NOVANEWS
- State Dep’t has nothing to say about hunger strikers ‘one way or another’
- Thousands march across the West Bank in support of the prisoners’ hunger strike
- CNN’s Amanpour interviews Kopty and Pollak on Palestinian prisoner strike
- The Israeli consul is selling ‘brand Israel’, but very few in one upper west side synagogue are buying
- Liberal Zionists are afraid their parents will reject them if they come out
- Palestinians shut down a second int’l aid organization to demand action on dying hunger strikers
- ‘NYT’ child abuse story is latest episode in a great awakening
- Settlers knew Ulpana was built on privately-owned Palestinian land but went ahead
- Neocons + Goldberg see coalition as heightening likelihood of war
State Dep’t has nothing to say about hunger strikers ‘one way or another’
May 11, 2012
Philip Weiss
Today’s State Department briefing. And spokesperson Victoria Nuland has nothing to say about the hunger strikers, even as the news is all over global media. She takes the question. Meaning she might get back with a statement later. These people are on the verge of death. Shameful. Oh but Sec’y Clinton congratulated Netanyahu on his new unity government.
QUESTION: Okay. And one – a couple more. On the Palestinian prisoner issue, I wonder if you are aware of the situation of striking – hunger striking Palestinian prisoners?
MS. NULAND: I don’t have anything for you on that, Said.
QUESTION: Well, do you have a position on the hunger strike of prisoners who have not been charged with anything and they have been held for a long time? They’ve gone today – their 70th day of a hunger strike. Thaer Halahla and many others, five others, are probably – are likely to – they could face – I mean, they could die in the next day or so. Would the United States Government take a position on that?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me take the question, Said, because frankly, I don’t have anything one way or the other. I don’t know if we have a comment on it.
QUESTION: Because, lastly, I mean, it – if something happens to these prisoners, it could be a flashpoint between Israelis and the Palestinians.
MS. NULAND: No, I understand the question. Let me take it, okay?
QUESTION: Thank you.
Thousands march across the West Bank in support of the prisoners’ hunger strike
May 11, 2012
Popular Struggle Coordination Committee
Palestinians march in support of prisoners on hunger strike, Nablus, May 11, 2011.
(Photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/ActiveStills)
Press Release
Friday, May 11, 2012
Marches, demonstrations and clashes took place all across the West Bank in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, on its 25th day.
Thousands took to the streets today in Palestinian cities and villages across the West Bank, in solidarity with over 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike.
Hundreds protested in the town of Beitunia, adjacent to Ramallah, in front of the Israeli Ofer prison and military court, which have become a recent flashpoint with nearly daily demonstrations. Several moderate injuries from rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas projectiles were recorded, including one to the head.
Twenty year-old Majd Barghouti was injured in the eye by a rubber-coated bullet shot by Israeli soldiers who tried to suppress another demonstration, in the village of Aboud, north-east of Ramallah. He was evacuated to the Ramallah hospital, where he is expected to undergo surgery.
In the village of Kufer Qaddoum, south-east of Nablus, hundreds went out to demonstrate despite a tight siege laid over the town from all sides. In their attempt to quell the protest, Israeli forces used tear-gas, rubber-coated bullets and a high-pressure water cannon hosing a foul-smelling liquid, which Israel calls the Skunk. About an hour into the demonstration, a group of soldiers shot live ammunition towards the protesters from a fairly short range, but did not manage to hit anyone.
Some 300 demonstrators gathered in the village of al-Walajeh, east of Bethlehem, which will soon be encircled by Israel’s Wall from all sides. The march advanced towards a nearby settler-road, and for a short time, protesters managed to re-take a house whose residents were expelled by Israel in 1948. As they pushed the protesters back into the village, soldiers used mass amounts of tear-gas and shot rubber-coated bullets.
Additionally, thousands of people marched through the cities of Hebron, Ramallah and Nablus, as well as in the villages of Bil’in, Nabi Saleh, Ni’ilin and al-Ma’asra.
Background
25 days ago, on April 17, some 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails launched an open-ended hunger. Their demands are simple and the strike’s slogan, echoing through the prison walls, is just as plain – liberty or death. The lives of all prisoners on strike are currently in danger, but among them is a smaller group, which has been striking for a longer period and whose lives are under immediate threat.
Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab have not eaten for well over 70 days – since the 29th of February. Israeli courts have rejected their appeals and refused to free them from administrative detention where they remain without charge or trial, subject to secret evidence and secret allegations. They are in critical condition.
