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Zionist atrocity painful for Jews: Rabbi Dovid Feldman

Sat Aug 3, 2013 9:0AM GMT

Interview with Rabbi Dovid Feldman
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The reason why we find it so important is because what is happening in Palestine for decades, including al-Quds (Jerusalem) is very painful. When we see all these tragedies, this occupation and all what goes along with this bloody for decades; this is very painful and it should be painful for every human person and we say this is Jewish people that we find this very painful as Jews, following Jewish religion, when all of these crimes are forbidden not only in human rights laws, in International laws.'

Related Viewpoints:
Days of Zionists numbered
Press TV has conducted an interview with Rabbi Dovid Feldman of Jews United Against Zionism Organization, from New York about the issue of International Quds Day.


What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: International al-Quds Day, I believe that it is going to be something that you are going to participate in and mark; tell us more about that.

Feldman: Yes, we are going to participate in it, we find al-Quds Day to be a very important day. We have the members of our communities world wide attending about ten major cities, participating in the al-Quds Day rallies.

The reason why we find it so important is because what is happening in Palestine for decades, including al-Quds (Jerusalem) is very painful. When we see all these tragedies, this occupation and all what goes along with this bloody for decades; this is very painful and it should be painful for every human person and we say this is Jewish people that we find this very painful as Jews, following Jewish religion, when all of these crimes are forbidden not only in human rights laws, in International laws.

This is not along within Jewish, the religious law, killing, stealing, all of this is totally forbidden, especially when this is being done in the name of Jews and supposedly in the names of all Jews. This is very embarrassing and it is painful, when this is being sometimes done in the name of the Jewish religion. This is really painful.

That is why we stand up not only on Quds Day; Quds day is one opportunity, one we find this very appropriate and very important, in the time that many other communities stand up and express their total opposition to all what is going on.

We find this is Jewish people, very important to participate and express our feelings, show to the world and to the Palestinian people that we are totally against this.

Press TV: You can see that is the Israeli side of things, you feel Richard Millet on the Palestinian side of things, which he did by the question I asked before.

I could touch on some examples that Judaization of Jerusalem, al-Quds, the separation wall and all these other acts that are exercised and occupied territories that are deemed illegal, by International organizations like the UN, like the ICJ (International Court of Justice), like many other organizations that even go against the Geneva Courts and what have here.

Feldman: Let me say again; what is happening, all these crimes, occupation and what you just mentioned, all of this is terrible and I must say, I would not say because I am Jewish I should defend the crimes against the Palestinian people and just turn to all other human rights violations in other countries.

Yes, whatever is happening in entire world, if it is oppression against other people, if it is crimes against other people, then it should concern all of us and it does concern all of us; and it is not because I am Jewish I would turn my eye away from Israel to others. It is the other way around.

It is because I am Jewish and these crimes happened to be in the name of our people, then I oppose this, before I oppose everything else. Now, again and still it pains everyone wherever there is pain and wherever there is suffering.

I would add what is happening in Palestine against the Palestinian people is painful. Tragedies, which are happening to Jewish people is painful. I am Jewish and I say it as a Jew and I am sure that on-Jewish people would say the same.

But again, I am coming back to the point, it is because I am Jewish, I am so pained to what is happening to the Jewish people as well. It is because I am Jewish and because I am concerned for the suffering people, including the Jewish people; therefore I am so upset to what is happening for decades, what caused this bloodshed on both sides.

We, as Jewish people, it is our communities before I was here, before I was born; before 1948 there was not any problems, but when we go back to 1920s and the early 1920s Jewish people did live in Palestine and another Muslim countries in peace. If you studied history, then you would find that.

If you find some individual stories that happened, not that comfortable stories; there were very very little of that and you would not find many of it. The famous Hebron massacre which happened in 1929, we have documentation of this; this was a direct outcome of the aggression, of those immigrant Zionists that intimidated the Palestinian people.

All what we see today in Palestine, including surrounding areas, where there is a terrible hate between our people, the Muslim people and the Jewish people; a lot of this hate was created or at least exacerbated, because of the invention of Zionism.

This is terrible from all sides, to all people involved in this country and this is very painful; therefore we say that we need to understand what is the root caused to all of this and we need to have this cause put aside.

Therefore we say that the solution is not necessarily the two-state solution. The solution is this entire occupation should be stopped, all rights should be restored to the Palestinians, indigenous population, Muslims, Christians and Jewish people, all of us lived in the country, in the holy land and all of us did live in peace, we can live in peace and we should be able to live in peace in future.

Press TV: Obviously reaction from you, our guest Richard Millet says you are not living in the real world, by some of the statements that you have made.

Feldman: First of all, we have to clarify that being religious and practicing religion and being followers of a religious ideology does not detract a person of living on Planet Earth in reality.

I have to add that because we are living in reality and we see peace talks that are going on for a very long time, does not take us any where. We said this referred to decades back when the first Oslo courts and the first peace talks we said according to Judaism, to Jewish teachings, this would never be successful; why? Because according to Jewish religion, even without all this aggression, even without crimes being done against other people; even if this would be total peace with all people, it is forbidden for Jews to create a state of our own.

Because according to Jewish belief, we are in exile, we are forbidden to create a state of our own, we are forbidden to fight other people in physical terms. All of this is totally forbidden according to Judaism.

We say because we are living in physical world, we see what is happening; we experience all suffering from all sides, therefore we say that in practical terms and on religious basis; all of this is totally wrong.

The only way we can expect a nicer future is when we think back of the very example that my colleague from London just mentioned, the Hebron massacre, what I mentioned before; yes, the Hebron massacre is an exact example that we have to have in front of our eyes, including all massacres that happened all these decades since 1929 from all sides; blood that was shed unfortunately and painfully from all sides.

We have to have all of these in front of our eyes and understand and rethink what was the cause to all of these. This was a fight that began by people that came up to the holy land against the will of the Palestinian people, Muslims, Christians and the Jewish community.

At the time this was opposed by Rabbi Shinsky in 1947, before the creation of state in the name of all Jewish at the Jewish minority of Jerusalem. When we speak about al-Quds Day today, Jewish people look back to Jerusalem prior to 1948, we look back to our religious leader from the very beginning of Zionism or before that; this is totally against our tradition, against our religion, on religious basis and in practical terms.

We pray that all of this should stop; we hope that this would be without any suffering of any person and ...we say that we pray for peaceful and speedy dismantlement of the entire... [Entity] of Israel.

Press TV: Iran's late Leader Imam Khomeini, Rabbi Dovid Feldman I am sure you know, he started International Quds Day over three decades ago and he ...importance for the stay.

I am curious what your impression is of Iran's late leader, realizing the importance of the stay, in order to be highlighted at that time for the Palestinian cause which had more to involve, to actually not only involve Muslims to come out, but also resists against what has also been said to be people who are oppressed by these powers.

Feldman: we always appreciated the words of late Imam Khomeini regarding Palestine and we always said that what we especially appreciate [is] his understanding which he made clear in many occasions the difference between Judaism and Zionism.

Today, there are people who struggle with this confusion, following main stream media by believing that the ... [Entity] of Israel represents all Jews, which is totally wrong.

Imam Khomeini was one of the great leaders that understood the difference between Judaism and Zionism, between the Jewish people, following the religion and Zionist people following the politics.

Days of Zionists numbered

Fri Aug 2, 2013 6:31AM GMT

By Syed Zafar Mehdi
Quds Day means standing in solidarity with our brethren in Palestine, and at the same time standing up for our own rights and raising a banner of revolt against the oppressors and occupiers of our land.”

Observed every year on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, International Quds Day has become a permanent fixture on the annual calendar.


For all the campaigners of truth and justice, the day has an extraordinary historical significance, lessons for the present and prophecies for the future. Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem. The day was first observed in Iran in 1979, soon after the Islamic Revolution, as an affirmation of the Ummah’s solidarity with people of Palestine in their struggle for the liberation of Jerusalem.

