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Salaam
Whatever they offered you I hope it was worth it.
You should take lessons from someone whos knows what there talking about.
Zios are whining.
As we talk endlessly about peace, meanwhile.
Israeli settlers chop down 150 olive trees near Ramallah
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=783339
Oh and your regular dose of antisemitism.
Salaam
Another update
A principled Gazan speaks on the situation there
Interview with Dr. Usama Antar – Independent Political Analyst (Gaza Strip, Palestine)
Dr. Usama Antar is an Independent Political Analyst living in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. Here we talk about the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel, and more.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What is the current sociopolitical situation from the view of Gaza Strip?
Dr. Usama Antar: You cannot describe the Gaza Strip in a straightforward way. It is complex. We are talking about a multi-dimensional conflict. There is an internal conflict within the Palestinians themselves, and there is an external conflict with Israel.
Let us consider the last few years, there is a political split between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. As you know, the Gaza Strip is small. It is about 360 square kilometres.
However, in approximately the last century, the Gaza Strip was the main actor in Palestinian politics and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Gaza Strip remains the focal point with the different political personalities, the novel ideologies, the new thoughts, and the changes in the political approaches.
There were real dynamics moving forward. What does this mean? In Gaza, there is the roots of the Fatah movement and the roots of the Hamas movement too.
For example, due to the political split between Gaza and West Bank, President Abbas was unable to enact the Israeli-Palestinian peace process without the approval of the Gaza Strip. The small Gaza prevented in some way the whole peace process.
I don’t think that the Gaza Strip will be alone as the Palestinian state in the future. Even if the Palestinians in Gaza will have good life conditions in 10 years to 20 years, they will want not to be separated from the West Bank, and will want to have a Palestinian state with the West Bank.
After a 12-year siege, the situation is tricky with a radicalized mentality of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; the people became more radical compared to 10 to 20 years ago as well.
Jacobsen: In terms of social outlook, economic views, and travel restrictions, what increases Palestinian radicalization?
Antar: There are several factors. As noted, one is the siege or the blockade imposed by Israel since 12 years ago, and the collective punishment imposed by the Palestinian Authority since a couple of years ago. Same with the Egyptian side with the closing of the Rafah crossing border. It is less than 1% of the whole society that can travel to the world outside of Palestine.
Most Palestinians live in perpetually harsh conditions. No freedom of movement or free import-export of goods. Few know the real world outside of the Gaza Strip. Anybody after three wars and 12 years of an air, land, and sea blockade will become radicalized. This happened to the Palestinians in Gaza.
The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are asking for simple demands, namely a real social and economic perspective. What does an economic and social perspective mean here?
It means halting of the high 46% unemployment in the Gaza Strip. This is the highest unemployment in the world. Declining the poverty rate, which reached about 70%.
What does a social perspective mean here? The social perspective means to have the access of movement and to be allowed to travel and relate with the world outside of Palestine.
For example, if I want to travel to Europe, I need about 3 days to travel from the Gaza Strip to Cairo, and I need another 4 to 5 days to return from Cairo to the Gaza Strip.
There are many restrictions and many checkpoints on the Sinai, the way between Gaza and Cairo, and just 200 people can travel daily and cross the borders.
In order to have a real social and economic perspective, the Palestinians are looking for sovereignty and identity as the Palestinian people with an independent Palestinian state.
Jacobsen: If the blockade was lifted, how would this impact Palestinians?
Antar: If Hamas remains in power, the siege will stay. Even if we have a progressive government in the future, it is uncertain if the Israelis would lift the siege.
The Palestinians in Gaza sent messages through the Great March of Return. They want to live and let others live. The majority of the Palestinians don’t want to harm the Israelis. They want to live in peace and prosperity.
During the three wars on Gaza in the last decade, the Israeli military targeted civilians, business owners, farmers. Many companies and factories were destroyed during the wars. The businesspeople are angry due to destroying the factories, and the normal workers are angry, because they lost their jobs.
Man can say, Israel is targeting the whole society with the imposed siege since 13 years, not the Hamas people alone. The goal of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip is to maintain the control on it.
Jacobsen: How does a blockade, a lack of resources, a sense of despair and want of revenge among some of the population, affect people’s abilities to form families and people’s abilities to raise their children in what their children sense is a safe and nurturing environment?
Antar: [Laughing] it is like a joke. Even the children understand war, we are not safe. No place in the Gaza Strip is safe. In the recent attacks, it was hurtful. Why? We cannot do anything. If we get a rocket targeting our building, we are helpless. We demand to stop all kind of violence from the both sides, the Palestinian side and the Israeli side.
