Documents & Data
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| Title | | Description | Date |
| Mr. Burg, in you I see a partner | | Ahmed Alnaouq - Mondoweiss - I woke up to news earlier this month
that I had to read several times because I was not sure at first if I
was understanding it correctly: You had announced your plan to submit
an affidavit to the Jerusalem District Court, renouncing your
registration as a Jew with Israel’s Interior Ministry. In your
statement, you said your conscience does not allow you to be
classified as a member of a Jewish nation, because it implies
“belonging to the group of the masters.” This is a bold, courageous
and risky action for any Israeli. But you are not just any Israeli:
You chaired the Jewish Agency (1995-1999), were speaker of the 15th
Knesset (1999-2003), and served as Israel’s acting president between
the resignation of Ezer Weizman and the election of Moshe Katsav to
that post. As a writer for Haaretz said, “No resumé could be more
Zionist and Jewish.” I don’t need to live in Israel or to be Jewish
to understand the degree of criticism you now face. And as a
Palestinian who grew up under the thumb of my Israeli “masters,” and
whose oldest brother was killed by an Israeli missile, I want to say
thank you. If a just, peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and
Jewish Israelis is ever possible, it will be because of leaders like
you. (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| Israel threatens U.S. Israelis Say They’ll Attack Iran If US Eases Sanctions | | Arie Egozi - Information Clearing House - Israel has said openly
that it will attack Iran if the U.S eases sanctions against the
Shiite regime and agrees to go back to the nuclear agreement the
Jewish state claims is “the biggest hoax in recent history.” “Israel
needs to know — and fast — whether Washington plans to stop Iran’s
race to the bomb or take some action to do this,” a source told BD.
Israeli intelligence is closely watching the Iranian nuclear
facilities. “The people who need to know are updated by the hour” the
source said. Israel allegedly attacked another Iranian target in
Syria on Jan 21 and such attacks are likely to continue. “This
pressure will continue and grow, as a preparation for a direct attack
on targets in Iran,” the Israeli source here added. Ministers of the
Likud Party said earlier this week that the new US administration
must not “appease” Iran, and warned Tehran that the Jewish state will
not tolerate its military presence in Syria or accept its plans to
build a nuclear bomb One of the more direct warnings came from Likud
minister Tzachi Hanegbi , part of Bibi Netanyahu’s inner circle. He
said Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear program if the United States
rejoined the nuclear deal. (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| B’Tselem casts Israel as a racist endeavor, correcting the ethical grammar of Israel/Palestine | | ROBERT A.H. COHEN - Mondoweiss - B’Tselem’s new report describing all
of Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories as a single
‘apartheid’ regime will have widespread and long-term implications.
Not only does it change the acceptable vocabulary on
Israel/Palestine, it also alters the ethical grammar which has
created and sustained an injustice now in its eighth decade. How we
speak and what we can say will shape the future politics of this
conflict and change the ethical framework through which solutions are
found and implemented. In short, language matters. The use of the
word ‘apartheid’ will challenge Jewish intuitional thinking around
the world (whether those institutions publically acknowledged it or
not) and cause dilemmas across the entire spectrum of Zionist support
(Jewish and non-Jewish) from hawks to liberals to progressives. It
also has the potential to shift global media reporting on Israel;
undermine the adoption of the contentious IHRA definition of
antisemitism; and give the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
(BDS) a welcome boost of legitimacy. (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| Netanyahu Keeps Trying to Evade Prosecution, Like Some Criminal on the Lam | | Haaretz Editorial - Benjamin Netanyahu is continuing his efforts to
evade prosecution, as if he was not the prime minister but some
criminal on the lam. He’s activating his attorneys endlessly, trying
to exhaust the court and delay the hearings in his case. Netanyahu is
doing this to buy time, until he can arrange an escape route with the
help of the Knesset – a privilege no ordinary citizen gets, and which
reeks of corruption. (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| EU calls for immediate release of Palestinian child Amal Nakhleh | | Palestine News and Info Agency - The European Union called today upon
the Israeli occupation authorities to immediately release Palestinian
child detainee Amal Nakhleh, 17-years-old. "We echo the UN Human
Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory in calling for
the immediate release of 17-year old Amal Nakhleh. Amal was sentenced
by an Israeli military court for six months of administrative
detention without charges or trial," said the European Union in a
statement. The European Union has expressed its "long-standing
concerns about the extensive use by Israel of administrative
detention without formal charges," and called on Israel "to respect
its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to
which it is a state party." Israeli occupation forces arrested
Nakhleh from his home in Ramallah, center of the West Bank, on
January 21, 2021, and placed him under administrative detention,
without official charges or trial, for six months. He is suffering
from an autoimmune disease that requires regular medication and
medical attention. (rh)
| 31/1/2021 |
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| ‘Nobody’s Free Until Everybody’s Free’: On Extending the Holocaust Day of Remembrance | | Benay Blend - Palestine Chronicle - In a speech entitled “Nobody’s
Free Until Everybody’s Free” (1971), Fannie Lou Hamer told the
National Women’s Political Caucus that black and white women had to
work together in order to achieve freedom for all. She also talked
about issues that are still relevant today, including malnutrition in
Mississippi and the drug pandemic consuming the nation’s youth.
“Now, we’ve got to have some changes in this country,” she told the
group. “And not only changes for the black man, and only changes for
the black woman, but the changes we have to have in this country are
going to be for the liberation of all people–because nobody’s free
until everybody’s free.” (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| The West`s Greed Could Come Back To Haunt It | | Laura Höflinger, Katrin Kuntz und Fritz Schaap - Spiegel
International - A global initiative was launched to ensure that
poorer countries would also have fair access to vaccines for the
coronavirus once they were developed. Instead, the West is panic-
buying the available stocks – and that could be devastating, A week
before Christmas, Canada had a gift for the world: a few million
doses of the most coveted substance money can buy right now. The
country is planning to donate surplus vaccine supplies to poorer
nations that are at risk of being left empty-handed in the race to
distribute the vaccine, a government representative said in a video
call.politically, economically and in terms of human lives.//The mood
was hopeful. Britain had just launched its vaccination program. The
end of the pandemic seemed to be within reach.Then a journalist asked
if Canada, which has secured more vaccine per capita than any other
country in the world, planned to deliver those doses immediately. Or
would it first do so after a large percentage of Canadians have been
immunized? At what point would the country be willing to give up some
of its abundance of vaccine? The representative paused. People have
to understand, she said hesitantly, that we are experiencing
extraordinary times. She didn’t want to commit herself to a timeline.
