And more news from Today in Palestine:
Land, property, resources theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Settlers
Activists inside Palestinian house in Silwan to confront its seizure
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC) 14 Mar — Dozens of foreign activists and Palestinians stationed themselves since yesterday inside Hamadallah family’s house in Ras Al-Amud neighborhood in Silwan district after Israeli settlers and policemen declared their intention to seize the house by force. The family said that Israeli police officers told it that a military force would storm its house and evacuate all its 16 members, mostly children, by force. When one of these Israeli officers was asked if he had a court order, he ignored the question and said he had orders to evacuate the house, the family added.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Masked settlers enter Awarta village
NABLUS (Ma‘an)14 Mar — Two Awarta residents were injured attempting to drive away a mob of Israeli settlers believed to have descended from the illegal settlement of Itamar early Monday evening, witnesses said. Town residents said more than a dozen masked settlers approached the village in what appeared to be a demonstration, which turned violent when the group started throwing stones and empty bottles at Palestinian homes … Umm Ragheb Obeidat, a village resident, told Ma’an that settlers attacked homes in the eastern area of the village, saying that the settlers had come closer and closer to her home and she feared for the safety of her family.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368642
Residents of Itamar settlement: ‘Price tag’ isn’t even part of our lexicon
Haaretz 14 Mar — Students at the yeshiva in Itamar say they are not extremists and do not intend on avenging the deaths of the Fogel family, instead Itamar residents discuss building new neighborhood in memory of those murdered.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/residents-of-itamar-settlement-price-tag-isn-t-even-part-of-our-lexicon-1.349096
Settler violence continues across West Bank
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — Settlers were seen setting fire to an agricultural field north of Ramallah overnight, while a mob entered a town east of Qalqiliya and set fire to civilian vehicles as Palestinians in the West Bank remain fearful … Earlier in the evening, locals had reported cars being stoned by settlers on the road near Bet El. The incidents were the latest in a rising tide of violence against Palestinians. While the attacker or attackers behind the Friday night killing remain unknown, Israeli officials have said the murders were the work of a Palestinian militant group and have been described as a “terror attack.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368342
Report: Itamar settlers to build Fogel outpost
TEL AVIV (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — According to Haaretz, the group is “now talking about building a new neighborhood in memory of those murdered.” The addition of neighborhoods to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, when the homes are built outside the boundaries of the existing settlement, is called “outposting,” and results in the creation of an illegal settlement outpost. Itamar, according to a 2006 survey done by Israeli peace group Peace Now, covers 4.7 dunums of land in the West Bank municipality of Nablus. Some 43.8 percent of that land is privately registered to Palestinian owners. The settlement has six outposts already, none of which [are] among the six outposts slated for demolition under a new Israeli law mandating the dismantling of outposts which Israeli courts determined were built exclusively on Palestinian-owned land. Under the same law, those outposts which were not deemed illegal would be legalized.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368412
Settlement attack
Fatah militants: Killing children unacceptable
JENIN (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — The military wing of the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said Monday that its activists had no part in the slaying of five members of a settler family in Itamar on Friday night. Commenting on the nature of the killings, which saw five out of eight members of the Fogel family stabbed to death, including a four-month-old infant, the brigades said they “oppose the targeting of civilians and killing of children no matter what the pretext may be.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368441
Abbas: Israeli family murder ‘an abominable act’
JERUSALEM (AFP) 14 Mar — …This act was abominable, inhuman and immoral,” the Palestinian leader said in an interview in Arabic with Israeli public radio days after the grisly murder at the Itamar settlement near the northern city of Nablus. Abbas said Palestinian security forces had joined forces with Israel to hunt down the killer or killers who were still at large … “We do not know [who was behind this] and we didn’t have any information which could have helped us stop this attack. If we had known, we would have tried to stop it with every possible means,” Abbas said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368536
Netanyahu: Abbas must clarify murder unacceptable
Ynet 14 Mar — Israeli PM says Palestinian president’s condemnation of Itamar massacre not enough, demands he make his stance on terror attacks ‘clear to his people’
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042233,00.html
Tibi: Palestinians ashamed of Itamar attack
Ynet 14 Mar — Arab lawmaker tells special Knesset session ‘despite dispute with settlers, struggle against occupation must be moral.’ MK Levy-Abekasis: Eye for an eye … “He is mistaken if he thinks he will be called a hero – because he is a coward! He did not do anything in the name of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian nation is ashamed of such people, who distort its image and its righteous struggle to free itself of the occupation. A struggle must be moral, conscionable and fair. There are rules to the struggle against the occupation.”
