually viewed as advocating for the rights of Palestinian, issued a statement, saying: “Undoubtedly, the State should act determinedly against settlers who harm Palestinians and their property, but the way to achieve this is via criminal proceedings and not administrative orders that are based on confidential information.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
Racism
Academic claims Israeli school textbooks contain bias / Harriet Sherwood
Guardian 7 Aug — Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli academic, mother and political radical, summons up an image of rows of Jewish schoolchildren, bent over their books, learning about their neighbours, the Palestinians. But, she says, they are never referred to as Palestinians unless the context is terrorism. They are called Arabs. “The Arab with a camel, in an Ali Baba dress. They describe them as vile and deviant and criminal, people who don’t pay taxes, people who live off the state, people who don’t want to develop,” she says. “The only representation is as refugees, primitive farmers and terrorists. You never see a Palestinian child or doctor or teacher or engineer or modern farmer.” Peled-Elhanan, a professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied the content of Israeli school books for the past five years, and her account, Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education, is to be published in the UK this month. She describes what she found as racism — but, more than that, a racism that prepares young Israelis for their compulsory military service … In “hundreds and hundreds” of books, she claims she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a “normal person”.
link to www.guardian.co.uk
Suppression of dissent
Israel puts pressure on human rights organizations / Vita Bekker
The National 7 Aug — TEL AVIV // Just months after Israel ended its invasion of the Gaza Strip more than two years ago, life became more challenging for Sari Bashi and her human-rights group Gisha. Right-wing government officials, legislators and pressure groups, angered at charges by rights organisations that Israel had committed war crimes during the attack, launched a campaign to discredit groups such as Gisha, which uses legal aid to help loosen Israeli restrictions on Gaza Strip residents. For Gisha, that campaign included battling a bid by tax authorities to cancel the group’s tax exemption on donated money.
link to www.thenational.ae
Refugees
Palestinians killed in attack on Syrian refugee camp
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Five Palestinian refugees were shot dead and several others were injured on Friday in Hama refugee camp north of the Syrian capital Damascus, state media said. Many families left to the city of Halab fleeing ongoing shelling and crossfire, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted an eyewitness who fled the camp as saying … According to the eyewitnesses, a group of masked motorcyclists fired at the refugee camp as they traveled on a main road next to the camp. “That was an attempt to drag the Palestinians into the ongoing fight,” he said. A committee formed in the camp to follow up with the situation explained that the Palestinians in Syria are “guests until they go back to their homeland, and they are not taking sides in the ongoing events in Syria.”
link to www.maannews.net
1 dead as Palestinians clash in Lebanon camp
BEIRUT (AFP) 6 Aug — One person was killed and eight others wounded in Lebanon’s notorious Ain Al-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on Saturday when armed clashes erupted between rival factions, an official in the camp said.
link to www.maannews.net
Bid for statehood
What is Palestinian statehood up against? US Israel lobby organizes junket for 18 ambassadors from mostly little countries / Philip Weiss
Mondo 7 Aug — …today I got an email from The Israel Project bragging that it has sent “a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents” to Israel and the West Bank. This is aimed at one thing, and one thing only, heading off the Palestinian statehood initiative at the U.N. next month. Your Israel lobby at work — Americans working hard for the perceived interest of the Jewish state… From TIP: “The envoys, most of whom had never been to Israel before, were scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. They also had meetings planned with President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon and opposition leader Tzipi Livni during their five-day mission… The diplomats taking part in the mission are: Albania: Ambassador Gilbert Galanxhi and Etleva Galanxhi; Barbados: Ambassador John E. Beale and Leila Mol Beale; Belize: Ambassador Nestor Enrique Mendez and Elvira Rosela Mendez Benin: Ambassador Sagbe Cyrille Oguin and Hortense Dossa Oguin….
link to mondoweiss.net
Israeli hasbara revises Timor-Leste’s history / Dr. Vacy Vlazna
On President Ramos-Horta’s online magazine is posted a piece by Amira Arnon, ambassador of Israel to Timor-Leste, in which she makes the outrageous statement that Timor-Leste and Israel have ‘a lot in common’. … “The first thing that comes to my mind is that both countries, Israel and Timor-Leste, have a lot in common. Both are small countries which fought for their independence and sacrificed best of their people for a national redemption.” … The fact is, Timor-Leste’s long struggle for independence from the brutal Indonesian occupation is not Israel’s but Palestine’s story.
link to www.palestinechronicle.com
Cuban foreign minister: Cuba supports Palestinian right to statehood
HAVANA (WAFA) 7 Aug — Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, Saturday stressed on Cuba’s full support of the Palestinian state, its historical struggle and its right to self-determination and sovereignty of an independent state. In a meeting with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki, at the Cuban Foreign Ministry Headquarters, Rodriguez assured his countries support of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 and with East Jerusalem as its capital by voting in the United Nations’ (UN) upcoming General Assembly’s session, according to Cuban ‘Prensa Latina’ news agency.
link to english.wafa.ps
Report: Lebanon to recognize Palestinian state
