Scottish Friends of Palestine                                   

Briefing Paper                                                                                                     

April 2016

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.709439

On November 19, 1948, Natan Alterman, whose influential “Seventh Column” – an op-ed in poetry form – appeared every Friday in the daily Davar, the mouthpiece of Israel’s ruling Mapai party (forerunner of Labor), published a poem titled “About This.”

Across the vanquished city in a jeep he did speed

A lad bold and armed, a young lion of a lad!

And an old man and a woman on that very street

cowered against a wall, in fear of him clad.

Said the lad smiling, milk teeth shining:

“I’ll try the machine gun”… and put it into play!

To hide his face in his hands the old man barely had time

When his blood on the wall was sprayed. . .  (Excerpt)

What were the war crimes referred to in the poem? The massacres perpetrated by Israeli forces in Lydda (Lod) and in the village of Al-Dawayima, west of Hebron, were among the worst mass killings of the entire War of Independence. In an interview in Haaretz in 2004, historian Benny Morris (author of “The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949”) declared that the most egregious massacres “occurred at Saliha, in Upper Galilee (70-80 victims), Deir Yassin on the outskirts of Jerusalem (100-110), Lod (50), Dawamiya (hundreds) and perhaps Abu Shusha (70).” . . .

Israel has always been xenophobic, it just used to be better at hiding it Gideon Levy Ha’aretz 03/01/16           http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.695077

The brainwashing, censorship and indoctrination were much worse then than they are today, only opposition to them was much less. We thought that everything was fine with our education system. On Fridays, we had to wear blue and white, the national colors; we gave to the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael), so it would plant forests to cover the ruins of the Arab villages they did not want us to see.

At a time when the author Dorit Rabinyan had not yet been born, we had never met an Arab. They lived under military rule and were not allowed to come near us without authorization. A Jewish-Arab love story could not even have been considered science fiction, happening in a galaxy far, far away from where we were growing up. Druze were slightly more acceptable; they served in the army. I remember the first Druze I met; it was in 11th grade.

We never heard a word about the Nakba, the Palestinian term for the formation of the State of Israel, either. We saw the ruins of houses – and did not see anything. Long before the “wedding of hate,” at our Lag Ba’omer campfires we burned effigies of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – we called him “the Egyptian tyrant.” In the secular schools of Tel Aviv, we kissed Bibles if, heaven forbid, they fell on the floor. We wore kippas in Bible studies, long before the establishment of “centers for deepening Jewish identity.” We hardly heard about the New Testament. No one would think of studying it in school: it was considered almost as dangerous as “Mein Kampf.”

Many of us spit when we passed a church door. Few of us dared venture inside and, if we did, felt very guilty about it. Making the sign of the cross, even in jest, was considered an act of suicide. To us, Christians were “idolaters” – and idolaters, as we knew, were the lowest of all. We knew there was a “mission” in Jaffa, from which we had to keep away as if from fire. One child who went to study there was considered lost. The first generation of independence knew that all the Christians were anti-Semites. We knew, of course, that we were the chosen people and the be-all and end-all. That was inculcated in us by the enlightened education system of the nascent state.

Assimilation was considered the greatest sin of all – even greater than leaving the country to live elsewhere. The rumor that the uncle of one of the kids had married a non-Jewish woman was considered a disgrace to be kept secret. The chilling significance of the sick concept of “assimilation” didn’t even cross our minds. We grew up in a unified society, racially pure, in that little Tel Aviv: without foreigners, without Arabs, almost without Jews of Middle Eastern descent. Jaffa was the back of beyond and no one thought of going there: it was dangerous.

They taught us to think in a uniform manner and be wary of any deviation. The most subversive discussion I can remember from those days was whether the Jews “went like sheep to the slaughter.” Once, I stopped next to a tiny demonstration of the left-wing Matzpen organization on the steps of Beit Sokolov, the headquarters of the Israeli Journalists Association, to talk with N., who was in my class at school. The next day, I was called urgently to the vice principal’s office: he whipped out a photo of me from the demonstration – which the Shin Bet security service had passed on to him – and demanded explanations. That was long before the “NGO law” and the “Boycott law.”

Long before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and the banning of Rabinyan’s “Borderlife,” there was no real democracy here. Long before anti-assimilationist Bentzi Gopstein and right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir, there was xenophobia here and plenty of hatred of Arabs. But everything was hidden, wrapped in the noisy cellophane of excuses, buried deep in the earth.

Young bear the burden of Israel's siege on Gaza  Kate Shuttleworth The National 4/01/16  Http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/young-bear-the-burden-of-israels-siege-of-gaza

Haisam Momen and Karam Habeeb are almost hidden by the dozens of balloons they are trying to sell for just under Dh1 each. The Palestinian cousins, both only 15 years old, dropped out of school to help support their families. They work eight-hour days selling balloons in Gaza City’s parks, shopping centres and outside restaurants such as the upscale Mazaj, where a pasta dish costs more than their daily income of about Dh21 each. Haisam and Karam are just two of an estimated 104,000 children forced into labour in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, according to a United States department of labour report.With nearly half of the adult population out of work, the World Banks says Gaza’s unemployment rate is probably the highest in the world.

