Israel threatens another large-scale Gaza war (inteldaily.com)
Knesset member: Israel still involved in organ theft (presstv.ir)
Israel plans to demolish 900 Palestinian houses in Jerusalem to built settlements (news.xinhuanet.com)
Israel arrests and charges non-violent Palestinian activist with arms possession because the activist had collected and displayed the thousands of tear gas canisters that Israel had fired at him. (mondoweiss.net)
Israel approves 900 settler homes (news.bbc.co.uk) - How much is enough? Of other people's land?
Israel plans to demolish 900 Palestinian houses in Jerusalem to built settlements (news.xinhuanet.com)
At 5.00 am, on Sunday 1st November, 100 people from the ages of three to ninety boarded two buses, full of hope to see their homelands again, but the IOF soldiers at Hussan checkpoint refused to let the buses pass - ‘You have permissions to enter Israel, but not through this checkpoint!’. The buses were forced to turn and head back towards the ominous and oppressive Checkpoint 300 (Bethlehem Checkpoint) alongside Aida Camp and next to Rachel’s Tomb. Had the buses passed through Hussan checkpoint they would, within one kilometer or so, have been in the land of Al Kabu, the village from which Um Qassim was forced over 60 years ago. A few miles further and 55 year old Shifa would also have seen her village of Beit Jibreen, and Abu Amar would have once more experienced his village of Ras Abu Ammar. The villages were not our destination though; we were attempting to get to the coast, and to the ancient Palestinian cities of Yafa, Haifa, and Akka.
At Checkpoint 300, hundreds of Palestinians were waiting to pass. They had permissions to work in Al Quds but they suffer every morning trying to get through the checkpoint. One 55 year old man explained that he gets to the checkpoint at 3.30 am every morning and is forced to wait for hours to pass through. He makes his way to Bethlehem every morning from Al Arrub refugee camp near Hebron.
We eventually passed the checkpoint and made our way to Yafa. All the children wore big smiles and songs rang out. 3 year old Rand, kept singing: "we are going to the sea.. we are going to sea.." Upon reaching Yafa, the children ran down to see the sea. 16 year old Hisham felt he was dreaming:
"This has always been my dream. I think I am still dreaming now. And I want never to wake up."
We had our breakfast alongside the coast. Everyone smelled the sea and breathed the fresh air that is noted only in its absence in Aida Camp. In the streets of Yafa, Abu Amar commented on the crumbling traditional Palestinian buildings, their decay was being offered no care and instead construction was underway within metres complete with huge advertising boards displaying artist’s impressions of the proposed finished designs; European styled apartment blocks and offices. In the flea market Palestinians and Israeli’s shopped, but both were heard speaking in a language non-indigenous to Yafa. One lone man on his way to the mosque greeted us with ‘Salaam Aleikum’, but he was the only exception.
The strong winds in Haifa made the sea dangerously rough, and sadly too rough in terms of safety for the children to enjoying the swimming they had dreamed about in the days preceding the trip. Most still took the opportunity to paddle though, or even just to touch the waters of Palestine’s seas. Younger children played on the sand, and others collected colorful stones and empty shells. This was their way to link the sea with the ones who could not reach it. 13 year old Rana was not collecting memories for herself:
" I want to take some shells back home to my family. We have some at home but these are more beautiful. They will remind me of this trip to Haifa."
Kifah, a Lajee volunteer of several years, added:
"I am taking some sand and sea water to my brother. He said he could not come with us because he did not get permission, but he wants to touch the sand of Haifa."
The children splashed and played at the water’s edge for two hours. Everyone on the shore could hear their laughter and squeals every time a wave chased them up the shore. 15 year old Reem lives in Aida Camp, less than 40 kms to the nearest point of the coast, but for her seeing these waters was something new and very special:
"This is the first time I have seen the sea. It is so huge and beautiful. I felt I had to touch it."
Many children hoped that they could ‘stay there forever’.
From the top of Jabal Al Karmil (Mount Karmel) the coast spread out in front of everyone’s eyes below them. It was an awe inspiring vista which brought gasps from many. 14 year old Sally was amongst those shocked at the sheer size and space of her view:
"This is the first time I have seen how huge the coast is. It looks exactly the way I draw it when I draw the map of Palestine.”
