The academic boycott movement, in particular, has been enormously successful in opening up intellectual, and political, space in the US academy for more open, honest discussion about Palestine-Israel. It comes as a shock to many colleagues and students outside the US that many academics and graduate students in the US are afraid to do work on Palestine, because it might undermine their academic careers. This has led to a deformed research agenda in Middle East Studies, and the boycott has challenged this exceptional repression and censorship; in fact, hundreds of leading and senior scholars of Middle East Studies have signed a petition in support of the academic boycott.

The spurious allegation that supporters of the academic boycott are by definition anti-Semitic is a red herring that serves to divert attention from Israel’s racial violence and discrimination, human rights violations and colonial policies. It is deeply disturbing, and ironic, that a movement against apartheid that is fundamentally anti-racist and aims to end racism, such as the boycott movement, is labeled racist. In fact, many Jewish American activists and academics are part of and deeply involved in the BDS movement. The accusation of anti-Semitism thus inverts the reality of racism, and is a tactic of silencing, one that often falls on sympathetic ears among university administrators, however, in a context in which anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab racism is hardly ever acknowledged.

Q: An analogy is being made by a number of scholars and politicians between Israel and the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The proponents of the analogy cite the Israeli-built separate roads and sidewalks, unequal water resources, Jewish-only settlements and frequent checkpoints as testimony to their assertion that Israel is practicing apartheid laws against the Palestinian people. What’s your viewpoint on that? How close is the analogy to reality?

A: It is important to note that key South African leaders in the anti-apartheid struggle have made the linkage between South African and Israeli apartheid, such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The latter has even said that in some ways, the situation in Palestine-Israel is worse than in apartheid South Africa. The point is that analogies highlight similarities but this does not mean the situation is identical; there are, of course, differences. But the condition whereby a regime imposes racialized restrictions on freedom of movement, residence, and opportunities for well-being on another population is at core a system of apartheid. Israel’s legal as well as extra-legal or indirect policies of discrimination against Palestinians in Israel and its matrix of control in the West Bank as well as control over Gaza’s borders, its bantustans that have fragmented and dismembered the Palestinian national community, and its encagement of Palestinians in “cages” or zones where Israel decides who can enter and for how long, who can work and where, who can marry whom, who can study, etc. are all features of apartheid.

Q: The Haaretz correspondent Gideon Levy published an op-ed on June 4, 2015 entitled “Israeli Propaganda Isn’t Fooling Anyone Except Israelis.” He had talked about the Israeli Hasbara or propaganda campaign, aimed at portraying a favorable image of Tel Aviv’s actions and practices through using such stereotypes as that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East”, the greatest army in the region, has many Nobel Prize laureates, is the land of cherry tomatoes and the pioneer of drip irrigation, etc. However, he said the Israeli propaganda won’t appeal to anybody outside the Israeli borders as the world judges Israel by its actions, not words. How effective has the Hasbara been, especially in the recent decade, when the Israeli military operations in Palestine intensified?

A: The Israeli state and Zionist organizations have invested a great deal of resources in the Hasbara program, including employing students and others to use social media to disseminate propaganda and to challenge critics of Israel through oft-repeated counter-arguments. However, new media and social media have also been conduits for many ordinary Americans and others to alternative perspectives and more facts about the reality on the ground in Palestine-Israel. It is true that there is an active Brand Israel campaign, for example, using the image of Israel as a gay-friendly and hence modern and democratic state – “pinkwashing”. But there are now campaigns and discourses springing up to counter these manipulative strategies; for example, Palestinian Queers for BDS and queer Palestine solidarity groups in the US.

Oct 9, 2016

Israeli forces have destroyed 22 structures belonging to four Palestinian families in the northeast of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli forces on Sunday bulldozed through houses and farm structures in the Khirbet ar-Ras al-Ahmar Village, which houses less than 200 Palestinians, the Palestine al-Yawm television channel reported.

The Israelis also destroyed a water pipeline in the area.

The village is situated in the Area C of the West Bank, which is the largest division in the occupied territory as it comprises 60 percent of the land and is under full Israeli military control.

Confrontations also erupted between Palestinian youths and Israeli forces in the nearby city of Jenin last night, which dragged into the morning. It was not immediately clear why the confrontations began.

