A young Palestinian boy tries to get back his Palestinian flag after an Israeli man snatched it from him, on May 20, 2012. When an Israeli Border Police officer saw the struggle, instead of ordering the man to give the flag back, chases the young Palestinian boy. (Photos: AP / Activestills)
See also: Israeli settler shoots at Palestinians while IDF soldiers stand idly by
Palestinian shepherd Saed al-Zawahri stands at his home near Jerusalem, as the illegal Israeli settlement known to Israelis as Har Homa and to Palestinians as Jabal Abu Ghneim is seen in the background, on April 25, 2012. Al-Zawahri lost a third of his land as Israel continued expanding the settlement over the past decade, despite its mere existence violating international law. (Reuters)
From The Independent:
Under international law, any Jewish settlements built on occupied territory are illegal. These include all the settlements in the West Bank, and thousands of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem, the Arab-dominated sector of the city annexed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War. The international community still regards East Jerusalem as occupied territory. Despite firm commitments from successive Israeli governments to dismantle illegal outposts built after 2001 and to cease expansion of the settlements, Israel has provided millions of dollars worth of incentives to encourage poorer families to move into the West Bank. Some 300,000 settlers live in the West Bank.
Activist prevents Israeli officer from arresting Palestinian child
During Sunday’s Jerusalem Day events, a Palestinian boy, perhaps 10 years old, was chased down an East Jerusalem street by a very angry officer of the Border Police. The boy tripped and fell, then picked himself up just as the Border Police officer reached him and tried to grab him. But a 22 year-old female Israeli activist prevented the boy’s arrest by throwing herself between the two, allowing the Palestinian boy to flee.
Jerusalem Day is meant to be a celebration of the city’s ‘reunification’ following Israel’s victory in the 1967 war. In practice, it is a day for Israeli nationalists, draped in flags, dancing in circles, singing and chanting (including the popular Israeli nationalist chant, ‘death to Arabs’) as they march through the streets of East Jerusalem and the Old City. Many of the Jewish demonstrators are bused in from right-wing yeshivas in Israel and the West Bank
This year, an Orthodox Jewish man grabbed the Palestinian flag from the hands of a 10 year-old boy and refused to return it. The boy, enraged, tried to prise it out of the Jewish man’s hands. A Border Police officer, seeing the struggle between a 10 year-old Palestinian boy and a fully grown Jewish man, chased the Palestinian boy rather than ordering the Jewish man to return the flag. Someone made a montage of the incident and posted it on Facebook, with commentary. Note the expression of rage in the Border Police officer’s eyes, as seen in the second photo.
In the end the boy got away, due to the intervention of a 22 year-old Israeli activist from Jerusalem named Sahar Vardi, who threw herself in front of the Border Police officer just as he was about to grab the child. Photojournalist Haim Schwarczenberg caught the incident.
The incident was also filmed and the clip posted on Youtube.
Source: +972mag
Israeli settler shoots at Palestinians while IDF soldiers stand by
A new video released by B’Tselem on Sunday shows a settler allegedly firing live ammunition at Palestinians in Asira al-Qibliya, near Nablus, while soldiers stand idly by.
The incident took place on Saturday, around 4:30 P.M, when a group of settlers, apparently from the nearby settlement of Izhar, came to the Palestinian village.
In the video distributed by B’Tselem, a group that examines Israeli human rights violations in the West Bank, the settlers are seen throwing rocks at the village houses and residents.
A few minutes into the video, some Palestinian youths arrive at the scene and start throwing rocks back at the settlers. Shortly after, as gunfire is heard in the background, soldiers arrive and stand beside the settlers.
In the video, two of the settlers are armed; one with a pistol and one with an M-16 automatic rifle. They are seen aiming their weapons at the Palestinians and one seen firing at them, while soldiers do nothing to stop them.
As a result of the shooting, a 24-year-old Palestinian youth, Fathi Assayara, was wounded and taken to a Nablus hospital for treatment. B’Tselem says his condition is stable. Five more Palestinians were wounded by the rock throwing.
B’Tselem contacted the police and demanded that they bring the settlers up on assault charges. In addition, the organization contacted the IDF’s military police and demanded that an investigation be made into the conduct of the soldiers in the video.
“From the footage of the incident, it seems that the soldiers that were present didn’t take any measures to stop the settlers from throwing stones, lighting fires, and firing live rounds at the Palestinians. The soldiers didn’t try to get the settlers to leave and in fact stood by them while they threw stones and shot at the Palestinians,” B’Tselem said.
Thousands of Israelis march outside the old city of Jerusalem on May 20, 2012, as they celebrate Jerusalem Day when Israel illegally annexed East Jerusalem — the Arab sector — in 1967. Israeli police arrested several Palestinian demonstrators (bottom) throughout the day. (Getty Images)
From +972:
Jerusalem Day is not a celebration of a unified city, but rather a show of Israeli power, a reminder for the Palestinians that Jerusalem is an occupied city where non-Jewish residents don’t count.
