The Third Intifada is underway

In Israel 75 percent of the country’s sewage is reclaimed, the highest percentage in the world, and over 50 percent of water used in agriculture comes from treated sewage.

Read that again. It says 75%, not 100. Those 25% are the approx 500.000 you mentioned.

The "lucky" Arab is an Arab who refuses to live in a future palestinian state and prefers to live in israel as an Israeli citizen with the same rights as any other Israeli citizen, including housing.

Do your homework.

Not sure how you come to that conclusion as even Palestinian Christians find the Israelis repressive and Arabs find them worse, I can't imagine anyone would want to live within that apartheid environment...


Debunking Israel's imagined 'Christian awakening'
By REEM KHAMIS-DAKWAR
02/03/2014 21:27

Israel is defined as a Jewish state, which means Jews have exclusive and special rights that are not given to non-Jews

Recently publications have been highlighting “Israel’s Christians Awakening,” arguing that Palestinian Christians in Israel are undergoing a change, separating their identity from the Palestinian minority and enlisting in the Israeli army as a sign of close cooperation with Israeli Jewish society.

Recently Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a special video message to Palestinian Christians citizens of Israel. His message served a twofold purpose: it was both another attempt to present Israel as the protector of Christian minorities (ostensibly in contrast to neighboring countries), and an opportunity to encourage Palestinian Christians citizens of Israel to serve in the Israeli military.

Netanyahu’s message comes at a time of gathering momentum in the international efforts to boycott Israeli institutions. The treatment of Palestinian Christians is particularly crucial to Israel’s image as a “Jewish and democratic state” and its relationship with the Western countries that continue to support it. It is this context that provides a clearer reading of articles about the “Christian awakening.”

I was raised in a Palestinian Catholic family in Nazareth in northern Israel. My parents’ lives revolved around family, work and church. Although I have lived in the US for many years now, I visit my family every summer and am deeply connected with my roots.

As part of this community, I can tell you that Palestinian Christians in Israel are aware of their belonging to the Palestinian people in every aspect of their lives. They live and function within a state that is defined for others, since it is by definition a Jewish state, and policymakers are wholly focused on serving those others. The voices reported in these articles, then, are discordant with this reality, sounding like a cacophony prompted by the Israeli government.

Israel is defined as a Jewish state, which means Jews have exclusive and special rights that are not given to non-Jews. These rights include promotion of Zionist values and history, the disproportionate and beneficial allocation of resources, and other institutional privileges that have direct impact on social structures including immigration, land rights and education.

Palestinian citizens of Israel are treated as second-class citizens and lack a sense of belonging. They acutely feel a need for protection at all times within the State of Israel, whether they are Christians or not.

Over the years some cabinet ministers and political groups explicitly advocated the transfer of Palestinians citizens and even population swaps in order to maintain Israel’s Jewish majority.

Discriminatory laws and initiatives are passed to prevent Palestinians from connecting to our history, culture and religion. The ‘Nakba law’ prohits state funding to organizations that commemorate our dispossession in 1947-1949. There is also discrimination in approximately 700 agricultural and community towns in Israel on the basis of “social unsuitability,” preventing Christian and Muslim Palestinians from living among the Jewish populations.

These discriminatory practices extend to everyday routines. At this time of year, it is not permitted to display a Christmas tree in the Israeli Knesset, reportedly because such an act would be considered “offensive.” Legal action has even been taken to allow the display of Christmas trees in some public places, such as Haifa University.

Palestinians face discrimination in access to higher education. Housing subsidies are extended to Jewish settlers who want to live in West Bank and east Jerusalem settlements which are illegal under international law. These conditions often make Palestinians desperate to leave the country in search of equality, education, housing and the freedom to celebrate the holidays associated with their religion.

Today, it may be true that there is some “Christian awakening” in Nazareth, but this is not and could not be the awakening described in recent articles. It is an awakening regarding the Israeli government’s attempts to recruit Christians to serve in the Israeli military as part of a divide-and-rule policy. The reported alignment of Palestinian Christians with the Israeli identity and their attempt to disconnect from the Palestinian minority is questionable, at best.

Many Palestinian Christians are aware that serving in the Israeli army contradicts their national interests and even their Christian values and beliefs and would bring them no greater rights, privileges or protections. Members of the Arab Druse community have been serving in the military since the 1950s and yet have not achieved equality; even those serving as officers in the Israel Air Force are subject to unusual screening, as seen during a security exercise at the nuclear reactor in Dimona.

Thousands of Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike, are struggling daily against discrimination and are determined to seek unconditional full rights for all Israeli citizens.

Against this backdrop, it is foolhardy to claim an “awakening” based on reports of only around 150 Christian Palestinian recruits.

Make no mistake: Palestinian Christians know that joining the Israeli military or enrolling in the newly offered alternative national service will not end discrimination, but will only lead to further alienation and fragmentation.

Those few Palestinian Christians choosing to join the army only highlight the tough choices faced in the face of institutionalized discrimination.

Do they join an army occupying the West Bank to get state benefits, or demand unconditional full equality in solidarity with all Palestinians? Overwhelmingly, Palestinian citizens of Israel – both Christian and Muslim – are choosing to support Palestinian equality.

Today, my father, like many other Palestinian citizens, struggles within Israel to secure equal rights from the state that, following the 1948 war which we call the Nakba or catastrophe, forced him into an orphanage as a child (and his mother and brother into Lebanon as refugees). I live with my father’s personal suffering and loss, with the hope that the common future for us all, Palestinians and Israelis, regardless of religious belonging, will be based on values of equality, justice and mutual respect and not on a spurious call to arms.

The writer, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel , living in New York and working as an assistant professor of communication sciences and disorders at Adelphi University.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-...g-Israels-imagined-Christian-awakening-340243

Perhaps it is you that should do your homework?
 
No, we are talking about those "lucky Arab-Israeli citizens" who live in the Cultural, Financial and Economic Ghettos within Israel.
 
No, we are talking about those "lucky Arab-Israeli citizens" who live in the Cultural, Financial and Economic Ghettos within Israel.

http://imeu.net/news/article0021536.shtml
Institutionalized discrimination

  • There are more than 30 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of Israel. directly or indirectly, based solely on their ethnicity, rendering them second or third class citizens in their own homeland.
  • 93% of the land in Israel is owned either by the state or by quasi-governmental agencies, such as the Jewish National Fund, that discriminate against non-Jews. Palestinian citizens of Israel face significant legal obstacles in gaining access to this land for agriculture, residence, or commercial development.
  • More than seventy Palestinian villages and communities in Israel, some of which pre-date the establishment of the state, are unrecognized by the government, receive no services, and are not even listed on official maps. Many other towns with a majority Palestinian population lack basic services and receive significantly less government funding than do majority-Jewish towns.
  • Since Israel's founding in 1948, more than 600 Jewish municipalities have been established, while not a single new Arab town or community has been recognized by the state.
  • Israeli government resources are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all socio-economic indicators.
  • Government funding for Arab schools is far below that of Jewish schools. According to data published in 2004, the government provides three times as much funding to Jewish students than it does to Arab students.
  • According to the 2009 US State Department International Religious Freedom Report, “Many of the national and municipal policies in Jerusalem were designed to limit or diminish the non-Jewish population of Jerusalem.”
  • In the Spring of 2011, Jerusalem city councilman Yakir Segev stated: “We will not allow residents of the eastern [occupied Palestinian] part of the city to build as much as they need... At the end of the day, however politically incorrect it may be to say, we will also look at the demographic situation in Jerusalem to make sure that in another 20 years we don't wake up in an Arab city.”
  • The Nationality and Entry into Israel Law prevents Palestinians from the occupied territories who are married to Palestinian citizens of Israel from gaining residency or citizenship status. The law forces thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to either leave Israel or live apart from their families.
  • In October 2010, the Knesset approved a bill allowing smaller Israeli towns to reject residents who do not suit "the community's fundamental outlook", based on sex, religion, and socioeconomic status. Critics slammed the move as an attempt to allow Jewish towns to keep Arabs and other non-Jews out.
  • The so-called "Nakba Bill" bans state funding for groups that commemorate the tragedy that befell Palestinians during Israel's creation in 1948, when approx. 750,000 Palestinian Arabs were ethnically cleansed to make way for a Jewish majority state.
  • The British Mandate-era Land (Acquisition for Public Purposes) Ordinance law allows the Finance Minster to confiscate land for "public purposes.” The state has used this law extensively, in conjunction with other laws such as the Land Acquisition Law and the Absentees' Property Law, to confiscate Palestinian land in Israel. A new amendment, which was adopted in February 2010, confirms state ownership of land confiscated under this law, even where it has not been used to serve the original confiscation purpose. The amendment was designed to prevent Arab citizens from submitting lawsuits to reclaim confiscated land.
  • Over the entirety of its 63-year existence, there has been a period of only about one year (1966-1967) that Israel did not rule over large numbers of Palestinians to whom it granted no political rights.
  • Former Israeli prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert have both warned that a continuation of the occupation will lead to Israel becoming an "apartheid" state. Barak stated: "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic… If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, heroes of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, have both compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to apartheid.
  • Today, there is a virtual caste system within the territories that Israel controls between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, with Israeli Jews at the top and Muslim and Christian Palestinians in the occupied territories at the bottom. In between are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem.

