organization:israeli government

Bennett urges Israelis not to punish local operator for Orange CEO’s remarks
Partner Communications is ’the victim, not the aggressor,’ education minister says after telecom giant’s CEO says would withdraw from Israel ’tomorrow’ if it could.
By Haaretz | Jun. 4, 2015 | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.659539

Education Minister Naftali Bennett urged Israelis not to punish the Israeli mobile company Partner, which operates under the Orange brand name, after the French telecom giant said Wednesday that it intends to withdraw the Orange brand name from Israel as soon as possible.

The Israeli government is currently examining its next step facing Orange, Bennett said in a Facebook post, urging Israelis who might seek to boycott Partner due to its connection to Orange not to hurt the livelihood of thousands of Israelis.

“Partner is the victim, not the aggressor,” Bennett said.

French human rights organizations have been pushing their government, which has a quarter stake in Orange, and the company itself, to end the relationship because Partner provides services to Israeli settlements. The settlements, built on land the Palestinians want for a future state, are seen as illegitimate by the international community.

Simultaneously, an international grassroots organization is calling for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians. Israel says the BDS movement is not about the occupation of Palestinian territory, but rather a campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state.

Orange’s CEO Stephane Richard, speaking at a news conference in Cairo to lay out plans for the years ahead in Egypt, said that would have ended its relationship with Partner “tomorrow” if it could, but to do so would be a “huge risk” in terms of penalties.

Partner said in response that it regrets Richard’s comments. “We wish to highlight that Partner Communications is an Israeli company owned by Saban Capital Group, which is owned by Haim Saban, and not by France Telecom (Orange). The company is holding the Orange brand name since 1998, and the only connection between us and France Telecom is the brand name.”

Haim Saban said in response: “I am proud to be to controlling shareholder of the Partner company, which is an Israeli owned company, which operates under the Orange brand name. I won’t be deterred by threats. I will continue to operate in Israel and lead the international struggle for Israel.”

#BDS

Jordanians protest Israeli gas deal - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/jordan-israel-gas-deal-protests.html

The choice of location reflected the campaign’s desire to be heard by the government. In fact, a number of members of parliament support the campaign. Bustani said, “We are in front of the parliament because parliamentarians have supported this campaign. They voted against the deal.” One banner asked, “The deputies refuse, but the government goes along?”

The protesters voiced concerns about the potential use of the money earned by the Israeli government to further the occupation. “Israel is still killing Palestinians and taking their land post-Oslo Accord,” said Rajeb Jabara, a member of the campaign. Bustani had no doubt that the profits the Israeli government makes from the deal will be used toward this purpose, stating, “Billions will be paid to an Israeli government that has historically been hostile, waging wars on its neighbors and until now occupying land, attacking Gaza, the West Bank and so on … We think it’s preposterous this money will be used for these uses.”

Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/jordan-israel-gas-deal-protests.html#ixzz3bu0Q0wAW

Well, Now We Know: #Netanyahu Will Never Support A Two-State Solution

▻http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/netanyahu-dore-gold-two-state-solution?can_id=c04bd6c1866a7591ea0

http://a4.img.talkingpointsmemo.com/image/upload/c_fill,fl_keep_iptc,g_faces,h_365,w_652/jtrrp80iwxrglovsxmlj.jpg

Virtually no one in the international diplomatic community wants an Israeli government that openly opposes the two-state solution—but the time has come to face the uncomfortable truth. While it has been clear for years that Netanyahu is stalling talks, building settlements and strengthening the hard right in Israel, the world has continued to hope that Netanyahu’s overt ambiguity over the two-state solution means he is willing to go there at the end of the day.

#israël #palestine

Obama: Like Israelis, Palestinians have right to be free on their land | By Haaretz| May 22, 2015
▻http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.657739

In a speech at Adas Israel synagogue in Washington, president reaffirms ’unshakeable’ commitment to Israel’s security, but says two-state solution is the way to safeguard it.
(...)

Obama’s visit comes a day after he gave an extensive interview to The Atlantic, in which he talked about the new Israeli government, his relations with the American Jewish community and U.S. support for Israel.

Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg that despite the confrontations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the past number of years, most of the American Jewish community still voted for him in the 2012 presidential election.

“What I also think is that there has been a very concerted effort on the part of some political forces to equate being pro-Israel, and hence being supportive of the Jewish people, with a rubber stamp on a particular set of policies coming out of the Israeli government,” he said. “So if you are questioning settlement policy, that indicates you’re anti-Israeli, or that indicates you’re anti-Jewish. If you express compassion or empathy towards Palestinian youth, who are dealing with checkpoints or restrictions on their ability to travel, then you are suspect in terms of your support of Israel. If you are willing to get into public disagreements with the Israeli government, then the notion is that you are being anti-Israel, and by extension, anti-Jewish. I completely reject that.”

Israeli colonialism, plain and simple
In two court decisions involving shoving Palestinians off their land, Supreme Court justices have confirmed what Israel’s critics are saying: that Israel has been a colonialist entity since 1948.
By Amira Hass | May 11, 2015 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.655812

There is a straight line connecting the Palestinian village of Sussia in the southern West Bank and Atir/Umm al-Hiran, a Bedouin community in the Negev. This was highlighted last week by the justices of the Supreme Court. These are two communities of Palestinians that the Jewish state expelled from their homes and land decades ago, and whose families have lived ever since in “unrecognized” villages in shameful humanitarian conditions, forced on them by the Israeli government. One community settled on its agricultural land and the other in an area that the government moved them to during the early years of the state, when the Arabs citizens were under military rule.

These are two Palestinian communities that Israel is depriving of their planning rights. Instead, it demands of them to crowd in the pales of settlement it has allotted to them, so Jews can fulfill and rejoice and thrive in their new and expanding suburban fantasies.

The justices have allowed the state to demolish these two Palestinian communities, which are just 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) apart, but are separated by Israel’s 1967 border, the Green Line. On May 4, Justice Noam Sohlberg allowed the state, the Israel Defense Forces and the IDF Civil Administration to demolish Sussia’s tents, tin shacks and livestock pens as they see fit. The community petitioned against the Civil Administration’s decision to reject the master plan it had prepared, and what would be more natural than to stop home demolitions while the hearing of its case was still going on? But without a hearing, Sohlberg rejected the request filed by the community’s representatives – lawyers of Rabbis for Human Rights – for an interim injunction suspending implementation of demolition orders.

The Civil Administration is demanding that the residents of Palestinian Sussia relocate close to the West Bank Palestinian town of Yata, purportedly for their own good. Yata is in Area A, an enclave under the control of the Palestinian Authority. In other words, the CA intends to squeeze Sussia in one of the West Bank’s Bantustans, as it does and intends to do with Bedouin and other Palestinians who live in Area C, under total Israeli control.

In good faith?

Next to the tin shacks of today’s Palestinian Sussia (after the army expelled the residents of their ancient village in 1986 and turned it into an archaeological site where Jews could celebrate), Jewish Susya now wallows in its greenery and abundance. After all, it has to grow and doesn’t want to see Arabs living in shacks and buying water at exorbitant prices from tanker trucks.

