Tag: Boycott

EDITOR: Storm Clouds Gather Around Continuous Israeli Intransigence

More and more are now declaring their stand against Israeli atrocities: countries, organisations, companies and individual artists and intellectuals, with many more under moral and political pressure to join the movement to end Israeli Apartheid, occupation and injustice. This week, Gil Scott-Heron was only the latest artist to announce that he will not play in Israel. Now Volvo and Caterpillar are under intense pressure to stop trading with Israel. 3000 European Jewish intellectuals called today on the European Parliament to stop supporting Israel automatically, and UC student Governors have called upon the university to disinvest from Israeli companies and other trading or supporting the occupation. The international pressure is building up against Israeli atrocities, and is likely to further intensify; the US is reportedly acting towards passing a UN resolution towards a nuclear-free Middle East, something Israel will fight tooth and nail against, as they would against any of Obama’s limp attempts to bring about the defunct two-state solution.

While this is all excellent news, it is really a very dangerous moment; Israel is now preparing its response to this pressure, and it is the normative one – a military strike of enormous damage and destruction, against the ‘usual suspects’. Currently, the targets discussed are Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and now also Iran. While such a reaction to political pressure sounds (and is) criminally misguided, it is the only type of reaction Israel is used to, and is apt at, or feels secure with. The time of great danger is upon us.

Caterpillar equipment used in extrajudicial killing near Hebron: The Electronic Intifada

Press release, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, 29 April 2010

The following press release was issued by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights on 26 April 2010:

On Monday 26 April 2010, Israeli occupation forces killed a Palestinian man, Ali Ismael Ali Swaiti, 45, in Beit Awwa in the West Bank district of Hebron, after demolishing a house while he was inside. Israeli occupation forces claim that Ali Swaiti had been wanted for several years. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns this crime — which constitutes an extrajudicial execution — and calls upon the international community to work towards bringing to trial those Israeli politicians and commanders suspected of committing war crimes.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and eyewitness testimony, Israeli occupation forces entered Beit Awwa town in the far south of Hebron at approximately 3:00am on Monday 26 April 2010, supported by military armored vehicles, a bulldozer and a Caterpillar digging vehicle. Israeli forces surrounded the house in which Ali Swaiti was located, using sound bombs. The home belongs to Mahmoud Abdul Aziz Swaiti and is located in Khellet al-Foulah, in the north of the town. During the operation, Israeli soldiers broke into numerous other houses in the area and turned them into observation points and firing posts.

After some minutes, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) evacuated at gunpoint the family living in the targeted one-story house as well as a family living in another two-story house, which belongs to the family of Ahmed Abdul Aziz Swaiti. The two families were detained outdoors for some time before they were taken to an adjacent house belonging to Abdul Jalil Swaiti. They were detained there with other families, all of whom were interrogated regarding the whereabouts of the targeted person.

At approximately 5:40am, an Israeli bulldozer began to destroy the fences surrounding the targeted house. It progressed towards the house and started to demolish it, but it retreated as it was fired at from inside the house. Israeli forces stationed in the neighboring houses opened fire at the house for 15 minutes from all sides before an explosion took place inside the house. Residents of the area reported that the explosion resulted from the shelling of the house.

At approximately 6:00am, the Caterpillar vehicle began to drive into and destroy the fences of the targeted house. After that, a digging vehicle continued demolishing the house, and then retreated to allow the renewed advance of the bulldozer and the search for the body of Swaiti.

At approximately 7:00am, the bulldozer lifted the body of Swaiti out of the rubble and dropped it onto a road close to the demolished house before moving it another 10 meters away. At approximately 7:30am, an Israeli soldier fired at least two shots at the body of Swaiti from a distance of three meters. At approximately 8:00am, Israeli occupation forces left the homes in which they had taken position.

In the meantime, Palestinian civilians had left their homes and many of them hurried towards the area of the attack. They carried Swaiti’s body to take it indoors. However, some people clashed with Israeli forces as they withdrew. Israeli occupation forces fired at those people using rubber-coated metal bullets, wounding five Palestinians including a boy and a young woman. The wounded are as follows:

1. Mohammed Mahmoud Masalmah, 23, wounded by a bullet to the head;
2. Baha Mohammed Akimi al-Amareen, 20, wounded by two bullets to the legs;
3. Hussein Yusuf Swaiti, 18, wounded by a bullet to the leg;
4. Hammam Ismael Masalmah, 17, wounded by two bullets to the legs; and
5. Asma Murshed Swaiti, 19, wounded by a bullet to the right shoulder.

