Shadi Fadda brings us today's headlines relating to Palestine and other news from around the internet.
Land theft
Israeli media: More settlement building underway in Jerusalem
New plans to build even more settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite international calls for a standstill, were revealed on Friday by the Israel daily newspaper the Jerusalem News. The daily reported that a local construction and planning committee will review blueprints for a new settlement comprising 100 housing units, to be built on the site of the former Israeli police headquarters in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras Al-A’moud, east Jerusalem. The new settlement, Ma’alut David, is to be built on 11 dunums of land on and around the former police site, which was responsible for the West Bank, Jerusalem News stated.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Israel okays four new Jewish residences in East Jerusalem
The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday approved construction of four new residential buildings in the eastern part of the city, despite international calls for a cessation of activity in the heavily Palestinian area. The buildings, which are intended to house 24 families, will be built beside the decades-standing Beit Orot yeshiva in the contentious area east of the Old City walls. The construction project was initiated and constructed by American Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz, who also owns the Shepherd Hotel in East Jerusalem. That hotel made headlines last year when Moskowitz obtained a permit to build 20 apartments for Jews there, sparking angry protests from the U.S. government.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Members of Bnai Menashe to make aliyah
Some 7,200 members of Bnei Menashe ("Children of Menasseh"), a group of people hailing from north-eastern India who claim lineage to one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, will make aliyah after converting to Judaism in Nepal ... After the conversion process is complete, they will be allowed to immigrate to Israel with an immigrant visa. The government estimated that within one to two years, the entire community can be brought to Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Photos: History and Hebron / Michael Ratner
Of course in Germany the stars were placed to discourage if not end commerce to a Jewish shop; in Hebron they are placed to assert the closing of a Palestinian store and its “ownership” by the Jews of Hebron. In both cases the stars are painted by the oppressors.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/
Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Sanctions & Divestment
Army fires on Nablus protesters
Israeli forces reportedly attacked demonstrators and residents of Qaryut, south of Nablus, who marched in protest of land confiscation near the illegal Israeli settlement of Shilo on Friday ... As part of a recent surge in popular protest in the West Bank, hundreds took to the streets in the West Bank village of Nabbi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah, in protest of a recent land grab by the adjacent Jewish-only settlement of Halamish, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli peace activist and founder of the Anarchists Against the Wall organization. Protesters occupied and blocked the main street leading to the settlement, amidst clouds of tear gas and whizzing rubber-coated bullets, managed to hold it for over two hours. A group of demonstrators also managed to reach the area that was recently taken over by settlers. Settlers who came down from Halamish threw stones and shot live rounds at demonstrators, he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Video: Bil‘in weekly demonstration 20 January / Haitham Al-Katib
Three Injured and One Attempted Arrest in Bil‘in Village Weekly Demonstration -- This one has a comic-relief moment: as three soldiers were busy isolating one demonstrator and dragging him on the ground, their comrades gassed them, allowing the demonstrator to escape.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Guerrilla ad campaign protests Pacific Gas & Electric's link to Israeli company
An ad campaign of sorts ran in Berkeley and San Francisco at the end of 2009 drawing attention to Pacific Gas & Electric’s relationship with the Israeli company Solel and the growing BDS movement. Several of PG&E’s “Solar Power” bus shelter billboards were modified to read “Making planets orbit and bagels toast … and fueling Israeli apartheid.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/
Brazil under fire for spending $350 million on Israeli drones
The anticipated use of Israeli-made drones by Brazilian police Tuesday drew criticism from a prominent ruling party politician. It also prompted social activists to seek greater cooperation with Palestinian movements to protest the "importation of Israeli oppression." The sale of Israeli drones to Brazil "confirms that Israel draws indirect benefits from the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories," Valter Pomar, secretary of international relations for the leftist Workers Party (PT), told Haaretz.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Palestinian artists call for boycott of Israeli settlement goods
The Union of Artists in Nablus called on Palestinians to boycott all goods manufactured and produced on Israeli settlements on Saturday ...The artists' union suggested the establishment of a national boycott committee in Nablus and stricter punishment for merchants and traders who do not abide by the Palestinian Authority's (PA) decision to ban Israeli settlement goods from the Palestinian market.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Violence / Aggression
One seriously injured by Israeli tank fire in central Gaza