Can a judge who permits demolition work to be carried out as an interim step then in good faith consider a petition challenging the residents’ final expulsion? And is it relevant that Sohlberg is a resident of a West Bank Jewish settlement?

It is no more and no less relevant than the fact that the other justices of the Supreme Court and their families, and every other Jewish Israeli (including myself), are entitled at any time to move to a West Bank Jewish settlement, and that they – we – live on the Israeli side of the Green Line in manicured neighborhoods for Jews only and in some instances on land from which Palestinians were expelled 65 years ago or yesterday.

On May 5, two other Supreme Court justices, Elyakim Rubinstein and Neal Hendel, allowed the authorities to demolish the unrecognized village of Atir/Umm al-Hiran. In the face of opposition from their fellow justice, Daphne Barak-Erez, they dismissed a petition filed by the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel that challenged the state’s decision to expel the residents for a second time, from the location to which they were expelled in the 1950s. Go to Hura, the state tells them, and the justices agree – to that Bedouin township that, like similar townships, was designated to condense Bedouins after their primary expulsion from their land. After all, how can we set up expansive farms for Jews and build pioneering communities such as Hiran if we recognize the Bedouin as citizens with rights, history and heritage?

The honorable justices were ingratiating Habayit Hayehudi even before this party was selected as the fox that guards the hen-house – through its appointment of Uri Ariel as the agriculture minister (who is in also in charge of Bedouin affairs) and Eli Ben-Dahan as a deputy defense minister responsible for the Civil Administration (which carries out the expulsion of Palestinians and the settlement of Jews in the West Bank). Don’t worry, you folks at the Jewish Home, we support the right of Jews to disposes Palestinians in Area C and the Negev, so say the judges. We, like you, are in favor of crowding the Arabs into Bantustans.

Even before the Supreme Court justices knew that Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) would be the next justice minister, even before they knew that her mentor, party leader Naftali Bennett, would be entrusted with the education of our children as education minister, they were telling us in a loud voice that the justices’ reputation was not what people feared, that the right wing has unjustly portrayed them as a monster seeking equality and justice. The justices had proven that their image as defenders of human rights, even if those humans were Palestinians or left-wing, had been totally twisted.

Just weeks before, on April 15, they had enthusiastically embraced the Boycott Law. That’s the law through which the right wing is threatening with financial penalties left-wing Israeli dissidents who publicly support sanctions on Israel and a boycott of its institutions and settlement products, as part of the struggle against institutionalized inequality and discrimination.

That very day, the justices endorsed the law that permits Israel to rob land owned by residents of Bethlehem, Beit Sahur, Beit Jala and Abu Dis. The land is where it has always been since before it was annexed to Israeli-ruled Jerusalem. Its owners remain living where they always did – a few kilometers away from their private land. But now the state declares them “absentees”: beyond the separation barrier.

The justices dismissed the petition challenging the application of the Absentee Property Law in their case, thus continuing the tradition from the 1950s. That is when we coined the oxymoron “present absentees” in order to facilitate the demolition of villages and robbery of land of Palestinians that remained, those that we failed to expel.

In the justices’ consent to the demolition of Sussia and Umm al-Hiran, they have drawn a direct line linking 1948 to today. They have confirmed what Israel’s most virulent critics say about the country – that it is a colonialist, dispossessing entity. The justices have parroted what the state has been screaming all along: It’s my right to dispossess, my right to expel, my right to demolish and crowd people into pens. I have demolished and will continue to do so. I have expelled and will continue to expel. I have crowded people in and will continue to do so. I never gave a damn and never will do.

PHOTOS: Hundreds protest deportation of asylum seekers in #Tel_Aviv

The Israeli government announced plans to offer asylum seekers a stark choice: self-deport to a third country or face indefinite imprisonment. Residents of south Tel Aviv, where many asylum seekers live, stage a counter-protest.

http://static1.972mag.com/wp-content/uploads//2015/05/YI014458.jpg http://static1.972mag.com/wp-content/uploads//2015/05/YI014366.jpg http://static1.972mag.com/wp-content/uploads//2015/05/YI014423.jpg

#Israël #asile #migration #réfugiés #protestation #manifestation #photographie
cc @albertocampiphoto

U.S.: It will be hard to support Israel in UN if it steps back from two-state solution
Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman says U.S. will be ’watching very closely’ what happens on Palestinian issue once new Israeli government formed.
By Barak Ravid | Apr. 27, 2015 || Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.653819

U.S. Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman on Monday warned Jewish leaders that if the new Israeli government does not demonstrate its commitment to the two-state solution, the U.S. will have a difficult time continuing to assist its efforts to halt international initiatives on the Palestinian issue at the United Nations.

Sherman told a conference of the Reform Movement that the U.S. has always supported Israel and given its diplomatic backing in the international arena, even when it meant standing alone against the rest of the world.

“We have always had Israel’s back in the international arena, even when it meant standing alone,” Sherman said. “This will continue to be the case.”

Nevertheless, she said, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions during the election period “raised questions about his commitment to the two-state solution.”

“We will be watching very closely to see what happens on this [Palestinian] issue after the new government is formed,” Sherman said. "If the new Israeli government is seen to be stepping back from its commitment to a two-state solution that will make our job in the international arena much tougher... it will be harder for us to prevent internationalizing the conflict.

Sherman’s comments come amid France’s efforts to advance a new initiative to reach a Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. According to the French initiative, a Security Council decision would include principles for a solution to the conflict, such as the delineation of borders for a future Palestinian state, according to 1967 lines and with land exchange. Sherman’s remarks were essentially a veiled threat indicating that the U.S. will consider not imposing a veto on a resolution of the kind.

Leaked Israeli documents prompt suspicion from Hamas - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/hamas-israel-avowal-defeat-gaza-war.html

He was preceded by Yoav Galant, the former head of the Israeli army’s Southern Command. On March 7, Galant accused the Israeli government of failing to deal with the Hamas tunnels issue.

This is while on April 6 Israeli Channel 10 broadcast a video on the military investigation into the strike that hit the armored personnel carrier at the beginning of the Gaza war in the Shajaiya neighborhood on July 20, 2014.

Interestingly, the Hamas-affiliated media outlets have quickly circulated these avowals, which have become the talk of the hour in Gaza, as the Israeli reports — which have been translated into Arabic — have shown the Israeli army’s weakness and the courage of the Palestinian fighters, as revealed in several reports.

Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/04/hamas-israel-avowal-defeat-gaza-war.html#ixzz3Xw3wO1A7

Pétition au Festival du Film de Locarno (en anglais, mais la liste des signataires est impressionnante)

Filmmakers to Locarno Film Festival: Don’t Give Israeli Apartheid a Carte Blanche
▻http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=2702

It has come to our attention that the Locarno Film Festival has chosen to place Israel as the center of this year’s festival in its “Carte Blanche” initiative, in cooperation with the Israeli Film Fund. This fund is an Israeli government-funded agency which receives support from the Israel Film Council, the government appointed film funding advisory body, as well as support from the Film unit at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs whose aim is to “promote Israeli films abroad with the support of the cultural attachés in the Israeli embassies throughout the world.”

