Israel expedites vote on hundreds of new homes beyond Green Line
Haaretz 6 Apr — Proposal to construct 942 housing units in Gilo was approved Monday by the building and planning committee; according to standard procedure, the district committee would have waited months before bringing the matter to its own agenda.
EU approval of East Jerusalem settlement expansion is deeply disappointing
Haaretz 6 Apr — European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said on Wednesday that she was “deeply disappointed” by Israel’s approval of new settlement building in East Jerusalem. “The actions taken by the Israeli Government contravene repeated and urgent calls by the international community, including the Quartet, and run counter to achieving a peaceful solution that will preserve Israel’s security and realize the Palestinians’ right to statehood,” Ashton said in a statement released on Wednesday.
And more news from Today in Palestine:
Despite house arrest, Jerusalem activist will fight for Silwan / Jillian Kestler-D’Amours
EI 5 Apr — Palestinian activist Jawad Siyam has been under house arrest for nearly three months after being accused of attacking a Palestinian neighbor in the occupied East Jerusalem village of Silwan. The Director of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, Siyam categorically denies the allegation. He says that the real reason he has been targeted is because of his political activities and resistance to the take-over of Silwan by right-wing Israeli settler organizations.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11894.shtml
Israel inaugurates new road linking Kiryat Arba settlement with Hebron’s Old City
6 Apr — Israel inaugurated a renovated road linking the settlement of Kiryat Arba with the Ibrahimi Mosque/Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron’s Old City. Israel to confiscate some 4500 dunams of land for the construction, which runs through Palestinian villages. Residents begin planning for legal, public fight … A special inauguration ceremony was held in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, 5 April, opening the first part of a renovated road connecting the settlement of Kiryat Arba to the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs. Yisrael Katz, the current Israeli Minister of Transport traveled to the site for the ceremony. “The asphalt has an ideology,” he said. “No power on earth that can freeze the relationship between Israel and [?its fore-]fathers.”
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/hebron/3496-israel-inaugurates-new-road-linking-kiryat-arba-settlement-with-hebrons-old-city-
Israeli forces raid north Jordan Valley villages
TUBAS (Ma‘an) — The Israeli army and police raided villages in the northern Jordan Valley near Tubas on Wednesday morning, seizing tractors from farmers in the area. Israeli forces and armored vehicles entered homes in a number of villages in the Tubas district and captured several tractors from residents, a villager whose tractor was seized told Ma‘an. Local witnesses said Israeli soldiers took the tractors to the nearby settlement of Mechola.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375999
Report: Settler vineyard bulldozed
HEBRON (Ma‘an) 6 Apr — Israeli forces bulldozed 80 dunams of grapes planted by settlers on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Susiya in the southern West Bank Wednesday morning. Landowner Jamil Hoshieh told Ma‘an a settler from the nearby illegal settlement Suseya, Moyshele Deutsch, took the land four years ago, and planted a vineyard. Hoshieh petitioned Israeli courts to retrieve the land, and a year later the Supreme Court ruled in their favor. [and now the settlers will take it out on the Palestinians….]
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=376076
Settlement to pay NIS 750,000 for shooting death of Palestinian
Haaretz 6 Apr — Shooting incident in 2003 happened when Palestinian man was shot and killed by settlement’s security officer when he was relieving himself near greenhouses of the settlement.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/settlement-to-pay-nis-750-000-for-shooting-death-of-palestinian-1.354326
Shoot ’em up, Biblical style: West Bank settlers commission video games
6 Apr — Israeli settlers on the West Bank have discovered a new way of getting their message across: Violent shoot ’em ups based on the Six Day War and Biblical history.