Hassan Safadi has been refusing food since the 2nd of March, Omar Abu Shalal, 54, since the 4th of March, Mahmoud Sarsak, the only Gazan to have been incarcerated under Israel’s Illegal Combatants Law, since the 24th of March, Mohammed al-Taj, 40, also since the 24th of March and Ja’afar Ezzadeen, 41, since the 27th of march.
The prisoners’ key demands include:
Ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation;
End to the use of administrative detentions;
The restoration of visitation rights to families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a right that has been denied to all families for more than 6 years;
Canceling ‘Shalit’ law, which restricts prisoners’ access to educational materials as punitive measure. The law remains intact despite a prisoner swap deal last October.
Ending systematic humiliation, including arbitrary strip searches, nightly raids and collective punishment.
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike have been hit hard with retaliation from Israel Prison Services, including beatings, transferring from one prison to another, confiscation of salt (an act that could have severe health consequences for hunger strikers), denial of family and lawyer visits, and isolation and solitary confinement of hunger strikers.
CNN’s Amanpour interviews Kopty and Pollak on Palestinian prisoner strike
May 11, 2012
Adam Horowitz
The Israeli consul is selling ‘brand Israel’, but very few in one upper west side synagogue are buying
May 11, 2012
Philip Harris
Brand Israel
On Wednesday evening, May 9, Ido Aharoni, the Israeli consul general in New York, spoke at Ansche Chesed, a Conservative synagogue on New York’s Upper West Side to which our family belongs. I attended with two aims: to see how members of our quite liberal but strongly Zionist congregation responded to the talk, and secondarily to ask a question or make a comment if the audience turned out to be too willing to swallow what I was sure would be a large dose of Israeli hasbara. I was pleasantly surprised on several counts.
First, attendance was miniscule, with only 29 or 30 people in attendance out of a congregation of two to three hundred families. When I was growing up in Connecticut in the nineteen fifties and sixties, a talk by the Israeli consul would have packed the auditorium at my Conservative shul. Although there were no doubt other factors, including the fact that the talk was on a week night and not in the middle of one of Israel’s many wars, it had been announced in the synagogue’s newsletter and placed on the events calendar, and the rabbi followed up with an email on the morning of the talk. I interpret the scant turnout as a clear sign that large numbers of liberal, congregationally affiliated Jews are no longer interested in listening to what they probably peg as official Israeli propaganda.
By way of contrast I also note that a couple of years ago our rabbi, Jeremy Kalmanofsky, to his great credit scheduled a talk by Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Israeli-American co-founder of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel. The talk, on the subject of Israeli house demolitions and anti-Arab violence by settlers in the Occupied Territories, was held in the same room as Wednesday’s gathering, but drew twice as many people.
Second, I expected the audience, which was heavily skewed in an elderly direction, would be very supportive of the Israeli consul, but I was wrong. The consul’s talk was entirely about the “Brand Israel” marketing campaign as the wave of the future in Zionist PR. Aharoni spoke frankly as if we were close allies, which I guess was his expectation. Instead, many in the overwhelmingly Zionist audience were quite dissatisfied with, and even hostile to, the hollow hasbara discourse and marketing plan which the consul described.
Although the talk had been billed as a discussion of the “successes and challenges of Israeli diplomacy,” the consul began by asking Rabbi Kalmanofsky what subject he should focus on. The rabbi specified the“delegitimization” of Israel and what could be done about it.
Aharoni then proposed to the audience a psychological experiment. How would we rate a Mr. Smith, a well-dressed, apparently prosperous man in his early sixties — “he’s actually sixty-four” — who appeared before us if we knew nothing about him? He answered this question by stating that “psychological research” has shown that, knowing nothing about him, we would rate him a five on a scale of one to ten.
Aharoni told us that a Mr. Jones, younger and not well-dressed, apparently poor, would appear next, and tell us that Mr. Smith was his next door neighbor, had built a fence between them that stole part of Mr. Jones’s land, and was settling some of his relatives on the stolen land. Now how would we rate Mr. Smith? Again he answered the question by stating that “research has shown” that we would lower our rating of Smith to a three.
Finally, Mr. Smith re-appears and denies Mr. Jones’s claims, stating that the supposedly stolen land has actually been in his family for three thousand years, and he has a document — the bible — to prove it. According to Aharoni our rating of Smith would now return to a five.
The point of this story is that Mr. Smith (Israel) can never get above a five in this context, that being what Aharoni referred to as the “geopolitical” aspects of the situation. According to Aharoni about seventy percent of Americans support Israel, but actually neither know nor care much about it. This is a result of that seventy percent being bombarded by an endless stream of news about the Arab-Israel conflict, which causes them to turn away from the whole subject.