Separately, Israeli troops arrested 16 Palestinian youths and a recently-released detainee in attacks on Palestinian houses across the occupied territory.

The Israeli forces targeted the Palestinians with teargas canisters, rubber bullets, and sound bombs during the clashes.

In a separate clash, fifty two Palestinians suffered from breathing problems in clashes with Israeli forces, who attacked the al-Quds University’s campus in the occupied Jerusalem al-Quds on Saturday.

In a war in 1967, Israel captured the West Bank and East al-Quds. Since then, Tel Aviv has continued to expand its illegal settlements there. The issue has become a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.

Palestinian killed

Also on Sunday, Al-Aqsa TV reported that a Palestinian was killed by Israeli forces after he allegedly opened fire on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem al-Quds.

Seven occupants of the bus suffered injuries. Israeli media claimed some of the wounded were in critical conditions.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/10/09/488273/Palestine-West-Bank-Khirbet-arRas-al...

Only six countries vote against contentious resolution claiming Temple Mount is sacred only to Muslims

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Thursday passed a contentious anti-Israel resolution denying Jewish connections to the Temple Mount and Western Wall in Jerusalem.

24 UNESCO member states voted in favor of the resolution, 26 abstained, and only six countries voted against.

The proposal, put forth by the Palestinians, along with Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar and Sudan, condemns Israel on several issues related to Jerusalem and its holy sites.

The draft resolution, a copy of which was obtained by Ha'aretz, acknowledges that the city of Jerusalem is holy to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity but says the Temple Mount holy site is sacred only to Muslims and fails to mention its significance to Jews.

An entire section of the proposal dedicated specifically to the Temple Mount complex refers only to the site's Muslim names (Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif) and fails to mention its Hebrew or English names (Har HaBayit or Temple Mount).

The resolution refers also to the Western Wall plaza by its Muslim name (al-Buraq plaza) and only mentions its Hebrew-Jewish name (Hakotel Hama'aravi) later in quotation marks.

The flashpoint complex is considered Judaism's holiest site, once the site of the first and second Temples, and is the third holiest to the Muslim faith.

Israeli politicians, led by President Reuven Rivlin, were quick to condemn the vote on Thursday, slamming the resolution even before the vote had taken place in Paris.

“No forum or body in the world can come and deny the connection between the Jewish people, the Land of Israel and Jerusalem – and any such body that does so simply embarrasses itself,” he said at an event in his Jerusalem residence. “We can understand criticism, but you cannot change history.”

Agricultrure Minister Uri Ariel sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling on him to act by encouraging nations to end funding for the UN.

“We in the government in general, and you as the foreign minister, should demand that the nations of the world condemn these anti-Semitic decisions, and immediately stop funding the UN,” he wrote.

He also called for the government to “strengthen the Temple Mount, and to to increase the control and Jewish presence in the holiest place for Jews — the Temple Mount.”

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said UNESCO is giving a “bad name to diplomacy.”

“Whoever wants to rewrite history, to distort fact, and to completely invent the fantasy that the Western Wall and Temple Mount have no connection to the Jewish people, is telling a terrible lie that only serves to increase hatred,” he said. “On this matter there is no disagreement among the people of Israel, and I urge UNESCO to withdraw this bizarre resolution and to engage in protecting, not distorting, human history.”

UNESCO passed a similar resolution in April referring to the Temple Mount soley as Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Western Wall as the Al-Buraq Plaza drawing harsh condemnations from Israel.

France was among the 33 countries that backed the resolution in the 58-member body causing a diplomatic spat which resulted in French President Francois Hollande pledging that France would not support such measures in the future.

Israeli diplomats have over recent weeks attempted to convince UNESCO member states to oppose or at least abstain during the vote.

Israel's foreign ministry published a brochure featuring archaeological findings providing evidence of Jewish connections to Jerusalem generally and specifically to the Temple Mount complex.

In a letter submitted to UNESCO's executive board, Israel's ambassador to the world cultural organization wrote that, without undermining other religions' ties to Jerusalem's holy sites, the archaeological findings "leave no doubt…of the deepest and longest Jewish presence in Jerusalem since ancient times," according to Ha'aretz.

