Share:
Receive up-to-date news by subscribing:
Scottish Friends of Palestine
Briefing Paper
September 2022
'A small, arrogant, violent, wicked nation' and a 'Jewish mutation'
Mondoweiss 31/05/2022
Israeli English speaking daily, 'Ha’aretz, runs two articles attacking Israeli Zionism as a hateful dead-end, urging the world to take action. The authors' scathing words would never make it into an American [or UK – Ed note] newspaper. Contemporary Zionism is a "Jewish mutation," Amira Hass writes in despair. While B. Michael writes that Zionism has created a "small, arrogant, violent, wicked nation" of "Jew-oids" who have taken the "wicked parts of Judaism and turned it into the essence." Read more: ( no access to Mondoweiss link)
Assaults on public health infrastructure - war crimes Emily Hacker EI 03/06/22 In May 2021, the Israeli military dropped hundreds of bombs on the Gaza Strip, destroying houses, schools, businesses, and health care facilities. Perhaps nowhere was the human toll of that month more apparent than at al-Shifa hospital, the “only hospital in Gaza equipped for emergency assistance.” Outside the hospital grounds, streets were so badly damaged by Israeli airstrikes that paramedics struggled to bring patients directly to al-Shifa.
In the span of those 11 days in May, Israeli occupation forces wreaked havoc on Gaza’s already precarious public health system, damaging or destroying 19 medical centers, including the offices of the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit that provides cancer treatment and medical prosthetics to children who are unable to seek care outside of Gaza due to Israeli blockades. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-assaults-public-health-infrastructure-amount-war-crimes/35601
Woman and child shot dead Maureen Clare Murphy EI 04/06/2022
Israeli occupation forces shot and killed four Palestinians in the West Bank during the first two days of June, including a woman and a child.
Ghufran Warasneh, 31, was reportedly on the way to her first day of work at a local radio station when she was killed by Israeli soldiers at the entrance to al-Arroub refugee camp near Hebron on 1 June. The Israeli military claimed in a tweet that an “assailant armed with a knife attempted to stab” a soldier. “Our soldiers thwarted the attack with live fire to neutralize the assailant,” the military said, adding that the Palestinian killed “was imprisoned this year for attempting to stab an Israeli police officer
The following day, Israeli soldiers shot and killed Odeh Muhammad Odeh Sadaqa, 16, in al-Midya village in the central West Bank. Sadaqa is the 14th Palestinian child killed by Israeli forces so far this year after five boys were shot and fatally injured in May. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-forces-kill-four-west-bank
Evictions enabled by British-born judge Omar Zahzah EI 13/06/222
To Palestinians and their supporters, it is known as Masafer Yatta.
To Israel – and in keeping with the aseptic detachment common to colonial regimes – it has been Firing Zone 918 since 1981, when then agriculture minister Ariel Sharon decided on that designation explicitly in order to force out the area’s residents.Located in the South Hebron Hills, the area spans 12 Palestinian villages with nearly 2,800 residents whose livelihoods depend mainly on farming.
