organization:golani brigade

Official documents prove: Israel bans young Americans based on Canary Mission website - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Some Americans detained upon arrival in Israel reported being questioned about their political activity based on ’profiles’ on the controversial website Canary Mission. Documents obtained by Haaretz now clearly show that is indeed a source of information for decisions to bar entry

Noa Landau SendSend me email alerts
Oct 04, 2018

▻https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-official-documents-prove-israel-bans-young-americans-based-on-cana

The Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry is using simple Google searches, mainly the controversial American right-wing website Canary Mission, to bar political activists from entering Israel, according to documents obtained by Haaretz.
>>Israeli court rejects American visa-holding student’s appeal; to be deported for backing BDS
The internal documents, some of which were submitted to the appeals tribunal in the appeal against the deportation of American student Lara Alqasem, show that officials briefly interviewed Alqasem, 22, at Ben-Gurion International Airport on her arrival Tuesday night, then passed her name on for “continued handling” by the ministry because of “suspicion of boycott activity.” Israel recently passed a law banning the entry of foreign nationals who engage in such activity.

>> Are you next? Know your rights if detained at Israel’s border

Links to Canary Mission and Facebook posts are seen on an official Ministry of Strategic Affairs document.
The ministry then sent the officials at the airport an official report classified “sensitive” about Alqasem’s supposed political activities, which included information from five links – four from Facebook and one, the main source, from the Canary Mission site, which follows pro-Palestinian activists on U.S. campuses.
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A decision on Alqasem’s appeal against her deportation was expected Thursday afternoon.
Canary Mission, now the subject of major controversy in the American Jewish community, has been collecting information since 2015 about BDS activists at universities, and sends the information to potential employers. Pro-Israel students have also criticized their activities.

Lara Alqasem.
This week, the American Jewish news site The Forward reported that at least $100,000 of Canary Mission’s budget had been contributed through the San Francisco Jewish Federation and the Helen Diller Family Foundation, which donates to Jewish education. The donation was handed to a group registered in Beit Shemesh called Megamot Shalom, specifically stating that it was for Canary Mission. A few hours after the report was published, the federation announced that it would no longer fund the group.
Over the past few months some of the Americans who have been detained for questioning upon arrival in Israel have reported that they were questioned about their political activity based on “profiles” about them published on Canary Mission. The documents obtained by Haaretz now show clearly that the site is indeed the No. 1 source of information for the decision to bar entry to Alqasem.
According to the links that were the basis for the decision to suspend the student visa that Alqasem had been granted by the Israeli Consulate in Miami, she was president of the Florida chapter of a group called Students for Justice in Palestine, information quoted directly from the Canary Mission. The national arm of that organization, National Students for Justice in Palestine, is indeed on the list of 20 groups that the Strategic Affairs Ministry compiled as criteria to invoke the anti-boycott law. However, Alqasem was not a member at the national level, but rather a local activist. She told the appeals tribunal that the local chapter had only a few members.

Canary Mission’s profile of Lara Alqasem.
The ministry also cited as a reason for barring Alqasem’s entry to Israel a Facebook post showing that “In April 2016 [her] chapter conducted an ongoing campaign calling for the boycott of Sabra hummus, the American version of Hummus Tzabar, because Strauss, which owns Tzabar, funds the Golani Brigade.” Alqasem told the tribunal that she had not taken an active part in this campaign. Another link was about a writers’ petition calling on a cultural center to refuse sponsorship by Israel for its activities. Yet another post, by the local Students for Justice in Palestine, praised the fact that an international security company had stopped operations in Israel. None of these links quoted Alqasem.
She told the tribunal that she is not currently a member of any pro-boycott group and would not come to study for her M.A. in Israel if she were.
The Strategic Affairs Ministry report on Alqasem is so meager that its writers mentioned it themselves: “It should be noted that in this case we rely on a relatively small number of sources found on the Internet.” Over the past few months Haaretz has been following up reports of this nature that have been the basis for denying entry to activists, and found that in many other cases the material consisted of superficial Google searches and that the ministry, by admission of its own senior officials, does not collect information from non-public sources.
skip - Facebook post calling for the boycott of Sabra hummus

