and other news from Today in Palestine:
Gaza
VIDEO: Israeli airstrikes kill Gazans
Reuters 25 Aug — PLEASE NOTE: THIS VIDEO CONTAINS WOUNDED AND DISTRAUGHT CHILDREN [BUT IS NOT GRAPHIC] Buildings in ruins – and homes reduced to heaps of concrete. On Thursday morning Gaza residents awoke to destruction caused by overnight Israeli airstrikes that left at least four people dead and wounded around 20 others. In the northern Gaza Strip two people were killed and 10 were wounded, including women and children, when a sports facility belonging to Islamic Jihad was hit. In southern Gaza, a strike on smuggling tunnels running under the border with Egypt killed one man, and another was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City. The wounded were being treated at local hospitals. Israeli claims 14 rockets had earlier been launched from Gaza into Israel. The violence disrupts a ceasefire agreed on Monday after five days of intense cross-border violence. Travis Brecher, Reuters
http://in.reuters.com/video/2011/08/25/israeli-airstrikes-kill-gazans?videoId=218676833&videoChannel=117460
Two killed, scores injured in ongoing strikes on Gaza Strip
GAZA (PIC) 25 Aug 12:36 — Two Palestinians were killed Thursday morning and scores including children sustained injuries after Israeli occupation forces carried out two air strikes in northern and southern Gaza Strip. Israeli planes bombed a sports club in Beit Lahiya in the north killing Palestinian young man Salama al-Masri, 19, and leaving more than 20 with various injuries, medics told our correspondent. The sources added that among the injured were seven children and four women. There are still victims that remain under the rubble, the sources also said. In Rafah to the south, a man was killed, three were injured, and three others went missing after an Israeli air strike targeting a tunnel in Rafah’s Brazil district … The strikes brought the casualty toll since last Thursday to 20 deaths and more than 90 injuries, most of them to women and children. Late Wednesday night, al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing said it fired three mortar shells as direct clashes erupted after an Israeli incursion on Beit Lahiya in the north, the brigades said in a military communiqué.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7qchVYCb2bLiQUrnA7UUWjPbkigN%2fzg9fjTXmERHnI%2bo7vn8zPJLbBURvayxOAZE7uUt1lto0bUc%2bh2reqP1MS8apnlrl3sXqr2diOYzCNNA%3d
2 Islamic Jihad fighters killed in airstrike
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 25 Aug 20:32 — An Israeli airstrike killed two members of Islamic Jihad’s armed wing in the Gaza Strip late Thursday, witnesses and security sources told Ma‘an. Salim Al-Arabid and Alaa Hamdan died after the airstrike in northern Gaza, Islamic Jihad’s military wing said in a statement. An Israeli military spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the reports but said five rockets struck the western Negev Thursday night and 12 rockets in the past 24 hours. Seven others have been killed and at least 30 injured in airstrikes during the same period … A fragile truce among Gaza militants was announced Sunday evening, but it came unstuck Tuesday after Israel killed an Islamic Jihad commander.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416138
Video (Arabic) Islamic Jihad funeral procession, burial of Ismael al-Asmar
PalToday TV 25 August
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFM2He-nUU&feature=player_embedded
Bahr: Israel wants a truce without stopping killing Gaza people
GAZA (PIC) 25 Aug 13:46 — First deputy speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC) Ahmed Bahr said that Israel’s military escalation is aimed at imposing what he called the formula of a unilateral “truce with continued killing” in the Gaza Strip. In a press release on Thursday, Bahr stated that the Israeli occupation state wants the Palestinian people to keep their arms folded and stay idly watching it shedding their blood.
