For the third consecutive day, around 2,473 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque and performed Talmudic rituals during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, Arab48.com reported on Friday.

On Thursday, 816 settlers bombarded the holy site through Al-Magharbeh Gate. They besieged the mosque under heavy protection by the Israeli police.

The largest number of settlers to forcibly enter the third holiest site for all Muslims on the planet, during the ongoing season of the Israeli Jewish holidays was 1,000, occurring last Wednesday.

Israeli occupation forces are imposing strict measures at the entrances of Al-Aqsa Mosque, preventing many Palestinians from entering the holy site, while also thoroughly inspecting those allowed to enter.

Hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip huddled together at the Israeli security fence to take part in the 79th consecutive Friday of weekly anti-occupation protests known as the Great March of Return, Anadolu Agency reports.

Protesters from across the Gaza Strip headed to the eastern areas of the coastal enclave raising anti-occupation banners and Palestinian flags.

Since the Gaza rallies began in March last year, nearly 270 protesters have been martyred — and thousands more wounded — by Israeli forces at the security fence areas with Gaza.

Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan stated on Friday that Israel could allow Jews to freely perform their prayers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque soon, Arab48.com reported.

Asked by Makor Rishon regarding this possibility, Erdan confirmed “I am sure this will happen soon, God willing.”

He added “the situation in Jerusalem is heading towards regaining sovereignty and control over the place. We will reach our goal [opening Al-Aqsa gates for Jews] when more Jews express their desire to visit the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa Mosque). Then there will be an increasing pressure, following an increasing demand. I hope this happens soon.”

Israeli settlers, today, raided the archaeological site of Solomon’s Pools, to the south of the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, under the protection of heavily armed Israeli forces.

Palestinian security sources said that Israeli forces sealed off the area as settlers stormed the pools, where they performed Jewish rituals.

Jewish settlers have recently intensified their raids of Solomon’s Pools, a famous cultural site visited by many tourists around the world, in what Palestinians fear is a prelude to a takeover.

More than 7,400 Palestinians have been injured by live ammunition during protests in Gaza. About half of those suffering from open fractures, in which the bone is broken near the wound. More than 1,000 of them have developed bone infections; these serious and complex wounds require months – if not years – of dressing, surgery, and physiotherapy. Infections prevent recovery and many of them are resistant to antibiotics. To prevent the spread of resistant bacteria, those with resistant infections have to be isolated in a single room for six weeks.

Israeli occupation forces yesterday arrested Sheikh Ismail Nawahda, a preacher at Al-Aqsa Mosque, at the Qalandia checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, Wafa news agency reported.

Another 22 Palestinians were also detained yesterday from across the occupied West Bank, the news agency added.

Sheikh Nawahda was taken in for investigation at one of the Israeli police stations in West Jerusalem.

Palestinian lawyer Khaldoun Nijm said he was accused by the Israeli occupation for inciting violence during the sermons he gives on Fridays.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says 49 Palestinians have been injured by Israeli forces during the weekly anti-occupation protests in the besieged coastal enclave.

Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman for the ministry, said in a Tweet that 22 children were among those wounded during the Friday’s protests in eastern Gaza.

He noted that 21 of the total number of injuries were caused by live ammunition used by Israeli troops.

Palestinians have been holding weekly rallies in Gaza since last year to protest the siege on the enclave and stress the right to return of the Palestinians who have been externally displaced by Israeli aggression since 1948.

At least 307 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces ever since the anti-occupation protest rallies began in the Gaza Strip on March 30, 2018. Over 18,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

Hundreds of Israeli Jewish settlers yesterday raided Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and thousands raided the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron’s Old City, Wafa news agency reported.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel and Jewish Rabbi Yehuda Glick led the Jewish settlers to Al-Aqsa Mosque and performed Talmudic rituals, marking the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur or Atonement Day.

In Hebron, Israeli occupation forces prevented the Palestinians from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque to allow the thousands of settlers who raided the Muslim holy site.

Israel’s Minister of the Interior says he is taking action to force Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, out of the country.

I intend to act quickly to deprive Omar Barghouti of residency status in Israel… This is a man who does everything to harm the country and therefore must not enjoy the right to be a resident of Israel.

Aryeh Deri said he had directed the Population and Immigration Authority to prepare a legal opinion aimed at Barghouti’s deportation.

