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→ 13 June 2018
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Israel evicts settlers from illegally built West Bank homes | NZ Herald

Protesters oppose the evacuation and deconstruction of the Netiv HaAvot settlement outpost

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police on Tuesday evicted Jewish settlers from 15 homes built illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Police said some 500 protesters demonstrated against the eviction, with some throwing stones and bottles at police and several dozen barricading themselves in one house. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said six officers were wounded in the scuffles and that police arrested three protesters.

After the eviction, Israeli forces are expected to demolish the structures in the Netiv HaAvot unauthorized outpost. The government says it will compensate the residents and rebuild their homes on nearby lands that are not privately owned.

Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the eviction in 2016, saying the homes were illegally built on private Palestinian land while not determining the precise ownership of the land. A law passed last year legalizing dozens of settler outposts in the West Bank is currently being challenged at the High Court.

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→ 12 June 2018
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Recovered in Paris flea market, 1924 Austrian silent film is a Holocaust preview | Times of Israel

Banished Jews carry their Torah Scrolls with them – A scene from 1924 silent film, “City Without Jews”

Based on famous novel and digitally restored, ‘City Without Jews’ includes stunningly prescient scenes depicting passage of anti-Jewish laws and deportations from Vienna

A Jewish man is beaten up on the street. Jewish husbands are separated from their non-Jewish wives and children, and deported on trains. A Jewish community, led by rabbis carrying a Torah scrolls, marches down a dark road as it is banished from town.

These snapshots appear to be Holocaust history — but they are not. These are scenes from a silent Austrian film made a decade prior to the enactment of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws, and some 15 years before the outbreak of World War II.

The 1924 film “City Without Jews” is based on a popular 1922 novel by Austrian writer and journalist Hugo Bettauer. It astutely predicted what was to come. But only partially.

The film was conceived as a satirical response to the anti-Semitism gaining popular and political strength in Austria during the early inter-war period. Its plot depicted the scapegoating of the Jews for the country’s problems and their subsequent expulsion.

But unlike in the real Holocaust, these Jews are eventually reinstated when the Austrians realized their country was suffering from the absence of the creative and successful Jewish community.

 

 

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→ 12 June 2018
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Israeli police: Woman critically wounded in stabbing attack | NZ Herald

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police say a Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli woman, critically wounding her.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says the woman was stabbed several times Monday in the northern city of Afula. She was being treated in hospital in critical condition. Rosenfeld says police forces tracked down a Palestinian suspect in his 30s from the West Bank and shot him in the leg after he refused to stop. A knife was found on him.

Police were investigating a motive.

Since 2015, Palestinians have killed over 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Israeli forces killed over 260 Palestinians in that period, most of them attackers.

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→ 8 June 2018
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As aid dries up, Gaza families pushed deeper into poverty | NZ Herald

In this Thursday, May 31, 2018 photo, Walid al-Hattab, right, distributes free porridge during the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Gaza City. Large numbers of Gaza families have been pushed deeper into poverty in recent months by Palestinian political infighting and the freezing of U.S. aid. The sharp drop in aid comes at a time when life is tougher than ever for most of the 2 million Palestinians locked into tiny, blockaded Gaza where electricity is off most hours of the day, unemployment approaches 50 percent and the Islamic militant group Hamas rules with a tight grip. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Samia Hassan used to have enough money to feed her two dozen children and grandchildren. Now she spends much of her time worrying about food, scouring Gaza’s vegetable markets for end-of-day discounts or walking miles for a pot of free gruel from a soup kitchen.

Large numbers of Gaza families have been pushed deeper into poverty in recent months by Palestinian political infighting and the freezing of U.S. aid. Life is tougher than ever for most of the 2 million Palestinians locked into tiny, blockaded Gaza, where electricity is off most hours of the day, unemployment approaches 50 percent and the Islamic militant group Hamas rules with a tight grip.

“It’s a perfect storm,” said Hilary DuBose of the Catholic Relief Services, which has had to forego emergency food distributions because the Trump administration is withholding funds. “At the same time that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is worsening, humanitarian aid is disappearing.”

Growing despair in Gaza has helped drive recent Hamas-led protests against the border blockade by Israel and Egypt. The closure was imposed after Hamas, branded a terrorist group by Israel and the West, seized Gaza in 2007, driving out forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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→ 7 June 2018
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Israel in uproar over Argentina pre-World Cup friendly snub | NZ Herald

Lionel Messi prays at the Wailing Wall in 2013.

Hmmm. Other sources claim that death threats have been made against the captain, Lionel Messi which has led to the Argentinian decision…

JERUSALEM (AP) — The sports-crazed nation of Israel was in uproar Wednesday over Argentina’s abrupt cancellation of a World Cup warmup match following pro-Palestinian protests, with some of the country’s leaders accusing Lionel Messi and his teammates of caving to terrorism.

