Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

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Dozens of settlers surround IDF patrol in West Bank and assault soldiers

6 October 2011

IDF Officers serving in the West Bank have reported recently that tensions between security forces and settlers are on the rise. According to one senior office, “the security forces spend more time dealing with incidents involving Israeli citizens than confronting Palestinian terrorism.”

IOA Editor: The monster is finally turning against its creators… Most Israeli Jews have long been innately incapable of seeing who the significant terrorists are.

Yitzhak Laor: Us and them

6 October 2011

Why list religion [on Israeli national IDs] at all? Isn’t the reason for the tremendous importance of the ‘religion clause’ the need to distinguish between Jews and Arabs, in order to discriminate simply by defining the difference? Of course.

IOA Editor: Important review of the role of official religious identification (indicated on national IDs) in Israel: a tool devised by the mainstream (secular) Zionist leadership around 1948 to distinguish between Jews and Arabs in the new state.

Richard Silverstein: Anatot pogrom victims suffer sexual abuse

6 October 2011

Sarah Benninga: When the wives of the male attackers saw their husbands hitting male and female protestors alike, they [the settler women] applauded and spat at me: ‘Traitor,’ ‘You deserve it.’ And when they heard their husbands threaten us: ‘We’ll fuck you in the ass,’ they suddenly turned into men themselves, applauding their husbands’ sexual conquests as if they were one of the boys.

Presbyterians in South East US call for divestment

6 October 2011

Last week the Presbyterian Church (USA) published a report containing a resolution recommending that the Presbyterian Church divest from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions for their non-peaceful pursuits in Israel and the Occupied Territories. This call for divestment is not the first instance of the Presbyterian Church’s involvement in the Palestine question. Rather, it is the result of ongoing efforts by the Presbyterian clergy to educate their communities and to promote socially responsible positions on issues in the Middle East.

Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike continues – now is the time for international solidarity!

5 October 2011

Palestinian prisoners in several prisons, including Nafha prison, have reported in the past few days that they were threatened that family visits would be denied in retaliation for their participation in the hunger strike. Israeli prison officials told the prisoners that for each day they spent on hunger strike, they would be banned from family visitation for 1 month.

Ellen Cantarow: Eyes in Gaza

5 October 2011

Eyes in Gaza reminds us why Israel and the US have been terrified that Palestine’s success at the UN would mean accountability for Israel. It shows why 80 percent of the Arab world considers Israel the world’s most dangerous country, and why even certain policy-makers in high US places are beginning to mutter about Israel’s being a liability to the US in America’s current economic crisis.

Minister: Israeli authorities refuse hunger strike demands

4 October 2011

Israel’s prison administration has refused Palestinian detainees’ demands as prisoners enter their eighth day on hunger strike, the minister of detainees’ affairs in Ramallah said Tuesday… According to latest reports from the Palestinian Authority, 6,000 Palestinians are being detained in Israeli prisons, including 219 in Administrative Detention who are held without charge.

Water: one law for Palestinians, quite another for settlers

3 October 2011

Everyday, throughout the sections of the West Bank exclusively under Israel’s control (Area C), rain water harvesting cisterns face administrative demolition orders from the Israeli Civil Administration due to the lack of building permits. Cisterns are vital to the livelihoods of marginalized Palestinian rural and herder communities in the West Bank who rely on them to provide water for livestock, crops and sometimes for domestic water usage in the absence of an adequate network connection. Since 2009, a total of 44 cisterns and rainwater collection structures in Area C have been demolished, twenty of them between January and July of 2011.

Prisoners group: Hunger strikes affecting detainees’ health

3 October 2011

Palestinian detainees in prisons across Israel are on hunger strike for the seventh consecutive day in protest against being forced into isolation cells and being deprived of family visits.

Palestinians detained in Israel start hunger strike

27 September 2011

Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails have started a hunger strike to protest their treatment by the Israeli prison services, Palestinian Authority Minister of Detainee Affairs Issa Qaraqe said Tuesday.

Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu’s speech of lies

26 September 2011

[Netanyahu's] propaganda was sweet as honey dripping from his lips. It improves from speech to speech. But the prime minister promised that this time he would feed us the truth, not another campaign speech. A test of this promise seems apposite.

Jonathan Cook: UN bid heralds death of Palestine’s old guard

26 September 2011

Amid the enthusiastic applause in New York and the celebrations in Ramallah, it was easy to believe — if only a for minute — that, after decades of obstruction by Israel and the United States, a Palestinian state might finally be pulled out of the United Nations hat. Will the world’s conscience be midwife to a new era ending Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians? It seems not.

While the diplomats haggle, deadly tensions are mounting in the nascent Palestine

25 September 2011

In Qusra, deep among the terraced hills of the West Bank, fear is on the rise. “The settlers are provoking us continuously,” said Hani Abu Reidi, head of the village council. “They uproot olive trees, kill our sheep, burn our mosques and curse our prophet. They want to drag us into the sphere of violence. We do not want to go there.”