The announcement comes after Deputy Attorney General Dina Zilber notified Deri’s office that it had the authority to revoke Barghouti’s residency. The legal basis: a 2018 amendment to the residency law, listing “breach of trust” as a crime which may justify stripping a residency status. Barghouti married a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and lives under the residency status in the city of Acre.

Palestinians said the social media giant was giving in to the Israeli government’s influence to suppress the Palestinian narrative and was adopting the occupiers' definition of what incitement is.

A veteran Israeli activist has accused doctors of enabling the torture of Palestinian prisoners.

Writing in +972 Magazine, Dr. Ruchama Marton, who founded Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR), declared how “troubled” she has been by the way that “Israeli doctors cooperate with and enable Israel’s torture industry”.

Addressing the current case of Samer Arbeed, a Palestinian detainee hospitalised after being tortured during interrogation, Marton dismissed the “absurd” denial issued by Shin Bet, who rejected the claim that their agents were somehow responsible for his condition.

Israel’s District Planning and Building Committee considered a plan on Sunday submitted by the Bedouin Settlement Authority in the Negev which aims to build camps as preparation for the displacement of 36,000 Arab citizens, Arab48.com has reported. The plan targets Palestinian-Arab residents within Israel who live in Bedouin villages “unrecognised” by the Israeli occupation government.

Such villages have often been in place for hundreds of years before the creation of the Israeli occupation state. Nevertheless, it is insisting on displacing their residents and replacing the villages with housing projects for Jewish Israeli settlers.

American pop star and actress Demi Lovato has been accused of ignorance on the Palestinian issue after she posted several photos from her sponsored trip to Israel with lengthy captions praising the country as “absolutely magical”.

Many have accused the 27-year-old singer of ignoring the apartheid system affecting Palestinians as she is pictured exploring landmarks such as the Western (Al-Buraq) Wall, and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

Her fans took to Twitter to highlight the racist Israeli policies enforced on Palestinians including the destruction of their homes, land grabs and being denied their rights to live, work and move freely. The backlash was so great, Lovato blocked the comment feature on Instagram.

Contest organizers decline to state penalty imposed after icelandic competitors Hatari brandished scarves with Palestinian flags during announcement of final results at close of annual event held this May in Tel Aviv

Last week, a Palestinian detainee arrested by Israeli occupation forces was admitted to a Jerusalem hospital suffering from severe injuries, including broken ribs and kidney failure.

Samir Arbeed, 44 and in good health when detained, had been tortured during his interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet agents. According to reports, the agents had been given permission by an Israeli “judicial body” to use “exceptional ways to investigate”.

The treatment meted out to Arbeed in custody has prompted strong condemnation from Palestinian and international human rights campaigners, with Amnesty International describing the “legally sanctioned torture” as “utterly outrageous”.

For the New Year of the Jews 5780 (2020) I feel marginalized, among many others who are working to end the illegal occupation of Palestine. The Jewish New Year festival literally means “head of the year” and initiates the ten days of penance that end in Yom Kippur, literally “day of atonement”. If you read the many greetings to the Jewish New Year, from politics and religion, then you can literally feel the Transfiguration of a religion that flourished despite the Holocaust in Germany – if, for example, Chancellor Merkel in her congratulation so flowery formulated as: “It is a unique and wonderful proof of trust and a great enrichment for our country, that Jewish life could blossom again after the collapse of civilization of the Shoah … At the same time, courageous people stand up for our values.

I did not survive Auschwitz to keep silent on new injustice

The Israeli government is deliberately targeting Palestinian journalists in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Ministry of Information, on the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian journalists, reported that the number of human rights violations, from the beginning of year 2019 to the end of August 2019, totaled 415; this included 82 journalists who were injured while covering the Great Return March, in Gaza.

The Ministry pointed out that Palestinian journalists became a central target of Israeli occupation forces during their coverage of the ongoing demonstration, which began on March 30, 2018, along the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.

On 76th Friday Great March of Return: Palestinian civilian killed and 86 civilians injured
PCHR 28 Sept — On 76th Friday of Great March of Return, a Palestinian civilian was killed and 86 civilians were injured as a result of the Israeli military’s continued use of excessive force against the peaceful protests along the Gaza Strip’s eastern border; 22 children, 4 female paramedics, 5 male paramedics and 2 persons with disabilities were among those injured this Friday, 27 September 2019. This week witnessed an escalation in the use of excessive force against the protesters as injury of 5 of them was deemed serious; one died after hours of his injury while 4, including a child and a female paramedic, are still in a very serious condition.

