Mondoweiss Online Newsletter

 NOVANEWS

 

• Evidence undermines Israeli gov’t claim that Eilat attackers were Gazans

• Co-oping BDS, part II: Filling up the Israeli boycart

• West Bank village under siege faces live-ammo, arrests and concussion grenades at nonviolent demo

• Pennsylvania congressman censors the criticism of his Israel trip

• Israeli ‘retaliation’

• 50 Palestinians arrested in pre-dawn raids in occupied territories

• Israeli Vice Prime Minister threatens Gaza ground attack

• Israel’s only hope is that theocracies emerge…

Evidence undermines Israeli gov’t claim that Eilat attackers were Gazans

Aug 22, 2011

Yossi Gurvitz

The Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister claim the terrorist attack last week came from Gaza. They have yet to provide any proof – and the evidence looks dubious.

An unknown group carried out a combined attack from Sinai into Israel, hitting a number of targets. Six Israeli civilians were murdered and two soldiers were killed; so were seven of the terrorists and a number of Egyptian security personnel. While the attacks were carried out, Minister of Defense Ehud Barak quickly told the public the people responsible were the Popular Resistance Committee of the Gaza Strip; within hours the IAF attacked a house in the Strip and killed several of its leaders. Later that day, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that the people responsible for the attacks were killed. This attack by the IAF is what spurred the recent round of escalation – and it’s worth noting the IAF has been raising the flames in the regions for about a month, with the Israeli media quietly ignoring it.

However, Israel has never supplied any proof that the attack has indeed originated in the Gaza Strip. The PRC have denied involvement in the attack. An Israeli propaganda apparatus, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, also claimed (Hebrew) the PRC was behind the attacks, but had to tautologically write “no terror organizations has publicly claimed responsibility for the attack and the Popular Resistance Committee has denied any involvement. However, the Israeli prime minister and other Israeli officials have pointed to the Popular Resistance Committee as the organization who carried out the attack. So, according to the ITIC, the fact that Netanyahu is proof enough, even if the other side completely denies it.

During the weekend, the news website Real News interviewed a senior IDF Spokesman officer, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovitz, who’s in charge of the IDF Spokesman with the international media. Leibowitz denied that the IDF connects the PRC to the attacks, said she was not responsible for that the prime minister said, but claimed that the attackers did come from Gaza, citing as proof the fact they were using Kalashnikov assault rifies (Sic! 2:28 and onwards in the video). I dunno how to put it to Col. Leibovitz, but Kalashnikovs are the most common light assault rifle in the world – a gift that keeps on giving from the defunct Soviet Union – and are rather easy to get all over the Middle East.

In a phone conversation with Leibovitz yesterday, she said “senior officials have already expressed themselves on the issue”, and declined to provide more information on the attackers, aside from insisting on them being Gazans. I asked her if she could provide me with the identity of the attackers killed by the IDF, which was until recently standard procedure, carried out within hours of an attack. She said this is unfortunately impossible, and repeatedly insisted they were Gazans. B’Tselem researchers in the Strip, contacted via B’Tselem today, were unaware of the identity of the attackers. Again, usually they are quickly identified and a mourners’ hut is rapidly constructed. They were killed on Thursday; if they resided in the Strip, their families would have heard of their deaths by now.

Yesterday evening the Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reported that Egyptian security forces have identified three of the dead attackers. Egypt has a strong interest to claim the attackers were Gazans, since this would lessen its responsibility for the attacks; nevertheless, they say at least two of the attackers were known terrorists in the Sinai Peninsula. As far as I could find out, the rest of the bodies are in the hands of the IDF – which, again, does not reveal their identity.

And probably with good reason. After all, it seems Barak and Netanyahu pulled off a major disinformation campaign here, which the IDF (in the form of Colonel Leibovitz) has to cooperate with, somewhat unwillingly. They took us to a false war against the Gaza Strip. You can’t really blame Leibovitz: She’s a uniformed officer. She can’t contradict “senior officials [who] have already expressed themselves on the issue”.

Assuming no other reliable evidence shows up, which at the moment is doubtful, we must ask ourselves: Why did Barak and Netanyahu pull off what seems to be a major deception of the Israeli public, which puts to shame any such deception since the Abu Nidal group tried to assassinate Israel’s ambassador to Britain in 1982, Shlomo Argov. Sharon, Begin and Eitan needed a pretext to begin their war of deception in Lebanon – the bright idea of, under the guise of fighting the PLO, enthrone the friendly Maronites. When Eitan was informed that the assassins were Abu Nidal’s men, he replied with “Abu Nidal, Abu Shmidal – we need to screw the PLO.” That’s how it began.

