Documents & Data
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| Title | | Description | Date |
| Will Impunity Reign or Will International Criminal Justice Come for Israel? | | Jonathan Kuttab - Portside - On February 5, the International
Criminal Court (ICC) ruled, for purposes of its jurisdiction, that
Palestine is a state. The chief prosecutor who sought this opinion,
Fatou Bensouda, is now free to investigate war crimes that may have
occurred in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the
Gaza Strip. This action removed one more block on the long road for
Palestinians to compel international scrutiny of Israel’s actions
that violate international law and its war crimes against the
Palestinian people. It also underscores and answers the vigorous and—
so far—successful attempts by Israel to avoid such scrutiny and to
continue to flaunt its ability to do so with apparent impunity.
Perhaps no other people have tried as hard as the Palestinians to
achieve redress through the international legal system. In the United
Nations, numerous reports and resolutions have established an
impressive record of Israel’s wrongdoing, yet efforts to push the
Security Council to impose any form of accountability or sanctions
under Chapter VII of the UN Charter have been stymied by the ever-
present American veto of any such move. The United States has used
its veto power 44 times against resolutions concerning Israel, ones
that had been approved by other members of the Security Council. Over
the years, Israel had grown to expect such vetoes, almost as a matter
of right. To be sure, in December 2016 when the Obama Administration
abstained from voting on Resolution 2334, which condemned settlements
in the occupied territories, Israel went into a panic, with one
minister declaring that Obama stabbed Israel in the back.(rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Evidence stage of Netanyahu’s trial postponed until after elections | | RAOUL WOOTLIFF - The Times of Israel - The Jerusalem District Court
announced Monday night that it was postponing the evidentiary stage
of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial until April
5, ceding to a request by the premier’s legal team for the
proceedings to start after the March 23 elections. Hearings will be
held three times a week, from Monday through Wednesday, from 9 a.m.
until 3:30 p.m., the court said. At the same time, the judges in the
case rejected a demand by Netanyahu’s attorneys to cancel the
criminal indictments against the premier over the attorney general’s
apparent failure to approve the criminal investigations in writing.
“After reviewing and examining the parties’ arguments, we came to the
general conclusion that no clear reason arose for the dismissal of
the indictment,” the judges wrote in their ruling. (rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Bennett: I’m more right-wing than Bibi, but I don’t use the tools of hate | | DAVID HOROVITZ - The Times of Israel - Several of Israel’s political
parties have indicated that they won’t join forces under anyone but
Benjamin Netanyahu when it’s time to build a coalition after next
month’s elections. Several more have made plain that they’ll partner
with anyone, or almost anyone, except Netanyahu. Between these pro-
and anti-Netanyahu blocs sits one man, Naftali Bennett, leader of
Yamina. Bennett, 48, has his sights set on being prime minister
himself, and says it’s past time that Netanyahu, 71, move on. But in
contrast to Gideon Sa’ar, who like Bennett is a former close
Netanyahu ally now leading a rival right-wing party, Bennett won’t
definitively rule out a coalition partnership with Netanyahu. He
wants to defeat Netanyahu fair and square at the ballot box, he says,
not boycott him.(rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Kahane lives? What does Itamar Ben Gvir, backed by Netanyahu, really stand for? | | HAVIV RETTIG GUR - The Times of Israel - A month before the
elections, debate has broken out among Israeli pundits and
politicians over whether a far-right politician and disciple of the
late extremist rabbi Meir Kahane is, in fact, a “Kahanist.”Waged on
news broadcasts and op-ed pages, in radio talk shows and news sites’
comment sections, the debate is unsurprisingly intense.The question:
Is Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir, now running for Knesset as
part of the Religious Zionism slate, a “full-blown Kahanist,” or
something less extreme? (rh)
| 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israels Coast is devastated by an oil spill. If only we’d had an emergency plan | | The Times of Israel - A week after almost the entire Israeli
Mediterranean coastline was devastated by tar from an oil spill at
sea, the Environmental Protection Ministry on Wednesday finally began
a full-scale clean-up operation.Experts have found themselves at a
loss for words when trying to convey the scope of the disaster. The
authorities have been forced to order the public away from all
beaches from Rosh Hanikra in the north to Ashkelon in the south. As a
precautionary measure, the Health Ministry on Wednesday evening
indefinitely banned the sale of fish and seafood from the
Mediterranean. “We make such loving, hardworking efforts to protect
every site, every creature,” said Ruti Yahel, an ecologist with the
Israel Nature and Parks Authority, “and then this comes along and
