Both sides are wrong in the ‘Israel Firsters’ debate
Feb 03, 2012
Jamie Stern-Weiner
Is it antisemitic to accuse someone of being an “Israel firster”? For the past few weeks some of the most prominent American liberal commentators and Jeffrey Goldberg have been shouting at each other about this, after former AIPAC-er Josh Block orchestrated a smear campaign against two liberal think-tanks on the basis that writers associated with them had made use of the phrase. The political agenda behind the attacks was transparent: both the targeted organisations – the Center for American Progress (CAP) and Media Matters (MM) – have been prominent in pushing against US support for Israel’s occupation and against an attack on Iran. But it provoked a minor split among liberal commentators, some of whom reacted by defending CAP and MM, and some of whom agreed that the phrase ‘Israel Firster’ is indeed “toxic”.
The debate, which has now simmered down, is interesting mainly for what it reveals about where liberal American discourse on Israel is currently at, and where it might be going.
First, it is another indication of Israel’s long-term secular decline in popularity among US liberals generally, and American Jews in particular. The fact that the debate is even happening indicates how far the ideological terrain has shifted. Fifteen years ago mainstream columnists would not have criticised Israel, and if they did would not have used the term “Israel Firsters” to do so, and if they had would not have been defended by other mainstream commentators. Times have changed.
The initial reaction to Block’s smear further illustrates the point: usual suspects aside, it went nowhere. Even Lanny Davis, Block’s business partner and himself a frequent apologist for Israel’s occupation, criticised it, while two other prominent Washington think tanks threatened to sever ties with him, and Block was forced to stage a partial climbdown. Glenn Greenwald is right to note that “the only reason this has become such a problem for Block is because he made the over-reaching mistake of targeting an organization that is extremely well-connected”. But more significant is that an establishment liberal organisation like CAP took such a critical line on Israel in the first place.
I say ‘initial’ reaction because, while MM dismissed the smears, CAP does appear to have censored its writers’ criticism of Israel in the wake of the incident. This is presumably due mainly to CAP’s association with the Democratic Party, which has an eye on the election and on Republican efforts to cast the Obama administration as hostile to Israel and/or Jews. But it also reflects the fact that even if criticism of Israel’s occupation can no longer be credibly dismissed as ‘antisemitic’, “Israel Firster”, with its resemblance to the charge of “dual loyalty” that has long dogged Jews, is more difficult to defend. A tactical corollary is that those commentators wishing to push back against attempts to police the discourse on Israel-Palestine ought not, perhaps, make their stand here.
Second, the debate prompts the question: is the spectre of “dual loyalty” being revived? This would be a significant development if so. Jews have historically been haunted by accusations of disloyalty, and American Jews have in the past been particularly careful to proclaim their loyalty to the US rather than Israel. Israel, in claiming to act in the name of Jews worldwide, threatened to give canards about Jewish ‘dual loyalty’ credibility, and as a result most American Jews for many decades distanced themselves from it. Norman Finkelstein’s forthcoming book documents that before Israel became an American ‘strategic asset’ by crushing Nasser in 1967, most American Jewish elites – including those who advocated most vociferously for a US-Israeli alliance after ’67 – were indifferent or actively hostile to it. More generally, “[fearful] of the ‘dual loyalty’ charge”, American Jews have “drawn away from Israel whenever bilateral relations at the state level have been tenuous and drawn closer when they have overlapped”.
If the current low-level grumbling among American elites about Israel’s service or lack thereof to US interests escalates – and it may not – anti-Israel and anti-occupation sentiment could well be increasingly articulated in the language of ‘national interests’, and criticism of those who support US backing of Israel’s occupation could increasingly take the form of accusations of dual loyalty or disloyalty to the US. This could in turn reinforce the abandonment of Israel by American Jews that is already underway.
