Wave of arrests among Israeli Palestinians reaches 378 people in Galilea and the Negev

The protests in Israels Palestinian areas continue. Hundreds protested on Wednesday 9 July in Nazareth against the ongoing killing of Palestinians in Gaza. (Photo Arab 48)

The number of  Israeli Palestinians, the Palestinians inside Israel proper, whom Isarel has arrested  in relation to a wave of demonstrations and clashes in East-Jerusalem and about all of Israels Arab cities, towns has risen to 370, the site Arab 48 reports. Of these 44 were arrested overnight or in the course of today,  Thursday. As I, the writer of the blog, heard from arrests that are not mentioned in the report, it is possible that the number is even higher than 378.
The ''demonstrations of anger'' in the Palestinian areas started on 5 July (link in Dutch) in East-Jerusalem, as a protest against the murder on the boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir and the situation of the Palestinians in general. They quickly spread out to the cities and towns in what Israel calls the ''Triangle'' and the north of Galilea. Later on also the Bedouin areas in the Negev joined in the protests.   
On 7 July  the site Arab 48  reported that Israel arrested 110 Palestinians across Israel, among whom were Murad Haddad of the politburo of the Balad (Tagammu) party and Rajaa Aghbariyye, the secretary-general of the Abnaa al-Balad (Sons/daughters of the Land) Movement (Aghbariyye later on got a week house arrest).
Now the same site reports that the number of people arrested as off today has risen to 378. Of these 122 were arrested in the Jerusalem area (including 28 minors) , 63 in the Negev (including 11 who are under 18), 122 in the north of Galilea (including 29 minors), and 81 in what the site calls the Sahel, which includes the Wadi Ara (here the number of minors is seven).
The wave of arrests is unprecedented among the Palestinian population, at least since 2000 when thousands of them demonstrated against the harsh way Israel reacted to the Second intifada and Israel killed 13 of them in a demonstration in Umm al Fahm. Arab 48 mentions that a number of the 378 detainees are in several stages of procedures that the state brought against them.

Israeli Palestinian journalist arrested after visit to Lebanon, case under gag order

Majd Kayyal, second from right, takes part in a seminar in Beirut organized by As-Safir newspaper. (Muhammad Sharara/As-Safir/Facebook)



Update: Majd Kayyal, a 23-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel and a journalist from Haifa, who was arrested as he was traveling home from Beirut last Saturday night, was released on bail on Thursday 17 April by a Haifa court. Police prosecutors originally applied for an extended remand earlier this week. They said  Kayyal was suspected of visiting an enemy state and establishing contact with foreign agents.  The foreign agents allegation was dropped as he was released, but visiting an  enemy state remained as a charge. According to Adalah, Kayyal has been banned from using internet for 21 days, which Adalah is set to challenge in court. The gag order imposed on the case was removed several hours earlier.

 Majd Kayyal a writer, journalist, activist, the website editor of the Adala Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel,has been arrested on Saturday, upon his return from Beirut, where he attended a conference to mark the 40th anniversary of the newspaper "As-Safir".
Kayyal has frequently written for As-Safir and wrote about his trip to Beirut – his first ever – for the website Jadaliyya. Kayyal  posted images of himself in the Lebanese capital on his Facebook page.
On Sunday morning in a closed hearing, Israeli police asked a judge to extend Kayyal’s detention for 15 days, the maximum allowed under the law. During the court session it was revealed that the charges against Kayyal are the crimes of contact with a foreign agent and unlawful travel to Arab countries. Judge Zayed Falah, a former military prosecutor according to Ali Abunimah, extended Kayyal’s detention until 22 April.placed a gag order on the news of  Kayyal’s arrest and detention and ordered that all court proceedings would be closed. Abunimah published the full transcript of the court proceedings on his blog, which can be read here.

Israel's Supreme Court denies the existence of an Israeli people

The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a ruling that in my opinion is problematic and quite revealing about the present state of affairs in the 'Jewish state'. In a case brought before them by a group of Israelis who requested to be allowed to change the ethnic registration on their identity cards from “Jewish” to “Israeli”, the judges decided that ''there is no proof of the existence of a uniquely “Israeli” people''. They also said that the issue is not for the court to decide.
Their decision upheld an earlier ruling from 2008 by their colleague, Noam Sohlberg, who - then a Jerusalem District Court judge - had rejected the group’s petition. Sohlberg at the time stated that “the requested declaration has a public, ideological, social, historic and political character – but not a legal one. This isn’t a technical issue of registration in the Population Registry, but a request that the court determine that in the State of Israel a new peoplehood has been formed, common to all its residents and citizens, called ‘Israeli.’ This issue is a national-political-social question and it is not the court’s place to decide it.”

'Palestinian teen killed from behind after he tried to run away'

 

Two British press accounts of the shooting to death of the16-year old Samir Awad, last Tuesday,  in the Palestinian village of Budrus, 35 km north of Ramallah. The British papers quote eyewitnesses who contradict what the Israeli army said and what was written in the Israeli press. They say that Samir was lured into a confrontation and was shot form behind when he was trying to run away:

The Guardian:
According to villagers, Samir was grabbed by soldiers who were concealed in a trench. He broke free and was running away when a soldier or soldiers opened fire. He was hit by three or four bullets, in his head, torso and leg.
Ayed Morrar, a member of the village popular resistance committee, said: "They shot him in cold blood, they shot him in the back. He wasn't threatening them." He said there had been no stone-throwing at the time of the shooting.
 
The Daily Telegraph:
A Palestinian schoolboy killed by Israeli gunfire near the West Bank  separation barrier had been reacting to insults shouted by soldiers with  loudhailers before he was shot, eyewitnesses have said.
The claim contradicts an account given by the Israeli army, which says 16-year-old Samir Awad was shot after cutting through a section of the security fence as he tried "infiltrate into Israel".

The teenager died on Tuesday after being shot three times. He was hit from behind as he was running away from Israeli troops in the village of Boudrous, according to his family. 

 Family and friends say Samir was running away from the security barrier after soldiers fired tear gas. As he tried to head towards the school, he was intercepted by two other soldiers who had been hiding in a trench dug by the Jordanian army during the 1967 Six-Day War.
While his friends managed to get away, Samir's escape route was cut off, forcing him to run back towards the barrier. It was at that point he was shot, witnesses say.(...)

Samir's death is one of a growing list of similar incidents in which Palestinians lost their lives and which are never thoroughly investigated. Samir was the fourth young man to die in five days, after two young people in Gaza and one near Hebron. 

Exactly a month ago another of these incidents occurred,  the 'accidental murder' of the teen Muhammad Salaymeh in Hebron, which I documented here. On my Dutch sister blog I wrote about a number of other cases: Hatem Shadid (35) who was shot to death on 4 December 2012 after his car collided with a jeep with four agents of the internal security service Shin Beth. (They said he had approached them with an axe, which was not corroborated by evidence and which his family and friends contested). In June 2010 Ziad Jilani 41, a father of three  daughters) was killed in Jerusalem after his van accidentally collided with some members of the border police when he passed a disturbance. It appeared that the van had previously been hit by a stone. In January 2011 a  Palestinian called Daraghmeh was shot to death at a checkpoint that he approached in a hurry with a broken bottle. It later appeared that the bottle was really a can of cola.

