Showing posts with label Israel Settlements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel Settlements. Show all posts

Israel to Avoid United Nations Probe of Illegal West Bank Settlements

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Israel Won’t Cooperate With UN Probe of West Bank Settlements

Slams Idea of Probing West Bank on Principle

by Jason Ditz,Israeli officials today reiterated their “outrage” at the United Nations Human Rights Council for deciding to probe illegal settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, adding that they would never cooperate with any probes and would bar any members of the mission from entering the territory.
The UN appointed a panel of three experts to conduct a fact-finding mission on how settlements, illegal under international law, impact the Palestinian civilians living under Israeli occupation.
Israeli official statements blasted the panel as inherently flawed, insisting that any investigation of Israel would have to be “biased” and that the UN should focus its investigations exclusively on “non-democratic countries.”
Israel had severed all ties with the human rights council months ago when the notion was initially raised. The probe is expected to focus only on the occupation’s impact on Palestinians and not its legality, since there seems to be no real question that the occupation is illegal and that the construction of settlement in occupied territory is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.


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United Nations Paying More Lip Service on Settlement construction & International Law

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(WAFA) - The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, in a statement Thursday reiterated the International Community’s view that all settlement construction is contrary to international law.
He said that the latest announcements, including adding 300 units in Beit El settlement near Ramallah, deep inside the West Bank are deeply troubling.
Serry reiterated his recent warning to the Security Council that 'if the parties do not grasp the current opportunity, they should realize the implication is not merely slowing progress toward a two-state solution. Instead, we could be moving down the path toward a one-state reality, which would also move us further away from regional peace in the spirit of the Arab Peace Initiative”.
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All Western Governments do is Huff and Puff and do nothing to help Palestine

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Israel's defense ministry is expected to destroy up to 12 traditional "fellaheen" communities situated in the West Bank in an area the Israeli Defense Force have illegally designated as a training zone for the occupying Israeli army. For the Palestinians it must seem incredibly the Israeli government, which governs a society which claims to be based on the rule of law, can get its judicial system to rubber stamp an occupation which is regarded as illegal by the UN and international law without facing sanctions of any kind from the international community.
The communities under threat have been marked on British maps since the 1830s when it was the occupying power, no one really knows how long they have really existed. Adrian Bloomfield who visited the area for the Daily Telegraph wrote:
In the village of Jenba, one of the largest of the 12 communities under threat, the people who live there all remember they were born in the same caves as their fathers and grandfathers. Ad
Sitting on the floor of his cave, its ceiling covered with cobwebs and blackened with stove smoke, Hamid Jabareen, 72 and almost blind, recalled that the only time his father left home was when he was drafted into the Turkish defence of Jerusalem before its capture by Gen. Allenby's troops in 1917.
With its motley collection of tents and discreetly hidden caves, Jenba is an unprepossessing place far removed from the cacophonous bustle of the West Bank's sprawling towns and cities.
But behind its narrow doorway, Mr Jabareen's home – shared with his two wives and myriad children and grandchildren – is surprisingly homely, its natural walls reinforced with stonework and its kitchen and sleeping areas set at split levels.
Mr Jabareen has spent his whole life tending to his flocks and cultivating wheat and barley. The prospect of being deprived of his both his livelihood and the only way of life he has ever known is inconceivable to him.
"It is my land," he said. "It is the land of my father and of my grandfather before him.
"We can only hope that decent and dignified people will raise their voices and say something about it."
The cave dwellers say they have been the victims of a sustained campaign of Israeli harassment for decades.
Settlers living illegally nearby have poisoned their cisterns, burnt their crops, beaten them up and rustled their livestock.
But the greatest threat to their futures began 12 years ago, when Israeli forces forcibly evicted 700 of them after ruling that they were illegally living in a military training zone.
Although they won a reprieve through a court injunction the following year, Israel's defence ministry is now determined to resolve the matter.
It will disclose the contents of a new court petition this week. Activists say they expect the ministry will seek to evict and demolish most, perhaps all, the communities.
The ministry, which sees the cave dwellers as illegal squatters and accuses them of rejecting compromises to relocate them, refused to be drawn on what course it would take.
Rights groups claimed that Israel's real intention is to allow settlers to move onto the land once the Palestinians have been ejected.
Ezra Nawi, an Israeli activist, said: "To build new settlements, you need to get the Palestinians out somehow, which is why there has been a campaign of intimidation and harassment to make more and more people leave."

The Israel-Palestinian conflict has always been one in which whenever Israel breaks international law or UN resolutions, it uses the international media to turn their Palestinian victims into the aggressors and thus they become in the eyes of the political and media elites responsible for their own oppression. It is almost fascistic and reminds one of the way the Nazis blamed the French resistance for the reprisals the SS inflicted on villages like Oradour-sur-Glane. Myself I cannot see much difference between the latter and the way in 2008 Israel treated the Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas had fired home made rockets into Israel proper.

Take the cae of the twelve Palestinian communities who are under threat. When Israel first occupied this land and the West Bank as a whole they created a military training zone near the Palestinian city of Hebron. Years later after the Israeli government earmarks this land for yet more illegal settlements, It's Ministry of Defense has the audacity to accuse the people who have lived on this land for decades as their families have before them, of being illegal squatters who refuse to accept the rule of law.

The village of Jenba and the other eleven communities are not in Israel proper but on the West Bank, where under international law the writ of Israeli law does not run. Yet still Israel attempts to turn black into white and white into black, shame on them for acting just like the Nazis did during the Holocaust. The sad fact is, if and when these communities are evicted, Western governments will huff and puff and then when Israel builds even more settlements on occupied land, they will accept the new status quo and demand the Palestinians do likewise.

Shame on us all for accepting such fascist behaviour.

Photo above of Hamid Jabareen sitting in the home he and his people have lived in for generations.

Mick Hall.
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Israel still defiant over settlement

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Israel remains defiant in the face of international calls to end its settlement activities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains defiant over the settlement activities although the issue broke down the direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).


