Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

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Stephen Hawking joins academic boycott of Israel

Physicist pulls out of conference hosted by president Shimon Peres in protest at treatment of Palestinians

A statement published with Stephen Hawking's approval said his withdrawal was based on advice from academic contacts in Palestine.

Professor Stephen Hawking is backing the academic boycott of Israel by pulling out of a conference hosted by Israeli president Shimon Peres in Jerusalem as a protest at Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Hawking, 71, the world-renowned theoretical physicist and former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, had accepted an invitation to headline the fifth annual president's conference, Facing Tomorrow, in June, which features major international personalities, attracts thousands of participants and this year will celebrate Peres's 90th birthday.

Hawking is in very poor health, but last week he wrote a brief letter to the Israeli president to say he had changed his mind. He has not announced his decision publicly, but a statement published by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine with Hawking's approval described it as "his independent decision to respect the boycott, based upon his knowledge of Palestine, and on the unanimous advice of his own academic contacts there".

Hawking's decision marks another victory in the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions targeting Israeli academic institutions.

In April the Teachers' Union of Ireland became the first lecturers' association in Europe to call for an academic boycott of Israel, and in the United States members of the Association for Asian American Studies voted to support a boycott, the first national academic group to do so.

In the four weeks since Hawking's participation in the Jerusalem event was announced, he has been bombarded with messages from Britain and abroad as part of an intense campaign by boycott supporters trying to persuade him to change his mind. In the end, Hawking told friends, he decided to follow the advice of Palestinian colleagues who unanimously agreed that he should not attend.

Hawking's decision met with abusive responses on Facebook, with many commentators focusing on his physical condition, and some accusing him of antisemitism.

By participating in the boycott, Hawking joins a small but growing list of British personalities who have turned down invitations to visit Israel, including Elvis Costello, Roger Waters, Brian Eno, Annie Lennox and Mike Leigh.

However, many artists, writers and academics have defied and even denounced the boycott, calling it ineffective and selective. Ian McEwan, who was awarded the Jerusalem Prize in 2011, responded to critics by saying: "If I only went to countries that I approve of, I probably would never get out of bed … It's not great if everyone stops talking."

Noam Chomsky, a prominent supporter of the Palestinian cause, has said that he supports the "boycott and divestment of firms that are carrying out operations in the occupied territories" but that a general boycott of Israel is "a gift to Israeli hardliners and their American supporters".

Hawking has visited Israel four times in the past. Most recently, in 2006, he delivered public lectures at Israeli and Palestinian universities as the guest of the British embassy in Tel Aviv. At the time, he said he was "looking forward to coming out to Israel and the Palestinian territories and excited about meeting both Israeli and Palestinian scientists".

Since then, his attitude to Israel appears to have hardened. In 2009, Hawking denounced Israel's three-week attack on Gaza, telling Riz Khan on Al-Jazeera that Israel's response to rocket fire from Gaza was "plain out of proportion … The situation is like that of South Africa before 1990 and cannot continue."

Israel Maimon, chairman of the presidential conference said: "This decision is outrageous and wrong.

"The use of an academic boycott against Israel is outrageous and improper, particularly for those to whom the spirit of liberty is the basis of the human and academic mission. Israel is a democracy in which everyone can express their opinion, whatever it may be. A boycott decision is incompatible with open democratic discourse."

In 2011, the Israeli parliament passed a law making a boycott call by an individual or organisation a civil offence which can result in compensation liable to be paid regardless of actual damage caused. It defined a boycott as "deliberately avoiding economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or another factor only because of his ties with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control, in such a way that may cause economic, cultural or academic damage".


This article was amended on 8 May 2013. The original described Hawking as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He stepped down in 2009.

ISRAEL DESTROYS ENTIRE VILLAGE, LEAVES CHILDREN HOMELESS

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ISRAEL DESTROYS ENTIRE VILLAGE, LEAVES CHILDREN HOMELESS

Israel Just Did Something Appalling, And Likely To Create New Palestinian extremists.

Palestinian extremists are not born, but made. They are the result of decades of resistance. In the West Bank, once again Israeli bulldozers have destroyed the homes of hundreds of Palestinian. This time, the targets were the villages of Khirbet Jenbah and Khirbat el-Halawa in the West Bank, home to over 100 people.

In spite of the recent international efforts to stop Israel from continuing building Israeli settlements on occupied territories and at the expense of Palestinian people, Israel continues to destroy Palestinian homes. These recent demolitions happened Tuesday morning in the Firing Zone 918, a very controversial area that was declared by Israel a restricted military zone since the 1970s. The creation of restricted military zones on occupied land violates international law. According to some, this was one of the biggest demolitions in the past decade.

In addition to the homes destroyed, several buildings funded by the European Union, with funds from ECHO (the European Commission’s humanitarian arm) were also demolished. But the main point is that many of these Palestinian families have lived in those houses for generations, even before the creation of the State of Israel.After the demolition, Palestinians were seen going through the remains of their houses in a desperate effort to save some of their possessions. Many of them set up temporary tents to be able to stay there, hoping for the international community to address this violation.

“Israeli media report that children were seen digging in rubble for their toys after the operation.”

It is important to mention that in 1999, the village of Khirbet Jenbah was entirely destroyed, but Palestinians won a court arbitration and were allowed to go back. However, this time Israel claimed that the villagers were unwilling to relocate and that is why negotiations failed. Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry unit that administers civilian affairs in the West Bank, confirmed that

“enforcement measures were taken against illegal structures and solar panels built within a military zone”.

Nearby villages, home to over 1,000 people are also in danger of facing demolition. So far, more thanhalf a million Jewish settlers have moved to the West Bank through Israel’s illegal expansion of its settlements. And this is a number now growing by 16,000 a year. Additionally, Israel’s parliament recently passed a law that increases police powers, that allows them to stop and frisk suspects without any probable cause, only on the suspicion that they might be violent. This law will evidently increase the racial profiling of Arabs. This law is the result of the increasing Palestinian extremists that have been reported to stab and kill Israelis in recent months.

These actions by Israel are not new. For the past 50 years the destruction of Palestinian homes has been known. However, these demolitions and settlement expansions not only put in doubt the viability of a future two-state solution for the conflict; it seems that Israel has not realised yet that these actions create more and more Palestinian extremists. Generations are born and raised in an environment of illegal occupation, violence, oppression and international indifference. Israel’s continuous illegal actions encourage fear and above all, promote more hatred against the existence of this State, which can result in the creation of newer generations of Palestinian extremists.

And although violence has no excuse, Israel is not contributing to the elimination of violence from the Palestinian side; in fact, it is actually encouraging it. People can only take so much before they begin to resist.


Originally published by Reverb Press.

ISRAEL RAPIDLY LOSING SUPPORT IN WORLD: COMMENTATOR

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ISRAEL RAPIDLY LOSING SUPPORT IN WORLD: COMMENTATOR

Press TV has interviewed Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator in Seattle, about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decrying latest remarks by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who has called for a probe into the Tel Aviv regime’s “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinians.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

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Press TV: Well it looks like Israel basically hates the light of scrutiny, doesn’t it?

Silverstein: Yes it does. It has killed 141 Palestinians over the last two months in what is called the new Intifada and Sweden has rightfully called Israel to account and demanded that there be international pressure on Israel to stop these killings. Even if you use Israel’s judgment on who has been killed, at least one third of those 141 Palestinians had nothing to do with any attacks on Israelis and were killed by security forces either deliberately or accidentally but nonetheless were unarmed and uninvolved in any hostilities.

And what Sweden is going for is totally legitimate and Israel is losing support in the international community rapidly and I predict over the coming months and perhaps years or so more EU countries are going to be taking the similar kind of stand to Sweden’s and Israel is going to be losing gradually what little support it does have outside of Israel itself.

Press TV: Do you think we will see Israel being held accountable for its crimes against the Palestinians?

