Showing posts with label Intifada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intifada. Show all posts

Monday, October 19, 2015

More Turf Wars in Jerusalem


THE ABSURD TIMES



Illustration: Latuff. This is not going to stop.
More Turf Wars in Jerusalem
by
Ellis Dea


Now nine Jews have been killed in Jerusalem, clearly more than during the entire Gaza slaughter. The last one (if you want to make it 10) was an Ethiopian who was first shot by a Jewish soldier and then kicked, spat upon, and beaten to death (at least report, at least, he is dead, but then it is difficult to believe any "official" reports). Of course, he was suspect from the start because he was, in Yiddish terms, a "Schwartzer," and Schwartzers are, of course, suspect and less than human. After all, they are black in color and not "real" Jews. They are Schwartzer Jews.



We hear complaints that Israel does not have any responsible representative Palestinian to talk about this with. Well, that's right. BECAUSE THEY PUT THEM ALL IN PRISON! C'mon, really, do they think nobody knows what is going on there? Ever hear4 of a guy named Barghouti? Probably not if you stick to corporate media.





Well, John Kerry snapped into action right away and bravely said that Israel had the right to self-defense. What the hell, or how the hell, does that fit here? Perhaps he means that the Jews should build more walls and lock more Palestinians in a smaller area while the Israeli builders knock down more buildings and put up condominiums to sell to other Israelis. I don't know. Maybe we should give them another 3 billion dollars a year? Yeah, that would help.



There is not much new about all of this, actually, as it has been going on daily. The only new thing about it is that Israelis, mainly soldiers if seems, are also being killed. See, the Palestinian men, mainly, have learned how to stick the blade in, twist it, and then twist back and pull it out. That is how the last one got hold of an M16 rifle (guess where those are made) and then opened fire on another bunch of Israelis.



All that is clear is that this sort of thing is going to continue until the Jews forget their sense of entitlement as the "chosen people," and start treating all humans as humans, not as "animals" to be herded and slaughtered.



Here is some more in-depth discussion:



TOPICS




GUESTS



human rights lawyer. He's a Palestinian citizen of Israel who previously worked as senior attorney at Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel.


senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, covering Gaza, Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. His new article for The New York Times is headlined "Mismanaging the Conflict in Jerusalem."
This is viewer supported news


The death toll from violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories has increased with new Palestinian stabbing attacks and an intensified Israeli crackdown. On Sunday, an attacker identified as a 21-year-old Arab citizen of Israel knifed an Israeli soldier to death and then opened fire at a bus station in Beersheba, wounding 10 people. The attacker was killed. In an apparent case of racial profiling, a mob of soldiers and bystanders then shot and beat an Eritrean man to death, mistakenly thinking he was a second assailant. After sealing off East Jerusalem neighborhoods last week, Israel is widening its crackdown on Arab residents and continuing military operations across the West Bank and Gaza. The United Nations says last week was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel in 10 years, raising concerns "of excessive use of force, and violations of the right to life and security of the person." We are joined by two guests: Jamil Dakwar, a Palestinian human rights lawyer with Israeli citizenship, and Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group whose new article for The New York Times is "Mismanaging the Conflict in Jerusalem."



TRANSCRIPT


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

AMY GOODMAN: The death toll from violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories has increased with new Palestinian stabbing attacks and an intensified Israeli crackdown. On Sunday, an assailant identified as a 21-year-old Arab citizen of Israel knifed an Israeli soldier, then opened fire at a bus station in Beersheba with the soldier's rifle, wounding 10 people. The soldier and the attacker died. In an apparent case of racial profiling, a mob of soldiers and bystanders then shot and beat another man to death, mistakenly thinking he was a second assailant. Video footage shows the crowd kicking and assaulting the victim, 29-year-old Haftom Zarhum, as he lies on the ground. Zarhum later died in the hospital. He had been seeking asylum in Israel from his native Eritrea. The incident comes after Israeli forces shot dead five Palestinians accused of stabbing attacks, including three in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

After sealing of East Jerusalem neighborhoods last week, Israel is widening its crackdown on Arab residents. A new bill before Parliament would give forces stop-and-frisk powers to search anyone in the streets without cause. In addition to severe restrictions on movement, Israel is also erecting a wall in East Jerusalem that would separate Palestinian neighborhoods from a nearby Israeli settlement. Israeli forces meanwhile continue military attacks across the West Bank and Gaza, raiding villages and firing on Palestinian demonstrations. Over the weekend, a group of some 200 Israeli settlers reportedly attacked two Palestinian villages in the West Bank with firebombs.

The surge in Palestinian knife attacks and protests is partially fueled by concerns over Israeli control of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and visits there by far-right Israelis. On Sunday, Israel rejected a French proposal to deploy international observers at the flashpoint holy site. Speaking today in Madrid, Secretary of State John Kerry backed Israel's rejection of a foreign presence at the Temple Mount, but said he would meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the coming days.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Israel has every right in the world to protect its citizens, as it has been, from random acts of violence. But in my conversations with the prime minister, as well as with King Abdullah and the foreign minister of Jordan, they have expressed a desire to try to see this process be able to find a way of making certain that everybody is clear about what is happening with respect to the Temple Mount.

