Israel’s
Bar Ilan University warns Jewish students they will have to share dorms
with Palestinian students
There really is little need to comment on this headline because it speaks for itself. It is based on a report in Hebrew. It used to be the case that Bar Ilan, a religious university in Tel Aviv used to have separate dorms for Arab and Jewish students. However after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a student of Bar Ilan, Yigal Amir, there had to be some changes.
Jewish
students in most Israeli universities are given the option of whether or not to
share their accommodation with Palestinian Israeli students. After all isn’t that what a Jewish State is about?
When
Keir
Starmer told the Times of Israel
‘I
said it loud and clear — and meant it — that I support Zionism without
qualification.”
what
he meant was that he supported segregation and Jewish supremacy, because that
is what Zionism means. And if you said that the Zionist idea of separating Jews
and Palestinians was racist, I’m sure that Starmer would say that you were
being ‘anti-Semitic’. Because an anti-Semite these days is now being redefined
as an anti-racist. Bizarre isn’t it
whilst actual racists like Steve Bannon and Richard Spencer are ‘supporters of
the Jewish people’ and not anti-Semitic. That is what is mean by newspeak.
Is
it racist to allow and permit segregation in education? Perish the thought. This is self-determination!
In
another example of what a Jewish state means I have copied 3 stories below
about the reign of terror against Palestinian farmers in the West Bank,
especially during the olive growing season.
The
article
below describes the reign of terror that the illegal settlement of Yizhar wages
against neighbouring Palestinian villages.
Not only does the Israeli army not protect the Palestinians but it
actively protects the attackers and fires tear gas grenades into the homes of those
under attack.
This
aiding and abetting Israeli settler terrorists is exactly what used to happen
when Jews in Russia came under attack from pogromists. The Russian police only intervened when the Jews
began to fight back against the anti-Semites.
So it is with Israel today. Yet this
is the situation that the execrable Starmer, fully backed by the pathetic
Momentum and the even more pathetic John McDonnell supports when they classify anti-Zionism
as ‘anti-Semitism’. Because that is what the fake ‘anti-Semitism’ campaign and
now the EHRC Report is about.
The
second
article is a Ha'aretz leading article on the wave of terror directed at Palestinian
farmers. It excoriates the Israeli Police for deliberately turning a blind eye
to settler violence. Just 9% of cases result in any form of police prosecution
or action.
The
third article
describes the attack on an elderly Palestinian farmer, aged
73. He had a large rock thrown at his
head by 4 Jewish terrorists. The Zionist
Police of course did nothing. This is
the state of affairs in the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’.
Tony
Greenstein
At
the Foothills of an Israeli Settlement, Palestinians Are Used to Weekends of
Terror
Five people
wounded – that was the bloody toll of two assaults last weekend by settlers
from Yitzhar and its neighboring outposts on Palestinian villagers in the West
Bank. Guess which of the sides gets army protection
Mohammed
Zaben and his father Imad, in a neck brace. “In the name of God, don’t throw stones at us,” they pleaded with
the settlers, who kept up their barrage.
Published
on 30.10.2020
The last row of houses in the village of Asira al-Qibliya, near Nablus in the
West Bank, looks like a sort of fortress. Eight residential dwellings whose
windows are protected with bars, courtesy of a European aid organization, their
yards covered with a smattering of stones that have been thrown at them,
encompassed by a fence, doors shuttered. The violent mountaintop settlement of
Yitzhar next door has the people of this outlying region – not to say war zone
– cringing with terror. The mobile homes of Shalhevet, one of nine unauthorized
outposts that Yitzhar has spawned, are visible from the yard of the last house
in Asira, looming ominously on a hilltop above the rest of the Palestinian
village.
Across the way is an Israel Defense Forces base whose
soldiers almost always show up together with the settler-ruffians, protecting
them and sometimes also joining in the attacks on their Palestinian victims, firing
live rounds into the air as well as stun grenades and tear gas. Next to
Shalhevet’s trailers stands a round green structure. When there’s a light on
inside, villagers say, they’re calm, but when it’s dark it’s a sign that yet
another “price tag” action – some sort of retaliatory act – can be expected.