In March 2010 two teenage cousins from the village of Awarta, Faysal and Mumammad Qawariq, were killed when they allegedly attacked a soldier at a checkpoint with a pitchfork. It later transpired that the boys had been sitting at the moment they were killed ad did not have a pitchfork with them. One day later two other cousins, from the village of Iraq Burin this time, Muhammad ad Usaid Qadus, were killed when they returned home and got out of a taxi. They had the bad luck that a clash between villagers and the army were taking place just at that very moment, although some 60 meter from where they got out of the car.

All these cases had one thing in common: nobody was ever brought to justice and the investigations were very superfluous, or there were any at all. Israel has the duty to protect the Palestinians in the territories it occupies. If the Israelis aren't able to remember this on their own, it is time that it is made clear to them that it is mandatory under international law.

Accidental murder of a teener in Hebron

Muhammad Salaymeh earlier that day celebrated his birthday at school, right: the woman who killed him, Nofar Mizrahi

Less than two weeks after Israeli Shin Bet security agents shot dead a Palestinian with whose car their jeep had collided and who, after that, supposedly attacked them with an axe, a female soldier shot dead a teenager in Hebron under even less credible circumstances. Muhammad Ziad al-Salaymah was killed on his 17th birthday, when passing a checkpoint in order to get his birthday cake from a local bakery. Israeli newspapers reported that he wielded something that looked like a gun. A 19-year old female border guard (Nofal Mizrahi, her name was later placed under a gag order) then opened fire on him and killed him on the spot.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the gun afterwards turned out to be a plastic toy, but that did not stop the Israeli minister of Internal Security Aharonovitch from praising the police woman's determination and courage. The police woman herself said that it did not make any difference for her that it turned out to be a toy gun. 'Fake gun or not, I did the right thing.

In the meantime it turns out that Muhammad al-Salaymah was a popular boy at school with the larger Hebron community. He was a wrestling champion who represented Palestine in international wrestling tournaments and had won gold and silver medals. Also he studied with the Palestinian Circus School for nearly two years, learning to perform juggling, acrobatics and the human pyramid, the school's manager Shadi Zmorrod told Ma'an.

Israeli police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld told Ma'an on Thursday that he had nothing to add to initial findings immediately after the shooting that Muhammad pointed a fake gun at forces at a checkpoint in the southern West Bank city. However the Palestinian human rights society Al Haq carried out a preliminary investigation that shed a different light on what really happened. I reproduce it below  in its entirety, as the killing of Muhammad was really one of  a series of similar events in which Palestinians are killed with impunity. Shooting instructions are extremely loose and incidents like this one make abundantly clear that Israeli border police and the military don't have the slightest clue about the Palestinian society, fear all Palestinians and see in every single person nothing but potentially murderous terrorists. It is high time that something is done about it.  

Al-Haq is currently investigating the case of Muhammad Ziad al-Salayma, who was killed yesterday evening (Wednesday, AbuP,)on his seventeenth birthday, in the old city of Hebron. The circumstances of his death are currently unclear. However, according to Al Haq’s preliminary investigations, Muhammad left his home yesterday evening at approximately 6:30 pm in order to buy a cake and passed by Checkpoint 160, which is some 100 meters from his house. When he passed the checkpoint, Muhammad was reportedly holding a lighter that resembled a gun, which aroused the suspicion of the Israeli soldiers manning the checkpoint and caused them to have an exchange of words with Muhammad. Following a discussion with the soldiers, Muhammad was shot twice, once in the abdomen and once in the chest, at a short range. Muhammad died around 7:30 pm as a result of the shooting. Shortly afterwards, an Israeli military ambulance arrived at Checkpoint 160 and took the youth to another checkpoint, before transferring his body to a Red Crescent ambulance at 9:40 pm. His body was then taken to Hebron governorate hospital where doctors confirmed Muhammad’s death and that he had been hit by two bullets.

Shortly after the shooting, Muhammad’s parents were informed of their son’s condition. They arrived at the scene of the incident and attempted to enter the Israeli Military ambulance in order to see their son. The Israeli soldiers pushed them away and hit Muhammad’s father, Ziad ‘Awad al-Salayma, on his leg. As a result of his injuries, Ziad was taken to the Hebron governorate hospital for medical treatment to be discharged a few hours later. After midnight, the Israeli military raided the family home and arrested one of Muhammad’s older brothers and one of his cousins.

 (Ma'an)

Muhammad’s body was returned to his parents by Hebron governorate hospital today. Al-Haq strongly condemns the willful killing of Muhammad at the hands of an Israeli soldier. Unfortunately this is not an isolated case; the killings of Palestinian civilians, including children like Muhammad, are the result of the prevailing climate of impunity granted to Israeli soldiers, who are hardly ever held responsible for the violations committed against the Palestinian occupied population. Since 2000, Israel’s rules of engagement have promoted the arbitrary deprivation of life effectively allowing soldiers to open fire on Palestinian civilians even where, like in yesterday’s case, their life is not threatened.

 Al-Haq also calls for immediate, transparent and impartial investigations to clarify the circumstances that lead to Muhammad’s death, with a view to prosecuting the Israeli soldiers responsible for the killing. Additionally, Israel must provide for full reparation to the family of the victim.

Human Rights Watch: 'Israel should stop harassing members of prisoner's rights group Addameer'

Ayman Nasser

Israeli authorities should stop harassing members of a Palestinian prisoners’ rights group. Israeli authorities should immediately lift a travel ban on the group’s chairman and release a recently arrested researcher, or present evidence justifying the measures against them., Human Rights Watch said on Friday. 

In August and September 2012, Israeli authorities issued orders prohibiting Abdullatif Ghaith, chairman of the board of the group, Addameer, from traveling abroad as well as from East Jerusalem, where he lives, to the rest of the West Bank, where the organization’s offices are located. On October 15, Israeli forces raided the West Bank home of Ayman Nasser, a researcher for the group, arrested him and questioned him about radio interviews he gave about prisoners and his membership in a youth organization.
At military court hearings on October 18 and 24, military judges extended his detention on the basis of evidence he was not allowed to see. The Israeli military has not charged either man with wrongdoing or allowed them to see any evidence against them. Addameer adds that the last time Nasser's detention was extended for nine more days. It also said that the main focus of his interrogation continues to be his civic activities relating to his role in advocating for the rights of Palestinian political prisoners and his involvement in the Handala Center, which is an educational, artistic center in Ayman’s village Saffa and of which Ayman is the Chairperson.
“It’s deeply ironic that Israel is arbitrarily detaining a researcher who has documented arbitrary detention, and violating the rights of the head of a human rights group,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Israel should provide valid justifications for its measures against Nasser and Ghaith or drop those measures immediately.”

Addameer itself adds that it is extremely concerned for Ayman’s health as he continues to be denied the appropriate medication. As previously reported Ayman suffers from a number of health issues including inflammation in his colon and back pain. Until his arrest he was receiving constant medical treatment by specialized doctors.

 

Israel counted the calories for the people in Gaza

Border crossing Kerem Shalom betwee Israel and Gaza.

After a three-and-a-half-year legal battle waged by the Gisha human rights organization, the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories  (COGAT) has finally released a 2008 document,  "Food Consumption in the Gaza Strip – Red Lines",  that detailed guidelines for food consumption in Gaza.  The document contains information about the Israeli policy of restricting the entrance of food to the Gaza Strip, which was in effect between 2007 and 2010.