We, the undersigned filmmakers and industry professionals, would like to express our deep concern with the fact that the Locarno festival is choosing to partner with the Israel Film Fund and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, despite the fact that Israel has not just continued, but intensified its decades-old occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.

We are particularly disturbed about the timing of this Locarno Film Festival decision to promote Israel, coming on the heels of Israel’s latest massacre in Gaza in the summer of 2014, where more than two thousand Palestinians were killed, including more than five hundred children. Locarno’s decision also follows the election of the most racist, far-right government in Israel’s history.

Given the current belligerence exhibited by Israel in its ongoing brutal attacks on Palestinian civilians and infrastructure, justified by the same Ministry of Foreign Affairs that you have chosen to be a partner of the festival, we demand that the festival organizers reconsider their relationship to the government of Israel, and withdraw their partnership with the Israel Film Fund, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and all other official Israeli entities. If the idea is to support individual Israeli filmmakers or screen Israeli films, there are many ways to do so without accepting funding or other forms of support from the Israeli state and government organizations.

We make this demand in consideration of the Palestinian filmmakers who have lost their lives or their loved ones this year due to Israel’s military attacks. We do so in consideration of the many cultural centers, arts institutions and universities targeted by Israeli bombs and missiles. We do so because we are in solidarity with those who are under siege. Under these circumstances, the actions of the State of Israel cannot be treated as normal. We do so because some of us are under siege, clinging on to our art and our humanity and contributing to our collective struggle for freedom, justice and equality.

We hope that our colleagues and friends at the Locarno Film Festival will stand with us. We hope you will recognize the direness of the present situation, and that you will choose to stand for human dignity in the face of barbarity and injustice perpetrated against any and all peoples.

It is well worth revisiting the timeless words of the German philosopher, Walter Benjamin, from his Theses on the Philosophy of History:

“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ’state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents treat it as a historical norm. The current amazement that the things we are experiencing are ’still’ possible in the twentieth century is not philosophical. This amazement is not the beginning of knowledge - unless it is the knowledge that the view of history which gives rise to it is untenable.”

Sincerely,

Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Palestine
Elia Suleiman, Filmmaker, France
Ken Loach, Director, UK
Mira Nair, Director, India/Uganda
Hany Abu-Assad, Director, Palestine
Mohammad Bakri, Actor, Palestine
Saleh Bakri, Actor, Palestine
Simone Bitton, Film Director, France
Joslyn Barnes, Producer, USA
Richard Horowitz, Composer & Producer, USA
Irit Neidhardt, Distributor & Co-Producer & Curator, Germany
Eyal Sivan, Filmmaker & Scholar, France/Israel
Rebecca O’Brien, Film Producer, UK
Walter Bernstein, Screenwriter, USA
Yasmine Hamdan, Singer, Lebanon/France
Jasmila Zbanic, Filmmaker, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Paul Laverty, Screenwriter, UK
Ossama Bawardi, Producer, Palestine
Karine Guignard, Actress & Hip Hop Artist, Switzerland
Hazem Berrabah, DOP, Tunisia
Abdel Salam Shehada, Filmmaker, Gaza/Palestine
Khaled Abol Naga, Actor & Producer & Director, Egypt
Marie-Pierre Macia, Producer, France
Ula Tabari, Filmmaker & Actress, France
Helene Louvart, Cinematographer, France
Kamran Rastegar, Music Composer, USA
Georgina Paget, Producer, UK
Zeina Durra, Filmmaker, UK
Rasha Salti, Film Programmer, Lebanon
Monica Maurer, Filmmaker & Journalist, Germany/Italy
Tala Hadid, Writer & Director, Morocco
John Greyson, Filmmaker, Canada
Hala Lotfy, Filmmaker, Egypt
Nicolas Wadimoff, Filmmaker & Producer, Switzerland
Dictynna Hood, Director, UK
Mai Masri, Filmmaker, Palestine
George Azar, Documentary Filmmaker, USA
Cat Villiers, Producer, UK
Mahdi Fleifel, Director, Amsterdam
Khalid Abdalla, Actor & Producer, Egypt/UK
Sally El Hosaini, Filmmaker, UK
Ounouri Damien, Director, Algeria
Enas Al Muthafar, Director, Palestine
Nicole Ballivian, Screenwriter & Director, USA
Najwa Najjar, Film Director, Palestine
Yahya Barakat, Film Director, Palestine
Nahed Awwad, Film Director, Palestine
Patrick Campbell, Producer, UK
Samir, Director & Producer, Switzerland
Alain Bottarelli, Producer, Switzerland
Palmyre Badinier, Producer, France
Stina Werenfels, Director, Switzerland
Frederic Choffat, Filmmaker, Switzerland
Saed Andoni, Producer, Palestine
Kamal Jafari, Filmmaker, Palestine
Nicholas Blincoe, Screenwriter, UK
George Khleifi, Filmmaker, Palestine
Dima Abu Ghoush, Filmmaker, Palestine
Najwa Mubarki, Casting Director, Palestine
Salim Abu Jabal, Filmmaker, Syria/Palestine
Majdi El-Omari, Filmmaker, Canada/Palestine
Jenny Morgan, Filmmaker, UK
Ramzi Maqdisi, Actor & Filmmaker, Palestine
Raed Helou, Filmmaker, Palestine
Dahna Abourahme, Filmmaker, Lebanon
Georgina Asfour, Filmmaker & Script Supervisor, Palestine
Azza El-Hassan, Filmmaker, Palestine
Rana Kazkaz, Filmmaker, USA/Syria
Mary Ellen Davis, Director, Canada
Norma Marcos, Filmmaker, Palestine/France
Hatem Alsharif, Writer, Jordan
Narimane Mari, Director & Producer, Algeria
Rashid Masharawi​, Director & Producer, Palestine
Omar Robert Hamilton, Writer & Director, Egypt
Anand Patwardhan, Filmmaker, India
Susan Youssef, Filmmaker, Lebanon
Osama Abed, Screenwriter & Director, Palestine
Sylvain L’Esperance, Filmmaker, Canada
Rama Mari, Filmmaker, Palestine
Riyad Deis, Filmmaker, Palestine
Buthina Canaan khoury, Filmmaker, Palestine
Nasri Hajjaj, Writer & Filmmaker, Palestine
Jumana Manna, Artist, Palestine
Lyana Saleh, Director & Producer, France
Martin Duckworth, Filmmaker, Canada
Brett Story, Filmmaker, Canada
Hanna Atallah, Filmmaker & Producer, Palestine
Dr. Ezzaldeen Shalh, Film Critic, Palestine
Shannon Walsh, Filmmaker, Hong Kong/Canada
Nora Alsharif, Director, Jordan
Zain Duraie, Filmmaker, Jordan
Akram Safadi, Filmmaker , Palestine
Hicham Kayed, Filmmaker, Lebanon
Suha Arraf, Filmmaker, Palestine
Pacho Velez, Filmmaker, USA
Linda Mutawi, Producer, Jordan/Sweden
Khadijeh Habashneh Abu Ali, Filmmaker, Jordan
May Odeh, Director & Producer, Palestine
Liana Badr, Author & Filmmaker, Palestine
Sophia Al-Maria, Screenwriter, UK
Hanan Abdalla, Documentary Filmmaker, Egypt/UK
Maher Abi Samra, Filmmaker, France
Amber Fares, Filmmaker, Canada/Palestine
Thaer Alsahli, Director & Writer, Netherlands
Ashraf Mashharawi, Filmmaker, Palestine
Alisa Lebow, Filmmaker & Scholar, UK
Maysoon Pachachi, Filmmaker, UK/Iraq
Guy Sherwin, Filmmaker, UK
Haim Bresheeth, Filmmaker, UK
George Costigan, Actor, UK
John Smith, Filmmaker, UK
Miranda Pennell, Filmmaker, UK
Jill Daniels, Filmmaker, UK
Samir Abdallah, Filmmaker, Egypt/France
Claus Josten, Filmmaker, Germany
Ruba Blal Asfour, Actress, Palestine
Fenia Cossovitsa Producer, Greece
Alaa Al Ali, Multimedia Artist, Sweden
Yaser Fares, Artist & Filmmaker, Germany
Tarazan Nasser, Filmmaker, Gaza/Palestine Arab Nasser, Filmmaker, Gaza/Palestine
Larissa Sansour, Artist, UK
Mahmoud Al Massad, Writer & Director, Jordan
Dima Hamdallah, Writer & Producer, Jordan
Sherif Elbendary, Filmmaker, Egypt
Hamada Atallah, Costume Designer, Palestine
Khaled Jarrar, Filmmaker & Artist, Palestine
George Hencken, Filmmaker, London
Eyad Hourani, Actor, Palestine
Ridha Tlili, Filmmaker, Tunisia
Amer Shomali, Filmmaker, Palestine
Marco Pasquini, Documentary Filmmaker & Cinematographer, Italy
Kassem Hawal, Filmmaker & Writer, Iraq
Khalo Matabane, Filmmaker, South Africa
Yahya Alabdallah, Filmmaker, Jordan
Sabah Haider, Filmmaker, Canada/Lebanon
Sean Jacobs, Film Faculty, USA/South Africa
Rashid Abdelhamid, Producer, Palestine
Meriem Varone, Script Consultant, France
Firas Khoury, Director, Palestine
Leila Sansour, Film Director & Producer, UK/Palestine
Hakim Noury, Filmmaker, Morocco
Farida Benlyazid, Filmmaker, Morocco Khalil Benkirane, Filmmaker, Qatar

