The Palestine thread

[Ball DeBeaver]

Why Are Only Jews Referred to as Terrorists in the Media?
April 10, 2013 14:17by Simon Plosker

HonestReporting has long campaigned for the international media to call terrorism exactly what it is instead of using judgment-neutral terminology, such as "militants","extremists", "fighters" or "gunmen."

Yaakov "Jack" Teitel, a US-born Israeli resident of the West Bank was sentenced on Tuesday to two consecutive life terms in prison for murdering a Palestinian taxi driver in Jerusalem and a Palestinian shepherd near Hebron. He was also sentenced for other attacks including against a left-wing Israeli professor and messianic Jews. He also attacked a police station during a gay pride parade. These are only a few of Teitel's terrorist and criminal activities.


The Israeli media, including the JPost, YNet, and Times of Israel had no problem referring to him as a "Jewish terrorist" showing an impressive consistency in the use of language. They recognized that Teitel's hate-filled ideologically and politically motivated ideology fits the definition of terrorism. This demonstrates that the use of the word "terrorism" or "terrorist" or "terror" does not have to be a loaded term applied only to Palestinians murdering Jews for religious or political motivations.

It's just that the example of Teitel is, thankfully, extremely rare and certainly in contrast to the Palestinian side.


The LA Times and Reuters both referred to Teitel as having been "dubbed "The Jewish Terrorist" by the Israeli media" while the New York Times wrote that Teitel was "known as "The Jewish terrorist."

But where is the consistency?

If the media is prepared to acknowledge the Israeli media's usage of the term when applied to a Jewish terrorist, why then, are they still not prepared to apply it to Palestinian terrorists?

When it comes to consistency, it is difficult to match AFP's long-standing aversion to labeling Palestinian terrorists as anything other than "militants" or "activists." Bizarrely, AFP, in its coverage, refers to Teitel as a "religious activist."

While the term "activist" is consistent with AFP's approach, we have to ask if the wire service ever refers to religiously motivated Muslim terrorists as "religious activists" or is this term only reserved for Jews?

At least the Associated Press demonstrated consistency when it referred to Teitel as a "radical" and "extremist."

To reiterate – the description of Yaakov Teitel as a "terrorist" is not the issue. What is disturbing, however, is the sudden acceptance of the term by some media as a legitimate reference to an Israeli Jew while avoiding it when referring to Palestinians or other Arabs involved in the murder of Jews. Isn't it time for some consistency when it comes to the "T-word?"
http://honestreporting.com/why-are-only-jews-referred-to-as-terrorists-in-the-media/

[muppet]

It's ok BDB, there are many terrorists on both sides of that conflict, but only one side looks like a boxer punching a quadriplegic.

[ardchieftain]

It's ok BDB, there are many terrorists on both sides of that conflict, but only one side looks like a boxer punching a quadriplegic.

Well said sir. Great analogy.

[Ball DeBeaver]

I'm surprosed Seafoid hasn't put this up already, seeing as he's so concerned with human rights abuses in Gaza. 



Gaza: 'Collaborator' Murders Go Unpunished

Torture, Unfair Trials, Then Shot Down


April 11, 2013




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Hamas's inability or unwillingness to investigate the brazen murders of seven men makes a mockery of its claims that it's upholding the rule of law in Gaza.



Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director


(New York) – The Gaza government has apparently not even begun a promised investigation more than four months after gunmen killed seven Palestinian prisoners accused of collaboration with Israel. Meanwhile, the Hamas government has set a deadline of April 11, 2013, for suspected collaborators to turn themselves in, promising them an amnesty.

The men, who were last seen alive in custody during the November 2012 fighting with Israel, were executed on a public street. One of the men's bodies was dragged behind a motorcycle. Military courts had convicted the men primarily on the basis of coerced confessions, ignoring credible evidence that interrogators tortured at least six of them.

"Hamas's inability or unwillingness to investigate the brazen murders of seven men makes a mockery of its claims that it's upholding the rule of law in Gaza," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Even before the killings, the abuses the men suffered made the criminal justice system a travesty, regardless of their guilt or innocence."
In a separate case, on March 24, 2013, a military court in Gaza sentenced a man arrested in August 2011 and convicted of collaborating with Israel to death by hanging. Human Rights Watch has documented numerous cases of severe due-process violations, abuse of detainees, and unfair trials in Gaza; Palestinian rights groups recorded more than 100 allegations of torture in 2012 alone. The government should at least impose an immediate moratorium on executions, and preferably end the death penalty altogether, Human Rights Watch said.

