Emily wrote and recorded this song, entitled “I miss you, Palestine”, and put it up on Youtube (under her nom de plume, Thirstypixels), and added this explanation: “The week I got home, I got my energy back, and I was giddy with the joy of being alive. I walked my dog and bellowed out this song in the woods. I’m no musician, but the soul of the moment carried my voice. When I came home I got out my computer and recorded this in a message for my good friend Nick… but what the heck, I want to give it to the world! Also, if someone could remix this or re-sing this with piano, that would be brilliant“.

“Because I changed, people can change”, Emily sings in her song. “It ain’t gonna go on forever … I believe it can get better, if people just open their eyes”…

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Once the results are known, the names of the students who passed, and their grades, are published. Then, there is a night of wild fireworks (until at least 1:30 in the morning), and a weekend of more parties and fireworks.

Ma’an News Agency, the privately-owned and operated, donor-funded Palestinian news agency based in Bethlehem, has published a story about two teenage girls who attempted to commit suicide because their names were not listed among the students who had passed the Tawjihi.

The Ma’an report said that “Yousef Odeh, director of the education ministry’s Qalqiliya office, warned parents not to be hard on children who had failed the exams, adding that social pressure to succeed on the difficult tests was enough stress on young men and women. Candidates can take the tests up to five times. They are offered once each year for students, and determine eligibility for university classes. Top scoring candidates are eligible for the sought-after spots in university law, engineering and medicine … Adding pressure is the public celebration of top scoring Tawjihi students, whose families rent halls for parties and let off fireworks from roofs for the week after the results are announced“. This is posted here.

Hell, they shoot these fireworks off everywhere — on the streets, in darkened side streets, by the front gate of houses, under my kitchen window. Some of them are nearly as big and powerful (and expensive, and dangerous) as rockets … It is completely nerve-wracking.

An earlier Ma’an story reported that “Usually with a near 50 percent pass rate, the 2010 results had 85 percent achieve a pass in the Scientific Stream while 60.6 percent passed in the Literary Stream and 63 percent in the Professional Branches. President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated all the students who succeeded this year, with particular felicitations to a Nablus student who achieved the top overall score of 99.5 percent”. This can be read in full here.

A Gazan student achieved an overall score of 99.4 percent in the Tawjihi literary stream — but she had to study by the light of her mobile phone when electricity cuts caused black-outs in her neighborhood, Ma’an reported here.

The Tawjihi is one of the few remnants of unity between Gaza and the West Bank.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Once the results are known, the names of the students who passed, and their grades, are published. Then, there is a night of wild fireworks (until at least 1:30 in the morning), and a weekend of more parties and fireworks.

Ma’an News Agency, the privately-owned and operated, donor-funded Palestinian news agency based in Bethlehem, has published a story about two teenage girls who attempted to commit suicide because their names were not listed among the students who had passed the Tawjihi.

The Ma’an report said that “Yousef Odeh, director of the education ministry’s Qalqiliya office, warned parents not to be hard on children who had failed the exams, adding that social pressure to succeed on the difficult tests was enough stress on young men and women. Candidates can take the tests up to five times. They are offered once each year for students, and determine eligibility for university classes. Top scoring candidates are eligible for the sought-after spots in university law, engineering and medicine … Adding pressure is the public celebration of top scoring Tawjihi students, whose families rent halls for parties and let off fireworks from roofs for the week after the results are announced“. This is posted here.

Hell, they shoot these fireworks off everywhere — on the streets, in darkened side streets, by the front gate of houses, under my kitchen window. Some of them are nearly as big and powerful (and expensive, and dangerous) as rockets … It is completely nerve-wracking.

An earlier Ma’an story reported that “Usually with a near 50 percent pass rate, the 2010 results had 85 percent achieve a pass in the Scientific Stream while 60.6 percent passed in the Literary Stream and 63 percent in the Professional Branches. President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated all the students who succeeded this year, with particular felicitations to a Nablus student who achieved the top overall score of 99.5 percent”. This can be read in full here.

A Gazan student achieved an overall score of 99.4 percent in the Tawjihi literary stream — but she had to study by the light of her mobile phone when electricity cuts caused black-outs in her neighborhood, Ma’an reported here.

The Tawjihi is one of the few remnants of unity between Gaza and the West Bank.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Fox News reported that “The Palestinians called the shooting ‘irresponsible’. Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian Authority spokesman … identified the man as Bilal Abu Libdeh, 35, from the northern West Bank city of Qalqiliya. He said Abu Libdeh was found to be unarmed when his body was recovered and that no one knew why he and the others sought to enter the settlement. ‘Regardless of the reason for them going there, they shouldn’t be killed’, he said”. This is posted here.