http://www.fastcompany.com/1745081/israeli-west-bank-settler-video-game-binyamin-samaria-council
Violence / Attacks
Medics: 4 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza
GAZA CITY (AFP) 6 Apr — Israeli aircraft attacked two targets in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, wounding four people, Palestinian medics and witnesses said. They said the targets were a group of militants and a plastics factory, both east of Gaza City. All of the wounded were at the factory, they added. A Ma‘an correspondent said two of those injured were women, and that one of them was pregnant. An Israeli military spokeswoman told AFP that aircraft hit “two terror tunnels,” a phrase the army uses to refer to tunnels being prepared by Gaza militants to launch cross-border raids.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375910
Israeli version:
IAF targets Gaza terror tunnels; 4 injured
Ynet 6 Apr — .. Palestinian sources said that the strike took place in the vicinity of Jabal Rees, a neighborhood east of Gaza City. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said the strike followed recent rocket fire at Israel: Tuesday saw a Qassam rocket fired at the Eshkol Regional Council, causing no harm … The Palestinians also reported multiple drone sightings in the area overnight. According to some reports, the strikes targeted a terrorist cell and an explosives lathe mill.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4052830,00.html
Israel plans to resume assassination campaigns / Saleh Naami
Al Ahram 4 Apr — The Israeli army awaits the improvement of weather conditions to resume its assassinations operations targeted at leaders and activists affiliated with Hamas military wing. In a report published by the Hebrew version of Ynet Monday, a military commentator, Ron Bin Yeshay, said that the resumption of assassinations comes in an effort to excursive deterrence in confronting Palestinian factions two years after the bloody war launched on the Gaza Strip. Bin Yeshay, indicated that the decision to take these operations to the next level was made recently in a small ministerial meeting presided over by Benjamin Netanyahu. Also at the meeting were leaders of Israel’s security organs.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/9308/World/Region/Israel-plans-to-resume-assasination-campaigns.aspx
Orthodox IDF soldiers accused of abusing Palestinian prisoners
Haaretz 6 Apr — A military criminal investigation team’s discovery of pictures and videos of Palestinian prisoners tied up and abused by members of the Nahal Haredi Brigade unit leads to the indictment of four soldiers.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/orthodox-idf-soldiers-accused-of-abusing-palestinian-prisoners-1.354448
IDF to tighten policy of probes into civilian West Bank deaths
Haaretz 6 Apr — According to the new policy, incidents in which a Palestinian civilian is killed by IDF fire will be brought to the army’s criminal investigation division for immediate investigation, unless the deaths occurred within the realm of an “operation of clearly combative nature.” [quite a loophole]
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/idf-to-tighten-policy-of-probes-into-civilian-west-bank-deaths-1.354442
Detention
IOF soldiers detain 3 West Bankers, detainee rushed to hospital
WEST BANK, (PIC) 6 Apr — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) rounded up three Palestinians in the West Bank districts of Ramallah and Jenin at dawn Wednesday, Hebrew paper Yediot Ahronot reported. It quoted military sources on its website as saying that two “wanted” Palestinians were arrested in Ramallah. Local sources said that IOF troops stormed the Hashemiya village west of Jenin and arrested a Palestinian youth after searching his family home and questioning his relatives.
Meanwhile, family of Mohammed Samara said that the IOF carried their son from Megiddo jail to Ramle prison hospital after his health condition seriously deteriorated. They said that Samara could no longer stand on his feet, adding that his relatives are deprived of visiting him. Samara, from Brukin village, Salfit, has been held in Israeli custody for four years
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Israeli soldiers abduct three residents from Hebron
IMEMC 6 Apr — The Israeli military abducted, on Wednesday morning, three Palestinians from the town of Hebron … Furthermore, The Israeli army erected military checkpoints at the entrances of towns including Beit ‘Awwa, Yatta, Halhoul, Doura, Beit Kahil and al-Fawwar Refugee Camp, stopping vehicles to search the identity of passengers. A witness reported that a number of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian lands in Khirbat Janba, east of Yatta, under the protection of Israeli military personnel and the forces of the Israeli border guards.