It sent a clear message, especially to poorer countries. And it
contained two warnings. First: Wealthy nations like Canada are
perfectly willing to share their vaccines, but on terms set by the
rich. Second: Once again, it might not be the people who most
urgently need a remedy who get it first, but rather those who are
willing to pay the most for it.(rh)
It sent a clear message, especially to poorer countries. And it
contained two warnings. First: Wealthy nations like Canada are
perfectly willing to share their vaccines, but on terms set by the
rich. Second: Once again, it might not be the people who most
urgently need a remedy who get it first, but rather those who are
willing to pay the most for it. | 31/1/2021 |
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| Imprisoned Palestinian Leader Barghouti to Run for President in Upcoming Elections | | Khaled Abu Toameh - Palestine Chronicle - Hatem Abdel Qader, a senior
official in the Fatah Party, told The New Arab’s Arabic language
service Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Barghouti will run for Palestinian
president from an Israeli prison. Fatah officials: Jailed Fatah
leader Marwan Barghouti, 61, will run against President Mahmoud
Abbas, 85, in the presidential election on July 31. Abdel Qader
believes that Barghouti “will constitute a strong competitor to any
other candidate competing for this position, because of the
appreciation, respect and acceptance he enjoys among a wide sector of
the Fatah movement and, the general Palestinian public and other
political factions”. Qader said that opinion polls appear to be on
Barghouti’s side and that he stands a good chance of winning if
current President Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidency expired in 2009,
makes the unlikely decision to abstain from running for parliament.
In 2017, Barghouti led the largest prisoners’ hunger strike in
Palestinian history and is regarded as a hero among the general
public. (rh)
| 31/1/2021 |
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| Israel`s fake lockdown will end in disaster | | Sarit Rosenblum - Ynetnews - People have realized the government doesn`t
care whether they comply with health restrictions or not, and while many
have found ways of tricking the system and using back doors to conduct
business as usual, we will all pay the price in the end (rh) | 31/1/2021 |
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| All Foreseen and Not Prevented: Spike in settler violence backed and encouraged by state | | B`Tselem press release - Since 16-year-old Israeli Ahuvia Sandak died during a police chase near the settlement of Kochav Hashachar on 21 December 2020, the number of violent settler attacks against Palestinians has sharply risen throughout the West Bank. Over the course of five weeks, from 21 December 2020 to 24 January 2021, B’Tselem field researchers documented 49 incidents of this kind (not counting protest marches or roadblocks in which settlers did not throw stones). Twenty-eight involved physical assaults: 19 cases in which settlers threw stones at passing vehicles; three cases of shooting; and six attacks of other kinds. In the other incidents, settlers vandalized Palestinian property, damaged crops and attacked homes. In at least 26 of these cases Israeli security forces were present at the time of the attack. Instead of arresting the assailants, in five cases they attacked the Palestinians, firing rubber-coated metal bullets or tear gas canisters at them and injuring two. [bz] | 28/1/2021 |
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| Israel to rein in rights groups over use of ‘apartheid state’ : Education minister says groups calling country ‘apartheid state’ will be banned from lecturing at schools. | | Aljazeera- On Monday, the group said it would not be deterred by the
announcement and that it gave a virtual lecture on the subject to a
school in the northern city of Haifa. “B’Tselem is determined to keep
with its mission of documenting reality, analyzing it, and making our
findings publicly known to the Israeli public, and worldwide,” the
group said in a statement sent to Al Jazeera.//“Education minister …
while ordering schools to ban B’Tselem, claims that he is against
‘lies’ and for a ‘Jewish and democratic’ Israel. But it is Minister
Galant who is lying, as Israel cannot be considered a democracy, for
it works to advance and perpetuate the supremacy of one group of
people, Jews, over another, Palestinians, within a single, bi-
national polity,” the statement read.“This is Israel’s apartheid
regime. No one can censor reality.” (rh)
| 24/1/2021 |
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| Rights groups say Pfizer has duty to ensure its vaccine is not used in discriminatory manner | | Yumna Patel - Mondoweiss - Palestinian human rights organization Al-
Haq is calling on the Pfizer pharmaceutical company to ensure that
its COVID-19 vaccine is being used and distributed without
discrimination, expressing concerns that Israel is using the
company’s vaccine “to further entrench” injustices against
Palestinians living under occupation. In a letter to Pfizer, Al-Haq
expressed concern over Israel’s “racially discriminatory exclusion of
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from its vaccination
efforts,” and noted the company’s “international obligations under
the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.” In recent
weeks Israel has emerged as a world leader in the distribution of the
COVID-19 vaccine, administering tens of thousands of doses of the
drug to its citizens every single day, with the majority of doses
coming from Pfizer. The country has become the first in the world to
vaccinate most of its population with the first jab of the two-dose
vaccine, and has been celebrated by global health officials for its
massive success so far. (rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| Biden under pressure to challenge Israel on human rights | | DAOUD KUTTAB - ARAB NEWS - Years earlier, during the First Intifada,
Palestinian professor Sari Nusseibeh said that Palestinians and
Israelis must agree to either share the power or share the land. “You
either divorce us or marry us” is the phrase he often used in this
regard. Even Donald Trump, in his first days in office, said that the
Palestinians and Israelis needed to agree to either two states or
one. B’Tselem’s well-documented report will have an important impact
on attempts to discredit pro-Palestinian nonviolent protests around
the world, especially in the US. Israel and its apologists have
repeatedly attacked the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement as being anti-Semitic because it erases the line between
Israel on the one hand and the West Bank and Gaza on the other. BDS
leaders have repeatedly argued that policy in the Occupied
Territories cannot be separated from that of the state of Israel. BDS
officials were also slammed for not taking a stand for either the
two-state solution or one state with equal rights for all citizens.
