On Friday four people were injured and four arrested, as Israeli troops attacked anti-wall protests organized in a number of West Bank communities. Protests took place in the central West Bank villages of an-Nabi Saleh, Bil’in, and Nil’in in addition to al-Ma’ssara in the southern West Bank.
Three women, two local and one international, were injured and a journalist and three activists were arrested as Israeli troops attacked the anti-wall and anti-settlement protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh. Villagers and their Israeli and international supporters marched to local farm lands Israel had taken to build a new settlement.
Troops attacked protesters with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Then soldiers forced people back into the village and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at journalists and medics. The three injured women sustained moderate wounds as soldiers beat them up. The arrested journalist was identified as Moheeb al-Barghouthi who works for al-Ayam newspaper.
In the nearby village Bil’in, soldiers fired tear gas at the weekly protest there as internationals and Israeli supporters joined the villagers after midday prayers. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. Joining the protest today were a group of supporters from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland, who had reached Palestine by bicycles covering a distance of 7 thousand kilometers from London, to advocate and support the Palestinian popular resistance movements.
Also on Friday in the central West Bank, Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protest in the village of Nil’in, villagers were joined by Israeli and international supporters after the midday prayers and marched up to the wall. Troops fired tear gas at protesters causing many to suffer from tear gas inhalation.
In southern West Bank, one local organizer was injured, and many treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as troops attacked the anti-wall protest organized in al-Ma’sara village near Bethlehem. Soldiers attacked protesters as they tried to reach land owned by local farmers Israel confiscated to build the wall. Mohamed Brijiyah, 35, a local organizer, sustained moderate wounds when soldiers beat him up.
Ankara strongly condemned Israel for approving the building of new homes in West Bank settlements a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said.
The comments were in response to the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction’s publishing of tenders for 336 housing units in West Bank settlements last week.
“Israel’s illegal actions on the lands it has invaded are unacceptable,” the statement said. “This decision will deepen the suspicions of Israel’s sincerity in pushing the peace process forward. We stress that we don’t recognize the illegal steps Israel is taking, challenging international law,” the Turkish ministry statement said.
According to the tender, 294 new homes will be built in Beitar Illit settlement outside of Jerusalem and 42 units in Karnei Shomron in Samaria near Kfar Saba.
In April the Defense Ministry approved the construction of the homes in Beitar Illit.
Both West Bank settlements are located within the settlement blocs Israel believes will be included in its permanent borders once a final status agreement with the Palestinians is achieved.
All the perfumes of Brand Israel will not wash off Israel’s apartheid and brutal occupation. Despite, Yigal Caspi, deputy director general of media and public affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry explains the new soft sell approach (as if it hasn’t already been part of Israel’s dominant whitewashing strategy):
“This move doesn’t have a down-side… For a year we’ve been explaining our political policies and virtually ignoring everything else. I’m not sure that the first thing Europeans want to see when they open their morning newspaper is news about the conflict with the Arab world.”
“If we tell them about all the other interesting things here – about culinary and fashion, agriculture, innovations and high-tech – they’ll see us differently.”
Considering that the Foreign Minister of Israel is, in fact, a settler living in Noqdim, and that the state is addicted to building settlements while rent costs in major Israeli cities is causing nationwide protest, it is a safe bet that the interests of the state are in line with the settlers.
to move to outlying areas like Upper Nazareth, instead of demanding an apartment in “the state of Tel Aviv.” Speaking to Arutz 7, Sofer said “I would not build even one apartment in ‘the state of Tel Aviv,’ which extends from Hadera to Ashdod. Someone must tell the ‘yuppie youth’ that they should not bother fighting for an apartment there, because they will not get them.”
Sofer suggested instead that those seeking an apartment move to the south or the north. “If they all move to the periphery, the jobs will follow them. Pressure can be put on the billionaires who got rich off the rest of us to move their factories to these areas,” he said.
While Israeli hasbaraboffins plot and scheme their next apartheid-washing ad campaign, Israel is starving Gazan hospitals of fuel. Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza centres again on those least able to defend themselves – the sick.
Bassam Barhum, who oversees ministry of health supplies in Gaza, said electricity generators would stop within a day or two if fuel was not delivered.
Every hospital in the coastal strip was vulnerable, Barhum said, adding that operation rooms had already closed in Gaza City’s Ash-Shifa hospital and the European hospital in Khan Younis due to the chronic energy supply shortage.
In 2011, the Ministry of Health in Gaza received less than 400 thousand liters of fuel, but the hospitals need 1.5 to 2 million liters, he said.
