Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'

Salaam

Another update. The correct headline.

https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...X4AArejd-1.jpg

https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...VMAAxt8i-1.jpg

Israeli troops wound dozens on Gaza border as Palestinians bury dead from earlier violence

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot and wounded about 70 Palestinians among crowds demonstrating at the Gaza-Israel border on Saturday, health officials said, after one of the deadliest days of unrest in the area in years.

Thousands of people marched through the streets of Gaza in funerals for the 15 people killed by Israeli gunfire on Friday, and a national day of mourning was observed in the enclave and in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was responsible for the violence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was protecting its sovereignty and citizens.

An Israeli military spokesman said he was checking the details of Saturday’s unrest. It broke out when Palestinians gathered on the border between the Hamas-run enclave and Israel then began throwing stones. Palestinian health officials said about 70 were wounded.

On Friday at least 15 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces confronting protesters. The military said some had shot at them, rolled burning tyres and hurled rocks and fire bombs toward troops across the border.

Hamas said five of them were members of its armed wing. Israel said eight of the 15 dead belonged to Hamas, designated a terrorist group by Israel and the West, and two others belonged to other militant groups.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians had gathered on Friday along the fenced 65-km (40-mile) frontier, where tents had been erected for a planned six-week protest pressing for a right of return for refugees and their descendents to what is now Israel.

But hundreds of Palestinian youths ignored calls from the organizers and the Israeli military to stay away from the frontier and violence broke out.

The protest, organized by Hamas and other Palestinian factions, is scheduled to culminate on May 15, the day Palestinians commemorate what they call the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when hundreds of thousands fled or were driven out of their homes in 1948, when the state of Israel was created.

Israel has long ruled out any right of return, fearing an influx of Arabs that would wipe out its Jewish majority. It says refugees should resettle in a future state the Palestinians seek in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza. Peace talks to that end have been frozen since 2014.

Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but still maintains tight control of its land and sea borders.

Egypt also keeps its border with Gaza largely closed.

Abbas’s spokesman, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said: “The message of the Palestinian people is clear. The Palestinian land will always belong to its legitimate owners and the occupation will be removed.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKBN1H70AU

To add they were prepared, this tweet was deleted by the IDF

https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...W4AApWWQ-1.jpg

Salaam

Wasn't expecting this opinion from Haaretz.

The Israel Massacre Forces

The shooting on the Gaza border shows once again that the killing of Palestinians is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes

The death counter ticked away wildly. One death every 30 minutes. Again. Another one. One more. Israel was busy preparing for the seder night. TV stations continued broadcasting their nonsense.

It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened if a settler had been stabbed – on-site broadcasts, throw open the studios. But in Gaza the Israel Defense Forces continued to massacre mercilessly, with a horrific rhythm, as Israel celebrated Passover.

If there was any concern, it was because soldiers couldn’t celebrate the seder. By nightfall the body count had reached at least 15, all of them by live fire, with more than 750 wounded. Tanks and sharpshooters against unarmed civilians. That’s called a massacre. There’s no other word for it.

Comic relief was provided by the army spokesman, who announced in the evening: “A shooting attack was foiled. Two terrorists approached the fence and fired at our soldiers.” This came after the 12th Palestinian fatality and who knows how many wounded.

Sharpshooters fired at hundreds of civilians but two Palestinians who dared return fire at the soldiers who were massacring them are “terrorists,” their actions labeled “terror attacks” and their sentence – death. The lack of self-awareness has never sunk to such depths in the IDF.

As usual, the media lent its appalling support. After 15 deaths Or Heller on Channel 10 News declared that the most serious incident of the day had been the firing by the two Palestinians. Dan Margalit “saluted” the army.

Israel was brainwashed again and sat down to a festive meal in a spirit of self-satisfaction. And then people recited “Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not,” impressed by the spread of plagues and enthusing at the mass murder of babies (the killing of the first-born Egyptians, the 10th plague).

Christian Good Friday and the Jewish seder night became a day of blood for the Palestinians in Gaza. You can’t even call it a war crime because there was no war there.

The test by which the IDF and the pathological indifference of public opinion should be judged is the following: What would happen if Jewish Israeli demonstrators, ultra-Orthodox or others, threatened to invade the Knesset? Would such insane live fire by tanks or sharpshooters be understood by the public? Would the murder of 15 Jewish demonstrators pass with silence? And if several dozen Palestinians managed to enter Israel, would that justify a massacre?

The killing of Palestinians is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes. There’s nothing cheaper in Israel than Palestinian blood. If there were a hundred or even a thousand deaths Israel would still “salute” the IDF. This is the army whose commander, the good and moderate Gadi Eisenkot, is received with such pride by Israelis. Of course, in the holiday media interviews, no one asked him about the anticipated massacre and no one will ask him now either.

But an army that prides itself on shooting a farmer on his land, showing the video on its website in order to intimidate Gazans; an army that pits tanks against civilians and boasts of one hundred snipers waiting for the demonstrators is an army that has lost all restraint. As if there weren’t other measures. As if the IDF had the authority or right to prevent demonstrations in Gaza, threatening bus drivers not to transport protesters in territory where the occupation has long ended, as everyone knows.

Despairing young men sneak in from Gaza, armed with ridiculous weapons, marching dozens of kilometers without hurting anyone, only waiting to be caught so as to escape Gaza’s poverty in an Israeli jail. This doesn’t touch anyone’s conscience either. The main thing is that the IDF proudly presents its catch. Palestinian President Mahmous Abbas is responsible for the situation in Gaza. And Hamas, of course. And Egypt. And the Arab world and the whole world. Just not Israel. It left Gaza and Israeli soldiers never commit massacres.

The names were published in the evening. One man was rising from his prayers, another was shot while fleeing. The names won’t move anyone. Mohammed al-Najar, Omar Abu Samur, Ahmed Odeh, Sari Odeh, Bader al-Sabag. This space is too small, to our horror, to list all their names.

https://www.haaretz.com/amp/opinion/...mpression=true

- - - Updated - - -

Salaam

Another update

Palestinians to lead their own liberation

At last Palestinians are taking care of their fate and their Right of Return. Israeli leadership and the IDF are clearly confused by the March of Return. It is possible that the paralysis inflicted on Palestinian liberation by Jewish solidarity groups may come to an end. I briefly spoke with Alimuddin Usmani in Prague (31.3.2018)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=UPF038_cGO0

Salaam

Another update


Shooting Protesters in Cold Blood

The Israeli army snipers who were ordered to shoot unarmed Palestinian protesters last Friday at the Gaza border, killing 17 outright and wounding hundreds of others, were acting according to the contemporary script of Middle Eastern dictators.

The Israeli army initially admitted in a tweet that the tactic was premeditated and preceise, but then deleted the tweet, as the Israeli peace group B’tselem pointed out.

Sociologists who study how people mobilize to challenge an oppressive situation have noted that one possible response of any regime under pressure from below is to raise the cost to dissidents of their social action.

Imposing the death penalty is of course the ultimate in raising such costs. But randomly shooting into crowds is more than just threatening people with death. It is a means of terrorizing the dissidents. Simply taking hundreds of people out and executing them has dangers as a course of action for the oppressive rulers, as well, inasmuch as it threatens to create large numbers of martyrs and impel reprisals. Moreover, large massacres can impose costs on the regime in the form of boycotts from other states or civil society actors. Randomly shooting into a crowd, killing a few people but wounding many others, has the advantage for the regime of creating uncertainty and fear.

This tactic was deployed during the youth protests of 2011. Secret police in Tunisia shot into peaceful rallies in provincial towns in late December 2010 and early January 2011 and then denied it and ordered the state press not to cover it. Blogger Lina Ben Mhenni took her smartphone to the hospitals down there and got pictures of and interviews with the victims and put them up at her blog (very bravely, since the regime could have direly punished her; but it fell before it could do so).

In Sana’a, Yemen, during the demonstrations at Change Square, dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh had his troops occasionally fire into the crowd. In one such incident one night, 350 people were injured. Over time a couple thousand people were killed in this way (that is, being sniped at by professional soldiers while peacefully protesting– I’m not talking about clashes among fighters).

In Syria in 2011, the regime would station snipers on rooftops above town squares around the country. In each town a few people would be killed at each demonstration this way by army live ammunition. The regime was trying to discourage rallies by raising their cost, and indiscriminate such fire is a force multiplier, since the uncertainty of where the bullet will come from and whom it will strike is excruciating. Syria’s brave protesters never were cowed by this cowardly tactic, and even today would protest if they were allowed to.