Heading down into the stunning Bahia Gardens eyes opened wide and jaws dropped. 15 year old Abdelfattah felt the beauty of his surroundings:
"I have heard about these Gardens but in reality they are more beautiful than what was been described. I do not believe how beautiful our country is. This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!"he steep and ancient stone ramp that leads up to the ramparts of Akka presented little challenge to most of the youthful legs that raced up it, but for some the climb represented another challenge in a lifetime of challenges. The jeans and t-shirts of Lajee’s children contrasted with the traditional embroidered black dress with red patterning that Um Qassim wore as proudly as always. The children’s supple bones were also at odds with her two false knees, but she met the challenge as she has done with all obstacles through her long life of struggle. Resting alongside the ancient walls after the ascent, she described her feelings:
“I am tired, really I am tired now, but I am happy. This is the first time in my life that I have seen Akka, and it’s so beautiful…”
Before leaving we all sat on the rocks together around the harbor. Lights lit up the remnants of walls that still stood defiantly in the sea after long decades of battering by nature. The walls of Akka are beautiful and proud unlike the oppressive Apartheid version built by colonizers around parts, such as Aida Camp, of today’s Palestine. Akka seemed somehow as strong as its famous walls, and as defiant as Palestine’s people. Everyone we spoke to in Akka spoke Arabic, and its old city possibly even surpasses Al Quds in terms of beauty. It was a hopeful note on which to end the day; Akka, at least in the areas we visited, has retained its true identity. Looking out to see, Athal had tears in her eyes:
“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here forever. It’s so, so, beautiful, and it’s still ours…”
Bill Moyers talks with Justice Richard Goldstone, who headed up the controversial UN Human Rights Council investigation in Gaza [video/transcript] (pbs.org) - This is the UN vote that Britain didn't vote at...
Palestinians say hopes in Obama "evaporated" and that he "couldn't withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby" (google.com)
Israel must end unfair jailing - Israel holds hundreds of Palestinians without trial or any way to clear their names, say two Israeli rights groups which urge an end to such detentions. (news.bbc.co.uk)
Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms (news.xinhuanet.com)
Fearing arrest for alleged war crimes in London!
Israel's former military chief, now a government minister, cancels a visit to London fearing arrest for alleged war crimes. (news.bbc.co.uk)
Israel's army is changing. Once proudly secular, its combat units are now filling with those who believe Israel's wars are "God's wars". (news.bbc.co.uk)
Israel officially approves construction of more than 450 homes in the occupied West Bank; pleas by the United States and the rest of the world to stop go ignored (news.bbc.co.uk)
By Akiva Eldar
Haaretz Correspondent
August 28, 2009 "Haaretz" -- "The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns," Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday.
Commenting on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement in Germany Thursday that the lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel should always defend itself, Tutu noted that "in South Africa, they tried to get security from the barrel of a gun. They never got it. They got security when the human rights of all were recognized and respected."
The Nobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the Holocaust, "as it should be."
"But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians. I once met a German ambassador who said Germany is guilty of two wrongs. One was what they did to the Jews. And now the suffering of the Palestinians."
He also slammed Jewish organizations in the United States, saying they intimidate anyone who criticizes the occupation and rush to accuse these critics of anti-Semitism. Tutu recalled how such organizations pressured U.S. universities to cancel his appearances on their campuses.
"That is unfortunate, because my own positions are actually derived from the Torah. You know God created you in God's image. And we have a God who is always biased in favor of the oppressed."
Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel.
"I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons. We had a sports boycott, and since we are a sports-mad country, it hit ordinary people. It was one of the most psychologically powerful instruments.
"Secondly, it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government. I mean, when we had the arms embargo and the economic boycott."
He said that when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. "The very first thing he said to me was 'well now will you call off sanctions?' Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don't affect us at all. That was not true.
"And another important reason was that it gave hope to our people that the world cared. You know. That this was a form of identification."
Earlier in the day, Tutu and the rest of the delegation visited the village of Bil'in, where protests against the separation fence, built in part on the village's land, take place every week.
"We used to take our children in Swaziland and had to go through border checkpoints in South Africa and face almost the same conduct, where you're at the mercy of a police officer. They can decide when they're going to process you and they can turn you back for something inconsequential. But on the other hand, we didn't have collective punishment. We didn't have the demolition of homes because of the suspicion that one of the members of the household might or might not be a terrorist."
