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NOVANEWS

The Toulouse killings and the false specter of European anti-Semitism

Mar 26, 2012

Alex Kane

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Thousands took to the streets of Paris Sunday in a silent march against racism, anti-Semitism and terrorism. (Photo: Leela Jacinto/France24)

The anti-Semitic killings in Toulouse, France last week predictably led a slew of Israelis to raise the specter of European anti-Semitism. This scary prospect was invoked to promote the idea of Israel as the only safe home for Jews. But a close reading of the evidence on anti-Semitism in France, and in Europe as a whole, reveals the specter to be a cheap political trick, perhaps meant to help fix Israel’s “demographic problem.”

Israeli Members of the Knesset Danny Danon (Likud) and Ya’akov Katz (National Union) led the way in exploiting the murders. The Times of Israel reports:

MK Ya’akov Katz called Monday for Jews to leave France in the wake of a deadly attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse.

“There is no Jewish future in France,” Katz, of the National Union party, said, adding that the state of Israel is the future of the Jewish people, and that Jews should not trust their fate to “Sarkozy, Obama or other world leaders…”

In the wake of the deadly attack, MK Danny Danon (Likud), called for an urgent session Tuesday of the Knesset’s Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, which he chairs, to discuss the attack.

“We will not allow the pogroms of the beginning of the 20th century to return to Europe,” Danon said.

Katz and Danon are expressing the basic Zionist principle that Jews will never be safe in Europe and that Israel is their haven.

The Anti-Defamation League is also peddling a similar line of thought. “ADL Survey In Ten European Countries Finds Anti-Semitism At Disturbingly High Levels,” read the headline on a survey released March 20, a day after the killings in France.

But decades after the Holocaust, just how bad is it for Jews in Europe? It’s nowhere near the point of “pogroms,” to say the least.

Anti-Semitism in Europe exists, for sure. But Dov Waxman, an associate professor of political science at Baruch College, takes a close look at the evidence on anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe in an excellent piece of analysis on +972 Magazine. His takeaway:

The truth is that anti-Semitism in France and in Europe as a whole, though it certainly exists, is not nearly as great a danger as many outside observers in Israel and the United States believe. While the threat of anti-Semitism is real and must be taken seriously, it should not be exaggerated or blown out of proportion. In fact, far from being on the verge of catastrophe, European Jewry is experiencing a renaissance that we should be celebrating.

And his evidence:

To properly gauge the threat posed by anti-Semitism in Europe today we must rely upon empirical data, not traumatic collective memories. In France, the data reveals that anti-Semitic incidents have generally been declining in recent years since an upsurge of incidents in the first half of the 2000s following the outbreak of the Second Intifada (there was another upsurge in 2009 prompted by Israel’s war in Gaza). According to statistics compiled by the French Jewish community’s Jewish Community Protection Service (SPCJ), last year there were 389 anti-Semitic incidents, this was down 16.5 percent from the previous year (when 466 incidents occurred). Although more serious acts of anti-Semitic violence (physical assaults, vandalism, and arson) have not decreased, it is simply wrong to claim that France is experiencing a growing wave of anti-Semitism. In reality, anti-Semitism ebbs and flows in France and elsewhere.

Waxman also skewers the ADL survey:

When it released its most recent survey last week (I can’t help but wonder whether the timing was just a coincidence?) its press release declared that the survey revealed “large swaths of the population [in the ten European countries surveyed] subscribe to classical anti-Semitic notions.” While this was true in some of the countries – Hungary, Poland, and Spain – in others, anti-Semitic views (specifically, that Jews have too much power in business and in international financial markets, are more loyal to Israel than to their own country, and “talk too much” about the Holocaust) were held by only a minority of people, less than a quarter of respondents in most countries, while clear majorities rejected such views.

The press release also highlighted an increase in the overall level of anti-Semitism in France despite the fact that the purported rise in anti-Semitic attitudes there from 20 percent of the population in a previous ADL poll conducted in 2009 to 24 percent in 2012 was actually within the survey’s margin of error. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, from simply asserting that: “France has seen an increase in the level of anti-Semitism.”

Danon and Katz may very well know that there is no danger of anti-Jewish pogroms erupting in Europe. But they won’t admit it, because that would undermine a different struggle, what they see as the demographic struggle in Israel/Palestine.

An ulterior motive for the calls for Jews to move to Israel exists. The motive is the fear of Israeli Jews losing their edge in numbers over Palestinians in the territory between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. This is the “demographic threat” one hears so much talk about. Both Katz and Danon talk of it.