BEIRUT (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Lebanon will recognize the State of Palestine “in the next few days,” a Lebanese newspaper reported Saturday ahead of a visit by President Mahmoud Abbas. The report from An-Nahar says Abbas will stay in Lebanon for two days and meet President Michel Sleiman, speaker Nabih Berri and premier Najib Mikati … Lebanon remains the only Arab country not to have officially recognized Palestine. In July, neighboring Syria gave its support to a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
link to www.maannews.net
PA: Wave of recognition ahead
Ynet 6 Aug — The Palestinians are gearing up for their statehood bid in September – Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Saturday said that numerous states will recognize the Palestinian state in the upcoming days and weeks. The foreign minister named Honduras and South Sudan, saying they will be the first to declare their recognition, but refused to name the other states “due to Israel’s response and its attempt to stop this wave, which will give the Palestinian bid a momentum at the United Nations.”
link to www.ynetnews.com
US organizations urge Obama not to veto Palestine’s UN bid
WASHINGTON (WAFA) 6 Aug — The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation delivered Friday to the US State Department an open letter signed by more than 125 groups, including 30 national organizations, and petitions signed by more than 25,000 people urging the Obama Administration not to veto Palestinian UN membership if the issue arises in the Security Council
link to english.wafa.ps
House Dems en route to Israel, West Bank
FP blog 5 Aug — Over two dozen House Democrats are preparing a week-long trip to Israel and the West Bank only a month out from Palestinian attempts to unilaterally declare statehood and days after reports surfaced that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has reversed his opposition to using 1967 borders as the baseline for negotiations. The group of Democrats — led by Minority Whip Steny Hoyer — will be in Israel and the Palestinian territory from Aug. 8-14, and will “learn more about issues critical to the U.S.-Israel relationship and international security,” according to statement on the trip.
link to foreignpolicyblogs.com
Political / Diplomatic / International news
Hamas delegation arrives in Egypt for Palestinians reconciliation talks
Haaretz 6 Aug — A delegation from the radical Islamist Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip arrived in Egypt on Saturday ahead of talks with the rival Palestinian group Fatah that is dominant on the West Bank. A meeting to implement a reconciliation agreement brokered by Egypt in early May is expected to be held on Sunday … This is the first meeting since mid-June, due to disputes between the two groups over the formation of a unity government. Under the reconciliation deal, the Islamist Hamas and the secular Fatah will set up an interim government of technocrats.
link to www.haaretz.com
Hamas official to Fatah: Stop security agencies ahead of Sunday meeting
GAZA (PIC) 6 Aug — Ismail al-Ashqar, who represents Hamas on the Palestinian Legislative Council, has called on Fatah to pressure the security agencies into ending their persecution of elements from Hamas in the West Bank as the two parties gear for a long awaited reconciliation talks in Cairo.
“It’s clear that there is a stream within the Fatah movement that has been harmed by reconciliation, and that this stream is uninterested in following through with reconciliation,” Ashqar said in comments ahead of the meeting due for Sunday. ’That is why whenever calls coincide with applying the reconciliation issue, the security services in the West Bank launch a campaign of wide-scale arrests against the people and supporters of Hamas in the West Bank, as happened last night in Al-Khalil,” he said.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Report: Hamas and Fatah agree to release political prisoners
CAIRO (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — Hamas and Fatah have agreed to release all political prisoners after meeting in Cairo on Sunday to discuss the reconciliation deal signed in April, official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. The two factions also agreed to the formation of a committee to issue passports to Gaza residents before the end of Ramadan, as well as forming a task force to reopen institutions which were shut down in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of political animosities.
link to www.maannews.net
Dmairi: PA supports popular resistance but not chaos
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an)  7 Aug — Palestinian Authority security services spokesman Adnan Dmairi said Sunday that the government supported non-violent popular resistance as long as it did not lead to “chaos.” In a statement, Dmairi said protests must not lead to chaos, loss of control or violence as Israel was looking for a pretext to attack the Palestinian people. Resistance must be “a peaceful, public practice” and not limited to a select group of people, he added. This position represented the general principle of the Palestinian leadership, who were safeguarding the Palestinian people from Israeli attacks, the PA official said. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Friday that the PA had ordered its forces to prevent demonstrations from escalating to clashes with Israeli forces.
link to www.maannews.net
FM: PA planning unprecedented violence
Ynet 7 Aug —  Huge marches, violence and bloodshed come September? Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority was planning an unprecedented wave of violence for September, when the Palestinians plan on submitting their unilateral UN bid for statehood. Speaking to reporters at the Knesset, the foreign minister added that, “As far as I am concerned, a (UN) decision must result in severing of all ties with the Palestinian Authority.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Fatah: National unity surpasses all other interests
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Fatah on Saturday said national unity surpassed all personal, partisan and regional interests. Spokesman Ahmad Asaf said Fatah had made every effort to end the “hateful division” with Hamas, and that the party was keen to achieve national unity in an upcoming meeting in Cairo.
link to www.maannews.net
Report: Fatah says Dahlan involved in poisoning Arafat