Gideon Levy: Tragedies, not flags

25 September 2011

Reality Check: No celebrations were going on in the Jenin refugee camp this week, where families involved in the long struggle with Israel acknowledged that what concerns them now is economics – not empty declarations at the UN.

Saree Makdisi: Palestinians’ UN gamble could backfire

23 September 2011

It goes without saying that Palestinians and Arabs are outraged by the idea that the United States is threatening to block recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations. What is less obvious, perhaps, is that some of the most vociferous critics of the Palestinian bid for upgraded U.N. recognition are Palestinians themselves. How could it be that advocates of Palestinian rights could be suspicious of, if not altogether opposed to, the U.N. gambit? Isn’t the creation of an internationally recognized independent state the goal shared by all Palestinians? Not exactly. The Palestinian cause concerns more than merely statehood.

Escaping Oslo: Questions for Mouin Rabbani

23 September 2011

Mouin Rabbani: I think it’s perfectly possible to go to the UN to seek the internationalization of the question of Palestine and do it in a way that not only strengthens your claims and preserves your rights, but increases the likelihood that you’re actually going to get somewhere.

Lia Tarachansky: Palestinians, Israelis skeptic of UN bid

23 September 2011

Israelis and Palestinians express skepticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ UN move, while protests are taking place throughout the West Bank, facing Israel’s technology solution to anti-Occupation resistance: tear gas and a crowd dispersal weapon called “The Scream” which produces a high-pitch sound, disorienting and temporarily deafening the demonstrators.

Neve Gordon, Yinon Cohen: The one-sided US veto

22 September 2011

[The Palestinian] argument is straightforward: If the idea behind a two-state solution is dividing land among the two peoples, how can Israel unilaterally continue to settle the contested land while carrying out negotiations? Israeli unilateralism, in other words, has driven the Palestinians to choose the unilateral path. The only difference is that the latter’s unilateralism is aimed at advancing a peace agreement, while the former’s is aimed at destroying it.

Sandy Tolan: It’s the Occupation, stupid

22 September 2011

Today, for some Palestinians living under the 44-year occupation simply remaining on the land is a kind of moral victory. This summer, I started hearing a new slogan: “Existence is resistance.” If you remain on the land, then the game isn’t over. And if you can bring attention to the occupation, while you remain in place, so much the better.

Zvi Bar’el: US should recognize Palestinian state

21 September 2011

Here is colonialism in all its glory. After all, the United States agrees that there should be a Palestinian state, it even twisted the arm of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a little bit, cautiously so it wouldn’t hurt, so that he would blurt out the necessary formula “two states for two peoples.” … After all, Arafat already recognized it. Palestine fulfilled all the threshold conditions. And still, this state has only one chance of being born the American way. Through negotiations that will lead to a consensual agreement and a handshake. And if Israel’s hand is missing, never mind, the Palestinians will wait until it grows.

Ameer Makhoul: The story of the watermelon and the forty prisoners

20 September 2011

On Friday, 24 June at 12:46 pm, the prison administration brought us, the prisoners, a watermelon. It was our first watermelon of 2011. According to the prison regulations, each prisoner gets 180 grams of fruit each day. It’s one of our basic rights.

Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu’s ‘speech of truth’ at the UN

19 September 2011

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that in his speech at the UN on Friday, he will “tell the truth”. This is no trivial matter when it involves a politician who invented an encounter with British soldiers that happened before he was born… The following lines are an attempt to formulate Netanyahu’s truth ahead of one more speech of a lifetime.

Students for Justice in Palestine National Conference (New York City)

19 September 2011

Dear Students, It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the 2011 National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Conference at Columbia University in the City of New York from 14-16 October 2011.

Poll: Palestinians support UN bid, fear consequences

18 September 2011

A majority of Palestinians support the bid for Palestine’s membership of the UN, but expect a negative backlash, according to the results of a survey released Sunday and carried out in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip from July 13 – 17.

Israel mulls emergency laws to handle Palestinian riots in West Bank

18 September 2011

One proposal would allow police to use force against those being detained – and not only against those being arrested, as they are now authorized to do. While currently the law mandates that a person arrested must be brought before the court in 24 hours from the time of arrest, the proposed regulations would allow the police to extend that to 48 hours. This would mean that for two full days there would be no judicial supervision of the police actions or decision to arrest.

Norway FM: We will recognize Palestinian state

18 September 2011

Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store believes negotiations can ‘solve’ matters between Israel and the Palestinians, but that the Palestinians have a ‘right to go to the UN’.