In an April 6 statement on the website of the Gaza Interior Ministry, Muhammad Lafi, the deputy director of the Internal Security agency, stated that the security services had recently arrested an unspecified number of collaborators – allegedly working for "Western intelligence agencies" – and that "half of them have confessed."

Hamas set the April 11 deadline for surrender for a promised amnesty under the terms of what Hamas calls the "National Campaign against Collaborating with the Enemy." Lafi told Al-Monitor, a regional news website, that the agency has a list of collaborators who will be arrested if they do not turn themselves in.

The families of the seven men killed in November last saw them alive in detention facilities in Gaza, in some cases days before they were murdered, raising concerns that prison officials failed to protect them from the killers or, worse, handed them over.

Gunmen killed one of the victims on November 16, while the other six were killed on November 20, during the eight-day Israeli military offensive in Gaza.

The Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, claimed responsibility for the latter six killings, and notes were pinned to the bodies reading: "Al-Qassam Brigades announces the execution of the traitors," international news organizations reported. The gunmen tied some of the six corpses to motorcycles and dragged them through the streets. The faces of some of the motorcyclists are visible in photographs that have been published on news websites.

Human Rights Watch has reported extensively on laws-of-war violations by Israeli forces and by Palestinian armed groups during the November fighting.

Some Hamas officials offered weak justifications for the killings at the time. Ma'an, a Palestinian news agency, quoted Mahmud Zahar, a Hamas leader, as telling journalists on November 24: "We will not allow one collaborator to be in Gaza, and let human rights groups say whatever they want. A human has rights if they have honor and not if they are a traitor."
Hamas security officials also falsely claimed that one of the men had confessed to aiding Israel while the six others "were caught red-handed" and "possessed hi-tech equipment and filming equipment to take footage of positions" during Israel's November military offensive in Gaza, Palestinian media reported. All seven men had been in detention for months or years before the November 2012 hostilities, however.

Other Hamas leaders, including deputy politburo chief Musa Abu Marzouq, condemned the killings and called for those responsible to be held accountable. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the Gaza government, stated on November 25 that Hamas had established an independent committee to investigate the killings, although he gave no details of its composition. On December 2, at a meeting with the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), the Palestinian national institution for human rights, Haniyeh criticized the killings, pledged to implement the committee's recommendations, and said that the government would consider compensating the victims' families if the committee called on it to do so.

The government has not announced any information about the committee's membership, work, or findings. Haniyeh did not respond to a letter from the ICHR in March requesting information about the committee. Of the five families of the victims interviewed by Human Rights Watch in December, four said in April that they had not been contacted by the committee. The wife of one of the men said that a Hamas official told her son that the killers had been caught and were being interrogated, but that she knew of no information to support that claim. The fifth family could not be reached for comment.

Family members of five of the six men killed on November 20, interviewed separately, said that when they went to collect their bodies at al-Shifa hospital that day, they found that the five bodies had been dumped together on the floor of the morgue, that hospital officials prevented them from recovering them for 24 hours, and that the bodies were in the same place the following day. The family of the sixth man declined to be interviewed.

The military prosecutor had charged the man who was killed on November 16 with collaborating with the enemy, and his trial was in progress at the time of his murder. Military courts had previously convicted the six men killed on November 20 of collaborating with the enemy, but in each case, appeals courts were still hearing their cases.

In at least four of the seven cases, the judicial authorities in Gaza appear to have ignored claims that the men had been denied access to family members and lawyers for long periods, that they had been tortured in detention, and that their convictions for collaboration were based on confessions obtained under duress, according to the men's families, lawyers, and court documents that Human Rights Watch reviewed.

Military courts have issued 13 death sentences against alleged collaborators, and the Interior Ministry has executed six of them since Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, according to the Independent Commission for Human Rights. During and after hostilities with Israel in 2008 and 2009, gunmen and members of the security services in Gaza extrajudicially executed at least 32 people, including alleged collaborators. Hamas authorities told Human Rights Watch at the time that they had investigated four of the cases, which involved deaths in detention, and had filed charges against two police officers involved.