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2011/08/bahr-israels-wants-truce-without.html
Islamic Jihad: ‘We will halt rockets if Israel stops raids’
GAZA CITY (AFP) 14:37 — Islamic Jihad on Thursday pledged that if Israel halted its air strikes on Gaza, its militants would stop firing rockets into southern Israel, a spokesman told AFP. “If Israel stops its attacks, the Palestinian resistance will stop firing rockets,” said Daoud Shihab after 24 hours of Israeli air strikes targeting the faction left at least two of its militants dead.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416080
Islamic Jihad armed wing: No chance of truce
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 25 Aug 21:28 — The military wing of Islamic Jihad has called on all of its members to attack Israel in response to its killing of three Al-Quds Brigades operatives in 24 hours. “Our war with the occupation has begun and there is no possibility of discussing a truce,” the group said in a statement after an Israeli airstrike killed two of its members late Thursday in northern Gaza.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416165
PRC says its armed wing will scrap truce
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 25 Aug 22:26 — The Popular Resistance Committees’ armed wing on Thursday said its forces would not commit to a truce with Israel, after an airstrike killed two Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza. The Nasser Salah Ad-Din Brigades said in a statement that both sides must stop attacks for any truce to last, but Israel did not stop attacking Gaza. “We will respond to their attacks with all our strength,” the group said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416173
Doubts emerge over identity of terrorists who carried out attack in Israel’s south / Amira Hass
Haaretz 25 Aug — It has been one week since the terror attacks near Eilat, and there is no sign of the traditional mourners’ tents for the relatives of militants killed by the Israel Defense Forces, or indeed any reports of Gazan families who are grieving as a result of IDF actions near the Egyptian border last Thursday. Nor were there reports of families demanding the return of their loved ones’ bodies for burial. A longtime social activist told Haaretz that even in the event that families were instructed to conceal their grief, news like that is difficult to hide in the Strip. The absence of mourners’ tents reinforces the general sense in the Strip that the perpetrators of the attack were not from Gaza, contrary to Israeli defense establishment claims. Gazans also doubt that members of the Popular Resistance Committees and their military wing (the Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades ) were behind the attack.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/doubts-emerge-over-identity-of-terrorists-who-carried-out-attack-in-israel-s-south-1.380525
De-escalation easier said than done in Gaza as each side picks its spots / Karl Vick
TIME 25 Aug — It’s a peculiar cease-fire that sees 20 missiles and mortars launched in a single night, but that’s the kind of cease-fire in effect in the Gaza Strip, despite the professed efforts of the two major players, Israel and Hamas, to draw down hostilities … All this began, of course, when militants on Egypt’s border with Israel opened fire on Israeli cars and buses on a highway leading to the Red Sea resort city of Eilat Aug. 18. At least three Egyptian police were killed as Israeli forces pursued the assailants, setting off a diplomatic crisis that Israel scrambled to tamp down. But delicate questions persist. On Monday, the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported that three of the assailants had been identified as Egyptian, not Palestinian, as widely presumed. And on Thursday, the Israeli daily Haaretz noted that, oddly, there appeared to be no evidence of mourning in Gaza for anyone killed in the Sinai operation; the report was filed by Amira Haas, the respected Haaretz reporter resident on the West Bank. An Israeli security official, however, tells TIME that whatever the origin of the perhaps one dozen militants who carried out the Eilat attack, they were indeed commanded from Gaza. Israeli intelligence was eavesdropping on the Popular Resistance Committees in real time on the day of the attack, the official says, and heard instructions from the dusty Gaza city of Rafah to the battleground in the Sinai.
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/08/25/de-escalation-easier-said-than-done-in-gaza-as-each-side-picks-its-spots/?xid=rss-topstories
Still no evidence of PRC involvement in Eilat attack / Yossi Gurvitz
972mag 25 Aug — A week passed since the Eilat attack, and the IDF has yet to prove the blame of the group Israel chose to attack in response …Two days ago, the IAF attacked the Gaza Strip again — naturally, it does not consider itself bound by the ceasefire; only the Palestinians are, and only they can be blamed for breaking it — and killed some Islamic Jihad apparatchick. Yesterday, the IDF claimed (Hebrew) that he was in charge of funding the Eilat attacks. Hold on a minute, I’m confused: I thought you said the attacks were carried out by the PRC, and now it’s the Islamic Jihad left holding the bag? As of yesterday, reported Amira Hass in Ha’aretz (Hebrew), there are no mourning tents in Gaza. As of today, one week after the attack, the IDF refrains from exposing the identity of the attackers it killed. One should note that none of the bewildering array of information comes officially from the IDF Spokesman, but rather from all sorts of “senior sources”. That’s the way the IDF raises a smokescreen, and then, when it is penetrated, rightly say he said nothing official.
http://972mag.com/still-no-evidence-of-prc-involvement-in-eilat-attack-update/
Al Mat’haf — Gaza’s first and only archaeological museum
Gaza (Pal Telegraph) 23 Aug – Al-Mat’haf, Arabic for museum, is the first archaeological museum in Gaza, and one of the few in Palestine. It is also the realisation of a 26-year-old dream by Jawdat Khoudary, the creator of the museum, who was inspired by the love and appreciation of history when he accidently found an Islamic glass coin in Gaza in 1985 … Al-Mat’haf is situated in one of the city’s quietest coastal spots. It overlooks a stunning view of the Mediterranean, which stands as a reminder of the unchanged leftovers of the city. In Al-Mat’haf itself, more than 300 archaeological items that were found in Gaza are on display. They come from the many different historical eras that the city commendably survived.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/9931-al-mathaf-gazas-first-and-only-archeological-museum.html
Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid
After construction – the permit is issued
Settlement Watch 24 Aug — The construction of 17 settlement units in the old police station in Ras Elamud is almost completed. One year ago the settlers, who made a deal with the Police (according to which the settlers funded the construction of a new station for the police (in E1 area) and in return received the rights to use the old station buildings in Ras Elamud), started to renovate the two buildings in Ras Elamud into 17 housing units. Few weeks ago, they even started to market the homes for potential settler families. There was one thing they didn’t take care of – a construction permit. We have been writing to the Jerusalem Municipality about the illegal construction without a permit, but unlike in many cases of Palestinian construction without permits, there was no action to stop the construction. Last Monday, the settlers finally published an ad in the newspaper allowing the public 14 days to object the upcoming permit, as required by the law. There are now 14 days for the public to file objections to the permits.
