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

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

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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)

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.

Salaam

A little humour to lighten up this thread.

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

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.

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Salaam

If this is true, it wont be a surprise .

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.

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/

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Another update

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

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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

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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

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