Category Archives: Apartheid

Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada

Similarly, Israel Hayom, the pro-Netanyahu newspaper owned by casino billionaire, Republican financier and anti-Palestinian donor Sheldon Adelson, ran photos of Orlando shooter Omar Mateen alongside Neshat Melhem, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who killed three Israelis on New Year’s Day, with the slogan, “A chilling similarity.” But as +972 Magazine noted, the only similarity is that the men had shaved heads and glasses, and that they came from Muslim backgrounds. Israel Hayom pointedly did not mention what +972 Magazine called “the more obvious parallel – between Mateen and Yishai Schlissel, who attacked the Jerusalem Pride Parade in June 2015 and murdered a teenage girl with a knife.” Schlissel, a Jewish extremist, had served time in prison for a similar attack a decade earlier.

Source: Israel spin doctors move to exploit Orlando massacre | The Electronic Intifada

Tel Aviv mayor says the occupation is a cause of Palestinian terror | +972 Magazine

“On the one hand the occupation has lasted 49 years, and I took part in it,” Huldai told veteran journalist Ilana Dayan, “I recognize the reality and know that leaders with courage must look to take action and not just talk. The fact that we are suffering does not lead to a change in understanding of what must be done… There is no courage to do what needs to be done in order to reach a [peace] agreement.” “There is no way to hold people in a situation of occupation and think that they will reach the conclusion that every thing is okay and they will continue to live like that,” Huldai added.

Source: Tel Aviv mayor says the occupation is a cause of Palestinian terror | +972 Magazine

Israel has destroyed $74 million worth of EU projects | The Electronic Intifada

An $11-million farming project in the Jordan Valley, a $61,200 playground near Nablus and an elementary school serving a Bedouin community east of Jerusalem: all have been destroyed by Israel.These are just a few examples of the at least 150 European-funded structures in the occupied West Bank that Israel demolished in the first three months of 2016.Israel has destroyed more homes, businesses and public infrastructure in these months than in all of 2015, according to a new report by the non-profit Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, or Euro-Med.Each month, an average of 165 privately and internationally funded structures were demolished or partially destroyed, representing a more than three-fold increase from the previous rate of 50 demolitions per month between 2012 and 2015.More than 900 Palestinians have been made homeless this year, according to UN statistics, and thousands more have had their livelihoods affected by the wave of destruction.Euro-Med says that the UN deputy coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Robert Piper, has suggested the increase in demolitions is a response to the escalation of violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces that began in October 2015.But Israeli politician Moti Yogev, who has applied pressure on Israeli occupation forces to ramp up demolitions, said, “I have no doubt that the government’s firm stance is in part a result of the unilateral measures taken by Europe,” referring to the EU’s decision to label settlement products late last year.If so, the demolitions can be likened to the “price tag” attacks on Palestinians and their property carried out by settlers as a form of revenge for policies they don’t like.

Source: Israel has destroyed $74 million worth of EU projects | The Electronic Intifada

Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats | News | DW.COM | 06.06.2016

Steffen Seibert, spokesman to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said on Monday that the Bundestag – Germany’s lower house of parliament – “had reached a sovereign decision.””That must be respected,” he added.The comments from Berlin on Monday came in light of Turkey’s reaction last week to Germany’s decision to pass a resolution which refers to the mass deaths of 1.5 million Armenians under the Ottoman Empire as “genocide.”As the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, Turkey officially denies that the events that started in 1915 amounted to genocide. Ankara’s official line is that ethnic Armenians represented a fifth column backed by Russia during World War I, and that the mass deportation and accompanying Armenian deaths were not premeditated or intentional – a key requirement in the legal definition of genocide.

Source: Berlin rebuffs Turkey in Armenian genocide row after Green MP receives death threats | News | DW.COM | 06.06.2016

Return Of Saffron Violence? – Groundviews

a new group of saffron robed extremist monks, who are attempting to come in to the limelight through propagating a racist agenda. The desperate common opposition led by the Rajapaksa faction in parliament has started playing the racist card once more, provoking Buddhist extremism. They are using multiple fronts to attack minorities, especially the Tamils and Muslims after their dismal performance at the May Day rally in Kirulapone, in the hope that they can harness the vote bank of the Buddhists. These forces have now been unleashed to create hate and target the Muslims and evangelical Christians with the hope that the international community and, especially the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) would notice it and impose sanctions on Sri Lanka that would lead to the collapse of our economy.  A ban on the import of Sri Lankan labour to the Middle East would drive the majority of our population to the streets – literally begging for their next meal. The income from foreign remittances is estimated to be around 6-7 billion US Dollars per annum.