The IOF spokesperson said that Swaiti had been wanted by the Israeli Security Service for eight years, as he was held responsible for carrying out a number of shooting attacks against Israeli targets near Hebron, including opening fire near the Ethna-Tarqumiya intersection on 26 April 2004, i.e. exactly six years prior to yesterday’s killing of Swaiti. The said attack resulted in the death of an Israeli soldier and the injury of two others.

PCHR reiterates its condemnation of such acts and:

1. Confirms that this act constitutes part of a pattern of Israeli war crimes perpetrated in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), which reflect Israeli occupation forces disregard for the lives of Palestinians and for the requirements of international law.

2. Reiterates its condemnation of the illegal policy of extrajudicial executions carried out by IOF against Palestinian activists. It also confirms that this policy raises tension in the area and increases the likelihood of civilian victims among the Palestinian population.

3. Calls upon the international community to immediately intervene to stop these crimes which constitute violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

4. Calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to fulfill their obligations under Article 1 of the Convention to ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances, and their obligation under Article 146 to search for and prosecute those responsible for committing grave breaches of the Convention. PCHR also calls on the High Contracting Parties to uphold their responsibilities as signatories to the protocol Additional to the Convention, such as breaches, which constitute war crimes according to Article 147 of the convention.

3,000 European Jewish intellectuals urge end to Israeli settlements: Haaretz

A new leftist European Jewish group, JCall, has written a letter to be delivered Sunday to the European Parliament calling for a cessation of what it calls systematic support for Israeli government decisions.
JCall, which describes itself as “the European J Street” and is to be officially launched Sunday with the presentation of the letter, has raised a storm with its call to stop construction in West Bank settlements and East Jerusalem.
The letter is signed by some 3,000 Jewish intellectuals, among them philosophers Bernard Henri-Levy and Alain Finkielkraut, considered some of Israel’s strongest defenders among French intellectuals. Signatories also include Daniel Cohn-Bendit, leader of the student protests in the 1960s and now a member of the European Parliament, as well as other Jewish members of the European Parliament.

The letter calls occupation and settlements “morally and politically wrong,” noting that they “feed the unacceptable delegitimization process that Israel currently faces abroad.”
According to Prof. Zeev Sternhell, “The French Jewish left has decided that the official institutions do not represent most French Jews, and following the example of J Street, have decided that the time has come to do the same thing in Europe.” He supports the letter but hasn’t signed it.

Richard Prasquier, the chairman of CRIF, the committee representing French Jewish organizations, harshly criticized the document, saying that the petition will serve Israel’s enemies.
The document calls on the European Union and the United States to pressure both parties “and help them achieve a reasonable and rapid solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.”
It says that systematic support of Israeli government policy is dangerous.

Meanwhile, Israel has repeatedly protested that the PA is using money from donor countries to promote a ban on products from the settlements.
A second meeting of the Knesset Economics Committee on the matter is to take place today. In the first meeting, Foreign Ministry official Yael Rabia-Tzadok told the MKs that the campaign to confiscate goods manufactured in settlements has moved ahead since the new economics minister in the PA government has taken office, Hassan Abu-Labda. She said PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad supports the campaign

Volvo equipment: Israel’s weapons to destroy al-Walaja homes: The Electronic Intifada

Adri Nieuwhof, 29 April 2010

On 16 April, approximately 100 Palestinian villagers and internationals walked towards the construction site of Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank village of al-Walaja, four kilometers northwest of Bethlehem. When the protesters were leaving the village, four Israeli army jeeps and one police vehicle entered and surrounded a Palestinian home. At least 40 persons, including women and children, were trapped for two hours.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces raided several other homes, detaining three young men for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli forces. During the raids al-Walaja was closed off, and soldiers prevented the media from entering the area.

Six days later, Israeli bulldozers were working full speed deeper inside the village’s lands, leaving destruction in their wake. Ma’an news agency reported that border guards and soldiers had imposed a curfew early in the morning. A cameraman was denied entry to the village by the army, according to representatives of the village’s Popular Committee.

The following day approximately 200 villagers, together with a few internationals, came together for yet another demonstration. They walked from the mosque, which has an Israeli-imposed demolition order against it, to the lands which were bulldozed the previous day. Standing on the bulldozed lands, representatives of the village held speeches calling for more demonstrations. Youths used boulders to block the road used by the Israeli bulldozer operators.

