organization:israeli government

  • Columbia University Professors Sign Petition in Support of BDS - Jewish World News - Haaretz - Israeli News Source Haaretz.com
    http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.706529

    Forty Columbia University faculty members have signed a petition urging the New York school to divest from companies that “supply, perpetuate, and profit from a system that has subjugated the Palestinian people.”
    The petition was released Monday morning to mark the first day of Israel Apartheid Week, the Columbia Spectator reported.
    According to the petition, the signatories “stand with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine as well as with Jewish Voice for Peace in calling upon the University to take a moral stance against Israel’s violence in all its forms.”
    They include Rashid Khalidi, a history and Middle Eastern studies professor who is a longtime critic of Israel and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement; Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history who sees Zionism as a racist and colonialist movement, and Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropology professor who received tenure in 2007 following a heated battle over the merits of her work, particularly a book that accuses Israel of manipulating archaeological findings to legitimize its existence.
    The most heavily represented departments among the signers are Middle Eastern South Asian and Africa studies, or MESAAS, English and comparative literature, and anthropology.
    Partha Chatterjee, an anthropology and MESAAS professor at the Ivy League school who signed, told the Spectator in an email that he wanted to protest Israel’s security regime, which “virtually amounts to apartheid.”
    “I fully support every effort to put pressure on the Israeli government to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands,” he said.
    Dirk Salomons, a signatory who is a senior lecturer at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told the Spectator, “I’ve always had a feeling as a Jew that a Jewish state should rise slightly above the lack of morality of its neighbors. It pains me to see how a country which I love and which I have visited many times can be so blind to the needs of its neighbors.”

  • Israel Should Back Off anti-BDS Fight in U.S. Campuses, Jewish Leader Says -
    In candid comments, Jay Sanderson tells Haaretz that aggressive efforts to combat the movement repel most Jewish students and ultimately do more harm than good.

    Judy Maltz Mar 13, 2016

    Haaretz.com
    http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.708075

    A senior Jewish federation executive has unusually blunt words for Israeli government officials planning to take up arms in the anti-BDS struggle on U.S. college campuses: Back off, he says.
    “The Israeli government needs to get out of this business,” says Jay Sanderson, president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which serves the largest Jewish community in North America outside of New York. “It should not be involved in what’s happening on the college campuses. There’s lots of ignorance about what this issue is really about, and rather than addressing it in a nuanced way, the Israeli government is simply stoking the flames.”
    Last June, the government allocated $25 million to a special campaign to combat the international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. The funding was allocated to the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is meant to be gathering intelligence on anti-Israel activities abroad, including on college campuses, and sabotaging them. The college campuses of California have been a particular hotbed of BDS activities in the past two years.
    In an interview in his Beverly Hills office, Sanderson argued that the various divestment votes taken against Israel on college campuses in the state have been meaningless.

  • Israel stops Indonesia’s foreign minister from meeting with PA: Report | Middle East Eye | Sunday 13 March 2016
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-stops-indonesias-foreign-minister-meeting-pa-report-85254246

    Israeli authorities reportedly stopped Indonesia’s foreign minister from entering Ramallah to visit the Palestinian authority, local media has reported.

    The Israeli decision to prevent Retno Marsudi’s entry to Ramallah was sparked when she refused to meet with Israeli government officials in Jerusalem, Haaretz reported.

    Marsudi was reportedly travelling to Ramallah to dedicate an honorary Indonesian consulate to the PA and to meet Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki and President Mahmoud Abbas.

    There are no diplomatic ties between Indonesia and Israel, but Haartez reported that, in recent days, there has been contact between the two countries as Israeli officials insisted that if Marsudi visited Ramallah, she would also need to meet with Israeli politicians in Jerusalem.

  • Israel Is Building a Secret Tunnel-Destroying Weapon | Foreign Policy
    http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/10/israel-is-building-a-secret-tunnel-destroying-weapon-hamas-us-gaza

    According to intelligence officials, Israeli engineers are working tirelessly to develop what’s being called the #Underground_Iron_Dome — a system that could detect and destroy cross-border tunnels. According to a report on Israeli Channel 2, the Israeli government has spent more than $250 million since 2004 in its efforts to thwart tunnel construction under the Gaza border.

    The United States has already appropriated $40 million for the project in the 2016 financial year, in order “to establish anti-tunnel capabilities to detect, map, and neutralize underground tunnels that threaten the U.S. or Israel,” said U.S. Defense Department spokesman Christopher Sherwood. While the majority of the work in 2016 will be done in Israel, Sherwood added, “the U.S. will receive prototypes, access to test sites, and the rights to any intellectual property.
    […]
    Among the Israeli companies working to develop the new anti-tunnel mechanism are Elbit Systems and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, the same company that developed the Iron Dome rocket defense system. Both companies declined to provide any details due to security reasons, as did the IDF and other Israeli officials, who fear that such information could play into Hamas’s hands. Yet according to intelligence sources who spoke with Foreign Policy on the condition of anonymity, the system involves seismic sensors that can monitor underground vibrations.

    IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Gadi Eizenkot hinted at these efforts in February. “We are doing a lot, but many of [the things we do] are hidden from the public,” he told a conference at Herzliya’s Interdisciplinary Center. “We have dozens, if not a hundred, engineering vehicles on the Gaza border.

    Yaakov Amidror, a former national security advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former head of Israel’s National Security Council, told FP the confidential new system is not yet operational, but it is “in a testing mode.

    Since the beginning of 2016, nearly a dozen Hamas tunnels have collapsed on the Palestinians who were building them, killing at least 10 of the group’s members. While winter rains have been blamed as the culprit, the wave of collapses has led many here to wonder if Israel’s new secret weapon is already at work.

    Asked by the Palestinian Maan News Agency in February whether or not Israel was behind recent tunnel collapses, the coordinator of government activities in the Palestinian territories, IDF Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, responded, “God knows.

    • In the meantime, Israeli residents of Gaza border towns are growing frustrated with what they perceive as a government that lacks any vision beyond fighting a war with Hamas every two or three years. Israel has fought three wars with Hamas since it withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 — 2008’s Operation Cast Lead, 2012’s Operation Pillar of Defense, and 2014’s Operation Protective Edge. While border residents wish the government and military would do more to protect them from Hamas’s tunnels, many of them also want the government to help the people of Gaza.

      Gaza is a pot that’s about to boil over, and unless something changes there, nothing is going to change here,” says Adele Raemer, who lives a mile from the Gaza border in Nirim, an Israeli settlement. “People can’t live like that without exploding. They are going to go underground and build tunnels if that’s how they are going to make a living.

  • Adam Shatz · The Daoud Affair · LRB 4 March 2016
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/2016/03/04/adam-shatz/the-daoud-affair

    Perhaps the best known sceptic about ‘Islamophobia’ in France is the prime minister, Manuel Valls, who has presided over the rightward shift of the Hollande government since the Charlie Hebdo attacks. On 2 March, under the heading ‘Let Us Support Kamel Daoud’, Valls wrote that the attacks on Daoud should

    make us indignant … Daoud shows us the path to follow … a path that France is following, in making it known to all those who have abandoned thought, that a Muslim will never be by essence a terrorist, anymore than a refugee will be by essence a rapist … To abandon this writer to his fate would be to abandon ourselves.

    Valls’s defence of Daoud has a noble ring, but his commitment to intellectual freedom is highly selective. In late January, a week before Daoud’s editorial appeared in Le Monde, Valls denounced Jean-Louis Bianco, the president of the Observatoire de la laïcité, for signing a letter calling for French unity against terrorism after the November attacks. Among the other, more than 80 signatories was the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, an anti-racist group Valls accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood. ‘One can’t sign appeals, including those that condemn terrorism, with organisations that I consider participants in a foul atmosphere,’ Valls said. In January, he declared at a conference organised by the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives en France – an umbrella organisation of Jewish groups that has been an unswerving ally of the Israeli government – that he would not permit a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators to hold a protest in Paris when the Bat Sheva dance company performed at the Paris Opera. French Jewish supporters of Israel encountered no such obstacles when they came out onto the streets in defence of the Gaza war in the summer of 2014. This double standard has done little to improve the dismal state of Muslim-Jewish relations in France.