Jacobsen: What has been the experience in life for you?
Antar: I lived in Europe for about 12 years. I know, what it means a real good life in Europe. With my family, we travelled and enjoyed our life before. My family is now unable to travel abroad since more than 14 years ago. There is huge restriction on access and movement, and the travel way from Gaza to Cairo is horrible.
If you know the normal life, the good life, in Europe, and if you compare with the current life in Gaza Strip, you get crazy. I cannot travel elsewhere. If we have an escalation or a war in the Gaza Strip, the border will close immediately. Even if you have money, you cannot escape. In any case, most Palestinians do not have money.
You are trapped. It is your fate, survive or not. We have this dead feeling. In the war in 2014, for 51 days, we were scared. We tried with our little children to make some jokes, to show TV, and to make some plays.
However, we know the statistics well from the war in 2014. We are talking about 500 women, and more than 200 children, killed because rockets targeted buildings, that contains women, children, or elders.
Jacobsen: What is the sense of the conflict? What is a fair solution to the conflict?
Antar: The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip want to live a normal life with dignity and respect. They want some money to live with their families. They want normal access of movement.
A fair solution would be according the international resolutions and the two-state solution. How to achieve it? The Palestinian in Gaza and West bank tried the non-violent protests several times.
The Palestinians have to choose between non-violent resistant, negotiations, or a diplomatic approach. Negotiations led after 25 years of Oslo Accord to big Zero.
And the military resistance is idiocy, because the Palestinians have primitive weapons, and they are unable to fight Israel. Israel is strong. Israel can demolish the Gaza Strip within two days. The international community sides since decades with the Israeli side.
Jacobsen: What are historical reasons for internal political split and in easing of the tensions?
Antar: Hamas governs the Gaza Strip and Fatah governs the West Bank. There is one-party system in the West Bank and one-party system in the Gaza Strip. The one-party system will not change soon, and will be dominant in the next few years. For that reason, there is no democracy or pluralism. Both sides want control of the government.
Both Fatah and Hamas are dominating the polarization in the society; then about 90% of the society identifies them with either Fatah or Hamas. The real problem is the acceptance of the others.
Therefore, there are different political approaches. One is for resistance, and the other one for negotiation. Both approaches failed against Israel. This created the split between Fatah and Hamas. This split eliminated the culture of democracy and pluralism.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Dr. Antar.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2019/05...tuation-there/
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Another update, some good news. Daily Mail apologises for lying and forced to pay hefty damages.
Daily Telegraph forced to apologise for lying as well.
More good news.
More antisemitism.
Salaam
Another update
From spying to lobbying, Israel's fight against BDS intensifies
Israel uses a number of diplomatic and security tactics to counter the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
Recent revelations confirming the involvement of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad in efforts to actively disrupt the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel did not come as a surprise to pro-Palestine activists.
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli strategic affairs minister and a senior figure in Israel's fight against BDS, met Mossad head Yossi Cohen to discuss "the struggle against the boycott", according to the politician's 2018 official diary.
Israeli daily Haaretz, which first reported on the matter, did not give further details about the meeting, but said that according to Erdan's schedules, which were made public by a Freedom of Information request filed by the Israeli Hatzlaha group, the minister had also met the head of the National Security Council, as well as a number of Jewish organisations.
Most of the meetings had to do with establishing a private but partly government-controlled company called Concert, whose main objective was to promote "mass awareness activities" as part of "the struggle against the campaign to delegitimise" Israel on an international level.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said Mossad's involvement against BDS activism was "not surprising" given the concentrated Israeli effort to ban the movement both domestically and internationally.
"We know that Israel takes the threat of BDS very seriously, with [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu declaring it a strategic threat in 2015," the London-based PSC said in a statement to Al Jazeera.
"Some of the global actions undertaken by Israel to suppress BDS activism include introducing restrictive laws in Israel - and persuading allies to do the same globally - to try to criminalise BDS, alongside broader attempts to try to delegitimise it by framing it as an anti-Semitic activity or by falsely identifying links between BDS activists and terrorism."
'Major strategic threat'
The call for boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel was launched in 2005 by more than 170 Palestinian civil organisations as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel.
BDS, which defines itself as working to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and to pressure Israel in complying with international law, has at its core three main principles: to end the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories; to ensure equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel; and to enforce the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
The international impact of BDS has alarmed Israel, which, according to Dov Waxman, a professor of political science, international affairs and Israel studies at Northeastern University, has come to regard the movement as a "major strategic threat".
