Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

The Israeli government played a direct role in recent policy and legislative moves in the US, UK and other countries to suppress the free speech rights of citizens calling for the boycott of Israel over its human rights abuses.

Israel is now planning to significantly step up its efforts to thwart the Palestine solidarity movement, through its embassies in key capitals.

A 23 February article in Israel’s Ynet takes to task Israeli politicians for making too much public noise about the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.

It cites as an example the fuss Israeli politicians made about the “subvertisements” Palestine solidarity activists placed on the London Underground this week.

Ynet claims that Israeli politicians helped the activists achieve their goal by giving them free publicity.

“The government, which prefers to deal with BDS activists quietly and under the radar, is now forced to deal with local politicians who threaten to ‘hijack’ this work to serve their local political interests,” the article states.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-quietly-pushed-anti-bds-legislation-us-uk

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Israeli director Udi Aloni, who won the top audience at Berlin Film Festival on Saturday, has labelled the Israeli government "fascist" and urged Germany to cease its military support of the Jewish state.

At a Q&A session about his award-winning film Junction 48, hours before being presented with the Panorama Audience Award for best fiction film, Mr Aloni said Germany supported the “fascist regime of Israel”, according to a report by Channel 10 News.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-winner-berlin-film-festival-berlinale-fascist-udi-aloni-netanyahu-a6887486.html

Ich habe gesucht in die deutsche Medien die Aloni Deklarationen , aber KEINE sprechen es ......

Art, theory and action: Udi Aloni interviewed
https://electronicintifada.net/content/art-theory-and-action-udi-aloni-interviewed/8834

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

U.S. President Barak Obama indicated that he will sign the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015. The U.S. Senate passed the act on February 11th, 2015.

Mondoweiss reported that though the policy is not centered on U.S. trade with Israel, it includes a number of anti-BDS provisions. For example, the bill establishes legal protections for American companies operating in Israel and will require the U.S. administration to report to Congress on global BDS activities 180 days after it becomes law.

In addition to undermining BDS initiatives, the bill introduces new language on Israel to the arena of U.S. policy. In the legislation, Israel is defined as all “Israeli controlled territories," including illegal settlements.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1277-obama-to-sign-anti-bds-legislation

Bernie Sanders and the question of Palestine

At a March 1988 news conference endorsing Jesse Jackson’s candidacy for president, Bernie Sanders blasted Israel’s brutal treatment of Palestinian protesters as “an absolute disgrace.”

“The sight of Israeli soldiers breaking the arms and legs of Arabs is reprehensible. The idea of Israel closing down towns and sealing them off is unacceptable,” the then mayor of Burlington, Vermont, said to a gaggle of reporters.

Sanders was referring to the television images that shocked the world in those early months of the first intifada, of Israeli soldiers methodically breaking the limbs of Palestinian youths on the orders of then defense minister Yitzhak Rabin.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/bernie-sanders-and-question-palestine/15581

Netanyahu meets with EU Commission VP over Israeli-European relations

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini to discuss Israeli-European relations and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on Friday.

Relations between the European Union and Israel had been tense in recent months after the EU Commission adopted measures to label products from Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law, in November.

But Mogherini stressed on Friday the EU’s opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and its “firm rejection of BDS attempts to isolate Israel,” a statement released by the EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy department quoted her as saying.

Mogherini also “expressed solidarity with the people of Israel who have suffered from terrorist violence,” the statement said, and reaffirmed the EU’s “commitment” to Israel’s security.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=770270

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Only some of the stars nominated for this year’s Academy Awards will go home with the golden Oscar trophy. But all of the nominees, winners or losers, will get consolation gift bags worth $200,000 according to a report by the Daily Beast. Among the overpriced frivolous gifts that these stars will receive are skin creams, Audi car rentals, fitness training, cosmetic surgery procedures and a 10-day first class trip to Israel, worth $55,000, care of the Israeli government.

There are a few stories within this story. We could talk about the grotesque excesses in the lives of the rich and famous in times of growing global inequality. We could mention the sickening societal obsession with unreachable beauty norms that can only be achieved through buying more fitness and beauty products, including costly surgery.