http://settlementwatcheastjerusalem.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/maaledavidpermit/
Silwan committee unveils Israeli scheme to take over Al-Bustan zone
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 25 Aug — Spokesman for Silwan defense committee Abdulkarim Abu Sunaina revealed an Israeli Judaization scheme to encroach into Silwan district and wipe out Al-Bustan neighborhood using different excuses such as the establishment of sewerage systems. Abu Sunaina, in a press release on Tuesday, reported that the Israeli municipal council in occupied Jerusalem closed the street near the sit-in tent in Al-Bustan area and started under military protection to carry out excavations allegedly for the establishment of a sewerage system.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7fPCMKD6nQrFzNVT4IHPK%2bVbkWrMYJd24%2fDbih0F3GtzXJSKkIm5bR9lqnTMHeV8eOuXctTtrV0t2Ydn86CP4wikOlN1%2fKan8KWDOUbrcgSc%3d
Checkpoints Habla, Deir Sharaf, Anabta, Jubara and Irtah / Susan Lourenco
Machsom Watch 21 Aug — …13:15 – by now, there have been more horse and pony carts, one carrying a father and his two small children; a tractor, a couple of cars, three women from the Habla side and the greengrocer`s son, in a large, empty truck who is waved across without having to dismount. The soldiers appear to be easing up. On the other hand, a man with a permit for Gate 109, (Sh’aar Eliahu) up the road is refused permission to cross here in spite of the fact that it`s a long way round for him to go back there, and in spite of the fact that it is extremely hot, he’`s fasting and it`s Ramadan. Another problem about which MachsomWatch, perhaps, can do something: a man with a horse and cart approaches us, shows a form from the Israel Police indicating that he cannot receive any permit until 2013: his crime, working in Israel, and caught there, without a permit, in 2009. Since then, no work, a large family, and he doesn’t have the necessary money to pay the fine…. ‘Obstacle Course’, indeed. We give him Sylvia`s number.
13:20 – it’s quiet, and the soldiers have retreated from the heat to the concrete house.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=48262
Settlers
Witnesses: Settlers burn hundred of olive trees
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 25 Aug — Dozens of Israeli settlers set fire on Thursday to more than 100 olive trees in Mikhmas village southeast of Ramallah. Local witnesses told Ma‘an that settlers from the illegal Ma’ale Mikhmas settlement adjacent to the village set fire to agricultural land before vacating the area.
A report by the Palestinian Authority found that settler violence increased “dramatically” in June 2011, documenting 139 attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank and the destruction of over 3,600 olive trees and vineyards. Annual figures compiled by Israeli rights group Yesh Din have repeatedly shown that nine out of 10 police investigations about settler crimes fail to lead to a prosecution.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416062
WikiLeaks’ revealing information about US citizens living in West Bank / Justin Elliott
Salon 24 Aug — …In 2004 and 2005, consular officers at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv wrote a pair of fascinating cables about American citizens who are living in illegal West Bank settlements. The officers found that the U.S. citizens’ reasons for moving to Jewish settlements in the area where Palestinians hope to establish a state were three-fold: social, economic, and ideological. In the first cable, a 36-year-old married mother of three — at the embassy to report the birth of an American citizen child — explained that she believed the “God-given land of Israel” includes the West Bank … As a resident of the West Bank she is technically within the consular district of the US Consulate in Jerusalem. However she said that she did not wish to travel through East Jerusalem streets “surrounded by Arabs” to get to the Consulate. She would go there only if accompanied by her husband, who is usually armed. When asked why, if she fears East Jerusalem, she is willing to live in a settlement in the heart of the West Bank, she said that she thinks of Neve Tsuf as a suburb of Tel Aviv.