None of the people responsible for that deception, which ended a 11-months old ceasefire and sparked 18 years of war in Lebanon, ever paid a price for it. Ehud Barak, then a young aluf­ – major general – learned the lesson well. His part in planning the war was suggesting to Sharon that the IDF will attack the Syrians as well, admitting that such a move required the hoodwinking of the public. Sharon, while impressed, rejected the suggestion.

Now it looks – again, barring new evidence – that Barak and Natanyahu are selling us another lie, one which directs fire towards the Gaza Strip. Why? This is the question they must answer. They are, after all, still working for us, not the other way around – and this is precisely the sort of a spin which calls for a board of inquiry and for the separation of Ehud Barak’s body from his seat.
(Yossi Gurvitz is an Israeli journalist, blogger and photographer. This article is crossposted @+972).

 

Co-oping BDS, part II: Filling up the Israeli boycart

Aug 22, 2011

Kiera Feldman

The Park Slope Food Coop is probably the only grocery store in America where non-members must: a) accompany a legit member and b) sign in with a photo ID, pledging not to buy any products. There’s just something about exclusivity that makes the kale chips taste better.

“You’re on alert,” the woman at the Coop entrance told me, not unkindly, when I swiped my membership card. Having missed my previous work shift bagging dried nuts and fruit, I am a member in poor standing (which is to say I am basically your average Cooper). Still I was able to bring my friend Jesse Bacon as my non-shopping guest.

Jesse had a cameo in my first installment (“Co-oping BDS, part I: Progressive except Palestine”), which covered the campaign to have the Coop join the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He’s a longtime justice-in-Palestine activist who is involved in Jewish Voice for Peace’s campaign to get the pension fund TIAA-CREF to divest from Motorola and other companies that profit from Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories. For this second installment, Jesse was a natural choice to help push the Israeli boycart through the aisles of the Park Slope Food Coop. Here’s some of what we found on the shelves.

Item #1: SodaStream, a home seltzer machine made in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Edomim. Situated atop land confiscated from Palestinians, Mishor Edomim is an industrial park where manufacturers receive tax breaks and other incentives from the Israeli government. Like most settlement goods, SodaStream is mislabeled as a product of “Israel,” although Mishor Edomim is beyond Israel’s internationally recognized boundaries. Generally speaking, in addition to violating international law, settlements splice up the West Bank with a system of settler-only roads that cage Palestinians into ever-shrinking areas; create a two-tiered legal system of military rule for the occupied and civilian rule for the occupiers; and appropriate scarce Palestinian water resources.

“Earth friendly,” reads the SodaStream packaging. “Show you care about the environment.”

Item #2: Osem is an Israeli company that uses packaging and machinery that are made in a West Bank settlement. Osem also donates part of their proceeds to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), an Israeli semi-governmental organization that was and is a key player in Palestinian dispossession and legal discrimination against Palestinian-Israelis. Briefly: As detailed by political geographer Oren Yiftachel (and others), before 1948 Jews owned about 8.5% of British mandatory Palestine; afterward, with the forced flight of 700,000 Palestinians, Israel (in partnership with the JNF) simply nationalized refugee land and expropriated Palestinian-Israeli land. (Non-Jews are now effectively barred from owning or renting land in 80% of Israel.) The JNF also planted forests over destroyed Palestinian villages to prevent refugees from returning to their land. Today, teaming up with the Israeli army, the JNF repeatedly razes Bedouin villages in the Negev in southern Israel, officially termed “Judaization”: the project of forcing Bedouins into state-constructed ghettos.

Be sure to watch the video of ultra Orthodox anti-Zionists Jews in Williamsburg denouncing the JNF while little boys with peyos (ear curls) gleefully toss Osem crackers into a flaming trashcan.

Inside the Israeli boycart: settlement-made SodaStream; made-in-Israel Wylde pretzels (although the back of the package doesn’t say so); and Sabra hummus, co-owned by the Strauss Group, an Israeli company that is a popular boycott campaign target. For decades, the Strauss Group has adopted Israeli soldiers in the Golani brigade, notorious for their human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially during the 2008–2009 assault on Gaza in which 1389 Palestinians were killed, including 318 children. The Strauss Group provides the Golani brigade with care packages.

Who knows what else might go inside the Israeli boycart? There are rumors of Israeli paprika, perhaps persimmons and bathsalts. Yet, Coop organizers stressed that they don’t want to focus their campaign on de-shelving specific Israeli products (which, by the way, take a significant amount of research to identify due to mislabeling). Their strategy is to focus on the need for democratic process, and so their immediate goal is to bring about a Coop-wide vote.

Coop BDS organizer Nat Pinkerton, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit worker, lamented that much of the coverage of the Park Slope campaign has focused on organizers’ uncertainty about which Israeli products the Coop carries. “It feels important, but it also feels irrelevant,” Pinkerton told me, emphasizing the symbolic over the material. “Boycotting means being part of a movement at large.”