A day later, approximately 50 Palestinians and internationals managed to stop the work of the bulldozers for several hours. The Israeli soldiers had to violently drag the villagers away one by one.

History of injustices
The residents of al-Walaja have protested the confiscation and demolition of their property for many years. The Israeli settlements of Har Gilo and Gilo, established in the 1970s, are built on land confiscated from the village. While Israeli forces try to silence the protesters with harsh measures, Volvo and Caterpillar equipment is used by the Israeli forces in the illegal construction of the wall on the village’s land.

The old village of al-Walaja was occupied and destroyed by Zionist forces in October 1948 and its 1,200 Palestinian residents expelled. The 1948 Armistice line passed through the southern lands of the village and while most of the villagers fled to Jordan and Bethlehem, some villagers stayed on the lands of the village that were unoccupied at the time and eventually rebuilt a new town.

The remains of the old village of al-Walaja are two kilometers outside the new town, on the western side of the armistice line between Israel and the West Bank. According to Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi, a few stone houses still stand on the old village site. Today the old village of al-Walaja is used by Israeli settlers for picnicking and bathing.

Following the June 1967 war, Israel annexed the rest of al-Walaja’s lands, bringing them under the authority of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality. The villagers did not receive the right to live in Jerusalem, however, and they live under constant threat of expulsion. And while the villagers of al-Walaja are not allowed to build on their own lands, the settlement of Har Gilo is expanding.

After the Oslo accords of 1993, al-Walaja was designated “Area C,” giving Israel full military and administrative control. As a consequence, villagers who want to build a house on their own land have to ask permission from Israel. Israel denied 94 percent of the building permit requests of Palestinians in Area C of the West Bank from 2000 to 2007, according to Peace Now.

Villagers are facing increased pressure from the Israeli occupation forces to leave their land. The wall which is currently under construction will surround the village from all sides, isolating the villagers completely from their land, East Jerusalem and the old village.

Volvo equipment destroying homes
At the end of the 1980s Israel started to demolish Palestinian homes in al-Walaja and residents had to pay fines for their “illegally”-built homes. Since the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, Israeli forces demolished more than 24 houses in the village, according to the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem.

On 18 March two house owners in al-Walaja found military orders in Hebrew on the front doors of their homes. The orders concern the demolition of the two houses because they are located too close to the path along which the wall will be built. The following day, volunteers from the Stop the Wall Campaign, the YMCA and other international volunteers gathered with the owners of the houses under demolition in order to show their solidarity.

ActiveStills photographer Anne Paq witnessed Volvo equipment being used to destroy a home in the nearby village of al-Khader. Two days earlier she had taken pictures of Volvo and Caterpillar equipment working between the road and the fence of Har Gilo settlement, just a few meters away from Palestinian houses in al-Walaja. There was an Israeli police car parked next to the works. When Paq asked what they were building, they refused to answer.

Two years ago The Electronic Intifada first reported the use of Volvo equipment in Israel’s violations of international law in the occupied West Bank. So far the company has taken no action to investigate the use of its equipment in Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.
Volvo Group’s vice president of media relations and corporate news, Marten Wikforss, wrote in response to The Electronic Intifada’s report: “we do not have any control over the use of our products, other than to affirm in our business activities a Code of Conduct that decries unethical behavior.”

While the villagers of al-Walaja steadfastly continue their protest against the construction of the wall, the confiscation of their land and the destruction of their property, Israeli forces are increasing the oppression. Some houses have been rebuilt three or four times. Director of the Joint Advocacy Initiative of the East Jerusalem YMCA and YWCA, Nidal Abu Zuluf, explained: “Israel’s current repressive policies aim to prevent acts of popular resistance. They don’t want the media and internationals to be around.”
Perhaps neither does Volvo, as its equipment continues to be photographed destroying Palestinian homes and violating Palestinian rights.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

Continue reading May 2, 2010

Nasrallah: Israel should be wary of war against Lebanon: Haaretz

Israel would be taking a big risk if it decided to open war on Lebanon or on any of the other countries in the Middle East, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday, advising Israeli politicians and generals to stay cautious regarding such a possibility.
Speaking to a Kuwait-based news channel, Nasrallah, referring to recent tensions between Israel and its neighbors to the north, said that “any war started by Israel against Lebanon or anywhere in the region would be taking a very dangerous risk on its part.”
“That kind of war would change every parameter in the Middle East,” the Hezbollah chief said, adding that his organization was not “frightened by the threat or by Israel’s psychological warfare.”
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The Hezbollah added that he knew that “Israeli politicians and generals, past and present, are very worried and very cautious and we would like them to stay that way,” saying that “the blood of Imad Mughniyeh would haunt them everywhere.”
The militant organization has vowed vengeance against Israel ever since Mughniyeh’s 2008 assassination, which it blames on Israel.
“I cannot say that it is close. Myself and brothers in Hezbollah see that all this intimidation does not hide behind it a war. On the contrary, if there was silence and quietness, then everyone must be vigilant,” Nasrallah said.

