Following Obama visit, Israeli govt to discuss measures aimed at relieving international diplomatic pressure

Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid

Israel to retroactively legalize Palestinian construction in Area C of West Bank
Haaretz 19 Mar by Chaim Levinson — Move is part of broader plan to improve Palestinians’ quality of life in the West Bank, in order to lessen diplomatic pressure on Israel; issue of releasing Palestinian prisoners will be discussed after President Obama’s visit …  Israel will prepare a master plan for Area C of the West Bank, in order to retroactively legalize Palestinian construction which it currently considers illegal. The Civil Administration, the Israeli body responsible for governance over civilian matters in the West Bank, has budgeted NIS 3 million for preparation of the plan. Under the Oslo Accords, Israel has full civilian and military control over Area C, which includes many Jewish settlements as well as Palestinian villages. The move is part of a broader plan to invest approximately NIS 20 million in various projects meant to improve the quality of life in the West Bank, as part of a series of gestures toward the Palestinians designed to lessen the diplomatic pressure on Israel. The project, however, is politically sensitive in light of Israel’s new coalition government, as right-wing parties view Area C as a primary area of struggle against the Palestinian Authority. Habayit Hayehudi chairman Naftali Bennett, for example, has proposed annexing Area C.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israel-to-retroactively-legalize-palestinian-construction-in-area-c-of-west-bank.premium-1.510502?localLinksEnabled=false

Briefing: Beyond the E-1 Israeli settlement
[with map] This is the second in a two-part series on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory JERUSALEM, 18 March 2013 (IRIN) – Last month, an international fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council found that settlements constituted a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law and called on Israel to stop all expansions immediately and withdraw from settlements. A controversial Israeli plan, known as E-1, to build thousands of housing units and hotel rooms near the Ma’ale Adummim settlement, has garnered much attention in the media because it would sever Palestinian East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. (See IRIN’s briefing on E-1 [the first in the two-part series] here.)
But at the same time, Israel has been moving forward with equally controversial settlement plans under less scrutiny and with unusual speed. As US President Barack Obama prepares to visit the region this week, IRIN takes a look at some of the details that have been overlooked in the discussion. What’s the Giv’at HaMatos plan? According to Israeli NGO Ir Amim (“City of Nations”), which works to preserve Jerusalem as a home for both Jews and Palestinians, one settlement plan of “critical importance” is Giv’at HaMatos.  In a sense, Giv’at HaMatos does in the south what E-1 does in the east. The planned large housing and hotel complex at the southern perimeter of Jerusalem would further disrupt the contiguity of land between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank required for a future Palestinian state, seriously impeding a two-state solution, research and rights groups say. It would also mark the first new settlement construction in Jerusalem since 1997. “All construction is problematic but there are several plans that are, in our view, more dangerous if implemented,” Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch project at the Israeli NGO Peace Now, told IRIN. “Giv’at HaMatos is the most dangerous plan that is now approved.”
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/97676/Briefing-Beyond-the-E-1-Israeli-settlement

Israel to build desert mega-bases, freeing up land in Tel Aviv
TEL AVIV (Reuters) 18 Mar — Israel’s military plans to vacate land worth $14 billion and move most of its headquarters from the heart of Tel Aviv in a $7 billion project intended to alleviate an acute national shortage of room for housing. The Bank of Israel, concerned by surging housing prices, has called on the government, which controls about 93 percent of land in Israel, to free up more of it to meet demand.  The Israeli army headquarters, known as the Kirya, or campus in Hebrew, sits on 47 acres in central Tel Aviv, complete with rooftop helicopter pad, a city landmark. The sprawling Tel Hashomer base, where every conscript is inducted, is among a dozen other bases nearby taking up precious space in what are now swank residential and business districts … In all about 30,000 soldiers, officers and their families will need to move to Beersheba and surrounding areas in the Negev desert, which makes up two-thirds of Israel’s land. [more Bedouins displaced?]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576268

Sheikh Jarrah family fears eviction
JERUSALEM (Ma‘an) 19 Mar — An 82-year-old grandfather and his family are awaiting an Israeli Supreme Court decision that could evict them from an East Jerusalem home they have lived in since 1964. Ayyoub Shamasnah, 82, lives with his wife, children and grandchildren in a two-room 65-square-meter house in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood targeted by Jewish settlers who have already evicted several Palestinian families. The Shamasnah family moved to Sheikh Jarrah after they were displaced from Qatanna village during the creation of Israel in 1948. They initially paid rent to Jordanian authorities, who were responsible for East Jerusalem until 1967 when Israel occupied the city. Since 1968, the family has paid rent to Israeli authorities as protected leaseholders.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576611

Palestinians buy land to protect future state and generations
Farkha (Guardian) 18 Mar by Phoebe Greenwood –  A son of refugees has battled with the Palestinian Authority to create hundreds of plots with title deeds for Palestinians to own — Ali and Sana Dabbagh were amazed at how easy it was to buy a piece of Palestinian land. Their parents fled in the 1948 war, leaving their homes forever. But more than 60 years later, it took just one click of a mouse for them to claim their own hilltop outside the ancient village of Farkha, looking out over undulating terraces of olive and almond trees towards Tel Aviv. “It felt unreal. We’ve bought land elsewhere before but there’s an emotional factor when it comes to Palestine – it was hard for me to accept that I owned land there,” Ali recalled. “It had also been pretty much impossible to buy land in Palestine and guarantee that you owned it until we met Khaled.” Khaled Sabawi, the Canadian-born son of Palestinian refugees, launched Tabo three years ago. Appropriating the Ottoman term for “title deed”, the business was built upon a dream of his father’s to help Palestinians buy Palestinian land. It is a dream that most of the estimated 5 million scattered Palestinian refugees would consider impossible…
The conflict that Barack Obama flies into this week for the first time during his presidency is essentially an Israeli-Palestinian battle for land. It is a fight for ownership of the 10,000 sq miles (26,000 sq km) of historic Palestine claimed by both sides as a holy land and a homeland. In terms of “facts on the ground”, it is a battle that Israel is winning.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/palestinians-land-protect-future

Police ignore Palestinian complaint about settler violence
972mag 18 Mar by Yesh Din, written by Yossi Gurvitz — An attempt to kill a family in its sleep would force almost any police force to make an extra effort in catching the perpetrators. Not when the police are Israeli and the victims Palestinian — Late one night in May 2012, H., a resident of the West Bank village Einbus, was awakened when he heard a noise outside his house. He went towards the window, heard dogs barking and then smelled smoke. He ran to the balcony where he noticed two things: first and foremost, his car was on fire; second, three or four settlers — in the usual pogrom attire of yarmulkes, black trousers and white shirts — were speedily making a getaway, running to the nearby outpost near the settlement of Yitzhar. H. wanted to pursue them, but two concerns prevented him from doing so. First, they might be armed. Second, the burning vehicle was very close to the house and its flames were advancing rapidly. H. shouted and woke his father and brother. They went out to put out the fire and evacuated the rest of the family members. After some struggle — lucky for them they had a fire hydrant in the yard — they managed to put out the fire. But by the end of it the main door of the house was already burned, the car was a total loss (the damage is estimated at NIS 35,000, or about $9,500) and the front of the house was covered in soot.
http://972mag.com/police-ignores-palestinian-complaint-about-settler-violence/67757/