He said the activists in Bil'in reminded him of Ghandi, who managed to overthrow British rule in India by nonviolent means, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who took up the struggle of a black woman who was too tired to go to the back of a segregated bus.
He stressed his belief that no situation was hopeless, praising the success of the Northern Irish peace process. The process was mediated by Senator George Mitchell, who now serves as the special U.S. envoy to the Middle East.
Asked about the controversy in Petah Tikva, where several elementary schools have refused to receive Ethiopian school children, Tutu said that "I hope that your society will evolve."
Click here to read article comments at the Haaretz website http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1110762.html
ACTION ALERT: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in London and Berlin on a four-day visit, and is meeting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Please take two minutes to contact Gordon Brown urgently, asking him to convoy these issues in his meetings with Netanyahu:
And remind Gordon Brown that real peace means delivering justice for Palestinians. The British government must act to ensure Israel ends its violations of international law – this includes an immediate end to Israel ’s illegal occupation and respect for the right of return of refugees. The government must also act to uphold the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people.
You can:
Please circulate this call widely.
Israel says shooting of unarmed American activist a justifiable act of war (youtube.com)
British firefighters call for boycott of Israel. (greenleft.org.au)
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According to international law, Israel holds the property of more than 4 million Palestinian refugees in custodianship, until a final peace deal determines whether some or all of them will be allowed back to their 400+ destroyed villages or compensated for their loss. Well, Israel started selling. (dissidentvoice.org)
Israel Planned to Attack Iran during the Riots...But the White House Ignored their Request (ynetnews.com)
According to the sources, after the opposition riots broke out in Iran following June's presidential election results, Israel asked the US government for a green light to strike the country's nuclear facilities, along with other vital facilities in Iran.Israeli government trying to censor IDF soldiers who are contradicting the governments official story of the Gaza Massacre (btselem.org)
Israeli troops routinely 'ill-treat kids' (news.bbc.co.uk)
Barak: Israel should accept U.S. peace plan: Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that the United States would present a Middle East peace plan within weeks and that Israel should accept it.
Israel Seeks Ways to Silence Human Rights Groups
First goal is to stop Gaza war crimes revelations
By Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
Groups reported to be in the foreign ministry’s sights are: B’Tselem, whose activities include providing Palestinians with cameras to record abuses by settlers and the army; Peace Now, which monitors settlement building; Machsom Watch, whose activists observe soldiers at the checkpoints; and Physicians for Human Rights, which has recently examined doctors’ complicity in torture. Continue
Hamas Again Accepts a Palestinian State on the 1967 Lines (thewashingtonnote.com)
Israel Evicts Two Palestinian Families
Al Jazeera English Video Report
The families have lived in Sheikh Jarrah since 1956 but an Israeli court ruled that the homes belonged to Jewish families. Continue
Far-right Israeli minister Avigdor Lieberman to be indicted for corruption (haaretz.com)
This morning, Israeli bulldozers removing electrical poles from small Palestinian village; electricity from project supported by Quartet envoy Tony Blair (imemc.org)
Eric Cantor (R-VA) sounds more like a PR man for Israel than an American congressman (haaretz.com)
Israel Evicts 50 Palestinians from Homes, so Israeli Settlers Could Move in. (cbsnews.com)
Former Irish president Mary Robinson 'bullied' by pro-Israel lobbyists: "There's a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community. They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Archbishop Desmond Tutu gets the same criticism." (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)
Israel evicts Palestinian families who've been living in their East Jerusalem home since 1956 to build a hotel. (english.aljazeera.net)
IDF Soldiers Admit To Israeli War Crimes (revolutionarypolitics.com)
Ehud Olmert offered the Palestinians nearly 94% of the West Bank as the basis of their would-be state - plus Israeli territory to make up the remaining 6% - plus a safe-passage road-corridor to link Gaza with the West Bank and to internationalise the sovereignty of Jerusalem (economist.com)
CIA: Israel will fall in 20 years (easenews.net)
Israeli combat soldiers have acknowledged that they forced Palestinian civilians to serve as human shields, needlessly killed unarmed Gazans and improperly used white phosphorus shells to burn down buildings as part of Israel's three-week military offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter. (miamiherald.com)
Israel and EU Clash Over Settlements (ipsnews.net)
Israelis set fire and destroy 37 Acres of Palestinian owned land in southern West Bank (uruknet.com)
Israeli shirts promoting the killing of Palestinians
McKinney has now joined George Galloway and the convoy to Gaza in Egypt.
