May 15, Nakba Day: The Truth About Palestine

Not surprisingly, there is very little truth being told about Palestinians on this day. Juan Cole is an exception.

Image via Wikipedia

In 1948, European Jewish settlers in British Mandate Palestine ethnically cleansed some 700,000 Palestinians, depriving them of the country promised them by the League of Nations in 1920 when it recognized Palestine as a Class A Mandate and charged Britain with bringing the new country into existence. (Syria and Iraq were also Class A Mandates, i.e. former Ottoman and Hapsburg territories now thought candidates for independent nationhood). Instead, Israel came into existence, born in a revolt against the British and a civil war with the Palestinians who formed over two-thirds of the population of Palestine.. Palestinians who had lived in what became Israel were forced by the Zionist military north to Lebanon, east to the West Bank, Syria and Jordan, and south into the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Most of those expelled from their homes were civilian non-combatants and some had informal peace agreements with inhabitants of neighboring Jewish settlements. There are now some 12 million Palestinians, given natural increase. About 1.5 million live in Israel and have a precarious citizenship, being only 20% of the population of an avowedly Jewish state. There are about 3.6 million in Jordan who have citizenship and another 140,000 or so (mainly from Gaza) who do not. The some 400,000 in Lebanon do not have citizenship, nor do the 450,000 in Syria. There are about 4 million in Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli military occupation who lack citizenship in a state.
Palestinians thus became a scattered, largely refugee people, lacking a state that would guarantee them basic rights and human dignity. In Lebanon, where I have done interviewing with them, they cannot own property, mostly cannot work, cannot get permission to travel to Syria or Jordan.

Related articles

• Palestinians killed in 'Nakba' clashes (redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com)
• Israel kills and wounds dozens of Nakba protesters (dandelionsalad.wordpress.com)
• The New York Times's shameless Nakba distortion (mondoweiss.net)

Why a young Israeli woman spies on Israeli settlements in West Bank

Image via Wikipedia

The most disturbing part of this story is not just that the Israeli government says one thing and does another, but that every government and anyone else paying attention knows it. Yet no one on the world stage says anything so everyone can hear it.

Hagit Ofran tracks Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank with a pocket-sized camera and a deep sense of mission, often making news well beyond Israel with her findings.

Jewish settlers rebuild the Migron unauthorized settlement outpost in the West Bank after it was demolished by Israeli troops, April 27. Hagit Ofran, a former student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera, and a deep sense of mission to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
(Alessio Romenzi/AP)

By Ben Lynfield, Correspondent
posted July 28, 2010 at 10:10 am EDT

Alon settlement, West Bank —

If Palestinians ever achieve the viable state to which they aspire, they will have a determined young Israeli activist to thank for its territory not being entirely swallowed by Israeli settlements.

Hagit Ofran, a former student of Jewish history, uses a four-wheel drive vehicle, pocket-sized camera, and a deep sense of mission to monitor the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank area captured during the 1967 Six Day War. Sometimes her findings make headlines well beyond Israel, translating into international pressure on the government to stop further encroachment on Palestinian land.

Ms. Ofran's official title is director of the Settlement Watch Team of the dovish Peace Now organization. In practice, she is a spy operating in hostile territory, snooping, sniffing, and piecing together bits of intelligence to gauge how much illicit building is going on.

IN PICTURES: Israeli settlements

On a recent scouting trip, Ofran spotted four new alabaster trailers spread like matchboxes on a hillside of the Alon settlement northeast of Jerusalem.

The prefabricated buildings are in effect helping to fragment the heartland of a future Palestine. ''It's not that one caravan will change the chances of Middle East peace,'' says Ofran. ''But another and another and another will determine whether we can have a two-state solution to the conflict or not.''

[...]

Ofran is up against a system that, although government-sponsored, lacks transparency. Much of its activity is illegal even according to Israeli law and settler leaders prefer to avoid public debate over it. Construction also violates the Geneva Convention and runs counter to international commitments Israel made to halt settlement building, for example in the 2003 international peace blueprint known as the road map. Tellingly, there is no distinct budget for building at settlements.

''The money is woven into a thousand other pieces of the budget. So you can't use the simple path of reading the budget to find out what's going on.'' says Israeli historian Gershom Gorenberg, author The Accidental Empire, a book about the origins of the settlements.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hagit Ofran: Have You Marked September 26th on Your Calendar? You Should. (huffingtonpost.com)
• Jews in Arab east Jerusalem defy Obama peace push (sfgate.com)
• Hagit Ofran: A Report from the Battlefield of East Jerusalem (huffingtonpost.com)
• US Nonprofits Funding Israeli Settlements in West Bank (newser.com)
• Presbyterians: End U.S.-Israel Aid Over Settlements In Palestinian Land (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hagit Ofran: What Flag Do Israelis Fly on Their Independence Day? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hagit Ofran: The (Advance) Transcript of the Obama-Netanyahu Meeting (huffingtonpost.com)

Jordan condemns Israel over West Bank deportation order

Ethnic cleansing is alive and well in Israel.

Image via Wikipedia

Jordan condemned Israel on Wednesday over an Israel Defense Forces order facilitating the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinian from the West Bank.

The order, though in existence since 1969, was recently discussed in a Haaretz article.