Silverstein: Well I do feel that that will happen, although I think it is going to take quite a long time. There is a lot of inertia in the international system against holding Israel accountable, bringing it to The Hague before the international Criminal Court or other types of judicial actions but that is coming. I think that international legal human rights activists are pressing cases around the world and I think eventually it will be held accountable for war crimes.

Press TV: Why do you think this Israeli-Palestinian conflict has not been resolved so far, it is decades that it is going on?

Silverstein: Israel has a very powerful an effective foreign policy apparatus. It  exerts a lot of impact in the United States and in Europe as well, it is able to manipulate levers of guilt in Europe especially in countries like Germany over what happened in the holocaust and there is a lot of … support in the United States for Israel because of the Israel lobby.

So it is very hard to lose grip of such impact in these countries but Israel, its actions in the Middle East are so reprehensible and extreme that they will not be able to stand this gradual change in international opinion that will either force resolution of the conflict or bring Israel before the International Criminal Court and have its leaders held accountable and perhaps even sent to prison at some point.


Originally published by Press TV.

100 DAYS OF BRUTAL ISRAELI INTIMIDATION AND EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS

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100 DAYS OF BRUTAL ISRAELI INTIMIDATION AND EXTRAJUDICIAL EXECUTIONS

Israeli security troops forcibly detain a young Palestinian during clashes in the West Bank.

Executive Summary

It has been 100 days since grassroots, mostly youth-led protests broke out in Jerusalem, in reaction to increasing Israeli incursions into and restrictions on Islam’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. Since then, mass protests and individual attacks have spread across the West Bank and into Gaza and communities of Palestinian Israelis.

The story told primarily by the international media is one of Palestinian stabbers and Israeli retaliation in self-defense. However, as the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documents in this 100-day report, proven Palestinian attacks are relatively small in number and often committed by lone youth, while the number of arrests, harassment and executions committed by Israeli forces are increasingly excessive and disproportionate.

As such, the behavior of the Israeli military constitutes violations of international law, and thus Euro-Med demands that the United Nations and other international bodies, as well as governments doing business with Israel, act now to pressure Israeli authorities to stop the abuse of human rights and end the root cause of the unrest: its decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Executions and Injuries

This report covers the period between 1 October, 2015 and 8 January, 2016, relying on photos, videos and eyewitness testimony. Data collected indicate that 150 Palestinians, including seven women and 27 minors, were extrajudicially executed, with Israel refusing to release the bodies of 24 to their families. In contrast, 27 Israelis, including one woman, were killed by Palestinians.

In addition, 15,759 Palestinians were injured, 92 seriously—including 58 journalists and 103 emergency medical personnel. Among Israelis, 385 were injured, 33 seriously.

Arbitrary Executions

Two-thirds of Palestinian victims—95 of 150—were executed in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the border area of the Gaza Strip during protests or immediately upon detention. Many were killed merely on “suspicion,” including those falsely accused of trying to attack Israelis.

In mid-October of 2015, Euro-Med published a video recording showing eight Palestinians being arbitrarily executed by Israeli forces. The UN special rapporteur called on the UN to launch a special investigation into such extrajudicial killings.

Targeting of Medical Staff and Civilian Hospitals

Euro-Med Monitor documented 314 cases of Israeli assaults on Palestinian medical staff and civilian hospitals. Israeli forces attacked medical staff and ambulances 171 times during the 100 covered days; 16 physicians were prevented from providing necessary medical care to the injured.

In addition, Israeli forces stormed civilian hospitals nine times, allegedly searching for Palestinians who had committed illegal acts during protests. The most serious incident took place when tens of Israeli soldiers, disguised in plain clothes, stormed the Ahli Hospital in Hebron on 12 November 12, 2015—killing Abdallah Al-Shalalida and abducting his cousin. In a similar incident on 29 October, more than 60 Israeli soldiers broke into the charitable Al-Maqasid Hospital to break up a demonstration staged by doctors protesting the frequent Israeli storming of the hospital.

Discriminatory Treatment of Wounded Palestinians

Euro-Med has found that the Israeli organization Magen David Adom (MDA), recognized as an emergency medical aid agency by the International Committee of the Red Cross, frequently gives top priority to the treatment of injured Israelis, while neglecting critically wounded Palestinians. This discrimination is a blatant violation of medical ethics and the code of conduct to which all physicians ascribe.

In addition, in a number of incidents, Israeli soldiers dealt with wounded Palestinians inhumanely, allowing them to bleed for hours without providing medical treatment. In some of these incidents, soldiers interrogated Palestinians while they were bleeding on the ground.

Euro-Med contacted the administrators of Magen David Adom 30 days before issuance of this report, providing documentation of five cases in which its medical team failed to treat injured Palestinians on a timely basis. However, no response was received.

Demolition of Houses and Damage to Other Property

Euro-Med has documented 352 assaults on Palestinians and their properties. During the 100 days of the coverage period, 92 homes were demolished as collective punishment of families with relatives accused of attacking Israelis.

During the reporting period, the Israeli army stormed Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps 908 times and broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque 74 times.

Attacks on Israeli Individuals and Properties

Palestinians attacked Israeli individuals or property an estimated 227 times, ranging from knife stabbings to car rammings. The most common incident, however, was stone-throwing by Palestinian youth. These incidents primarily occurred around checkpoints and on streets linking Palestinian cities and villages. They resulted in the death of 27 Israelis, including one woman, and the injury of 385 others (33 of whom were seriously wounded).

Detention of Palestinians

Since the escalation of protests in October 2015, 3,401 Palestinians have been detained—58 percent more than during the same period the year before. About half of these detainees, 1,511, are minors. One in every 3 of these detainees was exposed to cruel treatment such as beatings, humiliation, hand-cuffing and blindfolding.

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As an occupying power, Israel is obligated under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure the safety and security of civilians from. Euro-Med now is communicating with the United Nations to urge it to launch a comprehensive investigation with the support of the Security Council or, if vetoed, the General Assembly. Signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention are obligated to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of crimes such as those described in this report.

Israel warns Brazil of consequences unless it accept settler as ambassador

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Israel warns Brazil of consequences unless it accept settler as ambassador

Israel warns ties may suffer if Brasilia does not accept nominee Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish settlement movement

Palestinian boys look towards the Israeli settlement of Beit El, in the occupied West Bank. Israel has appointed a settler, Dani Dayan, as its ambassador to Brazil, a position Brasilia has yet to confirm. Photograph: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil’s reluctance to accept an Israeli ambassador who is a West Bank settler has led to a standoff with Israel now warning it could downgrade diplomatic relations.

The appointment four months ago of Dani Dayan, a former head of the Jewish settlement movement, did not go down well with Brazil’s left-leaning government, which has supported Palestinian statehood in recent years.

Most world powers deem the Jewish settlements illegal.

Israel’s previous ambassador, Reda Mansour, left Brasilia last week and the Israeli government said on Sunday Brazil risked degrading bilateral relations if Dayan were not allowed to succeed him.

“The State of Israel will leave the level of diplomatic relations with Brazil at the secondary level if the appointment of Dani Dayan is not confirmed,” Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Israel’s Channel 10 TV, saying Dayan would remain the sole nominee.

She said Israel would lobby Brasilia through the Brazilian Jewish community, confidants of President Dilma Rousseff and direct appeals from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Brazilian government officials declined to comment on whether Rousseff will accept the nomination of the Argentine-born Dayan. But one senior Foreign Ministry official told Reuters: “I do not see that happening.”

The official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, said Israel would have to choose a different envoy because the choice of Dayan has further worsened relations that turned sour in 2010 when Brazil decided to recognise Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and settled.

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Israel quit Gaza in 2005 but claims East Jerusalem as its indivisible capital and wants to keep swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.

Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, angered Israel by drawing Brazil closer to Iran.

Tensions rose last year when an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman called Brazil a “diplomatic dwarf” after Brasilia recalled its ambassador from Israel to protest a military offensive in Gaza.