Aharoni’s solution to the problem — Israel being stuck at a neutral five rating, large segments of the public not really caring about or identifying with Israel — is to completely change the conversation from a broadly targeted campaign selling Israel’s side of the conflict story, to a narrowly targeted campaign that totally ignores the conflict and instead promotes Israel’s positive aspects to specific niche markets. Ths campaign is “Brand Israel”, and unless I misheard him, Aharoni claimed that he had been an originator of the concept. The target markets he mentioned included:
- Gays — the infamous pinkwashing with Tel Aviv’s gay scene as the lure
- Runners — Israel has three marathons and one Ironman triathlon each year, as well as a number of half marathons
- Investors — (see Start-up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer)
- Birding — many inter-continental bird migration routes meet over Israel, making Israel a birder’s paradise every spring and fall, as hundreds of avian species cross the region
- Environmentalists (e.g., Green Zionist Alliance)
- Art, music, film, fashion (e.g. AbbaNibi.com)
Aharoni claimed that “Brand Israel” is having its intended effect, that tourism in Israel is up substantially since the campaign began. Almost as an afterthought, as if to say “we’re getting our money’s worth”, he added that the Israeli government has spent a lot of money on market research to design the “Brand Israel” campaign, including hiring the big four accounting and consulting firm Ernst and Young to do a detailed study. The study included a comparison of Israel’s marketing problem with that of New York City following the city’s fiscal and crime crises in the nineteen seventies.
But when he went on to compare “Brand Israel” to New York City’s “Big Apple” marketing campaign, asserting that the campaign turned the city’s image around and led to a huge increase in tourism, a woman in the back spoke out: “But crime really did decline.” This opened the floodgates. A minute or two later Rabbi Kalmanofsky commented that the woman’s point was a good one, that the consul (and presumably Israel) was not addressing the substantive issues (i.e., human rights) that concern most liberal Zionists.
A man who appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties brought up the issue of Israel’s treatment of J Street. After apologizing profusely for what he was about to say, he complained that the Israeli government did not respect J Street or engage in genuine dialogue with them. Aharoni responded that J Street is a special case because they lobby on behalf of Israel’s opposition parties, activity which he claimed disrespected Israeli democracy and was beyond the pale.
There’s chutzpah and then there’s chutzpah, but this was really too much. I interrupted Aharoni to point out that the behavior he was (I believe falsely) imputing to J Street was in fact what Israeli governments, politicians and AIPAC (de facto agency of the current Israeli government) do in the United States as a matter of routine.
One of the older women present, probably in her eighties, sounding very agitated, accused Aharoni of ignoring the substance of the problem. Others made similar comments. There were a few supportive comments as well, but even a fortyish self-professed AIPAC supporter seemed miffed that what Aharoni was describing was not specific enough — he wanted proof that this plan was working.
At the end of the question period, as people rose and began to leave the room, an acquaintance who has many Israeli relatives turned to me and said in a tone of semi-disgust, “he didn’t say anything about the real issues.” I think that about summed up the night.
While I would not draw any exaggerated conclusions about the declining power of hasbara from this event, I do think that the evening clearly demonstrated the slowly but steadily fading allure of the Zionist project for liberal Jews . And the open and detailed description of the Israeli marketing campaign, “straight from the horse’s mouth,” while not surprising in its gist, was a fascinating glimpse into the official Israeli mentality.
Liberal Zionists are afraid their parents will reject them if they come out
May 11, 2012
Philip Weiss
Ilyse Hogue
For weeks now I have been meaning to post the speech below, an astonishing speech given at J Street’s conference last March 26 by a longtime progressive activist, Ilyse Hogue. It’s best I get out of the way and let Hogue speak for herself, but a few words in advance.
Hogue’s was the most majestic performance at J St after Mustafa Barghouti’s appearance. Her ten-minute speech was beautifully written, and beautifully delivered. Its thrilling surprise ending brought the crowd to its feet.
But the speech is tragic. You will see in Hogue’s words everything that is problematic in American progressive Jewish identity: our vanguard liberal position in American politics and culture coupled with our reactionary stance on Israel and Palestine and the Arab Spring, our cowardice on the one issue for which we have the greatest responsibility, and our inability to grapple with our wealth and influence, even as we are shouting down the Tea Party. You will see in Hogue’s emotionally-honest account what Israel represents to countless American Jews: family but also sexuality, and connection to a more primal, earthy, less materialistic existence.