In a New York Times Op-Ed, Danon advocated for the annexing of the West Bank by Israel, but emphasized that in his plan, “Palestinians would not have the option to become Israeli citizens, therefore averting the threat to the Jewish and democratic status of Israel by a growing Palestinian population.” Likewise, Katz has warned that African refugees coming to Israel pose a “demographic threat.”

So Africans and Palestinians need not apply. But French Jews? Come along.

It’s important to realize that Danon and Katz are not primarily concerned with the safety of Europe’s Jews. Their knee jerk reactions to the killings in France were not concerned with the facts. So it’s not a leap to suggest that the specter of European anti-Semitism is raised in the service of consolidating a Jewish majority so that Israel will always be a “Jewish” state.

Israeli diplomat chased out of Morocco after mass protest

Mar 26, 2012

Allison Deger

 

Yesterday, Israeli diplomat David Saranga was chased out of Morocco after a mass demonstration for Palestinian rights spread across the capital. Saranga told the Jerusalem Postthat he did not feel in danger, but he chose to leave Morocco at the behest of a security officer.

The protests began in Morocco last Thursday, when the diplomat first arrived and continued to grow through the weekend, until Saranga left the country. “As early as Saturday, when we were discussing the environment, energy and women’s rights, I could see people protesting outside,” said Saranga. On Sunday “there were maybe a 100,000 demonstrators who yelled and waved signs – and that was that,” said Saranga who today spoke with Ynet News.

The protestors in Rabat called for equal access to Jerusalem and for freedom to Palestinian political prisoners. Also Israeli flags were burned. Today PressTV reported the demonstration was held in conjunction with the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), an upcoming international day of action where protestors will walk to the holy city. GMJ is scheduled for March 30th, also known as Land Day, or yom al-arda, in order to call attention to the unequal access to Jerusalem, as imposed by the Israeli occupation.

In 1994 Morocco became the second Arab country in North Africa, following Egypt, to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
 

‘Be on our side’: Bay Area ad campaign features Palestinian and Israeli women calling for U.S. sanctions against Israel

Mar 26, 2012

Barbara Erickson

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Northern California Friends of Sabeel ad in Downtown Berkeley BART Station.                       (Photo: Barbara Erickson)

Two Israeli women, one Palestinian and the other Jewish, are the latest activists to appear on San Francisco Bay Area transit posters calling for an end to U. S. military aid to Israel. Images of Lubna Masarwa and Michal Zak, who work together for the threatened Bedouin of the Negev/Naqab Desert, are now greeting commuters on Bay Area Rapid Transit stations in San Francisco and the East Bay.

“Join with us,” the posters say. “Build peace with justice and equality. End U.S. military aid to Israel.” The five advertisements also invite viewers to read about Lubna and Michal atwww.BuildPeace.org.

Northern California Friends of Sabeel, with help from members of Bay Area Jewish Voice for Peace, produced the posters as part of a campaign inspired by the Chicago group, Committee for a Just Peace in Israel Palestine. (The project is now under the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.) Last year NorCal Sabeel ran ads featuring Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions with his friend and colleague Salim Shawamreh. Two posters of Jeff and Salim are appearing concurrently with those of the women.

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Stand With Us ad. (Image: Stand With Us)

NorCal Sabeel began its advertising campaign in December 2010 using the Chicago group’s posters of two unnamed fathers, one Israeli and one Palestinian, with their young daughters. In response to these, the Israel Lobby group StandWithUs ran provocative counter ads showing a pair of angry eyes peering out from a keffiyeh, but BART removed these ads after receiving complaints that they were racist. Since then StandWithUs has placed new posters claiming that Israel lacks a partner for peace and directing viewers to a web site that charges Palestinians with teaching their children to hate.

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Culture jammer’s re-branded Stand With Us ad, February 2011. (Photo: Jamnation/IndyBay)

StandWithUs, flush with millions of Israel Lobby dollars, is able to run several times the number of ads that NorCal Sabeel can afford. So Mondoweiss readers are encouraged to help out by visiting www.BuildPeace.org and making a donation.

Visitors to the web site can read about Lubna and Michal, who guide delegations to the most vulnerable citizens of Israel, the remnants of Israel’s historic Bedouin communities. The women accompany visitors to villages like Al Araqib (demolished and rebuilt over thirty times) and Wadi al Na’am, home to 8,000 who live in the shadow of contaminating industrial plants, and they visit other Palestinian communities “unrecognized” by Israel and denied water, transportation, electricity and services readily available to Jewish settlements.