Increasing intolerance for dissent & diversity in Israel

  • In September 2011 a survey found that a third of Israeli Jews don’t consider Arab citizens to be real Israelis.
  • According to a February 2011 survey, 52% of Israeli Jews would be willing to limit press freedoms to protect the state's image, while 55% would accept limits on the right to oppose the government's "defense policy.”
  • Also in September 2011, Dov Lior, the chief rabbi of settlements in Hebron and Kiryat Arba, told a conference that Arabs are “wolves,” “savages,” and “evil camel riders.”
  • A poll done by the Israel Democracy Institute and released in January 2011 found that nearly half of Israeli Jews don't want to live next door to an Arab.
  • In January 2011 the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that civics teachers around the country were complaining of rampant, virulent anti-Arab racism amongst their Jewish students. One teacher said, "When we have a discussion in class about equal rights, the class immediately gets out of control… The students attack us, the teachers, for being leftist and anti-Semitic, and say that all the Arab citizens who want to destroy Israel should be transferred." Another said: "We're not talking about a minority, or children from families that have extreme political views, but about normal children who are afflicted with ignorance… The political discourse in recent years has given them the legitimacy to be prejudiced."
  • In November 2010 the chief rabbi of the town of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, issued a ruling forbidding Jews from renting property to Arabs. Eliyahu had previously advocated hanging the children of terrorists.
  • In December 2010, dozens of municipal chief rabbis on the government payroll signed a letter supporting Eliyahu and his decree prohibiting Jews from renting property to non-Jews. One of the signatories, Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, head of the Ashdod Yeshiva (religious school), stated, "Racism originated in the Torah… The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel."
  • In December 2010, the wives of 30 prominent rabbis signed an open letter calling on Jewish women not to date or work with Arabs. The letter stated: "For your sake, for the sake of future generations, and so you don't undergo horrible suffering, we turn to you with a request, a plea, a prayer. Don't date non-Jews, don't work at places that non-Jews frequent, and don't do national service with non-Jews.”
 
Israeli Law Center Expands Fight on Oxfam’s Alleged Ties to Terror Funding
"At issue is Oxfam’s aid and collaboration with the Gaza-based Union of Agricultural Workers Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Health Workers Committees (UHWC). According to Shurat HaDin, both unions are closely affiliated with the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an Arab nationalist organization responsible for numerous acts of terrorism dating back to the 1960s and a group that has long been regarded as a terrorist organization by the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, European Union, and Israel."

Defying BDS Calls, Promoter Shuki Weiss Brings Big-Name Performers to Israel
"Weiss has also signed the international circus troupe Cirque du Soleil, which is bringing its “Quidam” performance to Tel Aviv this summer."
"Whether or not she directly felt the BDS pressure, last year popular R&B singer Alicia Keys ignored the campaigns targeting her Israel performance and gave a concert in Tel Aviv that Arnon says was simply “incredible.”"

statue of liberty upgrades with israeli digital video surveillance

House of Representatives Passes U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Bill
"The bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Ed Royce (R-CA), and Eliot Engel (D-NY), declares Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the U.S."​

PM signs pro-business deal with California governor
"During a meeting at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, the two emphasized their joint interests in cybersecurity, energy sources and water conservation, and suggested Israel — an arid country with a growing population — might be able to help California cope with its ongoing drought"​

New Israel-China fund closes $100m financing round
"China-Israel business relations got a huge boost last week, when Israel’s Catalyst Equity Management and Hong Kong-based China Everbright Limited investment fund announced the closing of a $100 million round of financing for their new Catalyst CEL Fund. The fund will invest in Israeli companies that have technologies, products, and services that China needs — and those needs are legion, said Shangyan Fan, Head of Strategic Investment and Development at China Everbright Ltd., and a Managing Director in Catalyst-CEL."​

Boycot? What boycot?
 
"During a meeting at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, the two emphasized their joint interests in cybersecurity, energy sources and water conservation, and suggested Israel — an arid country with a growing population — might be able to help California cope with its ongoing drought"
I am not sure Israel can help on that matter as California has no Palestinians to cut water supplies to.

Israel cuts off water supply to 45,000 Palestinians


Thursday, 06 March 2014 10:36

palestinian-lady-filling-a-water-bottle-in-gaza.jpg

Some 45,000 Palestinians living in the Shuafat refugee camp and the suburbs of Ras Shehadeh, Ras Khamis, As-Salam and Anata in Jerusalem have had their water cut off for nearly three days. The residents said Israel's water company Gihon started by gradually reducing the water supply nearly two weeks ago until it stopped entirely.
A member of Shuafat's popular committee; Khaled Al-Khalidi said on Wednesday that 23,000 refugees had no access to water for three days while the residents of Ras Shehadeh; Ras Khamis, As-Salam and Anata have been without water for 20 days.
Al-Khalidi demanded "UNRWA, the camp's service provider, to fulfil its obligations towards the refugees and prosecute the Jerusalem municipality and Gihon to oblige them to return the water supply."
Al-Khalidi pointed out that "UNRWA and Jordan signed an agreement in 1956 to provide water service to the Palestinian refugees without charge and in 1967 the Israeli Civil administration joined the Convention. However in 1988 when Israel tried to cut off the water supply to the camp residents, the refugees prosecuted the company and forced it to return the water supply."
The Chairman of the Ras Al-Khamis Development committee, Jameel Sandouqa, said the educational and health institutions were paralysed by the company's actions. "We addressed the Association for Civil Rights and filed a complaint against Gihon. We also contacted Gihon's Deputy Director General Eli Cohen, but he denied any cut off in the water supply."
Sandouqa said his committee contacted Minister of the Knesset Effie Cole and asked her to hold an urgent meeting at the Knesset to press the water company to return the water supply to the areas' residents.
"Gihon has cut off water to the region to force us to receive services from the Jerusalem municipality and impose a new reality in the region," he said.
Sandouqa added that the Israeli army has closed the Shuafat military crossing for three days now for maintenance which forces the camp's students to walk all the way around the terminal to their homes causing them great suffering and endangering their lives.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/n...l-cuts-off-water-supply-to-45000-palestinians


I would suggest that the boycott you are implying does not concern Israel is the one that Nuttyahoo mentioned 18 times at the AIPAC conference last week and I would suggest that if it wasn't a threat he would not mention it at all, it is the one that is continually mentioned at the "Israeli Aparthied Week" events at US Universities and I am pretty sure it is the one that Irish students have just endorsed...