After Hamas won the 2006 election in Gaza and seized control from Fatah, the leading secular Palestinian party, Israel blockaded Gaza by air, land and sea. Unemployment climbed, and today, after three wars in under six years, the economy is on its knees. The number of Gazan children and youth forced into labour rose dramatically after the 51-day war in 2014, which left more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 Israelis dead. Some children lost one or both parents in the war. Others have parents who were injured and are now unable to work. By law, the minimum working age in both Palestinian territories is 15, and 18 for hazardous work involving chemicals or dangerous machinery, but this is not enforced in Gaza . . . 

Jamil Momen, 21, and his younger brother Haisam, 15, live in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza. Jamil wants to go to university but has to sell balloons and rides on an electric car for children instead to support the family because his parents are unemployed. Inside their two-room house, Jamil checks the lights on the battery-powered toy car that he will sell rides on that night. Jamil married recently and his wife is now pregnant, putting pressure on Haisam to leave school to help support their 13-member household. Nearby, in central Gaza, Jamil and Haisam’s cousins are also working to support their extended family . . . 

Maher Al Tabbaa, a Gazan economist, said the reality of child labour in Gaza was perhaps one of the worst in the world in that children are forced to work because their parents cannot.

Gazan 14-year-old sentenced to 6 months in prison by Israeli court  Ma‘an 9/01/16 Http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769723

An Israeli court sentenced a 14-year-old Palestinian boy from the Gaza Strip to six months in prison, an official from the Palestinian Authority Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs said in a statement. Abd al-Nasser Farawanah said that Israeli forces had detained 13 Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip on Oct. 10 during clashes in the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Nine of them were released, while four remained in detention and were indicted.

The youngest of the detainees, Muhammad Muhsin Ramadan al-Azzazi, 14, is an eighth-grade student from al-Bureij . . . Al-Azzazi told a lawyer from the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, who visited him in the Israeli Ofek juvenile prison on Dec. 22, that three Israeli soldiers attacked him and forced him to take off his clothes at gunpoint. They then handcuffed and blindfolded him before throwing him to the floor in front of their military jeep and beating his entire body with their hands, feet and the butts of their rifles. Al-Azzazi added that one of the soldiers beat his shoulder with a sharp object which caused a deep wound, and that another soldier hit his mouth with a shoe, breaking his front tooth. The boy also said that he vomited blood after being severely beaten in the stomach.“I was held for three days in an open area of a military site near the eastern border of the Gaza Strip, where we would sit on the floor, sometimes under the rain,” al-Azzazi added.

 “We did not have anything to shelter us from the cold except for shorts they gave us. We suffered of hunger and thirst since we did not get any kind of food or water for the first three days, and we could not sleep.” “We would be constantly beaten and cursed,” the boy said. “After three days I was moved to a police station before being taken to the Beersheba prison, and then to the Ofek prison. “I still suffer from the cold and do not have enough clothing, and I have not yet seen any of my family members,” he continued. . . .

Majority of Jerusalem Palestinians detained in 2015 were minors Ma‘an 10/01/16 Http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769737  

Israeli forces detained more than 1,900 Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem in 2015, the majority of whom were minors, a prisoners’ rights group said on Sunday. A spokesman for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies, Riyad al-Ashqar, said in a statement that around two-thirds of those detained from the occupied city were minors, 65 of whom were put under house arrest.

Al-Ashqar slammed Israel’s use of house arrest on Palestinians under the age of 14 as an attempt to skirt Israeli law regarding imprisonment of minors that in effect “turns the child’s house itself to a prison and the family members to wardens.” Israeli authorities launched a series of new measures in November in response to an increase in unrest in occupied East Jerusalem that had escalated in the months prior. Included in the measures was a bill approved by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation that enables minors from 12 years of age to be given custodial sentences for committing “nationalistically-motivated” crimes. Following the approval, prisoners’ rights group Addameer said that children convicted of such crimes would not actually serve the sentences until reaching the age of 14, as current criminal law in Israel prohibits custodial sentences against children under 14.

The group reported that the Knesset -- Israel’s parliament -- meanwhile changed an existing national insurance law to enable authorities to remove social benefits provided to children convicted of “nationalistic-motivated” offenses and “terrorist activities” while they served time in prison. Israeli juvenile courts were also granted the ability to charge families of children convicted of such crimes fines of up to 10,000 shekels (US$2,580).