One downside of sniping unarmed noncombatants is a negative reaction from other countries. Israel’s current far right wing leadership does not worry about that. They think that the US and the UK are the only countries that matter. Like Putin, they have tried to shape the US political scene to suit them, targeting uncooperative congressmen and senators for reprisals. This is not only a matter of campaign donations by the Israel lobbies but of government covert ops. They also do this in the UK.

Of 535 members of Congress, exactly one, Bernie Sanders, has condemned the massacre.

The Likud Party can also rely on an American television news blackout. Palestine is almost never reported on the airwaves and when it is, it is replete with propaganda. There are even problems with print news.

@Robert mackey observed,

“By my count, there are currently 163 stories on the @nytimes home page and 116 on @washingtonpost but not 1 is about the Israeli massacre in Gaza, which was featured in print by both. There is also no mention among 126 stories on @CNN’s US home page, or in 100 stories on @Lati mes .”

Academics in communications departments should look into this remarkable phenomenon. How it is arranged?

Be careful, though— even professors can be fired.

It may be objected that Israel is not a dictatorship like that of Yemen or Syria. But for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, that is precisely what it is. The Israeli military controls the Palestinian West Bank, though it farms out some duties to the PLO. The Israeli military encircles and blockades little Gaza with its 1.8 million concentration camp inmates. Stateless Palestinians experience Israeli military rule as a foreign military dictatorship. Palestinians are probably a majority of the people ruled by the Israeli government.

Moreover, dictators such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, had no bigger boosters than the Likud government in Israel.

So it is not really surprising that the Israeli military would adopt the same tactics as its peers, with which it often collaborates in maintaining the rotten status quo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=dABuWSE0Peg

Salaam

More comment

Israel s------s at a cowardly world

The Palestinian people have been abandoned by an impotent and sycophantic international community

Faced with Israel’s crimes against humanity Western leaderships mirror the proverbial see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil Wise Monkeys bending their heads before the chest-beating Goliath on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Those self-appointed champions of human rights, those whose outrage knows no bounds over the poisoning of a traitorous double agent in the UK, shrink from any criticism of the Jewish state.

After all, who dares to risk being branded anti-Semitic, like the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, poor old Jeremy Corbyn! Or worse, being the recipient of tongue-lashings and threats from Trump’s enforcer in the United Nations, American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (Aipac) darling Nikki Haley.

Israeli army snipers mowed down upto 1,400 unarmed Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip peacefully protesting close to the border fence with Israel last Friday to mark ‘Land Day’. Seventeen were killed including children.
Evidenced by videos on social media, several were shot while fleeing from the hail of bullets and clouds of tear gas. All the estimated 30,000 protesters were on their own side of the border when they came under this vicious attack, which if committed anywhere else on the planet would have been called what it was, a massacre.

What was planned to be a peaceful occasion complete with picnics, social interaction and traditional dances was described by Danny Danon, Israel’s odious ambassador to the UN as an organised provocation forcing Israel “to defend its sovereignty” — as though this military state masquerading as the only Middle East democracy requires defending from civilians whose only weapons are stones.

The BBC reports I watched on Friday evening referred to “clashes”, a term which usually implies that both sides were armed and neglected to make mention of the numbers of dead and injured. Israel’s prominent human rights organisation B’Tselem was more forthright than any of Israel’s allies; its spokesman characterised shooting at unarmed demonstrators as “manifestly illegal”, noting that some Palestinians were shot in the back.

Kuwait requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. “Let us be clear here, what happened today was a peaceful demonstration to express their desire for their legitimate rights,” said the Kuwaiti representative, adding, “These were defenceless people.” The UK and France uttered mealy mouthed expressions of “concern”. The meeting ended minus any official statement. No surprise there! In a statement, the UN’s Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged an independent and transparent investigation. He did his duty but that’s that because Israel will not cooperate. It never has. The Israeli government, supported by the US, accuses the United Nations of anti-Semitic bias.

Just days ago, Haley said the United States would withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council over resolutions condemning Israel, accusing the body of being “grossly biased”. In December, the US cut $285 million (Dh1.05 billion) from its share of the UN budget.

Let’s not beat about the bush, folks. Only weak states outside the higher echelons of the Western club are obliged to comply with human rights laws that are frequently cited as a weapon with which to beat them into compliance.
As for Israel, it enjoys absolute immunity from any legal challenge. It would have been provided impunity from censure, let alone prosecution, even it had used its 100 plus IDF snipers to murder 5,000 or 10,000 Palestinians in cold blood. Israel for all its nuclear might and America’s slavish diplomatic cover remains the eternal victim.

In short, the Palestinian people have been abandoned by a cowardly, sycophantic international community. Very soon Donald Trump’s plan to relocate the US embassy to [occupied] Jerusalem, he calls Israel’s eternal capital, will reach fruition, hammering the last nails into the coffin of even a semblance of a Palestinian state.

While it is true that Hamas’ takeover of Gaza has been a disaster for the 1.5 million people caged inside the world’s largest open-air prison camp, deprived of basic necessities, blockaded by land, sea and air that should not mean that the population is open to being treated worse than penned cattle.

However, many Palestinian residents of occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank are only marginally better off faced with apartheid walls, checkpoints, house demolitions and land grab. Their ongoing plight is a dark stain on the community of nations and the ever more impotent body founded in the aftermath of Second World War to safeguard human rights and freedoms. Time to say it like it is. The US and Israel have got western democracies by the jugular.

http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers...orld-1.2198563

Quote:

---

s------s

---

Filter its s n i g g e r s (a half-suppressed, typically scornful laugh.)

More perspectives

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG3k4UBdV0Y

Salaam

Like to share

Embedded Tweet

Salaam

A little humour to lighten up this thread.

Embedded Tweet

Salaam

More comment on what is happening to Jeremy Corbyn.

Who are the true Semites in the topsy-turvy world of anti-Semitism?

As the Israeli general’s son Miko Peled warned Labour activists last year, “They are going to pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn… the reason anti-Semitism is used is because they [the Israelis] have no argument, there is nothing to say.”

And now the Zionist Inquisition and mainstream media have ganged up to crucify Corbyn for the crimes of others. Of course, Corbyn could and should have done more to crush or at least distance himself from the loonies who post deliberately hateful anti-Jewish comments. But it seems likely that many of those vile scribblers are part of the vast army of Israeli hasbara trolls and dirty-tricks agents deployed to torpedo Corbyn and the pro-Palestinian cause. They will simply re-appear in different guise.

Isn’t this a matter for the Jewish “family” to resolve?

Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character… Any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.

Not my words, of course, but an observation by former Israeli Director of Military Intelligence Yehoshafat Harkabi in his book Israel’s Fateful Hour. His view is held by many others.

So, if nothing is done to address the causes of anti-Israelism (which is the outrage many people feel) it may turn into anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism therefore appears to be a matter between Jews everywhere and best left to them. Why bother Jeremy Corbyn with it?

Too late, the knives are out and stabbing furiously.

On the other side of the coin, as I write I’m receiving reports that Israel has blocked hundreds of Palestinian Christians in Gaza from travelling to pray at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem this Easter. Only those who are over 55 are allowed out of the prison camp, so many of them will have to travel without their relatives. Israel routinely imposes age restrictions, often announcing holiday permit policies at the last minute, or even after a holiday begins, making it almost impossible for Palestinians to make travel plans.

It’s all part of the usual lockdown of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the eight days around the Jewish Passover holiday. And I’ve just seen videos taken in Jerusalem showing Israeli police attacking Palestinians during a Palm Sunday procession. These and other outrages are committed again and again by “the only democracy in the Middle East”, which claims to guarantee freedom of worship.

We’ve all watched in horror on TV Israeli tanks and snipers firing at unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza on their own side of the border, killing 15 and injuring 1,400 with live fire, rubber-coated steel pellets and tear gas for going too near the prison fence that prevents them returning to their homes and farms. Some 773 had bullet wounds. This was a non-violent gathering organised by civil society. It should be remembered that Israel imposed a 300 metre no-go buffer on the Gaza side of the border fence, sometimes extending well beyond and creating a very wide high-risk zone that robs thousands of Gazans of valuable agricultural land. These killing fields are often used by sadistic Israeli snipers for sport.

Several sources report that the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) threatened the owners of 20 Gaza bus companies that “you and your families will be held personally responsible” if their buses brought protesters to the border. This is another typical outrage by the “the world’s most moral army”. How low, how gross its unbridled barbarism, how brutal its behaviour before anti-Israel reaction flips into anti-Semitism?

Yet Corbyn still sends out his Happy Passover messages!