Hence their name for the structure: the “price tag building.”
Occupants of that last row of homes in Asira know the
drill: gather the children into one room, especially on weekends –
“Friday-Saturday” is synonymous here with settler assaults – and turn up the
volume of the television when they approach, so the frightened children won’t
hear the barrage of stones the settlers let loose at their homes or the sounds
of the soldiers’ stun grenades and shooting. Every night of the week a man from
a different family stays awake to guard and to warn others if something is
happening. That’s been the routine for almost 20 years. Last weekend, too.
Abd al-Basath Ahmed is a hardscrabble construction
worker of 50 and the father of seven children, one of them with special needs.
Last Saturday, he was at home with his wife Maisa and the family while the
neighbors, some of them his relatives, went out to harvest olives in their
groves nearby. Ahmed’s house and that of one of his sons are the last two
houses in Asira; a simple metal fence separates them from a valley below and
the hill on the other side where Yitzhar is perched. The fence was torn this
week, following the latest attack by the settlers.
At about 3:30 P.M. on Saturday, he told us when we
visited this week, Ahmed’s nephew, who lives in the house behind his, called to
say that he could see settlers descending from the mountain. Ahmed immediately
looked outside. This time they were coming from the northeast, from the
direction of Shalhevet. Ahmed spotted a group of 18 to 20 settler men, dressed
in white – they always wear white, in honor of the Sabbath – marching down the
slope of the hill toward the village. When they drew closer they put on masks,
as they always do. They carried stones. Big ones, some of them folded up in
their shirts. Ahmed’s impression was that they were an organized group, all
apparently in their 20s.
Quickly he hustled the children and grandchildren into
his house and went up to the roof with Maisa to see what lay in store. The
raiders were busy breaching the metal fence outside his yard. Ahmed decided to
go down to try to stop them, a stick in his hand. His fear was that the group
would break into his house, and he was the only adult male left in the area;
all the others were helping in the olive harvest.
The settlers tore open the fence, and one of them
entered the yard. A hail of stones was unleashed by the others. Ahmed had
nowhere to escape and no way of protecting himself. One stone struck his skull,
another his left shoulder and a third slammed into his thigh, smashing the
mobile phone in his pocket. The settlers didn’t utter a word, he recalled, only
threw stones.
Israel's Illegitimate 'Demographic Balance'
 |
Ahmed is wearing stained work clothes, his face etched
with weariness, as he talks to us. As blood streamed from his head, he says,
the settlers retreated: They had had enough. But by then, the army had arrived
from the hill across the way, from the all-seeing base overlooking the entire
area. As usual, the mission of the soldiers, six in number this time, was to
protect the assailants. They aimed stun grenades at Ahmed’s house, while acting
as a buffer between it and the settlers and firing live ammunition in the air.
The empty casings remained in his yard. Material evidence.
The soldiers were relatively restrained this time,
Ahmed relates: Breaking with custom, they didn’t fire tear gas into the house.
He terms this a “gesture.” He has a permanent kit to be used against tear gas,
at home: rags soaked in a solution of baking soda. It helps, he says. They also
have a fire extinguisher, for any contingency.
The settlers actually renewed their stone throwing
when the soldiers showed up. Hiding behind the troops, they apparently felt
safer, more protected. The soldiers didn’t lift a finger to stop them – they
never do, Ahmed says. They ordered him to hide until a Palestinian ambulance
arrived to take him for treatment. He sat in a corner of the yard, blood oozing
from his head; Maisa tried to stanch the bleeding with a piece of cloth. In the
meantime, seven more settlers showed up to join their friends. Ahmed waited an
hour for the ambulance to arrive; the soldiers made no effort to assist or
evacuate him.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Office issued the following
response on Wednesday to Haaretz:
“Last
Saturday, there was friction between Israelis and Palestinians in the village
of Asira al-Qibliya, which involved the throwing of stones by both sides. An
IDF force was dispatched to the scene to serve as a barrier between those
disturbing the peace, in order to put an end to the incident, among other ways
by means of crowd dispersal. As opposed to what has been claimed, the stun
grenades that were in use were not directed at the house in the village.”