AMY GOODMAN: The overall death toll stands at 44 Palestinians and eight Israelis this month. The U.N. says last week was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel in 10 years, raising concerns, quote, "of excessive use of force, and violations of the right to life and security of the person."

Joining us now are two guests. Here in New York, Jamil Dakwar is with us. He's a human rights lawyer, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who previously worked as senior attorney at Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel. And in Jerusalem, Nathan Thrall is with us, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group covering Gaza, Israel, Jordan and the West Bank. His new article for The New York Times is headlined "Mismanaging the Conflict in Jerusalem."

Nathan, let's start with you in Jerusalem. What is happening there, and why do you believe that the situation is so out of control at this point?

NATHAN THRALL: So what's happening now in Jerusalem is checkpoints are going up all over the east. At the exits to Palestinian neighborhoods in occupied East Jerusalem, you have big concrete cubes going up and very, very long lines for Palestinians to exit their neighborhoods. And there is a sense among Palestinians in East Jerusalem that they are being punished for these so-called lone wolf stabbing attacks that have taken place so far. The other morning, residents of one neighborhood, where basically the traffic police, the parking—people who give parking tickets never go, came and left 500-shekel tickets on everybody's car. And there are a series of small steps like this that are leading a lot of Palestinians in East Jerusalem to feel that they're being collectively punished for what's going on now.

I live right at one of the seam neighborhoods between the east and the west, and it's filled with border police who are basically stopping a high proportion of the Palestinian men who are walking from one side of the city to the other. Many of them work in the west side of the city. You had mentioned a moment ago that there is a consideration of allowing the police to do stop-and-frisk without cause. You know, that's news to the residents of Palestinian East Jerusalem, who are stopped and frisked without cause all the time and are being stopped and frisked without cause today. So the situation in Jerusalem is extremely tense. People are eyeing one another suspiciously. A Palestinian woman in West Jerusalem was walking around today and was telling me how people were staring at her, surprised that she was walking around there.

So, the attacks don't seem to have any kind of organized leadership behind them, which makes them much more difficult for anybody to stop. And one of the big problems here is we don't have an organized political leadership in Jerusalem, a Palestinian political leadership in Jerusalem, which means that there's no one for the Israelis to talk to in order to try and calm the situation.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go right now to what happened on Sunday. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected Palestinian concerns over the Temple Mount.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The reason the status quo has been violated is not because we changed it. We didn't change anything. The orders of prayer, the visiting rights have not changed for the last 15 years. The only thing that's changed are Islamist hoodlums, paid by the Islamist movement in Israel and by Hamas, who are entering the mosque and trying to put explosives there, and, from there, emerge and attack Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, and Christian visitors. That's the only change in the status quo. Israel will protect the holy site, will guard the status quo. Israel is not a problem on the Temple Mount, Israel is the solution.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. We're also joined by Jamil Dakwar, human rights lawyer, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who previously worked as a senior attorney at Adalah, a leading Israeli human rights group. Your response to what Netanyahu just said?

JAMIL DAKWAR: Well, I think that what is really striking here is that the Israeli government, every time there is any kind of a rise in tension and crisis and use of violence, it turns into militaristic approach towards dealing with the Palestinians. It's using that same old policies of a crackdown, on collective punishment, on seeing the Palestinians with no really value of their life and their basic human rights. The response, and particularly on the issue of status quo, you know, Israel is the only country that is allowed to change the status quo in Jerusalem, and it's been changing that for years, for decades. And yet, if a country or political party is suggesting a change of the status quo towards more peaceful resolution, towards more protection of civilians, then that is always rejected. So I think there is, clearly, a going back to giving now the Israeli government and Benjamin Netanyahu a pretext to go—what he really would prefer to do is to continue his policies of aggression against Palestinians.

Certainly, this is going to be more and more difficult, because in Jerusalem, in East Jerusalem, the reason that there is no leadership is because Israeli policies were cracking down on institutions. The Orient House was closed by the Israeli government. The Palestinians who were elected by their own people were not allowed to engage in political activities. Many of them were imprisoned. So that, in and of itself, clearly shows that the Israeli government wants to see only its own interest, meaning the Jewish Israeli interest in Jerusalem, and that continue to perpetuate the situation both in East Jerusalem and in the West Bank as a military occupation, which is now nearing 50 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what has caused this latest escalation of violence, from your perspective. Where did you grow up, by the way?

