May 2019, Week 3
Wednesday
05.15.2019 Palestinians injured during 71st Nakba Day protests in Gaza Maan News. Jewish snipers, shooting across the segregation fences from the safety of military emplacements on the Israeli side, injured at least 47 unarmed protesters on the Gaza side as Palestinians participated in the Nakba Day commemoration of Israel driving them 750,000 Arabs off their lands in 1948.
05.15.2019 MOH: 305 Palestinians killed, over 17,000 injured in 410 days Maan News. Gaza Ministry of Health statistics on Palestinians Israel shot during Great March of Return demonstrations that began March 30, 2018. Among the dead: 59 children, 10 women, one elderly person, 3 medics. Injured: 3,565 children, 1,168 women, 104 elderly, 680 from medical crews. Of the injured: 564 are critical, 7,345 moderate, 9,426 minor. Article notes 1,685 were shot in the head or neck.
05.15.2019 Israeli forces shoot, injure Palestinian fisherman in Gaza Maan News. A Jewish navy gunboat shot another young guy in his little skiff. 22-year-old Mourad al-Hasi’s condition is unknown after Israel injured him with a rubber coated steel bullet.
05.153.2019 Israel to demolish 13 Palestinian owned buildings in Issawiya Maan News. Israel’s military government in the occupied territories raided numerous residences to measure them for demolition.
05.15.2019 Rohani vs Revolutionary Guards: Inside Iran’s turbulent debate on war with America Haaretz by Ariane Tabatabai. Pro-war propaganda from supposedly liberal Haaretz.
05.15.2019 Watch// Bernie Sanders warns war with Iran would be ‘many times’ worse than Iraq war Haaretz and AP.
05.15.2019 Tanker attacks near UAE expose weaknesses in Gulf Arab security Reuters/Haaretz More pro-war propaganda, pointing the finger at Iran without proof.
05.15.2019 Iran vows to defeat ‘American-Zionist Alliance’ as Putin warns against U.S. pressure Haaretz/Reuters/Associated Press. Pro-war propaganda.
05.15.2019 Iran threatens the Saudi-US Axis without taking direct responsibility Haaretz by Amos Harel. Haaretz Syndrome of a supposedly liberal media pushing war.
05.15.2019 Israeli businessman sues Kuwait Airways for ‘discrimination’ Middle East Monitor. In the “We want it both ways department,” an Israeli, whose country’s airline El Al has refused to board Arabs and BDS supporters, and routinely subjects Arabs to long waits and humiliating searches, is suing Kuwati Airlines because they wouldn’t seat him on the grounds that he’s an Israeli.
05.15.2019 No Eurovision boost for Tel Aviv restaurants and bars Haaretz by Gabriela Weisberg. Restaurant and bar owners who stocked up expecting huge Eurovision crowds are left holding the bag as business is down 10 percent compared with last year at this time. Not only was Israel unable to sell Eurovision to Europeans, tourists who might have gone to Israel stayed away because they didn’t want to fight huge crowds that the Israelis were expecting to show up.
Thursday
05.16.2019 A trip advisor to the real Israel Haaretz by Gideon Levy. Israel has gone to great lengths to promote itself as a fun destination for the Eurovision song contest. Levy writes, “Forget Trip Advisor for the moment, let me be your personal trip advisor for another type of visit. ” He takes us on a tour of Israel that Israeli government Eurovision promoters have worked hard to keep out of the world view.
He takes us to the security building where the government, “…instructed female soldiers to conduct a rectal and vaginal search of a Palestinian woman in her home.” and to abandoned Palestinian graves behind the security building parking lot. During ethnic cleansing, Israel demolished the village but left the graves.
He takes us to Gaza—just an hour from the exuberant Expo—“the world’s largest cage.” that Israel only allows entry to journalists who have been cleared and issued a pass by the Israeli government press office.
He takes us to the West Bank, “This is apartheid. This is what it looks like. This is how it behaves.”
He takes us to the H2 section of occupied Hebron—“a ghost town.” “There are roads there for Jews only. Imagine that.” North to the Palestinian refugee camps—“third world situation.”
And then, “Here we are back at the Eurovision compound where it’s all partying and fun.”
05.16.2019 Israel reduces Gaza’s permitted fishing zone, attacks fishermen Maan News. Last week the siege expanded the fishing area to 12 miles off-shore.[Not the 20 miles promised under Oslo but better than 3 miles or less the Israelis often give Gaza fishermen.] This week Jewish gunboats cut the fishermen back to 5 miles off-shore and shot heavy gunfire at a fisherman who was near the five mile line.
05.16.2019 In video–incendiary balloons spark fires in southern Israel. Maan News. Palestinians attack the Jewish state with toy balloons again. Started some brush fires. No injuries on the Israeli side.