It calculates the minimum number of calories necessary, in COGAT's view, to keep Gaza residents from malnutrition at a time when Israel was tightening its restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of the Strip, including food products and raw materials. The document states that Health Ministry officials were involved in drafting it, and the calculations were based on "a model formulated by the Ministry of Health.
 The "red lines" document calculates the minimum number of calories needed by every age and gender group in Gaza, then uses this to determine the quantity of staple foods that must be allowed into the Strip every day, as well as the number of trucks needed to carry this quantity. On average, the minimum worked out to 2,279 calories per person per day, which could be supplied by 1,836 grams of food, or 2,575.5 tons of food for the entire population of Gaza.

The calculations made in the presentation led to the conclusion that the "daily humanitarian portion" Gaza’s residents needed would require bringing in 106 trucks from Israel five days per week. In the first year following Hamas’ takeover of the Strip and the tightening of the closure (July 2007 to June 2008), an average of 90 trucks entered each scheduled working day. An earlier disclosure, in 2010, revealed already that Israel used a mathematical model to calculate the foodstuff it needed to distribute to Gaza in order to avoid a human catastrophy. 
The document was based upon a decision taken a few moths after the 2007 Hamas takeover in Gaza. The   Israeli cabinet, then headed by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, decided in September of 2007 to tighten restrictions on the movement of people and goods to and from Gaza. The decision stated that "the movement of goods into the Gaza Strip will be restricted; the supply of gas and electricity will be reduced; and restrictions will be imposed on the movement of people from the Strip and to it." In addition, exports from Gaza would be forbidden entirely. However, the resolution added, the restrictions should be tailored to avoid a "humanitarian crisis." The "red lines" document was written about four months afterward.
Gisha notes that  the sharp decrease in the incoming quantities of food products caused supply to be unpredictable and contributed to a significant rise in food prices in Gaza, but did ot cause hunger. (..) however 'the severe economic crisis caused by the closure, particularly by restrictions on the entrance of raw materials and the marketing of goods outside the Strip led to a rise in the unemployment rate, resulted in increased dependence on aid. Between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008, the rate of unemployment soared by 72% (from 26.4% to 45.4%). A report by the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) found that the number of Gaza residents receiving humanitarian aid rose from 63% of the population in 2006 to 80% in 2007. The main repercussions of the closure at the time were, as they largely continue to be today, increased poverty, increased dependence on aid and denial of opportunities for economic development, higher education and access to dignified work'.
Gisha states that these days, it is difficult to find a politician or security expert in Israel who would say that the closure policy of 2007-2010 benefitted Israel politically or in terms of security. For more than two years now, Israel has not imposed any restrictions on the entrance of food to the Gaza Strip. Yet, the two fundamental tenets of the policy, the legal position and the political-security rationale, remain the basis for the current policy, which the security establishment calls "the separation policy". This is not only in violation of international humantaria law, but Gisha says that it is also unclear at present 'which political or military actors formulated the "separation policy", what its objectives are and how it is monitored...

Israeli AG drops case against rabbis who wrote book that incited to kill 'gentiles'

Rabbi Shapira during a court hearing in 2011

The Israeli attorney general Yehuda Weinstein, announced this Monday that he is dropping the case against the rabbis Yizhak Shapira, Yoseph Elizur, Dov Lior and Yizhak Ginzburg, writes Yossi Gurvitz on +972. The first two rabbis wrote a book called “Torat Ha’Melech” (The King’s Bible) two years ago, the two others endorsed it. All four are rabbis in the service of the state and connected to the yeshiva (institute for religious learning) in the settlement Yitzhar near Nablus, which is notorious for its violence against surrounding Palestinian villages. Dov Lior is moreover the chief rabbi of the settlements in Hebron

One of the themes of the book was that killing your enemies is allowed. In a  notorious paragraph it even claims that:

Rabbi Yosef Elitzur in court

there is reason to believe harming children, if there is reason to think they will grow up to harm us, is permitted; and in such a case, the harm should be directed specifically at them, and not just while harming grown-ups.

For “harm,” read “kill,” Gurvitz writes. And: There’s much more there, including permission to kill any gentile which does not follow the “Laws of the Sons of Noah,” which conveniently enough encompasses the vast majority of mankind, if by killing that gentile you intended to punish him for not following a divine mandate he was not aware of. All Christians, pagans and atheists are ipso facto non-Noah-observant, and can be slain at will.
The reason  Attorney General Weinstein gave for his decision not press charges was that while Torat Ha’Melech contained severe racist terms, he did not have grounds for conviction, since the rabbis couched their incitement to racism in religious terms. Weinstein wrote that the law specifically exempted “religious studies” from prosecution.
Distressing idea, the most blatant racism is allowed in Israel as long as it is couched in religious terms.

Israeli high court dismisses claim of Husseini family to the Shepherd hotel

The Shepherd Hotel, as it is now, partially demolished. (Reuters)

Israel's Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the prominent Palestinian family Al-Hussseini could not claim ownership of the landmark Shepherd hotel in East Jerusalem -- paving the way for a Jewish settlement project.
The family, heirs to the notorious mufti Haj Ain al-Husseini, said the Shepherd Hotel, now partially demolished, is a symbol of the Palestinian rights to their land and to East Jerusalem, and criticized the court ruling. "This property, which is legitimately ours, represents the Palestinians' rights to their land and to Jerusalem," Mona Husseini, heir to the property and Husseini's granddaughter, said on Monday.
The family said, however, they would continue to seek legal action. "The court clearly sided with the other party, and this proves that the Israeli courts have never been fair to Palestinians," said Adnan Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed mayor of Jerusalem and a member of the extended family.

The Shepherd Hotel was built in the 1930s and served as the home of the mufti. It was declared "absentee property" by Israel after it was captured and annexed to East Jerusalem in 1967. The title was transferred to an Israeli firm, which sold it in 1985 to Irving Moskowitz, a Florida businessman and patron of Jewish settlers. In 2009, Israel's Jerusalem city hall approved a project to replace the building with a block of 20 apartments.
In dismissing the family's case, the court said too much time had passed since Israeli authorities had transferred the property to private developers for a legal challenge to be brought, a lawyer for the petitioners said. The family said it had been unaware at the time that the site had been sold off.

A façade has crumbled, the Israeli supreme court can no longer pose as defender of justice and democracy

No more is there reason to defend an institution that issued the shameful rejection of the petition against the amendment to the Citizenship Law. A court that vets this nationalistic and racist amendment, which discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel solely on the basis of their ethnicity, which in the name of security is prepared to deny basic rights and destroy the lives of thousands of Israeli families, which makes false use of security to try to cover up its racism - is an institution that must no longer be defended.

That is what Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy wrote on 15 January about the Israeli Supreme Court, after it had rejected by a 6-5 vote a petition by the human rights organisations Adala and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) to abolish the Citizenship Law. Actually the court did so for the third time. The same happened in 2005 and 2006. 
 The Citizenship Law prohibits inhabitants of Israel to live together with their spouses from the West Bank (or, for that matter, from 'enemy countries' like Iraq, or Syria). The law was adopted in 2003 after the Second Intifada. It was meant to be temporal, but was prolonged a few times.Thousands of couples - almost all of them Palestinians - suffer from it, among them a particular great number of inhabitants of East Jerusalem. The eastern part of the city was annexed by Israel in 1967, which had as a consequence that its Arab inhabitants came to live inside Israel. Since the city in recent years has become more and more cut off from its hinterland, the thousands of Jerusalemites who married partners from the West Bank are in big trouble. (For more information about the law and the discrimination of Palestinian inhabitants of Israel as far as family (re)unification is concerned, turn to the site of the organisation Miftah, which gives a good overview). 