Official: Settlers smash 18 cars in West Bank rampage
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 19 Mar — Israeli settlers on Tuesday smashed the windscreens of 18 Palestinian cars and a bus in Nablus, a Palestinian Authority official said. The settlers started rioting after Israeli forces evacuated two illegal outposts in Nablus, said Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement building in the northern West Bank. Israeli forces closed a main road in the area, Daghlas told Ma‘an.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576787

6 outpost structures razed in West Bank
Ynet 19 Mar — A day before US President Barack Obama arrives in Israel, IDF and police forces razed six structures in two illegal outposts in the West Bank. Settlers criticized Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government for trying to appease the US president by destroying the structures … “The aim is to silence the call for the construction of new towns but we shall rebuild the outposts in the coming days bigger than before.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4358232,00.html

Settlers damage tractors near Nablus
NABLUS (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Israeli settlers on Monday damaged four tractors belonging to Palestinian farmers south of Nablus, a Palestinian Authority official said. Dozens of residents of Yizhar settlement stopped farmers in Burin from reaching their land and threw hundreds of nails in front of their tractors, said Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576211

Palestinian sues West Bank settler in theft of his goats
Haaretz 19 Mar by Amira Hass — The Judea and Samaria District police recommend charges against a Jewish settler suspected of selling goats that were stolen from a Palestinian man, who previously sued the Beit Hagai resident. The case file now goes to the district prosecution department for its decision … Communicating through his own lawyer, Itamar Ben Gvir, [Yitzhak] Nir has denied any connection to the theft. Calling the lawsuit a part of the ongoing “harassment by leftist [?] organizations of settlers in the southern Hebron Hills,” the Beit Hagai resident said he was in these organizations’ “crosshairs.” …  In his suit [Yousef] Hersh claims he saw the settlers, whom he did not recognize, cut 14 nanny goats out of the flock and lead them to Beit Hagai using force. According to Hersh the nannies were from a particularly fine breed and in their prime reproductive years, being in the early stages of gestation.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/palestinian-sues-west-bank-settler-in-theft-of-his-goats.premium-1.510324

My neighborhood: a Palestinian boy’s view of Israeli settlements – VIDEO
Guardian 17 Mar — My Neighbourhood (directed by Julia Bacha and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi) tells the story of Mohammed El Kurd, a Palestinian teenager growing up in the heart of East Jerusalem. When Mohammed’s family is forced to give up a part of their home to Israeli settlers, local residents begin peaceful protests, and in a surprising turn, are quickly joined by scores of Israeli supporters. Mohammed comes of age in the face of unrelenting tension with his neighbours and unexpected co-operation with Israeli allies in his backyard. My Neighbourhood is latest short film by Just Vision, an organisation that uses film and media to increase the power and legitimacy of Palestinians and Israelis working to end the occupation and resolve the conflict nonviolently. Learn more about Just Vision at www.justvision.org
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/mar/17/my-neighbourhood-palestinian-israeli-video

Displaced Palestinians return to village after 64 years
[photos] 972mag 18 Mar by Haggai Matar — The third generation of the displaced community of Iqrit decided that they’d had enough of waiting for authorities to allow them to return to their village lands, taking matters into their own hands. Last August, they set up their base in a room adjacent to the old church and haven’t left since — In 1948, the Christian Orthodox village of Iqrit surrendered to the IDF without a fight. When soldiers ordered residents to leave for two weeks for security reasons, considering the village is extremely close to the Lebanese border, nobody thought twice about it. Three years later, in July 1951, when the High Court of Justice ordered the state to fulfill its promise and allow the displaced people, who were still living in temporary houses in other villages, to return to their homes and lands, the small community was thrilled. But on Christmas Eve of that year the IDF blew up the entire village, leaving only the church in place. The people of Iqrit realized that something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
http://972mag.com/displaced-palestinians-return-to-village-after-64-years/66378/

South Hebron hills activists defy army, rebuild tent
HEBRON, March 18 (WAFA) – South Hebron Hills activists rebuilt a tent near the village of At-Tuwani that provides shelter for schoolchildren after it was torn down twice by Israeli soldiers, a press statement by the international peace group Operation Dove said Monday … The schoolchildren use the tent as shelter as they wait outdoors for an Israeli military escort to protect them from settler violence on the way to and from school. The children from the South Hebron Hills villages of Tuba and Maghayir Al Abeed, aged 6 to 16 years, must wait for this escort in all kinds of weather and the escort is sometimes late. The statement said that during last week settlers in the South Hebron Hills area outpost of Havat Ma’on began a new illegal building. The Israeli authorities did nothing to stop the construction. Photos
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=21911

Russell Tribunal accuses Israel of apartheid violations
MEMO 18 Mar — The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) demanded on Sunday that the ICC investigate crimes against humanity being committed by Israel in the Palestinian occupied territories. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which was created in 2009 to look into the various accountabilities that have led to the continued occupation of the Palestinian Territories and the non-application of UN resolutions, held its fourth hearing in Brussels. The Tribunal recommended that the UN General Assembly reconstitute the UN Special Committee against Apartheid and convene a special session to consider the question of apartheid against the Palestinian people. It also called on the UN to examine the nature, consequences and legal status of Israel’s prolonged occupation and apartheid.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/5519-russell-tribunal-accuses-israel-of-apartheid-violations

Violence / Raids / Closures / Clashes / Arrests

IOF kidnap nine Palestinians today in West Bank
WEST BANK (PIC) 19 Mar — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped Tuesday morning nine Palestinian citizens in different West Bank areas. The citizens were kidnapped during violent raids on towns and refugee camps in Jenin and Al-Khalil cities.
The IOF also clashed with Palestinian young men on Monday afternoon near Jenin city and intensified its military measures in the vicinity of Nablus city. Local sources said that the clashes broke out after Israeli soldiers set up barriers at the entrance to Jaba village near Jenin and embarked on stopping vehicles and checking IDs, adding that several citizens suffered tear gas suffocation during the events. The IOF also established a checkpoint near Yitzhar settlement south of Nablus and tightened its military measures at other checkpoints, like Za‘tara, Badan and Deir Sharaf, according to eyewitnesses.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7D6wyj6VKUntOjqhXei6j535Ctyygr2tVFloaCRUm3myXDyXAx3cP0jBahNgRKvDt%2f0mE0pYVKJQgI4WGhBK4pE8NIlaU8J8peW%2bRny1NoZE%3d

IOF soldiers detain 41 Palestinian children in March
AL-KHALIL (PIC) 18 Mar — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up 41 Palestinian children in the first half of March while eight minors were injured in the same period at the hands of IOF soldiers. The report published by the children media office in Ramallah on Monday said that the IOF soldiers escalated attacks on Palestinian children. It said that dozens of Palestinian children came under attack and were wounded during peaceful demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. In the same context, Mohammed Awad, the coordinator of the popular committee in Beit Ummar in Al-Khalil province, said that IOF soldiers arrested 16 children in the village since start of 2013.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s75RGpsvhAqysIHLr37EdMYrPoQCvdwvslsYztFvAHGTuvFNi2YsENWy0Gs0TLxCKKsmq15vS8%2f%2bi4Kv1cKS2y%2bp9Dv6%2bKq7%2fvvdzAAJKrzLU%3d