overturns everything… It’s heartbreaking.” (rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Netanyahu`s plan to donate vaccines to other countries suspended, awaits legal opinion | | Rina Bassist - Al-Monitor - The office of Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb. 25 halted the process of sending Moderna
coronavirus vaccines to foreign countries, according to media
reports. It appears that the decision to send vaccines abroad will
need to be examined by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit before it
can be further carried out. Earlier in the day, Defense Minister
Benny Gantz had called on Netanyahu to suspend the transfer of
vaccines. Gantz demanded that the Security Cabinet be convened for
deliberations before a decision is made. “This is not the first time
that significant security and diplomatic decisions are made behind
the back of the relevant officials, with possible harm to the
security of the state, foreign relations and rule of law,” Gantz
said. (rh)
| 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| How the Pandemic Nearly Tore Israel Apart | | Ronen Bergman - The New York Times - Since the pandemic began,
funerals have become a subject of intense, sometimes even violent
controversy in Israel. The nation has kept its people in lockdown
longer than nearly any other has, but it nevertheless has struggled
with one of the highest rates of coronavirus infection. The main
source of this seeming paradox is the ultra-Orthodox community, which
has largely refused to wear masks or practice social distancing,
arguing that the demands of lockdown prevent them from practicing
their religion. By January, these Haredi communities, as the ultra-
Orthodox are known in Hebrew, had three times as many cases per
capita as the Israeli population at large. Soloveitchik himself had
apparently been infected at his yeshiva, where, in defiance of
government mandates, classes continued as ever. Now thousands of
black-hatted and black-clothed Haredim were gathering in Jerusalem
for his funeral procession, unmasked and unpoliced, creating a stark
visual record of what seemed certain to become a superspreader event.
(rh)
| 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| ICC has no choice but to investigate settlements as a war crime, a game changer in power politics — Sfard | | PHILIP WEISS - Mondoweiss - The ruling by the International Criminal
Court that it has jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes in
the occupied territories has introduced a “major new actor” into the
power politics of the conflict, and sent a chill through the Israeli
government to the point that it has abandoned plans to remove
Palestinian villages in the West Bank, says Michael Sfard, the
Israeli human rights attorney. Sfard said that court cannot “evade”
an investigation and even prosecution of Israeli officials over the
illegal settlements policy in the West Bank. And this means that
Israel can no longer ignore European countries, including Germany,
Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Scandinavian nations, that have
repeatedly called on it to end the settlements. (rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel halts vaccine transfer abroad amid legal scrutiny | | Itamar Eichner,Tova Tzimuki - srael announced Thursday the process of
sending coronavirus vaccines to allied nations has been halted amid
legal scrutiny as well as domestic and international criticism. The
decision came after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit sent a letter
to National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat asking for
clarifications about the program that would send 45,000 vaccines to
20 countries in what has been called "vaccine diplomacy" (rh) | 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| WATCH: Forensic analysis undermines Israeli police narrative of checkpoint killing | | Oren Ziv - +972Mag - On June 23, 2020, Ahmad Erekat, a 27-year-old
Palestinian from Abu Dis in the occupied West Bank, drove to pick up
his sister from a bridal salon in Bethlehem, a few hours before her
wedding. At around 3:50 p.m. Erekat drove up to the infamous
“Container Checkpoint,” located on the main road that connects the
north of the West Bank to the south. Under the Oslo Accords, the area
on both sides of the checkpoint is under the full control of the
Palestinian Authority, yet the checkpoint itself is manned 24-hours a
day by Israeli security forces. When Erekat passed through the
checkpoint, he swerved from the route and crashed into a booth full
of police officers. Erekat, unarmed, exited the car. The officers
shot six bullets into him. An hour and a half after he was shot,
Erekat’s body was removed from the area.//Israeli media outlets were
quick to label the crash an act of terrorism. Their suspicion that
Erekat had intended to crash his car into the checkpoint only grew
after a second video surfaced, which showed him speaking into his
phone camera while driving his car, saying that he is not a
“spy.”(rh)
| 28/2/2021 |
| ... |
| A Baby and His Mother: The Cancer Journey of a Palestinian Family | | Tamar Fleishman - Palestine Chronicle - “We`re waiting for a cancer
patient from Jenin so we can deliver him to Augusta Victoria Hospital
on Mount Scopus in East Jerusalem,” said the member of the Jerusalem
Red Crescent medical team while waiting in their parked ambulance on
the roadside of the Israeli military checkpoint at Qalandiya.