The movement’s supporters have been tarnished as anti-Semitic because
it was argued this position implies that they don’t recognize Israel;
something they vehemently deny. Pro-Israeli groups and lobbies in the
US have even introduced legislation both at the national and state
levels aimed at criminalizing BDS and denying Americans their
constitutional right to express themselves, including by means of
nonviolent protest.The new report’s most damning conclusion is that
Israel is continuously committing the war crime of apartheid. While a
military occupation is abhorrent, it is not considered a war crime by
international humanitarian law. For example, moving the citizens of
an occupied country to occupied areas or moving prisoners from an
occupied area to prisons in the occupying country are violations of
the Fourth Geneva Convention. But B’Tselem goes a step further and
states that all Israeli crimes in the Occupied Territories meet the
definition of apartheid, which was declared a war crime during South
Africa’s era of institutionalized racial segregation. B’Tselem’s
report will have an important impact on attempts to discredit pro-
Palestinian nonviolent protests around the world. This report by a
well-respected Israeli human rights organization totally debunks the
continuous efforts made in America and some other countries to
delegitimize the calls for nonviolent protest made by BDS and others.
These calls aim to punish Israel economically and morally for its
failure to end its policies that disenfranchise millions of
Palestinians and deny them their political rights, including the
right to self-determination.The campaigning ahead of Israel’s
elections, which are due to be held on March 23, has so far avoided
any discussion of the status of the Occupied Territories. All major
parties are divided between either supporting or opposing the
continued premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been charged
with multiple counts of corruption. But B’Tselem’s report was
published shortly before the Biden administration was sworn in. The
new president has telegraphed that he will give high priority to
human rights issues in foreign policy decisions. While many expect
this position to apply to authoritarian regimes such as China and the
Philippines, B’Tselem indicates that, if it is to be consistent, the
Biden administration will also need to hold Israel responsible for
the major crime of apartheid over the way its military rule handles
Palestinians. (rh)
| 24/1/2021 |
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| Political Dysfunction Under Netanyahu Has Become a Threat to National Security, Leading Think Tank Warns | | Judy Maltz - Haaretz - Dysfunction in the Israeli government is one
of the greatest threats facing the country, a strategic analysis
issued Wednesday by the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National
Security Studies says.This is the first time that the institute’s
annual report points to internal domestic issues – as opposed to
Israel’s external enemies – as a major threat to the country’s
strategic situation. The institute’s annual strategic assessment has
been published for the last ten years. The deficiencies in the
functioning of the government were visible before the outbreak of the
coronavirus pandemic, but became fully apparent after the outbreak,
the report states. “Following the coronavirus pandemic, Israel has
been subject to a multidimensional crisis” involving the country’s
health, its economy, its social situation and its governance, “which
has been ongoing for close to a year and is in addition to the
ongoing political crisis,” the report says. (rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| Biden Must Face the Facts: Israel Is an Apartheid Regime | | Mitchel Plitnik - The Nation - In a position paper released January
12, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem broke with its own
tradition and stated unambiguously that the area comprising Israel,
the West Bank, and Gaza Strip is an apartheid regime of Jewish
supremacy.// Although it has been tendentiously argued by some
defenders of Israel that neither Palestinians nor Israelis constitute
a “racial group,” the United Nations has defined racial
discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or
preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic
origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the
recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human
rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social,
cultural or any other field of public life.” As B’Tselem’s statement
stresses, the definition of apartheid is not limited to the actions
of the South African regime from which the term derives. According to
the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, “The crime of
apartheid means inhumane acts…committed in the context of an
institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by
one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed
with the intention of maintaining that regime.” (rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| Netanyahu bets everything on vaccination drive | | Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor - Three normalization and peace agreements,
three indictments, US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
and of the Golan Heights as Israeli territory and ultimately the fate
of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all rest on Israel`s success
against the coronavirus. He, his opponents and the Israeli public all
know it. Netanyahu is fighting on many fronts these days. His goal of
winning a 61-seat Knesset majority, which has eluded him through
three consecutive elections, appears further away than ever. The
COVID-19 pandemic has reshuffled the political deck and the March 23
elections hinge on two races directly related to the pandemic. Will
the achievements of the massive COVID-19 vaccination campaign, in
which Israel leads the world, outshine the effects of the harsh
economic downturn and the government’s many failures in handling
other facets of the crisis? (rh)
| 24/1/2021 |
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| Israelis are dying but the ultra-Orthodox keep dancing | | Sima Kadmon- Ynetnews- Secular citizens won`t forget huge Haredi
weddings while they were fined for removing their masks in public,
Haredi children at illegally open schools while they stayed home with
children sick of remote learning, all thanks to the government.In a
case of brass, glass and polished wood, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu proudly displays the syringe with which he received
Israel`s first dose of the coronavirus inoculation a month ago, as if
it were a bullet prised from his body in the thick of battle. In a
case of brass, glass and polished wood, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu proudly displays the syringe with which he received
Israel`s first dose of the coronavirus inoculation a month ago, as if
it were a bullet prised from his body in the thick of battle.(rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| Israel must kick its Trump-era habits | | Alex Fishman - Ynetnews - Jerusalem must accept that the new occupant
of the White House won`t have long, unscheduled telephone calls with
Netanyahu and the Mideast conflict will be delegated to lower-level
officials until there is real need for Biden to intervene.//
Washington is reverting to working by the book. There will be no
tricks and no shticks - that party is over.(rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| Palestinians set to receive first batch of Russian vaccines | | Aljazeera - The Palestinian Authority (PA) is scheduled to receive on
Tuesday a first shipment of 5,000 units of the main Russian COVID-19
vaccine known as Sputnik V, an Israeli official said. The shipment is
due to be brought by a PA delegate into the occupied West Bank
through Jordan, the official said on condition of anonymity, adding
that the import had been approved by Israel’s health ministry.//
While there has been much fanfare over the speed at which Israel has
been vaccinating its citizens, there has also been criticism directed
at the government for failing to provide the vaccines to the more
than 4.5 million Palestinians it occupies in the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.// On Monday, Human Rights Watch called on Israel to carry out
its responsibilities, which is enshrined under the Fourth Geneva
Convention. These duties, alongside Israel’s obligations under
international human rights law, include ensuring medical supplies and
providing vaccines in a nondiscriminatory manner to Palestinians
living under its control.