Netanyahu said on Thursday that he felt the settlement issue was not an obstacle to the negotiations, Ha'aretz reported.

The two sides began the US-sponsored talks last month, but failed to reach any agreements after Tel Aviv refused to extend a partial moratorium on settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israeli premier also pointed out that the settlement issue was "not substantial."

According to the PA, the settlement construction is aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

A report by the Associated Press said that Israel has begun building at least 544 settlement units since the 10-month freeze expired at the end of September.

Last week, UN's Middle East envoy, Robert Serry, said in a statement that Israeli settlement construction is "illegal under international law" and "will only further undermine trust."
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'Settlements constant of Israeli policy'

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Israel's expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories is a constant Zionists policy, says an American expert.

On Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would not extend a 10-month partial moratorium on new West Bank construction.

“The constant of Israeli and Zionist policy is to remove the Palestinian people from their land and from history,” Ralph Schoenman, author of Hidden History of Zionism, told Press TV on Thursday.

“And that is the process that [has] gone under the cover of a pacification project not a peace project,” the US expert added.

Netanyahu says the settlement issue is not a “substantial one,” therefore, Tel Aviv's settlement constructions will not influence the direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The PA, however, says it won't resume talks with Tel Aviv without an extension of the building curbs.

“The existing settlements are not in any event affected by the so-called moratorium that is no longer in effect. That moratorium only applied to so-called new constructions but existing settlements ... [remained] subject to expansion and to extension,” he went on to say.

The partial freeze expired on September 26, 2010. 

For video footage of this posting visit   http://www.presstv.ir/detail/148777.html
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Settler Attacks on Wheels

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By Yousef
 
A well-known leader of an Israeli settlement in Jerusalem, who generally works to get rid of Palestinians by expanding his settlement onto Palestinian land, took his actions a step - or a step on the accelerator - further this morning. Gruesome photos emerged of the Israeli settler leader driving over Palestinian boys demonstrating in Silwan. The images, to the right, courtesy of AFP, show the boys being run over and flung into the air. We rarely get images of these types of settler attacks, but because of the heavy media presence in East Jerusalem covering the weekly protests against de-Arabization, these shots were captured. While images from other attacks like this one aren't as readily available, you can imagine just how horrifying they can be. Here is the tough to watch video...

Recently, I wrote about our analysis of settler violence relating to arson after a mosque was targeted earlier this week. Since then, there have been additional acts of arson, but vehicular attacks by settlers against Palestinian civilians are also not rare occurrences. In the 18 month period we analyzed, we coded 37 instances of vehicular assault - an average of approximately 2 per month. About 40% of these instances take place in or around Hebron, another 16% occur in the Bethlehem governorate, with the reaming attacks being divided more evenly among other areas.
At 9am on July 7th, 2010, for example, a settler in Bethlehem ran over 3 Palestinian civilians causing injuries to all, including one Palestinian civilian who sustained serious injuries.
At 6pm on June 15th, 2010, a settler near the settlement of Kiryat Arba in Hebron's old city ran over a 10-year old Palestinian child. The child sustained serious injuries and had to be evacuated immediately to a hospital for treatment.
A week prior, at 11:30am on June 7th, an Israeli settler ran over a Palestinian civilian near the village of Marj al Ghazal in the Jericho governorate. The victim sustained serious injuries and had to be evacuated to a hospital.
And only a week before that, at 8:30pm on May 31st, an Israeli settler ran over a 59 year-old man and his wife near Beit Ummar, a village in the governorate of Hebron. The attack injured the man and killed his wife, who did not survive the injuries she sustained.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. Another day, another settler attack, maybe two. The phenomenon of settler violence continues to be a significant risk to Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, and while you may not hear much about it elsewhere, we will continue to do our part to put forward information about settler violence based on the data we continue to collect.
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Activists work to stop tax-exempt donations to Israeli settlements

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Alice Speri, The Electronic Intifada,

As Israel's illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied West Bank continues to be a strain on US-Israel relations, an unflattering light is being shone on US private donations towards the development of the settlements that are increasingly encroaching on Palestinian land.

Most of the construction work in the settlements is in the hands of American, Canadian and European developers. Much of the money needed for settlement development comes from private American donations. It is estimated that tens of millions of dollars reach the settlements in the form of charity, contributions that by virtue of their philanthropic nature enjoy tax-exempt status under the US' Internal Revenue Code.

An examination by this writer of IRS documentation led to at least 32 organizations registered in the US as tax-exempt charities that support Jewish settlements in the West Bank including East Jerusalem with sizable financial contributions ("From New York to the West Bank: Following US Tax Dollars into Israel's Settlements"). The groups, mostly Jewish but also Christian-Zionist, often adopt a particular community of settlers and for the most part claim on their tax forms to be contributing to charitable or educational projects.

The non-profit status some of these groups enjoy as designated 501(c)(3) organizations under IRS regulations implies an official US government recognition of their activity.

Some civil rights activists argue that private American funding of the settlements, while not necessarily illegal, does contradict stated US foreign policy as well as the government's commitment against racial discrimination. But others have started to accuse organizations registered as 501(c)(3)s and supporting settlements of repeatedly violating US tax laws.

"The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," US President Obama said in his celebrated Cairo address to the Arab and Muslim world in June 2009. "This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." Obama's statement echoed those of previous US administrations, which have alternated in calling Israeli settlements "illegitimate" and "unhelpful."

Last November, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed to a ten-month settlement freeze -- with the exception of East Jerusalem -- in order to resume peace talks. In January 2010, however, he also announced that the Etzion settlement block, south of Jerusalem, "will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity." Several news outlets continue to report that construction has yet to stop even in areas where the Israeli government has mandated a freeze.

Meanwhile, US aid to Israel -- the billions of dollars per year from the government as well as private donations -- continues to flow unabated.

According to a July 2009 report by the International Crisis Group, the Hebron Fund rises an average of $1.5 million a year to support Jewish settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron. The 700 Jewish settlers in Hebron, under the protection of the Israeli army, routinely physically harass the Palestinian community in the West Bank town and push them out of their homes.