I waited with them. We waited for a long time. We spent the time
talking about various issues pertaining to their difficult mission,
including when Palestinian patients are transferred between
ambulances, about the vaccinations, and more.But nothing prepared me
for the fact that the cancer patient we were waiting for was an 11-
month-old baby. Furath, gravely ill with cancer, was taken out of the
ambulance in his mother’s arms, his scrawny arm pierced by a plastic
tube where the IV entered his little body. Present were the two
Palestinian medical teams – one from Jenin and one from East
Jerusalem, the two ambulances, two stretchers, Israeli soldiers and
security guards, guns, and in the midst of all of these – a sick baby
and his mom. The military procedure was followed strictly, including
the baggage inspection. The mother had to hand Furath over to a
member of the medical team and present the content of her bags to a
soldier. While I do not accuse the military occupation of Furath’s
cancer, as such illnesses are often the matter of fate, the
occupation is still guilty; guilty of forcibly taking a little baby
and his mother away from their city, isolating them from their own
family, separating between a gravely ill child and his father, who
was unfairly denied permit to accompany his wife in this painful
journey. (rh) | 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Nobel Peace Prize 2021: The case against Jared Kushner | | Belen Fernandez - Aljazeera - Jared Kushner, former White House
adviser and prized son-in-law of Twitter ban victim and ex-US
President Donald Trump, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by
Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz. The nomination
is based on Kushner’s role in negotiating last year the “Abraham
Accords”, the normalisation deals between Israel and the United Arab
Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. Of course, of all the people to
be running around making Nobel Peace Prize nominations, Dershowitz’s
credentials are rather dubious. His track record includes advocating
for the legalisation of torture and psychopathically arguing in the
Wall Street Journal on behalf of a “continuum of civilianality” –
according to which it is OK for Israel to kill Arab civilians
because, well, many of them are just not that civilian-like. It is
not difficult to see why celebrity lawyer Dershowitz, who also
defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, would celebrate
the “peace” efforts of nepotism’s favourite poster boy. After all,
Kushner’s approach to Middle East peace is to definitively dispossess
the Palestinians and thereby finalise Israel’s project of territorial
domination based on ethnic cleansing and apartheid. (rh)
| 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel`s ambassador says not interested in working with US on return to Iran deal | | Al-Monitor Staff - Al=Monitor - As US President Joe Biden works to
revive the landmark Iranian nuclear agreement, Israel’s envoy to the
United States suggested Tuesday that Israel may not consult with the
new administration on its steps to reenter. Biden has pledged to
engage with allies and partners, including Israel, before making any
moves to join the deal. But Reuters reports that some Israeli
officials believe consulting with the Biden administration could
backfire for Israel “by falsely signaling its consent for any new
deal that it still opposes.” “We will not be able to be part of such
a process if the new administration returns to that deal,” Israel’s
ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, told Army Radio. (rh)
| 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| The Israeli right wants Arabs at the polls — with one big condition | | Meron Rapoport and Ameer Fakhoury - +972 - A veritable “love blitz.”
There is no better way to describe Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s recent outreach to Palestinian citizens in Israel. There
is the bromance with Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Islamic party
Ra’am, which nearly gave Netanyahu enough Knesset seats to stay in
power, and is one of the core reasons for the breakup of the Joint
List. There is the prime minister’s hyped visits to health clinics
delivering COVID-19 vaccines in Tira, Umm al-Fahm, Nazareth, and
other Palestinian communities. (rh) | 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| In exchange for captive, Israel said to buy $1m of Russian COVID doses for Syria | | TOI STAFF - Israel is said to have agreed to purchase an unknown
number of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine doses for use in Syria
as part of the deal for the return of an Israeli woman who was held
by the Syrian regime after crossing the border two weeks ago. The
woman arrived in Israel on Friday via Moscow and was being debriefed
this weekend by the Shin Bet security agency.
