July 2022
Double standards means justice denied Ola Mousa EI 04/07/2022
On 15 May last year, his wife Maha and their five children were staying overnight with the family of Maha’s brother Alaa Abu Hatab in Gaza City’s Beach refugee camp. Without issuing any warning, Israel fired a number of missiles at the family’s home. Alaa’s wife Yasmin and four of their children were killed as a result, along with Maha and four of her children.
Muhammad also asked lawyers and human rights groups if the International Criminal Court could investigate the crime that Israel committed against his family. For that to happen, Muhammad was told he would need support from the Palestinian Authority, a party to the ICC’s founding charter, the Rome Statute. While some PA representatives promised to help Muhammad approach the ICC, he complained that the representatives have not kept their promises. “I found that the road was full of obstacles,” he said.
Read more: Double standards means justice denied
Palestinian Six fight Israeli smear David Kattenburg Mondoweiss 05/07/2022
The European Commission has restored funding to the Palestinian human rights groups Al-Haq despite an Israeli attack on it and five other Palestinian human rights and civil society organizations as having supposed terrorist links. “They can do anything they want. They can confiscate [our laptops and files]; they can close the office; they can arrest people; they can arrest me and criminalize me,” Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq says. “We will not give up. I assure you we will not give up, and we …
Read more: ‘An axe above our heads’ — Palestinian Six fight Israeli smear – Mondoweiss
Israeli forces kill fleeing Palestinian child Tamara Nassar EI 06/07/2022
On 2 July, five Israeli military vehicles were deployed at the entrance of Jaba, a village southwest of Jenin in the occupied West Bank. They erected a checkpoint, provoking confrontations with Palestinian residents of the village. Israeli forces opened fire on Alawneh as he stood 20 meters away, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International-Palestine.
The teen was shot with live bullets in the elbow, and then again in the abdomen as he tried to flee. He managed to walk 20 more meters, before he collapsed and was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery. Kamel died the next day, bringing the number of Palestinian children killed by Israel since the start of the year to 16.
Read more: Israeli forces kill fleeing Palestinian child
Germany blames Palestinians for anti-Semitism Omar Zahzah EI 07/07/2022 Since a mass Palestinian uprising against Israeli attempts to ethnically cleanse the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah erupted in May 2021, Mohammed El-Kurd has become an increasingly public figure. Last year, El-Kurd, now 24, published Rifqa, his debut collection of poems. The Palestinian poet Summer Farah writes in her review of Rifqa that El-Kurd’s collection “beautifully explores the ways colonialism alters our navigation of time and space.” And on 21 September, 2021, The Nation brought El-Kurd on as its official Palestine correspondent.
All of these are remarkable achievements in and of themselves. For someone to have realized them all at 24 is all the more remarkable. But despite his impressive credentials, on 17 June, the Goethe-Institut, a German state cultural organization, disinvited El-Kurd from participating in a three-day conference titled “Selling Fascism? Remembering the Unsold.”“After some consideration, the Goethe-Institut decided that Mohammed El-Kurd was not an appropriate speaker for this forum,” the organization tweeted.
Read more: Germany blames Palestinians for anti-Semitism
Israel’s Religious-Based Discrimination Palestinian Return Centre 07/07/2022
“The religious-based discrimination from Israeli authorities towards Palestinian Muslims and Christians has increasingly heightened in recent weeks. Israeli forces have been limiting Palestinians’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque through enforcing age bans that do not allow any Palestinian under 50 to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque”, said PRC, while Israeli forces simultaneously allow Jewish settlers of all ages to invade the Al Aqsa Mosque compound whilst they recite provocative slurs and participate in controversial religious acts.
Read more: Israel’s Religious-Based Discrimination
Israeli court OKs sweeping impunity Maureen Clare Murphy EI 11/07/2022Israel’s high court ruled last week in favor of sweeping immunity for the state for war crimes perpetrated in Gaza. Palestinian human rights groups say that the ruling underscores the urgent need for an immediate International Criminal Court investigation. Adalah, a Palestinian human rights group, stated that the “ruling means that all Gaza residents are banned from any redress and remedy in Israel, regardless of the circumstances, during ‘acts of war’ or otherwise.” The high court ruling is in response to an appeal demanding that Israel pay compensation for the serious injury of Attiya Nabaheen, who had just turned 15 when he was shot by Israeli forces in his family’s front yard while returning home from school in Gaza in November 2014. Nabaheen was paralyzed as a result of his injuries.
Read more: Israeli court OKs sweeping impunity
Book shortage in Gaza Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh Mondoweiss 14/07/2022
The history of this state of affairs is now fairly old, starting with the hermetic military blockade of Gaza in 2007, which has continued to this day with little reprieve. Mail delivery has been one of the many victims of this siege. The mail that does reach its intended destination will have survived a harrowing journey of digital and physical checkpoints, arriving after many months of border control purgatory. . . . The book’s subtitle–Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism–may have been the culprit. It was certainly intriguing enough to motivate the shipping company to send me a diatribe of racist emails. The mere fact that a private international shipping company based in Israel would choose to respond in this way was unprofessional enough, but the contents of the correspondence took me aback.