Since then, Quds Day is observed across the world every year in this holy month to express solidarity and support for Palestine and to condemn and protest Israel’s forceful control over Jerusalem. Ramadan is the month of struggle (jehad e akbar). It is the month that granted Muslims a historic victory in the battle of Badr. It is the month in which Mecca was rid of idol worshipers (mushrikeen). So it seems appropriate that a day of this blessed month is dedicated to the struggle for liberation of Palestine and Al-Quds.

The idea of solidarity rallies on Quds Day was implemented and given shape by Ayatollah Khomeini, who made passionate appeals to Muslims across the world to stand up and speak out for their brethren in Palestine. It is also a day to remember and extend solidarity to people in other occupied territories, subjugated and crushed by strong military powers. “The Quds Day is a universal day. It is not an exclusive day for Quds (Jerusalem). It is a day for the oppressed and the supporters of oppressed to rise and stand up against the arrogant oppressors,” Ayatollah Khomeini said.

In Iran, millions of people march on the streets on this day to protest against Israeli occupation and aggression in East Jerusalem. In August 1979, in solidarity with the people of Palestine, Ayatollah Khomeini declared the liberation of Jerusalem ‘a religious duty of all Muslims’. “I invite Muslims all over the globe to observe the last Friday of Ramadan as Al-Quds Day, and to pledge support and solidarity to the people of Palestine and their legitimate rights. I ask all the Muslims of the world and the Muslim governments to join hands and sever the hand of this usurper and its supporters,” said Ayatollah Khomeini.

During the first Palestinian Intifada in January 1988, the Jerusalem Committee of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) declared that Quds Day be commemorated publicly throughout the Arab world. Their official endorsement of Quds Day was significant as some Arab countries that have strategic ties with Israel found themselves in catch 22 situation. They had to pledge their support to Palestine and at the same time not antagonize the Israelis.

Over the years, Quds Day has become an international public event. Massive rallies are taken out in Britain, Canada, Sweden, Russia, India, Pakistan, United States etc. Events are also held in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza Strip. Organisations like Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine have publicly endorsed Quds Day ceremonies in Palestine.

Last year, on Quds Day, millions of Iranians participated in the rallies, waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans like ‘Death to Israel and America’, ‘Israel Your Days Are Numbered’, ‘Zionism must go’ and ‘From River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free’. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel an ‘insult to humanity’ and said the ‘Zionist black stain’ will soon be washed off. “The Zionist regime and Zionists are a cancerous tumour. Even if one cell is left in one inch of (Palestinian) land, in the future this story (of Israel’s existence) will repeat,” warned the Iranian president, who is soon to be replaced by new President Hassan Rohani.

In Lebanon, where Quds Day is observed on a grand scale every year, Hezbollah Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised speech on this day last year warned that only a few rockets by Hezbollah could result in massive casualties in Israel. “Rockets are ready and directed at these targets. We will not hesitate to use them, if we have to, at any point in time… Hezbollah cannot destroy Israel but we can transform the lives of millions of Zionists in occupied Palestine into a real hell. We can change the face of Israel,” said Nasrallah.

In Britain, on Quds Day, people march through the streets of London and assemble outside the American embassy. Anti-Zionist Jews and Christians also take active part and speak in these rallies. “We hope and pray for the end of Zionism. It is a curse, it is a cancer,” said Yakov Wsisz, a Jew, at one such rally last year. He was seconded by Stephen Sizer, a senior pastor of the Anglican Christ Church in Surrey. “No country and no people on earth recognize Israeli’s sovereignty over Jerusalem.” In Canada, Quds rally takes place every year at Queen’s Park, participated by people from all spheres of life. In Australia, hundreds of people gather in Hyde Park to observe Quds Day every year.

To start with, there has to be a complete and unconditional withdrawal from all Israeli occupied territories including Jerusalem, acknowledging and facilitating the return of the Palestinians who were forced to leave their land after 1948 Nakba, compensation for the damage of land and property, and ban on the building of new settlements and immediate evacuation of all existing settlements. These excavations, which are also in direct violation of The Hague and Geneva Conventions, threaten Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock and violate the sanctity of the holy Islamic sites.

Hence, it is the duty of all Muslims, and people of conscience, to raise their voice against this naked aggression. Quds Day means standing in solidarity with our brethren in Palestine, and at the same time standing up for our own rights and raising a banner of revolt against the oppressors and occupiers of our land.

[Belfast] IPSC Palestine Day in Feile an Phobail with Jeremy Corbyn MP, Robert Ballagh & Bill Rolston

Thu, 8 August 2013, 13:00 St Mary’s University College, Falls Road, Belfast


IPSC Palestine Day 2013: The Ongoing Nakba – 65 Years Of Oppression, Apartheid And War Crimes

Speakers: Jeremy Corbyn MP, Robert Ballagh and Bill Rolston

St Mary’s University College, Falls Road, Belfast – Thursday 8th August, 1pm-9pm

1.00- 3.00pm: Exhibition, Palestinian food, information, books, scarves/flags football shirts

3.00-5.00 pm: Film Five Broken Cameras (Winner 2012 Sundance World Cinema Award)

7.00 -9.00 pm: Evening panel discussion, ‘Join The Campaign, Boycott Israel’

Jeremy Corbyn MP, veteran campaigner – Palestinian children in detention
Robert Ballagh, famous Irish artist – The cultural and academic boycott of Israel
Bill Rolston, renowned local writer – Reflections on Gaza

EU parliamentarian urges Palestinian intifada
Irish member of the EU parliament criticised by some after calling for Palestinians to launch a third uprising.
Paul Fallon Last Modified: 07 Aug 2013 09:28


European politician Paul Murphy has come under criticism from his colleagues in the European Parliament after he called for the Palestinians to start an intifada against the Israeli Occupation during a recent TV interview.

Murphy has been a member of the Parliament since 2011 and is a vocal opponent of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. He joined an aid flotilla to the Gaza strip in 2011 that was intercepted by Israeli security forces.

A socialist MEP from Ireland, Murphy is cynical of the most recent revamp of peace talks and does not believe that Israel is interested in a viable Palestinian state. He has come under fire from his fellow MEPs for his belief that a redeveloped struggle, similar to the first intifada, could link up the Israeli left and working class with the Palestinians to overthrow "the capital establishment of Israel".

"There are many positive examples from the first intifada of mass protests, strikes and marches and checkpoints that I think would be ideal tactics to redevelop now," Murphy said. "I think a mass struggle from below, a Palestinian spring, with democratic committees of struggle, is absolutely necessary now in order to fight against poverty, oppression and for a viable Palestinian state."

His calls come as resumptions of peace talks take place for the first time in three years which aim to achieve a "final status" deal within nine months. Prior to 2010, peace talks had collapsed partially due to Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want for a state that would include the Gaza Strip and all territories captured by Israel in the six day war in 1967. The international community and international law do not recognise Israel's annexation of the land.

'Armed self-defence'

"A lot of the violence happening in Israel and Palestine is perpetrated by the Israeli state, I believe the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against that aggression," Murphy told Al Jazeera. "That may involve armed defense against soldiers and I wouldn't have a problem with that."

Murphy has been lambasted by several of his colleagues in the European Parliament for his views. UK Conservative Charles Tannock said comments like this would "only result in futile and needless violence" and that it would be a "massive setback" for peace talks.

A lot of the violence happening in Israel and Palestine is perpetrated by the Israeli state, I believe the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against that aggression

Paul Murphy, Member of the European Parliament

Irish MEP Sean Kelly who expressed his disdain at Murphy's comments. "In a region already beset with conflict, it is abhorrent to call for violence as a tool to achieve collective goals," Kelly told Al Jazeera. "The only route to a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is through dialogue and compromise on both sides."

Kelly also drew parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the struggle in Northern Ireland suggesting that the two have similar narratives and therefore the same solutions could be implemented in finding peace.

"We have a successful model in the Northern Ireland Peace Process, which makes it all the more abhorrent that Mr Murphy, who as an Irish citizen has benefitted from this process, is now calling for violence elsewhere," Kelly said.

Murphy responded to his critics by calling for a reevaluation of what they consider an intifada to be.

