Israel found Mohammed El Halabi guilty of diverting $50 million from World Vision charity, ignoring compelling facts: the total budget for 10 years was under $23 million; El Halabi’s alleged ‘confession’ was directed by Israeli authorities; independent audits showed Israeli charges were unfounded; and both the Australian government (a major donor to World Vision) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) conducted special reviews and found no wrongdoing.
In violation of international law, Israel kept Mohammed El Halabi in prison for weeks before he was allowed access to an attorney, and before informing his family of his whereabouts. He reported that his Israeli interrogators beat him – the UN says his treatment “may amount to torture.”
Israel’s reliance on highly questionable “secret evidence” to convict El Halabi (and thousands of other Palestinians) indicates a deeply flawed judicial system.
The Gastapo worked within and outside the laws too
Seven NGOs denounce raids as message of impunity against Palestinians and foreign governments, after army seizes equipment and welds office doors shut.
The Israeli army raided this morning the Ramallah offices of seven prominent Palestinian NGOs that have been designated as “terror organizations” by the Defense Ministry. In a concerted operation, soldiers simultaneously broke into the groups’ headquarters across the occupied West Bank city just before dawn, seized files and equipment from some of them, and welded the doors shut. At the entrance to each office, the army left copies of military orders declaring that the organizations were illegal.
three days of intense conflict have extracted a very heavy civilian toll in Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry reports at least 44 dead and over 350 civilians wounded. Reportedly among the dead were 15 Palestinian children, including five boys killed by a missile strike as they visited their grandfather’s grave.
Young girl among the dead as Israel launches wave of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip | The New Daily
A narrow strip of land where 2.3 million people live on a patch of 365 square kilometres, Gaza has been a constant point of conflict ever since Hamas took control.
The area has since been under blockade, with Israel and Egypt tightly restricting movement of people and goods in and out.
“We have not yet been able to reconstruct what Israel had destroyed a year ago. People didn’t have the chance to breathe, and here Israel is attacking again without any reason,” said Mansour Mohammad-Ahmed, 43, a farmer from central Gaza.
We saw what happened when Kashoggi was killed by the Saudis why is Israel the exception. When Putin ordered the assassination of those he regarded as enemies we heard the outcry and saw the all-out effort to show his guilt. In the case of Israel, the effort seems reversed.
The family of slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has asked to meet President Joe Biden during his upcoming visit to Jerusalem, accusing the White House of an “abject response” to the apparent killing of a U.S. citizen by Israeli forces.
“Dear Mr. President,” the family’s letter, sent to Biden on Friday morning, began, “We, the family of Shireen Abu Akleh, write to express our grief, outrage and sense of betrayal concerning your administration’s abject response to the extrajudicial killing of our sister and aunt by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022, while on assignment in the occupied Palestinian city of Jenin in the West Bank.”
Chomsky on Israeli apartheid Chomsky believes that calling Israeli policies towards the Palestinians “apartheid” is actually a “gift to Israel”; at least, if by apartheid one refers to South African-style apartheid.
The Al Jazeera news network, based in Qatar, has received from the Palestine Authority an image of the bullet that killed American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and has concluded that it was certainly fired from an Israeli M4 rifle. The green-tipped, 5.56mm caliber bullet is deadly when fired at a human being and would only be used with an intent to kill. It was recovered from her skull.
A dozen members of Congress have asked top officials in the Biden administration to address a new Israeli policy that severely restricts the ability of foreigners, including U.S. citizens, to travel to the occupied West Bank.
The assassination of Abu Akleh places an onerous responsibility on the shoulders of journalists armed with their pens and cameras to not flinch in the face of brutal suppression.
Her untimely death has allowed the world to witness a colonial settler regime that, to date, has escaped consequences for its gross violations and abuses of fundamental human rights.
Unless this changes, expect Israel’s illegal occupation and war crimes to continue unabated. The agency of change possessed by media activists must thus be utilised to the optimum.
Earlier today, Israeli forces killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in cold blood. Tragically, it’s nothing new for Israel, which has made a regular practice of killing reporters.
If the US were genuinely interested in some sort of political solution to the Israeli Apartheid practices regarding the Palestinians, nothing would be easier than to just step aside and let the world punish the Bennett government for these policies, which amount to war crimes. Washington wouldn’t even have to be proactive itself. Or Israeli officials could start being targeted for economic sanctions by the Treasury Department the way Russian high officials are being fingered. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made $200 million with software and would feel the pain if he were sanctioned. But official Washington is so in the tank for Israeli Apartheid that making such a suggestion sounds outlandish.
In contrast, Washington is attempting to reshape the entire world so as to get Putin back out of Ukraine, and we see exactly what it looks like when an illegal Occupation is genuinely unacceptable to the White House.
