Dan Yakir, chief legal counsel for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel: “It is insupportable that, in a democratic country, authorities can arrest people in complete secrecy and disappear them from public view without the public even knowing such an arrest took place.”
Israel
No, he is not a villain, the Israeli patriot – he is merely brainwashed and blind. He would like to live in a democracy … But it’s a democracy without most of its mechanisms. He is satisfied with elections and majority rule: The majority will make the decisions, and to hell with the minority.
Those who demand that I prepare students for [military] recruitment should know that my duty is also to tell them that they would enter a territory which was occupied 43 years ago, in which human rights are being shamefully violated on a daily basis by means of our military superiority. In [the] future, these children will have to account for themselves, and they will ask if their school has revealed to them the terrible secret called occupation. Yes, occupation. An occupation, not a liberation, not a return to an ancestral land.
Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin: “The Shin Bet is required to thwart subversive activity by elements who wish to harm the nature of the State of Israel as a democratic Jewish State — even if they act by means of democratically provided tools — by virtue of the principle of ‘defensive democracy.’”
At this time it is hard to convince the Jewish public in Israel that what happens at Ben-Gurion International Airport is a systematic injustice, if not worse. The ethnocentric panic undermines the principle of civil equality.
IOA Editor: Racial profiling is a well-established practice in Israel. Its contribution to “national security” is, at best, questionable. What isn’t is its purpose: it is a thoroughly planned and calculated method intended to harass Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, to ‘put them in their proper place.’
Yousef Jabareen: “There has been an atmosphere of incitement against the Arab community in general and especially against its leaders since [Netanyahu’s] right-wing government was formed a year ago, [b]ut in the past few days the incitement has peaked.”
The Inter-Parliamentary Union is set to discuss recommendation to strip Balad MK Hanin Zuabi of privileges over Gaza flotilla participation.
A number of local supermarket chains are taking a political stand: They have decided to boycott products manufactured in Turkey.
IOA Editor: Israel can boycott the world, but won’t tolerate the world boycotting it.
Will Palestinian soon pay price for boycott? A new bill submitted by 25 Knesset members Wednesday would see money slated for transfer to the Palestinian Authority used to compensate Israelis hurt by the PA’s settlement boycott… According to the bill, Israeli citizens must not initiate, encourage, or aid a boycott against the State of Israel. Anyone who violates the order will be forced to pay compensation to those undermined by the embargo.
Israelis are engaged in a Kafkaesque conversation in which the military attack on the civilian ships is characterised as a legitimate “act of self-defence”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, and the killing of nine aid activists is transformed into an attempted “lynching of our soldiers” by terrorists.
Jonathan Cook: In addition to the removal of Ms Zoubi’s [Knesset] privileges, she is also facing the revocation of her citizenship. The measure has been used only twice before in Israel’s history — both times against Palestinian citizens accused of terrorism.
[Haneen Zoabi] stated that the Knesset committee has taken decisions in retaliation against her, and virtually every Knesset Member is calling for more extreme measures, including calls for her dismissal from the Knesset, to revoke her citizenship, to expel her from the country, and imprisonment. Thus, these MKs consider the committee’s decisions to be just a first step of more punitive measures to come. “Our response will be to defy them. We will continue on our path of upholding human values and human rights, calling for equality, justice and the end of occupation and racism despite all their incitement and threats.”
Knesset members toasting for the Israeli navy commandos (“Shayetet 13″) and for their parliamentary success, after a committee voted in favor of recommending the removal of MK Zoabi’s Knesset privileges in response to her participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
IOA Editor: If the scene depicted in video strikes you as a cruel anti-Semitic joke, rest assured you’re not the only one. Except that it is neither a joke nor is it funny. And, yes, it’s plenty anti-Semitic – in that it is entirely, pointedly, and directly anti-Arab.
Decision to strip Balad MK Hanin Zuabi of privileges over Gaza flotilla participation passed by a majority of seven to one. Zuabi: We are victims of a witch hunt.
“In recent days,” Yishai wrote, “Israel’s citizens have witnessed how an Israeli member of parliament, Hanin Zuabi, headed a group of terrorists who aimed to hurt Israel Defense Forces soldiers, under the protection of her parliamentary immunity.”
Once again, following the last Israeli massacre of civilians in Gaza in 2008-2009, Israel has exposed its true face for the world to see: a brutal military regime of occupation and repression, driven by state power and fortified by a popular war mood. Since 1948, the Palestinians have suffered the brunt of Israel’s dispossessing violence. And now the citizens of the world are suffering as well, from Britain to Turkey and to Kuwait; from members of parliament to ordinary citizens, men and women of all ages, national origins and religious backgrounds. The conscience of the world continues to stir for Gaza, and Israel has hysterically and brutally crushed it: an evil deed for a good deed.
Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, MK Haneen Zoabi, was viciously attacked and physically threatened by her Israeli Knesset “colleagues” who attempted to shut her out. Quite a remarkable display of Israel’s democracy-for-Jews, and only for Jews. This extreme level of abuse is unprecedented, exposing Israel’s true face as it concerns Palestinian Arab citizens, including Knesset members. Among the name-calling, “traitor,” “terrorist,” and “Trojan Horse” (video and text).