Ahmed was taken to Rafadiya Hospital in Nablus, where
he received six stitches in his head and then was released.
 |
A few months ago, when the Israeli Civil
Administration removed a mobile home, deemed illegal in Yitzhar, the settlers’
attacks intensified, taking place daily over the course of a week. That was the
outlet for their anger.
This situation has continued unabated since 2002. In
some cases the settlers raid the village at night and damage residents’ cars –
as they did in 2012, setting some vehicles on fire – but for the most part they
attack the houses at the edge of the village stones, and don’t dare enter it.
In April, Ahmed’s brother planted a fig tree in the
area between his house and the hill across the valley. Yitzhar’s security
officer arrived immediately and ordered him to uproot the tree. He refused. The
next morning he found the tree had been set on fire.
Two years ago, the same brother tried to file a
complaint with the police after settlers torched his taxi. Following a
humiliating wait of hours, he was told by the police that he hadn’t paid an old
traffic ticket, and that unless he did so they would not accept his complaint.
Since then, the family has stopped making complaints to the police about the
attacks on them.
In some instances the settlers arrive only to provoke
or frighten the villagers. They take up positions next to the metal fence near
the houses and dance and sing. One way or another, there isn’t a quiet
Saturday.
“And now
another Shabbat is coming,” Ahmed told us with a bitter smile before we parted.
 |
The yard of a house in another village, Burin, on the other side of Yitzhar. Imad Zaben, a blacksmith of 59, sits surrounded by his wife and children, wearing a neck brace following the spinal surgery he underwent three weeks ago.
Last Friday, the day before the attack on Asira
al-Qibliya, wearing his brace, Zaben and his family – his wife, his brother and
some children and grandchildren – were harvesting olives in the family grove
about three kilometers from Yitzhar, in the valley below. Never had they
encountered problems during the harvest; this time, too, the day began quietly.
But after a few uneventful hours, at around 12:30,
stones began to rain down on them from above. Zaben’s son, Mohammed, 32,
suffered a skull fracture when he was struck by a stone. Another son, 28 (who
asked that his name not be used), suffered a broken arm; a stone fractured the
arm of Zaben’s brother, Bashir, 64; and his nephew, Ahmed, 34, Bashir’s son,
was also struck in the arm. All told, four members of one family were injured.
Zaben, who was careful and very worried because of his back surgery, managed to
emerge unscathed; his sons protected him bodily.
The rain of stones surprised them: Because the
settlers throwing them were situated above them, just meters away, on the hill,
initially, the Zaben family didn’t see them.
“In the name of God, don’t throw stones at us,” they
pleaded with the settlers, who didn’t utter a word but kept up their barrage –
as in Asira the following day.
Despite his head injury Mohammed rode off on the horse
he had brought to the site, and the settlers started to flee, though not before
throwing a few more stones. Other members of the family quickly got into their
cars and hurried home. Mohammed was taken by ambulance to Rafadiya Hospital and
from there was transferred to the intensive care unit in Istishari Hospital in
Ramallah. He was discharged after three days.
The Zaben family won’t be returning to their grove
this harvest season.
 |
| Mohammed Zaben and his father Imad, in a neck brace. “In the name of God, don’t throw stones at us,” they pleaded with the settlers, who kept up their barrage. |
Editorial |
Settler
Violence Against Palestinian Farmers Only Grows During Harvest Time
 |
Destroyed olive tree in the village of Mreir, West Bank, January 24, 2019.Credit: Alex Levac |
Not even the coronavirus pandemic, which has derailed the entire
world, managed to stop the seasonal outbreak of settler violence during the
olive harvest, or the odor of collaboration by Israeli law enforcement agencies
that always accompanies it.
On the contrary, according to one of the leaders of the Palestinian activist organization Faz3a, which sends volunteers to the orchards to help Palestinian farmers, this year has seen a rise in the number of violent incidents and in the level of settler aggression. The Israeli organization Yesh Din: Volunteers for Human Rights has documented 25 incidents related to the harvest since the harvest season began. These range from stealing olives to burning or chopping down trees to violent assaults on the harvesters. To date, more than 400 trees have been cut down and around 50 have been torched.