Cynthia McKinney (Green Party Presidential candidate) returns home after being held in Israeli jail for 6 days. (counterpunch.org)
At a check-point, in shame she opens her top to a female Israeli soldier to show that her breasts have been removed in an attempt to beat cancer. Despite this, she is refused entry to Israel on security grounds. (tinyurl.com)Israel Kidnaps Peace Boat Crew
By Paul Craig Roberts
On June 30, the government of Israel committed an act of piracy when the Israeli Navy in international waters illegally boarded the “Spirit of Humanity,” kidnapped its 21-person crew from 11 countries, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Laureate Mairead MaGuire, and confiscated the cargo of medical supplies, olive trees, reconstruction materials, and children’s toys that were on the way to the Mediterranean coast of Gaza. The “Spirit of Humanity,” along with the kidnapped 21 persons, is being towed to Israel as I write.
Gaza has been described as the “world’s largest concentration camp.” It is home to 1.5 million Palestinians who were driven by force of American-supplied Israeli arms out of their homes, off their farms, and out of their villages so that Israel could steal their land and make the Palestinian land available to Israeli settlers. (more)
Israel is officially an apartheid state (hsrc.ac.za)
Amnesty: Israel Used Children as Human Shields in Gaza Question: Why are billion$ in US aid going to such a gov't? (alternet.org)
Video interviews with two Palestinians who have won international scholarships, but aren't allowed by Israel to accept them. (philipweiss.org)Rich Wiles, from Hull, writes from Hebron, Palestine:
Around ten days ago a group of Israeli officials arrived unannounced at a small and cramped family house on the Jabal as-Zaytoon (Mount of Olives) in Al Quds.
The men of the house, which accommodates 25 members of one Palestinian family, were busily working together to construct extra rooms in an attempt to reduce the severe overcrowding they are forced to live with everyday.
The Israeli officials began taking photographs of the construction and told the men they had no right to extend their house. According to one of the brothers who was present at the time, the officials then took out an official looking document with Hebrew writing on it and taped it onto one of the outer walls of the house before quickly photographing the document in its position stuck to the wall. It was then removed without further discussion and without the family members being able to read it. One of the officials put the sheet of paper back into his pocket before they all returned to their vehicles and left the scene.
At 8am on Monday June 29th over 100 heavily armed IOF soldiers, accompanied by Israeli policemen and snarling dogs, surrounded the Jumah house. They beat heavily on the doors of the various apartments. On the road outside bulldozers waited poised to strike. As the doors were opened by family members soldiers reached inside and dragged them onto the streets. The mother, at 65 years old, resisted and refused to leave her house as did some other family members. She wanted to struggle for her family and her rights. She was pushed backwards roughly as was an aunt who had also stood defiantly alongside her; both fainted from the stress and physical aggression and eventually were carried out unconscious before being rushed to the nearby Al Maqasid Hospital by neighbours. Two of the brothers who attempted to stand their ground were beaten by the intruders and then also dragged outside. Once all family members had been forced out of the building the bulldozers moved into gear and ploughed into the first two small rooms of the house as the family watched in horror. The demolition continued until the first two rooms of the house were reduced to a mass of rubble. The bulldozers did not continue onto the rest of the building as one of the Jumah brothers explained:
“They came (to us) and forced us to sign a letter saying that we would remove all the rubble before Sunday, then they will be back! They told us if we do not clear it all they will remove it and then they will send us the bill for ‘their work’!”
The Jumah family did not have the building permits required by the Israeli Occupation authorities to carry out the extension work that was underway before it was violently halted by this demolition. The only people able to issue this building permit are the same Israeli authorities who brought bulldozers and soldiers to attack the house. Around six months ago the family followed all ‘rules’ laid out by the Occupation and applied to the authorities for the required permit, their request was refused…
“They told us we couldn’t build because we needed a minimum of 600 square metres in order to get the building permit we needed, we had only 100 square metres. Nobody has 600 metres of land here, look around, there’s no space or land left!”