This post originally appeared on the website Waging Nonviolence.

West Bank village under siege faces live-ammo, arrests and concussion grenades at nonviolent demo

Aug 22, 2011

Alex Kane

The West Bank village of Beit Ommar has had a tough August, withstanding frequent Israeli military raids that see soldiers shoot tear-gas into residential areas and arrest Palestinian minors. Last Saturday, the month got even tougher for activists resisting illegal Israeli settlements and land confiscation.

The Israeli military repressed the Beit Ommar popular committee’s most recent demonstration on August 20. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fired live ammunition and concussion grenades, arrested five people, and broke the arm of a member of the committee before they detained him.

The demonstrators, who protest weekly, were attempting to access Beit Ommar’s land near the settlement of Karmei Tzur and were also expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza, which until last night had been under a sustained air assault by the Israeli Air Force.

The Ma’an News Agency reported on the Beit Ommar protest:

Israeli forces on Saturday used live ammunition to disperse a demonstration against land confiscation in Beit Ummar near Hebron, local officials said.

Popular committee spokesman Younis Arar said soldiers stormed the rally as demonstrators marched toward the illegal Karmi Zur settlement, built on Palestinian-owned land.

Arar said it was the first time Israeli troops used live bullets at the weekly protest in Beit Ummar. He added that forces assaulted several protesters.

Yousef Abu Marya, a popular committee member in Beit Ommar, was “brutally beaten” and had his arm broken by Israeli soldiers, according to the Palestine Solidarity Project, a Beit Ommar-based Palestinian-led direct action group. Last week, while I was reporting from Beit Ommar, Abu Marya told me the Israeli military broke his arm two times before, in May and July of this year.

According to an international activist with the Palestine Solidarity Project, the IDF refused to let Abu Marya see a doctor for at least eight hours.

Beit Ommar’s recent troubles did not begin on Saturday, though. As I reported for +972 Magazine last week, the IDF has raided the village of 16,000 five times during August:

A spate of Israeli army raids at night and arrests of young Palestinians have occurred since the beginning of August, shattering any hope for calm during Ramadan. While Israeli military incursions into Beit Ommar are common, residents and activists say that the number of raids and arrests that have occurred in August is particularly high. There have been five occasions this month in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have invaded the village, three of them that have occurred this past week—and the month is not even half over.

Witnesses to the raids and local activists say that the Israeli army has been shooting tear gas, sound bombs and flares into residential areas—in some cases causing injuries—and have arrested fifteen young Palestinians under the age of eighteen this month. A landmark B’Tselem report recently released highlighted how common the arrest of minors is in the occupied territories…

The Israeli army’s repression in the village has not been limited to night raids, though. For the first time during the month of Ramadan, Beit Ommar residents and Israeli and international activists held a demonstration August 13, protesting land confiscation and the nearby settlement of Karmei Tzur. At the demonstration, IDF soldiers repeatedly pushed back Palestinian residents of Beit Ommar attempting to access their land near the settlement, which was declared a closed military zone. Beit Ommar is surrounded by six settlements, of which Karmei Tzur is one.

When the demonstration was over, one Palestinian, a forty-two year old man named Sakhar Abu Marya, was arrested and taken into a military jeep. Recounting the events later, he said that a hood was placed over his head, and that he was beaten by the soldiers. While he was interrogated, soldiers said that, while they would release him now, they would come to his house later and arrest him. Soldiers also brought out food and soda to mock Abu Marya, who is fasting for Ramadan. He was then dropped off at the gate of the Karmei Tzur settlement, without being charged with anything.

Alex Kane, a freelance journalist currently based in Amman, Jordan, blogs on Israel/Palestine at alexbkane.wordpress.com, where this post originally appeared.  Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

 

Pennsylvania congressman censors the criticism of his Israel trip

Aug 22, 2011

Philip Weiss

Yesterday, we posted the news that Pennsylvania Congressman Pat Meehan had announced that he was traveling to Israel, and his website was swamped in comments that criticized his priorities and the Israel lobby, often in very hostile terms. If memory serves, there were more than 150 comments.  I’m not sure because Pat Meehan’s website now has zero comments. Evidently the good congressman has seen fit to shut down public discussion of his travel plans.

 

Israeli ‘retaliation’

Aug 22, 2011

Max Ajl

So what has been happening over the past few days? Some Arabs – almost certainly not from Gaza – attacked Israel, killing a number of soldiers and possibly a number of civilians. Israeli censorship has been in full force, muffling any accurate count of the nature of the dead. Israel responded correctly, meaning that departing from Israeli premises – that it is in a race-war against Arabs, that Israelis are superior to the surrounding sea of sub-humans, and that all Arabs are a blobby indistinguishable mass – its “retaliation,” as Al-Jazeera referred to the shelling of Gaza, was logical.

