Clipmarks | jklugman's 'palestine' clips

Israel's Front-Line Thugs

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:10:52 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

The security forces are, of course, by no means scared to act when it suits them. Palestinian demonstrations are routinely put down with excessive force: rocks flung by pre-teens are countered with rubber bullets, tear gas, and – often – live and indiscriminate fire. But when it comes to clamping down on violence emanating from the settler community, a different set of rules apply, and the authorities' reeking hypocrisy is exposed as endemic to the way in which they view the different strands of Israeli society.

Via Philip Weiss

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Of late, there has been a steady stream of brutal assaults carried out by settlers against their Palestinian neighbours in the West Bank, right under the noses of the lackadaisical army. The phenomenon is, sadly, nothing new; what has brought the story back into the spotlight are the efforts of human rights groups, such as B'Tselem to film the violence and document the shocking reality on the ground – which is why, it seems, the authorities are so keen to clamp down on their activity in the region.

However, the settlers don't confine their vindictive and vicious attacks to Palestinians; they are not averse to attacking their Jewish peers either.

Then another Breaking the Silence group came under attack from settler vigilantes, who doused the participants with boiling water after confronting them in the streets of Hebron and heckling them with cries of "traitor", and other such hostile invective.

Tags: israel, settlements, west bank, palestine, hypocrisy

Bush Admin may snuff General's report on Israel misconduct

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 00:08:22 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Top US official there issues report critical of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land. Will Bush "listen to the General on the ground" or quietly gag the best report they've got?

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

US Considers Quashing Report Critical of Israel

In other news, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the Bush administration is debating whether to silence a forthcoming high-level report critical of Israel’s conduct in the Occupied Territories. The report is written by the top US official there, retired general James Jones. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Jones has written a “scathing” report criticizing both the Israeli government and the White House. Israeli officials who met with Jones said they expect the report to be “very harsh, and make Israel look very bad.” Jones is said to be particularly critical of Israel’s claim to have security interests to justify its large settlement blocs on Palestinian land. Top administration officials are said to be so upset by the report they are debating blocking its release.

Tags: israel, palestine

Arab-Israel Conflict

Mon, 14 May 2007 23:47:06 GMT

clipped by: davboz

Clip Source: www.dafka.org

1. Nationhood and Jerusalem - Israel became a nation in the 14th century B.C.E. Two thousand years before the rise of Islam.

For over 3,000 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity. Even when the Jordanians occupied Jerusalem , they never sought to make it their capital

To portray themselves as indigenous, Arab settlers adopted the name of an ancient Mediterranean tribe, the Philistines ("Invaders" in Hebrew), that disappeared out over almost 3000 years ago. The connection between this tribe and modern day Arabs is nil. Romans, in order to conceal their shame and anger with rebellious regions, changed the references to Judea and Samaria by naming them Palestine

11. A travel guide to Palestine and Syria was published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker; The book estimated the total population of Jerusalem at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews.

Tags: israel, palestine

'They've Stolen our Water, now our SEA'

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:46:13 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: "The illegality of the actions and orders of the army cries out to the heavens. This is a clear case of misusing security considerations as camouflage for achieving other goals which are unrelated to security matters and unacceptable."
The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) petition said.

Clip Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

Palestinians barred from Dead Sea beaches to 'appease Israeli settlers'

Palestinians are being regularly and illegally barred from reaching Dead Sea beaches in the occupied West Bank, according to a Supreme Court petition filed by Israel's leading civil rights organisation.

The Association of Civil Rights (Acri) in Israel is challenging what it says is the frequently imposed ban by the military on Palestinians seeking to swim or relax at beaches in the northern Dead Sea. The salt-saturated sea is the only open water accessible to Palestinians from the otherwise landlocked West Bank.

Clip Source: jamaicabeach.spaces.live.com

Clip Source: www.independent.co.uk

The petition says that the Israeli military is using the Beit Ha'arava checkpoint on Route 90 – the only open access route in the occupied West Bank for travel to the Dead Sea – to turn back Palestinians, mainly but not exclusively on weekends and Jewish holidays.

1 Exclusive: New batch of terror files left on train

6 Bush 'may convert to Catholicism'

7 What now for Europe? The EU's Irish problem

Tags: israel, water, acri, human.rights, palestine, westbank

'Jewish settler attack' on film

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:57:37 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via JewSchool

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank.

An elderly shepherd, his wife and a nephew said they were attacked by four masked men for allowing their animals to graze near the settlement of Susia.

The rights group, B'Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks.

A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way.

So far, no-one has been arrested.