"BDS is seen as a threat to Israel's legitimacy and international standing," Waxman told Al Jazeera.
"Most Israeli Jews have also come to see the BDS movement as very threatening, especially because many believe that it seeks to destroy Israel and is driven by anti-Semitism - which is what Netanyahu and other right-wing Israeli politicians repeatedly insist."
Counter-BDS measures
Akiva Eldar, a senior columnist for Al-Monitor, said Mossad's involvement in the anti-BDS efforts was not limited to within Israel.
"What we know is that there are tens of millions of dollars allocated for this project," he told Al Jazeera. "The Mossad are in contact with the American secret service - the CIA - and European [intelligence] agencies and are trading information."
Eldar said that the Israeli diplomatic and security apparatus was involved in the operation.
"The Israeli embassies, as part of their public diplomacy work, are now focusing on collecting information [about BDS activists and activities] and filing reports and complaints to foreign governments," he said.
"In the United States, BDS has been at the top of the agenda for Jewish organisations like AIPAC, which is cooperating with Israeli embassies, including military attaches," added Eldar, referring to the powerful lobby group.
Waxman agreed, saying that in addition to funding domestic and foreign NGOs in the fight against BDS, another tactic used by Israel was the lobbying of foreign governments and international organisations in cracking down on the movement.
"Diplomatically, it has promoted a definition of anti-Semitism that has often been used to define the BDS movement as inherently anti-Semitic because it is anti-Zionist," he said.
"Both publicly and secretly, therefore, Israel has been actively engaged in a long-term campaign against the BDS movement," he added.
Last month, Germany became the first European Union country to vote on a motion labelling the BDS movement as anti-Semitic.
In response, the movement said Berlin's move was shielding Israel from accountability to international law, as well as "entrenching its complicity in Israel's crimes of military occupation, ethnic cleansing, siege and apartheid".
The Knesset - the Israeli parliament - has also passed a number of laws that have targeted supporters of the BDS movement, Waxman said.
Foreign citizens who promote BDS are banned from entering Israel, while Israeli citizens or groups who publicly call for a boycott of Israel or products from Jewish settlements can be sued for damages.
PSC, the pro-Palestine campaign, said Israel's actions violated core principles of freedom of expression that were central to democratic politics.
"At the heart of what Israel is trying to do is prevent citizens across the world responding to the legitimate call from Palestinians for peaceful action to hold Israel and complicit organisations to account for ongoing human rights abuses," it said.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/...170711122.html
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Another update.
Jerusalem's Old City: How Palestine's past is being slowly erased
The Israeli occupation has left its physical and political mark within the historic walls, with most Palestinians barred from visiting Al-Aqsa
Israel has controlled East Jerusalem and the walled Old City since the 1967 war in which it also occupied the adjacent West Bank. It has effectively treated them as annexed territory ever since.
To consolidate its grip on the Old City, it has demolished homes and expelled Palestinian residents, empowered Jewish settlers, and imposed sweeping restrictions that make it virtually impossible for most Palestinians to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam.
The final status of the Old City has been the subject of various proposals ever since the United Nations’ 1947 partition plan, which proposed that it should fall under a special international regime, separate from the division of historic Palestine into Arab and Jewish states because of its shared importance to Muslims, Jews and Christians.
The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem, including the Old City, as the capital of a future state, while Israeli leaders have claimed Jerusalem as the state's “eternal capital” since 1949.
The Old City has huge historic, economic, religious and now national symbolism for both Palestinians and Israelis, particularly because of the Al-Aqsa compound, known as Haram al-Sharif to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews. This is the most explosive issue in an already incendiary conflict.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/j...d-deal-century
Salaam
Another update.
UK Muslim scholars issue open statement slamming Israel as an illegitimate state
A group of Muslim scholars from the UK have issued a powerful statement slamming Israel as an illegitimate state and calling for all Palestinian lands to be returned.
The statement which was spearheaded by Shaykh Asrar Rashid from Birmingham has also called for an end to Israeli occupation of the entirety of Palestine.
The scholars wrote:
“We the undersigned do not recognise “Israel” as a legitimate state.
“”Israel” must return the entirety of Palestinian land. Palestinians have no link to the holocaust and the crimes of the Second World War against the Jewish people.
“We condemn the continued fascist Zionist oppression which has cost the Palestinian people their freedom, homeland and lives for over seventy years.