http://www.imemc.org/article/61009
Three Hamas militants in West Bank charged with plotting to abduct IDF soldier
Haaretz 6 Apr — …The three suspects, two of them residents of Ramallah and the other from the nearby village of Kafr Bidu, were arrested about two months ago. A gag order was slapped on the case until after the indictment was filed at an Israeli military court on Wednesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/three-hamas-militants-in-west-bank-charged-with-plotting-to-abduct-idf-soldier-1.354473
Palestinian detainees return from Egypt
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 6 Apr — Thirteen Palestinians released from Egyptian jails returned to Gaza Tuesday afternoon. Among them was notorious smuggler Muhammad Ash-Shaer, known in Gaza as “king of the tunnels” and “Al-Far,” (the mouse), who was detained over a year ago by Egypt, local sources said. The men were deported from the country via the Rafah crossing into Gaza … One marked for release did not arrive in Gaza for unknown reasons … According to human rights groups, 19 Palestinians remain in Egyptian prisons.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375917
Israel keeps the longest-serving political prisoner in the world
Palestine, (Pal Telegraph) 4 Apr — The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC) said Sunday that Nael Barghouti, who on Monday begins 34 years in Israeli prisons, is considered the longest serving political prisoner in the world. Barghouti was arrested on April 4, 1978 and was sentenced to life in prison for his anti-Israeli occupation activity at that time.
http://www.paltelegraph.com/world/world-news/8846-israel-keeps-the-longest-serving-political-prisoner-in-the-world.html
Charges against Gaza engineer show the Strip is still occupied / Yossi Gurvitz
972mag 5 Apr — Israel has kidnapped, apparently with the Ukrainian authorities turning a blind eye, a Gazan engineer named Dirar Abu Sisi … The GSS claims Abu Sisi provided Hamas with weapons technology and developed rockets, missiles and mortar shells for it. Which is where it all turns to farce. Abu Sisi, who is not an Israeli citizen, is charged with violations of Israeli law, which has no standing either in the Gaza Strip or in Ukraine, where he was kidnapped. Specifically (Hebrew), the charges are: Membership in a terror organization (residing outside the borders of Israel), contact with a foreign agent (again, this law is invalid in Gaza), conspiracy to commit crimes (likewise), an attempted murder (likewise), and manufacturing of arms. The last charge is particularly twisted. As far as the Israeli authorities are concerned, the manufacture of any weapon – including the anti-tank rockets Abu Sisi allegedly developed – is a felony. In the hugely asymmetrical armed struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a Palestinian who produces weapons is ipso facto a criminal. Once again, Israel plays at its favorite double game: When it wants to, the struggle with the Palestinians is a war, which allows it to use the laws of war; when the mood fits her, it is crime suppression. Enemy fighters are never considered to be soldiers, when they are caught; they are always criminals.
http://972mag.com/israel-insists-on-treating-enemies-as-criminals/
Siege
Sole Gaza crossing closed
GAZA CITY (Ma‘an) 6 Apr — Israeli authorities closed Wednesday the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, Palestinian officials said. Israeli officials said the crossing will be closed for the day due to “security reasons”, Palestinian crossings liaison official Raed Fattouh noted. Kerem Shalom, in the southern Gaza Strip, is the sole operating crossing point following the closure of the northern Karni bulk goods terminal on March 2, the closure of the dedicated fuel transfer point in 2010, and the closure of the commercial goods and pedestrian crossing at Sufa in 2008.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375937
Israel bans 700 goods from entering Gaza / Saleh Naami
Al Ahram 5 Apr — …Palestinian crossings official Raed Fattouh, who coordinates entry of goods between Israel and Gaza, said that Israeli authorities are prohibiting the passage of at least 700 goods into Gaza. In a press statement Wednesday morning, Fattouh made clear that the Israeli Occupation Forces are preventing 50 per cent of Gaza imports to pass due to excuses that are unsubstantiated and unconvincing.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/9433.aspx
Water treatment plant opens in Gaza
[with photos] MEMO 5 Apr — The Palestinian International Red Cross Foundation has funded the establishment of a water treatment plant in the Gaza Strip. Built in Rafah at the southern end of the Strip, the plant provides fresh water for around 17,000 residents in the area; the project has been competed in cooperation with the local Municipality.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2210-water-treatment-plant-opens-in-gaza
From Gaza …. voices from the Strip / Saphia Shone
ReliefWeb 6 Apr — During my first week in Gaza, I attended a performance put on by the performing arts and drama club of the Qattan Center for the Child … Nine-year old Rashid was introducing the play and spoke English very well. He asked me if I liked Gaza. When I told him yes, he seemed shocked. “But we have a lot of problems here,” he said. Some children in an English class I teach explained it even better. “It’s not that we don’t like Gaza, but the [Israeli] F16’s are not nice.” Growing up with the burdens of occupation, war and siege, children in Gaza are deprived of an innocent childhood.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/MUMA-8FN9RF?OpenDocument
Palestinian children demand international protection
IMEMC 6 Apr — Hundreds of children in the Gaza Strip participated in a Tuesday event organized by the Palestinian Ministry of Sports and Education – The General Administration of Children’s Affairs, demanding the international community to provide them with the needed protection against the ongoing Israeli violations. The children started their procession at the Al Saraya Street in the center of Gaza City, and marched towards the Legislative Council building. They carried Palestinian flags and posters demanding their rights to a healthy childhood and protection from physical and psychological harm.