“But when you see all this American and Israeli noise, this means they want to use this noise to achieve political, psychological and certain security advantages without resorting to the step of war,” Nasrallah added.
Referring to an alleged long-range surface-to-surface- missile deal, reported by Israel to have taken place between Syria and Hezbollah, Nasrallah said that the “Israeli allegations on the transfer of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah, in spite of Syrian denials and the quiet from the organization only strengthens Lebanon’s confidence in itself and in the ability of the resistance to defend Lebanon.”

“My comments from a month ago speaking of how we will reach anywhere in Israel are supported in the eyes of the Lebanese and Arab peoples when Israel and the United States discuss the transfer of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah,” Nasrallah said.
On whether such a deal took place, the Hezbollah leader said: “Today it’s Scuds, yesterday other kinds of rockets … the aim is one, and that is to intimidate Lebanon, to intimidate Syria and to put pressure on Lebanon, Syria, the resistance movement and the Lebanese and Syrian people,” Nasrallah said.
“Regardless of whether Syria gave Hezbollah this type of rockets … of course Syria denied, and Hezbollah as usual does not comment.

Four Palestinians die in Gaza-Egypt ‘tunnel collapse’: BBC

The tunnels provide a lifeline for those living in the impoverished Gaza Strip
Four Palestinians have died in a smuggling tunnel under Egypt’s border with the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical officials say.
The men died because of an explosion near the Egyptian side, the head of emergency services in Gaza said.
Some Gazans accuse Egypt of using dynamite and pumping gas into the tunnels to end Palestinian attempts to beat the Israeli-Egyptian blockade.
However, flammable items such as petrol are frequently transported underground.
Hamas, the Islamist movement that controls Gaza, accused Egypt of “spraying poison gas” into the tunnel.
Egyptian security officials have denied the allegation they used poison gas.
An unnamed security source told the Associated Press that Egypt routinely blows up the mouths to the tunnels to seal them off, and that the blast and an ensuing fire could quickly use up all the oxygen in the confined space causing people caught inside to suffocate.
French news agency AFP quoted unnamed officials as saying Egyptian security forces had destroyed four tunnels but were unaware of any casualties.
Egypt is building a huge underground barrier along the Gaza border to stop smuggling.
The structure – made of bomb-proof steel – will be 10-11km (6-7 miles) long and extend 18m (59ft) below the surface.
Under the blockade, Israel allows only limited humanitarian goods into the strip, saying it wants to pressure Hamas and stop it smuggling in weapons, including the some of the rockets that Gaza militants fire into southern Israel.
The tunnels are used to smuggle in arms, fuel and goods from Egypt, but cave-ins are frequent.
Egypt keeps its pedestrian border crossing with the Gaza Strip closed most of the time.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian man died after being shot during a protest near Gaza’s border with Israel.
Palestinian medics said Ahmed Salim, 20, died after being shot by Israeli forces in the thigh.
The Israeli military said live rounds were fired as “warning shots” in response to a “riot”, where about 50 Palestinians were throwing stones and starting fires.
It said the incident had taken place 50m from the border fence with Israel, but that it considers the area 300m from the fence to be a “combat zone”.
Adie Mormech, an activist with the International Solidarity Movement group, said that although stones were being thrown, none reached the fence, and there was no warning fire before the shot that hit Mr Salim.
Palestinian and international demonstrators have increased protest activity in the buffer zone in recent months. Israel maintains a policy of firing at anyone present in the area.
Israel says the zone is necessary for security, as militants frequently approach the fence to try to plant explosives and attack Israeli forces.
But Palestinians complain that the buffer zone renders swathes of agricultural land unusable.