The attack against Gaza is a twofer: as Hamas put it, Israel “is trying to export the crisis that has befallen it, and transfer it to Gaza.” The crisis consists of the fractures running across and through Israeli accumulation. When the people struggle for bread, better they focus on bombing Arabs. Only 5000 people came out to Saturday’s protests in Israel. So much for #j14? I don’t know, and that is not schadenfreude. The connections between occupation, militarism, and neoliberalism are real. The question is if Israelis are capable of making them. Certainly, Israeli elites are, which is why Netanyahu has seemed so joyous at the pretext/promise of attacking Gaza in retaliation for the Eilat attacks.

The Haaretz editorial board referred to the killing of IDF soldiers as a “terror attack.” Much remains unclear about the attack on the buses: crucially, who died and what the attackers knew. I have seen some speculation that the bus which was attacked is basically used for ferrying soldiers to and fro. In any case, a “terror attack” is not howmost in the region see it. When your army targets civilians and your country has no borders, only armistice lines, killing your soldiers will never be understood as terror. But killing theirs will be, which is why a crowd of thousands of Egyptians cheered wildly as a lone climber ascended the 20 stories to the top of the building in which the Israeli embassy in Cairo is bunkered, and put an Egyptian flag in place of the Israeli flag. Consider it a portent. Consider the video below (extremely graphic) what Israel and those Americans who support its actions consider an acceptable price to pay before Israel ends its occupation and discrimination. And if you are able to even describe what happened to the second pile of flesh that used to be a human being, let me know. I watched the video three times and couldn’t figure it out.

Video by Mohammed Majdalawi

This post originally appeared on Max Ajl’s blog Jewbonics.

50 Palestinians arrested in pre-dawn raids in occupied territories

Aug 22, 2011

annie

From ISM:

Just before dawn today, Sunday August 21, IDF forces raided the towns of Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank. Preliminary reports indicate that up to 250 people have been arrested in Hebron, including at least 70 Hamas leaders. Twitter feeds on the ground speak of occupation forces closing all entrances to the city and stationing themselves in the streets. Later reports finalized the count to approximately 50 Palestinians being arrested, as others were released.

No statement has been released by Israel concerning the reason for the raids and arrests. A group of ISM activists stationed in Hebron have rushed to the scene, as have ISM activists in Nablus.

At approximately 1:30 am, 40 soldiers raided four family homes on Ein Sarah St. alone and around. According to the International Middle East Media Center,over 100 military vehicles and jeeps entered Hebron from 4 entrances, and raided 6 villages in addition to Hebron City, breaking into homes and occupying the streets, from which Palestinian security services were conspicuously absent. The soldiers moved from home to home in 4 jeeps, a transport carrier (presumably for those arrested), 2 Land Rovers (thought to be Shabak) and two regular cars. Soldiers were carrying live ammunition but met no resistance to the arrests.

In one household they failed to find the person they were looking for so they arrested his 60 year old father instead.

B. Jabal, a local resident, described why he felt the arrests had taken place. ”This is collective punishment for the Palestinians in response to the recent shootings in Eilat. We want peace, and our leaders want peace, but the Israelis keep killing and destroying our houses and destroying trees.” he said….

 

Israeli Vice Prime Minister threatens Gaza ground attack

Aug 22, 2011

Kate

‘Ground operation in Gaza possible’
Ynet 21 Aug 15:02 — Vice Premier and Minister for Regional Development Silvan Shalom toured the south on Sunday, as Gaza Strip’s terror group continued their nonstop rocket fire on the area’s communities. Shalom addressed the escalation in the south during a visit to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, where he looked in on thosewounded in Saturday’s barrage: “The deterrence of has exhausted itself. We’ll need to respond, and we’re not ruling out the possibility of a ground operation,” he said.
Ahmad Tibi: Israeli military escalation to be expected
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli Knesset member Ahmad Tibi said Sunday that further Israeli military escalations were to be expected. In an interview with Ma‘an, the MK said the latest violence was a way for Israel to escape its domestic crisis. Palestinian blood is a way for Israeli political parties to avoid confronting each other, he added … The Palestinian people have always been an escape route for Netanyahu and the Israeli government when faced with an internal crisis, he noted.

7 injured as Israeli forces raid northern Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 Aug 15:57 — Israeli forces launched another round of fierce airstrikes on the northern Gaza Strip Sunday afternoon causing explosions which rattled Gaza City. Gaza medical official Adham Abu Salmiya said Israeli warplanes fired two missiles at a Hamas military site in Beit Lahiya injuring seven Palestinians including three children.
The attack came hours after an Israeli missile strike hit a group of children in the same area seriously injuring a 12-year-old boy, Abu Salmiya said.
Israeli forces have killed 14 Palestinians in the coastal enclave since Thursday, and wounded dozens more. Tensions in and around the Gaza Strip have soared and residents fear Israel is planning a major offensive in the coastal enclave. Israeli Knesset members on Sunday urged the cabinet to respond to dozens of rockets fired from Gaza with an extensive military campaign.

