Stephen Lendman

Settlers regularly intimidate and assault Palestinians and their property with impunity. Nearby security forces don't intervene. Often they commit violence. Investigations seldom follow. Those done are whitewashed. World leaders turn a blind eye. As a result, Palestinians are denied protection and justice.

B'Tselem's been on the story for years. Settler violence is longstanding, troubling, and largely without accountability.

Since September 2000 alone (the beginning of the second Intifada), the toll includes 50 Palestinians killed. Since December 1987 (the first Intifada's onset), it's 115, besides many more injured, including children.

With few exceptions, settlers initiate unprovoked violence. More recently, those under the "Price Tag" slogan rampage out-of-control.

B'Tselem documented numerous incidents, including blocking roads, stoning cars and homes, torching fields, uprooting trees and other crops, as well as other forms of violence and damage.

In response, Israeli security forces do little despite a High Court ruling that "protecting the security and property of the local residents is one of the most basic obligations placed upon the military commander in the field."

Moreover, Justices said Israeli authorities must "give unequivocal instructions to the forces that are deployed in the field." They must also "allocate forces to protect the property of the Palestinian residents." More on the most recent incidents below.

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Khalid Amayreh

Land grab: Fortified settlements for Jews on stolen Palestinian land

Despite knowing that settlements have broken the peace process, Israel is forging ahead with plans to build new Jew-only colonies on Palestinian land, writes Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

Taking advantage of the ongoing turbulence in the Arab world, the proximity of the US presidential elections, and the international community's manifest powerlessness to check aggressive Israeli unilateralism, the Israeli government has been stepping up hostile measures against the largely unprotected Palestinian community.

The measures, which include the seizure of a large swathe of Palestinian-owned land for settlement expansion, wanton home demolition as well as unrelenting attacks and acts of vandalism against Palestinians and their property, are aimed at rendering unrealistic and impossible the goal of establishing a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank.

The latest colonialist Israeli scheme would confiscate thousands of acres of mostly privately owned Arab land south of Bethlehem. This week, the Israeli occupation army approved the establishment of a new permanent settlement south of the Biblical city. The new settlement would include a large farm as well other infrastructure. It would also cut off the southern West Bank -- the Hebron region -- from the Bethlehem and Ramallah regions, putting an end to Palestinian demographic continuity in the vicinity.

Virtually powerless Palestinian Authority (PA) officials described Israel's plans to build a new settlement as "outrageous". One PA official labelled the new expansion scheme as an "act of rape".

PA spokespersons appealed to Egypt and the European Union to condemn and actively oppose Israeli plans, rightly described as "effective decapitation of the last hopes for a dignified peace in the region".

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Stephen Lendman

Nazi Germany's historic analog shows how extreme racist persecution can become. Unless checked, genocide may annihilate a population entirely.

Virtually daily, Israeli security forces attack, kill, or injure Palestinian civilians with impunity. They also destroy their property by bombing, shelling, bulldozing and uprooting it.

At the same time, Israeli authorities wink and nod, occasionally decry, yet do nothing to deter extremist settler crimes against Palestinian civilians.

Most often, they're given license to terrorize, vandalize and commit physical violence with impunity. Rarely ever is anyone held accountable. The same holds for its own security forces, no matter how outrageous their crimes.

So imagine Defense Minister Ehud Barak's hypocrisy. In response to days of settler attacks, he shamelessly called them "Jewish terrorists."[1][2]

B'Tselem responded, saying "this is an illegitimate way to deal with the phenomenon of violence by Israeli citizens in the Occupied Territories. Instead, this phenomenon must be dealt with through the criminal justice system."

Netanyahu disagreed, stopping well short of condemning settler attacks and ordering arrests. Instead, he described them as a "small group that does not represent the public that lives in Judea and Samaria."

For years, radical settlers terrorized Palestinians with impunity. In the past two years alone, six mosques in Palestine and Israel (belonging to peace and other activist groups) were burned or otherwise vandalized.