Ramadan is the most important holiday in the Islamic calendar. But for Palestinian Muslims, Ramadan is characterized by constant harassment, attacks, and brutal violence by Israel.
Israel not only refused to sell its Iron Dome missile defense system to Ukraine, but also blocked the U.S. from sending Iron Dome batteries owned by the U.S. Army to Kyiv.
But in the Gallup polling and the UN criteria we can see the psychological effect of that Apartheid on peoples’ well-being. The Occupier is happy as a clam. The Occupied are miserable, and if it were not for pulling together and providing social support for one another, they would be more miserable still.
When Influencers are politically and economically influenced like Vogue they set their standards extremely low. The Murdoch business model is proof.
The Arab News reports that Vogue did an instagram posting about model Gigi Hadid’s pledge to donate her fall earnings to Ukraine and Palestine, but erased the Palestine part. The erasure attracted widespread condemnation from progressives, and Vogue has now amended its Instagram posting to restore the model’s pledge to help Palestinians, as well. Vogue’s erasure of Palestinians from its Instagram notice has been seen as part of a pattern in which Palestine as a subject has been made taboo by pro-Israeli right wing nationalists, who deny Palestinian rights to peoplehood and statehood just as Vladimir Putin denies Ukrainians rights to peoplehood and statehood. The Israeli Right insists that all Palestinian territory actually belongs to Israel and that Palestinians can never be allowed to have their own state.
You won’t hear any of this in Australia’s MSM or hear the L-NP even raise it for discussion. Israel has spied and probably still does on Australia. It has kidnapped not extradited people from Australia. Mossad has used false Australian documentation to cover assassinations in other countries yet our government supports them blindly. Their ex-PM Netanyahu and his wife were caught and are facing bribery charges and Morrison’s response is ” No Nations are perfect”. His claim is “equivalence” like Trump at Charlottsville when the extreme-right murdered a woman ” It’s Ok because everybody does it”. The truth is he doesn’t! He’s soley accuses China but not Israel? Morrison is purely politically focused on himself. It’s patently clear he needs an enemy as a distraction for the up and coming election so why not ISRAEL??
This memorandum provides an overview of several of Human Rights Watch’s central concerns with respect to the Israeli government’s human rights practices in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of its review of Israel in March 2022. This submission, which draws on years of research and documentation by Human Rights Watch, covers freedom of movement, the right to due process and humane treatment, freedom of peaceful assembly, association and expression, residency rights, and right to equality before law. We hope it will inform the Human Rights Committee’s assessment of the Israeli government’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
A new Amnesty International report terms Israel an apartheid state. Israel’s defenders have replied by smearing the authors — but there’s no denying that this is a state built on the systematic brutalization of Palestinians.
The establishment and foundations laid for the creation of Israel’s Fake News
Last week, 80-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Asad was kidnapped, tied up, and apparently tortured by Israeli army thugs in the West Bank. He was found dead soon after. It’s the kind of brutality habitually imposed upon Palestinians by the illegitimate Zionist regime to maintain a “pure” Jewish state in historical Palestine. But because Assad held a US passport, his case generated ever so slightly more attention over there than usual. The US State Department and several US lawmakers called for Israel to “investigate” itself over the apparent killing. This is worse than pointless.
Israel increased illegal settlements and failed to deliver promised occupied territory. The predictable result was violent resistance from the Palestinian street and greater popular support for Hamas.
If being Anti-Israel means being Anti-Semitic then the Jewish Diaspora is fast becoming Anti-Semitic.
The Israeli squatters attacked Ibrahim Ahmad Abu al-Izz near the squatter-settlement of Yitzhar, which was built on Palestinian-owned land south of Nablus, hitting him in the chest with a rock so that he had to be transported to the hospital in Nablus.
If the US does not care about settlement expansion, why would it be concerned about how the two-state paradigm is applied, considering that it is no longer viable and Israel is well on its path to de-facto annexation in any case? If the US and Israel are on the same page when it comes to preserving the Palestinian Authority and its compromised politics (and “sacred” security coordination with the occupation state), there is little difference in terms of the ultimate aim that Israel is aiming for, which is complete control over all Palestinian territory. The US certainly doesn’t seek an alternative reality, not when it is so heavily invested in Israel. It is only that Biden has publicly aligned himself with international consensus, while Israel has been publicly rejecting any political negotiation for a solution, which gives Gantz any reason to claim political divergence with Washington.
Settler violence escalates when the world is distracted. The Israeli Panzer Division is its illegal settler invaders who rapidly advance, and illegally push forward to occupy Palestinian land killing, and terrorizing the rightful owners off their property which then Israel claims as their own.