Brazil’s government was also angered by the announcement of Dayan’s appointment by Netanyahu in a Twitter message on 5 August before Brasilia had been informed, let alone agreed to the new envoy as is the diplomatic norm.

Over the weekend, Dayan went on the offensive to defend his nomination, telling Israeli media that Netanyahu’s government was not doing enough to press Brazil to accept him. Dayan said not doing so could create a precedent barring settlers from representing Israel abroad.

Emmanuel Nahshon, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said ties with Brazil were “good and important”, noting Israel’s recent opening of a new consulate in Brazil and the business opportunities for Israeli security firms during the Olympic Games to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Israel has a considerable role in providing avionics technology for Brazil’s aerospace and defense industry.


Celso Amorim, a former Brazilian foreign and defence minister, said on Friday that the diplomatic dispute over Dayan’s appointment showed that “it is time the Brazilian armed forces reduced their dependence on Israel.”

Gaza enters 10th year of Israeli-led blockade

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Gaza enters 10th year of Israeli-led blockade

The start of 2016 sees the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip entering the 10th year of the Israeli-led and internationally-backed blockade of the territory, which is exacerbated by Egyptian support. The blockade started in the wake of the 2006 Palestinian elections, which the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, won with an overwhelming majority.

Local and international monitoring organisations described the Palestinian poll as one of the most transparent ever recorded. In Palestine, though, it is remembered with sadness as the election marked the internal political split and the start of the siege of Gaza.

The Israeli authorities closed all crossings into the territory, keeping only the Erez Crossing open for occasional pedestrian traffic (and it has been used to entrap people trying to cross), and Kerem Shalom for a few classified and highly-regulated goods. Egypt has been keeping the Rafah Crossing closed for most of the time. In 2015, the crossing was only open for 21 days; just 10,000 Palestinians were allowed through, among them pilgrims, patients and students.


The Israeli authorities imposed severe restrictions on patients and their companions travelling through Erez. Human rights groups have recorded the arrest of several patients or their companions while using the crossing into Israel. Attempts are made by the Israelis to blackmail people into becoming informers in exchange for being allowed to cross.

Gaza: The Brink of Collapse Triggers War

Quds Press has reported the chronic shortages of medicines and hospital disposables. The Palestinian ministry of health spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf Al-Qidra, says that shelves are empty due to the restrictions imposed by the Israelis on people and goods going in and out of the coastal enclave.

Independent MP Jamal Al-Khodari, who has been heading a popular committee working to end the siege, told Quds Press that Israel has been trying to “legalise” the blockade and make it last as long as possible, using all means to do so.

The plight of the Palestinians in Gaza has aroused widespread popular support across the world and many attempts have been made to break the siege by sea. Although a few small boats made the trip in the first few years, later and more ambitious attempts were stopped in international waters by the Israeli navy, often violently. In May, 2010, for example, Israeli commandos intercepted the Freedom Flotilla. Nine Turkish citizens were killed in the assault and a number of others were wounded; one died in 2014 as a direct result of his wounds. The ships were towed into port in Israel and everyone on board was arrested.

During the siege, Israel has launched four major military offensives against the people of Gaza, in 2006, 2008/9, 2012 and 2014; the latter was the most destructive. It lasted for 51 days and whole areas of Gaza were flattened by Israeli bombs; tens of thousands of people were displaced.

The strict siege and wars have shattered the Palestinian economy in Gaza, economic commentator Maher Al-Tabaa told Quds Press. “The unemployment rate in Gaza stands at 42 per cent, with the blockade deepening the economic crisis,” he explained. According to the International Monetary Fund, the unemployment rate in Gaza is the highest in the world and there are more than 200,000 unemployed people in Gaza.

Al-Tabaa warned that if the siege of Gaza continues, normal life would not be viable in the territory in 2016. Many international organisations have issued similar warnings due to the effects of the oppressive Israeli measures, which are regarded as collective punishment and are illegal in international law.

Read:

• UN stops cement supplies for 70 factories in Gaza
• Israel imposes new rules for taking goods into Gaza
• Turkey demands end of Gaza blockade to reconcile relations with Israel

The pilot announced: “We will soon be landing in Palestine”

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The pilot announced: “We will soon be landing in Palestine”

Iberia aircraft Photo credit: Channel 2 News

Passengers on an Iberia flight from Madrid to Tel Aviv were surprised to hear the captain announce that the plane was going to land shortly in Tel-Aviv, which is in the state of Palestine. The airline’s spokesperson in response: "We apologize; the pilot will no longer be allowed to fly to Israel."

Passengers on Iberia Airline’s flight 3316 from Madrid to Tel Aviv were surprised to hear the captain’s announcement just a few minutes before landing. “We will soon be landing in Tel Aviv, which is in the state of Palestine,” the captain declared.

Lior, a passenger on Iberia flight 3316, told Channel 2 news that he was shocked by the announcement. “The entire flight immediately started whispering. We live in Israel and I don’t understand why he wouldn’t say the name of our country. He had purposely said it in English so we would understand it. It was deliberate, especially during these tense days Israel is going through.” Another passenger added: "It is not acceptable; everyone noticed it."

A spokesperson for the airline apologized for the incident and said that the airline has many flights flying back and fourth from Israel and that the company is well aware of the fact that Tel Aviv is in the State of Israel. Moreover, the spokesperson added that the company would investigate the incident and that the pilot would no longer be allowed to fly to Israel in the near future.

Israeli Soldiers Shoot 7-Year-Old Palestinian Girl In Face For No Reason At All (VIDEO)

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Israeli Soldiers Shoot 7-Year-Old Palestinian Girl In Face For No Reason At All (VIDEO)

Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian child in the face while she played on the balcony of her family home in the West Bank, this month. The case exemplifies the growing and increasingly lawless violence meted out across the West Bank by Israeli occupation forces.

On Friday September 25, seven-year-old Maram Abed al-Latif al-Qaddumi was standing on the balcony of her family home in Kafr Qaddoum, when Israeli soldiers shot her in the face with a rubber-coated bullet. Maram is not the child of a suspected terrorist (and would not be “fair game” even if she were), she is the daughter of Nablus Police Chief  Colonel Abdul-Latif al-Qaddoumi.

Her father was home when the bullets were fired at his daughter and raced to his car with the girl in his arms, planning to take her to hospital for treatment. But as he drove from the house, Israeli forces opened fire on the vehicle. The pair were later taken to the Rafidia Governmental Hospital in Nablus with head injuries, where they remain in a stable condition.

The shooting comes amid a wave of Israeli reprisals against the town for its continued non-violent protests against the expansion of the Apartheid Wall which encircles and imprisons Palestinians, while cutting them off from their farms, workplaces and neighboring towns.

Israel has injured an average 39 Palestinian civilians every week of 2015, the vast majority of them injured at non-violent protests. Israeli soldiers have repeatedly deployed live fire on peaceful protesters. Amid growing international criticism, Israel has taken an astonishing approach to avoid future condemnation. Instead of ceasing to kill and injure unarmed civilians, they have instead opted to legalize such shootings.

“The Israel Police will be expanding their use of firearms against stone-throwers in the south of the country, as authorities struggle to contend with the rise of riots and violence,” Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday.

“Legal and police sources say that the decisions on how to deal with stone-throwers in Jerusalem will also be applied to rioters in the south, particularly those who throw stones at vehicles,” it adds.

But as Electronic Intifada points out, what Israel describes as “riots,” is all too often a peaceful protest against the illegal occupation and land confiscation in the West Bank.

To understand how the majority of Israeli citizens react to such shootings, we can look at the reaction to another shooting recently:


Electronic Intifada reports:

The status accompanying it says: “This is the only way it will work. You throw a rock? You get a bullet. Share it, friends!”

The post has been shared more than 3,000 times and hundreds of comments express sadistic joy at the sight of soldiers shooting a Palestinian who has no rights because he lives under military rule.