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On the substantive issue in dispute – the legitimacy of the phrase “Israel Firster” – both sides are wrong. Glenn Greenwald, MJ Rosenberg, Phil Weiss and Andrew Sullivan are correct to argue that there is nothing in principle antisemitic about accusing individuals of placing “Israel’s” interests above “American” ones. Nor is it “gross” to point out that the American media’s go-to guy on Israel-Palestine, Jeffrey Goldberg, served as a prison guard in the Israeli army. Amusingly, Goldberg now denies he was a prison guard, insisting that he was merely a “military policeman” and “counsellor” who took care of “the culinary, hygiene and medical needs of the prisoners”. This is odd because in his memoir Goldberg explicitly says that he wasn’t, whatever his formal job title, merely a counsellor:
“I was a ‘prisoner counselor,’ a job title that did not accurately reflect my duties in the related fields of discipline and punishment…” [Prisoners, p. 28]
Which seems fair enough, since counsellors don’t generally assist in the abuse of prisoners, as Goldberg admits he did. Goldberg’s strange denial appears to have convinced Ackerman, at least, which is encouraging insofar as it suggests that people who say they like Jeffrey Goldberg haveneverread Jeffrey Goldberg.
More importantly, if it is the case that people increasingly perceive US policy towards Israel to be a decisively shaped by de facto agents of the Israeli state, the issue should be subject to honest and frank debate. Silencing the above-ground conversation is likely to promote the less savoury lines of discussion within it.
All that said, “Israel Firsters” rhetoric is seriously problematic:
– It is not, contra Greenwald and Sullivan, “plainly true” that many prominent apologists for Israel are “Israel Firsters”. As noted above, virtually all of these supposedly principled devotees of the Jewish state were completely silent on or else actively critical of Israel before it became a ‘strategic asset’ of the US establishment. As Finkelstein observes, after ’67 Israel also effectively became “a ‘strategic asset’ of American Jews”:
“[joining] the Zionist club was a prudent career move for Jewish communal leaders who could then play the role of key interlocutors between the U.S. and its strategic asset. Israel’s alleged existential vulnerability served as a useful pretext for politically ambitious Jews to champion American military power on which Israel’s survival supposedly hinged.”
Charging these “Me Firsters” with principled loyalty to Israel drastically overestimates them. The record suggests that they are, as a rule, in it squarely for themselves. This confusion is significant, for example because a more realistic appreciation of the interests driving the Israel lobby and its sympathisers would draw attention to the ways in which support for Israeli militarism benefits and speaks to elite interests in the US, rather than just in Israel.
– The use of “Israel Firster”, while not necessarily antisemitic, is not innocuous either. Accusations of “Israel Firster” do imply some ugly politics. “Israel Firster” is, after all, being opposed implicitly to “US Firster”, with the tacit assumption that it is a Bad Thing to support a “foreign” state or people over one’s “own”. But why should that be so? If I am moved by images of famine in Somalia and decide to vote, in Britain, according to who I think would do the most to alleviate the effects and causes of that famine, am I being “dually loyal”? More to the point, if I am, is that a bad thing? It is particularly strange that liberals, who tend to take very seriously the idea that there are universal moral principles whose value transcends the claims of any particular state, would treat “dual loyalty” as a serious criticism.
I suspect Greenwald would reply that he rarely uses the term “Israel Firster”, that his aim in this debate is to defend its legitimacy against accusations of antisemitism rather than to positively endorse it, and that when he does use it, it is either as a rhetorical device to highlight others’ hypocrisy or as a normatively neutral description, rather than a criticism. In his case, this is generally true. But if we look at the emerging discourse more broadly, “Israel Firster” is typically used as a pejorative, which implies a set of assumptions that Sullivan, despite his dislike of the phrase, encapsulates quite well:
“[when] an American sides with a foreign government against his own president in a foreign country, what does one call that? Apart, that is, from disgusting.”
The use of the term “Israel Firster” reflects a broader trend which chooses to frame opposition to Israeli policies, and US support for them, in terms of defending or protecting US “national interests”, and which appears increasingly disposed to criticising apologists for Israeli occupation on the grounds that they are being disloyal to these “national interests”, rather than on the grounds that they are enabling a profound injustice. I suspect that this in turn reflects an influx of liberals into the solidarity movement – in this sense the watering down and degeneration of the latter might well be a consequence of its own success – and a desire by some activists to align the movement, in an attempt to gain political influence, with those American elites who are concerned that Israel’s occupation is harming US imperial interests (cf. Walt and Mearsheimer).