Lieberman: Proximity talks to resume in 2 weeks: Haaretz Service

Proximity talks, geared at renewing negotiations toward a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, are expected to launch within two weeks, Army Radio quoted Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as saying on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters, Lieberman added, however, that he was skeptical of the Palestinians’ willingness to engage in peace talks, saying it was “unreasonable” to talk peace while perpetuating terror through naming squares after blood-thirsty terrorists.
Earlier Thursday, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom also voiced his belief that Israel and the Palestinians were nearing renewed negotiations, saying he felt “it was time to stop letting the United States doing the Palestinians’ work for them.”
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“It’s time that [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] decides to sit with Israel and conduct real negotiations,” Shalom said, adding that “Jerusalem is out of any talks and is Israel’s eternal capital.”
Referring to the possibly of a flare up between Israel and Lebanon, Lieberman told reporters Thursday that Israel would not attack its neighbor to the north despite recent reports alleging that Hezbollah had received long-range Scud surface-to-surface missiles from Syria.
“Israel has no intention to create a provocation or engage in irrational acts,” Lieberman said

One Laptop Per Child reaches Gaza Strip: BBC

The laptops are designed for use by children in the developing world
The UN in the Gaza Strip has begun distributing thousands of laptop computers to children in its schools.
The rugged laptops are made by the non-profit organisation One Laptop Per Child, which aims to give a computer to every child in the developing world.
One Laptop Per Child say computers are a good way of improving the education of children living in poverty.
Humanitarian conditions have deteriorated in the Gaza Strip in the last three years, the UN says.
Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade on Gaza, which was tightened in 2007 after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip, and all but humanitarian supplies are prevented from entering.
Unrwa, the UN agency for refugees, began distributing 2,100 laptops on Thursday in Rafah, a town in the south of the strip.
This is part of a wider ambitions to distribute 500,000 laptops to children in Gaza by 2012.
Connected
One Laptop Per Child has built the energy efficient XO laptop especially for children in developing countries.
“The XO laptop has a special place in children’s education in regions that are disrupted by ongoing violence,” said Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the organisation.
“With the XO the children can continue to stay connected and gain the skills and knowledge required to participate fully and thrive in the 21st century – even when getting to school is impossible.”
The UN agency which looks after Palestinian refugees, UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides housing, health services, education and emergency food supplies to more than four million refugees in five countries.
The computers are to be loaded with textbooks and teaching aids that cover the primary school curriculum, a statement from UNWRA said.

EDITOR: New Recruit for the One-State Solution

A rather unexpected recruit to the camp of the One-State argument… but an interesting admission that the Two-state solution requires to relinquish the Occupied Territories of Palestine!

Israel official: Accepting Palestinians into Israel better than two states: Haaretz

Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Thursday that he would rather accept Palestinians as Israeli citizens than divide Israel and the West Bank in a future two-state peace solution.

Speaking during a meeting with Greece’s ambassador to Israel Kyriakos Loukakis, Rivlin said that he did not see any point of Israel signing a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority as he did not believe PA President Mahmoud Abbas “could deliver the goods.”
Referring to the possibility that such an agreement could be reached, Rivlin said: “I would rather Palestinians as citizens of this country over dividing the land up.”
Late last year, Rivlin said in a Jerusalem address that Israel’s Arab population was “an inseparable part of this country. It is a group with a highly defined shared national identity, and which will forever be, as a collective, an important and integral part of Israeli society.”

In a speech given in the president’s residence, the Knesset speaker called for a fundamental change in relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, urging the foundation of a “true partnership” between the two sectors, based on mutual respect, absolute equality and the addressing of “the special needs and unique character of each of the sides.”

Rivlin also said that “the establishment of Israel was accompanied by much pain and suffering and a real trauma for the Palestinians,” adding that “many of Israel’s Arabs, which see themselves as part of the Palestinian population, feel the pain of their brothers across the green line – a pain they feel the state of Israel is responsible for.”
“Many of them,” Rivlin says, “encounter racism and arrogance from Israel’s Jews; the inequality in the allocation of state funds also does not contribute to any extra love.”

EDITOR: The New Antisemitism

In the age-old  antisemitic tradition, the settlers are out on a pogrom against Palestinians every time they feel tetchy. No one seems to be able or willing to stop them, of course, and no one is ever prosecuted for the hundreds of local pogroms against Palestinian villages and towns. The only Jewish Democracy is only democratic for Jews, of course.

