Two terror attacks shook Israel on Thursday and Friday. By the weekend, eight Israelis were killed and nearly forty injured. Immediately after the attacks, the Israeli air force bombed many locations in Gaza. Nine were killed and nearly thirty injured. In an interview with The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky, Lt. Col. Avital Liebovitz admits the army does not connect the attack to the Popular Resistance Committee, whom the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blames but that the army targeted and killed its leader anyway.
Lia Tarachansky
On July 14th, eight Israeli students set up tents in the heart of Tel Aviv. Within days they were joined by hundreds of tents, and tent cities sprung up throughout the country. This movement, which became known as “July 14th” saw dozens of direct actions such as blockading the entrance to the Israeli parliament and massive protests with tens of thousands on the streets of Tel Aviv and nine other cities.
On July 11th the Israeli parliament passed the controversial anti-boycott law. The law was written in response to the mounting global movement of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel and profits from its settlements and industry in the occupied West Bank. The Boycott movement began as a mass Palestinian civil society call, and has been supported from the beginning by some Israelis. The new law bans publicly calling for a boycott, classifying it a civil wrong.
Activists from around the world organized a mass fly-in known as the Flytilla. The activists were invited by Palestinian groups in a campaign called “Welcome to Palestine” and intended to protest Israel’s practice of frequently denying the entry of activists and Diaspora Palestinians into the occupied Territories.
As the Flotilla boats to Gaza are prevented from leaving the Greek ports, the Israeli government congratulates its diplomatic efforts in pressuring Greece to stop the activists. Earlier in the week, the Israeli press cited an army debrief when all major newspapers reported the Flotilla activists will carry lethal acid on board their ships, according to army intelligence.
On Sunday, a convoy of activist ships known as the Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human set sail for the shores of Gaza. The convoy is the tenth such attempt by the Gaza Freedom Movement to break the naval blockade on the strip. The same day, the Israeli Government Press Office issued a release, warning foreign journalists that if they are on board the ships, they are liable to be banned from Israel for ten years.
On Wednesday, 22 June 2011, Israel held the largest war exercise in its history. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky interviewed Rela Mazali, the founder of New Profile, an organization working to demilitarize Israeli society, and Alex Cohn, a war resister who served five months for objecting to serve in the army.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Israeli youth marched along the Green Line to celebrate Jerusalem Day, an annual commemoration of the Israeli occupation of the city in the 1967 war. The organization of the march was done under a Zionist banner. Three days later, thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv in support of the Two State Solution. While many organizations participated, the overall slogan was “Netanyahu says no, Israel says yes to a Palestinian state”.
RELATED Jerusalem Day 2011 by Just Jerusalem
On the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba Palestinians coordinate a wave of historic demonstrations. Protests at the Lebanese, Syrian, West Bank, and Gazan borders and inside Egypt took place. Many died as a result of live fire, and hundreds were injured both from Israeli forces and others such as the Egyptian and Lebanese armies.
At the end of March, the Israeli parliament passed the Nakba Law which states that any body that receives government funding, such as schools, can be fined for commemorating the Nakba on Israel’s Independence Day. The Nakba means “Catastrophe” in Arabic and refers to the 1948 war, the result of which was the depopulation of two thirds of the Palestinian population, which today numbers millions of refugees. To this day many still hold the keys to their original homes, but are not allowed to return. In defiance of the law, the Israeli organization Zochrot posted a sign with the law in German throughout the core of Tel Aviv where thousands celebrated. Within minutes, police surrounded the Zochorot office.
On April 28th, formerly rivaling Palestinian parties announced their intention to begin reconciliation and hold an election within one year. Hamas is in power in the Gaza strip and Fateh is the leading party in the Palestinian Authority, ruling the West Bank. Since 2006 the parties have fought each other, leading to hundreds of casualties and many failed attempts to reach reconciliation.
On April 15, 2011, Italian journalist and activist Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and killed in the Gaza strip. According to a video released by his kidnappers, they belonged to a Salafi group, which Hamas identified as including a former Hamas policeman. While the mainstream media portrayed the killing as an act of an extremist group identifying with Al Qaeda, many are saying the group, as other Salafi groups operating in Gaza represents a growing force from inside Hamas itself.
Vittorio Arrigoni, killed Friday, April 15 is the first international activist killed by Palestinian kidnappers in living memory of the conflict. Mystery surrounding his kidnapping and death leaves significant questions about the those allegedly responsible, the investigation, and the future of the region.
Paul Jay interviews Lia Tarachansky, The Real News Middle East correspondent. Tarachansky covers the political economy of the occupation, while also focusing on international law and its applicability to the conflict. Having grown up in an Israeli settlement in the heart of the occupied West Bank, Tarachansky speaks about how denial of narrative fuels a conflict where the two peoples, the Israelis and Palestinians, become further segregated, physically, socially, and psychologically.
It used to be that when you counted off Israel’s top allies, the obvious names came to mind. Germany, the UK, and of course, the US. These days, Canada seems determined to soar to the top of that list. Taking it straight from the horse’s mouth – Avigdor Lieberman – Israel’s Foreign Minister. While visiting Canada in 2009 he said, “Canada is so friendly that there was no need to convince or explain anything to anyone… We need allies like this in the international arena.” In fact Canada’s arms trade with Israel, its military cooperation with the Israeli occupation and its political support make Canada a very dear ally for Israel indeed.
While the Middle East is undergoing massive national changes, Israel received little attention in global media until last week’s bombing in Jerusalem. But Israel has seen its own share of national struggles in recent months leading to a major labor victory in March. Israel’s massive labor association, the Histadrut, succeeded in taking the worker’s fight to the government, forcing the Prime Minister to acquiesce to many of their demands, including raising the minimum wage.
While portraying the image of the “honest broker” Canada’s military and intelligence cooperation and arms trade with Israel paint a different picture. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky interviews Yves Engler, the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid about the political, military, and corporate support Canada extends Israel and its meddling in Palestinian internal politics. She also speaks to Richard Sanders of the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade about Canada’s weapons export to Israel and the government’s failure to report accurate exports statistics.
[T]he ideology behind these tours … builds on the Zionist selectivity we were taught in our schools, claiming a Jewish right over the land and erasing that of the Palestinians who have lived there for centuries. It prepares us for army service and it underlines the legal designation of Palestinians as ‘foreigners’ making them outsiders…
Seven Deadly Myths examines the concept of knowing and not knowing at the same time. Seeing and not comprehending what you see. It starts in the West Bank colony of Ariel where director Lia Tarachansky grew up. As she returns to the settlement, she discovers as though for the first time that it is surrounded by Palestinian villages, that the dispossessed are right next door, behind electrical fences, under watch towers, locked behind walls. But the Palestinians were not made invisible by accident.
IOA Editor: Highly recommended! And, this trailer will be removed this coming weekend – very few days left to watch it.
A brilliant skit from the Israeli comedy show “Eretz Nehederet” (“Wonderful Country”) on Israel’s Channel 2 TV showing anti-Arab racism introduced to young Israeli children very early in life.
IOA Editor: If you think that this is some sort of an abstract humor, think again. For the latest, see Student’s answer on civics test: Death to Arabs
