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Emergency statement: Gaza protests and Israel’s military response

Details: Written by Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council; Published: 26 April 2018 26 April 2018

April 23, 2018

The Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council (JVP HAC) issues this statement out of grave concern about the Israeli Military’s use of excessive force, including live ammunition and tear gas against protesters in Gaza. For the past four Fridays, demonstrators within Gaza were met by the Israeli military firing live ammunition, rubber-coated bullets, and teargas across the border fence. The disproportional response of the Israeli military to a mostly unarmed civilian demonstration reflects a disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinians and for the safety and health of the people of the besieged Gaza Strip, where dire humanitarian conditions exist. This military response violates international law. Of further concern is the obstruction by the Israeli and the United States governments to the United Nations’ issuing a statement condemning these actions.

According to the New York Times, the Israeli military response to these protests has resulted in 37 deaths (4 people under the age of 18) and over 3000 wounded.

Over 1000 of the wounded were hit by live ammunition, 300 by rubber-coated bullets, and 1000 by large doses of tear gas. Among those targeted were journalists (wearing identifying vests)—1 was killed and at least 6 have been wounded, and medics. Those with lethal wounds were shot in the chest, the back, and abdomen. Many also had been shot in the legs, pelvis, and hands. There have been no Israeli injuries.

Gaza's Passover massacre

Details: Written by Neve Gordon Neve Gordon; Published: 01 April 2018 01 April 2018

The Passover massacre in Gaza was by no means an exception in the long history of Palestinian resistance.

For decades Zionists have blamed the Palestinians for Israel's ongoing colonial project. "If only the Palestinians had a Mahatma Gandhi," many Israeli liberals have exclaimed, "then the occupation would end."

But if one truly wished to find Palestinian Mahatma Gandhis all one needed to do is look at the images of protesters on Friday night's news broadcasts. An estimated 30,000 Palestinians joined the nonviolent March of Return, which aimed to set up a few camps several hundred meters from the militarised fence surrounding the Gaza Strip. Their goal was to protest their incarceration in the world's largest open-air prison as well as the massive confiscation of their ancestral land - after all, 70 percent of Gaza's population are 1948 refugees whose families had owned land in what became Israel.

As Gaza's residents marched towards the militarised fence, I sat with my family, reciting the Haggadah for the Passover holiday, which tells us that "In every generation, it is one's duty to regard oneself as though he or she personally had gone out of Egypt". In other words, while the soldiers shot live bullets at the peaceful demonstrators, these soldiers' parents were being asked to imagine what it means to live in Gaza and what it would take to liberate oneself from such captivity. And as my family went on to sing, "No more shall they in bondage toil, let my people go," news sites reported that the number of Palestinians killed had reached 17, while several hundred had been wounded.

Netanyahu praises Israeli army after killings of Palestinians

The accusation that Palestinians have failed to adopt non-violent methods of resistance, and therefore share responsibility for Israel's ongoing subjugation and dispossession, not only completely disavows the vast asymmetry in power relations between the coloniser and colonised, but, just as importantly, fails to consider the political history of anticolonial struggles, not least the Palestinian one itself. Indeed, it completely ignores the fact that Israel's colonial project has been upheld through attritional, protracted and widespread violence, and, despite what certain Western media outlets might present, the Palestinians have developed a robust and long-standing tradition of non-violent resistance. Moreover, the demand to adopt a non-violent ideology completely elides the history of other liberation struggles: from Algiers to Vietnam and all the way back to South Africa.

Message from Basem Tamimi: Help free my daughter Ahed

Details: Written by Basem Tamimi with the Avaaz team Basem Tamimi with the Avaaz team; Published: 25 January 2018 25 January 2018

My 16-year-old daughter was dragged out of her bed in the dead of night and arrested. Even though she is just a child, the military refused to release her. She could spend years in jail. I have dedicated my life to civil resistance in Palestine. That's why the Israeli army is holding my baby -- they want to crush my spirit. All I want is to hold my daughter again. With one click, please join my appeal to get her out:

ADD MY NAME

Dear friends,

Days ago soldiers stormed my house in the dead of night and dragged my 16-year-old daughter to prison. Now my little girl is in a cold cell.

I have dedicated my life to civil resistance. That's why the army is holding my baby -- they want to crush our spirit. But I have been a member of Avaaz for eight years -- I have seen the power of this community if we all stand together against injustice.