http://www.imemc.org/article/61007
War crimes / Goldstone report
Killing activists on Gaza Freedom Flotilla was inevitable: journalists
MEMO 5 Apr — The shooting and killing of peace activists on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla almost a year ago was inevitable claim two Israeli journalists who have revealed the contents of secret documents detailing Israeli plans for attacking the ships. According to Dan Margalit and Ronen Bergman, the head of Israel’s Southern Command, General Yoav Galant, had warned more than a year ago of the consequences of trying to seize the flotilla of ships taking humanitarian aid to the besieged territory.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2209-killing-activists-on-gaza-freedom-flotilla-was-qinevitableq
Video: Samouni family members say attack was not accidental
Ken O’Keefe responds to Richard Goldstone’s assertion in the Washington Post that Israel’s January 2009 attack on the al-Samouni family, killing 29, was an accident by interviewing several members of the extended family in Gaza, and asking, Was it an accident? The piece includes graphic video from Cast Lead showing children with bullet wounds to the chest. Some excerpts: Amal Atiah Samouni:They entered our home and shot us, the kids. They shot my brother Ahmed twice in the chest and he died the next day. This could not be an accident
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/samouni-family-members-say-attack-was-not-accidental.html
Judge Goldstone to Associated Press: The Goldstone Report stands as written / Jerry Haber
6 Apr — After two days of misrepresentations in the press, and after a conversation between the judge and Minister of Interior Eli Yishai that was grossly misunderstood by the latter, Judge Goldstone had to break the silence that he had decreed on himself since the publication of his Washington Post Op-Ed and speak with an Associated Press reporter: “As appears from the Washington Post article, information subsequent to publication of the report did meet with the view that one correction should be made with regard to intentionality on the part of Israel,” the judge said. “Further information as a result of domestic investigations could lead to further reconsideration, but as presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time.” To sum up how things stand now:
http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/2011/04/judge-goldstone-to-associated-press.html
The Gaza stain remains on Israel’s war record / Kenneth Roth
Guardian 5 Apr — The Netanyahu government is doing everything it can to interpret a recent Washington Post op-ed article by Justice Richard Goldstone as vindication of Israel’s conduct in the 2008-09 Gaza conflict. It is nothing of the sort. Israel’s reluctance to confront that reality finds a parallel in its refusal to date to conduct credible investigations into the serious violations of the laws of war that it committed in Gaza. The Goldstone article does not relieve it of the obligation to pursue those investigations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/gaza-stain-remains-israel-war-record
Israeli campaign to avoid accountability for Gaza war crimes must be rejected
Amnesty Int’l UK 5 Apr — Recent Israeli government calls for the UN to retract the 2009 report of its Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict are a cynical attempt to avoid accountability for war crimes and deny both Palestinian and Israeli victims of the 2008-2009 conflict the justice and reparations they deserve, Amnesty International said today. Statements by leading Israeli politicians that Israel’s conduct in the 22-day conflict in Gaza and southern Israel has been vindicated, following the publication of a Washington Post opinion piece by Justice Richard Goldstone on 1 April 2011, are based on a deliberate misinterpretation of Justice Goldstone’s comments.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19379
J Street lauds Goldstone for retracting claims of Israel’s Gaza war crimes
Haaretz 4 Apr — The dovish Jewish-American lobby J Street on Monday lauded South African Judge Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in The Washington Post I which he voiced regret about blaming Israel for the intentional targeting of civilians in the report he authored on the Gaza war. “J Street welcomes Judge Richard Goldstone’s op-ed in The Washington Post this weekend and his conclusion, based on evidence from Israel’s investigations into allegations of misconduct in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, that ‘civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy’,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/j-street-lauds-goldstone-for-retracting-claims-of-israel-s-gaza-war-crimes-1.354066