 The Citizenship Law is, as the minority of the court indicated, a breach of Israeli constitutional rights. It is also discriminatory, als judge Dorit Beinisch, the outgoing president of the court noted, as it robs  almost exclusively Israels Arab population from their right to live together with the partner of their choice. The majority of the court concurred with the view that couples have the right to live together, but nevertheless uphold the law out of 'security considerations'.  Or as judge Miriam Naor put it, because 'it was not evident that 'the fulfillment of family life' had to take place specifically in Israel'.

Building of the High Court in Jerusalem.

 I wrote about the court's decision on my Dutch blog, but I want to repeat it here, as the decision about the Citizenship Law was the last in a string of events that ought to make it evident for even the most frantic defenders of the court - see what Gideon Levy wrote - that it cannot any longer pretend to safeguard justice and democracy. Just have a look, we go back step by step:
In the first week of January four new members of the court were nominated. Among them was m Noam Sohlberg (50), who is not only a rightist with a disputable record as a judge (for instance  he once acquitted a border policeman who killed a fleeing Palestinian by shooting him the back, on the ground that the officer rightly may have believed that his life was in danger), he is also an inhabitant of the settlement Alon Shvut. As such he is the first judge in the court who - according to international law - is committing a criminal act by living on land that is occupied.The court itself, however, was swift in rejecting objections against Sohlberg, brought by the organisation Yesh Gvul, on the ground that nowhere in Israel's Basic Laws is mentioned anything that indicates that the place where a judge is living might disqualify him for his function....

 On 5 January the court rejected a petition (again by ACRI and Adalah) against the so called Nakba-Law. The law gives the minister of Finance the authority to withdraw funding from institution sand associations that (among other things)
'commemorate (Israeli) Independence Day or the day of the establishment of the state as
a day of mourning'.
The court admitted that the law raised questions about its constitutionality (i.e. concerning the freedom of speech), but said that the time was not yet ripe for the court to take a decisions, as the meaning of the l,aw depended on its interpretation and it had not yet been applied. ACRI and Adalah commented - rightly so in my opinion - that of course the law had already an effect on the freedom of speech before it ever was implemented, as many institutions would censor themselves in order to avoid putting themselves at risk.

On 28 December 2011 in another strange decision the court ruled that the ten stone quarries on the West Bank which are in Israeli hands and mine stone almost exclusively (94%) for use in Israel, may continue their work. This goes against article 55 of the The Hague Convention, which states that occupying powers shall safeguard the natural resources of an occupied land. But the court gave the rather twisted opinion that the quarries employ Palestinians and also pay taxes to the Palestinian Authority and therefor work in the interest of the PA. (For the full text of the decision click here)

So, four highly disputable decisions in the time of no more than some two weeks.According to some it shows that the supreme court is rather toothless and afraid to go on a confrontational course with the government and the majority in the Knesset. I personally believe that it is in fact even more serious than that, since it is really a structural feature of this court. In the seventies it refused to rule against the settlements and went no further than declare that no settlement could be established on private Palestinian lands, which for a number of reasons (military requisitioning, non-recognition of Palestinian property deeds) was just no more than hollow words. In 2006 the court condoned targeted killings, under the condition that it was only allowed if there were no alternatives and if there were no others nearby who's lives would be put at risk (which in practice remained no less a dead letter). In 1999 the court refused to speak out against the use of 'psychological and physical pressure' during interrogations. These two last decisions put together mean that Israel is the only state in the world where torture and murder are legally permitted.
 Finally there were several decisions concerning the building of a 'Separation barrier' (better known as The Wall) deep in Palestinian lands, whereby explicitly also the decision by the International Court of Justice from 2004 was rejected, that the Wall had been built unlawfully on Palestinian land. 

Altogether the result is not exactly a picture of a court that is a strong bastion against the erosion of justice and democracy. Rather a court that - gradually - mirrors the changes in the Israeli social and political landscape towards more exclusivist attitudes, and a court that always bends justice to serve the magic word 'security' whenever the authorities throw it on the table. An institution that must no longer be defended, as Gideon Levy wrote. Or, like B.Michael, another columnist wrote after the settler Sohlberg had been appointed a judge in the court:  the State of Israel no longer deserves a Supreme Court without Sohlberg. It deserves a court in its own image. Someone "representative," as the MK Zeev Elkin types are loudly demanding. We should do as they wish. Because from now on, the court really is far more representative of the State of Israel. It suits the state far better.      

Justice the Israeli way

In January 2007, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 10-year-old Palestinian girl on her way home from school.  Abir Aramin lived in Anata, a Palestinian village north of Jerusalem. The pathologist who performed the autopsy found that Abir was hit in the head by a rubber bullet. However, an Israeli police investigation found the soldiers innocent, claiming there was no proof that gunfire killed Abir. 
(...) Four and a half years later, Israel’s highest court found the Israeli soldiers responsible for killing Abir, and ordered the state to compensate the family. However, this is as far as justice goes in Israel. The court refused to order the police to reopen the criminal investigation. Those who killed Abir  continue to “serve” as soldiers and officers in the Israeli army.
Abir's father, Bassam Aramin, who  is president of the Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue and co-founder of Combatants for Peace, wrote an open letter which was published on the Israeli site +972 . A bitter account of how the Israeli judiciary claim to dispense 'justice'.

Abir Aramin

By Bassam Aramin
 The Israeli play has come to a conclusion – the protagonist, whom we shall call Y.A., a soldier serving in a unit of Israeli border guards, the playwright, Y.S., head of the investigation, and the talented director Dorit Beinisch, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  The setting: the Israeli High Court of Justice on July 10, 2011, roughly four and a half years since the assassination of the ten-year-old child Abir Aramin by a bullet to her head, in front of her school in the town of Anata on January 16, 2007, at the hands of Y.A., the protagonist.
The decision of the High Court panel headed by Justice Beinisch and filled out by Justice Edna Arbel and Justice Ayala Procaccia is clear and unmistakable, and it comes after the investigation file was closed many times by the Israeli public prosecutor under the familiar provision – or rather, pretext -  “lack of sufficient evidence.”
But this time was different.  This time, Justice Beinisch actually agreed with the decision of the lower court.  She agreed that the responsibility for the killing of the child Abir lies with the soldiers involved in the incident and that the opening of fire was unjustified and the result of negligence.  She sharply criticized those who carried out a belated and incomplete investigation, despite immediate legal action taken by the family to ensure that any investigation would be properly conducted. But then, Justice Beinisch performed a perfect about-face.  She concluded that, due to the incompleteness of the investigation and the passage of four and a half years, neither the solider who fired the shot nor the soldiers or commanders of his unit could be brought to trial – though she did say that the mother of the slain girl had the right to know the identity of her daughter’s killer.
This is the Israeli justice that I have awaited for four and a half years: the closing of the case “according to Israeli law.”  The closing of the case of young child’s killing by the High Court of Justice could not happen without a legal basis supporting such action. However, no one can tell me what this legal basis is.  No one has studied it in the Israeli law schools except, it seems, Justice Beinisch and her fellow justices.  Even Michael Sfard, the family’s lawyer, who holds a doctorate in law, could not explain the legal basis on which Beinisch’s decision rested.
But Justice Beinisch and I, we know the legal basis for her decision.  So knows the Israeli public, and so too do the victims of the Israeli occupation – the Palestinians.  Yes, we know well that when it is applied to Palestinians, Israeli justice is a mirage, always just out of reach.
Could Iron Lady Beinisch rule that an Israeli Jew is guilty of slaying Palestinians?  Would she dare tarnish the reputed purity of Israeli arms?  How could she accept that a soldier of “the most moral army in the world” would engage in the killing of a ten-year-old child?  How could she look at the Palestinian child Abir as a victim, when she is surrounded by six million corpses of Jews who fell as victims of the Nazi Holocaust?  Who is this child, and how could she take up any room in a heart already turned into stone by the horrors that Jews experienced during a long history of persecution and discrimination and murder?  For this is the history that is always present in the consciousness of Beinisch, and that drives the system of the Israeli occupation.
In the middle of the year 2007, during a speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem, I asked a question of Gideon Ezra, who was at that time the Minister of Public Security.  I asked him what his reaction would be if someone killed his ten-year-old daughter.  His answer was no less provocative than the question: he said, Hamas also kills Jewish children!  The minister was talking to the wrong Palestinian.  I wonder, however, if Mr. Ezra were one day to be confirmed as Minister of Justice, would he be in favor of exonerating Hamas on the spurious legal basis of the passage of time?
(Click here for the rest of the letter)