They also escort delegations to the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages, where newcomers learn that Israel is drafting a law to force the Bedouin off their ancestral lands and into townships blighted by unemployment and poverty. As Israel destroys the “unrecognized” villages, the Jewish National Fund moves in to uproot their trees and plant forests under the pretext of reclaiming the desert. Israeli media meanwhile vilify the Bedouin and say they are “invaders” on their own land.

Michal, a resident of the bi-national community Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam, spent 20 years working as a political educator, facilitating dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians, and when Lubna attended one of her workshops six years ago, the two women met for the first time. But both of them became disillusioned with dialogue that fails to challenge injustice, and they chose instead to take more direct action in confronting the racism and abuses in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Lubna highlights the Israeli policy of dividing Palestinians into separate groups and enclaves, and she works with those in the Diaspora, within the state of Israel, and under occupation. She has joined with the Palestinians of East Jerusalem and villagers in the occupied West Bank who are fighting the confiscation of their land, water and homes. She took part in four attempts to break the siege of Gaza by sea and succeeded in entering the strip twice, and she spent six months in Belgium as an advocate for Palestine at the European parliament. At the invitation of Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, Lubna also attended a forum on nonviolent strategy held in Hawaii.

Two years ago, Michal joined the staff of the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages that advocates for the 90,000 Bedouin of Israel’s southern desert. She coordinates outreach to Jewish groups and human rights organizations and helps the council tell the story of the persecuted Palestinian Bedouin.

She recounts their stories of dispossession, going back to the early days of Israel, when the tribes were driven off their original land to make way for Jewish settlements and their remnants were forced into a small corner of the desert. She also describes the current assault on their way of life, which threatens to demolish the last Bedouin communities in the name of an exclusive Jewish state.

“There is a plan to concentrate people,” she said, “to take their land and make everyone around, including the international community, think it is all in the name of progress.”

Michal has been called a traitor by some of her fellow Jews, but she finds fulfillment in her work. As a staff member of the regional council, she said, “I feel liberated.”

Lubna has faced harassment from Israeli security services. They call her to say that they are watching her. They have held her for hours of questioning and accused her of threatening the security of Israel, but she is willing to pay the price for her work. “It will not stop me from raising my voice,” Lubna said.

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Culture Jammer’s ad in Bay Area BART system, February 2011. (Photo: Jamnation/IndyBay)

We who believe in freedom

Mar 26, 2012

Noah Lepawsky Emily Katz Kishawi and Mich Levy

In response to the recent debate regarding the Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, we offer a view from a Jewish anti-Zionist perspective. We welcome debate as a part of the growth and success of an international movement deploying BDS against Israeli occupation, apartheid and colonization.

claim has been made by Dr. Norman Finkelstein (known for his condemnation of Israel’s use of the Holocaust to justify and perpetuate Israeli atrocities both historic and current) that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign will not win over public opinion towards support of Palestinian rights because its goals imply destruction of Israel. This claim contradicts his own eloquent evocation of humanitarian and human rights law – which is precisely the basis for the Palestinian call for BDS.

South Africa was not ‘destroyed’ or ‘dismantled’ when apartheid ended; rather, the illegal nature of the state was transformed.  BDS does not call for the ‘destruction of Israel’; it calls for the enforcement of international law.

Meanwhile, a call has been made to Zionist American Jews to implement a “Zionist BDS” that isolates and condemns Israeli expansion in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in order to “save Israel.” The Zionist “left” argues that Israel is a “flawed but genuine democracy” with an “ethnically-based non-democracy” beyond the green line (the land occupied in 1967), and that the latter threatens the existence of the former.

This is the fundamental contradiction of Zionism: If the occupied territories are not a democracy due to “ethnically-based” oppression, how can a Jewish state – defined by its sectarian identity – possibly be democratic? Too many defenses of unjust Israeli policy rest on a refusal to recognize that a state organized on privileging one sectarian identity is, by definition, anti-democratic.

We all share a responsibility to reject unjust laws and practices – including discrimination, exclusion and ethnic cleansing – and to insist that the guidelines by which we live are those which maintain the rights and dignity of all people.  In the United States, many believed that an economy built on slavery was compatible with democracy; that wasn’t true.  We reject the Zionist assertion that a Jewish settler-colonial state can be democratic.