According to a report (Arabic) in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat on
Saturday, Israel is funding the purchase of Sputnik V doses for
Damascus as part of the prisoner exchange deal with the Assad regime.
The Ynet news site reported Saturday that Israel’s purchase of the
vaccine doses was to the tune of over a million dollars.(rh) | 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Netanyahu mourns Limbaugh, pushes for confrontational path over US-Iran talks | | Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
waited four weeks for his first phone call from US President Joe
Biden, whom he has known for almost four decades. Netanyahu’s office
reported that the Feb. 17 conversation was “very warm and friendly,”
lasting nearly an hour and covering all the key issues on their
agenda. Truly idyllic. The Israeli announcement also reported that
the president “commended the prime minister on his leadership in the
fight against the coronavirus.” The White House statement did not —
maybe a reflection of the fact that while Biden’s election is behind
him, Netanyahu’s is still a month away.
The very next day, Netanyahu was already kicking the milk bucket that
had just begun to fill by tweeting particularly effusive condolences
on this week’s passing of conservative provocative talk show host
Rush Limbaugh at the age of 70. Netanyahu is well aware that
Democrats despised Limbaugh, his views and his right-wing preaching.
He knows that his tweet is tantamount to a finger in the eye of the
entire party. He is familiar with the ins and outs of US politics and
with the backrooms of the Washington power structure and understands
fully what it means when he says, “We shall miss him dearly.”
While Netanyahu’s praise of the controversial firebrand drew some
domestic criticism, too, people who know Netanyahu well are convinced
he was making a statement beyond the obligatory consolations. In
fact, he was telling Democrats that while they had gotten rid of
former President Donald Trump, they are stuck with him and he has no
intention of giving up or turning the page. I am here to stay, I am a
Republican. Thus spoke Netanyahu. (rh)
| 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Likud will never be able to remove stain of Kahane | | Nahum Barnea - Ynetnews - By embracing Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu may
believe he will secure the immunity he seeks in the criminal
proceedings against him, but he is underestimating the extremists and
racists if he thinks he can control them - and his party will pay the
price. A number of years ago a synagogue was constructed on private
Palestinian land in the West Bank settlement of Givat Ze`ev, north of
Jerusalem. After all legal avenues were exhausted by its builders,
the synagogue was condemned and its demolition order issued. At that
point the disciples of the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane appeared on
the scene. They occupied the condemned building and prevented
authorities, including the police, from carrying out the court-
ordered demolition. (rh)
| 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| In Israel and the Gulf, Reaction to U.S. Push for Iran Talks Is Muted but Wary : Nations that opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran responded cautiously to the Biden administration’s decision to re-engage, while those that supported the deal cheered | | Patrick Kingsley and Vivian Yee - The New York Times - JERUSALEM —
When the United States last tried to negotiate a nuclear deal with
Iran, the reaction from the Israeli government was blunt and fierce.