A new report by a United Nations expert gives Israel and its lobby carte blanche to smear the movement for Palestinian rights as anti-Semitic.

Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, issued the report ostensibly focused on anti-Semitism in late September.

It adopts a controversial definition of anti-Semitism which is being promoted by Israel and its lobby groups.

Human rights defenders have long warned that the so-called IHRA definition conflates criticism of Israel and its state ideology Zionism, on the one hand, with anti-Jewish bigotry, on the other.

In a surprising turn of events, Benjamin Netanyahu will be given yet another chance to hold onto his title as Prime Minister — a potential lifeline for the premiere who is facing an impending indictment on charges of corruption and bribery.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin announced on Wednesday evening that he would be giving Netanyahu the first shot at forming a governing coalition, over his opponent Benny Gantz.

For now, Netanyahu has up to six weeks to cobble together a 61-seat majority. If he fails, as he did in April, the chance to form a majority may be given to Gantz and his running mate Yair Lapid.

For nearly four years, Katharina von Schnurbein has been posing as a champion of Europe’s Jews.

If taken at face value, her speeches at numerous conferences suggest she is a conscientious civil servant motivated by a desire to halt persecution. A more detailed examination reveals she has been following an agenda set by Israel and its supporters.

The real objective of this agenda has been to muzzle the Palestine solidarity movement.

With sorrow and anger, Harbi Abu Al-Kbash, a resident of the west bank's Jordan Valley, could not access to water due to the closure by Israeli army forces with barbed wires and surveillance cameras, banning Palestinians from using them.

Abu Al-Kbash lives in Homsa community in the Jordan Valley, which is considered a hot point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The Jordan Valley, which covers approximately one third of the West Bank area, is considered highly strategic and fertile area.

Nearly 200 Jewish extremists stormed Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in the Islamic faith, on Sunday morning.
They were protected by Israeli police and led by the Israeli Minister of Agriculture, Uri Ariel, and extremist Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who lectured the intruders on the temple which Jewish extremists want to build at the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which advocates the rights of Palestinian inmates, says prisoner Samer al- Arbeed has been taken to hospital in a critical condition as a result of brutal torture at a detention center in the occupied territories.

Addameer said on Sunday that the 44-year-old father of three was arrested on September after a special unit of the Israeli forces raided the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

During the arrest, Samer was harshly beaten by Israeli forces using their guns. He was then taken to Mascobiyya interrogation center in Jerusalem al-Quds and an order was issued immediately, banning him from meeting his lawyer.

What use is a future without freedom? How can one create a good climate and prevent a climate catastrophe without rising against the suppression of freedom – without achieving freedom and freedom of expression for Palestine? Let us imagine: a Palestinian girl would have sat down in front of the German Reichstag or the Federal Chancellery – with a poster “School Strike for Freedom” in front of the chest. Would she have noticed a passerby? Hardly, since this topic is withheld from young people in the schools. In fact, the Nakba belongs in all public schools – as well as the Holocaust. Both are inextricably linked. The right to support the BDS movement (boycott, disinvestment, sanctions) must be an integral part of our society and must not be criminalized as anti-Semitic.

Benny Gantz, chief of the Israeli army during Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza, is borrowing apartheid South Africa’s talking points to boost his election campaign.

Gantz heads the allegedly center-left opposition coalition hoping to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections later this month.

In a campaign attack on Israel’s prime minister, Monday, Gantz declared that, unlike Netanyahu, he would have allowed US congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to visit Israel and the occupied territories.

Had they visited, Gantz claimed, they would have seen “with their own eyes” that “the best place to be an Arab in the Middle East is in Israel … and the second best place to be an Arab in the Middle East is the West Bank.”

Gantz’s contention that Israeli military occupation and colonization is a blessing to Palestinians is a direct echo of South Africa’s apartheid rulers who insisted that their brutal white supremacist regime was good for Black people.

Israeli occupation forces raided today, Thursday, 19 September 2019 at around 2:00am the office of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association.

The Israeli forces stole five laptops, memory cards, three laptop memories, one laptop card, several books and additionally searching through the belongings of the office.

This is the third incident where the Israeli soldiers have raided the office, the first was in 2002 and the second incident was in 2012.