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/?story=/politics/war_room/2011/08/24/wikileaks_us_citizens_west_bank
MDA: Red Star of David logo to remain on W. Bank ambulances
JPost 24 Aug — Magen David Adom defends itself against accusations by settlers that it had politicized medical service by removing its classic logo … The Council of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip made this charge after the logo on the ambulance servicing the Kiryat Arba settlement was switched to the outline of a white six-pointed star in a red circle. Inside the star is the international medical symbol. Council head Dani Dayan charged that MDA had caved to a demand by the International Committee of the Red Cross in a 2005 agreement not to use the Red Star logo in regions beyond the pre-1967 border. “It is quite clear that the reason is political,” said Dayan. He added that MDA is saving the Palestinians a bid for unilateral statehood at the United Nations in September, by already taking a step now, that recognizes their sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=235164&R=R2
Israeli forces
The deer hunter / Gideon Levy
Haaretz 25 Aug — Firas Qasqas was a gardener. Thirty-two years old and the father of three daughters, he came from his village with his family to visit his brother-in-law, who had moved to a new home in Ramallah. After an especially rainy, stormy night they woke up to a glorious sunny day and decided to go for a hike in the gorgeous valley of olives opposite the house. Yes, there are also Palestinians who love nature. They were three hikers – Firas and his two brothers-in-law – when they saw a herd of deer fleeing down the slope. They knew that behind the herd there would also be people coming but it did not occur to them that on the heels of the deer would come hunters – in this case, people hunters. Very soon they saw a group of soldiers coming down to the valley. A few minutes later the soldiers started firing two or three rounds at them, from a very long range. Firas fell, bleeding to death.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-deer-hunter-1.380545
Jenin’s Third Intifada under attack / Richard Lightbown
PalChron 22 Aug — ‘The location of the Freedom Theatre […is] in the middle of the most attacked and poorest refugee camp in Palestine, the refugee camp of Jenin. We are talking about almost three thousand children under the age of 15 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. It means they pee in their pants when they are eleven. It means they cannot concentrate; they cannot deal with each other without violence. This camp […] is [be]sieged by electric fence, all around it. People cannot go out or in unless they have a permit. We have two gates like a big prison, and we are just in the middle, trying to serve this population, trying to bring some normality, some sanity to some people here. I would say that the Freedom Theatre offers the very basic elements of life to children, to people, to grown-ups, to women, to men: freedom” … The words of course came from Juliano Mer Khamis who was gunned down by an unknown assassin on 4 April this year outside the theatre of his creation. Such a visionary graces humanity so rarely that the loss is incalculable. But the work of the theatre has continued after this devastating blow because as its members have said, if we give up Juliano will die. The importance of this continuing act of resistance can be measured by the response of the occupying power.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17052
Activism / Solidarity / BDS
Campaign to end US aid to Israel expands to San Francisco cable cars / Henry Norr
[photo] Mondo 25 Aug — A new series of ads calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel now greets commuters, tourists, students, and shoppers traveling on the San Francisco Bay Area’s public transit systems. The ads, part of a growing national campaign, went up this week on the Powell Street cable car, a popular tourist attraction in downtown San Francisco; in three of the busiest stations on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/08/campaign-to-end-us-aid-to-israel-expands-to-san-francisco-cable-cars.html
Veolia keeps silent about two bus services to illegal settlements
EI 24 Aug — Adri Nieuwhof — The Derail Veolia Campaign is taking off in the United States. In response, Veolia has spread the information that it “does not operate other bus services in the West Bank” besides the bus lines 109 and 110. Last week, Who Profits, a research project of the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace, found that Veolia operates two other bus services to settlements in the occupied West Bank. To assist activists in the United States, Global Exchange has built an informative website which provides basic information.
http://electronicintifada.net/blog/adri-nieuwhof/veolia-keeps-silent-about-two-bus-services-illegal-settlements
Detention / Court actions
IOF soldiers arrest 9 Palestinians including wife of prisoner
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 12:28 — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up nine Palestinian citizens in occupied Jerusalem and Al-Khalil on Thursday including the wife of a prisoner and his children. Jerusalemite sources said that the soldiers stormed the home of prisoner Nasser Abu Khudair and assaulted his family members before arresting his wife and three of his children on the pretext they were wanted for interrogation by the Israeli intelligence.
IOF soldiers detained five Palestinians in Al-Khalil and its villages at dawn Thursday including Maisoon, the wife of prisoner Hussein Al-Qawasme, who was held for a few hours then released. Local sources said that the soldiers took the wife from her parent’s home and took her to her husband’s home and ransacked it before releasing her.