MERIP: The Question of Palestine in miniature

17 September 2011

Herein lie the most painful ironies of the PA’s 17-year existence, oft-stated, but still poorly understood in the West: As a non-sovereign entity, it must beseech its overlords for the trappings of autonomy. As the constable of its appointed domains, the PA must crack the heads of the Palestinians it claims to represent if they transgress the boundaries of official discourse. As a creature of the Oslo accords, it cannot transcend the terms of these agreements between an occupying power and an occupied people. No one can doubt who the arbiters of the agreements are: When Palestinians narrowly elected Hamas to head the PA in 2006, Israel and the US imposed a tight physical and diplomatic siege upon the Hamas-affiliated officers and their territorial seat in the Gaza Strip.

Orchestra suspends four musicians who opposed Israeli musicians’ concert

17 September 2011

Sarah Colborne, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign: “Would the London Philharmonic Orchestra have punished musicians speaking out against apartheid South Africa, when a similar call for boycott was supported by artists, performers and sports people internationally? … If the LPO really wishes not to appear to be taking sides, and supporting an occupying nation against an occupied people, it must end the ridiculous suspension of these four musicians immediately.”

Military whistleblower tells of ‘indiscriminate’ Israeli attacks

16 September 2011

Israeli troops fired tear gas indiscriminately and sometimes dangerously to enforce a daytime curfew inside a West Bank village to stop Palestinians holding a peaceful demonstration on their own land, a military whistleblower has told The Independent.

Negev’s Bedouins: a new Nakba in the making

16 September 2011

Bedouins in the Negev continue to be targeted by Israeli efforts to displace them. The Israeli government has now approved a plan that would uproot 30,000 Palestinians and place them in “recognized villages.”

Lia Tarachansky: Gaza children in Israeli hospital after drone attack

16 September 2011

A month after recent escalation between Israel and Gaza two Palestinian children in critical condition in an Israeli hospital.

Britain changes law that enabled war crime charges against Israelis

15 September 2011

Reform began after arrest warrant issued in 2009 against opposition leader Tzipi Livni; British Ambassador says change law ‘can no longer be abused for political reasons.’

IOA Editor: The change itself is an abuse of the law for political reason.

Gideon Levy: Israel does not want a Palestinian state. Period.

15 September 2011

The truth is that the Palestinians have just three options: to surrender unconditionally and go on living under Israeli occupation; to launch a third intifada; or to mobilize the world on their behalf. They picked the third option, the lesser of all evils even from Israel’s perspective. What could Israel say about this – that it’s a unilateral step? But it didn’t agree to stop construction in the settlements, the mother of all unilateral steps. What did the Palestinians have left? The international arena. And if that won’t save them, then another popular uprising in the territories.

IOA Editor: Levy is the good, sensible and moral Israeli, addressing an Israeli audience. However, to state that for the Palestinians to mobilize the world on their behalf is “the lesser of all evils even from Israel’s perspective” is problematic, at best.

History shows that all Israeli governments — “Left” or “Right” alike — prefer violent Palestinian resistance to the Occupation over any non-violent protest because it provides Israel the best possible excuse to do what it knows and does best: attack and destroy Palestinian population centers, national infrastructure, agricultural and industrial employment centers — bring about as much destruction so as to crush Palestinian society, push back reconciliation and continue the land colonization process in order to make a Palestinian state physically and geographically impossible.

The experience of Gaza and the Second Intifada provide ample evidence to this assessment. One can only hope that the Third Intifada will be sophisticated enough, and very obviously non-violent, in order not to provide Israel with easy excuses.

This is also why Israel is at such a loss now on how to deal with the legitimate Palestinian demand for statehood, scrambling to deal with global pressure on the UN frontier: if it could only launch a missile-equipped drone to solve it all…

Noam Chomsky: US to veto Palestinian statehood bid despite “overwhelming intl consensus” (video)

14 September 2011

Noam Chomsky: “If the Palestinians do bring the issue to the Security Council and the US vetoes it, it will be just another indication of the real unwillingness to permit a settlement of this issue in terms of what has been for a long time an overwhelming international consensus.”

Israel to forcibly evict Bedouins from West Bank

14 September 2011

The Civil Administration is expected to begin forcefully moving Bedouin in the West Bank to a permanent location as part of a plan to remove all the Bedouin in Area C (under both Israel’s civilian and military aegis ) from lands they have been living on for decades.

Israel’s High Court orders Jewish Galilee town to accept Arab couple

14 September 2011

Although the Zabeidats’ petition raised the issue of the legality of the committees in general, the court in its ruling on the case chose not to address the issue directly and instead is awaiting the attorney general’s opinion on the issue. The step was also taken because there is a case pending before the court challenging the propriety of the committees.

IOA Editor: The admission-committees system enables hundreds of Israeli Jewish towns and villages to reject individuals seeking to reside in them based on “incompatibility” – a sufficiently general term used to reject Palestinian citizens of Israel. The Israel Lands Administration’s reversal of a long standing policy of systematic discrimination against Israel’s Palestinian citizens, in this instance only, is merely a tactical move designed to deal with this potentially precedent-setting legal case: All discriminatory laws and practices remain unchanged, continuing a long history of ethnic cleansing efforts on the part of all Israeli governments, “Right” and “Left” alike.