The international call for boycott, divestment and sanctions to end the occupation challenges individuals who profess to respect principles of human rights and dignity to question and rescind their support for an apartheid State of Israel. Supporting the Palestinian call for BDS of Israel is one way to stand on the right side of history.

Many divergent visions of the future of Palestine exist. We can agree and disagree. Nevertheless, we welcome and encourage all initiatives, particularly from among Jews, that genuinely seek to challenge existing oppression in Palestine. We remind all participants in these debates that it is not the role of people in the US to determine the future of another people, and call for respect for the fundamental Palestinian demand for self-determination.

History has taught us that no oppression can be challenged effectively except through the participation and active leadership of those who are principally affected. We are therefore particularly alarmed by suggested campaigns that seem to seek to remove Palestinian demands from the center of the struggle against the occupation. Such campaigns, even if they outwardly challenge the occupation, will, at best, result in a less explicit apartheid and a less recognized occupation.  A just resolution needs to include, at minimum, the three stated rights of the Palestinian civil society call: 1) Ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the apartheid wall; 2)Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3) Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

The ‘clash of civilizations’ and the death of an Iraqi mother in San Diego

Mar 26, 2012

Adam Horowitz

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Students don hijabs and hoodies in solidarity with slaying victims Shaima Alawadi and
Trayvon Martin (Photo: eastcountymagazine.org) For more see Facebook here.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Reporting from San Diego— El Cajon police are asking for the public’s help in its investigation into the fatal beating of an Iraqi immigrant and have not ruled out the possibility that Shaima Alawadi was the victim of a hate crime.

“We’re investigating all aspects of this crime,” Lt. Mark Coit said Sunday. “The minute you rule out a possible motive, you start to get tunnel vision. As of now, we have not ruled out any of the motives for why people kill people.”

Near the body of the 32-year-old Alawadi, police found what has been described as a threatening note. Police have declined to release the text, but relatives and friends say the handwritten note warned Alawadi to “go back to your own country” and labeled her a terrorist.

The family told police they had received a similarly threatening note several days earlier but considered it a prank by teenagers.

Alawadi was found unconscious Wednesday morning in the dining room of the family’s home by her 17-year-old daughter. She was taken to a hospital, where she was diagnosed as brain-dead. Her family decided on Saturday to discontinue life support.

Police said that whatever the motive, the attack appears to be “an isolated event,” not part of an overall pattern of violence toward immigrants.

Justin Raimondo offers some more details and context at Antiwar.com:

On Wednesday, in the quiet San Diego suburb of El Cajon, California, the teenage daughter of Shaima Alawadi returned home to find her mother drowning in a pool of blood. There were signs of forced entry at the back of the house. Someone had broken in and beaten her mother nearly to death with a tire iron.

Next to her body was a note: “Go back to your own country, you terrorist.”

A similar note had been found tacked to the family’s door a few weeks earlier, but Shaima had dismissed it as a kid’s prank.

This kind of hate is nothing new for San Diego. In 2010, a plan to build a mosque in nearby Temecula resulted in a series of protest  demonstrations by local nut-jobs. A woman in a hijab was hauled off a Southwest Airlines flight in at San Diego airport in 2011 by TSA agents, and told the captain didn’t “feel comfortable” with her on the flight: this was around the same time braying demagogue Peter King (R-New York) was holding hearings on the “Muslim fifth column in America.” Last year, a similar“go back to where you came from” message was delivered by someone who repeatedly punched a Muslim cab driver, who had been observed praying. See herehere, and here for more evidence of the climate of hate darkening the otherwise sunny skies of this California redoubt of bigotry and military families.

If you want some idea of what’s going on in Southern California, these days, take a look at this video of a demonstration in Yorba Linda, where an inter-religious charity event for the homeless was surrounded by hundreds of screeching banshees, screaming their hatred of Muslims. And lest you think this is just a fringe phenomenon, note that no less than three elected officials addressed this hate-fest: congressmen Ed Royce and Gary Miller, and Villa Park councilwoman Debra Pauly – all three of them Republicans, naturally.

As children and women in hijabs walk with quiet dignity into the charity venue, the crowd unleashes its fury of hate: “Go home, go home, go home!” they yell. Is it a coincidence that this is the very same message in the note from Shaima’s killer?

