Jewish, Palestinian activists try to build a cinema in Hebron

July 15, 2016, +972 Magazine http://972mag.com (Israel)

 

By Dahlia Scheindlin*

As soldiers and settlers look on, dozens of foreign Jews join Palestinians in the segregated city of Hebron try ‘to make the unbearable a little more bearable.’ Police detain six Israelis among the group, prevent others from even joining.

Foto: Activists with the Center for Jewish Non-Violence 

clear brush from the yard of the would-be cinema as 

Israeli soldiers and settlers look on, Hebron, July 15, 

2016. (Wisam Hashlamoun/FLASH90)

The streets in the Israel-controlled section of Hebron were sunny and silent at 9 a.m. on Friday. The Palestinian shops on the main streets were all shut, as most of them have been for over 20 years. Jews were home preparing for Shabbat.

On a sloping street rising through the Tel Rumeida neighborhood where, in April, a Palestinian stabber was wounded, then executed, there is a small commotion. A scattered group of Israeli soldiers, blue-uniformed police, and a few local Israeli settlers are hovering around a battered fence, peering inside as if

Netanyahu and Son Investigated for Using False Passport, Money Laundering Via Panama Account

July 16, 2016, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

By Richard Silverstein*

Winston Churchill said after one of the earliest Allied victories during WWII: this is not the end, not even the beginning of the end.  Rather it’s the end of the beginning.  I think we’re more advanced in the case of Netanyahu.  We may have just entered the beginning of the end of his seemingly endless reign over Israeli politics.

Israeli social media has lit up with news of a new investigation of Bibi Netanyahu, his son Yair, and the PMO’s former chief of staff, Ari Harow.  This story has not yet been reported by an Israeli mainstream publication and

Yair Lapid’s Destructive Conspiracy of Silence for Israel

13.07.2016, Tlaxcla http://www.tlaxcala-int.org (Mexico) Tlaxcala, the international network of translators for linguistic diversity

Gideon Levy جدعون ليفي גדעון לוי

All Israelis who break the silence about the occupation and other crimes are doing their patriotic, human and moral duty. That’s why the Yesh Atid leader is so afraid of them.

The discussion on the occupation can only be held abroad. Such a debate requires the existence of a free democratic society where people know what’s going on. So the discussion can’t be held in Israel, just as the discussion on the Yazidis can’t be held in Iraq and the discussion on gay people and journalists can’t be held in Russia.

 

Breaking the Silence activists hold signs saying 'this is what the occupation looks like' at a rally against incitement, Tel Aviv, December 2015. Photo Moti Milrod

Under Israeli rule live two societies that are incapable of holding a discussion on the occupation. There’s the Jewish society that lives in denial and repression, knowing nothing and not wanting to know anything; and the Palestinian society that

Ben Ehrenreich Throws Stones at Conventional Wisdom About Israel

July 8, 2016,  פֿאָרווערטס Forward http://www.forward.com (US)

Sheerly Avni

 

In the classic American film noir “Out of the Past,” the wayward mob mistress and the private eye hired to drag her back home are, inevitably, flirting in a casino in Mexico. “Is there a way to win,” she asks, sultry and musical, pretending that she’s talking about the gambling tables. “No,” the doomed chump answers, “but there is a way to lose more slowly.” It’s hard not to read “The Way to the Spring,” journalist Ben Ehrenreich’s deeply reported new chronicle of Palestinian life and resistance in the West Bank and Hebron, with those dark words in mind. The men and women he grows close to lose almost every battle they fight — beaten down by Israel’s infinitely superior military force and the expansion of Jewish settlers operating with apparent government approval. And despite or, he might argue, because of his Jewish heritage, Ehrenreich makes no bones about siding with the losers.

 

 Courtesy of Ben Ehrenreich

Simple Pleasures: The daughter of artist 

Eid Suleiman al-Hathalin playing ball on her birthday.

The book has already been both lauded for its impassioned writing and criticized for the author’s explicit sympathy for his subjects (sometimes within the same review). Sheerly Avni spoke with Ehrenreich by phone from his home in Los Angeles, just as he was packing for a trip to the Palestinian Festival of Literature.

