Freies Politikforum für Demokraten und Anarchisten

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/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Israel and the UAE are known to have a strong security relationship and now Tel Aviv will open a diplomatic office through an energy agency in Abu Dhabi

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-open-first-official-diplomatic-mission-uae-2004151501

The Emirati plan for ruling EgyptA top-secret strategy document prepared for Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan reveals that the United Arab Emirates is losing faith in the ability of Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to serve the Gulf state’s interests.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-emirati-plan-ruling-egypt-2084590756

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Editorial statements allow newspapers to articulate their collective position on the issues of the day and, in the case of major publications, they carry particular authority. Such articles play an important role in shaping public opinion and therefore need to be subject to special scrutiny.

Severely flawed editorials on the current uprising throughout Palestine have appeared in The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the The Washington Post.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/americas-papers-brush-aside-israeli-brutality/15006

Israel Outlaws Nation’s Leading Muslim Group

Contemplate this: the Department of Homeland Security announces that henceforth the Nation of Islam, the Westboro Baptist Church, and Zionist Organization of America are outlawed organizations. They are considered supporters of a terrorist ideology and must completely dissolve their organizations and their programs. Anyone found to be a member of any of the groups is liable to criminal prosecution.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/11/17/israel-outlaws-nations-leading-muslim-group/

Academics express concerns after Salaita settlement

Hundreds of academics have expressed concern in the wake of the $875,000 settlement reached last week between Steven Salaita and the University of Illinois.

They are urging the American Association of University Professors not to remove the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus from its list of institutions censured for grave violations of academic freedom.

Questions are also being raised about the future of the boycott of the university, launched after Salaita was fired in August 2014 over tweets critical of Israel’s attack on Gaza.

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/academics-express-concerns-after-salaita-settlement

Video: Israel studies director assaults Texas students

Students at the University of Texas at Austin are calling for a professor to be investigated after he assaulted a group of students staging a Palestine solidarity protest.

The incident occurred just before a lecture on Friday promoting the Israeli military as an “offensive, daring, highly effective and initiative-driven army.”

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-israel-studies-director-assaults-texas-students

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Despite Israel’s descent into unmasked, right-wing extremism, particularly with the current escalation of its brutal occupation and repression, Europe remains largely complicit in supporting Israel’s occupation and violations of Palestinian rights, despite the empty rhetoric coming from the European Union.

All the buzz in Brussels and Tel Aviv about EU labeling of products from Israel’s settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory cannot hide the fact that Europe’s relationship with Israel conflicts with its espoused values and legal commitments.

http://www.politico.eu/article/the-eu-helps-israel-oppress-palestinians-occupation-rights-violation/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Despite objections from liberals and progressives, the Center for American Progress (CAP) hosted Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday afternoon, giving him a platform to spout wild fabrications and half-truths to a left-leaning audience completely unchallenged.

As Politico aptly put it, the Israeli prime minister “stepped into a liberal lions’ den on Tuesday — and walked away with nary a scratch.”

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/democratic-think-tank-lets-netanyahu-lie-unchallenged

Israel in U.S. Presidential Politics and Foreign Policy

As we come to the close of Pres. Obama’s second term and near the 2016 presidential election, it’s time to make a few predictions about the role Israel will play in the coming campaign and how U.S. foreign policy will play out in the region. To do this, I have to make a prognostication about who will win the election. At this point, I’d say the odds-on favorite to win is Hillary Clinton. To be very clear, I don’t support her and won’t vote for her (I support Bernie Sanders in the primary campaign).

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/11/11/israel-in-u-s-presidential-politics-and-foreign-policy/

US state department v Edward Said

In these remarks, I will present the following analysis: (1) the most ardent Zionist forces have longed tried to conflate criticism of Israel and Zionism with hatred of Jews, the traditional understanding of anti-Semitism, but this effort has intensified recently, and even has been endorsed by the US Government and is currently under consideration by the University of California and elsewhere; (2) examine the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the U.S. State Department, and discuss briefly why it has pernicious implications for academic freedom, and indeed even for an understanding of the genuine nature of anti-Semitism; (3) show why Edward Said despite his intense opposition to anti-Semitism would nevertheless be vulnerable to allegations of being an anti-Semite if the State Department definition were to be applied to his writings and activities; (4) and finally to point out that according to the imperatives most influentially expressed by Noam Chomsky and Said, the ‘responsibility of the intellectual’ would perversely require them to be ‘anti-Semitic’ according to this pernicious wider conception.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/aicoment/1127-us-state-department-v-edward-said

#UNDropG4S: tell UN to drop contracts with G4S

Palestinian groups and solidarity networks across the world are campaigning for the UN to cancel its contracts with G4S, the private security company that helps Israel run prisons at which Palestinian political prisoners are held without trial and subjected to torture.