In either case, the strategy is dangerous. First, it relies on the gap among US elites over the wisdom of support for Israeli occupation widening, which may not happen to a sufficient degree. Second, its effect is to essentially whitewash the former. And third, it risks abandoning a principled opposition to Israel’s occupation grounded in broadly appealing progressive values – it is wrong to demolish people’s houses; it is wrong to torture children; it is wrong to shell schools and hospitals with white phosphorus; it is wrong to violently prevent a people from exercising self-determination in violation of international law; etc . – in favour of a critique based on parochial, unappealing and potentially quite vicious insinuations about people’s – mainly Jews’ – “loyalty”. This isn’t antisemitism. But it isn’t the way to win the struggle, and nor should it be how we’d want to win it.
Alan Dershowitz delivered a speech to “a full house” which garnered “applause throughout the talk,” the Daily Pennsylvanian reports. The university paper also reports:
The Chair of the Penn Board of Trustees, David Cohen, introduced the event with a message on behalf of President Amy Gutmann. “We are unwavering in our support of Israel” he read. “We do not support the message or the goals of BDS…”
Penn’s Political Science and Philosophy, Politics and Economics departments, Penn Democrats and College Republicans were among the other sponsors of the event.
Here’s some of what Dershowitz said last night in his Jewish Federations-sponsored speech (taken from notes that are imperfect, so these aren’t direct quotes):
–Israel needs to send more women and people of color to make its case.
–Professors at the University of Pennsylvania who support BDS are complicit with evil.
–Protecting Israel is one of the great human rights issues of the 21st century.
–(During the audience Q and A): Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein hate America. They hate liberalism. They hate Western values. Make it clear that people who love liberty love Israel.
–Attacking Iran would not be preemptive, it would be reactive. Iran is already engaging in war with Israel. It has armed Hezbollah, Hamas….Israel has a right to attack.
–2 state solution would require a military presence in Jordan Valley in case there’s an incursion from Iraq. Iraq is becoming Iran. They take their orders from Iran.
–(In response to an audience member asking how to respond to an Arab student who says, you support gay rights but you took my land):
The land which is now Israel was barren land…Israeli policy was to never throw indigenous Arabs off the land. Israel’s birth certificate is cleaner than almost any modern country’s birth certificate. It was established legally. You can complain about America or Canada or Australia or New Zealand. Israel was much more humane.
–Palestinians have been on the wrong side of every war. They wanted to establish a concentration camp in Nablus [in the context of World War Two].
But Dershowitz’s rhetoric is nothing compared to the hysterical editorial printed by the New York Daily News today, surely reflecting owner and right-wing Israel supporter Mort Zuckerman’s line on BDS:
The University of Pennsylvania, one of America’s most respected bastions of higher education, plays host on Friday to the start of an odious conference destined to pulse with anti-Semitism.
Penn ought to be ashamed.
Called the National BDS Conference, the event is dedicated to undermining the very existence of Israel on the libel that the country is an illegitimate “occupation” and guilty of subjecting Palestinians to “apartheid” akin to how South Africa so brutally oppressed blacks…
In America, dangerous and reprehensible speech is best met with the truth. Spoken loud and clear. Spoken directly to the forces of hate. So if you’re near Philly and can spare the time, trek down to the BDS conference and tell them just how wrong they are.
And finally, Stu Bykofsky, who once wrote “ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I’m thinking another 9/11 would help America,” pens this column:
One week after Holocaust Remembrance Day, the carnival of hate known as the National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference arrives at the University of Pennsylvania today, its clown car stocked with lies, half-lies, white lies and bald-faced lies, playing to the ignorant.
It gets no sympathy from Penn, which rejects its theme. Penn believes in free speech, as does Israel, the target of the hate fest. Free speech, and most human rights embedded in Western societies, are absent in Arab states.