Sheerly Avni: You lived in the West Bank and spent some time there on and off, for about three years. How much did the amount of time you spent there impact your understanding of events?

Ben Ehrenreich: I know a lot of Americans and Europeans who visit the West Bank either as reporters or with delegations and return home filled with optimism and hope because they’ve met all these great and inspiring people who are engaged in inspiring acts of resistance. But actually living in the West Bank gives you a very different

Ex-Abu Ghraib Interrogator: Israelis Trained U.S. to Use "Palestinian Chair" Torture Device

April 07, 2016, Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org (U.S.)

Eric Fair: Army veteran who worked as a contract interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He is the author of the new book, Consequence: A Memoir.

As a former interrogator in Iraq working as a military contractor for the private security firm CACI, Eric Fair was stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison and in Fallujah in 2004. While in Fallujah, he witnessed a torture device known as the Palestinian chair. He writes in his new book, "Consequence: A Memoir," that the chair was a way to immobilize prisoners in order to break them down both physically and mentally. He also wrote that the Israeli military taught them how to use the Palestinian chair during a joint training exercise. For more, we’re joined by Eric Fair, whose new book, "Consequence: A Memoir," has just been published.

 

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guest is Eric Fair, Army veteran who worked as a contract interrogator at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as other places. He’s the author of the new book, Consequence: A Memoir. You’ve said that what happened outside Abu Ghraib, what contractors did, in terms of torture, was often worse than

The female conscientious objector who just made Israeli history

July 12, 2016, + 972 Magazine 972mag.com (Israel)

By Noam Sheizaf*

Following her sixth trial, Tair Kaminer has become the longest-serving female conscientious objector in Israel’s history. This is her story.

Young Israeli women Tair Kaminer and Tania Golan pose for a final photo outside the Tel Hashomer induction base where they announced their refusal to serve in the Israeli army, January 31, 2016. Kaminer was sentenced to prison.

DF military prison number 6 lies in one of the most picturesque spots in Israel, at the bottom of the Carmel Mountain, between green fields and banana plantations. The prisoners can see the mountains from the yard, but there is no view of the Mediterranean, less than a mile away.

The prison includes a separate unit for officers and, since 2011, a female unit as well. Prison life is boring and discipline is harsh. Most prisoners’

Israeli-Palestinian Freedom March; Decade for Combatants for Peace

10/07/2016, The Israeli Communist Party http://www. maki.org.il המפלגה הקומוניסטית הישראלית‎  الحزب الشيوعي الاسرائيلي‎ (Israel)

 

 The last Freedom March held on June 3, 2016 

(Photo: Standing Together)

This Friday, July 15, Israelis and Palestinians will be holding the eighth monthly Freedom March against the occupation organized by Combatants for Peace and the Standing Together.  These joint marches for peace, independence, and justice for both peoples began late last year and will take place on the first Friday of

Chilcot, Israel and the Lobby

July 07, 2016, Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk (UK)

By Gilad Atzmon*

It took seven years for Sir Chilcot and his team to reach a set of conclusions that every Brit capable of thought understood back in November, 2003.

The inquiry produced a damning assessment of Blair’s conduct as well as the British military. But the Chilcot Inquiry failed to expose the crucial close ties between Blair’s criminal war, the Jewish Lobby and Israel.

At the time Britain entered the criminal war against Iraq, Blair’s chief funders were Lord ‘cashpoint’ Levy and the LFI (Labour Friends of Israel). The prime advocates for the immoral interventionist war within the British press were Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen. The attorney general that gave the green light for the war was Lord Goldsmith.

In 2008 The Guardian revealed that the “Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on

Hirsh Glick’s Partisan song (VIDEO)

May 4, 2016, פֿאָרווערטס  http://www.forward.com (US)

Song sung by Annie Lederhendler

URL http://forward.com/video/339984/partisan-song-sung-by-annie-lederhendler/?attribution=home-video-2&attribution=home-video-2

Thousands of European Jews survived the Holocaust fighting in Partisan units against the Nazis. Hirsh Glick’s Partisan song, written in the Vilna Ghetto, became their anthem. Even today the surviving Jewish Partisans end every public gathering by singing it as they did in the forests and marshes of Europe 70+ years ago. This recording from the Jewish Public Library of Montreal was made during a reception for the great Yiddish poet and former Vilna Partisan Abraham Sutzkever in 1959.