I was inspired to write this article in light of recent political events in Britain. For some time there has been an Anti-Semitism in the Labour party ‘scandal’ which has intensified in recent months after Labour’s strong showing at the last General election under Jeremy Corbyn. There have been near-daily press reports accusing Jeremy Corbyn of Anti-Semitism, and he has put under a level of pressure that we have rarely seen in British Politics.

The Labour NEC (National Executive Committee) was asked to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of Anti-Semitism in full in-order to demonstrate action on the matter. Last week the NEC bowed to the pressure and did precisely that. The IHRA code offers a definition of Anti-Semitism and 11 examples of what constitutes Anti-Semitism. Many legal experts including the very author of the text have raised serious reservations about the code arguing, amongst other things, that it limits freedom of speech.

Palestinian Woman killed at Qalendia Checkpoint at the northern entrance to occupied East Jerusalem, claiming she attempted to stab an Israeli soldier.
Great March of Return in Eastern Gaza Strip: 78 civilians injured, including 34 children, a woman and a journalist.

During 82 incursions into the West Bank: 49 civilians arrested, including 8 children and 2 women.

2 limited incursions and 7 shooting incidents reported in the border area, east of the Gaza Strip.

5 water wells destroyed and 250 olive trees and 120 forest trees levelled in northern Jordan Valley; a house, agricultural rooms and a street demolished in al-Walajah village, northwest of Bethlehem.

Israeli occupation forces, on Thursday, closed the water pipes which supply Palestinian residents in the village of Bardale, in the northern Jordan Valley, east of the occupied West Bank.

Member of Bardala village council, Dirar Sawafta, said that Israeli forces stormed the village in the early morning and closed a number of pipes which supply the area, without mentioning any reasons.

Al Ray Palestinian Media Agency further notes that this is not the first time Israeli forces have closed the pipes.

Last July, Israeli settlers seized a number of wells in the village, banning Palestinian shepherds from tending their live stocks.

A Palestinian family in the Jerusalem-area village of al-Eizariya has been unable to bury their 14-year-old son, who was killed by Israeli police last month.

Nassim Abu Rumi’s family has petitioned Israel’s high court to order the release of his body, which will be reportedly transferred on Friday. Israel will also be transferring the remains of Omar Younis, who died in an Israeli hospital in April after being shot by occupation forces at a West Bank checkpoint.

Israel is holding the remains of more than a dozen Palestinians recently killed during alleged and actual attacks on occupation forces and civilians.

This month, following a petition by several families whose relatives’ remains are being held by Israel, the country’s highest court rubber-stamped its approval of the policy.

As Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, one of the leading candidates for prime minister was fending off war crimes accusations in a court in The Hague.

Palestinian-Dutch citizen Ismail Ziada is seeking justice for Israel’s killing of six members of his family during its 2014 assault on Gaza.

Ziada holds Benny Gantz, the Israeli army chief at the time, and Amir Eshel, then the air force chief, responsible for the decision to bomb his family’s home in al-Bureij refugee camp.

In the video above, Wahdan appears to pose no plausible danger to anyone around her when she is shot.

“They could have controlled her,” bystander Mohammed Hammad Jaradat told the publication Middle East Eye.

“They were five soldiers and she was some seven meters away.”

According to eyewitnesses, Wahdan was left to bleed without first aid.

Photos show the woman lying on the ground in a large pool of blood.

She was eventually transferred to Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem for treatment, where she was pronounced dead.

The European Union (EU) yesterday condemned the Israeli government’s decision to establish a new settlement in the Jordan Valley region of the occupied West Bank.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet voted to back a proposal that would see unauthorised outpost Mevo’ot Yeriho retroactively “legalised”, thus becoming an official statement.

Israel distinguishes between official and unapproved settlements (the latter often referred to as outposts), while under international law, all settlements are illegal.

The Jordan Valley is a key region of the occupied West Bank, and the target of long-standing Israeli settlement activity, in parallel to the displacement of local Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s zealous statements regarding his intention to annex land from the Jordan Valley and the West Bank did not come as a surprise to many. It was, however, a source of sadness and sorrow as the Palestinians and Arabs are increasingly disregarded while the occupation continues to swallow up what is left of Palestine and realises its dream of doing as it pleases with Arab land. It is not strange for Netanyahu and his colonial policies to continue messing with the Palestinian and Arab geography and history as he pleases. Netanyahu seems unafraid of the future, given the statements he is making, which coincide with the elections, but in fact, these same statements actually indicate a hidden fear of the present and the future.

