Tag Archives: Israel/Palestine

Headlines from the Occupation

– “Jewish settlers ‘kill Palestinian’
A Palestinian shepherd has been shot dead by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian security and government officials. The young man, identified as Yehia Apa Riham, was among a group of shepherds grazing their flocks south of Nablus and near the Itamar settlement when they were attacked by the settlers, security officials said.” (Read more from aljazeera.net)

– “Olmert decries ‘evil wind of extremism’ in Israel
JERUSALEM – An ‘evil wind of extremism’ is threatening Israel’s democracy, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Sunday, after a pipe bomb attack wounded a professor critical of Israel’s settler movement. Olmert’s forceful comments came amid growing concerns in Israel about violence by hard-line radicals, including extremist West Bank settlers. Israeli defense officials and human rights groups have noted a rise in settler violence against Palestinian soldiers and Israeli soldiers in recent months. On Sunday, police were investigating the shooting death of a 19-year-old Palestinian shepherd whose body was discovered in ravine in a remote area of the West Bank. The shepherd’s relatives blamed Jewish settlers, but police said they were still investigating. Also, dozens of Israeli civilians entered the Palestinian village of Kufr Diek in the West Bank late Saturday, smashing the windows of several cars and homes, said the mayor, Jamal al-Diek.” (Read more from news.yahoo.com)

Headlines from the Occupation

-“Army: Settlers have crossed red line
Senior IDF officers on Thursday lambasted the legal system’s inability to effectively crack down on radical West Bank settlers after a group of young far-right activists went on a rampage that culminated in an attack on an IDF position near Ramallah. . . . The reservists tried to fend off the attackers, who called the soldiers ‘Nazis.’ Earlier in the day, soldiers clashed with settlers near the settlement of Yitzhar, south of Nablus, after they began throwing rocks at passing Palestinian cars. . . . Two soldiers were wounded in the clashes – one with a fracture in his hand. The other soldier was treated at the scene after a settler’s dog bit him after being ordered to attack by his owner.” (Read more from jpost.com)

This is how humans behave when we’re certain we have God on our side.

-“Israel’s Dark Art of Ensnaring Palestinian Collaborators
Collaboration comes in various guises, including land dealers, who buy Palestinian-owned land to sell it to settlers or the Israeli government; armed agents who assist Israeli soldiers in raids; and infiltrators into the national organizations and their armed wings who foil resistance operations. . . . With hospitals and medicines in short supply, some patients have little hope of recovery without treatment abroad or in Israel. According to the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights, the Shin Bet is exploiting the distress of these families to pressure them to agree to collaborate in return for an exit permit. Last month, the group released details of 32 cases in which sick Gazans admitted they were denied permits after refusing to become informants. . . . As with other occupation regimes, Israel has long relied on the most traditional way of recruiting collaborators: torture. While a decision by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 banned torture, the evidence suggests the Shin Bet simply ignored the ruling. Two Israeli human rights groups, B’Tselem and Hamoked, found last year that seven “special” interrogation methods amounting to torture are still being regularly employed, including beatings, painful binding, back bending, body stretching and prolonged sleep deprivation. Detention provides other opportunities for recruitment. In the past 17 years alone, 150,000 Palestinians have been prosecuted by the military regime. According to the Israeli group Yesh Din, 95 percent of these trials end in plea bargains, offering yet another chance to persuade a detainee to turn informant in return for a reduced sentence.” (Read more from antiwar.com)

Israel Pushes Ahead with Settlement Expansion

“by Mel Frykberg

JERUSALEM – Israel has published tenders for the construction of 1,761 illegal housing units for Israeli settlers in occupied east Jerusalem alone, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now.

The expansion plans come despite promises by the Israeli government at last year’s peace summit at Annapolis, Maryland (in the US) to freeze all settlement growth.

‘Once again this government has shown that its words and commitments are meaningless, and they have no intention of keeping to their word,’ says Peace Now.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has stressed repeatedly that settlement construction or expansion in the West Bank is contrary to international law and Israel’s commitments under the ‘road map’ peace process.

The road map was a series of peace-building measures proposed by US President George W. Bush in 2002 and subsequently developed by the diplomatic Quartet of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States.

Ban Ki-moon further urged Israel to freeze all settlement activity and to dismantle outposts erected since March of 2001.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, normally a diehard supporter of Israel, also expressed her concern about the settlement building during her last visit to Israel several months ago.” (Read more from antiwar.com)

. . . but that doesn’t stop our government from giving tax breaks to organizations funding the settlements. (See Below)

AIPAC: The UN is irrelevant! Fire Ban Ki-Moon!

US tax breaks help Jewish settlers in West Bank

A better word for settlers is colonists.

“JERUSALEM, Aug 25 (Reuters) – The United States says Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threaten any peace between Israel and the Palestinians — yet it also encourages Americans to help support settlers by offering tax breaks on donations.