The economic fallout from the pandemic has not spared the occupied territories. As a result, the olive harvest has become a primary source of income for many families. The lawless settlers who steal the olives and uproot the trees aren’t only vandalizing Palestinian property; they are also sabotaging the livelihoods of entire families at a very difficult time.
Ohad Hemo of Channel 12 Television News reported on settler
violence during the harvest last week. A moment before he and his crew were attacked by criminals from the
settlements, he filmed a masked settler telling a landowner from the
Palestinian village of Burqa, “God gave
us this land. I’m the son of Allah and you are his slave.” This ugly
arrogance captures perfectly the sick mood that has been spreading through the
settlements. The Jews are the lords of the land and the Palestinians are
slaves, even when the Palestinians are the legal owners of that land.
Israeli
Police Investigating Uprooting of Olive Trees in West Bank Village
Palestinian
Farmers Lose Hundreds of Olive, Fig Trees to West Bank Vandals
Hundreds
of Trees Destroyed in West Bank Palestinian Villages, Israeli Rights Groups
Report
But the settlers would not be so successful in their oppression and theft were it not for the inaction of Israeli law enforcement agencies, which do almost nothing to bring criminals from the hilltop outposts to justice. According to Yesh Din’s figures, only nine percent of investigations into cases in which Israelis assaulted Palestinians or damaged their property in the West Bank from 2005 to 2019 ended in charges being filed against the suspects. Fully 82 percent of these cases were closed for reasons that attest to the police’s failure to investigate. And when it comes to investigations into vandalizing trees, the percentage of cases in which anyone is indicted is even lower.
These pogroms are taking place in the name of
Israel as a whole, and Israel as a whole bears responsibility for them. The law
enforcement agencies, and especially the Judea and Samaria District police,
treat Palestinian complainants with abysmal contempt and fail to prosecute
violent settlers even when their actions and their identities have been fully
documented. In effect, the state is telling the lawbreakers that they can
continue to commit crimes without let or hindrance. Israel has thereby revealed
its great and hidden goal – pushing the Palestinians out of the occupied
territories.
Settlers
Hurled Rocks at the Palestinian Farmer's Head. His Age Didn't Deter Them
Settlers stoned and injured a 73-year-old Palestinian
in his grove, others vandalized another farmer's 200 trees. A journey during
the season of harvest – which is also clearly the season of settler violence
At home on the outskirts of the West Bank village of
Na’alin, an elderly farmer, Khalil Amira, is nursing a head wound he suffered
when settlers stoned him while he harvested olives in his grove – in front of
his daughter and grandchildren. About an hour’s drive south, in the village of
Jab’a, two other aged farmers are lamenting the damage wrought to their olive
trees by other thugs. And these are only three recent examples of the dozens of
Palestinian harvesters who are being assaulted on their lands on an almost
daily basis.
It’s autumn, with its clouds and its howling wind, as
the old Israeli song goes, and it’s also the season of the olive harvest – and
with it settlers
who go on a rampage every year at this time, across the West Bank. It’s not
autumn if there’s no olive harvest, and there’s no olive harvest without
settler rampages. And the start of this season bodes ill.
Several weeks into the harvest, which began this year
on October 5, the Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights NGO has already
documented 25 violent incidents, and no one apparently intends to put a stop to
them. The police accept complaints and take down testimonies, but that seems to
be the extent of their activity.
According to Yesh Din, between 2005 and 2019, only 9
percent of the complaints filed by Palestinians over Israelis’ violence against
them ended with the alleged perpetrators being brought to trial. Fully 82
percent of the cases were closed, including nearly all of the complaints about
the destruction of olive trees.