Israeli border police unit to tackle settler violence: BBC

Cars have been burned and a mosque vandalised in the north West Bank
Israel’s border police are to post a special task force in the northern West Bank to stop settler violence against Palestinians, the military says.
It said the decision followed what the military dubbed a “riot” by settlers in the area last week.
The force was to prevent “retributional violence” by settlers against Palestinians and to prevent damage to property, the military said.
Palestinians mosques, cars and trees were recently attacked in the area.
The decision to deploy the new task force “was made due to violent confrontations during Independence Day,” the Israeli military said.
Last Tuesday, the military called “intolerable” an incident in which it said about 100 settlers threw rocks and attacked soldiers as they tried to stop the settlers entering a Palestinian village.
One soldier was injured in the face by a thrown bottle.

Residents of the nearby settlement of Yitzhar were quoted by Israeli media as saying the soldiers harassed them as they tried to visit the area.
The previous week a mosque was vandalised with Jewish grafitti, cars were burned and olive trees uprooted in the village of Hawarra, also near Yitzhar settlement.
Some hard-line settlers advocate a “price tag” policy under which they attack Palestinians in retaliation for any Israeli government measure they see as threatening Jewish settlements.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to limit building in the settlements for 10-months to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians has angered many in the settler movement.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements.
There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Israel’s military has dubbed as “intolerable” what it described as a “riot” by settlers in the West Bank.
The military said about 100 settlers threw rocks and attacked soldiers as they tried to stop the settlers entering a Palestinian village.
One soldier was injured in the face by a thrown bottle.
Residents of the settlement of Yitzhar were quoted by Israeli media as saying the soldiers harrassed them as they tried to visit the area.
Israeli citizens from the area of Yitzhar tried to enter the nearby village of Madma in the northern West Bank on Tuesday evening, the military said in a statement.
Soldiers tried to set up a military zone, but more settlers arrived and pelted them with rocks, it said.
“Violence and raising hands up against IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers is crossing the line in an intolerable manner,” the statement said.
The incident occurred on Israel’s independence day, which the military said made it “all the more serious”.
Settlers quoted by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the military had been trying to prevent them from hiking in the area all day, and that a soldier had fired in the air during the confrontation – a charge the military denied.
‘Spate of attacks’
Last week a mosque was vandalised with Jewish grafitti, cars were burned and olive trees uprooted in the village of Hawarra, also near Yitzhar settlement.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat condemned what he described as a recent spate of attacks on Palestinian property by settlers.
He said Israeli state policy had given rise to “a culture of violence, hatred and extremism in which Israeli settlers, often accompanied by Israeli soldiers, run riot across the West Bank”.
Israeli rights groups say the military often does not do enough to prevent attacks on Palestinians and their property.
Some hard-line settlers advocate a “price tag” policy under which they attack Palestinians in retaliation for any Israeli government measure they see as threatening Jewish settlements.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to limit building in the settlements for 10-months to help restart peace talks with the Palestinians has angered many in the settler movement.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967, settling close to 500,000 Jews in more than 100 settlements.
There are about 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.

Continue reading April 30, 2010

EDITOR: What they think in the Israeli Defence Ministry

Just read the following comment in Haaretz from a former Defence Ministry Adviser – see at bottom of this piece what his area of responsibility was…

Gaza is the fuel for Muslim world’s anti-Israel struggle: Haaretz

By Haggai Alon
The events of the past few days have created two illusions. One is that Israel and the United States are equal; the other is that the problem is Jerusalem. These illusions are dangerous for Israel, in that they create a dangerous diplomatic perception and self-image.

The United States is a superpower; it is doubtful whether Israel is even a regional power. And the problem is not Jerusalem, or even the holy places, but Gaza. Finally, it is in Israel’s best interest that the Quartet’s decision to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years not be implemented unilaterally.

Gaza is Israel’s big problem. Because of the political, security and civic failure of the disengagement, the road to a solution of the problem of Gaza runs through Ramallah and Jerusalem. In Ramallah, it is in the hands of one man – Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s government refuses to accept that fact. So Abbas is preparing a surprise for it in the form of a “no-partner” declaration.

American bayonets will not bring Abbas back to Gaza, and the Israel Defense Forces certainly will not. He will resume ruling in Gaza – just as he proved, to the chagrin of many in the defense establishment, that he could in the West Bank – on the shoulders of the Arab world, and perhaps also of a joint NATO-Arab force. Such a force would first establish itself in the West Bank, after the IDF evacuates that territory, and at the border crossings with Jordan in the Jordan Valley.