Irish Students Vote for Israel Boycott

BDS Movement Celebrates String of European Wins

By JTA

Published March 07, 2014.


A motion supporting a blanket boycott of Israel was passed by students of the National University of Ireland.
The result of Thursday’s referendum at the NUI Galway Students Union make it the first student body in Ireland to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, campaign against Israel, according to the local news site galwaybayfm.ie.
The motion for a boycott of Israel was submitted by several student societies that belong to the Student Union at NUIG. The union’s resolutions are nonbinding on the university.
Out of 3,013 valid votes of students who participated in the referendum on Israel, 1,954 — or 64 percent — voted in favor of boycotting Israel, the voting committee announced Friday.
Students were asked to answer with “yes” or “no” to express their support or disapproval of the assertion that, “NUI Galway Students’ Union actively supports the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the State of Israel.”
In April, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland became the first educational trade union in Europe to adopt a boycott of Israeli academia.
Last month, the Young Men and Women’s Christian Association in Norway aligned itself with the BDS movement.
The movement has recently seen a series of successes, including divestments by large financial bodies in the Netherlands and Denmark.

The fact is that it took 20 years for the South African boycotts to reach the same point that the boycott Israel movement has in 6 and much as it never destroyed South Africa it will not destroy Israel but it will make life more difficult.
 
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10th annual Israeli Apartheid Week kicks off globally
Published yesterday (updated) 08/03/2014 00:42

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Students at Brooklyn College form a mock apartheid wall with their
bodies (Julieta Salgado).
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BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Palestine solidarity activists launched the 10th annual Israeli Apartheid Week in North America and the UK last week, as their counterparts around the world prepared to mobilize throughout the month of March.

Israeli Apartheid Week is a global campaign that seeks to raise awareness about the discrimination faced by Palestinians and to rally support in favor of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against Israel.

Activists are organizing IAW events in more than 150 cities around the world this year, including 36 locations in North America, according to organizers.

Activists credit the week of events -- which takes place at different times in late February and throughout March depending on local schedules -- for encouraging a major shift in discourse on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the last decade. Once a major taboo, criticism of Israeli policies against Palestinians has become mainstream, and thousands have become involved in pro-Palestine solidarity groups around the world.

Nowhere has this shift been more noticeable than on university campuses in North America and much of Western Europe, where majorities traditionally supported Israeli policies.

In the last year, a number of academic associations have come out in favor of the boycott of Israel, including the 5,000-member strong American Studies Association, while student associations in Toronto, Scotland, and California have voted in favor of resolutions to divest from companies linked to the Israeli occupation.

Danya Mustafa, an IAW national coordinator in the United States, told Ma'an that much of the work in the United States emerges from coalitions formed by local chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, a grassroots national organization.

"IAW has fostered critical discussion and is getting people talking about Israeli state policies," she said, highlighting that the focus of IAW has shifted over the years from education to campaigns to pressure university administrations to divest from companies that do business with the Israeli occupation.

IAW is also creating "more momentum in mobilizing other social justice organizations behind divestment," Mustafa said, as student groups from a wide variety of backgrounds increasingly take part in Palestinian solidarity events and actions.

"The conversation on Palestine is now at the forefront of discussions at universities," Mustafa added.

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The 'criminalization' of student activism

Max Geller, an SJP leader at Northeastern University in Boston, argues that widespread participation in IAW "symbolizes changing times on US campuses in particular and the country in general," as criticism of Israel has increasingly become the norm rather than the exception.

At the same time, however, Geller pointed out that this success has been met by repressive measures, highlighting a widening gap between how student leaders think about Israel compared to university authorities.

Last week, for example, Geller's group posted mock eviction notices on student dorms to raise awareness about Palestinian home demolitions.

"We wanted to simulate the all-too-common Palestinian experience of waking up one morning to discover that your presence on your land has suddenly become illegal," Geller explained, highlighting that the flyer stated in large letters that the eviction notices were not in fact real.

Within a day of the flyers' distribution, however, Geller said that members began receiving "harassing phone calls" from university police, which he claims was spurred on by the campus' local chapter of Hillel, a national Jewish student organization.

The Northeastern University police department did not respond to an email seeking comment, but a statement released by the university Hillel said that they had prompted the university administration to work with the police department to begin a "thorough investigation."

"This criminalizing of student activism only goes to show the extent to which Zionist campus groups are willing to go to prevent criticism of Israel on campus," Geller said.

"While it feels like we in the US are finally catching up to the rest of the world in terms of identifying with the Palestinian cause, the reaction to our mock evictions also indicates how far we have to go and how much we have to overcome," he added.

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Opponents use 'deflective strategies'

Divestment efforts have taken off at campuses across the United States, as students have launched numerous campaigns to pressure university administrations to ensure that official funds are not linked to Israeli policies against Palestinians.

Sarah Rahimi, a member of SJP at the University of California Los Angeles, stressed how their campus' version of Israeli Apartheid Week (entitled "Palestine Awareness Week") had laid the groundwork for a divestment campaign which culminated last week and targeted five companies involved in Israeli human rights abuses against Palestinians.

During the week, "there was a specific focus on our university's investments and involvements," she said. Students would "come and learn about the situation and be upset, but when they found out that the university's funds are invested in such human rights violations, they were shocked."

Despite the campaign's success in allying with a diverse array of student groups, the divestment bill was not able to pass student government.

"There were very few arguments against the bill itself," she told Ma'an, arguing that "it's difficult to argue against a bill that essentially says, 'we should not be giving money to and making money off of violence.'"

Instead, Rahimi pointed out that outside Zionist organizations had rallied against the bill, and on-campus opponents utilized "deflective strategies" including the accusation that the "bill is designed to simply alienate the Jewish community."

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Students read a mock "Israeli apartheid wall" at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA SJP)

An atmosphere of 'hatred'

Critics counter that Israeli Apartheid Week itself contributes to an unproductive campus environment for debate and the "demonization" of Israel.

Hannah Brady, the founder and manager of the "Rethink 2014" campaign in opposition to IAW, told Ma'an that the week of events "encourages hatred towards Israelis and those who support Israel on campus."

Rethink 2014, however, seeks to "open space for dialogue and discussion as possible," Brady said, adding that Zionist students often feel intimidated by IAW events like the construction of mock separation walls and checkpoints on campuses.

"Improving campus climates is what leads to better discussion, by creating an environment in which more people feel able to enter into conversation," she added.

Brady argues that IAW does not foster this kind of environment, as the week "exaggerates and emphasizes division and cultivates an 'us and them' attitude," highlighting a student submission to the Rethink 2014 campaign that argued IAW "tries to force Jewish students to choose between their heritage and their humanity."

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A photograph from the campaign

'There is nothing unsafe about granting basic rights'

Israeli Apartheid Week organizers, however, are not convinced.

Sarah Rahimi, the UCLA student activist, responded to accusations about Israeli Apartheid Week and divestment campaigns creating an "unsafe" environment by highlighting how unsafe campuses already are for pro-Palestinian students.

"There is nothing safe about having to prove your humanity daily and being forced to fund violence against your own people," she explained, adding: "There is nothing unsafe about granting someone their basic rights as human beings, unless someone is trying to imply that their rights depend upon the oppression of others."

"It speaks volumes about the amount of privilege behind such a comment, when the most threatening or unsafe thing imaginable to someone is a bill that seeks to attack corporations that enable human rights violations," she said, referring specifically to opponents of the divestment bill at UCLA.

Despite the divestment bill's failure to pass, Rahimi is optimistic about the future and about IAW's role in mobilizing a global movement in solidarity with Palestinians.

"I am incredibly hopeful because I see that the movement is only gaining solidarity and, in its own ways, inspiring other movements for other, similar causes," she said, adding: "Whatever the tipping point was, we passed it this week and from here on onwards, I see us gaining a lot of momentum."