#Palestine #BDS #Boycott_Culturel #Cinema #Festival #Locarno

European companies complicit in new East Jerusalem project
▻http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/activism/bds/591-european-companies-complicit-in-new-east-jerusalem-project

European companies are involved in the new Cable Car project in East Jerusalem. A joint project sponsored by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem Municipality aims to construct a cable car that will link West Jerusalem, the Old City, Mount of Olives near the Seven Arches Hotel and Gethsemane.

The Israeli municipality in Jerusalem recently hired the French company SAFEGE to do a feasibility study on the cable car that run from West to East Jerusalem. SAFAGE contracted with another French company, POMA, which specializes in cable cars.

With Netanyahu’s reelection, the peace process is over and the pressure process must begin
If Israelis have the right to vote for permanent occupation, we in the Diaspora have the right to resist it.
By Peter Beinart | Mar. 19, 2015 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.647682

My entire adult life, American Jewish leaders have been telling Americans that Israel can save itself. Just wait until Israel gains a respite from terror, they said; then its silent, two-state majority will roar. Give Israelis constant reassurance; never pressure them. If they know “the United States is right next to them,” Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations promised Barack Obama in 2009, Israeli leaders will “take risks” for peace.

Israel has been disproving that theory throughout the Netanyahu era. Now, with this election, Israel has killed it.

This election was not fought in the shadow of terror, at least not the kind that traumatized Israelis during the terrible Second Intifada. Thanks in large measure to security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, Israelis no longer shudder, thank God, before boarding buses or entering cafes. Nor was this election fought in the shadow of American pressure. Yes, Washington and Jerusalem are clashing over Iran. But the Obama administration has not come close to punishing the Israeli government for repeatedly rebuffing its efforts to broker a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines.

This campaign, in other words, offered an excellent test of the theory that the American Jewish establishment has peddled for decades. And look what happened. In the absence of Palestinian violence and American pressure, Jewish Israelis at first pretended the Palestinians did not exist. “As Israeli election nears, peace earns barely a mention,” noted Reuters. During a 90-minute debate in late February, eight candidates, together, mentioned the word “peace” only five times. And three of those mentions came from the Arab candidate. 

Then, in the campaign’s final days, the Palestinian issue surfaced. On March 6, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan warned that by deepening Israeli control of the West Bank, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was leading Israel toward “apartheid.” And Netanyahu proved Dagan right. The day before the election, Bibi gambled that if he explicitly repudiated a Palestinian state, Israelis would reward him. Then, on Election Day, he gambled again, warning, in a nakedly racist appeal for right-wing votes, that “the Arabs are voting in droves.” 

It worked. Trailing in the polls by five seats, Bibi engineered a stunning comeback to win the election by six.

The American Jewish establishment will never admit that its theory of change has been discredited. It will go on insisting, no matter how laughable that insistence becomes, that Israel is serious about creating a Palestinian state. The establishment’s disconnection from reality will gradually make it irrelevant. Already, the trend is clear: AIPAC, which claims Israel will end the occupation, is being supplanted by Sheldon Adelson, who celebrates Israel for entrenching the occupation. Adelson is not taking over the institutions of American Jewish life only because of his money. He’s taking over because he looks reality in the eye.

We must too. “Power,” said the great American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, “concedes nothing without a demand.” For almost half a century, Israel has wielded brutal, undemocratic, unjust power over millions of human beings in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And as this election makes clear, Israel will concede nothing on its own. This isn’t because Jewish Israelis are different than anyone else. It’s because they are the same. Which leaves just one question: how best to make the demand? The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement offers one path. In the wake of Netanyahu’s win, it will grow, gaining more mainstream support. But the logic of the BDS movement is toward a single binational state that, while tempting to some liberals in theory, would in practice likely mean civil war. It would also mean the end of the one state in the world that has as its mission statement the protection of Jewish life. Those of us who still believe in such a state, alongside a Palestinian one need another way.

Our principle should be this: Support any pressure that is nonviolent and consistent with Israel’s right to exist. That means backing Palestinian bids at the United Nations. It means labeling and boycotting settlement goods. It means joining and amplifying nonviolent Palestinian protest in the West Bank. It means denying visas to, and freezing the assets of, Naftali Bennett and other pro-settler leaders. It means pushing the Obama administration to present out its own peace plan, and to punish — yes, punish — the Israeli government for rejecting it. It means making sure that every time Benjamin Netanyahu and the members of his cabinet walk into a Jewish event outside Israel, they see Diaspora Jews protesting outside. It means loving Israel more than ever, and opposing its government more than ever. It means accepting that, for now at least, the peace process is over and the pressure process must begin.