A common complaint is that the youth was not shot in the head or heart and killed outright.

“I’m proud of our warriors!” declares Angela Vainer. “What fun to see such a video,” writes Maria Kogan.

“Well done!!! Next time, hit the testicles,” suggests Karin Kazav.

Israel is becoming increasingly belligerent and they have been killing Palestinians in cold blood, outside any pretext of lawfulness. Whether a local lawmaker at a peaceful protest, a teenager throwing stones at tanks, a seven-year-old playing on your family balcony, or a toddler sleeping in your bed — you could be killed by an Israeli soldier or civilian with impunity.


There is no safe place for Palestinians in what has become Greater Israel. It is their very existence that so offends the racial supremacist, theocratic state of Israel. Until this rogue state’s backers in the U.S. and the West get on the right side of history, the Palestinians will continue to suffer this cruel and arbitrary punishment for being the “wrong” race, from point of view of their occupiers.

Netanyahu Proposes Revoking Residency Of 80,000 Palestinians From Jerusalem

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Netanyahu Proposes Revoking Residency Of 80,000 Palestinians From Jerusalem

In Jerusalem, the Israeli Annexation Wall has been constructed in such a way as to annex as much of Jerusalem as possible for the Israeli state, while forcing the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller enclaves

Israeli border police check Palestinian’s identification cards at a checkpoint in Jerusalem, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

The Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a recent Cabinet meeting, proposed revoking the residency rights of 80,000 Jerusalemites, which would mean that the people of Sho’afat refugee camp and Kafr Aqab, as well as other neighborhoods, would be cut off from the rest of Jerusalem.

The proposal was considered by the Israeli Cabinet in their recent meeting, but no decision was made.

Already, the 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank have been severed from Jerusalem due to the Israeli construction of a massive Wall over the past 13 years. The Wall has annexed large sections of Palestinian land and made them a de facto part of the state of Israel, in direct violation of the responsibilities of an occupier under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel’s government signed the Convention in 1957, requiring it to provide for the needs of civilian populations under occupation. The Convention also requires that an Occupying Power must not transfer any civilians into the land it has militarily occupied. But Israel has transferred over half a million people into settlements constructed on Palestinian land that was militarily occupied, then illegally seized, since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights began in 1967.

In Jerusalem, the Israeli Annexation Wall has been constructed in such a way as to annex as much of Jerusalem as possible for the Israeli state, while forcing the Palestinian population into smaller and smaller enclaves. Now, under the Israeli Prime Minister’s proposal, residents of those enclaves would lose their residency rights altogether.

Israel has an identity card system for the residents of Jerusalem that is completely unique in the world. Jewish Israelis who live in Jerusalem or in paramilitary colonies in the West Bank are afforded full Israeli citizenship. But Palestinians who live on their ancestral land in Jerusalem are given a different kind of identity card, which ensures that they have far fewer rights than Jewish residents of the city.

If a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, for example, were to travel abroad for more than a year, Israel would consider that person to be an ‘absentee property owner’, and would seize their land and home and annex it to Israel, denying the Palestinian owner the right to return to their home. The rule only applies to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, and not to Jewish residents of the city.

According to the Israeli paper Yedioth Ahranoth, following the construction of new walls and barricades in recent weeks to further separate and segregate Palestinian residents of Jerusalem from Jewish residents, the Israeli Prime Minister told his Cabinet ministers, “We need to examine the possibility of canceling their [Palestinian Jerusalemites] residency. There needs to be a discussion about it.”

Some Israeli ministers voiced opposition to the plan, not because they were concerned about the Palestinian Jerusalemites losing their residency rights, but because they believe such a division would “give up territory” that some Israelis believe should belong to Israel.

That claim is based on a military takeover of the land by Israeli forces. Neither international law nor signed agreements recognize military takeover of land as a legitimate way of expanding state territory.

Israeli police shoot, kill 17-year-old Palestinian in Hebron

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Israeli police shoot, kill 17-year-old Palestinian in Hebron

Scene of the incident

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli border police shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian girl near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank on Sunday, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

The girl was identified as Dania Irsheid, 17, from central Hebron.

An Israeli police spokesperson said that the girl was shot dead after police officers allegedly saw "a knife in her hand." No Israelis were injured during the incident.

A Palestinian woman who was in the area told Ma'an that she watched as "occupation soldiers covered a young Palestinian woman who was lying on the ground bleeding without giving her medical aid at all, before an ambulance arrived and took her."

Another witness told Ma'an that he saw a schoolgirl with a schoolbag on her back trying to cross the Israeli checkpoint near the Ibrahimi mosque.

"An Israeli soldier asked her to take the knife out of her bag, then he immediately fired gunshots into the air," the witness said. "Seconds later the schoolgirl was lying on the ground bleeding."

The woman's death brings the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces to at least 57 since the beginning of the month.

While 29 of those killed were shot after allegedly carrying out attacks on Israelis, a number of alleged attacks have been disputed by Palestinian witnesses and investigations by rights groups who say the suspects posed no threat at the time of their death.

Video footage in a number of cases has raised criticism of what Israeli rights group B'Tselem terms "extrajudicial executions," where a "shoot-to-kill" policy advocated by Israeli officials has led to high numbers of unnecessary deaths.

Hebron has seen a particularly high death toll in recent weeks with nine Palestinians shot dead since late September -- in every case after an alleged stabbing attempt -- and one Palestinian activist dying from excessive tear gas inhalation.

At least nine Israelis have been killed by Palestinians since Oct. 1, leading Israeli authorities to deploy large numbers of Israeli military personnel and police forces across the occupied Palestinian territory.

Israel “Violating Every International Law” with Use of Lethal Weapons against Palestinian Civilians

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Israel “Violating Every International Law” with Use of Lethal Weapons against Palestinian Civilians

The Israeli army is using very dangerous weapons, which can be lethal, to disperse demonstrators who are just demonstrating. The rules of engagement that the Israeli army is using against Palestinian demonstrators simply violate every international law.

First of all, Israeli forces use high velocity bullets, which have already caused at least 300 injuries and taken the lives of many people.

Second, they use what they call “rubber bullets,” but these are not rubber bullets at all; it’s a misconception or misrepresentation to call them “rubber.”

There are two types of rubber bullets. One is a cylinder, but inside it you have a very heavy metal. Usually when it is shot from a close distance it penetrates the body and frequently it penetrates the brain and becomes fatal.It is also very dangerous when it hits the eye. Many Palestinians have lost eyes because of these kinds of bullets.

The other type of bullet they call “rubber” is not rubber at all but a very heavy shard, and this shard is covered with a very thin piece of plastic. Again, this is very dangerous and responsible for very serious injuries and it is misleading to keep saying that it is “rubber.”

Third, recently, Israeli forces started using this kind of bullet in a big quantity, they are heavy metallic bullets which are usually used against animals, but now they are using them against Palestinians.

You have what they call 0.22 bullets. The 0.22 bullet is a very small bullet, but it’s very dangerous because when it hits a vital organ or a major vein it can cause bleeding to death.The so-called 0.22 bullet is used by snipers and it has been responsible for the death and injury of many people. Even B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organisation, issued a statement saying that their use is illegal.

Then you have the sponge, and the sponge is dangerous because it has taken away already 13 eyes, including 7 children who lost their eyes.They also use tear gas bombs, and they throw them in very big quantities, creating what we call “closed room effect”, which could kill people because of suffocation.We have already lost three women in previous years because of tear gas, they suffocated from tear gas. Sometimes Israeli forces fire up to 50 tear gas bombs at once and that can also have long term effects.

When you throw tear gas to disperse the crowd you throw one, two, three tear gas bombs, not fifty.Tear gas is also very dangerous because it is a chemical and we don’t know the long term effects of using such chemicals. Many people including myself have had serious bronchitis and laryngitis because of this. We think that long term and repeated exposure could be risky to people’s health.