The ministry’s criteria for invoking the anti-boycott law state clearly that in order to bar entry to political activists, they must “hold senior or significant positions in the organizations,” including “official senior roles in prominent groups (such as board members).”
But the report on Alqasem does not indicate that she met the criterion of “senior” official in the national movement, nor was this the case for other young people questioned recently at the airport. In some cases it was the Shin Bet security service that questioned people due to past participation in activities such as demonstrations in the territories, and not BDS activities.
“Key activists,” according to the ministry’s criteria, also means people who “consistently take part in promoting BDS in the framework of prominent delegitimization groups or independently, and not, for example, an activist who comes as part of a delegation.” In Alqasem’s case, however, her visa was issued after she was accepted for study at Hebrew University.

Video: “I killed for you, with these hands,” Israeli soldier tells lawmakers | The Electronic Intifada
▻https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-i-killed-you-these-hands-israeli-soldier-tells-lawmakers
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TkKm2eEV1A

Israeli soldier tells lawmakers

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 1 December 2015

“I killed for you, with these hands! You say, ‘Terrorists with blood on their hands?’ I killed more than 40 people for you! I murdered!”

This stark admission was made by Ido Gal Razon, a former Israeli soldier, seen in the video above speaking to a committee of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, on 11 November.

Razon wasn’t expressing remorse for the killings, but complaining that he has not been offered treatment for the severe psychiatric impact the butchery he committed in service of Israel has had on him.

“No one gives me therapy, and I complain! I shout,” he says. “I pee at night from post trauma. He comes to me and says: ‘Why did you kill me? Why did you kill me?’”

It’s not clear who is haunting Razon at night, but he could be referring to any of the people he says he killed.

Razon says he was injured while a member of the 51st battalion of the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade when he took part in Operation Clear as Wine – an attack on Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip on 20 December 2007.

Will Israel invade West Bank? (Al-Monitor, 9 juillet)

Israeli-Palestinian relations are back to square one as Israel recently threatened to invade and occupy the West Bank.

▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/israel-palestine-west-bank-threats-occupation.html

▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/files/live/sites/almonitor/files/images/almpics/2015/07/RTX1I8C3.jpg?t=thumbnail_570

« The current field situation in the West Bank is proof of the quasi-absolute security control imposed by the Israeli army. The latter breaks into any camp or village whenever it pleases through coordination with Palestinian security services, and it arrests wanted people by conducting night raids, the most recent of which took place June 1 in different West Bank areas, including Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron. According to a May report by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the Israeli army has 361 mobile checkpoints in the streets of the West Bank, and 96 fixed checkpoints inside the West Bank. (...)

In April 2015, the Israeli army sent the elite Golani Brigade to the West Bank, after a three-year absence, in response to armed attacks against Israeli settlers; the army did not mention the duration of the brigade’s stay in the West Bank. (...)

Wassef Erekat, a retired major general from the Palestinian Authority, told Al-Monitor, “The recent Israeli military measures reflect aggressive Israeli intentions aiming at a new escalation in the West Bank, because the Golani Brigade’s job is to face armies and military operations, and not to confront unarmed civilians.” (...)

The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, published in 2011 a survey showing the geographic spread of the Israeli army camps in the West Bank. According to the survey, the Israeli camps are set up in east, west, north and south West Bank, which makes the possibility of Israel invading it again a probable option for the army. Al-Monitor obtained an internal security document from the Palestinian Authority prepared by unknown parties in recent weeks, but still not published in the media as it was only circulated to a limited extent between Palestinian officers in the West Bank. The document read, “The question that preoccupied Palestinian decision-makers is not about the possibility of Israel implementing its threats to invade the West Bank or not. The question is when will the invasion take place, which region would it reach and how long will it last?” »