Agricultural communities have lived on the 8,600 acres of land and called it home for generations. In 1999, the Israeli army expelled 700 residents of the area, though they were able to return pending a final ruling. This decades-old attempt at ethnic cleansing is now entering a crucial phase. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/masafer-yatta-evictions-enabled-british-born-judge/35641
Children working Gaza’s dumps Ola Mousa EI 16/06/22
“When I started doing this work, I felt ashamed,” he said. “But I no longer do. No one can stop me from scavenging. The officials want to stop us but I and many others will keep doing this work. I don’t want to do it. But I also don’t want my children to starve.” Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/danger-doesnt-stop-children-working-gazas-dumps/35676
The Mapping Project is a call to accountability P Weiss & A Horowitz Mondoweiss 16/06/22 After the report was published, all hell broke loose. Critics have called the map a dangerous conspiracy theory, one that could even incite violence against Jews. These critics don’t care about policing or counterterrorism or imperialism. Their focus is the fact that the Mapping Project includes many Jewish groups that advocate for Israeli impunity for its criminal behavior. Among those groups is the Anti-Defamation League, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Ruderman Family Foundation, Kraft Family Philanthropies, Seth Klarman, and the Klarman Family Foundation, as well as the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
And the charge is a now familiar one: the Mapping Project is guilty of antisemitic targeting. . . . Read more: The Mapping Project isn’t an attack on the Jewish community, it is a call to accountability – Mondoweiss
Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in Jenin Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 17/06/22
Israeli forces killed three Palestinians and injured several others during a raid overnight in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday. According to Palestinian media, a massive Israeli military convoy raided Jenin in the early predawn hours of Friday morning, and ambushed a car in the al-Marah area of the city, firing dozens of rounds of live ammunition at the vehicle. Read more: Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in Jenin – Mondoweiss
16-year-old boy dies - left to bleed to death by Israeli forces Tamara Nassar EI 27/06/2022 Route 60 is a highway used by Israeli settlers. Many Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire in this area. Muhammad was shot “from a distance of 50 meters,” from a military watchtower, “where no events took place,” according to an investigation by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).
An Israeli ambulance transported Muhammad to the Shaare Zedek medical center in Jerusalem after he bled for 45 minutes, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCIP). PCHR’s investigation says he was left to bleed for two hours. Israeli occupation forces “left Muhammad to bleed for about two hours, prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching him and indiscriminately and heavily opened fire to prevent anyone from approaching him as well,” PCHR stated. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-shoots-boy-leaves-him-bleed
Double standards means justice denied Ola Mousa EI 04/07/2022
On 15 May last year, his wife Maha and their five children were staying overnight with the family of Maha’s brother Alaa Abu Hatab in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp. Without issuing any warning, Israel fired a number of missiles at the family’s home. Alaa’s wife Yasmin and four of their children were killed as a result, along with Maha and four of her children.
Muhammad also asked lawyers and human rights groups if the International Criminal Court could investigate the crime that Israel committed against his family. For that to happen, Muhammad was told he would need support from the Palestinian Authority, a party to the ICC’s founding charter, the Rome Statute. While some PA representatives promised to help Muhammad approach the ICC, he complained that the representatives have not kept their promises. “I found that the road was full of obstacles,” he said.
Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-father-stonewalled-search-justice/35801
Palestinian Six fight Israeli smear David Kattenburg Mondoweiss 05/07/2022
The European Commission has restored funding to the Palestinian human rights groups Al-Haq despite an Israeli attack on it and five other Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as having supposed terrorist links. “They can do anything they want. They can confiscate [our laptops and files]; they can close the office; they can arrest people; they can arrest me and criminalize me," Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq says. "We will not give up. I assure you we will not give up, and we ...
Read more: ‘An axe above our heads’ — Palestinian Six fight Israeli smear – Mondoweiss
Israeli forces kill fleeing Palestinian child Tamara Nassar EI 06/07/2022
On 2 July, five Israeli military vehicles were deployed at the entrance of Jaba, a village southwest of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. They erected a checkpoint, provoking confrontations with Palestinian residents of the village. Israeli forces opened fire on Alawneh as he stood 20 meters away, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International-Palestine.
The teen was shot with live bullets in the elbow, and then again in the abdomen as he tried to flee. He managed to walk 20 more meters, before he collapsed and was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery. Kamel died the next day, bringing the number of Palestinian children killed by Israel since the start of the year to 16. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israeli-forces-kill-fleeing-palestinian-child
Germany blames Palestinians for anti-Semitism Omar Zahzah EI 07/07/2022 Since a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli attempts to ethnically cleanse the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah erupted in May 2021, Mohammed El-Kurd has become an increasingly public figure. Last year, El-Kurd, now 24, published Rifqa, his debut collection of poems. The Palestinian poet Summer Farah writes in her review of Rifqa that El-Kurd’s collection “beautifully explores the ways colonialism alters our navigation of time and space.” And on 21 September, 2021, The Nation brought El-Kurd on as its official Palestine correspondent.