According to the report, a military order aimed at preventing infiltration was to come into force, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years. Under the order, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mya Guarnieri: Tens of Thousands of Palestinians Subject to Deportation Under New Israeli Military Order (huffingtonpost.com)
• Is the state of Israel preparing for another round of "ethnic cleaning"? (newstatesman.com)
• Fears of West Bank deportations (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Israeli groups fight orders allowing army to jail West Bank residents (guardian.co.uk)
• the Apartheid Option Was What Ariel Sharon Was Trying to Avoid: (brothersjuddblog.com)
• Israel = Nazi Germany? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Jordan protests to Israel over expulsions (cnn.com)
• Rights Groups Warn of New Israeli Powers in West Bank (nytimes.com)
• Israeli Military To Begin Mass Deportations of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank (themoderatevoice.com)

Palestinian leaders warn of 'third intifada' over Jerusalem

The racist Likud government of Israel has signaled it will annex Jerusalem and continue to steal other land on the West Bank. They may be able to argue that they abandoned Gaza and got a war, but now the Palestinians fear past proposals to split East Jerusalem off to allow both to have a piece is now dead. Fatah makes peace and loses East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank, what recourse do they have?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Palestinian leaders on Thursday called for a one-day general strike and warned of more street protests over Jerusalem, but Israel played down the risk of an uprising despite two weeks of tension in the occupied city. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction made the call for the strike on Friday in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, and Palestinian leaders warned of the likelihood of a battle ahead of Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The compound housing the mosque is a holy place for both Muslims and Jews, and has often been a flashpoint. Israeli security forces control access to the area and regularly prohibit young Muslim men from entering the holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City, citing security grounds.

Tensions rose two weeks ago when police and protesters clashed near Al-Aqsa Mosque on the eve of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. What triggered the incident remains unclear, but the dispute over access to the holy site was at the root of it.

A beefed-up Israeli police presence, and a relatively small turnout of Palestinian protesters, has kept violence under control in ensuing clashes since late September.

Palestinians in senior positions have warned of the risk of a “third intifada,” or general uprising. But Israel has tried to avoid getting involved in any war of words over Jerusalem.

[..] King Abdullah of Jordan, who plays a key part in management of Al-Aqsa, said in an interview with Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that Jerusalem was “a tinderbox” that could explode with reverberations felt throughout the Muslim world. 

Mohammad Dahlan, a leader in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction charged that Israel “has opened the battle of Jerusalem.” Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of “lighting matches in the hope of sparking a fire.”

via The Daily Star - Politics - Palestinian leaders warn of 'third intifada' over Jerusalem.

An Israeli police source said intelligence assessments showed the commotion in East Jerusalem would not escalate.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jerusalem set for al-Aqsa protest (news.bbc.co.uk)


• Israeli reinforcements to secure Jerusalem (msnbc.msn.com)


• Israel deploys police as tensions rise (guardian.co.uk)


• Peace an illusion, says Israel FM (news.bbc.co.uk)


• Hamas criticizes Abbas over war crimes report (seattletimes.nwsource.com)


• Palestinians accuse Hamas over UN report (seattletimes.nwsource.com)


• US's 'arc of instability' just gets bigger (citizengkar.wordpress.com)

Where does the hatred come from?

It would appear that Homeland Security is promoting Islamo-phobia in it's recommended training for US Law Enforcement! Where is Obama? Is he just pretending to be Bush lite?

Image via Wikipedia

This fall, U.S. law enforcement personnel will have their final chance to take advantage of a rare opportunity. Participants will travel to Israel to receive “homeland security training,” but the counterterrorism briefings and martial arts practice sessions are only one part of the package. The program also includes visits to Christian religious sites in the Holy Land — an aspect likely to be especially attractive to Christian Zionists — along with other sites such as the Knesset and the Israeli “security fence”.

The Israel program is run by Security Solutions International (SSI), a group that has attracted controversy due to its ties to Islamophobic propaganda groups — as well as its apparent view that indoctrinating first responders with alarmist information about Islam is an essential part of counterterrorism training.

Most striking of all, the SSI Israel trip is funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS’s funding of this venture is a concrete illustration of the ways that Islamophobic fringe groups have exploited the “global war on terror” for their own purposes.[..]So what does this training involve? In addition to martial arts demonstrations including “how to take down an armed suicide bomber”, meetings with Israeli security personnel, and a three-hour presentation on “suicide terror,” the itinerary also includes more tourist-oriented activities. Tourist excursions are both political visits to the Knesset, the West Bank “security barrier,” and southern Israeli towns that have been the target of rocket attacks from Gaza, and religious trips to Jerusalem’s Old City and to “some of Christianity’s holiest sites”.While this DHS-funded trip might already seem a bit odd — especially the emphasis on Christian religious sites during what is ostensibly a counterterrorism training program — things take a turn towards the bizarre in the section of the website advertising SSI’s two day presentations on “The Islamic Jihadist Threat”.

via LobeLog.com

Related articles by Zemanta

• Hamas asserts power in Gaza after al Qaeda clash (nationalpost.com)


• At Least 6 Die at Gaza Mosque in a Clash With Hamas (nytimes.com)


• Group Says Israel Plan to Cement Hold on Jerusalem (abcnews.go.com)