Barhum said Gaza hospitals received just 25.84 percent of required fuel in 2010, and more than 10 percent was unusable.
A critical shortage of medical supplies in the coastal strip led the Hamas-led authorities to declare a state of emergency in the medical sector in June, and doctors and nurses took to the streets to protest against the ongoing crisis.
Say NO to normalisation of apartheid through visits by Israeli/Palestinian AFL teams under the guise of ‘peace’. Eleanor Kilroy writes at Mondoweiss:
A ‘Peace Team’, co-sponsored by the Peres Center and Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue, will take part in the Australian Football League (AFL) Cup this August. In preparation, a delegation from the Australian Football League visited Israel this month to meet with the Peace Team, accompanied by Australian media, (which might explain why one of the Team’s sponsors is Sydney’s Israel Travel Centre). The Team will also participate in a welcome function at Marrickville Town Hall on 18 August. This is in spite of the fact that Marrickville Council voted to “in principle” support a Green Party-led boycott of cultural and sporting exchanges with Israeli institutions. Archbishop Desmond Tutu sent a letter praising the Council for taking a stand, noting that ‘Ten Marrickville councillors – five Greens, four Labor and one independent – voted to support the boycott campaign against Israel last December, provoking condemnation from federal and state politicians, Jewish groups and media commentators. The motion was overturned in April, when all the Labor and two Green councillors withdrew their support.’ Ziyaad Lunat, a member of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) National Committee (BNC), told me “Al-Quds Association are part of a program that includes a stop-over at Marrickville, Australia, participating in anti-BDS propaganda set up by pro-occupation groups.” As ‘Merc’ says in the post Foul Play, ‘all it took was a little email from a Zionist, and the Victorian Greens (‘we’), without any discernible thought or research, threw caution to the winds and embraced a cheap little Zionist BDS-busting PR stunt.’ I asked Australians for Palestine’s Public Advocate, Samah Sabawi, to comment and she said, “What can be more appealing for those of us in Australia who are passionate about peace in Israel/Palestine than to welcome the AFL Peace Team? The answer: the idea that when members of this team return to their homes, the Palestinian players would not have to go through dehumanising checkpoints, around high barbed wire walls and into Bantustans surrounded and suffocated by a matrix of Jewish-only roads, settlements and security zones.”
Omar Barghouti – BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) – The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights
Filmed at Socialism 2011 in Chicago http://haymarketbooks.org
“It is not a Jewish It is an Israeli, colonial apartheid issue and it should stay within those parameters.”
“Any one who says ‘all Jews are …’, anything that comes after ‘are…’, is an antisemite. … Zionism treat Jews as super-human, Nazis treat Jews as sub-human. But both dehumanise Jews.”
‘Time and again, I met Israelis who exhibited an unashamed sense of entitlement that seemed justified by a deeply held belief that Palestinians deserve their situation because they refuse to recognise Israel’s right to be a state that legally discriminates against them, granting differential legal rights and privileges to its own Jewish citizens and to Jews anywhere in the world. This model of racial division is entrenched.’
“As far as the Palestinians are concerned, bad news for Murdoch can only be good news for them. Murdoch’s deeply held sympathy for Israel and his enmity towards the Palestinians is clear for all to see. His tabloid press have a track record of Islamophobia and of stirring up hatred against Palestinians.”
When the Marrickville BDS resolution was up against the wall, Marduk’s The Australian gave virtually no coverage to Palestinian voices, or BDS voices at all. Instead Marduk published a procession of zionists, spinning crap.
Balad Party MK, Palestinian Haneen Zoabi, has been suspended from Knesset discussions till the end of the summer session in fascist Israel’s latest move to punish those who speak out against its injustices. The Kafkesque Knesset ‘Ethics’ Committee decided upon this action, which Haneen will appeal.
Ms Zoabi, a vociferous critic of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians, was a passenger on the Mavi Marmara, attracting fury in Israel. She was branded a traitor by colleagues and stripped of some parliamentary privileges. But the latest move to sanction her demonstrates the extent to which the flotilla affair still rankles in Israel. The Knesset’s ethics committee voted to bar Ms Zoabi from parliamentary debates until the current session ends next month, declaring that her actions had “harmed national security and were inconsistent with the legitimate conduct of a lawmaker”.
“This was not an Ethics Committee decision, it was the decision of an automatic racist, right-wing majority in this committee. Therefore, it was a completely political decision.”
“Who decides what is politically legitimate? The right-wing majority that makes up the government? A political majority? Then what is the meaning of my immunity, which is meant to protect me from the tyranny of the majority?”.