    Valls has also been behind the increasingly punitive security measures in France, such as the extension of the emergency law – he told an interviewer on the BBC that it should remain in effect indefinitely, or until the Islamic State is completely liquidated – and the ‘décheance de la nationalité’, an amendment to the Constitution that would strip binational French citizens implicated in terrorism of their nationality. Not only does the décheance create two categories of citizenship – something not seen in France since Vichy – but it implies that the blame for French jihadism, which is very much homegrown, a product of the banlieues and provincial towns, can be shifted onto countries that France once ruled on the other side of the Mediterranean. Valls, it seems, would like to exonerate France of responsibility for ‘its’ Muslims, while adopting the cause of North African critics of Islamism like Kamel Daoud, as if the Mediterranean separating France and Algeria were ‘like the Seine running through Paris’, in the words of an old colonial slogan.

    Valls’s embrace is hardly fatal. Daoud is a brave and resilient man who writes for no one but himself. But it is a sobering reminder that that language is not simply ‘vacated property’. It is also ‘war booty’, as Yacine wrote, in a borderless clash over words, fantasies and interests – over the meanings of Islam, freedom and security. As Valls sang Daoud’s praises, I thought of the book that Ferhat Abbas, an Algerian nationalist leader, wrote about the betrayal of his country’s revolution: A Confiscated Independence. Once again, Kamel Daoud will have to fight for his.

  • 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 Feb 27, 2016 7:37 PM

    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.705799
    http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.705805!/image/3746778998.PNG_gen/derivatives/headline_1200x630/3746778998.PNG Screen shot from anti-BDS video by HaYovel: BDS or the Bible - Don’t Boycott GodScreen capture

    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.

  • Israeli authorities deny European Parliament delegation access to Gaza
    Feb. 11, 2016 10:01 P.M. 
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770242

    JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A delegation from the European Parliament was prevented by the Israeli authorities from accessing the blockaded Gaza Strip this week, the delegation said in an official statement.

    The authorities gave no justification to explain the refusal at the time. The delegation group reportedly arrived in Jerusalem on Monday and had arranged to travel to Gaza on Wednesday in order to evaluate EU-funded reconstruction in the war-torn enclave.

    Chair of the delegation, Irish MEP Martina Anderson, in the press release said: "The systematic denial by Israel of access to Gaza to European Parliament delegations is unacceptable. The European Parliament has not been able to access Gaza since 2011.

    “This raises questions: what does the Israeli government aim to hide? We shall not give up on the Gazan people,” Anderson said.

    The EU is one of several international bodies that aid Gaza’s over 1.8 million Palestinian residents, the majority of whom are forced to rely on foreign aid as Israel’s military blockade on the strip — upheld by Egypt on Gaza’s southern border — nears a decade.

    Palestinians in Gaza have struggled to rebuild from the mass destruction caused by three Israeli offensives on the strip over the past six years, and the UN reported last year that the strip could become “uninhabitable” within five years if current trends continue.

    #UE #UE_impotente

    • EU delegation led by Anderson MEP blocked from Gaza
      Published 10/02/2016
      http://martinamep.eu/eu-delegation-led-by-anderson-mep-blocked-from-gaza

      Martina Anderson said:
      “As part of its mandate the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine, which I chair, travelled to the region yesterday on a four day fact-finding mission in the West Bank and Gaza.

      “But we have been informed by Israeli authorities that the Delegation will not be permitted to proceed to Gaza, and will for the fourth time in two years be denied access.

      “EU support to the Palestinians amounts to 300 million euros per annum.

      “The purpose of the delegation’s visit is to assess the situation on the ground and the impact EU policies and assistance programmes are having on the lives of Palestinians.

      “Despite stating clearly that the remit of this delegation has a purely social, economic and humanitarian focus, we continue to be blocked.

      “I condemn, in the strongest terms, the Israeli authorities’ decision to deny this delegation access to Gaza for the fourth time.

      “It is unacceptable that an official EU delegation to Palestine is refused entry to assess the humanitarian situation and the destruction in Gaza. Since the EU is the largest contributor of finance to Palestinians it is time the EU took steps to insist its delegations are allowed unhindered access to the region.

      “These blatant attempts to deter us from our responsibilities to monitor the impact of EU funding in the Region should not be allowed to go unchallenged. The European authorities must leave Israel under no illusions that there will be repercussions if it insists on blocking access to Gaza by the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine.

      “If Israel thinks that blocking EU-accredited International delegations from visiting Gaza that its illegal demolitions of EU-funded structures and other acts of oppression will be hidden from the wider world then it is seriously mistaken. It will only strengthen our resolve to expose what can only be described as Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people.”

      Notes: The delegation is being led by Delegation Chair Martina Anderson (GUE/NGL, Irish) and composed of 6 other Members: Margrete Auken (Vice-Chair of Delegation, Greens, Denmark), Roza Thun (EPP, Poland), Eugen Freund (S&D, Austria), Patrick Le Hyaric (GUE/NGL, France), Rosa D’Amato (EFDD, Italy) and Konstantinos Papadakis (NI, Greece).

  • Palestinians urge Oscar nominees to reject Israel junket
    https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/palestinians-urge-oscar-nominees-reject-israel-junket

    Palestinians are calling on Oscar nominees to reject a travel voucher supplied by the Israeli government as part of the gift bag they will be given during the Academy Awards.

    The Israeli tourism ministry said it was behind the vouchers which are good for a “10-day VIP trip to Israel for two.”

    Tourism minister Yariv Levin made clear that the goal of the stunt is to improve Israel’s image by capitalizing on the fame of Hollywood stars.

    Israel hopes that stars including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Kate Winslet will be “touring in Tel Aviv or walking through the streets of the Old City of Jerusalem” – a part of the occupied West Bank.

    “If they do indeed accept the invitation, their visit will have enormous resonance among millions of fans and followers,” Levin said.

    • Les Palestiniens demandent aux nominés aux Oscars de refuser un voyage de propagande en Israël
      http://www.pourlapalestine.be/les-palestiniens-demandent-aux-nomines-aux-oscars-de-rejeter-le-voya

      Les militants palestiniens des droits de l’homme demandent aux nominés aux Oscars de ne pas accepter les billets de voyage fournis par le gouvernement israélien () et qui font partie de l’ensemble des cadeaux remis aux nominés des catégories « acteurs » et « mise en scène ».

      Une déclaration du ministère israélien du Tourisme se targue de ce que cette initiative constitue une excellente occasion de voir d’« éminents faiseurs d’opinion » partager leur visite « avec des millions de leurs fans et partisans ».

      () Il s’agit d’un voyage de 10 jours, pour une valeur de 55.000 $

  • Palestinian shot dead in Nablus after alleged attempted attack
    Dec. 17, 2015 11:16 A.M. (Updated: Dec. 17, 2015 3:43 P.M.)
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769379

    BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teen near the Huwwara military checkpoint in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus on Thursday, locals and Israel’s army said.

    An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that “during routine security activity” at the checkpoint Israeli forces approached a suspect for questioning, when the suspect “charged the forces while armed with a knife.”

    The forces “responded to the immediate threat” and shot the teen, killing him, the spokesperson said.

    Palestinian ambulance driver Kamal Badran identified the Palestinian as 15-year-old Abdullah Hussein Nasasra , from the Nablus-area village of Beit Furik.