Shin Bet urges Israeli government to stop funding yeshiva in settlement Yitzhar

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in the settlement Yitzhar during one of his brief detainments.

Haaretz reports that the Israeli Shin Bet security service is urging the Education Ministry to immediately halt funding to the Od Yosef Hai (Yosef still lives)Yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar, near Nablus. According to intelligence information senior rabbis in the yeshiva are encouraging their students to attack Arabs.

The head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, was filmed in the past accompanying some of his students to a nearby Arab village; the students then threw stones while the rabbi looked on. Shapira is the author of the book 'The King's Torah', which, among other things, says that Jewish law permits the killing of non-Jewish children if there is a chance that they will grow up to be enemies of the Jewish people. Shapira was briefly detained and questioned in July 2010 in connection with the book, and then released. He was also briefly detained in December 2009 after he was suspected of links to an arson attack on a mosque. Yitzhar is one of the settlements which is constantly in te ne beacuase of attacks bvy its inhabitants on nearby Arab villages. The settlement is situated in between the villages Asira, Burin, Madama and Huwara.

Od Yosef Hai is a general name for several different institutions, among them a yeshiva high school, a yeshiva gedola (post-high school yeshiva), a kollel (yeshiva for married men) and the publishing house that issued "The King's Torah," among other works.
The institute gets funding from four different line items in the state budget. In 2009, the Education Ministry gave it NIS 468,000 for the yeshiva high school and NIS 847,000 for the yeshiva gedola. The yeshiva also got money from the Social Affairs Ministry for a project to rehabilitate ultra-Orthodox drop-outs (NIS 707,000 in 2009), plus NIS 156,000 to operate a dormitory.
The army's GOC Central Command, Major General Avi Mizrahi, recently issued restraining orders that forbid several students affiliated with the yeshiva to enter the West Bank. This decision was based on what security sources termed well-founded suspicions that these students had been involved in attacks on Arabs, including "price tag" attacks on Arab property (so called because they seek to deter the army from razing houses in the settlements ) and the torching of mosques in nearby Palestinian villages.
The New York Times went through public records in the United States and Israel last year and identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade. The money, The Times said,  goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, legitimate expenditures under the tax law. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas.

Israeli justice: High Court rules that village of Walaja may be completely walled in

 

A recent decsion by the Israeli Supreme Court concerning the village of Walaja, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem,  is probably one of those decisions which is most telling about what in Israel erroneously  is perceived as justice. It is worth to give it some attention, because it illustrates to what extend the law in Israel can be bend in favour of 'security considerations'.
The decision in question was taken on 22 August and concerned the trajectory of the Separation Wall. The  Court ruled that the section northwest of the village can be completed in such a way that the Wall will completely enclose the village. As a consequence the 2400 people who currently live in the village will come to live in an open air prison. In order to get in and out they will have to pass a checkpoint.
The village municipality and residents in a 2010 petition  had reasoned that the Wall’s route also harms the old cemetery of the village and divides residents from the spring which has served them for hundreds of years. Apart from that the building of the Wall would also harm tens of dunams of agricultural land and result in the uprooting of olive and other trees and a cutting off of the village landowners from their land.
Israeli High Court justices Dorit Beinisch, Asher Gronis and Uzi Fogelman, however,  ruled that in matters of security and defense, it is important to give significant weight to the professional opinion of the military commanders on the ground.The justices ruled, according to Haaretz, that despite the damage caused to the agricultural lands of the villagers by the security fence, its extent is relatively limited compared to what the petitioners claim.The court also noted that during deliberations, the army clarified that two gates will be open for several hours, three times a day, which would allow relatively unhindered access to villagers wanting to work their land.
"Against these infringements one must weigh the security value stemming from the construction of the security fence," the justices wrote in their ruling."In view of this situation, we believe that the harm caused by the fence's route to the petitioners is reasonable and proportionate in comparison to the great security value that results from the fence along this route."  The Court did agree, however, that the natural water spring will remain in the village while a tunnel will be built to allow residents to reach the cemetery.

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 The map illustrates Walaja's situation, on the 'green line' . annexed to Greater Jerusalem (although the inhabitants never got the status and ID cards of inhabitanst of the city, and at one side threatened by the steady encroachment of the settlemenets of Gilo and Har Gilo. The blocked red line is where the Wall is going to be when finished.

The Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements of al-Walaja denounced the High Court ruling, contending in a statement that “the decision of the High Court provides a legal status to state violence”.
The Committee further denounced the court decision to accept the plan to put agricultural gates as a way to ensure access of the farmers to their land. During the trial the residents presented data gathered by the United Nations which demonstrate that in places where agricultural gates were constructed, less than 18% of the farmers succeeded in actually maintaining access to their land.

For Sheerin al-Araj, one the leaders of the popular resistance, the Israeli plan for the occupied West Bank village of al-Walaja is clear: make daily life impossible for its Palestinian residents in an effort to force them off their ancestral lands and empty the village entirely.
“They cannot afford [to displace] people by force, in front of cameras with little children and women crying and screaming. So they have to do it more strategically. And the way to do it is by making life impossible for us, and making life impossible is actually building a wall, building a settlement, [building] a gate where we will all be hostage to one 18-year-old [Israeli soldier who] will decide for us when to leave and when to come in,” al-Araj, a member of the Walaja Village Council, explained.
“We will eventually have nowhere to go because they are already taking [away] our natural growth areas. So if not [in] twenty years, it will be forty years and this place will be empty. It’s an ethnic cleansing process. It’s a clear-cut ethnic cleansing process,” she said.

 

The - as  yet not completed - Wall in Walaja. 