When you wonder why Paul Krugman was so afraid to speak out, and why Rick Perlstein was afraid to speak out — big brave liberals– it’s because of these community adhesions and constraints.
Finally, notice that when Hogue does advocate a political position (on prisoners), it is a retrograde position, completely divorced from Palestinian reality, from any awareness of Palestinian conditions, from any interaction with the beautiful young people in Tahrir.
That said, I honor Hogue’s feelings. She was brave to address them so honestly. And she is representative of a huge segment of Jewish life in the Zionist captivity. But listen to her:
I’m Ilyse Hogue, and as I was listening to the incredible rich portfolio of all the speakers that precede me, I have this tune going through my head. Anyone here remember ‘Schoolhouse Rock’? I kept thinking, ‘I’m just a Jew yeah, I’m only a Jew.’ And the reason for that is, while my progressive political resume is long, when I stand here before you today, I stand here as a Jew. I’ve not been involved in progressive Jewish politics the way all the speakers that I follow have. And that’s really important for what I have to say today.
Anyone here ever seen the movie ‘Milk’? About Harvey Milk in San Francisco. Really, really, really powerful movie. For me one of the most incredible scenes in that movie was when Sean Penn playing Harvey Milk gathered all his core community together in his living room after a political loss and said to them, ‘I figured out what our obstacle to victory is. I have it now, it is that until every American knows that they know one of us, we will never win.’ When I got the call from Carinne [Luck, J Street’s vice president of field and campaigns] to be on this panel, my mind went to that scene. My mind went to that scene, because I’m not out, I’m not out as a J street supporter.
So I went to the same place that that man in the scene went to when Harvey Milk handed him the telephone and said, ‘Call your parents now, tell them that you’re out.’ I felt the same determination that now is the time to speak out and that same terrified feeling that I could be rejected by those I most love.
I’m not a shy person. I don’t scare easily. I was the political advocacy communication director for move.on org for six years, I got in my fair share of fights. [wild applause] I have negotiated with bank CEOs for stronger environmental standards on their lending policies. I have stood my ground when rightwing radical activists have shouted down congresspeople supporting the health care law in town halls of 2009. None of that stuff has scared me as much as standing here right today with you all, right now with the cameras rolling and the tweeters tweeting and saying, ‘I’m out, I’m a J Street supporter.’
I come from a very conservative Jewish Texan family. I love my parents. They’re wonderful people. I get my activism from them. My mom was the president of the JCC in Dallas, my dad was the president of the [Jewish] Federation. Some of my earliest memories are of my mom being very involved in Operation Moses airlifting Ethiopian Jews to save them from famine. My dad in his role as as president of the Holocaust Museum in Dallas has expanded the content of that museum from the the persecution of Jews in World War 2 to include the persecution of African Americans in Texas. I’m very proud of that.
My parents as well as most of our tightknit Jewish political community in Texas are also AIPAC supporters. They do lobby days in Dallas. And they are that 7 percent you hear about where Israel does decide their vote in elections. Because I love my parents, I have made sure to avoid this topic at all costs in my progressive activism. I have not wanted to go there, to disappoint them, to make them sad, to make them want to reject me.
But I love Israel, I love Israel with all my heart. The family lore has it that when I was a child and they took me I didn’t sleep for two weeks straight because I was so invigorated by my surroundings and I didn’t want to miss a single thing. I love Israel the way you do when you’re 16 and you’re free from your parents’ grasp for the first time and go on a team tour and you get to go out and experience things on your own. I fell in love with Israel when I fell in love for the first time, with a boy in Israel, drinking Maccabi beers and dancing at the nightclubs in Tiberas. Anyone been there? ‘You spin me right round, right round.’ That was the tune that will always remind me of Israel and my first boyfriend. It will always take me back there.
I remember being young and playing hide and seek in the Old City inside the Dung Gate with my Israeli cousins and teaching them how to shout, ‘Come out, come out wherever you are’ as we ran along the twisty turns in the stone walls. I remember watching my older cousins bargain in the shouk. It was a sport, I wanted to learn it, I wanted to be as exciting and passionate as my Israeli cousins. It was such a contrast to the safety of my strip mall existence back in Texas.
I love Israel with everything I have, and because I love Israel, I can’t not notice that the range is getting smaller. That when American teen tours go, they don’t go to the souk as much. They’re not free to wander the Arab quarter. Many of them don’t go to Bethlehem anymore. And the place that I used to go when I was in my mid 20s and went back to study in college… the night club I went to hang out in Tel Aviv where they played Grateful Dead tunes, that was bombed. That was bombed several years ago. It’s no longer there.