. . . .

Pro-settler groups say they are entitled to the tax breaks because their work is ‘humanitarian’, not political, and reject any comparison to Palestinian charities, some of which face U.S. sanctions over suspected links to Islamist groups like Hamas.

The full extent of tax-exempt U.S. funding for settlements is unclear because so many groups are involved and their spending practices are not always transparent. But a review by Reuters of U.S. tax records found 13 tax-exempt organisations openly linked to settlements that have raised more than $35 million in the last five years alone.

. . . .

In one example, when settlers took over a new building in the flashpoint city of Hebron last year, a tax-exempt New York organisation sprang into action to solicit funds for renovations to accommodate more families.

The Hebron Fund, which raises an average of $1.5 million a year to support Jewish settlers in the city, and other groups said they were as entitled to tax exemptions as other charities.

‘Are you saying you can get a charitable deduction for helping starving people in New York City but you can’t get a charitable deduction for helping starving people in Judea and Samaria,’ said Sondra Oster Baras, president of Christian Friends of Israeli Communities, using an Israeli term for the West Bank. ‘That’s an argument that doesn’t make sense.’

. . . .

Ian Lustick, a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, played down the chances the tax breaks will be rolled back. ‘It’s a political hot potato,’ Lustick said, citing the clout of U.S. pro-Israel groups to block any change.”

(Read more from alertnet.org)

SEE ALSO:

–Occupation by Another Name: Meron Benvenisti in an excellent article mentions the “success of the propaganda campaign known as ‘negotiations with the Palestinians,’ which convinces many that the status quo is temporary.”

News From The Occupation

–Israel fears scathing U.S. report on its West Bank policies. I’ll be very surprised if this report gets any press in the U.S.

–UN report: At 45%, Gaza unemployment is highest in the world.

–US Revokes Visas for Gaza Fulbright Students.

–Settler arrested in failed rocket attack on Palestinian town “Police said Sunday they have arrested a settler suspected of involvement in a failed rocket attack on a Palestinian village in the West Bank. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that police arrested Gilad Herman, a student at a Jewish seminary in the settlement of Yitzhar.”

–U.S. protests eviction of Arab family from East Jerusalem home Like many Palestinians, the Al-Kurds are now multiple-order refugees. They were kicked out of West Jerusalem in 1950. Three predictions: 1) The US media will continue to ignore the bureaucratic strangling of Palestinian populations. 2) The US diplomat behind this criticism will be blacklisted and never work in the Middle East again. 3) Whatever little press these stories get will be immediately countered. The issue will be reframed, accuser will become accused, like this.

–West Bank residents face severe water shortage as drought continues

–Olmert: Living with 270,000 Arabs in Jerusalem means more terror “Whoever thinks its possible to live with 270,000 Arabs in Jerusalem must take into account that there will be more bulldozers, more tractors, and more cars carrying out [terror] attacks,” Olmert said, referring to two incidents this month in which Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem deliberately plowed bulldozers into passing cars in the capital, causing casualties.” . . . therefore we should ethnically cleanse . . . I mean . . . um . . . terrorism, terrorism, terrorism.

–Israeli soldiers kill 11-year-old terrorist. See the full child-body-count here: rememberthesechildren.com.

–Cartoon: hypocrisy of Obama’s “These Walls Cannot Stand.”

–Pogrom against Palestinians “In some areas, like in the Hebron region, settler attacks have assumed pogrom-like proportions. What is particularly outrageous is that most of these attacks take place in full view of Israeli soldiers who watch passively as heavily armed settlers gang up on helpless Palestinian civilians. The latest acts of savagery included an assault on a Palestinian wedding party and the attempted lynching of an Arab boy near Hebron, an attack on a civilian car near Nablus that caused a massive brain hemorrhage to a 6-year-old girl who is now fighting for her life, beating up and stoning Arab children near Tuwwani in the southern West Bank and setting fire to Palestinian groves and fields in several parts of the occupied territories.”

–Activists try to break the siege of Gaza with sailing boats

Time Columnist Dares to Speak Out

“I have now been called antisemitic and intellectually unstable and a whole bunch of other silly things by the folks over at the Commentary blog. They want Time Magazine to fire or silence me. This is happening because I said something that is palpably true, but unspoken in polite society: There is a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who unsuccessfully tried to get Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, and then successfully helped provide the intellectual rationale for George Bush to do it in 2003. Their motivations involve a confused conflation of what they think are Israel’s best interests with those of the United States. They are now leading the charge for war with Iran.

Happily, these people represent a very small sliver of the Jewish population in this country. Unhappily, their views have had an impact in the highest reaches of the Bush Administration–and seem to have an influence on John McCain’s campaign as well.

. . . .