“Islam does not promote anti-Semitism and Arabs are also a Semitic people. On the contrary, the second Caliph of Islam, Hadrat Umar (may Allah be pleased with him) took charge of the Church of the Sepulchre and commanded Muslims to take care of it and give Christians their full rights to worship which were curtailed prior by sectarianism.
“The caretakers of this Church have been a Muslim family since the arrival of Islam in the seventh century. Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted in peace and security in Palestine, until the Zionist occupation ended the mutual tolerance that had existed for over a millennium.
“Jerusalem will be the capital of the Islamic Caliphate when it returns, Allah willing.”
Signatories:
1. Shaykh Asrar Rashid, Birmingham
2. Dr Shaykh Haitham al-Haddad, London
3. Maulana Muhammad Din Sialwi, Accrington
4. Maulana Kamran Khan, Birmingham
5. Imam Khalid Hussain, Leicester
6. Hafiz Kasad Ali, Birmingham
7. Maulana Shahid Barelwi, Burnley
8. Maulana Haroon Raza, Birmingham
9. Hafiz Ehsan Qadri, Sri Lanka
10. Maulana Masud Qadri, Bolton
11. Imam Adil Shahzad, Bradford
12. Imam Zahoor Chishti, Oldham
13. Maulana Naveed Ashrafi, Blackburn
14. Imam Shahid Ali, Bradford
15. Imam Sudagar Husain, Bradford
16. Maulana Nizam Ashraf, Bolton
17. Maulana Yasir Ayyub, Oldham
18. Shaykh Danyal, Birmingham
19. Maulana Aqeel Khan, Bolton
20. Maulana Omar Shabier Naqshbandi, Netherlands
21. Maulana Saad bin Sadiq, Birmingham
22. Maulana Anis Ahmed, Birmingham
23. Maulana Ibrar Shafi, Derby
24. Maulana Sayyid Samdani, Bolton
25. Maulana Haider Ali, Preston
26. Maulana Nabeel Afzal, Coventry
27. Shaykh Noorud-Deen Rashid, Luton
28. Maulana Mohammed Bilal Naushahi, Bradford
Any Muslim scholar who would like to sign this open statement can contact Muhammad Aqdas via [email protected]
https://5pillarsuk.com/2019/07/01/uk...itimate-state/
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Daily life *sigh*
Surprising from the New York Times.
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This Saudi blogger calls for normalisation with Israel. He gets a harsh if predictable reception.
He might have a point - he was behaving like an agent provocateur, stiring up fitnah.
https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Sa...ld-City-596492Quote:
According to Israeli media, the Saudi Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nizar Amer said on Twitter that they "strongly condemn the cruel and immoral behavior of some Palestinians near the Al-Aqsa Mosque toward a Saudi media personality who came to Jerusalem to be a bridge to peace and understanding between peoples," adding that the attackers are using the holy Muslim site as a "political tool."
Meanwhile
Salaam
Another update.
U.S. blocks U.N. rebuke of Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes: diplomats
The United States on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa to get the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes on the outskirts of Jerusalem, diplomats said.
Israel said the 10 apartment buildings demolished on Monday, most of them still under construction, had been built illegally and posed a security risk to Israeli armed forces operating along a barrier that runs through the occupied West Bank.
U.N. officials, who had called on Israel to halt the demolition plans, said 17 Palestinians faced displacement.
Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa circulated a five-paragraph draft statement, seen by Reuters, to the 15-member Security Council on Tuesday that expressed grave concern and warned that the demolition “undermines the viability of the two-state solution and the prospect for just and lasting peace.”
Such statements have to be agreed by consensus and on Wednesday the United States told its council counterparts it could not support the text, diplomats said. A revised three paragraph draft statement was circulated, but the United States again said it did not agree with the text, diplomats said.
The United States has long accused the United Nations of anti-Israel bias and shielded its ally from council action.
The demolition of the Palestinian buildings is part of the latest round of protracted wrangling over the future of Jerusalem, home to more than 500,000 Israelis and 300,000 Palestinians.
The Palestinians want a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with east Jerusalem as the capital, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner have spent two years developing a peace plan they hope will provide a framework for renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Greenblatt told the Security Council on Tuesday a peace plan cannot rely on global consensus, inconclusive international law and “unclear” U.N. resolutions, sparking pushback from several countries. He said a decision on the release of the political component of the U.S. plan would be made “soon.”
The buildings demolished on Monday were near what Israel describes as a security barrier. The initial draft Security Council statement described the construction of the wall by Israel as contrary to international law.