JAMIL DAKWAR: I grew up in Haifa. I went to school at Tel Aviv University. I remember when I went to law school at Tel Aviv University, there were very, very difficult times. There were times when there were suicide attacks going on inside Israel. Those happened in response to the settler going to Hebron mosque and killing prayer—Palestinians who were praying in the mosque. That kind of blew up the whole situation. And it was clear that without cracking down on the settler violence, without ending Israel's settler activity in the West Bank, there is no way that the Palestinians will sit back and allow the Israeli government to continue to control their life in every way.

So I think the escalation that we're seeing now has been mounting, has been building, because of what's happened in the last several years. There is no hope for any real, normal life. This is the new normal for the Palestinians, which is military occupation continues unabated, the Israeli government continues to send settlers to the West Bank. There's a crackdown rounding up children, Palestinian children, in night raids, documented by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations. These kinds of things will make Palestinians despair or make the Palestinians, some of them, to resort to violence and do what they are doing. And I think that is what is really concerning.

AMY GOODMAN: Are these knife attacks new?

JAMIL DAKWAR: These knife attacks are new, although in the—we've seen in the—this is not the first time that there were these kinds of wave of knife attacks. And it happened during the Shamir—appeared in the '80s. They were very much similar, in a situation where the Palestinians were really giving up on their hope to have a normal life. I think that there's now also—there's the impact on their lack of ability to be able to express themselves.

You mentioned the Arab Palestinian citizen who stabbed the soldier. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian citizens are peaceful. They've been peaceful in their activities for their entire career, and yet the Israeli government is cracking down on their leadership, is cracking down—there are home demolitions inside Israel, displacement of Arab Bedouin communities. That is making people see that despite the fact that you are making an effort to be a citizen, a law-abiding citizen, the Israeli government is saying, "No, you are not welcomed here. You are an enemy. You are not going to be enjoying the same basic rights as others in the country."

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, a Palestinian reportedly opened fire at a central bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, killing a soldier and wounding 11 other people. He had taken the gun of the soldier. Afterward, the Israeli police spokesperson, Micky Rosenfeld, addressed reporters.

MICKY ROSENFELD: As a result of the attack where the terrorist had a pistol and opened fire, we have six people that were injured, four of them being police officers injured inside the central bus station. One man was severely taken to hospital and received medical treatment. Unfortunately, confirmed that he passed away a few minutes ago. Heightened security is continuing in the area, and our police units are still in and around the central bus station.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli eyewitness to the shooting, Sima Koseshvili, called for greater security.

SIMA KOSESHVILI: [translated] Do I need to live in a world where I am afraid to leave home to go to my college studies, to work or to go shopping? Everything is frightening, and I want the police to take more action and increase their security presence.

AMY GOODMAN: Nathan Thrall in Jerusalem, can you talk about what happened there in Beersheba? First you had the killing of both the Palestinian gunman and the Israeli soldier, many other people also injured, and then the Eritrean man being beaten to death in a case of apparently mistaken identity.

NATHAN THRALL: Yes. Frankly, I know about as much as what—as much as you do about what happened there. I wasn't there, and I've seen the reports and watched some of the videos. And I've seen that the government has, you know, acknowledged that a tragic mistake was made. But beyond that, I don't know the details of the incident.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of this?

JAMIL DAKWAR: The significance is that, look, what's happening is that now anyone appears to be an Arab Palestinian. And that starts with the racial profiling, stop-and-frisk, that is a daily experience of Palestinians. But also Israeli Jews who are Arab Jews, who come—[Sephardic] Jews, who appear to some Israelis or to the Israeli security forces as suspicious Arab Palestinians, some of them are even being attacked. I think this is going out of control, because the Israeli government and the politicians are spreading those statements, making those statements that are very dangerous statements, encouraging citizens to take arms and shoot people, shoot to kill. And there are now human rights reports investigating the shoot-to-kill orders. This amounts to extrajudicial killing. There need to be clear investigations of these instances. You have people who did not pose any imminent threat to additional people; even if they committed crimes, they still should not be executed right on the spot. And that, I think, will bring the situation to a much worse, because people are mistrusting anyone who is a Palestinian, who is an Arab, who appears to be Palestinian, and that's why the Eritrean refugee got in that situation. And the lynching—there's situations where a soldier is standing by, security forces standing by and not protecting those civilians. That, in and of itself, is a huge, dangerous escalation that I think even worse than the act of lonely or individual taking some knives and stabbing people, because that frustrates entire—puts entire communities at risk, when law enforcement carries those attacks and crackdowns and opens fire with no respect to human life.

We see a situation that really requires more attention and more action, not just—you know, condemnation of acts of violence is the easy part of this. What is really needed to be done is what needs to be done about the situation, the situation of the occupation, the situation on East Jerusalem. And what we're not hearing, what are the solutions, including administration officials. Every time Secretary Kerry tries to say something right, whether it's the recent comment that he made, where he said, "Well, we've seen building of settlements, an expansion, etc. That is now—and now we're seeing violence." So he's making the right connection, a very logic, commonsense connection, and yet he had to retract those statements, even though he's really saying what everybody knows, what everybody knows in the Obama administration, what everybody knows here in the United States, that settlements are illegal, and yet they are now getting full support from this Israeli government, and is now building on turning this conflict into a religious war. And I think that is really the critical point where I think we need to be very, very concerned about. People who know the situation know that if you are going to speak to the youth about religious wars and agitate them, they will take things like this, they will take knives and stab people. And without leadership, without any hope, without a future, this will become the norm. And unfortunately, that would be a very dangerous route to go to.