For many Diaspora Jews, this transition will feel painful and unnatural. It certainly does for me. But there is now no other way. We know in our bones, even without Meir Dagan telling us, that Israel is headed toward moral disaster. We know that a non-democratic Israel is a dead Israel. We know that if Israel makes permanent an occupation that reeks of colonialism and segregation, an America that is becoming ever more black and brown will eventually turn against it. We know the BDS one-staters are winning. We know that if Israel continues on its current path, our children will one day live in a world without a Jewish state. We know that our grandparents’ generation of Diaspora Jews will be remembered for having helped birth the first Jewish country in 2,000 years, and that ours will be remembered for having helped destroy it.

Yes, our influence is limited. But it is not irrelevant. Israelis have made their choice. Now it’s time to make ours.

The Left and Islamophobia: Remarks About Michael Walzer’s Essay in Dissent Magazine | Al Akhbar English
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/left-and-islamophobia-remarks-about-michael-walzer%E2%80%99s-essa

Ironically, Walzer writes for Dissent magazine, a publication that has long embodied the contradictions of the American Zionist left. Here is a magazine that endorsed wholesale the policies and wars of the right-wing Israeli government (and of the left, to be sure) and never wavered in its support for Zionism. It also served for years as a tool of the global, right-wing US-dominated anti-communist movement.

Walzer’s main claim is that the left in the US (and elsewhere) has been intimidated from criticizing radical Islam due to the stinging accusation of Islamophobia. Ironically, Dissent magazine and other Zionist publications have themselves perfected the power of intimidation by casually throwing the label of anti-Semitism. Walzer’s book “Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustration” is a catalog of rationalizations of Israeli wars of aggression. Here is the author who considers the “radical devaluing” of the Jews of Israel the essence of terrorism in the Middle East , nevermind that the people who were expelled from their lands and whose homes were stolen, and who have been subjected to an unrelenting war of terror from the Zionist forces and later from the state of Israel are the Palestinian people themselves.

Most importantly, for Walzer to succeed in maintaining that the accusation of Islamophobia intimidates the left in the US, he has to prove that Islamophobia has power, or that it is a real stigma. One can simply measure the power of that stigma by comparing it to the stigma of anti-Semitism in the US, or in any other European country. It is, certainly, exceptional for someone to lose a job, be forced to resign from a job, or be denied tenure or get asked to offer a public apology for making an Islamophobic statement. There is no power whatsoever to the stigma of Islamophobia in the US. Far from it: in many electoral districts in the US, and in many churches and synagogues across the country, whipping up Islamophobia is a sure tool for the attainment of power.

No matter how far right Israel moves, Abbas stays the course - Palestinian leader’s gradualist strategy, blocking nonviolent protest against occupation, is endlessly adaptable to Israeli radicalization.
By Amira Hass | Dec. 5, 2014 |Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.630120

The growing extremism in Israel and the assumption that the next government will be even more rightist and extreme than the outgoing one are not likely to change the Palestinian leadership’s positions and tactics. Nor is the prevalent assumption that the caretaker government will take a harsher line against the Palestinians expected to encourage the leadership in Ramallah to change the rules that have developed over the 21 years of the Oslo process.

Since Yigal Amir murdered Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, the Palestinian leadership has distinguished between the Israeli government and the public, believing Israelis to be peace seekers. Now the Palestinian leadership recognizes that most Jewish Israelis have rightist or extreme rightist inclinations. This constitutes a dramatic change in the discourse at the top.

Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki predicted that the changes in Israel will bring other states or parliaments to recognize the Palestinian state. In an interview with the official daily Al Ayyam this week, Maliki said the Palestinian leadership will continue efforts to have the UN Security Council set a timetable to end the occupation.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat, who attended a debate organized by Masarat – the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies in Ramallah, also spoke of the diplomatic UN track. This includes bringing the occupation to UN votes and getting the nearly 200 states that have signed the Geneva Convention to take up the Palestinian issue.

He said Palestinian officials were engaged in talks with France about advancing the latter’s initiative to set principles for ending the occupation and concluding peace negotiations within two years.

According to the Masarat report, participants noted the contradiction between setting a schedule to conclude the negotiations and setting a schedule in the United Nations to end the occupation. The two senior officials in fact spoke of contradictory tracks. The Palestinians see negotiations as synonymous with preserving the status quo, postponing any decisions and giving up on real international pressure on Israel.

On the other hand, the diplomatic route – “setting a timetable to end the occupation” – as is practiced by the Palestinian leadership, excludes other ways of defying the occupation that would bind the leadership and public.

The policy led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas is based on several foundations. These include running the PA and its institutions as the “state in progress”; dependence on international – mainly Western – assistance and faith in the United States’ support for establishing a Palestinian state; an authoritarian government that restricts criticism; opposing any military escalation and the use of arms against the occupation; paying lip service to an unarmed popular struggle while in fact restricting it and promoting a diplomatic strategy in the United Nations and the world.

These foundations fit in with the Palestinians’ adjustment to living in the enclaves (areas A and B in the West Bank and Gaza) and bolster the de facto renunciation of East Jerusalem and Area C (which includes the settlements). Combined, the foundations are conducive to a high level of adjustment – of both the official leadership and the public – to any Israeli right-wing radicalization.

The Palestinian public is skeptical about its leadership’s goals and intentions. The question always hovering in the air is whether Abbas’ diplomatic strategy is intended to end the occupation, or to prolong the PA life and justify its existence, with all the perks for the ruling strata that this involves.

The same questions were posed regarding the leadership’s long-standing adherence to the negotiations with Israel, even after reaching the conclusion that Israel was using the talks not to reach an agreement but to expand the annexation and thwart a Palestinian state.

Pinning hopes on diplomacy, UN

Indeed, the Palestinian leadership is pinning its hopes on diplomacy and the United Nations. It is striving to take the “Palestinian cause” (rather, the problem of Israeli occupation and oppression) out of the bilateral Israeli-Palestinian route and return it to the international arena. So every ceremonial vote on recognizing its statehood is presented as a great Palestinian achievement.

The leadership believes the diplomatic course is working and advancing the Palestinians toward statehood. At the same time, the diplomatic strategy is a substitute for unarmed civilian rebellion in the occupied territories.

Advancing a diplomatic strategy while maintaining ambiguity about resuming the negotiations with Israel enables the PA to continue to receive international assistance, albeit reduced. The assistance balances and neutralizes the economic and humanitarian disasters caused by the occupation and its draconian restrictions on freedom of movement between the West Bank and Gaza and the use of Palestinian territory and natural resources.

The financial assistance softens and contains the impact of poverty and unemployment. The money also enables the Western states to make do with verbal warnings to Israel, while refraining from actually imposing sanctions on it.

The international funds maintain the Palestinian middle classes and public sector that are directly and indirectly affiliated with the PA. Like the official leadership, these groups know full well that civilian rebellion will bring an end to their lifestyle, which includes freedom of movement in the West Bank and travel abroad, leisure activities, study options, social and political gatherings, limited economic enterprises and more.