In the years preceding Iran’s 2015 agreement with Washington and
several other leading powers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of
Israel repeatedly called the negotiations a “historic mistake.” But
on Friday, the formal announcement that the Biden administration was
seeking a return to nuclear negotiations with Iran, after the
collapse of the 2015 agreement under President Trump, did not provoke
a sharp backlash — not just in Jerusalem, but also in the Gulf
nations of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which also
oppose too generous a rapprochement with Iran. The muted response
from Iran’s regional antagonists may mask a strong undercurrent of
pessimism and behind-the-scenes pushback against the Americans’
decision. Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates remain wary of Iran’s
intentions, and have signaled that they would be open to a deal only
if it went well beyond the previous one — reining in Iran’s ballistic
missile program, its meddling in other countries and the militias it
supports in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere, in addition to its
nuclear program. (rh) | 21/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel’s Vaccine Apartheid | | Omar Aziz - Tribune - Israel continues to roll out Covid-19 vaccines
at world-leading speed to its nine million citizens: since the
programme began on 19 December, over 45 percent of its population has
been vaccinated. According to the British Medical Journal, infections
are ‘plummeting’ as a result. Palestinians, meanwhile, are being
forced to wait. Last week, Israel agreed to supply 5,000 doses to
Palestinian frontline medical workers, but even now only 2,000 doses
of the Moderna vaccine have been delivered; this week, Israel has
delayed the delivery of vaccines to Gaza. On Wednesday, Israeli
medics vaccinated a mere 400 Palestinians—residents of East Jerusalem
and Palestinians who work in Israel on a daily basis—and Palestine
has received 10,000 doses of the Russian vaccine, enough to vaccinate
5,000 individuals — but the Occupied Territories are home to
millions. With more than 108,000 coronavirus cases in the West Bank
resulting in 1,325 deaths, and some 51,000 cases in Gaza—one of the
most densely populated areas in the world—resulting in 523 deaths,
the Occupied Palestinian Territories have a fatality rate of 1.1
percent compared to Israel’s 0.7 percent. The already extreme
healthcare inequalities for Palestinians under Israel’s occupation,
especially in the besieged and impoverished Gaza Strip, have been
compounding the lethal effects of the virus. (rh)
| 21/2/2021 |
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| Netanyahu’s Likud signs surplus vote-sharing deal with far-right party | | TOI STAFF - Times of Israel - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
Likud party on Wednesday signed a surplus vote-sharing agreement with
the far-right Religious Zionism party, which includes the Kahanist
Otzma Yehudit and the anti-LGBT Noam factions, ahead of next month’s
Knesset elections. Under the agreement, furthermore, Likud promised
that Netanyahu would include Religious Zionism MKs “in any government
he forms,” a stance at odds with previous promises by senior Likud
figures that Religious Zionism’s No.3, Itamar Ben Gvir, would not be
part of a Netanyahu government.(rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Artists like me are being censored in Germany – because we support Palestinian rights | | Brian Eno - The Guardian - I am just one of many artists who have
been affected by a new McCarthyism that has taken hold amid a rising
climate of intolerance in Germany. Novelist Kamila Shamsie, poet Kae
Tempest, musicians Young Fathers and rapper Talib Kwelli, visual
artist Walid Raad and the philosopher Achille Mbembe are among the
artists, academics, curators and others who have been caught up in a
system of political interrogation, blacklisting and exclusion that is
now widespread in Germany thanks to the passing of a 2019
parliamentary resolution. Ultimately this is about targeting critics
of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. Recently, an exhibition of my
artwork was cancelled in its early stages because I support the
nonviolent, Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)
movement. The cancellation was never publicly declared, but I
understand it to have been the consequence of cultural workers in
Germany fearing that they and their institution would be punished for
promoting someone labelled as “antisemitic”. This is the work of
tyranny: create a situation where people are frightened enough to
keep their mouths shut, and self-censorship will do the rest.(rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Polish court orders historians to apologize over Holocaust book | | Associated Press - Ynetnews - Two prominent Polish scholars, Barbara
Engelking and Jan Grabowski, were sued by the 81-year-old niece of a
wartime village elder who argued a book they co-edited defames her
deceased uncle`s memory by suggesting he had a role in the death of
Jews. The uncle is mentioned in a brief passage of a 1,600-page
historical work, "Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected
Counties of Occupied Poland." Poland`s governing nationalist Law and
Justice party (PiS) has said it views any investigation into
complicity by Poles in the wartime slaughter of Jews as dishonoring
the country. The researchers said they will appeal against the
decision.(rh)
| 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israelis suspected of selling advanced missiles to U.S. rival in Asia | | Yaniv Kubovich, Josh Breiner - Information Clearing House - Over 20
Israelis, including former employees of Israeli defense firms, have
been investigated for illegally selling weapons to U.S. rival in
Asia. Most details of the investigation, including which country is
involved, are under a gag order. Sources with knowledge of the
investigation said the case was highly sensitive, as it could affect
Israel`s foreign relations and lead to a crisis between superpowers.