All of these are remarkable achievements in and of themselves. For someone to have realized them all at 24 is all the more remarkable. But despite his impressive credentials, on 17 June, the Goethe-Institut, a German state cultural organization, disinvited El-Kurd from participating in a three-day conference titled “Selling Fascism? Remembering the Unsold.”“After some consideration, the Goethe-Institut decided that Mohammed El-Kurd was not an appropriate speaker for this forum,” the organization tweeted. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/haunted-ghosts-germany-blames-palestinians-anti-semitism/35861
Israel’s Religious-Based Discrimination Palestinian Return Centre 07/07/2022
“The religious-based discrimination from Israeli authorities towards Palestinian Muslims and Christians has increasingly heightened in recent weeks. Israeli forces have been limiting Palestinians’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque through enforcing age bans that do not allow any Palestinian under 50 to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque”, said PRC, while Israeli forces simultaneously allow Jewish settlers of all ages to invade the Al Aqsa Mosque compound whilst they recite provocative slurs and participate in controversial religious acts. Read more: https://prc.org.uk/en/post/4430/prc-urges-unhrc-to-take-action-against-israel-s-religious-based-discrimination
Israeli court OKs sweeping impunity Maureen Clare Murphy EI 11/07/2022Israel’s high court ruled last week in favor of sweeping immunity for the state for war crimes perpetrated in Gaza. Palestinian human rights groups say that the ruling underscores the urgent need for an immediate International Criminal Court investigation. Adalah, a Palestinian human rights group, stated that the “ruling means that all Gaza residents are banned from any redress and remedy in Israel, regardless of the circumstances, during ‘acts of war’ or otherwise.” The high court ruling is in response to an appeal demanding that Israel pay compensation for the serious injury of Attiya Nabaheen, who had just turned 15 when he was shot by Israeli forces in his family’s front yard while returning home from school in Gaza in November 2014. Nabaheen was paralyzed as a result of his injuries. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-court-rules-favor-sweeping-impunity
Book shortage in Gaza Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh Mondoweiss 14/07/2022
The history of this state of affairs is now fairly old, starting with the hermetic military blockade of Gaza in 2007, which has continued to this day with little reprieve. Mail delivery has been one of the many victims of this siege. The mail that does reach its intended destination will have survived a harrowing journey of digital and physical checkpoints, arriving after many months of border control purgatory. . . . The book’s subtitle–Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism–may have been the culprit. It was certainly intriguing enough to motivate the shipping company to send me a diatribe of racist emails. The mere fact that a private international shipping company based in Israel would choose to respond in this way was unprofessional enough, but the contents of the correspondence took me aback. Read more: The book shortage in Gaza no one is talking about – Mondoweiss
Nine EU states reject Israeli ‘terror’ designation Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 15/07/2022 Nine European Union states announced on Tuesday that they would continue to support the Palestinian civil society organizations that were arbitrarily criminalized by the Israeli government, after it accused the groups of supporting “terrorism” last year.
The Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden released a joint statement saying that they would continue their “strong support” of Palestinian civil society in light of “no substantial information” provided by the Israeli government to back up its claims. Read more: EU states express support for Palestinian civil society, reject Israeli ‘terror’ designation – Mondoweiss
Amnesty International demands an immediate halt to forced evictions and home demolitions in the Negev/Naqab
Settlers launch mass outpost construction operation Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 20/07/2022 Hundreds of Israeli settlers set out across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to take part in an unprecedented effort to erect a number of illegal settlement outposts in the territory. Led by Daniella Weiss, a leader of the religious-Zionist and settler movements and an advocate of an “Arab-free” Jewish state, the plans started as a goal of establishing “10 Evyatars” - named after the Evyatar outpost in Beita, what the group considers to be one of its most successful settlement projects . Read more: Israeli settlers launch mass outpost construction operation – Mondoweiss
Increased harassment on Israeli campuses Jessica Buxbaum Mondoweiss 20/07/22
Im Tirtzu quickly called for her expulsion from Tel Aviv University, citing her Facebook post in which she advocated for a boycott of Jewish and settlement businesses and to buy Palestinian products during Israel’s May 2021 assault on Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem. Nassra said she misspoke, and meant to emphasize the importance of supporting the Palestinian economy during this time. Im Tirtzu is also actively calling for the expulsion of Khatib. Read more: Palestinian students facing increased harassment on Israeli campuses – Mondoweiss
Israeli Supreme Court rules citizens can be stripped of status for ‘breach of loyalty’ Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 23/07/2022
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state can revoke the citizenship of people on the basis of “breach of loyalty,” a law that rights groups say is a dangerous and “illegitimate law.” Such actions that could constitute a breach of loyalty or trust include anything the state finds as “terrorism”, espionage, and treason. Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel said the law will likely be used to disproportionately target Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of the state’s population. . . . But the court ruled that the law itself was constitutional, and could be used in other cases to strip people of their citizenship, even if such an act would leave the person stateless. Read more: Israeli Supreme Court rules citizens can be stripped of status for ‘breach of loyalty’ – Mondoweiss
UN Commission - chair defends colleague against anti-semitism smears Michael Aria Mondowiess 29/07/2022
UN official Navi Pillay defends her colleague Miloon Kothari against accusations of antisemitism from pro-Israel groups, Israeli lawmakers, and U.S. officials following his interview with Mondoweiss, saying his comments "seem to have deliberately been taken out of context." The attacks on Kothari appear to be part of a concerted effort to undermine the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which the ...Read more: UN official says Kothari comments misrepresented – Mondoweiss
The two-state solution now faces serious challenges, to the point that it has become clear that a new linguistic formula is necessary for the main supporters of the Zionist project to continue their uncritical support over the next few decades. Haim Bresheeth Mondoweiss 30/07/2022
…. Israel has understood, however, that to continue the occupation and its many travesties, it needs to be seen as always working towards a “solution,” which explains its nominal commitment to the two-state framework. Yet the two-state solution now faces serious challenges, to the point that it has become clear that a new linguistic formula is necessary for the main supporters of the Zionist project to continue their uncritical support over the next few decades. . . . Read more: The Long Con(federation): Understanding the latest attempts to legitimize Israeli colonization – Mondoweiss
Why Israel will attack Gaza again and again . . Ali Abunimah EI 08/08/22
EI’s Ali Abunimah tells Al Jazeera that Tel Aviv’s aim is to regularly terrorize Palestinians into submission. Read more: Why Israel will attack Gaza again | The Electronic Intifada
16-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli settler fire Mariam Barghouti Mondoweiss 01/08/2022 On Saturday, July 30th, the town of al-Mughayyir, bid farewell to one of their children, Amjad Nashaat Abu Alia, who was shot and killed one day prior, on Friday July 29th. Abu Alia, only sixteen years old, was killed as he tried to escape Israeli settlers and soldiers who were firing live ammunition and throwing stones at unarmed Palestinian protestors in the village, which lies in the Ramallah district of the occupied West Bank. Read more https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/16-year-old-palestinian-killed-by-israeli-settler-fire-witnesses
18th Palestinian teen killed Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 03/08/2022
According to Defense for Children International - Palestine, an Israeli sniper deployed on top of a residential building in the refugee camp shot 17 year old Dirar al-Kafrayni in the back from a distance of approximately 295 feet. He's the 18th Palestinian child to be killed since the start of 2022. Read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/israeli-forces-kill-palestinian-teen-during-jenin-refugee-camp
Israel tightens Gaza chokehold Maureen Clare Murphy 04/08/2022
The additional closure measures have disrupted healthcare for the daily average of 100-120 medical patients that cross Erez checkpoint in Gaza’s north.The continued prevention of travel for medical patients would amount to “premeditated murder,” according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.The capacity of Gaza’s health sector has been greatly compromised after decades of occupation, 15 years of blockade and multiple large-scale military assaults and many patients must leave the territory to access life-saving care. Even people whose permits were already approved by Israel are being prevented from traveling. Since 2007, nearly 850 patients in Gaza have died after their permits to access hospitals in the West Bank and Israel were denied or delayed. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-tightens-gaza-chokehold
Children bear brunt of Israel’s savagery Tamara Nassar EI 07/08/2022
A ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic Jihad resistance group took effect before midnight Sunday, ending a deadly Israeli assault on Gaza. In the hours before the Egyptian-mediated truce took hold, Israel ramped up its killing and assassination spree for the third consecutive day. By late evening on Sunday, the Gaza health ministry said 44 Palestinians had been killed in the territory, including 15 children, since Israel started the bloodshed by assassinating a senior leader of Islamic Jihad on Friday afternoon. More than 300 Palestinians have been injured, almost a third of them children. No one was killed in Israel and there were no reports of serious injuries.