In October alone, Israel arrested over 1,000 Palestinians as a means to repress Palestinian popular resistance. Many of these people will be held in Israeli prisons that G4S is helping to run. By contracting G4S to provide security services worth than $22m each year, the UN turning a blind eye to the role that G4S plays in Israel's oppression of Palestinians.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/29-upcomming-resistance/1135-undropg4s-tell-un-to-drop-contracts-with-g4s

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

A fundraiser in aid of the Israeli army brought in $31 million in one night on Thursday, as some 1,200 people turned out for an annual Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) gala in California.
The sold-out Western Region Gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills was attended by guests from the United States and Israel. Guests included actors Jason Alexander, Antonio Banderas, Liev Schreiber, Jason Segel and Mark Wahlberg, as well as the KISS frontman, Israeli-born Gene Simmons.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/star-studded-us-gala-raises-31m-for-idf-in-one-night/

Israel to request $5 billion in aid

Aid package requested set to include F-35 stealth jets, Arrow 3 missiles and V-22 Osprey helicopters; issue to be discussed during Netanyahu, Obama meeting next Monday.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4721343,00.html

A “Blue and White Kristallnacht: Only a Matter of Time

Israeli Palestinian MK Haneen Zoabi is once again stirring up a hornet’s nest among Israeli Jews. For those not well versed in how she is perceived, imagine Malcolm X in the year or two before he died, when he was reviled by white America as a white-hating firebrand and inciter of racial violence. She has been threatened with death too many times to mention, including a Facebook group which put a bull’s-eye right above her forehead.

Invited to address a Dutch Jewish leftist group, Platform Stop Racism and Exclusion, in Amsterdam on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Zoabi took the opportunity to link the victimization of European Jews by the Nazis to the suffering of Palestinians under Occupation. Zionists insist they have a monopoly on suffering and the world’s sympathy and exploit the Holocaust regularly for this purpose. Having a Palestinian probe the issue and point out both the flaws in the argument and the implications racial hatred may have in today’s Israel-Palestine conflict is simply maddening.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2015/11/09/a-blue-and-white-kristallnacht-is-only-a-matter-of-time/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

On Monday, the US House of Representatives voted on H.Res.293, a resolution “Expressing concern over anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement within the Palestinian Authority.”

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/josh-ruebner/silver-lining-us-congress-debate-palestinian-incitement

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

US presidential candidates have been invited to participate in the first-ever US Presidential Candidates' Forum held abroad, focusing on foreign and defense policy issues. From Jerusalem, Israel, each presidential candidate will have an opportunity to present their views on U.S. foreign policy, US-Israel relations, threats affecting US allies in Europe and Asia, the instability in the Middle East, terrorism, and solutions to increase the economic well-being and security of Americans in the US and abroad.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/natasha-srdoc/firstever-us-presidential_b_8367160.html

US freezes $370m in aid to PA

House of Representatives blocks State Department request for funds, citing ongoing incitement on social media and in schools.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4715457,00.html

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Israeli military, police and settler violence against Palestinians is intensifying quickly. Over the past week, at least 900 Palestinians have been injured, at least 60 with live fire. Just on Saturday October 10th, six Palestinians in Gaza were shot dead by Israeli soldiers who opened fire on a demonstration. These peaks in lethal violence are a part of the systematic violence Palestinians are subjected to under Israel’s apartheid regime

Aside from maintaining this siege and engaging in direct military attacks on Gaza, the Israeli army’s primary ongoing task is to enforce the occupation of the Palestinian land and people. Israeli arms companies benefit enormously from European Union expenditures. With a total budget of nearly *€80 billion, Horizon 2020, the new EU research and innovation programme, is one of the world’s largest research and innovation
programmes. Israel is associated to Horizon 2020, allowing Israeli entities to participate in the programme. Already during the previous funding cycle, Israeli entities participated in over 1500 projects.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/news/25-bds/1085-stop-eu-funding-to-israeli-military-companies

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

.........Fast forward to 2015, this past Saturday, when Bernie Sanders, an increasingly viable contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, held one of his biggest campaign rallies to date, drawing more than 20,000 people to an event at the Boston convention center. Among those visitors were a number of young activists from Boston Students for Justice in Palestine, who were curious about Sanders’ position on the occupied territories. They had a sign with them; in a playful nod to one of Sanders’ campaign slogans, it simply asked, “Will Ya Feel The Bern For Palestine?” The activists say they were well-received by other Sanders supporters in the crowd.

But staffers working for a candidate widely viewed as one of the most progressive members of the Senate were apparently not happy. Security was made aware of a threat: Some students who support Sanders were holding a sign with a question on it. A tactic right out of the Bush campaign “playbook” went into action.

https://theintercept.com/2015/10/05/dissent-on-israel-not-permitted-at-bernie-sanders-event/

palestina libera · Beiträge: 1665

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon requested that his Brazilian counterpart, Jaques Wagner, facilitate approval of Dani Dayan as Israel’s ambassador to Brazil. Ya’alon appealed to Wagner after the government learned that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff intended to reject the appointment of the settler leader.

Dani Dayan is an Argentinean citizen who resides in the settlement of Ma'ale Shomron, located to the east of Qalqilya. From 2007 to 2013 Dayan served as Chairman of the Yesha Council and later was appointed as the only official representative of the settlement movement to the international community.

The Yesha Council is an umbrella organisation of West Bank settlement municipal councils.

Obviously, as a leader of the Israeli settlement movement, Dayan participates in Israeli violations of international law, specifically international regulations that prohibit transferring a civilian population into territories it occupies.

As chairman of the Yesha Council, Dayan was engaged in planning and executing the transfer of Israeli civilian population into territories occupied by Israel in 1967. In many cases Dayan exerted political pressures on the Israeli government to violate international understandings in order to make possible this transfer. According to the statutes of the International Criminal Court, Article 8(2)(b)(viii), such an act constitutes a war crime.

http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/aicoment/1042-dani-dayan-a-war-criminal