Amira is surrounded by family in his fine house in
Na’alin, west of Ramallah. His head is bandaged, concealing 15 stitches; his
family envelops him with concern and warmth. Since being wounded last week by a
stone thrown at him by settlers, he’s returned to the hospital twice, because
of possible intracranial bleeding. A working man of 73, Amira was employed for
20 years as a welder in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, in
Israel; he also worked for years at Elco, an industrial conglomerate. His
father left him, his two sisters and his six brothers 100 dunams (25 acres) of
olive trees, which he has been cultivating since his retirement, after becoming
ill with a heart ailment. He speaks Hebrew fluently, and he and his family are
gracious hosts.
 |
| Khalil Amira at his home. Credit: Alex Levac |
Amira’s access to his land was cut off in 2008 by the
construction of the West Bank separation barrier – a fate that befell many
Palestinian farmers. Part of his property was also expropriated for the
establishment of a settlement called Hashmona’im, which is on the other side of
the barrier, yet another annexation-type stunt. Recently, settlers ruined the
two wells that were his on land adjacent to Hashmona’im. They would descend
into one of the wells with a ladder and wash themselves in it, contaminating
the water. The settlers also made a breach in the fence that encircles
Hashmona’im and dumped garbage and construction debris on another part of his
land – the evidence is still there. Amira filed a complaint with the Binyamin
District police, and the dumping stopped for a time, but it resumed last
February. It was clear that the perpetrators of the recent assault on him also
set out from Hashmona’im, even if they were not necessarily residents of the
settlement.
For 11 years, the farmer was unable to visit the land
he owns, adjacent to the fence surrounding Hashmona’im – others were able to
work it for him – until last fall, when he was able to harvest his olives with
no interference. He wanted to do the same this year. The Israel Defense Forces
allow him four days to pick olives – with advance coordination. Amira was
supposed to start picking Monday last week, but because of a doctor’s
appointment, he didn’t arrive until the following day.
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They set out early in the morning: Amira, his son
Raad, 47, his daughter Halda, 35, and three young grandchildren. The IDF does
not permit them to arrive at their lands by vehicle, so they had to walk about
a kilometer from the gate in the separation fence. By about midday they had
collected enough olives to fill a large sack. Raad hoisted a bag with half of
the olives onto his shoulder and carried it to the gate, and then returned for
the other half. Seeing that Raad was tired, his father told him he didn’t have
to come back again.
At 2:30 P.M., Amira hid the tools he had used in the
grove, before his departure. When he returned from the hiding place, he saw that
his daughter and grandchildren had already left. On his way to the gate he saw
his grandson’s knapsack on the ground. He picked it up and continued to walk,
when suddenly he heard shouts.
In a nearby grove, he saw four masked young people
throwing rocks at his nephew, Abd al-Haq, and his son, Yusuf, who were working
there separately. Spotting Amira, the masked men began hurling rocks at him as
well. The fact that he was elderly apparently made no impression on them.
According to Amira, they had large rocks that they had brought with them.
Otherwise, they were not armed and did not wield clubs. He tried to evade the
onslaught but could not escape. At one point, he was struck on the left side of
his head, and he collapsed to the ground. He doesn’t know how long he lay
there, nor does he remember any more about the person who threw the rock that
hit looked like.
“They didn’t look like people to me, but
devils,” he tells us now.
Soldiers appeared out of nowhere and administered
first aid. His wife and the three grandchildren, also arrived, and were
distraught. Blood streamed from his head, and an army paramedic stanched the
wound. The soldiers summoned an Israeli ambulance to meet them at Hashmona’im.
Amira managed to walk with the aid of the soldiers, but the Druze guard at the
settlement’s gate refused to allow any of them to enter.
“Your dogs
attacked me and you guard them and don’t let me in?” Amira said
to him angrily, in Arabic.
 |
| Mohammed Abu Subheiya.Credit: Alex Levac |
An IDF jeep arrived and took him to the Nili
checkpoint, where he was transferred to a Palestinian ambulance and taken to
the Ramallah Governmental Hospital. There Amira was stitched up and held for
three days to check for possible intracranial bleeding. After he was released
at the end of the week, however, he started to suffer from headaches and
vomiting. He returned to the hospital this past Sunday, was checked and
released again. He was still experiencing headaches and continuing to throw up
this week when we visited.
Amira tells us that he feels even more determined than
he did before the incident. Of course he will return to his land, there’s no
question, he asserts. It’s his property, no one is going to stop him. He has
already filed a complaint with the police, and handed over an Israeli ID card
that his nephew found at the site of the attack. It belongs to a Y.C., born in
2003, resident of Ganei Modi’in, a neighborhood in the ultra-Orthodox
settlement of Modi’in Ilit.
