Palestinian Flag to Flutter at UNESCO Headquarters

The Palestinian flag will be hoisted Tuesday at UNESCO headquarters, over a month after its admission to the UN cultural agency sparked anger from the United States and Israel.
  
President Mahmud Abbas will travel to Paris to attend the event, which led Washington to pull funding to the UN organization, and which is seen by many as a step on the Palestinians' road to eventual UN membership.
  
"President Abbas wants to show the importance he attaches to UNESCO," said a Palestinian diplomat. "And this is the first time that the flag will be flown at the headquarters of a UN institution."
  
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization says the flag-hoisting is a symbolic ceremony "to mark Palestine's admission to the organization" that takes place each time a new member joins.
  
The Palestinians were admitted to the body in late October, when the UNESCO general assembly voted 107-14 to make Palestine its 195th member. The result angered the United States which immediately suspended its funding to the UN body.

 http://www.almanar.com.lb/english/adetails.php?fromval=1&cid=23&frid=23&eid=37636

Newt: No Such Thing as Palestinians

Editor's note: The native dwellers of Palestine were called “Palestinians” by Herodotes in 5th century BC, 2500 years before (modern) Israeli statehood; but Herodotes never heard of Jews, though he walked across the whole land. Jews appeared three hundred years later.

Newt "The Idiot" Gingrich

They're Just Arabs, Insists Presidential Hopeful

by Jason Ditz, December 09, 2011

In an interview released today by The Jewish Channel (TJC), Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich sought to court the pro-Israel vote by claiming that not only do the Palestinians not deserve a state, but that they are an “invented people” made up simply to make things tough on Israel.

“Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire,” Gingrich insisted. The claim is a common one made by Israel’s far right when arguing against the two-state solution to the ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Gingrich’s take on the situation is that Palestinians are just Arabs, and that they should just go to some Arab-dominated country. Of course while Palestinians are ethnically Arabs, and there are other countries in which Arabs make up the majority of the population, it is not common practice (outside of Israel) to ascribe territorial possessions entirely on the basis of race, and those Palestinians expelled from the occupied territories have often ended up in refugee camps elsewhere for generations.

After the bulk of Palestine’s Jewish population fled Roman rule in the first few centuries AD (fleeing mostly to the Sassanid Empire), it was a mostly Christian province for generations. The territory became overwhelmingly Muslim in the 7th century, and was under the rule of various Muslim empires (with a brief Crusader presence) through the end of World War 1, when the territory was claimed by Britain.

Currently there are almost four million Palestinians living under Israeli occupation within the occupied territories, and another 1.5 million living inside Israel itself.

And while “no such thing” is a popular allegations for bloggers to whip out in defense of keeping millions of Palestinians under occupation or potentially expelling them entirely from their homeland, the claim creates other problems if applied to other situations. Gingrich, for instance, supported the US occupation of Kosovo, even though there was no historic independent Kosovar state.

Gingrich’s claim is not unique, but is unique among “mainstream” US politicians, who have usually tried not to play the race card on Israel, something which seems to inevitably put the Israeli far right’s claim to unique racial hegemony over the region, and not the people in the occupied territories, in an extremely negative light.

 http://news.antiwar.com/2011/12/09/newt-no-such-thing-as-palestinians/

PLO: 2,900 New Settlement Units and 8,900 Stolen Dunums in November

The illegal Jewish settlement of Nevi Daniel,
near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Department of International Relations said in its monthly report on Thursday that in November, Israeli forces confiscated 8,912 dunums of land (a dunum is about a quarter of an acre), demolished 39 buildings, uprooted 715 trees and arrested 181 Palestinians. In the same period, the Israeli government authorized 2,934 new settlement units.

The Israeli army and Israeli settlers combined killed five Palestinians, four of them in airstrikes on the Gaza and one Palestinian struck in purpose by a settler’s car near Salfit. Thirty people were injured in November as a result of Israeli military assaults against peaceful marches against the wall.

According to the report, Israeli troops arrested 180 people in November and detained an additional 253 during nighttime raids. Several released prisoners have faced harassment and interrogation by Israeli intelligence agents, and 84 released prisoners were forbidden from going on the Hajj pilgrimage. 

Meanwhile inside Israeli military prisons, the PLO claimed prisoner administrators had stepped up abuses, renewing terms of solitary confinement for many of them, refusing to medicate sick prisoners, and withholding warm clothes for the winter.