Israeli Welfare Ministry, foster agencies traffic in Palestinian children Richard Silverstein

Tikun Olam 09/01/16 Http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/09/israeli-welfare-ministry-foster-agencies-traffic-in-palestinian-children/

A few months ago, I wrote about a shocking Israeli Supreme Court decision which ratified the officially-sanctioned theft of children from a mixed Jewish-Palestinian couple and their adoption by an Orthodox Jewish couple who planned to raise the children with no access to their birth identity.  The decision was flagrantly racist and defied many Israeli child welfare regulations.  But it was the decision of the highest court in the land.  One which foreign observers continue to mistakenly credit with being a beacon of western democratic values.  No longer. Tonight brings a new saga of judicially sanctioned racism and woe perpetrated again by the Israeli Welfare Ministry (run by Minister Haim Katz) and its child services agency.

Welcome to the Israeli Arab ghetto  Sayed Kashua Ha’aretz 15/01/16 Http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.697509

Why do these shootings keep happening in your communities, I'm asked sometimes. That's what happens, I respond, when the state ignores your existence, and violence mediated by criminals is used to resolve disputes -- “Why does it keep happening in your communities?” I remember the redhead television director asking me after another case of murder was reported in the Israeli media – because cases of murder are the only events in Arab communities that sometimes reach the Israeli media. “Because,” I found myself overcoming my grief and replying to him, “because if you were to close the village of Beit Zayit for 20 years, so that everyone born is forced to live there, I guarantee you that it this will start among you, too. I guarantee you that brothers will start shooting one another over a square meter of land.” . . .

“Where to?” an old friend from Wadi Ara who called me this week almost shouted at me when I urged him to get out of there. “Where can I go – where will the children go to school? And who wants us, anyway? The people in Afula?” he said mockingly . . . It’s the same country, and distress of the kind that afflict its Arab locales exist elsewhere as well. But in those places, people at least harbor the illusion that their fate is not sealed at birth, that with education and work they might be able to escape the inferno. That’s an almost impossible illusion for Israel’s Arab citizens, who have been educated to understand that they have no alternative other than to live in their native village. The problem is that for almost seven decades now, the country has remained the same country, but the village is no longer a village.

Releasing two children on condition of deportation outside Jerusalem Silwanic 25/01/16 http://silwanic.net/?p=66866  The District judge decided to release two minors from the neighborhood of Shu‘fat north of Jerusalem on condition of house arrest and deportation outside the city of Jerusalem. Wadi Hilweh Information Center was informed that the District judge decided to release the 14-year old Majd Saeed Abu Khdeir and 14-year old Ala’ Abu Khdeir on condition of house arrest and deportation outside the city of Jerusalem in addition to paying a 5-thousand NIS bail and a third-party bail of 10 thousand NIS for each. Saeed Abu Khdeir, Majd’s father, explained that the family was forced to rent an apartment in “Arraba” in the Galilee after the deportation decision. He pointed out that the minors were arrested on the 13th of January after raiding their homes in Shu‘fat. After several days of interrogating them, the public prosecution submitted an indictment to the District Court including charges of  throwing stones at the light rail in Shu‘fat.

Jerusalemite children . . . hostages of 'occupation's internal institutions' Silwanic  25/01/16 http://silwanic.net/?p=66870    The occupation authorities are detaining Jerusalemite children who were arrested on charges of possession of knives and attempting to kill settlers inside internal rehabilitation institutions, following orders from Israeli courts and recommendations from the public prosecution and supervised by the social affairs. Children’s families consider this procedure very dangerous to the future of their children which is also part of the policy of shattering children’s hope of a decent life.

Four Jerusalemite children are currently detained inside those institutions. They are: 13-year old Ahmad Saleh Manasra, 12-year old Ali Ihab Ali Alqam, 12-year old Ahmad Raed Za’tari and 12-year old Shadi Anwar Farrah . . . Ahmad’s father explained that he is allowed as well as three others to visit Ahmad once a week since transferring him to Tamra. The visit is 40 minutes mostly in the presence of the child’s supervisor; the family is also allowed to call their son twice a week. Ahmad’s father added that signs of anxiety and psychological weakness were clear on his son during the visit not to mention detaining him with children aged between 14-17 years; Ahmad and Shadi are considered the youngest children detained in the institution which is reflected on their psychology. -Farrah…assault extract confessions-

Farrah’s mother explained that her child revealed to the judge during the last court session that he was exposed to electric shocks in addition to being stripped naked and putting cold water on his body during interrogation. She explained that her son is suffering from a bad psychological condition, anxiety and lack of comfort. (Continued)

Israeli court orders wounded child to endure further interrogation  IMEMC 25/01/16 Http://www.imemc.org/article/74717

Israel is the only country in the world that legislates not only the incarceration of children, but also the use of military courts to convict children