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — Fatah has accused ousted party strongman Muhammad Dahlan of “having a hand” in poisoning late President Yasser Arafat, Arabic-language media reported Saturday. Arafat died in a Paris hospital in November 2004. The exact cause of his death remains a mystery, but popular belief among Palestinians holds that he was poisoned. According to Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language news site, Fatah’s commission of inquiry also found that Dahlan was linked to assassination attempts on other Palestinian leaders and that he had planned a coup in the West Bank.
link to www.maannews.net
Palestinian money crisis looms ahead of UN bid
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) 5 Aug – Hit by delays in payments from donor countries and by Israeli restrictions, the Palestinian Authority is suffering a financial crisis, even as it aspires to become a state. On Tuesday it paid its approximately 170,000 employees in full only after they threatened to go on strike after receiving half-pay the month before. But it warned that doing so would seriously hamper the government’s ability to function as it struggles with the funding shortfall.
link to old.news.yahoo.com
Attackers vandalize Palestinian scout tent in Sweden
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 6 Aug — Unknown attackers vandalized a Palestinian scout tent in Sweden on Thursday during the World Scout Jamboree, the head of the Palestinian delegation told Ma‘an. Traditional artifacts were on display inside the tent to show Palestine’s cultural heritage. Attackers destroyed parts of the tent, took down the Palestinian flag, ripped a map of Palestine and tore up some photos showing the Palestinian cause. They left a note warning that they would not leave the Palestinian scouts alone.
link to www.maannews.net
Lebanon approves draft law on maritime boundary
AFP 4 Aug — Lebanon’s lower house of parliament approved on Thursday a proposed law on the demarcation of the country’s maritime boundary, amidfears of conflict with Israel over an area potentially rich in gas.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Israel’s El Al airline resumes flights to Cairo
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 7 Aug — Israel’s national airline El Al has resumed flights to Cairo after a five-month suspension. Flights to Cairo were suspended after a popular uprising erupted in the country, ousting former President Hosni Mubarak. El Al has been flying to the Egyptian capital for 30 years … Air Sinai currently operates several flights each week between Cairo and Tel Aviv. The route mostly caters for Palestinians living in Israel and Israelis originally from Africa.
link to www.maannews.net
Jesse Jackson Jr. headed to Israel
Chicagoist 7 Aug — On the privately funded trip to Israel by the American Israel Educational Foundation, Jackson is eager to learn more about a range of topics while he is abroad: “I particularly look forward to learning more about the latest tools and technology Israel is using in its fight against terror and its dynamic business and commercial sectors,” said Jackson. “I also plan on discussing the quest for a lasting peace in the region with a wide variety of leaders across the spectrum – Israelis, Palestinians, religious figures, opposition members and ordinary citizens.” [this, from Jesse Jackson’s son?]
link to chicagoist.com
Other news
Baka al-Garbiyeh women protest economic plight
Ynet 6 Aug — Dozens of women took part in a Baka al-Garbiyeh march Friday, in protest of the Arab sector’s economic hardship and housing crisis.  MK Hanin Zoabi (Balad), who participated in the northern town’s march, called for protest rallies throughout the Arab sector.
link to www.ynetnews.com
Prisoners not allowed to see lawyers with terrorist links
JPost 4 Aug — Jailed terrorists will not be allowed to meet with lawyers suspected of relaying messages from terrorist organizations to their clients, according to a law approved by the Knesset on Wednesday night. The manager of a prison will be permitted to stop such meetings for up to 72 hours. The Prisons Service commissioner can extend the time period by another 24 hours, and a court can further extend it to a year.
link to www.jpost.com
The Arab Spring is not a threat to Israel / Reuven Pedatzur
Haaretz 7 Aug — At times it seems as though the leadership of the defense establishment views what is happening in the country from a different planet. The Chief of Staff and the General Staff are not that interested in the budget for welfare, health or housing. As far as they are concerned, let the ministers worry about finding ways of increasing funding in those areas – as long as they do not touch the defense budget … contrary to what the army claims, the defense budget has increased every year, and the budget for 2011 is the largest in the history of the country. Moreover, in addition to the official budget, which is approved by the Knesset, the army is given billions in additional funding during each fiscal year. Thus, there is the official defense budget, and the real defense budget, which is substantially larger. So, for example, since the start of 2011, hundreds of millions of shekels have been added to the current budget which stands at NIS 54 billion.
link to www.haaretz.com
Jewish sharia / Zvi Bar’el
Haaretz 7 Aug — …The Jewish sharia bill, which the MKs introduced furtively before fleeing for their long recess, will only make the existing situation official. It will make clear to any Jew in the world that a blend of democracy and Judaism is only possible in the Diaspora. To “be a Jew in your tent and a man in the street,” as in the poem by Yehuda Leib Gordon – which became the slogan of the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment – is possible only for an American, French or British Jew. In Jewish Israel, a Jew can be a Jew only – democracy will officially be defined as a luxury. It will be possible only in cases where religion permits it.
link to www.haaretz.com
Israeli protests
VIDEO: ‘Israel protests silent on occupation issue’
Al Jazeera 7 Aug — It has been a summer of discontent in Israel as hundreds of thousands of protesters have held rallies across the country against the soaring cost of living. Speaking to Al Jazeera on the significance of the protests, Joseph Dana, writer and journalist based in Tel Aviv, said the protests have been spontaneous and unprecedented. But he said that protesters and protest organisers have specifically been silent on the issue of the occupation of Palestinians. “Right now close to 85 per cent of the public is in support of the demonstrations and yet the protesters still maintain the line that they are apolitical – meaning they refuse to discuss the issue of occupation,” Dana said.