Gaza: There was no calm before the storm
ISM 21 Aug — For the last two days Gaza has been under heavy attack by the Israeli military. The calm has been shattered. That is what the international press would have you believe. Perhaps they should meet Hamouda Al Najjar from Khuzzaa. He was shot in the leg on August 15th, 2011, during the time that most people think of as the time of calm in Gaza. Gaza is never really calm, it is just that the dead and the injured are ignored. If an Israeli settler had been shot in the leg while gathering food for his sheep every newspaper in America would carry a story, nobody reported the shooting of Hamouda Al Najjar.
Hamas: Gaza militant groups agree to cease-fire with Israel
Haaretz/AP  21 Aug 18:45 — Official in Gaza says Egypt helped broker cease-fire to go into effect on Sunday evening, which would end the three-day round of violence with Israel … He spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because the agreement had not officially been made public. Earlier on Sunday, AP reported that Israeli officials arrived in Cairo. Moreover, Israeli sources confirmed that the reduced IDF strikes on Gaza in the last 24 hours was an intentional move aimed at allowing Egypt to mediate a cease-fire, as well as out of fear for the defense and diplomatic relationship with Egypt.
Projectiles fired at Israel after Gaza ceasefire announced
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma’an/AFP) — Four projectiles and several mortars have been fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip, an Israeli army spokeswoman said Sunday. Two projectiles were launched at Ashkelon and two others landed in the Hof Ashkelon regional council.
No injuries were reported.
The latest escalation comes as a Hamas official had told AFP on Sunday that Palestinian factions had reached an “informal” agreement on a halt to projectile attacks … The projectiles were reportedly fired at 8.30 p.m. winter saving time, but 9.30 p.m. Israeli time, Haaretz reported, noting that it is still unclear as to whether the ceasefire will be implemented. Islamic Jihad claimed the attacks which came before the report of the “informal” deal to halt attacks.
A spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committee [PRC] said, however, that they would not accept the ceasefire, Israeli news site Ynet reported. “Our stance is clear. We have no connection to the ceasefire agreement with the Zionist enemy,” Ynet quoted Abu Mujahed as telling a Palestinian news agency. Israel must take responsibility for its actions, Abu Mujahed said, referring to the assassination of PRC leaders in the Gaza Strip.
Gaza residents donate blood as tensions escalate
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Gaza residents responded to a call to donate blood in anticipation of further Israeli attacks following three days of intensive airstrikes on the coastal enclave, hospital officials said Sunday. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in southern Gaza appealed for blood donations as Israeli ministers urged the cabinet to launch an extensive military campaign on the coastal enclave. Head of the blood unit at the hospital Dr Dia Miqdad said the hospital was already suffering from a shortage of blood due to the high number of injuries in the last 48 hours.
Ministry: Gaza running out of medicine
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are running out of medicine, a spokesman for the Hamas health ministry warned Sunday. Ashraf Al-Qudra said hospitals stores had already run out 150 medicines and 160 types of medical equipment. The shortages were particularly critical in light of Israel’s recent bombardment of the coastal enclave, he added.
Air raids exact heavy toll on Gaza infrastructure
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — A physiotherapy clinic, sewerage pump, civil society organizations and government buildings have been damaged in Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip since Thursday, witnesses and officials said … A specialist physiotherapy clinic in Gaza City funded by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries was amongst the buildings seriously damaged in the assault, witnesses said. The clinic was the first of its kind in Gaza and run by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development. An electricity generator and four water pumps for the sewerage system in An-Nuseirat refugee camp were destroyed on Friday, causing power cuts in central Gaza. The offices of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation sustained damages in air raids at dawn on Friday. The Gaza City office was opened to provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza residents in the wake of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead offensive in December 2008. The same building was also bombed in July 2010. Officials said the damage would affect the organization ability to provide humanitarian services. Israeli forces also shelled a library located in a residential area and among government buildings, the Gaza government said. The Hamas-run Ministry of Justice, civil servants’ bureau and government media office were severely damaged, the ministry said. In a statement, the justice ministry said Israeli forces deliberately targeted civil institutions in what it described as a war crime. 

Israel’s Iron Dome shoots down 3 rockets over Ashkelon; Grad strikes Be’er Sheva
Haaretz 21 Aug 08:20 — The escalation in southern Israel continued Sunday morning when six rockets and a barrage of mortars hit near the city of Ashkelon. The Iron Dome system successfully shot down three rockets. Rockets also fell in several open areas, and hit a school building in Be’er Sheva, causing no injuries as students are currently on summer break.