But what is a trip to Israel doing in that package?
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/why-are-oscar-nominees-being-given-free-trip-israel-505199825

Massive Donations From Controversial Israel Supporter Follow Clinton’s Pledge to Fight BDS

Recent disclosures show that media mogul Haim Saban, a controversial supporter of Israel, is spending millions of dollars to put Hillary Clinton in the White House after Clinton reiterated a promise to use her influence to oppose a growing campaign to temper Israeli militancy through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/massive_donations_from_israeli_nationalist_follow_clintons_20160207

Malcolm X meets the freedom fighters of Palestine

Reviewing Keith Feldman’s A Shadow over Palestine and Alex Lubin’s Geographies of Liberation in conjunction induces both happiness and consternation. But before I try to clarify this bit of obliqueness, allow me to go ahead and announce that both books are superb and I urge anybody reading this review to pause now and purchase them.

Back to the obliqueness. The consternation arises from the fact that each book is distinctive despite significant theoretical and methodological overlap. Feldman and Lubin both examine the interplay of Palestinian activist and intellectual traditions with US racism and imperialism, with emphasis on Black internationalism in relation to the Arab world.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/malcolm-x-meets-freedom-fighters-palestine/15121

Israeli Arabs take their message to the White House

Quietly and under the radar of the Israeli media, Knesset member Ahmad Tibi entered the holiest of holies of America’s most important strategic assets Feb. 4: Washington’s White House, State Department and Capitol Hill. As far as anyone can remember, no such meetings have been held in the past with such high echelons and such levels of intimacy between American administration sources and an Israeli Arab Knesset member. Tibi’s international status, his popularity in the Israeli Arab community and the conspicuous estrangement between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office were probably among the factors that contributed to the setting up of the meetings.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/ahmad-tibi-white-house-state-department-capitol-hill.html#

EU leadership divided over settlements

The dispute over the settlements, for years a divisive issue in Israeli politics, has recently penetrated into the heart of European politics, too. There’s growing anger in the European Parliament against President Martin Shultz, who has apparently adopted the position of the Israeli right regarding an economic project in the occupied territories.
Twenty-six members of the parliament from different factions are demanding that Schulz clarify the meaning of a Jan. 14 Facebook post by Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein: “I was pleased to hear today from European Parliament President Martin Schulz, with whom I met in Berlin, that he opposes the labeling of products from Israel.” Despite his choice of words (products from Israel, not products from West Bank settlements), it’s safe to assume that the Knesset speaker, who himself lives across the Green Line, knows that the labeling pertains only to products made in the settlements, which are not recognized internationally as part of the State of Israel.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/israel-edelstein-eu-schultz-labeling-settlement-products.html#

Academic boycott of Israel takes off in Italy

There have been major breakthroughs in Italy for the campaign to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

More than 200 academics from 50 Italian universities have signed a call for the boycott of Israeli academic institutions until Israel complies with international law.

This is the first time a significant number of Italian academics have taken a public stand in support of the Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

The move comes just months after Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi lashed out at the BDS movement as “stupid and futile” in a speech to the Israeli parliament.

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Israel, Cyprus and Greece have agreed to deepen their energy, security and tourism ties in the Eastern Mediterranean, a deal that may have implications for Israel’s testy relationship with the European Union, too. The agreement, signed in Nicosia last week by a beaming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, focused on energy and the exploitation of natural-gas deposits off Israel and Cyprus.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2016/Feb-02/335126-israel-hopes-for-eu-leverage-with-eastern-mediterranean-push.ashx

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

As Israeli Military Collaboration with Saudi Arabia Increases, Murder of Elbit Engineer Remains Unsolved

Iran announced that it expects western sanctions to be lifted today. It awaits an IAEA report that will confirm it is adhering to provisions of the nuclear deal finalized several months ago by the P5+1 powers and Iran.

This is a major milestone not just for Iran, but for its enemies as well. While it could lead to a recalibration of relations between the Iranians and the U.S., it will also intensify hostility with the former’s leading regional adversary, Saudi Arabia.