In this way, without negotiation and without the need to explain why there are no negotiations, Abbas could dispel the charges that he is a “pet Palestinian” and get around his domestic problem with his prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

Gaza is the fuel for the anti-Israel struggle. It is the symbol of that struggle throughout the Arab and Muslim world, even among those who live in Western countries. And it is up to us to uproot the anti-Israel cells the flourish there. Gaza’s hunger is the fuel of the struggle. We must dry up this fuel. It is not a tool for getting Gilad Shalit back, or for toppling Hamas.

Perhaps we acted like a responsible power in Haiti, and we deserve praise for that. But in the Middle East, it would be best for us to simply behave as a responsible country. For its own security, and to protect its own interests, Israel must seek negotiations that will deal with the issues of borders and security as a single unit, with the involvement of a multilateral Arab military force and with major involvement by NATO.

Not so long ago, such a formula would have drawn disparagement from the security establishment and even accusations of “internationalizing” the conflict – that is, forfeiting Israel’s security. When senior reserve officers raised the idea of such a force as part of a solution to the problem of Gaza’s northern border, both during the serious clashes that preceded the disengagement and thereafter, they received chilly telephone calls from “the establishment.” Meanwhile, the American force in Sinai was ignored, as was the high quality of the UN force on the Syrian border, and the fact that while the IDF is not satisfied with UNIFIL’s performance in Lebanon in the wake of UN Resolution 1701, no one has come up with a better solution.

The defense establishment is beginning to understand that it is better to redeploy. We need the world, including the Arab world. Several think tanks are thoroughly studying the insertion of a force of this type.

The road to the Arab world will require Israel to treat itself like a country that is not a world power and not one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, but rather a regional or a local power. It was that road that led to Israel’s previous victories. We must not give it up. We are getting closer to a situation in which if we do not act, Abbas will invoke his no-partner thesis.

The writer was a political adviser in the Defense Ministry, responsible for the Palestinians’ “fabric of life”

Gilad Shalit video from Hamas pushes for release deal: Haaretz

Israel condemns animated clip depicting father of captured soldier waiting in vain for his release
Hamas has produced an unusually sophisticated animated film apparently pressing for a deal that would bring about the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured near Gaza nearly four years ago.

The Israeli government reacted angrily to the film, describing it as “deplorable” and blamed Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement, for the failure to agree a deal for the release of Shalit, who was captured in June 2006. He is alive and believed to be held somewhere in Gaza.

The three-minute film depicts Shalit’s father, Noam, walking empty streets clutching a photograph of his captured son. He passes advertising hoardings that show several Israeli leaders promising to arrange Shalit’s release and then finds a newspaper discarded in a rubbish bin showing on its front page a $50m reward for information on his son’s case.

As time passes without his son’s release Shalit’s father grows old, with a beard and a cane. Eventually the soldier is returned, delivered in a coffin draped in the Israeli flag at the Erez checkpoint at the entrance to Gaza. Shalit’s father then wakes up from his dream to find himself sitting at a bus stop. The words “There is still hope” appear in Hebrew and English.

It is the latest product of an increasingly sophisticated Hamas media operation, including a movie studio of sorts on the site of a former Jewish settlement in Gaza.

The animation was broadcast on Israeli television to an audience that is by now familiar with Noam Shalit, the dignified father who has long campaigned for his son’s release and has urged both Israel and Hamas to make a deal.

In a statement, Noam Shalit dismissed the film as “psychological warfare”.

“Hamas leaders would do better if instead of producing films and performances, they would worry about the real interests of the Palestinian prisoners and the ordinary citizens of Gaza who have been held hostage by their leaders for a long time,” he said.

A deal between Israel and Hamas, negotiated by German intelligence officials, appeared close at the end of last year but fell through at the last minute. Each side blamed the other. Hamas was to release Shalit and in return Israel would free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. About 6,600 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails, more than 200 of them without charge.

Shalit was last seen in a video released by his captors in October. He appeared tired but unhurt.

Last week the Israeli authorities allowed the daughter of a Hamas interior minister, Fathi Hamad, to leave Gaza through Israel to reach a hospital in Jordan for urgent medical treatment. She was allowed out reportedly after the intervention of the Jordanian monarch, King Abdullah.

In a separate incident on Sunday night Israeli troops killed a Hamas militant in Hebron on the occupied West Bank. Ali Swaiti was suspected of shooting dead an Israeli border policeman in 2004. The Israeli military said Swaiti was killed when he refused to surrender.

Why does the IDF allow officers to live in illegal outposts?: Haaretz

By Akiva Eldar
The death of Maj. Eliraz Peretz, who was killed in an action in an operation in the Gaza Strip, brought the Givat Hayovel saga back into the spotlight.