    Badran told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers gathered around the teen preventing medical teams from treating him after he fell.

    #Palestine_assassinée

    • Palestinian lives matter!
      Vijay Prashad | Date of publication: 27 December, 2015
      http://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2015/12/28/palestinian-lives-matter

      On December 17, Naseer was driving from Nablus to Ramallah. Light rain fell as he approached the Israeli military’s checkpoint at Huwwara. In front of him was another car, moving cautiously. About fifty meters before that car was an Israeli military vehicle. Caution is the order of the day in the vicinity of the Israeli military. No sense in provoking their ire. Naseer kept some distance between the cars. They were moving slowly.

      Beside the road, on the grass off the sidewalk, a young boy walked in the same direction of the cars. Naseer observed that the boy seemed to be on the grass to avoid the puddles on the sidewalk.

      The Israeli military vehicle braked. An order must have come from the soldiers. The boy put his hands up. Naseer did not hear them but saw him obey. The car in front of his began to go around the military vehicle. Naseer followed. He saw the boy with his hands up. The next minute, in his rear view mirror, Naseer saw the boy on the ground. All this happened in a split second. One minute the boy was standing with his hands up, and the next minute he was dead on the ground.

      Naseer stopped his car, as did the driver of the car in front of him. The two men exchanged information. They had both witnessed an execution. There was no opportunity to approach the Israeli soldiers, who had already cordoned off the area.

      Not long after, Israeli state media announced that their military had killed Abdullah Hussein Nasasra (age 15) from Beit Furik (near Nablus). The Israeli military said that Nasasra had “charged the forces while armed with a knife.”

      Naseer said that he saw no knife. Nor did he see Nasasra charge the military men. They had guns trained on him. Why would he try to attack them with a knife?

      Over the course of the past few weeks, Israeli military and security forces have used deadly force against a number of children whom they accuse of knife attacks. Israeli political leaders have given carte blanche to their military to kill anyone they see as a threat. Interior Security Minister Gilad Arden said, “Every terrorist should know that he will not survive the attack he is about to commit.” Yair Lapid, former Minister of Finance in the Israeli government, concurred, “You have to shoot to kill anyone who pulls out a knife or a screwdriver.” Since the Israeli military is the Judge, Executioner and Investigator of these incidents, there is no accountability for them.

      When Kamal Badran Qabalan drove his ambulance to the scene, the Israelis blocked him from access to the body. There will be no independent investigation of this death. The miasma of Israeli propaganda – terrorist, knife – has already covered over the facts. Naseer says he is ready to testify against the Israeli military. But how does he do it? There will be no trial. The case will close quietly. Naseer is a distinguished man. His eyes are kind and honest. His voice is defiant as he tells me the story – “I saw them kill a boy,” he says. But what can Naseer do? His body language bespeaks the Occupation. There is futility here beside the defiance.

      https://twitter.com/vijayprashad/status/682935295730409474

  • Video shows Israeli commandos save Islamic militants from the Syrian warzone | Daily Mail Online
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3315347/Watch-heart-pounding-moment-Israeli-commandos-save-Islamic-militants-Sy

    d’abord la partie hallucinante de l’article:

    ’I wouldn’t say that Israel is doing this for nothing,’ said Chris Doyle, Director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding. ’If so, it wouldn’t be publicising it.

    ’There is an element of wanting to improve the country’s brand and image abroad, when all the opinion polls show that Israel doesn’t have the greatest reputation. £8.7million is a large price to pay for PR, but Israel’s powers-that-be have realised that it has to invest in its image.’

    An Israeli Government spokesman rejected these claims as ’absurd’.
    ’Israel is a world leader in providing humanitarian assistance, both in the Middle East and around the world,’ he said. He also pointed out that this is not the first time the Jewish State has given medical care to those bent on its destruction and their families.

    Puis (un peu) plus sérieusement,

    Many of the casualties rescued by Israel belong to Salafist groups who harbour a deep-seated hatred of the Jewish State. It has also been reported that some may be members of Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian group affiliated to Al Qaeda that has kidnapped scores of UN peacekeeping troops in this area, and has massacred Christians deeper in Syria.

    [...]

    It is unclear how the two enemies arrange the rescue. All that has been disclosed is that word reaches Israeli forces that casualties have been dumped at the border, intelligence establishes that it is not a trap, and the commandos are sent in.

    In the three years that Israel has been running these operations, it has saved the lives of more than 2,000 Syrians – at least 80 per cent of whom are male and of fighting age – at a cost of 50 million shekels (£8.7 million).

    [...]

    Officially, Israel says that this operation is part of its programme of humanitarianism, which has provided aid to a long list of countries from Haiti to Nepal. Palestinian civilians are also regular patients at Israeli hospitals such as the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa.

    [...]

    According to one senior Israeli army officer, Israel’s humanitarian mission may also be part of a security strategy, aiming to ’keep the northern border quiet and our soldiers safe’ by using medical treatment as an ’insurance policy’.
    It is humanitarian, but it’s also a case of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”

    [...]

    ’They are desperate for our medical help. They have no doctors, not even a vet. Once we treated a man who had been stitched up by a friend with a needle and thread.

    ’If they want our help to continue, they know they must stop anybody from attacking our soldiers and civilians.’

    Some experts argue that the status quo makes sense for both sides.

    The militants are stretched almost to breaking-point in a bitter struggle against Assad, and Israel, which is coping with stabbings throughout the country and sporadic rocket fire from Gaza, wants to avoid a flare-up of terror in the north.

    Others, however, believe that Israel is also pursuing more hard-headed geopolitical goals. ’Above all, Israel wants to prevent Hezbollah from gaining control on the other side of the border,’ said Michael Stephens, Research Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

    ’The Sunni militants are fighting Hezbollah, so for now they share the same objectives as Israel. That’s why we’re seeing this odd cooperation between people who would be enemies under any other circumstances.

    ’It is also possible that Israel is looking at what capacity these Syrians can add to its intelligence gathering in Syria, which is already formidable.’

  • Paris climate negotiations won’t stop the planet burning
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/paris-climate-negotiations-won-t-stop-planet-burning-1543258788

    It is not widely known that US, British, French and Israeli oil companies have had a range of overlapping interests in exploiting Syria’s unconventional oil and gas resources, which are believed to be considerable.

    A document for the Syrian Ministry of Petroleum reveals that just months before the uprising, British oil major Shell was about to “devise a master plan for the development of the gas sector in Syria, following an agreement signed with the Ministry of Petroleum. The agreement includes an assessment of the overall undiscovered gas potential in Syria, potential for upstream gas production, need for gas transmission and distribution networks…”

    CGGVeritas, a firm backed by the French government, had conducted seismic surveys estimating Syria’s total offshore hydrocarbon potential to represent “billion-barrel/multi-TCF [trillion cubic feet]” levels. A study by the firm was published in 2011 by GeoArabia, a Bahrain-based petroleum industry journal sponsored by Chevron, ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Total, and BP.

    Total, another French major, also worked with Assad at this time.

    More recently, another US firm with interests in Syria is Genie Oil and Gas, an Israeli subsidiary of which was granted a licence by the Israeli government in 2013 to explore the Syrian Golan Heights, which has been controlled by Israel since capturing the territory from Syria in 1967.

    In early November, Prime Minister Netanyahu personally asked Barack Obama in a private meeting if Israel’s right to the Golan could be accepted by the US, to which the American president apparently said nothing.

    Genie’s board consists of an interesting mix, including former former CIA director James Woolsey, Vice President Dick Cheney, global media baron Rupert Murdoch, Obama’s former economic advisor Larry Summers, and Obama’s nomimee for Secretary of Commerce Bill Richardson, among others.

