Israel admits it covertly canceled residency status of 140,000 Palestinians

open quoteDocument obtained by Haaretz reveals that between 1967 and 1994 many Palestinians traveling abroad were stripped of residency status, allegedly without warning.

Israel has used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994, the legal advisor for the Judea and Samaria Justice Ministry’s office admits, in a new document obtained by Haaretz. The document was written after the Center for the Defense of the Individual filed a request under the Freedom of Information Law.

The document states that the procedure was used on Palestinian residents of the West Bank who traveled abroad between 1967 and 1994. From the occupation of the West Bank until the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians who wished to travel abroad via Jordan were ordered to leave their ID cards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing.

. . . .

Today, a similar procedure is still in place for residents of East Jerusalem who hold Israeli ID cards; they lose their right to return if they have been abroad for seven years.

Palestinians who found themselves “no longer residents” include students who graduated from foreign universities, businessmen and laborers who left for work in the Gulf. Over the years, many of them have started families, so the number of these Palestinians and their descendants is probably in the hundreds of thousands, even if some have died.

Also, several thousands Palestinians with close links to the Palestinian Authority were allowed to return over the years, as did a number of Palestinians whose cases were upheld by the joint committee for restoration of Palestinian ID cards. As of today, 130,000 Palestinians are listed as “no longer residents.”

Among them is the brother of the Palestinians’ chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat. Erekat’s brother left for studies in the United States and was not allowed to come back; he still lives in California.close quote (Read more from haaretz.com)

Israeli Soldiers testify, post Youtube videos about routine harassment and humiliation of Palestinian civilians

open quoteSome of the former soldiers describe the “neighbour procedure”, a term for the use of Palestinian civilians, often children, as human shields to protect soldiers from suspected booby traps or attacks by militants. The procedure was ruled illegal by Israel’s high court in 2005.

Others speak of routine harassment of civilians at checkpoints, arbitrary intimidation and collective punishment.

Idan Barir, who served in the artillery corps, describes in his testimony how an officer forced Palestinian civilians to crawl in a “race” towards a checkpoint near Jenin in the West Bank during the 2000 olive harvest. Only the first three out of “teams” of eight were allowed to pass.

Another, Itamar Schwarz, says Palestinian homes were routinely ransacked in search operations. He describes the day of the World Cup final in 2002, when soldiers confined a Palestinian woman and child in the kitchen of their home for two hours while the unit watched the game in the middle of an operation.

Arnon Degani, who served in the Golani brigade, describes the distress of a young woman who tearfully pleaded to be allowed to pass through a Jenin checkpoint in order to sit an important exam. He gradually came to understand, he says, that the Israeli army’s intention was “to enforce tyranny on people who you know are regular civilians” and to “make it clear who’s in control here”.close quote (Read more from guardian.co.uk)

Mideast envoy George Mitchell to resign

open quoteOn the surface it appears that president Obama has given up on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and, frankly, given the evidence, it is difficult imagining that there is something different beneath the surface. To wit:

Special Envoy George Mitchell resigned, clearly angry at the lack of support his peace efforts received from the White House – and his resignation letter was about as curt and cold as any in recent memory. The announcement of his resignation followed reports that the president’s Thursday speech on the Middle East will, amazingly, say virtually nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A day after Mitchell’s resignation came news that the president had decided that he will speak at this month’s AIPAC conference, the traditional setting for pandering to the Israeli government and, more significantly, to Israel-centred political donors.close quote (Read more from english.aljazeera.net)

UN report: Israel confiscated 35% of Jerusalem territories for settlements

open quoteA report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has confirmed that since its occupation in 1967, authorities of the Israeli occupation have confiscated about a third of the territory of East Jerusalem in order to expand settlement construction.

Ray Dolphin, the author of a report entitled “East Jerusalem: the basic human concerns”, said that Israeli policies and measures give priority to Israeli settlers in Jerusalem at the expense of the city’s indigenous inhabitants, pointing out that the Israeli occupation has confiscated thirty-five per cent of the Palestinian territories in eastern Jerusalem, for the benefit of projects aimed to expand Jewish settlements and to build other new settlements.close quote (Read more from middleeastmonitor.org.uk)

Israel ‘approves new West Bank settler homes’

open quoteJERUSALEM — Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has approved the construction of 294 new homes in Beitar Ilit settlement on the occupied West Bank, anti-settlement NGO Peace Now reported on Sunday.

It also said that work had started on more than 2,000 settler homes since the end in September of Israel’s 10-month freeze on Jewish construction on Palestinian land.

