Category Archives: Palestine

PHOTOS: Nationalist Jewish-Israelis march through Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter | +972 Magazine

Ahead of the march Police order Palestinian shopkeepers to shutter their stalls and stores and Palestinians are cleared from the streets in order to prevent the ultra-nationalist participants from attacking them. Jewish participants have been known to vandalize shuttered stores, bang on the doors of homes, chant racist and violent slogans against Muslims and Palestinians, and even use physical violence against Palestinian passersby. This year, following two consecutive years in which the High Court of Justice ordered police to reign in Jewish participants verbal and physical violence against Palestinian residents, police kept closer reigns on the march. It was limited in time and although individual provocative acts still took place, police and ushers were reportedly more vigilant about maintaining order. A police spokesperson said officers arrested two Jewish minors for shouting racist slogans.

Source: PHOTOS: Nationalist Jewish-Israelis march through Jerusalem’s Muslim Quarter | +972 Magazine

Gaza… The Resilience | nadiaharhash

Inside me an image of poverty and destruction overwhelmed with desperation and despair. And infront of me, an image of an interactive scenery of normality. A scene I can see on any shore in the world, with the addition of exclusivity for Arabs. Genuine existence. …Persistence … to be, to live.Not every city can reflect itself to you through its people. Gaza is among those. It is not the sea. It is not the beauty or the monuments. It is not the ugliness or the destruction. It is not the richness or poverty. It is not the facilities, the streets, and the services. It is the people. It is one place that makes you see what it means to be lived. It makes you feel life through it’s people … and yet, you cannot really get to them as you pass through them.You live them.With all there stories… told and untold.With their non-ending miseries, tragedies, traumas.With their continuous destined fate of displacement and disruption.With their never tired resilience despite exhaustion and blocked opportunities.

Source: Gaza… The Resilience | nadiaharhash

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

French court overturns “illegal” ban on BDS event | The Electronic Intifada

In recent months, three EU governments, Sweden, the Netherlands and Ireland, have publicly recognized the legitimacy of the BDS movement and defended boycott advocacy as free speech. Earlier this month the Ontario parliament handily defeated an anti-BDS bill that civil liberties groups warned would have had a disastrous impact on the democratic rights of people in Canada’s most populous province.

Source: French court overturns “illegal” ban on BDS event | The Electronic Intifada

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

Most Israeli Jews think there’s no occupation. So what is it? | +972 Magazine

If “occupation” is the wrong word to describe a reality in which Palestinians can, with no power to object, be kicked out of their homes for a few hours or a few days at a time so that the Israeli army can come and play war games in their backyards — what is the correct word? How do you classify a regime that considers a gathering of 10 or more people to be an “illegal assembly,” and which responds by arresting, beating or shooting the participants? Or how about a daily existence in which every entry and exit requires military approval and is scrutinized, logged and tracked unfailingly? And when that military authority can take away freedom of movement as a means of collective punishment — what is that called? In a manner of speaking, you can call this state of affairs anything you like: an occupation by any other name would still be as unjust. But that is precisely the point behind this poll finding — the denial and argument here is not, despite what it may seem, over semantics. At the heart of the matter is whether one believes that Israel’s military rule over 2.8 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and its siege on 1.8 million Gazans, are just or not. So where do you stand?

Source: Most Israeli Jews think there’s no occupation. So what is it? | +972 Magazine

First Impressions… a proud moment | nadiaharhash

After living for nine months in Jerusalem, myself, I believe that my meetings with Nadia have definitely made the most impact on me. Touring and learning matured my knowledge but speaking freely with Nadia, an Arab woman, has broadened my horizons. As she constantly repeats, “We don’t know what will happen…what will be the end.”We can only start here.

Source: First Impressions… a proud moment | nadiaharhash