This week, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also addressed the issue of killed children: “On 5 November, a 15-year-old Palestinian boy was shot with live ammunition in the abdomen, and killed, by Israeli forces stationed about 50 meters away, during demonstrations in Deir Al-Hatab near the illegal Israeli settlement Elon Moreh. This year, Israeli forces have killed 16 children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These and all other killings, as well as all incidents of excessive and unwarranted use of lethal force by Israeli forces, must be thoroughly and effectively investigated, and those responsible held to account.” Bachelet further noted that Israeli squatters were responsible for 480 deaths, injuries, or significant property damage this year in attacks on Palestinians, “the highest incidence of settler violence ever recorded by the United Nations.” Not a day goes by, she observed, but that squatters attack Palestinians. She worries about the spiraling increase in violence, with “four Palestinians killed and 167 injured by settlers, including seven with live ammunition.”
the vast majority of them went to Palestine involuntarily, to escape persecution. Contrary to what they think, this fact does not excuse their expropriation of the indigenous population, but consciousness of it has to be part of any final settlement.
A neverending creeping disease not seen on the front pages of the Western media.
Israel has announced plans to build more residences for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, drawing immediate condemnation from Palestinians, peace activists and neighboring Jordan.
On Friday, some thirty militant Israeli squatters on Palestinian land in the West Bank attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives from their orchards at Salfit. At the same time the Israeli occupation army blocked other farmers from reaching their olive orchards near the large squatter settlement of Ariel, built on land stolen from Palestinian families. So reports al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the Associated Press. Fall is harvest time for Palestinian olive growers. Murad Ishtiwi, a Palestinian activist against the Israeli government project of settling squatters on other people’s private property, told al-Quds that the Occupation forces attempted to stop the farmers from the hamlet of Yasuf near Salfit when they sought to reach their land near to an Israeli squatter outpost. They were shocked that a large band of squatters from Rahalim, allegedly abetted by the Israeli army, attacked and beat the farmers, injuring four of them. The Israelis then made off with the olive harvest.
The “Jewish Diaspora” is fast becoming a shrinking myth because Israel really isn’t representative of Jews living outside the State. Jews around the world are turning their backs on a State that no longer reflects the fundamental beliefs they were brought up with. Israel shames them and it’s reflected in the propaganda put out by the Mainstream Media.
After masked settlers attacked a Palestinian community as soldiers looked on last month, the response in Israel has been to attack and silence the messenger.
What goes unreported in the West’s Media. Just another Israeli training exercise.
Using live bait to train greyhounds is illegal here. The IDF however trains and bloods it’s recruits using live Palestinians and their children and do it at night in the cover of darkness. If an Israeli was killed which is a very rare occurrence indeed the media noise would thunder around the globe.
A Palestinian child was killed by Israeli forces as he stood on the roof of his home on Tuesday. The noise of gunshots awoke Imad Khaled Hashash, 15, and his brother at 3 am as Israeli forces raided Balata refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. Israel conducts such night raids into West Bank towns and cities on a daily basis, arresting Palestinians. The brothers went up to the roof of their house to see what was happening, according to a field investigation by Defense for Children International Palestine. As Imad was reaching for his phone to take a picture or a video, Israeli forces shot him in the head with live ammunition. Imad’s brothers couldn’t evacuate him at first because Israeli troops were firing tear gas. A neighbor’s taxi took Imad to Rafidia hospital in Nablus, where he was pronounced dead. Israeli soldiers enjoy near-total impunity for their killing of Palestinian children in their homes “without fear of any consequences,” Ayed Abu Eqtaish, DCIP’s accountability program director, said.
The Israeli army lied about a weapon it claimed a Palestinian woman tried to use before soldiers shot her on Tuesday. A picture posted on Twitter by the army spokesperson shows a hand holding a chef’s knife with a brown handle. But the photo is more than three years old.
some 100 Israeli troops who served in the Palestinian West Bank have called on Defense Minister Benny Gantz and on Minister of Public Security Omer Bar-Lev to intervene to halt the violence of Israeli squatter-settlers toward indigenous Palestinians, which they say they saw with their own eyes. The call came in a letter that was sent on Wednesday by troops who had recently completed their military service, according to Israeli Army Radio. The troops said in their letter, “We, the undersigned, call upon you, male and female soldiers who served in the West Bank, to act now firmly against the phenomenon of settler violence.” They underlined that “Settler violence has been raging for years with tacit support” from the Israeli state.
Huge numbers of people all over the globe have been protesting in solidarity with Palestinians this month as Israel intensified its killing campaign in the Gaza Strip, and a massive uprising swept cities and villages all over historic Palestine. Demonstrations swept Arab capitals, from Rabat to Amman, Beirut to Baghdad, Sanaa to Tunis.
Mr Netanyahu said the Israeli military had attacked and destroyed Hamas’s extensive tunnel network in Gaza, its rocket factories, weapons laboratories and storage facilities and killed more than 200 militants, including 25 senior operatives.
