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BBC forced to admit it misled over Palestine

2015-12-12T00:15:00.002-08:00

The grim reality endured by Palestinians under Israeli occupation is apparently of little concern to BBC’s flagship radio news program.

Yoram RonenActiveStills

For the second time in just over six months, the BBC has been forced to admit that its flagship news and current affairs program — Today — has misled its audiences over the situation in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In a broadcast in October, veteran presenter John Humphrys and Middle East correspondent Kevin Connolly implied in a two-way conversation that all of those killed in that month’s violence were Israeli.

In fact, at the date of broadcast, on 19 October, more than 40 of those killed were Palestinian and fewer than 10 Israeli...Read more

Middle East department store chain dumps Trump products

2015-12-09T14:44:00.000-08:00

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump's anti-Muslim comments cost him business in the Middle East on Wednesday, with a major chain of department stores halting sales of his glitzy "Trump Home" line of lamps, mirrors and jewellery boxes.
The real estate mogul and reality TV star now makes most of his money from licensing his name on golf courses, luxury developments and retail goods, rather than owning buildings.
On Monday, Trump, who leads opinion polls in the race to be the Republican nominee for president in an election in November next year, called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, in comments widely repudiated by other U.S. politicians.
Trump Home products, like a "table lamp in antique brass with crystal drops" and a decorative box with a "brilliant plume of a peacock... redecorated in gold finish for an exclusive look", have been on sale at Lifestyle department stores in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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Israel Demolishes Over 30 West Bank Structures in Two Days, Leaving Dozens Homeless

2015-08-20T03:13:00.001-07:00

-West Bank demolitions are not law enforcement but expulsions
-Israeli army demolishes 260th structure in the West Bank in 2015
-Four Palestinian families face eviction from East Jerusalem home next week
According to figures from the United Nations, Monday’s demolitions caused the largest number of West Bank Palestinians to lose their homes on the West Bank in a single day since October 31, 2012. The four communities where the demolitions took place are al-Saidi, near the town of al-Zaim, west of Ma’aleh Adumim; and three others to the north of Ma’aleh Adumim: Bir el-Maskub, Wadi Sneysel and Abu Falah, all in the area of Khan al-Ahmar. A total of 400 people live in these communities.
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Inside the small, pro-Israel outfit leading the attack on Obama’s Iran deal.

2015-08-20T01:49:00.001-07:00

Pulling strings: Mark Dubowitz and Clifford May.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the so-called 800-pound gorilla, is the big player in lobbying against the nuclear weapons agreement that the United States and five other countries signed with Iran. When it comes to influencing members of Congress, AIPAC has the access to financial contributors with which to reward the compliant and pressure the recalcitrant.

WATCH: How Palestinian land becomes an Israeli national park

2015-08-20T01:12:00.001-07:00

Issawiya, a crowded Palestinian village situated on the slopes of Jerusalem’s Mount Scopus, is home to 23,000 people. The municipality is planning to build a national park atop land belonging to the village, rather than building schools and infrastructure that would benefit its residents. The Palestinian residents of the village aren’t taking the decision lying down.

Occupation is the real 'Jewish terrorism'

2015-08-20T00:56:00.001-07:00

The phrase ‘Jewish terrorism’ has come up frequently over the past week. But aren’t the daily actions of the Israeli army also terrorism? And can radical settlers be considered terrorists if they share the convictions of the state?
Relatives laid dozens of photos of 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabshe in memorial to the slain toddler, Duma, West Bank, July 31, 2015. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

I’ve recently tried to figure out the over-use of the phrase “Jewish terror” and as a good girl, I decided to Google it. According to Wikipedia, “Jewish terror” refers to terrorism carried out by Jews against Arabs since the establishment of the state, with some incidents here and there of Jews targeting other Jews.
So I asked our contemporary source of knowledge and wisdom: please teach me what was “Jewish terror before ’48.” The Zionist Google machine spit out the answer, “Palestinian terror” as the first and second entries, followed by Jewish terror dating after the establishment of the state.