The Ofer Israeli military court ordered on Sunday that the wounded detained Palestinian child Ahmad Omar al-Atrash, 13, should remain under interrogation until Thursday. The Palestinian Detainees’ Committee noted that Israel is holding captive at least 450 children, including some who were injured prior to their abduction. The Israeli court refused to allow the parents of the child to hug him, or even to talk with him. The boy’s lawyer challenged that refusal, and the child’s parents were later allowed to be with him for a few minutes. Al-Atrash, from the Deheishe refugee camp in Bethlehem, was shot and injured by Israeli undercover soldiers near the northern entrance of Bethlehem city, before they grabbed him, and took him to an unknown destination. His family was not informed about his abduction, and had to make calls to various groups, including the Red Cross, trying to determine his whereabouts . . . The head of the Detainees’ Committee, Issa Qaraqe, said that Israel appears to consider itself in a “war with children,” and should be listed on a “list of shame” for its ongoing escalating violations against children. Qaraqe said the Israeli army abducted more than 2,250 children in the year 2015, and that most of those children were subjected to torture, abuse and harsh living conditions. “Israel is the only country in the world that legislates not only the incarceration of children, but also the use of military courts to convict children,” he said

Hating the occupation, not the Jews  Gideon Levy Ha’aretz 27/01/16 Http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.699906

Palestinian attackers choose violence as a means of resisting a more pernicious violence, that of the occupation -- The gloomy, cold hall seethed with repressed anger, and the somber faces of the dozens of men sitting there clearly expressed it. This week there was mourning in the remote Palestinian village of Al-Karmil in the hills south of Hebron, after the killing of Rukaiya Abu Eid, a girl not yet 14 years old. She was killed by a guard she tried to stab at the entrance to the settlement of Anatot.

On Israeli media she was termed “a 13 year-old terrorist” without the batting of an eyelid. The grieving father refused to talk to us at first. “What do I have to talk about with the Israelis who killed my daughter?” It snowed on the way there and there was a mist around the mourning hall. Inside there was fury and cold. After a while the atmosphere became somewhat relaxed and the father, Eid, agreed to talk. He pinned his daughter’s desperate act on the reality of life under the occupation. “Every little child sees the crimes,” he said. In Israel they chose to adopt the girl’s mother’s version, according to which Rukaiya left the house with a knife after a fight with her sister. In Israel they liked this explanation, involving no occupation or other such nonsense. A family quarrel. We had no hand in the unfolding of events. Even the notion that every Palestinian knows that if she only ventures out with knife in hand she’ll be shot to death by Israelis does not shock anyone here. The dozens of Palestinian male and female youths who set out over the last few months to kill Israelis did not do so “because they’re Jews,” as Israel’s propaganda likes to portray it, with a (routinely) broad hint about the Holocaust and the persecution of Jews.

They set out to stab or run people over by car because they’re conquerors. They set out to kill their conquerors. They chose violence as a means of resisting a more pernicious violence, that of the occupation. They wanted to hurt Israelis, especially soldiers and settlers, because of the occupation, not because they’re Jewish. Their Jewishness has nothing to do with it. For the Palestinians, there’s no difference between a soldier who’s Jewish, Druze or Bedouin and a settler from the tribe of Menashe. (Continued)

Israel's logic of dispossession Amira Hass  Ha’aretz 27/01/16 Http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.699745

The invasion of two Palestinian houses in Hebron’s Old City last week by dozens of Israelis was an obvious, logical step. We still don’t know on what basis the settlers decided that the two houses on Al-Sahla Street were purchased legally. The Zaatari family of Hebron, which owns the houses, denied selling them. In a complaint to the Israel Police, which was submitted via the (Palestinian) Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, the family demanded their immediate eviction.

The mystery remains for the time being: Was a straw man hired for the purchase? Did someone from the large family give in to pressure to sell? Whether or not they were sold, there is a very simple reason why these houses and hundreds of others in Hebron are standing empty and deserted. Emptying out the houses in Hebron is a link in a sequence of logical decisions and actions. In 1994 Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin punished the Palestinians for the massacre of Arabs in the Cave of the Patriarchs by Dr. Baruch Goldstein, and imposed a prolonged curfew on them to protect the settlers from acts of revenge. That is the same logic that to this day guides the army commanders, who are punishing the residents of the villages Kerioth and Jaloud, for example, for the violence of the settlers in the outposts Esh Kodesh and Yishuv Hadaat, and evicting them from thousands of dunams of their land.

All the settlements and outposts on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem march along the same path: The ground was prepared by the state, which evicts Palestinians from their natural surroundings with various excuses and with military and administrative orders. Then the Israeli settlers come, the ones who harass the Palestinians who were not evicted or failed to “abandon” the site. To protect the attacking settlers, it’s necessary to widen the circle that is empty of Palestinians, and forbid them to cultivate their land or reach their homes. Then there is room for more outposts, vineyards and settlers’ neighborhoods, and once again the secure area forbidden to the Palestinians must be widened, otherwise God-fearing Jews will attack them. Simple logic.