Israel’s violent founding in 1948 forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee for the cramped coastal strip of Gaza. The expulsion created the “world’s largest refugee camp” — and Israel is now bombing it mercilessly.
Across the world, there has been deep shock over the actions of the Israeli Government’s military aggression towards the Occupied Territories of Palestine, in particular the Gaza Strip. But these actions are part of a deliberate and systematic ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people writes Dr Rashad Seedeen.
In the deadliest single day of the Israeli air campaign on Palestinian Gaza, 42 were killed on Sunday, according to the BBC, including 16 women and 10 children. The BBC reports from the Gaza ministry of health that “The overall death toll in Gaza now stands at 197 people, including 58 children and 34 women, with 1,235 injured.”
The Associated Press is flatly denying the Israeli military’s cover story for why it bombarded the al-Jala tower in Gaza, which housed media offices of AP and al-Jazeera, and where dozens of journalists were based. Israel maintains that there was a Hamas intelligence unit in the building that was targeting Israel. This Israeli allegation is, of course, ridiculous. Hamas’s attacks on Israel are via little rockets with no guidance systems. A third of the Hamas rockets are so feeble that they actually land inside Gaza and have hurt Palestinians. The rockets fly blind and most land uselessly in the desert. So what would an “intelligence office” in an office building be doing that posed a danger to Israel? If they were on a computer on the internet, they could be anywhere– they didn’t have to be in the al-Jala.
Israel’s staccato bombardment campaigns against Gaza (2008-9, 2014, 2021) are not a war. Israel has an army, Gaza does not. Israel has a sophisticated Air Force with 581 aircraft, including fighter jets and helicopter gunships. The Palestinians in Gaza don’t have a conventional army or navy or air force, don’t have tanks or aircraft or artillery. Most of their rockets are high school science experiments (they have a handful of longer range rockets). The Izzuddin Qassam Brigades have a few tens of thousands of poorly armed and trained volunteer militiamen. If they tried to mount a conventional assault on Israel they would all be killed in an afternoon. The Asian Spa killer in Atlanta killed more people than Hamas has since the beginning of the current hostilities. The two cannot have a war because the Palestinians cannot mount a war. So if it isn’t a military conflict, what is it? It is a performance of Israeli dominance and Palestinian defiance.
An Israeli airstrike that obliterated a 12-story Gaza City building that housed offices for The Associated Press, Al Jazeera and other media outlets sparked an outcry from international press advocates on Saturday, with AP leadership calling it an “incredibly disturbing” development in the conflict. “We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” AP President and CEO Gary Pruitt said in a statement. Mostefa Souag, acting director general of Al Jazeera Media Network, slammed the attack as a “war crime.” “We call on the international community to condemn such barbaric actions and targeting of journalists and we demand an immediate international action to hold Israel accountable for its deliberate targeting of journalists and the media institutions,” Souag said in a statement. He went on to accuse Israel of attempting to “hide the untold carnage and suffering of the people of Gaza.”
The 12-storey building housed the offices of The Associated Press and Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera An Israeli military spokesman said the building housed “Hamas military intelligence” The building’s occupants were warned of the strike about an hour before it was targeted
We’re often told that creating a single secular democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians would violate Israel’s “right to exist.” But no nation-state has an inviolable right to exist — especially not an ethnostate based on exclusion and ethnic cleansing.
In East Jerusalem, Israeli settlers have been trying to seize control of Palestinian homes in Sheikh Jarrah, a historic part of the city. They have resorted to the Israeli Supreme Court, which usually supports the government and settler line in matters relating to the occupied Palestinian territories. The court’s judgement was expected this week, but was deferred. Palestinians have also been complaining about draconian restrictions imposed on worshippers during Ramadan at the Haram al-Sharif, the area including the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock (which is known to Jews as the Temple Mount).
The escalation began in Jerusalem during the month of Ramadan, in a series of provocations carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities. The first in this series was the decision to prevent Palestinians from gathering at Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate) in Jerusalem in late April. This sparked a series of protests which eventually forced Israel to rescind the order. Another – ongoing – provocation, which drew some international attention, is the expulsion orders pending against Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah that Israeli courts have granted to Israeli settlers. A third Israeli provocation was the storming of al-Aqsa mosque during prayers on the morning of Friday, 7 May. Israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets onto worshippers, resulting in over 200 injuries. In a fourth provocation, settlers announced that on 10 May they would march through Jerusalem to celebrate what they term Jerusalem Day. The intention was to march near al-Aqsa mosque. This march escalated into a fifth provocation on the morning of 10 May as, for the second time in a week, Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa, attacking worshippers praying inside and ransacking the
“It’s remarkable that a term like Nakba, that discussion of issues like settler colonialism and what Zionism really means are finally entering global, and especially American Western, public discourse.”
olddogthoughts 
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