One of the points being debated, as “proximity” talks may soon melt into direct talks that may last for years, is whether or not the Israeli Jewish settlers can remain in the West Bank in any future scenario; maybe they can retain their Israeli citizenship and become residents of Palestine, subject to its laws, some suggest.

But former Defense Ministry official Shlomo Gazit said at a discussion organized by IPCRI (Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information) last week that there is no way Palestinian security can protect settlers who remain in the West Bank after the creation of a future Palestinian state — this can only be done by the IDF, he said.

An Israeli journalist who attended the discussion said that he believes there is no way any settlers can remain in the West Bank, because their mere presence will be an invitation to violence … of the sort that killed the merely “suspected” Bilal Abu Libdeh overnight.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

The statement said that journalists have been “harassed, arrested and attacked by the various on site forces before these forces turn their attention to the activists or demonstrators”.

The professional organization of journalists based in Israel said, in their statement that “The FPA strongly protests what appears to be a recent policy change by the Border Police and IDF with regard to legitimate news coverage in the West Bank. Over the past months journalists covering these events have been harassed, arrested and attacked by the various on site forces before these forces turn their attention to the activists or demonstrators. We would appreciate it were the authorities to remind the various forces involved, that open, unhindered coverage of news events is a widely acknowledged part of the essence of democracy. Generally speaking this would not include smashing the face of a clearly marked photographer working for a known and accredited news organization with a stick, or for that matter aiming a stun grenade at the head of a clearly marked news photographer or summarily arresting cameramen, photographers and/or journalists – www.fpa.org.il “.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

It was excruciating to watch.

This is incendiary and divisive stuff, in a country that has trouble managing minority-majority relations.

Even writing about this group ganging-up against one individual human being causes revulsion.

Haneen Zoabi, elected member of the Israeli Knesset for the Arab/Palestinian National Democratic Assembly [a/k/a the Balad Party and as Tajamua] , stood in the Knesset  last week to face her public punishment  for having participated in the Freedom Flotilla sailing towards Gaza that was stopped by an Israeli naval assault on 31 May in which 8 Turkish men and one American-born high-school student were shot and killed.

Fewer than half of the 120-member Knesset plenary participated in the 34 to 16 vote (total vote = 50, out of 120) to withdraw several parliamentary privileges, including Zoabi’s diplomatic passport, her right to leave the country, and her right to reimbursement for any legal defense. Not even all the 65 Knesset members who are counted as “far-right” participated in this vote.

But very few did anything to try to stop the continuing verbal assault, and public humiliation: though Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin did express his personal regret, he abstained in the vote (as Haaretz noted in an editorial. And mondoweiss blog now mentions that Uri Avnery reported noticing some “half-hearted protest” made by Haim Oron of Meretz).

Zoabi was told she had caused shame and disgrace to her family and to the Knesset.   In earlier raucus Knesset hearings, the 41-year-old politician from Nazareth (apparently, her Muslim parents sent her to a Catholic school) was called a traitor, and in the next breath was blamed for not being married.  One other female Knesset member (Anastasia Michaeli, born in Russia) had to be physically prevented from attacking her on 2 June, and harassed Zoabi by holding up an oversize replica of an Iranian passport with Zoabi’s photo and name on it.  Death threats have been made.

It is impossible to imagine that the scenario would have been the same if Zoabi had been a man, or if she had been Jewish.

A Haaretz editorial stated that the Knesset action was “cause for concern”.

Haaretz noted that “there were few participants present, and the extremists – led by MK Michael Ben Ari of National Union – managed to push it through unimpeded.  It seems elected officials no longer understand the meaning of freedom of expression.  If  they believe Zuabi broke the law, the Knesset’s legal adviser is supposed to handle the matter.  If this is not the case, even if her opinions are considered offensive, her colleagues must resolutely support her right to have them heard”.

But, as it seems that the situation is hopelessly polarized here, and everybody is constantly outraged at everyone else, the Haaretz article madeg a great and very probably unjustified leap of assumption to say that Zoabi, “like other Arab MKs, is enthusiastically participating in acts of extreme provocation. It could even be assumed that she profits to some degree from being marked as an enemy of the people”.

With this expression of what it must have believed is “balance”, the Haaretz editorial concluded that ” All of these developments symbolize the moral weakness of the 18th Knesset, the damage it is inflicting on freedom of speech and the danger it poses to democracy in Israel”. This editorial is published here.

And that’s not all. Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai has written to the country’s Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein for authorization to revoke Zoabi’s Israeli citizenship. A Facebook group was created to incite hatred against her.