The solidarity group Adalah-NY, based in New York City, mobilized to protest the Hebron Fund annual fundraiser at the Mets baseball team's CitiField last year. While Adalah-NY and the ten other groups that mobilized against the fundraiser were not able to get it cancelled, the effort was only the beginning of a larger campaign against the flow of US dollars into Israeli settlements.

Born to a Canadian father and an Israeli mother, Neil Strauss, who goes by a pseudonym, grew up between Canada and Efrat, one of the largest settlements in the occupied West Bank. Today, Strauss is a legal researcher for the Washington-based American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and a supervisor of the Free Palestine subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild, the nation's first racially integrated bar association, which is committed to civil rights and social justice.

Strauss runs workshops inviting volunteer law students to look for violations of tax regulation, rather than broader political questions of international law, although he does stress that settlements and settlements support are contrary to both international law and American public policy.

"The IRS is staffed by professional tax people and bureaucrats are less susceptible to Zionist political pressure than elected officials," he said, explaining that turning to the IRS is "easier than challenging support to Israel, which is a political issue."

Since March 2009, the ADC has filed official complaints to the IRS -- accompanied by copious documentary evidence -- exposing what it claims are illicit practices by ten of these organizations. They now hope the IRS will audit the organizations in question.

"The law is pretty clear," Strauss said. "If these laws were applied honestly, these organizations would not have tax exemption."

According to IRS regulations, in order to obtain 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, an organization must set forth "charitable, religious, or educational purposes," including "lessening neighborhood tensions, eliminating prejudice and discrimination, defending human and civil rights." The ADC argues settlements do just the opposite.

Furthermore, a charity "may not be an action organization," meaning it must not engage in "political activities." A 501(c)(3) can also be disqualified if it engages in propaganda or if it operates in ways that do not pertain to its stated purposes.

The ADC also maintains that some of these organizations may be guilty of fraud and misrepresentation when they claim they operate in Israel but in fact operate in the West Bank and when they state charitable purposes when they actually buy military equipment and train paramilitary organizations.

"The smallest goal is to get their tax-exempt status removed," Strauss said. "If that happens people will continue donating to the settlements but the amounts will be smaller because the donor will have to pay taxes on it and the organization will have to pay taxes on the income."

For smaller organizations, the removal of the tax exemption could be fatal.

"Some organizations would die without it, especially in these days that donations are down," Strauss said. "Others would see a reduction in income."

The ADC is also hoping that larger, wealthier charities, such as the Jewish National Fund, which operate both in Israel and the occupied West Bank, will end their activities in support of settlers in order to protect their exemption.

The ADC claimed its first success in January 2010, when IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told National Public Radio that if the IRS did find these organizations to be breaking tax law, it would disqualify them from exemption, as it does many organizations every year. Some, however, argued Schulman's statement wasn't quite as resolute as the ADC later implied.

In addition to Adalah-NY and the ADC, at least five other organizations have formed a coalition against American support of settlements.

Among their complaints is the US government's reluctance to deal with groups they say are in flagrant violation of stated US policy and the double standard applied to US-based Arab and Muslim charities. For example, the Holy Land Foundation, the largest Islamic charity in the United States, was shut down in 2007 on the grounds that funding it raised ended up in the hands of Hamas, which the US lists as a terrorist organization.

Adalah-NY members say the double standards are blatant and refer to the case of Noam Arnon, a spokesman of the Hebron Jewish community and an honoree at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner.

"Noam Arnon openly praises the murder of Palestinians and praises individuals like terrorist Baruch Goldstein," Andrew Kadi, a Palestinian-American member of Adalah-NY, charged, citing a report by the Associated Press.

In 1994, Brooklyn-born doctor Baruch Goldstein entered Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque and opened fire, killing 29 Palestinians gathered for Friday prayer, before being lynched to death. His burial place in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba became a site of pilgrimage honored by many, including Noam Arnon, until the Israeli high court ordered the shrine to be removed, enforcing an Israeli law against the building of monuments for terrorists.

"Look at the statements made by Noam Arnon," said Ethan Heitner, an activist with Adalah-NY. "Can you imagine a Palestinian making these statements that is affiliated with a US 501(c)(3)? They would get shut down immediately."

While non-profits funding settlements have operated under the radar for some time, the case can no longer be made that their work is unknown to government. "I think there is a lot of willful blindness," Heitner said.

Some of these organizations in fact do more than collect contributions and have become vocal in their challenge to the Obama administration's position on settlements. For example, the projects of the One Israel Fund range from sponsoring "defense equipment" and a Tactical Response Team of volunteers trained to respond to terrorist attacks to covering wedding expenses for settlers who lost their homes when they were evicted from Gaza.

"Next on the chopping block: Judea and Samaria," is the title of one of the Fund's fliers, which quoted President Obama's remarks about settlements at his Cairo speech. "We're used to hearing the same old rhetoric from politicians: obstacles to peace, painful concession," the flier continues, soliciting donations. "Now we have a new buzzword: illegitimate. The only thing that doesn't seem to change is the terror."

Another such group is Shuva Israel, The Return to Israel Fund, a Texas-based 501(c)(3) of "Evangelical Christians Lovers of Zion." "What is our response to President Obama's pressure on Israel to freeze building in the communities of the Biblical Mountains of Judea and Samaria?" the group asks in gigantic font on the homepage of its Stand with Israel campaign. A link leads to the answer: "Become part of 12,000 Christian Zionists to sign up and give $12 a month, equaling $144,000 monthly to support the Jewish community settlements in the eternal biblical heartland of Israel."

If the spirited level of fundraising by such groups says anything, it is that settlers and their American supporters do feel threatened and do fear they are running out of time. While, even pre-recession, charitable donations in general were declining, many pro-settler groups have had their contributions increase remarkably. Construction and expansion of the settlements, too, has been bustling, the Israeli group Peace Now reports, something confirmed by settlers themselves.

