organization:israeli police

Churches denounce Israel violence against Christians | Maan News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=594717

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) – Patriarchs and heads of Christian churches in Jerusalem on Sunday released a joint statement denouncing attacks by Israeli police officers on worshipers and pilgrims during Holy Saturday at the Church of Holy Sepulcher.

Signatories of the statement highlighted that they saw “awful scenes of the brutal treatment to clerics, average people and pilgrims in Jerusalem during Holy Saturday.”

They added: “A day of joy was turned into a day of severe sadness and pain for several of our faithful brothers who were mistreated by a number of Israeli police officers at the gates of the Old City of Jerusalem leading to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.”

It is unacceptable, according to the statement, that clergymen and average people “get beaten brutally and indiscriminately and be denied access to their churches under the pretext of keeping order.”

The statement urged the Israeli government to denounce the violence that police practiced against worshipers and clergymen.

The patriarchs and heads of churches also denied claims of those who blamed the churches for what happened during the Holy week in Jerusalem. “These claims are counter to what happened in reality, and all heads of churches condemn the Israeli procedures and violations of the Christians’ rights,” the statement said.

The statement was signed by heads of all recognized churches in the Holy Land including the Roman Orthodox Church, the Latin Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Custodian of the Holy Land, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Maronite Church, the Episcopal Church, the Lutheran Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, and the Armenian Catholic Church.

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Jérusalem/Pâques : les Eglises chrétiennes dénoncent des violences policières
http://www.lorientlejour.com/article/814020/jerusalem-paques-les-eglises-chretiennes-denoncent-des-violences-poli
AFP | 12/05/2013 |

Les chefs des Eglises chrétiennes de Jérusalem ont dénoncé dimanche la « punition brutale » infligée par la police israélienne à des prêtres et des pèlerins au cours des célébrations du « feu sacré », pendant la récente Pâque orthodoxe, au Saint-Sépulcre à Jérusalem.

« Nous, chefs des Eglises à Jérusalem avons assisté le coeur lourd aux scènes terribles du traitement brutal de notre clergé, de notre peuple et de nos pèlerins dans la Vieille ville de Jérusalem pendant le Samedi Saint », déplorent les patriarches orthodoxes et catholiques dans un communiqué.

« Un jour de joie et de célébrations a été transformé en un jour de grand chagrin et de peine pour certains de nos fidèles qui ont été maltraités par des policiers israéliens présents autour des portes de la Vieille ville et des ruelles qui mènent au Saint-Sépulcre », regrette le communiqué.

Palestinian olive trees targeted in hate crime - FRANCE 24
http://www.france24.com/en/20130510-palestinian-olive-trees-targeted-hate-crime
http://www.france24.com/en/files/imagecache/aef_ct_wire_image_lightbox/images/afp/photo_1368182716531-1-0.jpg?1368189412

A Palestinian woman reacts near olive trees damaged by vandals in a Palestinian-owned plantation in the village of Al-Tiwana , south of the West Bank city of Hebron on May 10, 2013. Vandals believed to be Jewish extremists have uprooted dozens of olive trees and scrawled graffiti near a Palestinian village in the southern West Bank, police and witnesses said on Friday.

UNE PROVOCATION QUI RAPPELLE CELLE D’ ARIK SHARON QUI S’ETAIT PAVANE SUR L’ESPLANADE DES MOSQUEES, SI MON SOUVENIR EST BON; Israeli settlers enter Al-Aqsa compound under guard | Maan News Agency
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=593359

JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A group of settlers accompanied by Israeli forces entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Wednesday for the second consecutive day, with Muslim worshipers prevented from praying at the holy site, locals said.

Israeli police officers erected several checkpoints at entrances to the Al-Aqsa compound and prevented all Palestinian women, and men under 50, from entering, witnesses said.

Elderly men were only allowed in after they had given their identity cards to Israeli officers.

Israeli forces evacuated all young worshipers who managed to enter the mosque for dawn prayers, allowing only employees of the endowment ministry, who work at the mosque, to remain.

Over 100 settlers then entered the Al-Aqsa compound at 7 a.m., entering through the Moroccan gate accompanied by Israeli forces.

A day earlier, a group of around 40 settlers toured the compound escorted by police officers to commemorate the eve of Jerusalem Day, a controversial national holiday in Israel celebrating the “unification” of the city, or occupation of East Jerusalem.

Israeli politicians, such as Likud’s Moshe Feiglin, have in the past called for Jewish prayers at the compound, and control and access to the holy site is a particularly sensitive religious and political issue.

Earlier this year, PLO official Saeb Erekat slammed an attempt by Feiglin to enter the compound, calling it a “violation of the sanctity of the place as well as a direct provocation against Palestine, the Arab- and Muslim world.”