“I upheld my human, moral and political obligation by participating in the struggle to break the illegitimate and inhumane blockade on Gaza”.
At Nabi Saleh demonstrations against the illegal Israeli occupation, Nariman Tamimi films and documents along with providing medical aid to those whom the Israeli occupation forces injure:
Definitely, the protests have caused a lot of awareness and the evidence is that we have Palestinian youth coming from different districts in the West Bank who are committed to going to Nabi Saleh every week. Activists from Israel and the international community are part of the popular resistance that is key to forming the awareness that leads others to denounce Israel as an occupying force and a military state, which is why our war is against the media.
It is a good sign to see more and more people getting convinced and exposing Israel’s crimes and atrocities in a way in which the world can understand them. This current resistance is inclusive of all the members of society, much like the first intifada, which was a true popular uprising, and I do believe that the current protests will spread because of their result of undermining the state of Israel and attracting international responses. The more that increases, the better it is for us.
Israel is continuing its outrageous crimes against Palestinians with construction of another 336 illegal Jews-only settlement dwellings in the Occupied West Bank.
Meanwhile, the French vessel, Dignite-Al Karame, with 10 human rights activists on board prepares to face the Israeli forces at sea, on its attempt to break the illegal Israeli blockade on Gaza.
Thomas Sommer-Houdeville, a French national and flotilla spokesperson, said Sunday the boat was carrying a message of peace, hope and solidarity with the people in Gaza. He hoped the Israeli Navy would not intercept the boat and let it complete its civic mission. He believes that the boat must get near as possible to the destination, as it represents the “determination and will” of the people who were on board other boats and all those who have been involved in raising awareness about the blockade on Gaza.
Ali Abunimah: “The difference now between us and zionists … is that we can put forth a positive vision based on universal values without betraying any Palestinian rights. Our vision is rooted in one that views all human beings as equal. Their vision is rooted in one that sees some human beings as garbage.”
‘I expected that activists will challenge the anti-Boycott law and chant for BDS or call for Settlement boycott as well as chanting for a Palestinian state, I was wrong. It turned out to be a march organized by Zionist leftists calling for a legitimate Palestinian state next to the state of Israel.’
We urge our South African peers to boycott and challenge this intended tour of South African universities in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town, which we view as a part of a campaign launched to whitewash the crimes of Israel’s apartheid policies.
‘“I just hope we can shift public opinion in Australia and that [the government and media] stop being so apologetic towards Israel. My detention in Greece got more news in Greece than it did here — where criticism of Israel seems to be ‘off limits’ to a lot of the media.
“I spent two to three months in Nablus, in the Occupied West bank in 2008-2009. I received a lot of support [for the flotilla protest] from my friends in Nablus. They and the people of Gaza don’t want hand-outs: they just want their freedom.”’
13th July – and yes, still in prison – UK citizen Pippa Bartolotti writes on her stint at the Israel entity’s request in Givon prison for the terrible crime of wanting to visit the West Bank :
Why does my government allow me to be held for 5 days without papers, or explanation, or charges?
Why does my country accept Israel as a sovereign state when it has no borders?
Why does the UK and EU give Israel special rights when its Human Rights position is untenable?
Why can Israel sing in the Eurovision Song Contest and take part in UEFA football champioships whilst being an apartheid state?
Why are British police ordered to act on Israeli paranoia and lies and interrogate British citizens before they go to Israel?
Why were the British the last to leave Givon prison?
Why did the British Consul allow our conversations to be recorded?
Why does the British Consul in Israel say that no visitors are allowed to visit the West Bank, when the FCO website says no such thing?
Why does the British Government collude in the inhumane and cruel treatment of the Palestinians?
‘The Home Office listed as another example of “unacceptable behavior” an interview with MEMO in which Salah advocated the Palestinian right of return and the boycott divestment and sanctions movement’.
The Boycott Law is Fascism: it is a categorically anti-democratic law whose goal is to annul any possibility of legitimate protest.
…
Not only anti-democratic, the Boycott Bill is also a degrading: It represents an advanced stage of parliamentary hegemony which does now allow a critic to charge himself with the energy needed to wage an opposition struggle. The Boycott Law sends a clear message: there’s no longer any point in arguing.
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The citizen in a democracy is essentially a dialectical creature: he understands that any thesis, no matter how well-rooted it seems to be, will at some stage be challenged by an antithesis, one which is no less logical; and the fusion of the two leads to a synthesis which at some point turns into a thesis, which in the future will also beget an antithesis.
Not internalizing the foundations of such a dialectic leads to the annulment of democracy, and the creation of some other form of governance in its stead.