Double standards aside, what the activities of settlement supporters have exposed is the inconsistency between stated US foreign policy and the administration's capacity to enforce that policy, not only overseas but first and foremost at home.

Alice Speri is a freelance journalist who has worked for Al-Jazeera English, Agence France Presse and The Christian Science Monitor. She is currently based in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and has previously lived in Jenin and Ramallah. This story is adapted from her year-long research project on US-funded settlement expansion.
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Some good ol’ fashioned American hypocrisy, exposed by the NYTimes:

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U.S. Provides Millions in Bulletproof Vests, Rifle Scopes to West Bank Settlers

Some good ol’ fashioned American hypocrisy, exposed by the NYTimes:

… As the American government seeks to end the four-decade Jewish settlement enterprise and foster a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the American Treasury helps sustain the settlements through tax breaks on donations to support them.A New York Times examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas.

Cue the weak-kneed response from administration officials:

“It’s a problem,” a senior State Department official said, adding, “It’s unhelpful to the efforts that we’re trying to make.”

Daniel C. Kurtzer, the United States ambassador to Israel from 2001 to 2005, called the issue politically delicate. “It drove us crazy,” he said. But “it was a thing you didn’t talk about in polite company.”

He added that while the private donations could not sustain the settler enterprise on their own, “a couple of hundred million dollars makes a huge difference,” and if carefully focused, “creates a new reality on the ground.”

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The US Cash Behind Extremist Settlers

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The Hebron Fund is raising vast sums for Israeli settlements that violate the Geneva convention, with little scrutiny

By Andrew Kadi and Aaron Levitt

Last month, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organisation called the Hebron Fund, which supports Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied city of Hebron, held a fundraiser at the New York Mets' stadium, Citi Field.

The fundraiser went forward despite calls for its cancellation from grassroots human rights organisations from the US, Palestine and Israel. The fact that the Hebron Fund likely raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for extremist Israeli settlers at a major US venue with little public scrutiny is a troubling sign for those who hope that the US can play a constructive role in achieving a just peace in the Middle East.

Perhaps more worryingly, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius: "A search of IRS records identified 28 US charitable groups that made a total of $33.4m in tax-exempt contributions to settlements and related organisations between 2004 and 2007." Some of the larger organisations, including Friends of the Ateret Cohanim and Friends of Ir David, both leading the Jewish settler takeover of Palestinian East Jerusalem, are based in New York City.

Israeli settlements violate the Geneva convention's prohibition against an occupying power transferring its population into occupied territory, and Israeli settlement expansion directly contradicts the US call for a settlement freeze.

Hebron's Jewish settlers, who are supported by the Hebron Fund, are openly fundraising in New York City. Under the protection of the Israeli military, they are expanding settlements in Hebron's Old City and driving out the Palestinian residents.

The Hebron Fund's extremist positions are clear. Hebron Fund executive director Yossi Baumol told The American Prospect that "[d]emocracy is poison to Arabs", "Israel must not give Arabs a say in how the country is run" and "[y]ou'll never get the truth out of an Arab". Hebron's chief rabbi, Dov Lior, a featured participant in some Hebron Fund events, recently praised a new book that says it is permitted for a Jew to kill civilians who provide moral support to an enemy of the Jews, and to even kill young children, if it is foreseeable that they will grow up to become enemies.

Settlers and the Israeli army routinely attack and terrorise Palestinians in Hebron, according to human rights groups such as B'Tselem in Israel. In 1994, Hebron settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 unarmed Palestinians who were praying in a Hebron mosque. One of the honorees at the 2009 Hebron Fund dinner, Noam Arnon, called Goldstein "an extraordinary person'' in 1995. In 1990 Arnon called three Jewish terrorists who were convicted of killing three Palestinians and maiming two Palestinian mayors "heroes".

Though the Hebron Fund tells the IRS that its purpose is to "promote social and educational wellbeing", in 2008 Baumol assured New York radio listeners: "There are real facts on the ground that are created by people helping the Hebron Fund and coming to our dinners."

A 2007 appeal explained: "Dozens of new families can now come live in Hebron ... waiting for you to be their partners in the redemption of Hebron."

Baumol dedicated the 2009 fundraiser to protesting at "racist limitations, led by President Barack Obama on Jewish growth".

Settlers frequently claim that preventing Jews from living anywhere they want in the Israeli-occupied West Bank is "racist", regardless of the settlers' severe infringement on the rights of longstanding Palestinian residents. Settlers justify their takeover of Hebron by invoking the massacre of 67 Jewish residents of Hebron by Palestinians in 1929. But rather than equality, Hebron's settlers aim for superior rights enforced from the barrel of a gun.

Non-profit organisations like the Hebron Fund play a substantial role in fuelling the Middle East conflict, but largely fly under the radar in the US. They brazenly hold public fundraisers, and the media generally ignore them. Major US advocacy organisations that claim to oppose Israeli settlements typically fail to criticise them. In one rare mainstream media report, David Ignatius highlighted the US government's self-defeating policy, writing that "critics of Israeli settlements question why American taxpayers are supporting indirectly, through the exempt contributions, a process that the government condemns".

Until the public, advocacy groups, media and the US government scrutinise and rein in settlement non-profits like the Hebron Fund, policy statements about peace in the Middle East will do nothing to stop the daily violence and dispossession suffered by Palestinians.

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Obama: "Stop the Settlements"

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http://www.avaaz.org/en/obama_stop_settlements/?cl=245624900&v=3418

Petition to the Government of Israel and the
United States Congress:

In the words of President Obama, just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlements in the West Bank. They violate previous agreements and undermine efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.
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Abu Ala : settlers can stay on under Palestinian sovereignty and laws

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As part of a peace agreement with Israel, the inhabitants of the major Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including Ariel and Maale` Adumim, will continue ``to stay in their homes under Palestinian sovereignty and laws,`` said the head of the Palestinian negotiating group Abu Ala (Ahmed Qrea) in an interview appearing in Haaretz today.

