Haneen Zoabi: “It’s not surprising that a country that strips the fundamental rights of its Arab citizens would revoke the privileges of a Knesset member who loyally represents her electorate… You are punishing me out of vengeance… When you threaten the Arab MKs and the Arabs’ protectors, you threaten democracy and co-existence between Jews and Arabs.”
Israeli Palestinians
Yousef Jabareen: “It’s a feeling of frustration and of not belonging … That the … state is excluding you and you are not counted as an equal… In some areas you could identify some characteristics of apartheid that should raise a lot of concern about the future.”
Young Israeli Jew: “It’s a kind of psychological warfare. The idea is to get [Palestinians] to leave.”
Hundreds of Israeli college professors have signed a petition accusing the education minister of endangering academic freedoms after he threatened to “punish” any lecturer or institution that supports a boycott of Israel.
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.
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.
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.
MK Afu Aghbaria: “In its 62 years of existence, Israel has attacked its neighbors and its Arab citizens nonstop… Israel prevents the passage of medicines and medical supplies to Gaza. As a result of this, 700 Gazans have died at the border crossings. Netanyahu, Barak, Lieberman and Livni should be brought to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
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.
“First and foremost, we protest the fact that responsibility for the tragic results was immediately thrust onto the organizers of the flotilla,” wrote the officers. “This demonstrates contempt for the responsibility that belongs principally to the hierarchy of commanders and those who approved the mission. This shows contempt for the values of professionalism, the purity of weapons and for human lives.”
IOA Editor (UPDATED): This Israeli naval-officers letter is important. As commanding officers of attack boats, they know the laws governing behavior in international waters and realize how grave Israel’s violation of these basic international laws was.
In addition to the Haaretz coverage of this story, the officers’ letter states: “Based on our experience as commanders of [attack] boats and commando units… we think that it was possible to act in different ways in order to stop the ship. The approach used in the field included a high level of friction which, in our opinion, was unnecessary – and this irrespective of the nature of the resistance encountered during the raid on the ship [Mavi Marmara]. The nature of the operation [that was carried out] is contrary to other methods which were appropriate to implement, based on the understanding that the object was a civilian vessel, sailing under Turkish jurisdiction, in international waters.”
And, crucially, they attribute responsibility for the attack to Israel’s military elite rather than to activists. This flies in the face of all of Israel’s propaganda of last week.
“Purity of Weapons” is an old, mythological Israeli term that attempts to distinguish between “just” killing (nearly always) and unjust killing (practically never) by IDF soldiers. For example, to date, no official Israeli source has termed Israel’s attack on Gaza as violating this mythological standard.
MORE: Read officers letter (Hebrew) HERE
“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.”
RT (Rusian TV in English) interviews MK Haneen Zoabi.
“The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn’t stop these warnings turned into an attack”… “We continuously told them we did not have weapons, we came here to bring humanitarian help and not to fight”… “We were in international waters. The Israelis acted like pirates… They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads; they descended from helicopters and fired tear gas and bullets. There was absolutely nothing we could do… Those who tried to resist forming a human ring on the bridge were given electric shocks.”
The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee declared a general strike in Israel’s Arab sector yesterday to protest the flotilla clash… In addition, the committee also announced that protest marches and rallies would be held in Arab communities, and called on the international community to investigate the circumstances behind the flotilla’s interception.
Norman Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack (TV)
Israel’s regional allies froze military ties as angry protests erupted over the storming Monday of aid ships bound for Gaza, while Muslim leaders demanded swift U.N. action to punish the “criminal” assault. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “shocked” by the navy assault on a convoy carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists, lawmakers and journalists through international waters toward besieged Gaza.
The Palestinian Human Rights Council condemns the unlawful assault by the Israeli navy on a flotilla of international ships bringing aid to Gaza early this morning. The assault is unprecedented and illegal under international law.
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.
“It is disgusting that the Foreign Office is exaggerating the impact on the peace process to get a few people who are suspects of very serious international crimes off the hook,” said Daniel Machover, partner at the law firm Hickman & Rose.
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).
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.
Yesterday the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court extended Makhoul’s remand for another five days. It also extended the remand of the other suspect in the case, Dr. Omar Saeed, until Sunday, and extended a gag order on reporting most of the case’s details until Monday.
Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Human Rights Association in Nazareth: “We are used to our political leaders being persecuted but now the Shin Bet is turning its sights on the leaders of Palestinian civil society in Israel, and that’s a dangerous development.”
At the end of the day, after Goldstone is finally exorcised as a witch and Israel’s human rights NGOs shut down, what then? Won’t accountability still be a cornerstone of the rule of law? Putting the diversions aside for a moment… are we not still left with alarming suspicions, partial information, and a very real need for a credible, independent investigation into Cast Lead?