And all that started long before the wave of knifing attacks. That’s how the violent Shiloh bloc was created, or the sacred Ariel panhandle – which smashed the Palestinian space in the center of the West Bank. And that’s how the ancient, beating heart was torn out of Palestinian Hebron, which is now the setting of a horror film, or a paradise for settlers. (Continued)

Two elite Israeli soldiers jailed for killing a camel in West Bank Jack Moore Newsweek 27/01/16 Http://www.newsweek.com/two-elite-israeli-soldiers-jailed-killing-camel-west-bank-420007

 An Israeli military court has demoted and sentenced two Israeli soldiers from the military’s elite unit to prison after they shot and killed a camel in the West Bank, Israeli media outlets reported on Tuesday. The court sentenced the soldier who shot the camel to four months in prison for unlawful use of weapons and of animal abuse, demoting him to the rank of private, while the second soldier, who filmed the incident, was sentenced to two months in prison and also demoted to private. The pair were members of the Israeli military’s Duvdevan special operations unit, which conducts undercover operations in the West Bank. . . . . . .

'No surprise' as Israeli policeman escapes prosecution for shooting Palestinian girls

Kate Shuttleworth The National 28/02/16 Http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/no-surprise-as-israeli-policeman-escapes-prosecution-for-shooting-palestinian-girls

 An Israeli police officer who killed a 14-year-old Palestinian girl when he repeatedly shot her as she lay on the ground has escaped prosecution. The policeman opened fire on Hadeel Awwad as she tried to carry out an attack in Jerusalem in November with a cheap pair of scissors. Her cousin Norhan, 16, was also shot several times but survived.

The closing of the policeman’s case comes amid increasing anger over the number of teenage Palestinians killed in the current wave of violence and even concern within Israel’s military hierarchy. Palestinian leaders and human rights groups accuse the security forces of using excessive force and a “shoot-on-sight” policy in dealing with what Israel claims are attacks carried out or planned by Palestinians, usually with small knives. Police investigators said last week they had decided not to prosecute the officer, whose name was not released, as there was no evidence he had criminal intent in his actions, Israeli media reported . . . The decision not to prosecute the officer “came as no surprise” to Hadeel’s older sister Haya. The Awwad family had to wait more than a month for their daughter’s body to be released by the Israeli military. Hadeel’s body was among the first to be returned, after delays intended to punish the families of those accused of attacks on Israelis. “My heart was beating, I was scared – I was also incredibly sad because I remember so clearly the times when my sister was alive and walking and here I was collecting her corpse,” said Haya. “Her body had eleven bullet holes, on both sides of her body, the police officer had turned her body over and shot her again in the chest, shoulder and neck – she was riddled with gunshots.” (Continued)

Top Israeli officials who issued directive to execute Palestinians hang Hebron killer out to dry  Dan Cohen  Mondoweiss 25/03/16 http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/top-israeli-officials-who-issued-directive-to-execute-palestinians-hang-hebron-killer-out-to-dry/ Elor Azraya, the soldier who summarily executed Abed al-Fattah Yusri al-Sharif as he lay on the street immobile and unarmed yesterday, is suspected of murder.  In his defense, his lawyer Eyal Beserglick said Azraya “acted in accordance with the rules of engagement as suggested by his superiors.” He’s right.  It’s unclear which superiors the lawyer is referring to, but it could be any number of figures in the political and military echelon who have commanded Israeli soldiers to shoot Palestinians deemed attackers dead on-the-spot. That’s precisely what he did.  And now Israel’s top brass is hanging the killer out to dry. Since the graphic video released by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem went viral, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon distanced themselves from the killing, however stopping short of condemning the killer. But just a few months ago, they were inciting soldiers to kill and guaranteed them full legal backing. Here are the statements from October translated from official videos posted to Netanyahu’s Youtube account, and statements following the execution. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon:  October 9, 2015: “Right now is it required to respond quickly to any local attack to eliminate the terrorist stabber or the perpetrator stone thrower and the like, immediately, on the spot.” March 24, 2016: “Even as we are forced to fight our enemies and overcome them in battle, we are equally obligated to uphold our mores. To be human.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: October 14th, 2015, speaking to paramilitary border police units: “I know that it requires your discretion, but have no doubt: You have complete backing – complete! – from me, from the Israeli government, and in my opinion from the nation in Israel.” March 24, 2016: “What happened in Hebron doesn’t represent the values of the IDF. The IDF expects its soldiers to behave level-headedly and in accordance with the rules of engagement.” . . . Azraya is a medic in the Kfir brigade. While the fact that someone tasked with treating the wounded carried out an execution is abhorrent, it’s not surprising. The head of Magen David Adom in Hebron, which is officially recognized by the International Committee of the Red Cross, said that “terrorists should not be permitted to leave the scene alive.” I wrote here about the trend among Israeli medical professionals to abandon triage protocol, effectively ensuring the death of wounded Palestinians. (Continued)