Zoabi told writer Jonathan Cook, soon after her election to the Knesset in February 2009, that “The Jewish public don’t like self-confident, unapologetic Arabs … But actually I think there is a base of support even among Jews for reforming Israel into a proper democracy, maybe as much as 30 per cent”.

However, she said, “It is frustrating and exhausting having always to be on the defensive about why I identify as a Palestinian, why I am not a Zionist, why the Jewish state is not democratic and cannot represent me, why I am entitled to citizenship”.

And, she noted, “The struggle solely for equality treats me as a number, it reduces me to part of a mathematical formula. It ignores my history, identity and narrative as a Palestinian. I want to be a full Israeli citizen, but it must not come at the expense of my people’s collective rights to an identity and a past.” This article is published here.

Intolerance of the kind that was on display in the Knesset last week cannot help solve anything.

[The Geneva-based Interparliamentary Union asked the Knesset speaker for clarification of the Knesset committee recommendation in June, and expressed concerns about the death threats to Zoabi and about the pending censure, but did not seem to have anything to say after the plenary vote this week.]

Here is a brief visual record:

(1) On 2 June 2010: Haneen Zoabi responds to her critics in the Knesset on 2 June – She says “The siege is illegal, inhuman, illegitimate.  Every politician who has a moral stance opposes the siege”.   Knesset members call her a terrorist, and a traitor, and try to silence her; one woman MK tries to attack her physically.  A male MK suggested  Zoabi be searched to see if she had a knife on her .  She is accused of hiding behind her immunity.  She is told to “Go to Gaza”.  Fellow MK Jamal Zahalka defends her:

(2) On 9 June – Haneen Zoabi comments after Knesset Parliamentary Committee recommends that Knesset should move to vote to strip her of her privileges:

(3) On 13 July – Knesset sanctions are imposed against Zoabi by a vote of 34-16 (or, by 50 out of 120 Knesset members — not even a majority vote for an act with such dangerous potential ramifications):

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Even this picture is sanitized

The CNN article continues: “the TSA has distributed numerous news releases with similar language as it lobbies for public acceptance of the machines as a less intrusive alternative to pat-downs.  A TSA official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official is not authorized to speak on the record said all full-body scanners have ’strong privacy protections in place’ and are delivered to airports ‘without the capability to store, print or transmit images. There is no way for someone in the airport environment to put the machine into the test mode’, the official said, adding that test mode can be enabled only in TSA test facilities. But the official declined to say whether activating test mode requires additional hardware, software or simply additional knowledge of how the machines operate … The agency adds that images are deleted from the system after the operator reviews them.  And employees who misuse the machines are subject to serious discipline or removal”…

However, EPIC’s Executive Director Rotenberg said: “I don’t think the TSA has been forthcoming with the American public about the true capability of these devices … They’ve done a bunch of very slick promotions where they show people — including journalists — going through the devices.  And then they reassure people, based on the images that have been produced, that there’s not any privacy concerns.  ‘But if you look at the actual technical specifications and you read the vendor contracts, you come to understand that these machines are capable of doing far more than the TSA has let on’.”

This report is published here.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Mohammad Abu-Tir, perhaps the most senior of four East Jerusalem Palestinian men facing “deportation”, is facing expulsion on Sunday 18 July.

An Associated Press report said that the “IPU brings together lawmakers from 155 countries. The U.S. Congress isn’t a member”. This is published here.

The IPU said that deportation would violated the human rights of Palestinian parliamentarians Mohammed Abu Tir, Mohammed Totah and Ahmed Abu Atoun, who were were recently released from prison after serving four-year sentences, for their affiliation to Hamas. A fourth East Jerusalem Palestinian parliamentarian elected in 200, Khalid Abu Arafeh, is also facing deportation.

One question now is what is the IPU going to do to follow-up?

And what will it do if one or more of the deportations are carried out?

Incongruously, the Jerusalem Post reported that “Muhammad Abu Tir will be released from detention and exiled from the country next Sunday, if he can post bail of NIS 50,000. He is also required to post NIS 100,000 self-bail and NIS 100,000 third-party bail. Abu Tir was imprisoned for refusing to leave Jerusalem after Interior Minister Eli Yishai invalidated his Jerusalem residence permit”… This report is posted here.

So, if he can’t come up with that huge amount of money, he gets to stay in jail? In Jerusalem?