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=679361
 
Israel fears the ‘apartheid’ label as it reveals its gruesome tactics

Ben White
March 22, 2014 Updated: March 22, 2014 12:07:00


In recent years, Israeli leaders and advocates have repeatedly warned of the threat posed by so-called “delegitimisation”. Yosef Kuperwasser, the current director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, has claimed it is the country’s most important challenge.

“Delegitimisation” is frequently used to variously describe Palestine solidarity activism, boycott and divestment campaigns, and opposition to Israel’s definition as a Jewish state. The term is intended to rally the faithful, and place the targeted critics beyond the pale. To describe Israeli policies in terms of apartheid is also considered a form of “delegitimisation”.

Apartheid, outlawed as a crime against humanity in the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is when “inhumane acts” are “committed in the context of an institutionalised regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime”.

The term itself comes from the defeated South African system – but it can take place anywhere independent of comparisons. Some academics and activists have long described Israeli policies as a form of apartheid: Uri Davis, for example, was writing on the topic in the 1980s. More recently the term has been used by former US president Jimmy Carter, while Archbishop Desmond Tutu – in 2002 and again just this month – has criticised Israeli policies in terms of apartheid.

I was delighted to have Mr Tutu endorse my book Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, just published as an updated second edition. In the foreword, South African jurist and former UN special rapporteur John Dugard put it in the following terms: “It is Israel’s own version of a system that has been universally condemned.”

Examples abound. There is the legislative framework of ethnocracy embodied in the Absentee Property Law, Law of Return, and Citizenship Law, crucial for maintaining an artificial Jewish majority achieved through violent displacement.

There are the admission committees filtering residents in hundreds of communities used, according to Human Rights Watch, “to exclude Arabs”.

Across the West Bank, hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens live in a network of illegal settlements, while around them, Palestinian homes are demolished in a process EU officials have called the “forced transfer of the native population”.

This is a country whose housing minister in 2009 declared it a “national duty” to “prevent the spread” of Palestinian citizens, whose president, Shimon Peres, called Bedouin citizens a “demographic threat”, and whose former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, as mayor of Jerusalem, said was “a matter of concern when the non-Jewish population rises a lot faster than the Jewish population”.

I marked the publication of my book with a well-attended launch event last night at Amnesty International UK, chaired by David Hearst, former chief foreign leader writer for The Guardian.

In the weeks before the event, the Israeli embassy itself directly contacted Amnesty UK to ask them to cancel the launch, and also pressured Mr Hearst to withdraw his participation.

In targeting my book launch, Israeli diplomats in London resorted to crude smear tactics, the sort that are familiar fare for lobby groups, but rather more extraordinary coming from senior embassy officials. Thankfully, neither Amnesty UK nor Mr Hearst gave them the time of day, but the clumsy efforts by Israel’s official representatives to make certain topics “off limits” only drew attention to the issues my book is intended to address.

Of course, that pales in significance compared to the repression of Palestinian dissent by Israeli authorities, where tools like house arrest, travel bans, detention without trial and the use of deadly force are routinely used against both Palestinian citizens and those under military occupation.

But what is it about the apartheid analysis that Israel finds so threatening? Firstly, identifying Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians in such a way shifts the discussion from a “security” paradigm – where Israel feels far more comfortable in defending its conduct – to a paradigm of racial discrimination.

It means that the likes of home demolitions and unequal education budgets are seen not as regrettable excesses or errors, but rather as elements of a regime designed to protect Jewish privilege. The characteristics, in other words, of an ethnocracy, not a democracy.

This is what Israel finds so troubling about the increasingly frequent conclusions of leading human rights groups, legal experts and observers, who frame the situation on the ground in terms of institutionalised racism.

Human Rights Watch has spoken of “systematic discrimination merely because of [the Palestinians’] race, ethnicity, and national origin”, and Amnesty has spoken of “discrimination” in Israel “becoming increasingly formalised”.

The UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in their 2012 concluding observations following Israel’s periodic review, condemned a host of policies on both sides of the Green Line, repeatedly urging Israeli authorities to prohibit and eradicate practices that breach the prohibition of racial segregation and apartheid.

Secondly, the apartheid analysis throws a spanner in the works of the US-led peace process that the more savvy Israeli leaders – like Tzipi Livni – see as an opportunity to preserve a Jewish state in the majority of historic Palestine, in defiance of international law and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

What the apartheid framework does – that the peace process most definitely does not – is shed light on the entirety of the Palestinian people’s experiences under Zionist settler-colonialism: the expelled and denationalised refugees, the Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians with East Jerusalem residency, and Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.

As I write in Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide, and also in my other book Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy, Israeli policies towards the Palestinians have the same overarching goal in mind, whether in the hills of the West Bank or Galilee. Similar colonisation strategies have been pursued on both sides of the Green Line, for similar reasons.

Thanks to the steadfastness and political mobilisation by many Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, as well as the continued work of Palestinian refugee organisations, increasing numbers of people in the West are aware that the question of Palestine did not begin in 1967, and nor is it restricted to – or even primarily about – removing some settlements in the West Bank.

We can also thank Netanyahu for his insistence on putting Israel as a “Jewish state” on the agenda, a decision which, however the Israeli prime minister intended it, has helped foster unparalleled discussions about the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba and the discrimination faced by non-Jewish citizens in mainstream circles.

The Britain Israel Communications Centre (BICOM), a key UK-based Israel lobby group, recently published a booklet called The Apartheid Smear. The publication’s flaws aside, it is instructive that BICOM even published it at all (and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is apparently keen to distribute it globally). It reveals not an “Apartheid Smear” but an “Apartheid Fear” – a fear of the mainstreaming of what Palestinians have always known to be true: that for decades Israel has been guilty of systematic discrimination and institutionalised racism.

This reality will not be challenged by a disingenuous “peace process” but by a real process of justice and accountability – Apartheid Israel’s ultimate fear.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/thenation...veals-its-gruesome-tactics#full#ixzz2wjED7TYI
 
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Well it looks like the UNHCR has joined the BDS movement today by passing the resolution...Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan at the closure of the Human Rights Council’s 25th session today.

http://blog.unwatch.org/wp-content/...erusalem-and-in-the-occupied-Syrian-Golan.pdf

As part of it contains the following points:

PP25 Recognizing that the direct or indirect assistance of States and private entities to the settlement enterprise constitute obstacles that have frustrated 4 international efforts for the end of the occupation and fulfilment of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people by helping to sustain and promote the settlement enterprise, and entail legal, reputational and economic risks stemming from the fact that the Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, (NEWLANGUAGE)

PP26 Noting the probability of liability, including international criminal liability, for corporate complicity in breaches of international law related to illegal settlements, and encouraged that some businesses have withdrawn from settlements due to awareness of these risks, (NEW LANGUAGE; first part adapted from A/HRC/25/39 para. 15; second part adapted from A/HRC/22/63 para. 98)

Even though this is a watered down version of the resolution essentially it’s a call to divest from all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights or be prepared to be held criminally accountable.

My guess is that Nutty-yahoo will need to scream and shout some more about how inconsequential the BDS movement is, of course they will have to resuscitate VD first.

Oh and it was passed 33 in favour, 13 abstentions and 1 against, no prizes for guessing that the 1 against was the USA, so congratulations Richard Falk for sticking to his guns and getting this thing through.
 
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A parody of peace
Apr 07, 2014
S. Nihal Singh

How long can crumbs of territory for Palestinians serve a process that has brought anything but peace? And if the Israelis do not want to give Palestinians equal status in a unified state, where do Palestinians and the world go from there?

As another deadline on the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio stares the energetic US secretary of state John Kerry and the world in the face, even he is muttering dark warnings about time limits. Yet the nature of the talks and their interminable duration are revealing a truth.