Peace Now made its announcement as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington preparing to address the US Congress and a powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).close quote (Read more)

Canadian security geek jailed for taunting G20 security theatre; who lost everything – his marriage, his home, his livelihood – because he couldn’t figure out how to contain or express his disgust with the state’s increasing encroachment on personal liberty

open quoteThe current issue of Toronto Life’s cover story is the sad and perverse tale of Byron Sonne, a Toronto security researcher, hackspace stalwart, and anarcho-libertarian who decided to show up the security theatre at play in last year’s billion-dollar-plus G20 preparations. Sonne published extensive accounts of the vulnerabilities in the preparations, taunting the police and officials who were putting on a kind of repressive, city-wide puppet show about security, rather than securing much of anything. Sonne was arrested and spent more than just under a year in jail, being held without bail on a variety of charges, almost all of which have been dropped (his bail conditions are nothing short of Kafkaesque). Sonne’s actions seem, on their face, to be over-the-top and ill-considered (though we haven’t heard his side of things yet), but the Canadian judicial system’s response is so insanely paranoid that it makes Sonne look extremely reasonable by comparison.

Sonne’s story is the sad tale of a geek who lost everything — his marriage, his home, his livelihood — because he couldn’t figure out how to contain or express his disgust with the state’s increasing encroachment on personal liberty.close quote (Read more from boingboing.net)

Psychopathic Congressional leaders agree to continue violating freedom and the Constitution via Patriot Act

open quoteTop lawmakers in the House and Senate reached a deal to extend the Patriot Act for four years, a week before key provisions were set to expire.

The pieces of the law that allow the federal government to compel businesses to release records, issue roving wiretaps, and monitor so-called “lone wolf” terror suspects were set to run out on May 27. The outline of the deal between Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) still needs to pass both chambers in the next seven days to avoid a lapse in the law.close quote (Read more from politico.com)

Congressional Leadership Seeks Four-Year PATRIOT Act Extension

open quoteCongressional leadership from both houses and both parties today reached a deal on a long-term extension of the PATRIOT Act, exactly as worded and without any of the inconvenient civil rights provisions that the Obama Administration has been warning against. The deal would extend an additional four years.

Four years is quite a bit longer than most of the previous House versions of the extension but was quite a bit shorter that Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R – IA) call for the bill to be eternal as well as completely free of oversight.close quote (Read more from antiwar.com)

Southern Avenger on Gingrich

From the Southern Avenger via Facebook: open quoteI give props to Paul Ryan for going further than most Republicans in his budget proposal, though I agree with Rand Paul that Ryan’s cuts don’t go far enough (Ryan’s plan still leaves us with a $23 trillion debt). Newt Gingrich not only finds Ryan’s plan too radical but supports Obama’s health insurance mandate. I repeat: Gingrich is not, and never has been, a conservative.close quote

Gingrich Blasts House GOP’s Medicare Plan

IMF Chief Pulled from Plane in New York on Rape Charges

open quoteDominique Strauss-Kahn, IMF chief faces arraignment in New York on rape charges.

IMF leader and potential French presidential candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn, 62, was pulled from an airplane bound for Paris just before its departure Saturday in New York, the Associated Press reported.

The IMF chief was arrested after a 32-year-old maid told authorities Strauss-Kahn attacked her Saturday afternoon after she entered his suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel to clean the $3,000-a-night suite, which she had been told was empty, the AP reported.

According to an account given by the woman to police, Strauss-Kahn came out of a bathroom naked, pursued her down a hallway, and pulled her into a bedroom, where he started to sexually assault her. The woman said she fought him off, then he pulled her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and attempted to remove her underwear. The woman once again broke free and alerted hotel staff, who called police, the authorities said.

Strauss-Kahn, considered a potential Socialist Party challenger to French President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2012, was arrested on an Air France jet about to depart from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

close quote (Read more from globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com)

TSA Blog about Texas laws banning intrusive searches says plainly

open quoteWhat’s our take on the Texas House of Representatives voting to ban the current TSA pat-down? Well, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article. VI. Clause 2) prevents states from regulating the federal government.

We wish we lived in a world where you could just walk on a plane with no security screening, but that just isn’t the case unfortunately. Aviation security agencies worldwide have been using pat-downs long before TSA was created to prevent dangerous items from getting onto airplanes. close quote (Read more from blog.tsa.gov)

I wonder if they read the 4th Amendment.

“First Do No Harm”: Constitutional and Conservative Liberals

open quoteOne of the most fascinating things, for me as a Brit, about engaging with American politics is that all political issues are filtered in the media through an extraordinarily crass Left vs. Right paradigm.

Left and right are not the two paradigms of American politics. They are the two flavors of only one.

. . . .

The so-called “radicals” like Paul and Kucinich who appear through the old left-right filter to be so different, are more importantly defined by what they have in common — a principled attempt to protect American Constitutional rights that, while radical in 1776, should not even be up for discussion today.

Of the men I’ve mentioned, the darling of Constitutionalists today is Ron Paul. He has so far out-raised all of the potential GOP candidates for 2012, even while many of the MSM continue to conduct their polls (among likely Republican voters) often times without even including his name. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I know it means something, and I like it. close quote (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)