ISRAELI SETTLER VIOLENCE IN THE WEST BANK
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- Written by UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory
- Published: 04 November 2011 04 November 2011
- Hits: 5088 5088
UNITED NATIONS
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory
ISRAELI SETTLER VIOLENCE IN THE WEST BANK
NOVEMBER 2011
FAST FACTS
- The weekly average of settler attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties and property damage has increased by 40% in 2011 compared to 2010, and by over 165% compared to 2009.
- In 2011, three Palestinians have been killed and 167 injured by Israeli settlers. In addition, one Palestinian has been killed, and 101 others injured, by Israeli soldiers during clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinians.
- Eight Israeli settlers have been killed and 30 others injured by Palestinians in 2011, compared to five killed and 43 injured, during the same period in 2010.
- In 2011, nearly 10,000 Palestinian-owned trees, primarily olive trees, have been damaged or destroyed by Israeli settlers, significantly undermining the livelihoods of hundreds of families.
- In July 2011, a community of 127 people was displaced en masse due to repeated settler attacks, with some affected families re-locating to Areas A and B.
- Over 90% of monitored complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment.
- OCHA has identified over 80 communities with a combined population of nearly 250,000 Palestinians vulnerable to settler violence, including 76,000 who are at high-risk.
P. O. Box 38712 East Jerusalem 91386 l tel. +972 (0)2 582 9962 l fax +972 (0)2 582 5841 l This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. l www.ochaopt.org
1. Violence by Israeli settlers undermines the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians living under Israel’s prolonged military occupation. This violence includes physical assaults, harassment, takeover of and damage to private property, obstructed access to grazing and agricultural land, and attacks on livestock and agricultural land, among others.
2. In recent years, many attacks have been carried out by settlers living in settlement “outposts,” small satellite settlements built without official authorization, many on privately-owned Palestinian land. Since 2008, settlers have attacked Palestinians and their property as a means of discouraging the Israeli authorities from dismantling these outposts (the so-called “price tag” strategy).
3. The root cause of the settler violence phenomenon is Israel’s decades-long policy of illegally facilitating the settling of its citizens inside occupied Palestinian territory. This activity has resulted in the progressive takeover of Palestinian land, resources and transportation routes and has created two separate systems of rights and privileges, favoring Israeli citizens at the expense of the over 2.5 million Palestinian residents of the West Bank. Recent official efforts to retroactively legalize settler takeover of privately- owned Palestinian land actively promotes a culture of impunity that contributes to continued violence.
4. The Israeli authorities repeatedly fail to enforce the rule of law in response to Israeli settlers’ acts of violence against Palestinians. Israeli forces often fail to stop attacks and follow-up afterwards is inadequate or poorly conducted. Measures of the current system, including requiring Palestinians to file complaints at police stations located inside Israeli settlements, actively work against the rule of law by discouraging Palestinians from filling complaints.
5. The risk of displacement of vulnerable families as a result of settler violence is an issue of increasing concern. Settler violence creates pressure and constant hardship on some Palestinian communities, particularly when combined with other difficulties, such as access and movement restrictions and house demolitions. Displacement has serious immediate and longer-term physical, socio-economic and emotional impacts on Palestinian families and communities.
6. Under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, Israel is obligated to prevent attacks against civilians or their property and ensure that all incidents of setter violence are investigated in a thorough, impartial and independent manner.

An Evening of Palestinian Hip Hop
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- Written by AUPHR AUPHR
- Published: 02 November 2011 02 November 2011
- Hits: 6537 6537
An Evening of Palestinian Hip Hop
Friday, November 4, 2011
Salmon Street Studios, 109 SE Salmon St., Suite C, Portland, OR 97214
Slingshot Hip Hop Film Screening
followed by Q&A with Director Jackie Reem Salloum
5:30 pm
The documentary film Slingshot Hip Hop (2008), screened as part of the Middle East Studies Center Film Series, braids together the stories of young Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel as they discover Hip Hop and employ it as a tool to surmount divisions imposed by occupation and poverty. From internal checkpoints and Separation Walls to gender norms and generational differences, this is the story of young people crossing the borders that separate them.
Palestinian Hip Hop Performance by DAM
8:00 pm
Based in Lod, Israel, Palestinian Hip Hop Artist DAM was founded in 1999 by brothers Tamer and Suhell Nafar and their friend Mahmoud Jreri, and their songs are largely about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and poverty. The group’s name is the Arabic verb for “to last forever/eternity” (دام) and the Hebrew word for “blood” (דם), but can also be an acronym for “Da Arabian MCs.”
These events are free and open to the public--all ages.
Both are co-sponsored by the Portland State University Arab Persian Student Organization and Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights, Zulu Oregon Universal and the Lincoln Arabic Studies Program.
BOATS SAILING NOW TO GAZA! SPREAD THE WORD.
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- Written by AUPHR AUPHR
- Published: 02 November 2011 02 November 2011
- Hits: 5765 5765
ACT NOW!!
BOATS SAILING NOW TO GAZA! SPREAD THE WORD.
Israel and the US outsourced the siege of Gaza to Athens last summer by preventing 8 boats in the Freedom Flotilla 2-Stay Human from sailing from Greek ports toGaza. Despite this we were able to bring world-wide attention to the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Our efforts in Greece only fueled our determination to challenge the imprisonment of the people of Gaza. We said we would continue to sail and so we are!!!