Israel credits the barrier - projected to be 720 km (450 miles) long when complete - with stemming Palestinian attacks. Palestinians call it a land grab designed to annex parts of the West Bank, including Israeli settlements.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-i...-idUSKCN1UJ2ZW
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More antisemitism.
Salaam
Another update
Israel furious at UN report detailing torture of Palestinian children
Israel’s security forces have been accused by a United Nations monitoring group of torturing and tormenting Palestinian children.
The Committee on the Rights of Children, a body of independent legal experts charged by the UN with the task of monitoring the protection of children’s rights in signatory states, has urged Israel to honour its responsibility to prevent the torture and ill-treatment of children.
“The Committee expresses its deepest concern about the reported practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian children arrested, prosecuted and detained by the military and the police, and about the State party’s failure to end these practices in spite of repeated concerns expressed by treaty bodies,” the investigative body stated in its periodic review of Israel’s child rights record, released on Thursday.
It continued: “[Palestinian children are] systematically subject to physical and verbal violence, humiliation, painful restraints, hooding of the head and face in a sack, threatened with death, physical violence, and sexual assault against themselves or members of their family, restricted access to toilet, food and water.
“These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pretrial detention.”
The report prompted a furious response from Israel, countering that the findings are “not based on any direct investigation on the ground, only on documents gathered from secondary sources.”
Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, described the report’s allegations that Israel did not comply with requests for information as a “bold, scandalous lie”. Its allegations that Palestinian children are being used as informers and human shields, he added, are also deliberately misleading.
“The [committee] were fully informed that instructions have indeed been issued and that the use of children as human shields is totally forbidden. Yet the authors pretend there never was any such communication by Israel,” Mr Palmor said.
A UNICEF report investigating the treatment of Palestinian children published earlier this year described “widespread, systematic and institutionalised” abuse of minors detained by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, including night-time arrests and long periods of solitary confinement, but stopped short of describing this ill treatment as torture.
The report, which consulted closely with Israel’s foreign ministry, also praised the country’s efforts to improve its child rights record.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has extensively documented the testimonies of Palestinian children abused in by Israeli security services.
Sarit Michaeli, the organisation’s spokesman, argued that while several improvements have been made there remain “major problems with Israel’s treatment of Palestinian minors”.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-children.html
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Another update
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Another update, a surprise to no one.
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More antisemitism
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Another update.
Palestinian events banned in East Jerusalem
Israeli forces in East Jerusalem prevented a lecture on the Israeli demolition of Jerusalemite homes from being delivered Aug. 17 at the Burj Luqluq Social Center Society. The lecture had been organized by Burj Luqluq in cooperation with the Palestinian Bar Association.
The same forces stopped a ceremony from being held Aug. 6 in honor of the late athlete Ahmad Adilah at The East Jerusalem YMCA because the ceremony was sponsored by the Palestinian Authority. They also prevented a memorial service for the Palestinian writer Subhi Ghosheh from taking place Aug. 5 at the Yabous Cultural Center. They stormed the center and assaulted participants. Four randomly selected participants were summoned by the Israeli intelligence for interrogation at the Al-Maskobiyya Interrogation Center in Jerusalem.
These actions come from Minister of Internal Security Gilad Ardan's Aug. 5 order to extend the closure of Palestinian institutions in the city and prohibit any cultural or political activities held by Palestinian organizations. The decision deems such events terror activities that violate Israeli sovereignty and laws in the city.
Ghosheh is a well-known Jerusalemite figure. He studied medicine at the American University of Beirut and co-founded Al Makassed Charitable Society in 1956 and Al-Makassed Charitable Society Hospital in 1968. After Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967 and occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Sinai, southern Lebanon and the Golan Heights, he founded the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front in Jerusalem and was subsequently arrested and deported in 1971.
He died in Jordan on April 30.
Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights, was among those who wanted to attend the memorial ceremony.
He told Al-Monitor, “The Israeli police and intelligence agents broke into the center, beat the attendees and prevented the holding of the memorial service.” They wrote summons for some of the participants, including Hammouri, who appeared before the Al-Maskobiyya Interrogation Center on Aug. 8 and was told that activities organized by the PA were not allowed in East Jerusalem.
Hammouri added that such steps were a prelude to the enactment of an Israeli law that sentences any Jerusalemite with ties to the PA to up to three years in prison in an effort to clamp down on Jerusalemites.
The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported June 16 that in response to increasing PA activities in East Jerusalem, Ardan was working on a bill to block the PA from organizing there and impose up to three years in prison for anyone who participates in or finances Palestinian activities in the city.