    “We want a new Syrian state including some of those who are fighting it helping on the ground,” said British defence secretary Michael Fallon.

    No doubt, US, British, French and Israeli oil firms hope to be well positioned to take advantage of the “new Syrian state” in a post-conflict Syria.

    #Syrie #hydrocarbures #énergie #business

  • West Bank radio station shut down for ‘incitement’ in overnight Israeli raid by IDF — RT News
    https://www.rt.com/news/323014-israel-west-bank-radio

    A Palestinian radio station in Hebron has been stormed and closed down by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as part of an “incitement” crackdown campaign launched by the Israeli government in the wake of deadly terror attacks on Israelis.

    The IDF have raided Radio al-Khalil (which is Arabic for Hebron) based in the West Bank city of Hebron, seizing their broadcasting equipment and leaving a notice signed by Major General Roni Numa, commanding officer of Central Command, saying that the station was to remain shut down for six months.
    […]
    The station has been accused by Israeli authorities of allegedly inciting violence in its broadcasts, which reportedly prompted the shutdown. The radio is very popular in the area and has a strong following.

    The action was taken after broadcasts containing incitement were aired by the station,” the IDF said in the statement.

  • Pour ceux que ça intéresse...

    Une lettre anti-boycott culturel d’israel dans le Guardian en octobre:

    Israel needs cultural bridges, not boycotts – letter from JK Rowling, Simon Schama and others, 22 octobre 2015
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/22/israel-needs-cultural-bridges-not-boycotts-letter-from-jk-rowling-simon

    Peu de personalités connues à part JK Rowling, mais une réponse avait été publiée:
    http://seenthis.net/messages/422385

    Suite à cela, une Palestinienne, répond à JK Rowling dans le Herald of Scotland:

    A Harry Potter fan has called out JK Rowling in the best way possible
    Mia Oudeh, 27 octobre 2015
    http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/opinion/13896504.A_Harry_Potter_fan_has_called_out_JK_Rowling_in_the_best_way_possible/?ref=mr&lp=1

    Et JK Rowling lui répond:

    JK Rowling responds to fans using her Harry Potter characters to make points about Israeli cultural boycott
    JK Rowling, 27 octobre 2015
    http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13898879.JK_Rowling_responds_to_fans_using_her_Harry_Potter_characte

    extrait: “The Palestinian community has suffered untold injustice and brutality. I want to see the Israeli government held to account for that injustice and brutality. Boycotting Israel on every possible front has its allure. It satisfies the human urge to do something, anything, in the face of horrific human suffering. What sits uncomfortably with me is that severing contact with Israel’s cultural and academic community means refusing to engage with some of the Israelis who are most pro-Palestinian, and most critical of Israel’s government.”

    A quoi répondent les israéliens de Boycott From Within:

    Israeli citizens respond to JK Rowling
    http://boycottisrael.info/node/236

    #Palestine #BDS #Boycott_culturel #JK_Rowling #Mia_Oudeh

  • Otherwise Occupied Make East Jerusalem the Capital of Palestine
    Twenty steps that will reverse the situation – and be far less painful than the alternative
    Amira Hass Oct 12, 2015 9:26 AM

    http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.679909


    Israel is like the miser who gradually reduced the fodder he fed his horse. It has perfected the policy of divide, crumble and conquer that it implemented against the Palestinians and did even better when it cut off the capital – East Jerusalem – from its people. Like that miser, Israel thought this would work and earn it a place in the Guinness Book of colonial successes.
    But the horse died and Jerusalem’s Palestinians are rebelling. The miser is shocked. How did the horse die just as it was getting used to not eating? Many Israelis are reeling. Where did this violence come from?
    Official spokesmen have succeeded in confusing public opinion. “The Palestinians in East Jerusalem don’t want to live under the Palestinian Authority, a sign that our rule is good for them,” they said. “They want the National Insurance payments and health insurance,” those in the know boasted to journalists. Those in the know, of course, never add that Israel bears direct criminal responsibility for the impoverishment of the Palestinians in the annexed city and for turning them into welfare cases.
    “The Palestinians in Jerusalem want citizenship because Israel is terrific,” they said, as they released numbers of those applying, but avoided one simple fact: Jerusalem Palestinians seek citizenship to assure they won’t be expelled from their country and hometown.
    The miser thought that Jerusalem, out of sight and blocked to visitors, would be forgotten by the rest of the Palestinians. The miser is wrong. If Israeli Jews want to stop the disaster brewing in Jerusalem and elsewhere, they must demand that the Israeli government:
    Immediately launch an investigation into last week’s killing of Fadi Alun of Isawiyah, who was shot to death by an unidentified policeman when he was lying wounded on the ground.
    Stop the armed police raids of neighborhoods like Isawiyah and Jabal Mukkaber, and stop beating residents and spraying their homes with foul-smelling water.
    Cancel all the entrance restrictions for Palestinians to Jerusalem’s Old City and the Al-Aqsa compound.
    Order the police to stop giving traffic tickets to Palestinians for reasons they would never use to issue them to Jews.
    Cancel the ban on the Morabiton and Morabitat (Islamic Movement guards on the Temple Mount) and cancel the prohibition on Palestinians, including MKs, to shout and curse.
    Release Palestinian demonstrators arrested over the past year (who are not suspected of using deadly weapons, or murder or attempted murder).
    Cancel the policy of house demolitions as a collective punishment and immediately compensate those who have been its victims.
    Immediately initiate amendments to the entry residency laws that would make it clear that Jerusalemites can never have their residency revoked, even if they live outside the city.
    Immediately restore residency status to the some 14,000 Jerusalemites (and their descendants) who have had it revoked since 1967.
    Cancel all the demolition orders issued against Palestinian homes that were built in the city without permits.
    Restore to East Jerusalem all the lands expropriated from it or allocate comparable tracts of land to replace those allocated to settlements (i.e. “Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem”).
    Begin to plan Israeli-financed public housing projects for Palestinians under the guidance of Palestinian planners, sociologist and social activists.
    Expropriate “Sharon House” in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter and turn it into the headquarters for the planners of the above-mentioned housing program.
    Immediately begin repairing infrastructures and buildings in East Jerusalem, and improving municipal services there.
    Order the removal within a year of nationalist, zealous settlers and their institutions from the Old City and other East Jerusalem neighborhoods, because of the risk they pose to public safety and to law and order in the entire area.
    Open Orient House so it can serve as the city’s PLO headquarters.
    Apologize for 50 years of expulsions, discrimination, humiliation and impoverishment.
    Declare that all these steps are a prelude to demolishing the wall that separates the West Bank from East Jerusalem.
    Declare that the settlement enterprise is a national disaster that threatens the wellbeing of the land and its two peoples. Announce a five-year plan for bringing the West Bank settlers back home, or turning them into law-abiding citizens with no excessive rights in the Palestinian state, subject to that state’s consent and the criminal records of the settlers in question. This would include the settlers in Jerusalem’s Old City and in Hebron. Similarly, declare that all the communities where settlers live will be open at no cost to any Palestinian who chooses to live there, as part of a plan of compensation and reparations.
    Declare that all these steps are in preparation for turning East Jerusalem into the capital of the Palestinian state, following accelerated negotiations on a tight timetable of withdrawals.
    Delusional? Actually, all this would be far less painful than the destruction of this land and the two peoples who live in it

  • Despite mounting violence, IDF-PA security cooperation unlikely to end - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
    http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/palestine-authority-israel-security-cooperation-negotiations.html

    On Sept. 28, Palestinian media reported on a Sept. 9 meeting in Ramallah between Hussein al-Sheikh, who is the chief of Palestinian Civil Affairs in charge of coordination with the Israelis, and Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli government coordinator in the Palestinian territories. At the meeting, Mordechai praised the Palestinian security apparatus, stating the “West Bank is the only region with stability and calm amid a region that is full of security risks such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Gaza.” He also declared that Israel will allow additional Palestinian military forces in the West Bank because Israel has new information about certain Palestinian parties who intend to attack Israeli settlers.