“There are even journalists in Israel for whom it is possible to expect the subject of the Palestinians to be as important as sports, celebrities or film, and who are involved with this. And each time I see how Israeli society finds it difficult to accept this.”
Hebrew University of Jerusalem will remove Judge Goldstone from its Board of Governors, for the “technical” reason that he has not attended Board meetings… Substantial political pressure has been exerted by American and European donors on Hebrew University President Professor Menachem Ben Sasson and the university administration to remove Judge Goldstone following the report issued by the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, which Goldstone led.
The number of Palestinians under questioning by the Shin Bet security service who are not permitted to meet with an attorney is a state secret, the State Prosecutor’s Office told the High Court of Justice last week.
Mr Makhoul’s arrest had angered many in Israel’s Palestinian minority, nearly a fifth of the population, who suspect he is being persecuted for his leading role in promoting internationally the boycott movement against Israel and his prominent opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza nearly 18 months ago.
In indictment against Ameer Makhoul, state prosecutors claim prominent political campaigner was recruited in Denmark to spy for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah… Makhoul has denied all charges against him.
Today is the 21st day since the arrest of Ameer Makhoul at his home in Haifa, Israel, under the cover of darkness, by officers of the International Crimes Investigation Unit and General Security Service (GSS or Shabak). The arrest was conducted in a brutal and terrifying manner.
Makhoul’s brother, former MK Issam Makhoul… accused the Shin Bet of employing illegitimate means to “trump up” charges against his brother. The Shin Bet has denied allegations that it used torture to extract information from the suspects. “We will demand that an outside body headed by a judge investigate this matter,” Issam Makhoul said. “We will not hesitate to appeal to an international agency. There’s no doubt that we are about to see a trumped-up case manufactured by the Shin Bet, which operated in dark corners and backrooms to put this together. The results of their investigation should be viewed with doubt.”
The bill, which was proposed a few weeks ago, struck resonance with a ministerial committee that on Sunday approved the bill, following the arrest this month of Israeli Arab Ameer Makhoul on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah.
Sixty-five percent of Arab citizens believe in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared to 90 percent seven years ago. Forty percent said they don’t believe in Israel’s judicial system, and a similar number said they support boycotting Knesset elections (compared to one in three in 2003).
The state land authority has been allowed to hire or purchase land only for Jews. Non-Jews are not allowed… land that was ours in the past and confiscated. In the early 1950s, we [Palestinian Arab citizens] owned 80% of the private land. Now we own 3% of the private land.
Mordechai Vanunu: “Shame on you Israel… The stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies are putting me back in prison after 24 years of speaking nothing but the truth. Shame on you democracy, the Knesset, synagogues and the world media. Shame on you all the Arabs that are allowing me to be put back in prison. Shame on you Senate, congress, and the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency for not protecting my freedom. Shame on you all the world’s religions, the stupid spies, the Jews, Christians and Muslims… Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons, but no one is talking about it… The world doesn’t want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world.”
IOA Editor: In the original Hebrew version of this news story, Haaretz conforms to common Israeli practice by referring to Vanunu as the “nuclear spy” – knowing fully well that whatever he did involved no espionage whatsoever.
Yesterday the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court extended Makhoul’s remand for another five days. It also extended the remand of the other suspect in the case, Dr. Omar Saeed, until Sunday, and extended a gag order on reporting most of the case’s details until Monday.
Gideon Levy on Israeli-style democracy, one that is run by a military elite: “After we sent Prof. Noam Chomsky away, and there was no sharp rebuke by Israeli academics (who in their silence support a boycott of Bir Zeit University), we will be left with a narrow and frightening intellectual world.”
“Israel,” Chomsky was informed, “doesn’t like what you say.” Is this a reasonable pretext for a democratic state to detain someone for questioning or hold him up at the border? And who is this “Israel” that doesn’t like what Chomsky says? The general public? The Interior Ministry? The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories? The government?
Mohammed Zeidan, head of the Human Rights Association in Nazareth: “We are used to our political leaders being persecuted but now the Shin Bet is turning its sights on the leaders of Palestinian civil society in Israel, and that’s a dangerous development.”
The president of the Interdisciplinary Center, Uriel Reichman, described the human rights watchdog B’Tselem as a “fifth column” and said that inviting its representatives to speak at the college was “disgraceful,” students who spoke to the president told Haaretz. Reichman denies ever making the statements.
On the 12th of May 2010, an Israeli Magistrates Court extended the political detentions of Palestinian civil society activists Dr. Omar Said and Ameer Makhoul by 4 and 5 days, respectively. The extensions were issued in closed door hearings in which Said and Makhoul were not permitted to meet their legal representatives. (Video)
The Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday ruled that two Israeli Arab men arrested last week over allegations of spying and ties to Hezbollah will remain jailed until early next week… and ruled that Makhoul will not be able to see a lawyer until next Friday at the earliest. Dozens of activists gathered earlier Wednesday outside the Petah Tikva court to protest the arrest of the two Israeli Arabs over allegations of spying and ties to Hezbollah.