#Palestine #Cisjordanie #Israël #occupation #Autorité_palestinienne #coordination_sécuritaire #Wassef_Erekat #dip

Analysis / Brazen Hezbollah renews operations along Israel border - Israel must reexamine the prevailing assumption that Hezbollah is still deterred by the IDF following the 2006 war and is not interested in a confrontation.
By Amos Harel | Oct. 20, 2014 Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.621630

A recent article in Al-Akhbar, the Lebanese newspaper considered close to Hezbollah, seems to back Israeli claims that the Shi’ite organization has resumed overt military activity along the Israeli border – a clear violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in 2006. This, along with taking responsibility for the two explosive devices that blew up on Mount Dov two weeks ago, may reflect a worrisome change in Hezbollah policy that in the long term could have problematic ramifications for Israel.

On October 7, Hezbollah activated two explosive devices alongside a group of the Golani Brigade’s Egoz unit and an Engineering Corps bomb squad operating along the Lebanese border. Two Israel Defense Forces sappers were wounded.

Hezbollah later announced that the operation was in response to the explosion of an Israeli spy installation that a Hezbollah sapper was trying to dismantle in south Lebanon on September 5.

Resolution 1701 (from August 2006) forbids armed Hezbollah fighters south of the Litani River. Hezbollah’s claim of responsibility for the explosion is a blatant admission that it violated the resolution, which until now the group had been careful to publicly uphold. In mid-September, the IDF distributed photos in which Hezbollah fighters could be seen near the border fence, presumably gathering intelligence on IDF troop movements.

The Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors Arab media outlets, posted on its website a translation of the article from Al-Akhbar that appeared on October 8, the day after the explosions. The article states that the group has resumed operations south of the Litani, similar to its operations between the years 2000-2006 after the IDF had withdrawn from the security zone.

The newspaper describes Hezbollah’s activities as a necessary response to the joint efforts by Israel and Sunni opposition groups on the Golan Heights working to depose the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The report, based on unidentified Lebanese sources, claims that Israel has intensified its cooperation with various opposition groups (including, it claims, even the Nusra Front, the extremist Sunni group identified with Al-Qaida). It warns that Israel is encouraging Sunni extremists to enter Lebanon through the Hermon region, and that it is planning to stir up residents of the Syrian Druze villages near Mount Hermon, which are trying to stay neutral in the civil war.

The argument is that Israeli meddling in events in the tri-border region obligates Hezbollah to take extraordinary defensive measures. Accordingly, the explosive devices planted at Mount Dov were aimed at an IDF tank and were meant to warn Israel that it would pay a price for changing the rules of the game in Lebanon.

The explosive charges that went off on Mount Dov were more sophisticated and deadly than those Hezbollah detonated there in March, when an IDF vehicle was damaged but there were no casualties. If the IDF forces had not acted carefully when approaching the devices this time, the incident could have ended with several deaths.

These developments require that Israel reexamine the prevailing assumption that Hezbollah is still deterred by the IDF following the 2006 war, is further deterred by Israel’s display of military prowess in Gaza this summer, and, in general, is not interested in a confrontation with Israel because it is deeply entrenched in the Shi’ite-Sunni wars in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.

But the recent explosions were a gamble for Hezbollah. Assuming the group’s leadership expected the attack to succeed, it means Hezbollah was prepared to absorb at least one round of violence with Israel (based on its expected response to the deaths of its soldiers), if not an all-out war. This indicates Hezbollah’s self-confidence is growing, probably because its fighters are accumulating valuable battle experience in the Syrian civil war.

There could be other reasons for Hezbollah’s actions. It might want to deflect attention from the internal struggles in Lebanon, in which the group has suffered losses at the hands of extremist Sunni groups like Islamic State. Hezbollah might also have been trying to establish a new deterrent balance with Israel, so the latter will stop attacking the group in Lebanese territory.

According to the U.S. administration and Arab media, over the past two years the Israel Air Force has attacked several weapons convoys going from Syria to Lebanon; the most recent time, last February, the attack was on Lebanese soil. Now Hezbollah has raised the bar, Israel may have to rethink how to respond in the future.

