Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
by Sounder » Sun Apr 01, 2018 8:19 am
by Jerky » Sun Apr 01, 2018 10:34 am
by Cordelia » Sun Apr 01, 2018 12:00 pm
by Cordelia » Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:42 pm
Israeli forces kill Palestinian journalist covering Gaza rally
Yaser Murtaja succumbs to wounds after being shot during Friday's protests, bringing death toll to 31 since March 30. A Palestinian journalist shot by Israeli forces during a mass demonstration along the Gaza border has died of his wounds.
Yaser Murtaja, a photographer with the Gaza-based Ain Media agency, was shot in the stomach in Khuza'a in the south of the Gaza Strip on Friday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Murtaja, 30, was hit despite wearing a blue flak jacket marked with the word "press", indicating he was a journalist.
Hosam Salem, a photographer at the scene of the incident, told Al Jazeera on Friday that he witnessed Murtaja drop to the ground after being shot by Israeli forces.
"Yaser was filming with his camera next to me when we heard the sound of gunfire," Salem said. "He just fell on the ground and said, 'I've been shot, I've been shot.'"
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said seven other reporters were injured in Friday's protest, in what they described as "deliberate crimes committed by the Israeli army"
More: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/ ... 01619.html
Murtaja was known to take aerial photographs using a drone.
Israeli Defense Chief: Anyone Who Flies Drones Over IDF Soldiers Puts Himself at Risk
Lieberman says there have been thousands of incidents where Hamas 'dressed up as journalists. We won't take any chances. I think it's clear to everyone that the IDF is the most moral army in the world'
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.pr ... -1.5978152
by seemslikeadream » Sat May 12, 2018 1:08 pm
Gaza protests: One dead and hundreds wounded by Israeli gunfire as six-week demonstration nears climax
Chris BaynesFriday 11 May 2018 18:11 BST
More than 250 Palestinian children shot with live ammunition since protests began in March
A wounded Palestinian is evacuated during clashes with Israeli forces along the border with the Gaza strip AFP/Getty Images
A Palestinian has been killed and hundreds more have been wounded amid fresh violence at the final Friday protest in six weeks of demonstrations at Gaza's border with Israel.
Israeli soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas as activists across the frontier fences burned tyres and threw stones.
The clashes broke out days before weeks of protests, aimed at ending a decade-old blockade of Gaza, culminate in a planned mass march expected to involve tens of thousands of people.
At least 146 protesters were wounded by live fire, seven of them critically, including a 16-year-old boy who was shot in the head, Gaza health officials said. Dozens more were overcome by tear gas.
It comes after Save the Children said more than 250 children had been shot by the Israeli army during the six previous Friday demonstrations.
Forty-four Palestinian protestors have been killed and more than 2,000 wounded by Israeli army fire since the weekly protests led by Gaza's ruling group Hamas began in late March.
Israel has faced international condemnation over its response to the demonstrations, but says it has the right to defend its borders. It insisted its gunmen only targeted the "main instigators" of violence and protesters who approach the border fences.
There are fears of further casualties after the leader of Hamas in the Gaza strip hinted that thousands of Palestinians could breach the border fence at Monday's march.
Comparing the enclave’s people to a “starving tiger”, Yahya Sinwar said: “What’s the problem if hundreds of thousands storm this fence which is not a border of a state? What’s the problem with that?“
Israel has warned it will prevent any border breach during the protests, which are part of a campaign to break the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Islamic militant Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
A Palestinian demonstrator moves a burning tyre during clashes with Israeli forces (AFP/Getty Images)
The six weeks of demonstrations will come to and end with a large-scale protest planned for Tuesday, when Palestinians mark their "nakba," or catastrophe, referring to their mass uprooting during the Middle-Eastern war over Israel's 1948 creation. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out or fled homes in what is now Israel, and more than two-thirds of current Gaza residents are descendants of refugees.
On Friday, thousands of protesters gathered in five tent camps set up weeks ago, each several hundred metres from the border. From there, smaller groups moved closer to the border fence.
One man was shot dead while protesting east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, said medics.
Israeli soldiers fired live rounds and volleys of tear gas. Witnesses said Israeli forces on the other side of the fence had added reinforcements, including cement slabs, as protective cover. In recent weeks, soldiers have fired from behind sand berms.
A boy is carried away by a rescue worker during the Gaza protest on Friday (REUTERS)
More than 500 children have been injured during the border protests, more than half of them wounded by live bullets, according to Save the Children's analysis of data from the Palestinian health ministry.
Four children have been killed, including 14-year-old Mohammad Ayyoub, whose shooting prompted condemnation and demands for an investigation from the United Nations (UN) and European Union.
Children wounded by Israeli gunfire include a 16-year-old track athlete whose leg was amputated after being shot, Save the Children said.
"We are deeply concerned by the high number of children who have been hit by live ammunition and we agree with the High Commissioner for Human Rights that this could suggest an excessive use of force and may amount to unlawful killing and maiming,” said Jennifer Moorehead, the charity's director for occupied Palestine territory.
She added: "We support the UN secretary-general’s call for independent investigations to be carried out and any perpetrators to be held to account. We strongly urge all protests to remain peaceful, and call on all sides to tackle the long-term causes of this conflict and promote dignity and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has called for an "independent and transparent investigation" into the killings, while the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said a "staggering number" of injuries had been caused by live ammunition.
Israel accused Hamas of using children as human shields in the protests, which it claimed were a front for attacks.
Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures
Save the Children said its workers had seen children who had been repeatedly shot in the legs, arms and chest by Israeli forces. Victims also faced rapidly deteriorating conditions in hospitals, the charity warned.
“Gaza has been under an Israeli air, sea and land blockade for more than 10 years and has suffered three wars from which it has never fully recovered,” said Ms Moorehead.
Palestinian officials have announced that Egypt will open its border with Gaza for four days from Saturday. Egypt has kept the Rafah crossing point, Gaza's main gate to the outside world, closed most of the time since the Hamas takeover to reinforce Israel's blockade.
Egypt opens the crossing from time to time, mainly to allow people in special categories, including medical patients and Gaza residents studying abroad, to leave the territory or return.
The upcoming opening was framed as a humanitarian gesture ahead of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which begins next week.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 47366.html
by seemslikeadream » Mon May 14, 2018 8:23 am
How Britain enabled the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
David Cronin Rights and Accountability 9 May 2018
A Gaza City mural remembering the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Ashraf Amra APA images
Supporters of Israel among Britain’s ruling elite tend to recite mantras about the two nations sharing the same values.
If theft and plunder were regarded as values, the mantras would have a ring of truth to them.
Expecting full honesty and transparency from Theresa May’s government would, however, not be realistic. So it comes as little surprise that one of her cabinet colleagues has wished Israel a happy 70th birthday, while trumpeting its commitment to “justice, compassion, tolerance.”
The greeting – from Gavin Williamson, Britain’s defense secretary – was delivered at a time when unarmed protesters were being massacred in Gaza.
Omitted from the discourse on shared values is that Israel and Britain have a shared culpability. While Zionist troops were directly responsible for the Nakba – the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine – their crimes were enabled and, in some cases, abetted by the British authorities.
The first important point is that the Haganah – the main Zionist militia at the time – was, to a large extent, trained by Britain while it ruled Palestine between the two world wars.
Although the Haganah was illegal, the British relied on it when conducting ambush operations against a Palestinian revolt during the 1930s. The Haganah provided thousands of men who joined the “supernumerary” police force that the British assembled while trying to crush that revolt.
Haganah commanders were also brought into the “special night squads,” led by Orde Wingate, a notoriously violent British officer.
Wingate worked closely with Yitzhak Sadeh, later a key military figure during the Nakba and a founder of the Israeli army. The 1930s cooperation has been credited by Yigal Allon, a general who became a high-level politician, with pulling “the Haganah out of its trenches and barbed wire into the open field, making it adopt a more active kind of defense.”
This means Wingate – a maverick who nonetheless enjoyed support from his superiors at a crucial period – helped shape the tactics and thinking of the men who forcibly dispossessed the Palestinians the following decade.
Powerless?
The relationship between Britain and the Zionist movement is admittedly complicated.
Through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Britain assumed the role of imperial sponsor to the Zionist project.
A series of measures were subsequently implemented to boost colonization efforts in Palestine. Yet the pace of events was not sufficiently fast for the more hardcore elements in Zionism.
Unhappy that their coveted Jewish state had not yet been established, two armed groups – the Irgun and the Lehi – began to wage a guerrilla war against Britain in the 1940s. The ensuing turmoil and a more general weakening of its empire led Britain to decide it would relinquish the League of Nations mandate under which it had governed Palestine.
The Nakba was underway well before the date set by Britain for ending its rule: 14 May 1948. So long as they remained in Palestine, the British, therefore, had an obligation to protect Palestinians from harm.
The British reneged on their obligations.
On 9 April that year, Zionist troops went on a killing spree in Deir Yassin, a village near Jerusalem. Alan Cunningham, the British high commissioner in Palestine, acknowledged that a “deliberate mass murder of innocent civilians” occurred, yet argued that the British forces were “not in a position to take action in the matter owing to their failing strength and increasing commitments.”
Of the approximately 800,000 Palestinians who would be expelled or flee their homes in the 1948 Zionist onslaught, more than 400,000 had already been displaced by the time the British left.
Was Britain really powerless?
In 1948, there were around 100,000 British soldiers in Palestine, along with a British-headed police force. The Haganah had about 50,000 members, although only around half that number may have been active fighters.
The inescapable conclusion is that Britain could have spared Palestinian suffering – and chose not to.
“Fight it out”
It was not simply a case of inaction.
On 20 April 1948, Cyril Marriott, the British consul-general in Haifa, sent a telegram to London officials apprising them of the security situation where he was based. Zionist forces were expected to attack Haifa – a strategically vital port city – within the next day or two, Marriott noted.
The priority of the military, he added, would be to safeguard “the route and installations” regarded as essential for the evacuation of British troops. Once that objective was achieved, Britain would “let Jews and Arabs fight it out in other parts of the town.”
The instruction to allow the warring parties to “fight it out” overlooked how the Haganah was numerically stronger and equipped with more modern weapons than the Arab forces.
When the offensive took place, Zionist forces swiftly captured a large part of Haifa. Hugh Stockwell, a British general, refused to allow Arab reinforcements to advance towards the town. He also ordered British forces to withdraw.
Stockwell then instructed Arab forces to disarm. He told “all foreign Arab males” to assemble at a place designated by the Haganah, so that these men could be expelled “under military control.”
Palestinian leaders in Haifa complained that Stockwell’s conditions were unfair. Without any viable alternative, they requested that Palestinians leave the area.
As the Palestinians fled – reportedly with just the clothes they were wearing – the Haganah fired on an ambulance, ransacked a hospital and looted homes. Once more, the British held back.
By leaving Palestinians with no option than to quit Haifa, Stockwell was arguably an accomplice in mass expulsion. The Zionist capture of Haifa that he facilitated helped turn it into what David Ben-Gurion called a “corpse city.”
Ben-Gurion, it should be stressed, favored transforming Palestinian communities into corpse cities. He predicted that the Zionist success in Haifa could be replicated throughout Palestine.
Within a few weeks, Ben-Gurion had formally declared the establishment of Israel. He became its first prime minister.
Britain’s involvement in Palestine did not end when it gave up the League of Nations mandate. For most of Israel’s seven decades, Britain has given it practical and rhetorical assistance.
Britain’s ruling elites have never atoned for their role in enabling the 1948 dispossession of Palestinians. Rather, they have prolonged and exacerbated the suffering of Palestinians, while pretending to believe in justice.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/da ... -palestine
by Belligerent Savant » Mon May 14, 2018 8:50 am
Asaf Ronel
(@AsafRonel)
#BREAKING: at least 37 protesters killed during the protests in #Gaza today - Gaza MoH
According to Palestinian reports, Israeli fighter jets are now bombing Gaza pic.twitter.com/RYOMVQ7NH
May 14, 2018
by seemslikeadream » Mon May 14, 2018 9:02 am
Democracy Now!