The story behind the viral apartheid photo

2015-08-20T00:29:00.002-07:00

A. (right) is arrested by Border Police, while the Jewish boy who accused A. of assaulting him, Jerusalem’s Old City, July 25, 2015. (photo: Mahmoud Illean)
Recently, a photograph made waves for its apparent depiction of the disparities in the treatment of Israeli and Palestinian minors. This is what happened to the boys in the photo, with a strange twist involving an Israeli soldier lost in a Palestinian village.
By Avi Blecherman (translated by Hadas Leonov)
The following story is going to make your jaw drop, as it demonstrates the absurdity of this place, a reality beyond any imagination — especially if you are a Palestinian. This is a story about a family in Jerusalem who encounters the police three times in the span of a few days. Each encounter is its own adventure.
You probably remember the powerful photo shared across social media outlets from a few weeks back. Well, not the exact one, but rather its twin that was sold to one of the big news agencies. This one is very close to the original:
It was taken a few Sundays ago during Tisha B’Av (a Jewish day of fasting which commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem) in the Muslim Quarter market not far from Damascus Gate. In the photo we see a Palestinian teen being arrested by two Israeli Border Policemen, looking nervous as his hands are folded behind his back. To his left is a Jewish boy, most likely a resident of the Muslim Quarter. A policeman accompanies him, only that the former gently puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder, as if he is strolling with his younger brother. He is even suppressing a tiny smile.
In the original photo the Jewish boy is seen talking to the policeman, and it is clear he feels comfortable with him. One might guess that the reason they are there together is related to something that happened a moment earlier, though it is impossible to know from the photo. The difference in body language between the two boys — and between them and the policemen — is well pronounced, giving the photo its power. They illustrate better than any description what occupation and apartheid look like: a regime based on total separation between two groups that are treated in a very different manner by the government.
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Demolishing Arab women's homes is the easy way out

2015-08-20T00:11:00.001-07:00

What are Arab citizens expected to do when the city only builds for Jews, and why do single mothers almost always pay the price?

Hannah al-Naqib (right) as Israeli authorities demolish her home in Lod, February 10, 2015. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

There has been no approved zoning plan for decades. Arabs cannot build on their own lands, and plans that are meant to authorize legal construction in the Arab neighborhoods are stuck in bureaucratic pipelines – at least according to the plan for the improvement of the Lyd municipality that was passed by Netanyahu’s government. Meanwhile, the municipality collects its arnona tax, and homeowners are levied enormous fines in the process of procuring permits, all while leaving roads unpaved and offering no basic services, as well as continuing to threaten residents home demolitions whenever there is a dispute between the mayor and the head of the opposition.
Not a single housing project has been built for Arabs, not even one meant for the general population where Arabs would also be permitted to purchase homes. None. On the other hand, thousands of new housing units have been built at lightning speed right across from the Arab neighborhoods for the latest gari’n of religious settlers (small communities of religious Jews who move, usually from the occupied territories, into cities with mixed Arab and Jewish population) or other religious groups. Furthermore, the plan to encourage more privileged families to settle in Lyd has been making much progress, with families of army and police veterans moving into the city. A young Arab couple cannot even go near the sales offices of these projects, much less dream of the huge subsidies and grants that are offered to the city’s new residents who have come to “strengthen” Lyd.

Demolishing Palestinian structures is the norm — not the exception

2015-08-20T00:07:00.001-07:00

A sharp increase in demolitions of structures in the West Bank displaces over 120 Palestinians, drawing media attention and a harsh response from the United Nations.

Home demolition in East Jerusalem [Illustrative]. (photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)
Ziv/Activestills.org)

Over August 17-18 Israeli authorities demolished around 40 Palestinian structures in the West Bank, displacing over 120 Palestinians. The demolitions were carried out during a record-breaking heat wave that has hit Israel-Palestine over the past week.

Monday’s total of 22 demolitions — in the Ma’ale Adumim area of the West Bank — displaced 78 Palestinians (including 49 children), the highest such number in one day since October 2012. Tuesday saw 17 structures demolished in the village of Fasayil in the Jordan Valley, leaving 48 homeless, including 31 children. All the affected families belong to Bedouin communities found throughout the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley.

Black activists send clear message to Palestinians: “Now is the time for Palestinian liberation, just as now is the time for our own in the United States”

2015-08-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

The actual distance between Ferguson, Missouri, and Gaza is about 6,000 miles. But last summer, the repressive and deadly violence visited upon blacks and Palestinians, respectively, made that distance seem to disappear. Immediately, lines of solidarity began to emerge between those groups, and in August a set of activists and organizations in Palestine issued this statement:
We the undersigned Palestinian individuals and groups express our solidarity with the family of Michael Brown, a young unarmed black man gunned down by police on August 9th in Ferguson, Missouri. We wish to express our support and solidarity with the people of Ferguson who have taken their struggle to the street, facing a militarized police occupation.