Israel to launch quiet diplomatic campaign in wake of Goldstone retraction
Haaretz 6 Apr — Foreign Ministry proposes that Israel initially seek to lobby the UN to adopt the Goldstone op-ed as an official position paper, or as an appendage to the original Goldstone report.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-to-launch-quiet-diplomatic-campaign-in-wake-of-goldstone-retraction-1.354320
The murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis
Mer-Khamis and binational resistance movement / Amira Hass
Haaretz 6 Apr — Through his life and his body, Juliano Mer-Khamis embodied the possibility of a binational resistance movement … Juliano was lucky. He was born Palestinian and Jewish, Jewish and Palestinian. This angry man was beset by conflicting yet complementary identities. He was the long shadow of an imagined binational community from the 1950s. Like a Peter Pan who refuses to grow up, Juliano embodied the potential of a shared life (ta‘ayush in Arabic ) while striving for equality. The son of a Jewish mother and a Palestinian father, he was born to two cultures, and chose to live in both. He saw no need to explain.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/mer-khamis-and-binational-resistance-movement-1.354358
Interview with the late Juliano Mer-Khamis: “We are freedom fighters”
EI 5 Apr — Maryam Monalisa Gharavi reflects on Mer-Khamis’ art and excerpts from a previously unpublished interview she did with the artist in 2006.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11897.shtml
Israel leaving investigation of Mer Khamis murder to PA
Haaretz 6 Apr — Israel is leaving the investigation of Mer-Khamis’ death to the Palestinian Authority, even though he has Israeli citizenship, Israeli security officials said yesterday. The sources said the Shin Bet security service would be receiving regular updates from the Palestinian authorities, particularly since the PA has already begun investigating and since it does not appear that Mer-Khamis was killed because of his Israeli citizenship
[Really? See in this article from yesterday: “Also on Tuesday morning Israeli troops invaded Jenin refugee camp and raided the Freedom Theatre. Freedom Theatre Founder Juliano Mer-Khamis was shot dead near his home in Jenin on Monday afternoon. Witnesses told local media that troops stormed the theater in early hours of Tuesday morning, searched it, and took documents and photos form the site. Soldiers also searched nearby homes…”]
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-leaving-investigation-of-mer-khamis-murder-to-pa-1.354325
Abu Zuhri: Suspect in murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis affiliated with Fatah
GAZA, (PIC) 6 Apr — Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, affirmed that the suspect in murdering Juliano Mer-Khamis was affiliated with Fatah and had nothing to do with Hamas as claimed by West Bank security apparatuses. Security apparatuses loyal to de facto Palestinian president and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas apprehended Mujahid Qaneiri on suspicion of killing Mer-Khamis, a director, actor, and the manager of the Huriyya (freedom) theater in Jenin, a few days ago. Well-informed sources told the PIC that Qaneiri is known for his affiliation with Fatah faction and its armed wing the Aqsa Brigades.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bc
Itamar murders
Itamar video says settlement had night and day perimeter surveillance
Mondoweiss 5 Apr by Annie — Check out this video from the Friends of Itamar posted December 23, 2010, promoting emigration to the settlement. We are introduced to the “Control center” in the West Bank settlement. At 7:55 the narrator describes the video surveillance system (camera zooms in on a tower) attached to the alarm system: “Camera surveillance system instantly monitored even at night” … “the surveillance sensors signal a alert of a potential terrorist trying to break thru and the exact location of the infiltration is fed to the computers and the remote control camera is zoomed in to the exact location to track the terrorist” Was this system operational on March 11, the night of the murders?