The GOP and Israel are also deeply unhappy with the unraveling of their anti-Iran machinations. But the Saudis are most angry of all. Anything that helps their worst enemy hurts them, or so they believe. That is certainly one of the reasons they executed Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr last week. It is also why they were only too happy to cut off diplomatic relations with Iran after Iranians trashed the Saudi embassy in Tehran in response to the hanging. Finally, the Saudi-led war in Yemen is another extension of this rivalry as the Kingdom sees the Houthi rebels there as allies of Iran.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/01/16/as-israeli-military-collaboration-with-saudi-arabia-increases-murder-of-elbit-engineer-remain-unsolved/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Laut einem Bericht des „Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger“ hat sich die Bundeswehr nunmehr auf einen Typ ihrer zukünftigen Kampfdrohne festgelegt. Demnach sei geplant, die von Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) hergestellte „Heron“ in ihrer neuesten Baureihe „TP“ zu beschaffen. Die Meldung geht auf eine Aussage des Grünen-Bundestagsabgeordneten Tobias Lindner zurück. Lindner ist Mitglied im Verteidigungsausschuss des Bundestages, vermutlich stammt die Information von dort.
http://politik-im-spiegel.de/kampfdrohnen-bundeswehr-entscheidet-sich-angeblich-fr-israelisches-modell-heron/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

The Israeli regime has received of a fifth submarine from Germany, amid pressure on Berlin to halt the delivery of the state-of-the-art weaponry that is capable of being armed with nuclear warheads.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/01/12/445535/Israel-submarine-Dolphin-Germany-/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

An article in the Wall Street Journal about what the journalists describe as U.S. interception of communications of Israeli leaders has caused a stir, especially among those habitually quickest to leap to the defense of Israeli policies. We in the public do now know how much of the article's content is true; it represents one stream of reporting by one newspaper's correspondents. The administration and the intelligence agencies, quite understandably and appropriately, are not confirming or denying any of this. But worthy of comment are some of the reactions to the report, as well as what U.S. intelligence should be doing in this direction regardless of what it is or is not doing right now.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43889.htm

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Vehemente Proteste israelischer Passagiere haben zwei arabischstämmige Fluggäste zum Verlassen einer Maschine der griechischen Gesellschaft Aegean Airlines veranlasst. "Eine zunächst kleine Gruppe von Fluggästen forderte sehr lautstark und eindringlich, dass zwei andere israelische Passagiere aus Sicherheitsgründen überprüft werden", erklärte Aegean am Dienstag. Der Vorfall ereignete sich demnach bereits am späten Sonntag und sorgte für eine 90-minütige Verspätung des Flugs von Athen nach Tel Aviv.

Bei den beiden Passagieren handelte es sich laut israelischen Medien um israelische Araber. Aegean gab an, einer der Fluggäste habe einen israelischen Pass, der andere eine Aufenthaltsgenehmigung für das Land gehabt. Als die Polizei zur Überprüfung der Papiere eingetroffen sei, hätten nach anfänglich "drei bis vier" schon "60 bis 70 Passagiere" gefordert, die Männer des Flugzeugs zu verweisen. An den Papieren hatte die Polizei nichts zu beanstanden.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/griechenland-arabische-passagiere-verlassen-flugzeug-auf-druck-von-israelischen-mitreisenden-a-1070646.html#utm_source=panorama#utm_medium=medium#utm_campaign=plista&ref=plista