Live now: @sharifkouddous is reporting from Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed at least 30 Palestinians today: “No one is carrying any weapons here, there are no bullets being fired by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers… and yet, these killings continue”
Sharif Abdel Kouddous (@sharifkouddous) on Palestinians nonviolently approaching the border in Gaza: “This is a way of pushing their bodies up against their confinement” #DNlive
The Israeli military has been dropping tear gas from drones against Palestinians in Gaza today, Kouddous reports: "This also has been a trend, of Israel experimenting its tools of occupation on the bodies of Palestinians. These tools are usually exported elsewhere" #DNlive
Trump's Jerusalem embassy decision is a "huge insult" to the Palestinians and is among the driving factors behind the Gaza protests, says @sharifkouddous. "There is a sense that the very core of the Palestinian cause is under threat"
"This is a mass movement of all sectors of the Palestinian society," says @sharifkouddous on the Gaza protests underway. "There are women committees, youth committees, civil society committees, legal advocates, all of them… making decisions on how to run this movement." #DNlive
https://twitter.com/democracynow/status ... 8076175365
by seemslikeadream » Mon May 14, 2018 1:49 pm
Republicans’ Apocalyptic Fantasies Are Now Playing Out in the Middle East
Trump is tossing a lighted match into a lagoon of gasoline.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
MAY 14, 2018
More than 20 people in Gaza were dead on Monday before anyone in Washington had had their breakfast. This was pitched to the awakening nation as a series of “deadly clashes,” even though the deadly part only applied to one side. It was a great start to a day in which the president*, who doesn’t know anything about anything, prepared to toss a lighted match into a lagoon of gasoline in the Middle East.
The decision to move the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is more unnecessary than it is stupid and dangerous, and it’s pretty stupid and dangerous. There was no overwhelming political support—and certainly no overwhelming political pressure—in this country for such a provocative development. It was solely the desire of that odd mixture of highly conservative Judaism and American splinter Protestantism, of the prolonged slow-dance between the apocalyptic factions of two major monotheisms that very likely will incite the apocalyptic faction of the third. It is religious extremism disguised as international diplomacy.
How do I know this? Well, Jared and Ivanka Trump already have met with a conservative rabbi who thinks black people are monkeys. The United States of America will be represented at the ceremony by Robert Jeffress and John Hagee, two completely batshit-insane TV preachers with long histories of supporting Israel because it allegedly will be largely set-decoration for the end times. Jesus needs some place to disembowel the forces of the Antichrist, after all. From CNN:
Hagee, whose group is dedicated to organizing pro-Israel Christians in the United States into a unified voice, has had relationships with Israeli prime ministers dating back years. But he came under the national political spotlight in 2008 for comments that prompted then-Republican presidential candidate John McCain to reject his endorsement. During the campaign, audio from one of Hagee's sermons in the 1990s was leaked that seemed to suggest that Adolf Hitler had been fulfilling God's will by aiding the desire of Jews to return to Israel in accordance with biblical prophecy. "God says in Jeremiah 16: 'Behold, I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave to their fathers. ... Behold, I will send for many fishers, and after will I send for many hunters,'" Hagee said, according to a transcript of his sermon. "'And they the hunters shall hunt them.' That would be the Jews. ... Then God sent a hunter. A hunter is someone who comes with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter."
This is, of course, a completely normal view of Scripture. Around the same time, Catholics around the world undoubtedly were relieved when Hagee told them that HMC was no longer “the great whore.” I know I was. Hagee will deliver a benediction at the ceremony marking the transfer of the embassy. This is, of course, completely normal.
As for Jeffress, well, he’s been the chaplain on the Trump Train for a while now, and he also has a long record of interesting pronouncements on world religions.
Some might remember Jeffress for his frequent condemnations of Mormonism as a "cult" during the 2012 presidential campaign and his urging of Christians not to vote for Mitt Romney, a Mormon, during the Republican primary. But Jeffress has also called Islam and Mormonism heresies "from the pit of hell," suggested that the Catholic church was led astray by Satan, accused then-President Barack Obama of "paving the way" for the Antichrist, and spread false statistics about the prevalence of HIV among gays, who he said live a "miserable" and "filthy" lifestyle. In recent years, Jeffress has frequently denounced Islam, calling it an "evil religion" that "promotes pedophilia" because the Prophet Muhammed married a 9-year-old girl. (Many modern Muslim scholars disagree about her age.) The pastor has also said that Mormons, Muslims and Hindus "worship a false god."
This is, of course, a completely normal attitude toward believers in other faiths. Jeffress’s inclusion in the official U.S. travelling party—He also will mumble some prayer-like gibberish on behalf of us all—already has frosted Willard Romney’s cookies, as witnessed by Willard’s leap onto the electric Twitter machine on Monday morning.
Robert Jeffress says “you can’t be saved by being a Jew,“ and “Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.” He’s said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.
Actually, nobody should because the embassy should stay right the hell where it is, but I take Willard’s point. Nobody likes to be told their religion comes from “the pit of hell.” Besides, I thought that was where Darwin’s theories were developed. The pit of hell apparently is a vital center of American manufacturing these days.
Every American of every faith—to say nothing of Americans who have no religious faith at all—should be embarrassed to be represented by this collection of crackpots and thooleramawns, gone off to Israel to bless an unnecessary and perilous politico-religious gambit that owes more to fringe religion and domestic Israeli politics than to any American national interest. For his part, the president* spent the morning on the electric Twitter machine plugging the Fox News coverage of this world historical event, and this is completely normal, too. For the first time in its history, the United States has entered into what is at least partly an ancient religious war. This is exactly why our Constitution is as godless as it is.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a ... ate=051418
by seemslikeadream » Tue May 15, 2018 6:23 am
Gaza killings constitute 'war crimes': Amnesty
Footage from Gaza is troubling, says rights group, urging Israel to shun violence
Palestinians carry a wounded man during a protest, organized to mark 70th anniversary of Nakba, also known as Day of the Catastrophe in 1948, near Gaza-Israel border in Khan Yunis, Gaza on May 14, 2018. ( Ashraf Amra - Anadolu Agency )
By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON
The attacks on Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces on Monday are “willful killings constituting war crimes,” the Amnesty International said.
“This is another horrific example of the Israeli military using excessive force and live ammunition in a totally deplorable way. This is a violation of international standards, in some instances committing what appear to be wilful killings constituting war crimes,” said Philip Luther, research and advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa of the human rights watchdog.
At least 43 Palestinians were martyred and hundreds injured on Monday by Israeli gunfire during anti-occupation rallies in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry.
“Today’s footage from Gaza is extremely troubling, and as violence continues to spiral out of control, the Israeli authorities must immediately rein in the military to prevent the further loss of life and serious injuries,” Luther said in a statement.
He said: “Only last month, Amnesty International called on the international community to stop delivery of arms and military equipment to Israel. The rising toll of deaths and injuries today only serves to highlight the urgent need for an arms embargo.
“While some protestors may have engaged in some form of violence, this still does not justify the use of live ammunition.
“Under international law, firearms can only be used to protect against an imminent threat of death or serious injury.”
Thousands of Palestinians have gathered on Gaza Strip’s eastern border since early morning to take part in protests aimed to commemorate the Nakba anniversary and protest relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The rallies will culminate on Tuesday, May 15, the 70th anniversary of Israel's establishment -- an event Palestinians refer to as the "Nakba" or "the Catastrophe".
Since the rallies began on March 30, at least 49 Palestinian demonstrators have been killed and hundreds injured, according to Health Ministry figures.
Last week, the Israeli government said that rallies are a part of state of war and human rights laws are not applicable in such case.
“Early medical reports from Gaza today indicate that dozens of people have been shot in the head or chest. Amnesty International last month documented research from the Gaza Strip that showed the Israeli military were killing and maiming demonstrators who pose no imminent threat to them,” the rights group said in a statement.
The UN on Monday urged Israel to stop the disproportionate use of force against Palestinian demonstrators in the Gaza strip and initiate an impartial and independent investigation into killings of protesters.
"Alarmed by the disproportionate use of force displayed by the Israeli Security Forces (ISF) against Palestinian demonstrators […] which has resulted in the death of at least 40 people, among them five children and in thousands of persons being injured," the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/ga ... ty/1145326
Tension in Gaza as Palestinians begin to bury 58 dead
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-44116340
The Latest: Gaza Health Ministry releases latest death toll
Palestinian protesters hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest on the Gaza Strips border with Israel, Monday, May 14, 2018. Thousands of Palestinians are protesting near Gazas border with Israel, as Israel prepared for the festive inauguratiThe Associated Press
Palestinian protesters hurl stones at Israeli troops during a protest on the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, Monday, May 14, 2018. Thousands of Palestinians are protesting near Gaza's border with Israel, as Israel prepared for the festive inauguration of a new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)more +
The latest on the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and Palestinian protest (all times local):
6:55 a.m.
The Gaza Health Ministry says the Palestinian death toll in Gaza border protests has risen to 58, including 57 people killed by Israeli army fire and a baby who died from tear gas inhalation.
The ministry says six of those killed by gunshots were minors.
It says more than 2,700 people were injured Monday, including 1,360 by live fire. Of the wounded, 130 are in serious or critical condition.
The ministry did not say how the baby was exposed to tear gas.
On Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians rallied near Israel's border fence to protest a blockade of their territory and the move of the U.S. Embassy to contested Jerusalem that day.
It was the deadliest day in Gaza since a 2014 war between Israel and Gaza's ruling Hamas.
———
3:40 a.m.
Australia's prime minister has blamed the militant group Hamas for the deaths of more than 50 Palestinians under Israeli fire along the Israel-Gaza border.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told Melbourne Radio 3AW: "Hamas' conduct is confrontational. They're seeking to provoke the Israeli defense forces."
Turnbull says: "They're pushing people to the border. In that conflict zone, you're basically pushing people into circumstances where they are very likely to be shot at."
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called on Israel in a statement to be proportionate in its response and refrain from excessive use of force.
Turnbull says Australia will not follow the U.S. lead by moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
————
1:40 a.m.
The U.N. Security Council is set to meet Tuesday to discuss the deadly violence along the Israel-Gaza border.
Kuwait called for the session after more than 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire amid mass protests Monday. It was the deadliest day in Gaza since a 2014 cross-border war.
The Palestinian U.N. envoy wants the Security Council to condemn the killings.
Meanwhile, Israel's ambassador is calling on the council to condemn Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules the coastal Gaza Strip and led the protests.
It's not immediately clear what will come out of the discussion. At an emergency meeting after similar protests in March, council members urged restraint on both sides but didn't decide on any action or joint message.
———
12:30 a.m.
The Israeli military says it is reopening the Gaza Strip's main cargo crossing.
The Kerem Shalom crossing was closed over the weekend after Palestinian protesters damaged the facility.
The crossing is used to deliver food, medical supplies, fuel and building materials into the Gaza Strip. The military says it will reopen Tuesday, but it is not expected to operate at full capacity.
Israeli officials say protesters caused millions of dollars of damage to a fuel pipeline and conveyor belt that could take weeks to repair.
———
12:15 a.m.
The Turkish Embassy in Washington says the Turkish ambassador to the United States is being called home over the Trump administration moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Turkey is also recalling its ambassador to Israel for consultations. Turkey's Foreign Affairs Ministry says it strongly condemns the decision to move the embassy and deems the move "legally null and void."
Turkey says the move "disregards the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people" and "will not serve peace, security and stability in the region."
In a statement, Turkey is also criticizing Israel for the death of Palestinians who were protesting along the Gaza-Israel border. Turkey calls it a "massacre."
———
11 p.m.
A senior official says the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership has decided to file a war crimes complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court over its settlement construction on occupied lands.
Saeb Erekat says the decision was made late Monday in a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and senior PLO officials. It came after the U.S. moved its embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem on Monday and Israeli forces killed 55 people in Gaza protests.
Erekat says a decision was made to sign the ICC referral "immediately." Seeking a war crimes prosecution of Israel would signal a sharp deterioration in increasingly tense relations between the two sides.
The Palestinians have had standing at the court since the U.N. General Assembly recognized a "state of Palestine" as a non-member observer in 2012.
Erekat says that in that capacity, "Palestine" will also join several international organizations. Previous decisions of this nature were sharply opposed by the U.S. and Israel.
———
10 p.m.
The White House says responsibility for dozens of deaths in Gaza coinciding with the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem "rests squarely with Hamas."
White House spokesman Raj Shah was responding to reports of Israeli soldiers shooting and killing at dozens of Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border on Monday.
It's been the deadliest day there since a devastating 2014 cross-border war.
Shah says that "Israel has the right to defend itself" and is blaming Hamas for the "dire situation."
He's also calling Monday "a great day for Israel and the United States."
———
9:55 p.m.
Israel says South Africa has recalled its ambassador amid violence along the Gaza border.
Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said the ambassador was recalled for consultations. He said that Sisa Ngombane returns home Monday night.
South Africa's relations with Israel have long been frosty. The South African government is a fervent supporter of the Palestinian cause.
The diplomatic move came after 52 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire along the Gaza border in mass protests led by the Islamic militant group Hamas that rules the territory.
Israel says the level of violence at the border was "unprecedented" and that some Palestinians opened fire at troops and planted explosives.
———
9:50 p.m.
Thousands have gathered in Istanbul to condemn the U.S. decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem, burning American and Israeli flags, and protesting deadly clashes along the Israeli-Palestinian border.