The only serious mediator in the field is biased towards Israel and over time has made Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, long past his elected mandate, and his team accomplices in a process which is a parody of peace.

Over the decades, the so-called peace process has been so weighted against the Palestinian cause that were the Palestinian Authority to display some spine, it would have refused to talk on the terms set, with illegal settlements continuing to expand and other humiliations being piled on Palestinians each day. Perhaps to rescue his tattered reputation, Mr Abbas has sought to seek recognition from a number of United Nations organisations, which persuaded the Israelis to call off the release of a new batch of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinians have observer status in the United Nations.

The question many Palestinians and the world are asking is: how long will this charade continue, with Israelis throwing some crumbs to Palestinians under American advice and another round of talks are resumed? Even the patient Palestinians, left in the lurch by much of the world, are beginning to explode. And Mr Abbas and his faithful officials, accustomed to a life of perks and discussions in world capitals for decades, have begun to feel the heat.

The simple question is: how long can crumbs of territory for Palestinians serve a process that has brought anything but peace? And if the Israelis do not want to give Palestinians equal status in a unified state and refuse to countenance a viable Palestinian state, where do Palestinians and the world go from there? The stark reality is that but for full US support, Israel would not have mocked the world by first becoming a nuclear weapon power and then continue gobbling up Palestinian land even as Oslo and other so-called accords have punctuated the diplomatic scenario.

America’s dilemma is that its links with Israel are buttressed by two factors: its strategic needs in a troubled region and the immense weight of the American Israeli lobby in moulding Washington’s relations with Tel Aviv. The last major US strategic success was in the Camp David accords under President Jimmy Carter, but that was because Israel gained a famous victory by surrendering the Sinai peninsula in exchange for a peace treaty with Egypt.

Israel won a great victory by ensuring that Arab states would not be able to wage a new war with it with the most populous Arab nation out of the picture.
The Oslo process was partially tilted towards Israel but offered a new beginning. Over time it transpired that Israel was in no mood to make real concessions to make a two-state solution, the mantra of the international community, a success. And even as the annexation of the occupied Arab East Jerusalem was effected, the prospect of East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state receded. As a succession of US Presidents played at making peace, with their hands tied by the Jewish lobby, illegal settlements proliferated and the vice-like grip on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip tightened.

In fact, the only effective instrument Palestinians have come up in their desperation is to seek the boycott of Israeli goods produced in the occupied territories and to encourage the world’s academic institutions not to have relations with their Israeli counterparts. The movement Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) was launched in 2005 but is only now gathering momentum. What is more, Europeans who are in the forefront of expressing righteous anger over ethical wrongs in other societies are beginning to display some pangs of conscience. The largest Dutch pension fund and the largest Danish bank, for instance, have stopped dealing with Israeli entities with roots in the occupied territories.

Europe is a major trade partner of Israel, and as the BDS movement grows, it will affect the country’s economy and well-being even though American bounty for the self-declared Jewish state is limitless. Dr Hanan Ashrawi of the Palestine Liberation Organisation has described BDS as “a legal, moral and inclusive movement struggling against the discriminatory policies of a country that defines itself in religiously exclusive terms, and that seeks to deny Palestinians the most basic rights simply because we are not Jewish”.

The lame response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev has been that the world is holding his country to a higher standard than any other nation. A minor victory of sorts for the anti-BDS movement came in the shape of the New York Times columnist Roger Cohen’s argument that it was anti-Semitic. While the American Studies Association endorsed an academic boycott of Israel, more than 200 university and college presidents have publicly opposed the movement.

Many suggest that the BDS is against academic freedom, but the force of the movement springs from Palestinians’ lack of options. With the United States, still the most powerful nation on the planet, backing Israel to the hilt in whatever it chooses to do and much of the Arab world preoccupied with its own national interests, there are few takers for the Palestinian cause, despite the flow of rhetorical support. Hitting Israel where it hurts takes the battle a stage further.

With the BDS showing signs of new life, it represents a much-needed moral victory for Palestinians. The only antidote the United States has to offer is to continue to hold talks between Israelis and Palestinians of one kind or another to give the impression of movement. Perhaps the time is approaching when no one believes in the efficacy of American-mediated talks on Palestine.

http://www.asianage.com/columnists/parody-peace-372
 
BDS campaign creating growing panic in Israel


Tel Aviv ought to realise that expanding existing colonies and building new ones on Palestinian Occupied Territories cannot be an agenda for peace


  • By As’ad Abdul Rahman | Special to Gulf News
  • Published: 20:00 June 6, 2014


714064985.jpg

  • Image Credit: Hugo A. Sanchez/©Gulf News

With the troubled Israeli-Palestinian negotiations continuing to cast its long shadow on peace prospects, US Secretary of State John Kerry has warned that a breakdown could “threaten Israel’s economic prosperity and safety”. He recently told a Security Conference in Germany that “today’s status quo, to a certainty, I promise you 100 per cent cannot be maintained. It’s not sustainable, it’s illusionary. There’s a momentary prosperity, there’s a momentary peace”.

Kerry even went further saying: “If negotiations failed, Israel would never stay a democratic country within a framework of dual ethnicity because people (Palestinians) will demand their full civil rights as enjoyed by its Jewish citizens”. Kerry spoke of a “de-legitimisation campaign building up” and “talk of boycotts and other kinds of things” against Israel if the current government does not seriously work to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians. As to his comment on “momentary security”, Kerry could be referring to the fact that Al Qaida is now at Israel’s borders on the Golan Heights and in Sinai with its ‘takfiri’ doctrine that permits it to use all means, including chemical and radiated materials to eradicate Israel, without feeling concern of any possible retaliation, whatsoever. Israel, in this case, has no defence or security strategy that could effectively face up to the takfiri hordes gathering near its borders.

What seems to worry Israel now is the economic boycott that is steadily gathering momentum across the world against its racist policies and construction of colonies on Palestinian lands. In Europe, a boycott movement is growing, led by companies and mega funds with billions of dollars. The Palestinian grassroots nonviolent movement BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) against Israel with campaigns in western countries has been gaining support for its call for the end of Israel’s 1967 occupation and for the recognition of the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to attain full equality as well as the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands, which they were forced to leave in 1948.

Indeed, the nonviolent strategy used by this movement has also found support from many Jews around the world and even Israelis who are “fed up” with the ‘religious right’ that has supremacy in the Zionist state. Such a ‘right’ will ultimately make Israel “an exclusionary Jewish state” eradicating democracy because its non-Jewish citizens will not have equal rights. This very exclusionary principle when applied in Germany to make it “an Aryan State” for “the white Christian race” as a condition for full citizenship caused the Jews tremendous loss of life and property and now a similar attitude is being invoked by none other than the Zionist state itself!!! Many Jews of conscience are absolutely certain that “an exclusionary Jewish State” will usher the end of Israel, without doubt.


The BDS campaigns are creating a growing panic in Israel and a conflict between its foreign ministry and the ministry of strategic affairs. The latter has developed a plan to face and challenge the BDS’ campaigns around the world and asked for a large budget. The plan will be based on accusing BDS of anti-Semitism and aiming to delegitimise Israel as a state. The ministry’s answer to BDS will be carried by worldwide campaigns using and activating organisations and news media outlets friendly to the Zionist state. The Israeli foreign ministry opposes this plan because “it would make the problem much worse”! There seems to be a growing concern that the cost of the campaign launched by the BDS is high. According to a recent report by Yediot Ahronot, “the Israeli losses resulting from this boycott affecting factories within the settlements [colonies] and Israeli farmers in the Jordan Valley are approaching $20 billion (Dh73.56 billion) coupled with the loss of employment of more than 10,000 workers”.