Such a way of life is based on basic human rights. But since the PA is in fact a protectorate that depends on Israel, Israel holds this way of life hostage, seeing these human rights as “gestures” that depend, as in prison, on the prisoners’ good behavior.

Any changes the Palestinians can make in the long overdue Oslo agreements to reflect their resistance to the occupation will evoke immediate Israeli retaliation against the Palestinian leaders and the normal lifestyle of the middle class, which is the authority’s backbone. Such changes by the PA may include ending the security coordination with the IDF and Shin Bet, building in Area C, drilling for water in the western areas of the West Bank or organizing mass processions to Jerusalem headed by Palestinian elders.

So the PA leadership’s declarations about continuing the diplomatic course in the United Nations should be seen in the shadow of a collective Israeli revenge and the prospect of the PA’s collapse. The UN diplomatic course indicates that even when an extreme-right wing is taking over in Israel, the Palestinian leadership is still adhering to the reality created by the Oslo process.

How easy it is to prevent escalation in Jerusalem
Palestinians are generous when they attribute Israel’s policies to the stupidity of its leaders.
By Amira Hass | Dec. 1, 2014 | Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.629286

Almost every conversation in East Jerusalem over the past few weeks has ended with the statement: “They are stupid” – meaning the Israeli government is stupid to behave in such-and-such a way toward Palestinian Jerusalem. If they would just make it easier to obtain construction permits, they say, if they would add just a few percentage points to the budget, if they would not beat demonstrators so savagely, if they did not trump up traffic violations, for example, then the clashes would not spread like wildfire.

This is the consecutive third week with no age restriction on people attending Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and everything went quietly. Got that? No humiliations and restrictions, no rioting.

The definition of the government’s actions as stupid is a fairly common act of generosity on the part of Palestinians, the generosity of the native-born. It is the generosity of those who are well planted in the villages and neighborhoods that have turned into slums, sealed ghettos; neighborhoods that are a mixture of wide roads for the Jews, open areas where Palestinian construction is prohibited, kitschy villas and ordinary apartments that cost 400,000 dollars, because the housing shortage is so severe. If you are Palestinian, that is.

Stupidity is beyond the control of the stupid person. The poor fellow was born that way. Stupid people can be replaced and their stupid actions set right. Those who say “this is stupidity” do not say it is malice; those who diagnose stupidity do not say it is a premeditated crime. It is a demonstration of generosity when the words used to describe Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem have run out. How many times can we say apartheid, discrimination, silent transfer, expulsion, racism, exclusion, dispossession, assault, impoverishment, weakening?

Stupidity? Here are a few fundamentals of Israel’s policy in Jabal Mukkaber:

In 1967, the village of A-Sawahra was divided into two parts. One portion remained inside the West Bank, while its western portion (including Jabal Mukkaber) was included within Jerusalem’s borders and annexed to Israel. But the inhabitants continued to be members of the same tribe, marry within the tribe and bury their dead in the same cemetery on the western side.

In 1993, traffic restrictions and checkpoints began to divide the eastern portion of the village from its western part. Since 2000 and after the construction of the separation fence, the barrier between members of the tribe and members of the same families has become hermetic.

As the BIMKOM – Planners for Planning Rights nonprofit organization wrote in its survey of East Jerusalem’s neighborhoods, Jabal Mukkaber is under the most extreme construction restrictions of all the Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Most of the area is off-limits for construction, and in the few places where it is allowed, no building permits are issued. The amount of open areas (not slated for development) set by the plans that apply to the neighborhood is exceptional, even compared to other East Jerusalem neighborhoods. The planned system of roads is so meager that it leaves most of the neighborhood utterly inaccessible.

In the western Sawahra neighborhood, which is close to the separation barrier, only one-quarter of the area is zoned for residential purposes. The housing shortage is so severe that young people are postponing their wedding dates or remaining in their parents’ homes. The areas slated for expropriation from Sawahra for the purpose of paving the eastern ring road, most of whose users will not be from the neighborhood (read: Jews), are larger than the total area of the neighborhood’s roads.

On top of the expropriations carried out in the 1970s for constructing the East Talpiot neighborhood, Nof Tzion, a well-planned, well-kept settlement for Jews only, was built a decade ago in the heart of the neglected half-village of Jabal Mukkaber. The planning goes back to the 1980s. Fifty dunams (some 12 acres) were originally under Jewish ownership. Sixty-five dunams (16 acres) of land were expropriated from Jabal Mukkaber for the large neighborhood, which would be suitable for the waves of immigration from the former Soviet Union. The buildings are six stories high – about 130 percent of construction – while the Palestinians on the other side are allowed only 25 percent, or two floors.

There is no stupidity here. This is a crime of discrimination being committed deliberately, with malice aforethought. It is no invention of Benjamin Netanyahu or Nir Barkat or Naftali Bennett. The intellectual property rights belong to the governments of Labor and the “moderate” Likud.

To say that the Israeli governments are stupid after 50 years – or almost 70 years – of living under their rule is an act of psychological repression, with a bit of hope for redress. The last thing that can be said of the country’s leaders and high officials is that they are stupid. To say that we, the Jews, are stupid is to throw us a last rope of rescue from ourselves and our policies.

Expired tear gas

Residents of Isawiyah and Jabal Mukkaber noticed that the canisters of tear gas that the Israel Police generously have been firing at them to subdue their demonstrations were stamped with the date 2005. Text on the canisters also read that they were suitable for use five years from the date of manufacture. So they fear that the tear gas is even more harmful than usual and will damage their health and that of their children, sick people, elderly people and pregnant women, particularly when it is fired among the residential buildings.

But the Israel Police, in its response to Haaretz, wanted to reassure the worried targets of the tear gas: “The expiration date written on the gas canisters does not refer to the gas that is used, but instead to other parts of the canister.” The police say further that the gas does no harm, but merely causes irritation of the mucous membranes.

Eritrea: A Dictatorship Nearing Collapse?

Israel is home to about 35,000 Eritrean asylum-seekers. While the Israeli government claims that they are work migrants, so as not to violate its own laws, Israel does not forcibly deport Eritreans back to their country of origin. As long as Eritrea is ruled by the current regime, the millions of Eritreans living outside of their homeland cannot return, but is it possible that the regime in Eritrea will soon collapse? Recent reports from Eritrea and refugees who lately fled the east-African country indicate that the regime is struggling to maintain its control over the population. The regime relies on repression, its most extreme fashion being the open-ended national service, to scare the population into submission. At the same time, revenues from mining, nearly free slave labor and taxes Eritreans abroad are forced to pay, allow the regime to sustain itself economically. In recent years, however, these pillars of the regime’s stability have begun to crack.