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Tzipi Hotovely, eine 37-jährige Frau georgischer Herkunft, gehört zu den härtesten Falken in Netanjahus Likud-Partei und Regierung, in der sie als stellvertretende Außenministerin amtiert. Sie erlangte Berühmtheit aufgrund einiger historischer Aussagen wie dieser: “Der [israelisch-palästinensische] Konflikt ist kein territorialer Konflikt… Er ist ein religiöser Kampf, der vom Islam geführt wird. Wir dürfen diese grundlegende Wahrheit nicht ignorieren" (Juli 2011) oder "Es ist wichtig für mich, die Systeme zu überprüfen, um Mischehen zu vermeiden, und Lehava ist das passendste, um dieses Ziel zu erreichen” (anlässlich der Einladung zur Knesset der Lehava-Organisation, die 2015 als terroristische Organisation eingestuft wurde,). In ihrer ersten Ansprache als stellvertretende Ministerin sagte sie im Mai: „Das Land gehört uns. Das gesamte Land gehört uns. Wir sind nicht hierhergekommen, um uns dafür zu entschuldigen“. Diese Kämpferin für den Nur-für-Juden-Staat begab sich vor kurzem in die Silicon Valley. Hier ist die offizielle Mitteilung zu diesem Besuch .
http://www.tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=16674

‘Being Evil’: Google Censors Tikun Olam from Certain Hebrew Searches

Google doesn’t just censor searches at the behest of China or the EU (controversial issues which have embarrassed the company over the past few years). It does so in Israel, as 7th Eye reported a few days ago. The reporter discovered that the Israeli search engine had removed search results related to Israeli double agent, Boris Krasny, who also betrayed the Russians’ longest serving Israeli spy, Marcus Klingberg. We knew this was under military censorship. But Google isn’t, as far as I know, subjected to military censorship.

Since then, I’ve been trying determine what exactly it’s censoring. If I can do that I might get an idea of why it’s censoring or who is behind it.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/12/09/google-censors-krasny-blog-post-from-israeli-searches/

US nonprofits 'donate over $220 million' to West Bank settlements

Over $220 million has been given in tax-exempted US funds to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank over the last five years, according to an investigative report by Israeli news site Haaretz this week.

Haaretz published the findings after analyzing thousands of documents from filed taxes as well as official papers from dozens of US and Israeli nonprofit organizations, several of which were directly involved with raising money to support settlements.

Around 50 tax-exempt nonprofit organizations in the US have been “massively funding” settlement residents, with nearly $224 million transferred as grants to the illegal settlements between 2009 and 2013, Haaretz reported.
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=769232

Christian groups urge US to bar Israeli rights abusers from receiving aid

Representatives of 11 churches and faith-based organizations submitted evidence to the US State Department on Wednesday of specific gross violations of human rights by Israeli forces.

They are demanding that the Obama administration apply US laws that would halt military assistance to the Israeli units responsible.

Israel, the largest beneficiary of US military aid, currently receives about $3 billion a year. This could rise to nearly $5 billion per year under a package currently being considered by the Obama administration.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/christian-groups-urge-us-bar-israeli-rights-abusers-receiving-aid

UCLA student groups face funding cuts over Israel divestment

The Graduate Students Association at UCLA in California has put stipulations on funding for student groups based on affiliation with Palestinian rights activism.

Students and civil rights organizations are concerned that such conditions are the result of overt willingness by University of California’s top officials to exceptionalize free speech rights and threaten punishment against student activists.

In mid-October, the president of UCLA’s Graduate Students Association sent an email to a student group that was seeking funding for a diversity caucus event. The association represents thousands of UCLA’s graduate students and provides resources, including funding, to graduate students and organizations. Members pay mandatory fees each academic quarter.

The association’s president informed the group that “GSA leadership has a zero engagement/endorsement policy towards Divest from Israel or any related movement/organization” (emphasis in original) and awarded the group $2,000 in funding based on their “zero connection” to a “Divest from Israel” group.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/ucla-student-groups-face-funding-cuts-over-israel-divestment

US cops trained to use lethal Israeli tactics

US police officers are being tutored by Israel on how to employ the tactics that have brought death and serious injury to huge numbers of Palestinians in the past few months.

Officers from 15 US police agencies recently traveled to the Middle East for lessons from their Israeli counterparts.

For 10 days in late November, police officers from New York, Miami, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department, the Drug Enforcement Agency and US Customs and Border Protection observed the daily operations of the Jerusalem police, the Israeli Border Police and the Shin Bet secret service, all of which play a vital role in administering Israel’s system of control over Palestinians.