Demonstrators carried banners that read: "Al Quds belongs to the Muslims," the Arabic name of Jerusalem. They chanted "God is great" and slogans calling for holy war and martyrdom. One speaker called Americans "dogs" as people shouted "Jerusalem is ours, it will be ours."
The rally was called by pro-Islamic Humanitarian Relief Foundation or IHH. In 2010, Israeli commandos stormed an IHH-organized aid flotilla to Gaza, killing nine Turks.
Turkey has been vehemently critical of the U.S. and Israel for the embassy relocation. Speaking in Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim slammed the two countries for celebrating the move while "innocent and defenseless Palestinians are martyred."
———
9:25 p.m.
Syria's foreign ministry says it condemns "in the strongest terms" what it called "the brutal massacre" committed Israel against the unarmed Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least 43 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border on Monday against the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem. It was the deadliest day there since a devastating 2014 cross-border war.
In a statement Monday, the Syrian foreign ministry held the U.S. administration responsible for the bloodshed, calling its decision to move the embassy "criminal and illegitimate."
The ministry said the battle of the Palestinian people against Israel is "Syria's battle," adding that Israel also supports "terrorists" that operate in Syria.
The statement said Syria support the Palestinians struggle to get back their legitimate rights, mainly its right to self-determination, refugees to return and establishing its independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.
———
8:40 p.m.
Kuwait is seeking an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting on the violence along the Gaza border, where Israeli soldiers shot and killed dozens of Palestinians during mass protests Monday.
Kuwait's U.N. mission is requesting a meeting Tuesday on the developments.
Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour urged the council Monday to condemn the killings. Speaking to reporters, Mansour called the Israel military response a "savage onslaught" and an "atrocity."
Gaza's Health Ministry says over 50 Palestinians were killed Monday in the deadliest day in Gaza since a 2014 war with Israel.
Israel says it has the right to defend its border.
The council held an emergency meeting when the protests began in March. Members then urged restraint on both sides but couldn't agree on any action or joint message.
———
8:20 p.m.
Iran's hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has condemned Israel's killing of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
A Guard statement carried by the semi-official Fars news agency said the Guard also strongly condemned the U.S. over moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The Guard said the "harsh and vicious act ... could start a new wave of combating America, anger and hatred against the supporters of this vicious move beyond the region."
Iran is a longtime opponent of Israel. Israel says it targeted Iranian positions in Syria recently.
———
8:20 p.m.
Qatar is condemning Israel for opening fire and killing Palestinians protesting in the Gaza Strip today.
A statement Monday night quoted Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lolwah al-Khater expressing the Gulf Arab nation's "condemnation and denunciation of the brutal massacre and systematic killing committed by the Israeli occupation forces against unarmed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
She said Qatar "calls on all international and regional powers that have a voice in Israel to act immediately to stop the brutal killing machine."
Since a 2014 war between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers, natural gas-rich Qatar has been a leading player in internationally backed reconstruction efforts in Gaza.
———
8 p.m.
The Lebanon's Hezbollah says the creation of Israel, just like the violence against Palestinians protesting in Gaza today, is "a mark of shame" for all humanity.
Hassan Nasrallah was speaking Monday. He said the Palestinians and the region are facing a major challenge, which is that the U.S. plans to propose a new peace plan between Palestinians and Israelis. Nasrallah said the expected plan aims to erode Palestinians rights and urged them not to accept it. He said only the resistance axis, in reference to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, can change the "equation" and will hold on to the right of Palestinians to statehood and the right of return.
Nasrallah said Israel and the United States are pressuring Iran, with sanctions and withdrawing from the nuclear deal, not only because of its use of nuclear energy but also because of its support for the Palestinians and resistance movements.
———
7:40 p.m.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has lashed out after the U.S. moved its embassy to contested Jerusalem, saying he "will not accept" any peace deal proposed by the Trump administration.
Abbas told PLO officials Monday that "this is not an embassy, it's a U.S. settlement outpost in Jerusalem," in a reference to Israeli settlements on war-won lands sought for a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian president also urged the international community to condemn what he said were "massacres" carried out by Israeli troops. On Monday, 52 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,200 wounded by Israeli army fire in Gaza border protests.
The high death toll and wall-to-wall Arab condemnation of Monday's U.S. Embassy move cast new doubt on the Trump administration's assertions that it can still broker a Mideast peace deal.
———
7:35 p.m.
The Israeli military says there were no border breaches during Monday's Gaza demonstrations, despite an "unprecedented" level of violence.
The army says it used airstrikes and tank fire against Hamas targets in Gaza after squads of gunmen opened fire and tried to plant bombs along the border.
"We saw more than five explosive devices. We saw shooting at forces," said Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis, the chief army spokesman.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, another army spokesman, said hundreds of protesters carried out "concerted, coordinated" attacks on the border fence in an attempt to infiltrate.
Palestinian health officials says 52 people were killed by Israeli fire — the deadliest day of violence since a 2014 war.
The military accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to carry out attacks.
———
7:30 p.m.
The chief Palestinian negotiator is accusing the Trump administration of "burying" Mideast peace hopes by moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.
Saeb Erekat called the new embassy an illegal "settlement outpost."
The Palestinians claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as their capital and bitterly opposed the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Although President Donald Trump says Monday's opening of the new embassy does not prejudge the final borders of the city, the move was perceived as taking Israel's side.
"We also witnessed today a ceremony of the Prime Minister of Israel and the administration of President Trump burying the peace process, burying the two state solution, killing the hope in the minds of the people of the Middle East as a whole with the possibility of peace," Erekat said.
———
7:15 p.m.
The U.N. human rights chief says on Twitter that "Israeli live fire in #Gaza must stop now," demanding respect for human life.
Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein decried the "shocking killing of dozens" and the injury of hundreds by Israeli forces in the Palestinian areas amid a crackdown against protests over the inauguration of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on Monday.
Zeid, a Jordanian prince who is leaving his post in August after a single term, said the international community needs to ensure justice for the victims.
He added Monday on the U.N. human rights office's Twitter feed that perpetrators of "outrageous human rights violations" must be held to account.
———
7:10 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire has risen to 52, making it the deadliest day in Gaza since a 2014 war with Israel.
It says 1,204 Palestinians were shot and wounded Monday in mass protests near the Gaza border fence with Israel. The ministry says this includes 116 who were in serious or critical condition.
The statement says about 1,200 others suffered other types of injuries, including from tear gas.
The steadily climbing death toll was bound to fuel international criticism of the military's open-fire policies against unarmed protesters. Rights groups have said the rules are unlawful.
Israel says it is defending a sovereign border and accuses Gaza's Hamas rulers of trying to carry out attacks under the cover of the protests
———
6:20 p.m.
The world's largest body of Muslim-majority nations says it "strongly rejects and condemns" the White House's "deplorable action" to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation said it considers the U.S. move an "illegal decision" and "an attack on the historical, legal, natural and national rights of the Palestinian people." The organization said the move Monday also represents "an affront to international peace and security."
The OIC said the U.S. administration has "expressed utter disdain and disrespect to Palestinian legitimate rights and international law" and shown disregard toward the sentiments of Muslims, who value Jerusalem as home to one of Islam's holiest sites, the al-Aqsa mosque complex.
The statement comes as at least 41 Palestinians, including five minors, were killed by Israeli forces Monday. More than 770 Palestinians were wounded in protests in the Gaza Strip
———
5:45 p.m.
A top Turkish official has condemned Israel for deadly clashes along the Israeli-Gaza border, while the foreign ministry blasted the U.S. decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem.
Taking to Twitter, the spokesman to the Turkish president called Monday's clashes that killed at least 41 Palestinians "another dark spot, another crime added to Israel's wall of shame."
Ibrahim Kalin criticized the international community for its silence "in the face of this systematic barbarism." He tweeted: "Palestine is not alone. Jerusalem is not alone."
The Turkish foreign ministry condemned in a statement the U.S. decision to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem, saying it violated international law and damaged the peace process. It also slammed Israel: "We curse the massacre carried out by Israeli security forces encouraged by this step on the Palestinians participating in peaceful demonstrations."
The foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, called Israel's actions "state terror."
———
5:40 p.m.
Egypt has condemned the killing of dozens of Palestinian protesters by Israeli fire near the Gaza boarder.
Monday's statement by Foreign Ministry condemned what it said "the use of force against peaceful marches."
It has also warned of the "negative repercussion of such serious escalation in the Palestinian occupied territories."
The statement did not mention today's relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire amid mass protests near the Gaza border has reached 41, making it the deadliest day since a 2014 war with Israel.
The violence made it the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory's Hamas rulers and Israel four years ago.
———
5:30 p.m.
The European Union's foreign policy chief is calling on Israel to respect the "principle of proportionality in the use of force," after Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least 41 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border.
Federica Mogherini said Monday that all should act "with utmost restraint to avoid further loss of life" and added that "Israel must respect the right to peaceful protest."
At the same time, she insisted that Hamas must make sure demonstrators in Gaza are peaceful and "must not exploit them for other means."
———
5:25 p.m.
The pan-Arab satellite news network Al-Jazeera says one of its reporters has been wounded while covering demonstrations in Gaza.
Qatar-based Al-Jazeera reported Monday afternoon that journalist Wael Dhadouh was "injured by live ammunition from Israeli forces."
It did not elaborate in a tweet announcing Dhadouh's injury.
———
5:20 p.m.
Israel's prime minister says Jerusalem will always be the "eternal, undivided" capital of Israel.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem, Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "glorious" day.
Netanyahu thanked President Donald Trump for showing the "courage" to keep a key campaign promise and says relations with the U.S. have never been stronger.
He says Mideast peace must be founded on what he says is the "truth" recognized by the U.S.
"The truth is that Jerusalem has been and always will be the capital of the Jewish people, the capital of the Jewish state," he said.
The Palestinians claim Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem as their capital and have strongly objected to Trump's move.
———
5:15 p.m.
Israel's military says it has carried out five airstrikes in Gaza after militants exchanged fire with soldiers.
Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said the military struck training camps of the militant Islamic group Hamas that rules Gaza and has been leading protests along the border with Israel.
He said troops exchanged fire with militants on 3 separate occasions.
Manelis said turn out by Monday afternoon was about 40,000. He said the army views that number as a "failure for Hamas."
He said the army noticed there were more women at the front of the protest than in past rallies and accused Hamas of paying people to protest.
At least 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire Monday making it the bloodiest day there since a 2014 war with Israel
———
5:10 p.m.
Jared Kushner says Palestinians participating in Gaza border protests are "part of the problem and not part of the solution."
Kushner, President Donald Trump's son in law and chief Mideast adviser, expressed hope for forging Mideast peace as he addressed the opening ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem on Monday.
As he spoke, deadly protests continued along Gaza's border with Israel. With over 40 dead, it was the deadliest round of cross-border violence since a 2014 war and left Kushner's peace efforts in tatters.
"As we have seen from the protests of the last month and even today those provoking violence are part of the problem and not part of the solution," he said.
He says the "journey to peace started with a strong America recognizing the truth."
———
5 p.m.
Hundreds of Arab citizens of Israel, including five members of parliament, are staging a protest near the site of a new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem.
The protest coincided with the inauguration of the embassy Monday afternoon, attended by a high-powered delegation from the Trump administration.
Dozens of police blocked the street near the compound, preventing the protesters from getting closer.
The demonstrators raised Palestinian flags and held signs reading "No to moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem."
The embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December. The decision infuriated Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.
In Gaza, at least 41 Palestinian were killed by Israeli fire Monday in a mass protest against the embassy move.
———
4:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump says the U.S. remains "fully committed" to pursuing a Mideast peace deal as it opens its controversial new embassy in Jerusalem.
In a videotaped message to the opening ceremony Monday, Trump said the new embassy has "been a long time coming." Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv was one of Trump's key campaign promise that was welcomed by Israel.
But the move has infuriated the Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as their capital and have said that the move disqualifies the U.S. as a Mideast peace mediator.
Trump said his "greatest hope" is for peace. He said the United States "remains fully committed to facilitating a lasting peace agreement."
———
4:30 p.m.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri calls the U.S. decision to move its embassy to Jerusalem a "provocative" act that closes the doors for any attempts to reach peace between the Israel and Palestinians.
Hariri in a series of tweets Monday said he regrets "this decision that is igniting the anger of millions of Arabs, Muslims and Christians." He said Lebanon denounces the "provocative" decision that is deepening the conflict and allowing the "Israelis to spill more blood of innocent Palestinians and increases the intensity of extremism that threatens the world community."
The embassy move comes on day marking Israel's creation 70 years ago, a day Arabs call the "nakba" or catastrophe, in reference to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from what is now Israel. Lebanon was one of the Arab countries to receive many of the Palestinian refugees. Today, there are more than 170,000 Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon.
———
4:25 p.m.
Iran's foreign minister is calling today's opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem "a day of great shame."
Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday wrote on Twitter: "Israeli regime massacres countless Palestinians in cold blood as they protest in the world's largest open air prison. Meanwhile, Trump celebrates move of U.S. illegal embassy and his Arab collaborators move to divert attention."
Zarif likely was referring to Gulf Arab countries, which so far haven't commented on Israeli fire killing at least 37 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border as officials marked the opening of the embassy.
Zarif wrote the tweet as he's traveling abroad to try to keep other world powers in the Iran nuclear deal following Trump's decision last week to pull America from the 2015 accord.
———
4:20 p.m.
American and Israeli delegations have begun a festive ceremony to mark the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
U.S. Ambassador David Friedman welcomed the crowd. "Today we open the United States embassy in Jerusalem Israel," he said to warm applause.
Jared Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump, both top aides to President Donald Trump, are leading a high-powered American delegation that also includes the treasury secretary and four Republican senators.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also in the audience.
The ceremony was taking place as Palestinians are holding a mass protest on the Gaza border with Israel. Some 37 people were killed on Monday, in the deadliest day of cross-border violence since a 2014 war.
———
4:15 p.m.
The head of the United Nations says he is worried about the news coming from Gaza, "with the high number of people killed."
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed his concerns Monday in Vienna, as clashes were taking place along the Israeli-Palestinian border and senior aides to U.S. President Donald Trump were in Jerusalem celebrating the opening of the new U.S. embassy there.
Guterres said, "I'm particularly worried about the news coming from Gaza with the high number of people killed."
The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.
The Gaza Health Ministry announced Monday afternoon that the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire had risen to 37.
———
4 p.m.
Pastor Robert Jeffress says "it's sad" that former presidential candidate Mitt Romney lashed out at him ahead of the inauguration of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem.
Jeffress said "I think it's sad that Mitt feels the need to lash out in anger on such a historic day but it's not going to overshadow what is happening here."
Speaking to The Associated Press before he was set to deliver the blessing at the opening ceremony Monday, Jeffress said things attributed to him have been taken out of context.
Mitt Romney had previously denounced Jeffress as a "religious bigot."
Jeffress, leader of a Dallas-area Baptist church and a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, has drawn criticism for calling Islam and Mormonism "a heresy from the pit of hell" and saying Jews "can't be saved."
———
3:45 p.m.
Amid deadly clashes along the Israeli-Palestinian border, senior aides to President Donald Trump are in Jerusalem celebrating the opening of the new U.S. embassy there.
The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv has infuriated the Palestinians, who seek east Jerusalem as a future capital.
As the Gaza Health Ministry announced that the death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire had risen to 37, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News that Monday was an "incredible, momentous day" and said it was "great honor" to lead the dedication ceremony on Trump's behalf.
Mnuchin also said "it's not coincidental" that the opening of the new embassy coincided with Trump's announcement that he planned to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.
Mnuchin has repeatedly said of Jerusalem: "This is the capital of Israel."
———
3:40 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire amid mass protests near the Gaza border has reached 37, making it the deadliest day since a 2014 war with Israel.
The ministry says at least 448 Palestinians were shot and wounded Monday, while hundreds more suffered other types of injuries, including from tear gas.
The violence made it the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory's Hamas rulers and Israel four years ago, and clouded the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
The deaths brought to 79 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers firing from across the border fence since mass border protests began in late March. More than 2,200 Gaza residents have been wounded in that time by Israeli fire.
———
3:15 p.m.
Several dozen Palestinian stone-throwers are clashing with Israeli troops on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Witnesses say that in one area, north of Jerusalem, soldiers are firing live bullets, tear gas and rubber-coated steel pellets. A second clash was reported between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Earlier Monday, several thousand gathered in the West Bank city of Ramallah to protest the inauguration of a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem later that day.
Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as a capital and view the Trump administration's recognition of the city as Israel's capital as a show of pro-Israel bias.
Palestinians are also marking the 70th anniversary of the "nakba," or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands were expelled or fled in the Mideast war over Israel's 1948 creation.
———
3:10 p.m.
European foreign ministers say the U.S. decision to move the American embassy to Jerusalem is unwise and likely to exacerbate tensions.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Monday that the move "is inflaming already a very tense situation, and the relationship between Israelis and Palestinians."
His Dutch counterpart, Stef Blok, said "we don't consider it a wise decision to move the embassy."
Their comments come after the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania blocked the full 28-nation European Union from publishing a statement about the U.S. move.
The U.S. is to formally inaugurate the embassy later Monday.
———
3:05 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli army fire near the Gaza border has reached 25.
This makes Monday the deadliest day in Gaza since the devastating cross-border war between the territory's Hamas rulers and Israel in 2014.
The deaths brought to 67 the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers firing from across the border fence since mass border protests began in late March. More than 2,000 Gaza residents have been wounded in that time by Israeli fire.
The Hamas-led marches, fueled by growing despair in Gaza, are aimed at breaking a decade-long blockade of the territory by Israel and Egypt.
Monday's march also protests the inauguration of a U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem later in the day.
———
3 p.m.
A senior figure in Gaza's ruling Hamas group says mass border protests against Israel will continue until Palestinians have achieved their rights.
Ismail Radwan spoke as thousands rallied near the border fence Monday in the largest protest since his Islamic militant group launched a campaign in late March to break the decade-old blockade of the territory.
By mid-day Monday, 18 Palestinians had been killed and close to 500 wounded by Israeli soldiers firing from across the border fence. Israel has said it will block a possible breach of the border at any cost.
Despite the rising death toll, Hamas was doubling down. Radwan says "we will continue on this path until the rights of the Palestinian people are achieved."
Since March, 60 Palestinians have been killed in the unrest along the border.
———
2:45 p.m.
The Israeli military says troops shot and killed three Palestinians who were trying to place an explosive device by the border fence in Gaza during mass protests.
The shooting in the southern Gaza town of Rafah came as thousands of Palestinians protested at the border against the relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and against a decade-long blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza by Israel and Egypt.
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza says at least 18 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire.
In a separate incident, the army says an Israeli aircraft bombed a Hamas military post in the northern Gaza Strip after Israeli troops came under fire. No Israeli casualties were reported.
The Israeli military says over 35,000 protesters are taking part in demonstrations at 12 points along the Gaza border.
———
2:40 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinian protesters killed by Israeli army fire near the Gaza border has risen to 18.
Monday's deaths bring to 60 the number of protesters killed since mass border protests against a decade-old blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory began in late March.
The rising death toll is bound to overshadow the festive inauguration of a U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem later Monday. Palestinians say the embassy opening is a show of blatant pro-Israel bias by the Trump administration.
Monday's bloodshed will likely revive international criticism of open-fire rules that allow soldiers to use lethal force against unarmed protesters.
Israel says it has the right to defend its border and that it will block a border breach at any cost.
———
2:30 p.m.
The Arab League and the top Sunni Muslim religious authority have criticized the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem.
The Cairo-based Arab League called on the international community to oppose what it considers an "unjust decision" and the ongoing "Israeli occupation" of the city.
It called the move a "blatant attack on the feelings of Arabs and Muslims," and a "grave violation of the rules of international law" that would destabilize the region.
The Palestinians, who claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, have called for an urgent meeting at the Arab League on Wednesday to discuss the matter.
Egypt's Al-Azhar religious institution called on the international community to use "all peaceful means" to "dismiss positions of countries that sided with the Zionist entity," referring to Israel.
The U.S. is to formally inaugurate the embassy in Jerusalem later on Monday. The Palestinians are holding mass protests along the Gaza border to condemn the move, and to try to break a decade-old blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory by Israel and Egypt.
———
2:20 p.m.
A top Russian diplomat has criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to move the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem, saying it will further fuel tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.
The U.S. Embassy is due to officially relocate to Jerusalem on Monday, after Trump recognized it as the capital of Israel in December.
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov on Monday described the relocation of the embassy as "short-sighted."
Bogdanov said in an interview with the Interfax news agency that the decision "runs against the stance of most of the international community." He blamed the U.S. for "a sharp escalation around Gaza" and said the relocation of the U.S. embassy "could spark large-scale confrontations between Palestinians and the Israelis and cause a rising number of casualties."
———
2:05 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinian protesters killed by Israeli army fire near the Gaza border has risen to 16.
Monday's deaths bring to 58 the number of protesters killed since mass border protests against a decade-old blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory began in late March.
Israel has said it will prevent a border breach at any cost. A growing casualty toll Monday was bound to revive international criticism of open-fire rules under which soldiers are permitted to shoot anyone approaching the border fence.
Rights groups have said such rules are unlawful. Israel says it has the right to defend its border.
———
1:40 p.m.
Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group says the U.S. decision to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is a unilateral step "that Palestinians will not accept and therefore it is worthless."
The group's deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Kassem, made his comments in a speech in Beirut on Monday marking the 70th anniversary of what Arabs refer to as the "nakba" or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the 1948 war around Israel's creation.
Kassem added that "God willing, the nakba that happened 70 years ago will be a motive for change and liberation."
The U.S. is to formally inaugurate the embassy in Jerusalem later on Monday. The Palestinians are holding mass protests along the Gaza border to condemn the move, and to try to break a decade-old blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory by Israel and Egypt.
———
1:30 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says the number of Palestinian protesters killed by Israeli army fire near the Gaza border has risen to seven.
Monday's deaths bring to 49 the number of Palestinians killed during mass border marches that began in late March and are aimed at breaking a decade-old blockade of the territory.
The ministry says 500 people were wounded Monday, including at least 69 by live fire.
Israel has said it would prevent a potential breach of the Gaza border at all costs. It has drawn international criticism for what rights groups say are unlawful open-fire rules. Israel says it has the right to defend its border.
Monday's protests also targeted the opening of the U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem later in the day.
———
12:45 p.m.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz says President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital will go down in history as a moment akin to President Harry Truman recognizing Israel when it was established in 1948.
Trump's former Republican presidential rival says Monday that it was "the right decision" and had already inspired Guatemala, Paraguay and perhaps others to follow suit. Cruz is in Israel as part of a congressional delegation for the embassy's dedication in Jerusalem.
Previous U.S. presidents of both parties, as well as nearly every other country, refrained from opening embassies in Jerusalem, arguing that the city's final status should first be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
Trump has been lauded by Israelis and condemned by Palestinians for moving the embassy to the contested city. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
———
12:30 p.m.
Gaza's Health Ministry says one Palestinian has been killed and 69 have been wounded by Israeli army fire in mass protests on the Gaza-Israel border.
The ministry said Monday that nine of the wounded are in serious condition. It says the man who was killed was 21 years old and was shot near the southeastern town of Khan Younis. It says several dozen other protesters were overcome by tear gas.
Thousands of Palestinians are protesting near Gaza's border with Israel, and the territory's Hamas leaders have suggested a border breach is possible. Israel has warned it would block such a breach at any cost.
———
12:20 p.m.
The Israeli military says it has set up several layers of security around the Gaza border in case of a massive breach by Palestinian protesters.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus says forces have been "massively reinforced" along the front lines of the border. But he says additional layers of forces have been stationed inside Israeli communities, and between communities, to defend Israeli civilians in case of a breach.
Conricus said Monday that "even if the fence is breached, we will be able to protect Israeli civilians from attempts to massacre or kidnap or kill them."
The Hamas organizers of the Palestinian protests have signaled that thousands of people may try to break through the fence.
———
12:15 p.m.
Israel's justice minister is calling President Donald Trump the "Churchill of the 21st Century" for relocating the American embassy to Jerusalem.
Ayelet Shaked says Monday that with his move Trump has "reversed Chamberlain's policy of capitulation" and shown the world that "the landowner has returned."
Previous U.S. presidents of both parties, as well as nearly every other country, refrained from opening embassies in Jerusalem, arguing that the city's final status should first be resolved through Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Shaked appeared to be comparing that policy to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis prior to World War II, suggesting Trump was like his successor, Winston Churchill, who led the war effort.
Shaked, from the pro-settler Jewish Home party, bashed Europe for not learning from history. She says it "closed its eyes to the strengthening of the Nazis, today it is choosing to close its eyes to the strengthening of Iran."
Trump has been lauded by Israelis and condemned by Palestinians for moving the embassy to the contested city. The Palestinians seek its eastern sector as their future capital and say the move removes the U.S. as an impartial arbiter.
———
11:15 a.m.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says it's a U.S. "national security priority" to relocate the Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Mnuchin was speaking Monday at an event in Jerusalem ahead of the opening ceremony for the new U.S. Embassy.
Trump's decision in December to go forward with a campaign promise to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem was welcomed by Israel and condemned by the Palestinians. Previous presidents had signed a waiver postponing the move, citing national security.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized by the international community. The Palestinians seek the city's eastern half as capital of a future state and say the move shows the U.S. is not an impartial peace negotiator.
———
11 a.m.