AMY GOODMAN: Is there a role for the ICC here, the International Criminal Court?

JAMIL DAKWAR: Well, the ICC, as you know, there's a preliminary investigation of the situation in Israel and Palestine, particularly the situation of Palestine after Palestine joined the ICC. There were calls to ask the prosecutor to look at the alleged crimes committed in the recent month. I believe it will be a little bit difficult for the prosecutor to jump at this issue. There's a significant development that happened just last week with the ICC prosecutor asking to open full investigation in Georgia. That will be an important—has important implications on the situation in Palestine, because this will be—if this full investigation will move forward, will be the first nonstate party full investigation that is taking place in the ICC, which could, again, delay, on one hand, the Palestinian situation, but, on the other hand, would also set important precedent for that. I think, most importantly, there should be a clear deterrence to the Israeli government from clear statements made, that the Israeli government cannot continue these actions with no consequences. There is no accountability. We know from reports like B'Tselem, Yesh Din, Al-Haq and other organizations that investigations within the Israeli military are discredited, they're not credible, they're not serious, and therefore, at some point, there will be action by legal mechanisms, including the ICC, to look into the crimes that are committed in the occupied Palestinian territory.

AMY GOODMAN: On Saturday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and his counterpart in Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, visited Israeli stabbing victims recovering in the hospital. On Sunday, Mayor de Blasio visited the Western Wall and toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum. He signed the guest book at the museum, "Never again," then made a statement.

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO: We're here at a painful moment. We're here at a moment where people are afraid, where people are struggling, because of the violence in their midst every single day lately, more and more terrorist attacks on absolutely innocent civilians, something unconscionable and unacceptable, according to all our values, and something that must end.

AMY GOODMAN: Nathan Thrall, I wanted to get your comment—also the Joint Chiefs of Staff chair, Marine General Joseph Dunford, in addition to de Blasio, are in Israel—to what you believe needs to be done and what de Blasio said.

NATHAN THRALL: So, what we're seeing is the beginning of the United States compensating Israel for the Iran nuclear deal, and they're discussing now increasing the $3 billion in aid that Israel receives each year. And regarding de Blasio's statement, of course attacks on civilians are horrible, and all of this death is horrible. In terms of looking at the root causes, I see very little being done to address that.

What we're seeing right now among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and particularly in Jerusalem, is a real sense that the idea of a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem is escaping them. Jerusalemites have felt for many years that they are losing Jerusalem. They feel that they're losing control over Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well. And so, they're—the other guest had mentioned that the institutions of the Palestinian political leadership used to exist in Jerusalem. The PLO had something called the Orient House, which was its headquarters in Jerusalem, that had been—that has been shut down and is shut down. And, you know, Jerusalem has been separated by an enormous wall from the rest of the West Bank. And when Palestinians come and visit from Gaza, for example—those few who are allowed exit permits and do get to come to Jerusalem—they're in shock at what they see. And seeing it with their own eyes and going around the West Bank, they come to the conclusion that the possibility of separating Israel from an independent Palestinian state passed a long time ago.

And nobody is offering any kind of solutions or answers to Palestinians, including their own leadership. And I think that's a big part of why you see Palestinians actually acting right now outside of the political factions that dominate Palestinian politics. Palestinians feel like those factions are not offering any solutions and that they are taking matters into their own hands. So, the center of some of the fighting against Israel has occurred specifically among those groups who are not under Palestinian Authority control. The Jerusalem—Jerusalemites, of course, are not at all under Palestinian Authority control. The Palestinian Authority is forbidden from acting in any form in Jerusalem—and in other domains, as well. Villages in the West Bank who are fighting against the wall cutting through and taking part of their land also find—many of them are outside of the Palestinian Authority's control and therefore are able, actually, to fight Israel. The same thing with hunger-striking prisoners and with Gazans now, who are approaching the border fence every day and throwing rocks, and getting shot and killed in the process.

So, I think that Palestinians, in general, feel that they are approaching the end of an era, and that era is the era that was inaugurated with President Mahmoud Abbas's election in January 2005. This came just after Yasser Arafat had died and at the end of a very bloody and painful intifada, one that was bloody and painful for both sides. And what Abbas represented for Palestinians was a chance to try a totally different strategy, one that was not based on armed conflict, one that would basically give Israel exactly what it most wanted, which is security, and to cooperate with Israel, fully in security, to hunt down militants in the West Bank and to prevent attacks against Israelis, against settlers. And Abbas—if you ask the Israeli security establishment, they will say that Abbas has delivered that in spades. And what the security officials say is, you know, "We view our job as to provide the calm that allows the political leadership to reach out and to make a deal, or at least to improve the situation." Even if you don't have a final peace agreement, there are a thousand things that Israel can do to make life better for Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem and Gaza. And a lot of the anger—sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I just—we have to wrap up, but I wanted to bring Jamil Dakwar back in. Go ahead with "a lot of the anger," and then I'm going to go back to Jamil.

