February 2022

9th February 2023 2:34 pm

What makes Amnesty’s report different? Maureen Clare Murphy EI 03/02/2022

Credit where credit’s due: Amnesty blasts away Israel’s foundational mythology, acknowledging that it was racist from the beginning – a departure from the typical liberal attitude that Israel strayed from its ideals somewhere along the way. Amnesty even points out that “many elements of Israel’s repressive military system in the OPT [West Bank and Gaza] originate in Israel’s 18-year-long military rule over Palestinian citizens of Israel,” beginning in 1948, “and that the dispossession of Palestinians in Israel continues today.”Amnesty also acknowledges that “in 1948, Jewish individuals and institutions owned around 6.5 percent of Mandate Palestine, while Palestinians owned about 90 percent of the privately owned land there,” referring to all of historic Palestine prior to the establishment of the state of Israel.

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Israel’s never-ending trial Maureen Clare Murphy EI 11/02/2022

Mohammed El Halabi, a charity worker living in Gaza arrested by Israel in 2016, is on a seemingly unending trial, having been detained for more than half a decade and his case going to court around 170 times.This week, Israel’s highest court extended his detention for the 23rd time, despite the European Union calling for his immediate release.

El Halabi’s plight is an example of how Israel uses its legal system to assassinate the reputations of Palestinians and Palestinian groups who work with and receive funding from third states and international organizations.Israel’s manufactured case against El Halabi would anticipate the “terror group” designations it made against several prominent human rights and social services groups based in the West Bank last year.In both cases, the aim appears to be isolating Palestinians, cutting off humanitarian aid and international funding, and consolidating Israeli control.

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Tensions escalate in Sheikh Jarrah Rina Bassist al monitor 14/02/2022

Tensions are high in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Police and the Shin Bet arrested two young Palestinians today suspected of throwing Molotov cocktails Saturday night at the home of a Jewish family . . . radical right-wing Knesset member Itamar Ben Gvir arrived to the neighborhood Sunday morning. He declared he was setting up office there, where he will receive Jewish residents with complaints about their personal safety.

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Israeli Spyware Group on shaky footing Tamara Nassar EI 15/02/2022The Pegasus spyware is one of the most sophisticated tools known in the surveillance industry. Upon successfully installing it on a target’s phone, those doing the spying can extract a terrifying amount of data, including pictures, recordings, screenshots, passwords, and email and text messages.Hackers can also turn on the camera and record audio remotely, controlling the device at will. Infection can be difficult or impossible to detect for an average user, and has typically required expert analysis. . . . . . Besides needing “to learn exactly what happened,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett all but endorsed the Israeli police’s use of NSO Group technology to spy on Palestinian citizens of Israel. . . . NSO Group has worked hand-in-glove with Israel’s defense ministry since its founding and requires its license for sales. The firm reportedly lends itself to cement Israel’s interests abroad.

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Haifa – bulldozers repulsed from cemetery Yoav Haifawi Mondoweiss 16/02/2022

Last week, heavy machinery arrived to carry out excavation work in the Muslim cemetery in Haifa, but activists who were called to the area managed to reach an understanding with the workers and the contractor, and prevent the attempt to damage the cemetery. The event spurred a protest, and on Friday a demonstration was held at the venue, despite intimidation from Israeli security services. The story of this recent threat began on Monday, February 7, when the threat to the Muslim cemetery in Balad a-Sheikh in Haifa suddenly became very tangible: some heavy machinery for earthwork arrived at the edge of the cemetery, and their operators began preparations to dig.

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Two teens – including a child – shot dead Tamara Nassar EI 18/02/2022

Last night, Israeli forces shot and killed 16-year-old Palestinian boy Mohammad Akram Ali Taher Abu Salah in the village of Silat al-Harithiya near the northern occupied West Bank city of Jenin. Mohammad sustained a gunshot to the eye and succumbed to his injuries around 1 a.m. . . . . An Israeli sniper shot Abu Saleh while he was running away. The child’s cousin was shot in the hand when he attempted to come to his aid.