link to www.youtube.com
Photos: J14 movement holds largest protest in Israel’s history / Noam Sheizaf
+972mag 6 Aug — Around 300 thousands Israelis took the streets on Saturday night, calling for social justice and the introduction of a welfare state.
link to 972mag.com
The tent protest: neither social justice, nor revolution / Dahlia Scheindlin & Joseph Dana
The popular, mass protests here that began as a cry of rage against housing prices have evolved admirably into a public outcry against a slew of deep-rooted problems in Israeli social and economic life … Every grievance is coming out: there are slogans against the huge concentration of the country’s wealth into the hands of a very few, slogans raging against enormous economic gaps between rich and poor in Israel, lists of demands for just resource distribution and for various elements of a welfare state, salary hikes and lower costs, better education conditions and health care; against the national housing committees law, against the government, for Tahrir … Just don’t mention Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, or even the neutral local euphemism ‘medini‘ [lit: political/diplomatic] issues. Just leave out the institutional inequality most Palestinian citizens of Israel experience here – inequality of other groups is welcome. I learned this the hard way.
link to josephdana.com
Rightists march in Tel Aviv: Protest anarchistic
Ynet 7 Aug — Extreme right-wing activists stage small march in Rothschild Boulevard; warn ‘leftist protest meant to topple government’
link to www.ynetnews.com
Tent protests reach US
Ynet 7 Aug — US residents take up Israelis’ cries for ‘social justice’ with tents pitched in New York’s Times Square, before White House in Washington. [no mention of this seen in US media, and almost none on the protests in Israel]
link to www.ynetnews.com
Analysis / Opinion
Could Arab staying power ultimately defeat Zionism? / David Hearst
MEMO 5 Aug — There is an Arabic word you come across a lot when Palestinians talk about their future. Sumudmeans steadfastness, and it has turned into a strategy: when the imbalance of power is so pronounced, the most important thing to do is to stay put. Staying put against overwhelming odds is regarded as a victory. But it is more than just a word. It’s the look in Rifqua al-Kurd’s eyes as she fights eviction in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. She lives out of boxes, because when the police throw her out and the settlers move in she doesn’t want the clothes thrown into the street. Sumudis the tenacity with which Mohammed Hussein Jibor, a farmer, clings to a rock-strewn patch of land in the South Hebron hills in 38 degrees heat. His water cistern has been destroyed three times this year because he does not have a permit for it, even though the court acknowledges it is his land. Sumud sums up the attitude of the Bedouin struggling to stay in 45 unrecognised villages in the Negev, without a supply of water, electricity or schools
link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk
Analysis: When did the blockade begin? / Mya Guarnieri
Ma‘an 27 July — …A tremendous majority of those talking about the blockade — from the mainstream media to critics and activists — use 2007 as the start-date, unintentionally lending legitimacy to Israel’s cause and effect explanation, an argument that pegs the closure to political events.  According to the Israeli government, the blockade was a response to the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip. The stated goals of the closure are to weaken Hamas, to stop rocket fire and to free Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who has been held in Gaza since 2006. But the blockade — which the Israeli government has openly called “economic warfare” — did not begin in 2007. Nor did it start in 2006, with Israel’s economic sanctions against Gaza. The hermetic closure of Gaza is the culmination of a process that began 20 years ago. It is important to note, first, the groundwork that made this process so devastating. In her definitive piece on the economic de-development of the Gaza Strip, published in 1987, Dr Sara Roy uses data from the years of 1967 to 1985 to illustrate how the Israelis turned the Gaza Strip into a captive market and made Palestinian residents a labor pool dependent on Israel.  This was achieved, in part, by limiting Gaza’s exports and commercial production. These early restrictions (or economic warfare to use the Israeli term) predate Hamas. When freedom of movement was limited during the First Intifada, Gaza was already pinched.
link to www.maannews.net
Palestinian pride: Israel protests influenced by Arab world / Amira Hass
Haaretz 6 Aug — Palestinian social leaders believe the social protests that have erupted throughout Israel are largely influenced by the Arab Spring, contending Israelis must realize they too are suffering due to the occupation and money spent on settlements in the West Bank. Israelis are imitating the Arab world, and West Bank Palestinians believe this to be a good thing. According to the Ma‘an news agency, 14,032 (nearly 75%) of the 18,722 readers who responded to their online survey, believe that what is happening in Israel’s streets is influenced by and imitating the ‘Arab Spring’. [Noam Sheizaf tweeted this photo from the Tel Aviv rally today]
link to www.haaretz.com
Book: Soldiers’ testimonies on the occupied territories / Ilana Hammerman
Haaretz 5 Aug — The main significance of the testimonies published by Breaking the Silence is not in the descriptions of the acts of horror but rather in the documentation of the destructive effects of the occupation not only on the Palestinian inhabitants but also on the soldiers themselves —  (Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000-2010  Published by Breaking the Silence (Hebrew), 347 pages, NIS 50 English version to be available later this year; 430 pages. partially downloadable in English for the time being here )
link to www.haaretz.com
groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi (listserv)
www.theheadlines.org (archive)