Two of the arrested were brothers from Yatta village, south of Al-Khalil city, a teen and his younger minor brother, they said.
http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/
Israel places 18 Palestinian prisoners under administrative detention
NABLUS (PIC) 16:04 – An Israeli military commander has approved the transfer of 18 Palestinian prisoners to administrative detention following a recommendation by the Israeli Attorney General, the International Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights said. Among those placed under administrative detention without charges was Palestinian MP Mohammed Mutlaq Abu Juheisha (Al-Khalil). His term was extended another four months. Most of those transferred were former prisoners who spent decades in Israeli prisons and who were taken prisoner during the recent unjustified arrest sweep in Al-Khalil, the West Bank, said ISFHR lawyer Ahmed al-Beitawi.
He pointed out an escalation in administrative decisions Israel has made lately against dozens of Palestinian prisoners, saying the situation indicates Israel’s inability to pin charges on them.
http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/israel-places-18-palestinian-prisoners-under-administrative-detention/
Child arrests: Mahmoud
PSP 25 Aug — This week PSP visited with the family of Mahmoud, a 16 year old school student and local Community Centre volunteer from Beit Ommar. Two weeks ago Mahmoud was arrested whilst helping women and children to escape an Israeli military attack on a party to commemorate Palestinian prisoners at Beit Ommar’s public park. Mahmoud’s parents Yusuf and Sahir, along with his sisters Suhair and Hikmat, tell us of the trauma they have suffered since his arrest … “When I saw him in the court the following week, I wanted to hug him” he tells me, “but they would not even let us talk. Mahmoud looked so shocked and so drawn – very different to the son I know.” Yusef describes what happened next as a tragic joke. “There appeared to be some mix-up and the charge papers could not be found so the case was adjourned. I have never been in an Israeli court before but what I saw seemed like theatre play rather than reality – the accused have no rights, the Palestinian lawyers are not free to speak they way they want to and so there can be no hope of justice.”
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/08/25/child-arrests-mahmoud/
Beit Ommar teacher remains in prison as trial is delayed
PSP 23 Aug — : Beit Ommar resident Majde Za’aqiq – a 38 year old elementary school teacher – today remains imprisoned in an Israeli jail, after an Israeli military court yesterday took the decision to extend his detention without any charge or trial date. Majde was arrested on Saturday, when Beit Ommar’s peaceful demonstration against the illegal settlement of Karmei Tsur was attacked by the Israeli military report here). He was taken by the military – along with an international activist who has since been released – from a car, as he was leaving the demonstration. An entirely fabricated accusation of throwing stones was given as the reason for his arrest. After being held in jail for two days, Majde was taken to an Israeli military court in Ofar, West Bank. There, the prosecution failed to produce enough evidence to go forward with a charge for the trial, instead claiming it needed more time to gather evidence from the soldiers who were present. The judge obliged, and delayed the trial, condemning Majde to further detention without charge or trial. Majde’s detention leaves his two young sons, over whom he has sole guardianship, without their father. His arrest also coincides with the start of the new school year, meaning that Majde’s class will be without their teacher for the beginning of the year. Furthermore, Majde’s eldest child, who is deaf, is due to start the year at a special school for deaf children.
http://palestinesolidarityproject.org/2011/08/23/beit-ommar-teacher-remains-in-prison-as-trial-is-delayed/
Israel uses new methods of torture on Palestinians
RAMALLAH (Arab News) 25 Aug – A Palestinian human rights organization on Thursday said Israel has begun using new methods of physical and psychological torture against Palestinian and Arab prisoners. The Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners said in a press statement that the Israeli internal intelligence agency Shin Bet has been using painful means — mental and physical — of torture that leave less physical evidence, such as forcing prisoners to sit in tiny chairs with hands and feet tied, making them stand up in closets, depriving detainees from sleep and using violent shaking. The group said Shin Bet interrogates the prisoners under the threat of murder, assassination, home demolition, rape or the arrest of wife, covering of the head with a dirty sack, placing prisoners inside refrigerators, making them stand for a long period, and placing them in solitary confinement. It added that the Shin Bet restricts the prisoners’ use of toilet.