It is not the first time that Walaja is a victim of Israel's politics of colonization. The village was originally, befoire 1948, located at a different place. This is what Palestine remembered memorizes:
  The village was occupied in October 1948, but Palestinian and Egyptian guerillas fought off the Israeli battalions and successfully defended their village. Several times they were able to force the occupation troops to withdraw, but in the end the village was occupied. (Al Khalidi, Walid 1992: All That Remains). The village was then destroyed, and Aminadav settlement was built on its lands along with an Israeli park. The people of Walaja, who numbered some 1200 people at that time, were expelled and turned into refugees. Some of them remained in lands of Al Walaja that were not occupied, while the rest left to Jordan, or moved into the refugee camps in Bethlehem. 
After 1967 the Occupation annexed the rest of Walaja to the Occupation municipality of Jerusalem, but without giving the people from Walaja the right to live in Jerusalem, who were then threatened with expulsion once again. Since the late 80sThe Occupation forces have been using various policies against the people to force them to leave what is left from the village, including house demolitions and repeated arrests against the 3000 people living now in the village, using the pretext that ؟they have West Bank identification cards and are living in Jerusalem. (...)
Abu Nidal, a farmer from the village, says: ''This not the real Walaja, this is part of its lands, and the original Walaja was between Battir and Malha. In 1948, it was destroyed by the occupation bulldozers more than once and its lands were confiscated. After 1967, the occupation confiscated the rest of its lands for the ''Gilo'' settlement, Gilo is built on more than one third of Walaja's lands. In the seventies the Settlers in Aminadav took over more lands from Walaja and began cultivating them, while the occupation forces sued the Walaja farmers, claiming that they were using the lands of the 'Stae of Israel' although the 'truce line' is far from us, but they considered these lands as 'n man's' lands. They [occupation forces] also planted a forest on the green line but they crossed it. After 1948 the people of Walaja moved to these lands here, they lived in mud houses, and caves, the ones who had money lived in stone houses, we had nothing here, no services, no roads, no water or electricity supplies. We created everything in the following years, but we still hoped we would return. The ones who settled here were part of the village؟s people, the rest went to Jordan, now there are twenty thousand refugees in Jordan camps from Al Walaja, another part are living in Bethlehem؟s refugee camps.(...) After the occupation of 1967, the Occupation decided to consider Walaja as a Jerusalem area. They claim that it was annexed in 1967, but they never informed us until 1987 when they came and started demolishing our houses under the pretext that we do not have building permits from the Occupation municipality in Jerusalem. Until now 15 houses have been demolished, 52 other houses are still waiting in courts. This is in addition to the fines the people have to pay, which are usually between 20 to 50 thousands NIS depending on the area where the house is located. The new policy they are using now is they invade people؟s houses in the night and arrest the men, accusing them of staying in Jerusalem while they do not have Jerusalem Identification cards, and they take them out from their beds. Five brothers were arrested last week [interview on April 28 2004] under the same pretext. The brothers are from Abd Sheikh Family, and another two brothers were arrested too, although their house has been there since the British mandate in Palestine. They are sending them to military courts; they want to uproot us from here. This is a policy of terrorizing and expulsion. They keep coming and warning the people to leave their houses, but not officially. The people here are afraid all the time that they will be arrested or to have their houses demolished. The Wall according to the maps is about settlements, there are several settlement projects on the lands they are confiscating, and most of Walaja lands have been surveyed for new settlements.  We do not know what our destiny will be, what they are planning for us, we will be refugees more than one time.

What is less known, is that the area around Walaja is of high archeological value. There are remnnats of settlemenst from the Roman era and ecavations of older setllements- going back 4000 years - still have to begin. Also the landscape is spcial, with several wells and terraces shaped for agriculataral purposes. Further reading here. 

Five months house arrest for 13-year old

Karam and his father. (Picture en text Charlotte Silver)

On 28 September, the Ofer Military Court, located outside Ramallah, sentenced Karam Daana to five months house arrest at his uncle’s home and fined the family 2,000 NIS during his pre-trail hearing. During this time, Karam may not attend school or leave the parameters of this home.
The charge was throwing rocks at a settler. Children are routinely picked up on similar charges: The Defence for Children International organisation estimates that 700 children are imprisoned every year, 300 of which are prosecuted in a military court. Typical sentences are approximately three months in prison, of which one month is served during pre-trial detention.
Yet, this time the prosecutors sought a uniquely harsh punishment of five months confinement without school. The loss of this time in school will prevent Karam from moving onto the eighth grade with his peers; he will need to make up the seventh grade. A DCI spokesperson commented on the sentence, “It’s a very draconian punishment for someone who maintains his innocence and he has not yet had a trial. There are lots of other measures they could take without preventing him from going to school. Why deprive a 13-year-old from going to school?”
After leaving the Offer court, Karam told his uncle, Basan Daana, “I only need this: I want to see my friends, to play with my friends, to go to school, to carry my bag, to go outside, to feel free, to move, to play.” Confounded, Basan repeats, “He doesn’t have the right to play.”
Khalid describes Karam’s daily agony under house arrest, “Every morning he looks out the window and sees all of his friends, all of his cousins, they are going to the school and sometimes he wants to run away to go with them.”
There are constant surveillance cameras monitoring the activities of Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron, if Karam is caught violating his sentence, his family will be charged 20,000 NIS.
The punishment did not stop at 2,000 NIS and house arrest for Karam. A few days after Karam returned from Ofer, the Israeli soldiers revoked Khalid’s permit to work in Israel while he was crossing a checkpoint in Hebron. “Now he doesn’t have work. Just because he’s the father.” A neighbour explained.
Karam lives in the Old City of Hebron, 100 metres from the settlement of Kiryat Arba. On September 22, he was arrested after a settler accused him of throwing rocks at her car, causing her to crash. When the police picked Karam up, they blindfolded him as they took him to Ja’bara police station in Hebron. Once there, the police interrogated Karam, shouting at him and asking “Why do you throw rocks.” Karam told them that he did not throw rocks. After reviewing the surveillance cameras, the Israeli soldiers saw that Karam was nowhere near the accident and released him that same day.
However, the next day during Karam’s sister’s wedding party, the Israeli soldiers returned to his home and took Karam back to Ja’bara police station, where they further interrogated him until 1:00 am. “They tied his hands, covered his eyes, and his legs also. They were shouting in his face,” said Basan.
Karam broke his silence, and answered with a raspy voice, “They only asked who throws stones, who do you know that throws stones, do you know who throws stones.”
In the middle of the night, the police transferred the boy to Ofer prison, where he remained for the week.
A neighbour of Karam explained, “The Israelis want to do this: they want to make the kids scared, not to go to these streets, not to use it. They don’t want anyone to come here, to stay here. They want to make people leave.”
The roads leading to Karam’s and many other Palestinian homes in the Old City are forbidden to non-settler cars. In order to get to Karam’s family’s house, one must park outside the village and walk along roads that settlers drive on freely.
Karam is still awaiting trial, at which point the military court will hear from prosecuting and defence attorneys. It has become customary for children to plead guilty regardless of their culpability, as it ensures a shorter detention period. However, Karam will plead innocent.

Five month for picture of Israeli corporal abusing Palestinian

An Israeli military court on Sunday found a corporal guilty of abuse and behaviour unbecoming of a soldier after photos emerged of him pointing his gun at a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian prisoner. The corporal, who was only named 'corporal S' was sentenced to five months. He was the first to be jailed for such an offence.