Abu Ala also said that a clear agreement on Israel`s borders with a Palestinian state ``will resolve no less than 70% of the entire conflict in the region``. ``We will not resume negotiations (with Israel),`` he added, ``without a complete stop to the settlements including what you call natural growth``.

In Abu Ala`s view ``the creation of a national unity government including Fatah and Hamas is a preliminary condition for peace with Israel. Much progress has been made in negotiations (between Fatah and Hamas) in Egypt``.

There is already an agreement between the two rival Palestinian organisations, according to Abu Ala, on the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians and on its reform. They also agreed that Palestinian presidential and legislative elections will be held on January 25 2010, even if there are disagreements on the electoral system.
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Netanyahu has different views and goals then Obama

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Obama team warns U.S. lawmakers: Expect confrontation with Israel
In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration is readying for a possible confrontation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by briefing Democratic congressmen on the peace process and the positions of the new government in Israel regarding a two-state solution. ...However, Obama considers the two-state solution central to his Middle East policy, as he reiterated during a speech in Turkey on Monday, and he intends to ask that Netanyahu fulfill all the commitments made by previous governments in Israel: accepting the principle of a Palestinian state; freezing settlement activity; evacuating illegal outposts; and providing economic and security assistance to the Palestinian Authority.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1077222.html

Netanyahu: 'I Will Not Evacuate Any Settlement'
Ben Zion Netanyahu, left, with his son, Israel's new prime minister.

By Ira Glunts

This weekend the Israeli daily, Ma'ariv, published an interview in Hebrew with Professor Ben Zion Netanyahu, the 99-year-old father of the new Israeli prime minister.

The elder Netanyahu is known for his outspokenness and extreme right-wing views--and he did nothing to contradict his reputation. He decreed that the only solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is the use of military force. He stated that he would not return the Golan Heights to Syria because "you do not return land." He also explained that in his view it is impossible to compromise with Arabs. The Prime Minister's father further opines that the Turks used brutal deadly force to suppress the Arab population and that should be an example to Israel in dealing with Arabs whose nature dictates that they live in a state of perpetual war.

There are reports that the Prime Minister's Office unsuccessfully tried to convince Ma'ariv to suppress publication of this article since the elder Netanyahu's controversial views would be embarrassing for his son.

When I learned of the interview, I searched Google hoping to learn more about the father. In doing so, I stumbled across a February television interview with both father and son, again, in Hebrew. In this brief television appearance the then-candidate Benjamin Netanyahu appears very comfortable when his father states that Israel is today in great danger of being completely destroyed and that the "holocaust never ended and is continuing at this very moment."

In this dual appearance, Benjamin Netanyahu, reflecting the direct influence of his father's view that no territory should ever be returned, proclaims that there will not be any evacuations of settlements during his administration. This position places him on a direct collision course with the Obama administration which claims to want to work toward a negotiated peace in the region.

What follows is a translation of Netanyahu's statements (from 3:55 of the video):

Netanyahu: I think that anyone who has eyes in his head understands that today any settlement that will be evacuated will be grabbed by the bitter enemies of the State of Israel.
Question: So you can say that the Likud [Netanyahu’s party] will not evacuate settlements during its term of office?
Netanyahu: Yes.
Question: Will not evacuate?
Netanyahu: Indeed.

As the interviewer stated, Benjamin Netanyahu has been greatly influenced by the views of his father. Under his father’s watchful eye and possibly affected by what some say has been an overbearing parental manner that influence is very painfully apparent.

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Annapolis Deal Was A Waste Of Time

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Israel foreign minister rejects Annapolis deal

Israel's new foreign minister says Tel Aviv is not bound by the 2007 Annapolis deal to pursue the creation of a Palestinian state.

"There is only one document that binds us and it is not the Annapolis conference, it has no validity," ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman said at a handover ceremony at the foreign ministry a day after being sworn in by parliament.

"The Israeli government never ratified Annapolis, nor did the parliament," he added.

Lieberman's comments marked a sharp break with former foreign minister Tzipi Livni, who had led the Israeli delegation to the Annapolis peace talks with the Palestinians.

A political source close to new Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Reuters that Lieberman's remarks largely reflected the premier's position.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, an aide to acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmud Abbas, was quoted by AFP as saying that Lieberman was 'an obstacle to peace'.

"Nothing obliges us to deal with a racist person hostile to peace such as Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Lieberman," he added.

During the Annapolis conference, the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert agreed to pursue 'the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine' in peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

However, his government failed to meet a 2008 end deadline for reaching a two-state agreement with the Palestinians.

Lieberman, meanwhile, said that Israel would instead pursue the 'Road Map' which is an international peace plan launched in 2003, under which Israel bound itself to the principle of a Palestinian state and vowed to freeze all settlement activity in the occupied territories.

Netanyahu, whose right-wing government was sworn in on Tuesday, said during his inauguration speech that Israel would continue peace talks with Palestinians but declined to express support for a two state solution.

Israel has also announced in recent months the construction of hundreds of new Jewish homes in al-Quds although both the Annapolis summit and the Road Map oblige Israel to stop settlement activities in East al-Quds and the West Bank.
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New Israeli Settlement Planned in East Jerusalem

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anata.jpg
The Palestinian village of Anata. Behind the village is the Jordan Rift valley with the northern shores of the Dead Sea and the mountains of Jordan in the background.

Independent Jerusalem mayoral candidate, Nir Barkat, who enjoys widespread support amongst the city’s secular and business communities, recently announced his support for the building of a new Jewish settlement in occupied East Jerusalem.

Sha’ar Mizrahi (Eastern Gate), the name of the proposed settlement, is planned to be located between the Palestinian village of Anata and the foot of the French Hill settlement in East Jerusalem. Sha’ar Mizrahi is to be built on 200 dunam of land, which the Israeli government contends consist of both public lands and private land owned by Israelis.