A Palestinian was seriously injured in a Israeli artillery shelling on farmlands east of the Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday ... The incident is the latest in an escalating string of cross-border violence, with two projectiles reportedly launched from the Gaza Strip and landing in southern Israel Saturday morning. Friday saw four airstrikes hit locations across the besieged coastal area, reportedly in retaliation for a series of mortar shell barrages launched by the An-Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. The strikes killed three and injured two.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Three Palestinians killed in Israeli air strike on Gaza
Friday - Three people, including a 14-year-old-boy, have been killed in Israeli air strikes overnight in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medics say. The Israeli military said it was responding to mortar and rocket attacks on Thursday on Israel from Gaza. It said it attacked two tunnels on the border with Egypt, a tunnel to be used by militants for crossing into Israel and a weapons making site.The strikes hit targets Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah. The militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, said an Israeli jet had also bombed a building in Gaza City.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Palestinian farmers flee settler mob
Three Palestinian farmers fled an attack initiated by 40 settlers from the illegal settlement of Beit Eyin on Saturday, a spokesman for the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP) said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Hanan's eight-year battle with Yitzhar settlers
On 5 May 2002, dozens of armed settlers from the Yitzhar settlement attacked the Safwan family, setting fire to their home, sending dogs into the home and damaging most of the furniture. Hanan Safwan, 49 years old, recounted that her husband died on the spot that day in May, "ever since then," she lamented, "the attacks against this family have never stopped."
The family lives in the village of Burin, south of Nablus, a kilometer north of the Yitzhar settlement.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Pity God didn't make me a donkey
When Khadra, owner of the strolling donkey, realized the rascal was proceeding towards the new settlement, she hurried followed to get it back. The donkey stood on the army patrol track that is very close to Umm al Kheir and a bit further from new Carmel. Aware of the catastrophic implications of the donkey’s entry into the settlement area, Khadra steps on the sacred dirt of the patrol track, intending to teach her donkey its missing lesson in the political understanding of the area. Alas, that was a fateful step. Four bursts of M-16 rifle-fire just missed her head, in the direction of Umm al Kheir. Khadra fainted on the spot. She lost consciousness out of sheer fright.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_
Internet café in Al-Qarara targeted by assailants
Witnesses said an explosive charge was planted near an internet café in the town of Al-Qarara near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip Saturday, destroying much of the interior of the café when it was detonated. No injuries were reported and no group claimed responsibility for the attack. It was the second such incident in the past week, with an internet café in Khan Younis having been targeted by a similar attack ... In the past two years there have been waves of similar incidents, some thought to be the act of ultra-islamists in Gaza who object to the services being offered at the shops targeted.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Siege
Egypt: No more aid convoys through Rafah
Egyptian authorities will set a new mechanism for shipping international aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, following anger over recent aid convoys for Gaza, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu Al-Gheit told Egyptian news sources Friday. The new mechanism requires all aid for delivery to the Gaza Strip to be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent at the Al-Arish terminal. The aid will be processed by the Red Crescent and handed over to the Palestinian Red Crescent in Gaza following an inventory, Abu Al-Gheit explained in the Egyptian paper Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Egyptian mosques, press berate Hamas
In wake of Egyptian soldier's death at hands of Palestinian sniper during protest against delay of aid convoy's entry to Gaza, imams say Hamas to blame for blockade on Strip, its leaders 'want to stay in power even at cost of their people's starvation'.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Hamas: Soldier hit by Egyptian bullet, not Palestinian
Hamas members were not behind the shooting death of an Egyptian soldier during protests that turned violent earlier int he week, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Ma'an on Saturday. “Hamas has information that confirms the Egyptian soldier was shot by the Egyptian forces opening fire at Palestinian protesting the attack against the Lifeline [British Member of Parliament George Galloway's] convoy,” the official said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Deported BU student to receive degree in Gaza
Finishing her classes over the phone and e-mail, Berlanty Azzam, pulled out of a car, handcuffed, blindfolded and deported from the West Bank to Gaza in October, will be awarded her degree on Sunday, officials from Bethlehem University announced. In a statement issued Saturday, the university said a Sunday mass in Gaza's Church of the Holy Family would be held to honor Berlanty, 21, and confer on her a Bachelor of Arts degree. The student was denied permission by Israeli courts to return to Bethlehem to complete her degree.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
De facto government open Bissan Village, latest Gaza park
A small zoo, swimming pool, park and picnic area make up the new Bissan Entertainment Village in northern Gaza, opened for families on Wednesday by the de facto government. Animals from the rapidly closing smuggling tunnels brought to Gaza via Egypt roam fresh pens in the 14 dunum area next to picnic areas and barbecue pits, as well as two new buildings housing a shop and small recreation center.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Detention