Lecturing Corbyn like he’s a naughty schoolboy

While Israel ratchets-up its criminal behaviour, what are we to make of the latest instructions to Corbyn from the self-appointed leaders of the UK Jewish community, Jonathan Arkush (Board of Deputies of British Jews – BDBJ) and Jonathan Goldstein [Jewish Leadership Council – JLC]? Note the rude, dictatorial tone.

For whatever reasons, you have not, until now, seemed to grasp how strongly British Jews feel about the situation…

Any meeting between us must produce concrete, practical outcomes to be implemented by the party; there is no point in meeting if the situation remains the same or continues to worsen… We propose an agenda of actions for discussion:

• The party leadership, and you personally, must be seen and heard to lead this work. Only your voice can persuade your followers that this a necessary and correct course of action. If actions need to be passed by the NEC [National Executive Committee] or other party bodies, you need to take personal responsibility for ensuring this happens.
• Outstanding and future cases to be brought to a swift conclusion under a fixed timescale. An independent, mutually agreed ombudsman should be appointed to oversee performance, reporting to the party and to the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council.
• MPs, councillors and other party members should not share platforms with people who have been suspended or expelled for anti-Semitism and CLPs [Constituency Labour Parties] should not provide them with a platform. Anybody doing so should themselves be suspended…
• The party should circulate the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of anti_Semitism, with all its examples and clauses, to all members and branches. The party should work with mainstream Jewish community organisations to develop and implement education about anti-Semitism. This should include a clear list of unacceptable language, such as the use of “Zio” and “Zionist” as terms of abuse…
• Public confirmation that the party will seek to understand and engage with the Jewish community via its main representative groups, and not through fringe organisations who wish to obstruct the party’s efforts to tackle anti-Semitism.
• Nobody should be vilified for opposing anti-Semitism. Those Labour Party members and Labour-supporting blogs pushing the abuse are largely doing so in your name. They need to hear you say, publicly and in your own voice, that we had every right to protest about anti-Semitism, and that Labour MPs had every right to support us; that our concerns about anti-Semitism are sincere and not a “smear” as has been widely alleged (including on your own Facebook page)… and that anyone directing abuse, intimidation or threats at those of us who oppose anti-Semitism is damaging your efforts to eliminate it and to start rebuilding trust. We firmly believe that this must happen urgently, and certainly before we meet.

Disrespectful

There’s plenty wrong with this missive besides its arrogance. Many admirable Jewish groups vehemently campaign against Israel’s crimes. The idea that Labour should only engage with the Jewish community through the BoD and JLC is ludicrous and an insult to those Jews who’ll have nothing to do with them.

The idea that anyone involved with deciding disciplinary cases within the Labour Party should report to the BDBJ and JLC is simply insane.

And the idea that the Labour Party, down to branch level, should be “educated” by Jewish community organisations using the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism is a non-starter. Here’s why. It says:

• Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

The House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee accepted this definition subject to the inclusion of two caveats:

• It is not anti-Semitic to criticise the government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest anti-Semitic intent.
• It is not anti-Semitic to hold the Israeli government to the same standards as other liberal democracies, or to take a particular interest in the Israeli government’s policies or actions, without additional evidence to suggest anti-Semitic intent.

The Select Committee recommended the amended definition be “formally adopted by the UK government, law-enforcement agencies and all political parties”. The government agreed but dropped the caveats saying they weren’t necessary.

Consequently, it has been condemned by experts as “too vague to be useful”. Eminent human rights lawyer Hugh Tomlinson QC said it wasn’t a legally binding definition and lacked clarity. Therefore, any conduct contrary to the IHRA definition couldn’t necessarily be ruled illegal.

In Tomlinson’s view, it was “most unsatisfactory” for the government to adopt such a definition, and it could only be considered as a freestanding statement of policy. Public bodies were under no obligation to adopt or use it, nor should they be criticised for refusing. If public authorities did decide to adopt it they must interpret it in a way that’s consistent with their statutory obligations and with the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Freedom of expression applies not only to information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive, but also to those that “offend, shock or disturb the state or any sector of the population” – unless, of course, they encourage violence, hatred or intolerance.

Public authorities are also under an obligation “to create a favourable environment for participation in public debates for all concerned, allowing them to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”.

Calling Israel an apartheid state or advocating BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) against Israel couldn’t properly be characterised as anti-Semitic. Furthermore, any public authority seeking to apply the IHRA definition to prohibit or punish such activities “would be acting unlawfully”.

Retired Lord Justice of Appeal Sir Stephen Sedley also offered advice, criticising the IHRA working definition for lack of legal force and because “it is not neutral: it may well influence policy both domestically and internationally”.

He added that the right of free expression, now part of our domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, “places both negative and positive obligations on the state which may be put at risk if the IHRA definition is unthinkingly followed”. Moreover the 1986 Education Act established an individual right of free expression in all higher education institutions “which cannot be cut back by governmental policies”.

In Sedley’s view, the IHRA definition is open to manipulation. “What is needed now is a principled retreat on the part of government from a stance which it has naively adopted.”

In any case, Labour Party members will surely know that Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bestows on everyone “the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers”. Such rights, of course, are subject to the usual limitations required by law and respect for the rights of others.

An inconvenient truth?

So, how could the IHRA definition ever be accepted by Labour? Would the party really allow itself to be pushed by the BDBJ and JLC into such a minefield? Who are the Semites anyway?

Recent DNA research indicate that most of those living today who claim to be Jews are not descended from the ancient Israelites at all and the Palestinians have more Israelite blood than the Jews – they are the real Semites. Research conducted by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and published by the Oxford University Press in 2012 on behalf of the Society of Molecular Biology and Evolution, found that the Khazarian hypothesis is scientifically correct, meaning that most Jews are Khazars. Probably no more than 2 per cent of Jews in Israel are actually Israelites.

The Khazarians, who were never in Israel, converted to Talmudic Judaism in the 8th Century. So, even if you believe the myth that God gave the land to the Israelites, he certainly didn’t give it to the Khazarians. Russian “Jews” like the thug Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s defence minister, and countless others who flooded into the Holy Land intending to kick the Palestinians out, have no biblical or ancestral claim to Old Israel. Lieberman rejects UN calls for an inquiry into the Easter slaughter of Palestinians on the Gaza border, mentioned above and condemned across the world, and says his soldiers “deserve a medal”. That other unpleasant individual, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, was also full of praise, saying “well done to our soldiers”.

The Johns Hopkins study was published five years ago. Has it been refuted? If they got it right, and Palestinians are the true Semites, the whole anti-Semitism thing becomes an upside-down nonsense. The anti-Semites are actually the racist Israeli regime, its nasty witch-hunters and the brainwashed stooges among our politicians, in our government and embedded in our political parties – including Corbyn’s accusers.

Yes, Jeremy Corbyn needs to dislodge the anti-Jew morons and racist crackpots, of which there are many in all parties. They are drawn to politics like moths to a flame and always will be. He should also disband Labour Friends of Israel – an aggressive mouthpiece for a foreign terror regime has no place in a British political party. For balance the pro-Palestine camp inside and outside the political parties needs to purge its foul-mouthed nitwits.

What to do with the Goldstein/Arkush letter? It would be politically incorrect to bin it. Maybe it ought to be filed in Labour’s pending tray until the BDBJ and JLC publicly admit that there’s something very rotten in the State of Israel, condemn the Israeli regime’s wanton cruelty and mega-crimes against the Palestinian people, and promise to help sort out their “family” problem.

http://www.redressonline.com/2018/04/who-are-the-true-semites-in-the-topsy-turvy-world-of-anti-semitism/

Salaam

More on the ever changing techniques of Israeli hasbra.

Digital occupation: What's behind Israel's social media in Arabic

Israeli social media accounts in Arabic aim to normalise Israel's occupation and whitewash its image, Palestinians say.

On any given Friday, spokesperson for the Israeli army Avichay Adraee sends out a message to his more than 186,000 followers on Twitter.

"Have a blessed Friday," he tweets in Arabic. Sometimes the message is accompanied by a Quranic verse or a hadith, a saying of the Prophet Muhammad.

Every so often his posts turn to contemplations that address his Palestinian and Arab followers.

"How would you like to be remembered by people, as respected and successful or as troublemaking terrorists?" he posted last month. "The successful Mohamad Salah and Mostafa al-Agha or the cowardly terrorist Ahmad Jarrar? Think twice."

The references to Saleh, a popular Egyptian football player, and Agha, a Syrian presenter of a sports programme on the Saudi-owned MBC channel, are used as an ideal model of what an Arab man should be like.