And more news from Today in Palestine:

Rafah crossing open Monday for August 14 applicants
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — The Ministry of Interior in Gaza said Sunday that travel via the Rafah crossing on Monday will only be for passengers who registered to travel on August 14.
Kulna Gaza – We are all Gazans
[with photos] Intifada Palestine 21 Aug — an article from young journalist and activist Vera Macht who is actually in Cairo, trying to get back to Gaza again, where she lived until April 2011 — Fifteen people were killed so far, and no end in sight. Tomorrow the foreigners will be evacuated, Israel threatens with a “massive military attack”, a “ground invasion” is not ruled out. Fifteen killed people, including two children. I can give their names, Malek, two years old, and Mahmoud, thirteen years. I can tell how Mahmoud’s teacher has described him as an intelligent, bright student, or I can show photos of the two. As if that would create an outcry , as if the Western media would care enough for the lives of Palestinian children. No, Israel was attacked. Israel must defend itself.
AL urges UN action on Israel Gaza raids
Press TV 21 Aug — The Arab League (AL) has condemned the continuous Israeli airstrikes on the impoverished Gaza Strip, calling on the United Nations to intervene in order for the raids to be stopped … The remarks come after the 22-member organization held an emergency meeting to examine the dire situation of the people of Gaza due to Israel’s continuous airstrikes on the coastal sliver since late Thursday.
PA condemns collective punishment ‘tactics’ in Gaza Strip
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — …The PA called upon the Israeli government “to cease and desist in its use of its unjustified aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and to respect international law and refrain from revenge, terror, and collective punishment tactics,” the statement said. Israeli tactics in the Gaza Strip are effectively the same as the “price tag” policy adopted by settlers in the West Bank, the PA said, and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is carrying out “illegal and immoral actions against the people of Gaza.”
Report: Iran cuts Hamas funding
Reuters 1 Aug —  Iran has cut back or even stopped its funding of Hamas after the Islamist movement, which rules the Gaza Strip, failed to show public support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, diplomats said on Sunday. Hamas has denied that it is in financial crisis but says it faces liquidity problems stemming from inconsistent revenues from tax collection in the Gaza Strip and foreign aid.

