Fully 80 percent of Israeli Jews believe that God exists – the highest figure found since this review of Israeli-Jewish beliefs began two decades ago… 70 percent of respondents believe the Jews are the “Chosen People,” 65 percent believe the Torah and mitzvot (religious commandments ) are God-given, and 56 percent believe in life after death.
IOA Editor: From “Chosen People” to the “Promised Land,” Zionism, and the occupation: it’s a hop, skip, and a jump. Indeed, the belief in the ‘promised land’ is a prerequisite for Zionism — yes, even secular Zionism. The ‘chosen people’ concept goes hand in hand with the ‘promised land.’
Despite the focus on my new book and writing, this was not about me; it is all about targeting a Palestinian citizen who is determined to use the legal means available to her in order to fight for her people – whether they are Israeli citizens, inside the Occupied Territories, or expelled refugees.
The new infiltration law is the latest in a set of policies fortifying Israel’s status as the world’s first “bunker state”- and one designed to be as ethnically pure as possible. The concept was expressed most famously by an earlier prime minister, Ehud Barak, now the defense minister, who called Israel “a villa in the jungle,” relegating the country’s neighbours to the status of wild animals.
Racists sitting in the stands at soccer games who yell “Death to Arabs” have never ripped a mother away from her children. But Justice Asher Dan Grunis and his friends have rendered such expulsions kosher, and the representatives of Israel’s Arab citizens will now have to bring the issue to the international community.
Last summer, Israelis rose up in a mass movement inspired by the regional protests of the Arab Spring. Starting on Rothschild Boulevard, one of tel Aviv’s wealthiest neighborhoods, tent cities sprung up throughout the country, and Israelis poured to the streets to demonstrate. But in September, as quickly as the tent cities popped up, they disappeared. The protests stopped, and in a sweeping move, the government demolished dozens of tent cities throughout the country.
Taysar Hatib: “The decision is proof that one shouldn’t have any faith in the Israeli judicial system. It is clear that the Supreme Court is influenced by the wave of fascism and racism sweeping Israel and the judges weren’t expected to act in any other way.”
Israeli protests in 2011 looked at first as if they constituted another link in the chain of militant uprisings sweeping the world in 2011. It seemed that the rage and indignation were directed against the disastrous doings of capitalist neo-liberalism which resulted in a vast enrichment of a very small elite, along with a drastic deterioration in living conditions and increased poverty. However, the nature of Israel as a settler-colonial state in which neo-liberalism and privatization were supported by Labor and the General Federation of the Workers determined the decisively different character and development of last summer’s protest.
Likud MK and coalition chairman Ze’ev Elkin contacted right-wing activists over Israeli army movements in the West Bank, investigation documents reveal. Five right-wing extremists were charged by Jerusalem’s District Prosecutor’s Office with tracking Israel Defense Forces operations in the West Bank in an attempt to disrupt attempts to evacuate illegal outposts.
IOA Editor: This unremarkable occupation story is important because it shows how the most extreme elements of Israeli settlers are closely connected to, and directly supported by, the very core of the Israeli political system and government.
On New Year’s Eve, thousands of Ultra Orthodox men came out in protest of what they called religious prosecution. In recent weeks, tensions in Israel between religious and secular Jews escalated after Israel’s main TV news, Channel 2, filed a report showing Ultra Orthodox men in the city of Beit Shemesh attacking an 8-year old Orthodox girl for not dressing modestly enough. The report sparked nation-wide outrage and brought thousands to Beit Shemesh in protest.
TRNN Senior Editor, Paul Jay, interviews Lia Tarachansky, The Real News’ correspondent in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. They are then joined by a panel, discussing current affairs in the region, the media, and TRNN’s coverage. Joining the panel are Shir Hever, Robert Naiman, Samah Sabawi, Ronnie Barkan, and Peter Larson.
Yitzhak Laor: “This bill truly intends to create a democracy for Jews only. If it were passed, no Arab – whether resident of the territories or Israeli citizen – would have access to the law.”
Likud MK Ofir Akunis, who sponsored the bill to limit foreign funding to Israeli human rights organization, stood behind Senator Joseph’s McCarthy’s actions in the 1950s… Akunis said McCarthy – who in the 1950s presided over a committee that investigated Americans suspected of harboring Communist views – “was right in every word, the fact is – there were Soviet agents.”
IOA Editor: Two of a kind…
Like Occupy Wall St. has done for the United States, Israel’s summer protests showed that there is mass discontent inside Israel in many sectors. If a majority of Israelis no longer benefit from Zionism, then Palestinian struggle may have some new and very powerful potential allies.
The decision to close down the station is part of a general attack on left-wing organizations. The station provided a platform for left-wing groups that are now under attack by a new law that would curb their foreign funding. “Of course there is an attack here that is not only on us. If someone came to the conclusion that this isn’t legal, then after seven years there are different ways to go about it.”
One day not long from now we will wake up to a different kind of country, the country that’s now in the making. It won’t look like the country we know, which already has its share of flaws, distortions and ills. And when we become aware of this, it will be too late. At that point, the old Israel will be described in glowing terms, a model of democracy and justice, compared to the new version that is taking shape as we close our eyes to it, day after day, new law after law.
Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners Issa Qaraqe said the situation of Palestinian prisoners was worse than before the Oct. 18 prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas. The deal also included an end to solitary confinement and punitive measures, he said. Director of the parliamentary prisoners’ committee Khalida Jarar said Israel has detained 110 Palestinians since the deal was made.
Assailants spray paint Mamilla Cemetery headstones with the slogans ‘Death to Arabs’ and the name of a settlement outpost slated for demolition. This is only the last in a series of violent activities against Palestinians and Israeli anti-Occupation activists.
IOA Editor: Mamilla Cemetery, a historic Jerusalem and Muslim landmark, has now been relegated by a junior Haaretz journalist to a site “next to the [yet-to-be-built] Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance.” The cemetery, containing centuries of Palestinian history, has been desecrated for decades by Israeli governments intent on eradicating Palestinian history. The museum, representing a distorted view of Jewish history, and imported from the US, is intended to physically replace yet another bit of Palestinian history — in Jerusalem, the very heart of Israeli-Palestinian contention. The Mamilla Cemetery case is crucially important: it is a very real, yet also a very symbolic, representation of Israeli ethnic cleansing in action.
A report by two Israeli human rights organisations, the Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), claims that medical staff are also failing to report suspicion of torture and ill-treatment, returning detainees to their interrogators and passing medical information to interrogators.
Twenty olive trees belonging to an Arab family in Jerusalem were uprooted on Thursday, and a sign saying “Price tag” was posted at the scene. The family, who lives near the grove in Beit Safafa, alerted the police who have launched an investigation.
Over the past 15 months the dusty plains of the northern Negev desert in Israel have been witness to a ritual of destruction, part of a police operation known as Hot Wind. On 29 occasions since June 2010, hundreds of Israeli paramilitary officers have made the pilgrimage over a dirt track near the city of Beersheva to the zinc sheds and hemp tents of al-‘Araqib. Within hours of their arrival, the 45 ramshackle structures — home to some 300 Bedouin villagers — are pulled down and al-‘Araqib is wiped off the map once again. All that remains to mark the area’s inhabitation by generations of the al-Turi tribe are the stone graves in the cemetery.