In contrast there is Jarrar, a Palestinian man who was suspected of being behind the killing of a Jewish settler near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank in January. Jarrar was killed after a month-long manhunt by the Israeli forces last February.

Whitewashing occupation

Adraee's Twitter and Facebook pages are among several mushrooming social media accounts in Arabic by Israeli military and government officials that target Arab citizens. According to Fidaa Zaanin, an outspoken Palestinian critic of these accounts, they have one unified objective, which is to penetrate the ranks of Arabic-speaking world.

"By conversing with them in their mother tongue, these Israeli officials are opening communication channels, and disseminate lies and propaganda with the aim to normalise the Israeli occupation and to whitewash the image of the Zionist entity," Zaanin, who is from Gaza but now lives in Berlin, told Al Jazeera.

"Israel is portrayed as the only democracy in the Middle East, a progressive humane state, and the victim of violence and terrorism," she continued, "thus censoring a whole history of colonisation, murder and forced displacement."

One example is of Adraee tweeting about the Land Day protests that took place near the Gaza Strip's eastern border last week, in which 17 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces.

"Sending 30,000 troublemakers to fight at the security fence only points to Hamas's terrorism and their attempt to exploit the citizens of Gaza," he said.

Nadim Nashif, the executive director of 7amleh, the Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement, said that the Israeli accounts in Arabic have become more popular among Palestinian social media users in the last year.

"This constitutes the first time Palestinian citizens have direct online contact with high ranking Israeli officials, given that [most] Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip don't speak or read Hebrew," he told Al Jazeera.

The accounts also provide practical information to Palestinians, such as the opening and closing hours of checkpoints and how to obtain military-issued permits for travel or medical purposes.

"The Israelis are therefore capitalising on the needs of Palestinians to attract attention and engagement in order to serve the purpose of their political agenda," Nashif said.

Al Jazeera reached out to the Israeli army's media office for comment but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.

'Digital occupation'

Following the Arab uprisings in 2011, Arab usage of social media platforms increased, representing an alternative to traditional media outlets that are mostly seen as mouthpieces of Arab regimes.

It is not a coincidence, Zaanin said, that the social media accounts of Adraee and Ofir Gendelman, the spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were set up in the same year.

"It is not surprising that the Israeli army added new units of Arabic-speaking pages to its arsenal of various weapons," she said.

In 2016, an account was also set up for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), a unit of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. Other pages on Facebook include Israel Speaks in Arabic, which has 1.4 million followers, and pages belonging to Israeli embassies in Egypt and Jordan. According to Zaanin, the open communication channel is set up to extract information from Palestinians and other Arabs, intimidate Palestinians from carrying out individual attacks against Israelis, and to vilify any form of Palestinian resistance.

"COGAT also exploits the bad situation in the Gaza Strip by blackmailing residents by promising them medical or travel permits or financial help to poor families, in exchange for providing them with information required by intelligence agents," she explained. "They then drop them and extort them as a form of recruitment."

Nashif calls this phenomenon "digital occupation" through which Israel is expanding its control, surveillance and oppression of Palestinians from reality to the virtual sphere.

One page, called Bidna Na'eesh in Arabic (We want to live), provides a telephone number for Palestinians to report information on wanted individuals and "perpetrators of attacks" against Israelis.

"Inform us, and you will benefit," the banner's page says, showing a picture of a wad of 100 dollar bills above a cartoon of a hand shake with an Israeli flag.

"This is extremely dangerous as it forms part of Israel's militarisation of the digital sphere, as there are tens of pages that have been created by military forces and secret services," Nashif said.
Arab interaction

Zaanin believes that the increase of Arab interaction with these Israeli accounts largely stems from ignorance and an underestimation of the effect that these interactions have in the short and long term. Far from using firebrand rhetoric, Israeli accounts in Arabic cushion their propaganda in inoffensive, seemingly reasonable language, peppered with Arab proverbs and Quranic verses. They also present themselves as being concerned with the wellbeing of the Arab citizen, and the dangers of being led astray by "terrorists" or any resistance to the Israeli state and occupation.

"There's also the possibility that a large number of followers of the accounts, whether on Facebook or Twitter, are Israelis aiming to trick Arab citizen to interact positively with them to break the barrier of fear," Zaanin said, adding that there are no official statistics about the followers' details.

According to Zaanin, Arab interaction with the accounts falls into two categories; those who know what they represent and respond by taunts, curses, or arguing the case for Palestinian rights, and those who see no problem in normalising relations with Israel and seek to satisfy their curiosity.

"One important point to me is that the appearance of Israeli officials on Arab television news channels has contributed to the Arab citizen's acceptance of them [on social media]," Zaanin said.
'Free service' to Israeli intelligence

Both Nashif and Zaanin agree that the proliferation of Arabic-language Israeli accounts is testament to the absence of any form of grassroot tactics, including raising awareness about the dangers these pages pose to Arab social media users, such as potential extortion. One way is to boycott the pages, and to raise awareness about their real motives, they said.

"Arabs are providing Israelis with a free service," Zaanin said. "They unwittingly provide Israeli intelligence officers with information, which is then used to infiltrate the accounts of Arab users.

"It's like handing over the keys to your home to your enemy," she added.

"More awareness should be raised around the issue," Nashif agreed. "Especially on a local level for Palestinians who should be advised to dissociate with these pages for their own personal safety and security."

'Facebook collaboration'

Another way to confront the Israeli accounts in Arabic is by setting up Palestinian and Arab accounts that refute Israeli propaganda.

"Unfortunately, social networking sites such as Facebook actively fight Palestinian content and delete such accounts," Zaanin said.

The collaboration between Israeli surveillance and Facebook is not new. According to 7amleh's annual Palestinian Digital Activism Report published on Tuesday, the cyber unit of the Israeli government officially stated that Facebook accepted 85 percent of the government's requests to delete content, accounts and pages of Palestinians in the year 2017.

"This kind of Israeli monitoring and control of Palestinian digital content on social media has become a tool for mass arrests and gross human rights and digital rights violations," the report stated.

In fact, more than 300 Palestinians from the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, were arrested by Israeli forces and tried in military courts because of social media posts, 7amleh said.

"These accounts are nothing more than a different combat unit," Zaanin said, "which is why it is very dangerous to interact with them at all."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/...121518782.html

Salaam

More developments

Hundreds of Jewish settlers storm al-Aqsa compound

Flanked by heavily armed Israeli forces, more than 1,700 Jewish settlers have entered the religious site since Sunday.

Hundreds of Jewish settlers, flanked by heavily armed Israeli special forces, have stormed al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem to mark the Jewish holiday of Passover.

The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that around 500 settlers entered al-Aqsa Mosque in the early hours of Thursday before performing Jewish religious rituals near the Dome of the Rock Mosque.

Firas al-Dib, a spokesman for the Religious Endowments Authority, said at least 491 settlers and 13 special forces officers "broke into the compound", bringing the total number of Jewish settlers illegally entering the religious site since Sunday to 1,731.

The ancient marble-and-stone compound - known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif - houses al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, and the 7th-century Dome of the Rock.

Visits by Jewish groups, including politicians, have triggered violence over the years, with Palestinians fearing that Israeli hardliners are trying to take control of the site.

https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...3d2608_6-1.jpg

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/hundreds-jewish-settlers-storm-al-aqsa-compound-180405181320434.html

Salaam

Another update

Corbyn and Israel: Anti-Semitism row has silenced Labour leader on Gaza massacre
#Racism

It is appalling to use accusations against the Labour leader to cover up UK support for the dispossession of Palestinians

Recent publications about anti-Semitism - such as the excellent volume On Anti-Semitism by Jewish Voices for Peace - say that although every decent person opposes the phenomenon, there is no unified definition of it.

This philosophical, dare I say ontological, discussion is not very helpful for engaging with the recent row about alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Within the context of this particular debate, there is a handy definition that we all can use. It is clear, common, sensible and effective.

Hating Jews for who they are is anti-Semitism. It does not differ from the definition of modern-day racism. Any hate based on race, religion, colour or gender that leads to bigoted attitudes from below, and discriminatory, at times genocidal, policies from above, is racism.

There are six million Jews living today in historic Palestine next to six million Palestinians. Any generalisation about either community is racist, and since both communities are Semitic, such racism is anti-Semitism.

The role of the pro-Israel lobby

However, condemning people for their actions, whether they happen to be Jews or Palestinians, as opposed to their identity, is not anti-Semitism. This is also true for ideologies which are racist.