Al-Haq, a Palestinian human rights organization, said Sunday that Israel had “indiscriminately targeted civilians and non-military structures” and that the attack constituted “a grave breach of international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/children-bear-brunt-israels-savagery-gaza
Attorneys threatened by Israel Siham Rashid Mondoweiss 08/08/2022
To the dismay and outrage of human rights defenders, the Israeli Ministry of Defense is threatening three prominent attorneys for representing and defending their clients. Prior to an appeal hearing for Al-Haq and Defense for the Children International–Palestine (DCI-P), attorneys Michael Sfard and Avigdor Feldman received a letter insinuating that merely representing their clients and seeking due process constituted a violation of Israel’s 2016 Counter-Terrorism Law. DCI-P and Al-Haq make up two of the six human rights organizations that Israel designated as “terrorist” organizations in a flagrant disavowal of human rights.
The EU investigated the Israeli terror designation and found no evidence to substantiate these claims, further illustrating Israel’s political motivations behind the designation. The letter penned by the Israeli government threatening the defense attorneys came almost immediately after nine European Union member states decided on July 12 to resume the vitally needed funding of these organizations — funding that they had withdrawn for a period of nine months following the terror designation. Read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/israel-threatens-attorneys-representing-palestinian-civil-society
More killings – in the West Bank Ali Abunimah EI 09/08/2022 An early morning assault by occupation forces in the Old City of Nablus killed three Palestinians, including a child, and injured almost 70 with live ammunition. Hours later, occupation forces fatally shot another Palestinian child in Hebron. Among the dead in Nablus was Ibrahim Alaa al-Nabulsi, a resistance fighter who appears to have been the target of a pre-planned extrajudicial killing, along with a comrade, Islam Sabbouh. According to an investigation by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, early on Tuesday morning members of Israel’s special forces unit Yamam “sneaked into al-Habla neighborhood in Nablus’ Old City and cordoned off an abandoned house in the area.” Israeli forces closed off the surrounding neighborhood and then “heavily opened fire at the one-story house and launched several missiles at it.” . . . Sabbouh’s body was “badly burnt after the missiles directly hit him, rendering it difficult to identify him,” PCHR stated. Al-Nabulsi suffered gunshot wounds to the head and neck. He was taken to hospital where despite efforts to save him he was pronounced dead. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-kills-palestinian-fighters-children-west-bank
Israeli court acquits soldier of the murder of 13-year-old girl in 2004
Tareq S. Hajjaj Mondoweiss 10/08/2022 Eman Al-Homs was brutally killed in 2004 by Israeli forces in the Tel Al-Sultan refugee camp in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. On that day, the hospital told the family that their daughter’s body had been riddled with over 23 bullets — fired into her body after her death. The Al-Homs family sued the Israeli army in 2004, citing the testimony of eyewitnesses as well as the testimony of the soldiers themselves, who were members of the brigade that carried out the murder and testified against the officer that, according to them, made the “confirming kill.” 18 years later, the Israeli court ruled to dismiss the case.Eman Al-Homs’ family petitioned the Israeli court, looking for justice, yet all they found out was that “the Israeli judiciary offers no justice at all,” Eman’s father, 68-year-old Sameer Al-Homs . . . Read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/israeli-court-acquits-soldier-of-the-murder-of-13-year-old-girl-in-2004/?ml_recipient=63144653341328792&ml_link=63144421379540978&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2022-08-27&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines
Israel admits killing 5 children Tamara Nassar EI 16/08/2022
The Israeli military admitted it killed five Palestinian children in Gaza earlier this month after initially claiming the atrocity was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that fell short.
