A new “anti-boycott bill”, the third in a series of proposed laws that aim to curtail the ability of civil society to criticise Israeli government policy, will punish Israelis or foreign nationals who initiate or promote a boycott of Israel.
Israeli law
6,800 Detainees are currently imprisoned by Israel, including 300 children, 34 women, 213 detainees in administrative detention, and 11 elected legislators. Nearly 1,500 detainees are ill and need urgent medical attention, dozens of them requiring surgeries and constant hospitalization… Gilad Shalit is the only Israeli held by the Palestinians.
ALSO: Boy receives second administrative detention order
Hassan Jabareen (Adalah): “Under international law, an occupying power cannot demand loyalty from the the people it occupies. Palestinians in East Jerusalem are ‘protected persons’ in law and cannot be expelled.”
The bill was introduced by 25 Knesset members, of both coalition and opposition parties. The bill would outlaw a wide range of BDS activities, both inside and outside of Israel and in the Occupied Territories, heavily penalize participants, and be applied one year retroactive to its effective date. Also, this proposed law would require the state of Israel to monitor the views and actions of activists abroad.
My story is that the Israeli intelligence, “the Shabak”, assumed something without knowing and without any evidence. I was requested and forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever. In case of any logical problem for them to complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.
Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel: “It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place.”
A new bill, the third in a series of proposed laws seeking to restrict the activities of peace activists and human rights organizations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), has been proposed by a group of Members of the Israeli parliament.
Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin: “The Shin Bet is required to thwart subversive activity by elements who wish to harm the nature of the State of Israel as a democratic Jewish State — even if they act by means of democratically provided tools — by virtue of the principle of ‘defensive democracy.’”
At this time it is hard to convince the Jewish public in Israel that what happens at Ben-Gurion International Airport is a systematic injustice, if not worse. The ethnocentric panic undermines the principle of civil equality.
IOA Editor: Racial profiling is a well-established practice in Israel. Its contribution to “national security” is, at best, questionable. What isn’t is its purpose: it is a thoroughly planned and calculated method intended to harass Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, to ‘put them in their proper place.’
Yousef Jabareen: “There has been an atmosphere of incitement against the Arab community in general and especially against its leaders since [Netanyahu’s] right-wing government was formed a year ago, [b]ut in the past few days the incitement has peaked.”
The Inter-Parliamentary Union is set to discuss recommendation to strip Balad MK Hanin Zuabi of privileges over Gaza flotilla participation.
Senior Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist: “They call this an archaeological excavation but it’s really a clearing-out, an erasure of the Muslim past. It is actually Jews against Arabs.” Jonathan Cook reports.
Will Palestinian soon pay price for boycott? A new bill submitted by 25 Knesset members Wednesday would see money slated for transfer to the Palestinian Authority used to compensate Israelis hurt by the PA’s settlement boycott… According to the bill, Israeli citizens must not initiate, encourage, or aid a boycott against the State of Israel. Anyone who violates the order will be forced to pay compensation to those undermined by the embargo.
MK Haneen Zoabi (BALAD) faces death threats as the Israeli Knesset House Committee votes to revoke her parliamentary privileges for participating in the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla and protesting against the blockade.
Hanin Zoabi was aboard the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla where all nine activists were killed, and she witnessed some of them bleed to death. When she returned to Israel to speak in the Knesset, she was verbally assaulted by parliament members for her participation in the flotilla.
Jonathan Cook: In addition to the removal of Ms Zoubi’s [Knesset] privileges, she is also facing the revocation of her citizenship. The measure has been used only twice before in Israel’s history — both times against Palestinian citizens accused of terrorism.
[Haneen Zoabi] stated that the Knesset committee has taken decisions in retaliation against her, and virtually every Knesset Member is calling for more extreme measures, including calls for her dismissal from the Knesset, to revoke her citizenship, to expel her from the country, and imprisonment. Thus, these MKs consider the committee’s decisions to be just a first step of more punitive measures to come. “Our response will be to defy them. We will continue on our path of upholding human values and human rights, calling for equality, justice and the end of occupation and racism despite all their incitement and threats.”
Knesset members toasting for the Israeli navy commandos (“Shayetet 13″) and for their parliamentary success, after a committee voted in favor of recommending the removal of MK Zoabi’s Knesset privileges in response to her participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
IOA Editor: If the scene depicted in video strikes you as a cruel anti-Semitic joke, rest assured you’re not the only one. Except that it is neither a joke nor is it funny. And, yes, it’s plenty anti-Semitic – in that it is entirely, pointedly, and directly anti-Arab.
Decision to strip Balad MK Hanin Zuabi of privileges over Gaza flotilla participation passed by a majority of seven to one. Zuabi: We are victims of a witch hunt.