I cant help but notice, we’re retracting, that we’ve taken the unprecedented step of trading one soldier for thousands of Palestinians, emboldening Hamas, and undercutting Fatah.
And I can’t help but notice when I do talk to, when I do venture into political terrain with my Israeli and my American family that hope seems to be retreating and everybody seems to be hunkering down. And it is for this reason that I’m here today. I’m not an expert. I’m not an expert on this issue at all. Everybody who will speak here this weekend will be more an expert than me. I have probably already belied my stature by some of the language I’ve chosen to use in this talk.
It’s part of what’s kept me silent– that nuance, that sophistication that’s required to avoid the rhetorical and political landmines that we don’t even know we’ve hit until we step on them, that’s what’s kept me silent.
But I cant be silent anymore, because I understand that in order to secure the future of Israel so that my nieces can go back and create the kinds of memory– experience the magic of floating in the Dead Sea and the power of watching the sunrise over Masada– we cannot continue with the status quo. We have to open an honest conversation, and opening an honest conversation requires us to challenge the conventional wisdom that questioning– questioning in itself is heresy.
And in order to achieve the questions and the open dialogue, we all need to go somewhere where we fear to tread. When we’re in rooms like this, it’s really easy to feel like we’re the majority. But I know I’m not the only one who has to go home and get nervous and have my heart clutch when I have to have this conversation. But it’s more important than ever– to walk to the seder table, to walk into the living room, to walk into the communities, and say, I’m out, I’m proud, I support J street. And I support an incredibly open conversation, so we can secure a safe future for Israel.
I am the future of pro-Israel and I invite you to join me and ‘come out come out wherever you are.’
Palestinians shut down a second int’l aid organization to demand action on dying hunger strikers
May 11, 2012
Allison Deger
Hunger striker Tha’er Halahleh’s father protesting on Thursday, May, 10, 2012 outside of the ICRC building in Ramallah.
For the second day in a row Palestinians shut down the offices of an international organization in Ramallah, expressing dissatisfaction over a lack of action on behalf of 2500 Palestinians in their fourth week of a hunger strike against conditions of Israeli detention and imprisonment. Families of the dissident prisoners organized today’s action, which follows yesterday’s closure of a United Nations building, also in Ramallah.
And across the region additional protests were staged at Ofer prison, Megiddo prison, el-Krom, Haifa and Yaffa.
Protestor outside of the ICRC. (Photo: @occupy2gether)
“We are targeting those who we believe can help to bring an end to the hunger strike and save the lives of our prisoners,” said protester and activist Ahmad, who requested his last name not be used.
After the protesters blocked the entrance of the International Committee for the Red Cross, the aid organization issued a video response.
Elpida Papachatzi, with the ICRC’s protection department for Israel and the occupied territories, addressed protesters’ concerns on camera.
“We ask the detainee authority to transfer actually those detainees who have been on hunger strike for long term without delay.” She continued: “We urgently request the Israeli authorities to allow detainees on long term hunger strike to receive visits from their families.”
Additionally, Papachatzi said the ICRC meets with prisoners on long term hunger strike and after the visits, “we share oral messages with the families of the detainees.” And, “at the end of each visit we share our findings with the Israeli authorities in a confidential and bi-lateral discussion,” said Papachatzi.
(Photo: @occupy2gether)
At today’s ICRC protest, a group of between 10 and 12 demonstrators were present, including the father of long term hunger striker Tha’er Halahleh, who along with Bilal Diab is now in the 74th day of fast. Both Halahleh and Diab are edging closer to death. In-depth information about their health has not been widely reported, as both hunger strikers have been denied regular visits by independent physicians from Doctors without Borders.
Providing insight on their deteriorating conditions, today the Telegraph published a letter written two days ago by Halahleh, to his family:
To his parents, he wrote: “I salute you from the middle of the battle and from the depth of my suffering. My morale is very high and my will very strong. Do not worry about me.”
Turning to his wife Shireen and his daughter Namer, born a fortnight after his arrest two years ago, he added: “I cannot explain with words my love for you. I do this for the sake of God and my homeland, my wife and my daughter. Take care of her and take care of your health and forgive me that I cannot be there to hug you.”
But in a letter to his lawyer on the same day, he struck a more sombre note, writing that he had lost more than 50lb.
“I have inflammation in my hands. It comes and goes. I’m bleeding in my stomach and from my gums. I have mouth ulcers and my muscles are shrinking — I feel my body has stopped operating normally,” he wrote.
“My excrement is black and I feel very cold. The doctors have been insulting. One told me: ‘I hope you die.'”