The photos were found on his mobile phone after he was arrested on suspicion of taking drugs, Israeli media reports said on Monday. Other pictures found on his phone showed two other soldiers in similar poses, who are also now on trial, they said.

The picture that will cost corporal S. five month in jail. 

In August, photos a former Israeli soldier posted on the social networking site Facebook which showed her posing next to blindfolded Palestinian prisoners sparked an outcry. Last month, a YouTube video showing a soldier belly-dancing next to a blindfolded female detainee wearing a headscarf also caused outrage.

The Israeli military has said such incidents are isolated cases that do not represent the the army as a whole. Palestinians don't agree. Neither do I. One could also ask questions like: why five months for a coporal only threatens someone and was stupid enough to carry the pictures with him, and no punishment at all for .. say .. settlers who cut olive trees or set fire to land belonging to Palestinians, soldiers who beat up children, or a lot of other abuses that come to mind?

Free Ahmad Sa'adat

Today I ask your attention for an action  to free Ahmad Sa'adat: 
Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been held in isolation in a series of prisons since March 16, 2009, with his isolation renewed again and again by occupation courts. He has been transferred from prison to prison, and is currently held in the isolation section of Ramon prison in the Naqab (Negev) desert. The Campaign in Solidarity with Ahmad Sa'adat in Palestine is calling upon all supporters to take action.

Click here to take part 

Some background:
On August 27, 2001, PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa was assassinated by a missile shot from an Apache helicopter by the Israeli military as he worked in his office in Ramallah.  Following the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sa'adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP.

 In retaliation for the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, on October 17, 2001, fighters from the PFLP's armed wing assassinated Rehavam Ze'evi, the tourism minister in Ariel Sharon's Israeli government, the leader of the Moledet party, an extreme racist party whose program is based on the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from all of Palestine. After the killing of Ze'evi, Sa'adat was arrested and held in a Palestinian Authority prison. He stayed there  for over four years, and, in January 2006 he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the Abu Ali Mustafa slate.

  On March 14, 2006, the Israeli army laid siege for twelve hours to the Palestinian prison at Jericho holding six political prisoners. Israeli bulldozers and tanks attacked the prison while the Israeli military issued threats of assassination against the prisoners. The assault caused the death of two Palestinians, the injury of twenty-three more, and the abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat and five other political prisoners from Jericho to Zionist prisons. These men had been held in the Palestinian Authority prison at Jericho, under U.S. and British guards. Immediately prior to the Israeli assault on the prison, the U.S. and British guards abandoned their posts, clearing the way for the attack. The U.S. State Department blamed Palestinians for the siege, stating that the democratically-elected Palestinian Legislative Council leadership had indicated its willingness to release these illegally-held political prisoners.

The abduction of Sa'adat in 2006.

Since his abduction - a blatant violation of Palestinian sovereignty - Sa'adat's trial has been repeatedly postponed and delayed. Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz admitted shortly following the abduction that there was insufficient evidence to indict Sa'adat in the assassination of extreme racist Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.Instead, Sa'adat was indicted on a wide array of political charges in a hearing on March 28, 2006 at Ofer Military Base in Ramallah.
On December 25, 2008, Sa'adat was sentenced to thirty years in the occupation prisons for these entirely political charges. His extensive sentence is the highest sentence delivered in the occupation courts for a political charge. 

On October 22, 2009, Sa'adat faced yet another hearing on his isolation at the Israeli military court at Bir Saba (Be'er Sheva).  At the hearing, Sa'adat's isolation was extended by six additional months. His personal books have been confiscated and he is routinely denied access to television, newspapers or any other source of information. He continues to be denied family visits, including visits from his wife Abla. In the prison yard, Sa'adat has been held handcuffed and in ankle shackles and allowed only one-hour of exercise/recreation. All of this has been 'justified' by the occupation authorities as 'punishment' for giving two cigarettes to another prisoner.
Click here to join the campaign to free Ahmad Sa'adat

Israeli army again kills two 'wanted' Palestinians

Two leaders of Hamas' military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, were killed overnight Friday in Hebron during an Israeli army raid in the Jabal Johar village, witnesses told Ma'an. The two killed were identified as Nashat Al-Karmi and Maamoun Al-Natsha.
Witnesses told Ma'an earlier they believed one of the killed was an important factional leader from the village's Abu Sneineh neighborhood and that he may have been 'wanted' by Israel.
Witnesses further said Israeli troops raided the area and confiscated cameras from journalists at the scene.
 Haaretz quotes Channel 10 News, which reported that Israeli forces arrived at the house in which the two wanted men were staying in Hebron with the intention to arrest them as part of a comprehensive operation in the West Bank city. According to the army version of what happend 'the militants opened fire at the Israeli soldiers and were subsequently killed in the exchange of fire'. The pokesman of the army confirmed that Israeli soldiers were not injured and that 'the two militants were wanted for their involvement in several attacks against Israelis'.

Israel always pretends that it kills wanted Palestinians after an exchange of fire. But the killing is strongly reminiscent of the way in which on 17 September the 38 year old Iyad Shelbaya, also a leader of Hamas,  was murdered in his sleeping room in a house in the refugee camp of Tulkarem. (I wrote about that here, in Dutch). Is it too far fetched to suspect that these killings are still a revenge for the murder of four settlers near Hebron at the end of August ? (here, also in Dutch).
 
Ma'an further reports that Israeli forces imposed a curfew on the southern West Bank district. Locals said that the troops surrounded three homes belonging to Radwan Ar-Rajabi, Saadi Barwan and Ayoub Gheith, demolishing the fence surrounding the houses. Israeli bulldozers were also seen demolishing a three-story home in search of a 'wanted' Palestinians in hiding. Lateron it appeared, according to the Jerusalem Post, that one of the two wanted men, Maamoun al-Natsha, about whom was reproted earloer that he was killed in gunfire, had been in the house. His body was later retrieved from under the debris. The Forces also detained Ayoub Ismael Ar-Rajabi, 28, and Mus'ab Al-Atrash, witnesses said.

High Court ruling opens possibility of many more evictions of Palestinian families from Sheikh Jarrah

The Al-Ghawi family sitting on plastic chairs opposite their home that has been taken by Jewish settlers. Soon their fate will be shared by more families in Sheikh Jarrah.