Settlers
Settlers raid Nablus village
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli settlers on Sunday stormed a Palestinian village near Nablus and uprooted 80 olive trees, a Palestinian Authority official said. Settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said dozens of residents of the illegal Esh Kodesh outpost raided Qusra and destroyed trees belonging to locals Rabi Abu Bakr, Samir Hasan and Jabali Abu Reida.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli forces – WB raids, detention
Israeli forces detain 120 Palestinians in West Bank
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli forces detained 120 Palestinians, mostly Hamas supporters, overnight Saturday in the southern West Bank, witnesses and officials said. More than 100 military jeeps stormed Hebron from three directions and deployed in several neighborhoods in the largest detention campaign in the city since 2003, locals and Palestinian security officials told Ma‘an. Hamas lawmaker Muhammad Mutliq Abu Juheisha was among more than 120 Palestinians detained across the district as soldiers raided the surrounding towns of Dura, Surif, Beit Ula, Nuba, Yatta and As-Samu … Palestinian security sources said troops fanned out across the southern West Bank in an overnight operation which kicked off just hours after Hamas’s armed wing in Gaza fired rockets into southern Israel
link to www.maannews.net
Bethlehem Mufti says soldiers ransacked home
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli forces assaulted and detained a Palestinian man during a raid on the home of the Mufti of Bethlehem overnight Saturday, the sheikh said. Sheikh Abdul-Majid Ata Amarna said troops raided his home in Duheisha refugee camp shortly before dawn prayers searching for his son Usayd, a journalist for Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV. “When the soldiers raided my home, I asked them to wait before entering the different rooms so women could put on their headscarves and change their sleeping clothes, but instead of waiting they started firing inside the house injuring my brother-in-law, 27-year-old Bakr Badarin,” the cleric told Ma‘an. He said Badarin was hit by a live bullet to his thigh, but soldiers refused to allow Palestinian Red Crescent medics to treat him and detained the injured man and the sheikh’s son Usayd Amarna.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli forces raid Hebron home
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli forces raided the Hebron home of Hasan Ali Darwish Al-Qawasmi on Sunday evening, witnesses said. Around nine Israeli military vehicles surrounded the house before storming it and harassing family members, locals told Ma‘an. Al-Qawasmi had been previously detained 10 days ago by Israeli forces. [End]
link to www.maannews.net
Flying checkpoints erected in West Bank
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — The Israeli military erected flying checkpoints in the West Bank on Sunday morning, witnesses said. Army checkpoints were installed near Qabir Hilweh, east of Bethlehem, and close to Eizariyya in East Jerusalem, where drivers said they had waited for three hours to pass. Meanwhile, hundreds of cars were queuing at the container checkpoint near Bethlehem as Israeli soldiers inspected Palestinian vehicles.
link to www.maannews.net
Jerusalem on high alert as security campaign begins
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — Israeli police raised alert levels in Jerusalem after receiving information about a possible attack in the city, an Israeli police spokeswoman told Ma‘an on Sunday. Luba Simmari said that Israeli police have put the city on high alert, with reinforcements being drafted in. Israeli police are checking cars and identity cards as part of security procedures, she added. The police have started a security campaign in Jerusalem and have closed parts of the old city as they carry out searches, a Ma‘an correspondent reported. Police raided the Ras Al-Amud neighborhood of Jerusalem on Sunday, detaining Amjad Arafej, Ma’an’s correspondent said. Local witnesses said police had found weapons in his house.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli police prevent afternoon prayer in al-Aqsa Mosque
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 21 Aug — Israeli police Sunday prevented Muslim worshipers from entering al-Aqsa Mosque, inside the Old City of Jerusalem, to perform al-‘Asr prayer, the Muslim daily afternoon prayer, according to local residents. They said that Israeli police stationed at two of Al-Aqsa Mosque’s gates told the women and the elderly to enter from another gate without giving any explanations. The police allowed the entrance of a limited number of Palestinians after al-‘Asr prayer was over, checking the identity cards of young Palestinians while they were leaving the mosque, which is an Israeli measure to find specific names they have on their list. [they allowed young ones in?]
link to english.wafa.ps
Teenage prisoner sexually, physically assaulted to [get him to] admit charges against him
RAMALLAH (WAFA) 21 Aug — A Palestinian teenager prisoner in Etzion prison was sexually and physically assaulted during interrogation, while he was handcuffed and eye[blind] folded, to force him to admit the charges against him, said Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (PPC) on Sunday. The teenager said that the officer interrogating him, after threatening him, brought someone to sexually abuse and beat him. He was abused and beaten against the wall and thrown to the floor, which finally led him to admit the charges.
link to english.wafa.ps
Political / Diplomatic / International
Spain expresses support for Palestinian recognition
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 21 Aug — The Spanish foreign affairs minister said Sunday that she hopes the EU can push forward efforts for the recognition of a Palestinian state, Israeli news site Ynet reported. An upcoming September 2 meeting between European Union foreign ministers is an opportunity to show support for a Palestinian state, Trinidad Jiménez said. “There’s the feeling that now is the time to do something, to give the Palestinians the hope that a state could become reality,” Jiménez said Sunday in an interview with Spain’s El País newspaper.
link to www.maannews.net
Turkey wants to delay publication of UN report on Gaza flotilla
Haaretz 21 Aug — Turkey has requested that the publication of a UN report on the events surrounding Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound ship last year be delayed by an additional ten days, a diplomatic source in Jerusalem said Sunday … The Israeli official noted that a delay of the report would allow the renewal of Israel-Turkey negotiations aimed at ending the diplomatic crisis between the two countries, and to try to word an Israeli apology to Turkey that would be acceptable by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
link to www.haaretz.com
Egyptian ‘Spiderman’ becomes hero with Israel flag protest
CAIRO (AFP) — A lone protester became a hero to an exultant crowd of Egyptians and many more online by hauling down Israel’s flag atop its embassy in Cairo after the border killing of Egyptian policemen. More than 1,000 protesters gathered outside the Israeli embassy early Sunday and let off celebratory fireworks when the man clambered to the top floor of a high-rise housing the mission, replacing the flag with an Egyptian one. [Al Jazeera video] Egypt’s cabinet said an Israeli statement expressing regret for the deaths of the policemen was not enough, but stopped short of saying if it would recall its envoy from Tel Aviv. Tensions between Israel and Egypt have surged since the deaths on Thursday of the police officers, which occurred as Israeli troops pursued militants responsible for deadly attacks near Eilat.
Rockets fired from Gaza early Sunday landed across the border in Egypt but caused no casualties, Egyptian state television reported, while a source said they could have been fired by mistake. “Several rockets from the Gaza Strip landed this morning in Egyptian territory in the region west of the Rafah terminal, without causing casualties,” the television reported. The Gaza-based Popular Resistance Committees and the armed wing of Islamic Jihad said they had lobbed rockets at an Israeli army post near Kerem Shalom which lies on the Israel-Gaza border, some two kilometers from the Egyptian frontier. 
link to www.maannews.net
Fayyad’s office denies US threats to PA
RAMALLAH (WAFA) 21 Aug — The Office of the Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (PMO) Sunday rejected as outright falsification a Yedioth Ahronoth news report, which appeared on the newspaper’s website earlier today, regarding the existence of any US threats to the Palestinian Authority (PA) during a telephone conversation between Fayyad and the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, last Thursday evening
link to english.wafa.ps
Other news
‘Israel prepares for war in Sinai Desert’
PressTV 20 Aug — The former head of Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) urges military action by the regime in the Sinai Peninsula, following growing tensions with Egypt. Uzi Dayan told Israel’s Channel 7 on Friday that Israeli military and security forces should prepare for a period different from the past in dealing with the new Egyptian government.  He claimed that the military effort would aim to target those that represent a threat to the Israeli regime. “This is the time for the Israeli army to prevail its control inside Sinai,” Dayan went on to say.Israeli troops are banned from entering the Sinai Peninsula under a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt.
link to www.presstv.ir
Israel Aerospace Industries unveils unmanned aircraft ‘Ghost’
Haaretz 21 Aug — Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled over the weekend its latest development in the field of secret unmanned aerial vehicles – a miniature aircraft weighing four kilograms known as GHOST – to foreign customers. In a Washington exhibition, the IAI showcased the unmanned aircraft that is able to provide intelligence imagery in real time to soldiers in urban areas, and is also suitable for civilian use. GHOST lands and launches vertically and is able to fly and hover while automatically maintaining its altitude.
link to www.haaretz.com
Opinion / Analysis
Video: Israel exploiting attacks to sway UN
PressTV 21 Aug — “This [attack on Israeli soldiers] is going to give Netanyahu enough time to launch a diplomatic attack on the Palestinians and that the Palestinians do not deserve a state of their own as a result of the attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians in Eilat,” Mukhaimer Abu Saada, a professor at al-Azhar University, told Press TV.
link to www.presstv.ir
The return of the generals / Uri Avnery
19 Aug — …AT THE beginning of the week, Binyamin Netanyahu was desperately looking for a way out of an escalating internal crisis. The social protest movement was gathering momentum and posing a growing danger to his government … And then it happened. A small extremist Islamist group in the Gaza Strip sent a detachment into the Egyptian Sinai desert, from where it easily crossed the undefended Israeli border and created havoc … In a jiffy, the economics professors vanished from the TV screens, and their place was taken by the old gang of exes – ex-generals, ex-secret-service chiefs, ex-policemen, all male, of course, accompanied by their entourage of obsequious military correspondents and far-right politicians … With a sigh of relief, Netanyahu returned to his usual stance. Here he was, surrounded by generals, the he-man, the resolute fighter, the Defender of Israel. IT WAS, for him and his government, an incredible stroke of luck.
link to counterpunch.org
To read the  Today in Palestine lists for Friday-Saturday, 19-20 August, please go to groups.yahoo.com/group/f_shadi.   The alternate site, www.theheadlines.org, is not being updated just now because of a crisis in Shadi’s family.