http://arabnews.com/middleeast/article493753.ece
Hamas man planned to kidnap Israeli diplomat
Ynet 25 Aug — An indictment was filed Thursday against 28-year-old Hamza Mahmood Yusuf Usman from Jordan, accusing him of cooperating with Hamas in order to attack Israeli targets and kidnap its citizens. According to the charges, Usman and his counterparts devised a plan to kidnap an Israeli citizen, apparently a diplomat in Amman, attack the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital and launch rockets from Jordan towards Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4113833,00.html
Racism / Discrimination
Severe lack of classrooms found in E. Jerusalem schools
JPost 23 Aug — Existing facilities in Arab neighborhoods ‘deplorable,’ city councilor says he will turn to Gulf states for funding. The Jerusalem municipality announced on Monday that the city will build an additional 42 classrooms in east Jerusalem in the coming school year, despite an estimated lack of approximately 1,000 classrooms. Last year, the municipality built 39 classrooms in east Jerusalem. The number does little to satisfy need, since the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan alone needs an additional 50 classrooms, said Silwan Parents’ Committee head Faris Haalas. Additionally, the existing classrooms are in deplorable and dangerous conditions that are not fit for children, he said. Haalas took The Jerusalem Post on a tour of east Jerusalem classrooms two weeks before the school year is set to start for Arab students. Schoolyards were filled with trash and rubble, some of it due to rocks thrown in clashes between security forces and the neighborhood youth. Leaking pipes, exposed electricity wires, crumbling stairs, rusty fences, and exposed steel rods characterized many of the municipality schools’ courtyards.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=235013&R=R2
Israeli Arabs to Peres: Help end ‘economic intifada’
JPost 23 Aug — With only minor variations the script repeats itself year after year at the Iftar dinner hosted by President Shimon Peres for kadis, imams and heads of Arab towns and villages. He talks about peace and some of the positive developments in Israel’s Arab sector, and a spokesman for the Arab communities lists some of the main grievances that Arabs have against the establishment … Turning closer to home, Peres acknowledged there are still problems of equality in relation to Arab citizens, but he was eager to point out the situation is not stagnant and significant progress has been made. “We always talk about the flaws,” he said. “I want to talk about the achievements.” … While Arabs continue to complain about discrimination in the education system, Peres preferred to emphasize the rising standards of education in the Arab population. Every year, 40,000 Arab students can be found in Israel’s universities, he said … Where there is a huge gap, Peres stated, is in the hi-tech area, not because Arabs lack the education, but because they lack the opportunity to put that education to use.
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=235007&R=R2
Israeli court approves deportation of foreign worker, 4-year-old daughter
Haaretz 25 Aug — The Petah Tikvah District Court ruled Thursday that a four-year-old born and educated in Israel, daughter to a foreign worker from the Philippines, will be deported along with her mother later in the day … Before Ofek and Nancy were almost deported last week, Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote an urgent letter to Interior Minister Eli Yishai, calling on him to prevent the girl’s deportation.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-court-approves-deportation-of-foreign-worker-4-year-old-daughter-1.380631
Statehood bid
Q&A: Palestinian statehood bid at the UN
[decent maps] BBC 12 Aug — Palestinian officials plan to ask the United Nations to recognise an independent Palestinian state within 1967 borders if there is no progress in the peace process by September. The idea is strongly opposed by Israel and its close ally, the United States. Here is a guide to what is likely to happen and its significance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13701636
Report: Israel to take measures against Qatar
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma‘an) 25 Aug — Israel is ready to implement measures against Qatar for supporting the Palestinian UN bid for recognition in September, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday. Israeli authorities are reportedly thwarting all Qatari funded projects in Palestine and have closed their diplomatic mission in Qatar, Maariv said. Qatari officials have also been forbidden to enter the West Bank or Israel. Qatar also has strong relations with Hamas, Maariv reported Israeli officials as saying.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415963
Arab MKs seek African support for PA bid
Ynet 25 Aug — Knesset members Ibrahim Sarsur and Ahmad Tibi (United Arab List-Ta’al), and MK Hanna Swaid (Hadash) met on Thursday with a dozen delegates from African countries and urged them to back the PA’s bid for recognition in the UN. The three held the meeting contrary to the government’s position.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4113965,00.html
Shaath: India will support Palestinians at UN
RAMALLAH (Ma‘an) 25 Aug — India will support recognition of Palestinian independent statehood at the UN, PLO representative Nabil Shaath said Thursday. The Indian foreign minister SM Krishna told Shaath in a meeting in the Indian capital New Delhi on Thursday that India will work to support the Palestinians’ bid, due to be put to General Assembly vote on September 20 … The PLO official noted that India recognized a Palestinian state in 1988, and has diplomatic relations, including a representative office in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416032
Arab Peace Initiative Committee insists on UN bid
DOHA, Qatar (Ma‘an) 24 Aug — …The committee convened in Doha and ratified a plan previously set by a reduced committee to recruit international support for the Palestinian statehood bid. Arab ministers, headed by Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani, agreed to ask Arab League secretary-general Nabil Al-Arabi to continue to contact international organizations and political bodies to secure support for the UN campaign. An Arab diplomat told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that the Palestinian Authority requested the meeting “to maintain cohesion in the Arab stand.”