PA detains Al-Aqsa operatives in Nablus
Palestinian Authority security forces placed nine Fatah operatives into protective custody in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, detaining them in the nearby Al-Juneid prison, Ma'an has learned. The men were once "wanted" members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's paramilitary wing, until they entered into an amnesty program and received pardons from Israel. An informed security source said the arrests came amid indications from the Israeli military that it would take its "own procedures," which were not specified, in the event PA forces failed to detain all nine before midnight. PA officials interpreted the warning as a threat to reinvade Nablus, the site of an incursion last month that left three Al-Aqsa members dead, two of whom had received pardons beforehand.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Hamas: PA security detained 11 affiliates across West Bank
Palestinian Authority security services detained 11 Hamas affiliates across the West Bank and delivered dozens of papers demanding interviews with other members at the Nablus governorate security offices, a statement from Hamas said on Saturday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Fatah: Gaza government arrests 20 party members
The Fatah movement in Gaza accused the de facto government of arresting 20 of its affiliates on Friday. Sources said security forces loyal to Hamas arrested the following members: Mahdi and Adnan Hameed, Mohammad Abu Zer....
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Political developments
Palestinians demand full settlement freeze
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AFP) – The Palestinians on Saturday insisted on a full Israeli settlement freeze before renewing peace efforts, putting a damper on a US call to revive talks with no preconditions ... On Friday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Israelis and Palestinians to resume the peace talks without preconditions, in Washington's latest bid to return the sides to the negotiations table. Clinton backed the key Palestinian aim of creating a state along the borders that existed before the 1967 Israeli-Arab war, but said the lines would be modified through mutually agreed land swaps, presumably to account for some Israeli settlements that would remain.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Ynet reports George Mitchell is threatening Israel with sanctions, but the record looks different
By Adam Horowitz. See article "Mitchell: Mideast stagnation endangers US aid" - Watch the video of Mitchell on Charlie Rose here. While Mitchell does discuss the issue of sanctions around the 45 minute mark, it is only in response to prodding from Rose, and halfhearted at best. Why YNET would choose to play up this threat is unclear, unless they want to stoke Israeli-US antagonism on the eve of Mitchell’s visit to the region. Looking at the interview more broadly, there’s absolutely nothing that would indicate the Obama administration is looking to change course in Israel/Palestine, and, if Mitchelll is to be believed, the administration would seem to think things are going great. Guess Rahm didn’t get the memo. Here’s the section of the transcript relevant to the sanctions discussion:
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/
Mash‘al meets with Syrian president
A Hamas delegation headed by the Islamist movement’s senior most leader Khalid Mash‘al met with Syrian President Bashir Al-Asad in Damascus on Saturday to discuss the status of the occupied Palestinian territories. The meeting tackled the latest developments in the Palestinian territories as reconciliation efforts between rival factions Hamas and Fatah reached an impasse, according to Hamas official Izzat Ar-Rashq.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Bosnians challenge Israeli FM on Balkan jihad statement
Bosnia's foreign minister called his Israeli counterpart last night to personally protest Avigdor Lieberman's statement on Tuesday that the global jihad movement has made inroads into the Balkans, particularly the Muslim-majority countries of Bosnia and Albania.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Canadian official pledges limited support to PA institution building
President of the Canadian Treasury Board Vic Toews ... expressed Canada's interest in developing the PA judicial sector by funding the construction of courts in Ramallah, Hebron and Tulkarem, in addition to the Sharakah Partnership project, which will offer support to the PA Attorney General's office.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Assault on Gaza one year ago / Aftermath
IAF at ease over Cast Lead conflict
Rami Ben-Efraim, head of the Israel Air Force manpower branch, tells Ynet, 'today, year after Cast Lead, we can be proud of what we did'. Ben-Efraim also outlines plan to integrate more haredim into Air Force
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gaza war crimes charges: Britain to stem arrest warrants for Israel's leaders
London – Britain is preparing to shut down a legal mechanism that pro-Palestinian activists have used to issue arrest warrants for Israeli military and political officials planning to visit the country – a move that has compromised diplomatic relations between the two countries.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/
Abbas takes blame for Goldstone delay, commission says
President Mahmoud Abbas gave the directive to change the Palestinian stance on the Goldstone report at the UN Human Rights Commission following a September meeting with US and Arab officials, a report revealed Friday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
In Gaza photoessay: tragic smile
Nothing strikes me as unusual in the ten year old when he doesn’t leap up to greet us as most kids do. Maybe he is pre-occupied with his thoughts, an unseen toy. Maybe he is tired.
