December 2019, Week 5
Life in Southeast Alaska vs. Life in Occupied Palestine/Israel:
Southeast: Everybody looking into the crystal ball to predict how strong the salmon runs will be next summer. (forecast not so hot). Occupied Palestine/Israel: Israel and its few remaining friends looking into the crystal ball to predict when karma is going to catch up with them. (forecast not good for them, either).
Sunday:
from WAFA
12.29.2019 Three brothers among 12 detained in al-Issawiya.
12.29.2019 Israeli FM: Tel Aviv to resume, “Policy of Assassinations” [Netanyahu does better in the polls when he’s killing Arabs in air strikes.] As he gets ready for yet another election, his government announces they’re going to ramp up killing Arabs.
from IMEMC
12.29.2019 Soldiers abduct sixteen Palestinians in Jerusalem. Night and fog raids, ransacked homes, families dragged from their beds.
12.29.2019 Israeli soldiers shoot a Palestinian in northern Gaza. Firing from the safety of military embankments on the Israeli side, Jewish siege troops shot a Palestinian farmer in the arm and side as he was working his field on the Gaza side.
12.29.2019 Detainees recount stories of abuse in Israeli detention.
Monday
from IMEMC
12.30.2019 Israeli forces deny Palestinian farmers access to their lands.
12.30.2019 Soldiers shoot a Palestinian near Hebron. Those gas-loving Israelis unload on Halhoul community north of Hebron in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. In addition to gassing the people, Jewish occupation closed part of town to residents, escorted crack-pot colonists to archeological sites and shot a young Palestinian with a rubber coated steel bullet.
12.30.2019 Hundreds of settlers invade Joseph’s Tomb, nine Palestinians injured. Once again, Israeli occupation army escorts hundreds of crack-pot colonists to Joseph’s Tomb, which is in a Palestinian neighborhood. Imagine it. These community invasions are organized like fans who are going to football games. The army is all ready with extra gas projectiles, and ammunition. They force local people off the streets and run around on neighbor’s rooftops setting up sniper posts. Then bus load after bus load of Jewish squatters come in and go jumping all around shouting, singing, cursing Arabs. Young people from the neighborhood turn out to shout back, throw stones and bottles. The occupiers shoot gas bombs, rubber coated steel bullets, and live ammunition. Some of the Palestinians are guaranteed to be injured. Israelis almost guaranteed not to be injured.
Then the Israelis get in their busses and go home. The Palestinians clean up the mess with the whole neighborhood stinking of gas.
12.30.2019 Israeli soldiers abduct thirteen Palestinians in Hebron, Ramallah, and Tulkarem. Night and fog raids. Ransacked homes, kidnappings. No Palestinian families safe in their beds.
12.30.2019 Palestinian PM: Israel decision to withhold tax revenues “Brings us back to square one of the crisis. Part of the 1993 Oslo Agreements—which were supposed to last five years—the Palestinians agreed that Israel could collect taxes on goods going in and out of the occupied territories, then the Israelis would turn the money over to the Palestinians. Now, 27 years later, Israel is still collecting the taxes. To keep the Palestinians down, and because they’re greedy, the Israelis will stop transferring money to the Palestinian government under various pretexts. One of those is, when Israel kills or imprisons a Palestinian they inevitably call the victim a terrorist, even if it’s a kid. As collective punishment Israel will demolish the family’s home.
The Palestinian government provides some support for such families. Using the pretext that the Palestinian government is supporting terrorists, Israel is keeping over $188 million. Which creates a crisis for the Palestinian government.
Tuesday
12.31.2019 Opinion: Israeli schools teach pro-settler religions nationalism is the only way to be Jewish. Haaretz by Noga Brenner Semia. Indoctrination of children from early age. Israeli school system raises the next generation of fanatics.
from IMEMC
12.31.2019 Netanyahu claims Arab states to normalize ties with Israel IMEMC. As 2019 comes to a close, Israel’s Prime Minister, having done all he can to make a shambles of the Middle East, waves to reality in the rearview mirror and declares brightly that he’s courting are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, and Bahrain. Unlikely it will come about but Israel will fit right in if it does. Egypt’s a repressive regime run by President Al Sissi. Just a few months ago, in April, an Israeli general revealed that it was none other than Israel that installed Al Sissi as President of Egypt. (Mint Press April 05, 2019 by Whitney Webb), Saudi Arabia (which still punishes people by crucifixion, beheading, and which tortured American journalist Jamal Kashoggi to death and cut his body into pieces at the Saudi Embassy in Turkey, UAE with its dozens of torture camps that include rape, Bahrain (where no independent media is allowed), and Oman where 78-year-old Prime Minister Sultan Qaboos has ruled since 1970, he’s not only PM, he’s Minister of Defense, Minister of Finance, Minister of Foreign Affairs—a resume much like Netanyahu’s). These are the Arab world’s potential collaborators with Israel.
The best part of this article is a photo from the Saudi Press Agency (above) that take the cake for flat-out weirdest image of 2019 showing Egypt’s President Al-Sisi, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman, and our own Ectoplasm-in-Chief Donald Trump, all holding their hands on a large, glowing crystal ball like they’re channeling Madame Blavatsky at the seance.
12.31.2019 Settlers attack and injure West Bank commuters IMEMC. Rock throwing Jewish crackpots, aided and abetted by Israeli occupation troops broke windows/windshields of 25 Palestinian vehicles. Several drivers and passengers were treated for injuries from stones and broken glass.
12.31.2019 Weather forecast: very cold conditions, slight chance scattered rain expected. Ramallah/Hebron 41 F, Bethlehem 50 F. with temperatures dropping later in the week.
12.31.2019 Four Palestinians detained from West Bank. Night and fog raids. In Beit Djuggu, near Jerusalm, the occupiers shot at youngsters-no injuries. in Beit Ummar occupiers ransacked several homes, stole cash and the home owner’s car.