"Months after seven Palestinians were murdered in broad daylight, seemingly with the collusion of security officials, the Hamas authorities in Gaza appear not to have lifted a finger to investigate, let alone to hold those responsible to account," Whitson said. "Hamas should be taking concrete steps to reform the criminal justice system and break the cycle of impunity that, as these men's cases show, lets torturers and killers roam free."

The Prisoners Killed in November
On November 16, a group of armed men brought Ashraf Abdel Hamid Aweidah, 41, to the Naser neighborhood in Gaza City, where they shot and killed him. On November 20, gunmen brought Amer al-Af, Zoheir Hamudi, Ribhi Badawi, Bilal al-Abatsa, Ghassan Asfour, and Fadel Abu Shaluf to an intersection between the Sheikh Radwan and al-Naser neighborhoods in northern Gaza City, and shot and killed them, witnesses said.

Ashraf Aweidah
Aweidah, 41, a father of seven, owned a car-parts store on Qiyada Street in the Zeytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. Four men in civilian clothes arrested him at his home on December 26, 2011, his wife, Hitam, 39, told Human Rights Watch.

They said, "We just need to talk to him for five minutes," and they took him away. Fifteen days later, police in uniforms showed up and confiscated his Jeep and our car. They made him call us to tell us to give up the vehicles. That was the first time we'd heard from him. We found out that he was held by Internal Security at the "Governor's Castle" [Qasr al-Hakim, a detention center]. We went there for a month but they always told us it was "prohibited" to see him. When I was able to see him, I told him, "Ashraf, this is taking too long," and he held up one arm and said, "Patience." I could see underneath his arm that his skin was all bruised. He'd been tortured but we couldn't talk about it. There were guards behind him.

Gaza's military court initially assigned a lawyer to defend Aweidah; the family later hired Ibrahim al-Haddad, a private lawyer. Al-Haddad told Human Rights Watch that Aweidah was charged on June 20, 2012, with conveying information to the enemy to aid its military forces, undermining the reputation of the Palestinian revolution, and accessory to murder under the 1979 PLO Revolutionary Penal Code. Al-Haddad said that he met with Aweidah only in military court hearings, because Aweidah refused to see him elsewhere. Al-Haddad did not see physical evidence of torture but said that Aweidah's confession did not appear to be credible and that he appeared to change his statements to the court under coercion:


My client confessed to everything, to every attack on Gaza. They said he had a GPS in his Jeep so that he was in constant communications with satellites. His confession was 130 pages long. He kept changing the dates of his supposed actions. He'd say something in court, then they'd take him back to Internal Security and he'd correct himself the next time. I only knew he was in Internal Security because he told me so in court, that's all I knew. I asked the judge to transfer him to prison [from the Internal Security detention facility] but the judge said it wasn't in his power.

The Gaza security services distributed a video of Aweidah in which he confessed to sending information to Israel that Israeli forces used to kill Hamas leaders including Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in 2004 and Said Siyam in 2009, Al-Monitor reported.

Al-Haddad said he had appeared before the Military District Court in Gaza City three times in Aweidah's case, but that the prosecution had not transferred Aweidah's entire file to him, hindering his ability to prepare a defense. Aweidah's trial was still in progress when he was killed.

Aweidah's family last visited him at the detention facility on November 10. Six days later, "a cousin called to say he'd been killed in the street," Aweidah's father-in-law, Abdel Samiah Barawi, told Human Rights Watch.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Cont'd


Amer al-Af
Unidentified gunmen killed Amer al-Af, 37, on November 20, 2012. Mona al-Af, his 33-year-old wife, told Human Rights Watch that her husband had owned a café near the beach and was detained on August 30, 2010:


We didn't know where he was. Four days later, Internal Security men searched our home and said, "Don't worry, he's with us." Four months after that, he called to say he needed a change of clothes. They had finished investigating him by then. He had lost so much weight. He said they had tied him up and hung him from a hook. It was in a long room that he said other prisoners called "the bus."

Al-Af's son, Hassan, 18, one of six children, said that his father was detained by Internal Security at the "Governor's Castle" detention facility for three-and-a-half months:


He was transferred [during that period] for family visits to al-Ansar [detention facility], and later they sent him to al-Katiba prison. He could only whisper what had happened to him. There were guards in the room and we talked to him behind a glass window. He needed help standing up, the guards had to give him a hand. He said that when he was transferred to al-Katiba, the torture had ended and that "I can rest now," because they had finished investigating him.