"The MEPs who have condemned my call for a mass movement along the lines of the first intifada as a call for violence and terror are either deliberately misconstruing my words or are entirely ignorant about the history of the Palestinian struggle," Murphy said. "Intifada is simply the Arabic word for 'uprising', something that is entirely justified and clearly necessary when you look at the ongoing oppression."

Intifada is an Arabic word which literally means "shaking off", though it is popularly translated into English as "uprising", "resistance", or "rebellion".

'Anti-colonial struggles'

According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem during the first intifada which began in December 1987, 1,376 Palestinians and 94 Israelis were killed. Between September 2000 and October 2012, 507 Israelis and 6561 Palestinians have been killed in the region.

UN resolution 3246 from 1974 weighs in its support of an armed Palestinian struggle reaffirming "the legitimacy of the peoples' struggle for liberation from colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle" and "strongly condemns all governments which do not recognise the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people".

Israel has been criticised for its policies in more than 100 UN resolutions and is on record for being the country that has broken the most UN resolutions since the UN was founded in 1945.

Murphy believes the EU is complicit in the oppression of the Palestinian people, saying "The EU cries a few more crocodile tears than US imperialism, but politically and economically it supports the Israeli elite."

"Israeli armaments companies, such as Elbit and Israel Aerospace Industries, are recipients of funding from the EU," he said.

Trade relations have been upgraded between the EU and Israel, effectively integrating Israel into the "single market". Murphy believes that this is a political statement of support for the Israeli establishment which effectively turns the other cheek to the oppression of Palestinians.

Number of Children Killed Per Year Israelis Palestinians

The Impact of the Conflict
on Children
129 Israeli children and 1,519 Palestinian children
have been killed since September 29, 2000.



“The majority of these [Palestinian] children were killed and injured while going about normal daily activities, such as going to school, playing, shopping, or simply being in their homes. Sixty-four percent of children killed during the first six months of 2003 died as a result of Israeli air and ground attacks, or from indiscriminate fire from Israeli soldiers.”

In Israel’s “democracy,” protests by Palestinian citizens face police brutality
Submitted by Jalal Abukhater on Thu, 08/08/2013 - 21:04
jalal-abukhater_arrest.jpg

The writer, Jalal Abukhater, is arrested by Israeli police during the 1 August protest at Wadi Ara.
(Mahmoud Zeidan)

On 1 August, I was among 18 people arrested at a peaceful protest against the Prawer Plan – Israel’s latest scheme to forcibly remove 40,000 Bedouins from their homes in order to take their land in the Naqab (Negev) region.

The Israeli police violence against us sheds light once again on the real meaning of Israeli “democracy.”

Last week’s protests were only the latest actions, following large protests against the Prawer Plan on 15 July, which Israeli police also met with violence.

Indeed, in Israel, a citizen’s right to freedom of expression and protest depends on his or her ethnic and religious background. If those protesting happen to be non-Jews – Palestinian citizens of Israel – those rights simply vanish.
Tear gas and beatings

There were two major protests against the Prawer Plan on 1 August, one in the south, and one in Wadi Ara, in the north of the country. Both demonstrations aimed to reach major road intersections in order to gain maximum visibility.

I was present at the demonstration in Wadi Ara. The demonstration was meant to march from the entrance of the town of Arara and block the Ara-Arara intersection at Wadi Ara road (Road 65).

As soon as the protestors started marching towards Road 65, we were met with hundreds of riot police, a bunch of mounted units and a rain of stun grenades and tear gas. Beatings and arbitrary arrests followed.
Breaking out of “ghettos”

The Wadi Ara march had more than 750 people who had come from towns across the center of present-day Israel, the coast and the Galilee, as well as Jerusalem.

In recent years, demonstrations have been limited to the centers of these towns, where most Palestinian citizens of Israel are concentrated.

People believed it was necessary to demonstrate outside those towns – or ghettos as some organizers put it – for the protests to become more visible and effective.

The protests were perfectly legal and every demonstrator had the right to be there, yet the demonstration was violently suppressed by the Israeli police.

But, you might ask, wouldn’t police intervene in any protest that tried to block a public highway? Well, the depends on who the protestors are.
Israeli Jews block roads without interference

Less than a month ago in Tel Aviv, about four thousand “social justice” protestors took to the streets to mark the second anniversary of the overwhelmingly Israeli Jewish “J14” protest movement.

As Haggai Matar reported for +972, about a thousand demonstrators marched onto Ayalon highway in central Tel Aviv, where “For about an hour they marched on the southbound lanes, unstopped by police, and kept on chanting against the government’s austerity measures and neo-liberal capitalist agenda.”

In Wadi Ara, when about 50 protestors managed to get past the riot police and march onto the highway, they were met with mounted police units trampling over them, as well as riot police shoving them on the pavements, beating and arresting them.

Both groups are citizens of Israel, but the response to the protests depended on whether they were predominantly Jewish or Arab.
Bogus charges

As one of those arrested, I can say that we were arrested for either chanting anti-Prawer Plan slogans or for taking part in the demonstration on the highway.

Yet the charges varied between beating police, obstructing police work, and even throwing stones. Eight of us were released that night, but the other ten, including me, were held overnight for a court hearing the next morning.

Many of those held overnight were fasting for Ramadan, but were provided with nothing but a cup of water, which meant that they went two whole days without food.

The next morning, even though the police were insisting on the bogus charges, everyone was cleared by the court as evidence was put forward proving our innocence.

Some of the activists released from the 24-hour detention headed to hospital afterwards to receive treatment for the injuries they received during arrest.

Several showed the court bruises and even bloodstains caused by the police beatings.
A duty to protest

The police kept trying to argue, during individual interrogations and in court, that the protest was illegal.

In the occupied West Bank, almost all Palestinian demonstrations are “defined as ‘illegal’ under Israeli military law, which states that any gathering of 10 or more people requires a permit.”

Wadi Ara, however, is not in the occupied West Bank. The violent response of the Israeli police is one more piece of evidence that Israel doesn’t treat its Palestinians citizens the same way it treats Jewish citizens. Rather, it deals with them as enemies of the state even though they hold citizenship.

The Prawer ethnic cleansing plan is racist and vile. Tens of thousands are threatened with dispossession and expulsion from their homes.

This is a continuation of the Nakba and demonstrating against it is the duty of Palestinians all over Palestine, not least because the land grab will not stop there.

People must say ethnic cleansing will not pass, and they have every right to do so.
Amnesty, HRW tell Israel to respect right to protest

Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned Israel’s “excessive force,” against the anti-Prawer Plan protests.

Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and Northern Africa director said, on 30 July, the day before the latest protests, “The use of excessive force by the police during the 15 July marches sent a dangerous signal about how little Israel respects the rights of its Palestinian citizens. The Israeli authorities must ensure that peaceful demonstrators are able to express their opposition to the plan free from intimidation or violence.”

As we learned first hand, Israel was not listening.

FBI files reveal Anti-Defamation League spied on Arab students
Grant F. Smith The Electronic Intifada Washington, DC 14 May 2013
In 1969, the Anti-Defamation League infiltrated and spied on a national gathering of Arab students in the United States, newly released Federal Bureau of Investigation documents show.

Obtained in April after an Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRMEP) freedom of information request, and reviewed by The Electronic Intifada, one declassified file [PDF] contains Anti-Defamation League reports held by the FBI.

The documents reveal how ADL surveillance against the Organization of Arab Students (OAS) in 1969 coalesced into plans for infiltrating the OAS national organization in New York. The files also give an insight into why the entire effort eventually backfired, ultimately leading to raids on ADL offices involved in intelligence-gathering through illegal means, and a lawsuit against ADL in the early 1990s — ultimately settled out of court in 2002.

The FBI responded to the IRMEP request that it at one time possessed up to 10,800 pages of information about the ADL, but that some of these had been destroyed. So far approximately 1,000 pages have been released (see The FBI’s Anti-Defamation League File on the IRMEP site).

Organization of Arab Students

In the late 1960s, the OAS worked hard to unite visiting Arab international students studying in the US with Arab-American counterparts interested in connecting to developments in the region, primarily in Palestine. Formed in 1952 as the nonprofit Organization of Arab Students of United States and Canada, by the late 1960s OAS was hosting its eighteenth annual national conference with a reported 200 participants. OAS was not at all shy about criticizing US media coverage of the region or issuing direct challenges to the propaganda of the Israel lobby.