[Even an Arab MK assumes Palestinians did it, while in fact we don’t know yet who the killers were. Hamas, the al-Aqsa Brigades, Imad Mughniyya Group have all denied involvement. PNA Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Malki has said “”Killing an infant and slaughtering four other people from the same family in such a way had never been done by a Palestinian under any name for revenge. This would leave so many question marks on why the Israelis had immediately accused the Palestinians of committing it.”]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042260,00.html
Sources: Thai workers rounded up in Itamar
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — Israeli forces on Monday afternoon rounded up all Thai workers employed in the Itamar settlement, site of the murder of five members of the Fogel family, and held them for questioning, informed sources told Ma’an. Though Palestinians have been forbidden from working in the settlements of the northern West Bank, foreign workers, mostly from Thailand and the Philippines, have been contracted for labor in the area … Israeli officials have refused comment on the issue. Israel’s national police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Ma’an that a gag order has been imposed on information connected to the investigation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368554
Minister hopes images will shock world
Ynet 14 Mar — Minister stands behind decision to publish explicit photos of terror attack aftermath, hoping to influence global public opinion
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042043,00.html
IDF increases West Bank presence following Itamar terror attack
Haaretz 14 Mar — …Over the last two days, Central Command has received reinforcements assigned to help out if violence escalates across the West Bank, particularly in areas of tension between settlers and Palestinians. Possible flash points are the settlements near Nablus, the outposts in the Shiloh Valley just north of Ramallah, and the Hebron region … The number of reinforcements is equivalent to two battalions.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-increases-west-bank-presence-following-itamar-terror-attack-1.349017
Detention / Collective punishment
Court sentences Silwan father to six years in prison on suspicion of firing at settler car
Silwan, Jerusalem (SILWANIC) — The Israeli Central Court recently sentenced father of two Kayed Naim Fatafta to 6 years in prison on the charge of shooting at a settler car in Silwan. Kayed, 25, was arrested in late May 2010 and has been detained since in prisons in Jerusalem and Ashkelon. He is now incarcerated in Gilboa prison. The Magistrates Court also extended the detention of Jihad Attoun of Sur Baher until 17 March. Attoun has been detained since mid February when he was arrested during an Israeli raid on his home in Sur Baher, south Jerusalem. His cousin Munir Attoun’s detention has also been extended until 22 March, allowing police more time to “complete investigations”
http://silwanic.net/?p=13524
Awarta under siege
14 Mar — International Solidarity Movement activists in Awarta describe a horrific ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinian village: children taken from school, homes raided, imposition of a 24-hour curfew, constant drone surveillance, and massive imprisonments of the male population … Awarta has become a ghost town, with all the villagers confined to their homes, running out of gas, scared and crying quietly under the buzz of drones and detonations of sound bombs. “The soldiers take people in every house. I don’t know how many hundreds of people they’ve taken now. The children are scared, of course. The women are crying. They take their sons and fathers away. All the village is very quiet, people can’t really talk, the children have to be quiet,” the member said. After gathering some of them from school, Awarta’s boys and men were taken by soldiers to the jail near Huwara. “Here they are collectively punished.”
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1716
Israeli forces detain over 300 in Awarta
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — Soldiers toured Awarta village on Monday morning, calling over loud speakers for all residents aged 15-40 to gather in the yard of the community’s school. Local sources said a village council official and a local man working for the Palestinian security departments were said to have been detained overnight … The call to appear at the school was the first time many were permitted to leave their homes in three days, and village council leader Qays Awwad said interrogations were expected. An Israeli-imposed curfew remains in place on the village for the third day in a row, keeping Awarta residents locked indoors as a wide-scale military campaign continues. Israeli media said the military had declared the village a closed military zone … Speaking with Ma’an one Swedish national said searches conducted by Israeli forces appeared random, with homes being entered more than once over the course of three days. In one home the activist said he visited shortly after a military search, framed pictures were smashed, furniture overturned, fuse cables cut, cash and SIM phone cards confiscated, a computer thrown off its desk, and oil poured into barrels of drinking water in the kitchen … Locals told the ISM activists that Israeli forces searched the town hall, taking some 1,800 shekels ($500) from a drawer, and an unknown amount from the council’s safe. Medicines and basic food stuffs in the village were said to be running short, with families forced to live off any reserves in their homes, council member Awwad said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368340
International kidnapping / War crimes
Video: Palestinian Center for Human Rights: Abu Sisi in Israeli jail
Press TV 13 Mar — short interviews with Abu Sisi’s sister, oldest son (sixth grader), Raji Sourani of the PCHR, and Sami Abu Zuhri of Hamas
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/169783.html
Consequences of Israeli weapons testing on Gaza / Richard Lightbown
14 Mar — Richard Lightbown argues that Israel’s use of depleted uranium, white phosphorus and other toxic metals in its war on the people of the Gaza Strip has put the whole of the Strip’s population and its environment – air, soil, groundwater and possibly seawater – at risk of serious long-term injury and contamination. Press TV on 4 March 2011 reported that cancer cases in Gaza had increased by 30 per cent, and that there was a link between the occurrence of the disease and residence in areas that had been badly hit by Israeli bombing. Zekra Ajour from the Al-Dameer Association For Human Rights told the channel that Gaza had been a testing ground for illegal weapons.