1,000 Black Activists, Artists, and Scholars Demand Justice for Palestine

2015-08-19T23:52:00.001-07:00

Over 1,000 Black activists, artists, scholars, students, and organizations have launched a statement expressing their solidarity and commitment to ensuring justice for Palestinians. Signatories to the statement span a wide cross-section of Black activists and scholars, including Angela Davis, Boots Riley, Cornel West, dream hampton, Emory Douglas, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa, Patrisse Cullors, Phil Hutchings, Ramona Africa, Robin DG Kelley, Rosa Clemente, Talib Kweli, and Tef Poe. 38 organizations signed on, including The Dream Defenders, Hands Up United, Institute of the Black World 21st Century, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and Organization for Black Struggle.

Michael Oren’s account of his years as Israeli ambassador to the United States is the gift that just keeps on giving. We have already seen how the memoir (Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide) reveals just how ultra-sensitive Israel’s elite is to American opinion, but also how contemptuous he is of Jewish Americans. But there is even more in the book, and here at the site we are delighted it reached the best seller list briefly, and sorry that it has now slipped off. Ally is a valuable look at what Israel is really like in 2015. - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/michael-memoir-revelations#sthash.Rr4EowNg.dpuf

Michael Oren’s account of his years as Israeli ambassador to the United States is the gift that just keeps on giving. We have already seen how the memoir (Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide) reveals just how ultra-sensitive Israel’s elite is to American opinion, but also how contemptuous he is of Jewish Americans. But there is even more in the book, and here at the site we are delighted it reached the best seller list briefly, and sorry that it has now slipped off. Ally is a valuable look at what Israel is really like in 2015. - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/michael-memoir-revelations#sthash.Rr4EowNg.dpuf

Israeli cafe in India said to only serve white customers

2015-08-19T23:46:00.000-07:00

The Freekasol cafe in Kasol, India (YouTube screen capture)

A cafe in India that serves Israeli food has been subjected to a torrent of criticism over reports that it has enacted a “whites only” customer policy, Channel 10 news reported Tuesday.

The Freekasol cafe in the small village of Kasol will apparently not serve Indian customers, according to local reports.

Channel 10 reported that the owner of the cafe was an Israeli, while Stefan claimed the man was in fact Indian. The cafe is widely being reported as Israeli-owned.

An Indian woman and her British partner told Channel 10 they were turned away from the establishment a few days ago due to the woman’s ethnicity.

“He denied me saying that it was only for members,” the woman named Ritika recounted. But when her white partner Stefan then went over to the cafe and asked for a menu, “he gave the menu to him.”

'Yemen after 5 months looks like Syria after 5 years': Red Cross president

2015-08-19T23:18:00.001-07:00

A Yemeni man carries a canister of gas he bought, after waiting for several hours in Sanaa, Yemen, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015. The Saudi-imposed blockade has created severe shortages of gas, petrol, and other goods, causing prices to skyrocket. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

GENEVA -- "Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years," the head of the international Red Cross says, describing the devastation from a conflict that has left more than 1,900 people dead since March.
Peter Maurer, fresh off a trip to the war-torn country in the Arabian Peninsula, said entrenched poverty, months of intensified warfare and limits on imports because of an international embargo have contributed to "catastrophic" conditions in Yemen.
"The firepower with which this war is fought on the ground and in the air is causing more suffering than in other societies which are stronger and where infrastructures are better off and people are wealthier and have reserves and can escape," Maurer told The Associated Press at his office in the headquarters of the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Gaza doc named Norway's person of year

2015-04-05T02:34:00.002-07:00

A outspoken Norwegian doctor whose efforts to treat Palestinians wounded in the Gaza conflict garnered worldwide attention has been named person of the year by the country’s largest tabloid, Verdens Gang (VG).

Mads Gilbert, 67,whose day job is head physician and anaesthesiologist as the University Hospital of North Norway, spent more than fifty days treating many of the 11,000 injured in this summer’s conflict.

Gilbert was vocal in his criticism of Israel during the war, describing the country’s actions as “state terrorism at the highest levels.” Israel later banned the doctor from Gaza. The ban was officially for security reasons, but Gilbert himself claimed the ban was due to his comments about the war. Israel denied reports that the ban was for life.

He gave graphic accounts to international media of the situation in Gaza’s hospitals, describing how civilians were “maimed and torne apart”. In an open letter to the Lancet medical journal, he and a number of other doctors said they were “appalled by the military onslaught on civilians in Gaza under the guise of punishing terrorists.”