Tags: israel, palestine, settlements, violence, occupation

Israel Withholds Tax Revenue From Palestinian Authority

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:04:54 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: This sounds very much like Israel is collectively punishing Palestinians just because a Palestinian official criticized Israel.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Israel is expected to transfer some tax funds to the Palestinian Authority Tuesday, after holding up the money for a week. The transfer was stopped after Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called on the European Union and OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) not to upgrade their relations with Israel.

Israel will deduct some NIS 70 million from the PA's money to cover debts and transfer some NIS 180 million of the NIS 250 million in taxes that it collects for the PA.

Holding up the money has caused several days' delay in paying wages to some 150,000 Palestinians employed by the PA.

Tags: israel, palestine, collective-punishment, free-expression, occupation, palestinian-authority, pa

The Hypocrisy of Denying Palestinians the Right of Return

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:23:19 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.thecrimson.com

How else could we justify the massive and ongoing theft of the Palestinians’ native land since the mid-20th century—subsidized annually with upwards of three billion dollars from the U.S. government—while we correctly enforce the right of Jewish refugees to recover European properties from which they were displaced in the mid-20th century? If we do not recognize the equality of Palestinian and Jewish rights, how can we avow the equality of the rights belonging to Tibetans and Han Chinese, Sahrawis and Moroccans, Africans and Americo-Liberians, women and men, blacks and whites, gays and straights?

Tags: hypocrisy, israel, palestine, land-confiscation, confiscation

Bradley Burston, Haaretz.com: I want the Palestinians to win

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:57:20 GMT

clipped by: Johanna_G
clipper's remarks:

"I and the majority of the Palestinian people are ready for a historic agreement based on international decisions that will allow a Palestinian and Israeli state to coexist, side by side, in peace and stability."

Jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti

Source: Ha'aretz, 08 April 2008

Bradley Burston is Senior Editor of Haaretz.com, the Israeli newspaper's online English language edition.
__________________________________

See also Kore7's clip Bradley Burston: Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

I'm a fairly patriotic sort, as these things go. A California native, I truly love the nation, and especially the state, of my birth. I love this, my adopted homeland, no less. I deeply want Israel to be a success. And that is why I wanted the Palestinians to win.

Not win as in "throw the Jews in the sea." Not win as in "set the ground ablaze under the Jews' feet."

Win as in "gain what the Jews have gained - independence, statehood, responsibility over their own fate, and a sense of proportion over what is attainable in a world and a region of limited resources and manifold hopes."

It is in the direct interest of hardliners to do everything in their power to convince their side that this is a zero-sum game, that only one side can emerge triumphant.

In fact, though, there are two additional options, the first, of course, being that both sides can lose. The second, the one of which we've largely lost sight, is that with an element of compassion, both sides can win.

Tags: israel, palestine

Water Policy in Israel and Palestine - There's Enough Water for Both

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:02:36 GMT

clipped by: Johanna_G
clipper's remarks:

The increasing difficulties with water availability, concludes the hydrogeologist, result from Israel using the majority of water resources for agricultural purposes, although this sector today represents a very small portion of the Israeli economy.
Despite this, the Israeli state remains unswervingly committed to the Zionist foundation myth, which regards the promotion of agriculture as a central tenet in the Jewish settlement of Palestine.

Messerschmid, in turn, sees the priorities of Israeli water policies as fundamentally flawed, leading to a wasteful use of the precious resource. Large areas of land, for instance, are still intensively watered even during conditions of very high temperatures, although most of the water immediately evaporates.
The Palestinians, by contrast, do not even have the amount of water at their disposal that was promised in the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty.

Deutsche Fassung

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Water, a resource essential for life, is becoming increasingly scarce in many areas of the world. In terms of the Middle East conflict, it is well known that the diversion of a river or even the additional pumping out of water can quickly turn into grounds for war.

The distribution of existing water reserves between Israel and its Arab neighbors is not only a result of the Middle East wars, but also due to various points of view on how water can be obtained in the region. The German hydro-geologist Clemens Messerschmid, who has lived and worked in Ramallah for a number of years, regards these viewpoints as out-dated and biased.

It's not true that there's a shortage

Messerschmid's critique, which has recently caused quite a stir in Israel, is directed primarily against the Israelis. They remain in control of most of the water resources in a region that the German hydro-geologist regards – contrary to prevailing opinions – as not being all that arid.

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Tags: palestine, israel, water policy

Young Israelis Resist Challenges to Settlements

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:31:35 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Via Phillip Weiss

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

SHVUT AMI OUTPOST, West Bank — For two months, Jewish youths have been renovating an old stone house on this muddy hilltop in the northern West Bank. The house is not theirs, however. It belongs to a Palestinian family. And their seizure of it, along with the land around it, for a new settlement outpost is a violation of Israeli law. The police have evicted the group five times, but they keep coming back.