The report also mentioned the November arrests of Palestinian journalists Israa Salhab and Ra’ed al-Sharif as well as the renewed detention of journalist Walid Khalid. The journalist Majdi Ishtayeh was injured when a tear gas canister struck his left foot during a protest in al-Nabi Saleh.

Also in the monthly report were the arrests of 11-year-olds Omar and Ala’ Abu Madi, boys from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, as well as the withdrawal of residence rights from Ammar Badreya and his family,  who live in the al-Matar neighborhood in Qalandia, under the pretext that their house is on the borders of the West Bank . 

Settlers also perpetrated “price tag” attacks in the Mamilla Cemetery in Jerusalem, writing racist slogans such as “Death to Arabs” on graves and a nearby wall. The 1000-year-old site is due to be destroyed to make room for the Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance. 

In the same month, the PLO said Israeli authorities had prepared a document authorizing 60,718 settlement units to be built over the next twenty years. Of those, 53,000 will be on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, including a 2,580-square-meter parcel of land in Silwan designated to be a public garden and parking lot.

The Israeli Interior Ministry started taking construction bids on 750 settlement units in Gilo, near Bethlehem, and 65 settlement units in Pisgat Ze’ev, near Jerusalem. 

According to the report, the Israeli army assumed control over 8,912 dunums of land in November (about 2,250 acres), including 7,000 dunums in Bethlehem, under the absentee property law in which the State of Israel takes over land rights from absent or exiled Palestinian owners. Twelve dunums were handed over to Israel in the village of al-Khader, 1,500 were annexed from the Bardala region in the northern Jordan Valley to kibbutzes inside the Green Line, and 400 dunums were taken from Qalandia to build the wall.     

Israeli demolition operations continued against Palestinian communities, resulting in the destruction of one mosque, 12 houses, 14 Bedouin tents, six greenhouses, and seven underground wells. Israeli authorities also served demolition warnings to homeowners in Qabod village, south of Hebron, citing their lack of building permits. The principal of Susya school in the South Hebron Hills was also given a demolition notice for the school, water well, and three nearby greenhouses.

 http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10940&Itemid=64

IOA strip search relatives of prisoners

GAZA, (PIC)-- The Israeli Negev prison administration has forced all relatives of Palestinian prisoners to strip for search before visiting their imprisoned next of kin, the ministry of prisoners in Gaza said on Wednesday.

It added in a statement that the incident occurred on Tuesday and that all women and even children not more than one year old were forced to strip in full for the unjustified search.

The ministry said that the unprecedented step crossed all red lines, adding that Israeli policewomen carried out the humiliating search.

The ministry quoted prisoners in Negev as warning of serious consequences in the event such “provocative practices” 

 http://www.palestine-info.co.uk

Israeli Troops Break Into The House Of Imemc's Board Member

Saher Al-Sous

by George Rishmawi

 Israeli soldiers broke into the house of Saher Al-Sous, in Beit Sahour, near Bethlehem. Al-Sous is a board member of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People, the founding organization of the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC).

 At around 3:30 am, Israeli troops knocked-down the door of Al-Sous' cousin with the rifle-butts terrorizing the children and their mother; the father was out of town for some business.

After realizing their mistake, they went to Saher's house and woke up all the family to hand Saher a 'warrant' for an interview with an Israeli intelligence officer they identified as “Leor”.

Al-Sous told IMEMC that he went to the appointment at the Gush Etzion military base, near Hebron, and waited for more than one hour, without being interviewed or asked any question by any officer; he finally decided to go back home.

Al-Sous is a graduate of Bethlehem University and has been involved in the Rapprochement Centre for more than 10 years, he helps promote the center's work and activities. He is currently working with the team preparing for the Shepherds Nights Festival around Christmas time.

This is not the first time the Israeli military harasses members of the board of the Rapprochement Center. Similar harassment targeted the chairman of the board, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, who was also summoned to an interview with the Israeli intelligence officers and was not interviewed.

The Israeli military invaded the headquarters of the Rapprochement Centre in 2003, and confiscated all the computers and files from the offices an issue that caused a serious interruption to its work and activities.