Israeli troops firing from across a border fence have shot and wounded two Palestinians as a protest near the Gaza border gets underway.
Gaza residents streamed to the border area Monday for what is intended to be the largest protest yet against a decade-old blockade of the territory. Israel's military says it will stop a possible border breach at all costs, warning protesters that they are endangering their lives.
Near Gaza City, hundreds gathered about 150 meters (yards) from the fence. A reporter witnessed two people being shot in the legs.
Protester Mohammed Hamami, 40, says the march is a "message to Israel and its allies that we will never give up on our land." Most Gaza residents are descendants of refugees from the Mideast war over Israel's 1948 creation.
———
10:50 a.m.
Turkey's president has once again condemned the U.S. decision to move its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
In a statement published late Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the U.S. disregarded "rights and justice," ignoring the international community. The new embassy is to be officially inaugurated on Monday.
Erdogan says the move serves to "reward" the Israeli government despite it undermining efforts to resolve the decades-long conflict, while it "punished" Palestinians. Erdogan says: "History and humanity will never forgive the injustices done to our Palestinian brothers."
Erdogan has been vehemently critical of the U.S. decision and hosted an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in December to condemn the move.
The Turkish president called on Israel to act "responsibly and with moderation" during possible protests on Monday to ensure no one's killed.
———
10:40 a.m.
Two prominent newspapers in the United Arab Emirates are criticizing America's decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The English-language, government-aligned Gulf News called Monday "a sad day" in a front-page headline over a cartoon by the slain Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali of a crying Palestinian woman behind barbed wire. Al-Ali, a critic of both Israeli and Arab governments, was fatally shot in London in 1987.
In an editorial, the Dubai-based Gulf News said: "This is a day when the United States and the administration of President Donald Trump should hang its head in shame." It called Trump's decision "a purely political move to appease his friends on the Manhattan party circuit" and said "Jerusalem's status is non-negotiable."
The Gulf News regularly datelines news reports as being from "Occupied Jerusalem."
In The National, an English-language, government-aligned newspaper in Abu Dhabi, editor-in-chief Mina al-Oraibi wrote: "Rather than ignoring history and historic rights, courage and immediate intervention is needed to save the heart of the Arab world.'"
———
10:30 a.m.
The speaker of Iran's parliament is reportedly warning that moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem will inflame tensions in the Middle East.
Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency on Monday quoted Ali Larijani as saying: "Definitely their measures on moving their embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Iran's nuclear issue will not go unchallenged. These sorts of actions will increase tension in the region and the world."
Larijani urged Muslim countries to take more serious measures in response to President Donald Trump's "wrong and unwise decision" to move the embassy to Jerusalem. The city's future status is one of the most divisive issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Larijani's comments come nearly a week after Trump pulled America out of the nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers in 2015.
———
10:20 a.m.
Witnesses say Israeli drones have dropped incendiary materials, setting ablaze tires that had been collected for use in a planned Gaza border protest.
They say the drones set tires ablaze in two locations early Monday, releasing large clouds of black smoke.
In weekly protests since March, Gaza activists have been using the thick smoke from burning tires as a cover against Israeli snipers on the other side of the fence.
On Monday, the largest turnout yet is expected in a campaign, led by Gaza's Hamas rulers, to break the decade-old blockade of the territory.
Mosques called on people to head for the border. A general strike was observed, with shops and markets closed. Buses deployed outside mosques to pick up protesters.
Israel's military says it will stop any border breach.
———
9:50 a.m.
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has denounced the choice of a "religious bigot" to deliver the blessing at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
Pastor Robert Jeffress, leader of a Dallas-area Baptist church and a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, is slated to deliver a blessing on Monday at the opening of the relocated embassy.
Jeffress has drawn criticism for calling Islam and Mormonism "a heresy from the pit of hell" and saying Jews "can't be saved."
Romney writes on Twitter that "Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem."
———
9:15 a.m.
A senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has sharply criticized President Donald Trump over his decision to open a U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem, saying the American administration is "based on lies."
Saeb Erekat told the Voice of Palestine radio Monday that Trump violated a promise to hold off on moving the embassy to give peace talks a chance. Erekat says Washington "is no longer a partner."
In December, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, infuriating Palestinians who seek the Israeli-annexed eastern sector as a capital. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem opens Monday.
Erekat says the Trump administration has "become part of the problem." He suggested Trump's Mideast team is unqualified, saying "the world needs real leaders, and those (White House officials) are real estate dealers, not leaders."
———
9:05 a.m.
Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary has expressed concern that the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel could escalate tensions in the Middle East.
Yoshihide Suga said Monday that "Japan is concerned that the move could make peace process in the Middle East even more difficult or escalate tension in all of the Middle East." He says Japan will watch the development with great interest.
Suga stopped short of criticizing the U.S., and said that Japan takes note of Washington's pledge that the issue of Jerusalem's status should be resolved between the concerned parties.
He stressed that Japan's position is that the disputes and Jerusalem's status should be resolved via negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. Suga added that Japan hopes to contribute in its own way to the region's peace by promoting trust and dialogue between the two parties through various projects.
The relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to contested Jerusalem has been welcomed by Israel but condemned by the Palestinians, who want their capital to be in east Jerusalem and view the decision as a blatantly one-sided move on one of the thorniest disputes in the conflict.
———
9 a.m.
President Donald Trump's Mideast peace negotiator says moving the American embassy to Jerusalem is a "necessary condition" to a lasting peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
American officials are in Jerusalem for Monday's relocation of the embassy from Tel Aviv to the contested city, a move the Israeli government has embraced but the Palestinians have condemned.
Jason Greenblatt writes on Twitter that "the long-overdue step of moving our Embassy is not a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace deal."
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. They view the relocation as a blatant, one-sided move that invalidates America's role as an impartial peace broker.
———
8:30 a.m.
Israel has warned Gaza residents they will be risking their lives if they approach the border during a planned mass protest.
The army says in the leaflets dropped by jets Monday that it will "act against every attempt to damage the security fence or harm IDF soldiers or Israeli civilians."
Gaza's ruling Hamas says it expects tens of thousands to join Monday's march, suggesting a possible border breach. The march is part of a campaign to break Gaza's decade-old border blockade. It's also a protest against the inauguration Monday of a U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem.
Since March, 42 Palestinian protesters have been killed and more than 1,800 wounded by Israeli army fire.
With Israel and Hamas digging in, there has been concern about large numbers of casualties Monday.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... e-55151775
by seemslikeadream » Tue May 15, 2018 6:30 am
seemslikeadream » Mon Dec 30, 2013 7:12 pm wrote:After the Holocaust, it has become almost impossible to conceal large-scale crimes against humanity. Our modern communication-driven world , especially since the upsurge of electronic media, no longer allows human-made catastrophes to remain hidden from the public eye or to be denied. And yet, one such crime has been erased almost totally from the global public memory: the dispossession of true Palestinians in 1948 by Israel. This, the most formative event in the modern history of the land of Palestine, has ever since been systematically denied, and is still today not recognized as an historical fact, let alone acknowledged as a crime that needs to be confronted politically as well as morally.THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE
ILAN PAPP ́E
This article, excerpted and adapted from the early chapters of a new book, emphasizes the systematic preparations that laid the ground for the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians from what became Israel in 1948. While sketching the context and diplomatic and polit- ical developments of the period, the article highlights in particular a multi-year “Village Files” project (1940–47) involving the systematic compilation of maps and intelligence for each Arab village and the elaboration—under the direction of an inner “caucus” of fewer than a dozen men led by David Ben-Gurion—of a series of military plans cul- minating in Plan Dalet, according to which the 1948 war was fought. The article ends with a statement of one of the author’s underlying goals in writing the book: to make the case for a paradigm of ethnic cleansing to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and the public debate about, 1948.
ON A COLD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, vet- eran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.1 That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the sys- tematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country.2 The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to pre- vent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan. Code-named Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), this was the fourth and final version of vaguer plans outlining the fate that was in store for the native population of Palestine.3 The previous three plans had articulated only obscurely how the Zionist leadership intended to deal with the presence of so many Palestinians on the land the Jewish national movement wanted for itself. This fourth and
ILAN PAPP ́E, an Israeli historian and professor of political science at Haifa University, is the author of a number of books, including The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951 (I.B. Tauris, 1994) and A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples (Cambridge University Press, 2004). The current article is extracted from early chapters of his latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications, Oxford, England, forthcoming in October 2006).
Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. XXXVI, No. 1 (Autumn 2006), pp. 6–20 ISSN: 0377-919X; electronic ISSN: 1533-8614. ⃝C 2006 by the Institute for Palestine Studies. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission
to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s
Rights and Permissions website, at http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 7
last blueprint spelled it out clearly and unambiguously: the Palestinians had to go.
The plan, which covered both the rural and urban areas of Palestine, was the inevitable result both of Zionism’s ideological drive for an exclusively Jewish presence in Palestine and a response to developments on the ground following the British decision in February 1947 to end its Mandate over the country and turn the problem over to the United Nations. Clashes with local Palestinian militias, especially after the UN partition resolution of November 1947, pro- vided the perfect context and pretext for implementing the ideological vision of an ethnically cleansed Palestine.
Once the plan was finalized, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods had been emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on 10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the following months, was a clear case of what is now known as an ethnic cleansing operation.
DEFINING ETHNIC CLEANSING
Ethnic cleansing today is designated by international law as a crime against humanity, and those who perpetrate it are subject to adjudication: a special in- ternational tribunal has been set up in The Hague to prosecute those accused of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia, and a similar court was estab- lished in Arusha, Tanzania, to deal with the Rwanda case. The roots of ethnic cleansing are ancient, to be sure, and it has been practiced from biblical times to the modern age, including at the height of colonialism and in World War II by the Nazis and their allies. But it was especially the events in the former Yugoslavia that gave rise to efforts to define the concept and that continue to serve as the prototype of ethnic cleansing. For example, in its special report on ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the U.S. State Department defines the term as “the systematic and forced removal of the members of an ethnic group from communities in order to change the ethnic composition of a given region.” The report goes on to document numerous cases, including the depopulation within twenty-four hours of the western Kosovar town of Pec in spring 1999, which could only have been achieved through advanced planning followed by systematic execution.3 Earlier, a congressional report prepared in August 1992 for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee had described the “pro- cess of population transfers aimed at removing the non-Serbian population from large areas of Bosnia-Hercegovina,” noting that the campaign had “sub- stantially achieved its goals: an exclusively Serb-inhabited region . . . created by forcibly expelling the Muslim populations that had been the overwhelming ma- jority.” According to this report, the two main elements of ethnic cleansing are, first, “the deliberate use of artillery and snipers against the civilian populations of the big cities,” and second, “the forced movement of civilian populations [entailing] the systematic destruction of homes, the looting of personal
8 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
property, beatings, selective and random killings, and massacres.”4 Similar de- scriptions are found in the UN Council for Human Rights (UNCHR) report of 1993, which was prepared in follow-up to a UN Security Council Resolution of April 1993 that reaffirmed “its condemnation of all violations of international humanitarian law, in particular the practice of ‘ethnic cleansing.’ ” Showing how a state’s desire to impose a single ethnic rule on a mixed area links up to acts of expulsion and violence, the report describes the unfolding ethnic cleansing process where men are separated from women and detained, where resistance leads to massacres, and where villages are blown up, with the remaining houses subsequently repopulated with another ethnic group.5
In addition to the United States and the UN, academics, too, have used the former Yugoslavia as the starting point for their studies of the phenomenon. Drazen Petrovic has published one of the most comprehensive studies of ethnic cleansing, which he describes as “a well-defined policy of a particular group of persons to systematically eliminate another group from a given territory on the basis of religious, ethnic or national origin. Such a policy involves violence and is very often connected with military operations.”6 Petrovic associates ethnic cleansing with nationalism, the creation of new nation-states, and national struggle, noting the close connection between politicians and the army in the perpetration of the crime: the political leadership delegates the implementation of the ethnic cleansing to the military level, and although it does not furnish systematic plans or provide explicit instructions, there is no doubt as to the overall objective.
These descriptions almost exactly mirror what happened in Palestine in 1948: Plan D constitutes a veritable repertoire of the cleansing methods de- scribed in the various reports on Yugoslavia, setting the background for the massacres that accompanied the expulsions. Indeed, it seems to me that had we never heard about the events in the former Yugoslavia of the 1990s and were aware only of the Palestine case, we would be forgiven for thinking that the Nakba had been the inspiration for the descriptions and definitions above, almost to the last detail.
Yet when it comes to the dispossession by Israel of the Palestinians in 1948, there is a deep chasm between the reality and the representation. This is most bewildering, and it is difficult to understand how events perpetrated in modern times and witnessed by foreign reporters and UN observers could be systemat- ically denied, not even recognized as historical fact, let alone acknowledged as a crime that needs to be confronted, politically as well as morally. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the most formative event in the modern history of the land of Palestine, has been almost entirely eradicated from the collective global memory and erased from the world’s conscience.