The ADL agents talk of alleged OAS links to armed Palestinian group Fatah, seemingly skeptical of one OAS spokesperson’s claim that “there was no real relationship between them, that the OAS was merely letting them sell their literature there.” The name of the spokesperson has been redacted by the FBI, along with most other names in the file.

The OAS’s growing capacity to organize major events eventually sounded alarm bells at the ADL, which dispatched undercover investigators to penetrate the OAS national convention held in 1969 at Ohio State University.

The ADL’s agents assigned to the convention filed reports under the codenames Buckeye, Adam and Eve. “Buckeye” tirelessly worked the entire seven days of the event presenting himself as a reporter, often for the Spectator newspaper. He claimed to be sympathetic to OAS objectives in order to gain access to events and high officials and have a pretext for inquiring about “back office” issues and OAS finances.

Buckeye’s reports sounded an ADL red alert: “The political activity of Arab students in the US will increase significantly in the coming school year (1969-1970) with increasing effectiveness. They are beginning to display a much greater understanding of how to present their arguments to the various levels of the American public (church groups, new left, lower middle class, etc); and any successes are certain to increase their confidence and, hence, their activity.”

Buckeye recommended this “threat” had to be confronted “directly” as growing numbers of OAS chapters achieved and shared successes with other student groups, especially those on the left.

Fake journalist

In those pre-Internet days, Buckeye had to manually compile information on the location, officers, phone numbers and membership strength of each OAS chapter. To ingratiate himself with a group of Buffalo University students, Buckeye claimed all his questions were for a future Columbus Citizen Journal story.

Even so, students were candid in telling Buckeye they increasingly viewed such major media with skepticism. They claimed The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times were biased in their coverage of the Middle East, and the OAS attendees urged Buckeye to read The Guardian and Le Monde to get a more balanced view of regional issues.

Buckeye carefully noted the most effective Arab public relations strategies, the main points of Arab media critic presentations, counter-strategies to negative media and each session speech from Palestine Liberation Organization and Arab Information Office representatives.

AIPAC envy

Buckeye reported competition and enviously noted that “the attached article from the Near East Report indicates that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee had somebody on the inside of the OAS who covered the convention.” Buckeye recommended that the ADL recruit an Arabic-speaking agent from the nonprofit Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society to work inside the OAS national headquarters in New York, in order to be “privy to important national OAS information.”

On his own, Buckeye had a hard time penetrating closed OAS sessions. Security at the 1969 OAS conference was tighter than previous years. Only Arab students who had been members of a local OAS chapter for one year could attend closed sessions. Non-Arab members needed the recommendation of five Arab chapter members to enter closed sessions. Buckeye’s wife attempted to enter closed OAS convention meetings posing “as a Canadian divorcee and assumed an alias for which she had proper identification.”

But the spies also saw such security mechanisms as an opportunity to wage an attack on OAS chapters: “On many campuses there are rules against discriminating on the basis of race, etc. Therefore it is illegal for the OAS to require its membership to be of Arab descent. In these places pro-Israeli forces could join and take over the machinery of the organization, its funds, etc. and at the same time dismantle it as a base for dissemination of propaganda.”

The recommended strategy was to “concentrate on getting an Arabic-speaking Jew into the national machinery of the OAS. At the recent convention, for example, we had difficulty finding anyone who could attend and understand the arabic [sic] sessions where finances, policy, etc. were discussed. This is a crucial factor in combating the students.”

By the late 1980s, coordinated OAS media pronouncements, sharing and national organizing waned as chapters dedicated themselves more toward social and education functions than politics and opened up to all students claiming an interest in Arab culture. Many OAS chapters even passed individual charters renaming their organizations, presenting new logos and severing national affiliations. Few conducted any major political events, particularly beyond the campus boundaries.

“Our official friends”

But even as OAS power waned, FBI interest in the ADL gradually intensified.

After obtaining the ADL’s OAS report in 1969, the FBI — which had also surveilled the conference — came to its own “more objective” conclusions. The FBI felt not only that the ADL report was “biased,” but such ADL-sanctioned activity “possibly represents a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.”

The FBI, based on its own long term observations of the ADL, felt it would be incredible “to assume it [the ADL’s report on the OAS] is not furnished to an official of the government of Israel due to the extremely close ties between ADL and Israel.” Buckeye had indeed suggested in his report that “this information may be of interest to our official friends.” Though it could be that this was a reference to US law enforcement, the FBI’s suspicion of Israeli involvement seems credible.

The FBI also seemed to resent the ADL’s self-appointed authority as a competing counter-intelligence agency — even though the ADL had long fought to ingratiate itself with the FBI and form liaisons. “This report shows investigation conducted by the ADL, using codename sources, pretexts such as local news reporters … recruiting of [Arabic speaking] Jewish refugees … to infiltrate the OAS in New York.”

When hard evidence surfaced that the ADL was illegally obtaining confidential information about pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid activists, the police raided the ADL’s major California offices, after FBI investigations. Covert ADL agent Roy Bullock had also worked closely with apartheid South African intelligence services (Robert I. Friedman, “The Enemy Within: How the Anti-Defamation League turned the notion of human rights on its head,” The Village Voice, 11 May 1993).

According to Friedman in 1993: “Investigations by the FBI and police in San Francisco have revealed that the ADL has shared at least some of its spy gathering material with Israeli government officials. What’s more, Israel apparently used tips from the ADL to detain Palestinian Americans who traveled there.”

Civil suits against Bullock and the ADL in the 1990s were eventually settled out of court in 2002 for tens of thousands. But the ADL never admitted to doing anything wrong, and never had to face any serious penalty. Palestine solidarity activists may well wonder what the ADL is doing in secret today.

Although confidentiality agreements are normal in such settlements, the plaintiffs did not agree to keep quiet. IRMEP has now published depositions and files from this investigation and successful lawsuit, so they are available online for the first time.

Grant F. Smith is director of the nonprofit Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc. in Washington.

Actions by United Methodist Annual Conferences in 2013
____________________________________

More United Methodists Divest From Companies
Supporting Israel’s Occupation

For immediate release: June 20, 2013

Contact: Emily McNeill 585-313-8574
info@kairosresponse.org

Four United Methodist annual or regional conferences (New England, Minnesota, Pacific Northwest and Upper New York) have voted this month to divest or have their funds divested from companies involved with Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. They joined five other conferences (West Ohio, New York, Northern Illinois, California Nevada and California Pacific) which had already taken similar action, bringing the total to nine regional bodies representing thousands of churches.

The companies targeted in the recent resolutions included Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions, Hewlett Packard and, in one case, General Electric. All play significant roles in the occupation.

In addition, at least five other conferencesi have asked the denomination’s General Board of Pension and Health Benefits to divest its holdings in companies that profit from the occupation. Two more conferences, Susquehanna and Eastern Pennsylvania, established official task forces this month to examine the issue.

As United Methodists learn about Israel’s land confiscation, home demolitions, and the segregated systems of transportation, water, and laws that discriminate against Christians and Muslims, there is a strong sense that the church must act. Palestinian Christians have called on churches around the world to help end the occupation of their land.ii

According to John Wagner of United Methodist Kairos Response, “Our denomination has a long history of upholding human rights around the world. The question now is whether we will bring the same resolve to the situation in the Holy Land, where our fellow Christians have asked for our help.”

The divestment movement has gained momentum as illegal Israeli settlements expand on Palestinian land and Israeli attacks on Christians and Muslims increase. In 2012, Friends Fiduciary Committee, which handles investments for the Quaker denomination, divested from Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard and Veolia Environnement because of their involvement in the occupation. This spring, the Mennonite Church and the American Friends Service Committee declared twenty nine companies profiting from the occupation ineligible for investment.

Divestment is a nonviolent form of economic protest long used to encourage companies to end unjust practices. The church has engaged for yearsiii in dialog with Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard, and Motorola Solutions about their role in Israel’s occupation. Those calling for divestment say it will strengthen the church in future negotiations by providing a consequence for ignoring the church’s concerns.

