MSNBC highlights Israeli abuse, shows soldier driving trailer over Palestinian body

Featured in MSNBC’s “The Week in Pictures” is a photograph of a Palestinian man screaming in agony as an Israeli soldier drives a tractor-hitched trailer over his legs.

It’s a heartbreaking photograph, and the stone cold and carefree attitudes of the soldiers surrounding the man literally adds insult to injury. But first, a backstory: In the West Bank village of Al-Dirat near Al-Khalil, a group of Palestinian construction workers prepared the equipment and materials necessary to begin the construction of a new home. Soon after, a half-dozen or so Israeli soldiers appeared at the scene and ordered the workers to cease construction.

Almost as suddenly as their arrival, the hostile soldiers commandeered the equipment and ordered the Palestinian workers to disperse. At least one soldier boarded a tractor and, although it is unclear what exactly he aimed at, drove the vehicle’s attached trailer over one of the workers. The worker had reportedly been protesting the unfair expulsion of him and his fellow construction workers. Hazem Bader with Agence France-Presse (AFP) captured the photograph above, as well as the first of the two photographs below.

I expect people to argue that the soldier didn’t deliberately run the man over. I was not at the scene but here’s a question for these people: Do you drive over speed humps without noticing? I find it hard to believe that the soldier didn’t feel or notice the resistance from the man’s body as the wheels lurched up and over him. It’s just not practical. [Read more...]

The only extremists who aren’t terrorists

Terrorism is anything that invokes Palestinian national identity or criticism towards the occupation. However, what can be seen as the opening stage of a Kristallnacht-esque repeat against Palestinians — Muslim and Arab, specifically — is nothing too worrisome.

Illegal Israeli settlers, particularly those who attack Palestinians, vandalize their property, and even sabotage Israeli military bases, aren’t terrorists. They aren’t even militants. They are, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just a small unrepresentative group of right-wing activists who happen to be a little overzealous in their convictions.

The last few days have seen a tremendous surge of violence in the West Bank. But it’s likely this information never received the attention it deserved since those committing the violence were, in fact, Israeli settlers. On Tuesday, dozens of settlers ambushed an Israeli military base and attacked military officials and their property as a sign of defiance against the measures taken to police them. The next day, settlers hurled rocks at Palestinians traveling through the Tapuach and Rechalim Junction. Another group of settlers torched three Palestinian-owned vehicles — two trucks and one car — just outside of Nablus. Meanwhile, arsonists set fire to a historical mosque in central Jerusalem after vandalizing it with anti-Islam graffiti. To top this off, settlers clashed with police after authorities attempted to arrest suspects in connection with the previous round of violence.

Israel was quick to identify these attacks as part of the growing “Price Tag” movement, but Netanyahu’s administration was split over how to label the settlers behind the destruction. Before anyone else could give it much thought, Netanyahu rejected the idea of labeling them terrorists and instead opted to refer to them as extremist right-wing activists. His logic: they are a small group of individuals whose actions aren’t necessarily mirrored by other settlers. [Read more...]

Overheard at the University of Chicago: ‘I got yelled at for getting too close to Al Aqsa Mosque’

On the final day of classes before exam week was set to begin, the name Al Aqsa Mosque emerged from a pile of terms my classmates were asked to define. One student outlined its significance in Islamic history, another mentioned its construction date, and another, in a seemingly arrogant tone, explained that she had been yelled at for getting too near to the compound, that although she had not visited during the appropriate tour hours, she felt unwelcome.

My immediate thoughts:

You were yelled at for getting too close to Al Aqsa Mosque? I’m yelled at for even attempting to reach Jerusalem. You missed your tour time? My “tour” ended in the summer of 2004. At age 13, I watched an Israeli soldier arbitrarily force my aunt, who was born and raised under occupation in Palestine, to wait at a checkpoint until she was ultimately denied entry. I returned the very next day, this time with a different relative, and was lucky to be granted permission to visit a limited number of districts in Jerusalem before my permission expired in a matter of hours. I and my family members — immediate and distant — are no longer allowed to pray at the Dome of the Rock or to see Al Aqsa Mosque in the flesh. In fact, we aren’t even allowed in the West Bank. No more tours for me. [Read more...]

A Visual Chronology of the Freedom Rides

Photos by Dena Elian

On November 15, 2011, six Palestinian Freedom Riders boarded a settler-only bus traveling to occupied East Jerusalem to openly challenge Israel’s apartheid policies towards Palestinians and its minority populations. The following is a visual chronology of the events.

[Read more...]

Reenacting the Freedom Rides in Occupied Palestine

.