SETTING THE STAGE
When even a measure of Israeli responsibility for the disappearance of half the Arab population of Palestine is acknowledged (the official government
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 9
version continues to reject any responsibility whatsoever, insisting that the local population left “voluntarily”), the standard explanation is that their flight was an unfortunate but unavoidable by-product of war. But what happened in Palestine was by no means an unintended consequence, a fortuitous occurrence, or even a “miracle,” as Israel’s first president Chaim Weitzmann later proclaimed. Rather, it was the result of long and meticulous planning.
The potential for a future Jewish takeover of the country and the expul- sion of the indigenous Palestinian people had been present in the writings of the founding fathers of Zionism, as scholars later discovered. But it was not until the late 1930s, two decades after Britain’s 1917 promise to turn Pales- tine into a national home for the Jews (a pledge that became enshrined in Britain’s Mandate over Palestine in 1923), that Zionist leaders began to trans- late their abstract vision of Jewish exclusivity into more concrete plans. New vistas were opened in 1937 when the British Royal Peel Commission7 recom- mended partitioning Palestine into two states. Though the territory earmarked for the Jewish state fell far short of Zionist ambitions, the leadership responded favorably, aware of the signal importance of official recognition of the princi- ple of Jewish statehood on even part of Palestine. Several years later, in 1942, a more maximalist strategy was adopted when the Zionist leader David Ben- Gurion, in a meeting at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, put demands on the table for a Jewish commonwealth over the whole of Mandatory Palestine.8 Thus, the geographical space coveted by the movement changed according to circumstances and opportunities, but the principal objective remained the same: the creation in Palestine of a purely Jewish state, both as a safe haven for Jews and as the cradle of a new Jewish nationalism. And this state had to be exclusively Jewish not only in its sociopolitical structure but also in its ethnic composition.
That the top leaders were well aware of the implications of this exclusivity was clear in their internal debates, diaries, and private correspondence. Ben- Gurion, for example, wrote in a letter to his son in 1937, “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”9 Unlike most of his colleagues in the Zionist leadership, who still hoped that by purchasing a piece of land here and a few houses there they would be able to realize their objective on the ground, Ben-Gurion had long understood that this would never be enough. He recognized early on that the Jewish state could be won only by force but that it was necessary to bide one’s time until the opportune moment arrived for dealing militarily with the demographic reality on the ground: the presence of a non-Jewish native majority.
The Zionist movement, led by Ben-Gurion, wasted no time in preparing for the eventuality of taking the land by force if it were not granted through diplomacy. These preparations included the building of an efficient military organization and the search for more ample financial resources (for which they tapped into the Jewish Diaspora). In many ways, the creation of an embryonic diplomatic corps was also an integral part of the same general preparations aimed at creating by force a state in Palestine.
10 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
The principal paramilitary organization of the Jewish community in Palestine had been established in 1920 primarily to defend the Jewish colonies being implanted among Palestinian villages. Sympathetic British officers, however, helped transform it into the military force that eventually was able to imple- ment plans for the Zionist military takeover of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of its native population. One officer in particular, Orde Wingate, was responsi- ble for this transformation. It was he who made the Zionist leaders realize more fully that the idea of Jewish statehood had to be closely associated with mili- tarism and an army, not only to protect the growing number of Jewish colonies inside Palestine but also—more crucially—because acts of armed aggression were an effective deterrent against possible resistance by local Palestinians. Assigned to Palestine in 1936, Wingate also succeeded in attaching Haganah troops to the British forces during the Arab Revolt (1936–39), enabling the Jews to practice the attack tactics he had taught them in rural areas and to learn even more effectively what a “punitive mission” to an Arab village ought to entail. The Haganah also gained valuable military experience in World War II, when quite a few of its members volunteered for the British war effort. Others who re- mained behind in Palestine, meanwhile, continued to monitor and infiltrate the 1,200 or so Palestinian villages that had dotted the countryside for hundreds of years.
THE VILLAGE FILES
Attacking Arab villages and carrying out punitive raids gave Zionists expe- rience, but it was not enough; systematic planning was called for. In 1940, a young bespectacled Hebrew University historian named Ben-Zion Luria, then employed by the educational department of the Jewish Agency, the Zionist gov- erning body in Palestine, made an important suggestion. He pointed out how useful it would be to have a detailed registry of all Arab villages and proposed that the Jewish National Fund (JNF) conduct such an inventory. “This would greatly help the redemption of the land,” he wrote to the JNF.10 He could not have chosen a better address: the way his initiative involved the JNF in the prospective ethnic cleansing was to generate added impetus and zeal to the expulsion plans that followed.
Founded in 1901 at the fifth Zionist Congress, the JNF was the Zionists’ principal tool for the colonization of Palestine. This was the agency the Zion- ist movement used to buy Palestinian land on which it then settled Jewish immigrants and that spearheaded the Zionization of Palestine throughout the Mandatory years. From the outset, it was designed to become the “custodian” on behalf of the Jewish people of the land acquired by the Zionists in Palestine. The JNF maintained this role after Israel’s creation, with other missions being added to this primordial task over time.11
Despite the JNF’s best efforts, its success in land acquisition fell far short of its goals. Available financial resources were limited, Palestinian resistance was fierce, and British policies had become restrictive. The result was that
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 11
by the end of the Mandate in 1948 the Zionist movement had been able to purchase no more than 5.8 percent of the land in Palestine.12 This is why Yossef Weitz, the head of the JNF settlement department and the quintessential Zionist colonialist, waxed lyrical when he heard about Luria’s village files, immediately suggesting that they be turned into a “national project.”13
All involved became fervent supporters of the idea. Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, a histo- rian and prominent member of the Zionist leadership (later to become Israel’s second president), wrote to Moshe Shertock (Sharett), the head of the political department of the Jewish Agency (and later Israel’s prime minister), that apart from topographically recording the layout of the villages, the project should also include exposing the “Hebraic origins” of each village. Furthermore, it was important for the Haganah to know which of the villages were relatively new, as some of them had been built “only” during the Egyptian occupation of Palestine in the 1830s.14
But the main endeavor was mapping the villages, and to that end a He- brew University topographer working in the Mandatory government’s cartog- raphy department was recruited to the enterprise. He suggested preparing focal aerial maps and proudly showed Ben-Gurion two such maps for the villages of Sindyana and Sabarin. (These maps, now in the Israeli State Archives, are all that remains of these villages after 1948.) The best professional photographers in the country were also invited to join the initiative. Yitzhak Shefer, from Tel Aviv, and Margot Sadeh, the wife of Yitzhak Sadeh, the chief of the Palmah (the commando units of the Haganah), were recruited as well. The film laboratory operated in Margot’s house with an irrigation company serving as a front: the lab had to be hidden from the British authorities who could have regarded it as an illegal intelligence effort directed against them. Though the British were aware of the project, they never succeeded in locating the secret hideout. In 1947, this whole cartographic department was moved to the Haganah head- quarters in Tel Aviv.15
The end result of the combined topographic and Orientalist efforts was a large body of detailed files gradually built up for each of Palestine’s villages. By the late 1940s, the “archive” was almost complete. Precise details were recorded about the topographic location of each village, its access roads, quality of land, water springs, main sources of income, its sociopolitical composition, religious affiliations, names of its mukhtars, its relationship with other villages, the age of individual men (16–50), and much more. An important category was an index of “hostility” (toward the Zionist project, that is) as determined by the level of the village’s participation in the 1936–39 Arab Revolt. The material included lists of everyone involved in the revolt and the families of those who had lost someone in the fight against the British. Particular attention was given to people alleged to have killed Jews.
That this was no mere academic exercise in geography was immediately obvious to the regular members of the Haganah who were entrusted with collecting the data on “reconnaissance” missions into the villages. One of those who joined a data collection operation in 1940 was Moshe Pasternak, who
12 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
recalled many years later:
We had to study the basic structure of the Arab village. This means the structure and how best to attack it. In the military schools, I had been taught how to attack a modern European city, not a primitive village in the Near East. We could not com- pare it [an Arab village] to a Polish, or an Austrian one. The Arab village, unlike the European ones, was built topographi- cally on hills. That meant we had to find out how best to ap- proach the village from above or enter it from below. We had to train our “Arabists” [the Orientalists who operated a net- work of collaborators] how best to work with informants.16
Indeed, the difficulties of “working with informants” and creating a collabora- tionist system with the “primitive” people “who like to drink coffee and eat rice with their hands” were noted in many of the village files. Nonetheless, by 1943, Pasternak remembered, there was a growing sense that finally a proper network of informants was in place. That same year, the village files were re- arranged to become even more systematic. This was mainly the work of one man, Ezra Danin,17 who was to play a leading role in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
In many ways, it was the recruitment of Ezra Danin, who had been taken out of his successful citrus grove business for the purpose, that injected the intelligence work and the organization of the village files with a new level of efficiency. Files in the post-1943 era included for each village detailed de- scriptions of the husbandry, cultivation, the number of trees in plantations, the quality of each fruit grove (even of individual trees!), the average land holding per family, the number of cars, the names of shop owners, members of work- shops, and the names of the artisans and their skills.18 Later, meticulous details were added about each clan and its political affiliation, the social stratification between notables and common peasants, and the names of the civil servants in the Mandatory government. The antlike labor of the data collection created its own momentum, and around 1945 additional details began to appear such as descriptions of village mosques, the names of their imams (together with such characterizations as “he is an ordinary man”), and even precise accounts of the interiors of the homes of dignitaries. Not surprisingly, as the end of the Mandate approached, the information became more explicitly military orientated: the number of guards in each village (most had none) and the quantity and quality of arms at the villagers’ disposal (generally antiquated or even nonexistent).19
Danin recruited a German Jew named Yaacov Shimoni, later to become one of Israel’s leading Orientalists, and put him in charge of “special projects” in the villages, in particular supervising the work of the informants.20 (One of these informants, nicknamed the “treasurer” (ha-gizbar) by Danin and Shimoni, proved a fountain of information for the data collectors and supervised the collaborators’ network on their behalf until 1945, when he was exposed and killed by Palestinian militants.21) Other colleagues working with Danin and
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 13
Shimoni were Yehoshua Palmon and Tuvia Lishanski, who also took an active part in preparing for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Lishanski had already been busy in the 1940s orchestrating campaigns to forcibly evict tenants living on lands purchased by the JNF from present or absentee landlords.
Not far from the village of Furiedis and the “veteran” Jewish settlement, Zikhron Yaacov, where today a road connects the coastal highway with Marj Ibn Amr (Emeq Izrael) through Wadi Milk, lies a youth village called Shefeya. It was here that in 1944 special units employed by the village files project received their training, and it was from here that they went out on their reconnaissance missions. Shefeya looked very much like a spy village in the cold war: Jews walking around speaking Arabic and trying to emulate what they believed were the customs and behavior of rural Palestinians.22 Many years later, in 2002, one of the first recruits to this special training base recalled his first reconnaissance mission to the nearby village of Umm al-Zaynat in 1944. The aim had been to survey the village and bring back details of where the mukhtar lived, where the mosque was located, where the rich villagers lived, who had been active in the 1936–39 revolt, and so on. These were not dangerous missions, as the infiltrators knew they could exploit the traditional Arab hospitality code and were even guests at the home of the mukhtar himself. As they failed to collect in one day all the data they were seeking, they asked to be invited back. For their second visit they had been instructed to make sure to get a good idea of the fertility of the land, whose quality seemed to have highly impressed them: in 1948, Umm al-Zaynat was destroyed and all its inhabitants expelled without any provocation on their part whatsoever.23
The final update of the village files took place in 1947. It focused on creating lists of “wanted” persons in each village. In 1948, Jewish troops used these lists for the search-and-arrest operations they carried out as soon as they had occupied a village. That is, the men in the village would be lined up and those whose names appeared on the lists would be identified, often by the same person who had informed on them in the first place, but now wearing a cloth sack over his head with two holes cut out for his eyes so as not to be recognized. The men who were picked out were often shot on the spot.