He wrote that the initiative challenging the Jewish people's ties to Jerusalem "is an attempt to rewrite history in a dangerous, unfair and one-sided manner."

http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/127560-161013-unesco-due-to-pass-res...

By Haggai Matar |Published October 15, 2016

Israeli soldiers fire illumination flares, at a direct trajectory, at stone-throwers along the Gaza border. A 15-year-old boy is killed. The IDF says it’s conducting an ‘inquiry.’

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian teenager by shooting a military-grade illumination flare directly at him, shattering and setting his face on fire last month, according to investigations by B’Tselem, Defence of Children International — Palestine (DCI), and video footage seen by +972 Magazine.

The killing took place on September 9, when a group of roughly 100 Palestinian youths staged a demonstration near the border fence with Israel, east of al-Bureij Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. Some of the protesters threw stones toward the Israeli soldiers and attempted to cut the barbed wire near the fence. The soldiers initially responded with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets.

Video shot at the scene, which we are unable to publish here, shows that the soldiers do not appear to be in any sort of danger. The soldiers stood on the other side of the fence, some dodging the occasional stone while others sat inside armored vehicles that were entirely unaffected by the stones.

Quite unusually, however, at some point the soldiers also fired illumination flares, which were fired toward the protesters in an attempt to disperse the demonstration.

Illumination flares are used by some military units to to illuminate large areas during nighttime military operations, or in order to mark targets. They are shot out of a rifle-mounted launcher at a high trajectory, and a small parachute deploys as the flare itself illuminates the ground below for less than a minute.

Illumination flares are not intended for firing at a direct trajectory, or to for use as a weapon or crowd dispersal tactic. It is highly unusual to see them used against people.

In this case, however, the video clearly shows that the illumination flares were shot directly at the protesters, despite the fact that the minor clashes were taking place in the light of day. In one of the video clips, the flare can be seen burning for a short period, after which the Palestinian youths pick it up while the parachute is still attached.

It was exactly that type of flare that appears to have been fired directly at the face of 15-year-old Abdel-Rahman al-Dabbagh. In the video (a screenshot of which appears above), al-Dabbagh is seen lying on the ground with smoke and fire streaming from his face, and then the burning stops suddenly, in a moment, just like the illumination flares extinguish. Al-Dabbagh’s friends are then seen carrying away his body, which shows signs of serious wounds and burns on his face.

According to testimonies of others who were there that day, collected by DCI-Palestine and B’Tselem, the incident took place around 7 p.m., as the sun was just beginning to set. In the video there appears to be plenty of light out, such that the use of a flare would be unnecessary.

An autopsy later performed on al-Dabbagh determined that the flare shot at his face was the cause of death, according to B’Tselem.

A 31-year-old resident of Deir al-Balah Refugee Camp who was at the protest, relayed the following to a B’Tselem field worker in Gaza:

    The soldiers fired two flare bombs directly at us. The bombs hit the fence and started a fire. Shortly after 7:00 p.m., a soldier took a few steps and came up to the fence, put the barrel of his rifle through it and fired a flare bomb straight at ‘Abd a-Rahman. The bomb hit his head. He immediately fell to the ground and his face kept on burning.

    I came up to him quickly, but one of the soldiers told me in Arabic: “Get back or I’ll shoot you.” I told him I just wanted to lift him up. I took two steps toward ‘Abd a-Rahman, and the soldier shot a few bullets at my legs. I stopped. Then, the soldier turned on his gun’s laser sight and put it on me. Once the fire on ‘Abd a-Rahman’s face went out, the soldiers let us go to him. His face was burnt and he was bleeding. He was unconscious and didn’t move. I yelled, asking for help from the guys, and they came and lifted him up.

According to B’Tselem, Abdel-Rahman al-Dabbagh was the 20th person to be killed during protests against the fence on the Gaza border since they began taking place regularly in October 2015.

At the request of Defence of Children International — Palestine, which provided the video, due to restrictions imposed by Israeli law, and because they could be used to identify minors throwing stones, we have decided not to publish the videos here. However, after viewing the full video footage, +972 can confirm the findings of DCI and B’Tselem.

