The State Department denies knowledge of 300 Palestinian children being detained by Israel, though that fact is well-established. Heather Nauert of State was questioned by Said Arikat over the double standard the U.S. has for free speech and protest in Iran — where the U.S. is monitoring security forces’ response — and Palestine, where the U.S. doesn’t seem to care about protesters’ rights.
Israeli forces killed 17-year-old Mus‘ab Firas al-Tamimi from the West Bank village of Deir Nitham near Ramallah. “He died shortly after the occupation forces fired a bullet into his neck,” a spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry told Al Jazeera. Mus‘ab was a member of the Tamimi family, who live in the adjacent village of Nabi Saleh.
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The total number of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces since the beginning of the protests that followed US President Donald Trump’s’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was 490, including 148 minors and 11 women, as of December 20, Ma’an reported. While Palestinian Centre for Human Rights documented 256 Palestinians wounded, including 29 children and 5 journalists.
Omar Barghouti’s mother Wafieh, 75, is undergoing surgery for cancer in Amman, Jordan, later this month, but Israel is preventing Barghouti, a leader of the international boycott movement, from traveling to be with her. He says the travel ban is a punishment for his activism. “Mother, forgive me,” he writes.
Ahmad Kabariti reports from the ruins of the defunct Gaza International Airport. The airport symbolized the dream of a state of Palestine, “but it turned into a helipad for ghosts,” Mohammed Salah says.
In 2016, Trump adviser Steve Bannon said that Benjamin Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson were “all-in” on moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and letting Jordan take over the West Bank, according to Michael Wolff’s new book. So who is setting U.S. foreign policy– but a foreign leader, backed by a billionaire who gave $25 million to the Trump campaign. But the media keep talking about Russia.
Ariel Gold writes, “Before we consider whether Ahed deserves a life behind bars, we must first take a closer look at what is a criminal action, and what is a life of enduring state violence. Is it the 16-year-old girl who dares to raise her hand to a fully armed Israeli soldier who is the criminal? Or is it the ongoing illegal occupation that places soldiers in the lives of unarmed teenage girls?”
The Israeli military prosecution against Ahed Tamimi has indicted her on 5 counts. Jonathan Ofir analyses the most essential of them – ‘incitement’ – and how it is based on arguably flawed translation of her mention on Facebook of “martyrdom operations” to mean “suicide bombings,” in an effort to make Tamimi into a terrorist in the eyes of the world.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the state of Palestine and it is not for sale for gold or billions,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas says after Donald Trump says he took Jerusalem “off the table” and will now strip Palestinians of 100s of millions in U.S. aid for refusing to negotiate.