IDF detains 3rd member of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre

Aug 07, 2011

annie

The Jenin Freedom Theatre  issued a press release today: acting student Rami Awni Hwayel, 20, has been arrested by the IDF.

Batool Taleb, one of the female acting students who was in the car with Rami describes what happened: “When they got to our car, they took all our IDs and when they saw Rami’s ID they told him to get out of the car. Once he was out they immediately handcuffed and blindfolded him and put him in the army jeep.”

It has only been ten days since  The Freedom Theatre was attacked and raided by IDF special forces who arrested two other members of the theatre at that time,  location manager Adnan Naghnaghiye and member of the board Bilal Saadi. Hwayel is now the third member to be detained.

The students had been rehearsing for their final graduation project directed by the Israeli-American Director Udi Aloni in Ramallah.

“This is devastating, Rami is playing the main role in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and doing an amazing job, he’s so dedicated to the work. He just left rehearsals today for the weekend to see his family for Ramadan. It’s terrible, we want our Pozzo back!”, says Udi Aloni.

This breaks my heart. How much agony can this community endure? It makes me wonder what the hell is Israel’s beef with the Freedom Theatre? Maybe they don’t like young creative Palestinian voices. Maybe they want strong young men out on the street aspiring to be martyrs.

What is Palestinian statehood up against? (US Israel lobby group organizes junket for 18 ambassadors from mostly-little countries)

Aug 07, 2011

Philip Weiss

The Israel Project is a major rightwing Israel lobby group, based in Washington. Its board of advisers easily mixes liberals like Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Howard Berman with rightwingers like Rep. Allen West and Senator Mark Kirk. That’s the game: there are no political differences on this issue. And even our left-Democratic base, netroots, won’t touch the issue.

Well, today I got an email from The Israel Project bragging that it has sent “a delegation of 18 Washington-based ambassadors from four continents” to Israel and the West Bank. This is aimed at one thing, and one thing only, heading off the Palestinian statehood initiative at the U.N. next month. Your Israel lobby at work– Americans working hard for the perceived interest of the Jewish state… From TIP:

The envoys, most of whom had never been to Israel before, were scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday. They also had meetings planned with President Shimon Peres, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon and opposition leader Tzipi Livni during their five-day mission…

The diplomats taking part in the mission are:

Albania: Ambassador Gilbert Galanxhi and Etleva Galanxhi

Barbados: Ambassador John E. Beale and Leila Mol Beale

Belize: Ambassador Nestor Enrique Mendez and Elvira Rosela Mendez Benin: Ambassador Sagbe Cyrille Oguin and Hortense Dossa Oguin

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Miroslav Vujicic, Chief of the Cabinet of the BiH Presidency

Burkina Faso: Ambassador Paramanga Ernest Yonli

Dominica: Ambassador Hubert John Charles

Dominican Republic: Ambassador Anibal De Castro

Grenada: Ambassador Gillian Margaret Susan Bristol

Haiti: Ambassador Louis Harold Joseph

Liberia: Ambassador William Bull and Cecelia Zina Freeman Bull

Macedonia: Ambassador Zoran Jolevski and Suzana Jolevska

Mongolia: Ambassador Bekhbat Khasbazar

Montenegro: Ambassador Srdjan Darmanovic and Aneta Spaic

Slovakia: Ambassador Peter Burian and Nina Burianova

St. Lucia: Ambassador Michael Louis

Timor-Leste: Ambassador Constancio C. Pinto

Trinidad & Tobago: Ambassador Neil Parsan

Uganda: Ambassador Perezi Kamunanwire and Carolyn Hubbard-Kamunanwire

Feminist triumph in West Bank somehow escapes probing eye of western media

Aug 07, 2011

Seham

The Western media rarely misses stories about honor killings in the Arab world because it’s an opportunity to make Arabs look like savages while pretending to care about Arab or Muslim women, but, they managed to ignore this one. Ma’an: West Bank murder smashed the lie of ‘honor killings’

As details of Aya’s murder became public, it sparked a wave of outrage that spread across the southern West Bank, with people taking to the streets to demand changes to the law.
Thousands turned out to mourn at her funeral, and the ceremony was covered live on Palestinian television, a first for such a crime.

It was during the broadcast that a top Palestinian official rang through to pledge that Abbas would change the law, in a move that won the backing of three-quarters of the Palestinian population, a poll taken in June showed.
“Because we spoke out and knocked on doors, people are showing solidarity in Aya’s case, which has now become a case for all girls,” said family member Yasser Al-Baradiya.
“If we hadn’t, this crime would have been ignored like all the others.”
It was a step women’s campaigners have been fighting to achieve for years.

Will the tent protests break out of the neoliberal-Zionist-security box?

Aug 07, 2011

Jeff Halper

The demonstrations currently roiling Israel constitute a grassroots challenge to Israel’s neo-liberal regime. Beginning as an uprising of the middle classes – especially young people who have trouble finding affordable housing – it has spread to the working class, the poor and the Arab communities as well, though not the religious as yet. Many of the working sectors have joined the three-week protest: doctors, single mothers, parents demanding free education, taxi drivers upset with the price of petrol, even the police. 


The Histadrut, Israel’s general trade federation, and many municipalities have joined as well. Last night’s protests brought some 320,000 people into the streets.