The bill would amend a 1994 law on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho area that forbid the PA from engaging in any activity in East Jerusalem but did not include any penalties. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in an Aug. 7 statement that Ardan’s decision comes as part of Israel's plans to Judaize the city.
The statement read, “The Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem do not need permission from the occupation authorities and their racist minister, Ardan.”
In October 1993, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres sent a letter to Norwegian Foreign Minister Johan Holst, pledging to provide a favorable environment for Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem to perform their functions.
Governor of Jerusalem Adnan Ghaith told Al-Monitor that Ardan's order is intended to tighten Israel's control over East Jerusalem with US support.
The United States has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocated its embassy there. As Israel appears to be Judaizing and tightening its control over Jerusalem, this US support will push it to take further action against Palestinians in the city.
He added, “These decisions will not discourage Palestinians in Jerusalem from continuing to do whatever entrenches their Palestinian identity and presence.”
Ghaith said that after the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, Israel decided to close several institutions in East Jerusalem and closed them again regularly in a bid to entrench its rule and abolish any Palestinian role in the city.
Adnan al-Husseini, a member of the PLO Executive Committee in charge of Jerusalem affairs, told Al-Monitor that the Israeli harassment and actions in East Jerusalem are becoming more severe in the wake of the Jerusalem-related US decisions. He added that Palestinian Jerusalemites will continue to organize activities in East Jerusalem despite the Israeli decision.
He said that the US decisions on Jerusalem serve as a green light for Israel to further encroach upon the rights of Palestinians while turning a blind eye to the international community, encouraging Israel to make many racist decisions, expand its settlement activities, demolish houses and close institutions.
The decision to extend the closure has affected 26 Jerusalem institutions including Orient House, the Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry Jerusalem and the Supreme Council of Tourism.
Khalil al-Tafakji, director of the maps department at Orient House in Jerusalem, which Israel closed in 2001, told Al-Monitor that Ardan's decision is about more than closing institutions and banning events; it's about entrenching Israel’s sovereignty over the city.
Built in 1897 by Ismail Moussa al-Husseini, Orient House served as a guest house for international officials visiting Jerusalem.
In 1980, Faisal al-Husseini rented part of it and used it as a headquarters for the Arab Studies Society, but Israel closed it in 1988. As soon as Israel allowed its reopening in 1992 after the 1991 Madrid peace conference, Husseini, who was in charge of Jerusalem affairs in the PLO Executive Committee, rented the entire building to expand its works.
Orient House also served as a headquarters for the PLO and a place for Palestinian-Israeli peace delegations to meet with the United Nations' special envoy and discuss the issue of the Palestinians deported from the West Bank and Gaza to Marj al-Zuhur in Lebanon.
On Dec. 17, 1992, Israel deported 416 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members to the Marj al-Zuhur area in southern Lebanon following the abduction of an Israeli soldier by the Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades. Al-Qassam offered to set him free in return for the release of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, among other detainees. However, the Israeli government rejected the deal and stormed the house where the soldier was held, leading to his death.
Tafakji explained that Orient House has long been a political destination for Palestinians. Since its opening in 1992 until its closure in 2001, officials from the region and the world visited it, much to Israel's annoyance.
Ardan's Aug. 5 decision to renew the closure of Orient House is intended to prevent the building from performing its functions, Tafakji said.
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ori...vereignty.html
Blurb
It is a process that has been developing for many decades, but in 2009, Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland went to the front line of what can only be described as a battle for the right to live in a city that is the beating heart of the holy land.
"We are holding on by our fingernails to the two-state solution. Today it is still barely possible to edge out a political boundary in Jerusalem which will be both acceptable to the parties and viable after the agreement is reached." Danny Seidemann, a lawyer with the non-profit Ir Amim, told Al Jazeera. "We are very close to losing that. If current trends continue for another six months, a year or two years, this all will be lost."
Ten years on, Rewind speaks to Al Jazeera's Awad Joumaa who recently made a film about what it is like to live in Jerusalem.
"Sadly, as many Palestinians and even Israelis probably will tell you, the situation in the city of Jerusalem has only gotten worse. The wall that started at that time is now almost complete. Jerusalem is separated from its nearby West Bank, a strategic depth hinterland, so to speak. There's more and more encroachment on the Old City in Jerusalem and as one of the characters [in my film] would say it's almost game over for Jerusalem," Joumaa says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaD_M8FdK7U
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UAE doing the Zios bidding.
More importantly.
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President Erdogan speaks out at the UN.
Another update.
Another family evicted from their home.
More antisemitism, sad to see Corbyn caving in to the pressure.