At this moment, two boats are in international waters in the Mediterranean heading to Gaza. One boat, the Saoirse from Ireland, includes parliamentarians among its passengers. The other, the Tahrir, carries representatives from Canada, the U.S.,Australia, and Palestine. The U.S. Representative on the Tahrir, Kit Kittredge, was a passenger on the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope mission in Athensin July. A journalist from Democracy Now is on the Tahrir also. Civil society organizations in Gaza await their arrival, and look forward to the delivery of letters collected from thousands of U.S. supporters in the To Gaza With Love campaign.
We need your help to make this mission a success. Please take these actions immediately.
1. Check these websites for updates: US to Gaza, Irish Ship to Gaza and Canadian Boat to Gaza, watch or listen to Democracy Now for live coverage from the Tahrir.. Look for twitter hashtag #Freedomwaves.
2. Spread the word far and wide – send this alert to your contacts.
3. Call the State Department and the White House- demand that they take immediate action to ensure the safe passage of these boats and to put an end to the siege of Gaza.
Call the State Department:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 202-647-5291
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro 011-972-3-519-7575
Office of Israel/Palestinian Affairs Paul Sutphin 202-647-3672
Office of Consular Affairs, Kim Richter 202-647-8308
and the White House: 202-456-1414
email President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Here are some talking points or suggested messaging:
Gaza has been under siege since mid-2006, depriving 1.6 million people of their liberty and basic human rights. Although the siege has been condemned by the United Nations, the Red Cross, and many national governments, nothing has been done to ease the plight of these civilians. Civil society has had to act where governments would not. Two ships with 27 passengers from 5 countries are sailing to Gaza to confront the Israeli naval blockade, and to bring medical supplies and letters of support.
As Americans we insist that our government (which sends Israel $3 billion in military aid every year), demands that Israel insures the ships’ safe passage and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza. There is absolutely no excuse to subject 1.6 million people to collective punishment. Ask your local press to cover this story. Up-to-date information will be available at www.ustogaza.org, www.irishshiptogaza.org and www.tahrir.ca
FORWARD THIS ACTION ALERT TO ALL YOUR CONTACTS, PLEASE INCLUDE THE PRESS RELEASE.
THANKS
FELICE GELMAN, JANE HIRSCHMANN AND ANN WRIGHT
Richard Forer, Author, Breakthrough
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- Written by Susan Susan
- Published: 25 October 2011 25 October 2011
- Hits: 5024 5024
[Watch the video here: www.presstv.ir/Program/201784.html]
Richard Forer is one of those people who are very reflective, very self analytical. He also is one of the strongest voices of Anti-Zionism in the United States.
His book, Breakthrough, is a critical account of Zionist policies in the Middle East for years and also analyzes why and how the Zionist government of Israel and their supporters in the US create fear against the Palestinians to gain support.
Ever wonder what goes on inside the head of a Zionist? Anyone who is concerned about the Palestine-Israel conflict, about the Middle East, who has heard about the influence of the Zionist lobby on US politics, has probably wondered why so many people support Israel unconditionally.
And if the way to achieve peace in the Middle East is to convince people who think Israel can do no wrong to take a hard look at the facts, to convince them to learn what happened during the bloody formation of Israel, to make them see what is still happening to the Palestinian people today, you might want to know what makes a Zionist tick.
In telling the story of how he himself went from being a diehard supporter of Israel, from someone raised in a Reform Jewish household who saw Israel as that plucky little democracy trying to provide a secure home for the long-beleaguered Jews to someone who now supports the Palestinians in their struggle for justice, he provides us with an inside look into the mind of a Zionist -- his own -- and how being confronted with the more grim reality changed his mind and the reality of the Palestinian struggle.
Greater Israel—or Peace?
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- Written by Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer with Scott McConnell Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer with Scott McConnell
- Published: 24 October 2011 24 October 2011
- Hits: 4727 4727
Greater Israel—or Peace?
Pathbreaking scholars Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer speak out about the precarious future of the Jewish state.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/greater-israel-or-peace/
Shortly before Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in New York to seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state, TAC’s Scott McConnell sat down with Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer to discuss the deeper currents shaping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since then, President Obama has given a speech shocking in its deference to Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s right-wing coalition, and there is no immediate prospect for renewed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations—the “peace process” begun with discussions in Oslo, Norway in 1991. Israel has announced fresh plans to move settlers into Palestinian areas of Jerusalem it conquered in 1967.
As daunting as the prospects for peace may be, Israel no longer enjoys immunity from criticism within the American media and academy—thanks in large part to the work of scholars like Mearsheimer and Finkelstein, who have forced a debate among foreign-policy thinkers and the American left over the price Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians all pay for Tel Aviv’s policies.
[1]One of America’s most important dissident scholars, Norman Finkelstein has written six books touching on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2007, after he had been recommended by DePaul University’s political science department and described by the university as an “outstanding teacher,” he was denied tenure thanks to an unprecedented lobbying campaign waged by Alan Dershowitz, who had long sparred with Finkelstein over Israel. Finkelstein is the child of European Jews who survived Auschwitz and Majdanek, which gave added force to his book The Holocaust Industry, critical of ways Israel has exploited the Holocaust for financial and political gain. His most recent work, This Time We Went Too Far, is an analysis of Israel’s 2008-09 war against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago is one of America’s foremost international relations scholars. He created a storm in 2006 when he and co-author Stephen Walt of Harvard University published the essay “The Israel Lobby,” which was later expanded into a best-selling book.
Scott McConnell: Have we come to the end of the Oslo process? Is a two‑state solution still a viable possibility?
.... read the rest on The Amercian Conservative web site . . .