The explosion took place around 7 pm on 7 August at the al-Fallujah cemetery west of the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
The children killed in the Israeli attack were Jamil Najmuddin Jamil Najim, 3, Jamil Ihab Jamil Najim, 13, Nathmi Fayez Abdulhadi Abu Karsh, 15, Hamed Haidar Hamed Najim, 16, and 16-year-old Muhammad Salah Hamed Najim, according to an investigation by Defense for Children International-Palestine. They were among the 17 children killed during Israel’s three-day military attack on Gaza that left almost 50 people in Gaza dead and more than 360 injured. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/after-first-blaming-palestinians-israel-admits-killing-5-children
How Israel erases Palestinian cultural memory Rona Sela EI 17/08/2022
The seizure of Palestinian cultural materials does not stop with the physical act of confiscation. Israel hides the materials in its archives, limiting access and preventing their exposure. Israel meanwhile classifies materials in an inaccurate and biased manner that suits the Zionist narrative. For example, the materials looted from Beirut are listed in Israel’s military archives as the “PLO archive” – a body that never existed.
My studies of the archive’s bureaucracy reveal the destructive colonial means by which Israel exerts control over Palestinian narrative and history.My goal has been to give this issue the exposure it deserves so that seized and looted cultural and archival materials are returned to their Palestinian owners and restored to the public sphere. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/how-israel-erases-palestinian-cultural-memory/36026
7 Palestinian civil society organizations raided and shut down Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 18/08/2022 Six of the seven organizations were designated as “terrorist institutions” by the Israeli government in October 2021, and were subsequently outlawed by the Israeli military commander in the occupied West Bank.
The original six organizations are human rights group Al-Haq, prisoners rights group Addameer, Defense for Children International – Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), The Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees. The seventh organization to be closed today along with the original six is the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC). Read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/israeli-army-raids-shuts-down-offices-of-6-palestinian-civil-society-organizations/?ml_recipient=63869271552296546&ml_link=63869198878639829&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2022-08-27&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines
Supreme Court rejects appeal – schools to be demolished Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 22/08/22 The petition was filed to protect two schools and 32 other structures, including a health clinic, from demolition in the villages of Khirbet al-Fakheet and Jinba, which lie in the heart of an Israeli military firing zone in the middle of Masafer Yatta. . . . Khirbet al-Fakheet and Jinba are two of eight villages that were named in a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court in May, in which the court ruled that the Israeli army could demolish the eight villages and expel its residents so the land could be used as a firing zone. Read more: https://mondoweiss.net/2022/08/israeli-supreme-court-rejects-appeal-to-save-two-schools-from-demolition-in-masafer-yatta/?ml_recipient=64231744348358061&ml_link=64231583914133122&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2022-08-27&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines
UK Updates
UK book festival panders to Israel lobby Kit Klarenberg EI 02/06/2022
Syima Aslam, the festival’s founder, has effectively sought to distance herself from public opinion. In October last year, she took part in an online conference organized by B’nai B’rith, a lobby group and apologist for Israel’s colonization of the West Bank and its attacks on Gaza. Aslam used the occasion to suggest that people moved by the plight of Palestinians have ulterior motives.