The Al-Aqsa compound, containing the mosque and the Dome of the Rock, is the third holiest site in Islam and abuts the site where Jews believe the ancient Second Temple stood.

La police israélienne agresse un prêtre copte qui se rendait à l’église du St Sépulcre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=avAR6kDKUyE

A New Non-Violent Palestinian Anti-Israel Movement Emerges - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/03/palestine-non-violent-movement-emerges.html

Since last week, dozens of activists have grabbed the spotlight on the Palestinian scene, which had been busy with US President Barack Obama’s visit. But after he left, those activists have become an important news item in Arab and Palestinian media. Israeli newspapers revealed that Israeli police were forced to postpone dealing with those activists until Obama left so as not to cause bad press in his presence.

As those young activists were formulating an initiative that breaks the political deadlock, presents alternative Palestinian resistance methods and offers something different than armed struggle and traditional resistance, the US president was speaking about the peace process and the Arab summit was issuing perplexing decisions and proposals that raised many questions about the future.
Those young activists set up a small tent city, with a children’s playground, on a piece of land threatened with being seized by Israel as part of an Israeli plan known as Plan E1. According to that plan, Israeli settlements would reach Jerusalem and cut off the West Bank’s south from its north, thus threatening the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
The activists named their tent city “The Descendants of Younes.” They had previously set up a tent city called Bab al-Shams in January 2013. Bab al-Shams is the title of a story written by Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury. It talks about the Nakba and how the Palestinians were displaced in 1948. It also talks about resistance after the Nakba. The story’s main character is a resistance fighter named Younes. He meets his wife Nahila in a cave inside Palestine. They fall in love and live their love life in secret.
The Israelis dismantled the Bab al-Shams tent city after it started attracting many visitors. But the activists who established that tent city are still active. Their movement uses different methods, has different objectives and involves different activists than traditional Palestinian movements.
The activists come from all the Palestinian factions, especially Fatah and al-Badira movements. The latter is the only Palestinian anti-Israel movement that has never participated in the armed struggle. But despite that, it has significant presence. Along with Fatah and al-Badira, the PFLP and the DFLP were also present.
A large part of the coordinating and preparatory work happens at the level of the activists, not the political parties to whom they belong. Moreover, many of the activists are independents. The movement is the result of several previous experiences, such as the fight against the Israeli separation barrier by the Bil’in, Ni’lin, Walaja and Hebron movements, and others. Those were peaceful grassroots movements with international and Israeli support. The Bab al-Shams movement is based on those previous experiences, except that the foreign presence in it is virtually nonexistent.
In such a movement, the activists are better able to organize. One of the organizers said that they want to rely on their own efforts rather than that of international activists, although the latter’s support is important.
In this kind of organized activism, the activists gather secretly to avoid the Israeli army checkpoints. Maybe in the future that can mobilize at multiple places concurrently. Things seem to be heading in that direction; it would be a different kind of intifada. The first intifada, in 1987, started with stone-throwing and demonstrations, it was not militarized. Weapons were rarely used and only after three years from the uprising’s start. In the second intifada, known as the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, many Palestinians regret that Israel was able to drag the movement into an armed struggle when it attacked Palestinian security headquarters with aircraft. But the new movement is very keen to avoid using violence, whether stone-throwing or arms, even though many activists affirm that all kinds of legitimate resistance are guaranteed by international law.
Popular uprisings are not usually planned. They happen when there are tensions and some event comes along to act as a spark. When that happens, activists and politicians are often surprised. Sometimes they are able to lead the popular movement and sometimes new leadership emerges. Therefore, identifying those who will lead the third Palestinian uprising is not easy. But what is certain is that Bab al-Shams and other experiences have presented a new Palestinian resistance model.
Perhaps for the first time in Palestinian history, the idea of a peaceful popular resistance is dominant. Even if this new experience is still in its infancy, all other forces that have proposed other resistance methods are on the decline. Fatah, which led the armed struggle in the past, has stopped using that method. Hamas, as a result of the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, has also halted military activities and now seems to favor political action.
In the last few days of the Descendants of Younes experience, two parties spoke of a compromise solution. The first party was US President Barack Obama. In his visit to the area he promised that Secretary of State John Kerry would devote time for a peaceful settlement. US aid to the Palestinian authority resumed and Israel resumed paying the Palestinians the owed taxes. The second party was Qatar. It suggested supporting the Palestinians by establishing a billion-dollar fund to support the Arab presence in Jerusalem and to hold an Arab summit to help Palestinian reconciliation, followed by political negotiations that may include an international peace conference.
The Palestinians are wary of a new armed struggle. But they are also suspicious of a political process that does not stop Israel from imposing facts on the ground by building settlements and confiscating land. They also do not trust Arab resolutions.
There is an international push for a peace settlement. At first glance, it may seem a course correction and a means to lower tensions. But the failures of such efforts and the Israeli policy of imposing facts on the ground may create a new anti-Israel grassroots movement. The Bab al-Shams experience may act as a model for such a movement because it includes the traditional forces but has a new approach.
Those new Palestinian forces and approaches are likely to grow stronger, especially if the reconciliation process fails and there are no new elections to rejuvenate Palestinian institutions.
Ahmad Azem is the director of Palestine and Arabic Studies at Birzeit University.
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A week in Hebron (2) : Obama in Shuhada Street
http://972mag.com/palestinians-greet-obama-with-popular-resistance-army-arrests-dozens/67851