The big argument is whether it should be “political” or not. I attended the demonstration last Saturday night, and while the main slogan was “We demand social justice,” (although chants of “Mubarak, Assad, Netanyahu” could also be heard), it was clear that most of those attending wanted the movement to remain “non-political,” rooted squarely in the mainstream consensus. Its thrust is anti-neo-liberal, though not framed in those exact words. Instead, issues are still defined in more narrow, technical ways: affordable housing, affordable education, etc. This may be an effective beginning strategy, since it does bring in the wider public. Many of those support the protests, the taxi drivers for example, tend to vote for Netanyahu’s Likud. The politics of it all are just under the surface. “Bibi [Netanyahu] go home” is all over the place, from posters to leaflets to chants.

(Actually, there is an éminence grise behind Netanyahu for whom these are by no means the first mass protests. Stanley Fischer, the Governor of the Bank of Israel, figures prominently in Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine. From 1990-2005, Fischer, one of Milton Friedman’s “Chicago Boys,” served as the Chief Economist of the World Bank, First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty and President of Citigroup International, the world’s largest financial services network which handles, among other things, “global wealth management.” According to Klein, it was Fischer at the IMF who urged Yeltzin to “move fast” and sell off as many public companies and resources as possible, leading directly to the economic take-over of the Oligarchs and their allies, the Russian Mafia; “Mafia Capitalism” it was called. He also oversaw the “structural adjustments” of Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea in 1997, where 24 million lost their jobs and the middle classes were devastated. In 2005 Fischer was appointed Governor of the Bank of Israel by Ariel Sharon; Netanyahu was appointed the Finance Minister.)

There are those of us from the left who are trying to push the protests into a more political direction, though we are sensitive to the fact that a gradual process of political consciousness-raising has to occur. In our statements and in discussions we have in the tent cities around the country we try to put the finger on neo-liberalism as a fundamental cause of inequality in Israeli society; neo-liberalism as the dominant government ideology, as its overarching set of policies, as a system and not merely a disjointed collection of policies from which one can pick and choose. We also link the issue of social equality and allocation of resources to the Occupation and Israel’s massive military budget ($16 billion, or $2,300 per person, the highest ratio of defense spending to GDP among the industrialized countries).

This is being resisted, especially by the Tel Aviv Students’ Union that has taken on some of the amorphous leadership. 


So far there is a conscious effort by the majority of protesters and organizers to exclude the Occupation from the discussion and to keep the protests “non-political.” Israel flags fly galore and every rally ends with the national anthem (“A Jewish soul still yearns/To be a free people in our land/The Land of Zion and Jerusalem”). Ironically, it is the settlers who are pushing the protest into taking a stand on the Occupation. At first they opposed the protests, arguing that the movement is only a guise to weaken Netanyahu in anticipation of the Palestinians’ call for statehood at the UN in September. But last week the extremely right-wing and racist settler youth set up tents at the protest site in Tel Aviv (under the slogan “Tel Aviv is Jewish”) to push the idea that the solution to the housing crisis is to build massively in the Occupied Territories.

 In the meantime, 42 Knesset members of the right have sent a letter to Netanyahu urging him to solve the housing problem by building massively in the West Bank.

So two questions remain open. First, will the protests stop when they hit the glass ceiling of really confronting the neo-liberal system, including the Occupation? Can social justice be attained for all, structurally as well as ideologically, as long as Jews claim privileged rights over Palestinians and other citizens of Israel – all the while keeping millions of Palestinian non-citizens living under occupation or stuck in refugee camps? Are the protesters capable of genuinely calling into question the fundamental premises of the system and its policies?

The reality is that the vast majority of protesters serve in the army and are, genuinely and sincerely, part of the consensus. At the tent city in Tel Aviv I encountered a seven-year veteran of the IDF who tried to convince me that Che Guevara (pictured on a poster with an X across his face) could not be a role model for revolution because he was violent. My interlocutor, who saw himself as liberal and enlightened, simply could not grasp the connection between serving in the Israeli army – which falls under the rubric of the national “consensus” – and his non-violent beliefs. Without a will to finally break out of the Zionist Box, the protesters might get half-way, perhaps to a return to some form of a welfare state. But true inclusion, full equality and genuine democracy will evade them.

The other question is: where can this movement go? After Ehud Barak & Co. finally dismantled the Labor Party, which twenty-five years ago had already gone neo-liberal, Israel lacks a major social democratic party. (Meretz doesn’t even count at this stage.) Dov Khenin of the Community Party is perhaps the clearest and most respected voice against neo-liberalism in the Knesset and is very popular among the protesters (he is one of the few Knesset members even allowed in the tent city). But his party, which is identified almost exclusively with the Arab community, cannot serve as that vehicle. A very real and interesting possibility is that Arye Deri, an ultra-orthodox Mizrahi founder of Shas with great credibility even among the secular middle classes, will found such a party. As of now, however, the protests have no vehicle for grounding their movement. This, of course, is the Establishment’s hope: that the uprising will just die once a few demands are accepted, others doomed to interminable committees and summer vacation ends.