The training junket was hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), a neoconservative think tank that claims to have organized Israeli training sessions for some 9,500 law enforcement officials since 2004 through its Law Enforcement Exchange Program (LEEP).
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-cops-trained-use-lethal-israeli-tactics

Jeb Bush says he’d order crackdown on BDS as president

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has promised that if he is elected president next November he will deploy the full might of the US Department of Justice to crack down on the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.

“On day one I will work with the next attorney general to stop the BDS movement in the United States, to use whatever resources that exist,” the former Florida governor told the Republican Jewish Coalition in a speech on Thursday.

“A Bush administration will forcefully restore America’s leadership in the world in other ways as well,” Bush added.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/jeb-bush-says-hed-order-crackdown-bds-president

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Horizon 2020 is a new EU research and innovation program with around €80 billion available over the period from 2014 to 2020. At the moment
70 Israeli companies participate in 212 projects under the Horizon2020.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/1164-israeli-participants-in-horizon-2020

Kerry endorses Israeli violence against Palestinians

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday during his first visit to Palestine/Israel in over a year.

Prior to meeting Netanyahu, Kerry and Netanyahu addressed the press, standing side-by-side.

Kerry asserted “no people anywhere should live with daily violence, with attacks in the streets with knives or scissors or cars.”

To anyone remotely knowledgeable about the recent uptick in violence, Kerry’s description of “daily violence” as attacks with knives, scissors or cars clearly references Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

While Palestinians have killed 16 Israelis and injured about 100 since October using such methods, Israeli military and police have killed 94 Palestinians and injured over 2,000 with live-fire and “crowd-control” weapons.
http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/aicoment/1163-kerry-endorses-israeli-violence-against-palestinians

Why Salaita settlement is a victory for Palestine solidarity movement

When the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign dismissed my client, Professor Steven Salaita, from a tenured faculty position in August 2014 over tweets critical of Israel’s assault on Gaza, it sent reverberations throughout the movement for Palestinian rights in the US.

Although almost every Palestine solidarity activist has their own story of having been vilified, censored or punished, the particulars of the case, especially UIUC’s unabashed speech-based justification for its decision, struck a distinct nerve.

Salaita has a stellar record as a scholar, having obtained tenure in 2009 at the age of 33 and published six books before the age of 40.

If a university could get away with firing someone like him on the basis of tweets criticizing the policies of a foreign government, what does it means for the junior scholar weighing whether to sign a divestment petition? Or the student thinking of organizing a demonstration?

It became clear to us at the Center for Constitutional Rights that this was a line in the sand case that required a strong response.

The controversy brought me back to my formative days working on Palestinian rights as a student organizer at Stanford University in the early and mid 2000s. At the time, Palestine felt very much like a fringe issue on college campuses, virtually impossible to build coalitions around and consistently relegated to the margins.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/why-salaita-settlement-victory-palestine-solidarity-movement/15028

The story behind Israel's shady military exports

....... All the weapons of the Chilean police and army were Israeli. In Chile I went around with a photograph of my brother in uniform. At checkpoints and in searches I would take out the picture and tell them that this was my brother, who was an officer in the IDF – even though he was a regular soldier – and that did the trick. The Chilean army greatly admired the Israeli army. When Pinochet wanted to visit Israel, he threatened that if he were not received here he would cancel a large arms deal. No dictator in the world, however bad he may be, can exist without international support. The dictatorship in Chile lasted as long as it did because there were countries that supported it, and Israel was one of them.

…It’s clear that there is documentation of arms sales, and also obviously of the training provided to Chilean intelligence. There is information about the fate of the missing Jews in Chile. Maybe there is even information about my father. The people who tortured him, who killed him – who are they? Maybe they were here, in Israel? Maybe they received training from the Shin Bet [security service] here? When the documents are uncovered, we will be able to understand how the infrastructure of the dictatorship worked and how deeply involved Israel was.
http://972mag.com/who-will-stop-the-flow-of-israeli-arms-to-dictatorships/114080/