#Hebron #Palestine #occupation #Obama #Israel #MLK

Israel blocks Palestinian protest run | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/israel-blocks-palestinian-protest-run

Israel blocks Palestinian protest run

Published Friday, March 1, 2013
Israeli police attacked a Palestinian race on Friday and detained several runners. The event was organized to coincide with an annual Israeli marathon whose route cuts through occupied East Jerusalem.

The police released the runners after holding them for about an hour, Dimitri Diliani, a senior Fatah official, told Ma’an news agency.

The Palestinian runners started off in the historic Lifta village to counter the Israeli marathon that began from the Knesset building, he added.

“Palestinian youths participating in the marathon handed the Israelis a formal paper written in English explaining what this marathon really means for Jerusalem,” Diliani said.

Palestinian officials had already called on companies and individuals involved in Israel’s marathon to withdraw their support for the event.

The Forgotten Palestinians
http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/189-israel-palestine/51844-the-forgotten-palestinians.html

The Forgotten Palestinians
( Security Council and Israel/Palestine )
2-15-6eca7palestine
Picture Credit: ramallahonline.com

On May 15, the New York Times published an article by Aaron David Miller entitled “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller’s picture of Israel as a struggling democratic state facing external threats presents the usual bland confection. Miller fails to address the genuine threats that are affecting hopes for peace and promoting extremist ideas within the country: Israeli police attacks on J14 demonstrators in Tel Aviv; trends towards greater economic inequality, the expansion of the separation wall, the continued siege of the Gaza Strip; and Israel’s categorical backing of violent West Bank settlers.

By Patrick O. Strickland
Counterpunch
August 20, 2012

On May 15, the New York Times ran an editorial authored by Aaron David Miller under the title of “Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo.” Miller argues that the Israeli government’s attempts to achieve a “more peaceful and prosperous future” must “count for something.”

In his discursive analysis of the contemporary political climate, Miller unfolds an unabridged list of threats to Israel: the Israeli social justice movement, the Syrian uprising, the Egyptian ousting of Hosni Mubarak, Iran, the security vacuum in the Sinai, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis, and ‘Arab Israelis’ (which is, of course, a crass euphemism intended to disavow the collective identity of Palestinian citizens of Israel).

Cataloging this exhaustive account of dangers, he resorts to a number of boorish clichés and Western media assumptions. Indeed, despite Israel’s malicious enemies, he argues, “the Israelis will prosper and keep their state, but the Arabs and the Iranians will never let them fully enjoy it.”

#palestine #israel

Israël : Quand la police essaye de briser le mouvement social

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/isra-j27.shtml

Israeli police arrest social protest movement leader and break up demonstrations

By Jean Shaoul
27 June 2012

On Friday, a few hundred activists attempted to set up a tent city again on Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard. Riot police moved in forcefully to prevent them from occupying the boulevard, a sign that the Israeli authorities are determined that there be no mass protests again this year.

Pro-Palestinian activists detained in Israel
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/201241545637130915.html

More than 40 pro-Palestinian activists have detained by Israeli authorities at Tel Aviv’s international airport for taking  part in an attempted “fly-in”.

The Welcome to Palestine campaign, now in its third consecutive year, aims to gather activists from more than 15 countries in Israel from April 15 to 21 to “challenge the Israeli siege of the occupied territories”, it says on its website.

Micky Rosenfeld, an Israeli police spokesman, said on Sunday that 41 people had been refused entry at Ben Gurion airport by early afternoon and would be deported. Four Israeli supporters, two holding “Welcome to Palestine” signs, were also arrested as they waited to greet the arrivals.