Her comments accommodated efforts by B’nai B’rith and similar groups to conflate opposition to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians with anti-Jewish bigotry. Aslam did not spell out what “issues” she meant. Yet her comments were clearly in response to a question about “anti-Semitic actions,” albeit without examples of such “actions” being cited. “There’s a lot that gets vested into, say, the Israel-Palestine conflict and I don’t think the understanding is always there when that is happening,” she said. “I think a lot of emotions come into that and I’m not sure those issues always have to do with that particular conflict itself.” Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/uk-book-festival-panders-israel-lobby/35591
A law to protect Israel’s weapons makers? Kit Klarenberg EI 24/06/2022
One of Israel’s most influential backers in Britain is Priti Patel, the home secretary.
She has effectively declared war on Palestinian solidarity activists by claiming that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is racist – without presenting any evidence.
Patel has proposed new legislation which targets the kind of protests Palestine Action has undertaken.
The National Security Bill – as the legislation is called – gives the police powers to designate as “prohibited places” areas where an “aircraft, or a part of an aircraft, used for military purposes” or “equipment relating to such an aircraft” is located. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/has-britain-drafted-law-protect-israels-weapons-makers/35746
UK newspaper reporting fails on Palestine Greg Shupak EI 07/07/2022
Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers looks at how language is used in media coverage of Palestine and the ways linguistic choices can shape public opinion. Sirhan, a translator with a PhD in Arabic linguistics from SOAS, University of London, dissects word choices and sentence structure while also looking at such issues as Israel’s foundational myths, censorship, agenda setting and sourcing. Sirhan analyzes approximately 400 articles from five British newspapers: The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. . . . Sirhan says the newspapers she looked at consistently provide their audiences with pro-Israel coverage. Sirhan’s third chapter, which looks at language use in the coverage, is especially compelling. She finds that, when Palestinians kill Israelis, the five newspapers use the active voice, but that they use the passive voice to describe Israel killing Palestinians. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/british-newspaper-reporting-falls-dramatically-short-palestine/35701
Labour right guilty of “weaponizing” anti-Semitism Asa Winstanley EI 27/07/2022 The right-wing faction of the UK’s Labour Party was guilty of weaponizing anti-Semitism against former leader Jeremy Corbyn. That’s one of the stark conclusions in a long-delayed report published by the Forde Inquiry last week.“Some opponents of Jeremy Corbyn saw the issue of anti-Semitism as a means of attacking him,” the report states and thus “treated it as a factional weapon.” The report also criticized Labour’s official training program on anti-Semitism, which has been run in recent years by pro-Israel group the Jewish Labour Movement. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/labour-right-guilty-weaponizing-anti-semitism-inquiry-finds
British government dismisses Israeli apartheid Stuart Littlewood R I & A 08/22
There’s nothing quite so deplorable as trying to defend the indefensible. And the UK government has been caught out by a simple, sensible petition which calls for a review UK foreign policy in light of reports of Israeli apartheid. The petition says:: The government must review UK foreign policy towards Israel, taking into account the conclusions by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, that Israel is implementing a system of apartheid against Palestinians.
The government has dismissed it with the usual inept excuses set out in a response from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that might as well have been penned by Tel Aviv. Read more: https://www.redressonline.com/2022/08/uk-government-dismisses-israeli-apartheid-doesnt-agree-with-the-terminology/
Children denied medical treatment Fedaa al-Qedra EI 30/08/2022
His health is deteriorating daily. Now, Saeed Jarghoon, 14, can’t walk. Saeed, from the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, has a cancerous tumor in his right leg.His condition is worsening because the Israeli occupation authorities are preventing him from traveling to Israel for treatment. He is not the only one. Physicians for Human Rights Israel recently announced that, according to its calculations, the number of children denied treatment outside Gaza had nearly doubled. This number includes children younger than one.
In September last year, Saeed underwent tests and PET and CT scans in an Egyptian hospital, after which doctors decided to transfer him to Israel. The tumor in his right leg, which was first diagnosed in 2016, requires advanced medical treatment that is not available in Palestinian hospitals. Read more: https://electronicintifada.net/content/spike-children-denied-medical-treatment-israels-military/36201
Hugh Humphries
Secretary
Scottish Friends of Palestine 0141 637 8046 info@scottish-friends-of-palestine.org