Only when we come back out of the bombed-out house 30 minutes later do I notice he is still crouched in the same hunched position, still quiet. He sees us and again flashes a bright grin. Irresistible. “He doesn’t speak,” says his grandfather, Saleh Abu Leila. “And he can’t walk normally. In fact, his mind is gone,” he says, summarizing Nidal’s state post-war on Gaza ... Many of the greatest tragedies which unfolded during the 23 day Israeli massacre of Gaza did so in Attatra, where ambulances were prevented from reaching the wound, targeted by Israeli shooting and shelling (and medics consequently were killed and injured), and where white phosphorous rained down, burning children, women, men, elderly, killing, choking.
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
In Gaza: struggle for freedom
...the taxi driver nonchalantly shares his own problems. “My son is 18 and deaf. ... He wasn’t born deaf. But during the Intifada we were always under curfew [lockdown: no one leaves their homes, this can last for days, over a week. There are still regular lockdowns imposed on occupied West Bank villages and cities by the Israeli occupying forces].He was just an infant then, and he developed a fever. The Israelis wouldn’t let us leave our house to take him to a doctor, and wouldn’t let a doctor come to him. He got worse and the fever went to his brain. He lost his hearing as a result.”
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
Did Israel whitewash a massacre in Jabaliya?
Part 11 of a series recounting the findings of South African jurist Richard Goldstone's UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. On the afternoon of 6 January 2009, at least four mortar bombs fired by Israeli forces exploded near the Al-Fakhura junction in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, killing as many as 43 people. Witnesses described the scene of chaos and carnage caused by the bombs.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
The shooting of Amal, Souad, Samar, and Hajja
Part 12 ..."[W]e were by the entrance holding white flags and waiting for them to tell us what we should do, whether to go back inside the house or move to somewhere else. They did not say anything to us. There were two soldiers sitting on top of the tank. One of them was eating chips. The other one was eating chocolate. We were looking at them like what are we supposed to do, where should we go, but no reaction from them whatsoever." Without warning, a third soldier emerged from inside the tank and started shooting at the three girls and then also at their grandmother, Khalid maintains.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Day 13: 'Hospitals may in no circumstances be the object of attack'
...Shortly after the initial explosions and fire were observed, a tank shell directly penetrated the rear of the middle hospital building. That part of the building was made of corrugated iron. The shell made a clearly defined home in the hospital wall, and the impact crater continues through the cement wall into the hospital's pharmacy.The pharmacy was completely destroyed as a result.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Day 14: Flour mill targeted 'for the purpose of denying sustenance'
When the Al-Bader flour mill was destroyed on 9 January, the strike happened without prior warning, raising questions about the efficacy or seriousness of the warnings system used by Israeli forces during their devastating assault on Gaza last winter.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Other news
In Israel, racial profiling doesn't warrant debate, or apologies
...why, I asked, are we still allowed to board airplanes at Ben-Gurion International Airport with bottles and tubes of liquid brought from home, while in Heathrow or JFK they confiscate our face cream and toothpaste? "Oh, that's simple," he answered matter of factly. "We use racial profiling, they don't." Only after the visit, rereading my notes, I noticed a curious detail in his answer. While the entire interview had been conducted in Hebrew, he had said those two words, "racial profiling," in English. To Israelis, the practice of picking people out based on racial stereotypes is so self-evident, there isn't even a Hebrew term for it.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
State won't indict 'Jenin, Jenin' film director for slander
Attorney General Mazuz decides not to file indictment against director Mohammed Bakri for slander, but announces he would support soldiers in civil lawsuit
http://www.ynetnews.com/
2,000 yeshiva students served in 2009
About 2000 yeshiva students did national or military service in 2009, a number five times greater than the number of haredim who served until two years ago (around 300 or 400 per year) ... Those serving amount to only 3.5% of hesder yeshiva students (who number about 55,000). The rise in those serving is also far from reflecting the expected rise in the number of yeshiva students granted exemption from serving. It is expected that in 2019, some 13,000 yeshiva students will be exempt (compared with 5,500 in 2009).