In 2012, Caterpillar stock was downgraded by MSCI, a prestigious ratings agency, and then dropped from the socially responsible portfolios of the giant US pension fund, TIAA CREF, which divested $72 million of Caterpillar stock. At that time the company’s role in the occupation was given as a reason.iv Large European pension funds have also divested from companies involved with the occupation. According to Susanne Hoder of the New England Conference, “Divestment is a good move financially and an essential move morally for the church.”

About UMKR: United Methodist Kairos Response is a global grassroots network of laity and clergy within the United Methodist Church working to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Responding to an urgent call from Palestinian Christians, UMKR advocates principled investment decisions and consumer choices that will have an impact on the occupation. Through research, education and advocacy, UMKR supports non-violent means of securing a just peace for all the peoples of Israel and Palestine. For more information, see www.kairosresponse.org

11 August 2013 Last updated at 10:42 ET

New Israel settlement homes anger Palestinians
Construction in Beitar Ilit, near Bethlehem, 11 August The issue of building settlements in occupied Palestinian areas halted the last direct peace talks in September 2010

Palestinians have reacted angrily to Israel's approval of nearly 1,200 new Jewish settlement homes, just days before peace talks are set to resume.

Palestinian negotiators said the approval cast doubt on Israel's sincerity in the peace process.

Israel's housing minister said no country in the world would take orders on where it could build its homes.

The issue of building settlements in occupied Palestinian areas halted the last direct talks in September 2010.

About 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want to establish their state in those areas, as well as the Gaza Strip.

The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
'Dangerous policy'

On Sunday, Israeli Housing Minister Uri Ariel confirmed that 793 apartments would be built in east Jerusalem and 394 in several large West Bank settlements.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
image of Kevin Connolly Kevin Connolly BBC News, Jerusalem

Palestinians see continued Israeli construction on the land where they aspire to create a new state as one of the biggest obstacles to peace.

The timing of this announcement may deepen the sense of pessimism that surrounds renewed peace talks even before they've really begun.

Housing Minister Uri Ariel comes from a party which opposes the very idea of a Palestinian state bordering Israel on the West Bank of the River Jordan. He 's now invited private firms to tender for the construction work.

More liberal members of Israel's broad coalition government will be uncomfortable with the tone and timing of the news. Palestinian leaders will be angered but may well have factored the possibility of this type of announcement into their overall political calculations.

Israel is also preparing to free 26 Palestinian prisoners on the eve of this week's scheduled peace talks. Announcing the settlement construction at the same time may be intended as a sop to right-wing supporters of the government who oppose those prisoner releases.

Palestinians said the plans brought into question Israel's commitment to the peace process.

Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Shtayeh said Israel aimed "to destroy the basis of the solution called for by the international community, which aims to establish a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders".

He accused Israel of trying to "determine the negotiations in whichever way suits it best".

Chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters: "If the Israeli government believes that every week they're going to cross a red line by settlement activity, if they go with this behaviour, what they're advertising is the unsustainability of the negotiations."

PLO executive committee member Hanan Ashrawi told the BBC: "We believe that Israel is deliberately sending a message to the US, to the rest of the world that regardless of any attempt at launching negotiations, 'we are going to press ahead with stealing more land, building more settlements and destroying the two-state-solution'.

"This is an extremely dangerous policy, and if left unchecked it certainly would lead to greater conflict and the destruction of all chances of peace."

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had previously insisted he would not resume talks without an Israeli settlement freeze, but relented during mediation by US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The BBC's Kevin Connolly in Jerusalem says Israel's announcement of the settlement construction may be intended as a sop to right-wing supporters of the government.

They had been angered by the government's approval of the release of more than 100 Palestinian prisoners - a condition set by the Palestinians for the talks to go ahead. The first group is due to be freed on 13 August.

The negotiations are scheduled to start in Jerusalem on Wednesday.

The latest Israeli settlement approval invites tenders for homes in Har Homa and Gilo, on East Jerusalem's southern outskirts, and in Pisgat Zeev, on the city's northern edge.

Tenders will also be invited for Ariel, in the northern West Bank, in Maaleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem, and in Efrata and Beitar Ilit, around Bethlehem.

A housing ministry spokesman told the BBC that construction would begin in one to two years' time.

Mr Ariel said in a statement: "No country in the world takes orders from other countries [about] where it can build and where it can't.

"We will continue to market housing and build in the entire country... This is the right thing at the present time, for Zionism and for the economy.''

Israel publishes list of Palestinian prisoners || Palestinians threaten to cancel peace meet over terms of release, settlements
Appealing to U.S., European mediators, Palestinians say Netanyahu has violated agreements and is doing nothing to stop elements in his government bent on derailing negotiations.
By Barak Ravid and Jack Khoury | Aug. 12, 2013 | 1:36 AM

Several days before Israeli-Palestinian talks are due to reconvene in Jerusalem, a severe crisis is in the making. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, in meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and special envoy Martin Indyk, condemned what they describe as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu violation of agreements on the release of prisoners and construction in settlements.

As part of the effort to renew the direct negotiations, Israel promised to release 104 Palestinian prisoners in four phases, during a period of eight months. On Sunday, the special ministerial committee on the release of Palestinian prisoners approved the release of the first group, consisting of 26 prisoners involved in the murders of Israelis in the pre-Oslo era. Nine of these prisoners were due to complete their sentences in the next three years.

The list is to be published overnight Sunday on the Israel Prison Services' website in order to allow the public to file objections with the High Court of Justice.

The inmates are to be transferred into the Palestinian Authority's territory on Tuesday night – 48 hours after their identities are published.

The ministers, who are members of a special committee tasked with dealing with the release of Palestinian prisoners, decided in a late-night meeting that any of the convicts who resume terrorist activity will be arrested and returned to Israel to serve harsher sentences

The list of the prisoners to be released was made available on Sunday night on the Israel Prison Service website, in order to enable petitions to the High Court of Justice. Israel said it will release them to the Palestinian Authority forty-eight hours after the names are published, on Tuesday night.

Sunday's committee meeting on prisoners was deliberately scheduled to start late into the evening and end around midnight. The Prime Minister's Office hoped to hamper coverage in the morning papers of the prisoners and the murders they committed. Furthermore, in setting the release time and date to Tuesday night, Israel hopes to make it more difficult for the PA to arrange ceremonies and public celebrations.

Abbas and Erekat were especially enraged by reports in the Israeli press that due to their perceived security risk, Netanyahu plans to deport to the Gaza Strip or abroad some of the prisoners released in the next three phases, not allowing them return to their West Bank homes.

Senior Israeli and Palestinian officials said that Abbas and Erekat told senior U.S. officials they would not agree to the deportation of any prisoner released.

The Palestinians also condemned two different plans for settlement construction recently announced by Israeli officials. On Sunday, the Housing Ministry said it began marketing 1,200 housing units in East Jerusalem and the settlement blocs around the capital, which follows another announcement last week for construction of hundreds of housing units in secluded settlements.

The Palestinians were notified in advance of the building in East Jerusalem and the large blocs. While objecting, discussion of plans was part of the understandings that led to the renewal of the peace talks, along with the issue of the prisoners. The declaration of construction plans in secluded settlements, however caught the Palestinians by surprise. Netanyahu told U.S. officials that he, too, was surprised by the approval of the plan, but the Palestinians reject this as an excuse.

The Palestinians are now threatening not to show up to the first meeting between the negotiation teams scheduled for Wednesday. Abbas' office is seriously considering skip out on the session, due to the continued settlement drive. No final decision will be reached a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the next 48 hours, according to a Palestinian sources in the negotiations.

The Palestinians need to weigh the risk of being perceived as the reason for the failure of talks, the source said.

"We're in communication with the Americans and the Europeans about the Israeli conduct, especially their announcements concerning ongoing construction in the settlements," the source said. "This all leads to one thing: There are official and unofficial elements in Israel that are doing their best to derail the talks; therefore, we're demanding that Kerry and his staff intervene immediately with the Israeli government, and perhaps aid Netanyahu to overcome ministers in his government that, daily, try to derail the talks."