Israel has so far managed to vaccinate 20 percent of its citizens,
including Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank. “Nothing
can justify today’s reality in parts of the West Bank, where people
on one side of the street are receiving vaccines, while those on the
other do not, based on whether they’re Jewish or Palestinian,” said
Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
(rh)
| 24/1/2021 |
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| Why calling Israel an apartheid state is not enough | | Lana Tatour - Information Clearinghouse - B’Tselem, a leading human
rights group in Israel, recently released a report concluding that
Israel is an apartheid state, with a regime of Jewish supremacy
stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The report found that Israel meets the definition of apartheid under
international law, which defines apartheid as “inhuman acts committed
for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one
racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and
systematically oppressing them”.
The report received widespread international media attention and was
described as a “watershed” moment. But it was only a watershed moment
for B’Tselem, which was using the term “apartheid” for the first time
in its three-decade history, and for an international community that
is so infatuated with Israeli voices. For Palestinians, none of this
is new.// Typical of western racism, Israelis are deemed more
reliable and esteemed, and their contributions more valid than those
of Palestinians who experience apartheid, colonisation and occupation
every day.// But Palestine cannot be understood merely in terms of
apartheid, as this offers only a limited and partial understanding of
the situation. Israel is a settler-colonial state that is practising
both apartheid and permanent occupation. The conversation emerging in
liberal circuits around apartheid and Palestine fails to recognise
settler-colonialism as the overarching structure of the Israeli
state.(rh) | 24/1/2021 |
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| WORLD REPORT 2021 | | Human Rights Watch - World Report 2021, Human Rights Watch’s 31st
annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe,
reviews developments in more than 100 countries.// In his
introductory essay, Executive Director Kenneth Roth calls on the
incoming US administration to more deeply embed respect for human
rights as an element of domestic and foreign policy to counter the
“wild oscillations in human rights policy” that in recent decades
have come with each new resident of the White House. Roth emphasizes
that even as the Trump administration mostly abandoned the protection
of human rights, joined by China, Russia and others, other
governments—typically working in coalition and some new to the cause—
stepped forward to champion rights. As it works to entrench rights
protections, the Biden administration should seek to join, not
supplant, this new collective effort.// The report reflects
investigative work that Human Rights Watch staff undertook in 2020,
usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the
country in questions. It also reflects the work of our advocacy team,
which monitors policy developments and strives to persuade
governments and international institutions to curb abuses and promote
human rights.// As in past years, the World Report does not include a
chapter on every country where Human Rights Watch works, nor does it
discuss every issue of importance. The absence of a particular
country or issues often simply reflects staffing limitations and
should not be taken as commentary on the significance of the problem.
They are many serious human rights violations that Human Rights Watch
simply lacks the capacity to address.// This year’s World Report is
dedicated to the memory of Dan Baum and Mickey Spiegel, beloved
colleagues whom we lost in 2020 but remember every day. (rh)
| 17/1/2021 |
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| Why did Israel’s Hebrew media ignore B’Tselem’s apartheid statement? | | Oren Persico and The Seventh Eye - +972 - If a human rights group
declares that the state in which it operates is an apartheid regime,
and no one reports on it — is that state still a democracy? This
week, B’Tselem, one of Israel’s oldest anti-occupation groups,
published a groundbreaking report describing Israel as an “apartheid
regime” from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. This is the
first time since the organization’s founding in 1989 that B’Tselem
refers to policies inside the Green Line, as opposed to focusing
solely on the occupied territories. Along with the publication of
B’Tselem’s full report on its website, the organization sent press
releases to the media in Israel and abroad; the story was picked up
by major outlets including The Guardian (which also hosted an op-ed
by B’Tselem’s executive director Hagai El-Ad), Le Monde, El País,
NPR, CNN, NBC, ABC, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles
Times, The Independent, AP, RFI, and Politiken.Yet while B’Tselem’s
statement received major coverage across the world, the Hebrew media
in Israel was almost entirely silent. Although one can agree or
disagree with B’Tselem’s position, one cannot help but wonder why
Israel’s top news outlets refrained from reporting on it. By ignoring
the report, those outlets prevented the very people living under what
B’Tselem calls an apartheid regime to be exposed to its opinion.
After all, it is far more crucial that Israelis learn about the
reality they live in than readers of El País, Le Monde, or The
Washington Post. Four main papers in Israel: Yediot Ahronot, Maariv,
Haaretz, and Israel Hayom, Aug. 5, 2008. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Particularly strange was the decision by some Israeli media outlets
with sites in both Hebrew and English to publish information about
B’Tselem’s report on their English sites only. Readers of Haaretz’s
English-language site — many of whom live outside Israel — were able
to read a news item on the announcement. Meanwhile, Haaretz’s readers
in Hebrew, most of whom live in Israel, were not given the same
chance, neither in the paper’s print edition nor on its website. The
same went for Ynet and Israel Hayom, which only published items on
the report on their English-language sites. The Jerusalem Post and
Times of Israel, two English-language news sites, published items on
the report.(rh) In fact, apart from an op-ed by B’Tselem board member
Orly Noy published in Hebrew on Local Call (and in English on +972
Magazine), and an op-ed by Executive Director Hagai El-Ad on the
Hebrew news site Hottest Place in Hell, the only Hebrew-language
outlet that published anything on the announcement was Channel 13
News’ website. (rh) | 17/1/2021 |
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| Is Israel’s Arab Joint List breaking up ahead of March elections? | | Week in Review - Al-Monitor - Israeli Arabs make up 21%, or about 2
million, of Israel’s approximately 9.2 million citizens. These
numbers do not include the more than 5 million Palestinians living in
the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli citizens and do not vote
in Israeli elections.