Earlier this week, Halahleh and Diab appealed their sentences to an Israeli military judge. The court ruled to extend their detention and re-interrogate both hunger strikers, stating, “hunger strikes are not relevant to decide on length of administrative detention as such.” Without hesitation, activists said the ruling was a “death sentence.” Later that same day reports circulated that both hunger strikers had received an offer from the Israeli authorities to end their imprisonment, conditioned by deportation to Gaza. The Palestine Information Centre (PIC) was notified on the deal through Azzam Diab, brother of Bilal Diab. The PIC reported:
Detainee Azzam Diab, the brother of Bilal, said that he was surprised at the presence of Askalan jail wardens in his cell on Sunday morning. He said that they asked him to go with them to Ramle prison hospital to convince his brother and Halahle to agree to end their strike in return for their deportation to Gaza.
For decades, Israel has used deportation as a mechanism to squash the dissidence of prisoners with rumbling stomachs. During the first Intifada busloads of prisoners, sometimes hundreds were transported over the borders of both Israel and the West Bank into Lebanon. And in 1992, Israel deposited 400 Palestinians in Lebanon, handing them each $50 and some clothes as they exited their homeland. More recently, former hunger striker Hana Shalabi, whose protest lasted 43 days, was expelled to Gaza upon her release.
Critics of Israel’s deportation policy denounced the practice as a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention, which prohibits moving populations across state lines. Both Halahleh and Diab rejected Israel’s proposal, opting to continue striking against their administrative detention, or imprisonment without charge.
In addition to Halahleh and Diab, six other long-term hunger strikers are in critical condition. They are Hassan Safadi- Day 68 of hunger strike; Omar Abu Shalal; Day 66 of hunger strike; Mohammad Taj; Day 55 of hunger strike_Jaafar Azzedine; Day 51 of hunger strike; Mahmoud Sarsak; Day 50 of hunger strike; Abdullah Barghouti; Day 30 of hunger strike.
Prisoners are demanding their most basic rights from the Israeli authorities, including family visits and an end to solitary confinement, or isolation. There are a total of 19 Palestinian prisoners locked behind iron doors in isolation, including Mahmoud Issa who has spent a decade in solitary confinement. In an unexpected move today, Israeli prison authorities offered to release Issa along with 15 others, from isolation. The terms of their reintroduction into the general prison population are not yet confirmed.
But, for Ahmad who joined the prisoners’ families outside of the ICRC building today, the pressure to release those in isolation did not come from international monitors, rather “all of the pressure came from behind bars.”
‘NYT’ child abuse story is latest episode in a great awakening
May 11, 2012
Philip Weiss
Many readers think that I posted yesterday about the ultra-Orthodox child abuse exposed by the New York Times because I want to embarrass Jews. While it is true that I will use embarrassment (and rage and scorn and anything else in the armamentarium) against Jews who support the oppression of Palestinians (and partly for selfish reasons, to save my religious group from a cult), this was not my motivation yesterday. In fact, I meant to celebrate the progress of social attitudes. So let me clarify.
The Catholic child abuse scandal took me by surprise. When I was covering the Bush-Gore election in December 2000, I ran into a lonely middle-aged guy picketing a Catholic church in Washington who said he came out there every weekend to protest what was done to him. And from his shirt pocket he got out a photograph of himself as a smiling boy and said, This was me before my soul was crushed… I came home telling my wife I wanted to write about it. In one of her rare errors, she advised me not to, it was too offbeat.
Fast forward. Last Christmas I was at my wife’s cousin’s house in Philadelphia standing outside at a small bonfire with several of her cousins. We were all talking about the Bill Conlin story, which had just broken in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Conlin is a great sportswriter in Philly; I knew him when I worked at the Daily News with him many years ago. And because of the Penn State Sandusky-Paterno story, which had broken earlier that fall, three women and a man had come forward to say that in the ’70s when they were children, Conlin had touched their genitals.
[Conlin’s niece Kelly] Blanchet, now a prosecutor in Atlantic City, and the others said they were speaking out now because the alleged sexual assaults and cover-up at Pennsylvania State University brought back painful memories and reminded them of the secrecy that shrouded their own assaults.
Conlin retired when the story broke, and standing at the fire, I said I found this moving in many ways. I had thought the sexual abuse issue was special to the Catholic church– to the celibacy and hierarchy and authoritarianism of the church. No: it had bedeviled other institutions, including the militaristic sports establishment…
Well, then my wife and her cousins piped up and began talking about sexual abuse in schools they had gone to. In essence, they stated that at every school they had attended a teacher was well known as an abuser. And this had gone on everywhere in the 70s– and from time immemorial. I found their stories shocking.