The Long War against US "adversaries" in the Muslim world

2015-04-05T00:58:00.002-07:00

Nafeez Ahmed on 3 April 2015 published an insightful article at the website Middle East Eye that brings together research from David Hearst demonstrating that the US itself, through its Gulf allies, gave the northern Houthis of Yemen a green light for their offensive last September. (See (1) Blowback in Yemen; (2) Saudi Power Struggles ... and (3) US War in Yemen, Saudi-Arabia, Iran,...)
The first of these articles by David Hearst (Blowback in Yemen) revealed that the Houthi offensive was “conducted under the nose of a US military base in Djibouti” from where CIA drones operate. “The Houthis are even protecting the US embassy in Sanaa.” Hearst revealed that the Houthis had been emboldened by a quiet nod from Saudi Arabia, under the watchful eye of US intelligence.
The second article “Saudi's internal power struggles ...”, which analyzed Saudi support for the military coup in Egypt, outlines how Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar met with Houthi leader Saleh Habreh in London. The Saudis wanted to mobilise the Houthis against the Islah Party, Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood branch that shared power with President Hadi, so that they “cancel each other out” in conflict. But Islah refused to confront the Houthis, and Riyadh’s green light backfired, allowing the militia to march unhindered to the capital.
Nafeez Ahmed explains that “Sources close to Hadi say they were told by the Americans about a meeting in Rome between Iranian officials and the son of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to secure his assurances that government units loyal to Saleh would not oppose the Houthi advance.” Nafeez Ahmed also unveils the US strategy in promoting full-scale Sunni-Shia regional war-by-proxy: Since 9/11, every country in the region touched by major US interference has collapsed into civil war as their social fabric has been irreversibly shattered: Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya.
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The destructive legacy of Arab liberals

2015-04-05T00:45:00.004-07:00

Arab liberals have allied with Israel, the US and Saudi Arabia to wreak an unparalleled record of destruction.

Joseph Massad

The Electronic Intifada

It has become commonplace to present Arab Islamists of all political stripes (liberals, conservatives, radicals, neoliberals, moderates, extremists, nonviolent, violent, etc.) as a most, if not the most, dangerous political force in the Arab world since the 1967 War.
In fact, and as the following will show, it has been a new brand of Arab liberals — secularists and Islamists (though the former have been far more dangerous) — who have been and continue to be a most dangerous and destructive political force in the post-1967 Arab world.
The Western, Israeli and Saudi war against Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and anti-imperialist Arab nationalism required the birth of a new liberal intelligentsia. Their emergence on the scene in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, before the war, was part of the American-sponsored “cultural Cold War,” which financed intellectuals across the world for the anti-communist and anti-socialist liberal imperial crusade that also targeted anti-imperialist Third World nationalisms.
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Catastrophe in Yarmouk refugee camp as ISIS takes control

2015-04-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

An UNRWA photo shows Yarmouk camp in 2014.

Electronic Intifada
Fears over the safety of the 18,000 civilians trapped in Yarmouk, south of the Syrian capital of Damascus, have grown following reports that ISIS has taken control of large areas of the Palestinian refugee camp.
ISIS, also known as the Islamic State or ISIL, notorious for its brutal execution of hostages in the areas it occupies in Iraq and Syria, infiltrated Yarmouk camp on 1 April.
Fierce battles are reported to have ensued since then, as Aknaf Beit al-Madqis, an anti-government militia in the camp aligned with the Palestinian faction Hamas, have pushed back against ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.
Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis stated today that the group is “fulfilling to defend the capital of the Palestinian diaspora and the blood of our people” and denied reports that its fighters had surrendered.
“We shall remain steadfast until Yarmouk camp is cleansed of the darkness and tyranny, if God allows.”
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When occupation becomes apartheid

2015-04-04T23:57:00.003-07:00

Gil Maguire

Israel’s military occupation and control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza has gone on almost half a century, since it conquered those territories during the 1967 Six Day War. While many fear Israel will become an apartheid state unless it relinquishes all or most of these occupied territories, the evidence is overwhelming that Israel created an apartheid system and became an apartheid state at the end of the 1967 war, 48 years ago.
Read mor-Mondoweiss-

Israel killed more Palestinians in 2014 than in any other year since 1967

2015-03-29T20:01:00.005-07:00

More than 2,300 Palestinians killed and more than 17,000 injured, according to annual report by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
The Guardian
Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in 2014 than in any other year since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began in 1967, a UN report has said.
Israel’s activities in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem resulted in the deaths of 2,314 Palestinians and 17,125 injuries, compared with 39 deaths and 3,964 injuries in 2013, according to the annual report (pdf) by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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Israeli school workssheet has this question "which is the superior race and which is the inferior race in Israel?”

2015-03-26T14:52:00.001-07:00

Haaretz
Teenagers in an alternative school program were surprised this week to discover the following question on a worksheet on “Nazi ideology and policy”: “From your acquaintance with the peoples that live in Israel, which is the superior race and which is the inferior race?”
The students were part of the Hila program in Petah Tikvah — Hila provides education for teenagers who have dropped out of the state school system. Some 8,000 students are enrolled in the program nationwide. The teachers are employed as subcontractors and not by the Education Ministry.
The worksheet was a prep sheet for a test culminating 10 years of Holocaust studies; for these students the test takes the place of Israel’s matriculation exam in history.