Every year, Jerusalem Day brings a depressing shadow over East Jerusalem. While Israelis celebrate the “liberation” of the city, Palestinians mourn the beginning of a long journey of oppression and occupation. On Jerusalem Day, tens of thousands of Israelis right-wing activists are allowed to parade in the streets, Palestinians are told close their shops, remain in their homes and not bother the celebration.
Every year’s celebration of Jerusalem Day is full of provocation and attacks on the local Palestinian population. In this video, you can see an example of what happens. First comes the famous slogan “Mavet Le’Aravim” (Death to Arabs), then physical attacks such as stone throwing. The police often tries to calm things down but Palestinians are often arrested even if beaten by the extremist marchers.
Related: “Death to Mohammad” — Watch: Jerusalem Day’s (2011) racist march, escorted by police
What If Kobe Bryant Were an Imprisoned Palestinian Soccer Player?
Imagine if a member of Team USA Basketball—let’s say Kobe Bryant—had been traveling to an international tournament only to be seized by a foreign government and held in prison for three years without trial or even hearing the charges for which he was imprisoned. Imagine if Kobe was allowed no visitation from family or friends. Imagine if he was left no recourse but to effectively end any future prospects as a player by terminating his own physical health by going on a hunger strike. Chances are we’d notice, yes? Chances are the story would lead SportsCenter and make newspaper covers across the world. Chances are all the powerful international sports organizations—the IOC, FIFA—would treat the jailing nation as a pariah until Kobe was free. And chances are that even Laker-haters would wear buttons that read, “Free Kobe.”
This is what has happened to Palestinian national soccer team member Mahmoud Sarsak. Sarsak, who hails from Rafah in the Gaza Strip, was seized at a checkpoint on his way to a national team contest in the West Bank. This was July 2009. Since that date, the 25-year-old has been held without trial and without charges. His family and friends haven’t been permitted to see him. In the eyes of the Israeli government, Sarsak can be imprisoned indefinitely because they deem him to be an “illegal combatant” although no one—neither family, nor friends, nor coaches—has the foggiest idea why. Now Sarsak is one of more than 1,500 Palestinian prisoners on a hunger strike to protest their conditions and lack of civil liberties. As the New York Times wrote last week, “The newest heroes of the Palestinian cause are not burly young men hurling stones or wielding automatic weapons. They are gaunt adults, wrists in chains, starving themselves inside Israeli prisons.”
But no organization has claimed Sarsak as a member or issued fiery calls for his freedom. All we have is a family and a team that are both bewildered and devastated by his indefinite detention. His brother Iman said,“My family never imagined that Mahmoud would have been imprisoned by Israel. Why, really why?”
His family doesn’t understand how someone, whose obsession was soccer, not politics, could be targeted and held in such a manner. But in today’s Israel/Palestine, soccer is politics. Sarsak is only the latest Palestinian player to be singled out for harassment or even death by the Israeli government. In 2009, three national team players, Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshtahe, were killed during the bombing of Gaza. The National Stadium as well as the offices of the Palestinian Football Association were also targeted and destroyed in the Gaza bombing. In addition, their goalie, Omar Abu Rwayyis, was arrested by Israeli police in 2012 on “terrorism charges.” If you degrade the national team, you degrade the idea that there could ever be a nation.
More than police violence is a part of this process of athletic degradation. Currently the Palestinian soccer team is ranked 164th in the world and they’ve have never been higher than 115th. As one sports writer put it delicately, “Given the passion for football that burns among Palestinians, such lowly status hints at problems on the ground.”
These problems on the ground include curfews and checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza that often mean the forfeiting of matches. If Palestinians living in Israel’s borders want to play for the team, they have to give up any benefits of Israeli citizenship. The end result is that the Palestinian national team becomes dependent on the Diaspora, relying heavily on Palestinians who have lived for two and three generations in South America and Europe. This is why many of the key players on Palestine’s national team are named Roberto or Pablo.
In 2010, Michel Platini, president of European football’s ruling body—Israel plays in the European qualifiers—threatened Israel with expulsion from FIFA if it continues to undermine football in Palestine. Platini said, “Israel must choose between allowing Palestinian sport to continue and prosper or be forced to face the consequences for their behaviour.” Yet Platini never followed through on threats and quite the opposite, awarded Israel the 2013 Under-21 European Championships.
On Wednesday, the British organization Soccer Without Borders, said that they would be calling for a boycott of the tournament, writing:
Football Beyond Borders, a student-led organisation which uses the universal power of football to tackle political, social and cultural issues, stands in solidarity with Mahmoud Sarsak and all of the Palestinian political prisoners currently being detained by Israel on hunger strike, as together we protest the injustices being inflicted upon Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and draw attention to their plight. [We] take this opportunity to announce our official boycott of the UEFA 2013 Under-21 European Championships, which Israel has been awarded the honour of hosting.