Two days earlier, the Jerusalem Post’s Palestinian Affairs correspondent by Khaled Abu Toameh reported that “Abu Tir was first arrested in 1974 and sentenced to 16 years in prison for security-related offenses. He was released 13 years later. In 1989 he was arrested for a second time, this time on charges of possession of weapons. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison.  Between 1990 and 2005 he spent eight years in prison on charges of membership in the armed wing of Hamas and trading in weapons”. This report can be read in full here.

The Voice of America’s correspondent in Geneva, Lisa Schlein, reported Thursday night that “the Committee says Israel has given the MPs the choice of renouncing their membership in the Palestinian Legislative Council or of facing deportation from East Jerusalem, the city of their birth. The committee says this is in violation of the fourth Geneva Convention”.   Her report is posted here.

Not much is clear about what’s happening.

But, deportation is a violation of the Road Map. Is Israel going to go ahead and deport Abu Tir when George Mitchell is here?

According to an IPU press release, the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has just concluded an examintion of “public cases concerning 122 legislators in 21 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Iraq, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Palestine/Israel, Philippines, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Zimbabwe … The IPU assists legislators in representing their constituents freely and effectively. In 1976, it set up the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, which has since examined cases in over 100 countries and has often helped those under threat obtain protection or reparation. This can take various forms, such as the release of a detained parliamentarian, reinstatement of an MP to parliament, an inquiry into attacks, prosecution of the perpetrators of such crimes and payment of compensation”. This is posted here.

[The Interparliamentary Union asked the Knesset speaker for clarification of the Knesset committee recommendation withdraw parliamentary privileges from MK Haneen Zoabi in June (she was on board the Mavi Marmara, sailing to Gaza, when the Israeli naval assault occurred on 31 May, and for that she has been called a "traitor"), and the IPU also expressed concerns about the death threats to Zoabi and about the pending censure, but did not seem to have anything to say after the plenary vote to punish Zoabi this week.]

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Now the question is what will the sentences be?

UPDATE: The Haaretz headline read: “IDF convicts commander, soldier in shooting of bound Palestinian — Lt. Col. Omri Burberg was filmed holding the blindfolded prisoner and ordering his soldier, Staff Sgt. Leonardo Korea, to fire a rubber bullet his leg in Na’alin two years ago”.

According to the Haaretz report: “Burberg arrested Ashraf Abu Rahme on July 7, 2008 for his ‘involvement in disrupting the peace’. The prisoner was taken to the entry of the village, where he was bound and his eyes were covered. Burberg, who had known Abu Rahme because of his role in previous demonstrations, allegedly said: ‘Now you will stop demonstrating against the IDF’. Abu Rahme responded in Arabic, which suggests he might not understand Hebrew.
The officer suspected that Abu Rahme was lying, and turned to Korea, a soldier on his staff, and asked him: ‘What do you say – should we take him aside and shoot him with a rubber [bullet]?’ Korea said in response: ‘I have no problem to shoot him with a rubber [bullet]‘. Burberg stood the prisoner on his feet, led him to a nearby jeep and told L. to prepare a rubber bullet. ‘I already have one in the barrel’, L. responded. At that point, L. aimed at the Palestinian’s foot and fired a rubber bullet from a very short range. Burberg allegedly pushed the soldier and shouted at him for shooting a bound prisoner. L. said he thought he had received an order to shoot. ‘As a result of the shooting, Abu Rahme suffered superficial injuries on his left toe, was treated by a medic and did not require further care’, the chief prosecutor, Colonel Liron Liebman, wrote in the original indictment”. This Haaretz article can be read in full here.

Abu Rahme fainted dead away from sheer terror.

The Jerusalem Post reported, here, that “Lt.-Col. Omri Burbag, commander of Armored Battalion 71, was caught on video leading the
blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian to a military jeep, where the soldier was then seen raising his weapon and discharging a shot. The soldier claimed that Burbag had ordered him to fire, but the officer told investigators that all he had told the soldier to do was ’shake his gun’ to scare the detainee. The prisoner was wounded in his foot. Burbag had initially been charged by Military Advocate- General Brig.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit with inappropriate military conduct, a lesser charge, which prompted
human rights groups to petition the High Court of Justice. Mandelblit added threats and behavior unbefitting a commander to the charge sheet, and he was convicted of these on Thursday. On Thursday, the judges wrote in their decision that Burbag’s conduct constituted a serious deviation from IDF norms and values. ‘This detracts from the standing of the IDF, its commanders and soldiers’, the judges wrote in their decision”.

Article from UN-Truth read more here

Last Friday night, for the first time, Israel’s Channel 10 television broadcast a homemade video made of this visit — it shows the man who is now Prime Minister, again, discussing the Oslo Accords, and how he’s arranged everything according to his vision of the way things should be. In the videotaped visit, Netanyahu bragged that he had stopped the Oslo agreement.