The Rapprochement Centre was established in 1988 as a non-profit, nongovernmental organization that works to bridge the gap between Palestinians and peoples from all around the world, including Israel, informing the public about the reality in Palestine, and empowering the community through nonviolent direct action.

The center is a co-founding member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and several other advocacy and nonviolent networks in Palestine.

 http://www.imemc.org/article/62627

Former Israeli President Starts A 7-Year Prison Term

Convicted Rapist Moshe Katzav

by Saed Bannoura

 Former Israeli Prime Minister, Moshe Katsav, started Wednesday a 7-year prison term for two counts of rape, and several other sexual offenses.

 On Thursday, November 10th, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the conviction against the former Israeli president after it rejected the appeal filed by his lawyer.

Katsav insists on his innocence and told reporters who gathered outside his home that “he was wrongly convicted” and that “there is no evidence against him”.

Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that Katsav told the reporters that the court ignored the testimonies of 20 defense witnesses, adding that “one day, the Israelis will find out that they have buried a man alive”.

The former president was convicted of raping a former employee, when he served as a cabinet minister, and for sexual harassment of two former employees in the years 2000 and 2007.

Haaretz reported that Katsav will be held in a cell designated for prisoners who are believed to be suicidal. The cell has two cameras and even his lavatory and shower stall have transparent glass.

The trial against the former Israeli President lasted for one year and all deliberations were held behind closed doors.

The 65-year-old former president was offered a plea bargain two years ago, but he rejected it and maintained his “innocence”.

The plea bargain he rejected offered dropping the most serious charges against him, and a suspended sentence.

In their ruling, the judges said that the testimonies of the former president were “riddled with lies”, and that he changed his claims several times during the course of interrogation, Haaretz added.

On Sunday, September 28, 2008, Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, handed his resignation to Israeli President, Shimon Peres, and on August 30. 2009, an indictment was served against him at the District Court in Jerusalem.

The indictment against the Olmert refers to five criminal accounts; Tax evasion, breach of trust, fraud, falsifying corporate documents and obtaining by fraud under aggravating circumstances.

 http://www.imemc.org/article/62625

Settlers Burn Entrance To Mosque Near Salfit

Mosque Burnt By Settlers Near Ramallah

by Saed Bannoura

 On Wednesday at dawn, Israeli settlers set fire to the main entrance of the Broqeen Mosque, and a number of Palestinian cars parked nearby, at a village near the West Bank city of Salfit.

 Local sources reported that several armed Israeli settlers invaded the village and tried to burn down the mosque, but were only able to set its entrance ablaze. The settlers then burnt a number of parked cars within the vicinity.

The recent attack is part of a larger “Price Tag” campaign against the Palestinians, their holy sites, and their lands. The settlers blame the Palestinians for any evacuation of illegal settlement outposts in the occupied territories, and they even deface and vandalize homes and vehicles that belong to Israel’s Peace Now Movement, and its activists.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, November 8 and 9, extremist settlers killed one Palestinian, and set three Palestinian cars ablaze near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. The settlers also fired tear gas at a family of Palestinians in Ertas village, near Bethlehem.

A ten-year old child was among those attacked, and he was transferred to a hospital in Beit Jala after being rendered unconscious by the gas.

Earlier in November, a number of Israeli settlers set fire to a tractor belonging to a Palestinian farmer, after trying to attack him in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

On Sunday, October 2nd, 2011, a group of extremists Israeli right-wingers burned a mosque at the entrance of Toba Zanghriyya village in the Galilee, and wrote “Price Tag” and “Revenge” on its walls.

On Monday, September 5th, 2011, a group of extremist Israeli settlers broke into a mosque in Qasra village, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and torched it after destroying its property and writing anti-Arab slogans on its walls.

On Tuesday June 07, 2011, settlers burnt a mosque in Al Mughayyir village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, and wrote racist graffiti on it walls.

On Sunday, October 25, 2010, extremist Israeli right-wingers attacked an ancient mosque in Ma'alul village near Nazareth, inside Israel. They removed the stones and spray-painted slogans of the Israeli settler movement on the walls.

On Sunday, October 3, 2010, a group of fundamentalist Israeli settlers broke into a mosque in Beit Fajjar, near Bethlehem, and set it ablaze.

On Tuesday, May 4, 2010, a group of fundamentalist settlers torched the main mosque of the Al Lubban Al Sharqiyya village, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

 http://www.imemc.org/article/62624