Still, there’s potential here. Some of the discussions are becoming political (the tent city in Tel Aviv includes a 1948 tent) and it remains to be seen what will happen as the government stonewalls and pushes back. This is an uprising worth following. Not an Arab Spring perhaps, but a promising Israeli Summer. Not a true revolution, but a return to a welfare state that is nonetheless structurally discriminatory. A process of consciousness-raising has begun amongst mainstream Jewish Israelis who for generations have been locked in “The Box” of conformist thinking. Process, flux, potential are still the order of the day. One test of how far the protests can go will come in September when the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories initiate massive protests around the UN vote. What will happen if the tent protests survive and develop into September? Will they link up with their Palestinian counterparts? Will we in the critical left, who are engaged in both movements, be able act as a bridge between them? Imagine a mass march from Tel Aviv to Ramallah – and back! Now that’s when paradigms get smashed and possibilities of an entirely new social, political and economic order open up. Let’s wait and see what September brings.

Jeff Halper is the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at

 

The nightmare of the Jewish soul

Aug 07, 2011

Lillian Rosengarten

We are by now too familiar with the label anti-semite aimed towards all who dissent from the deplorable policies of Netanyahu’s right wing disaster. It does not matter if the resistance to Israeli occupation and ongoing collective punishment arises from the actions of Jews, Muslims, aetheists, socialists or any human rights activists. In addition, Jew against Jew has created a deeply disturbing divide that pits Jews against one another and seriously questions what it means to be Jewish within a context of compassion or as a fear reponse to having once been dehumanized and thoroughly victimized. How can this justify the continuous role of Israel as victimizer in the form of an obscene collective punishment, an entire population marginalized, hated, left war torn and homeless without freedom. What is the message to the world after decades of this occupied prison ?

I personally have been called an antisemite and nothing could be farther from the truth. My motives are not-anti Jewish but rather anti what I see as fascism in the form of an extreme nationalistic zionism. This behavior cannot help but destroy the soul of Judaism, a spiritual religion that ascribes to tolerance, compassion, does not kill and has the courage to reflect on its way of life. It is by now known that the Knesset , the core of Israeli government has thrown out a female Arab Israeli member, Hanin Zoabi, who had the audacity to participate in a protest against her country’s actions. She witnessed the brutal murder of 9 unarmed activists on the ill fated Mavi Marmara that attempted to break the Gaza siege. She is now threatened with the loss of her Israeli citizenship.

Yes it is me again– Jewish refugee from nazi Germany shouting to the world, “Never again, not in my name.” Every day I am bombarded with news of some other atrocity in the name of protecting the “democratic state of Israel.” I want to awaken from this nightmare. I no longer can tolerate to hear, “Palestinians do not recognize Israel and wish to destroy us.” How much longer can we hear Netanyahu’s mantra (US complicity here) we will never recognize the terrorists Hamas ( legally elected by a majority of Palestinians.) I want to reiterate, those who call others terrorists must reflect on the terrorism within themselves. The US is grossly guilty of similar careless projections of the label “terrorist”while refusing to acknowledge its own use of terrorism. Tragically Israel and the US both suffer from inordinate forms of extreme denial on the nature of their own violent behavior to keep wars and human suffering going and cannot reflect on their egomaniacal political agendas. Other countries aid violence by selling arms and contribute powerfully as destroyers of human life in exchange for exorbitant payments.

Recent news has induced a cringe response. Germany sold a torpedo submarine to Israel, capable of deploying nuclear missiles and firing a nuclear holocaust. How is this possible? Can it be a form of German restitution to assuage unconscious (or conscious) guilt by association with their infamous history when nazi insanity and rabid antisemitism coupled with Aryan delusions of grandeur ruled Germany? I do not claim to know yet recognize the sheer lunacy to send weapons to Israel. Do we need more killings and endless suffering? Where is the resistance, the outrage? I need to hear more, louder, stronger. Does the Israeli agenda now include a nuclear war with Iran? Has Israel completely lost all reality? I can say much the same for the US that would engage mindlessly with Israel, for we are Israel’s strongest ally for an exorbitant corrupt price. Is the agenda of Netanyahu’s right wing hoodlums to blow up all their neighbors to become the only country in the middle east and the “only democracy?” Let Israel not become victim to its own self fulfilling prophecy by its own hand. Such a nightmare, calling for the destruction of Israel, cannot happen. Israel along with its Palestinian neighbors MUST change political direction. As of now, Israel is drowning in a sea of paranoia and fear. How can a democracy and brutal occupation exist together? How is it so many remain blind? It has happened before in the 30’s but this time it occurs with a twist of fate. Racism lives in a different form yet is equally virulent. I am afraid. Left undisturbed, this myth of democracy will support a continuous unending tragedy for both Palestine and Israel. They must, in order to survive, face each other with honest dialogue and sincere attempts at mutual understanding and compromise.

Now I end with some comments on Israel’s harsh decision to build a museum over a century old Muslim graveyard. For years Muslims struggled unsuccessfully to prevent this construction. The irony is the “museum of tolerance” is being built to promote coexistence and is a project of the Simon Wiesenthal (nazi hunter) center. Ultra orthodox Jews claim ancient Jewish graves were once located there. Instead of tolerance, one sees arrogance, racism, infantilism, and utter righteousness in action. Can it be this provocative and destructive decision serves to reinforce the tragic rise once again of world wide antisemitism?