NATHAN THRALL: Sure. OK, sure. I just wanted to say that a lot of the anger is a sense that that strategy, that was inaugurated with Abbas's election in January 2005, has been given 11 years now to play itself out, and it hasn't achieved anything. And it hasn't really eased life or restrictions on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and Jerusalem. And so, what Palestinians are doing now is, in a very nonstrategic and emotional way, rebelling against that, without a clear vision of where they're headed.



TOPICS




GUESTS



human rights lawyer. He's a Palestinian citizen of Israel who previously worked as senior attorney at Adalah, a leading human rights group in Israel.
This is viewer supported news

The Israeli government has rejected a French call for international observers at the Temple Mount, the holy site that has been a flashpoint for the current unrest in Israel and the Occupied Territories. The United States is backing Israel's stance ahead of a meeting with top leaders from both sides in the coming days. After President Obama restored ties to Cuba and brokered a nuclear deal with Iran, some are hoping for a similar change on Israel-Palestine during his last 15 months in office. Will it happen? We are joined by Palestinian human rights lawyer Jamil Dakwar.



TRANSCRIPT


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

AMY GOODMAN: Jamil Dakwar, as we wrap up, your final comment? Also, we have seen President Obama go out on a limb on a number of issues—on Cuba, went against what was the prevailing wisdom, but certainly represented actually a majority opinion in this country on Cuba, and is changing relations with Cuba; on the Iran deal, pushed very hard to get this Iran deal. Do you see him possibly doing something like this on Israel-Palestine?

JAMIL DAKWAR: Sadly, I think it will probably be hard to see him pushing that in the last year in his administration, given the Iran deal, given everything, the political capital, has spent on all these other foreign policy issues. I think it would be very sad for this administration that they didn't really get it right on the priority and the action, because U.S. ultimately has the power over financial support to Israel, diplomatic, political support. They know what needs to be done. And sadly, every time, you know, Palestinians resort to nonviolent practice—and that's the overwhelming majority of Palestinians have been doing that, as was mentioned, whether in Nabi Saleh, in all the different places in the West Bank, in trying to oppose the wall, trying to oppose other crackdowns, and all of a sudden now, individual attacks and violent attacks, that are very, very unfortunate, now turn to be the one to be representing all the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice. And that's, I think, the sad reality where we live.

I think that's why I think there's a need for the Palestinian unity, for Palestinian leadership to realize the need to be a lesson learned from the 22-year failed experience of Oslo, what it meant for the Palestinians, and to have more legitimacy within the Palestinians to give them the confidence that the Palestinian leadership is indeed speaking on behalf of Palestinians, so that they can also garner the support internationally, even if the United States will not be on their side in the near future.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Jamil Dakwar, human rights lawyer, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, who previously worked as a senior attorney at Adalah, an Israeli human rights group; also Nathan Thrall, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, speaking to us from Jerusalem.


http://www.democracynow.org/2015/10/19/after_historic_shifts_on_cuba_iran?utm_source=Democracy+Now!&utm_campaign=c919930d31-Daily_Digest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fa2346a853-c919930d31-191108309




Friday, October 16, 2015

Turf War in Palestine


THE ABSURD TIMES





Illustration: Latuff again.  The last Intifada was 2000.  This is 2015.  Not a time for another lost generation.

            If you have been paying any attention lately, you have probably heard of the "unrest" on the West Bank.  Actually, this time the Palestinians are not using slingshots that much anymore. 



            The knife has become the weapon of choice.  While watching the scenes, including that of one guy shot 12 times in the back while running away, it was mentioned that 7 Israelis have been killed in the last two weeks by stabbings.  It is assumed that these were all done by knives, but actually a couple used screwdrivers that being the only weapon available.



            Even more interesting, to a kid that grew up in Chicago in the "Old Days" was that these 7 were about the same amount that were supposedly killed by missiles during the Gaza War when between 2000 and 3000 Arabs were massacred by Israeli air strikes.  If you can count, it would seem that the knife is mightier than the missal.  So, what kind of training camps are needed?



            Probably any large city would provide many area were one could learn to use a knife quickly, and efficiently, or else.  The switchblades of today are more complicated than they were in the old days, but seem quite as effective.  So, either a real two-state solution or get knifed.  I mean, that's the way gangs in Chicago, New York, Detroit, and one hope Los Angeles has caught on as well.



            So, Jews stay on their side of the border of 1967 and Arabs on their side.  All will be well.  And Mr. Nitwityahoo, take down that damn wall!