Equally, whatever the outcome of the Israeli elections, the Palestinians will be the big losers. According to preliminary results, Netanyahu has lost his majority of course – having failing to reach the magic number of 61 seats in the Knesset.

But his opponents – the Palestinians living under siege in Gaza, under occupation in the West Bank, or under annexation in East Jerusalem, an annexation Netanyahu threatened to visit upon the whole of the Jordan Valley – are no better off.

If you don’t know what Christian Zionism is and you’re working for justice and equality for Palestinians, you should know about this powerful organization and who supports them.

Recent weeks have witnessed a series of developments in Palestine that have produced mixed reactions in Turkey and Israel. Their relationship is back to the level of tension prevalent in the wake of the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara flotilla in 2010.

The most recent development was the announcement by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will annex the occupied Jordan Valley if he wins Israel’s General Election. Turkey’s Foreign Minister, Mevlut Çavu?o?lu, criticised Netanyahu’s remarks as, “A vile attempt to win a few more votes in the coming election at the expense of destroying the hopes of achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East.” He added that Israel was encouraged by “some” countries and is on the verge of turning into a racist, apartheid regime.

The Gaza Strip is a part of Palestine with more than two million Palestinians living in around 365 square kilometres. It has been occupied by Israel since 1967, which has imposed a near-total 13-year land, air and sea blockade. It is regarded as one of the most densely populated areas on earth.

The coastal enclave has been subject to many Israeli military offensives, with three major attacks during the past decade alone. It has no natural resources and “less than four per cent of fresh water is drinkable and the surrounding sea is polluted by sewage.” Tragic humanitarian statistics — unemployment at 52 per cent; poverty 53 per cent; water pollution 95 per cent; and daily power outage 75 per cent — convey a bleak picture. A United Nations report warned in 2018 that it could soon become unfit for humans to live in by 2020.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared war on the two-state solution. His plan, which he promised to implement if he is reelected, would annex between 30-40% of the West Bank, including all of the Jewish settlements, in the blocks and isolated around Palestinians communities, and the entire Jordan Valley. There is not a single Palestinian alive who would agree to a mini-fragmented Palestinian state under those conditions. Netanyahu declared that he will negotiate with President Trump to gain his agreement for these territorial conquests. He never mentioned, even in passing the need to negotiate with the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of his intention to annex areas of the West Bank following next week’s elections shows Israel is becoming a “racist, apartheid regime”, Turkey’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Netanyahu said on Tuesday he would annex the Jordan Valley, a swathe of the occupied West Bank that Israel captured in 1967 and which Palestinians want as part of a future state. The move alarmed Middle Eastern nations, European powers and Arab foreign ministers.

On Saturday, Turkey’s foreign ministry said the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) would convene in Jeddah on Sunday to discuss Netanyahu’s statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is moving quickly to alter the political reality in Palestine, and facing little or no resistance.

On September 10, Netanyahu declared his intentions to annex swathes of Palestinian land adjacent to the Jordan River, an area that covers 2,400 square kilometres, or nearly a third of the Occupied West Bank. That region, which extends from Bisan in the north to Jericho in the south, is considered to be Palestine’s food basket, as it accounts for an estimated 60 percent of vegetables that are produced in the West Bank.

While Israel has already colonized nearly 88 per cent of the entire Palestinian Ghoor (or Jordan Valley), dividing it between illegal agricultural settlements and military zones, it was always assumed that the militarily occupied region will be included within the border of a future Palestinian state.

With only days left until Election Day in Israel, candidates are doubling down on their proposed policies and promises to voters. For Netanyahu, that means vows to annex swaths of West Bank land, and messages to voters about “Arabs annihilating us all.”

In what many analysts have likened to US President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, much of this year’s race for Prime Minister in Israel has been colored by anti-Arab sentiment, race-baiting, and pandering to the far right.

In a September 10th speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he would annex a third of the West Bank if reelected. Netanyahu’s declaration comes just a month after dozens of congress members (Republicans and Democrats) traveled to Israel as part of a trip sponsored by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), a branch of AIPAC. Recent comments by Republican members of the delegation suggest that the trip is being sold as an indictment of the two-state solution and an attack on the BDS movement. These statements indicate that GOP support for Israel is moving beyond cynical two-state solution rhetoric and toward a more public embrace of Netanyahu’s annexation vision.