    In addition, Mordechai thanked the commander of the Palestinian National Security Forces, Maj. Gen. Nidal Abu Dukhan, for the security information he provides regarding the situation in the West Bank, as well as his intelligence activities in neighboring countries. However, he complained about the weakness of security cooperation with the Palestinian Preventive Security Service, headed by Maj. Gen. Ziad Hab al-Rih.

    Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/palestine-authority-israel-security-cooperation-negotiations.html#ixzz3n

  • The #Palestine exception to free speech
    http://palestinelegal.org/the-palestine-exception

    Over the last decade, a dynamic movement in support of Palestinian human rights, particularly active in US colleges and universities, has helped raise public awareness regarding the Israeli government’s #violations of international law, as well as the role of corporations and the US government in facilitating these abuses. This activism, fueled by Israel’s increasingly destructive assaults on Gaza, presents a robust and sustainable challenge to the longstanding orthodoxy in the United States that excuses, justifies, and otherwise supports discriminatory Israeli government policies.

    Fearful of a shift in domestic public opinion, Israel’s fiercest defenders in the United States—a network of advocacy organizations, public relations firms, and think tanks—have intensified their efforts to stifle criticism of Israeli government policies. Rather than engage such criticism on its merits, these groups leverage their significant resources and #lobbying power to pressure universities, government actors, and other institutions to censor or punish advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. In addition, high-level Israeli government figures, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and wealthy benefactors such as Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban have reportedly participated in strategic meetings to oppose Palestine activism, particularly boycott, divestment, and sanctions (#BDS) campaigns.

    #intimidation #menaces #mensonges #droit #droits_humains #Etats-Unis #Israel #Israël

  • Migrant Crisis & Syria War Fueled By Competing Gas Pipelines
    http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competing-gas-pipelines/209294

    Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect recent Wikileaks revelations of US State Department leaks that show plans to destabilize Syria and overthrow the Syrian government as early as 2006. The leaks reveal that these plans were given to the US directly from the Israeli government and would be formalized through instigating civil strife and sectarianism through partnership with nations like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and even Egypt to break down the power structue in Syria to essentially to weaken Iran and Hezbolla. The leaks also reveal Israeli plans to use this crisis to expand it’s occupation of the Golan Heights for additional oil exploration and military expansion.

  • PA to pressure Israel to allow refugees seeking asylum into Palestine
    Sept. 5, 2015
    http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=767448

    RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — President Mahmoud Abbas is hoping to build international pressure on Israel to allow Palestinian refugees seeking asylum into the occupied Palestinian territory, the Palestinian Authority official news agency Wafa reported Saturday.

    Abbas reportedly directed the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyadh Mansour, to work with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon toward “appropriate and necessary action” to allow Palestinians refugees displaced by conflict in foreign countries to take refuge in the territory.

    Abbas told Wafa that allowing refugees to return to the occupied Palestinian territory was not only a humanitarian mission, but also a right of every Palestinian refugee.

    Wafa reported that Abbas’ office “has been making contacts with the UN, EU and other relevant actors, urging them to pressurize the Israeli government to allow Palestinian refugees back into the oPT.”

    Palestinian refugees living across the Middle East are among millions severely affected by conflict in Syria, Iraq and parts of Lebanon.

  • Obama must end support for Israeli apartheid against Palestinian scholars
    4 septembre | Radhika Balakrishnan et al |Tribunes

    US President Barack Obama, in a recent interview with Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic, reaffirmed his support and love for Israel because, as he claims, “it is a genuine democracy and you can express your opinions.”

    He further expressed his commitment to protecting Israel as a “Jewish state” by ensuring a “Jewish majority.”

    The US government’s support for the “Jewish state” has always been far more than rhetorical, backed by billions of dollars of military funding and consistent pro-Israel vetoes at the UN Security Council.

    We are a group of US-based academics, representing diverse ethnic, racial and cultural backgrounds, as well as a range of national origins, who recently visited Palestine. We were able to gain firsthand exposure to what Obama described in the interview as Israel’s “Jewish democracy” and to what kinds of infrastructure our tax dollars help to support — walls, checkpoints and modern weaponry.

    We had the privilege of traveling through part of the occupied Palestinian territories — the West Bank, including East Jerusalem — where we met with Palestinians.

    Double standards

    We feel compelled to share a few examples of what we witnessed during our visit with Palestinian scholars, policy makers, activists, artists and others working in the West Bank. We observed numerous double standards with regard to Palestinians’ rights that prompt us to question the claim that Israel is a genuine democracy.

    We believe that our government’s assertions that Israel is a democracy obscures the conditions it imposes on the Palestinian people through the occupation and beyond with conditions that amount to apartheid under settler colonialism.

    Our concerns began even before we arrived, as a search of the US State Department website for information about travel to Israel returned sobering results.

    The US government warns travelers to back up their computers because Israeli border control officials can erase anything at will. This indeed happened to one of us upon leaving Tel Aviv to return to the US.

    The site also warns travelers that their personal email or social media accounts may be searched, and so travelers “should have no expectation of privacy for any data stored on such devices or in their accounts.” Equipment may also be confiscated.

    The State Department further acknowledges that US citizens who are Muslim and/or of Palestinian or other Arab descent may have considerable trouble entering or exiting through Israeli-controlled frontiers. And this too happened to one of us who had mobile phone contacts searched immediately on entering Tel Aviv.

    Profiling

    Concerns in entering and exiting pale in comparison to the restrictions placed on US citizens of Palestinian origin, along with all other Palestinians who hold identification documents from the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

    Before traveling, most of us did not understand that for Palestinians under occupation, there are several types of identification and profiling and each comes with its own restrictions on mobility.

    Palestinians from Jerusalem have identification cards they must carry in a blue booklet while those living in the rest of the occupied West Bank hold an ID card in a green booklet, issued to them from the Palestinian Authority with the permission of the Israeli government.

    People possessing that identification generally cannot enter Jerusalem or present-day Israel without prior permission, even for a visa interview to attend an academic meeting in the US. Many people we met had only visited Jerusalem, home to many holy sites, once in their lives despite being mere minutes away by car.

    In the rest of the West Bank, a US citizen of Palestinian origin who wants to live there long term has to obtain a visa that says West Bank only. They are not allowed to travel in and out of the West Bank and are subject to the same checkpoints as other Palestinians. They cannot leave the occupied territories as a US citizen, as the State Department warns on its website.

    A Palestinian in the West Bank who holds US citizenship cannot simply catch a plane from Tel Aviv like any other US citizen simply because he or she is Palestinian and holds a Palestinian ID card. This fact is stamped into the US passport.

    They are not allowed to enter the checkpoints into Jerusalem or any other checkpoints as other people with a US passport can. This restriction is not at all applied to the Jewish settlers who are growing in number — thousands of them US citizens who are choosing to live in the occupied West Bank inside illegal settlements financed in part by US tax-exempt organizations.

    Academic freedom

    As scholars, among the many disturbing things we witnessed was the limited academic freedom and freedom of speech imposed on Palestinians (and many Israelis, whose travel in the West Bank is restricted) by the Israeli government.

    We learned that there is a prohibition on most books published in Syria, Iran and Lebanon even though Beirut is a central publishing hub of Arabic literary materials in the region. Regardless, banning books is, in our view, a profoundly anti-democratic act.

    Israel’s wall that surrounds the West Bank including Jerusalem — and which snakes deep inside the West Bank in many locations — also functions to limit academic freedom.