ISR police kidnap two children in Jerusalem
Monday March 18, 2013, Two children identified as Deena Morad Jweiles, 14, and her brother Mohammad, 12, have been kidnapped by the Israeli Police after being attacked and harassed by an Israeli settler in Wadi Hilweh, in Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem, the Wadi Hilweh Information Center reported. The center said that an Israeli settler, age 14, living in an illegal settlement outpost in Silwan, attacked the two children as they were heading to school, and sprayed pepper-spray at them. Their father said that Deena and Mohammad were trying to defend themselves, and that his daughter was carrying a butter knife in her bag, as she uses it to prepare sandwiches for herself and for her brother. After being attacked by the settler, she took the knife out and was waving it around in an attempt to scare the settler hoping he would run away. He added that guards of the “City of David” settlement detained his son and daughter and called for the Police. They were then arrested, and were charged with “attempting to stab” the settler. They were taken to an Israeli Police station in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, and were interrogated for six hours … The two were released on bail (3000NIS each)
http://www.imemc.org/article/65233

Most of the recent Israeli arrests were carried out by undercover units
RAMALLAH (PIC) 19 Mar — …Ahrar Center for Prisoners’ Studies and Human Rights, confirmed in a press statement on Tuesday, that most of recent Israeli arrests against Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem were carried out by undercover units disguised in civilian clothes. The center stressed that these units are known for their barbaric and brutal ways in arresting Palestinians, pointing out that most of the detainees who were detained during the recent arrest campaign are children.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7NItrjTgHfBNBKSOLoClKza2EdXlC8k%2bI%2badUr6kjWh%2fkogbYK46PgTaZOOajZ4JFHwjukDNesHPcdGBwd3eML%2bBpu9E8GwE14HcgxFt52%2fU%3d

Israeli police arrest Jerusalem students in crackdown on Palestinian campus movement
Haifa (EI) 18 Mar by Yara Sa’di — The repression of the Palestinian student movement at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has intensified since Israel’s attacks on Gaza last November, as four Palestinian students were arrested in the past month. On 6 March, Israeli police brutally attacked and arrested three Palestinian students shortly after a peaceful demonstration in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes which was held at the campus’ entrance. Palestinian students at the university have been organizing weekly demonstrations in support of Palestinian political prisoners on and just outside campus.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-police-arrest-jerusalem-students-crackdown-palestinian-campus-movement/12289

Hamas condemns IOF storming, arrest of leader Eshtiye
(PIC) 18 Mar — Hamas movement condemned the Israeli arrest on Sunday of its leader Jamil Eshtiye after savagely storming into his home and terrorizing his family. A responsible source in the movement said it holds the Israeli occupation authority fully responsible for any harm done to Eshtiye and warned it of further targeting Palestinian leaders. The source described the method of arrest as a desperate attempt reflecting the fear of the Israeli army soldiers and officers.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7bNlZuPCjmfwoWyxtCtkOcoOiP6AZo76XKeVoTssIkPyjHV3Zc2ikA1NCq79F2TMWj4MYC9Q56jzbws%2bLtlt%2b1doMTVbK8JnFfORAi0bncmI%3d

Settler injured by gunfire near Qalqiliya
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 18 Mar  – An Israeli settler was injured by gunfire on Monday near Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, the Israeli army said. The Israeli was hit near the entrance to Qedumim settlement, an army spokesman said, adding that soldiers were searching the area for suspects. A military source told Ma‘an that it appeared the fire came from a passing vehicle. The Israeli news site Ynet reported that the victim was a 71-year-old man and that he was shot in the legs. Locals reported a heavy deployment of troops in the area. They said forces closed several main roads and erected flying checkpoints.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576182

IOF closes Jeet barrier in Nablus, storms Fawar camp
WEST BANK (PIC) 18 Mar — The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) closed Jeet [or Jit] barrier that links between the cities of Nablus and Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, after an armed attack against an Israeli settler in that area …
Meanwhile, the IOF stormed on Monday Fawwar refugee camp southof al-Khalil in the West Bank, where Israeli patrols were deployed near the southern entrance of the district. Dozens of soldiers stormed the camp, roaming between its neighborhoods, no arrests were reported, eyewitnesses told PIC reporter. Occupation patrols have also stormed the southern entrance to the city of al-Khalil and the entrance to Beit Haggai settlement built on Palestinian land.
In a related context, the Israeli occupation forces arrested at dawn on Monday the liberated prisoner Kedar Ghaith, 33, from al-Khalil after storming his house, where he was taken to unknown destination. The occupation authorities have released Kedar a few months ago, where he spent 7 years in Israeli jails.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7T260KUJEUbgN0vaF6AIDxQDJo1RYAZVy3dxNv2mMsqL9J%2fF86dn6hfUUYvDNT1H0wALb5YVdgbPJWqm7D1jwf23ZyKeC8xgm5vbM%2buSNKKw%3d

PA security services arrest 2 Hamas supporters
WEST BANK (PIC) 19 Mar — PA security services arrested two Hamas supporters in al-Khalil and Jerusalem, and banned a family from visiting their son in PA jails. PA preventive security arrested the liberated prisoner Kedar Ghaith after storming and searching his house in al-Khalil, and confiscating his mobile phone and computer. In Bedo town near Jerusalem, PA security services arrested the liberated prisoner Hamza Nabil Abu Eid, bringing the political detainees’ number to 12 in PA jails. The PA agencies have also banned the father of the liberated prisoner and political prisoner in Jericho prison Ayoub Mohammed Alkhaddor, from visiting his son under the pretext of being under investigation.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s78JhquVTG69gjcE2PT4GhxU0oQtHZnMR5sY4I5D1D%2bCBb1qCG%2bF6fl19QcgPVCyMLLjSrhl4kUvagWrWAVr9y92k9VBkijNy%2bnlrw%2bO%2f3XFo%3d

Prisoners / Hunger strikers / Court actions

Statement from Samer Issawi who has spent over 240 days on hunger strike
ISM 19 Mar — The following statement by Samer Issawi was posted on his Facebook page by his lawyer Fawwaz Shloudy. It was translated from Arabic to English by Shahd Abusalama. “Regarding the Israeli Occupation offer to deport me to Gaza, I affirm that Gaza is undeniable part of my homeland and its people are my people. However, I will visit Gaza whenever I want or I feel like it as it is within my homeland Palestine which I have the right to wander whenever I like from the very north to the very south. I strongly refuse to be deported to Gaza as this practice will just bring back bitter flashbacks from the expulsion process which our Palestinian people were subjected to during 1948 and 1967. We are fighting for the sake of freedom of our land and return of our refugees in Palestine and exile, not to add more deportees to them. This systematic practice which Israel aims to empty Palestine from Palestinians through and bring strangers in their place is but a crime. Therefore, I refuse being deported and I will only agree to be released to Jerusalem as I know that the Israeli Occupation is aiming to empty Jerusalem of its people and turn Arabs to become a minority group of its population … I would prefer to die on my hospital bed to being deported from Jerusalem. Jerusalem is my soul and my life. If I was uprooted from there, my soul would be uprooted from my body. My life is meaningless away from Jerusalem. No land on earth will be able to embrace me other than Jerusalem….
http://palsolidarity.org/2013/03/statement-from-samer-issawi-who-has-spent-over-240-days-on-hunger-strike/

Exile in Gaza is not the victory we want for out heroic prisoners
EI 18 Mar by Shahd Abusalama — “It doesn’t matter if he goes to Gaza,” said Zahra Sharawna, Ayman Sharawna’s mother. “To be freed is the most important thing.” I understand how these words could come from a mother who fears for her son’s life. She, driven by her motherly emotions, simply wants him to live, even if many Israeli apartheid checkpoints separate her from him. But I must question was that actually the victory that Ayman Sharawna’s hunger strike aimed to accomplish, to get out of prison alive regardless of release conditions? I don’t think so. A Palestinian’s fight has never been about oneself. It has always been a collective resistance of different forms, for the sake of collective justice for all Palestinian people. Some national principles identify our struggle for freedom. Every Palestinian revolutionary should be armed with them. One is embracing our right to return as the most sacred and ultimate goal.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/shahd-abusalama/exile-gaza-not-victory-we-want-our-heroic-prisoners