Mideast Apocalypse 2030: Why Obama wants the Palestine Issue Solved. Now.

2015-03-26T02:00:00.000-07:00

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment)
It began in Hebron, which Palestinians call “al-Khalil,” the city of Abraham. Hundreds of thousands of Israel squatters had been enticed into this Palestinian city of 400,000 by the Likud government with cheap rent in cookie-cutter apartment buildings constructed on stolen Palestinian land. The raids on Palestinian olive orchards, their main source of income, had become daily affairs, leaving the environs denuded and full of stumps. Then it went beyond killing trees. Palestinian young men were kidnapped, tortured, killed. Graffiti threatened the rest of their families and warned them to escape to Jordan while they could. The Jordanian army moved tank and sniper units to the best crossing points over the Jordan River, announcing it would shoot on sight any Palestinians who attempted to immigrate illegally.

Big Bank’s Analyst Worries That Iran Deal Could Depress Weapons Sales

2015-03-26T00:21:00.003-07:00

By Lee Fang

Could a deal to normalize Western relations with Iran and set limits on Iran’s development of nuclear technology lead to a more peaceful and less-weaponized Middle East?

That’s what supporters of the Iran negotiations certainly hope to achieve. But the prospect of stability has at least one financial analyst concerned about its impact on one of the world’s biggest defense contractors.

The possibility of an Iran nuclear deal depressing weapons sales was raised by Myles Walton, an analyst from Germany’s Deutsche Bank, during a Lockheed earnings call this past January 27. Walton asked Marillyn Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, if an Iran agreement could “impede what you see as progress in foreign military sales.” Financial industry analysts such as Walton use earnings calls as an opportunity to ask publicly-traded corporations like Lockheed about issues that might harm profitability.

How Al Qaeda’s Biggest Enemy Took Over Yemen (and Why the U.S. Government Is Unlikely to Support Them)

2015-03-26T00:03:00.001-07:00

By Casey L. Coombs and Jeremy Scahill
Sanaa – Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, his prime minister and entire government cabinet resigned en masse today, just 24 hours after Houthi rebels occupied the presidential compound in Sanaa. The resignations give unprecedented power to the Houthis, a Shiite minority from the country’s isolated northern highlands. The political crisis also opens the door to an all-out war over control of the Yemeni capital, involving Sunni political factions and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. The conflict could also draw in Saudi Arabia, the United States and Iran. The streets in Yemen’s capital are now a maze of checkpoints, a few still manned by government forces wearing military uniforms, but most these days are controlled by Houthis. Unlike government forces, the Houthis are typically dressed in tribal garb–a shawl wrapped around their face and a skirt known as a ma’awaz.

The Cross and the Sword: The Making of a Christian Taliban in Ukraine

2015-03-25T23:46:00.003-07:00

Poster in the living quarters of the Brotherhood.

THE RECRUITMENT POINT for volunteers in Dmytro Korchynsky’s holy war is located in the basement of a building in central Kiev, on Chapaev Street, in what used to be a billiard club. Anyone can sign up, and the location isn’t secret — its address and phone number is on the Internet.
Inside, lying on the billiard tables, are toy Kalashnikovs, which recruits can use to shoot at targets on the wall. Behind the bar, shelves are lined not with liquor bottles but with Molotov cocktails left over from the violent protests that ousted the government a year ago; the firebombs may be useful in the next stage of Ukraine’s upheavals.

Netanyahu’s Spying Denials Contradicted by Secret NSA Documents

2015-03-25T23:29:00.005-07:00

By Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday vehemently denied a Wall Street Journal report, leaked by the Obama White House, that Israel spied on U.S. negotiations with Iran and then fed the intelligence to Congressional Republicans. His office’s denial was categorical and absolute, extending beyond this specific story to U.S.-targeted spying generally, claiming: “The state of Israel does not conduct espionage against the United States or Israel’s other allies.”
Israel’s claim is not only incredible on its face. It is also squarely contradicted by top-secret NSA documents, which state that Israel targets the U.S. government for invasive electronic surveillance, and does so more aggressively and threateningly than almost any other country in the world. Indeed, so concerted and aggressive are Israeli efforts against the U.S. that some key U.S. government documents — including the top secret 2013 intelligence budget — list Israel among the U.S.’s most threatening cyber-adversaries and as a “hostile” foreign intelligence service.