Among the criteria for inclusion in these lists, besides having participated in actions against the British and the Zionists, were involvement in the Palestinian national movement (which could apply to entire villages) and having close ties to the leader of the movement, the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husayni, or being affiliated with his political party.24 Given the Mufti’s dominance of Palestinian politics since the establishment of the Mandate in 1923, and the prominent positions held by members of his party in the Arab Higher Committee that became the embryo government of the Palestinians, this offense too was very common. Other reasons for being included in the list were such allegations as “known to have traveled to Lebanon” or “arrested by the British authorities for being a member of a national committee in the village.”25 An examination of the 1947 files shows that villages with about 1,500 inhabitants usually had 20–30 such suspects (for instance, around the southern Carmel mountains, south of Haifa,
14 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
Umm al-Zaynat had 30 such suspects and the nearby village of Damun had 25).26
Yigael Yadin recalled that it was this minute and detailed knowledge of each and every Palestinian village that enabled the Zionist military command in November 1947 to conclude with confidence “that the Palestine Arabs had nobody to organize them properly.” The only serious problem was the British: “If not for the British, we could have quelled the Arab riot [the opposition to the UN Partition Resolution in 1947] in one month.”27
GEARING UP FOR WAR
As World War II drew to a close, the Zionist movement had obtained a much clearer general sense of how best to go about getting its state off the ground. By that time, it was clear that the Palestinians did not constitute a real obstacle to Zionist plans. True, they still formed the overwhelming majority in the land, and as such they were a demographic problem, but they were no longer feared as a military threat. A crucial factor was that the British had already completely destroyed the Palestinian leadership and defense capabilities in 1939 when they suppressed the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, allowing the Zionist leadership ample time to set out their next moves. The Zionist leadership was also aware of the hesitant position that the Arab states as a whole were taking on the Palestine question. Thus, once the danger of Nazi invasion into Palestine had been removed, the Zionist leaders were keenly aware that the sole obstacle that stood in the way of their seizing the country was the British presence.
As long as Britain had been holding the fort against Nazi Germany, it was impossible, of course, to pressure them. But with the end of the war, and es- pecially with the postwar Labor government looking for a democratic solution in Palestine (which would have spelled doom for the Zionist project given the 75-percent Arab majority), it was clear that Britain had to go. Some 100,000 British troops remained in Palestine after the war and, in a country with a popu- lation under two million, this definitely served as a deterrent, even after Britain cut back its forces somewhat following the Jewish terrorist attack on it head- quarters in the King David Hotel. It was these considerations that prompted Ben-Gurion to conclude that it was better to settle for less than the 100 per- cent demanded under the 1942 Biltmore program and that a slightly smaller state would be enough to allow the Zionist movement to fulfill its dreams and ambitions.28
This was the issue that was debated by the movement in the final days of August 1946, when Ben-Gurion assembled the leadership of the Zionist move- ment at the Royal Monsue hotel in Paris. Holding back the more extremist members, Ben-Gurion told the gathering that 80 to 90 percent of Mandatory Palestine was plenty for creating a viable state, provided they were able to ensure Jewish predominance. “We will demand a large chunk of Palestine” he told those present. A few months later the Jewish Agency translated Ben-Gurion’s “large chunk of Palestine” into a map which it distributed to
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 15
the parties relevant to deciding the future of Palestine. Interestingly, the Jewish Agency map, which was larger than the map proposed by the UN in November 1947, turned out to be, almost to the last dot, the map that emerged from the fighting in 1948–49: pre-1967 Israel, that is, Palestine without the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.29
The major topic on the Zionist agenda in 1946, the struggle against the British, resolved itself with Britain’s decision in February 1947 to quit Palestine and to transfer the Palestine question to the UN. In fact, the British had little choice: after the Holocaust they would never be able to deal with the looming Jewish rebellion as they had with the Arab one in the 1930s. Moreover, as the Labor party had made up its mind to leave India, Palestine lost much of its attraction. Fuel shortages during a particularly cold winter in 1947 drove the message home to London that the empire was soon to be a second-rate power, its global influence dwarfed by the two new superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) and its postwar economy crippled. Rather than hold onto remote places such as Palestine, the Labor party saw as its priority the building of a welfare state at home. In the end, Britain pulled out in a hurry, and with no regrets.30
By the end of 1946, even before Britain’s decision, Ben-Gurion had already realized that the British were on their way out and, with his aides, began work- ing on a general strategy that could be implemented against the Palestinian population the moment the British were gone. This strategy became Plan C, or Gimel in Hebrew. Plan C was a revised version of two earlier plans. Plan A was also named the “Elimelech Plan,” after Elimelech Avnir, the Haganah com- mander in Tel Aviv who in 1937, at Ben-Gurion’s request, had set out possible guidelines for the takeover of Palestine in the event of a British withdrawal. Plan B had been devised in 1946. Shortly thereafter, the two plans were fused to form Plan C.
Like Plans A and B, Plan C aimed to prepare the Jewish community’s military forces for the offensive campaigns they would be waging against rural and urban Palestine after the departure of the British. The purpose of such actions would be to “deter” the Palestinian population from attacking Jewish settlements and to retaliate for assaults on Jewish houses, roads, and traffic. Plan C spelled out clearly what punitive actions of this kind would entail:
Striking at the political leadership.
Striking at inciters and their financial supporters.
Striking at Arabs who acted against Jews.
Striking at senior Arab officers and officials [in the Mandatory
system].
Hitting Palestinian transportation.
Damaging the sources of livelihood and vital economic targets
(water wells, mills, etc.).
Attacking villages, neighborhoods, likely to assist in future
attacks.
Attacking clubs, coffee houses, meeting places, etc.
16 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
Plan C added that the data necessary for the successful performance of these actions could be found in the village files: lists of leaders, activists, “potential human targets,” the precise layout of villages, and so on.31
The plan lacked operational specifics, however, and within a few months, a new plan was drawn up, Plan D (Dalet). This was the plan that sealed the fate of the Palestinians within the territory the Zionist leaders had set their eyes on for their future Jewish State. Unlike Plan C, it contained direct references both to the geographical parameters of the future Jewish state (the 78 percent provided for in the 1946 Jewish Agency map) and to the fate of the one million Palestinians living within that space:
These operations can be carried out in the following man- ner: either by destroying villages (by setting fire to them, by blowing them up, and by planting mines in their rubble), and especially those population centers that are difficult to con- trol permanently; or by mounting combing and control oper- ations according to the following guidelines: encirclement of the villages, conducting a search inside them. In case of resis- tance, the armed forces must be wiped out and the population expelled outside the borders of the state.32
No village within the planned area of operations was exempted from these orders, either because of its location or because it was expected to put up some resistance. This was the master plan for the expulsion of all the villages in rural Palestine. Similar instructions were given, in much the same wording, for actions directed at Palestine’s urban centers.
The orders coming through to the units in the field were more specific. The country was divided into zones according to the number of brigades, whereby the four original brigades of the Haganah were turned into twelve so
Documents from the IDF archives show clearly that, contrary to claims made by historians such as Benny Morris, Plan Dalet was handed down to the brigade commanders not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operative orders for action.
as to facilitate implementing the plan. Each brigade commander received a list of the villages or neighbor- hoods in his zone that had to be occupied, destroyed, and their inhabitants expelled, with exact dates. Some commanders were overly zealous in executing their or- ders, adding other locations as the momentum of their operation carried them forward. Some of the orders, on the other hand, proved too ambitious and could not be implemented within the expected timetable. This meant that several villages on the coast that had been scheduled to be occupied in May were destroyed only in July. And the villages in the Wadi Ara area—a
valley connecting the coast near Hadera with Marj Ibn Amr (Emeq Izrael) and Afula (today’s Route 65)—somehow succeeded in surviving all the Jewish at- tacks until the end of the war. But they were the exception. For the most part, the destruction of the villages and urban neighborhoods, and the removal of their inhabitants, took place as planned. And by the time the direct order had been issued in March, thirty villages were already obliterated.
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 17
A few days after Plan D was typed out, it was distributed among the com- manders of the dozen brigades that now comprised the Haganah. With the list each commander received came a detailed description of the villages in his field of operation and their imminent fate—occupation, destruction, and expulsion. The Israeli documents released from the IDF archives in the late 1990s show clearly that, contrary to claims made by historians such as Benny Morris, Plan Dalet was handed down to the brigade commanders not as vague guidelines, but as clear-cut operative orders for action.33
Unlike the general draft that was sent to the political leaders, the instructions and lists of villages received by the military commanders did not place any restrictions on how the action of destruction or expulsion was to be carried out. There were no provisions as to how villages could avoid their fate, for example through unconditional surrender, as promised in the general document. There was another difference between the draft handed to the politicians and the one given to the military commanders: the official draft stated that the plan would not be activated until after the Mandate ended, whereas the officers on the ground were ordered to start executing it within a few days of its adoption. This dichotomy is typical of the relationship that exists in Israel between the army and politicians until today—the army quite often misinforms the politicians of their real intentions, as Moshe Dayan did in 1956, Ariel Sharon did in 1982, and Shaul Mofaz did in 2000.
What the political version of Plan Dalet and the military directives had in common was the overall purpose of the scheme. In other words, even before the direct orders had reached the field, troops already knew exactly what was expected of them. The venerable and courageous Israeli fighter for civil rights, Shulamit Aloni, who was an officer at the time, recalls how special political officers would come down and actively incite the troops by demonizing the Palestinians and invoking the Holocaust as the point of reference for the op- eration ahead, often planned for the day after the indoctrination had taken place.34
THE PARADIGM OF ETHNIC CLEANSING
In my forthcoming book, I want to explore the mechanism of the ethnic cleansing of 1948 as well as the cognitive system that has allowed the world to forget and the perpetrators to deny the crime committed by the Zionist movement against the Palestinian people.
In other words, I want to make the case for a paradigm of ethnic cleansing to replace the paradigm of war as the basis for the scholarly research of, and the public debate about, 1948. I have no doubt that the absence so far of the paradigm of ethnic cleansing is one reason why the denial of the catastrophe has gone on for so long. It is not that the Zionist movement, in creating its nation-state, waged a war that “tragically but inevitably” led to the expulsion of “parts of the indigenous population.” Rather, it is the other way round: the objective was the ethnic cleansing of the country the movement coveted for
18 JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
its new state, and the war was the consequence, the means to carry it out. On 15 May 1948, the day after the official end of the Mandate and the day the State of Israel was proclaimed, the neighboring Arab states sent a small army—small in comparison to their overall military capability—to try to stop the ethnic cleansing operations that had already been in full swing for over a month. The war with the regular Arab armies did nothing to prevent the ongoing ethnic cleansing, which continued to its successful completion in the autumn of 1948.
To many, the idea of adopting the paradigm of ethnic cleansing as the a priori basis for the narrative of 1948 may appear no more than an indictment. And in many ways, it is indeed my own J’Accuse against the politicians who devised the ethnic cleansing and the generals who carried it out. These men are not obscure. They are the heroes of the Jewish war of independence, and their names will be quite familiar to most readers. The list begins with the indis- putable leader of the Zionist movement, David Ben-Gurion, in whose private home all the chapters in the ethnic cleansing scheme were discussed and final- ized. He was aided by a small group of people I refer to as the “Consultancy,” an ad-hoc cabal assembled solely for the purpose of planning the dispossession of the Palestinians.35 In one of the rare documents that records the meeting of this body, it is referred to as the Consultant Committee—Haveadah Hamyeazet; in another document the eleven names of the committee appear.36 Though these names were all erased by the censor, it has been possible to reconstruct them.
This caucus prepared the plans for the ethnic cleansing and supervised its execution until the job of uprooting half of Palestine’s native population had been completed. It included first and foremost the top-ranking officers of the future state’s army, such as the legendary Yigael Yadin and Moshe Dayan. They were joined by figures little known outside Israel but well grounded in the local ethos, such as Yigal Alon and Yitzhak Sadeh, followed by regional commanders, such as Moshe Kalman, who cleansed the Safad area, and Moshe Carmel, who uprooted most of the Galilee. Yitzhak Rabin operated both in al-Lyyd and Ramleh, as well as in the Greater Jerusalem area. Shimon Avidan cleansed the south; many years later Rehavam Ze’evi, who fought with him, said admiringly that he “cleansed his front from tens of villages and towns.”37 Also on the southern front was Yitzhak Pundak, who told Ha’Aretz in 2004, “There were two hundred villages [in the front] and they are gone. We had to destroy them, otherwise we would have had Arabs here [namely in the southern part of Palestine] as we have in Galilee. We would have had another million Palestinians.”38
These military men commingled with what nowadays we would call the “Orientalists”: experts on the Arab world at large, and the Palestinians in par- ticular, either because they themselves came from Arab lands or because they were scholars in the field of Middle Eastern studies. Some of these were intel- ligence officers on the ground during this crucial period. Far from being mere collectors of data on the “enemy,” intelligence officers not only played a major role in preparing for the cleansing, but some also personally took part in some of the worst atrocities that accompanied the systematic dispossession of the
THE 1948 ETHNIC CLEANSING OF PALESTINE 19
Palestinians. It was they who were given the final authority to decide which villages would be ground to dust and which villagers would be executed.39 In the memories of Palestinian survivors, they were the ones who, after a village or neighborhood had been occupied, decided the fate of its peasants or town dwellers, which could mean imprisonment or freedom or spell the difference between life and death. Their operations in 1948 were supervised by Issar Harel, who later became the first head of Mossad and the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret services.