WATCH: Samer Issawi — the stomach as a weapon
972mag 19 Mar by Israeli Social TV — interview with Shirine Issawi, Samer’s sister
http://972mag.com/watch-samer-issawi-the-stomach-as-a-weapon/67801/

Issawi’s mother to Obama: Save my son’s life
Al-Akhbar 19 Mar — The mother of jailed Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi called on US President Barack Obama Tuesday to “immediately intervene” to save his life in an open letter posted to Facebook. In the statement, which comes on the eve of Obama’s visit to Israel and the West Bank, Layla Issawi urged the US president to cleanse his hands of her son’s blood by pressuring Israel to free him. “I … call on you — the most important ally of Israel, as you describe yourself, and the president of the most powerful country in the world, as others describe you — to immediately intervene to save my son’s life,”the letter read. “This is your chance to save Samer from the fangs of this brutal occupation, so as not to ask myself with millions of others around the world: why did you come to us?”
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/issawis-mother-obama-save-my-sons-life

PCHR: Sharawna deportation violates Geneva Conventions
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — The deportation to Gaza of hunger-striking prisoner Ayman Sharawna is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, a Palestinian rights group said Monday. Sharawna arrived in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening after signing a deportation deal to end an 8-month long hunger strike in Israeli jail. Forcible deportation is a form of collective punishment prohibited under the fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not,” PCHR said in a statement. The deal stipulates that Sharawna would stay in Gaza for 10 years before being able to return to his home in Gaza … Sharawna, 36, is from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, and is married with nine children.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576313

Medics: Sharawna in stable condition
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 18 Mar – Ayman Sharawna has multiple health problems but is in a stable condition, after over eight months on hunger strike, the health ministry in Gaza said Monday … [details]… Sharawna is being treated in intensive care at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576118

Prisoner to continue strike until Israel ends his detention
RAMALLAH, March 18, (WAFA) — Palestinian prisoner Younis al-Haroub from Hebron, who has been hunger striking for 27 days, said that he will not end his hunger strike until Israel releases him,  Monday said the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC). It said, following a visit to al-Haroub, that he lost six kilograms since his arrest and that he will not end his strike until Israel ends his administration detention. Israel arrested al-Haroub on July 9, 2012 and his detention was renewed for six months twice.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=21912

Palestinian cartoonist detained for a month as prisoner protests grow
972mag 15 Mar by Haggai Matar — Mohammad Saba‘aneh, an important Palestinian political cartoonist, has been in prison for about a month now. Friends and supporters suspect his detention is related to the growing protests on the issue of Palestinian prisoners and the international concern over hunger strikers, including a new resolution in the European Parliament … Mohammad Saba‘aneh (30) was arrested on February 16 while returning from a work-related trip to Jordan … Since his arrest, local and international artists and journalists have been calling for Saba‘aneh’s release, claiming that his only crime is criticizing the occupation with his pen and palate of colors. The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, Reporters without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists and several Israeli cartoonists and artists have already taken a stand against their colleague’s prolonged detention without charge, and some demonstrated outside the courthouse during the latest detention hearing.
http://972mag.com/palestinian-cartoonist-detained-for-a-month-as-prisoner-protests-grow/67621/

ICRC: Israel suspends Gaza prisoner visits for 3 weeks
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Israel has suspended family visits to prisoners from Gaza for three weeks for Jewish holidays, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday.  Israeli authorities informed the ICRC that residents of Gaza would not be allowed to visit their relatives jailed in Israel for three weeks, ICRC spokeswoman Arwa Muhana told Ma‘an … Under international law, detainees are entitled to receive family visits.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576174

Israeli court delays trial of Abu Arafah and Totah
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (PIC) 18 Mar — The so-called District Court in occupied Jerusalem on Sunday adjourned the trial of former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs Khalid Abu Arafa and MP for Jerusalem Mohammed Totah to April 10. The trial’s postponement came at the request of the prosecution under the pretext it was not ready for presenting its case, according Fadi Qawasmi, the lawyer for the two detainees. The lawyer pointed out that the Public Prosecutor has delayed the trial for the second time, where it demanded to sentence the two detainees for high provisions under the pretext of their high positions in Hamas movement. MP Ahmed Attoun was turned to administrative detention for 6 months under the pretext of contacting some of Hamas leaders in West Bank. The last court session was positive, where the court refused the Israeli internal minister’s decision to withdraw their identity cards.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s76%2b%2fVDvOwKLLaTzorZDhT2TKaX0ct04t6QWPQ3BtBShR4t5XVakdM%2fPGo%2bzadMcShOuqKtSuZKziy5dk748fkUTOVRRE%2b%2bQ7fnwEp4z2kwmQ%3d

Public meeting at House of Lords will discuss Jerusalem exiled MPs
LONDON (PIC) 18 Mar — Since the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections in 2006, parliamentarians from Jerusalem (including a former minister) have suffered intimidation, imprisonment and forced deportation, by the Israeli authorities. A new report, released this week, by the Arab Organisation for Human Rights, UK (AOHR), catalogues the campaign by Israeli Authority agencies against PLC officials; Mohammed Mahmoud Abu Teir, Ahmed Mohammed Atoun, Mohammad Imran Totah and the former Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Khaled Ibrahim Abu Arafah … On Wednesday March 20th 2013, a public meeting will take place at the House of Lords, London, hosted by Baroness Jenny Tonge, who writes: ‘I urge all the democratic peoples of Europe and the USA to call for justice for these men and to take steps to force the Israeli authorities to release and return the MP’s, who it must be emphasised, have neither committed nor been charged with any criminal act,’ she says.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7u2sSO%2f%2bQoRAcxTzKjWc8dmhpm%2bntShxMnR%2fhi9mi2rylH2VtERTq1rTF6a6tzaSejKFf6qG1QqQA%2bBVJfdBA660mMpZ1ZIuzMmztls30YBo%3d

One week before killing Palestinian dad, Israeli policeman stated wish on Facebook to kill Arabs
Jerusalem (EI) 15 Mar by Nora Lester Murad — One week before he shot Palestinian motorist Ziad Jilani in the head at point blank range, Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov expressed on Facebook his wish to kill Arabs and Turks. And on his profile on another social media site, Vinogradov identifies himself as belonging to the extreme right, expresses his love for violence, names “undocumented Arab workers” as his favorite sport, his hobbies as “hitting and destroying things,” and for the category of favorite food, he lists “Arabs.” The Israeli border police claim that on 11 June 2010, Jilani attempted to run them over in a terrorist attack in the Wadi al-Joz neighborhood of Jerusalem, and, fearing for their lives, they shot to kill in accordance with police procedures. The Israeli state prosecutor agreed with police claims and refused to press charges against Vinogradov and Police Superintendent Shadi Har al-Din, both of whom admitted to shooting Jilani. Jilani’s family is now pursuing justice for Ziad in Israel’s highest court.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/one-week-killing-palestinian-dad-israeli-policeman-stated-wish-facebook-slay-arabs/12273