Israel has pledged that it will permit no new settlements in the territory it has occupied since the 1967 war, no more expropriation of Palestinian land and dismantle unauthorized outposts — like this one — erected since March 2001, but it has never applied the muscle needed to do so.

So the settlers continue building a patchwork of communities to try to preclude the drawing of a border between Israel and a future Palestinian state. At the vanguard are the hilltop youth, teenagers like Yedidya, who work to complicate the demographic map ever more.

Tags: israel, palestine, occupation, settlements

A Double Standard on Academic Freedom

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 12:40:57 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: electronicintifada.net

Two hundred thousand Palestinian children began school in the Gaza Strip this month without a full complement of textbooks. Why? Because Israel, which maintains a stranglehold over this small strip of land along the Mediterranean even after withdrawing its settlers from there in 2005, considers paper, ink and binding materials not to be "fundamental humanitarian needs."

As a result, Gaza students began the year facing a 30 percent shortage of texts.

No full-page advertisements in major American newspapers have publicized Israel's violations of Palestinian children's right to an education. No editors, syndicated columnists or presidents of major universities in this country have denounced this callous measure. Our politicians have demanded no remedial action. Instead, they continue, verbally and materially, to support Israel in its near-total blockade of 1.5 million Palestinians, kids and all.

Tags: palestine, israel, gaza, education, children

Video of Israeli military bulldozing Palestinian fruit grove for settlement

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:41:56 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: This video shows the IDF bulldozing a Palestinian village's fruit grove in order to build a sewer system for a settlement. Very disturbing.

Go to the source to see the video (which has English subtitles)
Via JewSchool

Clip Source: mishtara.org

כך מדינת ישראל משמרת את האיבה - הכפר ארטאס, פלסטין - This is how Israel keeps the hate alive - Ertas village, Palestine

Tags: israel, idf, settlements, palestine, occupation, land-confiscation

Former Sephardi chief rabbi says indiscriminate killing OK

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 19:04:21 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: Hopefully this individual does not reflect the beliefs of many Israelis.

Clip Source: www.jpost.com

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

Tags: israel, war-crimes, judaism, palestine

Media focus on Hamas Mouse, neglect occupation

Mon, 14 May 2007 20:43:34 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: As many of you are aware, the news (and Clipmarks) have been deluged with stories about a children's show produced by Hamas that features a Mickey Mouse-type character who allegedly espouses hatred toward Jews. Tom Wallace points out that the media have been ignoring the reality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Clip Source: electronicintifada.net

While all of this air-time was being devoted to the mouse, some real news about the region with genuine political implications was completely ignored:

1. World Bank criticizes Israel over Palestinian economy: Describing a system of apartheid that has devastated the Palestinian economy without naming it as such, the World Bank warned of the consequences if this continues.

2. Israel plans new Jerusalem settlement: In response to the report, Israel announced the approval of plans to further Judaize Jerusalem, bringing the number of settlers living illegally on Palestinian land in the Occupied West Bank to 570,000.

3. Shot West Bank woman 'loses baby': During an Israeli army raid in the West Bank, a pregnant woman was shot in the stomach and lost her baby.

Does anyone really believe that it takes propaganda to teach Palestinian children to hate the occupiers?

They don't need a cartoon to teach them hate, they have the Israeli army.

Tags: israel, palestine, occupation, civilian-killings, settlements, media

Israel Doesn't Want Peace

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:47:54 GMT

clipped by: televiseus
clipper's remarks: Editorial from Israeli newspaper columnist Gideon Levy. Ever see this point of view in an American paper?

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

The moment of truth has arrived, and it has to be said: Israel does not want peace. The arsenal of excuses has run out, and the chorus of Israeli rejection already rings hollow. Until recently, it was still possible to accept the Israeli refrain that "there is no partner" for peace and that "the time isn't right" to deal with our enemies. Today, the new reality before our eyes leaves no room for doubt and the tired refrain that "Israel supports peace" has been left shattered.

In our wildest dreams, we wouldn't have believed that the day would come when the entire Arab world would extend its hand in peace and Israel would brush away the gesture

time and time again, Israel avoids the most basic prerequisite for any just peace - an end to the occupation

no one bothered to ask Olmert why he didn't react with excitement to the recent Arab initiatives, without preconditions? The answer: real estate. The real estate of the settlements

Tags: israel, palestine, politics, occupation, peace