(h/t Dan Crowther)

Barghouti and Waskow debate BDS on Democracy Now

Mar 26, 2012

Adam Horowitz

 

Cultivate Hope – a poem for Hana Shalabi

Mar 26, 2012

Adam Horowitz

 

From YouTube:

Hana Shalabi is a Palestinian political prisoner. She was released from over two years in administrative detention on 18 October 2011, as part of the prisoner exchange deal. She was re-arrested less than four months later on 16 February 2012, and immediately began a hunger strike in protest of her detention.
Cultivate Hope, a poem written on day 40 of Hana Shalabi’s hunger strike, by Rafeef Ziadah / music by Phil Monsour.

UPDATE: Hamas, family misled AP reporter on death of five month old child

Mar 26, 2012

Today in Palestine

UPDATE: Hamas blames fuel shortage for Gaza baby’s death
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A Gaza man said Sunday his 5-month-old baby died two days ago after the generator powering his respirator ran out of fuel, but the report was called into question after it emerged that the timing of the baby’s death was misrepresented.

The baby’s death — which was confirmed to The Associated Press by a man identified as the father and a Gaza hospital official — would have been the first linked to the territory’s energy crisis, and the report appeared to be an attempt by Gaza’s Hamas rulers to use it to gain sympathy.

However, the AP later learned that news of Mohammed Helou’s death first appeared March 4 in the local Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds, in an article written by a relative of the bereaved family. . .

The Al-Quds article contained the same details as the one recounted by the Helou family on Sunday, saying Mohammed died from choking on his own phlegm. The story quoted that father as saying their generator ran out of fuel, causing their son’s respirator to stop working and ultimately causing the baby to choke to death.

The fuel crisis was relevant in early March as well, but Hamas apparently missed the report in Al-Quds — a publication considered loyal to its rival, Fatah — and Hamas was now trying to recycle the story to capitalize on the family’s tragedy.

Confronted by the AP with the newspaper story, the family and Hamas Gaza health official Bassem al-Qadri continued to insist the baby arrived dead at a Gaza City hospital on Friday night.

AP reporter Diaa Hadad who covered the story and the Hamas spin commented on Twitter:

bit.ly/GQMAz9 #Hamas misrepresented a story. Two Hamas officials misled us and so did the family.

— Diaa Hadid (@diaahadid) March 25, 2012

@richards1052 One of the worst days of my professional life, because I am obsessive about checking and cross checking

— Diaa Hadid (@diaahadid) March 26, 2012

Gaza baby dies as power cut shuts breathing aid
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — A seven-month-old baby in Gaza died on Friday evening after medical equipment he was connected to switched off as a result of a power cut, a Hamas-affiliated TV channel said. Gaza medical spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya confirmed the incident, adding that the infant was born with respiratory problems and doctors had recommended the use of mechanical breathing apparatus to be used at home. The father of the child had turned on the apparatus before going to sleep but during the night a power cut caused it to switch off, resulting in the infant’s death, Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV reported.
link to www.maannews.net

Israel’s claimed easing is false. Besieged Gazans remain isolated. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) assessed conditions in January. Except for limited amounts of agricultural products, Gaza’s export economy’s suffering. In addition, imports of basic needs and raw materials fall well below minimal needs. Karm Abu Salem crossing was closed nearly 30% of the time. Incoming truckloads are 28.5% of pre-siege levels.

link to sjlendman.blogspot.com

Ethnic Cleansing / Destruction of Homes / Theft of Natural Resources / Refugees
IOA serves demolition notice to Palestinian family in Bethlehem
The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) served demolition notice to a Palestinian family in Nahalin village to the west of Bethlehem on Friday.

There are approximately 50 outposts – essentially baby settlements – in the West Bank, all illegal according to Israeli law. Migron, established in 2002, is supposed to be dismantled by the end of March, 2012. So why isn’t that going to happen?

Israel’s Exploitation Highlighted on Water Day
In the wake of World Water Day, both local and international organisations have issued reports and organised demonstrations to raise attention to the exploitation and demolition of water resources by Israeli settlers to the detriment of Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Thabet: Stop oppressing Palestinians in Iraq
Thabet organization for Palestinian refugees right of return has called for ending the oppression befalling Palestinian refugees in Iraq.