    One of the starkest examples is in Bethlehem, where the wall cuts through the city, making access to education at Bethlehem University very difficult for those who happen to be on the wrong side of the wall’s many twists and turns.

    Additionally, the Abu Dis campus of Al-Quds University is completely surrounded by the wall, making travel to and from the campus incredibly arduous despite it being in Jerusalem.

    An academic colleague described to us the difficulties she experiences getting to campus on a typical day. She must pass through roadblocks and endure searches and myriad forms of harassment by Israeli soldiers. In the West Bank, we were shocked to witness separate roads for Palestinians and Israelis based on the color of one’s license plate and identity card.

    In theory, these roads exist for the protection of Israeli settlers living on settlements built in the West Bank illegally according to international law. In practice, these roads create an apartheid travel system where Palestinians encounter several checkpoints on a given day, some of which may be mobile, unpredictably placed “flying checkpoints.”

    As our colleague explained to us, what used to be a very short trip between her village and the university now often takes more than an hour and a half and she is expected to cross through at least three checkpoints. She is often late to teach her classes and some days she is unable to make it to work or back home at all.

    Her students are often arrested and jailed using the legal cover of administrative detention — detention without charge or trial for an indefinite amount of time — for their participation in any political activities, or simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We heard that this process is intensified at exam periods.

    This creates an extraordinarily stressful academic environment when on any given day Israeli soldiers might detain students and faculty who are simply traveling to class.

    Impunity

    We recognize every people’s desire to be secure — and Israel’s supporters will defend its policies and actions in the name of its national security. What we witnessed during our visit is that “security” was offered as a rationale for almost any troubling behavior or policy.

    What we witnessed was a slow but deliberate expansion of Israel’s occupation, increased settlements, the taking over of agricultural land and the spread of industrial parks in the West Bank including substantial parts of East Jerusalem — all in the name of “security.”

    The United States, as a settler colonial state with its own occupations, police violence, carceral injustice, de facto apartheid and its own brand of border brutality — certainly has its own failings as a democracy, failings we continue to address in our intellectual and political work.

    We thus claim no moral high ground. But an ethnocracy is not a democracy ; the State of Israel imposes violent domination of the Palestinian people through colonialism, occupation and apartheid — three prongs of brutal oppression that are the very antithesis of democracy.

    As academics, watching attempts to stifle criticism of Israel — as in the case of our colleague, Professor Steven Salaita — and visiting the West Bank has prompted us to speak out publicly about Israel’s injustices. Doing so is imperative.

    We implore President Obama to reconsider his rhetoric and policies — and budget appropriations — that support Israel with impunity.

    Radhika Balakrishnan is professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University.

    Karma R. Chávez is associate professor of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

    Ira Dworkin is assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University.

    Erica Caple James is associate professor of Anthropology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is associate professor of American Studies and Anthropology at Wesleyan University.

    Doug Kiel is assistant professor of American Studies at Williams College.

    Barbara Lewis is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

    Soraya Mekerta is director of the African Diaspora and the World Program, and associate professor of French and Francophone Studies at Spelman College.

    http://www.aurdip.fr/obama-must-end-support-for-israeli.html

    L’AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine) est une organisation française d’universitaires créée en liaison avec la Campagne Palestinienne pour le Boycott Académique et Culturel d’Israël PACBI et avec l’organisation britannique BRICUP.

  • Israeli Terrorists, Born in the U.S.A. - The New York Times
    By SARA YAEL HIRSCHHORNSEPT. 4, 2015

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/israeli-terrorists-born-in-the-usa.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

    Jerusalem — ON July 31, in the West Bank village of Duma, 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh was burned alive in a fire. All available evidence suggests that the blaze was a deliberate act of settler terrorism. More disturbingly, several of the alleged instigators, currently being detained indefinitely, are not native-born Israelis — they have American roots.

    But there has been little outcry in their communities. Settler rabbis and the leaders of American immigrant communities in the West Bank have either played down their crime or offered muted criticism.

    It’s worth recalling the response of the former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to another heinous attack two decades ago, when an American-born doctor, Baruch Goldstein, gunned down dozens of Palestinians while they prayed in Hebron.

    “He grew in a swamp whose murderous sources are found here, and across the sea; they are foreign to Judaism, they are not ours,” thundered Mr. Rabin before the Knesset in February 1994. “You are a foreign implant. You are an errant weed. Sensible Judaism spits you out.”

    The shocking 1994 massacre was, at the time, the bloodiest outbreak of settler terrorism Israelis and Palestinians had ever seen. Less than two years later, Mr. Rabin himself would be dead, felled by an ultranationalist assassin’s bullet.

    Suddenly, a group of American Jewish immigrants that had existed on the fringes of society became a national pariah. A former president of Israel, Chaim Herzog, labeled the United States “a breeding ground” for Jewish terror; the daily newspaper Maariv castigated American Jews who “send their lunatic children to Israel.” One Israeli journalist even demanded “operative steps against the Goldsteins of tomorrow” by banning the immigration of militant American Jews.

    But tomorrow has arrived.

    After years of impunity for settlers who commit violent crimes, Israel’s internal security agency, the Shin Bet, has now supposedly cracked down by rounding up a grand total of four youths believed to be connected to recent acts of settler terrorism — three of whom trace their origins to the United States.

    The agency’s “most wanted” Jewish extremist is 24-year-old Meir Ettinger, who has an august pedigree in racist and violent circles. He is a grandson of Meir Kahane, a radical American rabbi who in 1971 immigrated to Israel, established the Kach party and served as its lone Knesset member until it was banned in 1988. (Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, but his career laid the groundwork for ultranationalist and antidemocratic parties in Israel.)

    Another is Mordechai Meyer, 18, from the settlement of Maale Adumim outside Jerusalem. He is the son of American immigrants who claimed he simply wanted to study the Torah and have an adventure in the West Bank. Another American settler, Ephraim Khantsis, was detained for threatening Shin Bet agents in court. The fourth, Eviatar Slonim, is the child of Australian Jews.

    Mr. Ettinger, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Khantsis join a long list of settler extremists with American roots. A Brooklyn-born settler, Era Rapaport, played a prominent role in the car-bombing of the mayor of Nablus in 1980. In 1982, a Baltimore transplant, Alan Goodman, opened fire at the Dome of the Rock, killing two Palestinians and wounding 11. That same year, a former Brooklynite, Yoel Lerner, was jailed for leading a movement to overthrow the Israeli government and blow up the Temple Mount.

    These days, rabbis like the St. Louis-born Yitzhak Ginsburg, who heads a yeshiva in the radical settlement of Yizhar, are inculcating the next generation.

    Today, according to American government sources and several other studies, an estimated 12 to 15 percent of settlers (approximately 60,000 people) hail from the United States. This disproportionately large American contingent — relative to the total number of American-Israelis — has joined secular, religious and ultra-Orthodox Israelis, and other more recent immigrants. Few of them live in extremist hilltop outposts; a majority live in suburbanized settlements near Jerusalem, but they are considered among the most highly ideological.

    RATHER than quoting the Bible or rhapsodizing about a messianic vision, they tend to describe their activities in the language of American values and idealism — as an opportunity to defend human rights and live in the “whole land of Israel” — often over a cup of Starbucks coffee in their boxy aluminum prefab houses or in the mansions of settlement suburbia. To them, living in the West Bank is pioneering on the new frontier; it’s merely an inconvenience that they’re often staking their claims on private Palestinian land. And for a fanatical fringe among them, this Wild West analogy has extended to indiscriminate violence.

  • FMEP’s Mitchell Plitnick: the death of a Palestinian infant in an arson attack by Jewish extremists can be a wake up call, or it can be just another horrible story among decades of horrible stories.