That is the truth, which is poison to BDS, which immorally equates Israel with white-dominated South Africa, and even Nazi Germany. That’s what follows when you ally yourself with those who deny the Holocaust.
When Jeffrey Goldberg employed similar rhetoric, likening the BDS movement with Nazi Germany, this is what I wrote:
Goldberg, and others like him, are guilty of conflating Israel with Judaism, and Jews with Israelis. The BDS movement is not an economic boycott directed against Jews; it is a boycott movement directed against the State of Israel, which labels itself the Jewish State, because of its flagrant violations of international law and its continued occupation of Palestinian land. As Alisa Solomon, co-editor of Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, told me in 2009, “it’s a very dubious and dangerous collapse when ‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’ are conflated. Anti-Semites do it a lot, and unfortunately, powers of the Israeli state do it as well.”
Invoking Nazi Germany’s policy of boycotting Jewish-owned businesses as a way to smear the BDS movement is a cheap trick that has no merit. Nazi Germany instituted a blanket boycott, with no end in sight, that was directed at a persecuted minority just because of their religious faith. The BDS movement is targeting a state, asking Israel to comply with their obligations under international law, because of their unjust and oppressive policies towards the Palestinian people. There are many Jewish organizations that support the movement, including inside Israel.
As to the venomous and patently false anti-Semitism smear thrown recklessly and maliciously at BDS activists in an explicit attempt to bully them into silence, it is increasingly seen today as a weapon of intellectual terror that is employed to stifle debate and free speech when the subject is Israel’s occupation and apartheid or the generous U.S. support for both. This time around, though, with the BDS movement’s solid human rights and international law credentials and track record, the anti-Semitism smear is hardly working.
BDS is categorically opposed to all forms of racism, including Islamophobia, anti-black racism and anti-Semitism. Anchored in international law and universal principles of human rights, BDS calls for equal rights for all humans, without discrimination. This universalist commitment has enabled BDS to spread in recent years at a spectacular rate within the mainstream of western societies, achieving one success after another, in the economic, academic and cultural boycott spheres. Israel is conceding that it is losing the battle for hearts and minds not just in Europe but also on U.S. campuses. Thus the panic, the vilification and the bullying attempts to crush the BDS conference at Penn.
Alumni donor threats and more Nazi analogies as the world awaits Penn BDS conference
Feb 03, 2012
Philip Weiss
CohenDavid
I went to the last BDS conference at Hampshire College in Massachusetts and nobody paid any attention to us. But this weekend! Holy moly! Isn’t this an utter fulfillment of the Gandhi law of activism: First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win….
I’m reading the Daily Pennsylvanian. Props to these great college journos (Jeffrey Goldberg first inked his quill there, o ye ambitious young wretches) for their coverage. First the bad news then the bad news–
“I think there’s a lot of major donors that have threatened or plan to withhold significant financial support from Penn as a result of this,” said an alumni donor who wished to remain anonymous to maintain his relationship with the administration.
Alumni have been calling and emailing the administration expressing opposition to the conference, he said….
“I ultimately don’t particularly understand why Amy Gutmann and the trustees agreed to hold this conference and are essentially hiding behind a veil of protecting free speech and free expression,” he added.
1996 College graduate Aaron Ross has been working with fellow alumni to spread his discontent with the administration’s decision.
“Certainly in the short term this would affect [donation] decisions,” he said.
“That’s unfair because we haven’t done anything wrong,” said College sophomore Jacob Minter, a PennBDS member. “All we’re doing is standing up for human rights.”
You go, Minter! You’re building character through this ordeal.
This conference is not a University sponsored or promoted event.
The stated purpose of BDS is to advocate for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel. We want to be absolutely clear on this point: the University has repeatedly, consistently and forcefully expressed our adamant opposition to this agenda. Simply stated, we fundamentally disagree with the position taken by Penn BDS.
Who is David Cohen? He led off for Dershowitz last night at the anti-BDS conference conference (I told you they’re paying attention!), and he is the executive vice president of Comcast, which owns NBC and MSNBC. Cohen raised $1.2 million for Obama in one night last summer, and has been a fierce supporter of Israel. Hark, Chris Matthews– your boss is in the Israel lobby!