http://www.redress.cc/palestine/rlightbown20110314
Activism / Solidarity / Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions
Palestinian human rights activist Abdallah Abu Rahman released from prison
AIC 14 Mar — Abdallah Abu Rahmah, Bil‘in village protest organizer, was released from Israeli prison Monday, 14 March, after 16 months in jail. Abu Rahma was charged in October 2010 with incitement and organization of peaceful demonstrations in Bil‘in, and was sentenced to one year in prison, at the Ofer military court, for his non-violent resistance against Israel’s Separation Wall. Abdallah Abu Rahmah is the coordinator of the West Bank city Bil‘in’s Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements … Following the sentencing, the EU high representative Catherine Ashton said, “The EU considers Abdallah Abu Rahmah to be a human rights defender committed to non-violent protest against the route of the Israeli separation barrier…”
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/news/3410-palestinian-human-rights-activist-abdallah-abu-rahmah-released-from-prison-
now look at the AP story on his release, which manages to make Abu Rahmeh, an icon of nonviolence, seem like an inciter of violence:
Israel releases prominent Palestinian activist
AP 14 Mar — JERUSALEM – A prominent Palestinian activist has been released from jail after serving time for his role in often violent demonstrations against Israel’s separation barrier in the West Bank. Abdullah Abu Rahmeh was released Monday after 16 months in jail for convictions of incitement and weapons possession. He was to be released in November, but prosecutors appealed for an extension, saying the original sentence wasn’t long enough. Abu Rahmeh led weekly protests in the Palestinian village of Bilin that often turned violent, with protesters throwing rocks and fire bombs at soldiers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110314/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinian_activist
Norwegian movement calls for recognition of Palestinian state
OSLO, March 14 (WAFA) – The Norwegian trade union movement called for its government to recognize a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and to boycott all settlement products in the West Bank.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=15497
Siege
Post-Mubarak, Gazans get permission to go home
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — The Egyptian foreign ministry informed Egypt’s embassies across the globe Sunday that they could grant Palestinians visas to the country, for travel back to the Gaza Strip. Director of the Gaza Strip’s border crossings on the Palestinian side Salama Baraka told Ma‘an that the decision, made in Cairo one week earlier, would allow hundreds of Palestinians stranded abroad to return home. Visas were issued starting Sunday afternoon, Baraka said. The official said Palestinians were also urging Egypt’s ruling military council to consider scrapping a list of persons prohibited from entering the country or crossing through the Rafah terminal.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368378
UNRWA agrees to begin rebuilding homes in southern Gaza Strip
ABNA 14 Mar — The UN Relief Works Agency has worked out a solution for Palestinians whose homes were destroyed by Israeli aggression in Rafah and Khan Younis southern Gaza Strip. The announcement came Sunday after demonstrators sitting in at UNRWA facilities in the south increased pressure by moving protests to the agency’s headquarters in Gaza city. UNRWA has agreed to kickstart building operations by mid-May this year.
http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=231371
Single Gaza crossing brings limited supplies
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — The sole operating crossing for commercial goods transport into Gaza was opened on Monday, for the import of an expected 210-220 truckloads of aid and other products.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368318
Strapped Gazans buy Israeli cast-off clothes
GAZA CITY (AFP) 14 Mar — In Gaza City’s Yarmuk market, Palestinians crowd round to make their bids at an auction where the goods for sale are second-hand clothes shipped in from Israel. Video: http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/24487836
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368347
Goods: needs vs. supply Feb 13 – Mar 12
The level of 0 for March 6-12 is due to the truckers’ strike.