Though Sha’ar Mizrachi has been publicized as a new project, the idea of building this settlement was actually proposed already before the year 2000. Sha’ar Mizrahi is part of a bigger settlement project called “The Ma’ale Adumin Bloc.” This bloc is comprised of the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Adumim itself, and the settlements of Giv’at Adumim, Mishor Adumim, Kfar Adumim, Alon and the proposed Sha’ar Mizrahi settlement. This bloc is central to the Israeli government’s settlement project in the West Bank, as it is intended to enable Israel to encircle Jerusalem from the east. In addition, the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc, including Sha’ar Mizrahi, prevents any contiguity of Palestinian villages between Ramallah and Bethlehem.

According to Barkat, the new Jewish neighborhood is a perfect solution for the housing problem of the city, and maintains that it is as an ideal opportunity to house students and young people. And according to the director of the Israel Land Fund, Arieh King, who is also the representative of the Jewish land owners in Sha’ar Mizrahi, it is possible to built approximately 2000 housing units on the settlement lands.

A former Jerusalem city engineer stated two years ago, however, that the area where Sha’ar Mizrahi is planned to be built is insufficient and located in small plots surrounded by existing Palestinian neighborhoods. According to the engineer, it is not possible to build in this area without the expropriation of Palestinian land to expand the construction site.

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Eviction orders approved for 2 settler-occupied Hebron stores (opens the door for Palestinian claims)

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“Tuesday's decision will not go into effect for another two months, during which Yosef Ezra, a 75-year-old Jerusalem resident whose relatives owned the properties in question before 1948, can ask the state for rights to the land.


The decision to allow Ezra to seek recognition of the original owners' rights to the property was included after the settlers demonstrated their claim to it. In an aside, the judges determined that the claim of the original owners, Nissim and Ya'akov Ezra, to the property should be considered, despite the number of hands it has changed over the years.

Michael Sfard, the attorney for the former Arab renters of the stores, said that the judges' statement paves the way for Palestinians to declare their rights to properties taken from them inside Israel and the West Bank. He said he plans to use that argument when he represents Arabs claiming rights to land currently held by Jews.”

This should start a stampede…If Jews can lay claim to property they owned prior to 1948 (a minute amount when compared to the property of Palestinians that were stolen by the Zionists then and now), then the door is wide open for the Palestinians to do so…

Mike

Last update - 14:48 27/05/2008

Eviction orders approved for 2 settler-occupied Hebron stores

By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: settlers
The Judea and Samaria Appeals Committee of the Civil Administration, the Israel Defense Forces arm that governs civilian affairs in the West Bank, approved on Tuesday eviction orders for two Hebron stores occupied by settlers roughly two years ago.

The two stores are in the "triangle" market, not far from the city's Jewish Avraham Avinu neighborhood. Their Palestinian residents were evacuated from the triangle market and the nearby wholesale market after Baruch Goldstein's 1994 massacre of Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs and a stabbing in the area.

Some time later, after the Jewish settlers moved in, two of the merchants who had previously rented the stores asked Peace Now to approach the Civil Administration for an eviction order on their behalf.

Tuesday's decision will not go into effect for another two months, during which Yosef Ezra, a 75-year-old Jerusalem resident whose relatives owned the properties in question before 1948, can ask the state for rights to the land.

The decision to allow Ezra to seek recognition of the original owners' rights to the property was included after the settlers demonstrated their claim to it. In an aside, the judges determined that the claim of the original owners, Nissim and Ya'akov Ezra, to the property should be considered, despite the number of hands it has changed over the years.

Michael Sfard, the attorney for the former Arab renters of the stores, said that the judges' statement paves the way for Palestinians to declare their rights to properties taken from them inside Israel and the West Bank. He said he plans to use that argument when he represents Arabs claiming rights to land currently held by Jews.

Mike Odetalla..."A seed in the eternal fruit of Palestine"

"Come, I'll tell you about Palestine" www.Hanini.org

My Home Town: http://www.beithanina.org/
http://www.palestinecalendar.org/
http://www.palestineonlinestore.com/
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http://www.palestineremembered.com
http://www.al-awda.org

http://www.pcwf.-org
The link to the website of Palestine Children's Welfare Fund ...Click to buy Palestinian embroidery online, sponsor a Palestinian child, buy a flag or a Kuffiya to feed one, or a donation of 25 dollars to plant an olive or orange tree in honor of some one you know or to commemorate a hero of yours .


“The ink of the scholar is holier more than the blood of the martyr"- Prophet Muhammad
(Peace be upon him)

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Palestinians, Christians, make last-ditch effort to save children from Israeli terror

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From Khalid Amayreh in Hebron

Palestinian leaders and Christian peace activists as
well as representatives of human rights organizations
operating in the occupied Palestinian territories on
Thursday made an impassioned appeal to
“all men and women of conscience all over the world”
to help stop Israeli army plans to close down and take
over several orphanages and boarding schools sheltering
thousands of orphans and impoverished students. Many
of the orphans’ parents had been killed by the Israeli
army and paramilitary Jewish terrorists, also known
as “settlers.”

The appeal was made during a press conference at the
main Girl Orphanage in downtown Hebron. The Israeli
army has repeatedly raided the orphanages, boarding
schools and affiliated institutions, vandalizing property,
seizing food, cloths and shoes and confiscating several
buses and cars.

The Israeli army accuses the Islamic Charitable Society,
the largest and oldest in occupied Palestine, of teaching
school children “radical ideas.”

However, the Charity lawyer Muhammed Farrah
dismisses the charges as “a big canard and a blatant lie.”

“We have challenged them to produce a shred of evidence
proving their claims. And so far they have failed to prove
any of their allegations.”

Art Arbor, a Christian Peace-maker Team (CPT) member
spoke at the beginning of the press conference, saying he
was pretty sure that Israeli charges against the Hebron
Charity were “baseless.”

“As a former headmaster in Canada, I can say I have seen here
some of the finest students and teachers anywhere, I have seen
good teachers and good students fully engaged. Last week I
attended an English class where teachers and students were
having fun, I saw teachers who produce students who will act
to make the world a better place.