Condemning Zionism as a settler-colonial ideology that has led to the dispossession of half of the Palestinian population from their homeland, and for the current discriminatory and brutal Israeli policies against those who remain, is not anti-Semitism. It is in fact anti-racism.

The latest row about anti-Semitism, which is the culmination of a series of allegations and counter-allegations triggered by the election - for the first time since the 1917 Balfour Declaration - of a Labour leader who sympathises with the Palestinian struggle for justice and independence, illustrates well the difference between condemning an action and condemning an identity.

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s election, the pro-Israel lobby staff, as has also been exposed in the excellent Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, has tirelessly gone over every tweet, Facebook post and speech he made since he began his life as a politician, in order to trash him as an anti-Semite.

It was not easy to find proof for this, as Corbyn is categorically against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. However, finally they discovered that he had supported, in the name of freedom of expression, a mural that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic (and was declared to be so, by some reports, by the artist).

As Corbyn himself admitted at the time, he should have studied the mural a bit longer. He did not. He apologised. Case closed.

He was elected by young people across Britain because of his human fallibility and not because he was yet another shallow, spineless, superhuman politician who has never admitted to making a mistake.

Another Labour politician, Christine Shawcroft, resigned after she lent her support to Alan Bull, a council candidate due to stand in Peterborough who she thought was unfairly accused of being a Holocaust denier. The candidate claimed the allegations were based on content that had been doctored and taken out of context.

How to silence a critic

The insignificant slip and Corbyn’s ill-informed support, if that is what it was, were enough for a show of force and unity by the organised Jewish community, whose activists staged a demonstration in front of parliament. Along with banners likening the Labour Party to Nazis, protesters waved Israeli flags.

The flags are the key issue here, not Corbyn’s support for the mural nor Shawcroft’s endorsement of Martin Bull. This was a demonstration against Corbyn’s pro-Palestinian stance, not against anti-Semitism.

Corbyn is not an anti-Semite and the Labour Party, until his election, was a pro-Israeli bastion. Therefore, the timing and disproportional response to the mural issue is, to say the least, bizarre - or not.

It is actually not so strange, if you understand the machinations of the Zionist lobby in the UK. The demonstration was staged at the start of a week in which Israel used lethal force against a peaceful march by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, killing 17 Palestinians and wounding hundreds more.

The Israeli flags show clearly the link between the attacks on Corbyn and his honourable and humane positions on Palestine. The dividend for the Zionist lobby in Britain was that Corbyn would be silent in the face of the new massacre in Gaza – and without him, we have very few brave politicians who would dare to utter a word in the new atmosphere of timidity.

The current politicians who run Israel have very few qualms, as we have seen, about systematically killing or arresting Palestinian children. Their allies in the Anglo-Jewish community, to their credit, are embarrassed by it. Their job of defending Israel is far more difficult nowadays, when Palestinians have clearly opted for non-violent popular resistance.

It is only a matter of time before the inhuman brutality that the Israeli army employs will be noted by public opinion, even in Britain, where the BBC and Sky News work hard to sidetrack the issue of Palestine from its reporting and discussion: both channels devoted more time to the mural than to the new Gaza massacre.
Appalling allegations

The Israel lobby would like all of us in Britain to discuss murals and latent anti-Semitism in a society where Jews have never been safer or more prosperous. Yes, there is anti-Semitism among all British parties - and much more on the right than on the left, by the way. It should be eradicated and condemned, as should any other form of racism, be it directed against Muslims or Jews in a predominantly Christian and white society.

What is appalling is to use the accusation of anti-Semitism to cover up Britain’s continued tacit, and at times direct, assistance to the dispossession of Palestinians, which began with the Balfour Declaration 100 years ago and has not stopped since.

It is deplorable to use such allegations to stifle debate on Palestine or to bring down politicians who are unwilling to toe the Israeli line.

It is not the Labour Party that is infested with anti-Semitism; it is the British media and political systems that are plagued by hypocrisy, paralysed by intimidation and ridden with hidden layers of Islamophobia and new chauvinism in the wake of Brexit.

Upon the Balfour Declaration’s centenary, all British parties should join a public inquiry commission on its legacy, rather than blowing a few missteps out of proportion either through ignorance or successful manipulation.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/corbyn-israel-palestine-how-anti-semitism-row-has-silenced-voice-gaza-massacre-962148956

Just to add

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3niKzW4zKOM

Salaam

Protests in Gaza are leading to many deaths and injuries among Palestinians, yet Israel has faced little criticism

The political price of besieging or blockading urban areas like Gaza is rising because it is impossible to prevent information about the sufferings of those trapped inside such an enclaves becoming public

Thousands of protesters returned to the border this Friday, burning great heaps of tyres to produce a black smokescreen which they hoped would hide them from Israeli snipers. Gaza’s health ministry has said that five people were killed and 1,070 people were wounded on Friday, including 293 by live fire.

The demonstrators know what to expect. A video from the first day of the march shows a protester being shot in the back by an Israeli sniper as he walks away from the fence separating Gaza from Israel. In other footage, Palestinians are killed or wounded as they pray, walk empty-handed towards the border fence, or simply hold up a Palestinian flag. All who get within 300 yards are labelled “instigators” by the Israeli army, whose soldiers have orders to shoot them.

“Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed,” claimed a tweet from the Israeli military the day after the mass shooting on 30 March at the start of 45 days of what Palestinians call the “Great March of Return” to the homes they had in Israel 70 years ago. The tweet was deleted soon after, possibly because film had emerged of a protester being shot from behind.

The sheer scale of the casualties on the first day of the protest a week ago is striking, with as many as 16 killed and 1,415 injured, of whom 758 were hit by live fire according to Gaza health officials. These figures are contested by Israel, which says that the injured numbered only a few dozen. But Human Rights Watch spoke to doctors at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City who said that they had treated 294 injured demonstrators, mostly “with injuries to the lower limbs from live ammunition”.

Imagine for a moment that it was not the two million Palestinian in Gaza, who are mostly refugees from 1948, but the six million Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan who had staged a march to return to the homes that they have lost in Syria since 2011. Suppose that, as they approach the Syrian border, they were fired on by the Syrian army and hundreds of them were killed or injured. Syria would certainly claim that the demonstrators were armed and dangerous, though this would be contradicted by the absence of casualties among the Syrian military.

The international outcry against the murderous Syrian regime in Washington, London, Paris and Berlin would have echoed around the world. Boris Johnson would have denounced Assad as a butcher and Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, would have held up pictures of the dead and dying before the Security Council.

Of course, Israel would furiously deny that there was any parallel between the two situations. Its government spokesman, David Keyes, rebuked CNN for even using the word “protest” when “what actually happened is that Hamas engineered an event where they wanted thousands of people to swarm into Israel, to crush Israel, to commit acts of terror. Indeed, we have captured on camera pictures of people shooting guns, people placing bombs, people shooting rockets.”

In the event, no pictures of these supposedly well-armed protesters ever emerged. But four days later, Human Rights Watch published a report entitled Israel: Gaza Killings Unlawful, Calculated. Officials Green-Light Shooting of Unarmed Demonstrators, which said that it “could find no evidence of any protester using firearms”. It added that footage published by the Israeli army showing two men shooting at Israeli troops turned out not to have been filmed at the protest.

Israeli ministers are unabashed by the discrediting of claims that the demonstrators pose a military threat to Israel. Defence minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israeli soldiers had “warded off Hamas military branch operatives capably and resolutely ... They have my full backing.” The free-fire policy is continuing as before and, as a result, the Israeli human rights organisation, B’Tselem, has launched a campaign called “Sorry Commander I Cannot Shoot”, which encourages soldiers to refuse to shoot unarmed civilians on the grounds that this is illegal.

Why is the surge in Palestinian protests coming now and why is Israel responding so violently? There is nothing new in Palestinian demonstrations about the loss of their land and Israel’s aggressive military response. But there may be particular reasons that a confrontation is happening now, such as Palestinian anger at President Trump’s decision in December to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the move of the US embassy to there from Tel Aviv. This trumpeted Washington’s unconditional support for the Israeli position and the US disregard for the Palestinians and any remaining hopes they might have to win at least some concessions with US support.

Strong support from the Trump administration is reported by the Israeli press to be further reason why the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, feels that bad publicity over the shootings in Gaza will not damage Israel’s position in the US. In the past, controversy over the mass killings of Palestinian or Lebanese by Israel has sometimes provoked a negative US response that has curbed Israel’s use of force.