http://www.gazagateway.org/2011/03/goods-%E2%80%93-needs-vs-supply-%E2%80%93-feb-13-%E2%80%93-mar-12/
Industrial fuel: needs vs. supply Feb 13 – Mar 12
http://www.gazagateway.org/2011/03/industrial-fuel-%E2%80%93-needs-vs-supply-%E2%80%93-feb-13-%E2%80%93-mar-12/
Political / Diplomatic news
Popular rallies already underway in Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — The day before popular protests calling for unity were set to begin, hundreds gathered in Gaza City, Rafah and other locations in the Gaza Strip shouting “We will not leave until the rivalry is over.” In Ramallah, ten hunger strikers sit in the city center Al-Manara for the second day, and say they plan to sleep there.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368522
Gaza govt: We will protect protesters
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — Gaza government Interior Ministry spokesman Ihab Al-Ghussein said officials met and agreed that demonstrating youth would be respected and protected, ahead of protests planned for 15 March.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368582
PA police ‘won’t intervene in unity demos’
RAMALLAH (AFP) 13 Mar — The Palestinian Authority security forces will not intervene or act to prevent the mass rallies calling for unity which are planned for March 15, a senior official said on Sunday. “There will be no intervention by the security people whatsoever, except to protect them,” senior PLO negotiator Nabil Shaath told reporters in Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368304
Gaza children march for end to national division
Gaza Strip, (Pal Telegraph) 14 Mar — More than 1000 children gathered and marched Monday to the Square of the Unknown Soldier, central Gaza city calling on national unity and an end to the division between Palestinian factions. Witnesses told WAFA News Agency that the peaceful demonstration held by innocent people included children from schools and even from kindergartens waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans demanding to end national division.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/8693-gaza-children-march-for-end-to-national-division.html
Meet the people bringing down the division
Ma‘an 14 Mar …Ma‘an spoke with leaders of the movement leading calls to protest on Tuesday. Many of them are young, independent Palestinians who are university-educated but unemployed. They say they are fed up with the state of political disunity plaguing the occupied territories for the past five years and are calling for an uprising to force both governments to put aside their differences. The revolutions in the Arab regions have paved the way for such action, they say.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=367659
US slams settlement building after attack
Ynet 14 Mar — State Department issues statement saying US ‘deeply concerned’ over Israeli decision to build 400 new homes in West Bank following terror attack in Itamar. Settlements run counter to efforts to resume talks, spokesman says
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041835,00.html
Haniyeh contacts Egyptian FM
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 14 Mar — Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on Sunday contacted Egypt’s newly-appointed Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Arabi to discuss relations between the governments. Haniyeh praised Egypt’s historic and pioneering role in the Palestinian struggle, and noted the strong relations linking Egyptians and the people of Gaza, a government statement said. Al-Arabi affirmed Egypt’s interest in the Palestinian cause.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368296
Other news
In photos: 100s come out in Jenin for police hiring call
Ma‘an 14 Mar — Hundreds of young people from Jenin tuned out Sunday after the Palestinian Authority’s National Security Service issued a call for applicants to join the security forces. Potential officers submitted to a physical examination, fitness test and registered their names for further testing. In the West Bank and Gaza, the PA security forces employ some 40,000 Palestinians.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368409
Yisrael Beitanu MK: Democracy being abused
Ynet 14 Mar — MKs slam bill to withhold funds from towns honoring Nakba, accuse Yisrael Beitenu of McCarthyism, violating human rights … If passed in subsequent readings, the law would allow the Finance Ministry to reduce the budgets of state-financed institutions such as local authorities and organizations if they observe Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning, among other punishable offenses.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041992,00.html
Israel deports Nigerian couple and their baby
Ynet 14 Mar — Days after Yishai delays deportation of foreign workers’ children who attend Israeli schools, aid groups say migrant couple, their infant girl expelled from country after three days at detention center. Meretz MK: Inhumane act
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042219,00.html
Local uproar over plans to name Herzliya street after Professor Leibowitz
Ynet 13 Mar — City Council members up in arms claiming Leibowitz undeserving of honor after calling IDF soldiers ‘Judeo Nazis’. ‘Professor well respected,’ says municipality
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4042132,00.html
Israeli scientists get heads-up on underground archaeological digs
Haaretz 14 Mar — Breakthrough in conducting archaeological excavations may give Israeli scientists an edge in the race to uncover antiquities before they are destroyed by bulldozers clearing way for roads.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israeli-scientists-get-heads-up-on-underground-archaeological-digs-1.349009
Analysis / Opinion
Is Arab blood cheap? Yes. / Sami Jamil Jadallah
14 Mar — As I see the reaction of Palestinian, Israeli and world leaders on the murder of the Jewish trespassing family in Itamar, I tried my best to look for and search a similar language expressed by Israeli and world leaders certainly by Palestinians leaders when Israeli soldiers and Jewish armed trespassers kill Palestinians in cold blood. I find none.