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Stephen Lendman

Palestinian children sit on a pile of dirt at the war-battered
refugee camp of Nahr Al-Bared.

December 11 marks the 63rd anniversary of UN Resolution 194(III)[Paragraph 11], mandating that:

"the (Palestinian) refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible."

International law enshrines this right, including:

• Article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
• Article 5(d)(ii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination;
• Article 12(4) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and
• the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (the Apartheid Convention).

Denying this right constitutes apartheid. Nonetheless, Israel refuses to let diaspora Palestinians return home. It calls doing so an "act of suicide," disruptive of its tenuous majority.

It cites UN Resolutions 242 and 338. They mandate political solutions for Palestine's refugee problem, exclusive of international law, human rights, equity and justice. As a result, durable solutions are blocked.

Israel calls right of return issues a privilege, not a right. Palestinian self-determination is thus severely compromised. Millions are left unprotected.

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Stephen Lendman

An Israeli settler attacks an Israeli activist during a demon-
stration against settlements in the town of Hebron.

Palestinians are doubly cursed. Israel's military attacks them regularly. During the past week alone, Israeli air strikes killed four Gazans, wounding another 14.

Al-Nabi Saleh village residents participating in a peaceful demonstration were assaulted. Two injuries were reported, including a child. Israel's navy arrested three Palestinian fishermen, confiscating their boats.

Their security forces conducted 91 incursions (13 a day on average) into Palestinian communities, arresting 14 civilians. One injury was reported.

Israeli security forces raided homes of recently released Palestinian prisoners. They were ordered to appear for questioning to harass and perhaps re-incarcerate them.

In addition, Palestinian property was attacked, bulldozed, otherwise destroyed or damaged.

All the above incidents and similar daily ones violate international and Israeli law.

Lawless Israeli settlers also assault Palestinians with impunity. Investigations when held are whitewashed. Rarely is anyone prosecuted even for offenses too serious to ignore.

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Stephen Lendman

Israeli police spokesperson: several activists were detained
as the police dispersed an "illegal gathering".

Israel never embraced democratic values. More than ever today that's true. Many Jews understand. As a result, they're voting with their feet and leaving.

Gideon Levy remarked that "(i)t's really an irony of history, because Israel was established to become a shelter to the Jewish people. Now Europe becomes a shelter for the Jews living in Israel."

So does America. New millennium exodus has a whole new meaning. Last year, Haaretz writer Bradley Burston headlined, "I envy the people who hate Israel," saying:

"....this is not the same country I moved to, so long ago. I learned when I first came that Israel was not the country I'd thought I was moving to."

Now it's worse than ever because "Israel at its highest level has taken an executive decision. Unable to beat the forces who want to see Israel as one of the world's primary pariah states, it has resolved to join them" and succeeded.

With its paymaster/partner America, it's out in front leading. Growing numbers know it, Jews and non-Jews alike. A 2008 Menachem Begin Heritage Center survey showed 59% of Israelis consider leaving by inquiring about foreign citizenship and second passports. Growing numbers hold them.

In 2005, the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics said 650,000 Israelis away for over a year haven't returned. Most were Jews.

Moreover, as greater numbers leave, most remaining are ideologically committed. Many of them are fanatics. Others are indifferent, aging, unable to leave, or aren't sure where to go. Emigrating abroad isn't simple. Cost is a factor. Uprooting takes a toll. So does adjusting.

Nonetheless, growing numbers leave because social injustice is official policy. So is state terror. Israel's a regional menace, a belligerent modern-day Sparta, a rogue pariah endangering its own people like others. As a result, many Israelis fear living in the eye of the storm. Daily examples show why.

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Stephen Lendman

America's First Amendment guarantees free assembly. No matter. Demonstrators for social, economic and political justice are assaulted and arrested.

For weeks, hundreds of peaceful environmental protesters in front of the White House against a controversial 1,661-mile Alberta, Canada to Port Arthur, TX pipeline have been arrested for exercising their constitutional rights - whatever the issue.