All Palestinians living in Occupied East Jerusalem (Al Quds), or in Areas B and C of the so-called ‘West Bank’ (Areas B and C incorporate all areas of the ‘West Bank’ except the city centres which are referred to as ‘Area A’), must apply to the Occupation authorities for building permission yet it is virtually impossible to obtain. Nearly 300,000 Palestinians live in Al Quds yet according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD) only 18 building permits were issued in 2008 in Palestinian areas of the city. This practice forces Palestinians to build without ‘permission’ as their families naturally expand so overcrowding increases as was the case with the Jumah family, yet Israel uses such 'unlicensed' building work as one of many pretexts for demolishing Palestinian houses. OCHA (The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) reports that last year 90 Palestinian buildings in Al Quds were demolished by the Israel authorities for the stated reason of having no building permit. OCHA says this resulted in making 400 Palestinians homeless including over 200 children. A document is sometimes sent to the family by the Occupation authorities informing them of the forthcoming demolition but the Jumah family received no warning. They now believe however that the piece of paper that was taped to their outside wall briefly and photographed by the Israeli officials who came to the house just over a week before the demolition was carried out was probably this document, and that the photographs taken were to create 'proof' of this document being submitted to the family despite the fact that the family themselves were not given this document or even the chance to read it. This 'proof' could be presented by the authorities should the family attempt to build a legal case against this illegal action.
The central section of the Jumah house comprised of two small bedrooms and a living room:
“In one room sleep my brother and his wife, and in the second bedroom sleep his six children. It’s not right six children stuck in one bedroom, when they were smaller it was easier but the oldest is now eleven and boys and girls shouldn’t be forced to share rooms at that age. My mother sleeps on the small sofa in the living room as there is nowhere else she can go…”
With such cramped accommodation the family was desperate to create more space. Even when the permit was refused, as they had expected it would be, they still knew they needed to find a way to extend their living conditions. Another one of the brothers offered to help them with some money as they had none of their own, and they decided to sell the family jewelry and what few valuables they had to try and raise some capital. They used the money to buy whatever building materials they could and for the last five weeks or so everybody has pitched-in together and worked day and night to extend the living space. The brother who had been able to provide some money for the project is a self-employed construction worker but recently has been unable to find much paid work. He lived in 2 small rooms alongside the road and in front of the rooms which housed his mother, brother and wife, and their six children. On the day of the demolition he had found work for the first time in 10 days, ten minutes after starting work he got a desperate phone call urging him to go home immediately. It was the 2 small rooms he lived in that the bulldozers ploughed into and crushed like a tiny beetle under the clumsy feet of an elephant. Sitting with him surrounded by the rubble of his former home he offered few words:
“What can we do? We have no money, no work, no life… all we have is Allah.”
The rubble of his former home cannot be cleared before Sunday, to do so would involve heavy machinery which would incur significant costs; the family is now just sitting and waiting. If the soldiers and their weapons of home destruction do return the family themselves can do little to prevent further demolition being carried out but they are appealing for help:
“Please tell everyone to come here on Sunday at 8am. We need journalists, activists, the Red Cross, we need people from the mosques and churches, we will need hundreds of people, but we need people to come here and help us. We need help…”
Israel's naval blockade devastating key Gazan industry and source of food: fishing. Oslo accord limit was 20 nautical miles - Israel unilaterally reduced to 3 nautical miles (csmonitor.com)
Here we go again: Israel planning to expropriate another 2% of West Bank land (haaretz.com)
Israel approves 50 settler homes on the West Bank (news.bbc.co.uk)
Red Cross: Israel trapping 1.5m Gazans in despair (haaretz.com)
Red Cross: Six months after Israel launched its three-week attack on Gaza, Gazans still cannot rebuild their lives (icrc.org)
Israel's watchdog body on medical ethics has failed to investigate evidence that doctors working in detention facilities are turning a blind eye to cases of torture, according to Israeli human rights groups. (electronicintifada.net)
Can the Palestinians destroy the homes of the settlers responsible for this, just as the Israelis bulldoze Palestinian homes? (google.com)
Israeli firms accused of profiting off holocaust, families battle for assets in court (Counterpunch)
Hillary Is Wrong About the Settlements - interesting roundup from the Bush years
Palestinian Violence Overstated, Israeli Violence Understated (motherjones.com)
US and Israel cancel meeting (ft.com) - Israel perhaps getting jitters about settlements and how serious US may be.
Blair: Peace within reach if Israel compromises; "The advent of the Obama administration has given a new sense of energy and commitment and to a certain extent hope... However, the challenges are still there." (haaretz.com) - not that we should take advice from this guy...