Gaza siege

Fuel crisis in Gaza
GAZA (PIC) 19 Mar — Fuel is in acute shortage in the Gaza Strip as fuel stations have almost completely run out of fuel, Mohammed Al-Abadla, board member of the society for owners of fuel stations in Gaza, said on Tuesday. Abadla told Quds Press that the crisis surfaced over the past three days since fuel from Egypt (via tunnels) was almost nil while crossings with Israel were closed. Gaza needs 400,000 liters of fuel per day while the power station needs more than 500,000 liters of fuel daily. Abadla warned of possible negative ramifications if the crisis continued in the few coming days. He said that the Egyptian security campaign in northern Sinai, the repeated closure of crossings for Jewish feasts, and restrictions on distribution in the enclave had greatly worsened the crisis.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7OwqeSGJKrPv%2bLapQhEa2dUumKbyrrgq95HHcBlH%2f7bzNwk2b6evwqH9PveyIPBfxPOz1oOFkGNp9nHzda4QOz6ogvsEPstUOssPuZphyfDs%3d

Israel launches mock raids on Gaza
GAZA (PIC) 18 Mar — Israeli warplanes launched a series of mock raids off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Monday morning. The PIC reporter said that the mock raids caused big bangs that resounded in all areas of the coastal enclave. He said that the warplanes were flying at low altitudes and did not stop launching more raids till the afternoon hours.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7gFmDA8MYz6DxHiHKD8IpZSrP%2bLEkj7U8KNqKYUGAcHUJEHH8OfcxuoFx5vvYTdasdebkKhONY1ibtO7XSpZxnAzCDcoH%2fIzKCiS3nlZKJx4%3d

Rachel Corrie’s legacy highlights continuing role of bulldozers that crush Gaza
Rafah (EI) 18 Mar by Joe Catron — US President Barack Obama’s impending visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank lent urgency and focus to the Rachel Corrie Cultural Center for Children and Youth’s annual commemoration on Saturday of its namesake’s death a decade ago … The Israeli military bulldozer that killed Corrie, rolling over her twice as she attempted to block its demolition of a Palestinian home near Rafah’s border with Egypt on 16 March 2003, was a weaponized Caterpillar D9.It had been made by Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. and sold to Israel through the US Department of Defense’s Foreign Military Sales program…
Since its 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel has demolished more than 18,000 homes there (“Factsheet: Home Demolitions and Caterpillar,” Center for Constitutional Rights). Today, Israel’s D9s are known mainly for the ongoing demolitions of Palestinian homes in Israel and the West Bank. But their use in the Gaza Strip also continues. Gaza’s Palestinian Centre for Human Rights “documented the bulldozing of 55,833 dunums (13,797 acres) of land in the Gaza Strip, of which 50,193 was agricultural land and 2,646 was forest land,” between October 2000 and November 2010 (“The right to food in the Gaza Strip,” PCHR, November 2012 [PDF]).”Caterpillar bulldozers destroyed my farm east of Khan Younis three months ago,” Mourad Qidah, a farmer in Khuzaa, said. “I can see them operating across the fence almost every day.”
http://electronicintifada.net/content/rachel-corries-legacy-highlights-continuing-role-bulldozers-crush-gaza/12286

Gaza women face problems after leaving Israeli jails
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — Despite the warm reception and celebrations female prisoners receive in Gaza after being released from Israeli jails, many face social and familial difficulties upon returning to normal life. In many cases, ex-female prisoners either get divorced or remain single into old age if unmarried. Wafaa al-Bis, an ex-prisoner from Gaza, was detained in 2005 and sentenced to 12 years for allegedly planning an operation against Israel. She was released after seven years and told Ma‘an she suffers from marginalization, exclusion and degrading treatment. “Our society views freed female prisoners as women who were raped. My question is whether they think female prisoners were raped willingly or raped while their hands were cuffed!” she told Ma‘an. Wafaa has third degree burns from a past accident and complains that it is hard for her to get medical treatment due to her status as an ex-prisoner … Over the last 45 years, an estimated 10,000 Palestinian women have been detained under Israeli military orders, Addameer says.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576353

Asmaa, the last free woman of Gaza
Gaza (Le Monde) 18 Mar by Laurent Zecchini — They have almost all left: Bachar for Sweden, May for Spain, Imad for Tunisia, Mohamed for Qatar, Assad for Egypt, Adham for Belgium. Moustapha, Asmaa’s brother also left for Belgium, while Mohamed Matar, aka Abou Yazan, the leader of the short-lived March 15 Movement, that tried to bring the Arab Spring to Gaza, has gone to Germany. Too much repression from Hamas, too much disappointment from waiting for an intra-Palestinian reconciliation that never came. Too much suffering, too many wars and hardships, but most of all – the Israeli blockade. A hope that has died and a future that is dead-ended, especially for young graduates. So many young people have left, but Asmaa stayed — determined, courageous, as combative as ever. If there should only be one person left, it should be her. “I could have gone too, but I love Gaza, and Europe bores me. Over there, I am nothing, and there is nothing to change. I need challenges, fights to fight and causes to defend.” Asmaa leaves our meeting like she arrived, by foot, her hair uncovered, wearing [jeans] and not caring one bit about what others think. While she was telling me her story, she chain-smoked and pointed to the beach below the hotel.
http://www.worldcrunch.com/world-affairs/asmaa-the-last-free-woman-of-gaza/asmaa-el-ghoul-hamas-human-rights-islamisation/c1s11122/#.UUl3slfiluQ

UNRWA completes first phase of Saudi-funded refugee social housing project
MEMO 19 Mar — EXCLUSIVE PICTURES — Hundreds of Palestinian refugee families have expressed overwhelming joy after being allocated new homes in the city of Rafah. A Palestinian refugee housing project funded through the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) using Saudi Arabian finance has completed the construction of 750 new houses in Rafah city. The houses were opened last month and each qualifying Palestinian family was allocated a new home. Special service facilities such as schools, mosques, a market and gardens have also been set up in the vicinity while both main and subsidiary roads have been paved. Many of the refugees being re-housed previously lived along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. A number of them also lived illegally on Palestinian government land and were evicted by the relevant authorities. Many have also been exposed to significant levels of harm over the past few years as their homes were often in the firing line during the intifada while others were razed to the ground.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/5524-unrwa-completes-first-phase-of-saudi-funded-refugee-social-housing-project

Qatari committee announces first phase of Gaza building projects
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 18 Mar — A Qatari committee announced Monday that a local construction company has been contracted to begin the first phase of reconstruction projects in the Gaza Strip. Head of the Qatari committee Muhammad al-Amadi said that the project to rebuild Salah Addin street, running from Rafah to Khan Younis, will cost over $70 million. Gazans can now start registering to buy apartments in the newly planned Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa housing project in Khan Younis, al-Amadi added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576402