About 90% of the Israeli Arabs who take part in elections vote for
members of the Arab Joint List, the coalition of four Israeli Arab
parties in the Knesset. In the March 2020 elections, the Joint List
got 15 seats — the most in its history — out of the 120 seats in the
Israeli parliament. That may not seem like much, but it is. (rh)
| 17/1/2021 |
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| 2020 was a bad year for Gaza hotel-turned quarantine centers Read more: | | Ahmed el-Komi - Al-Monitor - GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — New Year’s Eve
was different this year in the Gaza Strip. Instead of hosting parties
and organizing celebrations, hotels hosted individuals kept in
quarantine as a precaution amid the coronavirus pandemic. Since
March, and as part of the strict measures taken to combat the virus
that causes COVID-19, the Ministry of Interior in the Gaza Strip has
transformed Gaza hotels into quarantine centers for those returning
to Gaza. This prevented hoteliers from hosting New Year`s Eve events.
By the end of 2020, the total number of coronavirus deaths in the
Gaza Strip amounted to 371, with more than 4,000 positive cases,
including 164 seriously ill patients. The decision to turn hotels
into quarantine centers came as part of the state of emergency that
President Mahmoud Abbas announced for the first time on March 5.
According to the decision, the full capabilities of the private
sector shall be put in place to support the state of emergency. Moein
Nashwan, director of the Beach Hotel, told Al-Monitor, “The
coronavirus pandemic has literally drained us, and we were
unfortunately unable to host any New Year`s Eve celebrations.” (rh)
| 17/1/2021 |
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| Peace Deals, Vaccinations and the Arab Vote: In First for Netanyahu, a Positive Campaign | | Yossi Verter - Haaretz - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is
extolling and praising the agreements he has signed with Arab
countries far from our borders, depicting a new Middle East and
speaking, his eyes sparkling, about the glorious future anticipated
for the region. The man who said ,“we will forever live by our sword"
has become a Shimon Peres clone. And it doesn’t end there. Netanyahu
is an individual well-endowed with paranoia, a quality that has
helped him shape his political identity as a prophet of doom, an
engineer of dismal consciousness in campaigns focused on scare-
mongering, scare-mongering and scare-mongering. In the current phase
of his umpteenth campaign, he makes the appearance of having suddenly
changed. The grimness has turned to glowing. The alarmist has become
an optimist. The crowning glory of course is the vaccines. The man
hangs out near the conveyor belts at Ben-Gurion International Airport
more than the porters. He does not let a day go by for the CEOs of
Pfizer and Moderna without having a conversation with them. There, he
very skillfully applies pressure, closes deals (at high prices and
without transparency, but okay, it’s worth it to us) and runs to tell
the gang. The social media gaggle (real members and the bots) pounce
on every photo of a high-profile individual getting vaccinated,
demanding he give thanks to the prime minister.(rh) | 17/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Covid-19 under Apartheid: How Israel Manipulates Suffering of Palestinians | | Ramzy Baroud - Palestine Chronicle - Israel’s decision to exclude
Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have
surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying
Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely
callous. Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned
the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving
the vaccine. The rights group described the Israeli action as
evidence of the “institutionalized discrimination that defines the
Israeli government’s policy towards Palestinians.” The Palestinian
Authority was not expecting Israel to supply Palestinian hospitals
with millions of vaccines as it hopes to receive two million doses of
the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in February. Instead, the request made
by PA official, Hussein al-Sheikh, Coordinator of Palestinian affairs
with Israel, was a meager 10,000 doses to help protect Palestinian
frontline workers. Still, the Israeli Health Ministry rejected the
request. According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, 1,629
Palestinians died and a total of 160,043 were infected with the
deadly COVID-19 disease as of January 4. While such dismal numbers
can also be found in many parts of the world, the Palestinian
coronavirus crisis is compounded by the fact that Palestinians live
under Israeli military occupation, a state of apartheid and, as in
the case of Gaza, an unrelenting siege.(rh) | 17/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel/OPT: UN experts call on Israel to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines for Palestinians | | Reliefweb - GENEVA (14 January 2021) -- UN human rights experts*
today called on Israel, the occupying power, to ensure swift and
equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for the Palestinian people
under occupation. "Israel`s roll-out of its vaccination programme
against the COVID-19 pandemic for its citizens has been impressive.
In this early stage of the worldwide inoculation programme, Israel
has delivered the vaccines to a higher percentage of its citizens
than any other country," the experts said. "We understand that
Palestinians with resident status in occupied East Jerusalem have
been offered the vaccines by Israel. "However, Israel has not ensured
that Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza will
have any near-future access to the available vaccines. The COVID-19
pandemic has been ravaging the West Bank and Gaza in recent months,
and has fractured an already badly under-resourced Palestinian health
care system. We are particularly concerned about the deteriorating
health situation in Gaza, which suffers from a 13-year-old blockade,
serious water and electricity shortages, and endemic poverty and
unemployment."(rh) | 17/1/2021 |
| ... |
| New Study Explores Risk Played By Children in COVID Spread | | Rafaela von Bredow - Der Spiegel - The question of school closures
and how long we have to put up with them is clearly one of those
unpleasant subjects. It was also the focus of an interesting Zoom
meeting on Jan. 4, when scientists led by Michael Wagner, a professor
of microbiology at the University of Vienna, officially presented a
far-reaching, representative study on the coronavirus in schools in
Austria. Each meeting participant occupied their little square on the
screen, including a politician who sought to paint an optimistic
picture despite the gloomy outlook - and a handful of scientists who
managed to endure that optimism with consistently amiable expressions
on their faces. Only the microbiologist Wagner found it all to be a
bit too much at one point."There was an infected child sitting in
about every third to fourth classroom in November, without knowing
they were infected." (rh)
| 17/1/2021 |
| ... |
| We are Israel`s largest human rights group – and we are calling this apartheid | | Hagai El-Ad - The Guardian - ne cannot live a single day in Israel-
Palestine without the sense that this place is constantly being
engineered to privilege one people, and one people only: the Jewish
people. Yet half of those living between the Jordan River and the
Mediterranean Sea are Palestinian. The chasm between these lived
realities fills the air, bleeds, is everywhere on this land.