According to a statement by Israel Police on Thursday, an
investigation together with the Shin Bet security service found that
the suspects "developed, manufactured, tested and sold armed
loitering missiles to an Asian country." (rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| The cracks in Yair Lapid’s glass ceiling | | Biranit Goren - Times of Israel - His allies betrayed him, his partners
left him and his opponents outshone him – but the Yesh Atid chair chose
to remain silent. That`s exactly why he could well be PM one day (rh)
| 14/2/2021 |
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| Even AIPAC was alarmed by rise of Israeli racist party in 2019. Now, who cares! | | PHILIP WEISS - Mondoweiss - What happens when Israel just keeps
turning into such a rightwing Jewish-supremacist country that
American Israel-lovers lose their stomach for defending it? Or they
get tired of telling us all about the Good Israel that’s waiting to
be redeemed? I think that’s happening, and here is a news story that
supports that view. Two days ago Benjamin Netanyahu, eager to lose no
rightwing votes in his bid for reelection in March, signed a vote-
sharing agreement with a party that includes extremist racists. Vote-
sharing deals mean that two parties can get another seat in
parliament by combining their “leftover” votes. Otherwise those extra
votes would simply be parcelled to other parties. Netanyahu needs to
keep those seats on his side. Last week, Netanyahu actually midwifed
the birth of this new racist party– Religious Zionism– out of smaller
factions so that Religious Zionism would have a better chance of
exceeding the threshhold. If a party falls below the threshhold in
the election– 3.25 percent/four seats in parliament — it doesn’t get
any seats at all.(rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| ‘NY Times’ and ‘Washington Post’ have still said nothing about B’Tselem’s finding a month ago that Israel is an ‘apartheid regime | | JAMES NORTH - Mondoweiss - One month after one of Israel’s leading
human rights organizations declared that the country is ruled by an
“apartheid” state, liberal Zionists in the U.S. are breathing more
easily. The New York Times and the Washington Post have still
published nothing on the landmark finding by the human rights group
B’Tselem, nor have any of their editorial writers or main columnists
chimed in. Liberal Zionists can relax. With the apartheid designation
still a secret to most Americans, groups like J Street don’t have to
explain why they still oppose the nonviolent global campaign for
Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS). (rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| From Israeli prison, Barghouti mulls presidency bid, turning up heat on Abbas | | AARON BOXERMAN - Times of Israel - Security prisoner Marwan
Barghouti, widely seen as a rival to Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas, is considering running in the scheduled Palestinian
presidential elections, a close associate of his confirmed Thursday.
“Our comrade Marwan is considering the possibility, but he has not
yet made a decision either way,” former Palestinian legislator
Qaddura Fares said in a phone call. Barghouti, who is serving five
life sentences in an Israeli prison for his role planning deadly
terror attacks against Israelis in the Second Intifada, is popular
among Palestinians and is widely seen as a possible successor to
Abbas. (rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Even AIPAC was alarmed by rise of Israeli racist party in 2019. Now, who cares! | | PHILIP WEISS - Mondoweiss - Two days ago Benjamin Netanyahu, eager to
lose no rightwing votes in his bid for reelection in March, signed a
vote-sharing agreement with a party that includes extremist racists.
Vote-sharing deals mean that two parties can get another seat in
parliament by combining their “leftover” votes. Otherwise those extra
votes would simply be parcelled to other parties. Netanyahu needs to
keep those seats on his side. (rh) | 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel`s leaders are out of ideas | | Nadav Eyal - Ynetnews - There is no logic to decisions made by ministers
who would rather fall back on revert failed solutions than promote the
coronavirus vaccinations and come up with creative ways of safely
reopening schools. (rh)
| 14/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Compilation of all 2020 UN reports on the Palestinians made available | | UN Committee on the Inalienable Rights of The Palestinian People - As
at the end of every years, all reports on the Palestinian issue
published during 2020 by various United Nations bodies and agencies
have been systematically compiled, with links to all items available
to the use of diplomats, activists and academic researchers.