Israel’s only hope is that theocracies emerge…

Aug 22, 2011

Philip Weiss

Yesterday I saw a historical friend who said that Israel’s only hope is that theocracies emerge in the new Arab democracies. If that happens, Israel has another 200 years, he opined. And if secular societies emerge– as I hope– then what does the future hold? Oh, Israel as a Jewish state is finished, he said.

Well, here are two recent accounts that reflect growing Islamism in northern Africa. I have to think Israel is cheering this on. I pass this along not wearing my conspiracist’s hat, but wearing my journalistic one… Al Jazeera’s Yasmeen Ryan in Tunisia:

Women were active players in the uprising that ended the rule of Zine Abidine Ben Ali, and many hope that event will translate into a more visible role in the country’s soon-to-be democratic political life.

Yet some are worried that the rights women have enjoyed for the past five decades might soon be swept away by the tide of social conservatism that has emerged in the wake of the uprising.

Yasmine El Rashidi in Egypt for the New York Review of Books:

Despite disagreements with its younger members, the Muslim Brotherhood seems confident that it will emerge victorious in September’s parliamentary elections. In February it said it would win no more than 20 percent of the seats; it is now—officially—aiming for 50 percent. Essam el-Erian recently told me, “But of course we want a majority or the largest percent we can get.” Through a coalition agreement with other Islamist groups, Lacroix said, this “seems increasingly likely.” With its outreach programs that offer free and subsidized food and services in the poorer neighborhoods, the Brotherhood’s popularity will likely only grow—in particular as inflation rises and prices go up. “They know they are in the strongest position,” Lacroix said. It is not unusual for those who are not keen on an Islamic state modeled on Saudi or Iran to point out that, with 40 percent of the population living beneath the poverty line, the Brotherhood’s previous slogan, “Islam is the answer,” has strong appeal.