Israel – Page 7 – HolyLandJustice.org

Wed, Apr 11, 2018Tue, Apr 10, 2018

“Sorry Commander, I Cannot Shoot”

Palestinians Israel — Protesters wave Palestinians flags in front of Israeli solders on Gaza’s border with Israel, east of Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, Apr 4, 2018. (photo: Adel Hana / AP)

Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem has launched a campaign titled “Sorry Commander, I Cannot Shoot,” calling on Israeli troops to refuse orders to shoot unarmed demonstrators.

By Elliott Gabriel | Mint Press News | Apr 6, 2018

“Our legitimate protest against Israeli military occupation, colonization and apartheid is granted in international law and must be protected by the international community. . . . The 70-year-old practice of Israel’s shoot-to-kill policy and dehumanization of the Palestinian people must end.”
— Dr. Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to Washington

Tens of thousands of residents in the besieged Gaza Strip plan on returning to the Israeli-controlled border Friday [Apr 6] in defiance of menacing promises from Tel Aviv to use massive and disproportionate force. The event will occur exactly one week after the Israelis massacred 17 unarmed demonstrators with live ammunition on Palestinian Land Day.

The protest is the latest in a six-week-long set of nonviolent protests meant to commemorate the continuing dispossession of the Palestinian people and the absorption of ancestral Palestinian land by the country now known as Israel.

The series of events will last until the 15^th of May, a date making the 70^th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel — known to Palestinians as Nakba Day, or “The Day of Catastrophe” — when three-quarters of a million Palestinians were brutally displaced by Israeli militia in 1948.

Continue reading ““Sorry Commander, I Cannot Shoot””

Tue, Apr 10, 2018Tue, Apr 10, 2018

I’m not ashamed to be Israeli — but I’m disgusted with having become Pharaoh

730403452 — Palestinian paramedics carry a protester injured during clashes with Israeli forces following a tent city gathering at the Israel-Gaza border, Apr 2, 2018. (photo: Said Khatib / AFP)

Living in Israel has turned me into a person who can live with a government that relates to African asylum-seekers and millions of Palestinians as property.

By Bradley Burston | Haaretz | Apr 2, 2018

Living in Israel has hardened my heart. It has made me into a person who cannot believe that Israel will do the right thing. That Israel will make any effort at all to even begin treat the true cancer in our body — the occupation.

The best people I have ever met live in Israel.

They are tireless. They come in all colors and creeds. Their reservoirs of hope, goodness, giving for others, respecting the Other, striving for a better, more human, society — despite everything, despite hatred and graft and incitement and ill-will — are as boundless as they are inexplicable.

Then there is Caroline Glick.

Continue reading “I’m not ashamed to be Israeli — but I’m disgusted with having become Pharaoh”

Mon, Apr 9, 2018

This is Israel at 70: Zionism as Racism

1-5975665-3212737108 — Asylum seekers protest at the Rwanda Embassy in Herzliya, Israel, Feb 7, 2018. (photo: Moti Milrod / Haaretz)

It hurts me to write what I’m about to. But it also hurts me to live in this place today.

By Bradley Burston | Haaretz | Apr 4, 2018

Don’t get me wrong. I understand where much of this comes from. Jews of all ethnicities bear the scars and the genetic memory of every manner of heinous racism, up to and including genocide.

It’s all too true, at the same time, that in a tragic given of human nature, the abused is at great risk of becoming an abuser.

This is Zionism as racism. This is Israel at 70.

This is a country which so demeans and dismisses and conflates Palestinian lives, that after a horrendous casualty rate in massive demonstrations at the Gaza border over the weekend, Eli Hazan, a spokesman for Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, referred to the men, women, children and elderly protesters camped hundreds of meters from the border fence, and told i24 News Monday without flinching:

“All 30,000 are legitimate targets.”

Continue reading “This is Israel at 70: Zionism as Racism”

Sun, Apr 8, 2018Thu, Apr 5, 2018

May is likely to be an ugly month in Gaza

1600x-1 — Palestinian using a slingshot at a protest in Gaza. (photo: Said Khatib / AFP / Getty Images)

When an entire people have concluded they have nothing to hope for and nothing to lose — that all their dreams will remain deferred for the foreseeable future — an explosion may be inevitable.

By Hussein Ibish | Bloomberg View | Apr 3, 2018

Both Palestinian Islamists and nationalists are out of options, out of ideas, and out of luck. The Palestinian public is out of patience and nearly out of hope. That’s a combustible formula.

The violence last Friday in Gaza, in which 18 Palestinian protesters were killed by Israeli troops near the border, was the worst since the war of 2014. But everything is in place for a significant escalation in coming weeks, particularly in mid-May.

A series of major tripwires are clustered tightly together: commemorations of the 70^th anniversary of Israel’s founding on May 14–15; mourning by Palestinians who regard the same event as their “catastrophe” and observe May 15 as “Nakba Day”; and the scheduled opening of a US Embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, courtesy of the administration of President Donald Trump.