Al-Af's family said the prosecution claimed that he had distributed money to Israeli informants. On January 24, 2011, a military court sentenced al-Af to death after convicting him of collaborating with the enemy. The death sentence triggered an automatic appeal to the military appeals court. After the lower-level court issued its sentence, the family hired a lawyer, Mohamed Najjar, to represent him at the appeal. The family said that Najjar urged the appeals court to throw out evidence based on al-Af's confession on the ground that it had been obtained under torture.

His family said that the appeals court stated on November 4, 2012, that it would deliver its verdict in December.

On November 20, Mona al-Af said, "People called my grandfather's house" to inform the family that Amer al-Af had been "killed near the Bahlul gas station on Nasser Street." Family members said they went to al-Shifa hospital at 9 p.m. that day to collect his remains, but that hospital staff refused to allow them to do so until the following day. Hassan al-Af told Human Rights Watch:


I was there when his body was brought in. He had been shot twice, once in the neck, once in the back of his head. They just put his body on the floor in the morgue. We waited until 11 p.m., but they said, "First we'll release the [bodies of the] martyrs, then we'll deal with your bodies." They called us back the next day, at 10:30 a.m. I saw the six bodies all on the floor, they hadn't refrigerated them. They were stacked on top of one another.

Ribhi Badawi
Internal Security officials arrested Ribhi Badawi, who was 37 when he was killed, on August 22, 2009, his family told Human Rights Watch. According to his family, Badawi had been a member of the "Jaljalat," an armed group that accuses Hamas of having compromised its religious and nationalist principles, and supported Abdulatif Musa, the leader of a religious group that opposed Hamas. Hamas forces killed Musa and more than two dozen of his supporters during a firefight in a mosque in Rafah in 2009. Badawi had participated in the fighting in Rafah but fled to Gaza City, his family said. One of Badawi's relatives, who asked not to be identified, said:


Internal Security officers and people in military uniforms came to our home and arrested him. For seven months, we didn't see or hear from him. Then, on our first visit, he told us that he'd been tortured for 55 days. They broke his teeth; we saw stitches in his mouth. And he said they'd suspended him off the ground, with his arms tied behind his back. We met him at the Internal Security prison [called al-Ansar]. We brought him fresh clothes and took his old ones, which were full of blood. He said, "Something serious happened to me that made me sign [a confession]."

Badawi's lawyer said that during the course of his detention, the military prosecutor changed the charges against him from terrorism, for his actions as a member of the Jaljalat, to collaborating with the enemy and murder under the 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code.

The military prosecutor charged Badawi on August 22, 2009. After that, the Interior Ministry transferred Badawi to al-Katiba prison, where his family was able to visit him regularly. "We would visit him every 15 days," his relative said. "He told the court that he was with the Jaljalat but rejected the collaboration charge, and they returned him to prison and pulled out his beard."

Ihab al-Jabari, the lawyer who defended Badawi, told Human Rights Watch that the military district court in Gaza City cleared Badawi of the murder charge, but convicted him of collaborating with the enemy and sentenced him to death by hanging on October 11, 2011, triggering an appeal. Al-Jabari showed Human Rights Watch Badawi's file and described the case:


His confession said that he had walked through the front lines during the 2009 war [with Israel] in the Izbt abd-Rabbo neighborhood [in Gaza], met an Israeli intelligence officer and received $1.5 million and the names of 2,500 other collaborators to whom he was supposed to distribute the money, and then he walked back across the front line. We showed there was no way he could have done that in the amount of time the prosecution said it took, which was just a few hours. We argued that he had contradicted his confession, and confessed under torture, that he hadn't been able to see a lawyer at all during his interrogation, but the judge didn't believe us.

The last of 15 hearings before the military appeals court in Badawi's case was scheduled for November 20, 2012, the day he was killed. He is survived by his wife and five children. His youngest daughter was born after he was in jail; he had told the family to name her "Innocence" in response to what his family said was the false collaboration charge.

Another relative, who asked not to be identified, said, "After he was killed and we got his body, we saw burns from cigarettes, and that his penis had been burned." His body had also been disfigured by being dragged behind a motorcycle. "There was no skin on his back, the bones were showing," the relative said.