It struck me that night that because of the Catholic church scandal and its sequels, our society is experiencing an awakening. We are uncovering important new terrain of man’s inhumanity to man. The truth is that sexual abuse has gone on everywhere, in countless institutions where children and power intersect. The discovery of these horrors is now widespread and imperative, and it will make society better. That is why I jumped on the Ultra Orthodox story yesterday.
(H/t ScottRoth76.)
Settlers knew Ulpana was built on privately-owned Palestinian land but went ahe
ad
May 11, 2012
Kate
and other news from Today in Palestine
Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Exile
Video: West Bank barrier threatens villagers’ way of life
BBC Magazine 9 May — Anthropologists say Battir and its lands should be given protected status — Israel is being urged to reroute its controversial West Bank barrier away from the lands of an ancient Palestinian village with a unique agricultural system. The BBC’s Wyre Davies visited Battir, whose inhabitants fear their traditional way of life will disappear … For more than 2,000 years, seven natural springs have given life to the village and its fields. Children still play, almost incongruously, in an old Roman bath built centuries ago at the spot, in the middle of the village, where one of the springs emerges. The simple irrigation system used today is as it was in ancient times. Water is shared between Battir’s eight main extended families. A simple system of manually diverting water via sluice gates means that fruit and vegetables from the small plots on the lower slopes are renowned for their freshness and quality.
link to www.bbc.co.uk
Karmei Tsur: Poisoning the vine with Zionism
ISM 8 May by ‘Joseph’ — When Ali Awad visited his orchard on Friday morning before the midday prayer he noticed nothing out of the usual. But eight hours later, when he returned to his land in order to gather grape leaves to sell in the local market, he was shocked to find that his trees had been poisoned. The grape leaves, which Ali depends on substantially for income, had died and shriveled up, making them impossible to sell. Twelve peach trees belonging to Ali’s neighbor were also destroyed. Ali’s three dunums of farm land, where 28 grape trees have been growing for over 30 years, are directly adjacent to the barbed wire fence which separates the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar from the illegal Zionist settlement of Karmei Tsur.
link to palsolidarity.org
The Occupation demolishes a water well near Beit Hanina
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 9 May — The occupation authorities demolished, on Wednesday 9th May, a water well owned by the citizen Walid Dkidk in Al-Merwaha neighborhood in Beit Hanina in occupied Jerusalem. According to local sources, bulldozers of the occupation Municipality, demolished the well under the pretext of being built without a permit, mentioning that the municipality refuses to issue building permits to Palestinians in the region. The sources pointed out that the occupation bulldozers demolished the well without any prior warning
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
IOF soldiers destroy Palestinian crops south of Al-Khalil
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 10 May — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) destroyed vast areas of Palestinian cultivated land lots south of Al-Khalil on Thursday. Othman Jabarin, the coordinator of the popular committee in Janba to the south east of Yatta town, told Quds Press that IOF soldiers deployed in a large area of land and pitched tents to launch military exercises. He said that the soldiers destroyed one thousand square dunum of land cultivated with wheat and barley. Jabarin underlined that the IOF soldiers’ act inflicted heavy losses on farmers who were about to reap their crops.
link to www.palestine-info.co.uk
Settlers prevent farmers from reaching their land
IMEMC 10 May — The General Director of the Tekoa Municipality, Tayseer Abu Mifrih, reported to WAFA News Agency that a group of settlers from the Tekoa settlement, built on Palestinian land in the Roman area, prevented the Palestinian owners of the land from accessing it for cultivation. The land is next to the settlement and is planted with olive trees, wheat and barley He added that settlers’ attacks on the Palestinian people of the town have been ongoing for approximately one week.
link to www.imemc.org
NPA orders to remove the sign of the Information Center, flags, and the decoration lights in Wadi Hilweh
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) 10 May — The Banna family received an order from Israeli national Parks Authority to remove a sign thats written on it “Behind the tourist site” that belongs to Wadi Hilweh Information Centre-Silwan and to remove the flag that says “I love you Silwan” and remove the lights as well. The locals considers this order as a racist move since these kind of orders do not apply on the settlers, the opposite is right, the settlers put signs whenever and wherever they wish without asking anyone or any authority. The Israeli National Parks Authority explained that the signs, the flags and the lights are affecting the whole view of their new National Park. The removing order had a deadline, the signs must be removed [by] Saturday 12.5.12
link to silwanic.net
Court injunction delays demolitions of Jerusalem-area Bedouin homes
IMEMC 10 May — The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center obtained on Wednesday an injunction order for Khan al-Ahmar Kurshan community. This temporary injunction prevents the demolition of homes of the eight families that received 24-hour eviction notices on Sunday, 6 May … The injunction does not have an expiry date. However, the Israeli Civil Administration has seven days to provide its response to the court regarding this decision. This response will guide any further decisions of the court …The ICA officers informed those present in the community that “the community had built illegally, and that Area C was not for Palestinians.”