Israeli Labour Party adopts full apartheid plan   Nureddin Sabir Redress Information & Analysis www.redressonline.com/2016/02/israeli-labour-party-adopts-full-apartheid-plan/

The Israeli Labour Party on 7 February endorsed a plan for a full apartheid regime and the theft of what remains of the Palestinian territories occupied in the 1967 war, the French news agency AFP reported. The plan was first proposed by party leader Yitzhak Herzog at a conference at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies on 5 January.

“I want to separate from as many Palestinians as possible, as fast as possible,” he told the conference, the right-wing Jerusalem Post reported.

He promised to “erect a big wall between us. That is the kind of co-existence that is possible right now… Ariel Sharon… didn’t finish the job. We want to finish it, to complete the barrier that separates us.” “The situation will be clear to everyone,” Herzog said, adding: “We are settling here, you are settling there. By “here”, he meant the large, stolen tracts of land that have been turned into squatter-colony blocs, and “there” are the Bantustans planned for the Palestinians on small portions of the occupied West Bank.                                                                                                As Israeli academic Neve Gordon notes, the Israeli Labour Party, “which is the only viable alternative to the current Likud government and which is considered by many, both in Israel and among international leaders, to be a progressive substitute, has, in other words, unanimously supported a plan that would have been applauded by apartheid South Africa”.                                                                                                                                                           In order to ensure the consolidation of the division of the West Bank into archipelagos, the plan emphasises the importance of completing the separation barrier around settlement blocs in the West Bank, because the blocs, according to Herzog, will always remain under Israeli sovereignty and “will be part of the permanent solution”.

In order to get rid of Palestinians who are residents of Israel and have an Israeli identity card, Herzog endorses cutting off Palestinian villages from Jerusalem.

Needless to say, the Israeli Wehrmacht, according to Herzog, should continue to control the entire West Bank, including the Palestinian Bantustans.Though hard to believe, given the slaughter in the Gaza Strip perpetrated under Binyamin Netanyahu, Herzog criticised the Israeli prime minister for being too soft on the Palestinians. Netanyahu’s Likud government, he claims, is not really bombing Palestinians in Gaza, but only empty spaces. He therefore promised that, if he gains power, he would employ an “iron fist”, including shutting down Palestinian radio and TV stations and ensuring that the Palestinians would be forbidden from having internet or mobile phone services.

The conclusion the rest of the world should draw from this is obvious. As Gordon says,

Given this reality, it does not seem likely that a just solution to the Palestinian plight will come from within Israel. Indeed, at this historical juncture, international pressure is perhaps the only hope and is desperately needed.

'Call me a terrorist, but I'm no different from Israeli troops defending their homeland'

Gideon Levy & Alex Levac Ha’aretz 19/02/16

Http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.704179

These children are a new generation of hatred. Not incitement, not Abu Mazen [i.e., Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas], not Hamas – the true source of incitement is the behavior of the Israeli soldier and whoever gives him his orders."

As we make our way down a narrow, dark alley barely wide enough to walk through, on the way to the house of mourning, Najah Mohammed Muqbel bends over to pick up a few spent cartridges. “You see, this is the material that incites our children,” he says. In 1990, Muqbel was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Yaakov Shalom in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ein Karem. Released after 23 years, he is now a key activist in Fatah, talking on the movement’s behalf in West Bank schools.  “We do not want to die and we do not send our children to die,” he says, before we enter the small, cramped home of Omar Madi, a teenager who was killed last week by Israeli soldiers in the Al-‘Arroub refugee camp. “No father wants his child to die. But sometimes our children make decisions that are bigger than their age.” . . . The bereaved parents, Naama and Yusuf Madi, and their 10 remaining children huddle in the house. Anguish is etched on the face of the father, a hardscrabble laborer of 52, employed by the Bethlehem Municipality . . . “They [the soldiers] murdered him in cold blood,” one of the teen’s brothers says. “They have no pity for the old or for the young,” their mother adds. “What reason do the soldiers have to walk around the camp every day,” the dead boy’s father asks, and then answers himself: “They come so the children will throw stones at them and then they can kill them.” . . . “We used to think that the killing of children was a ‘mistake.’ Now, [Muqbel] explained, “we believe that there is an IDF policy to kill children, to execute our children. After all, a child’s body shows that he is a child. The soldier knows he is a child. If you think that this is a message that will help you, you are wrong.