I mention their names, but my purpose in doing so is not that I want to see them posthumously brought to trial. Rather, my aim here and in my book is to humanize the victimizers as well as the victims: I want to prevent the crimes Israel committed from being attributed to such elusive factors as “the circumstances,” “the army,” or, as Benny Morris has it, “la guerre comme la guerre,” and similar vague references that let sovereign states off the hook and give individuals a clear conscience. I accuse, but I am also part of the society that stands condemned. I feel both responsible for, and part of, the story. But like others in my own society, I am also convinced that a painful journey into the past is the only way forward if we want to create a better future for us all, Palestinians and Israelis alike.
FULL COPY
by seemslikeadream » Tue May 15, 2018 11:28 am
UNCATEGORIZED
Israeli Snipers massacre Palestinians at Gaza Border Rally, killing 55 & injuring over 2,700
MAAN NEWS AGENCY
05/15/2018
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — At least 55 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2,700 others injured alongside the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The latest death toll was reported by the ministry at 9:30 p.m. The ministry added that 2,771 people were injured.
Six of the slain Palestinians were minors under the age of 18, including one girl.
According to the ministry, at least 1,204 Palestinians were injured with live ammunition. 79 were injured in their necks, 161 in their arms, 62 in the back and chests, 52 in their stomachs, and 1055 in their lower limbs.
At least 203 of the injured were reported to be children, and 78 women.
The Gaza Ministry of Health identified some of the slain Palestinians as : Anas Hamdan Qudeih, 21; Qudeih was killed in Khan Younis, Musaab Youssef Ibrahim Abu Laila, 29, in eastern Jabaliya, Ubaida Salem Farhan, 30, Muhammad Ashraf Abu Sitta, 26, Izz al-Din Moussa al-Sammak, 14, Izz al-Din Nahed al-Uweiti, 23, Bilal Ahmad Abu Duqqa, 26, Jihad Mufid Abed al-Munem al-Farra, 30, Fadi Hassan Abu Salah, 30, Ahmad Awadallah, 24, Mutasem Fawzi Abu Luli, 20, Muhammad Mahmoud Abed al-Aal, Ahmad Fawzi al-Tatar, Ahmad Adel Moussa al-Shaer, Muhammad Abed al-Rahman Ali Miqdad.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said that until 13:15 p.m., their teams treated 390 injuries, 253 of which are with live ammunition, 68 tear-gas inhalation cases, 28 shrapnel injuries and 41 hit with tear-gas bombs; 76 of the injuries were in the northern Gaza Strip, 134 in Gaza City, 41in the central Gaza Strip, 86 in Khan Younis and 68 in Rafah City.
Two were injured in eastern al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip while others were injured in eastern Gaza City.
Several protesters cut the Israeli border fence and reportedly attempted to enter the other side, as Israeli military forces were heavily deployed alongside the borders, constantly opening fire.
Palestinians headed to the “return camps” early Monday stationed along the border, setting fire to tires near the border fence.
In Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces had thrown flammable material at the return camps in an attempt to prevent youths from approaching borders.
https://www.juancole.com/2018/05/massac ... uring.html
by Belligerent Savant » Tue May 15, 2018 11:37 pm
Fifteen Thoughts About Israel
1. I hate writing about Israel. The accusations of anti-semitism which necessarily go along with literally any criticism of that nation are gross enough, but even worse are the assholes who take my criticisms of the Israeli government as an invitation to actually be anti-semitic. They really do hate Jews, they really do think that every problem in the world is because of Jews and they post Jewish caricature memes and calls for genocide in the comments section on social media and it’s incredibly gross and I hate it. It feels exactly as intrusive, jarring and violating as receiving an unsolicited dick pic. But the Israeli government keeps committing war provocations and massacring Palestinians, so it’s something I’ve got to talk about.
2. Anti-semitism (or whatever word you prefer to use for the pernicious mind virus which makes people think it’s okay to promote hatred against Jewish people) is a very real thing that does exist, and I denounce it to the furthest possible extent. Anti-semitism is also a label that is used to bully the world into accepting war crimes, apartheid, oppression, and mass murder. Both of those things are true.
3. There were dozens of Palestinians killed and well above a thousand injured in the Gaza protests over the US moving its embassy to Jerusalem yesterday. I haven’t found any report of so much as a single Israeli injury. The only way to spin this as the fault of the Palestinians is to dehumanize them, to attribute behaviors and motives to them that we all know are contrary to human nature. To paint them as subhuman orc-like creatures who are so crazy and evil that they will keep throwing themselves at a hail of bullets risking life and limb just to have some extremely remote chance of harming a Jewish person for no reason. This is clearly absurd. A little clear thinking and empathy goes a long way.
4. Trump could have prevented all this violence by doing what previous administrations had done and keeping the US embassy in Tel Aviv. Experts warned that this would happen. Trump ignored them. He is ultimately responsible for the mounting pile of corpses resulting from this provocation.
5. The Trump campaign was given $25 million by billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson (the largest campaign donation made by anyone to any candidate), who provided a further $5 million for Trump’s inauguration. Adelson is a sociopathic pro-Israel hawk who once called on the US to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. He was present at the opening of the Jerusalem embassy, getting what he paid for.
6. Any position on Israel that is determined by words made up by dead men thousands of years ago is intrinsically invalid. Saying the Jewish people are more entitled to Israel than those who were living there seven decades ago because of some superstitious voodoo written in obsolete religious texts is not an argument. Religious freedom is important, and it’s important to be able to believe whatever you like, but your beliefs do not legitimize your actions upon other people. If you murder someone in the name of Allah, you have murdered someone. If you kill 58 people because you feel some ancient scripture entitles you to a particular section of dirt, you have killed 58 people. Your internal beliefs do not give you a free pass for your egregious actions upon others.
7. Israel is very dangerous and completely unsustainable, but its interests are aggressively promoted by powerful plutocrats and lobby groups. It’s like if fracking was a place.
8. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is like a house that can’t stand without nonstop construction work. If your house needs a large construction team working around the clock seven days a week to keep it from collapsing, you should probably either move or consider a new architectural design.
9. A nation that can’t exist without nonstop war and violence is not a nation at all, it’s a decades-long military operation with a few suburbs sprinkled on top. And that is exactly how Israel has functioned since its creation: as a nonstop disruption campaign that the post-World War Two western victors dropped on top of the Middle East just as humanity hit new heights of oil dependence. By 1967 Israel came within inches of a possible third world war with America’s only rival superpower, the Soviet Union, and today we have Israel leading the charge in the western empire’s regime change agendas against Iran and Syria. It’s been a consistent pattern.
10. There’s good conspiracy theory and there’s bad conspiracy theory. People who say America controls Israel or Israel controls America are engaged in bad conspiracy theory. We don’t live in a world where the lines between nations mean anything to those with real power; in reality “Israel” and “America” are both purely conceptual constructs which only exist to the extent that people believe in them. There is no actual “Israel” which can exert control over an actual “America”, and vice versa. It isn’t nations and governments pulling the strings of real power in the world, it’s a class of plutocrats who aren’t ultimately answerable to any government. This class of plutocrats uses governments like Israel, the US, the UK, and the KSA to advance its agendas to exploit, loot and plunder the rest of humanity.
11. The western empire is a cluster of tightly allied nations held together by contracts and manipulation which often function more or less as a single unit on foreign policy, war, intelligence, trade, etc. What we call Israel is functionally just the Middle Eastern disruption wing of this empire. The people in control of this alliance place no special value on Israel beyond its usefulness in advancing plutocratic agendas in the Middle East.
12. People make a big deal about Zionism in conspiracy circles, but Zionism is just one more tool of manipulation used by the elite class which only ever cares about power. The people who are actually calling the shots in this world don’t care about Judaism or the Jewish people; Zionism is just a set of ideas they use to move people around. They use Christian fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalism, white supremacy and secular liberalism in the same way. It’s always about acquiring more power for the western oligarchs, and their insatiable drive in this pursuit is how they wound up at the top of the western power structure. They’ll use any set of beliefs to manipulate the masses toward this end.
13. Since Israel plays such a crucial role in the agendas of the western power establishment for such a key strategic region, it should be no surprise that the people who lived on that land before Israel was dropped upon them get trampled underfoot. As far as the powerful are concerned, the Palestinians are no different from the animals whose habitats are destroyed by a new military base, or the whales that get killed by navy sonar experiments. They’re a nuisance to be swatted away.
14. The reason for the extreme brutality that is being used against the Palestinian demonstrators appears to be the same as that used by the Chinese government in the Tiananmen Square massacre or the lynchings of the segregated American south: to send a message. That message is “Here is how we will deal with you whenever you hold these demonstrations.” They’re quashing the protests so violently and so aggressively not out of self defense, but to dissuade such protests in the future. All they have to do is be brutal enough to convince the Palestinians that such protests aren’t worth the cost of life, and whole generations could be dissuaded from future protests.
15. This brutality is exposing the true face of the western empire, a trend that we are seeing all over the globe in myriad ways. Despite the best efforts of the mass media machine, people are waking up to what’s really going on.
by seemslikeadream » Wed May 16, 2018 7:46 am
Stop telling Palestinians to be ‘resilient’ – the rest of the world has failed them
BRENDAN CIARAN BROWNE
05/15/2018
By Brendan Ciarán Browne
Dublin (The Conversation) Viewed from Palestine, it’s hard to disagree that we’ve perhaps seen one of the most inflammatory weeks in recent memory. In just a few days, several extremely sensitive events have coincided to devastating effect: the culmination of weekly protests in the Gaza Strip, the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the 70th anniversary of the 1948 Nakba (from the Arabic, “Immense Catastrophe”) and the start of the holy month of Ramadan. Throw in for good measure Israel and Iran’s recent clash over the occupied Golan Heights and it seems that more than ever, the region is something of a tinderbox.
As 800 guests arrived in Jerusalem to bear witness to the US embassy’s relocation – 33 of them representatives from foreign embassies – protesters in the Gaza Strip were being shot and killed. In what’s been dubbed the Great March of Return, Palestinians in Gaza (the vast majority of whom are refugees, or descended from refugees) have amassed at the edge of the territory to demand their right of return, a right that is protected under international law. So far, their demands have been met with a brutal show of force, with more than 50 Palestinians shot dead, including children, paramedics and journalists.
Much is being made of the US’s decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and perhaps rightly so. Undoubtedly, that change is symbolically resonant. But there is a risk that focusing too narrowly on that issue will obscure a far deeper issue: the continued destruction of the fabric of Palestinian society and ongoing attacks on Palestinian civil liberties.
As others have reported, the embassy move does little to change the actual reality of Palestinians living under occupation in the city. What it does do is remove any naive notion that the US is acting as an honest broker for peace.
Those who are calling the embassy move the death of the two-state solution would do well to look more critically at recent history. Israel has aggressively ramped up the construction of settlements; the Israeli military has killed scores of Palestinian protesters in Gaza (not just this week), and civilian infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed across the Occupied Territories. All the while, world governments have failed to hold Israel to account.
Instead, as Israel entrenches its occupation, the Palestinian National Authority continues its state-building efforts and the international development industry’s failures become clear, the Palestinians are being asked to develop a greater capacity for “resilience”.
The ‘resilience’ agenda
Resilience, it seems, is the buzzword of the day. It’s particularly popular in the field of international development, where it’s used to evoke a capacity to “bounce back”, survive, or more optimistically “thrive” in the face of extreme adversity. International organisations have turned their attention to promoting “resilience” both individually and at community level, to better equip people to cope and overcome adversity.
Looking at the state of Palestinian society and standards of living today, it’s abundantly clear that the international development sector has failed in its mission. And yet a “resilience industry” has taken hold in Palestine, and the discourse of resilience is everywhere. It has crept into the operational language of major international organisations, including the United Nations Development Programme, an organisation that recently hosted two major international conferences focusing on the development of Palestinian resilience.
This agenda is disingenuous on a number of levels, and as it becomes a driving force in the international development agenda in Palestine, it needs to be viewed more critically than it currently is. For a start, it’s not clear how its achievements are to be evaluated. But more than that, Palestinians don’t need lessons in resilience from an international community that has utterly failed in its stated mission.
By promoting Palestinian resilience instead of holding Israel accountable for its multiple breaches of international law, and its involvement in the destruction of Palestinian society, the international community is masking its own failures – and shamefully abdicating its responsibility to the people it claims to be helping.
The ConversationDr Emma Keelan contributed to this article. She is currently pursuing an MA in Global Health at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian Conflict Response Institute. Her research involves conducting fieldwork on Palestine, resilience and international NGOs.
Brendan Ciarán Browne, Assistant Professor and Course Coordinator MPhil Conflict Resolution, Trinity College Dublin
https://www.juancole.com/2018/05/tellin ... lient.html
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 47 guests