            It should be pointed out that there is no fear of another Holocaust on the part of Israelis.  That is more or less kept alive as some sort of justification.  We have to be against oppression, right?



            We can't let this go without mentioning the Democratic Debate, just briefly.  The dumbest statement was from Webb, the short guy on the left of the screen when he complained about Assad "INVADING" Syria.  No, Webb, he FUCKING LIVES THERE!  The other issue was Bernie saying we are sick of Clinton's damn e-mails.  Well, we are, but comments right afterwards pointed out that Bernie lost an "opportunity" to be President.  Well, so be it, we are tired of the damn e-mails, no matter who is President.



            So, here is a discussion of Palestine.  It is not that long, but it is something that has been ignored for too long.  The three people are people who actually live in the region, one of them a Jew and two are Arab:


TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the latest round of violence in Israel and the Occupied Territories, the worst since last year's Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. A series of uncoordinated stabbing attacks by Palestinians on Israelis has sparked a new Israeli crackdown on Arab areas. Israel says seven of its citizens have been killed and many more wounded by Palestinian assailants armed with knives and other weapons this month. Four of the deaths came on Tuesday, when separate knife-wielding attackers targeted a bus and a busy thoroughfare. Another rammed a car into civilians standing on a street. Israel has imposed new checkpoints and closures on Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem and intensified military attacks in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 11 suspected Palestinian assailants, though questions have been raised over whether all were armed or posed a threat. In the latest violence, two knife-wielding suspects were fatally shot on Wednesday. Overall, at least 33 Palestinians, including eight children, have been killed, and more than 1,600 have been wounded this month.
In a speech on Wednesday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Israel is threatening to spark a religious war.
PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS: [translated] These days, the Israeli aggressive assault against our people and its land and its holy places is escalating, and the racism is showing its ugly face and is making the occupation uglier. It is threatening peace and stability and is threatening to spark a religious conflict that would burn everything, not only in the region, but also in the whole world.
AMY GOODMAN: In the deadliest day of violence so far, Israeli forces killed seven Palestinians in Gaza Friday as hundreds marched on the border wall with Israel. Meanwhile, a Jewish assailant killed four Bedouin Arabs in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Dimona. On Wednesday, State Department spokesperson John Kirby said the U.S. considers the Dimona attack an act of terrorism. He also raised concerns the Israeli military is using excessive force.
JOHN KIRBY: I think you're going to ask me what—do we consider it an act of terrorism? And we do. ... Certainly, individuals on both sides of this‚ of this divide, have proven capable of—and in our view, guilty of—acts of terror. ... We've certainly seen reports of security activity that—you know, that could indicate the potential excessive use of force. And again, we don't want to see that anywhere. We don't want to see that here in our own country. So—so, yeah, we're concerned about that.
AMY GOODMAN: The new flare-up appears partially fueled by Palestinian concerns over Israeli control of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and ongoing attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians. It's also sparked new demonstrations across the occupied West Bank that have revived talk of a Third Intifada.
For more, we're joined by three guests. Diana Buttu is with us, an attorney based in Palestine. She served as a legal adviser to the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel, previously an adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. Gideon Levy is with us. He is Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper's editorial board. He is the author of The Punishment of Gaza. And Budour Hassan is a Palestinian writer, activist and law student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her most recentpiece for Electronic Intifada is called "'Son of Palestine' mourned by thousands."
We're going to go first to Haifa to Diana Buttu. Can you tell us what's happening right now? Are we seeing a Third Intifada?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, it doesn't matter how you classify it, if you classify it as an intifada or not as an intifada. But what is happening is that Palestinians are being killed at will by the Israeli government and by Israelis. It's turned into a lynch mob scene, where all it takes is for one person to scream out that the person is an Arab or a terrorist, and suddenly you see the shoot-to-kill orders that have been issued by the government come into effect. We've seen this with at least a few children just this past week, with Fadi Alloun, who was killed last week. And all that it takes is simply one shoot-to-kill order, and there you have it. And so, what we are seeing now is protest. We're seeing people who are fed up with living under Israeli military rule and who are demonstrating and demanding that they be free.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Diana Buttu, could you give us some sense of what you think accounts for this upsurge in violence? And also talk specifically about what's happening in East Jerusalem. Israel has sealed many of the neighborhoods there. Tell us a little bit about who the residents principally are of East Jerusalem and what this means.