Some neighbourhoods like Al-Aida camp in Bethlehem are very close to confrontation areas andare routinely exposed to tear gas, so children, families, everyone breathes in tear gas around the clock. The furniture is full of it, the walls, the beds, everything.

Then they use stun grenades, and stun grenades are dangerous especially when they are thrown directly at people. Many people have had severe injuries because they have had stun grenades thrown at them directly, and when they explode they can cause serious injuries. Some people have lot their hearing because of stun grenades.Tear gas bombs also, the metallic ones are especially dangerous because sometimes the army uses them as bullets in the sense that they direct them at someone. One of the guys who died from this, his heart stopped beating when the tear gas bomb hit him.


You should not shoot people when they are very far from you and when they present no risk to you. They start shooting when they see people in the distance.

Israeli Forces Kill Beloved Palestinian Doctor and Peace Activist

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Israeli Forces Kill Beloved Palestinian Doctor and Peace Activist

“I will never move until I die or we get our freedom.”

A 54 year old Palestinian physician who has devoted his life to peacefully resisting the Israeli occupation of his land was killed by IDF forces yesterday, October 21st.

Since the Hebron agreement in 1997, Hashem Azzeh was made to feel like an outsider in his own home.


“The settlers harass us by throwing stones, garbage and sometimes human shit,” Azzeh said in a 2013 interview with the International Solidarity Movement.

Bottles of urine were often thrown into Azzeh’s garden

“The children here, including my own, can’t sleep well at night,” Azzeh continued. “They always expect soldiers or settlers to come and attack. Many children still wet their pants at the age of fourteen and fifteen.”

Despite this, Azzeh fought the occupation by refusing to leave and by helping others in his community. As recently as last July, Azzeh helped a 90 year old woman who was forced out of her home by Israeli forces to not only find shelter, but also assisted her in the long court proceedings to retake her home.

Hashem Azzeh and Um Mohammad

In 2009, Isreali settlers offered Azzeh $20 million to leave his home. When he refused, the military tried to bully him out.

“The settlers who live next to me cut the water pipes that lead to my house,” Azzeh said. “I lived without water for three years.”

“They attacked my wife when she was pregnant with our first child; she lost it in her third month. She was pregnant again but the settlers beat her when she was four months pregnant and she lost that baby as well.”

Hashem Azzeh and his wife, Nizreen

According to Azzeh, over 350 families lived in his neighborhood before the occupation. As of 2013, there were only 48.

“My neighbor is the leader of the Jewish National Front,” Azzeh said. “He has two stickers posted to his wall. One of them says ‘God gave us the right to kill Arabs and we love it.’”

Despite his struggles, Azzeh never advocated hate.

“We are not against Judaism,” Azzeh said. “We are only against the occupation. Every Palestinian has close Jewish friends.”

“He was a medical doctor who had founded a voluntary clinic in his neighborhood,” said Milla Katerina Tuominen, friend of Azzeh. “He was famous for inviting everyone to his house regardless of their religious or ethnic background and served as a perfect example of non-violent resistance despite having faced a lot of violence and hardship himself.”

Azzeh died from “excessive tear gas inhalation.” No disciplinary action has been reported from within the IDF ranks.

To support Hashem’s wife and 4 young children, his friends have started a GoFundMe fundraiser, which can be accessed here.

Hashem Azzeh with one of his children

“For me personally it is clear,” Azzeh said. “I will never move until I die or we get our freedom.”

Over 52 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the past 20 days.

Israel and the Rotten Soul of the West

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Israel and the Rotten Soul of the West

by JOHN WIGHT

The rotten soul of the Western political establishment is never more exposed than when it comes to the issue of Palestine. It is here where the hypocrisy, double standards, and political cowardice that is its truth is at its most extreme.

Bad enough that the Palestinian people have been forced to endure a decades-long negation of their human, natural, and national rights; the injustice they have suffered is compounded tenfold by the complicity of the West in denying their rightful status as an oppressed people struggling against a cruel and vindictive oppressor. Stripped of all of the embroidery and obfuscation that has been allowed to distort the contours of this struggle, here lies the root of the issue and the biblical suffering that has and continues to flow from it.

This conflict is not and never has been about Israel’s right to exist or Israel’s security. It is not and never has been about Hamas or its Charter. It is not even about a two state or a one state solution – at least not anymore it is not. It is about whether we take a stand on the side of an oppressed people or with their oppressor.

In this regard we must give thanks to Malcolm X for washing the bullshit from our eyes: “If you aren’t careful the newspapers will have you hating the people being oppressed, and loving the people doing the oppressing.”

Make no mistake, the political mainstream and its media echo chamber know exactly what is going on in Palestine, and they are well aware of its root cause. Yet, regardless, they continue to provide Israel with their unstinting and unwavering support. Even more, they genuflect at the feet of this apartheid state.

The desperate acts of violence that have erupted over the past few weeks in Jerusalem and across the occupied West Bank – mostly in the form of random stabbings and acts of violence against any Israeli anywhere – do not denote evil on the part of those responsible; instead, such desperate acts reveal the extent of the despair which the Palestinians have endured and continue to endure as a direct result of their oppression. Theirs is an extreme but understandable response to the brutal negation of their dignity, rights, even humanity at the hands of a state that has never viewed them as anything other than an inconvenient fly in the milk of their pure ethno and religiocentric state to be crushed and crushed repeatedly.

The wanton, systemic, and systematic cruelty endured by an entire people follows the egregious logic of the campaign of ethnic cleansing that gave birth to Israel in 1948. It describes a moral sickness that, if anything, has grown increasingly acute in the decades since.

A Third Intifada is incontrovertible evidence of the abject failure of the international community to impose a just settlement for a people whose abandonment is a crime, consigned to a fate akin to the Australian aborigines and Native Americans, with the best they have long been expected to expect life on a reservation.

The Palestinians’ stubborn refusal to accept such a fate, even in the face of brutal and unremitting pressure to break, describes a level of sustained tenacity that has been Herculean in scope. For as ugly as their resistance has been, it is nothing when compared to the oppression that has given rise to it.

The prison imprisons the guards as much as it does the inmates, and the chains that bind the Palestinians also bind the people of Israel. Not for a minute in a given day does the word Palestine or Palestinian not intrude on their consciousness – though sadly not conscience in the case of most – reminding them of a people who remain unbowed, despite their immiseration, just a few miles from the affluence which they take for granted. Hatred of another is the handmaiden of hatred of self, with Israel an example of how the projection of hatred on a national level eats away at said nation’s own foundations.

Terrorism and terrorist are the most value-laden words in our language today. We use them to identify the violence of those we revile and whose cause we consider unworthy and unjust. As such there is not such thing as a Palestinian terrorist or Palestinian terrorism. What there is, and in abundance, is Palestinian desperation and Palestinian despair. Attacks carried out against Israeli civilians are an awful thing; however for a people who’ve been consistently denied their own humanity they have become the only thing left by which to command the attention of an international community whose silence is a lethal weapon in the hands of their oppressor.

BDS is the greatest and most effective weapon in the arsenal of international solidarity with the Palestinians. From small and marginal beginnings in 2005, BDS has grown exponentially to the point where it now strikes fear in the breast of Israel and is the only international lifeline that the people of Gaza and living throughout the West Bank have to hold on to. Its continuing growth and effectiveness is therefore a non-negotiable condition of the struggle against both Israel’s intransigence and the West’s hypocrisy, without which the status quo would have ended a long time since.

We have passed the stage where objectivity is an acceptable response to apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and the monument to injustice erected in the name of exceptionalism. The cause of the Palestinian people is the cause of humanity in our time. 