Abbas will find it difficult to convince other Palestinian leaders to continue the talks, a senior Fatah official told Haaretz. "Ever since the announcement that negotiations would resume, the Israeli government has announced the construction of hundreds of housing units in the settlements and has not voiced any commitment 1967 borders. This is reflected in meetings with the Europeans. Concerning the prisoner issue as well, we are already hearing conditions and Israeli demands to deport some of the prisoners, and this too, is in complete violation of the agreements with Kerry. "This means that the Palestinians have nothing to gain from such a process."

Netanyahu tells U.S. mediator Palestinians inciting against Israel

By Dan Williams
JERUSALEM | Sat Aug 10, 2013 3:38pm EDT
(Reuters) - Israel has complained to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about statements by the Palestinians which it said undermined nascent peace talks, an Israeli official said on Saturday.

"Incitement and peace cannot coexist," the official quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as telling Kerry, the negotiations' sponsor, in a letter sent over the weekend.

The complaint underscored the recrimination and distrust on both sides that threaten the talks, even as Israel prepares to free scores of Palestinian prisoners ahead of a second round of discussions next week.

According to the official, Netanyahu's letter referred to an assertion Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made on July 29 that a future Palestinian state "would not see the presence of a single Israeli - civilian or soldier".

Netanyahu also cited an official Palestinian television broadcast of a goodwill visit by the Barcelona football club to the occupied West Bank last week, during which a sportscaster, speaking in voiceover, described Israeli towns and cities as Palestinian - as did a singer who performed on the pitch.

"Rather than educate the next generation of Palestinians to live in peace with Israel, this hate education lays the ground for continued violence, terror and conflict," the letter said.

The U.S. embassy in Israel did not immediately return a call for comment on Netanyahu's letter to Kerry.

The Palestinians have themselves long accused Israel of poor faith in peacemaking, given its expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank which most world powers deem illegal. Netanyahu's rightist coalition government includes pro-settler factions, one of which openly opposes Palestinian statehood.

Asked about Netanyahu's letter, Hanan Ashrawi of Abbas's Palestine Liberation Organisation, dismissed it as "a desperate attempt to distract the world's attention away from their egregious violations of international law".

The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel's Al Jalame jail
Special report: Israel's military justice system is accused of mistreating Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones
Harriet Sherwood in the West Bank
The Guardian, Sunday 22 January 2012 15.00 EST

Palestinian children locked up in solitary confinement by Israel. Link to video: Cell 36: Palestinian children locked in solitary confinement in Israel
The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.

This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.

The only escape is to the interrogation room where children are shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned, sometimes for hours.

Most are accused of throwing stones at soldiers or settlers; some, of flinging molotov cocktails; a few, of more serious offences such as links to militant organisations or using weapons. They are also pumped for information about the activities and sympathies of their classmates, relatives and neighbours.

At the beginning, nearly all deny the accusations. Most say they are threatened; some report physical violence. Verbal abuse – "You're a dog, a son of a whore" – is common. Many are exhausted from sleep deprivation. Day after day they are fettered to the chair, then returned to solitary confinement. In the end, many sign confessions that they later say were coerced.

These claims and descriptions come from affidavits given by minors to an international human rights organisation and from interviews conducted by the Guardian. Other cells in Al Jalame and Petah Tikva prisons are also used for solitary confinement, but Cell 36 is the one cited most often in these testimonies.

Between 500 and 700 Palestinian children are arrested by Israeli soldiers each year, mostly accused of throwing stones. Since 2008, Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected sworn testimonies from 426 minors detained in Israel's military justice system.

Their statements show a pattern of night-time arrests, hands bound with plastic ties, blindfolding, physical and verbal abuse, and threats. About 9% of all those giving affidavits say they were kept in solitary confinement, although there has been a marked increase to 22% in the past six months.

Few parents are told where their children have been taken. Minors are rarely questioned in the presence of a parent, and rarely see a lawyer before or during initial interrogation. Most are detained inside Israel, making family visits very difficult.

Human rights organisations say these patterns of treatment – which are corroborated by a separate study, No Minor Matter, conducted by an Israeli group, B'Tselem – violate the international convention on the rights of the child, which Israel has ratified, and the fourth Geneva convention.

Most children maintain they are innocent of the crimes of which they are accused, despite confessions and guilty pleas, said Gerard Horton of DCI. But, he added, guilt or innocence was not an issue with regard to their treatment.

"We're not saying offences aren't committed – we're saying children have legal rights. Regardless of what they're accused of, they should not be arrested in the middle of the night in terrifying raids, they should not be painfully tied up and blindfolded sometimes for hours on end, they should be informed of the right to silence and they should be entitled to have a parent present during questioning."

Mohammad Shabrawi from the West Bank town of Tulkarm was arrested last January, aged 16, at about 2.30am. "Four soldiers entered my bedroom and said you must come with us. They didn't say why, they didn't tell me or my parents anything," he told the Guardian.

Handcuffed with a plastic tie and blindfolded, he thinks he was first taken to an Israeli settlement, where he was made to kneel – still cuffed and blindfolded – for an hour on an asphalt road in the freezing dead of night. A second journey ended at about 8am at Al Jalame detention centre, also known as Kishon prison, amid fields close to the Nazareth to Haifa road.

After a routine medical check, Shabrawi was taken to Cell 36. He spent 17 days in solitary, apart from interrogations, there and in a similar cell, No 37, he said. "I was lonely, frightened all the time and I needed someone to talk with. I was choked from being alone. I was desperate to meet anyone, speak to anyone … I was so bored that when I was out [of the cell] and saw the police, they were talking in Hebrew and I don't speak Hebrew, but I was nodding as though I understood. I was desperate to speak."

During interrogation, he was shackled. "They cursed me and threatened to arrest my family if I didn't confess," he said. He first saw a lawyer 20 days after his arrest, he said, and was charged after 25 days. "They accused me of many things," he said, adding that none of them were true.

Eventually Shabrawi confessed to membership of a banned organisation and was sentenced to 45 days. Since his release, he said, he was "now afraid of the army, afraid of being arrested." His mother said he had become withdrawn.

Ezz ad-Deen Ali Qadi from Ramallah, who was 17 when he was arrested last January, described similar treatment during arrest and detention. He says he was held in solitary confinement at Al Jalame for 17 days in cells 36, 37 and 38.

"I would start repeating the interrogators' questions to myself, asking myself is it true what they are accusing me of," he told the Guardian. "You feel the pressure of the cell. Then you think about your family, and you feel you are going to lose your future. You are under huge stress."

His treatment during questioning depended on the mood of his interrogators, he said. "If he is in a good mood, sometimes he allows you to sit on a chair without handcuffs. Or he may force you to sit on a small chair with an iron hoop behind it. Then he attaches your hands to the ring, and your legs to the chair legs. Sometimes you stay like that for four hours. It is painful.

"Sometimes they make fun of you. They ask if you want water, and if you say yes they bring it, but then the interrogator drinks it."

Ali Qadi did not see his parents during the 51 days he was detained before trial, he said, and was only allowed to see a lawyer after 10 days. He was accused of throwing stones and planning military operations, and after confessing was sentenced to six months in prison.The Guardian has affidavits from five other juveniles who said they were detained in solitary confinement in Al Jalame and Petah Tikva. All confessed after interrogation.

"Solitary confinement breaks the spirit of a child," said Horton. "Children say that after a week or so of this treatment, they confess simply to get out of the cell."

The Israeli security agency (ISA) – also known as Shin Bet – told the Guardian: "No one questioned, including minors, is kept alone in a cell as a punitive measure or in order to obtain a confession."

The Israeli prison service did not respond to a specific question about solitary confinement, saying only "the incarceration of prisoners…is subject to legal examination".

Juvenile detainees also allege harsh interrogation methods. The Guardian interviewed the father of a minor serving a 23-month term for throwing rocks at vehicles. Ali Odwan, from Azzun, said his son Yahir, who was 14 when he was arrested, was given electric shocks by a Taser while under interrogation.