http://palestinenote.com/blogs/blogs/archive/2011/03/14/is-arab-blood-cheap-yes.aspx
Violence, hypocrisy and resistance / Ilene Cohen
13 Mar — It makes me feel dirty in a sense to feel the need to answer Netanyahu at a time of a brutal, inexcusable murder of a settler family by Palestinian terrorists, but I’ll wade into the filth, because the Israeli hypocrisy attendant on this crime makes me want to scream … For Netanyahu to blame the Palestinian leadership for “incitement” is absurd. Incitement is the Israeli speciality; it is not the Abbas/Fayyad MO. And for Netanyahu to look to Abbas and Fayyad for an unequivocal condemnation—which, in fact, they have issued—well, what hubris is that coming from a man who has never offered an “unequivocal condemnation” for the abuse, humiliation, and, yes, the routine murder of Palestinians by settlers and by the Israeli government itself by means of the IDF?
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/violence-hypocrisy-and-resistance.html
Toward a new settlement enterprise / Merav Michaeli
Haaretz 14 Mar — Instead of throwing away hundreds of millions on 500 destructive housing units, the same money could be used to construct cultural, educational and health facilities in Mitzpeh Ramon, Carmiel, Dimona and Tiberias for the benefit of the inhabitants there and those who will join them.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/toward-a-new-settlement-enterprise-1.349050
Killing of Jews in Itamar / Steve Feldman
The Jerusalem Post reports that 5 members of a Jewish family — including children ages 11 years, 3 years and 1 month old — were murdered, stabbed to death in their Itamar settlement home. The emotional pain I feel at this horrible killing is indescribable. I have to admit that I do not feel the same pain when I hear that Palestinian children are killed as I do when hearing of a tragedy like the killing of this Jewish family. Killing of Palestinian men, women and children simply doesn’t touch me in the same way, at least not emotionally. The killing of this Jewish family touches me emotionally in a way that the killing of over 1,200 men, women and children in Gaza doesn’t. But intellectually, I’ve come to realize that there’s little difference in the killing of Jews and non-Jews.
http://palestinenote.com/blogs/blogs/archive/2011/03/14/killing-of-jews-in-itamar.aspx
Itamar versus Rishon Letzion murders / Nasser Atiyah
14 Mar — The murderers of five family members in the Israeli settlement of Itamar are as yet unknown, but already Israeli political leaders and the military brass have passed judgment and condemned the Palestinians as child killers. From the start the possibility that the murders were criminal in motive was dismissed out of hand. On these judgments mobs of extremist settlers are exacting vigilante revenge. The gruesomeness of the killings, the slaying of an infant, is more than enough to rile, to enrage, but it may be useful to recall a similar incident. In the Israeli city of Rishon Letzion in October 2009, a Russian-born Israeli man killed a family of six before he set their apartment ablaze. Among the dead was a five-month-old infant and his three-year-old brother. Palestinians living in Israel were among the first said to be suspects.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=368491
Haaretz editorial: A responsible government would calm, not escalate
14 Mar — A single cell of murderers has come and changed the trend of Netanyahu and Barak’s actions to a toughening of positions and the decision to build 500 new housing units in the settlements. This is a terrible decision that will neither placate the settlers nor prevent a revenge attack by the lawless among them. In addition, it is making things difficult for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, angering Obama and feeding the unrest in the territories in advance of tomorrow, a day of planned demonstrations.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/a-responsible-government-would-calm-not-escalate-1.349046
Let the right wing win, and pray we wake up before the crash / Akiva Eldar
Haaretz 14 Mar – …Israeli politicians in 2011 don’t care what the people need. More important to them is what the people want. And the people want the right wing. During more than 20 years of election surveys, Arian and Shamir asked people whether in Israel’s relations with the Arabs, it should stress peace talks or increase its military might. In 2009, the fewest people since the end of the 1980s said they thought peace talks should be stressed. No more than 44 percent (among Jews, 36 percent ) said they supported such talks, compared with an average of 57 percent in previous surveys.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/let-the-right-wing-win-and-pray-we-wake-up-before-the-crash-1.349049
Europe’s Israel romance is on the wane / Daud Abdullah