Source: Return Of Saffron Violence? – Groundviews

Boycott Tel Aviv Pride 2016

Tel Aviv is known as a “top gay destination.” However, gay pride brochures fail to mention that it is also an hour away from the world’s largest open prison, Gaza, and that it is built on stolen land. They forget to mention that the gay soldiers you dance with in the pride parade check, arrest, and kill Palestinians on a daily basis. After your day of pride, some tour operators will take you to Bethlehem or the Dead Sea, without telling you that you will travel through the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories, or that the wine you are drinking in the Golan Heights comes from businesses that have been declared illegal under International Law. So, why are you proud of Tel Aviv? Perhaps Tel Aviv has a vibrant nightlife, hot gay men, and beautiful beaches, but Israel also has an illegal occupation; restricts the mobility of any Palestinian just because they are Palestinian; and uses your tourism money for its next invasion of Gaza or home demolition in East Jerusalem, after which it will say “but look at us, we have gay rights!” Underneath the beautiful beaches lies a different truth: Israel does not respect human rights! Be aware of what you are proud of. Israel sponsors Tel Aviv Pride 2016 with over 4 million dollars! It even tries to attract you with arguably homophobic ad campaigns  It aims to promote Israel as a prime gay tourist destination, because it thinks gay tourists don’t care about other human rights violations taking place in the country. Awesome right? Not only does Israel want to bring more money to Tel Aviv, it also wants your political support for its ongoing occupation of Palestinian Territories and its violation of Palestinian human rights. And if it can’t get your explicit political support, it will just use your presence as a cover up for its war crimes. Israel does not only want your gay tourism money, it also wants to turn “every foreign tourist into an ambassador” for Israel. They are like “look how cool we are with our gay rights!” which makes you forget sometimes that you are actually in a warzone, where freedom is a principle limited to Israelis and international gay tourists. There is nothing hot about cruising in a Warzone! There is nothing celebratory about gay rights when they do not include rights and equality for all people! There is no pride in being used by the Israeli State for its propaganda machine! #BoycottTLVpride until Israel:  Ends its occupation of Palestinian land occupied in the 1967 war and dismantles its Apartheid wall Recognizes the rights of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality Respects, protects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.   Boycott TLV Pride!

Source: Boycott Tel Aviv Pride 2016

The Last Survivor of the Black Wall Street Oklahoma Disaster | 3CHICSPOLITICO

A local newspaper had printed a fabricated story that Rowland tried to rape Page. In an editorial, the same newspaper said a hanging was planned for that night. As groups of both Blacks and Whites converged on the Tulsa Courthouse, a White man in the crowd confronted an armed Black man, a war veteran, who had joined with other Blacks to protect Rowland. Eddie Faye Gates, a member of the Tulsa Race Riot Commission, formed several years ago to determine exactly what happened, told CNN what happened next. “This White man,” she said, asked the Black man, “What are you doing with this gun?” “I’m going to use it if I have to,” the Black man said, according to Gates, “and (the White man) said, ‘No, you’re not. Give it to me,’ and he tried to take it. The gun went off, the White man was dead, the riot was on.” Truckloads of Whites set fires and shot Blacks on sight. When the smoke lifted the next day, more than 1,400 homes and businesses in Tulsa’s Greenwood District, a prosperous area known as the “Black Wall Street,” lay in ruins. Today, only a single block of the original buildings remains standing in the area. Experts now estimate that at least 3,000 died. Dr. Olivia Hooker was one of the survivors of this racially motivated attack, which she refuses to call a riot.

Source: The Last Survivor of the Black Wall Street Oklahoma Disaster | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Israelis are no longer buying what Netanyahu is selling | +972 Magazine

It’s not just a change in the people running the country. It’s not just the fact that people no longer want to work with him, including diehard rightists. It is the fundamental psychological change taking place here over the past few weeks, which signals one thing: Netanyahu is no longer able to tell the story of Israel. His point of view, the story he is trying to sell — the Holocaust and the Mufti — are no longer the point of view of most Israelis. At least not entirely. This is a drastic change from the past few decades. Things we must pay attention to: Netanyahu’s story of “widening the coalition” has turned into the story of Ya’alon’s resignation and the appointment of a defense minister whom nearly every Israeli (and non-Israeli) prefers didn’t get the job. If Israelis wanted Liberman as a top political leader, his party would not have just barely passed the election threshold. Never has a prime minister appointed a defuse minister so beyond the consensus, and the Israeli public understood this immediately. This is the most important failure in Bibi’s story. The story that an Arab attacked dozens of policemen in Tel Aviv didn’t work either: Israelis know that their police force is violent, and that appointing Roni Alsheikh to police commissioner was a poor choice. And even at the end of last week, when Netanyahu tried to connect the “Left” and the “media” to a horrifying case of rape (this is the prime minister of Israel), Minister Avi Gabai, one of the most honest and respected people in the government, announced that he was resigning, explicitly saying it was due to the danger of appointing Liberman. Including those same “trends” that Deputy Chief of the General Staff Yair Golan warned against last month. The story is everything. And Netanyahu can no longer tell the story like he could in the past. This is wonderful news; for the first time in a decade, there is a feeling that fewer and fewer people feel the need to protect him, while more people no longer believe his lies or theatrics. Honest rightists such as Moshe Ya’alon and Moseh Arens, Avi Gabai and Orly Levy are saying “enough is enough.” And I believe, perhaps, that we are closer to the end than it seems.

Source: Israelis are no longer buying what Netanyahu is selling | +972 Magazine

Israeli extremist settlers stormed al-Aqsa Mosque – PNN

Hordes of Israeli extremist settlers stormed on early Sunday morning the holy al-Aqsa Mosque, in Occupied Jerusalem, via the Maghareba Gate. The break-in was carried out under heavy escort by Israeli soldiers and special police troops. The fanatic Israeli settlers reportedly performed provocative rituals and chanted anti-Muslim slogans. A group of Muslim women have been maintaining vigil outside the al-Aqsa after the Israeli occupation police prevented them from entering the Mosque to perform their prayers. Tension has been running high in Occupied Jerusalem as Israeli fanatics stepped up assaults on the al-Aqsa Mosque. Observers said the break-ins make part of Israeli intents to Judaize the mosque and divide it spatially and temporally between Muslims and Jews.

Source: Israeli extremist settlers stormed al-Aqsa Mosque – PNN

Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Defense Minister, Resigns – The New York Times

“This morning I informed the prime minister that following his management in the latest developments, and in light of my lack of faith in him, I am resigning from the government and the Knesset and taking time out from political life,” he wrote on his Facebook page. The addition of Mr. Lieberman to the government, which has not been announced, would not represent an enormous right-wing shift for Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition.

Source: Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Defense Minister, Resigns – The New York Times