Subjects referenced in these reports include: Access and
movement, Annexation, Armed conflict, Assistance, Ceasefire,
Children, Covenant: Civil and Political Rights, Covenant: Economic
Social and Cultural Rights, Economic issues, Education and culture,
Energy, Environmental issues, Fourth Geneva Convention, Gaza Strip,
Gender, Golan Heights, Health, Holy places, Human rights and
international humanitarian law, Incidents, Internally displaced
persons, Jerusalem, Land, Legal issues, Living conditions,
NGOs/Civil Society, Natural resources, Occupation, Palestine
question, Peace conference, Peace process, Protection, Public
information, Refugee camps, Refugees and displaced persons, Security
issues, Settlements, Social issues, Terrorism, Wall, Water, Women,
and violence. [ak]
| 11/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israelis, Palestinians want separation, skeptical of solutions - study | | LAHAV HARKOV - Jerusalem Post - “The overwhelming priority in all discussions with Israeli Jews and with Palestinians was the desire to separate from the other and avoid any governance or living arrangement that brought the two groups closer together,” the report explained. A two-state solution was unsurprisingly found to be the most politically viable alternative. It was the preferred alternative for Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians, and came in second place for Israeli Jews (after the status quo) and Gazan Palestinians. [bz]
| 11/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Why Was Netanyahu So Quick to Close Israel`s Airport? | | Meirav Arlosoroff - Haaretz - Israel is the only country in the world to
close its airport. Instead of a proportionate, thought-out COVID policy
that could have brought about the same result with less damage, Israel
chose again to go with a single dramatic, aggressive move.(rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| 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.(rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| PA says Israel’s ‘symbolic’ donation of 5,000 vaccines ‘will not help us’ | | YUMNA PATEL - Mondoweiss - After weeks of mounting pressure from the
international community, Israel announced that it will be giving
5,000 doses of its COVID-19 vaccine supplies to the Palestinian
Authority (PA) — an amount so miniscule, that the PA said it “will
not help us.” Israel announced the move on Sunday, with a
spokesperson for Defense Minister Benny Gantz telling AFP “I confirm
we are going to set 5,000 vaccines to medical teams in the
Palestinian Authority.The doses, according to AFP, are intended to
inoculate Palestinian medical personnel and those on the front lines
fighting the coronavirus. It remained unclear when the shipment would
be made, and when the PA would start vaccinating healthcare workers.
But with two doses required per person, the shipment will only result
in the vaccination of 2,500 medical personnel, leaving thousands more
healthcare workers across the West Bank and Gaza at risk. An unnamed
Palestinian official told AFP that the shipment was a “symbolic move”
and that it “will not help us.” Israel has come out as a world leader
for its distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine, so far inoculating 3.2
million people (34.3 percent of the country’s population). But Israel
has, as right groups have pointed out, failed to uphold its
responsibility under international law to vaccinate the Palestinian
population it occupies in Gaza and the West Bank. If the shipment of
5,000 vaccines does go through and the PA begins vaccinating
healthcare workers, the lucky recipients of the vaccine will,
according to public knowledge, be the first Palestinians in the
occupied West Bank and Gaza to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. (rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Report: Imprisoned Palestinian Leader Barghouti to Run for President in Upcoming Elections | | Khaled Abu Toameh - Palestine Chronicle - Fatah officials: Jailed Fatah
leader Marwan Barghouti, 61, will run against President Mahmoud Abbas,
85, in the presidential election on July 31.(rh)
| 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Three Decades After his Death, Kahane’s Message of Hate is More Popular Than Ever | | David Sheen - MERIP - For all of its successes in the past three
decades, the Kahanist movement has failed to meet two major
benchmarks: producing a viable successor as charismatic as Kahane
himself and transforming itself into a mass movement capable of
competing in the Knesset with Israel’s largest secular right-wing
political parties. The absence of a leader of his caliber has not
stopped Kahane’s ideas from being adopted by a range of far-right
politicians. The principles that Rabbi Meir Kahane popularized—that
liberal democracy is an undesirable alien idea and that non-Jews must
be driven down, and preferably out of Greater Israel altogether—have
seeped deep into mainstream Israeli society. In the decades since his
death, Kahane’s dedicated followers have dragged the country from the
right to the far-right, and in the coming years they will drag it
even further. In Israel of 2021, espousing racist hatred toward