“In recent days,” Yishai wrote, “Israel’s citizens have witnessed how an Israeli member of parliament, Hanin Zuabi, headed a group of terrorists who aimed to hurt Israel Defense Forces soldiers, under the protection of her parliamentary immunity.”
Once again, following the last Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza in 2008-2009, Israel has exposed its true face for the world to see: a brutal military regime of occupation and repression, driven by state power and fortified by a popular war mood. Since 1948, the Palestinians have suffered the brunt of Israel’s dispossessing violence. And now the citizens of the world are suffering as well, from Britain to Turkey and to Kuwait; from members of parliament to ordinary citizens, men and women of all ages, national origins and religious backgrounds. The conscience of the world continues to stir for Gaza, and Israel has hysterically and brutally crushed it: an evil deed for a good deed.
RT (Rusian TV in English) interviews MK Haneen Zoabi.
Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, MK Haneen Zoabi, was viciously attacked and physically threatened by her Israeli Knesset “colleagues” who attempted to shut her out. Quite a remarkable display of Israel’s democracy-for-Jews, and only for Jews. This extreme level of abuse is unprecedented, exposing Israel’s true face as it concerns Palestinian Arab citizens, including Knesset members. Among the name-calling, “traitor,” “terrorist,” and “Trojan Horse” (video and text).
MK Miri Regev (Likud) accused Zoabi of being “responsible for a double crime: Joining terrorists, and a moral crime against the state of Israel.” Regev then called at her in Arabic: “Go to Gaza, you traitor.”
The number of Palestinians under questioning by the Shin Bet security service who are not permitted to meet with an attorney is a state secret, the State Prosecutor’s Office told the High Court of Justice last week.
Mr Makhoul’s arrest had angered many in Israel’s Palestinian minority, nearly a fifth of the population, who suspect he is being persecuted for his leading role in promoting internationally the boycott movement against Israel and his prominent opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza nearly 18 months ago.
Adalah: “Trumped-up accusations made in indictments have become alarmingly common practice in security cases in Israel. They aim to justify the complete isolation and use of illegal methods of interrogation against detainees, and the imposition of gag orders on their cases.”
In indictment against Ameer Makhoul, state prosecutors claim prominent political campaigner was recruited in Denmark to spy for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah… Makhoul has denied all charges against him.
Today is the 21st day since the arrest of Ameer Makhoul at his home in Haifa, Israel, under the cover of darkness, by officers of the International Crimes Investigation Unit and General Security Service (GSS or Shabak). The arrest was conducted in a brutal and terrifying manner.
Makhoul’s brother, former MK Issam Makhoul… accused the Shin Bet of employing illegitimate means to “trump up” charges against his brother. The Shin Bet has denied allegations that it used torture to extract information from the suspects. “We will demand that an outside body headed by a judge investigate this matter,” Issam Makhoul said. “We will not hesitate to appeal to an international agency. There’s no doubt that we are about to see a trumped-up case manufactured by the Shin Bet, which operated in dark corners and backrooms to put this together. The results of their investigation should be viewed with doubt.”
The bill, which was proposed a few weeks ago, struck resonance with a ministerial committee that on Sunday approved the bill, following the arrest this month of Israeli Arab Ameer Makhoul on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah.
Sixty-five percent of Arab citizens believe in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared to 90 percent seven years ago. Forty percent said they don’t believe in Israel’s judicial system, and a similar number said they support boycotting Knesset elections (compared to one in three in 2003).
Nawi’s conviction points to a relatively recent development regarding the restriction of resistance, to extremely passive modes of protest. And, in some cases, even these kinds of protests are prohibited, as in Sheikh Jarrah where activists are repeatedly arrested simply for demonstrating against the seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.
The state land authority has been allowed to hire or purchase land only for Jews. Non-Jews are not allowed… land that was ours in the past and confiscated. In the early 1950s, we [Palestinian Arab citizens] owned 80% of the private land. Now we own 3% of the private land.
Mordechai Vanunu: “Shame on you Israel… The stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies are putting me back in prison after 24 years of speaking nothing but the truth. Shame on you democracy, the Knesset, synagogues and the world media. Shame on you all the Arabs that are allowing me to be put back in prison. Shame on you Senate, congress, and the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency for not protecting my freedom. Shame on you all the world’s religions, the stupid spies, the Jews, Christians and Muslims… Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons, but no one is talking about it… The world doesn’t want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world.”
IOA Editor: In the original Hebrew version of this news story, Haaretz conforms to common Israeli practice by referring to Vanunu as the “nuclear spy” – knowing fully well that whatever he did involved no espionage whatsoever.