The IDF Spokesperson responded that on the day in question, “there was violent rioting with dozens of suspects along the fence. During the riots, burning tires were rolled and stones thrown with the aim of harming IDF troops. Following an inquiry [carried out by] commanders in the field, it was determined that IDF soldiers used crowd dispersal means in order to distance the rioters and to prevent harm to the troops and the fence. In light of reports regarding a Palestinian youth who was killed during the course of the disturbances, we will carry out an inquiry into the circumstances of the incident.”

Nov 2, 2016



The Israeli authorities have given the go-ahead for plans to build 181 illegal settler units in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Local Israeli municipal official Brachie Sprung said that the initial plans for the construction of the settlement units in the Gilo area were made in 2012.

She added that the Wednesday approval was for the "technical details of plot distribution," and that further detailed planning would be required for the actual construction to begin.

Last month, a special United Nations Security Council session denounced Israel for building “illegal settlements” in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The session was held a few days after UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on Israel to halt plans to construct a new settlement and an industrial zone in the occupied West Bank.

According to Americans for Peace Now, the number of Israeli settlements has grown dramatically over the past 20 years, with the construction of 11,000 new settler units authorized under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem al-Quds.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. Tel Aviv has defied calls to stop the expansion of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel’s settlement expansion has been among the main reasons behind the collapse of the last round of the so-called Middle East peace talks in 2014.


http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/11/02/491867/israel-palestine-settlements-gilo

jmjcare wrote on Nov 4^th, 2016 at 3:02pm:


If anyone is wondering where this Australian woman is she is in Tasmania and has been since Oct 9th.

Some of her comments regarding the issue.

Their boat was intercepted by the Israeli military about 35 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

Quote:


Quote:

International Women’s Boat to Gaza

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – TRANSCEND Media Service

I was a participant onboard the Zaytouna-Oliva boat | 29 Sep-5 Oct 2016.

26 Oct 2016 – A few weeks ago, the US government agreed to give Israel $38 billion dollars, the largest military funding package the U.S. has given any nation.  This $38 billion in military and other type of Aid will be used to imprison the Palestinians of Gaza, and continue Israel’s military occupation, and imposition of an apartheid state, upon the Palestinian people.

This money will be used in the training fields of Israeli military, which are in Gaza, where military experiments are done, using US military weaponry, by the Israeli Occupation Forces.  The U.S. military and government is complicit in the crimes against the people of Gaza and the Palestinian occupied territory by the use of military hardware given by USA and by the training that Israelis give to Americans and USA gives to Israel.  It is also estimated that some 70% of European humanitarian aid to Palestine ends up in Israeli pockets.

Gaza continues to suffer from the continuing Israeli blockade, naval and land, and this 25-mile-long tiny strip, 5 miles wide, with l.9 million people, living in it, is a brutal blockade and Israel controls everything including electricity, food, etc.

Indeed, everything that comes into Gaza comes through Israeli hands.  Gaza’s only airport was completely destroyed in 2002 by Israeli jets and ground forces.  Egypt continues to be a part of this blockade as they have blocked Gaza’s southern border; and Egypt continues to receive USA military funding.  Medical authorities have reported that the time for operations in Gaza now goes up to 2025 as so many are awaiting health care, and the increasing issues around food, water, sewage, electricity, all of these mounting problems have led the U.N. to declare in their latest Report, that by the year 2020 Gaza will be uninhabitable.  What hope is there for the Palestinians of Gaza, the vast majority of whom are young people?

In order to give hope to the people of Gaza by showing solidarity and support the Women’s Boat to Gaza sailed in September 2016. Also we sailed in order to challenge this illegal and immoral blockade and occupation of Palestine by Israel, and draw international attention to the fact that under Geneva Conventions it is illegal to punish civilians, which is what Israeli government policies continues to do.

The Women’s Boat to Gaza set sail from the Spanish Port city of Barcelona (Barcelona is twinned with Gaza) in mid- September 2016.  The three legs of the trip were 1715 miles from Barcelona to Ajaccio, Corsica, France and then down to Messina in Sicily, Italy.  It was hoped to have two boats but when one developed engine trouble in Barcelona, the other 50’ sailing boat, Zaytouna-Oliva, continued alone.  At all Ports the women were greeted and hosted by mayors, officials, and supporters of the Free Palestine Movement.   Over 40 women from around the world flew to Messina in hopes of being able to sail to Gaza.