So far, Israel has faced little criticism from an international media uninterested in the Gaza story, or else is happy to go along with Israel’s interpretation of events. The vocabulary used by news outlets is often revealing: for instance, the BBC website on 31 March had a headline reading “Gaza-Israel border: Clashes ‘leave 16 Palestinians dead and hundreds injured”. The word “clashes” implies combat between two groups capable of fighting each other, though, as Human Rights Watch says, the demonstrators pose no threat to an all-powerful Israeli military machine – a point reinforced by the fact that all the dead and wounded are Palestinian.

Possibly, the Israelis are miscalculating the impact of excessive use of force on public opinion: in the age of wifi and the internet, graphic images of the victims of violence are immediately broadcast to the world, often with devastating effect. As in Syria and Iraq, the political price of besieging or blockading urban areas like Gaza or Eastern Ghouta is rising because it is impossible to prevent information about the sufferings of those trapped inside such an enclaves becoming public, though this may have no impact on the course of events.

Contrary to Keyes’ claims, the idea of a mass march against the fence seems to have first emerged in social media in Gaza and was only later adopted by Hamas. It is the only strategy likely to show results for the Palestinians because they have no military option, no powerful allies and their leadership is moribund and corrupt. But they do have numbers: a recent report to the Israeli Knesset saying that there are roughly 6.5 million Palestinian Arabs and an equal number of Jewish Israeli citizens in Israel and the West Bank, not counting those in East Jerusalem and Gaza. Israel has usually had more difficulty in dealing with non-violent civil rights type mass movements among Palestinians than it has had fighting armed insurgencies.

Keyes claims that the demonstrations are orchestrated by Hamas, but here again he is mistaken on an important point because witnesses on the spot say that the impetus for the protests is coming from non-party groups and individuals. They voice frustration with the failed, divided and self-seeking Palestinian leaders of both Hamas and Fatah. The most dangerous aspect of the situation in terms of its potential for violence may be that nobody is really in charge.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/israel-palestine-gaza-march-of-return-protest-deaths-a8292601.html

Jeremy Corbyn responds.

Embedded Tweet

Salaam

If this is true, it wont be a surprise :hmm:.

Report: Egypt, Saudi Arabia urge Hamas to end 'Great March of Return' protests

Over 20,000 Gazans participated in Friday's protests, in which 10 people, including 2 minors and one journalist, were killed.

Both Saudi Arabia and Egypt have called on militant organization Hamas to end the annual weekly protests it is holding for the "Great March of Return," according to an Egyptian source.

An Egyptian Foreign Ministry official was anonymously quoted as saying that, in exchange for halting the protests, Egypt would ensure that the Rafah border crossing, which Egypt controls, would be regularly opened. The source said that the agreement had come under the direction of the Saudis.

"The situation in the Gaza Strip is nearing an explosion towards anyone blockading it," the source said, "and therefore there is a fear that Palestinian anger will turn towards Egypt in the coming weeks."

The source also added that Saudi and Egyptian officials had opened contacts with Hamas leaders to urge calm in Gaza.

The London-based Al Hayat newspaper reported that an Egyptian delegation was being sent to Gaza to meet with the Hamas leadership, and one source told the paper that the head of Egypt's General Intelligence Service, General Abbas Kamel, had been tasked by Saudi Arabia to send a team to "neutralize the explosive situation."

Earlier in the week, Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman asked Kamel to pass on a message to Hamas leaders concerning the protests, saying that Israel has "no tolerance" for the goings-on in Gaza.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, in communicating with Hamas, are also reportedly aiming to prevent greater confrontations between the Palestinians and Israel.

While Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979 and have retained a relatively stable relationship since then, no official contact exists between Israel and Saudi Arabia. However, Israeli officials said in the fall that covert contacts had been made between the two countries. Saudi Arabia's recent ruling to allow India Air flights between Tel Aviv and New Delhi to fly over its sovereign air space signals a general warming trend between Israel and the region's largest Sunni state.

Friday's protests marked the second week of the "Great March in Return" in Gaza. Crowds of approximately 20,000 turned out to protest on the border between Gaza and Israel. 10 Gazans, including two minors and one journalist, were killed in the clashes. While estimates of the number of protestors injured vary, it is assumed that over 1000 Palestinians were wounded.

The protests are expected to continue each Friday for the next several weeks.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Report-Egypt-Saudi-Arabia-urge-Hamas-to-end-Great-March-of-Return-protests-549077

Salaam

Like to share. Drone footage of the Gaza protests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JqPouihzhQ

Salaam

Another update

The only serious question is, Why does killing unarmed protesters in the back only “raise serious questions”? (Cowardly, hypocritical Europe)

EU: Gaza Border Deaths Raise ‘Serious Questions’ About Israel’s Use of Force

After nine killed, the EU calls on the IDF to clarify how Palestinian protesters targeted Israeli forces and attempted to breach border

The European Union released a statement Saturday in response to deadly clashes at the Gaza-Israel border Friday, saying they raise “serious questions about the proportionate use of force.”

Nine Palestinians were killed by Israeli army gunfire after clashes resumed between Palestinian protesters and Israeli forces along the Gaza border on Friday, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported. The dead include photojournalist Yaser Murtaja, who was shot in the chest while wearing a vest marked “press.”

“Yesterday, at least nine Palestinians, including a minor and a journalist wearing a ‘press’ jacket, were killed in Gaza and hundreds were injured by Israeli live fire,” reads the EU statement. “This raises serious questions about the proportionate use of force which must be addressed.”

It was the second consecutive Friday of mass protests known as the “March of Return,” a series of demonstrations along the border leading up to Nakba Day.

The EU statement continued: “Reports by the Israeli Defense Forces about throwing stones and firebombs against their positions and attempts to cross the fence into Israel must also be clarified.” It also called for restraint, access to medical supplies for the injured and for the Palestinian Authority to assume full responsibility in Gaza.
In response to the death of Murtaja, the IDF has said that it “does not intend to shoot at journalists, and the circumstances in which journalists were allegedly injured by IDF gunfire are unknown and are being investigated.”

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Saturday for an independent and transparent investigation into the Israeli military’s use of live fire during mass rallies last week, in which 15 were killed.

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/04/08/the-only-serious-question-is-why-does-killing-unarmed-protesters-in-the-back-only-raise-serious-questions-cowardly-hypocritical-europe/

Salaam

Another update

Embedded Tweet

Embedded Tweet

Salaam

Another update. Could you imagine if your favourite bad guy said this.

https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...WkAAGSFD-1.jpg

Salaam

Extensive analysis of recent events. Take your time.


Killing Mosquitoes: The Latest Gaza Massacres, Pro-Israel Media Bias And The Weapon Of ‘Antisemitism’

The Palestinians have long been seen as an obstacle by Israel's leaders; an irritant to be subjugated. Noam Chomsky commented:

'Traditionally over the years, Israel has sought to crush any resistance to its programs of takeover of the parts of Palestine it regards as valuable, while eliminating any hope for the indigenous population to have a decent existence enjoying national rights.'

He also noted:

'The key feature of the occupation has always been humiliation: they [the Palestinians] must not be allowed to raise their heads. The basic principle, often openly expressed, is that the "Araboushim" - a term that belongs with "------" or "kike" - must understand who rules this land and who walks in it with head lowered and eyes averted.' (Noam Chomsky, 'Fateful Triangle,' Pluto Press, 1999, p.489)

Recent events encapsulate this all too well. On Friday, March 30, Israeli soldiers shot dead 14 Palestinians and wounded 1400, including 800 hit by live ammunition. By April 5, the death toll had risen to 21. During a second protest, one week later on Friday, April 7, the Israelis shot dead a further 10 Palestinians, including a 16-year-old boy, and more than 1300 were injured. Among those killed was Yasser Murtaja, a journalist who had been filming the protest. He had been wearing a distinctive blue protective vest marked 'PRESS' in large capital letters. The brutality, and utter brazenness with which the killings were carried out, is yet another demonstration of the apartheid state's contempt for the people it tried to ethnically cleanse in 1948, the year of Israel's founding.

On the first day of the protest, on March 30, many Palestinians had gathered in Gaza, close to the border with Israel, as part of a peaceful 'Great March of Return' protest demanding the right to reclaim ancestral homes in Israel. 100 Israeli snipers lay in wait, shooting at protesters, including an 18-year-old shot in the back while running away from the border. The Israel army boasted in a quickly-deleted tweet that the massacre had been planned, deliberate and premeditated:

'Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed'

BBC News and other 'mainstream' news outlets, including the Guardian, carried headlines about 'clashes' at the Gaza-Israel border 'leaving' Palestinians dead and injured. As we noted via Twitter, an honest headline would have read:

'Israeli troops kill 16 Palestinians and injure hundreds'

When the Israelis shot dead yet more Palestinians on the second Friday of protests, the BBC reported, 'Deadly unrest on Gaza-Israel border as Palestinians resume protest'. BBC 'impartiality' meant not headlining Israeli troops as the agency responsible for the 'deadly unrest'.