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415718
Video: ‘The recognition of the state is not only important for me, but for all Palestinians’
Filmmaker Jan Beddegenoodts interviews Palestinians on the streets of Ramallah to hear their thoughts on the Palestinian bid for statehood in September. “Palestinians are more focused on the unity of Palestine than the recognition of the Palestinians state.”
“What will happen is a change in the political game between the Israelis and the Palestinians.” Watch to hear more.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/?p=1550
Report advises against Palestinian statehood bid
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug. 25 (UPI) — A British professor who occasionally gives the Palestinians legal advice warned against their statehood bid next month at the United Nations, Ma‘an reported. A seven-page document from Guy-Goodwin Gill, obtained by Ma‘an, states that an initiative to transfer Palestinian representation from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to a new state will terminate the legal status the PLO has had at the United Nations since 1975. The news agency said the document asserts that if the Palestinians are recognized as a state, there will no longer be an institution that can represent the rights of all the Palestinian people in the United Nations and other international institutions.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/08/25/Report-advises-against-Palestinian-statehood-bid/UPI-35381314268622/
September report to remain secret?
Ynet 25 Aug — FADC Chairman Mofaz set on publishing report criticizing Israeli readiness ahead of Palestinian UN bid for statehood, as coalition tries to prevent publication, fearing document will hurt State’s image
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4113900,00.html
Political / Diplomatic / International
Israel moves to ease strains with Egypt
JERUSALEM (Reuters) 25 Aug — Israel offered on Thursday to investigate jointly with Egypt the killing of five Egyptian security personnel during an Israeli operation against cross-border raiders a week ago, violence that has strained relations with Cairo’s new rulers. “Israel is ready to hold a joint investigation with the Egyptians into the difficult event,” a statement issued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office quoted his national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, as saying. Amidror said the terms of such a probe “would be set by the armies of both sides,” going a step beyond Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s earlier pledge to hold an investigation and share its findings with Egypt, which signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=416106
‘Egyptian who tore down Israeli flag rewarded’
Reuters 25 Aug — Protester who yanked off flag from Israeli embassy in Cairo receives job, new home, honorary shield from provincial governor, local paper says [according to the PIC, the Egyptian flag was still flying there Tuesday morning]
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4113973,00.html
EU diplomat: Aid to Palestinians in question
AP 25 Aug — Europe’s financial crisis is causing some European Union lawmakers to question whether the bloc can continue to deliver millions in aid to the Palestinians, an EU diplomat said Thursday. The EU is the largest single donor to the Palestinians, contributing about €500 million ($720 million) a year to build institutions for a future state and pay salaries.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4114057,00.html
Other news
Young photographers in Nablus
Pal. Monitor 25 Aug — These photos were taken around the city of Nablus by young Palestinians between the ages of 11 and 15, all participants in the Triple Exposure project at Tomorrow’s Youth Organization, Nablus. After some technical training, the participants were lent cameras for one week at a time, to take home and photograph their lives, surroundings, and whatever else caught their eye.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/?p=1560
Israeli experts near completion of Jerusalem walls restoration
AP 25 Aug — The Old City walls, completed by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1541, are a monument to Ottoman engineering and to centuries of Islamic rule over Jerusalem — Israeli experts are nearing completion of an ambitious restoration of the five-century-old walls of Jerusalem, the holy city’s dominant architectural feature and a unique record of its eventful and troubled history. The $5 million undertaking, which began in 2007, is set to be complete by the end of this year. The first restoration of the walls in nearly a century, it has required decisions about which of the walls’ many idiosyncrasies – the falcon nests, for example, the hundreds of machine-gun bullets, the botched restorations of years past – are flaws to be corrected, and which have earned a place in Jerusalem’s story and are thus worth preserving.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-experts-near-completion-of-jerusalem-walls-restoration-1.380626
Analysis / Opinion
Israel’s ‘nice little war’: Gaza, Egypt in the range of fire / Ramzy Baroud
25 Aug — …one is tempted to question the conveniently situated Israeli wars of ‘self defense.’ How different is this latest ‘nice little war’ from the horrifying Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982? When Ariel Sharon requested an American green light to attack Lebanon, Alexander Haig, US Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, insisted Israel must possess a ‘credible provocation’ before leading such a mission. Moreover, the case made to justify the war on Gaza in 2008-09 Operation Cast Lead also had its own ‘credible provocation.’ In fact, all of Israel’s wars are sold to the public within this neat package which actually holds little credibility. This time the provocation had to be convincing enough to justify multiple Israeli strikes on all of Gaza’s factions, as well as politically vulnerable Egypt. Why is Israel bent on discrediting Egypt, exploiting the most sensitive period of its modern history, and destabilizing the border area so as to show Egypt’s failure to ensure Israel’s border security, as stipulated in the Camp David treaty?