Israel steps up demolitions in West Bank  MEMO 19/02/16  Https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/24029-israel-steps-up-demolitions-in-the-west-bank

Data indicates that the Israeli Civil Administration has noticeably stepped up its demolition of large Palestinian buildings in Area C of the West Bank since the beginning of the year, which a particular rise during the first half of February. A report by Amira Hass in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper indicated that in the past few weeks, 293 large buildings were demolished compared to the 447 large buildings that were demolished over the course of 2015. Based on this information, the Israeli authorities are demolishing an average of 49 large buildings every week, compared to last year’s average of 9 a week. The demolition operations during this year included at least 93 residential buildings, leaving 480 people homeless, including 220 children. According to the report, the Ministerial Committee on Settlement Affairs, led by Jewish Home’s Moti Yogev, is pressuring the representatives of the Civil Administration to pick up the pace on demolitions and the evacuation of Palestinians from Area C. They have also been focusing on demolishing buildings funded by international organisations, especially European organisations.

According to the text of a closed session held in August, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Yoav Mordechai, stated that an immediate demolition order will be issued against any “illegal and European funded building” and a letter of protest sent to the embassy of the funding country. According to figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 104 buildings funded by European countries have been demolished over the past few weeks, while the number of those demolished or confiscated in 2015 was 108. This suggests a 230 percent increase in the demolition rate.

How Israel is 'turning Palestinians into Zionists'  Jonathan Cook Al Jazeera 18/02/16 Http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/israel-turning-palestinians-zionists-160218084338003.html

Israel is to put financial pressure on Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem in an effort to make them switch over to an Israeli-controlled curriculum, according to local activists and officials. Almost all of East Jerusalem's schools currently use a syllabus developed by the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government-in-waiting created in the mid-1990s by the Oslo accords. Before that, they relied on the Jordanian curriculum. Palestinian officials have slammed the move, warning that it is part of intensified efforts by Israel to disconnect East Jerusalem from the neighbouring West Bank and entrench its control over the 300,000 Palestinians in the city. Peace efforts have long been premised on Israel ending its occupation of East Jerusalem and recognising the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. "This attack on our curriculum is part of Israel's war on Palestinian identity," Sabri Saidam, the Palestinian education minister, told Al Jazeera. "Israel is working to consolidate its illegal occupation."

Israel tried to impose the Israeli curriculum when it first occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, but was forced to relent after parents and pupils staged months of strikes and protests. Civil rights groups, meanwhile, fear Palestinian schools will have little choice but to submit to the Israeli scheme if they do not want to face further budget cuts in an East Jerusalem education system already chronically underfunded by Israel. Palestinian pupils, local activists say, will be presented with a curriculum that denies their history and identity, and places a strong emphasis on Israel's official position that all of Jerusalem is its "eternal, unified capital". "We don't want our children to be told that al-Aqsa is not our holy place, that the Palestinian flag is not our flag, that the land belongs to the settlers, and that Ariel Sharon is a hero," said Hatem Khweis, a spokesman for the Union of Parents' Committees, a Palestinian group campaigning for improved education in East Jerusalem.

Israel demolishes sole elementary school in Jerusalem Bedouin community WAFA 21/02/16  Http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=FbnmgTa30224820021aFbnmgT

Israeli bulldozers predawn Sunday demolished an elementary school and seized all its contents in Abu al-Nawwar Bedouin community, east of Jerusalem, according to one of the Bedouin locals. Local Abu 'Imad al-Jahalin told WAFA that around 30 Israeli military vehicles, accompanied by over 130 soldiers, stormed the Bedouin community during the predawn hours, and proceeded to demolish Abu al-Nawwar elementary school, comprising six classrooms for first and second graders, and seized all of its contents, including students' desks and chairs. He noted that the school, which was built through European funding, is the sole elementary school in the community. He added that Israeli occupation aims to empty the community of its indigenous Palestinian population for the benefit of settlement expansion, including its 'E1’ settlement plan.

Israel dismantles Dutch-funded West Bank farming project Janene Peters NLTIMES 29/02/16  Http://www.nltimes.nl/2016/02/29/israel-dismantles-dutch-funded-west-bank-farming-project/

The Israeli army dismantled a Dutch-funded project on the West Bank of the Jordan river. The project is an agricultural project in which the Netherlands put 10 million euros, Israel correspondent Jan Franke told BNR. The project involved teaching Palestinians how to use the land for growing their crops. The entire project, including tools and sheds, was dismantled.  According to diplomats, the dismantling was done as revenge – Israel is upset that the EU wants to put special labels on products from Israeli settlements. Not much can be done against the Israeli’s decision to dismantle the project, Franke said to the broadcaster. “There are many EU aid projects on the West Bank.” he said. “And essentially all the projects and and initiatives exist at the mercy of the Israeli army. They have the control there. If they say: ‘We are going to dismantle, this is not allowed’, then you stand there empty-handed.”