Violence / Aggression Against Palestinians
Two Children Injured By Army Fire Near Ramallah
A Palestinian child was wounded in the face by a rubber-coated metal bullet fired by Israeli soldiers who attacked nonviolent protesters against the Wall and Settlements in Nabi Saleh village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah; a second child was shot and injured in the leg.
link to www.imemc.org

A family’s nightmare: Beaten and kidnapped by illegal settlers near Qadumim as Israeli military facilitates the crime
A family of four were kidnapped by settlers on Thursday afternoon while having a picnic close by an outpost near Qadumim. When soldiers arrived at the scene they chased away the relatives of the kidnapped family with tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets alongside settlers throwing stones. It was around 4.30 pm on Thursday that the El Seddi family, who were eating almonds on their families land in the outskirts of Jit, east of Nablus, was kidnapped by a gang of settlers. The settlers approached the family on four wheelers in a group of about ten young men with their shirts wrapped around their heads to conceal their faces.

Jewish settlers shoot at, wound Palestinian villager
A Palestinian man in his forties was wounded in his shoulder when Jewish settlers shot at Palestinian villagers in Burka village to the east of Ramallah city on Saturday.

The bullet shot from a short distance hit the boy in the face penetrating his right cheek and piercing it. Israeli Border Police officers shot a rubber-coated bullet at 15 year-old Ezz Tamimi’s face from a distance of about 20 meters, during the weekly demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh today. The bullet, which hit the boy’s cheek, went through it, gouging a large hole in it. The Israeli army’s own open-fire regulations forbid the use of rubber-coated bullets against minors.
Israeli soldiers attack South African and Portuguese ambassadors with tear gas
The South African and Portuguese ambassadors to occupied Palestine were reportedly attacked with tear gas grenades by Israeli soldiers during their participation in Kafr Qaddum march.
Soldiers Invade Several Towns Near Hebron
Israeli army invaded on Thursday at night several towns near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and also invaded several neighborhoods in the city, clashes were reported.

A few nights ago the Israeli military raided the home of imprisoned Palestinian protest leader Bassam Tamimi. During the raid in Nabi Saleh, in the occupied territories, a relative of Tamimi filmed four soldiers traipsing through the family home—pawing around in the children’s bedroom. While the kids are sleeping, the soldiers read through their school notebooks, confiscating one with a pink top cover. And they break a shelf in the closet. They are clumsy and oafish.

Nabi Saleh Stands Strong in the Face of Nightly Raids
Friday 23 March 2012–The tiny village of Nabi Saleh once again assembled together to hold another of its weekly nonviolent protests against the neighboring illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish, as well as Israel’s occupation at large.
link to www.palestinemonitor.org

It was under a bright, sunny sky that the people of Kufr Qaddoum once again gathered to protest against the roadblock which isolates them from the rest of the West Bank. The past week there had been much frustration and anger since Murad Ashtawi, member of the Popular Committee, was arrested during last week’s demonstration.
Palestinian Hunger Strikers
Israel may force feed a Palestinian hunger striker in a bid to prevent her from continuing her protest, Amnesty International said on Friday. The rights group condemned any attempts to force Hana Shalabi, who has been on hunger strike for 37 days in protest of her continued detention without trial, to eat as “cruel” and called on Israel to either charge or release her. “There are reports that the Israeli authorities may be considering force-feeding her, which could constitute cruel and inhuman treatment. As a general rule, hunger strikers should not be forcibly fed,” a statement from the group said.
Ashqar: Number of solidarity hunger strikers on the rise
The number of Palestinian prisoners going on hunger strike in solidarity with detained hunger strikers Hana’a Shalabi and MP Ahmed Al-Haj had risen to 26 in various prisons.

Political Prisoners & Detainees
The Israeli occupation forces escalated their arrest campaigns in lines of Palestinians since the start of 2012 and rounded up around 900 including children, women, lawmakers, and liberated prisoners.

Early Monday morning, on the 20th of March, Israeli soldiers raided a Palestinian home in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, terrorized a family and arrested a young woman named Amani Al Khandaqja. The soldiers arrived at 2am, whilst the family was sleeping, they surrounded and then entered the house. One of Amani’s brothers was awoken by loud voices outside his window, upon looking out he saw a number of soldiers interrogating members of a neighboring household. As he ran to wake up his father, Saleh, a series of loud, hard bangs could be heard on the front door of the household.  After repeated banging, Saleh went down to open the door, and the Israeli Occupying Forces violently forced entry into Amani’s home. The entire family of 9 were forced onto the roof of their own home with their hands held above their heads and held at gun point.
The Palestinian Ministry of Detainees reported Saturday that Palestinian political prisoners in Nafha, Majiddo, Galboa’, and Ramon Israeli prisons, returned their meals on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, in protest to forced DNA tests conducted on them by, under gunpoint, the Israeli soldiers.