John Wight is the author of a politically incorrect and irreverent Hollywood memoir – Dreams That Die – published by Zero Books. He’s also written five novels, which are available as Kindle eBooks. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnWight1

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Clinton to Donor: In Next War, I Will Let Israel Kill 200,000, Not Just 2,000, Gazans

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Clinton to Donor: In Next War, I Will Let Israel Kill 200,000, Not Just 2,000, Gazans

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has penned a controversial letter to a major Jewish donor vowing to offer Israel “total” support in its next confrontation with the Gaza Strip’s Islamist rulers.

The leaked letter, sent last week to Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban, promises to allow Israel carte blanche in any future war with Hamas, including a presidential green light to kill nearly 10% of the enclave’s population.

“Quite frankly, Israel didn’t teach Hamas a harsh enough lesson last year. True to form, Obama was too hard on our democratic ally, and too soft on our Islamofascist foe,” reads the letter, obtained by the Guardian. “As president, I will give the Jewish state all the necessary military, diplomatic, economic and moral support it needs to truly vanquish Hamas – and if that means killing 200,000 Gazans, then so be it.”

RELATED: Hillary Clinton denies having a Jewish heritage; admits to “slight resemblance”

“We realist Democrats understand that collateral damage is an unavoidable byproduct of the War on Terror,” Clinton writes, “and me being a mother, grandmother and tireless children’s rights advocate does not mean that I will flinch even one iota in allowing Israel to obliterate every last school-cum-rocket launching pad in Gaza. Those who allow their children to be used as human shields for terrorists deserve to see them buried under one-ton bombs.”

According to the Guardian, the letter was sent together with another letter – which, in contrast, was willingly released to the press – seeking billionaire Saban’s advice on how best to fight the global anti-Israel boycott movement.


In response to outrage among liberal Democrats and human rights groups following the release of the second letter, the Clinton campaign blamed a typo: “Hillary meant to write 20,000, not 200,000.”

FIGHT OF PALESTINIANS (STRUGGLE FOR LIFE)

Fighting for own land by taking refuge in the neighboring countries has become trade mark sign of Palestinians. The people of China and Vietnam have fight keeping their feet on their own land. But who will save those people who have to fight for their own land taking shelter in other countries?

So many years have passed after Israel has formed (1948) one has seen Israel figuring almost every day in all leading newspapers. This is not an exaggeration. One day the atrocities of Israel and the other day the protest by Palestinians. Then the blame declaration by the UN against the Israel, on the fourth day USA VETO in Security Council on the fifth day a condolence meeting of all the nations, meeting in Cairo or Tehran, on the sixth day the story starts again.

This new conflict is occurring in Lebanon since a few months. As usual this will end in a few days with reports coming that same more Palestinian Arabs got killed. Until the curtains rise again, the counting of dead bodies is done as an interval. The story repeats again.

HISTORY:

Four thousand years ago, Israel was neither a country nor a tribe, Israel. Abraham dreamt of Jesoa in which Jesoa declared that Palestine would be gifted to Jews and Jesoa said that he would chose only Jews to spread His word. Even after so many centuries, it appears that Jesoa was not keeping His word. So, the Jews decided to do the job by themselves. It did not matter to them the sufferings of the Arabs who were living for so many centuries for so many centuries if they had to vacate and go elsewhere. But this would not deter the Jews to keep up the word made Jesoa to Abraham that Palestine would be gifted to Jews and Jews only. In fact, the existence of the Arabs living there for centuries was not recognized by the Jews. Since 1882 the Jews started coming to Israel from all the corners of Europe. ‘They said to give a land without a people to a people without a land.’ In 1919 the population of Palestine was 5, 90,000. In that 5,33,000 where Arabs. The Jews were already living comfortably in many European countries. In west Europe, the Jews forgot their biblical language (Hebrew) and were speaking English, French etc. in east Europe, the Jews were speaking ‘Yiddish’, not Hebrew, keeping all these facts aside the Jews declared that to live in Palestine is their sacred duty and immigrated towards the end of 19th century. They exceeded the population of the local Arabs. By force they drove out the Arabs thereby disobeying the UN decision with the help of imperialistic countries, Israel was established in 1948 as Jewish country by the Jews.

Many of the local Arabs fled to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt as refugees. They have been living in refugee camps since 65 years. Even then, they are fighting for their right to live in Palestine and fight continuously for their land.

Jews are a human community. It is defined by the religion ‘Judaism’ it belonged to the feudal lords living in urban areas Hebrew is their pious language not the common language. What is Sanskrit for Brahmins is Hebrew for Jews.

It is even more difficult to call Arabs as a nation because these are many Christians Arabs. But Arab language is the common link. The Arab language changes considerably as we move from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria to Iraq.

Arabs and Jews are close relatives. Both of them belong to Semitic tribe. Both these tribes were travelling continuously in the west Asia deserts. Trade, cattle and small business in oasis were their livelihoods.  By that time Arabs did not have any one religion.  Judaism of Jews was very ancient. Historian’s state that the origin of Jews, Abraham belong to 2000 B.C.

AFTER THE BIRTH OF JESUS

Judaism did not come into being soon after the birth of Crist. Because of the revolt in 135 B.C against the Roman emperor by the people in which some Jews also took part, the angry emperor ordered demolition of Jews temple in Jerusalem, with that the Jews scattered out and many of them reached Europe. After the end of Roman Empire, the feudal society which cropped up in Europe became a heaven for the Jews to carryout business there.

There is a reason for this. The Jews as well as Arabs traditionally traveled all over the world trade was not new to them. They had the skills of transporting soods on caravans from places to places and make a living. Neither Judaism nor Islam does not look down on the trade or the profit accruing from the trade.  But this is not so with the feudal society based Christianity. The Christianity considers this world as full of sin and even more sinful the trade. It is not right to say that all the Christians are against business or trade. Most important of all ‘interest’ business is strictly prohibited in Christianity. It has become a monopolistic business of Jews. In this way, in the medieval period, Jews became settled in business in Europe urban areas as well as low middle class people. One of the reason for this is Jews have had no experience in farming.

Towards the medieval period, the Jews became affected by the bourgeois revolution that took place in towns and cities of Europe. As a result, traders became richer and invested in modern capitalists whereas low middle class Jews became laborers and lumpen workers. All said and done, modern life style and modern thoughts have become the intellectual property of the Jews. From Bourgeois culture of the western world emanated great personalities such as Karl Marx, Freud and Einstein. In the 19th century, Jews living in the Western Europe who became influenced by the bourgeois principles became readily a part of that society.  However, in countries of east Europe which were oppressed by Russia where the Bourgeois culture reached late and as also because of the backwardness, the process of enrichment and modernization did not happen and modernization did not happen among people. So, the general public became downtrodden and oppressed in these areas. They started showing their unhappiness on the Jews one of the major reason for their hatred against the Jews is they are business men and chiefly they were doing interested business. Another reason for hate was the wide belief among public that Jesus was killed cruelly by crucifixion by the Jews. All these reasons led to strong anti-Semitism and resulted in the massacre of Jews en masse. 

Under these circumstances in east Europe and Russia, favorable sentiment of public developed for the Jews nationalism, Jews there did not forget the promise made by Jesoa the Abraham. The Jews strongly believed that one day all of them will return to Palestine while some of orthodox Jews believed that Jesoa will certainly send a messenger to take them to palatine along, somewhat less orthodox Jews started finding ways to migrate.

After the death of Alexander the 2nd, unstable political conditions prevailed in Russia and Russians empire. At this time a lot of atrocities were committed against the Jews. As a result many Jews from east Europe migrated to west Europe and the USA. A few of them migrated to their ‘holy land’. Palestine with this started the immigrating of the Jews to Palestine.