I am not simply referring to official statements spelling this out –
and there are plenty, such as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
assertion in 2019 that “Israel is not a state of all its citizens”,
or the “nation state” basic law enshrining “the development of Jewish
settlement as a national value”. What I am trying to get at is a
deeper sense of people as desirable or undesirable, and an
understanding about my country that I have been gradually exposed to
since the day I was born in Haifa. Now, it is a realisation that can
no longer be avoided. Although there is demographic parity between
the two peoples living here, life is managed so that only one half
enjoy the vast majority of political power, land resources, rights,
freedoms and protections. It is quite a feat to maintain such
disfranchisement. Even more so, to successfully market it as a
democracy (inside the “green line” – the 1949 armistice line), one to
which a temporary occupation is attached. In fact, one government
rules everyone and everything between the river and the sea,
following the same organising principle everywhere under its control,
working to advance and perpetuate the supremacy of one group of
people – Jews – over another – Palestinians. This is apartheid.(rh) | 17/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Palestine in Pictures: December 2020 | | EI - “Israeli occupation forces killed two Palestinian boys in December. Ali
Ayman Saleh Abu Alia, 15, died after being shot in the stomach by soldiers
while he was observing confrontations that followed a protest in al-Mughayyir
village near the West Bank city of Ramallah on 4 December. […] The second
child killed last month, Mahmoud Kmail, 17, was shot by Israeli paramilitary
Border Police after he allegedly opened fire toward occupation forces in
Jerusalem’s Old City on 21 December” [ry] | 11/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Palestinian holy sites are crumbling under Israeli rule : Israeli land grabs are preventing Palestinians from accessing Muslim shrines in the West Bank, with some falling into ruin or being deliberately destroyed. | | Irit Segoli - 972mag - Israel’s takeover of the mountain ranges and
hills throughout the occupied West Bank has not spared sacred places
of worship for Palestinian Muslims. According to a new report by
Israeli anti-occupation group Machsom Watch, maqams — tombs or
shrines built on a site associated with a Muslim saint or religious
figure — across the West Bank have been informally annexed to Israeli
settlements through military orders, the expansion of IDF open-fire
zones, and entrapment in nature reserves and antiquity sites.(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| “Medical Apartheid”: Israeli Vaccine Drive Excludes Millions of Palestinians in Occupied Territories | | Mustafa Barghouti - Democracy Now - Israel has administered COVID-19
vaccines faster than any country in the world, with more than 14% of
Israelis receiving vaccines so far. Despite the fast rollout, human
rights groups are expressing alarm over Israel’s decision not to
vaccinate Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, where
about 1,500 people have died during the pandemic. Israel has defended
its actions citing the Oslo Peace Accords, which put Palestinian
authorities in charge of healthcare in the West Bank and Gaza.
Palestinian officials are facing a number of hurdles in launching
their own vaccine campaign, including a shortage of money, lack of
access to vaccines and lack of infrastructure to distribute a
vaccine. “Israel actually is violating international law because it
is denying its responsibility as an occupying power,” says Dr.
Mustafa Barghouti, a physician, member of the Palestinian Parliament
and head of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society. “Israelis are
getting the vaccines, and Palestinians are getting nothing.” (rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel is not showing vaccine leadership, it is demonstrating medical apartheid | | Ariel Gold - Mondoweiss - The media is abuzz these days with
headlines such as “How Israel Became a World Leader in Vaccinating
Against Covid-19.” While the U.S. has so far vaccinated only 1.3% of
its population against COVID-19, Israel has already given the vaccine
to over 14% of its citizens. In explaining this, the media cites
Israel’s socialized medicine, the fact that the country is small but
wealthy (allowing Israel to pay $62 a dose, compared to the $19.50
the U.S. is paying), and the heavily digitized nature of Israel’s
health care system. But below the headlines celebrating Israel’s
vaccination rates lies a far darker story about health inequality.
Israel has a population of around nine million. 20% of Israel’s
population are Palestinian citizens of Israel. These people can vote
in elections, have representation in the Knesset, and are being
vaccinated against COVID-19. But, there are another around five
million Palestinians who live under Israeli rule, without rights, and
like the rest of the world, are suffering from the pandemic.(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| `National Resource`? Israel`s Leadership Treats COVID Vaccines Like Personal Supply | | Lior Dattel - Haaretz - Health Minister Yuli Edelstein was furious
Monday evening when he found out that the Tel Aviv municipality had
vaccinated most of the city’s teachers over the course of several
hours that day. That evening, he ordered that the vaccinations to
teachers be stopped immediately. Tel Aviv was forced to close its
vaccination station in Rabin Square following the Health Ministry’s
decision to immediately halt the vaccine supply to the city’s Ichilov
Hospital, which was running the station. As a result, hundreds of
city residents were informed that their vaccine appointments on
Tuesday were being canceled.(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| A lockdown to reelect Netanyahu | | Nahum Barnea - Ynetnews - PM`s handling of the pandemic and other
government decisions are colored by his corruption trial; anything is
deemed acceptable to keep him in power including intimidation, blackmail
and violence - and this has to stop. (rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| What is behind Mahmoud Abbas’s diplomatic offensive? : The Palestinian president hopes to restore the Palestinian Authority’s international standing. But will it work? | | Adnan Abu Amer - Aljazeera - Over the past two months, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas has been actively trying to pull the
Palestinian Authority (PA) out of its political isolation. After the
results of the US elections became clear in November, hope seems to
have come back to Ramallah that the punitive campaign the Trump
administration waged against it is now over. With none of the PA’s
harsh rhetoric or protest action resulting in any change in the
positions of the Arab countries normalising relations with Israel,
Abbas has been forced to change tactics. Hoping to re-engage
Washington, he has now set off to mend relations with Arab nations
and try to gain some support for his overture to the Biden
administration. He is also aiming to regain financial support for the
cash-strapped PA. But will his gamble pay off? (rh)
| 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| What happened in Washington can happen in Israel too | | Ron Ben Yishai - Ynetnews - The violent mob and its attack on the
United States Congress on Wednesday was the direct result of a union
between a populist president suffering from a sever personality
disorder and tens of thousands of angry followers who like him
believe their country was stolen from them. But what made this union
so explosive was the use of social media, spreading incitement, fake
news and conspiracy theories at the speed of light.(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Ex-justice minister says Israel faces worse threat to democracy than US | | TOI STAFF - Citing the recent storming of the US capitol by right-
wing activists, former Israeli justice minister Avi Nissenkorn on
Friday said the events proved that democracy is “fragile,” and warned
that Israel’s democracy was in an even more precarious condition than
the US. “The protesters’ attempt to take over the Capitol shows the
extent to which democracy is a fragile thing,” Nissenkorn, who
resigned in late December after quitting Benny Gantz’s Blue and White
party, told Channel 12 News. “What we thought up until a few years
ago — that it was set in stone — that’s not how things are. In Israel
the democracy is much younger and much more fragile than in the US.”