DIANA BUTTU: Well, first, in terms of East Jerusalem, we're talking about a population of 200,000 Palestinians, many of whom actually hail from West Jerusalem but were removed from the city in 1948 and now reside under Israeli military rule. These are people who are not citizens of the state of Israel; they are permanent residents. And living as permanent residents means that their residency is considered temporary by Israel, even though generations of these people have lived there.
The newest measures that have been put into place are everything from searching entrances into cities; demanding proof that people have paid their taxes, for some reason; also things such as indicating that they're going to demolish homes of anybody who is suspected of being involved in any resistance or otherwise; and basically the shoot-to-kill orders that I've been speaking about.
Some of the videos that you've seen that have gone viral are videos of children who have been—one video, in particular, of a young boy who was hit in the head with a metal rod, who was run over by a jeep and then stood over by an Israeli settler telling him that he should die. These are—this is the type of activity that is taking place in Jerusalem.
Now, in terms of the protests themselves and what's happening and what's going on, or the reasons for it, it's because it's been going—this is a new generation that has lived exclusively under Israeli military control. This is a generation that hasn't seen anything but the false promises of the Oslo agreements. It's a generation that has to apply for permits to be able to go visit the sea, to be able to go to Jerusalem. It's a generation that recognizes that the denial of freedom is not something that is normal or natural, and they are resisting this and standing up and saying to the Israelis, "Once and for all, we want to be free. Enough is enough." And if the world is very concerned about these protests, etc., they should be actually demanding that Israel end its occupation, rather than demanding that the protests be quashed.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to Budour Hassan. You have written for Electronic Intifada. You're a student at Hebrew University. We're speaking to you in Jerusalem. You have had the chance to speak with the family of Subhi Abu Khalifa, who stabbed and wounded an Israeli on Thursday. Can you talk about what the family said and what you understand is happening right now?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Subhi Abu Khalifa lives in Shuafat refugee camp, which is literally a ghetto, which the Israeli occupation since the 1970s has tried to crush with all means possible, turning it into a poverty hub, turning—putting drugs in the camp, smuggling arms to some of the residents. So they've tried to do everything in the camp, not just to destroy the community there, but to also prevent this camp from being active in the Palestinian resistance movement. And Subhi Abu Khalifa comes from this background. And despite all the attempts to destroy this generation, Subhi Abu Khalifa and his brothers and his family and thousands who live in Shuafat refugee camp, despite all the hardships, are standing up against the Israeli occupation and resisting.
And what was astonishing about the interview with his family is that his father told me that just one day after the alleged stabbing, he was fired from his job, because he works at the Israeli occupation municipality's cleaning services. And I've asked him, "Do you regret that, resent your son's actions?" He told me this—he told me, "I will never value my job over my dignity." And it was—his grandmother said the same. She said that "I will not accept that my children and my grandchildren will see the Israeli occupation or colonize our city, destroy our lives, stab our children and slaughter our children in front of our eyes, and they'll be silent."
So, this is just the case of Subhi Abu Khalifa, but there are tens of Subhi Abu Khalifas who have carried out these lone-wolf attacks and who—not only they are fed up with the Israeli occupation, they're also fed up with the Palestinian Authority, with the Oslo Accords, with the neoliberalization of the Palestinian society. They are fed up with being preached all the time about being civil, about being respectable, in the face of the most uncivil and unrespectable army in the world. And they are fed up with being told that we should be nonviolent, when all that this so-called nonviolence and peace talks have brought is just further colonization, not only of Jerusalem, but also of the West Bank, further destruction of the Gaza Strip, and further attempts to erase Palestinian identity from Jerusalem, take over the urban space that Palestinians once had in Jerusalem, and also sort of pacify and try to take over the Palestinian mentality in Jerusalem, because what's harder than what's happening in Jerusalem is all these attempts to Israelify or to try to contain the anger in Jerusalem, try to pacify the spirits of people in Jerusalem.
So these people are saying, "No, we will never be Israelified. We will never be contained. And we will never be domesticated by all these attempts, even the slighter repression, the attempts of the Israeli municipality, for example, to sugarcoat the occupation by putting all these community centers, by trying to sound sweet and kind and visit Palestinian neighborhoods." So these people, these young people, are not stupid to be deceived by this kind of sugarcoating. They are saying that "We don't accept neither your hard repression, which is embodied by the checkpoints and the closures, nor do we respect your slighter repression, which is personified by these attempts to actually appeal or appease the Palestinian communities in Jerusalem."
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to take a break and then come back to this discussion. Budour Hassan is a Palestinian writer. She's a student at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Diana Buttu is a Palestine-based attorney. She is joining us from Haifa. And when we come back, we will also be joined by Gideon Levy, the Haaretzcolumnist. He's in Tel Aviv. Stay with us.