Zios on the propoganda offensive.
UN releases ‘unprecedented’ report linking anti-Semitism to BDS movement
The report also recommends that all member states adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of anti-Semitism. So far, 18 of them have done so.
Israeli, Jewish and pro-Israel groups all applauded the publication of an ‘unprecedented’ United Nations report on anti-Semitism, that, among other issues, links anti-Semitism to criticism of Israel and the BDS movement.
“This report marks one of the first times the U.N. has addressed the issue of anti-Semitism in any detail,” said Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor and U.N. Liaison at NGO Monitor. “The Special Rapporteur condemned the use of anti-Semitic tropes and denial of Israel’s right to exist by BDS activists. Importantly, the Rapporteur also recommends the IHRA definition as a useful tool in combating anti-Semitism. Hopefully, U.N. bodies, particularly the Human Rights Council, will follow the Rapporteur’s lead by adopting IHRA and ending their promotion of anti-Semitic tropes and attacks on Israel’s legitimacy.”
The report, “Combatting Antisemitism to Eliminate Discrimination and Intolerance Based on Religion or Belief,” that was released by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Ahmed Shaheed, defines anti-Semitism as a global phenomenon—not one largely confined to the United States and Europe—as has been the case in many previous U.N. reports. The Special Rapporteur recognizes that the sources of anti-Semitism are varied, coming from the far right, from members of radical Islamist groups and from the political left.
rest here
https://www.jns.org/un-releases-firs...rsal-adoption/
Blurb at the end if you are in any doubt.
Pro-Israel Journalism Done Right
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Another update, shouldnt be a surprise to anyone.
How Israel’s social media trolls conquered Facebook
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Journalist and author Ramzy Baroud says Facebook is working hand-in-hand with Israel to censor pro-Palestinian content.
On October 9, the social media platform, Facebook, deleted the page of the popular Palestinian news website, the Palestinian Information Center (PIC). This act, which was carried out without even contacting the page administrators, confirms that Facebook’s war on pro-Palestine voices is continuing unabated.
PIC had nearly five million followers on Facebook, a testament to its popularity and credibility among a large cross-section of Palestinians and their supporters internationally. For Israel’s trolls on social media, PIC was simply too effective to be allowed to spread its message. As usual, Facebook obliged.
This oft-repeated scenario – where pro-Israeli social media trolls zoom in on a Palestinian media platform while working closely with Facebook management to censor content, bar individuals, or delete whole pages – is now the norm. Palestinian views on Facebook are simply unwanted, and the margin of what is allowed is rapidly shrinking.
“Sue,” a Facebook user, told me that she had been warned by the platform for alleged “hate speech/bullying” for claiming that “Israelis are militarised in their psychology,” and that the “perceived threat of and real hatred for the Palestinians (are) kept alive by the (Israeli) government.”
Sue is, of course, correct in her assessment, a claim that has been made numerous times even by the Israeli president himself. On October 14, 2014, President Reuven Rivlin, said that “the time has come to admit that Israel is a sick society, with an illness that demands treatment.”
Moreover, the fact that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been stoking the fire of fear, hatred, and racism to win a few votes in the Israeli elections has made headlines around the world.
So it is unclear where exactly Sue had gone wrong, and what portion of her comment constituted “hate speech” and “bullying.”
I asked others to share their experiences with Facebook as a result of their pro-Palestinian speech. The responses I received indicated the unmistakable pattern that Facebook is indeed targeting not hate speech, but criticism of Israeli war, siege, racism and apartheid.
For example, “José” was censored for writing, in Spanish, that “there is nothing more cowardly than attacking or killing a child.”
“Damned coward army, assassins of Palestinian children, this is not a war, this is a genocide,” he commented.
Meanwhile, “Derek” has been suspended from using Facebook for 30 days “many times” in the past on “various charges.” He told me that “all it takes is a certain number of reports by trolls who have secret groups on who to target.”
The same pattern was repeated with “Anissa,” “Debbie,” “Erika,” “Layla,” “Olivia,” “Rich,” “Eddy” and countless others.
But who are these trolls and what are the roots of Facebook’s unrelenting targeting for Palestinians and their supporters?
The Trolls
According to a document obtained by the Electronic Intifada, the Israeli government has funded a “global influence campaign” with a massive budget with the sole aim of influencing foreign publics and combating the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).
Writing in EI, Asa Winstanley, reported on a “troll army of thousands” that is “partly funded by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs.”
“To conceal its involvement, the ministry has admitted to working through front groups that ‘do not want to expose their connection with the state,’” Winstanley wrote.
