publishedmedium:the green line

Israeli lawmaker: Amend West Bank law to let settlers defend property with live fire
Le droit de tirer (sur les Palestiniens, bien sûr)

By Jonathan Lis
Haaretz

►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-lawmaker-amend-west-bank-law-to-let-settlers-defend-property-with-l

Settlers should have the same right to defend their property under the so-called Dromi Law as Israelis who live within the Green Line, MK Orit Strock ‏(Habayit Hayehudi‏) said Tuesday.

Instead, she charged, their rights are restricted by the Israel Defense Forces’ rules of engagement.

She is therefore demanding that the rules be changed to allow settlers to confront “nationalist attacks” against Jewish property with live fire. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee will hold a special hearing to examine how the law is applied in the West Bank.

Israeli lawmaker: Amend West Bank law to let settlers defend property with live fire - Diplomacy & Defense - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-lawmaker-amend-west-bank-law-to-let-settlers-defend-property-with-l

Settlers should have the same right to defend their property under the so-called Dromi Law as Israelis who live within the Green Line, MK Orit Strock ‏(Habayit Hayehudi‏) said Tuesday.

Instead, she charged, their rights are restricted by the Israel Defense Forces’ rules of engagement.

She is therefore demanding that the rules be changed to allow settlers to confront “nationalist attacks” against Jewish property with live fire. The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee will hold a special hearing to examine how the law is applied in the West Bank.

The Dromi Law absolves a person who shoots a burglar from criminal liability. Since it’s part of the Penal Code, it should apply to Jewish residents of the West Bank as well. In practice, however, the IDF has issued stringent rules of engagement for the West Bank so as to prevent friction between Jews and Palestinians.

Strock said she had obtained a copy of the orders the IDF issues to settlement security officers, and “they say it’s permitted to shoot only in a situation of certain danger to life. The Dromi Law, by contrast, says you are allowed to drive off a person who threatens either your property or your person − including by shooting [at him]. When I contacted the military advocate general and asked him why he had decided to limit the ability of [West Bank] residents to respond with gunfire even though it’s permitted by law, he responded that it’s the military commander’s right to restrict something that the law permits.”

Landscapes of the Green Line of Cyprus: Healing the Rift.

http://www.nakedpunch.com/articles/73

by Dr. Anna Grichting

The UN controlled Green Line occupies approximately 3% of the land mass of the island of Cyprus. Frozen in a military status quo for the past 35 years, this strip of land swallows up abandoned rural villages, agricultural lands that lie fallow, and stone buildings that crumble in the historic city of Nicosia. On the up side, this landscape has escaped the construction boom on both sides of the Green Line, meadows have recovered from the contamination with pesticides and artificial fertilizers, hillside forests have been preserved, and wildlife has been allowed to flourish. Similar to other military buffer zones worldwide, the most salient example being the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the Green Line has, due to its isolation, become really “green”, that is, it has become a haven for biodiversity. The year 2010 being the International Year of Biodiversity - as designated by the United Nations - as well as the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic of Cyprus, leads us to reflect on how this UN controlled Buffer Zone, could be transformed from a military dividing line into a new landscape of cultural and biological diversity[1], and this through a process that brings together the communities on both sides in a common project for an ecologically and socially sustainable future.

#frontières #murs #chypre

The Israeli negotiator who thinks the two-state solution is still possible | +972 Magazine
http://972mag.com/the-israeli-negotiator-who-thinks-the-two-state-solution-is-still-possible/68259

Veteran Israeli negotiator Shaul Arieli discusses the failure of the Oslo Accords, various Israeli prime ministers’ commitment (or lack thereof) to ending the occupation, and the only solution he believes both sides could live with, however unsatisfied they might be with it.

“Ich bin ein Bil’iner!” Uri Avnery
– Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1362763452

One may wonder how two films like these made it to the top of the Academy awards in the first place. My own (completely unproven) conjecture is that the Jewish academy members voted for their selection without actually seeing them, assuming that an Israeli film could not be un-kosher. But when the pro-Israeli lobby started a ruckus, the members actually viewed the films, shuddered, and gave the top award to Searching for Sugar Man.