Palestinians and other non-Jews is not a mark of shame, but a badge
of honor.(rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Israel`s Netanyahu postpones trip to UAE and Bahrain amid virus surge | | Al-Monitor Staff - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
postponed his historic trip to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“Despite the importance of the trip to Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to postpone the visit at this
stage due to the closing of the skies,” read a Thursday press release
from the prime minister’s office. Netanyahu was scheduled to visit
the two Gulf states next week. However, Israel is currently
experiencing a major outbreak of COVID-19, despite its fast-paced
vaccination campaign. In late January, Israel instituted a flight ban
to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. The prime minister’s
office cited the air travel situation as justification for postponing
the UAE and Bahrain trips. (rh)
| 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Netanyahu sees a path to reelection with new fascist/racist bloc that includes ‘Jewish Power’ | | JONATHAN OFIR - Mondoweiss - The Kahanist Jewish Power party, led by
Meir Kahane’s disciple Itamar Ben Gvir (who is said to have a poster
of the 1994 Hebron massacre terrorist Baruch Goldstein in his living-
room), has been courted before by Netanyahu in these forever-
elections – and Netanyahu is reportedly doing so again. He is said to
be promoting a merger between Jewish Power and Bezalel Smotrich’s
faction Religious Zionism. In this deal, he offered Smotrich a
ministerial portfolio if he merges with Jewish Power. Smotrich is an
extremist himself: the author of the “decision plan” that offers an
ultimatum to non-Jews of total surrender to Apartheid, or expulsion.
Jewish Power needs Smotrich. These followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane,
the former Jewish terror leader who was even too much for the Israeli
parliament (Kahane’s Kach party was outlawed in 1988 after first
being elected to the Knesset in 1984), have a considerable following.
In the September 2019 elections, they won almost 84,000 votes. But
recent polls up to two days ago showed Jewish Power failing to clear
the electoral threshold. As Smotrich’s party was also failing to
clear the threshhold. But if they joined their 2% each, they would
clear it that threshhold. And they did that yesterday, with
Netanyahu’s help. Recent polling gives this combined Jewish-fascist
party 5 seats! (rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| Global solidarity builds for Issa Amro, facing sentencing by Israeli military court | | PHILIP WEISS - Mondoweiss - Issa Amro is an anti-apartheid activist
in the occupied city of Hebron in Palestine who is dedicated to
nonviolence, though he has been arrested by the Israeli military more
times than he can remember. “I was arrested, detained, attacked many
times… I used to be detained and arrested around 25 times a year,” he
says. Last month Amro was convicted in an Israeli military court on
six trumped-up charges relating to his work over several years, among
them the charge of disrespecting an Israeli soldier by using the word
“stupid.” Amro faces sentencing by a military judge next week, and
there’s been a campaign of solidarity for Amro from around the world.
Amnesty International has called on Israel to drop the case, saying
it is “politically motivated” and the charges against Amro are
“baseless.” Representatives of the British, European, EU and Canadian
consulates attended his last hearing, Yumna Patel reported, and the
Canadian mission to Ramallah expressed support for Amro.(rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| As the Arab Joint List falls apart, the biggest winner is Netanyahu | | AARON BOXERMAN - The Times of Israel - On Thursday night, the long-
anticipated divorce between Mansour Abbas (Ra’am) and the Joint
List’s other three parties became official. “I don’t like to use the
word ‘betrayal’” to describe Mansour Abbas’s break with the faction,
Joint List chair Ayman Odeh said in an interview with Channel 13. He
didn’t propose an alternative term, either. The dissolution of the
Joint List, which last March won the largest electoral showing in
Arab Israeli political history — an unprecedented 15 Knesset seats —
heralds the beginning of a hard political season for the Arab
parties. Polls indicate that it is unlikely — but not impossible —
for Ra’am to cross the 3.25% electoral threshold. Before the
separation was formalized last week, the Joint List was already
polling at a low 10 seats. If Ra’am’s mandates vanish — that could
send the rest of the Joint List tumbling together to 8 or even 7
seats in the Knesset.(rh)
| 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
| In thrice-demolished village, a Mideast battle of wills | | Associated Press - Ynetnews - The IDF has bulldozed the Palestinian
Bedouin herding community of Khirbet Humsu three times in as many
months, with residents returning again and again to repair their fences
— hoping to gather their sheep, knowing the army might return the next
day (rh) | 7/2/2021 |
| ... |
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