link to www.imemc.org
Court reverses decision, prevents eviction of Palestinian family by JNF / Mairav Zonszein
[photo of family] 972mag 9 May — The Jerusalem District Court ruled in favor of the Ruweidi family from East Jerusalem last week (May 2), accepting the claim that their home is not ‘absentee property’, as the Jewish National Fund has sought to prove in court since the 1990s. The Ruweidi family will thus be able to continue living in their home … Sameer abu Alaa al Ruweidi, Juma‘a’s nephew, expressed the family’s relief at the court’s decision: “This house was one of the first four houses in Wadi Hilweh, built by my great great great great grandfather. First of all, we give thanks to God. We also pray that the rest of the land that we own, which has been taken by the settlers, will be returned to us, and that all of the Palestinian houses that have been taken over by settlers in Jerusalem will be returned to their owners.” The court affirmed that the house, located in the Wadi Hilweh neighborhood of Silwan and referred to as “Plot 51,” is in fact owned by Juma’a Muhammad Saalim al-Ruweidi, now 85 years old, who was born raised in the house.
link to 972mag.com
Settler leaders knew homes were built on private Palestinian land, says Ulpana developer
Haaretz 10 May — Settler leaders knew from the start that Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood was built partly on privately owned Palestinian land, police documents reveal, even though residents claim they bought the houses in good faith. Yoel Tsur, CEO of the company that built the neighborhood and owns 24 of the 30 houses that the High Court of Justice has ordered razed, admitted in a police interrogation three years ago that it was built on land whose purchase was never finalized.
link to www.haaretz.com
Netanyahu: Israeli cabinet to weigh approval of illegal West Bank outpost
Haaretz 10 May — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled Thursday a special cabinet meeting to discuss the possibility of sanctioning the West Bank outpost of Ulpana Hill through High Court-bypassing legislation. The meeting, due to be held on Friday, will be the first to include Kadima head and new Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, following a recently signed unity government deal.
link to www.haaretz.com
Ten years on from Nativity Church siege, deportees ‘forgotten’
[with 2002 video] BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 10 May — Ten years after Israel exiled 39 Palestinians taking refuge in Bethlehem’s Nativity Church, deportees say they have been forgotten by Palestinian leaders. On May 10, 2002, Israeli forces ended a 39-day siege on the church after striking a deal with Palestinian leaders to send 39 people given sanctuary in the church to Gaza and Europe. When Israeli tanks surrounded Bethlehem on April 2, 2002, around 220 locals — including around 40 priests and nuns — took shelter in the church. Over the next 39 days, eight Palestinians were killed inside the church and 27 others injured. The siege on the site believed to be Jesus’ birthplace sparked outrage in the Vatican as monks sheltering inside pleaded for international assistance. Former Bethlehem Governor Salah Tamari headed the negotiations team to end the siege, and told Ma‘an TV the deportation deal was reached without his knowledge.
After a decade in exile, deportees say they have been abandoned by the Palestinian Authority and all political factions. They have not been allowed to return to their families in the West Bank.
link to www.maannews.net
Israeli rights group: Destroying Palestinian homes illegal
Al-Akhbar 10 May — A leading Israeli human rights group has written to the country’s Attorney General to urge him to abandon plans to destroy the houses of two Palestinians who killed five Israelis. The B’Tselem letter said it was wrong to punish the families of Amjad and Hakim Awad, convicted of murdering five members of the Fogel family in 2011, for actions they did not commit. The Israeli Security Agency had urged the houses to be demolished, punishing the family for the actions of the brothers. B’Tselem stressed that such a decision would be both illegal and immoral.
link to english.al-akhbar.com
Gaza
Israeli forces detain Gaza fishermen
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 10 May — Israeli naval forces on Thursday detained two fishermen off the northern Gaza coast, Gaza’s Ministry of Agriculture said. The men, from Beit Lahiya, were fishing north of Gaza City, the ministry said in a statement … The ministry said that fishing provides the sole source of income for many families in Beit Lahiya. It said there has been a recent increase in the number of fishermen detained by Israeli forces.