Here is some more incitement– to follow Professor Ruben Gur’s nutty piece that describes Jews who support BDS as “kapos.” Prameet Kumar of the Daily Pennsylvanian reports on a flyer being handed out outside the Dershowitz talk last night at Penn:
The flyer, apparently printed and distributed by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, compares some Penn professors’ support of the BDS movement to the actions of Nazi Germany.
If ever there was a time for leaders of our academic institutions to unite and stare down bigotry, racism and intolerance, surely this is it. As a History major at Penn, one of the many things I learned was the tragic cascade of repercussions from silence and neutrality in the face of such malevolence. As Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel lamented, “we learn from History that we do not learn from History.” Indeed, if Martin Niemoller’s famous words don’t resonate here and now, when will they?
You didn’t see the Holocaust reference? I’m no dummy, I got Wikipedia: Martin Niemoller is the former Nazi who recanted and warned that the Nazis were coming for the Jews first, then you later…
the BDS movement, which is international in scope, is a nonviolent attempt to address the inequities that exist between Israelis and Palestinians. Inequities that continue to obstruct the process to peaceful coexistence between Israel and Palestine. When Palestinians have their water turned on only once every fourteen days, as they do in Hebron in the occupied Palestinian territories while the residents of the illegal Israeli settlement immediately above have water 24/7 and swimming pools, it is hard to see how that is equal coexistence.
As one who is old enough to have been a young woman involved in the civil rights movement in this country and then to have had the privilege of working for the anti-apartheid boycott and divestment movement for black South Africans, it is indeed troubling to see that my own alma mater faculty is resorting to the same hateful discourse that so obstructed the goals of both of those morally imperative actions.
Judith, you made my day. I can show this to my mom to explain why I’m in Philadelphia this weekend. So can Minter. We’re not going away.
Sullivan says passionate American supporters of Israel create a ‘problem,’ conflating interests
Feb 03, 2012
Phil Weiss and Annie Robbins
A reader asked Andrew Sullivan why he decided to weigh into the Israel firster debate.
He says that some American supporters of Israel are so passionate and defensive that it’s a “problem” of conflating interests.
“There comes a point at which that passion leads to a view where there can never be any distinction between American interests and Israeli interests.” When in fact there are thousands of miles between the U.S. and Israel. Israel is a liability, an albatross, Sullivan says.
“Israeli government is clearly orchestrating and is in close contact with a whole bunch of people, range of people inside the U.S. to make their case…” Sullivan wants to cut out the Israel firster language but he addresses the crucial question here: When Sheldon Adelson says that it was unfortunate that he wore an American uniform and not an Israeli uniform, then we are seeing an attachment to Israel on the part of an American political player that is obscuring American interests. (Hard to see why, given his understanding, Israel firster is not legitimate political rhetoric.)