This one's important, involving TransCanada Corporation's history of spills, as well as plans to transport toxic oil from environmentally destructive tar sands.

Nonetheless, Obama backs construction to feed America's dirty oil appetite. To hell with environmental sanity and public health.

Friends of the Earth says the Keystone XL pipeline "will carry one of the world's dirtiest fuels: tar sands oil." Moreover, its route "could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health."

If completed, the pipeline will double dirty tar sands oil into America, making its toxic environment more noxious. Bipartisan Washington criminals support it. So does Obama. Only profits and corporate favoritism matter. The public interest be damned as on so many other issues.

Angry protesters reacted peacefully. Their reward - arrests and for some roughed up. It's the same fate global justice, anti-war, and other demonstrators at times face. Too many times, in fact.

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Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

Judging murder, including haphazard murder, as legal because Jews are involved is the ultimate expression of moral bankruptcy, dishonesty and maliciousness.

On Friday, 2 September, a pro-Israeli body at the United Nations released a brazenly unbalanced report concluding that Israel's four-year blockade of some 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was "legal" and "within the barometers of international law."

The scandalous report, dubbed as the Palmer report, also concluded that the manifestly criminal Israeli assault on a Turkish ship carrying solidarity activists and humanitarian materials to besieged Gazans, which occurred 18 months ago and killed at least nine Turkish citizens and injured many others, was also legal.

The report was reportedly prepared by a group of fanatical Zionists who thought that Israel could do nothing wrong and that its victims, whether Turks or Arabs, were either terrorists or sub-humans whose lives had no sanctity whatsoever.

The obscene disregard of truth inherent in that infamous and biased document showed that professionalism and objectivity were the last things on the minds of that commission's members.

Indeed, the victims of the Gaza siege, which ironically is yet to be lifted, have every right under the sun to cry out to the seventh heaven, in anger and bitterness, wondering what right the Nazi-like entity, Israel, ever had to withhold medicine and food supplies, fuel and other basic necessities from the people of Gaza.

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Stephen Lendman

In July 2011, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, "Education Denied: Israel's Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children's Right to Education," even though it's a fundamental human right.

It involves progressively developing children as individuals and responsible citizens. It's key in helping them "raise their standard of living, and (be able to further their) economic, social and cultural development and growth of society."

PCHR's report addresses Israeli policies that affect primary education achievement for all Palestinians by 2015.

International law recognizes the right to education for everyone, including Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) stating:

"The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education....(It) shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups," as well as advance activities for peace.

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Stephen Lendman

In Israel and Occupied Palestine, only Jews have rights. Arabs are denied them for being Muslims in a Jewish state, even on their own land.

Palestinians bear witness daily to Israeli state terror. Complicit Western and regional nations, in fact, condone it through silence or failure to condemn what never is tolerable and must end.

For nearly a week, Israeli aircraft struck Gaza preemptively. As a result, fear of a new war grows.

Israel claims strikes follow rocket attacks. In fact, when launched, they're few in number and respond to Israeli aggression in self-defense.

● On July 12, IDF jets struck alleged northern Gaza "weapons manufacturing sites," injuring one woman.
● On July 13, three tunnels were bombed. Israel falsely blamed them for "terrorist activity." Two Palestinians were missing after one of the tunnels collapsed. Later one body was recovered. Five or more other Palestinians were wounded.
● On July 14, other targets were struck, wounding four Palestinian civilians.
● On July 15, overnight attacks wounded four Palestinians, including two children. Over the weekend, other preemptive raids followed. Blaming the victims, a July 14 IDF statement said: "The IDF will not tolerate any attempt to harm Israeli civilians, and will respond with determination to any attempt to use terror against the State of Israel. The IDF holds the Hamas terrorist organization solely responsible for any terrorist activity emanating from the Gaza Strip."

In fact, Hamas is Palestine's legitimate government. Israel lawlessly terrorizes West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza residents preemptively, falsely claiming self-defense.

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