After few years of the start of this emigration, one new theory took birth called ‘Zionism’. The Jews consider the word Zion as holy indication of their pilgrim city of Jerusalem, Zionism believes in the return to Jerusalem as a pious duty and right, the first theorist of Zionism. Theodore Herzl was living in Austria, the people of which were strongly opposed to Jews, if one compares the current leaders of Israel with Theodore Herzl, the latter was liberal, what he wished was not to drive Arabs from Palestine to establish Jews nation, but to form a cooperative native place with brotherly and close relationship with all those living in Palestine. By then Jews were in fact, an oppressed class of people although there were many capitalists, intellectuals and technically highly placed among them who became so by using the opportunities offered by the bourgeois society. Later on they became tools to spread imperialism.

MAJOR PART OF PALESTINE EXISTENCE UNDER TURKEY RULE

At the time of the emigration of Jews and the increasing influence of Zionism, Palestine was a part of Turkey’s empire. The ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Rome was under the Turkey rule. In the first half of the 16th century Palestine which was under Arabs control came under the Turkey rule. From then and until Turkey was defeated in 1919 during World War 1, Palestine was ruled by Turkey. Since turkey was ruled by feudal lords, there was no scientific or technical development in Palestine in 20th century one can see that. Jews came to Palestine which was underdeveloped. That is the major reason why the Palestine Arabs did not protest the arrival of Jews because Jews did not come as beggars but with capital and technical skills to invest there, with their arrival trade and agricultural farming boomed. Modern views and thoughts spread among the people already living there. Even up to 1935 the Arabs in Palestine did not object to the emigration of the Jews. They only wanted certain restrictions to be imposed on the emigration. But Zionists arrived with a firm plan. First they captured and occupied the land. They had plenty cash flowing capitalists Jews living in France, England and America. The Jews purchased vast areas of land from the Arabs. They then decided to drive away the Arabs from their original lands and to not even employ them as farm laborers. The Zionist organization decided to employ only the Jews in all the sectors.

CAPITAL MOBILIZATION BY JEWS

In order to buy land the necessary capital needed was pooled as Jewish national fund in 1901. In 1920 Palestine foundation fund was established. These funds were financed by Rothschild, Oppenheimer, Philips and the other such reputed capitalist families. The list included small capitalist Zionists also. The precondition on the land purchased from these funds was only the Jews and their families would work. All labor force should be drawn from Jewish families only. 

In 1925 Jewish Agency plan was proposed which included:

1. The land should be purchased as the property of Jews only
2. Only Jews should be employed in all the welfare programs run by the Jewish agency.   

Until 1914, 43 agricultural settlements were formed and all were financed by just one French Zionist family called Rothschild only because the Jews had a free access to such huge amount of capital from abroad, they could easily drive out the Arabs from Palestine and establish Israel. Practical Zionism and political Zionism worked and progressed parllelly. The Arab became local labor forced and the Jews started buying property in all over the world. Britain agreed to donate 6000 square miles of land in Uganda (British Colony) for establishing Israel. It may be noted that the present Israel’s area is 8019 square miles and most of it as a desert. But Zionists wanted only the land in Palestine which was promised to Abraham by Jesoa four thousand years ago.

Turkey was defeated at the end of World War 1 in 1919. Turkey Empire fell into the hands of the victors Britain, France etc. it was not easy in 20th century to divide Turkey into parts and occupy so, and the victorious countries made it as mandated territories and shared it among them. ‘Mandate’ is term used by League of Nations which the victorious countries will develop. Britain got the mandate over Palestine. In other words, Palestine became British colony after WW1. Immediately Britain made ‘Balfour declaration’ which allowed Israel to form its nation. This declaration helped Britain to keep a watch and protect its interest on Suez Canal.

BALFOUR DECLARATION

Arabs announced ‘no cooperation’ with British government until Balfour declaration is withdrawn. They demanded a democratic government in Palestine. In response to this the British government formed an assembly in 1922 but made it compulsory that out of 22members, 2 should be Jews,

British high commissioner was granted the power of ‘Veto’. Arabs boycotted the election. In 1028 the Arab again demanded for democracy in Palestine. In 1929 there was a rift between Jews and Muslims over a place of worship. A commission appointed by the British government made a report saying that the emigration of Jews to Palestine is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction to the local Arabs. Zionists obtained a mild response to this report from the British Prime Minister RAMSE MCDONALD. As a result no action was taken in favor of Arabs.

After 1933, Nazism and fascism became strong and Anti-Semitism increased. As a result the inflow to Israel of Jews picked up momentum. Nazism in Europe killed 5.75 million Jews out of 9.5 million.

This has put Arab protest against Jews emigration to Palestine on a new scale. Jordan in 1936, Iraq in 1932, Syria and Egypt in 1936 became independent countries. Soon after becoming independent countries, these countries declared their support to the Arabs in Palestine. An advisory council was established by Britain in 1934 to govern Palestine. Although the Arabs agreed to this, the Jews did not. They used their influence in the British parliament and got the council cancelled. It is interestrip to note that 10% of Jews in 1919 went upto 20% by 1933, 30% by 1938and 35% by 1945. As a result there was a strong protest by Arabs between, 1937-39. But the British government suppressed it cruelly.

AFTER WORLD WAR 2

Britain changed its strategy towards Palestine in 1937. It told the Arabs and the Jews to live in harmony and peace until the WORLD WAR 2 comes to an end.

During SECOND WORLD WAR, the Jews have become even stronger in Palestine. While most of the Jews put up industries and started looking for minerals in the sea bed of Dead Sea.

The war made the Jewish traders and the capitalists economically strong. Zionism became adamant. In 1947 Britain handed over the mandate to the UNO stating that it can no more regulate it. UNO decided to established both Jewish and Arab territories in Palestine. Zionists agreed because they cruel plans that they would one day in future encroach upon the entire Palestine. The Arabs did not agree to divide their country into two.

EXIT OF BRITAIN

Britain left Palestine on May 15, 1948. On that very day the Zionists declared Israel country. From the next day, the first Arab-Israel war started. Technically weak Arabs could not face the Israel’s military power. Arabs were defeated by Israel. The Jews occupied a large part of Palestine and said that all that is now a part of Israel.  All the Arabs living in those areas fled to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.  Since then they have been fighting Israel from the refugee camps. In order to make the Arabs who fled Palestine not to come back, Israel made two acts in 1948. According to the first act, if any Arab does not cultivate land for one year it will get annexed to the Israeli government. The Israel government gave that land as gift to the Palestinians. In 1953, the Israeli government made an act that anyone’s land can be taken by the government and given to the Jews who have freshly immigrated to Israel. All these acts were made by the ‘MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE’ of Israel government. According to their report between 148 and 1963 an average Arab’s land possession came down from 3.7 acre to 1.1 acre. It became even worse later on. In the biggest Arab village of Israel called UMMAL FAHEIM, Arab farmers and land lords once had 35,000 acre land in 1976. It is clear how many guns and how many explosives the Israeli government used to get this state.

ARAB-ISRAEL WARS

1948–1949: First Arab–Israeli War

1951–1955: Reprisal operations

1956: Suez War

1967: The Six-Day War

1967–1970: War of Attrition

1971–1982: Palestinian insurgency in South Lebanon

1973: Yom Kippur War

1978: First South Lebanon conflict

1982: First Lebanon War

1985–2000: Second South Lebanon conflict

1987–1993: First Intifada

2000–2004: Second Intifada

2006: Operation Summer Rains Second Lebanon War

2008–2009: Gaza War

2012: Operation Pillar of Defense

2014: 2014 Israel–Gaza conflicts

In 1967 Israel attacked Syria, Egypt and Jordan. It occupied lot of their land. Sinai islands, the west coast of Jordan River were some of them. Egypt retaliated in 1973 but could not be successful. 