Israel's New Line of Propaganda Puts Orwell to Shame

Israel is resorting to lies and deceit about the occupation and its treatment of the Palestinians to fill the void left by the death of the peace process Gideon Levy Ha’aretz 27/02/16 http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.705799

An all-American youngster – fair-haired, regular churchgoer – returns from his morning run and decides to join the boycott against Israel. He has heard of the BDS movement and about the oppression and occupation, so he collects everything in his home that was made in Israel or by companies trading with it – just about everything he has – and starts shooting the products. Suddenly, another young man appears and suggests he shoot the Bible, since that too was made in Israel. The shooter recoils. He gets the message that appears at the end of the video: “Don’t boycott God. Buy Israeli products.”                                                                                                                                          This video was produced by HaYovel, an organization founded by Tennessee couple Tommy and Sherri Waller. He once worked with Federal Express, she is a passionate restoration advocate – of families and “the nation of Israel,” as their website says. Their mission is to bring volunteers from America to help “the Israeli farmers,” i.e. the settlers. The organization’s website enables donations and even to pray for the settlers. Another video on the site shows U.S. veterans volunteering in the vineyard of the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha.

There are plenty of wacky rightist organizations. But the youngster who persuaded his friend not to boycott Israel said something else. “Most Palestinians aren’t oppressed. Those who are – are oppressed by their own government. Israel provides them with work, free electricity, health care and loads of humanitarian aid. I was there and saw it.”

Tons of aid or not, it is not only HaYovel that spreads these absurd falsehoods. And these tainted goods now have much more serious sellers: the Israeli government. It is doubtful whether it has more serious buyers than the grotesque U.S. veterans at Har Bracha.

The propagandist in the video says the same things Israel’s prime minister is saying. Addressing his British counterpart David Cameron, who let slip a rare word of criticism of the occupation in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu preached, “Only Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem guarantees the city’s Arab residents’ roads, clinics, workplaces and other means of normal life that Arabs across the Middle East don’t enjoy.” He said it as an insult to Cameron’s intelligence.

One may, of course, suspect that Israel’s propagandists are guiding HaYovel and similar groups. Or perhaps great minds think alike. But it’s impossible to ignore the embarrassing change that has occurred in Israel’s propaganda.

Nobody in the world speaks seriously about the peace process anymore. No one believes that the Israeli government is interested in peace, while the two-state solution is nothing but a monument. At a time like this, propaganda must reinvent itself. Israel can’t say “There’s no partner,” because it’s clear it doesn’t want to talk to the Palestinians. Israel can’t say “two states,” because it’s clear it doesn’t mean it.

But Israel must say something, so it is now resorting to the Orwellian propaganda of lies and deceit, the likes of which even George Orwell himself couldn’t have imagined; he didn’t even go so far in “1984.”

The new Israeli “public diplomacy” (hasbara) consists of three principles, at least two of which are outright lies: there is no occupation; the Palestinians are living contented lives; God giveth.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has drafted the new line, following Netanyahu. “The occupation is not an occupation,” she said in all seriousness to Yossi Verter this weekend, adding something about a biblical right. Naturally, this is good news. According to Israel’s spokespeople, the Palestinians’ situation is wonderful, they’re neither oppressed nor occupied – joyful tidings! And there’s more: the world is stupid, and so are the Israelis. So the government finds it easy to sell them anything.

And the best news is that official Israel is pulling its rusty day-of-judgement weapon of yore out of the attic: there’s a God, so there’s no occupation. In the early days of the occupation, a few wackos used to wander around trying to sell us this merchandise. Not many were convinced. Dredging up this weapon again confirms that Israel has run out of arguments.

We’re left only with the delusion and lies.

Hugh Humphries

Secretary

Scottish Friends of Palestine          info@scottish-friends-of-palestine.org           0141 637 8046

The Palestine Youth Orchestra UK TOUR 

18 JULY-1 AUGUST 2016 
 

This summer, the Palestine Youth Orchestra (PYO) is touring the United Kingdom, performing at several world-famous venues as they travel across the island from North to South.

In July 2016, 80 young musicians from Palestine and the United Kingdom will come together for the first time for a week of rehearsals at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, before embarking on their first UK Tour conducted by the acclaimed conductor Sian Edwards. 

Concerts include Arabic songs from Egypt and Lebanon alongside contemporary British music, Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Mussorgsky’s much-loved Pictures at an Exhibition. Equally at home with Western and Arabic repertoire, the PYO maintains a unique position amongst youth orchestras internationally. 
 

PYO UK Tour Dates:

Free concert in the Bandstand, Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park. Exact date to be confirmed.

25 July     Perth Concert Hall (tickets available now)

26 July     Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow (check website of Royal Concert Hall closer to the date)

27 July     Leeds Town Hall 
29 July     Birmingham Town Hall
30 July     St David’s Hall, Cardiff
1 August  Royal Festival Hall, London