I joined the boat in Messina, and was grateful to be chosen as one of the 13 women from thirteen countries, being finally chosen to sail to Gaza.   It was sad for those of us sailing to leave behind so many wonderful women due to not enough boats to sail, but it is hoped the Palestinian Coalition will be able to get more sailings to accommodate those wishing to go on a future occasion.   The 13 chosen participants included Ann Wright, (boat leader) the captain and two crew, two Al Jazeera journalists, and women from USA, Ireland, Russia, UK, Spain, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden/Chile, Malaysia, South Africa, Australia, and Algeria.

The third leg of the journey from Messina to Gaza was almost 1000 miles and a nine-day journey.  On 29th September 2016, we set sail from Messina, Sicily, after a wonderful reception from the mayor, the Muslim community, and many Palestinian friends in Messina.

The first few days sailing the weather was rough and many of us were seasick, but several days into the journey we had got our sea-legs and busied ourselves helping with the tasks to be done such as cooking, reporting, night watches with the crew, etc.  We shared our stories and held nonviolence training.   It was a wonderful experience getting to know the women whose courage was inspiring. Their love for the Palestinian people and their freedom was very deep.  Unfortunately, some 400 miles from Messina, with some 600 miles to go, we had problems with the boats rigging.  An appeal to friends in Crete resulted in a boatful of people coming out to meet us, bringing many gifts of food, and four men to fix the rigging!  This was for me one of the most moving experiences of the journey, and it proved yet again, the magnificence of the human spirit. Around 20 men and women answered our call for help and came to our aid, and all for the people of Gaza.  After the men fixed our boat rigging, we passed greetings to our rescuers from Crete and sailed in a happy and hope filled mood towards Gaza.

Israeli premier backs ban on call to Muslim prayers

Nov 13, 2016

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that he would back a controversial bill aimed at limiting the sound of prayers calls coming from Palestinian mosques.

Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting on Sunday that he would support the bill, which would stop the use of public address systems for calls to Muslim prayers, adding that the prayers calls make excessive noise.

"I cannot count the times -- they are simply too numerous -- that citizens have turned to me from all parts of Israeli society, from all religions, with complaints about the noise and suffering caused them by the excessive noise coming to them from the public address systems of houses of prayers," Netanyahu said.

The controversial bill has drawn criticism from an Israeli think tank, which has described it as a threat to religious freedoms. Democracy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, has described the legislation, drafted by an extremist lawmaker, as unnecessarily divisive.

The group also accused far-right Israeli politicians of dangerously using the issue to gain political gains under the guise of improving the quality of life.

"The real aim" of the bill "is not to prevent noise, but rather to create noise that will hurt all of society and the efforts to establish a sane reality between Jews and Arabs," Nasreen Hadad Haj-Yahya, one of the watchdog's officials, wrote in Israeli newspaper Maariv.

In early November, Israeli authorities enforced a ban on playing the Muslim call to prayers on public announcement systems at three mosques in a town in the west of the Tel Aviv-occupied West Bank. The ban came into force in the town of Abu Dis near Jerusalem al-Quds

This came after a number of extremist Israeli settlers staged a protest against the Muslim religious practice in northeastern al-Quds.

Subsequently, al-Quds’ mayor, Nir Barkat, wrote to the city’s police chief, saying those reciting the call were in breach of the regime’s “noise regulation” that enforces limits on the volume, duration, source, and timing of “noise” in the public sphere.

The Muezzins, or those reciting the call, can now be summoned to police headquarters, be investigated, and even be found liable to fines.

Palestinians make up some 20 percent of Israel’s population. They see the bill aiming to limit the sound of prayers calls as a form of Israeli discrimination.

The occupied territories have witnessed increased tensions ever since Israeli forces imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.

Almost 250 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in what is regarded as the third Palestinian Intifada (uprising) since October 2015.

http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/11/13/493450/Israel-Benjamin-Netanyahu-West-Bank-...