“AFTER THE SUEZ CANAL INCIDENT IN 1956, THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SUPPORTING ISRAEL INTERNATIONALLY HAS BEEN TAKEN OVER BY THE USA FROM BRITAIN.  IT BECAME NECESSARY FOR AMERICAN GOVERNMENT TO SUPPORT THE ZIONISM AND ISRAEL GOVERNMENT BECAUSE 20 PRESENT OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE OF THE USA ARE JEWS. “

ARAB NATIONS ALSO CAUSED TO LOSS

The direct enemies of the Arabs in Palestine are Israel and America. But some other Arab countries are enemies to them in the disguise of friends. These countries did not like the modernism and democratic approach of the P.L.O (Palestine Liberation Organization) which is fighting for the interest of the Arabs in Palestine. Jordan and Syria do not want to directly align themselves with the P.L.O. In 1970 Jordan droved out PLO from its territory.  Egypt made a bilateral pact with Israel called Camp David accord in USA, got back its Sinai islands and kept quit. No support is coming to PLO from Egypt from then on. Syria is also not helping PLO to fight against Zionists. The only friends left for Palatine Arabs are the Muslim Arabs living in Lebanon. The Christians living in Lebanon always supported the Israel government. The richest capitalists of Lebanon are Christians while the poorest lot is Muslims.

The total PLO soldiers fighting there are 20,000 while the Israeli soldiers are about 100,000. Russia only provided lip support, no material help is coming from there to the Arab in palatine. 

“ISRAEL’S OBJECTIVE IS VERY CLEAR. IF THERE IS NO SHELTER FOR PLO MEMBERS IN LEBANON, THE PLO MOVEMENT WILL COME TO AN END. ISRAEL MAY SUCCEED IN DRIVING PLO FROM LEBANON BUT IT IS DOUBTFUL IF ISRAEL CAN BRING THE LONG TERM STRUGGLE WHICH IS GOING ON TO AN END. IT WILL BE GREAT MISTAKE TO THINK THAT THE LIBERATION OF PALESTINE HAS DIED DOWN. THE EXPERIENCED AMERICAN RULERS ARE THE RIGHT PEOPLE TO ANSWER THIS.”

MOST RECENT CONFLICTS

RESISTANCE IS NOT TERRORISM 

As we all know, Islam when came into being had neither sectorial divisions nor any cates within Islam. However as time progressed divisive forces acted and became successful in dividing the Muslims into different sects.

What happened between Iran and Iraq in late seventies and until eighties is an example of conflict between the sects. The war resulted in drastic reduction in economic state of many Arab as well as other Muslim countries. Thus they became engrossed and engaged in their own internal and cross border wars among Muslim countries. There is no much time to think about the miseries of Muslims living in Palestine caused by Israeli soldiers. It is mostly the women folk and the children who get cruelly killed by the Israeli soldiers. 

Most recent it is 2014 war in which significant number of innocent Muslims got killed, women and children being the highest in number. It is worth mentioning here the conflict taking place at the Saudi-Yemen border in which a great feel of Muslims are getting killed in the raids. Cannot there be a solution to stop these deaths. Are not these rifts not causing a further backwardness in the economic state of people involved in the wars and the conflicts?

How many innocent citizens of the countries directly or indirectly involved in the cross-border conflicts/wars are getting displaced, missing or becoming permanently handicapped? Who is the direct beneficiary of the economic or political wars between Muslim countries? Obviously, it is Israel. to say the least, Israel will be too pleased to observe passively Muslims becoming weaker and poorer all over the world.

How long the oil rich economies of a few Muslim countries can support the lives of people became impoverished by these wars and killings.

Why not these countries think of a possible solution to the war? There has there has to be a pragmatic approach to bring permanent peace and rest from the conflicts. Only a rich Muslim population if united constructively and purposefully could bring the miseries faced by the Arab Muslims in Palestine to an end. But the question is when and who will achieve this scared mission. Is it not time now for all the enlightened souls of Muslim population all over the world to come to a common platform and get rid of the differences created artificially among different sects (castes) of Muslims like WAHHABIS, SHIAS, SUNNI.

CONSPIRACY OF ISRAEL AS IT HAS NO OIL WEALTH. 

“[THE YINON PLAN] IS AN ISRAELI STRATEGIC PLAN TO ENSURE ISRAELI REGIONAL SUPERIORITY. IT INSISTS AND STIPULATES THAT ISRAEL MUST RECONFIGURE ITS GEO-POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT THROUGH THE BALKANIZATION OF THE SURROUNDING ARAB STATES INTO SMALLER AND WEAKER STATES.

ISRAELI STRATEGISTS VIEWED IRAQ AS THEIR BIGGEST STRATEGIC CHALLENGE FROM AN ARAB STATE. THIS IS WHY IRAQ WAS OUTLINED AS THE CENTERPIECE TO THE BALKANIZATION OF THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE ARAB WORLD. IN IRAQ, ON THE BASIS OF THE CONCEPTS OF THE YINON PLAN, ISRAELI STRATEGISTS HAVE CALLED FOR THE DIVISION OF IRAQ INTO A KURDISH STATE AND TWO ARAB STATES, ONE FOR SHIITE MUSLIMS AND THE OTHER FOR SUNNI MUSLIMS. THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS ESTABLISHING THIS WAS A WAR BETWEEN IRAQ AND IRAN, WHICH THE YINON PLAN DISCUSSES.

THE ATLANTIC, IN 2008, AND THE U.S. MILITARY’S ARMED FORCES JOURNAL, IN 2006, BOTH PUBLISHED WIDELY CIRCULATED MAPS THAT CLOSELY FOLLOWED THE OUTLINE OF THE YINON PLAN. ASIDE FROM A DIVIDED IRAQ, WHICH THE BIDEN PLAN ALSO CALLS FOR, THE YINON PLAN CALLS FOR A DIVIDED LEBANON, EGYPT, AND SYRIA. THE PARTITIONING OF IRAN, TURKEY, SOMALIA, AND PAKISTAN ALSO ALL FALL INTO LINE WITH THESE VIEWS. THE YINON PLAN ALSO CALLS FOR DISSOLUTION IN NORTH AFRICA AND FORECASTS IT AS STARTING FROM EGYPT AND THEN SPILLING OVER INTO SUDAN, LIBYA, AND THE REST OF THE REGION.

GREATER ISRAEL” REQUIRES THE BREAKING UP OF THE EXISTING ARAB STATES INTO SMALL STATES.

“THE PLAN OPERATES ON TWO ESSENTIAL PREMISES. TO SURVIVE, ISRAEL MUST 1) BECOME AN IMPERIAL REGIONAL POWER, AND 2) MUST EFFECT THE DIVISION OF THE WHOLE AREA INTO SMALL STATES BY THE DISSOLUTION OF ALL EXISTING ARAB STATES. SMALL HERE WILL DEPEND ON THE ETHNIC OR SECTARIAN COMPOSITION OF EACH STATE. CONSEQUENTLY, THE ZIONIST HOPE IS THAT SECTARIAN-BASED STATES BECOME ISRAEL’S SATELLITES AND, IRONICALLY, ITS SOURCE OF MORAL LEGITIMATION…  THIS IS NOT A NEW IDEA, NOR DOES IT SURFACE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ZIONIST STRATEGIC THINKING. INDEED, FRAGMENTING ALL ARAB STATES INTO SMALLER UNITS HAS BEEN A RECURRENT THEME.” (YINON PLAN, SEE BELOW)

"George Friedmann in his book, The End of Jewish People, pointed States the Europeans claiming to be Jews, are nothing more then “Hebrew speaking Gentiles.” The late president of Egypt, Gamal Adbel Nasser, stated on television, “You (the Jews) will never be able to live here in peace, because you left here black but came white. We cannot accept you!"

AMERICA IS CONCUBINE OF ISRAEL

AMERICA IS CONCUBINE OF ISRAEL

"George Friedmann in his book, The End of Jewish People, pointed States the Europeans claiming to be Jews, are nothing more then “Hebrew speaking Gentiles.” The late president of Egypt, Gamal Adbel Nasser, stated on television, “You (the Jews) will never be able to live here in peace, because you left here black but came white. We cannot accept you!"

RESISTANCE IS NOT TERRORISM

RESISTANCE IS NOT TERRORISM