https://mondoweiss.net/2011/04/itamar-video-says-settlement-had-night-and-day-perimeter-surveillance.html
32% of Palestinian support settlement attack
JERUSALEM (AP) 6 Apr — A team of Israeli and Palestinian pollsters says a third of Palestinians surveyed said they supported an attack last month that saw five members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home in a West Bank settlement … Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack “despicable, immoral and inhuman.” The poll found 63 percent opposed the attack and 32 percent backed it.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110406/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_palestinians_poll
Politics / Diplomacy / International relations
US committed to ending anti-Israel bias on UN council, envoy says
AP 6 Apr — U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice defends America’s membership on Human Rights Council, declaring: U.S. retreat would embolden nations that unfairly ostracize Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-committed-to-ending-anti-israel-bias-on-un-council-envoy-says-1.354455
Israel may send Qassam victims abroad
Ynet 6 Apr — Goldstone’s regret over Gaza report sparks idea for delegation of injured kids, adults to engage in PR at UN headquarters
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4052852,00.html
Sudan: Israel behind airstrike
Ynet 6 Apr — Khartoum’s FM says country has proof Israel carried out mysterious air raid near Port Sudan, which left two dead; stresses reason remains unknown. Israeli Foreign Ministry, IDF remain tight-lipped …The foreign minister added that the two men killed were civilians, whose identities have yet to be verified. Israel, he said, “Has been blaming Sudan for aiding Islamist groups. That is not true…”
Khartoum alleges that this is the second mysterious shelling on Sudanese soil: In January 2009, a convoy of arms smugglers was hit by an unidentified aircraft in Sudan’s eastern Red Sea. January’s strike was also attributed to Israel.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4053036,00.html
Abbas meets Ramallah hunger strikers
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 5 Apr — President Mahmoud Abbas held a meeting Sunday with youth from the March 15 movement protesting for an end to the national division, informed sources told Ma‘an. Abbas updated the protesters on efforts by his Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to reconcile with Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, sources said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375844
Lieberman heads to Germany in bid to block Gaza flotilla
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC) 6 Ap — Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman headed out to Germany on Wednesday for an official visit calling for European action to thwart the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla 2 due to travel to the Gaza Strip mid-May to break Israel’s economic siege on the region. Lieberman is set to meet with his German and Italian counterparts Guido Westerwelle and Franco Frattini, respectively, as they are both present in the capital Berlin, and would like to emphasize the need for western countries to stop naval rescue missions to the Gaza Strip, Israeli Radio reported.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcO
Report: Bibi wants discount on German submarine
Reuters 6 Apr — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who travels to Germany on Wednesday, will lobby Berlin to sell Israel a sixth naval submarine at deep discount, an official said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4052987,00.html
Prince Felipe of Spain to visit Israel
Ynet 6 Apr — The heir to the Spanish throne, Prince Felipe and his wife Letizia will visit Israel next week. The royal couple’s official visit will begin Sunday. The two will also visit the Palestinian Authority.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4052994,00.html
Other news
Israel begins witchhunt against Palestinian educators, pupils who honored Land Day
6 Apr — Israel launched a witch hunt against Palestinian educators and pupils who commemorated Land Day by participating in the community’s declared strike. Education Ministry supervisors visited Palestinian schools on Land Day and schools were ordered to send lists of teachers absent that day.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/israeli-society/3495-israel-begins-witch-hunt-against-palestinian-educators-pupils-who-honoured-land-day-
West Bank/Gaza: Stop harassing journalists
Ramallah (HRW) 6 Apr — Severe harassment by Palestinian Authority and Hamas security forces targeting Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza has had a pronounced chilling effect on freedom of expression, Human Rights Watch said today. In a new report, Human Rights Watch called on Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and Gaza to hold their security forces to account for systematic, severe abuses and urged foreign donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA) to condition aid to security forces on concrete accountability measures. The 35-page report, “No News is Good News: Abuses Against Journalists by Palestinian Security Forces,” documents cases in which security forces tortured, beat, and arbitrarily detained journalists, confiscated their equipment, and barred them from leaving the West Bank and Gaza.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/04/06/west-bankgaza-stop-harassing-journalists