Sabr
Ingaza 17 Mar by Eva Bartlett — I asked Emad to talk about sabr, patience, as the cactus and the noun are essential to life in Gaza. He replied, somewhat cheekily and with the usual Palestinian dry humour: “Illi bedo e3esh fi Falesteen o buzzpt fi Gaza lazem yspoor o yokel saber min Gaza. Gher hek, ma begder y3esh fe Gaza.“ If you want to live in Palestine, especially Gaza, you must be patient (yspoor) and eat Gazan cactus fruit (sabr) If not, you won’t make it in Gaza … Gaza abounds with cactus plants, many varieties, but the most common is the broad, flat-stemmed plant that lines roads and is traditionally used as a natural wall between plots. When I visited Abu Taima land in southeastern Gaza three years ago, Mohammed, a teen, told me the cacti take five years to mature. Like Zionist-bulldozed olive and citrus trees, cacti are sorely missed for the years it takes them to re-grow. A month later I re-visited after the village elder from the same Abu Taima family called me to tell me the Zionists had just bulldozed his land, once again plowing his crops, including cacti, under the earth…
Every day in Gaza requires sabr, the noun. When the power cuts. When cooking gas has run out Strip-wide. When Zionist warplanes are flying over, terrorizing. When Zionist warplanes, warships, drones and tanks are bombing. When Zionist soldiers are firing live ammunition on Palestinian men, women and children trying to farm or be on their border region land or trying to fish.  When bank ATMs have no cash to dispense. When the taxi you share is circling, circling, to fill all the seats because this is the only way the driver will eek a living. When the blasting music of one happy family’s wedding celebration never seems to stop. [Sabr is originally a New World plant – many Americans will recognize it as the prickly pear cactus]
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/sabr/

Refugees outside Palestine

8 Palestinians killed, 250 families appeal for urgent help in Syria
DAMASCUS (PIC) 19 Mar — Eight Palestinians were killed on Monday in refugee camps in Syria, while 250 Palestinian families in Hamdania neighborhood in Homs city appealed to save their lives and secure their safe exit from the area. In a report, the action group for the Palestinians in Syria stated that two children, Farahat Mubarak and Hisham Namrawi, among four others were killed in Al-Yarmouk refugee camp, while two others were killed in Al-Husseiniya camp … The regime forces still impose a tight blockade on the access of fuel, food and medical supplies to the Palestinian refugee camps, the group noted.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7vWpKJaiK3xCeJ1OfbclOCmCNCmgaCC3NGTdvKmgpla7eUWKUaQVyL8vIQZATxoSGbtEUHRpqpEAhYkr5Rl%2flICqMwyIp%2blPZ0KjqUNvADYM%3d

Palestinians fleeing Syria face grim future in Lebanon
EI 15 Mar by Anne Irfan — …less has been said about the thousands of those refugees from Syria who are Palestinian. Their number is certainly not insignificant; the UN estimates that almost half of the 500,000 Palestinians in Syria have now become displaced, in many cases for the second time. Being Palestinian can create additional problems for those already facing the hardship of displacement. As they are not citizens of Syria, Palestinian refugees fleeing the war can be categorized separately. The Jordanian government, for instance, has issued stringent rules denying entry to any more Palestinians from Syria. Jordan claims to have provided ample assistance to the 5,000 Palestinians it has already absorbed from Syria and argues that it cannot take any more. Meanwhile, Palestinians who have fled Syria for Turkey or Iraq often face major bureaucratic challenges in receiving international aid, as the UN agency for Palestine refugees UNRWA does not operate in those countries. Their registration must therefore be transferred to the UNHCR and the process is not always fast or efficient.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinians-fleeing-syria-face-grim-future-lebanon/12279

Bridging the gap: the health workers who visit Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon
EI 19 Mar by Anne Irfan — Just under half of Palestinian refugees registered in Lebanon are aged under 25. One of the most striking features of any visit to the country’s Palestinian refugee camps is the visibly high number of children among the population. Accordingly, one of the greatest medical needs within the camps is for comprehensive and effective obstetrical care. Yet this is complicated by Lebanese labor laws, which bar Palestinians from working in professions that require syndicate membership, including both medicine and midwifery. Palestinians in the camps are therefore reliant on receiving these services from Lebanese health professionals, most of whom work in the national health system. That system is in turn unavailable to many Palestinians because as non-citizens, they are not entitled to government assistance with the high costs of medical care.
In Lebanon last month, I accompanied midwife Mariam and nurse Lamis on an ante-natal home visit within the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh, near the city of Sidon.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/bridging-gap-health-workers-who-visit-palestinian-refugee-camps-lebanon/12294

Activism / Solidarity / BDS

Waiting for Obama: Hebron youth take cue from US civil rights movement
[with photos] 972mag 16 Mar by Haggai Matar — … In front of us is a small landing at the top of a hill overlooking the old city, with the Cave of the Patriarchs in plain view. On the landing, a Palestinian youth guide is taking children on two-minute horse rides, one at a time. Watching the horse and its successive little riders are the kids whose turn is coming up, a group of settler girls in the same age group, and five soldiers in full combat gear. The group of girls, encouraged by the recent arrival of the soldiers, is starting to heckle the horse riding group. “You’re ugly,” shouts one girl at another child looking her way. “You’re all heathens and I want you all to die,” laughs another 7-year-old, meaning every word. “Why are we afraid? Let’s tell the soldiers to kick them and their horse so that we can play,” calls out a third as a challenge to her friends while holding a football in her hand. No one moves. Two older women pass by and one girl spits in their general direction and half-whispers “fat whores!” Nothing happens. The soldiers stand on the side, talking to each other, and the other kids keep going on and off the horse, looking timidly at the girls. They know that they cannot possibly talk back without the soldiers intervening.
In the background, loudspeakers are blasting a song into the air. “We shall overcome…” No. Seriously? Yes. This is Hebron. I came here after being invited by Youth against Settlements (YAS) — a local group dedicated to work with Palestinian youth and promote popular nonviolent protests against the occupation — in the one city which, more than anywhere else in the West Bank, has ‘apartheid’ written all over it…
Here, in this city, YAS decided to plan a special welcome for American President Obama. Dozens of children gathered today to learn about the history of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., and to write the first black President personal letters.
http://972mag.com/waiting-for-obama-a-surreal-saturday-in-hebron/67660/

Video: Irish group visits Bil‘in, West Bank, 16-3-2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bTE3ERqboxk

Interview: Boycotting Israel is ‘the way to go’, says Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters
Brussels (EI) 18 Mar — Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel … More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year. Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s. Waters spoke to The Electronic Intifada’s David Cronin.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/boycotting-israel-way-go-says-pink-floyd-legend-roger-waters/12287

How Israel derails the promising careers of Palestinian football stars
EI 19 Mar by Adri Nieuwhof — This month, former French sports minister Marie-George Buffet raised her voice, asking European football’s governing body to cancel its plan to hold this year’s under-21 championship in Israel. Buffet wrote to UEFA president Michel Platini saying that Israeli restrictions on freedom of movement for Palestinian athletes, and the groundless incarceration of football players of the Palestinian national teams, “are incompatible with the sport values that should be respected when organizing a major international competition.” In one of the most famous examples, Israel detained Palestinian national football team member Mahmoud Sarsak for three years without charge or trial and without visits from his family. He was released after a three-month hunger strike in protest of his detention. Sarsak was 22 when he was arrested. Palestinian rights organization Addameer reported the grave impact of the hunger strike on Sarsak’s health.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/how-israel-derails-promising-careers-palestinian-football-stars

Israeli professor working in the US calls Palestinian student a ‘cockroach’
EI 19 Mar by Gabriel Schivone and Nora Barrows-Friedman — Students in the five-college Claremont system in southern California are organizing against an act of racial discrimination by an Israeli professor who called a Palestinian student a “cockroach.” Since the incident became public, the student says he has faced violent threats written on his reserved seat in the campus library, and someone flattened one of the tires of his car with a sharpened key. The first incident occurred on Monday, 4 March, when the Claremont group of Students for Justice in Palestine launched its series of events marking Israeli Apartheid Week with street theater actions simulating mock Israeli military checkpoints at three of the colleges throughout the day. … Hamideh, having graduated from high school in the occupied West Bank where he lived for 10 years, remembers being “subject to this form of abuse many times before,” …Asked to comment on the situation, Liz Jackson, cooperating attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Palestine Solidarity Legal Support Initiative, wrote in an email to The Electronic Intifada: “This case epitomizes the repressive environment faced by students who stand up for Palestinian rights on campuses nationwide.” Jackson added that “from Brooklyn to Berkeley, from South Florida, to southern California, students are subjected to harassment, discriminatory treatment and legal threats.”
http://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-professor-working-us-calls-palestinian-student-cockroach/12296