As in the story of the heroism of his neighbor in the illegal outpost in the settlement of Eli, Roi Klein, who was killed in the Second Lebanon War while saving his troops, his settler friends and his patrons on the right have enlisted the Peretz family’s tragedy in the fight to save his widow’s home from demolition.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak was required to inform the High Court of Justice by May 1 of last year about when he intends to demolish the houses in the outpost (which Palestinians claim is built on private land). He has now announced he will ask the court to postpone the execution of the order.
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, the officers’ supreme commander, has also promised to lend a hand. Even the left-wing Peace Now movement has evinced the appropriate sensitivity and has agreed to cooperate.

Strangely, in all this no one has wondered how it is possible that the IDF, the body charged with imposing the law on the West Bank, never lifted a finger against its officers who settled in an illegal outpost in the first place.

Moreover, how can an officer in the career army who breaks the law and ignores a court order serve as a model for his soldiers? How should a private deal with an order to evacuate an illegal outpost from a colonel who has made his home in a similar community? And what can anyone expect of an officer who is squatting on property when his commander, who is himself a squatter, orders him to evacuate his own home?

After it emerged that dozens of career army officers are living in outposts, I sent these questions to the military spokesman. I wanted to know what the army’s policy is with regard to officers who are living in outposts.

After a thorough clarification, according to the spokesman, with the Military Advocate General’s Office, he sent the following response:

“In the unapproved outposts, for many years now thousands of citizens have been living, among them state employees including army people. As of today, to the best of our knowledge, there exists no general policy concerning state employees, including military people, living in the outposts.”

Obviously the absence of a policy means a policy of tacit agreement. When they are in uniform, the officers are charged with enforcing the law. When they take off their uniforms, they are breaking the law.

The military prosecutor’s acceptance of this phenomenon shows something about the special relations that have developed in recent years between the cat and the cream.

Prof. Mordechai Kremnitzer, a specialist on military and constitutional law, was also surprised to hear the IDF’s response. The absence of a policy with respect to officers living in illegal outposts, he said, is blatantly unreasonable and also encourages the phenomenon.

“The IDF is the sovereign and charged with enforcing the law in the territories,” explained Kremnitzer, who in the past was a military judge. “Therefore, the army must have an unambiguous policy against breaking the law in those territories.”

According to him, it is impossible to be a member of an organization responsible for the rule of law and to break the law without that having a negative effect on the organization’s status. Kremnitzer says the IDF has a clear policy concerning members’ conduct even when they are not in uniform.

The Civil Administration has responded that none of their people live in an outpost and they do not accept lawbreakers into their ranks.

Four years ago the police investigations department summoned a police officer who had built a house in the Mitzpeh Yair outpost in the southern Hebron Hills. After it was made clear to him that he had to decide on which side of the law he chose to stand, the officer called a moving company.

A police spokesman said that in the wake of this, a policy was established to the effect that a lawman cannot live in an illegal outpost.

The Shin Bet, which is also charged with enforcing the law and security in the territories, told Haaretz that it is not their intention to answer the question of their policy with regard to their people settling in outposts.

How much do they really love Zion?

Before Independence Day, the Emek Yezreel College commissioned a survey of the attitude of young Jewish Israelis (Hebrew-speakers aged 20 to 30) toward the national anthem, “Hatikvah.”

A large majority (82 percent) reported they know how to recite the anthem in full. Another 17 percent said they know just part of it and about only 1 percent admitted they don’t know the words to the national anthem at all.

A larger majority (85 percent) said the anthem represents them to large or very large extent.

Prominent among those who said the anthem does not represent them were people with low incomes (8 percent) and religious respondents (11 percent), as compared to 2 to 3 percent among people with average and high incomes and 1 percent among people who define themselves as traditional.

The vast majority of the respondents are interested in keeping the national anthem as it is; only 14 percent would prefer to replace it or modify it.

The initiator of the survey, Dr. Ruth Amir, head of the interdisciplinary studies department at the college, asked the Teleseker company to examine the percentage of Israelis who would be prepared to leave the country and move to the United States to live if they were able to obtain a residence visa quickly and easily.

The finding revealed a considerable gap between the “yearning Jewish soul” in the anthem and the desire for a green card. No less than 60 percent at all income levels responded in that they would take off if given the chance.

The title Amir chose for her study: “I love you, homeland, but I want to leave.”