The 18th Knesset will be remembered as the one which nullified the tradition of parliamentary dialectics. This is the Knesset which, in a deliberate, consistent fashion institutionalized faith in one policy path, one political position, one acceptable public viewpoint. It adopted as an overriding goal the need to penalize and harm anyone who casts doubts on the veracity of the one accepted path, who wonders about the rectitude of the one accepted public viewpoint, and who dares to challenge the country’s hegemonic perception.
The widely held view that the slew of anti-democratic laws legislated by the 18th Knesset is a slippery slope to Fascism in the future is disingenuous. The Boycott Law is Fascism: it is a categorically anti-democratic law whose goal is to annul any possibility of legitimate protest.
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One of the most conspicuous signs of Fascism is an assumption laden within any discussion or argument: it is assumed that all debate is a mere formality. Debaters who take positions are nothing other than puppets, devoid of free will; their discussion is a mere showcase, an appealing picture covering an ugly reality.
The Israeli parliament (Knesset) last night passed a new law criminalizing support for the Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, penalizing Israeli persons and organizations active in the campaign, or indeed in any other partial boycott of Israel or any of its institutions. The repressive legislation also bars companies that refuse to to deal with Israel’s illegal colonies built on occupied Palestinian land from receiving government contracts.
Hind Awwad, coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest Palestinian civil society coalition comprising all major political parties, trade unions, NGOs and mass organsations, said:
“Israel is once again taking draconian measures to criminalize civil resistance to its system of apartheid, colonialism and occupation over the Palestinian people. But so long as Israel continues its illegal siege of the Gaza Strip, brutal occupation, denial of Palestinian refugee rights and system of instituionalized discrimination against Palestinians, repressive acts such as these will only offer further evidence of the undemocratic and oppressive nature of Israeli political life and motivate even more people of conscience to join our global BDS movement for freedom, justice and equality.”
“This new legislation, which violates international law, is testament to the success of the rapidly growing global BDS movement and a realisation within political elites inside Israel that the state is becoming a world pariah in the way that South Africa once was.”
Prof. Gabi Baramki, former head of Birzeit University and currently a Steering Committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), reacted to the new law saying: “The boycott bill is but a continuation of the Knesset’s decades-old pivotal role in legislating Israeli apartheid, colonialism, and other forms of oppression of the Palestinian people.”
Ms. Awwad also stated: “We stand in solidarity with all principled Israeli citizens and organizations who are the primary target of this law, and whomay be fined and even imprisoned for exercising their fundamental right to speak out and act non-violently in order to bring their state into compliance with international law..”
1. The Palestinian civil society campaign for BDS calls for applying broad boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era, until Israel meets its obligations under international law by respecting the basic right of the Palestinian people to self determination by ending its occupation and colonization of the 1967 territory, ending racial discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel, and granting Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned right to return.
2. Key BDS movement successes include the divestment campaign against French multinational Veolia, which has cost the company billions of dollars in lost contracts due to its ongoing involvement in the illegal Jerusalem Light Rail and the decision taken by the Norwegian government to exclude Israeli companies involved in the construction of illegal settlements and the wall from its national pension investment fund. Earlier this year, the University of Johannesburg severed links with Ben Gurion University because of its complicity in human rights violations. Numerous artists have heeded the Palestinian cultural boycott call against Israel, including Roger Waters, Jello Biafra, the Pixies and Faithless. Carmel Agrexco, a partially state owned agricultural export company targeted by the BDS movement, recently announced record losses.
Like such repressive practices, the newly approved Israeli law, which specifies fines and the payment of ‘compensation’ by Israeli citizens or residents, who initiate or encourage a boycott of Israel – is also bound to fail.
“This law will serve as a weapon in the hands of those people who claim that Israel is not a democracy and does not respect human rights,” Amnon Rubenstein, a legal expert and winner of the esteemed Israel Prize, wrote in the daily Ma’ariv. “It will also increase Israel’s isolation in the academic world and among Western liberal democracies. Paradoxically, this law increases the danger of anti-Israel boycotts. That’s the polar opposite of what Israel needs at the moment.” Commentator Ben Caspit in the same pages: “There is no reason that Haredim [ultra-Orthodox] should be able to boycott stores that sell pork (or that are open on the Sabbath), that masses of Israelis can boycott cheese producers and marketers, but left wingers cannot boycott the produce of the settlements, which they view as a cancerous growth in the state’s meager body.
This 107-page report presents substantial information warranting criminal investigations of Bush and senior administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet, for ordering practices such as “waterboarding,” the use of secret CIA prisons, and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured.