At 11:00 AM on November 15, 2011, Palestinian activists in the West Bank will board Israel’s segregated transportation services en route to occupied East Jerusalem to defy institutionalized prejudice the same way the Freedom Riders did during the United States’ civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Five decades after Black Americans challenged the status quo by riding interstate buses through the segregated South, Palestinians will employ the same method of civil disobedience to further the dismantling of the customs, laws, and military directives that implement the forceful suppression of Palestinian rights. The targeted transportation lines are typically state-sponsored, and they serve to connect illegal Israeli settlements and outposts dotting the West Bank. Although, as Philip Weiss makes clear, Palestinians are not officially prohibited from boarding Israeli public transportation networks built in the West Bank, the lines stop only in Jewish settlements and oftentimes cut through entire Palestinian towns. In order to board a bus in the West Bank, Palestinians, unlike Israelis, must present a virtually unattainable military order to enter the settlement in which a bus or train station is located. While Israelis can rely on guaranteed busing service to reach Jerusalem, Palestinians are forced to take unpaved backroads that usually feature a checkpoint or two.

These are the shameful standards being challenged by the Palestinian Freedom Riders in the coming days.

Pan-Palestinianism and the crime of forgetting the West Bank and ’48

Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, most of us have fallen into a trap — myself included. We are proud of our people, our towns and villages and neighborhoods, but we too often trace our roots just to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or ’48 rather than to greater Palestine. And if this doesn’t change, we unconsciously benefit the racist colonialist ideology that seeks to erase our identity, our culture, and our history.

We must learn to appreciate the sheer magnitude of the word ‘Palestine’, particularly in terms of it’s physical presence and political weight. Israel’s invasion of Gaza in 2008-2009 meant that the term ‘Gaza Strip’ dominated headlines for days. But days became weeks and weeks became months and it was almost as if the West Bank and the global diaspora no longer mattered. In all fairness, the Gaza Strip had experienced the unimaginable, and the attention directed towards the thousands of families living within the besieged territory provided many of us with great comfort. But this should not make it acceptable to forget the West Bank and ’48 or to leave millions of other oppressed Palestinians out of the picture. [Read more...]

Is Oakland the new Al-Khalil?

Violating the civil and human rights of people in one country is just as bad as violating the civil and human rights of people in another country.

The first video is from Oakland, California, where police officers equipped with riot gear fired tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and percussion grenades at unarmed and nonviolent Occupy Oakland protesters. The second video is from Al-Khalil in Palestine’s West Bank where the Israeli military equipped with riot gear fired tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and percussion grenades at unarmed and nonviolent Palestinian protesters.

.

On Gilad Shalit’s fifteen minutes of fame and the hummus he ate

I wonder how long it will take for Gilad Shalit, his family, and his supporters, to realize that his fifteen minutes of fame are almost up. Here is a soldier, a military combatant, a conscientious member of an army implementing the illegal occupation of a people and its land. Shalit is nothing special — the Israeli military currently employs tens of thousands of his prototypes. The only thing that stands out from the ordinary is that Shalit happened to be captured while on active military duty.

Shalit’s capture must have been very embarrassing for Israel. How did one of the world’s most advanced armies fail to outmaneuver a simple scheme? As expected, the Israeli government’s collective ego kicked in and so began another round of PR blitzes to convince the world that Shalit had in fact been the target of an armed human burglary. For the first few weeks, Israel demanded the safe return of its soldier, painting him as a defenseless cub kidnapped by ruthless invaders for no legitimate reason. But soon after, the memory of Shalit disappeared almost as fast as he did. Except by his family and close friends, he was no longer considered a hot topic.

This, however, makes complete sense. Immediately following his capture, the Israeli government put together a collection of talking points to address the public on just how criminal the Palestinians are. Government officials called Shalit a victim of racist thuggery. Propagandists depicted him as a peaceful young man who had nothing to do with Palestinians. Ambassadors urged college students to search for Shalit in their hearts. Flag-wavers argued that his disappearance was evidence of Palestine’s occupation of Israel. Political pundits identified this as an illegal and illegitimate tactic never seen before. [Read more...]

Infographic of land-theft in Palestine published by GOOD

Infographics are popular these days, and I was surprised to see one about the occupation of Palestine featured in the Politics section of the GOOD official website. The graphic, titled “Cartographic Regression“, highlights Palestinian land-loss from 1917 until today.

My opinions on the graphic are mostly but not entirely favorable. I do appreciate GOOD’s attempt to visually show how Palestinians have been forced to deal with illegal land-theft and colonization for almost an entire century, but certain omissions, such as the de facto annexation of Palestinian land through the Apartheid Wall’s encroachment into the West Bank, leave me disappointed.

Nevertheless, if there is one thing to praise about this piece, it is the detail of the West Bank territory in the map of present-day Palestine. We are oftentimes made to believe that Palestinians maintain complete control over their respective territories, but in the West Bank, where illegal Israeli settlements continue to grow and military forces are deployed to systematically restrict freedom of movement for the indigenous Palestinian people, the area is broken into dozens of small zones that don’t necessarily feature full Palestinian autonomy. Entire roads crossing the West Bank, for example, are for “Israelis only”. This is one detail the graphic designer got right.

Unforgotten keys: A walk through the West Bank

Photos and words by Wedad Yassin

Abd, 64, has been a loyal worker in the Hirbawi family’s keffiyeh factory in Al-Khalil (Hebron) since it opened in 1961. This is the only authentic Palestinian keffiyeh factory in the world.

A Palestinian family’s home enclosed by Israel’s apartheid wall. [Read more...]

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 2,590 other followers