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Diana Buttu—she's in the studio in Haifa, a Palestinian attorney. Budour Hassan is joining us by Democracy Now! video stream from Jerusalem, a Palestinian student and writer. And Gideon Levy is also with us,Haaretz columnist, in Tel Aviv.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: In an appearance at Harvard University, Secretary of State John Kerry appeared to draw a link between the wave of violence and increased Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody. And there's been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years. Now you have this violence because there's a frustration that is growing—and a frustration among Israelis, who don't see any movement. So, I look at that, and I say, you know, if that did explode—and I pray and hope it won't, and I think there are options to prevent that—but we would inevitably be—you know, at some point, we're going to have to be engaged in working through those kinds of difficulties. So, better to try to find the ways to deal with it before that happens than later.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was Secretary of State John Kerry speaking Tuesday. Gideon Levy, could you respond to what he said and give us a sense of what the mood there is?
GIDEON LEVY: Unfortunately, I must say that John Kerry's declaration is rather hypocritic. The Americans could have prevented long time ago; the Americans know exactly how to prevent it. If they really wanted to put an end to the occupation, the Israeli occupation would have come to its end long time ago. This policy of only serving carrots to Israel, of flattering to Israel again and again, is now decades long and never worked, never, ever worked. And the Americans never really tried the alternative path of putting pressure on Israel in order to bring Israel back to the international law, back to legal and order, back to morality.
And now John Kerry is saying that this can be prevented and should be prevented? Where were you in the last 67 years, in the last 48 years, when Israel is so much depending on the United States like never before, and you just gave Israel a carte blanche to go wild in Gaza, in the West Bank, again and again, build settlements, go for wars, and never tried to push Israel and to put an end to all this? So, really, with all the respect to John Kerry's good intentions, this is not the way to deal with Israel after all those years.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: But Israeli government officials, Gideon Levy, if you could give us a sense of how they've responded to remarks made by U.S. officials? The defense minister, Moshe Ya'alon, for example, accused Washington of completely misreading the situation on the ground in Israel-Palestine. The public security minister called the U.S. remarks "foolish."
GIDEON LEVY: Yeah, they got all the same message from the prime minister's office: now to condemn the United States. In the last years, they found out that condemning the United States doesn't take any price. Israel can talk to and about the American administration as if Israel is the superpower and the United States is just like one of those small countries which depend on Israel. They allow themselves what no country in the world allows themselves vis-à-vis the United States, going and trying to sabotage an international agreement with Iran in the American Congress against the American administration. Things which are unheard of by any other country, Israel learned in the recent years that they are possible—and not only possible, they are productive, and they are working. So, sure, Israel will attack now the Americans for any kind of criticism—
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Diana—
GIDEON LEVY: —because, you know, the Americans will not punish Israel for this.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring Diana Buttu into—back into the conversation. Also, Netanyahu was speaking at the U.N. General Assembly saying that Israel will now negotiate with the Palestinians without any preconditions.
DIANA BUTTU: But that is a farce. I mean, one of the things that Netanyahu has said over and over again is that he's not going to stop any settlement construction, in fact that he's going to continue it. And, in fact, this is what has actually happened. In addition, what he's also said is that they reserve the right to continue to kill Palestinians. And so, while he indicates that he has no preconditions, in fact, it's quite the opposite.
But the issue is not whether there are preconditions, it's whether the negotiations process actually works. And it doesn't. I was part of the negotiations process. You cannot negotiate with one very powerful party, backed by a superpower—the United States—and a very weak party. We call that dictation. The negotiations have failed over the course of the past 22 years.
And so, now is the time, rather than heading back to negotiations, which only serve to give Israel more legitimacy, only serve to give Israel more international recognition—in fact, more countries started recognizing Israel after the negotiations process began than before it—rather than going back to that process, which was failed and futile for Palestinians, there needs to be a different way. And this different way is to be pushing for boycotts against Israel, to be pushing for divestment, and to be pushing for sanctions, to be pushing for Israel to be held accountable under international law, and to be pushing for Israel's isolation. All of those measures will work. But going back to a failed negotiations process will not.
AMY GOODMAN: How does the Al-Aqsa Mosque fit into this, the current unrest?
DIANA BUTTU: Amy, this is one of the reasons that we are seeing these latest round and latest wave of protests. If you just look back about a year ago, a year ago there was a very brutal Israeli attack on Gaza in which Israelis—in which the Israeli army killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, including more than 500 children. A hundred thousand Palestinian homes and businesses were demolished or destroyed, and still to this day remain unbuilt. Add to that this summer's attacks by Palestinian—excuse me, by Israeli settlers on Palestinians, including the burning of a Palestinian home in the West Bank town of Duma that ended up killing an 18-month-old and his two parents. Add to that the Israeli measures to allow the Temple Mount Faithful, a group that actually believes in the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, allowing them onto the Al-Aqsa compound under the guise of religious freedom, when there is nothing involving prayer there at all, allowing them to be able to go there while simultaneously denying Palestinians and denying Muslims the ability to be able to go to their holy sites. This is exactly the recipe that the Israelis have been laying out time and again in order to spark another wave of protests or an intifada, what have you. And so, the issue of Al-Aqsa plays—is very central, but it's not just Al-Aqsa, it's all of the other measures that have been taken, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Diana Buttu, we want to thank you for being with us, joining us from Haifa, a Palestine-based attorney. Budour Hassan, who was joining by video stream from Jerusalem and a Palestinian writer, writes for The Electronic Intifada. And the Israeli writer Gideon Levy, a Haaretz columnist, joining us from Tel Aviv.