Dearborn is known as the heart of Arab America.

Arabic store signs flank its streets; Lebanese and Yemeni restaurants dot its commercial districts and Arab immigrants and their descendants constitute the bulk of its population of about 95,000.

The Detroit suburb has been represented in Congress by the Dingell family for almost 55 years. Throughout the decades, the late John Dingell and his successor Congresswoman Debbie Dingell have maintained warm ties to the city's Arab community.

Despite that historical harmony, Arab-American advocates are demanding answers from Dingell after she withdrew her support for a bill that would bar US aid from contributing to the imprisonment of Palestinian children.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does like a visual presentation.

There was this one, and that Trump one, and of course, the bomb one.

And as Israelis prepare to vote next week in the second general election they’ve had this year, Netanyahu has been at it again.

This time, it’s a map of the Jordan Valley, the occupied West Bank region which Netanyahu is promising to annex to Israel should he lead the next Israeli government.

Now, as has been pointed out many times, people will say almost anything to get elected.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s last-ditch campaign announcement yesterday that if he reelected he will annex West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley has brought a divided response from American Jewish groups.

Right and center Zionist orgs have said nothing. AIPAC’s twitter feed doesn’t mention the big plan. The American Jewish Committee is praising John Bolton. Even the Democratic Majority for Israel group is quiet about annexation. They all surely approve the policy and don’t want to contribute to the divisiveness over Israel in U.S. politics.

But liberal Zionist groups are very upset about the announcement, as a threat to the “two state solution,” the Oslo dream of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Liberal Zionists believe they can only preserve Israel by separating Jewish and Palestinian majorities in adjacent states.

Siding with Israel lobby groups, the Canadian government is appealing a federal court ruling that wines produced in Israeli settlements cannot be labeled “Made in Israel.”

Meanwhile, Canadian authorities have bent to the demands of Israel advocates and put a hold on the distribution of Palestinian beer and wine.

Just a few days after Israeli occupation forces expelled a Palestinian family from land in the southern occupied West Bank, an unauthorised settler outpost was established there, reported Haaretz.

Last month, Israeli authorities carried out the eviction of the Cassia family near Beit Jala, demolishing their home and a restaurant they had been operating on the same site.

The land is located in Area C of the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians are systematically denied construction permits by Israeli occupation authorities.

On June 11, the Foundation for Middle East Peace held a panel discussion at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC to discuss the current situation in Israeli-Palestinian relations, with a specific focus on the treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Jafar Farah, the founder and director of the Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, launched the conversation with remarks about the inequality Palestinian citizens of Israel encounter in everyday life. Israel’s 2018 Basic Law defines the country as the “nation-state of the Jewish people,” a classification that blatantly discriminates against the country’s Palestinian minority. “We cannot live in a reality where we are second-class citizens as a result of a constitutional law that says that Arabic is not the language of the state, and that segregated housing is legal,” Farah stated. He went on to call for a new paradigm in which equality and human rights, rather than nationalism, is stressed.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) announced shortly after the attack that their warplane bombed 15 targets belonging to the Palestinian Hamas Movement, including a naval compound and several tunnels.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Prior to the bombings, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's, bodyguards rushed him to shelter in the southern Israeli city of Ashdod when the sirens sounded during a Tuesday evening rally, a week ahead of a general election.

Netanyahu was unhurt and several minutes later he continued his speech, which was broadcast live on social media by his right-wing Likud party.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Tuesday his plans to annex the Jordan Valley in the West Bank as an election promise if he wins next time.

"Today, I announce my intention, after the establishment of a new government, to apply Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea," Netanyahu said in a speech broadcast live on Israeli TV channels.

The prime minister said, however, that the move would be done after publication of a long-awaited US peace plan and consultations with US President Donald Trump.

Around 65,000 Palestinians and 11,000 Israeli settlers live in the Jordan Valley, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. The main Palestinian city is Jericho, with around 28 villages and smaller Bedouin communities.

For their part, the EU said they did not recognise any changes made to the pre-1967 borders and called any settlement plans "illegal under international law".