What did Netanyahu actually say?

Well, it isn’t pretty.

Paul Woodward summed it up this way in  his War in Context blog:  “After claiming that the only way to deal with the Palestinian Authority was a large-scale attack, Netanyahu was asked by one of the participants whether or not the United States would let such an attack come to fruition.  ‘I know what America is’, Netanyahu replied.  ‘America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction …  He then called former president Bill Clinton ‘radically pro-Palestinian;, and went on to belittle the Oslo peace accords as vulnerable to manipulation.  Since  the accords state that Israel would be allowed to hang on to pre-defined military zones [emphasis added here]  in the West Bank, Netanyahu told his hosts that he could torpedo the accords by defining vast swaths of land as just that.  ‘They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo accords]‘, Netanyahu said.  ‘I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 borders.  How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue’.”  This is published <a href=”http://warincontext.org/2010/07/16/how-netanyahu-wrecked-the-peace-process/”>here</a>.

Gideon Levy write in Haaretz today that “Broadcast on Friday night on ‘This Week with Miki Rosenthal’, it was filmed secretly in 2001, during a visit by Citizen Netanyahu to the home of a bereaved family in the settlement of Ofra, and astoundingly, it has not created a stir. The scene was both pathetic and outrageous. The last of Netanyahu’s devoted followers, who believe he is the man who will bring peace, would have immediately changed their minds. Presidents Barack Obama and Shimon Peres, who continue to maintain that Netanyahu will bring peace, would be talking differently had they seen this secretly filmed video clip. Even the objection of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to conducting direct negotiations with the man from the video would be understandable … [T] there has never been one [a leader] like Netanyahu, who wants to do it by deceit, to mock America, trick the Palestinians and lead us all astray. The man in the video betrays himself in his own words as a con artist … this is the real Netanyahu. No more claims that the Palestinians are to blame for the failure of the Oslo Accords. Netanyahu exposed the naked truth to his hosts at Ofra: he destroyed the Oslo accords with his own hands and deeds, and he’s even proud of it. After years in which we were told that the Palestinians are to blame, the truth has emerged from the horse’s mouth. And how did he do it? He recalled how he conditioned his signing of the 1997 Hebron agreement on American consent that there be no withdrawals from ’specified military locations’, and insisted he choose those same locations, such as the whole of the Jordan Valley, for example. ‘Why is that important? Because from that moment on I stopped the Oslo Accords’, he boasts … There’s no point in talking about Netanyahu’s impossible rightist coalition as an obstacle to progress. From now on, just say that Netanyahu doesn’t want it … If he had said so honestly, as he did when he thought the camera in Ofra was turned off, then he could have been forgiven for his extreme positions. It’s his right to think that way and get elected for it. The people will have gotten what they chose. But when Netanyahu hides his real positions under camouflage netting and entangles them in webs of deceit, he not only reduces the chances of reaching an agreement, he also damages Israel’s political culture. Many people may want a right-wing, nationalist prime minister, but a prime minister who is a con artist? Is is too much to expect of Netanyahu that he speak to us precisely as he spoke in Ofra? Why do a handful of settlers deserve to know the truth, and not us”? This is posted here.

Richard Silverstein wrote a post overnight on his Tikun-Olam blog [Bibi the Bamboozler to Settlers: ‘America Won’t Get in Our Way…It’s Easily Moved’], saying that the videotaped Netanyahu remarks were made some months after the start of the Second Palestinian Intifada, “during the height of a Palestinian terror campaign against Israel and the settlements. It records a condolence call Bibi Netanyahu, recently ‘retired’ from politics after losing the prime ministership and leaving the Sharon government (where he had been Finance Minister), pays on a group of West Bank widows whose husbands had been killed by Palestinian attacks. For those on the Israeli right who claim that the Oslo Accords broke down due to Palestinian terror or any such thing, watch this and you will see that Bibi brags that he destroyed Oslo. Even if you discount this by half as the braggadocio of a macho Israeli politician, it’s still eye-opening … Note in the first passage how Bibi brags that he has America wrapped around his thumb. But really who is to blame for this but American presidents who allow Israeli leaders to outwit and outmaneuver them? When has an American president, except perhaps George Bush pere [the father], ever stood up to Israel and won? And I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion it won’t ever happen with the current president”. This can be read in full here.

Noam Sheizef wrote on his Promised Land blog here, “I agree with Gidon Levy: this item should have gotten much more attention. One could only imagine how history could have looked if Netanyahu carried out Israel’s part in the peace agreement”.

Article from UN-Truth read more here