Zoheir Hamudi
Zoheir Ahmad Mohamed Hamudi, from Beit Lahiya, was 47 when he was killed on November 20. Until 2001, Hamudi had worked in Israel. One of his eight children, Roma, 19, had received medical treatment at an Israeli hospital from 2005 to 2008, after playing with unexploded ordnance as a child, which blew off his right hand. His family speculates that these connections with Israel may have triggered the suspicions of Hamas security officials that Hamudi and his wife were spies for Israel.

Internal Security officials arrested Hamudi and his wife on April 17, 2011, relatives told Human Rights Watch. "It took us three months to find out where they were held, by Internal Security, but they wouldn't let us visit and they didn't tell us any information about them for about one year," until they were charged and transferred to al-Katiba prison, Hamudi's brother's wife, Rasmiya Mahmoudi, 46, said.

His wife's sister, Soheila Dahamas, 50, said she was the first member of his family to visit him in prison, at the Katiba facility during Ramadan in 2011:


I said, "Did they torture you?" He said yes, they did. He showed me the inside of his ankle, where they'd burned him. He said they drew a picture of a motorcycle on a wall and told him to ride it, and then tortured him since of course he couldn't. He said the torture made him confess to things he didn't do.

Both husband and wife were charged with treason, and Hamudi was also charged with accessory to murder, under the 1979 Revolutionary Penal Code. Human Rights Watch examined court documents, including witness statements (with names redacted) presented by the military prosecution, dated June 21, 2011.

The court convicted them both on September 12, 2012, sentencing Hamudi to death and his wife to 10 years in prison. Before Hamudi's death, his lawyer had appealed his conviction on the basis of a procedural error by the lower court because his conviction was signed by the head of the court rather than the judge presiding in his case, as required by law. "The last appeals hearing was set for November 4, but they delayed it, and then the fighting started," the lawyer said. "We were expecting his case to be sent back for a re-trial" by the lower military court.

Another of Hamudi's relatives, who asked not to be named, said that the family believed he had been murdered at around 11 a.m. on November 20. "We got a call from someone who recognized him at 3 p.m. We went to the gas station but they wouldn't give them to us because of the crowd. People were stomping on the bodies."

Hamudi's son Wisam, 26, also went to try to recover his father's body. "After an hour we returned in a car but they had taken the bodies to al-Shifa [hospital]. But they wouldn't give him up. At 9 a.m. the next day we went to get him. The bodies were still on the floor in the hospital. We saw scars and burn marks on his body." Hospital staff had refused to give the family an autopsy report or a death certificate, relatives said.

Family members said that officials at al-Katiba prison did not allow Hamudi's wife, who is incarcerated there, to attend her husband's funeral.

Bilal al-Abatsa
Bilal Jamal Abdel Majd al-Abatsa, from Khan Yunis, was 26 when he was killed on November 20, 2012.

Internal Security officials had summoned him to their compound in Khan Yunis on May 18, 2010. Al-Abatsa had been a laborer in the smuggling tunnels beneath Gaza's southern border with Egypt, and also a member of the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, Saraya al-Quds, his family said. His uncle, Dr. Jamil al-Abatsa, 60, recently retired from the Planning Ministry in Gaza, said that when the family received the summons from Internal Security, "I had asked Bilal, 'Did you smuggle drugs, or weapons to the Jaljalat in the tunnels?' He said no, and I believed him, so I thought it was safe for him to go to Internal Security."

His family later learned that Internal Security officials immediately transferred him to Gaza City for interrogation. "We didn't know where he was for 17 days, and we couldn't visit him for 90 days," said his father, Jamal al-Abatsa, 59. Two weeks after arresting him, Internal Security officials came to the house and searched his room without presenting a search warrant, his family said, and questioned his family about whether he was a member of Jaljalat, which they denied.

In early June, 2010, Internal Security officials summoned al-Abatsa's father, two of his brothers, and his wife to the Ansar compound in Gaza City for questioning, and said that he was suspected of collaborating with Israel. "They asked me, 'Who paid for his wedding? Where does he get his money?' But I paid for it. The day before they arrested him, I was still paying off the debt," his father said. Al-Abatsa's brother and father said they were summoned repeatedly thereafter by Internal Security and the military prosecutor's office in Gaza City.