#Palestine

Ça n’aura pas traîné: Israel’s Palestinian-only buses ’torched’
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/03/20133514230798542.html

Unknown assailants have set fire to two buses which Israel began operating as Palestinians-only lines to be used by Palestinian labourers travelling between the West Bank and Israel.

“Two buses were apparently set on fire but we are looking into all possibilities,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP news agency on Tuesday, saying the incident took place in the Arab-Israeli town of Kfar Qassem which lies very close to the Green Line.

Police sources quoted by army radio said the buses had been torched as a protest against the new transportation system which came into effect on Monday.

EU envoy denies sanctions against Israel in the offing | The Times of Israel

http://www.timesofisrael.com/eu-envoy-denies-sanctions-against-israel-in-the-offing

L’Union européenne ne bannira pas les produits des colonies israéliennes

The European Union does not plan to ban products from West Bank settlements, even if they are labeled as having originated from Israel, a senior EU official said, dismissing recent media reports to the contrary. Andrew Standley, the EU’s ambassador to Israel, asserted in a telephone interview with The Times of Israel on Tuesday that Brussels was merely stepping up efforts to enforce existing legislation.

Israeli Textbooks Under Scrutiny - Al-Monitor : the Pulse of the Middle East
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/tr/contents/articles/opinion/2013/01/israeli-and-palestinian-textbooks.html

The study reveals that though Israeli textbooks don’t contain explicit incitement, they are guilty of marginalizing the other side.

Une étude, financée par les USA, critique les manuels scolaires israéliens. Dommage pour Netanyahou qui aime tellement répéter que ceux des Palestiniens incitent à la haine contre les Israéliens.

#Palestine_éducation

29 octobre 1956, massacre de Kafr Qasim :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre

The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim situated on the Green Line, at that time, the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank on October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israel Border Police (Magav) and resulted in 48 Arab civilians dead, including 6 women and 23 children aged 8–17. Arab sources usually give the death toll as 49, as they include the unborn child of one of the women.

The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms. The Israeli court found that the command to kill civilians was “blatantly illegal”. Two officers were sentenced to 17 and 15 years imprisonment, later reduced to 5 years, and served a short term.

Humiliation, viol, puis les habituels mensonges automatiques israéliens. Mais là, la victime est arabe : le New York Times s’en fiche.

Otherwise Occupied / ’I felt like an animal’ - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/otherwise-occupied-i-felt-like-an-animal-1.399546

“Then the examiner did what you do in a gynecological examination,” said Nabila, choked up. “In the hospital they ask for permission. I felt like an animal.”

Nabila was shocked at the undressing and at what followed. On the way out, and afterward for an hour and a half, she couldn’t stop crying.

On November 12 Hedva of Machsom Watch wrote to the ground crossing authority, a unit in the Defense Ministry. The reply to her on November 21 stated in no uncertain terms that “the passenger was not stripped naked at any stage of the examination. Nor was there any vaginal examination.”

Pour rappel, sur les indignations sélectives d’Ethan Bronner dans le New York Times :
http://seenthis.net/messages/43724

Israël peut humilier quotidiennement des milliers de palestiniens aux checkpoints sans qu’Ethan Bronner du New York Times y trouve jamais quoi que ce soit à redire. Mais humilier une journaliste du New York Times, ça, vraiment, non.

News from AP | The Dallas Morning News, dallasnews.com
http://hosted2.ap.org/txdam/633c954da7d9434f9de7ed15f38075aa/Article_2011-11-28-ML-Israel-Journalist-Abused/id-289700913908495baa84679da566b96a

The New York Times bureau chief in Israel, Ethan Bronner, welcomed the planned changes but said the newspaper remains shocked at the treatment Addario received and how long the investigation took.