Facebook freezes sports commentator’s account for supporting Palestine
DOHA, (PIC)– Facebook administration froze the account of sports commentator Essam Shawli after publishing a picture of Umm Nidal Farhat on his personal account expressing his condolences the Palestinian people on her death … In a related context, Facebook administration has also closed the account of the martyr Mahmoud Titi, who was killed by the occupation forces a week ago in Fawar camp in al-Khalil. The Friends of the martyr expressed their surprise that Titi’s personal account was closed permanently, saying that it was reminding them of their friend who was an activist in prisoners’ issue.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7jccl6IHu8L0%2fOkMXwhQAh8jWlmNEi%2fcAPLzXyGyhKjZ%2fz1HRo6Q0Oh4pbfZ3%2bi%2bORy5DUbANEdNxAKh7VXdn9lF5EwWuWBzXfTKwV3l%2fhoU%3d

Political and economic news

Fayyad, Ashton sign financial agreement before donor meeting
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 19 Mar — Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton signed a financial agreement on Tuesday before a donor meeting in Brussels. The agreement is worth 7 million euros ($9 million) and will contribute to Palestinian development, a statement from Ashton’s office said. “This agreement is aimed at supporting the Palestinian presence and promoting social and economic development in Area C, which we all know is of crucial importance for the economic viability of Palestine,” Ashton said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576690

PA employees in Gaza say salaries deducted to pay electricity debts
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 19 Mar — Palestinian Authority employees in Gaza said Monday that money has been deducted from their monthly salaries to pay debts to an electricity company. Civil servant Ibrahim Hamid told Ma‘an that more than 600 shekels ($163) was deducted from his February salary, which he received on Monday … Several other civil servants telephoned Ma’an offices in Gaza City to complain about deductions from their salaries. “For the first time in several months, Fayyad’s government has succeeded in paying a full monthly salary, however, the government deducted portions from salaries mounting in some cases to 800 shekels,” a lecturer at a public university in Gaza told Ma‘an. Ma‘an asked a lawyer to examine whether such deductions are legally acceptable, who confirmed that the deductions were illegal.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576450

Donors make progress on Palestinian aid
BRUSSELS, March 19, 2013 (AFP) – International donors are making progress toward finding the $1.2 billion needed to help fund the Palestinian Authority this year as it faces up to very difficult economic problems, officials said Tuesday. “We did achieve some more donations so it seems we are close” to the target, “which is good news”, said Norwegian Foreign Minister Epsen Barth Eide after talks with donors also chaired by EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton.
http://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/donors-make-progress-palestinian-aid

Fatah describes as ‘outlaws’ Palestinian mayors who met Israeli counterparts
MEMO 18 Mar — The Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Fatah, has described the heads of local municipalities who participated in meetings with their Israeli counterparts in Rome as “a bunch of outlaws”. A statement from Fatah said that such a meeting was unacceptable given Israel’s “fierce attack” on the Palestinian leadership and attempts to push national rights to one side …. Although Fatah has threatened to “prosecute” the mayors who took part in the Rome meeting “for rescuing the Israeli occupation authorities from international isolation”, commentators have noted that it is somewhat hypocritical given the role played by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in negotiating with the Israelis and collaborating with them on security matters. Such collaboration benefits Israelis at the expense of Palestinians, it has been pointed out.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/5516-fatah-describes-as-qoutlawsq-palestinian-mayors-who-met-israeli-counterparts

Other news

Poll: 69% of Americans against US involvement in peace talks
Ynet 18 Mar –  Most Americans are against US involvement in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to the poll, only 26% believe that the US must take the lead in peace talks as opposed to 69% who prefer to leave peace negotiations to the two protagonists.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4357656,00.html

LISTEN: Iraqi frequencies — ten years of occupation and resistance
EI 19 Mar by nora — …Ten years, and countless deaths, injuries, traumas, internal displacements, and environmental catastrophes later, Iraq is still struggling under the weight of an entrenched privatized occupation and fomented civil violence. And those American and European officials who instigated the invasion, war and occupation based on mendacious allegations have yet to face prosecution for their countless war crimes. In collaboration with the incredible online magazine ShakomakoNET, I produced an hour-long radio program featuring the voices of scholars, artists, journalists and activists reflecting on and assessing the last decade of social, political, economic and environmental upheaval created by the occupation of Iraq. These voices not just capture the last ten years of this calamity, but also the resilient spirit of Iraqis that has continued to flourish in spite of all that has happened, and continues to happen every day.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora/listen-iraqi-frequencies-ten-years-occupation-and-resistance

Hunger strikes at Guantánamo nearly double
Al Jazeera 19 Mar — The number of detainees on hunger strike at Guantánamo has nearly doubled since last week, with at least two prisoners hospitalised due to dehydration, officials at the military prison said. Captain Robert Durand, Guantánamo communications director, confirmed on Tuesday that 24 prisoners were on hunger strike, up from 15 since March 11, AFP reported. However, he rejected claims that the majority of detainees were involved in a more widespread protest. “Today, Tuesday, March 19, 2013, we have 24 hunger strikers, with eight on internal feed,” he said. “The reports of hunger-strike-related deteriorating health and detainees losing massive amounts of weight are simply untrue.” In recent weeks, lawyers returned from the US base in Cuba where the prison is located with accounts of clients weak from hunger and an angry standoff with guards.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/03/201331923053675659.html

Obama visit

As Obama prepares to visit Israel, there are mixed emotions on both sides
Jerusalem (Guardian) 17 Mar by Phoebe Greenwood — Palestinians and Israelis spoke to us about their hopes and fears before the US president’s visit to the region
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/17/barack-obama-israel-mixed-emotions

Obama faces a chilly reception in West Bank
RAMALLAH, West Bank (LA Times) 19 Mar by Maher Abukhater and Edmund Sanders — As Israelis roll out new red carpet and line streets with American flags for President Obama‘s visit, the U.S. leader faces a decidedly less enthusiastic reception in the West Bank, where the mood ranges from ho-hum to don’t come. On Tuesday, dozens of protesters called on Obama to cancel visits to Ramallah and Bethlehem, complaining that the president had failed to do enough to bring them statehood. Posters of Obama that had been hung along the streets of Ramallah in recent days were defaced Tuesday with spray-painted Xs or, in one case, a swastika. In Bethlehem, a poster was torn down and placed in the road. Some people threw their shoes at the president’s image.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-obama-palestinians-20130320,0,1592244.story

VIDEO: Dozens of activists remove sign depicting Obama in Bethlehem
PNN 18 March
http://uruknet.info/?p=m96089&hd=&size=1&l=e