IMF: Palestinian institutions ready for state
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 6 Apr — Palestinian financial institutions are ready for statehood, an International Monetary Fund report praising Palestinian fiscal reform said Tuesday.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=375942
Report claims that Dahlan supplied Gaddafi with Israeli weapons
MEMO 4 Apr — A report in the Algerian newspaper Al-Shuruq claims that the former Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan was one of a number of Palestinians “involved in a deal to supply weapons from Israel to Muammar Gaddafi”. The secret deal was facilitated using a ship which sailed from Greece. The source for the information was Libyan dissident Omar El-Khadraoui.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/2205-report-claims-that-dahlan-supplied-gaddafi-with-israeli-weapons
The art of transporting Picasso to West Bank
JERUSALEM (AP) 5 Apr — A Palestinian art academy is preparing to spruce itself up for a famous guest: a $7 million Pablo Picasso masterpiece that would be the first displayed in the West Bank. But simply arranging the painting’s journey remains a far more difficult work in progress over complications such as finding reliable transport and clearing Israeli checkpoints. The more than a year of negotiations and planning — drawing in the Israeli military, Palestinian curators and Dutch museum officials — highlight the obstacles for even ordinary commerce or movement within the West Bank or through the few openings in the separation barrier with Israel.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/apr/5/the-art-of-transporting-picasso-to-west-bank/
Café culture blooms in West Bank’s Ramallah / Mohammed Assadi
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) 6 Apr — While Paris’s Left Bank is famous for its fine restaurants and bustling cafés, Palestine’s West Bank is not. But that might be about to change. The hilly city of Ramallah, which lies just to the north of Jerusalem, has undergone a massive boom in recent years on the back of Western donor support, with new smart eateries and bars mushrooming alongside a plethora of pristine office blocks. Latest data says Ramallah and the adjacent town of Al-Bireh that it has utterly engulfed have more than 120 coffee shops and some 300 restaurants, with 50 new diners opening in 2010 alone.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42450613/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa
Iraq
Tuesday: 7 Iraqis killed, 16 wounded
At least seven Iraqis were killed and 16 others were wounded on a fairly quiet day. Meanwhile, the environment ministry said Iraq is home to a quarter of Iraq’s landmines, many of them dating to the 1960s. Karbala is just one area that is littered with them. A bombing at a car dealership near the Syrian border in Baaj three dead and seven wounded. In Baghdad, a sticky bomb wounded a provincial council member. A pair of bombs killed two people and wounded six more in northern Baghdad. In Mosul, gunmen killed a jeweler and police found a body. A bombing in Amara left two wounded.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2011/04/05/tuesday-7-iraqis-killed-16-wounded/
U.S.
USA: U-turn on trial forum for 9/11 suspects betrays human rights
Amnesty Int’l 5 Apr — …The Obama administration’s attempts to bring the accused to trial before ordinary civilian courts have been blocked by Congress, which has sought to further entrench a legal doctrine of pervasive and perpetual “war” as the primary basis for US counter-terrorism efforts. “The announcement that the USA will again resort to military tribunals to try individuals accused of terrorism, when civilian courts could clearly be used, is a betrayal of international fair trial standards,” [said] Rob Freer, Amnesty International’s US researcher. “It will send a signal to other governments that the USA is willing to ignore human rights standards when it finds them inconvenient, making this a victory only for the politics of fear..
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/usa-u-turn-trial-forum-911-suspects-betrays-human-rights-2011-04-05-1
Chicago: Arab and Muslim candidates defeated in nearly every race where there was a contest
6 Apr — Even though many of the candidates had the backing of local political leaders, organizations and the dominant political parties, most of the Arab and Muslim candidates who ran for office were defeated. The only victors were those who were running in uncontested races. Only a few, non-Arab Muslims, were elected in areas where Muslims have held public office. In those cases, only one received among the highest votes of the winning candidates, while in almost every other uncontested race, the Arab and Muslim candidates received the lowest-vote victories.
http://swside.blogspot.com/2011/04/arab-and-muslim-candidates-defeated-in.html
Charlie Sheen’s loss is ACLU’s gain
5 Apr — The American Civil Liberties Union has unveiled a new Times Square electronic ad that urges viewers to think about — and resist — anti-Muslim sentiment in the current heated environment. The 520-square-foot, full-motion, full-color ad, located on the north side of 42nd St. between 7th and 8th Aves., runs up to 36 times a day from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2011/04/charlie-sheens-loss-is-aclus-gain