14 Mar — Europeans are losing their illusions about Israel, our survey shows. Policy is out of step with the public …This decisive shift appears to be primarily a consequence of Israel’s violation of international law, specifically its actions in Gaza, the 2010 attack on the humanitarian flotilla, its settlement expansion programme, and the construction of the separation wall.There is, across Europe, a growing rejection of Israeli policies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/14/europe-israel-palestine-european-disconnect-public
Palestinians understand Gaddafi better than we do / Robert Fisk
Independent 12 Mar — …A visit to the filth of the Sabra and Shatila camps in Beirut, or to Ein el-Helweh in Sidon, is enough to teach anyone that amid this swamp of misery and hopelessness, UNRWA represents the world’s only collective sympathy, underfunded, short-staffed, poor though it is. Yet now, the whole organisation is being singled out by a right-wing Israel and its so-called (and self-proclaiming) supporters as purveyors of darkness, “de-legitimisers”, a network of support for Palestinians which must be destroyed lest the poorest of the poor – including those in the misery of Gaza – become addicted to their social services. UNRWA – I find it hard to believe this is a real quotation from a research fellow at a major US university, but it is – has “created a breeding ground for international terrorism”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-palestinians-understand-gaddafi-better-than-we-do-2239799.html
Remnick honors Amira Hass / Philip Weiss
12 Mar –I finally read David Remnick’s piece about Haaretz in the New Yorker last night. It’s very good, it signals his now-fierce opposition to the occupation (too late to do anything about it). The most remarkable thing about the piece is that Remnick spent a whole day with the heroic Amira Hass inside the occupation. Hass is not Remnick’s type, she is an outsider, and so this represents a very generous extension of his and his magazine’s prestige to her in an effort to influence the Israeli discourse. A few weeks back I told a friend that Remnick has the power to bring down the Netanyahu gov’t.
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/03/remnick-honors-amira-hass.html
Radio Interview with Laila El-Haddad, author of Gaza Mom: “Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between”
14 Mar — My question is: why? Why punish all of Gaza’s Palestinians? Is it to make us all so afraid we can’t close our eyes? To make us beg for mercy? To make us want it to stop at any expense? It is cruel. It is inhumane. It is collective punishment. It is psychological terror and torture in its rawest, most disturbing form. And so the war on Gaza continues.”
http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=19580
Iraq, other Mideast
Monday: 15 Iraqis killed, 41 wounded
At least 15 Iraqis were killed and 41 more were wounded in the latest violence. The worst attack took place at an army base in Diyala province. Protestors in Baghdad demanded the resignation of President Jalal Talabani over comments he made concerning Kirkuk. On March 7, he called the city the “Jerusalem of the Kurds,” a reference to the contested status of the traditionally Kurdish region north of the capital. Kurdish residents would like the area annexed into Iraqi Kurdistan, but the central government will not easily give up the oil-rich region.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/03/14/monday-15-iraqis-killed-41-wounded/
Planned mid-East rail network to exclude Israel until Palestinian situation is resolved
MEMO 14 Mar — The proposed rail network across the Middle East will not include Israel unless the Palestinian issue is resolved, according to Jordan’s Minister of Transport. Muhannad Al Qudah said that the project will include Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia as well as the Jordanian port of Aqaba, but not Israel at the moment. The Israeli Ministry of Transportation has submitted an official tender to construct parts of the Hijazi railway line connecting Haifa in Israel-Palestine with Irbid in Jordan, via the town of Beit She’an in the Jordan Valley.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2141-planned-mid-east-rail-network-to-exclude-israel-until-palestinian-situation-is-resolved
U.S.
Pilots lock down cockpit over tefillin
AP 14 Mar – An Orthodox Jewish prayer observance by three passengers aboard an Alaska Airlines flight on Sunday alarmed flight attendants unfamiliar with the ritual, prompting them to lock down the cockpit and issue a security alert, officials said. Alaska Flight 241 from Mexico City to Los Angeles International Airport landed safety at LAX and was met by fire crews, foam trucks, FBI agents, Transportation Security Administration personnel and police dispatched as a precaution.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4041796,00.html