Spanish gov’t builds solar renewable-energy project for Palestinian village — now slated for destruction
Feb 03, 2012
Kate
and other news from Today in Palestine:
Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid / Restriction of movement Jerusalem political activist ordered out of West Bank for seven months
IMEMC 1 Feb — After interrogating him at a Police station in occupied Jerusalem, on Tuesday, the Israeli Police issued an order forcing Palestinian activist and intellectual, Rasem Obeidat, to remain in his residential area in Jerusalem for seven months. He will not be allowed out of Jerusalem, and will only be allowed into certain areas in the city. link to www.imemc.org IOA serves demolition notices in Al-Khalil village
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 1 Feb — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) served demolition notices to owners of 14 houses in Daheria village to the south of Al-Khalil on Tuesday. Bajes Al-Tal, in charge of popular committees in the village, said that the targeted houses were in the eastern area of the village. He said that the IOA claimed that the building of those houses was made without permit, noting that the village was in area C in which Israel enjoys full control. Tal said that most of those houses were inhabited by many Palestinians while some of them were still under construction. Link to www.palestine-info.co.uk Israel plans to demolish solar panels in village near Hebron
MEMO 1 Feb — The Israeli occupation authorities have issued notice of their intention to demolish a renewable energy project which generates electricity and represents the only source of lighting for the houses in a Palestinian village near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. The people of Al-Mnazel received the demolition notice advising of Israel’s plans to destroy the solar panels which provide them with electricity. The project was established a couple of years ago with funds from the Spanish government … Mr. Al-Jabour added that the Israeli occupation authorities have also given Khalil Al-Nwaja’, who lives in Al-Mnazel, notice that his home will be demolished. The tents and caravans, claim the Israelis, do not have a licence. link to www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk Israel tells Palestinian farmers it plans to seize their land
BETHLEHEM (WAFA) 1 Feb – The Israeli military authorities informed Palestinian farmers from Nahalin, a village west of the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, that it plans to expropriate more than 430 dunums of their land and gave them 45 days to file an objection, Osama Shakarneh, head of the Nahalin village council, said Wednesday. He said the farmers found notices on their land put there by the Israeli authorities informing them that they should leave their land and remove everything on it because the land will soon be expropriated. The notices, he said, gave the farmers 45 days to file a complaint at Ofer military camp, near Ramallah, or else the army would evict them and force them to pay costs of their eviction. link to english.wafa.ps Silwan residents get more demolition orders
JERUSALEM (WAFA) 1 Feb – Israeli authorities Wednesday handed several Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan notices to demolish their houses under the pretext of building without permit, according to a local activist. Fakhri Abu Diab, head of the Committee for the Defense of Silwan, said that Israeli police accompanied by staff from the Israeli municipality of West Jerusalem handed several Palestinian homeowners in Bir Ayyoub and al-Bustan areas of Silwan demolition orders to their houses. He said the Israelis used insults and provoked the residents when handing them the demolition orders. link to english.wafa.ps US criticizes Israel plan to subsidize West Bank settlement construction
AP 31 Jan — Comments by top State Department official come after Netanyahu cabinet announces plan to encourage immigration into 557 ‘national priority’ settlements, which reportedly include 70 in the West Bank — …the full list …reportedly includes 70 settlements, most of them deep inside the West Bank in areas that Israel would likely have to evacuate to make way for a Palestinian state. The incentives, according to the Prime Minister’s office, are “meant to encourage positive migration to these communities.” link to www.haaretz.com Arab town, both Israeli and Palestinian, divided by shopping
Haaretz 1 Feb — Bartaa, straddling the Green Line, has brought together Palestinians and Israelis in a de facto economic free zone, but with some unable to cash in, the village is still split. link to www.haaretz.com
Settlers Woman hurt in settler attack near Nablus
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — A 60-year-old woman was seriously injured Wednesday after Israeli settlers threw rocks at her car near the illegal Yitzhar settlement, a PA official said. Maysar Majeed, from Sarra village west of Nablus, suffered a head injury and was taken to Rafidea Hospital link to www.maannews.net All Israeli schools can now join West Bank ‘heritage’ tours, education minister says
Haaretz 1 Feb — The controversial program has until now been part of the Jerusalem school curriculum, but Education Minister Sa’ar says response has been high and schools are interested in bringing students to see Hebron … “The response to this these tours has so far been high, and has been carried out by choice by the interested schools,” Sa’ar told the Knesset. “A Jewish community has existed in Hebron for so many years, even when the people of Israel were all in exile. According to our faith, Jews will always live in Hebron. We must not allow this illusion to be created among Arabs that it will ever be possible to uproot Jews from Hebron.” link to www.haaretz.com 400 Israelis enter Nablus village overnight