Adam Johnson, writing for Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, observed of news reports carrying inappropriate headlines about 'clashes':

'We do not have one party's snipers opening fire on another, unarmed party; we have "violent clashes"—a term, as FAIR has noted before, that implies symmetry of forces and is often used to launder responsibility.'

Later, the Guardian quietly removed the word 'clashes' from its headlines, while adding Israeli military spin: that the protest was a Hamas ploy to 'carry out terror attacks'; compare this early version with a later version.

On the first Friday of mass killing, we noted that the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had reported the presence of Israeli snipers. We asked the public to look for any mention of this on BBC News. Around the time we made the request, the Newssniffer website picked up the first reference to 'snipers' on the BBC News website (albeit buried in a tiny mention at the bottom of a news article). Coincidence? Or were BBC editors aware that their output was under public scrutiny?

Within just one day, the BBC had relegated the news of the mass shootings in Gaza to a minor slot on its website. It considered 'news' about television personality Dec presenting Saturday Night Takeaway without Ant, and royal couple Harry and Meghan choosing wedding flowers, more important than Israel killing and wounding many hundreds of Palestinians.

When BBC News finally turned to Gaza, with a piece buried at the bottom of its World news page, it was from Israel's perspective:

'Israel warns it could strike inside Gaza'

and:

'Palestinian groups using protests as a cover to launch attacks on Israel'

This disgraceful coverage strongly suggested that Israel was the victim. As political analyst Charles Shoebridge observed:

'Editors especially at the BBC aren't stupid, they know exactly what they're doing, and the use of very many devices such as this isn't somehow repeatedly accidental. Indeed, it's a good example of how the BBC is perhaps history's most sophisticated and successful propaganda tool.'

By contrast, a powerful article in Haaretz from veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy pointed to the reality that the mass shooting by Israeli 'Defence' Forces:

'shows once again that the killing of Palestinians is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes.'

The Silence of Liberal 'Interventionists'

Last year, Jeremy Corbyn was hounded by 'mainstream' media jounalists, demanding that he condemn acts of violence by the socialist government in Venezuela. But there was no corporate media campaign calling upon Theresa May to denounce much worse Israeli violence. The same media that devoted sustained, in-depth coverage of Spanish police brutality during the Catalan independence referendum swiftly relegated Israel's mass murder to 'other news'.

Imagine if Russian or Syrian troops had shot dead almost 30 civilians, and injured well over 1000, during peaceful protests. 'MSM' headlines and airwaves would be filled with condemnations from senior UK politicians and prominent commentators. But not so when it is Israel doing the killing.

We tweeted:

'Twitter task for today: think of any of the famously impassioned, outraged "humanitarian interventionists" in the Guardian, The Times, the Observer and so on, and check how much they've tweeted about the mass killings and woundings in Gaza. Go ahead, try it.'

Examples were glaring by their absence.

Writing for The Intercept, journalist Mehdi Hasan asked rhetorically:

'Where is the moral outrage from former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, the famously pro-intervention, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a "A Problem From Hell," which lamented U.S. inaction in Rwanda [...]?

'Where is the demand from Canadian academic-turned-politician Michael Ignatieff, who was once one of the loudest voices in favor of the so-called responsibility to protect doctrine, for peacekeeping troops to be deployed to the Occupied Territories?

'Where are the righteously angry op-eds from Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, or Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, or David Aaronovitch of The Times of London, demanding concrete action against the human rights abusers of the IDF?'

Hasan concluded:

'The ongoing and glaring refusal of liberal interventionists in the West to say even a word about the need to protect occupied Palestinians from state-sponsored violence is a reminder of just how morally bankrupt and cynically hypocritical the whole "liberal intervention" shtick is.'

Global realpolitik was highlighted yet again when the US government blocked a vote at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council calling for an international investigation into the mass shooting of civilians by Israeli troops on March 30. The US repeated its block a week later after the second wave of Israeli killing. We have found no coverage in the UK 'mainstream' media of the US blocking a UN investigation. In other words, Israel can act with impunity when committing grievous crimes against humanity, backed to the hilt by its biggest sponsor in Washington.

Weaponising 'Antisemitism' Against Corbyn

Meanwhile, the 'MSM' was continuing to deploy charges of alleged antisemitism against Corbyn-led Labour; and, seen in a wider political context, against realistic hopes of even moderately progressive changes to UK government policy.

A Facebook comment made in 2012 by Corbyn about a mural depicting Jewish and non-Jewish bankers was unearthed and used to mount a remarkable barrage of vehement media attacks. BBC News took its lead from the obviously right-wing, anti-Corbyn agenda across the 'spectrum' of the country's 'free press'.

The attacks continued with a vicious front-page 'exclusive' in the extreme right-wing Sunday Times:

'Exposed: Corbyn's hate factory'

The article, based on a trawl of Facebook posts, painted a hugely exaggerated picture of 'racism, violent threats and abuse by leader's fan base'. Alex Nunns, author of The Candidate, a book about Corbyn's 'improbable path to power', pointed out the absurdly cynical nature of this Murdoch 'journalism'. Nunns undertook his own Facebook search for posts by Conservatives and quickly discovered examples of misogyny, abuse, an implied threat of violence and implicit racism. The Tory Facebook page he found:

'appears to have links to The Bruges Group, which in turn has links to leading Conservative politicians including Iain Duncan Smith. Headline: "EXPOSED: Iain Duncan Smith's hate factory." See how this is done?'

Guardian columnist Owen Jones picked up Nunns' tweets and pointed out in a live BBC interview:

'Why has there been no coverage of the despicable racism and abuse found in Conservative Facebook groups'?

The BBC news presenter replied:

'Because Labour is the story at the moment'.

That the 'MSM', including the BBC, had made Labour 'the story at the moment' was simply not worthy of comment by corporate journalists or, perhaps, permissible thought.

Shamefully, the BBC published a big splash based on the Sunday Times article on 'Jeremy Corbyn's hate factory'. The BBC piece was almost gleeful in saying that there was 'no let up for Labour':

'With negative stories on the front pages of at least four newspapers, this is not a happy Easter Sunday for Labour.'

In other words, as it so often does, the BBC was following the lead of the right-wing, anti-Corbyn 'mainstream' press. The onslaught of 'news' linking Corbyn to 'antisemitism' continued with an account of how Corbyn had attended a 'left wing Jewish event' organised by Jewdas. The BBC stated:

'Jewdas, which describes itself as a "radical" and "alternative" Jewish collective, is at odds with mainstream Jewish groups over allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour.'

Three of the principal pro-Israel bodies in the UK, the Jewish Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Jewish Labour Movement, criticised Corbyn for attending the event. The BBC reported:

'Jonathan Arkush, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: "If Jeremy Corbyn goes to their event, how can we take his stated commitment to be an ally against anti-Semitism seriously?"'

The BBC not only ran with this latest 'story' linking Corbyn to antisemitism, but promoted it as the lead item on the BBC News website.

However, there is nothing that says we must allow BBC News to determine what is 'mainstream' and what is not. And, in particular, when it comes to the Jewish Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council and Jewish Labour Movement, journalist Asa Winstanley of Electronic Intifada notes:

'Their primary function is to lobby for Israel, an institutionally racist, apartheid state.'

A measure of the Jewish Board of Deputies' staunch pro-Israel stance can be seen from the tweet they sent in the wake of the brutal Israeli killings in the first Friday border protest:

'Alarming developments at Gaza border as Hamas once again using its civilians - inc children - as pawns.'

The lack of condemnation from 'mainstream' voices in politics and the media to such a disgraceful message reveals widespread deep fear of being accused of antisemitism. This fear, used to constrain reasoned debate, needs to be seen in a broader historical context. In 2002, former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni explained the rationale behind the charge of antisemitism:

'Well, it's a trick – we always use it. When from Europe somebody's criticising Israel then we bring up the Holocaust.'

And it works. Professor Greg Philo of the Glasgow Media Group related that he was once told by a senior BBC News editor:

'The BBC waits in fear for the telephone call from the Israelis.'

None of the above is to deny that there is a significant problem of antisemitism in British politics, or in wider British society. But, as the group Jews for Justice for Palestinians notes, the facts are that:

'Levels of antisemitism among those on the left-wing of the political spectrum, including the far-left, are indistinguishable from those found in the general population.'