The question remains: what did Hezbollah expect to achieve with a direct attack on the IDF like the one at Mount Dov? Is the military experience it has gained in Syria being translated into new combat techniques and a different battle plan if there’s a flare-up with Israel? How will the group approach such a campaign, given its massive rearming with short-term rockets with large warheads over the past year – a move that could be evidence of a readiness to heavily bombard the border region?

A whole line of senior Israeli defense officials say they do not, at this stage, see any change in Hezbollah’s interests or plans, and maintain that the group is not seeking a confrontation with the IDF. Still, it’s hard to forget that overconfidence led Hezbollah to make a bad move in 2006, when it kidnapped reserve soldiers on the border and sparked a war. One can’t rule out the possibility that such bad judgment could repeat itself.

L’armée la plus morale au monde,
▻http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=369102

On July 20, a Golani infantry force sent to search for tunnels came under a massive attack by Hamas’s Shejaia Battalion. This Hamas battalion is the largest in its guerrilla army, made up of between 800 to 900 highly trained armed men.

The Golani Brigade in Shejaia began sustaining heavy losses, the source recalled, after Hamas intelligence units mapped out its location. Hamas sent the information to terrorists in tunnels.

In a coordinated fashion, the terrorists emerged from “the metro under Shejaia,” the source said, referring to the tunnels, and launched a massive wave of anti-tank, mortar, sniper, and automatic gun fire from buildings surrounding the Golani force.

Casualties were mounting on the Israeli side, the source said. “I saw that enemy cells had come to within 40 meters of our forces,” he added.

At this stage, the Artillery Corps mapped out the location of enemy forces, in Gazan civilian residential buildings - areas where the IDF had previously told civilians to evacuate.

The Artillery Corps Support Unit watched the battle with alarm, and took drastic action, the source said. “Otherwise, I knew we would be getting 600 body bags back.”

It instructed all of the Golani soldiers to enter their Namer armored personnel carrier [APC], and launched a wave of shelling, some of which fell on the Namers, which are built to withstand such strikes. Three artillery battalions rained down fire on Shejaia, in a bid to rescue the Golani soldiers. As this occurred, the source said, Hamas continued to blast the soldiers with mortars from all around the neighborhood.

“We heard them say over the radio: Fire is coming down on us,” the source said. After twenty minutes of shelling, silence ensued. “There were no more Hamas mortars, no more anti-tank missiles, no more automatic weapon fire,” the source said.

Ten buildings lay in ruins.

“I can say that we did everything we could to warn the civilian population before the war began,” the source said. “My heart aches for the noncombatants who were killed . This is a war in every way, not an operation. I visited our forces in Shejaia, and saw what I did with my own eyes,” the source said. “And what we did there was nothing less than close support for the [infantry] corps.”

Treize soldats israéliens tués dans l’opération à Gaza
▻http://www.romandie.com/news/Treize-soldats-israeliens-tues-dans-loperation-a-Gaza/499239.rom

Jérusalem - Treize soldats israéliens de la brigade Golani ont été tués ces dernières 24 heures dans la bande de Gaza où l’armée israélienne mène une offensive, portant à 18 le nombre de morts au sein de l’armée.

Depuis hier soir, 13 combattants de la brigade Golani ont été tués en combattant les terroristes du Hamas, a indiqué l’armée sur son compte Twitter, un bilan confirmé par une porte-parole à l’AFP.

L’armée avait déjà annoncé la mort de cinq soldats depuis jeudi et le début de l’offensive terrestre dans l’enclave palestinienne, ce qui porte à 18 le bilan des morts au sein des forces israéliennes.

Aucune précision n’a été donnée sur les circonstances de la mort des treize militaires, le travail d’identification étant encore en cours.

Les terroristes seraient donc ceux qui luttent contre les soldats d’élite de l’armée d’occupation qui eux tuent des civils.