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Hundreds of Israelis entered the northern West Bank village of Awarta overnight Tuesday escorted by Israeli soldiers. Head of Awarta village council Sami Awwad told Ma‘an several buses of Israelis and a large force of soldiers arrived in the village at around 11 p.m. and stayed until 5 a.m … They visited two sites Jews believe to be the tombs of biblical figures Eleazar and Itamar, the army official said. The Muslim shrines of the Seventy Sheikhs, Uzayr and the Mufadel are located in Awarta. link to www.maannews.net Key settlement outpost slated for evacuation
RAMALLAH (IRIN) 1 Feb — Israel’s High Court of Justice has ordered Israeli settlers in the Migron outpost in the West Bank to leave by March 31 in response to a 2006 petition filed by seven Palestinian landowners and Israeli pressure group Peace Now. “The prime minister is trying to implement the court’s decision peacefully,” by reaching an agreement with the Migron settlers which would include moving them from their homes to new housing on adjacent Israeli “state land”, Mark Regev, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told IRIN. According to the court’s ruling of Aug. 2, 2011, the outpost is on privately-owned Palestinian land. link to www.maannews.net
Violence / Incursions by Israeli forces IDF leaves behind soldier in West Bank village after operation, witnesses say
Haaretz 1 Feb — The Israel Defense Forces accidentally left behind a soldier Wednesday night after an operation in a West Bank village near Ramallah, eyewitnesses said. According to Palestinian residents of Budrus, IDF forces entered the village with five vehicles, rousing local residents. The vehicles left after several minutes, leaving behind a soldier. One villager told Haaretz that the soldier was frightened and asked two elders to assist him in leaving the village. The elders accompanied him to the separation fence, in an attempt to avoid a confrontation with some of the village youth, where they were met by the soldier’s officer, along with two other soldiers. link to www.haaretz.com Israeli forces attack memorial march
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Israeli forces on Tuesday fired tear gas and sound grenades at a memorial march in Beit Ummar near Hebron. Residents of Beit Ummar held the march to mark the first anniversary of the death of local teenager Yousef Ikhleil, who was shot dead by Jewish settlers. The march was organized by the local popular committee, which demanded Ikheil’s killer be brought to justice. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas and sound bombs and attacked marchers with rifle butts, witnesses said. link to www.maannews.net Palestinians, Israeli officers hurt in Jerusalem clash
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Palestinian youths sustained injuries overnight in a confrontation with Israeli soldiers and police officers in al-Isawiya in occupied East Jerusalem, a Ma‘an reporter said. One young man sustained serious injuries, witnesses said. Confrontations began Tuesday afternoon in the center of al-Isawiya after Israeli forces broke into the home of Ayyoub Ubeid and detained him under the pretext that he hurled stones at Israeli soldiers in the town. link to www.maannews.net Left behind at the scene of the crime: Israel wages war on Bil‘in
30 Jan — Weeks ago, Wedad Yassin traveled back to Ein Yabrud, a village near Ramallah in the West Bank, to visit her family and to experience Palestine’s rich cultural heritage. Her intention had been to tour through the Al-Khalil district, Ramallah, Bil‘in, and Jerusalem. However, she was denied entry to Jerusalem. Nevertheless, Yassin explored Bil‘in, site of the weekly demonstrations against Israel’s apartheid wall, and came across this jam‘iyya or association dedicated to “enhancing and reviving Palestinian culture along with documenting Israeli crimes”. Included is a series of photographs from Yassin’s visit to this center. Each of the shells, bullet casings, and projectiles featured in these images were collected over time by the members of this jam’iyya after they were used against unarmed protesters during the demonstrations in Bil‘in. Israeli forces continue to use live ammunition, rubber bullets, and USA-made tear gas canisters against the Bil‘in activists on a regular basis and have designated the area a military zone to allow soldiers to treat the civilians as hostile combatants. link to palsolidarity.org Israeli forces arrest Palestinian, raid Hebron
PNN 1 Feb — Israeli forces arrested on Wednesday, a Palestinian after they attacked his house in Hebron city, south of the West Bank. They have also strengthened the military checkpoints and have increased their raids around the governorate …Israeli soldiers set up a military checkpoint at the entrance of al-Fawar Refugee camp south of Hebron and erected military checkpoints at the entrances of Edthna village west of Hebron and Samou’ village in the south. They stopped the vehicles, searched them and checked the IDs. In Tarqumiyah village, west of Hebron, Israeli police put several military checkpoints at the village’s entrance, and issued fines to the Palestinian vehicles.