Moreover, antisemitism has decreased in Labour under Corbyn, and public polling indicates that it is more prevalent among Conservative and UKIP members than among Labour and Liberal members. Indeed, there is ample evidence of an extraordinary scale of Tory racism and abuse.

In summary, then, here is the horrible irony of recent coverage on Israel and antisemitism: the corporate media continued to headline Corbyn's 'antisemitism crisis' - supposedly triggered by a comment about a mural in 2012 – while quickly relegating Israel's massacres of civilian Palestinians to 'other news' at the bottom of the page and running order.

The truth is that the deadliest racism today is indicated by the casual way in which the West and its allies rain violence down on countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. Although human rights are typically used as a pretext, the real goal is control of natural resources and the global economy; the tears of compassion evaporate the instant that an Official Enemy obstructing Western control has been overthrown. As Chomsky has noted, this is actually closer to a kind of speciesism than racism:

'Namely, knowing that you are massacring them but not doing so intentionally because you don't regard them as worthy of concern. That is, you don't even care enough about them to intend to kill them. Thus when I walk down the street, if I stop to think about it I know I'll probably kill lots of ants, but I don't intend to kill them, because in my mind they do not even rise to the level where it matters. There are many such examples. To take one of the very minor ones, when [President Bill] Clinton bombed the al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Sudan, he and the other perpetrators surely knew that the bombing would kill civilians (tens of thousands, apparently). But Clinton and associates did not intend to kill them, because by the standards of Western liberal humanitarian racism, they are no more significant than ants. Same in the case of tens of millions of others.'

A further example, as we have seen, are the yawns of indifference from the corporate media as hundreds of civilian protestors – Palestinian 'mosquitoes' - are gunned down by Israeli snipers.

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/867-killing-mosquitoes-the-latest-gaza-massacres-pro-israel-media-bias-and-the-weapon-of-antisemitism.html

Salaam

Another update

'Greater Jerusalem means no churches and no mosques'

'There can never be peace until the Jerusalem file is satisfactorily resolved,' says chairman of Jerusalem Endowment.

Palestinian interfaith officials have warned against monopolising the city of Jerusalem by the Israeli government and the effects that would have on Christianity and Islam.

Hanna Issa, secretary-general of the Palestinian Authority's Muslim-Christian Committee said that more than 95 percent of Jerusalem had already been "Judaised" by Israel, and that "Greater Jerusalem" would alter the city's identity and importance to Christianians and Muslims.

"Israel wants to establish its so-called 'Greater Jerusalem' on an area of 600sq km, which would mean the destruction of the city's churches and mosques," Issa said.

The warning came during the 9th International Conference on the Holy City of Jerusalem on Wednesday, which kicked off in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah. The conference was attended by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and numerous delegations from across the Arab and Muslim world. Munib Masri, chairman of the Jerusalem Endowment, stressed Jerusalem's importance for both Muslims and Christians.

"The world must understand that there can never be peace until the Jerusalem file is satisfactorily resolved," he said.

He added: "Jerusalem requires practical initiatives and financial support with a view to strengthening the resolve of its people."

Speaking at the event, Youssef Edies, Palestinian minister of religious endowments, described Jerusalem as "the birthplace of religions".

"We must focus on Arab, Muslim and international efforts on resisting the fierce Western onslaught against the Holy Land," he asserted.

Israeli control

Israel occupied and annexed East Jerusalem in the aftermath of the June 1967 War, in a move that was never recognised by the international community. Since then, Israel has built more than a dozen housing complexes for Jewish Israelis, known as settlements, some in the middle of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem. Israel's settlement project, which is aimed at the consolidation of Israel's control over the city, is also considered illegal under international law. About 200,000 Israeli citizens live in East Jerusalem under army and police protection, with the largest single settlement complex housing 44,000 Israelis.

Such fortified settlements, often scattered between Palestinians' homes, infringe on the freedom of movement, privacy and security of Palestinians.

Call for free access

Last Saturday, a United Nations envoy accused Israel of trying to block him and other diplomats from a pre-Easter "Holy Fire" ritual in the packed Jerusalem church Christians revere as the burial site of Jesus. Robert Serry, the UN's peace envoy to the Middle East, said in a statement that Israeli security officers had stopped him and a group of Palestinian worshippers and diplomats in a procession near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, "claiming they had orders to that effect". Last month, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said church authorities had applied for around 600 permits for Palestinian Christians in Gaza to travel to Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, but none were granted.

Father Ibrahim Shomali, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said: "We have to have free access to the Holy Land, free access to our holy places."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/jerusalem-means-churches-mosques-180411192421173.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX1Xk8oq6i4

Salaam

Another update. BBC is is morphing into the Pravda.

BBC (British B******t Corporation)

A Sad Excuse for Objectivity: My Interview With the BBC, a Broadcaster in Israel’s Pocket

Use the term ‘disputed territory’ for the West Bank and you’re ignoring the fact that Palestinians are subjected under Israeli rule without rights for 50 years

LONDON — The interviewer’s questions on local BBC radio reflected another arena in which the Israeli government has scored a victory. After the preliminary “good morning,” first she asked the opinion of her Israeli guest about the public debate surrounding anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party. Unfortunately, I, the radio guest, fell for it.

I related to the question itself instead of saying: “Excuse me, but my expertise is not British politics but rather the Israeli occupation,” or “I’m still studying the matter. Let’s talk about Israel imprisoning two million people in the Gaza Strip,” or “The killing of almost 30 unarmed demonstrators by Israeli sharpshooters should concern British Jews and Israel’s other friends.” “What’s more,” I could have said: “There are probably a few Israeli soldiers with dual Israeli and British citizenship who are involved somehow, perhaps spokespeople, explaining in fine English to your colleagues why the demonstrators were killed according to the rules.” Instead air time that should have been devoted to Israel’s policies was wasted on questions that were in no way connected to me.

The second question, “How was it to live in Gaza?” was also a surprise and provided a lesson in how to ask an open-ended question. I failed again. I could have said that I lived in Gaza a long time ago. I could have said: “Let’s talk about something recent. For example, last week I gave the annual Edward Said memorial lecture in London. I spoke there about the methodical way in which Israel planned the Palestinian enclaves, as a domestic Israeli compromise between the desire for the Palestinians to disappear, 1948-style, and the realization that the geopolitical circumstances would not permit this. But there is a danger that nationalistic-messianic forces, whose strength in Israeli politics is growing and who are wizards at strategic planning, will push for mass expulsion of Palestinians beyond the country’s borders. To prevent this scenario, it should be discussed and warned against.”

From there, the interviewer moved on to the peace process and why the forces seeking to bring about peace have not managed to do so. My response, that Israel has done everything to thwart an agreed-upon solution based on the establishment of a Palestinian state, prompted my interviewer to ask whether it was not too simplistic to put all the responsibility on Israel. Crusading journalism was answered with Israeli rudeness: It’s not simplistic, I retorted. In a few minutes on the air, the listeners are receiving a summary of 25 years of research on Israeli policy, I said, and I cited the settlementsas an example. If Israel wanted peace, it would not have expanded the settlements and imprisoned Palestinians in reserves.

A third surprise: The BBC journalist said: “But the Israelis say that it’s theirs.” Once again, I summoned up Israeli rudeness. “The Israelis will say that the moon is theirs. So what?” A few more words on the settlements, and then came the cherry on top. This is disputed territory, my interviewer said.

I don’t know whether she meant all the territory conquered in 1967 or Area C, the portion of the West Bank under full Israeli control, which the Habayit Hayehudi party is working to annex as a first step. As I recall, even according to Britain’s conservative governments, this remains occupied territory that is meant to become a Palestinian state, and Israeli actions to forcibly uproot the Palestinian population there are a violation of international law.

More than the neutral questions, the interviewer’s choice of the term “disputed territory” instead of “occupied territory” shows that Israeli or pro-Israeli occupation-justifying propaganda has sunk in — in the guise of objective or neutral journalism. Use of the term “disputed territory” clearly means ignoring the fact that the Palestinians who live there are subjects who have been without rights for 50 years under Israeli rule. This is not a demonstration of professional neutral journalism. Instead it highlights an attitude of disregard of the natives, erasing them, if not out of identification with the Israeli rulers then out of fear that complaints will be lodged with BBC management.

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2018/04...t-corporation/

Good interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD8Eghw1Bik

The fallout over Corbyn and the Jewdas Seder has been hilarious. The Pharisees are mightily butthurt that the whole affair has revealed their dirty little secret, that they are far from as representative of British Jewish opinion as they'd want you to think.

Whoever invited Corbyn will probably be wearing his best trollface for a long time ;D