Women of the Wall met for Rosh Hodesh Tammuz prayers this morning at the Western

July 8, 2016, Women of the Wall נשות הכותל http://womenofthewall.org.il (Israel)

Press Release

Women of the Wall met for Rosh Hodesh Tammuz prayers this morning at the Western Wall with 300 women in attendance in the women’s section and over 100 men in support.

Frannie Werner and her family came from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah ceremony, which they began planning over six months ago. This was the family’s first time in Israel and at the Western Wall. Women of the Wall vowed to ensure that Frannie would read from a Torah scroll, despite the attempts made by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Administrator of the Western Wall, to prevent women and girls from accessing Torah scrolls at the holy site. There are over 100 scrolls for public use in the men’s section, and Rabbi Rabinowitz runs a lucrative Bar Mitzvah industry at the Kotel

‘Arabs’ saved us, says settler boy whose father was slain

July 7, 2016, Mondoweiss http://mondoweiss.net (USA)             

In rare twist, Palestinian man rescues wounded Israelis

Rabbi Mark's car after he was killed 

in terror attack in occupied territories

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) 5 July — Just a few years ago, Islam al-Bayed spent seven months in an Israeli prison for allegedly throwing stones at Israeli troops. Now, the 26-year-old Palestinian man has become an unlikely symbol of tolerance after rescuing an Israeli family whose car crashed following a deadly roadside shooting by Palestinian militants in the West Bank. Last week’s shooting, along with the fatal stabbing of an Israeli girl as she slept in her bed, have ratcheted up tensions in the southern West Bank. Israel has responded by imposing a closure around the city of Hebron and beefed up its troop presence in the volatile area. But al-Bayed, a private security guard who lives in the al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, says his actions last Friday transcended politics. “This was a very human moment. I didn’t think of the occupation or

Hatred Unlimited

09/07/2016, Gush Shalom גוש שלום http://zope.gush-shalom.org (Israel)

Uri Avnery אורי אבנרי*

A PALESTINIAN youngster breaks into a settlement, enters the nearest house, stabs a 13-year old girl in her sleep and is killed.

Three Israeli men kidnap a 12-year old Palestinian boy at random, take him to an open field and burn him alive.

Two Palestinians from a small town near Hebron enter Israel illegally, have coffee in a Tel Aviv amusement quarter and then shoot up everybody around before they are captured. They become national heroes.

An Israeli soldier sees a severely wounded Palestinian attacker lying on the ground, approaches him and shoots him in the head at point blank range. He is applauded by most Israelis.

These are not "normal" actions even in a guerrilla war. They are the manifestations of bottomless hatred, a hatred so terrible that it overcomes all norms of humanity.

THIS WAS not always so. A few days after the 1967 war, in which Israel conquered East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, I traveled alone though the newly occupied territories. I was welcomed almost everywhere, people were eager to sell me their goods, tell me their stories. They were curious about the Israelis, much as we

Israeli Commandos Penetrate Syria, Lebanon; Plant Spy Devices And Murder Civilians

8 july 2016, Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com (USA)

By Richard Silverstein*

.נוהל “מקרה מוזר”: רצח במסווה של “תאונה”, של אזרחים בלבנון ובסוריה שבמקרה נתקלו בצוותי סיירת מטכ”ל או מגלן בדרכם לשתול מתקני ריגול

This article was originally published by Mint Press News.

For years, Lebanese media and the country’s army have reported lurid details about Israeli spy rings inside the country which assist in reconnaissance and espionage targeting Israel’s arch-enemy, Hezbollah.

Former IDF special forces officer 

and novelist, Natan Odenheimer

The Israeli Defense Forces intelligence apparatus uses sophisticated listening devices planted in southern Lebanon — just one of the many surveillance tools at Israel’s disposal — to eavesdrop on the Lebanese militant group’s communications and track troop movements, among other things.

Rumors have trickled back from the front to Israeli reporters that the forays into Lebanon by the IDF’s elite commando units, Sayeret Matkal and Maglan, weren’t always clean operations. In fact, Israeli forces have encountered Lebanese civilians while planting their equipment more than