Israeli colonial policies are not only catastrophic to Israelis and Jews only, but to western countries and the US as well. The ‘takfiri’ western fighters of Al Qaida gaining military experience in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, to mention a few, will eventually return to their homelands. The latest bombings in Russia are just a prelude to what is coming to Europe and the US. That is why the US secretary of state is pushing for a peaceful settlement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), but he has been facing the wall of absolute Israeli intransigence and opposition. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is adamant on rejecting the proposed American framework plan and is demanding that negotiations should continue for one more year. Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected an Israeli demand to recognise a ‘Jewish state’ and called for a further release of Palestinian prisoners and a halt to construction and expansion of Jewish colonies. In the late March crisis, Israel refused to release the fourth group of Palestinian prisoners — a move that pushed the Palestinian president to join (15) UN conventions, which — again — resulted in a series of Israeli “punishments” against the PNA.

Whatever US President Barack Obama is capable of doing to convince Israel is left to be seen. Expanding existing colonies and building new ones on Palestinian Occupied Territories is not an agenda for peace or achievement of a two-state solution, but one leading to disasters affecting all, including the western world.

Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia

http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/bds-campaign-creating-growing-panic-in-israel-1.1343842
 
Israeli Apartheid Today


apartheid-gloss.png


A Brief History of South African Apartheid:
Apartheid is a government policy of racial discrimination and segregation against particular groups of people.
In South Africa, the colonial white occupiers instituted government practices of discrimination against black and other non-white peoples. These policies included restrictions on Africans’ ability to move about their own country, inferior schools, and forced removal of Africans from their homes.
The U.S. State Department describes the Group Areas Act, Land Act, and the Population Registration Act as the “pillars of apartheid” in South Africa.
The 1913 Land Act deprived black and “Coloured” South Africans of 87% of the land they were born on. The land was transferred from mostly black, African control to the white occupiers.
Complimenting the Land Act is the Group Areas Act. This law placed restrictions on where non-whites could live and work. It also enacted forced, violent removal of non-whites from cities, villages and farms that they had lived on for centuries. The white occupiers took over their homes and farms.
The Population Registration Act labelled all South Africans by their race. Black and Coloured Africans were forced to carry identification stating their race and which part of South Africa they resided in.
The mandatory IDs were used by the occupying government forces to ensure that black and Coloured Africans could not congregate with other black Africans in “restricted areas.” This was done in the interests of “national security.”
Segregation in Schools:
The States Department reports “under the apartheid system schools were segregated, and the quantity and quality of education varied significantly across racial groups.”
These and many more acts in South Africa mirror the tragic experiences of Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, under Jewish-Israeli Apartheid. This accusation will certainly be branded by some as anti-Semitism. To the contrary, the facts, as outlined by the U.S. State Department, speak for themselves: Apartheid is Apartheid.
Moreover, pundits will claim that accusations of Apartheid are not conducive for peace. Our answer: Apartheid is not conducive for peace.


http://www.adsagainstapartheid.com/israeli-apartheid-today/
 
apartheid?

not-apartheid2.jpg


in buses?

lichttrein.jpg


Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo following a meeting with interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour (29/07/2013):
In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,”
THAT'S APARTHEID!.
 
Wow so 6 Arab woman in Israel, 3 of which were little more than eye candy and a petrified looking woman on a train out of what 4.9 million Palestinians is your counter argument?


Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo following a meeting with interim Egyptian President Adly Mansour (29/07/2013):
In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,”
THAT'S APARTHEID!.
Explain how that is aparthied?
The reason I ask this is that I read Abbas's coments to an Israeli MK Shelly Yacimovich and what he said was perfectly correct, if Jewish settlers did not want to leave Palestine then they could stay as Palestinians not as Israelis.

Tell me how many countries have allowed an occupying nations population to remain in their country as foreign nationals?


http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinians-yes-to-jews-no-to-settlers-in-our-state/


So once again you are twisting words to create different meaning.

Sadly I am not sure your retraining has been successful.
 
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World news.
Israel
Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
theguardian.com, Wednesday 24 October 2012 07.14 AEST

Israeli poll finds majority would be in favour of 'apartheid' policies
Two-thirds say Palestinians should not be allowed to vote if West Bank was annexed, while three in four favour segregated roads

More than two-thirds of Israeli Jews say that 2.5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank should be denied the right to vote if the area was annexed by Israel, in effect endorsing an apartheid state, according to an opinion poll reported in Haaretz.

Three out of four are in favour of segregated roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank, and 58% believe Israel already practises apartheid against Palestinians, the poll found.

A third want Arab citizens within Israel to be banned from voting in elections to the country's parliament. Almost six out of 10 say Jews should be given preference to Arabs in government jobs, 49% say Jewish citizens should be treated better than Arabs, 42% would not want to live in the same building as Arabs and the same number do not want their children going to school with Arabs.

A commentary by Gideon Levy, which accompanied the results of the poll, described the findings as disturbing. "Israelis themselves … are openly, shamelessly and guiltlessly defining themselves as nationalistic racists," he wrote.

"It's good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but perhaps because of it. If such a survey were released about the attitude to Jews in a European state, Israel would have raised hell. When it comes to us, the rules don't apply."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November 03, 2005 IMEU
Are Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel treated equally?

No. Although Palestinian citizens of Israel are entitled to vote and participate in Israeli political life, and several Palestinians are members of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), they do not receive the same treatment as the Jewish citizens at the hands of the government.

From the birth of the state in 1948 until 1966, predominantly Palestinian areas were ruled through a military government that enforced draconian restrictions affecting all realms of life.

Israel still applies 20 laws that privilege Jews over Arabs. For example, the 1950 Law of Return grants automatic citizenship rights to Jews from anywhere in the world upon request, while denying that same right to Palestinians.

The Basic Law of Human Dignity and Freedom ensures that Israel is the state of the "Jewish people," not its citizens. This law was passed in 1992 to serve as a "bill of rights," as Israel does not have a written constitution. Israel's flag and other national symbols are Jewish religious symbols, not neutral or national ones that represent all the citizens of the state.

Government resources, meanwhile, are disproportionately directed to Jews and not to Arabs, one factor in causing the Palestinians of Israel to suffer the lowest living standards in Israeli society by all economic indicators. Human Rights Watch has compiled an extensive study of Israel's policy of "separate, not equal" schools for Palestinian children, finding that "Government-run Arab schools are a world apart from government-run Jewish schools. In virtually every respect, Palestinian Arab children get an education inferior to that of Jewish children, and their relatively poor performance in school reflects this." (report)

As many as 100 Palestinian villages in Israel, many of which pre-date the founding of the state, are not recognized by the Israeli government, and are not listed on maps and receive no services (water, electricity, sanitation, roads, etc.) from the government. More than 70,000 Palestinians live in these unrecognized villages. Meanwhile, hundreds of new Jewish towns have been established on lands confiscated from Palestinians.

Yes,... Israel IS an Apartheid State.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Report of the independent International fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements onthe civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Read More.... http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/RegularSession/Session19/FFM/FFMSettlements.pdf




 
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How can you say Israel occupies "Palestine"? It was called Judea and Samaria and was part of the future homeland of the Jews in the Mandate of Palestine. (Palestine as in the Bible). Remember that Arabs were not allowed to settle there. Transjordan illegally annexed it and called it West Bank. Israel only liberated Judea and Samaria and rules the (as of yet) unallocated land according to international law.

Former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman said:
"Israel, has already produced five “De Klerks”—Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert—leaders willing to cede land and midwife a Palestinian state. But the Palestinians have not yet produced “a Mandela,” a leader truly dedicated to nonviolence and the two state solution."​

There are Palestinian citizens in the Knesset and on Israel’s Supreme Court. None of this was true in apartheid South Africa nor is it in the PA.

from the article "Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid"

"As a black South African under apartheid, I, among other things, could not vote, nor could I freely travel the landscape of South Africa. No person of color could hold high government office. The races were strictly segregated at sports arenas, public restrooms, schools and on public transportation. People of color had inferior hospitals, medical care and education. If a white doctor was willing to take a black patient, he had to examine him or her in a back room or some other hidden place.