Read more: The book shortage in Gaza no one is talking about – Mondoweiss
Nine EU states reject Israeli ‘terror’ designation Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 15/07/2022 Nine European Union states announced on Tuesday that they would continue to support the Palestinian civil society organizations that were arbitrarily criminalized by the Israeli government, after it accused the groups of supporting “terrorism” last year.
The Foreign Ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden released a joint statement saying that they would continue their “strong support” of Palestinian civil society in light of “no substantial information” provided by the Israeli government to back up its claims.
Amnesty International demands an immediate halt to forced evictions and home demolitions in the Negev/Naqab
Settlers launch mass outpost construction operation Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 20/07/2022 Hundreds of Israeli settlers set out across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to take part in an unprecedented effort to erect a number of illegal settlement outposts in the territory. Led by Daniella Weiss, a leader of the religious-Zionist and settler movements and an advocate of an “Arab-free” Jewish state, the plans started as a goal of establishing “10 Evyatars” – named after the Evyatar outpost in Beita, what the group considers to be one of its most successful settlement projects .
Read more: Israeli settlers launch mass outpost construction operation – Mondoweiss
Increased harassment on Israeli campuses Jessica Buxbaum Mondoweiss 20/07/22
Im Tirtzu quickly called for her expulsion from Tel Aviv University, citing her Facebook post in which she advocated for a boycott of Jewish and settlement businesses and to buy Palestinian products during Israel’s May 2021 assault on Gaza and occupied East Jerusalem. Nassra said she misspoke, and meant to emphasize the importance of supporting the Palestinian economy during this time. Im Tirtzu is also actively calling for the expulsion of Khatib.
Read more: Palestinian students facing increased harassment on Israeli campuses – Mondoweiss
Israeli Supreme Court rules citizens can be stripped of status for ‘breach of loyalty’ Yumna Patel Mondoweiss 23/07/2022
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state can revoke the citizenship of people on the basis of “breach of loyalty,” a law that rights groups say is a dangerous and “illegitimate law.” Such actions that could constitute a breach of loyalty or trust include anything the state finds as “terrorism”, espionage, and treason. Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel said the law will likely be used to disproportionately target Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up 20% of the state’s population. . . . But the court ruled that the law itself was constitutional, and could be used in other cases to strip people of their citizenship, even if such an act would leave the person stateless.
Read more: Israeli Supreme Court rules citizens can be stripped of status for ‘breach of loyalty’ – Mondoweiss
UN Commission – chair defends colleague against anti-semitism smears Michael Aria Mondowiess 29/07/2022
UN official Navi Pillay defends her colleague Miloon Kothari against accusations of antisemitism from pro-Israel groups, Israeli lawmakers, and U.S. officials following his interview with Mondoweiss, saying his comments “seem to have deliberately been taken out of context.” The attacks on Kothari appear to be part of a concerted effort to undermine the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which the …
Read more: UN official says Kothari comments misrepresented – Mondoweiss
The two-state solution now faces serious challenges, to the point that it has become clear that a new linguistic formula is necessary for the main supporters of the Zionist project to continue their uncritical support over the next few decades. Haim Bresheeth Mondoweiss 30/07/2022
…. Israel has understood, however, that to continue the occupation and its many travesties, it needs to be seen as always working towards a “solution,” which explains its nominal commitment to the two-state framework. Yet the two-state solution now faces serious challenges, to the point that it has become clear that a new linguistic formula is necessary for the main supporters of the Zionist project to continue their uncritical support over the next few decades. . . .
UK Updates
UK newspaper reporting fails on Palestine Greg Shupak EI 07/07/2022
Reporting Palestine-Israel in British Newspapers looks at how language is used in media coverage of Palestine and the ways linguistic choices can shape public opinion. Sirhan, a translator with a PhD in Arabic linguistics from SOAS, University of London, dissects word choices and sentence structure while also looking at such issues as Israel’s foundational myths, censorship, agenda setting and sourcing. Sirhan analyzes approximately 400 articles from five British newspapers: The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph and The Times. . . . Sirhan says the newspapers she looked at consistently provide their audiences with pro-Israel coverage. Sirhan’s third chapter, which looks at language use in the coverage, is especially compelling. She finds that, when Palestinians kill Israelis, the five newspapers use the active voice, but that they use the passive voice to describe Israel killing Palestinians.
Read more: UK newspaper reporting fails on Palestine
Labour right guilty of “weaponizing” anti-Semitism Asa Winstanley EI 27/07/2022 The right-wing faction of the UK’s Labour Party was guilty of weaponizing anti-Semitism against former leader Jeremy Corbyn. That’s one of the stark conclusions in a long-delayed report published by the Forde Inquiry last week.“Some opponents of Jeremy Corbyn saw the issue of anti-Semitism as a means of attacking him,” the report states and thus “treated it as a factional weapon.” The report also criticized Labour’s official training program on anti-Semitism, which has been run in recent years by pro-Israel group the Jewish Labour Movement.
Read more: Labour right guilty of “weaponizing” anti-Semitism
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