"I visited my son in jail. I saw marks from electric shocks on both his arms, they were visible from behind the glass. I asked him if it was from electric shocks, he just nodded. He was afraid someone was listening," Odwan said.

DCI has affidavits from three minors accused of throwing stones who claim they were given electric shocks under interrogation in 2010.

Another Azzun youngster, Sameer Saher, was 13 when he was arrested at 2am. "A soldier held me upside down and took me to a window and said: 'I want to throw you from the window.' They beat me on the legs, stomach, face," he said.

His interrogators accused him of stone-throwing and demanded the names of friends who had also thrown stones. He was released without charge about 17 hours after his arrest. Now, he said, he has difficulty sleeping for fear "they will come at night and arrest me".

In response to questions about alleged ill-treatment, including electric shocks, the ISA said: "The claims that Palestinian minors were subject to interrogation techniques that include beatings, prolonged periods in handcuffs, threats, kicks, verbal abuse, humiliation, isolation and prevention of sleep are utterly baseless … Investigators act in accordance with the law and unequivocal guidelines which forbid such actions."

The Guardian has also seen rare audiovisual recordings of the interrogations of two boys, aged 14 and 15, from the village of Nabi Saleh, the scene of weekly protests against nearby settlers. Both are visibly exhausted after being arrested in the middle of the night. Their interrogations, which begin at about 9.30am, last four and five hours.

Neither is told of their legal right to remain silent, and both are repeatedly asked leading questions, including whether named people have incited them to throw stones. At one point, as one boy rests his head on the table, the interrogator flicks at him, shouting: "Lift your head, you." During the other boy's interrogation, one questioner repeatedly slams a clenched fist into his own palm in a threatening gesture. The boy breaks down in tears, saying he was due to take an exam at school that morning. "They're going to fail me, I'm going to lose the year," he sobs.

In neither case was a lawyer present during their interrogation.

Israeli military law has been applied in the West Bank since Israel occupied the territory more than 44 years ago. Since then, more than 700,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been detained under military orders.

Under military order 1651, the age of criminal responsibility is 12 years, and children under the age of 14 face a maximum of six months in prison.

However, children aged 14 and 15 could, in theory, be sentenced up to 20 years for throwing an object at a moving vehicle with the intent to harm. In practice, most sentences range between two weeks and 10 months, according to DCI.

In September 2009, a special juvenile military court was established. It sits at Ofer, a military prison outside Jerusalem, twice a week. Minors are brought into court in leg shackles and handcuffs, wearing brown prison uniforms. The proceedings are in Hebrew with intermittent translation provided by Arabic-speaking soldiers.

The Israeli prison service told the Guardian that the use of restraints in public places was permitted in cases where "there is reasonable concern that the prisoner will escape, cause damage to property or body, or will damage evidence or try to dispose of evidence".

The Guardian witnessed a case this month in which two boys, aged 15 and 17, admitted entering Israel illegally, throwing molotov cocktails and stones, starting a fire which caused extensive damage, and vandalising property. The prosecution asked for a sentence to reflect the defendants' "nationalistic motives" and to act as a deterrent.

The older boy was sentenced to 33 months in jail; the younger one, 26 months. Both were sentenced to an additional 24 months suspended and were fined 10,000 shekels (£1,700). Failure to pay the fine would mean an additional 10 months in prison.

Several British parliamentary delegations have witnessed child hearings at Ofer over the past year. Alf Dubs reported back to the House of Lords last May, saying: "We saw a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old, one of them in tears, both looking absolutely bewildered … I do not believe this process of humiliation represents justice. I believe that the way in which these young people are treated is in itself an obstacle to the achievement by Israel of a peaceful relationship with the Palestinian people."

Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, who witnessed the trial of a shackled 14-year-old at Ofer last month, found the experience distressing. "In five minutes he had been found guilty of stone-throwing and was sentenced to nine months. It was shocking to see a child being put through this process. It's difficult to see how a [political] solution can be reached when young people are being treated in this manner. They end up with very little hope for their future and very angry about their treatment."

Horton said a guilty plea was "the quickest way to get out of the system". If the children say their confession was coerced, "that provides them with a legal defence – but because they're denied bail they will remain in detention longer than if they had simply pleaded guilty".

An expert opinion written by Graciela Carmon, a child psychiatrist and member of Physicians for Human Rights, in May 2011, said that children were particularly vulnerable to providing a false confession under coercion.

"Although some detainees understand that providing a confession, despite their innocence, will have negative repercussions in the future, they nevertheless confess as the immediate mental and/or physical anguish they feel overrides the future implications, whatever they may be."

Nearly all the cases documented by DCI ended in a guilty plea and about three-quarters of the convicted minors were transferred to prisons inside Israel. This contravenes article 76 of the fourth Geneva convention, which requires children and adults in occupied territories to be detained within the territory.

The Israeli defence forces (IDF), responsible for arrests in the West Bank and the military judicial system said last month that the military judicial system was "underpinned by a commitment to ensure the rights of the accused, judicial impartiality and an emphasis on practising international legal norms in incredibly dangerous and complex situations".

The ISA said its employees acted in accordance with the law, and detainees were given the full rights for which they were eligible, including the right to legal counsel and visits by the Red Cross. "The ISA categorically denies all claims with regard to the interrogation of minors. In fact, the complete opposite is true – the ISA guidelines grant minors special protections needed because of their age."

Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told the Guardian: "If detainees believe they have been mistreated, especially in the case of minors … it's very important that these people, or people representing them, come forward and raise these issues. The test of a democracy is how you treat people incarcerated, people in jail, and especially so with minors."

Stone-throwing, he added, was a dangerous activity that had resulted in the deaths of an Israeli father and his infant son last year.

"Rock-throwing, throwing molotov cocktails and other forms of violence is unacceptable, and the security authorities have to bring it to an end when it happens."

Human rights groups are concerned about the long-term impact of detention on Palestinian minors. Some children initially exhibit a degree of bravado, believing it to be a rite of passage, said Horton. "But when you sit with them for an hour or so, under this veneer of bravado are children who are fairly traumatised." Many of them, he said, never want to see another soldier or go near a checkpoint. Does he think the system works as a deterrent? "Yes, I think it does."

According to Nader Abu Amsha, the director of the YMCA in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem, which runs a rehabilitation programme for juveniles, "families think that when the child is released, it's the end of the problem. We tell them this is the beginning".

Following detention many children exhibit symptoms of trauma: nightmares, mistrust of others, fear of the future, feelings of helplessness and worthlessness, obsessive compulsive behaviour, bedwetting, aggression, withdrawal and lack of motivation.

The Israeli authorities should consider the long-term effects, said Abu Amsha. "They don't give attention to how this might continue the vicious cycle of violence, of how this might increase hatred. These children come out of this process with a lot of anger. Some of them feel the need for revenge.

"You see children who are totally broken. It's painful to see the pain of these children, to see how much they are squeezed by the Israeli system."

Bollywood Director Mira Nair Joins Culture Boycott of Israel
Indian Star Shuns Haifa Film Fest Until 'Apartheid' Ends

Bollywood Boycott: Indian director Mira Nair is refusing an invitation to attend the Haifa Film Festival, saying she will go to Israel once ‘apartheid’ is over.

By Haaretz
Published July 21, 2013.

Award-winning Indian director Mira Nair has turned down an invitation to be guest of honor at the Haifa Film Festival for political reasons, posting on her Twitter page that she would not visit Israel until “Apartheid is over.”
“I will not be going to Israel at this time,” she tweeted last Friday in the second of five tweets on the subject of Israel. The first tweet announced that she had been invited to the film festival as guest of honor. “I will go to Israel when the walls come down. I will go to Israel when occupation is gone.”
By declining the offer, Nair joins a long line of artists and intellectuals – including the Pixies, Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, Alice Walker and Stephen Hawking – who have boycotted Israel in recent years in protest over the government’s policy toward the Palestinians. The Haifa Film Festival, which opens September 19, will run for ten days. Festival officials wanted to screen Nair’s latest film, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2012.
Nair tweeted three additional messages on Friday. “I will go to Israel when the state does not privilege one religion over another. I will go to Israel when Apartheid is over,” she wrote. Then she added, “I will go to Israel, soon.”