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh Dead? On Price Tag Attacks

    By Mitchell Plitnick

    Ali Saad Dawabsheh was only 18 months old when Israeli settlers who entered his village of Douma to carry out a so-called “price tag” attack took his life away by setting fire to his home. The crime brought shock and horror to many, regardless of their views of the overall Israel-Palestinian conflict.

    But the reality is that this death is very much a part of that conflict. It cannot be understood apart from it. It is not anomalous. Ali was far from the first baby killed in this conflict, on either side.

    It is no surprise that such a horrifying act leads people to say “something more must be done.” But, of course, the conflict will not end over this incident. In a matter of weeks, Ali’s death will be just one more tragedy in a long list of tragedies in Israel-Palestine.

    Is it possible for this tragedy to move us closer to resolving the conflict? Is it possible that, even without ultimately resolving the major political issues we can make it more difficult for an atrocity like this to occur? Perhaps it is, if we ask one important question and make sure we get all the answers to it.

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    Ali and his family were in their home at night when arsonists set it on fire. Ali’s parents and four year-old brother suffered severe burns and Ali died. The attackers spray-painted the word “nekama” in Hebrew on the resident. The word means “revenge.”

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    Until the murderers are caught, we cannot be certain, but it is likely that this “price tag” attack was carried out in response to Israel’s demolition of two structures in the settlement of Beit El on the West Bank. After the High Court in Israel ordered their demolition, the Netanyahu government immediately granted permits for hundreds of new living units in Beit El and the East Jerusalem area. This, however, was apparently not enough compensation for those who carried out this heinous act.

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    Given the shocking nature of the crime, the Israeli government will likely put considerable resources toward identifying and arresting the perpetrators. However, on a day-to-day basis, Palestinians in the West Bank have no protection from settlers. Israeli Defense Forces and Border Police often do not prevent settler attacks on Palestinians. It’s not uncommon to see them protecting settlers as they attack Palestinians.

    Moreover, the forces of the Palestinian Authority have no jurisdiction over settlers and cannot protect their own citizens from them. Settlers in general feel they may act with impunity. As the Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem states, “In recent years, Israeli civilians set fire to dozens of Palestinian homes, mosques, businesses, agricultural land and vehicles in the West Bank. The vast majority of these cases were never solved, and in many of them the Israeli Police did not even bother to take elementary investigative actions.”

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    In the wake of Ali’s death, the rush to express outrage was staggering. Israeli politicians across the spectrum vowed that the murderers would be brought to justice. No doubt, they are sincere in their personal outrage and in the desire to show Israelis and the rest of the world that this is something they will not tolerate as leaders.

    But their comments are universally directed at the crime itself, implying that this act was an anomalous blot on the Israeli page with no cause other than hate and extremism. The words not only of Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and other leaders of the current government, but also those of opposition leaders Isaac Herzog and Yair Lapid make no connection between Ali’s murder and the occupation, the settlement project or the increasingly anti-Arab tone of many of Israel’s leaders.

    There was scant mention of the tolerance shown to the extreme right of the settler movement over the years. As Amos Harel put it in Ha’aretz, “The forgiveness the state has shown over many long years toward the violence of the extreme right – which was also evident this week at Beit El (none of those attacking the police are now in detention) – is also what makes possible the murderous hate crimes like Friday’s in the village of Douma. There is a price for the gentle hand.”

    The decision to build hundreds of units in Beit El and East Jerusalem sent a message that the government would find ways to make the rulings of the High Court against illegal building moot in all practical ways. The bigger message that was sent in the wake of protests in Beit El where Israeli soldiers were attacked was this: violence pays, at least for the settlers.

    The occupation and settlement program are themselves a form of daily violence that dispossess Palestinians, place them under military rule and deprive them of their basic rights. It may not be easy to end the occupation, but the casual way many in Israel have turned to “managing the conflict” and given up on ending the occupation sends the message that such institutionalized violence by Israel against Palestinians is at least tolerable. Why would anyone be surprised that the more radical elements among settlers would take that a few steps further?

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    In the wake of Ali’s death, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate this act as a war crime. But this was an act of civilian murder, even if the civilian(s) who committed it was living in a settlement deemed illegal under international law. Moreover, the ICC would not act if Israel were legitimately pursuing the perpetrators, which it certainly seems like it is doing. Politicizing Ali’s death in this manner is typical of the conflict, and thoroughly counter-productive.

    Indeed, mixed in with his words of outrage, Netanyahu also could not resist politicizing it in his own way by saying that Israel pursues such criminals while Palestinians name streets after them (In reality, Israel celebrates its own terrorists too). This was an opportunity for the two leaders to unite in condemning a crime and calling for justice. Instead, both took it as an opportunity to aggravate the differences between them.

    Why is Ali Dawabsheh dead?

    While this goes on, members of the United States Congress works to legitimize the settlement enterprise by equating it under the law with Israel itself. The White House is focused on the Iran nuclear deal and it is not yet clear what, if any action the current administration might take to improve the situation in Israel-Palestine before they leave office. In Europe, merely labeling products emanating from settlements is so controversial that the process of setting up an enforcement mechanism for a regulation that already exists in European Union law is dragging along at a snail’s pace.

    Without ending the occupation of the West Bank, it is only a matter of time before the next horrifying incident, whether it happens to a Palestinian or an Israeli child. As Noam Sheizaf of +972 Magazine wrote, “…violence is inseparable from the colonial reality in the occupied territories — without putting an end to that reality, there is no chance to properly deal with violence. Even if things cool down temporarily, the situation will only grow worse in the long run. The only solutions are the evacuation of settlements or equal rights for all.”

    And ultimately, Sheizaf’s words are the answer to the all important question:

    What can we do to prevent more deaths like Ali Dawabsheh’s?

    Ultimately, there is no way to stop these incidents without ending the occupation and the daily reality of privileged and protected Israeli settlers living in a Palestinian territory mostly populated by people who live under military occupation.

    However, this crime was entirely predictable. Crimes like it can be prevented, at least some of the time, and it does not require an end to the conflict to do so.

    Until the conflict is resolved, Israel must meet its responsibilities to protect Palestinian civilians from settlers. Both Israelis and Palestinians can treat incidents like this one as the crimes they are and refrain from politicizing them, allowing both sides to condemn them unreservedly and in unison. Finally, the United States and Europe can stop equivocating and insist that the settlement project stop immediately, and be prepared to put real pressure on Israel to make it happen.

    Ali’s death can be a wake up call, or it can be just another horrible story among decades of horrible stories. Which it will be will depend as much on people’s willingness to pressure their own governments in a productive direction as it will on those governments, in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Brussels and Washington, finding the courage to finally act. Some Israeli settlers would condemn Ali’s murder. But until the occupation and the settlement project end, tragedies like this on are inevitable. If there is to be any hope of preventing them, it has to start with people standing up to finally say “NO” to the settlements and to force their governments to do likewise.

  • Une idée israélienne qu’elle est bonne : et si on en profitait pour s’étendre encore plus en annexant encore plus de terres ?
    http://www.conflict-news.com/israel-threats-and-opportunities-in-syria

    Former Israeli secretary to the Cabinet Zvi Hauser has taken the attack as a sign that the international community should recognise Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights (an annexation that is by most seen as illegal under the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions) and advance the cause of an independent Druze entity in Syria. As well as placating the Druze community and having the added advantage of potentially saving the lives of a minority community, Israel has a strategic advantage in following such a policy as it will not only cement ownership of the Golan Heights but also help create a buffer zone between Israel and those who may wish to attack it.

    The Israeli government have made assurance that a plan is in place for if Assad is to fall. This includes a list of military targets to be struck in this event. Their number one priority will be to protect the stability of Israel and the Golan Heights will continue to play an important role as a buffer zone to protect the Israeli people from the Syrian conflict. By expanding this buffer zone, Israel can create a greater sense of reassurance that they will be protected from the violence in Syria although there will be increasing concerns that those communities who occupy the Heights and calls for Israel to act decisively to protect vulnerable Druze across the border. How they pan to deal with this concern will depend on whether they find it more effective to limit the threat to the Syrian Druze or simply placate the Israeli Druze in another way.