Things are likely to get worse because Palestinians increasingly feel they have nothing left to lose. The “March of Return” last week drew unprecedented crowds of up to 30,000 Palestinians from all parts of Gaza society. In a festive and surreal atmosphere, vendors sold ice cream to picnicking families as young men risked their lives by approaching the border.

Continue reading “May is likely to be an ugly month in Gaza”

Sat, Apr 7, 2018Thu, Apr 5, 2018

Israel’s Gaza nightmare

rtx5f45p-870 — Israeli soldiers shoot tear gas from the Israeli side of the Israel-Gaza border as Palestinians protest in Gaza, Mar 30, 2018. (photo: Amir Cohen / Reuters)

The Israel Defense Forces consider “only” 16 casualties a “very significant achievement.”

By Ben Caspit | Al-Monitor | Apr 2, 2018

“Just imagine what could have happened. Picture the outcome if they would have burst through the fence, even at a single point, and begun marching into Israel. It would have ended in a bloodbath. . . . We would have no choice but to employ enormous force, and that would have resulted in dozens, if not hundreds, of casualties. The images would have been a huge victory for the Palestinians.”
— Senior Israeli defense official, speaking anonymously

The March 30 Great March of Return to the Gaza border fence was nothing more than Act 1 of an unfolding drama, a dress rehearsal or possibly a pilot for what one can expect to see in the very near future. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are now preparing for April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day, also the eve of Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers, and for May 15, Nakba Day, also the day after the United States is expected to open its new embassy in Jerusalem. Further complicating matters, the latter event coincides with the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Great March of Return was initiated and orchestrated by Hamas in an attempt to change the rules of the game, create a new balance of power and send a message to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people is far from over. Hamas is alive and kicking, and it is marching as well.

Hamas is in the process of losing its tunnels as a weapon. The IDF and Egypt have also successfully prevented the group from smuggling into Gaza rockets, missiles and other arms that could break the balance of power. Facing the most threatening dead end ever, Hamas found a way to reinvent itself: a popular, mass march by tens of thousands of people, all heading to the Israeli border at the Erez checkpoint, where they would trample the fence, break the Israeli siege and move on toward Jerusalem or at least to the southern town of Ashkelon. Images of IDF tanks and helicopters firing at civilians marching for their freedom would be Israel’s worst imaginable nightmare.

That is why the IDF has decided not to let that happen.

Continue reading “Israel’s Gaza nightmare”

Fri, Apr 6, 2018Wed, Apr 4, 2018

Israel faces historic decision as new population figures emerge

rtsipv-870 — An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man walks next to Palestinian women in Jerusalem’s Old City, Sep 10, 2015. (photo: Ammar Awad / Reuters)

Israel is far from being an apartheid state currently, but if it opts for minority rule of an Arab majority, it will have no choice but to adopt apartheid methods.

By Yossi Beilin | Al-Monitor | Apr 3, 2018

The updated population data have once again placed the inherent tension between Israel’s Jewish and democratic nature in the forefront of the political arena. While Israeli liberal-minded political forces argue that there is no contradiction and that Israel can be both Jewish and democratic, others on the political right and the left reject the idea.

The Israeli political right was caught off guard by the surprising official figures presented on March 26 at the Knesset by a representative of the Civil Administration, the army unit coordinating the Israeli government’s activities in the occupied territories. The representative indicated that the number of Jews and Arabs living under Israeli control in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean had reached parity at 6.5 million for each side.

Over the years, the Zionist left kept warning about the prospect of a Jewish minority in Israel controlling a Palestinian majority, with only a small number of them enjoying full civil rights. Yet the Israeli right kept dismissing these warnings. It countered with imaginary data showing that some 3 million Palestinians live in Israel and the occupied territories, compared with 6.5 million Jews. However, from the moment the true numbers were communicated to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee with the new data last week by the Israel Defense Forces, the leadership of the political right can no longer argue that political bias is skewing the figures. It is now forced to confront the figures. . . .

Continue reading “Israel faces historic decision as new population figures emerge”

Thu, Apr 5, 2018Wed, Apr 4, 2018

A parody of a prime minister: Netanyahu offers his greatest capitulation yet

1-5964340-2563719318 — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks on Mar 23, 2018. (photo: Ofer Vaknin / Haaretz)

What we saw recently from Netanyahu is a tragedy for the state he heads.

By Yossi Verter | Haaretz | Apr 4, 2018

After promising to “get rid of them all” . . . the big mystery is why he made the decision in the first place to extend legal status to at least half of the 36,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Israel.

In the face of all of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s past capitulations, it was the most disgraceful, the most transparent. In comparison to all his reversals, it was the quickest, the most humiliating. The man had already taught us a chapter on zigzags and back-and-forths — in the story of the Western Wall egalitarian prayer space and the metal detectors at the Temple Mount, for example — but this time he outdid himself, in both speed and flexibility. A contortionist could only dream of having such a liquid backbone.

What we saw in the past 24 hours is a parody of a prime minister and a tragedy to the state he heads. There’s never been anything like it: The Israeli government signs an agreement with an international organization over an issue that is at the heart of the public debate and about which the government has a firm position. The prime minister declaims to his nation the details of the deal in a jubilant news briefing in the midst of the intermediate days of Passover, and within hours he backtracks.