•••
 |
| Trees that were cut down in Mohammed Abu Subheiya's grove. Credit: Alex Levac |
Mohammed Abu Subheiya, 63, a father of eight, is
waiting next to his house in Jaba, north of Hebron. For 24 years he worked in
Ashdod for Ashtrom, an Israeli construction company. Lately he’s been working
in construction in Israel with other employers.
In 1990, Abu Subheiya’s father planted 22 dunams of
olive trees, which Abu Subheiya tends in his spare time.
We walk with him down a precipitous, rock-strewn trail
to his plot of land, which lies in the valley that runs between Jaba and the
settlement of Bat Ayin, which gained notoriety in 2002 when a terrorist
underground was uncovered there. Some of the settlers there are newly
religious, including some from the Bratslav Hasidic sect. Bat Ayin is where the
assailants of the Jaba groves come from.
Abu Subheiya hadn’t visited his grove since early
March, because of the coronavirus crisis, which forced him to remain in Israel
and not go back and forth to the West Bank. At the beginning of October, the
International Red Cross informed him that days had been set for him to harvest
the trees in his grove, which lies in a danger zone because of the Bat Ayin
settlers. Arriving there on October 4, he was stunned to see that only about
half of the 48 trees he has here were still intact. The assailants had gone
from tree to tree and sawed off the branches or uprooted the trunks completely.
It will take five years for the damaged trees to recover and bear fruit again,
he tells us.
We walk from one tree to the next, examining their
battered branches, and reflect on the malice of people who are capable of
wreaking such destruction upon the fruit of the earth and upon those who work
the land. An aroma of sage wafts from bushes along the edges of the grove.
Across the way, the mobile homes of Bat Ayin are perched on the slope of a
hill. Abu Subheiya says that when the settlers approach his land he flees in
fear. After the incident early this month, he too filed a complaint with the
police, at the station in the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Betar Ilit; some
officers even came to see his grove, but since then he has heard nothing from
them. Nor will he. Five years ago, settlers spread a chemical substance on the
ground that poisoned 13 of his oldest trees, whose jagged trunks still stand as
a silent monument in the grove.
“They work very slowly,” he says of his attackers.
“That’s their politics. To destroy slowly, every time somewhere else, so we
will remain without olives.”
We descend the hill on the other side of the village,
opposite Betar Ilit. The road leading to the olive groves was demolished by the
Israeli Civil Administration six years ago, because this is Area C (under full
Israeli control). Access now is possible only in a 4x4 vehicle.
 |
| Khaled Mashalla at the improvised parking lot.Credit: Alex Levac |
“Why does a
road bother anyone,” asks Abu Subheiya. “You want to take our land – take it. But why does a road bother
anyone? We paved an asphalt road. They came and smashed it to bits.”
We are now making our way on foot to the grove
belonging to Khaled Mashalla, 69, on the lower slope of the steep valley. The
remains of the ruined road are still evident under the dirt. Only the section
near the village was demolished, the rest was left paved as it was.
Last week, assailants came here, too, and uprooted
dozens of trees; trunks and broken branches are strewn along the way. Mashalla
estimates that he lost 220 trees. He’s an amiable, colorful man who works in
the improvised parking lot at the Gevaot checkpoint for Palestinian laborers
who cross into Israel, Together with his business partner, he takes 7 shekels
($2) protection money per car per day to guard it against theft. Plump and
gleeful, he wears a tattered felt hat that he removes in a theatrical gesture
to reveal his bald head. He and his brothers own 400 dunams of olive trees in
the area.
The vandalism occurred on the night between Tuesday
and Wednesday of last week. The Bedouin who live on the edge of the village
called Mashalla to say that they saw headlights in his grove that night. The
next afternoon, when he got there after working at the checkpoint, he couldn’t
believe his eyes. Dozens of branches had been sawed off. When we visit, we see that
the younger trees were spared. They had been wrapped in plastic tubing, to
protect them from the gazelles.