A ruling by Israel's Supreme Court on Sunday has opened the door for settler groups to move into dozens more homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, Haaretz reports. The justices Yoram Danziger, Esther Hayut and Miriam Naor unanimously rejected an appeal by Palestinians claiming to own a large plot in the western portion of the neighborhood. The court ruled that the custodian general, and other owners, including settler representatives, succeeded in proving they owned the property.
The juridical situation of land ownership in Jerusalem is complicated due to the fact that Israel  - illegally - annexed the Eastern part of the city after it had been conquered in 1967 and applied Israeli law to it. This made it possible for Jews to claim land that they had owned before 1948 (a blatant injustice as Palestinians hav never been in a situation to claim property they owned before in the Western part of the city, let alone in other parts of Israel).
The situation in Sheikh Jarrah is since long tense because of the actions of Jewish settler groups which are in part financied by American millionaires like the casino magnate Irving Moskovitz. The groups call the neigbourhood 'Shimon haTzaddik'  (Simon the Just) after a tomb of a famous rabbi which is located in the area. Settler movements like Ateret Cohanim are constructing 'Jewish only' appartment buildings like on the spot of the formerly famous Shepherd hotel in the area, but also they are taking over homes from Palestinian owners on the ground that before 1948 the places were Jewish owned.
A number of Palestinian families, most of the refugees from the 1948 war, which had been allocated houses by the UN organisation UNRWA in te fifties, last year lost their cases in court. The court recognized Jewish ownership of the places based on rights from before 1948, rights which had been bought by the settler organisations from the previous owners, a society of  the sephardi community of the city. Tensions have risen  since then, as the court  allowed Jewish groups to reclaim homes, thereby allowing them to evict Palestinian families in favor of Jewish ones. Families like the Al Turk and Al-Ghawi since then live in the street in tents, opposite the houses they had been living in for more than fifty years. 
According to the artcile in today's Haartez a group of Palestinians initiated a court case in 1997, arguing that the property on which Jews settled in the 19th century had not been sold to them but leased and that the ownership remained Palestinian. In 2006 the Jerusalem District Court rejected the suit, after which they appealed to the Supreme Court.
Sunday the Supreme Court rejected their appeal and ruled that Jews are the owners of the homes. The ruling, written by judge Danziger, states that the Palestinians failed to prove the terms of the lease between the original owners and the Jews who lived in the neighborhood. Evidence that payments for the lease were made were rejected by the court as constituting evidence that the Jews did not buy the property, according to the paper.

The ruling means that the settlers, whose ownership has been recognized by the Supreme Court, will now be able to initiate proceedings for the eviction of dozens of Palestinian families living on the property. So soon there will be many more families camping in the streets, like the Al-Turk and Ghawi families. Also the settlers  will be able to move ahead with plans to build in the area.
Aryeh King, one of the leaders of the settlement movement in East Jerusalem, said yesterday that in two days three Palestinian families whose leases are ending are expected to be evicted from their homes. The plan is for Jewish families to move in. King also said that he is advancing a project to build dozens of housing units for Jews in the neighborhood.

'Rapist who posed as a Jew' was really a rapist

The headline in Kol Haïr with a portrait of rapist Kashur. 


Some weeks ago, at the end of July, the story of an Israeli Palestinian who was convicted of rape after posing as a Jew, hit the headlines (and also this blog). 
The fact that he got a prison sentence of 18 months for posing as a Jew in order to have sex was widely considered as racism. 'What if he would have been a Jew posing as an Arab?' was the question that Gideon Levy of Haaretz rhetorically posed and that was echoed by many..
But now it seems that we have to rectify this story. The Israeli weekly Kol Hair (Voice of the City) delved into the story and free lancer Lisa Goldman in Tel Aviv wrote about that on her blog.
Kol Haïr (in Lisa Goldman's translation):

‘The story of “Dudu,” or Saber Kashur, sounded bizarre from the beginning. A man from an Arab family pretended to be a Jewish bachelor and convinced a young Jewish woman to have sex with him. Based on that, he was sentenced to 18 months in jail. In response to a request from Ha’Ir, the courts released the testimony of “B,” revealing a sad life story and her version of the events that occurred on that afternoon two years ago. According to her testimony, the story is much more complicated and the identity of the victim is rather different – that of a woman who was found after the encounter with Kashur naked on the roof of a building on 13 Hillel Street in Jerusalem.”

From the testimonies now quoted in Kol Haïr it becomes clear that this man Kashur did use violence and did force himself on the victim, who is only identified as 'B' in order to protect her privacy. It turns out she was a  young, instable woman who had been abused by her father from the age of six, worked some time as a prostitute and at the trime of the rape stayed in a 'safe house'. Kashur made her believe that he was Jewish and a bachelor, whereas he in fact was married and Arab. He told her that his first name was Daniel and after some hesitation also that his last name was Cohen. He invited her to come with him and see his 'office' which he pretended was in a nearby building. Once inside the building he forced himself on her on the staircase and finally took her to the roof, where he raped her and where she later was found by the police, half naked and blooding, and from where she was taken by ambulance to a hospital.
So the story is different. Kol Haïr explains to us that the reason why Kashur was convicted on the lesser charge of 'rape by deception' in stead of rape pure and simple, was due to the fact that the prosecution had only 'B' s testimony, which was not considered sufficient evidence. So the way out was a plea bargain which resulted in 18 months.
Goldman adds a few lines about the wquestion how it was possible that the story was interpreted by all media and everyone as  proof of Irael's racist system of justice and that not one took the trouble to look deeper into it. She thinks - and I agree - that it probably is proof of the climate of polarization and anger in Israel that apparently makes it difficult to analyze in a detached way. She thinks that's worrysome. It probably is. 
(Here is Lisa Goldman's story in full)

Two residents from Golan and one from Galilee charged with attempted kidnap and spying for Syria

Two residents of the Golan and one from northern Israel will be indicted by a Nazareth court on Thursday on charges they  spied for Syria, Haaretz reports. Fada Sha'ar (27, picture with 'oud) , his father Majd Sha'ar (58, picture in court building)) from Majdal Shams on the Golan and Mahmoud Masarwah from Bakaa al-Gharbiyeh will be charged with spying, contact with foreign agents and passing information to the enemy.All three were arrested last month in a case whose details have been kept under a gag order which has now been lifted. Also the mother of Fada Sha'ar, Mona, was arrested in connection with the case, but was later freed.
Fada Sha'ar was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport on July 10 when he returned from Paris. When police arrived to search his house in the Druze village of Majdal Shams clashes broke out between the residents of the village who attempted to prevent the police from entering the Sha'ar family's home. His father, Majd, was arrested a few weeks later. Masarwah is a well-known political activist from Baka al-Gharbiyeh, who has been active over recent years on behalf of political prisoners jailed in Israel. He has been arrested in the past and has spent some time in prison.
The indictment, filed by the State Prosecution's northern branch with the Nazareth District Court, claimed that Majed and Fada Sha'ar had been in contact with former Majdal Shams resident Madhat Salah, who moved to Syria, held a number of positions within the administration in Damascus and was in contact with local intelligence sources.  According to the indictment, Masarwa disclosed information on a Syrian pilot who had defected to Israel currently resides in Baqa el Gharbiya. Majed Sha'ar and Masarwa allegedly met Salah in Jordan, where they drew up the plan to kidnap the pilot, who they nicknamed "the bride", in exchange for a financial reward. The two returned to Israel and tried to locate the pilot. During another meeting with Salah and a Syrian agent, this time in Cairo, Sha'ar and Masarwa were asked about military bases in Israel. Salah gave Masarwa $1,000 and promised to give him more money.

The prosecution claims this activity, including efforts to track down the Syrian pilot, began in 2007 and continued through 2009.
In 2009, according to the indictment, Fada, who studied music in Damascus from 2002 to 2008, began relaying information regarding "the bride". Majed Sha'ar even obtained a sedative and syringes he planned to use in the kidnapping.
The second indictment provides details on how Majed and Masarwa filmed IDF bases located just a few kilometers from Baqa el Gharbiya. They planned to transfer the tapes to Syria.
A third indictment claims the defendants passed on to their Syrian contact a sketch "marking the movement of IDF forces towards Syria in the event of a war.
According to the indictment, the drawing was meant to "mark the positioning of IDF tanks and planes in the Golan Heights."
The indictment further claimed that towards the end of 2009 or the beginning of 2010, while Majed was in Haifa, he spotted a submarine making its way north. He relayed the information to Fada and warned of a possible Israeli attack on Syria.