05.16.2019 Minors among 7 Palestinians detained by Israeli forces Maan News. Night and fog raids again last night. The minor was 15-year-old Muhammad Abassi.
05.16.2019 Saudi Arabian state media urges U.S. to ‘Hit Rian Hard’ with punitive air strikes Forbes by Zak Dovvman. The Saudis and Israel, [who are vying with Iran for Middle East oil markets, and Iran has better quality oil] want the United States of America to get Iran out of the way for them.
05.16.2019 US House speaker: Trump does not have congressional approval for war against Iran Haaretz/Reuters. War mongering
05.16.2019 Facebook busts Israeli campaign to disrupt elections in African, Asian, and Latin American countries Haaretz/AP. Facebook purged 65 accounts, 161 pages, and dozens of groups and four instagram accounts for running disinformation campaigns.
05.16.2019 ‘Hugely embarrassing:’ emails to RTE show pushback against calls for Eurovision boycott The Journal [in Ireland] by Conal Thomas. Following calls from the Iris public for the country’s national television to boycott Eurovision in support of Palestinian BDS, RTE received emails from 22 locations around the world—each with the exact same language—urging RTE to air Eurovision.
05.16.2019 Israeli TV talking about thousands of unsold tickets “We’re talking about tremendous financial losses.” “One half of Tuesday’s tickets are still on sale!” Each of the semi-finals has 4,000 tickets for sale. The first semi-final has 2,500 unsold tickets. The second semi-final has 1,461 unsold tickets, according to official box office Le’an. KAN [Israeli government media], the event’s producer, lost at least 2 million shekels.
Friday
05.17.2019 Israeli military absolves itself of killing disabled protester Electronic Intifada by Maureen Claire Murphy.
To the surprise of nobody, Israel has found itself innocent in the murder of double amputee, Abu Thurayya.
In December, 2017, Abu Thurayya was sitting in his wheel chair, in the sand, holding a Palestinian flag, when a Jewish sniper shot him through the forehead. Abu Thurayya had no legs. Abu Thurayya’s legs were blown off by an Israeli air strike in 2008 when he was 20 years old. His crime back then? Israel targeted Abu Thurayya in 2008 with bombs from a helicopter after he pulled down an Israeli flag at the border and replaced it with a Palestinian flag. His legs were so mangled they had to be amputated. He lost a kidney, too.
Despite his injuries, the indomitable Thurayya returned to the protests as soon as he could and has been a fixture along the border protests since then. He would occasionally climb radio towers along the border by sheer strength of his arms, to plant a Palestinian flag above the fields.
Thurayya was one of four unarmed Palestinians Jewish snipers killed on the border on December 15, 2017.
05.17.2019 Syria says air defenses intercept projectiles coming from Israel. Haaretz, Reuters. Israel doesn’t let Eurovision get in the way of provocations against other Middle Eastern Countries. The Syrians shot most of the missiles down.
05.17.2019 Why you should switch off the Eurovision tonight The Irish Times Eamonn Meahan. Ireland Palestine Alliance Board member writes to his countrymen about Israeli efforts to artwash the brutal occupation through Eurovision.
05.17.2019 Israeli forces attack, injure Palestinian youths in Jerusalem Maan News. Jewish occupation troops beat up two more Palestinians last night, then released them to Red Crescent medics for treatment. No reason given for the attack.
05.19.2019 US envoy echoes religious terrorist claiming “Israel is on the side of God.” Israeli ambassador David Friedman (and Donald Trump’s former lawyer), who is posing as America’s Ambassador to Israel told fellow Zionist fanatics in Israel that Israel is on the side of God. Jamam Ashwari, a Palestinian official spokeswoman for the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Process said, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this extreme fundamentalist ideologue is an ambassador.”
05.17.2019 Arming dictators, equipping pariahs: Alarming picture of Israel’s arms sales Haaretz by Amos Harel. Another report on Israeli arms sales to brutal, repressive governments; this one from Amnesty International.
As a primary dealer in the world’s small (and not so small) arms trade Israel skirts scrutiny by selling weapons through a series of fronts in efforts to make the Israeli government’s role less obvious.
Article notes Israel signed, but did not ratify the 2014 Arms Trade Treaty of Arms Trade Standards. Israel sells weapons to countries engaging in crimes against humanity including: mass executions, torture, ethnic cleansing, genocide, using rape of women, men, and girls, as a weapon of war. Some of the countries Israel arms are South Sudan, Myanmar, the Philippines, Cameroon, Azerbaijan, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates. Article notes Israel supplied arms to South Africa during the apartheid years, and to Chile during the bloody Pinochet regime.
Regarding petitions to release information about Israel’s role in weaponizing some of the world’s most notorious regimes, Israel’s high court has agreed with the state that Israel will allow, “,,,only one side present—the state, and that [the court’s] rulings would remain classified.”]