One such troll group estimated to include 15,000 active members, is Act.IL.
Writing on the Jacobin Magazine website, Michael Bueckert describes the main function of Act.IL app users:
“With the mobile application and online platform Act.IL, Israel aims to recruit a mob of slacktivists and trolls to join their war against the most insidious forms of violence: pro-Palestinian tweets and Facebook posts.”
Act.IL is only the tip of the iceberg of a massive, centralised effort led by the Israeli government and involving legions of supporters around the world. However, Israel would never have achieved its objectives were it not for the fact that Facebook has officially joined the Israeli government in its social media “war” on Palestinians.
In 2014, Sohaib Zahda was reportedly the first Palestinian to be arrested by the Israeli army for his social media post, in a new strategy of cracking down on what Israel sees as “incitement.” The arrest campaign since then has expanded to include hundreds of Palestinians – mostly young artists, poets, and student activists.
But Israel only started monitoring Facebook in earnest in 2015, according to The Intercept.
“The arrests of Palestinians for Facebook posts open(ed) a window into the practices of Israel’s surveillance state and reveal social media’s darker side,” Alex Kane wrote. “What was once seen as a weapon of the weak has turned into the perfect place to ferret out potential resistance.”
Israel quickly manufactured a legal basis for the arrests (155 cases were opened in 2015 alone), thus providing a legal cover that was used in its subsequent agreement with Facebook. The Israeli Penal Code of 1977, art. 144 D.2 was repeatedly unleashed to counter a social media phenomenon that was established much more recently, all in the name of cracking down on “incitement to violence and terror.”
The Israeli strategy began with a massive hasbara (propaganda) campaign aimed at creating public and media pressure on Facebook. The Israeli government activated its then-nascent troll army to build a global narrative centered on the purported notion that Facebook has become a platform for violent ideas, which Palestinians are utilising on the ground.
The Facebook-Israel Team
When, in September 2016, the Israeli government announced its willingness to work with Facebook to “tackle incitement,” the social media giant was ready to reach an understanding, even if that meant violating the very basic freedom of expression it has repeatedly vowed to respect.
During that period, the Israeli government and Facebook agreed to “determine how to tackle incitement on the social media network,” according to the Associated Press citing top Israeli officials.
The agreement was the outcome of two days of discussions involving the Israeli interior minister, Gilad Erdan, and justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, among others. Erdan’s office said in a statement that, “they agreed with Facebook representatives to create teams that would figure out how best to monitor and remove inflammatory content.”
In essence, this meant that any content related to Palestine and Israel is now filtered, not only by Facebook’s own editors but by Israeli officials as well. For Palestinians, the outcome has been devastating as numerous pages, like that of PIC, have been deleted and countless users have been banned, temporarily or indefinitely.
Quite often, the process of targeting Palestinians and their supporters follows the same logic:
- Pro-Israel trolls fan out, monitoring and commenting on Palestinian posts
- The trolls report allegedly offensive individuals and content to the Facebook/Israeli “team”
- Facebook carries out recommendations regarding accounts that have been flagged for censorship
- The accounts of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian pages and individuals are deleted or banned.
While PIC did not receive any warning before their popular account was axed, chances are the decision followed the same pattern as above.
When social media was first introduced, many saw in it an opportunity to present ideas and advocate causes that have been, for one reason or another, shunned by mainstream media.
Palestine suddenly found a new, welcoming media platform; one that is not influenced by wealthy owners and paid advertisers, but by ordinary individuals – millions of them.
Israel, however, may have found a way to circumvent the influence of Facebook on the discussions pertaining to Palestinian rights and the Israeli occupation.
When exposing apartheid, condemning child killers and discussing the fear-mentality pervading in Israel become “hate speech” and “bullying,” one should then ponder what has become of social media’s promise of freedom and popular democracy.
While Facebook has done much more to discredit itself in recent years, no other act is as sinister as censoring the voices of those who dare challenge state-sponsored violence, racism and apartheid, anywhere, with Palestine remaining the prime example thereof.
https://5pillarsuk.com/2019/10/24/ho...ered-facebook/
If the Jews of Israel were on truth and the side of The Creator, they would never have to resort to these methods of manipulation. The truth will stand on its own from falsehood. I wish that they would fall in our lifetime, but it seems Muslims still have a long way to go. Inshallah more people happen across your posts and get exposed to the truth, it would be nice if the online Islamic Forums would make a comeback.Quote:
Originally Posted by Junon
Salaam
Another update