Anti-Obama protesters scuffle with police
RAMALLAH (Reuters) 19 Mar by Noah Browning — Palestinian Authority police scuffled on Tuesday with scores of demonstrators protesting against the visit of US President Barack Obama to the occupied West Bank later this week. Dozens of officers and plainclothes policemen prevented the crowd from reaching the main offices of President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, leading to shoving, but no serious injuries … “It’s a slap in the face. People are angry and disappointed that this far into his presidency, Obama has done nothing, and aid to Israel’s occupation continues to flow,” demonstrator Huwaida Arraf said … A heavy security presence has been building up in Jerusalem and Ramallah ahead of Obama’s visit. About 5,000 Israeli police and security officers will provide security in the streets of Jerusalem, where main roads will be blocked off as police helicopters escort the presidential convoy. A Palestinian security source said 3,000 Palestinian policemen will be deployed in the West Bank, where protests have been on the rise in the past few weeks, with nine Palestinians killed in clashes with Israeli forces there since December.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=576791

Israeli settlers’ main road to be blockaded during Obama visit
Haaretz 19 Mar — U.S. President Barack Obama‘s scheduled visit to the cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem in two days will shut down the main artery serving settler vehicle traffic in the West Bank, Route 60, creating a temporary state of siege in the West Bank settlements. The road runs from north to south, connecting the two Palestinians cities and dividing the West Bank in two. Normally, the Israel Defense Forces forbids blocking any stretch of the road during day time. Any attempt by Palestinians to set up roadblocks triggers a violent reaction from the IDF. On the day of Obama’s visit the area the road will be closed for traffic for one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-settlers-main-road-to-be-blockaded-during-obama-visit.premium-1.510443?localLinksEnabled=false

Bethlehem removes historic ‘Palestine’ monument
JPost 19 Mar — The Bethlehem Municipality has removed a stone monument of historic Palestine out of concern that US President Barack Obama would see it during his visit to the city later this week. Palestinian activists expressed outrage over the removal of the monument, which ignores the existence of Israel, and called on the municipality to restore it immediately. But rather than wait for the municipality, the activists, together with some municipal council members, put the monument back in place..
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=306974&R=R3

America’s defender of the status quo(s) / Amira Hass
Haaretz 20 Mar — If a black president doesn’t change the internal American reality, why should anyone expect him to do anything against the Jewish separation regime that has been created here between the river and the sea? — You will be spared the sight of the barbed-wire fences and the wall that closes off Ramallah from the south, President Barack Obama. One wonders whether on your way to the Church of the Nativity you will look out for the snaking wall that is choking the Bethlehem reservation from the north. It sort of resembles the wall that’s between you and Mexico, and yet it’s very different, if only because of its dimensions, although for the Native Americans there, the Kumeyaay, for example, it brutally cuts through the landscape and the personal, cultural and family ties exactly as it does for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza reservations.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/america-s-defender-of-the-status-quo-s.premium-1.510578?localLinksEnabled=false

He came to say goodbye / Zvi Bar’el
Haaretz 20 Mar — President Barack Obama doesn’t have to commit himself to anything, propose anything, pressurize or convince or threaten anyone. The U.S. president will be a guest: He will speak, shake hands and finally chalk up a visit to Israel. He won’t have to visit here again during his second term. This is not an American gesture, but deliberate policy. Slowly but surely the United States is withdrawing into itself. Obama’s success does not lie in involvement in processes or in the solution of conflicts, but in fleeing from them. In December 2011 he withdrew U.S. forces from Iraq, and America’s involvement in the country it liberated from the rule of the late President Saddam Hussein is gradually disappearing.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/he-came-to-say-goodbye-1.510488?localLinksEnabled=false

Barack Obama invites first black Miss Israel to dinner
Tel Aviv (Guardian) 13 Mar by Phoebe Greenwood — It will be one of the hottest tickets in town. When the US president, Barack Obama, arrives in Israel on an official visit next week, one of the highlights for the country’s dignitaries will be a dinner hosted at Israeli president Shimon Peres’s home. And among those set to dine with the two presidents is the first black Miss Israel, Yityish Aynaw.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/13/president-obama-black-miss-israel

Analysis / Opinion

Meet Israel’s new government: a justice minister against law, a housing minister who led settlers / Ben White
EI 18 Mar — Israel’s new coalition government has been finalized, and is expected to be sworn in tonight. The results of weeks of negotiations are awkward for those commentators and Israel advocacy groups who, after January’s election, suggested that the Israeli electorate had returned a ‘center’ or even ‘center-left’ government that would be open to meaningful peace talks. Leaving aside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, who are the other ministers in the new cabinet? Here are some examples. Naftali Bennett (Trade and Economics) has stated that “There is not going to be a Palestinian state within the tiny land of Israel,” referring to the whole of Mandate Palestine. He supports the annexation of 60 percent of the West Bank.Yair Lapid (Finance) delivered an election trail speech in major West Bank colony Ariel, declaring that Israel will retain illegal settlement blocs. He has said that he wants to “be rid of” Palestinians in the West Bank and to “put a tall fence between us and them.”
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ben-white/meet-israels-new-government-justice-minister-against-law-housing-minister-who-led

Yair Lapid brought us an extreme-right, settler-dominated government / Gush Shalom
March 18, 2013 – Today was established in Israel an extremist right-wing government in which settlers and their allies hold all the key positions: their Minister of Housing will construct settlement housing; their Minister of Industry will divert industries to the settlements; their Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee will provide them with plenty of funds. The Minister of Defense – who is, in effect, the military dictator holding sway over the Occupied Territories – is opposed to any gesture towards the Palestinians, even the smallest and most symbolic. It is a government which appointed a minister to take charge of conducting negotiations with the Palestinians and an entire ministerial team to oversee such negotiations, but would not be able to conduct any such negotiations in reality. The primary responsibility for Israel being saddled with such a pernicious and dangerous government does not rest with PM Netanyahu nor even with Naftali Bennett of the Jewish Home party. The main responsibility lies squarely upon Yair Lapid, the man who scored a big victory in the elections and frittered it away, who dealt a crushing blow to the right-wing block in Israeli politics and then single-handedly restored this same bloc to great power.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1363644733

Israel and the politics of boycott / Joseph Massad
Al Jazeera 19 Mar — Zionism and Israel will continue to support any boycott that seeks to institutionalise racism and racial separatism –  …There is however a different history of the uses of the boycott. In contrast with its uses to force the end of race, class and colonial injustice, boycott would also be deployed as a tactic to bring about colonial and racial injustice. Zionism would be a pioneer in this regard. Upon the formalisation of Zionist settler colonialism in the 1897 First Zionist Congress, Jewish colonists were incensed that earlier Russian Jewish agricultural colonists who had settled in Palestine since the 1880s would employ Palestinian labour in their colonies, on account of its availability and cheapness. It was in this context that Zionism would develop its racially separatist notion of “Hebrew labour”, insisting and later imposing its regulations on all Jewish colonists in Palestine, namely that Jewish labour should be used exclusively in the Jewish settler-colony … Like its parent Zionist movement before it, which used the tactic of boycott to effect racial separation and discrimination rather than end it, the Zionist labour Federation, the Histadrut, would begin in 1927 to use the time-honoured act of picketing. Picketing is traditionally used by workers and unions to end practices involving the exploitation and unfair treatment of workers. In the case of the Jewish colonists, they used picketing to bring about discrimination against Palestinian workers and to deny them employment in their own country. The Zionist picketing campaign sought to boycott Jewish businesses which continued to employ Palestinian labour as well as the goods the Palestinians produced. This was not only confined to the agricultural Jewish colonies in the Palestinian countryside, but also included urban settings where Jewish businesses employed Palestinians in the area of construction.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201331884943284526.html#.UUiddXyCBfU.facebook

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