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13 year old shot dead Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 23/02/2022

Israeli forces killed 13-year-old Mohammad Rezq Salah in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) confirmed.

According to reports, Salah was killed near the Israeli separation wall that separates al-Khader from Route 60, a major highway used by Palestinians and Israeli settlers. Al-Khader is located near a permanent Israeli military checkpoint connecting the West Bank with occupied East Jerusalem. The Israeli army claimed that its soldiers shot Salah while he was allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail at cars on the highway. Salah’s family told Middle East Eye that he was 300 meters away from the wall when he was shot, and “did not pose any significant danger to the army or the settlers” at the time.

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Struggle against Israeli settler colonialism Narmin Slamah Mondoweiss 21/02/22

These latest escalations in violence towards Palestinians has brought the Naqab front and center in the struggle against settler colonialism. The Naqab, located in the south, is Palestine’s largest district. Since the Nakba and ethnic cleansing in 1948, it’s surviving residents have faced continuous displacement and land theft. In what many activists call slow displacement, the Israeli regime uses various mechanisms to tighten its grip on the lands of the Naqab and to continue what it started in 1948.` One such method is what Sa’wa has been facing — the demolition of homes in the village. Dozens of them are demolished in the Naqab every year, under the pretext of unlicensed construction. As a policy, however, they are used to limit population expansion and to damage the social fabric of communities. 3,000 homes were demolished in 2021 alone.

Mondoweiss

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Important ?- the PLO or the State of Palestine? Daoud Kuttab almonitor 25/02/22 Qadoumi noted it was the PLO that created the Palestinian National Authority, which is considered an arm of the PLO. “So the PLO is the root and all others are branches; a branch can’t replace a root,” he said. . . . . Farneh believes that the idea of making the PLO a part of the State of Palestine is unacceptable. “Half the Palestinians live in exile and the diaspora and the other half on the ground in Palestine. You can’t eliminate an organization that embodies the right of return and Palestinian nationalism just because the PLO is no longer able to pay the bills,” he said. . . . . “Both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority are failing miserably in carrying the Palestinian national torch. The PA is doing Israel’s dirty work while the PLO around the world has been hit by the same division in Palestine; thus Palestinians living abroad are unable to act as one. . . . . “As Palestinians, we are imagining things. There is no state on the land and there is no PLO. Both are virtual issues and therefore the idea of discussing the relationship between the Palestinian state and the PLO is nothing more than engaging with further delusion.”

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UK Comment

£1 million pursuing “anti-Semitism” leakers Asa Winstanley EI 11/02/2022

Despite the extraordinary lengths Labour went to suppress the leaked report, a Labour lawyer concedes in the secret document that there was “an overriding public interest” in publishing at least some of it. More than $1.3 million was allocated to specialist lawyers, consultants and forensic investigators, the secret document says. They issued legal threats to publishers of the leaked report and confiscated Labour staffers’ laptops for investigation. The lawyers even wrote to Google, asking the company to delist websites that had “linked to” the leaked report. The Silicon Valley monolith declined to comply.

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Gaza pays the price Maureen Clare Murphy EI 22/02/2022

A new statistical report on Israel’s most recent assault on Gaza shows the unbearable price paid by Palestinians for the maintenance of a Jewish state in Palestine. . . . .

Al Mezan observes: “The aim has been to create and maintain an Israeli Jewish superiority, consolidating effective control and dominance, with the aim of gradually eradicating the indigenous Palestinian people.”

One missile, one bullet and one destroyed future at a time.

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Forced out after complaints from pro-Israel legal group Michael Arria Mondoweiss 24/02/2022

Whitworth Art Gallery director Alistair Hudson has been asked to step down from his position after being targeted by a pro-Israel legal group, The Guardian reports. The campaign to remove him was sparked by a 2021 art exhibition that contained a statement expressing solidarity with Palestinians. The gallery is run by the University of Manchester. Art Forum reports that Hudson was “ousted.” . . . . The gallery removed the statement in response to a series of complaints from a Zionist legal organization called UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI), which claimed the note was “incendiary.”. . . . The gallery eventually allowed the statement to stay in the exhibition

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