His wife and mother visited him in mid-September, 2010. "We talked to him through a window," said his wife, Abeer. "He said he had been tortured, that he couldn't stand up. [His daughter] Alaa was a week old then and he asked to be allowed to hold her, but he needed help, he was too weak to hold her. He had lost four teeth, his vision in both eyes was very bad. I got to see him every two weeks for about 20 minutes."

Human Rights Watch observed numerous court documents from al-Abatsa's trials before a military district court and a military appeals court, in Gaza City. His first trial began on September 29, 2010, and ended, after 30 hearings, with his conviction on charges of collaborating with the enemy, on October 6, 2011. The lower military court's death sentence triggered an appeal, where Ghazi Abu Warda, a lawyer in Gaza City, represented al-Abatsa, and presented defense witnesses at three hearings. Al-Abatsa's cousin, Yehia Musa, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, testified that he had visited him in detention and believed he had been abused in custody. At a fourth hearing, al-Abatsa told the court he had been tortured. The hearings ended in March, but the appeals court repeatedly delayed its verdict and had not delivered it at the time he was killed.

His mother last saw al-Abatsa on October 27, 2012, in al-Katiba prison. "We were supposed to see him on the day he was killed," she said. When the family retrieved his body, "we couldn't see his eyes, his face had been beaten so badly," a relative said. Human Rights Watch viewed a video of al-Abatsa's burial and of his body in a mosque, with bruises visible on his eyes.

Fadel Shaluf
Although Human Rights Watch did not investigate the killing of Fadel Shaluf, 24, from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, his case was reported in-depth in the media. These reports indicated that he had been tortured in detention. He was abducted on January 10, 2008, his relatives told the New York Times. Shaluf's father told the newspaper that the Internal Security agency summoned him nine days later, and that he saw Fadel; interrogators had broken his fingers, dripped melted hoses onto his skin, and hung him from the ceiling by his ankles.
Ghassan Asfour, from the Shaja'iya neighborhood in eastern Gaza City,was also murdered on November 20, 2012. Human Rights Watch contacted his family, who preferred not to be interviewed about his case.


http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/04/11/gaza-collaborator-murders-go-unpunished


Of course, this may all be just a huge misunderstanding, and Hamas were actually trying their best to save these men. I'd hate to think that such a democratic, upstanding organisation like Hamas would treat prisoners in this way.

[seafoid]

Let's discuss israel's use of collaborators this week. The blackmail especially.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Fire away.


























Oh, sorry, Hamas have already done that, haven't they.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Yom Ha'atzma'ut Begins; Israel is 65

Israelis made the annual abrupt jump from sorrow to joy Monday night, as Memorial Day concluded, and Yom Ha'atzma'ut began.


AAFont Size
By David Lev
First Publish: 4/15/2013, 9:41 PM




IDF units

Flash90


Israelis made the annual abrupt jump from sorrow to joy Monday night, as Memorial Day concluded, and Yom Ha'atzma'ut (Independence Day) began. The main torch lighting ceremony opening Yom Ha'atzma'ut took place at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem as the sun set, with 12 Israelis from different backgrounds and professions chosen to light the torches.


Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein opened the ceremonies, calling on all parts of the nation to show more understanding for the others. "We must continue to debate, but when we debate on issues like 'sharing the burden' of IDF service or 'left versus right,' we may not wish or work for the elimination of our opposite. We must strive for a society that includes those who debate and argue, where a hareidi Jew can actualize his lifestyle fully and without prejudice, while accepting responsibility for the safety and future of the state, just as a secular person his age would do," Edelstein said.


Turning to the young people in the audience, Edelstein said "it is by the hands of the youth that we will realize the future of Israel. You are our national hope. Do not succumb to exhaustion, and remove yourselves from the bubble," he said, adding that "our future is in Zionism, not cynicism."


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/167157

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY 

[stew]

If you think for one second that I am trying to change anyones mind on Israel, you are sadly mistaken. Not everything Israel does is wrong.

what are you doing on the board, habibi? Even Stew has disowned you.

I disowned anybody, I simply studied the entire situation over there and found the Israeli's wanting so my opinion changed somewhat.