Attention, tu vas halluciner : tous les nouveaux agents du FBI et analystes du renseignement (américain, donc), sont tenus d’assister à un programme mis en place par l’Anti-Defamation League.
From Occupation to “Occupy” : The Israelification of American Domestic Security | Al Akhbar English
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/occupation-“occupy”-israelification-american-domestic-security

Besides JINSA, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has positioned itself as an important liaison between American police forces and the Israeli security-intelligence apparatus. […]

The ADL claims to have trained over 45,000 American law enforcement officials through its Law Enforcement and Society program, which “draws on the history of the Holocaust to provide law enforcement professionals with an increased understanding of…their role as protectors of the Constitution,” the group’s website stated. All new FBI agents and intelligence analysts are required to attend the ADL program, which is incorporated into three FBI training programs. According to official FBI recruitment material, “all new special agents must visit the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to see firsthand what can happen when law enforcement fails to protect individuals.”

Maan News Agency : Israel storms Nablus village after settler assault
http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=420705

Israeli settlers assaulted a Nablus village Friday morning, leading to clashes with Israeli forces injuring 11 Palestinians.

After the settlers were removed by Israeli police, Israeli forces raided Qusra village injuring six villagers with rubber bullets, a Ma’an correspondent said.

Quand un village palestinien est attaqué par un gang de colons, il est ensuite attaqué par l’armée d’occupation israélienne. C’est logique.

Settlers set fire to West Bank mosque after Israel demolishes illegal structures in Migron - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/settlers-set-fire-to-west-bank-mosque-after-israel-demolishes-illegal-struc

A mosque in the West Bank village of Qusra, south of Nablus, was set on fire Monday morning, hours after Israeli police officers destroyed three illegal structures in the settlement outpost of Migron.

According to Palestinian sources, a group of settlers arrived at the village mosque at approximately 3 A.M., threw burning tires toward it, and broke several of its windows. The event is the latest in a series of clashes between settlers and Palestinians in the region.

Noter que, pour Haaretz, quand des colons juifs israéliens brûlent une mosquée palestinienne, il faut que entre dans le cadre d’« une série de clashs entre colons et Palestiniens », et il est parfaitement possible pour des Palestiniens de construire des « structures illégales » (selon la cours suprême israélienne) en Cisjordanie.

800 enfants palestiniens, à la une du Akhbar
►http://www.al-akhbar.com/node/16893

اعتقلت اسرائيل اكثر من 800 شاب وطفل فلسطيني خلال السنوات الخمس الماضية لإقدامهم على رشق الجنود الاسرائيليين بالحجارة. وأحصت المنظمة الحقوقية الاسرائيلية «بتسليم» في تقرير اصدرته يتألف من 70 صفحة، 835 قاصراً سجنوا منذ عام 2005 حتى اوائل عام 2011. وقسّمت المنظمة المراهقين الفلسطينيين الى اكثر من 500 يبلغون 16 عاماً، و225 في سن 14 و15، و34 يبلغون 13 عاماً وما دون.

Activists Test Israel’s Policy on Territories - WSJ.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304793504576434113725030654.html?mod=wsj_share_twitter

Activists say that foreigners coming to Israel to visit Palestinian friends are often hassled by security or refused entry if they are honest about their travel plans or their political sympathies. Those restrictions were tightened in and around 2002 when international activists began pouring into the West Bank and Gaza to serve as human shields and engage in other acts of solidarity with Palestinians. Israeli police officials say only those who security checks reveal pose a threat to Israel are turned back. In 2010, 1,250 people were denied entry to Israel for such reasons.

La logique de ce paragraphe est donc qu’en 2010, Israël avait déjà refoulé 1250 boucliers humains.

Dominique, si ça peut te remonter le moral : aujourd’hui, tu as d’une certaine façon réussi à apporter ton aide à Israël. Parce qu’on ne risque pas de trop parler de ça :

Palestinians wounded in ’Nakba’ clashes - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/05/2011515649440342.html

Dozens of people have been injured in the Gaza Strip as thousands of Palestinians and activists marched to mark “Nakba Day”, or Israel’s 1948 founding, amid tight Israeli security.

A group of Palestinians, including children, were shot by the Israeli army after crossing a Hamas checkpoint and entering what Israel calls a “buffer zone” - an empty area between checkpoints where Israeli soldiers generally shoot trespassers, Al Jazeera correspondent Nicole Johnston reported from Gaza City.

Another American family, this time the Jilanis, will have to grieve without justice over Israeli killing
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/01/another-american-family-this-time-the-jilanis-will-have-to-grieve-withou

Emily Henochowicz, Tristan Anderson, Furkan Dogan, Brian Avnery, Rachel Corrie and more–all American citizens killed or severely injured by Israel with no justice served and barely a peep heard from U.S. authorities. Now, add Ziad Jilani, who was a permanent resident of the U.S. and whose family holds U.S. citizenship, to that list.

Last summer, Jilani was executed at close range by Israeli Border Police in East Jerusalem.  Haaretz reports today that the investigation into the death is closed.

#Israël