“But all this is threatened now. And I want to tell you that
what the Israeli army is doing is not an assault on terror
but an assault on innocent people who take care of each other.

“ In fact, it is the IDF that is engaging in terror and
we are here to try to stop it.”

Taking the floor after Arbor was Nisreen Shawar, a local
English teacher. She accused the Israeli state of waging “an
all-out vindictive onslaught of smear, hate and vengeance
against innocent Palestinians whose sole crime is their
insistence on living and surviving.”

“We have been wrongfully accused of being terrorists and
promoting terror. We are not terrorists, and we don’t teach
terror. We are actually doing what school teachers all over
the world do, namely making children better people for a
better future. We teach kids to be kind, to tell the truth, to
be mentally alert, physical sound and morally straight. We
teach kids the same subjects taught anywhere in the world.”

Shawar compared the “terror canard against the Palestinians
with the blood libel against Jews in Europe during the Middle ages.”

“The only difference is that these canards are now made by
Jews in order to justify Israel’s slow-motion genocide against
our people.”

Nago Humbert, Head of the Swiss Medecins du Mond Agency,
lashed out at the immense brutality and savagery being
inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state and army.

“Closure of schools, storming orphanages in the dead of night,
destroying bakeries, confiscating food and clothes, throwing
orphan kids onto the street…What is happening here? What is
the lasting image Israel is going to leave in the minds of these
kids when they grow up?”

Humbert, who spoke in French, said he couldn’t really
understand what the Israeli army’s ultimate goal by
acting in this manner.”

“How can we teach Palestinian children non-violence when
Israel is doing to them all this, when Israeli soldiers are throwing
kids from their orphanages onto the streets. Israel is destroying
all our efforts.”

Paul Rehm, an American Christian peace activist from New York
described the callousness inherent in the Israeli army’s assault on
Hebron’s orphanages and other charitable institutions.

“How can we really relate to these callous acts, confiscating school
buses, raiding orphanages and terrorizing innocent children?,”

Rehm quoted Martin Niemoller, the famous Nazi-era German
priest, who lamented the German people’s silence in the face of
the enormous atrocities the Third Reich committed in the
course of the Second World War.

“When the Nazis came for the Communists, I remained silent;
after all I was not a Communist. When they locked up the
social democrats, I remained silent; after all I was not a
social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out; after all I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I didn’t speak out;
after all I was not a trade unionist. When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”

Two representatives from President Jimmy “Carter’s Center”
in Ramallah also showed up at the press conference and one of
them delivered a statement from the former US President.

The statement urged the Israeli government to rescind
military orders to shut down and expropriate school buildings,
orphanages and supporting businesses.

Far from being fazed by nonviolent protests against its draconian
measures in Hebron, the Israeli army last week stormed a bakery
owned by the Islamic Charitable Society, seizing ovens and other
equipments used to provide bread for thousands of orphans and
needy students.

The occupation army also raided and weld-sealed a cloth-making
facility employing grown-up orphan girls. Israeli soldiers reportedly
warned the girls that they would be jailed for up to six years if they
didn’t heed orders to leave the small cloth factory.

Palestinian leaders in Hebron have accused the Israeli state of
“resorting to a dirty game whereby all they have to do to wreck
a given Palestinian institution is to invoke the name of Hamas.”

“It is enough to claim that a given institution is associated with
Hamas to destroy that institution. This is very much like Nazi
Germany behaved toward political opponents prior to the Second
World War,” said Muhammed Hirbawi, a Hebron civic leader.

Hirbawi said the Israeli occupation army was acting as a
policeman, a plaintiff, a General Prosecutor and a judge
combined.

“This shows that non-Jews can’t really obtain justice under
the Israeli justice system. This is why the Palestinians need
a third party to protect them from Israel’s wanton criminality.”

The Israeli army has not given really convincing reasons for
its brutal onslaught against the Hebron charities. However,
Israeli officials are saying privately at least that Israel is doing
what the Western-backed Palestinian Authority wants.

Last month, an Israeli government official was quoted by the
Israeli radio as saying that “what we are doing in Hebron is in
the interest of (PA Chairman Mahmoud) Abbas.”

The PA denies any connivance with Israel against
the Hebron charities.

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UN rights body demands Israel halt settlement activities

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My question is what will they do when Israel does not listen.
it's time to do more then just talk.

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Thursday
demanding Israel halt its settlements in the occupied Palestinian
territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights in Syria.

The resolution was passed by a vote of 46-1 during the 7th
session of the UN Human Rights Council, which denounced
Israel's decision on March 17 to build settlements in East
Jerusalem and neighboring areas.

The resolution said the Israeli settlement activities
constituted grave violations of international law and
the pledges made by Israel at the Annapolis Peace
Conference in the United States last November.

The Human Rights conference reaffirmed the
legitimate rights of the Palestinians and the creation
of a "viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent
Palestinian state."

It also called upon all UN member countries and
associations to assist and support the Palestinians in
the realization of their rights as early as possible.

Thirteen resolutions including Human Rights
protection and religious defamation were passed
during the meeting.
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Heads to the right

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Gideon Levy

It is still unclear whether the terrorist who entered the
Mercaz Harav yeshiva on Thursday night and killed
eight of its students knew exactly what place he was
entering. But the thousands of people who walked
behind the coffins on Friday knew very well.
"The flagship of religious Zionism" was the common
expression used, the "holy of holies"; there was
even a hyperbolic comparison to the Al-Aqsa Mosque
in terms of sanctity. Some of the praise of the yeshiva
is certainly well deserved, and nothing, of course,
can justify the horrible killing of young boys in a
library. Still, it would be appropriate to recall,
even at this difficult hour, what this yeshiva has
brought forth.

Mercaz Harav is the flagship of the last group in
Israeli society still operating in the realm of ideas.
Religious Zionists are the only group, aside from
the ultra-Orthodox population, whose members
are willing to lay down their lives for the collective
and its worldview. It is a group that responds
faithfully to its leaders - a group that even has
leaders - and idolizes them. It is also a fairly homogenous
group in terms of its thinking:
Some 80 percent of its members define themselves
as right-wingers. None of this is true of Israel's
complacent, individualist secular public. And so
we end up with a minority, 12 to 15 percent of the
population, whose influence in certain areas is crucial
and far exceeds its own relative size.