I am not going to make the same mistake twice. I don’t think a war with Iran is coming, thank God, but this time I am not going to pull any punches. My voice isn’t very important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m going to do my job–and that means letting you know exactly where I stand and what I believe. I believe there are a small group of Jewish neoconservatives who are pushing for war with Iran because they believe it is in America’s long-term interests and because they believe Israel’s existence is at stake. They are wrong and recent history tells us they are dangerous. They are also bullies and I’m not going to be intimidated by them.”

(Read more from www.time-blog.com’s Joe Klein)

Iran Watch

Here’s what I know. Here’s what I see:

Since Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mullen visited Israel early this month, the consensus among bloggers has been that an Iran strike by the U.S. is off the table. Worldtribune.com has even reported that an attack in 2008 is off the table for Israel, and a nascent diplomatic effort seems to have formed in the White House. I’m relieved, but the drama continues:

Predictably, The neo-con voices in the media are in a tizzy:

MSNBC’s Fred Kagan said the only way to force Iran to halt its nuclear program is to attack. (Video Here)

John Bolton said the U.S. should help Israel strike Iran. “We will be blamed for the strike anyway, and certainly feel whatever negative consequences result, so there is compelling logic to make it as successful as possible.” Bolton also predicted that Israel will attack between the U.S. election and inauguration. This ex-Mossad chief agrees.

The reason for this window is that the Israeli war crowd wants to attack while the current administration is in power, but fears an attack would tilt the election toward Obama. (They prefer McCain)

The issue continues to feature prominently in our politics. Obama has adopted an increasingly hostile tone toward Iran, barely distinguishable from McCain’s.

Meanwhile, our ever-obsequious Congress is considering House Resolution 326, which would pretty much guarantee a war with Iran. The anti-war movement (whose existence Big Media does not acknowledge) has had some success pushing back against this idiotic legislation.

What happened to Mohammed Omer?

Mohammed Omer

They told him: “Oh, you have love in your culture?”

–Award winning Gaza journalist assaulted by Shin Bet
–He details his ordeal on Democracy Now
–The Dutch government says it is shocked by Mohammed Omer’s treatment. The former ambassador Jan Wijenberg said: “This is by no means an isolated incident, but part of a long-term strategy to demolish Palestinian social, economic and cultural life … I am aware of the possibility that Mohammed Omer might be murdered by Israeli snipers or bomb attack in the near future.”

Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran

“Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn’t want to wait for a new administration.”

Read more from CBSNews.com

See Also:

The AIPAC Girl: “[Nancy Pelosi] quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.” This war-enabling, AIPAC-inspired move by Pelosi is also covered at accuracy.org.

What Obama Said

The unfortunate truth is that any and every media-approved politician goes before AIPAC and promises whatever they want. Even Obama, the supposed peace candidate, joins them in their great lies. Iran is NOT a threat to the the United States. Obama also weighed in very inappropriately on the long-standing issue of Jerusalem. I’m no longer sure I can vote for him.

I.

from ynetnews.com (6/4/08): “Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Wednesday Iran posed a ‘grave’ danger in the Middle East and vowed to stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

‘The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat,’ Obama said in a speech to a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. ‘I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon; everything,’ he said to a standing ovation. (Reuters)”

-I’m tired of everyone pretending like this shit isn’t being said. He, like McCain, is pledging another needless war. More and death and destruction, more hatred and lies by our media, more deployments for our military, more coffins, more trillions of dollars borrowed from Asia or printed out of thin air. Enough is enough. The threat of terrorism best met by good police, and good border security, not military occupations of foreign countries, and certainly not by invasions of countries under false pretenses.

See Also:
–From salem-news.com: Carter Reveals Israel’s Possession of 150 nuclear weapons
–From thinkprogress.org: Lieberman, Bennett, And Kristol See Petraeus Hearing As ‘An Argument’ For ‘Going Into Iran’
–from english.aljazeera.net: Arabs Shocked by Obama Speech

II.

from ynetnews.com (6/4/08): “Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at an AIPAC meeting in Jerusalem saying that ‘Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel.'”

-Why does the road to the U.S. Presidency seem to run through Israel? Jerusalem was captured by Israel during the 1967 war. It’s status is a long-standing and very controversial issue between Israel and Palestine. Obama has no business siding so definitively on Israel’s side for political gain.

See Also:
–from nytimes.com: Israel Demolishes 8 Arab Homes in Jerusalem
–from haaretz.com: Israel razes Arab home in J’lem over illegal building permit. “While the home was built without a permit, Palestinians say it’s virtually impossible for them to obtain building permits in Jerusalem.”
–The Israeli Committee Against House Demolition
–from ynetnews.com: Israel approves plan to build 1,300 homes in East Jerusalem.
–from news.bbc.co.uk: “The rights group, B’Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks. A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way. So far, no-one has been arrested.” BBC News obtained video footage of yet another violent settler attack against Palestinians, this time, a 70-year-old farmer and his 58-year-old wife. Realize that this is what our taxes subsidize.
–from upi.com: US suspends move of embassy to Jerusalem.