Author writes, ‘Even if it happens through a twisted chain of sub-contractors, the state can’t play innocent.”
The whole article is about Israeli weapons sales enabling brutal regimes. It winds down with five paragraphs from an unnamed ‘senior defense official’ justifying/denying Israel’s weapons sales and making the ridiculous claim that, “The fact is that enlightened states respect the laws we have and are interested in the ways we conduct our monitoring.”
Saturday
05.18.2019 No, Madonna, your Eurovision performance will do nothing to heal the wounds wrought by Israeli apartheid The Independent by Ohal Grietzer. Israeli composer and mixed media performer Ohal Grietzer, gives a short history of modern Palestine via his family. A relative was in NILI, a Jewish espionage unit that operated against the Ottomans to bring the British to Palestine. After the British got rid of the Turks Grietzer’s grandfather was in covert operations to get rid of the British so Zionists could have it. That grandfather loved music, including Madonna’s music. But he realized that people aren’t really free unless those around them were free, and he campaigned against the Zionist treatment of Palestinians.
05.18.2019 The Israeli army trains in Bedouin’s backyard, even during holy month of Ramadan Haaretz by Amira Haas. Jewish occupation troops are burning Palestinian farmlands again in the north Jordan Valley. Haas points out you don’t see those fires on the news. She is talking about ‘Firing Zone 903 B’ a 20,000 acre parcel. It’s one of the areas where for decades Israel has expanded into the occupied territories by labeling Palestinian land as Military Fire Zones then letting Jews have the vacated land.
This month, for much or the next four weeks, Israel’s military government kicked the Bedouin shepherds who live in the area out of their homes on short notice—right before harvest—right as their sheep are lambing—right as the holy month of Ramadan begins—and when temperatures are topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit. What this means is, right now, Bedouin men, women, children, and babies are forced from the tents they live in at gunpoint. They sleep in the open with a few blankets. The farmers are harvesting their crops before they’re ready because they know from experience that Israelis set them on fire with live ammunition war exercises. During the day, the people have no shelter from the sun. The children (and lambs) are afraid at night of all the gunfire and explosions from Israelis shooting up the farmland. During times Israel lets the farmers back to their lands the farmers water the lambs and harvest what they can, at the risk of being blown up by unexploded ordinance.
At the same time Israel doesn’t inconvenience Jewish colonists who have settled on the land.
Haas notes that occupation troops assaulted seven Palestinian journalists and human rights workers who went to one of the Bedouin camps to document the hardships Israel is causing there. Occupation troops arrested them and erased the video footage and pictures they had taken.
05.18.2019 LGBT groups boycott Eurovision festival in Tel Aviv IMEC Almost 100 LGBTQ+ groups from around the world have signed a open letter stating their support of the boycott.
05.18.2019 German Parliament passes anti-boycott bill IMEC by Aline Hagbard. In a close vote the German government has labeled BDS anti-Semitic. [Part of Israel’s strategy to suppress popular public support for Palestinians is getting politicians to legislate that the boycott of apartheid Israel is racist.]
Sunday
05.19.2019 Israeli soldiers abduct a Palestinian in Bethlehem IMEC
05.19.2019 Soldiers attack worshipers in al-Aqsa mosque IMEC Occupation troops force worshipers out of the mosque during Ramadan.
05.19.2019 Army abducts a Palestinian near Jerusalem IMEC
05.19.2019 Israeli soldiers abduct a Palestinian teen in Jerusalem IMEC
05.19..2019 Israeli Minister leads provocative tour of al Aqsa IMEC Israel’s religious fanatic Minister of Agriculture tries to start trouble again by leading a bunch of Jews through the mosque compound during Ramadan, after Jewish occupation troops kicked hundreds of Palestinians out of the place.
05.19.2019 Dutch politician arrested in Jerusalem IMEC Occupation troops arrested Dutch Parliamentarian Tunahan Kuzu for carrying a Palestinian flag.
05.19.2019 Israeli forces detain 14-year-old Palestinian near Ramallah Maan News. Jewish occupation troops arrested a kind on his way home from school today. The also arrested a 30-year-old from Ramallah district, and another Palestinian in Bethlehem.
05.19.2019 Cluster of incendiary balloons lands in southern Israel Maan News. Israeli military media claims Gazans attacked an Israeli military base with toy balloons attached to explosives. No injuries or damage.
05.19.2019 Iceland’s Hatari shocks Eurovision with Palestinian flags Maan News. Icelandic heavy metal band, which took 10th place of 25 in the song contest, held up Palestinian flags live on air during public voting. BDS movement panned the move since they had asked artists to stay away from the contest altogether.
05.19.2019 Shouting in Israel’s face Electronic Intifada Jewish occupation troops have wounded 15 members of an extended Abu Ataya family from Gaza. There’s an amazing photo of them smiling at the camera with their crutches and slings.