In my numerous visits to Israel, I did not see any of the above. My understanding of the Israeli legal system is that equal rights are enshrined in law. Black, brown and white Jews and the Arab minority mingle freely in all public places, universities, restaurants, voting stations and public transportation. All people have the right to vote. The Arab minority has political parties, serves in the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and holds positions in government ministries, the police force and the security services. In hospitals, Palestinian patients lie in beds next to Israeli Jews, and doctors and nurses are as likely to be Israeli Arabs as Jews. I also understand that an Israeli Arab judge presided over the trial of former Israeli President Moshe Katsav, who was convicted of misconduct. An Ethiopian Jew recently won the title of Miss Israel. None of the above was legally permissible in apartheid South Africa!

I believe that it is slanderous and deceptive for Israel’s self-defense measures against the terrorists’ campaign of suicide bombing, rocket attacks and other acts of terrorism that have occurred, and continue to occur, to be labeled as apartheid. I am shocked by the claim that the free, diverse, democratic state of Israel practices apartheid. This ridiculous accusation trivializes the word apartheid, minimizing and belittling the magnitude of the racism and suffering endured by South Africans of color."​

In Israel:
5,463,071 Israeli Jews (citizens): have voting rights.
1,361,800 Palestinians (citizens): have voting rights.
318,200 non-Arab Christians, those listed as having no religion, and others (citizens): have voting rights.
Israel give voting rights to Iraeli citizens living outside Israel (including the west bank wich is not part of Israel)

Palestinian Authority.
Palestininan refugees have NO voting rights, even the ones within the PA!
Palestinians living in East Jerusalem are not allowed to vote for PA elections.

It amazes me that you are attacking Israel but are very silent about what happens in the PA. If you accuse Israel of apartheid what would you call the far worse situation in the PA?
 
How can you say Israel occupies "Palestine"? It was called Judea and Samaria and was part of the future homeland of the Jews in the Mandate of Palestine. (Palestine as in the Bible). Remember that Arabs were not allowed to settle there. Transjordan illegally annexed it and called it West Bank. Israel only liberated Judea and Samaria and rules the (as of yet) unallocated land according to international law.

Bull***t, after reading that I am not even sure you could lie straight in bed.

Lets look at this a bit closer you say "Judea" and "Sumaria" were part of the Mandate of Palestine assigned to the future homeland for Jews yet I present the 1947 UN Partition map of Palestine which clearly shows it as an "Arab" state.

palestine_partition_map_1947s.jpg


Now you claim that Palestinians did not want their state and somehow that means it is all Israels and that Jordan occupied the West Bank from Israel yet not one country recognised the area as either Israeli nor Jordanian as they were/are both considered occupiers because oddly enough it is part of the "Arab" state to be formed from the partition of Palestine.

Let me provide an analogy:
1940 Germany invades Belgium and France and the world considers them occupiers, 1944-45 Britain, Canada and the USA pass through the area on their way to Germany.
Who now owns Belgium and France, Britain, Canada or America?
If Britain was to say screw it we conquered it its now New Scotland because it was mostly English land until the 100 years war would that justify annexing it?

Please it may fool complete idiots and gun toting god bothering Americans but it fools no one else, you can keep trying to make up history but you are now struggling to convince even Jewish academics that there any credence to it.

I give you Professor Israel Finkelstein the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University and also the co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel.
Archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and his colleagues are stirring controversy with contentions that many biblical stories never happened, but were written by what he calls `a creative copywriter' to advance an ideological agenda.
Prof. Israel Finkelstein sees no contradiction between holding a proper Pesach seder and telling the story of the exodus from Egypt, and the fact that, in his opinion, the exodus never occurred.
Hell you cant even convince a sizable portion of the the worlds DNA scientists that todays "Israelis" arent a bunch East European Jews with no more connection to the middle east than Indonesian prostitute.

Let me try and help you out of this mess because no matter how much training you have at Hasbara Central you are fighting a losing battle so how about a piece of well meaning advice stick to threads you are good at like English movies and leave these ones to those who at least can put up an argument that cant be shot down in 20 seconds of Googling.
 
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There are Palestinian citizens in the Knesset and on Israel’s Supreme Court. None of this was true in apartheid South Africa nor is it in the PA.
What the Palestinians do in Palestine is none of anyone else's business, after all it IS their (illegally occupied) land. We are only interested in what the illegal occupiers are doing to the owners of the land.
The word is Afrikaans for "apartness" and the South African model is not the only definition of Apartheid.
The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.[1] It defined the crime of apartheid as "inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them."
International Crimes committed by Israel during the period - ISRAELI STATEHOOD (1948-present)*

7. ILLEGAL PRACTICE OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT: Israel repeatedly practices collective punishment against Palestinian acts of rebellion wherein an entire community is punished for the actions of a few (laws & principles violated, international response).
12. PRACTICE OF RACISM: One of the primary purposes that the European Zionist organizations had for starting the State of Israel was to create a Jewish State, where the Jewish people could find sanctuary, control things, and prosper. This understandably has led to the passage of laws which give special favor throughout Israeli society to the Jewish people over all other people, and especially the native Palestinian Arab people. But giving special favor to one group of people above all other groups based on a criteria like what religion they are is, by definition, a form of racism. And, even though the leaders of the Zionist organizations thought such a policy was absolutely necessary to protect the Jewish people, it is still racism - a philosophy and practice which inevitably leads to terrible injustice and conflict (as we have seen throughout the history of Zionism in Palestine), and which thus must be condemned and prevented no matter what (laws & principles violated, international response).
13. PRACTICE OF APARTHEID: The State of Israel has a formal system of legalized discrimination against Palestinian Arabs which technically fits the official UN definition of Apartheid (laws & principles violated, international response).
17. VIOLATION OF ARAB FAMILY UNITY: In 2003, the Israeli legislature (Knesset) passed legislation that forbade spouses of Arab-Israeli citizens who are in the occupied territories from joining their families in Israel (with exceptions). The overt rationale is security concerns. The hidden reason for this legislation is to help maintain the Jewish demographic majority (laws & principles violated, international response).
from the article "Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid"
 
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Bull***t, after reading that I am not even sure you could lie straight in bed.

Lets look at this a bit closer you say "Judea" and "Sumaria" were part of the Mandate of Palestine assigned to the future homeland for Jews yet I present the 1947 UN Partition map of Palestine which clearly shows it as an "Arab" state.

palestine_partition_map_1947s.jpg


Now you claim that Palestinians did not want their state and somehow that means it is all Israels and that Jordan occupied the West Bank from Israel yet not one country recognised the area as either Israeli nor Jordanian as they were/are both considered occupiers because oddly enough it is part of the "Arab" state to be formed from the partition of Palestine.

Let me provide an analogy:
1940 Germany invades Belgium and France and the world considers them occupiers, 1944-45 Britain, Canada and the USA pass through the area on their way to Germany.
Who now owns Belgium and France, Britain, Canada or America?
If Britain was to say screw it we conquered it its now New Scotland because it was mostly English land until the 100 years war would that justify annexing it?

Please it may fool complete idiots and gun toting god bothering Americans but it fools no one else, you can keep trying to make up history but you are now struggling to convince even Jewish academics that there any credence to it.

I give you Professor Israel Finkelstein the Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University and also the co-director of excavations at Megiddo in northern Israel.
Hell you cant even convince a sizable portion of the the worlds DNA scientists that todays "Israelis" arent a bunch East European Jews with no more connection to the middle east than Indonesian prostitute.

Let me try and help you out of this mess because no matter how much training you have at Hasbara Central you are fighting a losing battle so how about a piece of well meaning advice stick to threads you are good at like English movies and leave these ones to those who at least can put up an argument that cant be shot down in 20 seconds of Googling.