▻http://hotline.org.il/en/eritrea-a-dictatorship-nearing-collapse
#Erythrée

Israeli Government Eventually Admits that Mohammed Is the Top Baby Name - The Intercept
▻https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/24/mohammed-most-common-baby-name-in-israel

Are Palestinian babies actually babies? That’s been a surprisingly thorny question for the Israeli government this week, when the Population, Immigration and Border Authority at first declared the Hebrew name “Yosef” the most popular baby name for the past year, and then was forced to admit that the nation’s most popular name was actually “Mohammed” — assuming one includes Arab babies.
(…)
It was against that political backdrop that the government released a list of popular baby names this week that included only Hebrew names. After publishing the initial rankings, the Haaretz newspaper asked government officials why there weren’t any Arab names on the list. It turns out they had been excluded, and a new list was given to Haaretz. The Israeli government told the publication that its original decision to effectively exclude Palestinian babies from its list, released just ahead of the Jewish new year, was not done with any ideological intention in mind and that, “contrary to the assumptions of the Haaretz newspaper, there is no plot to deliberately hide information.”

University of Illinois victimizes professor critical of Israel’s policies - World Socialist Web Site

▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/09/22/sala-s22.html

On September 11, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees voted 8-1 to reject the appointment of Professor Steven Salaita to the American Indian Studies department. A job offer approved by Salaita’s colleagues was revoked last month by University Chancellor Phyllis Wise after Salaita’s social media commentaries against the Israeli government’s policies were publicized.

The university’s position was expressed in a hypocritical statement by President Robert Easter: “In our pluralistic society it is increasingly obvious that forward progress is impeded by polarization, bigotry and hurtful dialogue that inhibits reasoned discourse. I’ve come to the conclusion that Professor Salaita’s approach indicates that he would be incapable of fostering a classroom environment where conflicting opinions need to be given equal consideration regardless of the issue being discussed. I’m also concerned that his irresponsible public statements would make it more difficult for the university and particularly the Urbana-Champaign campus to attract the best and brightest students, faculty and staff.”

#israël #états-unis

Israeli government plans to forcibly relocate 12,500 Bedouin - Plans to expel communities from land east of Jerusalem and move them to new town in Jordan Valley were drafted without consulting tribes.
By Amira Hass | Sep. 16, 2014 Haaretz
▻http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.615986

Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank is advancing a plan to expel thousands of Bedouin from lands east of Jerusalem and forcibly relocate them to a new town in the Jordan Valley.

Between late August and last week, the administration published nine plans that together comprise the master plan for the proposed new town north of Jericho. The plans were drafted without consulting the Bedouin slated to live there, in violation of the Supreme Court’s recommendation.

In explanatory notes to the plans, to which the public now has 60 days to submit objections, the administration said its proposal suits the “dynamic changes” Bedouin society is undergoing as it moves from an agricultural society to “a modern society that earns its living by commerce, services, technical trades and more.”

The town is slated for about 12,500 Bedouin from the Jahalin, Kaabneh and Rashaida tribes. It is the third and largest of the towns the administration has designated for Bedouin in the West Bank.

Un de ces articles infiniment fumistes dont le #New_York_Times a le secret dés qu’il s ’agit d’#Israël et de ses #crimes : un titre (le Hamas est coupable du crime des 3 ados israéliens) qui contredit un contenu (le Hamas ne l’est probablement pas) qui s’évertue par ailleurs à disculper le #criminel #Netanyahu.

New Light on Hamas Role in Killings of Teenagers That Fueled Gaza War
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/world/middleeast/killing-of-3-israeli-teenagers-loosely-tied-to-hamas-court-documents-show.h

JERUSALEM — The abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank in June, which helped fuel the biggest escalation in Palestinian-Israeli tensions in years, was set in motion by Hamas operatives from a local Palestinian clan and was financed with about $60,000, mostly obtained through a relative who worked for a Hamas association in Gaza, according to official Israeli documents released on Thursday.

But the documents, related to an investigation and indictment of the man suspected of leading the kidnappers, provide no evidence that the top leaders of Hamas directed or had prior knowledge of the plot to abduct the three Israeli youths.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his subordinates asserted as fact that the kidnapping and killing of the three youths was orchestrated by Hamas, which Israel regards as a terrorist group committed to its destruction. He responded by ordering a severe crackdown on Hamas suspects and institutions in the West Bank.

Though the documents released on Thursday do not necessarily undercut the Israeli government’s assertions, they present a more nuanced picture.

How to Decode the New York Times
▻http://www.fair.org/blog/2014/09/05/how-to-decode-the-new-york-times

How does that final sentence logically follow from the previous two? If the documents do not support Netanyahu’s claims, then they would most certainly undercut his assertions.

So what, then, is the “more nuanced picture”? #Kershner writes that the legal documents “depict the plot as more of a family affair, a local initiative organized and carried out by members of a clan in Hebron.” That was what many analysts had been saying all along, offering a very different interpretation than the one being put forth by Israel–though it was the Israeli line, not the one offered by independent analysts, that made its way into US media (FAIR Blog, 7/2/14, 7/28/14). Kershner speaks to one Israeli source who, she reports, still thinks it “was fair to blame Hamas, as an organization, for the kidnappings.” The source added that “it is still possible that we will find evidence of a direct connection.”

The Times headline writer is correct that these documents shed “new light” on this tragedy. But it’s hard to see how light is shed on a “Hamas role,” since it’s still not clear there is any such role at all. These new revelations do not provide any support for the Israeli government’s claims about Hamas’ responsibility, instead depicting it “as more of a family affair.” The implication is that the horrific bloodshed of the Israeli assault on Gaza followed from a groundless charge. But Kershner’s article works hard to de-emphasize that conclusion.

I am an Arab, Palestinian and citizen of Israel - I have the right to define my own identity
By #Suha_Arraf
Published 20:10 24.08.14
▻http://www.haaretz.com/mobile/.premium-1.612195

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.609433.1407408572!/image/336433986.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_640/336433986.jpg

In his Hebrew essay entitled “And taking money from Israel is all right?” (Haaretz, August 11, 2014), Goel Pinto contends that if I accepted money from a country, I am obligated to show gratitude by defining my film as Israeli and representing Israel with pride. But Pinto forgets that the Israeli government is not doing us, the Palestinian citizens, any favors by giving us scholarships or budgets. About a million and a half Palestinians live in the State of Israel and pay taxes as the law requires. So we have a right to benefit from 20 percent of the public budget, in accordance with our proportion in the population.

If anyone should be complaining here, we are the ones who should be doing so, since Arab-Palestinian cultural institutions receive less than two percent of the cultural budget, and we receive less than one percent of the cinema budget. Jewish filmmakers, not we, are the ones who get the most benefit from our tax money.

The State of Israel never accepted us as citizens with equal rights. From the day the state was established, we were marked as the enemy and treated with racial discrimination in all areas of life. Why, then, am I expected to represent Israel with pride? Do I, as a filmmaker, automatically become an employee of the Foreign Ministry’s public diplomacy department? When the foreign minister issues a call, without shame, to boycott the owners of Palestinian businesses, to say nothing of his transfer plan, am I expected to work for him?

The Palestinian minority in Israel has a right to cultural autonomy. We have a basic right not only to make films that reflect our cultural identity, but also to define them as such. If the State of Israel sees itself as a democratic and pluralistic state, it must allow us this liberty and stop the campaigns of incitement against Palestinian artists who succeed in breaking out beyond its borders and dare to lift their heads.