Soccer Without Borders joined forty-two football clubs and dozens of team captains, managers and sports commentators in Gaza who submitted a letter to Platini in 2011 demanding that European football’s governing body reverse its decision to allow Israel to host the under-21 tournament.
Amidst all this tumult is Mahmoud Sarsak, a threat for reasons no one can comprehend and Israel will not reveal. As long as Sarsak remains indefinitely detained and as long as Israel targets sport and athletes as legitimate targets of war, they have no business being rewarded by FIFA or the UEFA, let alone even being a part of the community of international sports. If Sarsak is to see the inside of a courtroom and if Israel is to, as Platini said, “face the consequences for their behaviour,” silence is not an option. After all, even a Celtic fan would surely agree, we’d do it for Kobe.
Rabeeh, a 78-year-old Palestinian refugee, holds the key to her father’s house, which is located in the city of Lod near Tel Aviv in Israel, at al Hussein refugee camp in Amman, May 15, 2012. Al Nakba, or the Palestinian Catastrophe, marks the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, which aided Israel’s founding in 1948, when “Jewish forces expelled over a million Palestinians from their homes at gunpoint, massacred civilians and deliberately destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages”. (Reuters)
This Week In History: On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was established, creating the largest refugee population in the world. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, “Jewish forces expelled over a million Palestinians from their homes at gunpoint, massacred civilians and deliberately destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages”.
Palestinians who escaped persecution from Jewish forces fled to Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank. As a result, there are now 4.5 million Palestinian refugees without the right to return to their homes in the land now called Israel. Many refugees still retain old deeds and keys to homes now occupied by Israelis.
The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is known as al Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe, and is commemorated on Nakba Day on the 15th of May every year, the day after Israeli Independence Day on the Gregorian calendar.
Throughout its 64-year history, Israel has denied that al Nakba — which happened just years after the Holocaust — ever took place, and last year the government passed a fascist law that allows the denial of state funding to NGOs that participate in Nakba commemorations. In 2009, it banned the use of the term “Nakba” in school textbooks.
Photos: Top: Thousands of Palestinians throng the beach as they are forced out of their homeland / Bottom: An elderly Palestinian couple during the mass exodus, Palestine, 1948 (UNRWA)
Palestinian Christians and Muslims hold pictures of imprisoned relatives during a special service at the Monastery of St. Étienne in East Jerusalem on May 8, 2012 in solidarity with prisoners on hunger strike and to protest against Israel’s use of administrative detention orders and abuse of human rights.
More than 2,500 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel are currently observing an open-ended hunger strike, now in its third week, to demand their basic human rights: an end to administrative detention, solitary confinement, access to education, media and family visits.
Some 4,610 Palestinians are currently jailed in Israel, according to Addammeer, a Ramallah-based group that provides support for them, 320 of whom are in administrative detention and have no idea why they are there. The procedure allows a military court to order a detainee to be held for up to six months at a time without trial or even revealing the charges against them. (Getty Images)
A Palestinian woman waves her national flag after she managed to climb atop an Israeli military vehicle during a demonstration by hundreds of people gathered outside Ofer military prison near the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 1, 2012 in a show of support for thousands of prisoners held in Israeli jails, many of whom are on hunger strike protesting for their basic human rights.
She, along with other protesters, were sprayed with ‘skunk’ water and pepper spray (video) — from just a few inches away — by the Israeli army, who also fired tear gas and rubber bullets. (Photos: Abir Kopty / Reuters)
From Mondoweiss:
Now in its second week, a mass hunger strike is spreading across Israeli prisons with some 2,000 Palestinians protesting for their basic rights: an end to solitary confinement and imprisonment without charge, and access to education, media and family visits. And while prisoners in the Karameh (dignity) hunger strike have yet to achieve their goals, after 14 days without food, they have successfully mobilized Palestinian society and pressured Israeli authorities—in ways that are reminiscent of the first Intifada.
Known as the “battle of the empty stomachs,” the open-ended strike began on April 17, 2012, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, with an initial 1,200 protestors. Within days the strike spread to other prisoners. Now the number of strikers has increased to over 2,000, with new groups joining daily. 105 Fatah affiliated prisoners held in Israel’s Eshel detention facility are the latest group to announce their participation, which will begin tomorrow.
The sudden increase in protesting Palestinian prisoners is also accompanied by hunger striking Egyptians who are held in Israeli detention. Last Friday 40 of the 63 imprisoned Egyptians joined the protest to demand their release, which was planned to take place that same day. However, after negotiations between Egypt and Israel on a gas pipeline failed, Israel punitively canceled the prisoner release, inciting the protest.