05.19.2019 Army abducts five Palestinians in Jerusalem IMEC Probably includes some of those already mentioned for today but article mentions that two of those taken away are guards at al Aqsa mosque.
Monday
05.20.2019 Great March Focus: 17-year-old Palestinian killed with Israeli unidentified explosive grenade Al Haq:(independent Palestinian human rights NGO)
Jewish siege troops killed 17-year-old Adham Nidal Amara a few weeks ago on March, 30. This article describes his injury which demolished his lower jaw and face so badly the doctors (who are used to terrible injuries) couldn’t tell what caused the wounds. Amara was 150 meters (1½ football fields) from Israel’s segregation fence when he was killed.
As relatives washed the boy’s face for burial they found a light green, cylindrical munitions case embedded deep in his mouth. It is consistent with a 40mm grenade cartridge, which may be launched from a direct fire weapon. Exactly what was in it is uncertain. An eyewitness who filmed the killing reported that there was no smoke emanating from the wound, leading him to think at the time it was some sort of explosive round rather than gas.
05.20.2019 Army abducts five Palestinians in Jerusalem IMEC Including 2 Al Aqsa guards.
05.20.2019 Israeli forces remove Muslim worshipers from Al Aqsa IMEC
05.20.2019 Israeli soldiers abduct 2 Palestinians in Hebron IMEC Night and fog raids. Ransacking homes. Dragging people from their beds.
05.20.2019 It’s time to end America’s blank check military aid to Israel. The Forward. by Peter Beinart. “Israelis re-elected Netanyahu because he showed them he could undermine the two-state solution with international impunity. Indeed, he made that accomplishment a central theme of his campaign. The American government’s capitulation under both Democrats and Republicans—is the unspoken elephant in the room when Americans discuss Israel’s embrace of permanent occupation. It’s impossible to understand the looming death of the two-state solution with9out understanding that, for more than twenty-five years, no American president has made Israel pay a price for undermining it.”
Notes that Netanyahu dragged Obama through the mud for eight years running—laughed at him. Netanyahu traveled to Washington in 2011 to publicly humiliate Obama over Obama’s advocacy of a Palestinian state. In 2014, Obama did nothing as Netanyahu sabotaged Kerry’s attempts at a peace process. [Article doesn’t mention Obama defending Israel’s 2014 Gaza massacre that killed 2,200, wounded over 10,000, left 100,000 homeless, destroyed schools, hospitals, clinics, etc.] And! Netanyahu came to Washington again, without notifying the White House, as protocol demands, to lobby congress against the Iran deal. After all that and much more, “Obama in 2016 rewarded [Netanyahu] with the largest military aid package in Israeli history.”
Tuesday
05.21.2019 Israeli soldiers invade Beit Forik IMEC Jewish occupation troops blocked the town’s main entrance and drove military jeeps through the streets and alleys firing gas bombs and concussion grenades at villagers. Local kids threw rocks at the occupiers.
05.21.2019 Illegal colonists pump waste water into Palestinian lands near Nablus IMEC Jewish colonists dump their disgusting sewage on Palestinian farmers again.
05.21.2019 Army abducts a Palestinian in Hebron IMEC Jewish occupation troops black bagged a Palestinian farmer as he worked his lands near Hebron. The man’s whereabouts are unknown.
Article notes the Jewish state set up more road blocks around Hebron City and stopped dozens of cars.
05.21.2019 Soldiers confiscate a garbage truck near Nablus IMEC Jewish occupation troops stopped a garbage truck run by the Rojieb Village Council by the dump under the pretext that the truck was near the illegal Jewish colony of Itamar. Israel detained the driver and workers, then let them go but stole their truck.
05.21.2019 Palestinian dies from wounds suffered in April of 2018 IMEC Expanding bullets are banned in combat under international agreement. Israel uses them against unarmed civilians. 13-months-ago a Jewish sniper shot 29-year-old Mohammad Zo’rob with an expanding bullet that caused wounds resulting in multiple infections that developed tumors that killed him.
05.21.2019 Israeli soldiers abduct 5 Palestinians in the West Bank IMEC Night and fog raids.
05.21.2019 Israeli forces raid shop in Hebron, assault elderly IMEC Jewish occupation troops smashed a shop’s glass refrigerator doors, destroyed shelves, warned the owner not to reopen, and roughed up an 83-year-old shopper.
05.21.2019 Israel to raze playground in Rakhma village IMEC Bedouin village in Israel put a little playground with tire swings for the kids. The Jewish state is going to destroy it.
05.21.2019 The top 12 ways Israel is feeding the world Israel 21C by Abigail Klein Leichman. Israelis can’t even come close to feeding themselves. They love reading nonsense articles like this one.