Suha Arraf was born in the Palestinian village of Miliya, near Lebanon. She is the director, scriptwriter and producer of Villa Touma, her debut feature film, which tells the story of three Christian sisters in Ramallah during the early days of the Israeli occupation, and has been shortlisted for the 2014 Venice International Film Festival’s 29th Critics’ Week. Her latest documentary: Women of Hamas, received 13 awards at international film festivals. Suha’s first two screenplays, The Syrian Bride and The Lemon Tree, both directed by Eran Riklis, received international acclaim, with the latter winning Best Screenplay at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, and a Best Screenplay nomination at the European Film Academy Awards.

Toile de fond:
Un film financé par Israël présenté comme “Palestinien”
▻http://fr.timesofisrael.com/un-film-finance-par-israel-presente-comme-palestinien

#identité #Palestine

Social Media: The weapon of choice in the Gaza-Israel Conflict

▻http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/social-media-weapon-choice-gaza-israel-conflict-1807202428

As the war progressed, it was an online battle of narratives - between heavily funded Israeli state media outlets, represented by Israeli spokespersons of the Israeli government and the army with decades of experience - versus Palestinian citizen journalists who only had their own laptops, smartphones and cameras. (...)

“Most of the Western corporations and outlets are biased in favour of Israel, so they totally mislead people by fabricating news, showing Palestinians’ destroyed homes as Israeli ones. This attitude sparked uproar and disgust toward those news channels - namely Fox News. Alternatively, Palestinian activists firmly focus in revealing the reality through social media tools,” said Maram Humaid, social media activist.

#Gaza #Palestine #Israël #réseaux_sociaux #information

Who does the #New_York_Times think is a combatant in #Gaza? | Just Security
▻http://justsecurity.org/13801/new-york-times-definition-combatant-gaza

There is a strange quality to today’s story by the New York Times on the civilian casualty rate in Gaza (“Civilian or Not? New Fight in Tallying the Dead from the Gaza Conflict”).

The story raises a key legal issue: “Then there is the question of who counts as a “combatant.’”

In addressing that question, there’s much to learn from the story and its analysis of statistical information about existing casualties. But the story is lacking with respect to recognition of the international law on lethal operations and recognition of Israeli’s official position (whether one agrees with that position or not). 

More specifically, the story has two shortcomings:

1. The NYT analyzes the key legal issue without mentioning the existence of any international legal standard.

Indeed, a reader would not be faulted for concluding, after reading the story, that this is simply an amorphous area in which parties to a conflict and civil society groups might arrive at their own conclusions. Instead, the law of war is fairly well settled on this issue in many important respects (and Israel, including the Israeli High Court, does not disagree with many of those features of existing law).

As Sarah Knuckey and I noted in an earlier post at Just Security, a primer by HRW provides an excellent summary of the laws of war that apply to Gaza (see #2 for definitions of who can be targeted). For example, lawful targets include members of the armed forces of an opposing side and individuals who “directly participate in hostilities” such as helping to load and fire a weapon. The definition excludes purely political leaders, religious figures, financial contributors and others without a fighting function.

In the scholarly literature and at international conferences, there is a hypothetical “hard case” that legal experts and legal advisers disagree about: whether a person driving a military truck filled with ammo to the front lines is a valid target. Yup, that’s the difficult case of where to draw the line! As Derek Jinks and I once wrote, “That this is considered a hard case illustrates the substantial agreement” among the different views of the law. Indeed, this is much clearer an area of law than many areas of domestic law that affect matters of life and death.

2. The NYT story does not say what the Israeli government’s official position is in answering the question of who counts as a combatant (i.e., a lawful target).

I will have much more to say about this second shortcoming in a subsequent post. For now, it is important to note that it would be a terrific service if journalists would drill down on the latter question—who exactly is the IDF saying is a valid target in Gaza. I am surprised that the only lens we have to evaluate that issue in a NYT story about that very question is limited to: (i) the story’s amorphous reference to “in some eyes” which is then immediately followed with (ii) what the story says a senior member of Human Rights Watch says about the Israeli position.

Here are the key paras:

“ Then there is the question of who counts as a ‘combatant.’

There are uniformed men actively firing weapons. But Hamas also has political figures, members of its security service and employees of its ministries. In some eyes, anyone affiliated with the organization, which professes a goal of destroying Israel, is a combatant.

‘Israel has a very liberal definition of who qualifies,” said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s labeling of certain individuals as ‘terrorists’ does not make them military targets as a matter of law. ’” (emphasis added)

Whether one supports or opposes the Israeli government’s position, it would be good for the public to be informed of what it is. I will delve into what’s publicly available on that issue in a subsequent post.

Plus d’enfants palestiniens tués en 3 semaines que de soldats israéliens en 8 ans | Haaretz

►http://www.haaretz.com/news/video/1.608484

CNN Jake Tapper: At what point does the Israeli government say, enough, we’re killing too many innocent children? - Video | Haaretz
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/video/1.608484

▻http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdOyoHe94DQ

TAPPER: I have to ask you about these heartbreaking scenes that we’re seeing from Gaza. Now, Mark, if my calculations are right, Israel has in the last three weeks killed more Palestinian children, more than 200, than the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in military operations since 2006, which includes the second Lebanon war, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, and now Operation Protective Edge.

That is a lot of dead children, especially relative to the number of soldiers that have been killed in Israel in Israeli military operations in the last eight years. At what point does the Israeli government say, enough, we’re killing too many innocent children?

62% of British public says Israel committing war crimes, as polls show sympathy for Palestinians
▻http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/europe/13114-62-of-british-public-says-israel-committing-war-crimes-as-p

62% of British public says Israel committing war crimes, as polls show sympathy for Palestinians
Wednesday, 30 July 2014 11:56
 23 83  0 106
[File photo]Almost two thirds of the British public (62%) believe that the Israeli government is committing war crimes, a new YouGov poll has revealed.

The survey, conducted 27-28 July, comes days after a separate poll carried out on behalf of The Sunday Times showed that 52% of the British public sees Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip as “unjustified”. Questioned about their attitude to the conflict more generally, 27% said their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians, while 14% said their sympathies lay more with the Israelis.

Polling data from the U.S. indicates Israel’s growing image problem, even amongst the citizens of its closest ally. A new Pew Research Center poll shows that among 18 to 29-year old Americans, 29% blame Israel more for the current violence, while 21% blame Hamas. Meanwhile, a Gallup poll last week showed that a majority of nonwhite Americans under-50 view Israel’s assault as “unjustified”.

In a CNN poll conducted July 18-20, only 57% of respondents said Israel’s actions in ’Operation Protective Edge’ are justified.

Meanwhile, a survey of UK Christians commissioned by charity Embrace the Middle East has revealed that 35.4% sympathise more with the Palestinians, while 16.9% sympathise more with Israel. The research was conducted before Israel’s attack on Gaza, which charity head Jeremy Moodey said would likely only increase support for the Palestinians in UK churches.