(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Yeshivas reopen in Jerusalem`s Haredi neighborhood amid lockdown | | Gilad Cohen,Kobi Nachshoni -Ynetnews - The yeshivas in Jerusalem`s
Haredi neighborhood reopened on Sunday as usual despite the
tightening of the nationwide lockdown that saw the shuttering of the
country`s education system. The ultra-Orthodox community has largely
adhered to the latest restrictions after Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, an
influential leader of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian Haredi community in
Israel, called on his followers to observe the health orders.
However, some extreme factions of the sector, such as Jerusalem`s
Lithuanian community, decided to reopen the schools, primarily those
for boys, the religious education of whom is considered a top
priority. For instance, in the Mea Shearim neighborhood in the
capital, it was "business as usual", with the extremist Hasidic
factions that predominantly live there, refusing to obey the lockdown
rules.(rh) | 10/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Forced hotel quarantine said likely to be nixed, as dozens try to break out | | TOI STAFF - The government decision to compel all Israelis entering
the country to quarantine in state-run hotels is likely to be
revoked, following public criticism from a number of senior officials
and a number of clashes between those who have been forced into the
facilities and the authorities running them, Channel 12 news reported
Monday night. According to the report, the government appears
unlikely to extend the order it issued last Wednesday, bringing an
end to the apparently selectively-enforced policy as early as Friday,
the report said. Amid fears of a new, more contagious strain
emerging, the coronavirus cabinet last week voted to require a stay
in the hotels for 14 days, which can be reduced to 10 days with two
negative coronavirus tests.Since Wednesday, of the some 6,300
passengers who have landed in Israel, 2,555 were taken to hotels, and
the rest received approval for home quarantine, the IDF spokesperson
confirmed Monday evening to Globes. Earlier in the day, dozens of
people quarantined in the Leonardo Hotel in Jerusalem attempted to
break out of the facility, clashing at the entrance with security
guards, who forced them back inside. At the same time, dozens of
Israelis returning to the country from Dubai clashed with officials
at Ben Gurion Airport, while waiting in line to get an exemption from
the hotel quarantine, Channel 12 reported. (rh)
| 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Outcry after Israeli Minister Withholds COVID Vaccine from Palestinian Prisoners | | Palestine Chronicle - On Saturday, Qadri Abu Bakr, the Director of
the Palestinian Authority’s Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Commission,
announced that Palestinian prisoners would be vaccinated against
COVID-19 soon. However, his statement was contradicted later by
Ohana, whose office issued a statement saying that only prison staff
would be vaccinated and that Palestinian prisoners would not receive
the vaccination “until further notice”. The statement said that the
prisoners would receive the vaccination “in line with vaccination
progress among the general population”, and ordered that no
Palestinian prisoner should receive the vaccination “without
approval”. (rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| In blow to Gantz, Justice Minister Nissenkorn joins Tel Aviv mayor’s new party | | TOI Staff - Times of Israel - Justice Minister Avi Nissenkorn
announced Tuesday he is joining Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai’s new
party, in a major blow to Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s moribund
Blue and White party ahead of Knesset elections in March. A statement
from Huldai’s spokesman said Nissenkorn informed Gantz of the move.
“We’ll bring good tidings to hundreds of thousands of Israelis who
feel they have no political home and we’ll do this with actions, not
words,” Nissenkorn said in the statement. Gantz spoke with Nissenkorn
on Tuesday afternoon and asked him to resign his position as justice
minister, Blue and White said in a statement. “Nissenkorn has chosen
a new political home, and therefore it is expected that he resigns
from his position,” Gantz said in the statement. “The justice
portfolio is among the most important assets Blue and White has to
preserve democracy and the rule of law in Israel, and as we have
acted so far, we will also do in the future.” (rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Our Phantom Middle Class | | Charles Hugh Smith - Information Clearinghouse - Of the many things
we cannot bring ourselves to admit, one of the most consequential is
that our vaunted middle class is illusory, a phantom of our
imagination rather than a reality. The reality is the vast majority
of the nation`s wealth and income has been diverted from the middle
class to those at the pinnacle of the wealth-power pyramid and the
technocrat / financier insider class (the top 10%) that serves the
interests of those at the pinnacle. This transfer has accelerated
rapidly in the 21st century as virtually all the real income gains of
the past 20 years have flowed to the top 0.1%. This RAND study found
that America`s elites siphoned $50 trillion into their own pockets in
the past two generations: Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018. (Please
look at the "Fruits of Financialization" chart below.) The earnings
of the top 0.1% grew 15 times faster than the earnings of the bottom
90% (See chart below) as wages` share of the economy continues its
50-year decline. (rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Siding with Netanyahu, court demands to see AG’s written authorization of probes : Prosecutors must hand over documents within a week; PM’s attorneys claim Mandelblit’s permission for police investigations was given retroactively, all charges must be canc | | TOI Staff - Times of Israel - Netanyahu, who is the first Israeli
premier to be indicted while in office, denies any wrongdoing and has
railed against the courts, prosecution, and media for what he terms a
“witch hunt.” His lawyers have repeatedly moved to delay and
discredit the proceedings, filing complaints against the prosecution,
alleging “criminal tactics” had been used against them, calling for
changing the indictment against the prime minister, and, claiming
that police investigators had used illegitimate means to secure
evidence, thus disqualifying the charges. Last month, the court
delayed the start of the evidentiary stage from January to February.
