November 2021
Israel demolishes Muslim cemetery Ahmad Melhem al monitor 02/11/2021
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, told Al-Monitor, “The cemeteries are part of the identity of the holy city and its narrative, and evidence of the Arab and Islamic presence in the city for thousands of years. Obliterating the city’s landmarks is in the interest of the Jewish settlement project and the Israeli narrative, which is embodied by changing the names of Arab cities, neighborhoods, and streets, and the Judaization of public places and landmarks.”
Ahmed Dajani, a member of the Committee for the Care of Islamic Cemeteries in Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor that the area in the Yusufiya cemetery that Israel is bulldozing includes the remains of dozens of Jordanian soldiers who died the 1967 war. Jerusalemites had to bury them there in light of the curfew imposed on the city at that time.
Ireland and EU split over Israel’s “terrorist” label for rights groups Ali Abunimah EI 03/11/2021
Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney is publicly criticizing Israel for failing to provide evidence that six well-known Palestinian rights groups are fronts for “terrorism.”
Meanwhile, the European Union continues to cover for its friends in Tel Aviv. This indicates a split between Dublin and Brussels over how to handle the matter.
“We have asked for, as has the EU, the evidence basis for designating those” nongovernmental organizations, Coveney told The Jerusalem Post during a visit to the apartheid state on Tuesday.
But “we have not gotten any credible evidence to link the NGOs to terrorism, certainly not that I have seen,” Dublin’s top diplomat added.
The staunchly pro-Israel Coveney is no friend of Palestinian rights.
Sheikh Jarrah reject deal with settlement organization Daoud Kuttab al monitor 08/11/2021
The struggle of Palestinian families in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah to not legitimize a settler organization in their midst was emboldened on Nov. 2 when they rejected an Israeli court compromise deal.
The deal suggested by Israel’s highest court would allow the four families in the neighborhood to stay in their homes for 15 years and pay a token rent under the guise of protected tenants. For the tenants, of course, the problem is that they will be paying a settler organization that has assumed without proof that they are the owners of the homes built in 1952 by the government of Jordan in agreement with a UN agency.
The long-running case has been a regular source of tension across the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Protests earlier this year over the case helped trigger an 11-day war between Israel and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza last May.
Palestinian human rights activists target of Israeli spyware hack Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 08/11/2021
In a report from Frontline Defenders (FLD), the group revealed that six activists, who are members of the six civil society organizations recently branded “terrorist organizations” by Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz, were targeted by the military grade Pegasus spyware.
According to FLD, 75 iPhones were investigated after the group was approached by Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based human rights organization and one of the six targeted NGOs, over concerns that one of their staff member’s phones was infected with spyware.
FLD’s findings, which were confirmed by Citizen Lab and Amnesty International’s Security Lab, found that six devices were hacked with spyware.
They are the criminals, we believe in justice Adri Nieuwhof EI 16/11/2021
Some members of the European Union treat Israel like a “spoiled baby,” Shawan Jabarin, the director of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, told The Electronic Intifada during a visit to The Hague last week. Jabarin is touring European capitals to meet with officials, lawmakers and activists, following Israel’s decision last month to declare Al-Haq and five other esteemed Palestinian rights groups “terrorist organizations.” The main message he is bringing to Europe is that words are not enough: Tel Aviv must be held accountable.
“Israel can live with condemnations forever,” according to Jabarin. “But they can’t live with actions even for days or weeks.”
Three of the groups Israel banned, including Al-Haq, have been working closely with the International Criminal Court to gather evidence for its investigation of war crimes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel has claimed – without showing any credible evidence – that the six organizations are channeling funds to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which like virtually all Palestinian political parties, Israel considers to be a “terrorist” group.
‘Say cheese!’ Israeli soldiers force a dozen Palestinian children into nighttime photo lineup Philip Weiss Mondoweiss 17/11/2021
B’Tselem says that the photograph is likely about the new facial recognition software; and that all Palestinians have their rights violated on little pretext.
This footage illustrates how the routine of Palestinian subjects living under the occupation is disturbed arbitrarily and how easily soldiers violate their rights. It seems that for the military, all Palestinians, including school-age children, are potential offenders. At any time, it is permissible to wake them up at night, enter their homes and subject them to a lineup. Given this background, one should read the latest publications on the database set up by the military exclusively in the West Bank through facial recognition technology.
UK comment
Scottish university censors Israel’s critics Asa Winstanley EI 04/11/2021
The University of Glasgow is coming under fire for censoring critics of Israel.
Leading academics have accused the Scottish college of undermining scholarship and damaging academic freedom.
In an open letter last week, almost 500 high profile scholars, including the linguist and political analyst Noam Chomsky, demanded that the university withdraw an apology it issued earlier this year for a paper in one of its academic journals.
The paper by researcher Jane Jackman detailed the activities of pro-Israel networks in the UK.
And this week, the scholar Somdeep Sen pulled out of a talk he had been invited to give at the university on the topics addressed in his book Decolonizing Palestine.
University managers had imposed pre-emptive conditions, Sen said.
Hamas to be proscribed by the UK government under the Terrorism Act Stuart Littlewood RI & A 23/11/2021
Hard on the heels of Israel criminalising six Palestinian human rights groups with no evidence whatsoever, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel has announced that Hamas will be proscribed by the UK government under the Terrorism Act, which means anyone expressing support for Hamas, flying its flag or arranging meetings for the organisation will be in breach of the law. And that could mean up to 14 years in jail.The Guardian says she told reporters in Washington DC: “We’ve taken the view that we can no longer disaggregate the sort of military and political side. It’s based upon a wide range of intelligence, information and also links to terrorism. The severity of that speaks for itself.” Patel hopes to push the change through Parliament in a move she says will help to combat anti-Semitism.
Second Bristol report exonerated Prof Miller of anti-Semitism Asa Winstanley EI 26/11/2021
A second University of Bristol report exonerated Professor David Miller of anti-Semitism, a leaked document shows. Written by a leading UK lawyer, the document concludes that “there is no formal case to answer against Professor Miller” and that he had not “exceeded the boundaries of unacceptable speech.”Despite this, Bristol university fired Miller in October, after a long campaign against him by Israel and its lobby.
David Miller is one of the UK’s leading experts on the Israel lobby, Islamophobia and the Zionist movement.The leaked document, obtained by The Electronic Intifada, is dated May 2021. As we revealed in October, an earlier report by the same lawyer also exonerated Miller of anti-Semitism. You can read the new document in full below, with the lawyer’s name redacted.
A Bristol university spokesperson declined to comment substantively on the leaked document, citing the confidentiality of Miller’s appeal against his dismissal. The university also asserted that it wanted the process to be “treated with integrity.” . . . The second report was commissioned specifically to investigate a public talk Miller gave on 13 February and an article he wrote for The Electronic Intifada a week later.
In the article Miller argued that “Britain is in the grip of an assault on its public sphere by the state of Israel and its advocates.”
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