Gazans campaign to ‘save the children of Somalia’

Aug 07, 2011

Philip Weiss

From the Angry Arab (thanks to Seham), “Another reason to love the people of Palestine.”

If an Israel terrorist sent a bag of potato chips to the starving people of Somalia, the New York Times would have put that on the front page and US TV news networks would have scrambled to interview the guy.  Yet, the people of Gaza (who are still under siege), have been organizing a collectivecampaign to help the people of Somalia and I did not see anything about it in the Western press.  (The poster above says:  From gaza…hand in hand:  Let us save the children of Somalia”).

Will Obama give Pollard a lift on Air Force One?

Aug 07, 2011

 Jeffrey Blankfort

I am not inclined to make predictions, at least publicly, but three months ago at a breakfast in Berkeley, I predicted that Barack Obama was likely to respond positively to the widespread support within the Jewish community for the release of Jonathan Pollard– not out of any concern for the convicted spy, now an Israeli citizen, but because without some major gesture on his part, Obama would not be able to visit Israel with any assurance from the Israeli government that he would return alive. And it is the general consensus within the Jewish community that in order to maintain the support of the major Jewish donors in the 2012 election, as well as Jewish voters in the key states such as Florida New York, and Pennsylvania, the president must make a public visit to Israel and not one of those unannounced secret fly-ins such as he has made to Baghdad and Kabul.

The other day, after Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador who, like Pollard, was born and raised in the U.S., visited his new countryman, the first such visit in five years by an Israeli official, Weiss wrote and asked if I didn’t need to eat some crow since Pollard was still securely locked away in prison and had even been denied permission to attend the funeral of his father, who had been a professor at Notre Dame.

I still have not changed my opinion although I was surprised when I read in May, after my breakfast prediction, that Obama had been invited by Israeli President Simon Peres to attend a president’s conference in Israel in July. Here and here.

That was the last mention of that invitation. July has come and gone and there have been no new invitations from Tel Aviv and I am not expecting one. I think the White House believes Israel has become too scary, that its security forces have been so heavily infiltrated by religious nutcases who answer first to their rabbis and that the Netanyahu government, realizing that, can offer him no guarantee of protection. If so, they are probably right and that the only way he can get a “Get out of Israel Alive” card is by freeing Pollard.

On receiving Weiss’s email, I Googled “Obama should go to Israel,” and the response I got back was “What, do you think he’s crazy?” In a more serious vein, I found a piece from the Washington Post nee Commentary blogger, Jennifer Rubin back in May after his AIPAC speech which is very, very telling. Headlined, “Obama shouldn’t go to Israel.” Rubin presciently wrote, suspecting, I believe, that it might be actually worse: “Obama’s standing in Israel is exceptionally poor and certainly won’t improve after the most recent controversy. If he goes to Israel, he’ll be booed, and there will be outbursts and demonstrations. “

Now, things may be changing. On August 3rd, the JTA reported that Daniel Shapiro, the new, Hebrew-speaking US ambassador to Israel and long-time Obama aide presented his credentials to Peres and told him that the president wants to visit Israel although he didn’t say when.

After watching Shapiro being interviewed by Israel’s Channel 2, Ha’aretz’s wise Akiva Eldar noted that “The newly-arrived diplomat’s decision to jump immediately into the media water and the friendly, almost fawning, content of his interview show that Shapiro was not sent here to promote peace between the Israeli leader and his Palestinian counterpart. Rather, his goal is to promote peace between the American president and American Jewish leaders. His main job will be to dismantle every Israeli land mine on his boss’ road to a second term.”

Shapiro’s predecessor, James Cunningham, had also indicated in early July that Obama planned to visit Israel but as the Israeli Insider blog cynically pointed out, “He didn’t mention who in Israel invited him.”

By coincidence, Pollard had major surgery the day before Shapiro’s interview and reportedly will require another operation, clearing the path for Obama to give him a “compassionate” release.

The violins, please.

‘Forward’ publishes defense of boycott law and says ‘malcontented Jews’ publicly criticize Israel

Aug 07, 2011

Philip Weiss

This is a piece in the Forward defending the Israeli law that has so alarmed liberals in America, the law that punishes those who speak out for boycott. The piece is purportedly about how boycott is everywhere, even on the author Oren Safdie’s vacation in Mexico. The Forward doesn’t identify Safide’s nationality, just says he’s a playwright. Wikipedia says he’s Canadian-American-Israeli. Whenever I read pieces like this, I reflect on what tremendous freedom American Jews and Israeli Jews have–Mexican vacation– at a time when a Palestinian has to show a teenager with a gun his papers just to tie his shoes.

And note in the excerpts the implicit challenge to Jews not to speak out publicly in criticism of Israel, but do so privately. Excerpts:

it’s not as if… there’s any shortage of malcontented Jews and Israelis publicly attacking the policies of the present government.

With all the debate going back and forth regarding the passage of the new law in the Israeli Knesset, which penalizes those in Israel who call for the boycott of a fellow countryman’s products or specific region, it’s important to remember that the law does not take away one’s ability to choose what one buys or does not buy; it merely gives the boycottees some deserved protection.