I despise Hamas with all my being, that said the Israeli soldiers that are supposed to keep the peace and indeed the Israeli government are worse because they are failing to treat a people with any modicum of humanity, and they have abjectly failed to learn from history....................... their own history and that in itself, is repugnant and deplorable.

[Ball DeBeaver]

IDF Dismantles Ofra and Adam Security Fences




IDF Central Command has ordered the removal of the security fences around the Binyamin towns of Ofra and Adam, to enable access to PA Arab agricultural land around the towns for nearby villagers.

Ofra and Adam residents are dismayed by the decision, "To abandon the security of our population? How about building the new fence before taking apart the old one? Arab access to fields cannot come at the expense of essential security  considerations."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/266486

[seafoid]

IDF Dismantles Ofra and Adam Security Fences




IDF Central Command has ordered the removal of the security fences around the Binyamin towns of Ofra and Adam, to enable access to PA Arab agricultural land around the towns for nearby villagers.

Ofra and Adam residents are dismayed by the decision, "To abandon the security of our population? How about building the new fence before taking apart the old one? Arab access to fields cannot come at the expense of essential security  considerations."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/266486

Imagine the Israeli army taking over farmland in Mayo or Limerick and building walls around it. How would farmers react? 

[Ball DeBeaver]

I wonder what Israel done on the poor wee pals to provoke this?


Jihad Terror Group Claims 'Credit' for Eilat Rocket Attack

A Salafi Muslim jihadist group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday morning's rocket attack on the Israeli resort city of Eilat.


AAFont Size
By Chana Ya'ar
First Publish: 4/17/2013, 1:36 PM


A Salafi Muslim jihadist group has claimed responsibility for Wednesday morning's rocket attack on the Israeli Red Sea resort city of Eilat.

"The lions of the Mujahedeen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem managed to target occupied Eilat with two Grad rockets on the morning of April 17, and withdrew safely," a statement posted on jihadist web sites said. There were no details indicating the site from where the rockets had been launched, AFP reported.

However, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Force said the rocket fire had been traced to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, a region which has become a hotbed of terrorist activity since the fall in 2011 of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.   

Egyptian military said it was still checking the source of the rocket fire. "We are still investigating to see if they were delivered from Egyptian territories but nothing is confirmed yet," a senior military official told AFP.

The two rockets slammed into the city of Eilat at about 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, one exploding in the back yard of a private home, the other landing in an open area.

Although a number of people suffered severe anxiety and shock as a result of the attack, no one was physically injured and no property damage was reported.

Authorities ordered a temporary closure of the local Eilat airport as a safety precaution, and a flight to the area from Ben Gurion International Airport was canceled. However, schools in Israel's southernmost Negev city remained opened despite the rocket fire.

Israeli media quoted unnamed Jordanian sources who said the Jordanian port city of Aqaba, located across the bay from Eilat, may also have been hit by rocket fire at about the same time as Eilat. The report was unconfirmed, however, and Jordanian government officials raced to deny the report.

Eilat was also struck by rocket fire a number of times last year in attacks launched from Sinai, at least one of which was claimed by an Islamist group calling itself Ansar Jerusalem.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/167221

[Ball DeBeaver]

Let's discuss israel's use of collaborators this week. The blackmail especially.

Still waiting on this discussion. Lets discuss the false allegations flying around.

Go ahead, discuss.

Palestinians say falsely identified as Mossad agents in cyber attack


Published Monday 15/04/2013 (updated) 16/04/2013 11:51






BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Hackers who published the names of alleged Mossad agents have infuriated several Palestinians living in Israel who say they were falsely identified as agents of the Israeli intelligence agency.

Hackers in March published lists naming thousands of alleged Mossad employees.

One Palestinian named in the leak said "amateur hackers seemingly obtained the names from private business companies and claimed the names were of Mossad agents," adding that the names appeared to have been taken from shoe stores, travel agencies and private businesses.

A 32-year-old Palestinian living in Haifa in northern Israel said she was shocked when a colleague said her name was on the list.

"I expected he was joking, so I asked him to congratulate me for that, but he insisted he was serious, and he showed me the list with my name in it," the woman told Ma'an, asking not to be identified.

She said the ordeal was tough because her co-workers took the allegation seriously. "They were whispering together and looking at me with suspicious glances.