Continue reading “A parody of a prime minister: Netanyahu offers his greatest capitulation yet”

Wed, Apr 4, 2018Mon, Apr 2, 2018

Israel, don’t shut the door in the faces of asylum seekers like me

African migrants protesting in Tel Aviv, Jun 10, 2017. (photo: Tomer Neuberg / Flash90)

Only Israel can protect us now that we have lost every other hope. Please don’t shut the door in our faces.

By Monim Harun | Jewish Telegraphic Agency | Mar 27, 2018

A person who suffered force labor, violence, rape and torture in his own country — is he not a refugee?
Someone who was persecuted only because of her religion and ethnic background — is she not a refugee?
A person forced to flee his home only because of his skin color — is he not a refugee?
Someone whose village was burned and her family members killed in front of her eyes — is she not a refugee?
And he who survived a genocide — is he not a refugee?
If these people are not considered refugees in Israel, than who is?

My name is Monim Harun, an asylum seeker from Sudan. I was born in a small village nested between mountains and forests, where we lived together as one big family. At a young age I was separated from my family and the people I loved most in the world when the militia forces attacked our village. They went through the village killing every man and boy in sight, but by a miracle I survived. My mother wanted me to live in a safer place and have the opportunity to study, so in 2001, at the age of 12, she sent me to the other side of the country, to the Blue Nile region of the Republic of Sudan.

When I left the village it felt bittersweet — leaving behind my mother and sisters, and the people I loved. But I knew that in doing so, I would be able to acquire new skills that would help me rebuild my community on my return. In the Blue Nile region I completed elementary through high school, and was accepted to Blue Nile University. I spent three years there studying toward a degree in electrical engineering — five years are required for the program. During those years I joined a student organization that fights against the rule of radical Islam in Sudan, and calls for a democratic, secular and liberal system of government. My involvement in social and political advocacy wound up placing my life in great danger, all the more so because my Fur ethnicity is one against which the Sudanese government has been perpetrating genocide.

Continue reading “Israel, don’t shut the door in the faces of asylum seekers like me”

Tue, Apr 3, 2018Mon, Apr 2, 2018

Should Israeli settlers be considered civilians?

Mideast Israel Palestinians — An Israeli Jewish settler shoots in the air as Palestinians protest against a plan to resettle Israel’s Palestinian Bedouin minority from their villages in the Negev Desert, near the Israeli settlement of Bet El, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah. (photo: Majdi Mohammed / AP)

About 50% of the West Bank has been annexed by settlements, and 90% of the West Bank’s water is stolen from underneath the Palestinians.

By Robert Inlakesh | Mint Press News | Mar 29, 2018

“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
— Article 49, Fourth Geneva Convention

It is time to pose a question: Are Israeli settlers civilians? Or are they illegal occupiers? A group of Israeli settlers made the move to seize land in East Hebron (al-Khalil) last Monday (Mar 6, 2018), setting up camp — adjacent to the “Kharsina settlement” — backed by an entourage of heavily armed soldiers.

This move threatens three Palestinian families, with fears that they will soon be dispossessed of their land and homes. Those at risk of being cleansed and their property stolen, are the Eida, Jwihan and the al-Halawa families. The initiative to take this land came from the settlers themselves, who now occupy the 70-dunums. The settlers are living in four newly purchased caravans.

The above example clearly illustrates the way in which illegally established settlements, in the West Bank, come to their fruition.

Continue reading “Should Israeli settlers be considered civilians?”

Mon, Apr 2, 2018Mon, Apr 2, 2018

“He had no gun, no Molotov” — he was just running away with a tire

crop_90abdel_fattah — Abdul Fattah Abdul Nabi, a 19-year-old Palestinian, moments before he was killed during Friday’s protests in the Gaza Strip. (photo: Mahmoud Abu Salama / The Washington Post)

An unarmed civilian was shot in the back of the head by an Israeli sniper while running away from the border fence.

By Loveday Morris and Hazem Balousha | The Washington Post | Mar 31, 2018

“These are the predictable outcomes of a manifestly illegal command: Israeli soldiers shooting live ammunition at unarmed Palestinian protesters. What is predictable, too, is that no one — from the snipers on the ground to top officials whose policies have turned Gaza into a giant prison — is likely to be ever held accountable.”
— Amit Gilutz, spokesman for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem

The morning after burying 19-year-old Abdul Fattah Abdul Nabi, his family gathered in a tent set up to receive mourners, watching and re-watching a video of the moment they say Israeli soldiers shot him in the back of the head.

The video appears to show the teenager, dressed in black, running away from Gaza’s border fence with Israel carrying a tire. Just before reaching a crowd, he crumples under gunfire.

“He had no gun, no molotov, a tire. Does that harm the Israelis, a tire?” asked his brother Mohamed Abdul Nabi, 22. “He wasn’t going toward the Israeli side. He was running away.”

Continue reading ““He had no gun, no Molotov” — he was just running away with a tire”