The partition plan was not part of the Palestine Mandate. You are mixing things up. The Palestine Mandate was to create a Jewish homeland, not devide the land allocated to the Jews in a "Palestinian" and a Jewish one.

The partition plan was refused by the Arabs so your explanation is invalid.

What the Palestinians do in Palestine is none of anyone else's business, after all it IS their (illegally occupied) land. We are only interested in what the illegal occupiers are doing to the owners of the land.
The word is Afrikaans for "apartness" and the South African model is not the only definition of Apartheid.

International Crimes committed by Israel during the period - ISRAELI STATEHOOD (1948-present)*

7. ILLEGAL PRACTICE OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT: Israel repeatedly practices collective punishment against Palestinian acts of rebellion wherein an entire community is punished for the actions of a few (laws & principles violated, international response).
12. PRACTICE OF RACISM: One of the primary purposes that the European Zionist organizations had for starting the State of Israel was to create a Jewish State, where the Jewish people could find sanctuary, control things, and prosper. This understandably has led to the passage of laws which give special favor throughout Israeli society to the Jewish people over all other people, and especially the native Palestinian Arab people. But giving special favor to one group of people above all other groups based on a criteria like what religion they are is, by definition, a form of racism. And, even though the leaders of the Zionist organizations thought such a policy was absolutely necessary to protect the Jewish people, it is still racism - a philosophy and practice which inevitably leads to terrible injustice and conflict (as we have seen throughout the history of Zionism in Palestine), and which thus must be condemned and prevented no matter what (laws & principles violated, international response).
13. PRACTICE OF APARTHEID: The State of Israel has a formal system of legalized discrimination against Palestinian Arabs which technically fits the official UN definition of Apartheid (laws & principles violated, international response).
17. VIOLATION OF ARAB FAMILY UNITY: In 2003, the Israeli legislature (Knesset) passed legislation that forbade spouses of Arab-Israeli citizens who are in the occupied territories from joining their families in Israel (with exceptions). The overt rationale is security concerns. The hidden reason for this legislation is to help maintain the Jewish demographic majority (laws & principles violated, international response).
from the article "Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid"

Your link is wrong. It is not from "Pro-Palestinian ads misrepresent apartheid" but from the israellawresourcecenter which is not a reliable source.

From the article Apartheid in the Arab Middle East
"Only Israel, among all Middle Eastern nations, guarantees equal civil rights for all its citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual preference. Israel is the only country in the Middle East in which the Christian population is growing. Some 1.4 million Israeli Arabs enjoy more rights than citizens in any Arab country. Isn't it time for the U.N. Human Rights Council to stop persecuting Israel and condemn apartheid where it really lives—in Arab nations—and demand immediate reform and sanctions against all countries that commit such crimes against humanity?"​

or what about this: Reality ignored in rush to judgment on 'apartheid' Israel
Israel is vastly different; it bears little relation to the madness of apartheid in South Africa. It is, after all, a country in which there is, yes, an overwhelming Jewish majority, but in which Arabs make up 20 per cent of the population. Crucially, where South Africa, under apartheid, was a racial dictatorship, Israel is a vibrant democracy, a country whose declaration of independence at the time of its foundation specifically promised "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture".
Nothing is heard, of course, about the "apartheid" being enforced by Hamas in Gaza, where strict Islamic law is being imposed, with women barred even from running in a local marathon, while schoolchildren are being segregated and forced to wear Islamic dress. There is also silence on the rank discrimination that is enforced in so much of the Arab world.​
 
Tell you what instead of waffling around trying to bend the facts to fit your narrative how about I let someone that actually understands apartheid make the call...

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Urges Presbyterians to Adopt Divestment
As the Presbyterian General Assembly gathers for its biennial meeting I reach out in prayer and solidarity that the Assembly will make a strong witness for reconciliation, justice and peace. I am aware that the Assembly will consider eight overtures on the confounding and intractable conflict in Israel and Palestine, however I am especially urging the Assembly to adopt the overture naming Israel as an apartheid state through its domestic policies and maintenance of the occupation, and the overture calling for divestment of certain companies that contribute to the occupation of the Palestinian people.

Both are worthy of adoption, by speaking truth in the first instance, and owning up to the Church’s complicity in maintaining the occupation through its investments in the second.
The sustainability of Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people has always been dependent on its ability to deliver justice to the Palestinians. I know firsthand that Israel has created an apartheid reality within its borders and through its occupation.

The parallels to my own beloved South Africa are painfully stark indeed. Realistic Israeli leaders have acknowledged that Israel will either end its occupation through a one or two state solution, or live in an apartheid state in perpetuity. The latter option is unsustainable and an offense to justice. We learned in South Africa that the only way to end apartheid peacefully was to force the powerful to the table through economic pressure.

The overtures proposed at the General Assembly are not about delegitimizing the State of Israel, but about ending its suppression of 4,000,000 Palestinian sisters and brothers. It’s about naming an unjust system and refusing to participate in it. The stubbornness of Israel’s leaders in wanting to hold onto and settling land that is not theirs can only lead to tragedy for both peoples.

For the sake of them both as God’s cherished, the strong witness of the two overtures is the only peaceful route left in the cause of justice and ultimate reconciliation. My prayers today are with the members of the General Assembly and with all the peoples of the Holy Land in Israel and Palestine.
Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
June 10, 2014

http://www.israelpalestinemissionnetwork.org/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=274

Now I am not a religious type but I hope his letter succeeds.
 
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But now to bring you back to Boycott and Divestment...

G4S to end Israeli jail contracts within three years

By Gill Plimmer

G4S has confirmed that it will end all its Israeli prison contracts within the next three years after an annual general meeting that was severely disrupted by human rights protesters.
Asked by angry protesters whether G4S would withdraw from the Palestinian territories as reported by the Financial Times last year, Ashley Almanza, chief executive, confirmed “no change to that position”.

“We expect them to expire and we don’t expect to renew them,” he said.
These include contracts to provide security and screening equipment at military checkpoints, the controversial Ofer prison and a police station in the West Bank, all of which are expected to expire next year.
But Mr Almanza said for the first time that the move would also include prison service contracts all over Israel.

The decision came even though an independent human rights report commissioned by G4S and published on Thursday found the company “had no causal or contributory role in human rights violations”.
“There are clearly human rights failings in some parts of Israel’s security system, but G4S’s role is far removed from their immediate causes and impact,” said the report by Hugo Slim, a research fellow at the Institute of Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford.

G4S employs 8,000 people in Israel, supplying 50,000 customers – including 35,000 private individuals. The company says that it has no employees working at prison sites or managing control rooms in jails in Israel or the occupied territories; staff simply fix security equipment such as CCTV and leave.
Mr Almanza said: “We do not operate prisons, we supply prisons with security equipment.” He added that the equipment made the Israeli prisons safer and did not increase the risk of human rights abuses.

About 25 protesters, who bought shares in the company in order to attend the meeting, were ejected from the room by G4S security guards. At one point a protester threw an alarm under a chair, creating a racket.

Earlier this week, the UK government’s National Contact Point watchdog launched an investigation into G4S’s activities in Israel and the West Bank. The National Contact Point, which is part of the Department for Business, said it had “accepted issues for further examination”. It follows a formal complaint by Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, a charity that has long criticised G4S.

Peter Ridsdalesmith, 68, a private shareholder, said he had suffered “nothing but blessed disaster” since buying shares in the company two years ago. “The Olympics, Israel, it’s been nothing but lash-ups,” he said. “This hasn’t been a friendly meeting. I wanted to go home reassured.”

Another shareholder told the board: “I think you should have a special meeting for protesters. I have had two hours of this and I’m done with it.”

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/06e0...0144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz34wdNJy6A

:)
 
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