"As other virtuous Arabs, I found myself faultlessly facing accusations as a result of a situation fabricated by some individuals who published a list of names without checking the validity of their claims."

She added: "Though I am not involved in any political activities, I am a patriotic Palestinian loyal to my homeland's interests. After all the suffering I went through in my life, I found myself under suspicion and defending myself. It is really bitter to destroy virtuous people just because some individuals wanted to satisfy their desires and publish uncertain information."

She said her family's reputation was damaged and so she contacted local organizations for assistance, but found they were not interested in the case.

"So I decided to launch a campaign to discharge all the people whose names appeared in the alleged list from the false accusations."

The woman also contacted the hacker groups involved in the campaign.

"The Anonymous group told me they would check and publish a clarification, but later they said the list was published by another group called Sector 707," she said.

She got in touch with websites that had published the list, and says she received several apologies.

"We obtained the list from one of the hackers and we took it down after two or three hours after we discovered the names were taken from the database of a telecommunications company," one of the websites told her, she says.

Meanwhile, a Palestinian man living in Upper Galilee told Panet website that his name appeared on the list.

"I was shocked when I saw my name and contact information in an alleged list of Mossad agents. The worst thing about the case was that a majority of people treated that list as if it was real, and they started to view the names in the list as if they were really Mossad agents. This is a false accusation and it is very dangerous," he said.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=585879

[Ball DeBeaver]

The next instalment of "You couldn't make it up" includes this gem from Gaza.

Gaza fishing ban imposed for 'security reasons'


Published today (updated) 17/04/2013 14:27

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Hamas security forces in Gaza have banned fishermen from working since Monday, a human rights center said Wednesday.

Naval security forces in the coastal territory imposed a ban on fishing at 5 a.m. on Monday for "security reasons," according to Al-Mezan center for human rights.

Mahfouz al-Kabariti, chairman of the Palestinian Association for Fishing and Marine Sports, told Ma'an that fishermen were notified about the decision.

Palestinian sources in Gaza told Ma'an that it is likely the ban was imposed after three prisoners escaped from jail on Monday.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=586524

At least Israel lets them fish up to a limit. Hamas, the saviours of Gaza. 

[seafoid]

How the Jewish State uses collaborators to frame political opponents.

"In a brief interrogation at the Etzion facility, he was asked about Hamas. In the past he had always been accused of being a member of the Popular Front, but this time it was Hamas. It was the holy month of Ramadan, but Ahmar took out a cigarette and asked his interrogator for a light. "Deny it or not, we have all the information," the interrogator told the heretic who smoked during Ramadan and was accused of recruiting people for Hamas. That was the first and almost the only interrogation he underwent in the 20 months that followed, with the exception of another brief conversation with "Nimrod" across the fence at the Ofer detention facility. Ahmar says that "Nimrod" suggested that he make a confession. "Admit that you belong to an organization, admit to something, something small, and we'll charge you with that and finish this. You know that we can create information about you; we have collaborators who will say anything." His detention was extended by eight days and then by another four, and he was certain that he was about to go home. Then came the decision: six months of administrative detention.  "I had the feeling that they had begun to run amok and to shatter our lives," he recalls. "I thought an error had been made and the appeals judge would release me immediately. Then the judge endorsed [the six-month detention] and I thought about another appeal; there would be a good session and the judge would annul it. But the appeal was rejected again. I thought to myself: Six months will pass, things will calm down. Then I got another six months. And then another six months and another six months. Six months four times, until finally the judge said that two months had to be dropped because there was no new material. For 11 years they have suspected me and suspected me, but haven't found anything."


Secondly , the use of collaborators or touts to buy land on behalf of Jews which them magically becomes Israeli land :

"The Elad association in particular has acquired a reputation for being careful to make their purchases strictly legal, but the way to these purchases is often paved with pressures and threats that border on the criminal; the forging of documents or obtaining them through fraud; the cynical use of Shin Bet security service collaborators as straw men and the shameful exploitation of the chaotic legal status of lands in Silwan, where the State of Israel has never regularized the legal listing of property in the Lands Registry. In this free-for-all of a war over land in the territories, it is no wonder that a mill of rumors, fears and speculations of various degrees of imaginativeness is flourishing."

That sort of shit never happened in Northern Ireland.

Extensive use of collaborators isn't honourable. And it doesn't befit the Jewish state.