Since the 1948 Nakba when Israel was created in the historic land of Palestine, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland, successive Israeli governments have continued to propose political and demographic plans for the displacement of more Palestinians from the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and from within Israel itself. This is all with the aim of creating an ethnically pure “Jewish state” emptied of its indigenous population.

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hinted on Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan, set to be unveiled after next week’s Israeli election, would give him the green light to annex the Jordan Valley, nearly a quarter of the occupied West Bank.

Benny Gantz, chief of the Israeli army during Israel’s 2014 massacre in Gaza, is borrowing apartheid South Africa’s talking points to boost his election campaign.

Gantz heads the allegedly center-left opposition coalition hoping to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections later this month.

In a campaign attack on Israel’s prime minister, Monday, Gantz declared that, unlike Netanyahu, he would have allowed US congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib to visit Israel and the occupied territories.

Had they visited, Gantz claimed, they would have seen “with their own eyes” that “the best place to be an Arab in the Middle East is in Israel … and the second best place to be an Arab in the Middle East is the West Bank.”

If Israel annexes parts of the occupied West Bank, all agreements signed with Israel will end, warned the Palestinian president on Tuesday, reports Anadolu Agency.

“All agreements and their resulting obligations would end if the Israeli side annexes the Jordan Valley, the northern Dead Sea, and any part of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967,” Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement, according to Palestine’s WAFA news agency.

Abbas’ remarks came in response to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he would annex the Jordan Valley and a number of settlements if he wins next week’s Israeli election.

Abbas stressed that Palestinians “have the right to defend our rights and achieve our goals by all available means, regardless of the consequences.”

An Israeli tank hit two Hamas military positions in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday after three rockets were fired at Israel from the besieged enclave minutes earlier, Israel's military said in a statement.

The Hof Ashkelon Regional Council announced that one of the rockets landed in a greenhouse in one of the communities within its jurisdiction, causing no damage nor injuries, Israel's Haaretz newspaper said.

A second rocket landed in another community within the regional council, with one home damaged lightly by shrapnel, the council's spokesman said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that he may annex the Jordan Valley and other parts of the occupied bank "in coordination" with the United States — a move that risks shattering the fragile status quo in the volatile region.

"This is a historic opportunity to apply sovereignty to communities in Judea and Samaria," he told reporters in Jerusalem Tuesday, referring to the West Bank.

"I request a mandate to apply Jewish sovereignty to all communities and I intend to do so in coordination with the United States," he said, adding that the U.S. would present its long-awaited Israel-Palestinian peace plan a few days after the election.

Dozens of Palestinians have forcibly disappeared in Saudi Arabia and their fates remain unknown, according to testimonies by their families given to a Swiss-based rights group.

The Euro-Mediterranean for Human Rights Monitor, an independent, nonprofit rights organization, announced the information in a statement on Saturday.

It said it was unable to give the exact number of the Palestinians who have forcibly disappeared in Saudi Arabia, but said it had the names of some 60 Palestinians who had met that fate.

The Palestinian community in Saudi Arabia believes that the real number of the abductees is far higher.

A senior leader of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement has warned that Hamas will thwart any plot designed by the Israeli regime to target Palestinian refugees’ right of return to Palestine.

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, made the remark during a speech at a gathering in the besieged Gaza Strip on Sunday, accusing US and Israeli media of encouraging Palestinians to emigrate from their homeland.

“The issue of refugees has been the target of a conspiracy since the beginning of the first refugee displacement and expulsion,” he said.

“Today, more than any time in the past, we need a clear and national strategic plan in order to face this dangerous plot,” which is “against al-Quds, against the refugees, against our land and against human beings.”

What is the significance of this resignation? Consider these major incidents while Greenblatt was in office, which was only for 2 years.

US severed its diplomatic links with the Palestinians, closed down its consulate in Jerusalem Al Quds, and cut all aid to the Palestinian territories.

And that is a partial listing Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said she thought that Palestinians as a whole were going to say good riddance.

SOURCE: STRATEGIC-CULTURE.ORG
(SC Op-Ed) — There have been several interesting developments in the United States government’s war on free speech and privacy.

First of all, the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP), which is responsible for actual entry of travelers into the country, has now declared that it can legally access phones and computers at ports of entry to determine if there is any subversive content which might impact on national security.

“Subversive content” is, of course, subjective, but those seeking entry can be turned back based on how a border control agent perceives what he is perusing on electronic media.