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Analysis / Opinion
West Bank route may open, but not to peace / Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler
Driving 443 through the suburbs of East Jerusalem and down through the rocky Judean Hills to the coast lining the road, one sees – sometimes on both sides – an array of electronic fences, eight-meter high concrete slabs, and watchtowers. Part of that infrastructure is integrated into Israel’s controversial "Security Wall." The attempt is clearly to give drivers the feeling that the route is an integral part of Israel. The Wall, for instance, has here undergone a cosmetic facelift, with wide spreads of murals depicting bright pastoral scenes. They serve also to hide the minarets of village mosques, leaving Israeli motorists with the sense that they are traveling a border road inside Israel, not a road that actually encroaches into the future Palestinian state.
http://original.antiwar.com/
Jerusalem diary: legal or illegal / Tim Franks
... Internationally, Aharon Barak is regarded as the towering figure of the Israeli legal establishment. He became a judge in the Supreme Court in 1978. He was its Chief Justice from 1995 to 2006. He wears his status in the style to which Israelis are accustomed: a heap of unparted white hair; his face and shirt wide open. I was keen to hear what he had to say about the legal status of settlements ... He also said there was a clear legal standard. "Those settlements which have a security rationale are legal. Those settlements that have no security rationale are illegal. Point."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
Liberal Jews and Israel - a case of split personality disorder / Noam Sheizaf
...Jews are almost desperate to hold on to some sort of a naïve image of this country, its people and its institutions. This is most evident with the way they see the IDF. It’s not just that they don’t believe what the Palestinians are saying – they can’t even imagine the Israeli army doing bad things. The US army – yes; the IDF – never ... and I admire the role Jews played in it. But something in the current Jewish politics and ideas regarding Israel don’t fit the long tradition of fighting for civil liberties, freedom and tolerance by this community, both at home and around the world. More than ever, I wonder what role this naïve image of Israel – almost an abstract Israel, which has nothing to do with the actual Middle Eastern country – plays in the way Jews see themselves, and how are they going to look back on it ten or twenty years from now.
http://coteret.com/2010/01/06/
Iraq, other Mideast
Friday: 10 Iraqis killed, 12 wounded
At least 10 Iraqis were killed and 12 more were wounded in the latest attacks; however, the Accountability and Justice Committee’s decision to ban several lists yesterday could foreshadow a larger increase in violence than was previously expected. Accusations continue to fly since the decision was announced. Meanwhile, British Ambassador to Iraq, John Jenkins, told the Chilcot Inquiry that democracy is not completely established in Iraq and a coup is still a possibility.
http://original.antiwar.com/
Iraq confiscates arms in private security crackdown
(Reuters) - Security forces confiscated hundreds of rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition and other military gear in a crackdown on private security contractors in Iraq, officials said on Saturday. Police raided three locations in Baghdad on Friday, a week after Iraqi authorities were incensed by a U.S. judge's decision to throw out charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing over a dozen Iraqi civilians in 2007.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Harsh winter hits Yemenis fleeing conflict
GENEVA, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Yemeni civilians fleeing a civil conflict in the north face harsh winter conditions that are increasing their misery, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday. Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, came to the foreground of U.S.-led efforts to battle militancy after a Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda said it was behind a Dec. 25 plot to bomb a U.S. plane.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Israel-UNIFIL talks end without agreement
A second round of talks between Israel and UNIFIL concerning the occupied Lebanese village of Ghajar have ended without an agreement, Israel's Foreign Ministry reported on Thursday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Syrian Druze doctor buried in native Golan Heights village
In humanitarian gesture, IDF, authorities allow transfer of deceased man's body from Syria to his birthplace in northern Golan. 'It is joy mixed with sadness,' says family member
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Lebanon asks US to reverse ban on Hezbollah TV
BEIRUT (AFP) – Lebanese President Michel Sleiman has urged the United States to reverse a decision to ban the Hezbollah television channel, Al-Manar, during talks with US Senator John McCain.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
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