My little girl's case goes to court on 31 January -- but Israel's military courts convict 99% of Palestinians, even if they are kids. Please join my urgent call below with one click -- we’ll deliver it directly to global leaders:

Help free my daughter Ahed

Trump’s Move to Slash Aid for Palestinian Refugees Will Lead to Tragedy

Details: Written by Sara Roy Sara Roy; Published: 25 January 2018 25 January 2018

A potential calamity is looming in the Middle East, a calamity of the United States’ making that is inimical to our interests and investments. I am referring to Donald Trump’s decision to slash a promised installment of funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)—the international agency responsible for the welfare of 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank—while effectively freezing additional funding for the foreseeable future.

The news dropped on January 16, when the State Department sent a letter to UNRWA announcing that it would be withholding $65 million of a planned $125 million payment to the agency. Two days later, the State Department announced that it would also be halting a $45 million payment it had pledged to UNRWA in December, in that case for food aid for the West Bank and Gaza. While a State Department spokesperson insisted that the cuts were “not aimed at punishing anyone,” punishment certainly seemed to be on Trump’s mind when he tweeted two weeks earlier, “with the Palestinians no longer willing to talk peace, why should we make any of these massive future payments to them?” The implication seemed clear: The Trump administration would slash aid to Palestinians as long as the Palestinian Authority (PA) refused to engage in US-backed negotiations with Israel.

It’s worth pausing for a moment to consider that the PA’s refusal to engage in negotiations stems entirely from Trump’s own actions—specifically, his formal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; this move not only dismissed Palestinian claims to the city but effectively predetermined the outcome of future negotiations. Moreover, it should be noted that the entity through which the Trump administration is now exacting its punishment is a humanitarian agency, not a political one, and it has never been involved in any peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. Yet, despite its vital role, the Trump administration has opted to slash UNRWA’s resources, sparking what agency spokesperson Christopher Gunness described as “the most serious financial crisis in UNRWA’s 70-year history.”

This isn’t hyperbole. The United States contributes almost 30 percent of UNRWA’s annual budget, or $364 million a year. The loss of nearly a third of its budget, should the Trump administration continue to withhold payments, would force the agency to significantly scale back or suspend its services in many vital areas, or to move swiftly to persuade other donors to fill the gap. Even a partial defunding of UNRWA by the United States would have severe consequences.

Details: Written by Rashid Khalidi Rashid Khalidi; Published: 08 December 2017 08 December 2017

Every time it seems Donald Trump cannot outdo himself, he does it again. Now he has announced that his administration will recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, reversing nearly seven decades of American policy. This step will have multiple negative ramifications, many impossible to predict.

Jerusalem is the most important of the so-called final status issues that have been repeatedly deferred during the Israel-Palestine negotiations because of their extreme sensitivity. Trump has ploughed into this imbroglio like a bull in a china shop, zeroing in on the most complex and emotional issue of all those connected to Palestine.

[From the Journal of Palestine Studies | The Ownership of the U.S. Embassy Site in Jerusalem]

Jerusalem is undoubtedly the most important aspect of the entire Palestine question. It has been central to the identity of Palestinian Muslims and Christians as far back as the founding moments of both religions, and has become even more so as the conflict over Palestine has become fiercer.

The rivalry over this holy city is exacerbated by the fact that the same site – the Haram al-Sharif to Muslims, the Temple Mount to Jews – is sacred to both. Because of its explosive nature, this is an issue that no Palestinian politician, and few Arab leaders, would dare to trifle with.

For someone such as me, whose family has lived in Jerusalem for hundreds of years, Trump’s announcement does not just mean that the US has adopted the Israeli position that Jerusalem belongs exclusively to Israel. He has also retroactively legitimised Israel’s seizure and military occupation of Arab East Jerusalem during the 1967 war, and its imposition of discriminatory laws on hundreds of thousands of Palestinians living there. The damage he has done will be permanent: the US cannot undo this recognition.

This act completely disqualifies the US from its longstanding role as broker, a position that Washington has monopolised for itself. So much for the pitiful “peace plan” that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was cooking up and hoping to impose on the Palestinians.

Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights

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In Focus

Emergency statement: Gaza protests and Israel’s military response

Gaza's Passover massacre

Netanyahu praises Israeli army after killings of Palestinians

Message from Basem Tamimi: Help free my daughter Ahed

Trump’s Move to Slash Aid for Palestinian Refugees Will Lead to Tragedy

Trump’s Error on Jerusalem Is a Disaster for the Arab World… and the US Too

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