No one can explain in depth the magical powers of
extortion this group has obtained. Nor can anyone
ignore the damage it has caused the country.
Without the settlement enterprise, peace might
have reigned here already; without the Gush Emunim
movement, supported by successive Israeli governments,
there would be no settlements; and without the
Mercaz Harav yeshiva, there would be no Gush Emunim.
This institution, then, was the cradle of the settlement
enterprise and its driving force. Most of the students killed
in the terrorist attack were second-generation settlers.
It should be said again, clearly and unequivocally:
Their killing was a criminal act.
(An unusual personal comment: On Friday I said in a radio
interview, among other things, that the Mercaz Harav
yeshiva was a fascist institution; right-wing circles spread
a rumor on the Internet that I had said the slain students
were fascists. This is not true. In any case, if my comment
about the yeshiva offended people in their grief, I wish to
express my sincere sorrow and apology).

From Mercaz Harav emerged the rabbis that led the vilest
move in Zionist history. Most of the delusional right-wing
perpetrators and the mongers of hate for Arabs came
from this flagship. Religious leaders such as Rabbis
Moshe Levinger, Haim Druckman, Avraham Shapira,
Yaakov Ariel, Zefania Drori, Shlomo Aviner and Dov Lior,
all idolized by their students, raised generations of
nationalist youths within those walls.


Rabbi Lior, for example, head of the Council of Rabbis
of Judea and Samaria, ruled in 2004 that the Israel
Defense Forces was allowed to kill innocent people.
How do these words sound now, after the attack in
Jerusalem? Is the permission ours alone? Back then,
Lior ruled that, "There should be no feeling of guilt at
the morality of foreigners." He decreed that the Knesset
could not decide to evacuate settlements, and that
soldiers were allowed to refuse the order to evacuate
settlers. Rabbi Druckman made a similar ruling.

In 2002, Rabbi Aviner, another graduate of the yeshiva,
called for the execution of Israelis who refused to serve in
the military. Back then the refusal came from left-wingers,
of course. Aviner also ruled that war casualties are no
cause for national grief, and he called for the abolition of
Yom Hazikaron, the annual day of remembrance for fallen
Israeli soldiers. He compared the road map peace plan to
the appeasement of Hitler and considers the evacuation
of settlements an "illegal crime."

The same yeshiva graduated Hanan Porat, one of the
founders of Gush Emunim and one of those who returned
to Gush Etzion. Another alumnus, Rabbi Levinger, beat
him to it with the Jewish settlement at the Park Hotel in
the heart of Hebron. These are the prominent figures that
have emerged from this radical seminary and that is their
legacy. From here they preached the application of different
laws of morality and justice than the universal ones; yes,
where the chosen people is concerned, there is such a thing.

With all the changes religious Zionism has undergone
- from the time the Mizrahi movement joined the Zionist
Congress, through its existence as a moderate stream that
deftly managed to combine religion and modernity, to its
transformation into the source of Israeli nationalism -
the movement has managed to retain an exalted,
inexplicable standing in Israel's largely secular society.
There are still very many secular Israelis who view the
religious Zionists, the students of the Mercaz Harav
yeshiva and the West Bank's so-called "hilltop youths"
as a group of pioneers committed to noble values, as the
pillar of fire advancing before the camp. Even those who
deeply detest the Haredi public reserve a warm spot in
their hearts for religious Zionism, the very group that
has inflicted more calamity on us than all the Haredim
put together.

The killing at the yeshiva is heartrending. No one
deserved it. The innocents in Gaza and the victims at
Mercaz Harav in Jerusalem were all an unnecessary
sacrifice. They have already paid the highest possible
price. Their families and those around them will
probably adopt even more radical positions now,
and so we will be led into another round of endless bloodshed.
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EJJP Calls for Immediate Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli Occupation

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Following an eight day tour of the region,
representatives of European Jews for a
Just Peace (EJJP) held a press conference
in Jerusalem today as part of the local and
international resistance to Israel’s policies
toward the Palestinian people, particularly
the current killings and destruction
in the Gaza Strip.

“Israel’s current military operation has failed and will not bring
security to anyone,” noted Dror Feiler, Chairperson of EJJP.
“The Israeli military operation is a macho show. People
struggling for liberation, as the Palestinians are, cannot be
stopped with force. History has proven this,” added Feiler.

“Non-violent resistance is constantly being developed by the
Palestinians, but is always met with Israeli violence, such as
happens in Beilin, for example,” says Feiler. What kind of
message is Israel thus sending to the Palestinian people?
That there will be no peace, that negotiations will lead nowhere
and that Israel will continue making facts on the ground.”

EJJP (http://www.ejjp.org/) is a network of European Jewish
groups campaigning against the Israeli occupation from ten
European countries, including Germany, Italy, France and the
UK. Describing the organization as “representing a significant
body of opinion within the European Jewish communities,”
EJJP Secretary Dan Judelson noted that this was the group’s
third visit to the area in the past three years.

Following visits to places such as Hebron, Bethlehem,
Ramallah and Jenin, Judelson added that “What’s happening
throughout the occupied West Bank is low intensity ethnic
cleansing in terms of numbers, but is devastating entire Palestinian
communities. We’ve met Palestinian families living in tents under
demolition orders, seen shop doors welded shut by the Israeli army
and seen how Palestinians are being forced from their homes
by settlement expansion.”

During their visit, EJJP delegates further met with representatives of the
Quartet, European ambassadors and consuls, in addition to Palestinian,
Israeli and international NGOs and political activists.

“We advocate for European suspension of the trade association
agreement with Israel as a non-violent way to promote Palestinian
rights and peace,” stated Feiler, “and this is the message we are
taking to parliamentarians and politicians. Diplomats talk,
but now is the time for action.”

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