The court said that witness testimony would be pushed off by a month
and that precise dates would be determined later. (rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel orders wave of new house demolitions in Silwan, Jerusalem | | Ibrahim Husseini - Aljazeera - East Jerusalem – Fakhri Abu Diab, 59,
may soon have to decide whether he should contract a crew to demolish
his family’s building. Diab is a community activist and one of
several Palestinian residents of the Al-Bustan neighbourhood in
Silwan, occupied East Jerusalem, served with demolition orders by
Jerusalem’s Israeli-run municipality in December.He built his
property – in which 13 family members live across three units –
without permission, having been denied permission four times since he
first applied in 1987. If the municipality carries out the demolition
order, served on December 9, the cost could be $30,000.// Diab says
that, if he loses his home, “I have no alternative at the moment but
to put up a tent”. (rh)
| 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| The US Money Tree: The Untold Story of American Aid to Israel | | Ramsey Baroud - Arabic Media Internet Network - On December 21, the
United States Congress passed the COVID-19 Relief Package, as part of
a larger $2.3 trillion bill meant to cover spending for the rest of
the fiscal year. As usual, US representatives allocated a massive sum
of money for Israel.//Support for Israel is considered a bipartisan
priority and has, for decades, been perceived as the most stable item
in the US foreign policy agenda. The mere questioning of how Israel
uses the funds - whether the military aid is being actively used to
sustain Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, finance Jewish
settlements, fund annexation of Palestinian land or violate
Palestinian human rights - is a major taboo. (rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| The Israeli Nation-State Law Had Its Day in Court | | Orly Noy - Portside - Two-and-a-half years after the Knesset passed
the Jewish Nation-State Law, which constitutionally enshrined second-
class status for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, the High Court of
Justice held its first hearing on the law on Tuesday. As has become
customary in hearings in which the farce of Israeli “democracy” is at
stake, the setting was perfect: on the bench sat an expanded panel of
11 justices headed by Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, while the
hearing was broadcasted live on the internet. Because the law was
petitioned by 15 different groups and individuals, and due to COVID-
19 restrictions, it took over an hour for people to assemble in the
hall.//As expected, the two sections of the law that drew the most
fire were Section 4, which concerns the official demoting of the
status of the Arabic language, and Section 7, concerning the
“encouragement of Jewish settlement” as a value that the state is
obligated to promote. Already at the opening of the hearing, Hayut
clarified that the High Court is concerned with whether or not it
even has the authority to repeal a Basic Law [the equivalent of a
constitutional amendment] and — assuming there is a reason to do so —
whether the law itself can be interpreted in a way that is consistent
with the values of democracy.//“For the first time since 1948, the
court is tasked with the question of the status of the Arab minority
in Israel,” Jabareen said. “We are not asking the court to determine
the scope of our rights, but to answer one question and one question
only: what does the exclusion of the Arab minority in the Basic Law
mean?”//Throughout his remarks, Jabareen was repeatedly interrupted
by the justices. When he argued that the clause encouraging Jewish
settlement violated the principle of “separate but equal,” Hayut
responded: “The fact that Jewish settlement is perceived as a
national value does not mean that there should be no equal allocation
and legitimate civil rights for others.” Justice Menachem Mazuz
followed: “The value of settlement already appears in the Declaration
of Independence; it must not harm the value of equality.”// After six
hours of cynical, frustrating, and largely predictable discussion, I
left the High Court of Justice. On the floor in the courtyard I found
the remains of a demonstration by far-right activists belonging to
the Im Tirzu movement, which had taken place there earlier. One of
the signs read: “The Supreme Court is the enemy of the people.” The
irony was almost too much to bear.(rh)
| 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Gantz, Stop the Ethnic Cleansing in the West Bank | | Michael Sfard - Haaretz - // As for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
this state of affairs is creating a double and triple transition
period. All the central players who influence its present and its
future have taken a deep breath and dived under the water, and it’s
not clear what their condition and their nature will be when they
return to the surface, and when that might happen.
There have been mounting signals in recent weeks that Israel plans to
exploit this multinational transition period in order to promote far-
reaching acts of annexation and disinheritance. The Netanyahu-Trump
initiative for full, official annexation of parts of the West Bank
was shelved in exchange for normalization agreements with the United
Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which left the settlers’ stomachs
growling, and there’s nothing like an interregnum for introducing
acts that in normal times would have triggered international
condemnation and political pressure, which even if not heavy, is
likely to be onerous. Thus, with the international radar diverted to
heavy COVID-19 regions and Trump’s antics, the settlers’ hunger can
be addressed. About two weeks ago a bill legalizing dozens of illegal
outposts (which the law euphemistically calls “young settlements,”
which is like calling an armed robbery “an economic initiative”)
passed a preliminary reading into law in Knesset.(rh)
| 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
| Praising the Ashkenazi spy, punishing the Mizrahi dissident : For Israel, Jonathan Pollard`s aiding of the Jewish state erases the criminality of his treason; Mordechai Vanunu`s whistleblowing makes him a threat. | | Omri Najad - +972mag - The Israeli right rejoiced as Jonathan
Pollard, a convicted American spy who passed along secret documents
to Israel in the 1980s, received a hero’s welcome at Ben-Gurion
Airport early Wednesday morning.//Pollard was serving as a U.S. Navy
intelligence analyst in the 1980s when he made contact with an
Israeli official in New York; he began passing on U.S. secrets to
Israel, specifically on the capabilities of American spy agencies, in
exchange for money. He was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life in
prison in 1987.//The Israeli right has for years viewed Pollard as a
forgotten national hero, particularly as successive Israeli leaders
have had to balance their sense of duty to him with their
relationship to the United States. Yet their sensitivity to Pollard’s
case is astonishing when compared to Israel’s lasting, vengeful
attitude toward Mordechai Vanunu, a Mizrahi Israeli who spent 18
years in an Israeli prison — 11 of them in solitary confinement — for
revealing parts of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British
press in 1986.//As opposed to Pollard, Vanunu never provided
intelligence to a foreign agent, was not convicted of passing
information to another country, and did not reportedly turn to
various different countries to try and sell his information.
Furthermore, Vanunu never led a double life as a spy, but rather
acted according to his conscience. He handed over information on and
photos of the Dimona nuclear reactor to the press in exchange for
little money.(rh) | 3/1/2021 |
| ... |
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