The Israeli Army transferred [transformed?] some of the Palestinians’ houses to military barracks in the southern area of Hebron. They took the houses of Musleh Abu Subeih and A’aref Wazouz in the close area of Tal’it Abu Haded. Some of the Israeli soldiers occupied Palestinians’ houses; using their roofs to set up military equipment to observe the surrounding area. link to english.pnn.ps
Gaza Refugees intend to take up UNRWA schools to pressure it to rebuild their homes
GAZA (PIC) 1 Feb — Angry Palestinian citizens threatened to occupy the UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip if this UN organization failed to reconstruct their homes it had demolished eight years ago in refugee camps and kept promising to rebuild them since then. The refugees staged protests outside UN offices in Gaza city and Nuseirat refugee camp demanding the refugee agency to hasten to rebuild their homes and not to reduce its humanitarian services. For his part, UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna stated that this issue is a major priority for UNRWA, which has made contacts with the Israeli authorities to allow in construction materials for the homes of these citizens. Link to www.palestine-info.co.uk Gaza electricity company calls for new measures to end crisis
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — The director of a state-run electricity company in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday called for new initiatives to end the energy crisis in the coastal enclave. Maher Ayesh made the comments during a meeting organized by the Hamas run company entitled “Ending the electricity crisis requires agreement.” Israel continues to supply the Gaza Strip with water and 70 percent of its electrical power, the rest being supplied by neighboring Egypt or local power plants. link to www.maannews.net 6 projectiles fired at southern Israel
TEL AVIV (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Six projectiles were fired at southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday with no reported injuries. The projectiles landed in the Shaar Hanegev regional council at around 9 p.m., Israeli news site Ynet reported. link to www.maannews.net Six more misconceptions about Gaza
Gisha for AIC 1 Feb — In a previous post, we attempted to delineate some of the common misconceptions or simplifications about Gaza, which, broadly speaking, are heard most often in Israel. This week, we’d like to list a few more that usually come at us from abroad. link to www.alternativenews.org
Political detention IDF arrests Palestinian prisoner released in Shalit swap
Haaretz 31 Jan — Mamun Ismyail Salame Stut’s arrest makes him the first released prisoner to be recaptured since the prisoner swap; according to an IDF spokesperson, Stut was arrested for being a security threat link to www.haaretz.com Hamas leader ‘detained in Jenin’
JENIN (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Israeli forces on Tuesday detained a Hamas leader from Jenin in the northern West Bank, locals said. Muhammad as-Sayyed, a lecturer at Al-Quds Open University, was detained during a dawn raid on his home. Locals said several homes in the neighborhood were also raided. As-Sayyed, 50, has poor health and is almost blind, locals added. link to www.maannews.net Detainees join hunger strike to support Jihad leader
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Islamic Jihad detainees in Israeli prisons on Wednesday went on hunger strike in solidarity with Jihad leader Khader Adnan, prisoners’ relatives said. Adnan was hospitalized on Tuesday after 45 days on hunger strike in protest over his treatment by Israeli prison authorities and his detention without charge. On Tuesday he started to refuse liquids after Israel banned a visit from his lawyer … Earlier Wednesday, Jihad leader Ahmad al-Mudalal criticized the UN chief’s silence on the issue, noting that Ban frequently demanded the release of Gilad Shalit during the Israeli soldier’s captivity in Gaza. link to www.maannews.net Israel ‘detains 85 people’ in Hebron in January
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 1 Feb — Israeli forces detained 85 people from towns, villages and refugee camps in the Hebron district in January, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Institute said Wednesday. Soldiers raided homes in the southern West Bank district, often accompanied by dogs, head of the institute Amjad al-Najjar said in a statement. People were ordered out of their homes during the night despite freezing temperatures and heavy rainfall, and parents were beaten in front of their children, al-Najjar said … The 85 detentions included 11 people suffering chronic diseases and 11 children, the institute said … Since 1967, Israel has detained more than 750,000 Palestinians, including women and children, Palestinian Authority reports say. Around 40 percent of Pa