Israel was eagerly awaiting the sold-out international friendly scheduled for Saturday night at Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium and the arrival of some of the world’s best players. Argentina is one of the most popular national teams among Israelis and fans had been scrambling to get a chance to see Messi in person.

But after a fierce Palestinian campaign, which included images of Argentina’s white and sky-blue striped jersey stained with red paint resembling blood and threats to burn Messi posters, Argentina’s football federation announced it was skipping the event.

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→ 6 June 2018
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Will the World Finally Turn Off the UNRWA Spigot? | Algemeiner

UNRWA employees protest against a US withdrawal of funding

It’s been a rough few months for UNRWA — the UN agency dedicated to providing care for more than five million Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank. And the worst may be yet to come when UNRWA’s principal donors meet in Amman in June.

According to sources close to events, the discussions may touch on the agency’s future.

Portents of bad news arrived in December, with the results of Lebanon’s first-ever census of Palestinian residents. The count showed the number of Palestinians living in Lebanon was only one third of the number on UNRWA’s official rolls — 174,422 people instead of 449,987.

The discrepancy of 272,565 people who either never existed or relocated was waved away by UNWRA spokeswoman Huda Samra, who stated that UNRWA doesn’t count anyway. “UNRWA does not have a headcount of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon,” she said. “What we have are official registration records for the number of registered Palestine refugees in Lebanon. If someone registered with UNRWA in Lebanon decided to live outside Lebanon, they don’t notify us.”

Yet a drop of 66% in numbers has significant implications for UNRWA’s funding stream.

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→ 5 June 2018
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Israel plans to deduct funds from taxes for arson attacks | NZ Herald

A kite with an incendiary device is readied for its launch

Reading further in this article…

Israel says it plans to deduct from tax funds it collects for the Palestinians the amount needed to compensate Israelis living near the Gaza Strip who have come under a wave of arson attacks.

Israel has been battling fires caused by kites rigged with incendiary devices launched by Palestinians in Gaza that have damaged forests and torched agricultural fields. The fires have disrupted daily life in communities near the Gaza Strip.

The kites have been flown by Gazans who have staged weekly protests since late March during which more than 115 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire.

The statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office on Sunday didn’t disclose how much would be deducted. Israeli Army Radio put the cost of damages at 5 million shekels ($1.4 million).

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→ 2 June 2018
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UN ‘Hopelessly Biased Against Israel’ Says Haley, as US Vetoes Security Council Resolution on Gaza Violence | Algemeiner

Nikki Haley

The majority of the 15 states on the UN Security Council were “willing to blame Israel, but unwilling to blame Hamas, for violence in Gaza,” the American Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said on Friday after the US vetoed a Kuwait-sponsored resolution that urged the deployment of an international force to the West Bank and Gaza.

“It is now completely clear that the UN is hopelessly biased against Israel,” Haley said after the vote.

“The United States will not allow such bias, which is why we did not hesitate to cast our veto.”

Earlier this week – at an emergency session of the Security Council called by the US to condemn rockets fired by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza against Israel – Haley remarked that the Palestinians did not require protection from an external predator, but from a Hamas leadership that cynically manipulates the civilian population into violence.

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→ 1 June 2018
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The language used about Palestinians is putting their lives at risk | Stuff

An elderly Palestinian man falls on the ground after being shot by Israeli troops during a deadly protest at the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on May 14.

OPINION: The language used by most mainstream media to report and analyse the events in Gaza is not just shameful, it risks Palestinian lives.

It appears the media’s collective mind has been so saturated by Israeli propaganda that they are prepared to go as far as defying what they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears.

This is how BBC ended up describing the massacre we have witnessed in Gaza as “clashes”, even though clearly one side is doing all the killing, and the other side all the dying.

This misapplication of language is not merely irksome, it is downright dangerous, because the language used in the media feeds into, and strengthens, the narrative that allows Israel to commit crimes against Palestinians with impunity.

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→ 1 June 2018
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Commentary that ”Palestinians innocent, Israelis evil” is morally bankrupt – Stuff


OPINION: Donna Miles-Mojab wrote that the language used about Palestinians is putting their lives at risk.

I agree that the language used by most mainstream media to report and analyse the events in Gaza is shameful and it does risk Palestinian lives.

However, we disagree about why.

Relatives of Islamic Jihad militant Hussein al-Amour mourn at his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on May ...

AP

Relatives of Islamic Jihad militant Hussein al-Amour mourn at his funeral in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on May 27. Palestinian officials said an Israeli strike on Sunday killed two Gaza militants, after Israel’s military said it targeted a militant observation post in response to an explosive device placed along the border.

Those who truly support the Palestinian people and want to see their youth have a chance of developing into peace-loving leaders would condemn Hamas rather than singling out Israel for sole condemnation.

Those who fail to condemn Hamas, or the mistreatment of Palestinian people in other Islamic regimes like Syria and Lebanon, appear less interested in Palestinians’ aspirations or humanity, and more focused on exploiting their plight as a political weapon against Israel.

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