    Si un partisan de la résistance libanaise suggérait comme une « opportunité » l’idée que le Liban s’étende au-delà de ses frontières en annexant le nord d’Israël, sous l’appellation « zone tampon », pour permettre au Liban de se protéger des agressions israéliennes, je me demande comment serait reçu un tel texte publié en anglais…

  • ISRAELI SPECIAL FORCES ASSASSINATED SENIOR SYRIAN OFFICIAL
    Matthew Cole Jul. 15 2015,
    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/07/15/israeli-special-forces-assassinated-senior-syrian-official

    Les #conspirationnistes le savaient déjà,

    Last year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah told journalists that the Israeli government killed Suleiman, and that the assassination was “linked” to Suleiman’s role in the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.

  • U.S. State Department: We won’t protect Israeli settlements against boycott
    Congressional efforts to extend anti-BDS fight to occupied territories show pro-Israel lobby the perils of biting off more than one can chew.
    By Chemi Shalev | Jul. 1, 2015 | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.663831

    The U.S. State Department on Tuesday punched a big hole in Israel-led efforts to induce the Obama administration to regard boycotts of settlements as identical to boycott of Israel proper. In doing so, it provided the Israeli government and the pro-Israel lobby with yet another painful lesson in the pitfalls of being too clever by half and biting off more than one should chew.

    A special statement issued by the State Department Press Office on Tuesday afternoon made clear that while the administration “strongly opposes” any boycott, divestment or sanctions against the State of Israel, it does not extend the same protection to “Israel-controlled territories.” Rather than weakening efforts to boycott Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, as Israel supporters had planned, the State Department was actually granting them unprecedented legitimacy.

    The statement came in the wake of President Obama’s signing of the Trade Promotion Authority bill, which grants him the authority he had sought to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership accord. But as the bill deals with free trade agreements in general, a clause was inserted in the Senate by Democratic Senator Ben Cardin and Republican Senator Rob Portman and by Representative Peter Roskam in the House of Representative that instructs American diplomats to include opposition to any boycott of Israel - or of persons from “territories controlled by Israel” - in their free trade negotiations with the European Union.

    The State Department statement, however, makes clear that the bill will not change U.S. policy towards the settlements. “The U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements or activity associated with them, and, by extension, does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimize them,” it said. It went on to note: “Administrations of both parties have long recognized that settlement activity and efforts to change facts on the ground undermine the goal of a two-state solution.”

    The defiant rebuff of the Congressional bill comes in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision regarding Menachem Zivotofsky that rebuffed Congressional attempts to force the administration to record “Israel” next to his city of birth “Jerusalem.” The State Department statement says, in effect, that a bill on trade authority cannot force the administration to change its longstanding policy towards Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. And just as the Zivotofsky decision weakened Israel’s hold on Jerusalem, the boycott decision only delegitimizes the settlements more than ever before.

    Thus, the effort to strengthen the settlements, supported by AIPAC and other mainstream and right-wing groups and opposed by J-Street and organizations on the left, actually ends up weakening them. The attempt to blot out the differences between a boycott of Israel and of the territories actually highlights them. The boycott of settlements, in effect, has now been officially stamped “kosher” by the State Department.

    • Les USA ne protègeront pas Israël du boycott des implantations
      http://www.i24news.tv/fr/actu/international/76775-150701-les-usa-n

      Les Etats-Unis ne comptent pas protéger Israël du boycott des produits fabriqués dans les implantations, a fait savoir le Département d’Etat mardi après-midi, après que le président Barack Obama a signé une loi dite anti-BDS (Boycott, Désinvestissement et Sanctions).

      Washington a ainsi tenu à faire une distinction claire entre le boycott dirigé contre les « territoires israéliens » et les implantations.

      « Le gouvernement américain n’a jamais défendu ou appuyé les colonies israéliennes (...) ne poursuit pas des politiques ou des activités qui puissent les légitimer », a indiqué le Département d’Etat.

  • “Combat Proven”: The Booming Business of War in Israel
    By Alex Kane

    The featured arms companies, like the attendees interested in buying their products, came from around the world, but Israeli companies far outnumbered other nations. The fair is put on with the active help and cooperation of the Israeli government, and the ISDEF expo board of advisers is composed of elite former Israeli military officers. The U.S. Department of Commerce is the only foreign governmental body to co-sponsor the event.

    Israel has established itself as a leading hub for weapons makers, capitalizing on the constant state of conflict the country is in and the close coordination between the military and the weapons industry. At the ISDEF opening ceremony, Ziva Eger, the Israeli Ministry of Economy’s director of the division for foreign investment and industrial cooperation, boasted about how Israel takes “technology from the defense sector and just implements it to the civilian sector.”

    In Israel, nearly 6,800 individuals deal in weapons exports at over 1,000 companies, according to Defense Ministry data from 2013. The country’s weapons industry brought in about $5.6 billion last year, making Israel the eighth largest weapons exporter globally, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that 150,000 Israeli households rely on the weapons industry for income. While last year’s earnings were actually a drop from a high of $7.5 billion in revenue in 2012, a decrease attributed by Israel’s Defense Ministry to budget cuts in the U.S. and Europe, Israel is among the world’s top arms exporters per capita. In fact, the U.S. effectively provides a subsidy to the Israeli weapons business: While about 75 percent of the $3.1 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel must be spent on American weapons, 25 percent can be spent on domestic Israeli arms makers — a situation unique to Israel. Even when Israel buys U.S. arms, it sometimes requests that those weapons be built with Israeli components.

    The U.S. subsidy is helping to fuel the business of war in Israel. It’s a booming industry due in no small part to the ever-increasing frequency of the country’s battles with militant groups in neighboring Lebanon and Gaza, the coastal strip that Israel holds under a crippling air, land and sea blockade. In 2006, Israel went to war in Lebanon, killing at least 900 civilians. Two years later, Israel invaded Gaza in what a U.N. Human Rights report called “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Operation Cast Lead, as the 2008 – 2009 attack was called, killed 1,400 people, more than half of them civilians. In 2012, Israel bombed Gaza for about a week before a U.S. and Egyptian-brokered ceasefire went into effect. But the most devastating Israeli attack on the strip occurred last summer, when Israel waged a 50-day battle against Hamas that killed 2,200 people, the majority of them civilians.

    The wars on Gaza have had a devastating impact on the population there, leaving half of Palestinian adolescents with symptoms of full or partial post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a study published in Arab Journal of Psychiatry. But in Israel, the wars are good for business.

    In 2013, Yotam Feldman, an Israeli journalist and filmmaker, released The Lab, a documentary positing that war is beneficial for the Israeli economy. Feldman’s film argues that the Palestinian territories are the “lab” where Israel uses its weaponry. Israeli companies profit from war because their products are “tested” on Palestinians, Feldman argued — particularly the residents of Gaza. “After every campaign of the kind that is now taking place in Gaza, we see an increase in the number of customers from abroad,” Eli Gold, CEO of Israeli arms company Meprolight, told the Israeli daily Haaretz last year.

    ....

    The September 11 attacks proved to be another crucial factor to the Israeli weapons industry’s success. The Israeli homeland security industry cashed in on an American market eager for tested solutions as the so-called “war on terror” began. For instance, Verint and Narus are two technology companies linked to the Israeli security community. Their technology swept up the phone communications of Americans who use Verizon and AT&T for the National Security Agency after September 11, according to sources who spoke to journalist James Bamford.

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/05/war-israel-booming-business