Confined Cruelty: Israeli Treatment of Palestinian Minors, Graham Peebles
For many Palestinian children their childhood is lived under a cloak of fear, and the threat of violence and abuse at the hands of an armed force that stalks the streets of their homeland. In the eleven years since 2000, Israeli forces have killed “1,471” (1) children in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the bulk of which are aged between 13 and 17 years old. The children of Gaza have been and continue to be at greater risk, with almost a thousand murdered in the last twelve years, on the streets of their city, on their way to and from school, whilst playing with friends, shopping for their family or simply relaxing in their homes. Most are shot randomly, indiscriminately, or killed as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks. Around 50 were taken prematurely from their families by unexploded ordnance.

Popular Protests / Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Dozens of local residents, and International peace activists, held the weekly nonviolent protest against the Annexation Wall and Settlements in Al-Ma’sara village, near Bethlehem; Israeli soldiers attacked the protestors leading to clashes leading to clashes between local youths and the army, no injuries were reported.

Beit Ommar Weekly Demonstration Against the Occupation

On Saturday, March 24, 2012, Palestinian, Israeli and international activists held a demonstration in Beit Ommar against the Karmei Tsur settlement. Karmei Tsur is built on stolen Palestinian land and makes it impossible for the farmers of Beit Ommar to access parts of their land. The settlement is highly secured by military forces and fences. Today’s demonstration was against the settlement, and against any further encroachments on Palestinian land. It also marked the 38th day of Hana Shalabi’s hunger strike in protest of her administrative detention. Additionally, demonstrators protested the expulsion of eight minors from Beit Ommar, to be followed up in Ofer Military Court tomorrow.

Campaign Against the Israeli Occupation Military Decision to Deport 8 Minors from Beit Ommar

The Ofer Israeli occupation military court demanding the deportation of 8 boys from the area of ??their residence in Beit Ommar. In a precedent the first of its kind against Palestinian children, Ofer Military Court, which was held on Tuesday, called for the deportation of 8 young minors from their homes In Beit Ommar for a distance of at least 30 kilometers from the town, according to Israeli military prosecution claim: that these young minors are a danger to the security of the settlers who are going through from Hebron Jerusalem Road.
The words come from Hana Shalabi, on hunger strike for 38 days. On Monday, March 19, 2012, there was a demonstration in Hebron in support of her and others in administrative detention. 18th of October 2009 Hana was released after more than two years in administrative detention, connected to the prison exchange (1027 Palestinians for Gilad Shalit). 16th of February this year, 50 soldiers with dogs showed up at her door, arresting her once again, without charge or further explanation. She went on hunger strike immediately, in protest against the violent and chargeless arrest. After one week her lawyers received a court order putting her in administrative detention.

A demonstration was organised on Thursday afternoon at Ibn Rushd Square, in the southern West Bank city of al-Khalil to protest political detention by the PA in Ramallah.

Global March to Jerusalem Set for 30 March
On 30 March thousands people from throughout the world will join Palestinians from the Middle East and the Diaspora in a Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), in a day of non-violent demonstrations in Palestine and in the surrounding countries aimed to promote Palestinian self-determination.

Imperfect revolution: Palestine’s 15 March movement one year on, Linah Alsaafin
One year after the 15 March movement’s call for national unity, what has the youth-led mobilization achieved?

Phan Nguyen exposed a good deal of the seamy underside of the StandWithUs-Ministry of Foreign Affairs pinkwashing campaign here in the Pacific NW that ended with the Seattle city LGBT Commission cancelling a gala reception it had planned with an Israeli LGBT delegation brought here to showcase Israel as a haven for gay rights (in opposition to the supposed repression of said rights in the Arab world).  The Seattle city commission took this action after a hearing at which proponents and opponents of the visit by the Israeli delegation got to air their views.  Opponents did not object to meeting with the Israeli delegation.  They objected to the government funding of the tour and the political/hasbara ramifications that went along with such funding.

Over the past several years, the Israeli far-right think tank, the Institute for Zionist Strategies, has accused Tel Aviv University (TAU) and other academic institutions of being hotbeds of anti-Zionism.  Here is how I described the campaign waged by IZS in a

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