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=415980
Don’t believe the hype / Ghassan Khatib
Bitter Lemons 22 Aug — Israeli politicians and its media and PR machine have filled the news in the last two weeks with exaggerated and sometimes fabricated news and analysis about practical preparations on the ground for the upcoming Palestinian bid to the United Nations. Israel, which has two major difficulties with the Palestinian plan to ask the UN to discuss the stalled peace process, is having trouble fighting this move politically and diplomatically. Instead, it is resorting to its comparative advantage in public relations to try to reduce growing international support for this move. The first problem Israel has with this discussion at the UN is that its political strategy in dealing with Palestinians is based on power politics and evasion of the international consensus. Any discussion in the United Nations about the conflict will expose Israel’s illegal positions and behavior to international criticism, embarrassing it and its ally the United States, which has been ignoring Israel’s role in stalling bilateral negotiations and carrying out violations of international law. The second, albeit related, problem Israel faces is that this discussion will inevitably expose the real reason for the failure of the peace process and bilateral negotiations: illegal Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories.
http://www.bitterlemons.org/inside.php?id=131
Aid alone won’t help the desperate Palestinians / Jonathan Glennie
Guardian 24 Aug — A UN reports links all of the Palestinian economy’s dire problems to the Israeli occupation and associated constraints. Aid from the EU and others is merely a sop for political failure … Of course aid is welcome, especially humanitarian relief. But perhaps donors should glance at this Unctad report. While donors showcase their increasing generosity to Palestine in their annual reports, that generosity appears more than ever to be a function of their inaction in the face of Israel’s continuing attempts to undermine any chance the economy has to get back on its feet, let alone prosper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/24/aid-wont-help-desperate-palestinians
Guilty until proven innocent / Yasmeen El Khoudary
AJ 22 Aug — As Israeli airstrikes continue to be carried out in Gaza, most people there feel trapped and abandoned by the world — The mini war that Israel waged on Gaza following the turmoil in South Israel is just another perfect example of how Gaza is the Middle East’s “Biggest Loser.” Caught in a thorny network composed of selfish interests and different agendas, the 1.5 million people of Gaza are indeed the biggest losers when it comes to just about anything in the Middle East. Our destiny does not lie within our hands. We do not have any control over even the smallest aspects of our lives. We do not enjoy the luxury of planning for tomorrow, let alone next week. We, the people of Gaza, valiantly try to go on with our daily lives as if things are in perfect order. But there are times when things are so bleak and so dark that everything we have been trying to build collapses in the blink of an eye. On Thursday, and after a rough night full of Israeli air attacks on different locations in the Gaza Strip, we woke up to another hot Ramadan day which was interrupted by news about a shooting operation in Eilat, whereby five Israeli soldiers were killed and 36 others were injured. Immediately and without even waiting for the details of the operation to be announced, people started fretting about a likely Israeli attack on Gaza.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201182272758210801.html
Arab blood on American hands / Ira Chernus
HuffPost 22 Aug — … That story has not changed in Israel — nor in the mass media here in the U.S. Apart from the Israeli apology [to Egypt], the whole incident was presented here with the same old script: Palestinian “terrorists” attack and kill Israelis, like a bolt out of the blue. Israel justifiably strikes back, as any nation would do when attacked, and kills some Arabs. The vast majority of Americans are left, as always, assuming that the Israelis are merely defending themselves against cruel aggressors. And if the Israelis get a bit carried away? Well, the average American easily says, we’ve overdone it a bit ourselves in places like Dresden and My Lai. But hey, that’s war. We never start it, do we? So it never occurs to most Americans to ask why Gazans would risk their lives on military operations against Israelis. If anyone bothers to ask, the answers are obvious … Attacks from Gaza don’t come out of the blue. They come out of years of frustration, as the Israelis continue to prevent Palestinians from exercising the right of national self-determination, which the Israelis claim as the justification for their own Jewish state. Yet that story remains unknown to the U.S. mass media and thus to nearly all Americans. Instead, the mass media eagerly purvey a tale that makes Israel seem like an extension of the United States itself: hardy settlers in the wilderness, forced to fight off darker-skinned savages who want to destroy them. Since the media depict those “savages” — now known as “terrorists” — as crazy fanatics, no explanation of their motives is asked for. And certainly none is given by the media.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ira-chernus/israel-egypt_b_932483.html
Israel’s left now has a chance to awaken the public / Amira Hass
Haaretz 24 Aug — Yachimovich frankly enunciated our position as Israeli Jews: We are profiting from the occupation even as we groan under regressive taxation.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-s-left-now-has-a-chance-to-awaken-the-public-1.380355
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