Le « traitement » :

Israel’s Defense Ministry apologized Monday for the treatment of a pregnant American news photographer who said she was strip searched and humiliated by Israeli soldiers during a security check.

Lynsey Addario, who was on assignment for the New York Times, had requested that she not be forced to go through an X-ray machine as she entered Israel from the Gaza Strip because of concerns for her unborn baby.

Instead, she wrote in a letter to the ministry, she was forced through the machine three times as soldiers “watched and laughed from above.” She said she was then taken into a room where she was ordered by a female worker to strip down to her underwear.

La prochaine fois, peut-être qu’Ethan Bronner s’intéressera aux rapports de l’OHCR consacrés aux femmes palestiniennes qui accouchent aux checkpoints de l’armée d’occupation :
A/HRC/13/68/Rev.1 of 17 March 2010
http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/68C317CCFA3E0530852576EF005C852E

Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the issue of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints*

Palestinians stepping up anti-Israel boycott - Ynetnews
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4128310,00.html

The Fatah official added that the Palestinians will also organize popular protests “more civilized than the ones in the Arab world” stressing that all actions will not be violent. The activity will be focused inside Palestinian towns, to gain the support of foreign activists, and avoid friction with Israeli forces.

Rien à craindre, donc.

Milices armées et culture de la peur.

Communities along Green Line beefing up civilian security - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/communities-along-green-line-beefing-up-civilian-security-1.386145

One council had its security squad’s old rifles replaced with short-barrel M16 rifles. A kibbutz in the Sharon area formed a new squad, which the Border Police armed with rifles. Some communities bought weapons at their own expense for their security squads.

[...]

In recent months the squads have been training to deal with possible riots. A shooting and combat drill in a built-up area, simulating the penetration of a terrorist into the community, is to be held in the central region today.

“These squads have achieved amazing results in preventing criminal activity in their communities,” Agniyahu says.

“After all, the kibbutzim and moshavim have veterans of the best elite IDF commando units,” he says.

Israeli Minister admits state subsidizes public transportation for settlers - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-minister-admits-state-subsidizes-public-transportation-for-settlers

Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz confirmed Monday that the state subsidizes bus tickets within West Bank settlements, causing them to be cheaper than tickets for rides within the Green Line.

According to Katz, the move was intended to incentivize settlers to use armor-protected public transportation within the West Bank, which would reduce state spending on stationing military and security escorts for non-armored private vehicles. Katz also stated that the reduction of prices has increased use of public transportation by nearly 80% in the last decade.

Ah, si c’est une mesure écologique, alors...

La «gauche israëlienne» dans ses œuvres:

Left-leaning youth movement to initiate new West Bank settlement - Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/left-leaning-youth-movement-to-initiate-new-west-bank-settlement-1.348468

The left-leaning Bnei Hamoshavim youth movement is planning to build a new settlement for its graduates in the Jordan Valley, Army Radio reported on Thursday.

At a meeting between the movement’s secretary general, Eyal Uzon, and the head of the Jordan Valley regional council, David Alhiani, himself a Bnei Hamoshavim graduate, the movement was offered the abandoned Gadi military base, near Moshav Mesua, which is beyond the Green Line.

#israël #palestine

EU diplomats say East Jerusalem should be treated as Palestinian capital - Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/eu-diplomats-say-east-jerusalem-should-be-treated-as-palestinian-capital-1.

East Jerusalem should be treated as the capital of the Palestinian state, according to a report compiled by the heads of European diplomatic missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah. The report includes several other unprecedented recommendations to the European Union regarding its attitude toward East Jerusalem.

The European diplomats, mainly consuls, also recommend that EU officials and politicians refuse to visit Israeli government offices that are located beyond the Green Line and that they decline any Israeli security in the Old City and elsewhere in East Jerusalem.

The report, which was completed last month, was sent to the EU’s main foreign policy body, the Political and Security Committee in Brussels. It was apparently not released at the time due to the sensitivity of its content.

#Israël #Palestine