Israeli Gov’t mocks ‘Peace Talks’ with announcement of 1200 New Squatter homes in Occupied Palestine
Posted on 08/12/2013 by Juan Cole
The Israeli government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced Sunday that it would take bids on nearly 1200 new housing units on Palestinian territory occupied by Israel.

The news from Tel Aviv further underlines what a charade the John Kerry-pushed “peace talks” are between a powerful Israel occupying some 4 million stateless Palestinians and the officials of the PLO (who lost the 2006 elections to Hamas before the CIA and Mossad made a coup for them in the West Bank). As RT notes, “Today, more than 100 Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank are home to some 560,000 Israelis living among 2.5 million Palestinians.” (‘Living among’ is apparently a euphemism for “stealing land from”).

The “peace talks” are supposed to lead to a Palestinian state with sovereignty over Palestinian territory, which is impossible as long as the Israeli squatters chomp away at the very land on which a state would be erected. Netanyahu’s spokesman said that the new building is only in parts of Palestinian territory that are not envisaged to return to the Palestinians from Israeli control in any negotiations. But the new building includes venues like East Jerusalem or the West Bank that Palestinians do in fact envisage recovering in any successful peace talks. Netanyahu is simply dictating beforehand what the Palestinians can have, rather as Elysium dictates to the slum-dwellers of earth in the Blomkamp film.



Negotiating with the Israelis over land they are actively stealing is like negotiating with with a glutton over a cake while he is eating it in another room. You might get some crumbs.

Israel militarily occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967. The United Nations charter, to which it is signatory, forbids the acquisition of territory by military conquest. The Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of militarily occupied peoples forbids the transfer of populations from the Occupying Power into the occupied territory and forbids the Occupier from altering the lifeways of the occupied population. Israel’s occupation practices diverge so profoundly from international law that the Occupation itself is now obviously illegal. The European Union, for this reason, is now applying economic sanctions to Israeli-made goods deriving from squatter settlements on the Palestinian West Bank.

Aljazeera English reports:



The USG Open Source Center translates an article from al-Ayyam for August 11, 2013, on Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat’s outrage over the Israeli announcement, coming on the eve of resumption of talks between the two sides. Excerpt:

‘Dr Saeb Erekat, chief of the Palestinian negotiating delegation, has lodged the first complaint with the US Administration against the Israeli side, which, he said, started violating the rules of the negotiations before they actually start. In a letter he addressed the day before yesterday to US Secretary of State John Kerry, Erekat said: “Without halting settlement construction, it is hard to see the negotiations advance toward reaching a peace agreement.”

The letter included a detailed explanation of the settlement plans announced by Israel after the official start of the negotiations in Washington. The plans included establishing around 800 settlement units in settlements in the West Bank, including Jerusalem, besides 63 settlement units in the Jabal al-Mukabbir quarter in occupied East Jerusalem, 110 settlements in the settlement of Shilo, 559 units in the settlement of Talmon, 38 units in the settlement of Kokhav Ya’qov, 78 units in the Galgal settlement in the Jordan Valley, 31 units in the Almog settlement north of the Dead Sea, and 60 units in the settlement of Alon Shavot located within the bloc of Gush Etzion.

In his letter, Erekat also protested the placement of 91 settlements, established in the occupied Palestinian territories, on the list of the areas of “national preference” in Israel, including four settlement outposts set up by the settlers on Palestinian lands, even without licensing by the competent Israeli authorities. He said that “approving these plans one week after announcing the resumption of negotiations is not a coincidence and points to the lack of seriousness on the part of Israel toward the peace process.” ‘

Erekat is no hard liner. The Palestine Papers leaked to Aljazeera show that behind the scenes he has been willing to give away to Israel Palestinian claims on East Jerusalem and control of the Aqsa Mosque in ways that most Palestinians found shocking.

Netanyahu likely made the announcement to mollify the extremist pro-squatter parties in his own cabinet, who denounced peace talks that might lead Israel to give up any of the West Bank as equivalent to another “Auschwitz.” Since the Israeli prime minister does not plan to negotiate in good faith or to permit Palestinians to have the dignity of citizenship in a state of their own, he may as well keep his coalition together with such frank announcements.

The 26 Palestinian prisoners due for release
Fourteen of the prisoners are Israeli citizens, 10 are from East Jerusalem, 55 from the West Bank and 25 from Gaza.
By Haaretz | Aug. 12, 2013 | 4:29 PM


Palestinians holding placards and photographs depicting Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails during a protest. Photo by Reuters

A list of 26 Palestinian prisoners to be released from Israeli jails ahead of renewed peace talks was published overnight on Sunday by the Israel Prison Service.

The public has 48 hours to appeal to the courts, following the release of the names.

Fourteen of the of prisoners on the list are Israeli citizens, 10 are Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, 25 are from the Gaza Strip and 55 are from various cities and villages in the West Bank.

Each listing is ordered as such: Prisoner name, date of arrest, major charges, names of their victims.

1. Mutawi Hamad Fayez al-Khoor, November 1989, Murder, attempted murder, Solomon Abukassis and Menahem Dadon

2. Salah Ibrahim Ahmed Mugdad, June 1993, Murder, Israel Tannenbaum

3. Nayef Abdel Jafar Samir Na’neesh, March 1989, Murder, Binyamin Meisner

4. Abdel Hamid Yusef Yusef Irshaid, March 1993, Murder, attempted murder, Nadal Rabu Ja’ab, Adnan Aj'ad Dib, Mofid Can'an, Tawfik Jaradat, Ibrahim Said

5. Othman Amer Mustafa al-Haj, June 1989, Murder, Friedrich Rosenfeld

6. Abdullah Salameh Salameh Musleh, October 1993, Murder, David Reuben

7. Salem Ali Atiyeh Abu-Musa, March 1994, Murder, Isaac Rotenberg (Holocaust survivor)

8. Mahmoud Zayed Saleh Mukled, July 1993, Murder, Joshua Deutsch

9. Abdel Almajid Mohammed Sawalha, December 1990, Murder, attempted murder, Baruch Heisler

10. Izzat Sha’aban Atef Sha’ath, March 1993, Accessory to murder, Simha Levi

11. Sa’id Udeh Yusef Abdel-Al, February 1994, Using explosives, accessory to murder, Ian Feinberg, Sami Ramadan

12. Fayez Rageb Midhat Barbakh, January 1994, Murder, Moshe Becker

13. Ibrahim Salem Ali al-Rai, April 1994, Murder, Morris Eisenstadt

14. Jaber Yusef Mohammed Nashbat, September 1990, Accessory to murder, Amnon Pomerantz

15. Hussein Ghanem Samir Murtaji, October 1993, Kidnapping, manslaughter, Samir al-Silawi, Khaled Malaceh, Nasser Akilah, Ali al Zaabot

16. Fazeh Ahmed Hosni Sawalha, December 1990, Murder, attempted murder, Baruch Heisler

17. Saleh Abdullah Faraj al-Rimahi, July 1992, Murder, Abraham Kinstler

18. Ahmed Sa’id Ala’eddin Abu Sitteh, January 1994, Murder, David Daddi, Haim Weitzman

19. Taleb Mahmad Eyman Abu Sitteh, January 1994, Murder, David Daddi, Haim Weitzman

20. Omar Abdel Hafiz Osmat Mansour, October 1993, Accessory to murder, Haim Mizrahi

21. Mohammed Ahmed Khaled Asakreh, May 1991, Murder, Annie Ley

22. Yusef Radwan Nihad Jundiyeh, July 1989, Murder, Zalman Schlein

23. Mahmoud Awad Mohammed Hamdiyeh, July 1989, Murder, Zalman Schlein

24. Abdul Wahab Jamal Abdel-Nabi, December 1992, Murder, Shmuel Gersh

2.5 Mohammed Taher Taher Zayoud, February 1993, Murder, Abraham Cohen

26. Sabih Abed Hammed Borhan, February 2001, Murder, Jamil Mohammed Naim Sabih, Aisha Abdullah Kharadin