‘The IDF recently completed the preparation of different plans of action against Hamas and the rest of the terror organizations in the Strip – from surgical strike to a wide-scale operation. ‘
Nutanyahoo has much to gain by creating a conflagration – to disrupt the UNGA vote for a Palestinian state, the Palmer report which is due for release at the end of this month, discussion of the Goldstone and HRC flotilla report in the UN in September, along with the J14 protests in Israel which threaten zionist privilege by merging Jewish and Palestinian housing and social welfare issues. Ironically, war will reduce the funds available for social welfare, and after its cessation, housing costs are likely to skyrocket.
Shafir criticized calls by ministers including Ayoub Kara (Likud ) to end the protest due to the terror attacks. “The fact that the government is calling on us to halt the protest because of the terror attacks is an attempt to use our pain as citizens hurting for their friends and families to make us bow on the social front, and that’s sad for several reasons,” she said.
Leaks from unnamed aides to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu claim he has shifted positions on another critical peace process issue – borders – but so far there’s no official confirmation. It appears to be a tactical move to derail the Palestinian strategy for a UN statehood resolution next month, and it could work if the Israeli leader can convince Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that he is serious.
…
Netanyahu is demanding a quid pro quo, aides are telling Israeli media. He will acknowledge the 1967 Green Line as the reference point for negotiations of future borders if the Palestinians will agree to ultimately recognize Israel as a Jewish state
‘And Netanyahu has failed to publicly, clearly chart out the main lines of a territorial compromise (necessarily along the lines of the Clinton parameters of December 2000) that could serve as a basis for a two-state solution acceptable to Washington and Europe. Instead, Netanyahu has talked vaguely about his willingness to engage in “painful” concessions for peace, a formula that may sell well on the hill but has had little traction anywhere else.’
In the absence of confirmation from Nutanyahoo himself, these claims that he is prepared to negotiate seriously, also aired on Israel TV according to AP, should be considered as hasbara. The apparent concessions are in contradiction to Nutanyahoo’s stated position in May, along with his Bar Ilan speech and the Likud charter.
“The cabinet committee has decided to withdraw the Egyptian ambassador in Israel until the result of investigations by the Israeli authorities is provided and an apology from the Israeli leadership over the hasty and regrettable statements about Egypt is given,” the cabinet statement said.
STATEMENT REMOVED
The statement was later removed from the website, prompting speculation that Cairo may have retracted its decision. An Egyptian government spokesman said the cabinet stood by statements made by its information minister, but declined to make any reference to the recall of the ambassador, which was also reported by state media.
…
Emad Gad, senior researcher at Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said neither Egypt nor Israel was keen to escalate the issue further. “Withdrawing the Egyptian ambassador is a good step but Egypt still has to insist on a formal apology from Israel,” he said
Israel continues to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity unchallenged by the international national community. This is one of the important reasons why BDS, which circumvents government, is so effective and essential.
, nor does it seek to increase tensions with Israel. Therefore, a direct attack on Hamas will be perceived as disproportionate and unjustified. Egypt will not be able to stand aside; this time it will surely call back its ambassador from Tel Aviv and freeze the peace.
The international community will not show restraint; it will present Israel as a war-monger. And when hundreds of rockets from Gaza hit Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Be’er Sheva, Rehovot, Rishon Letzion and Tel Aviv, the Iron Dome will be deemed ineffectual. Netanyahu will face dilemmas that tore Ehud Olmert apart.
“Given the conflicting reports, where is the SCAF’s official statement on the recent developments in Sinai?” ElBaradei asked on his Twitter account, adding that the SCAF needed to inform the public about its strategy to handle the delicate security situation in the peninsula.’
Also, the General Security Service (Shabak) wasted no time in making it very clear, very loudly that they had given the army very detailed and specific information of the impending attack. But remembering Clinton trying to take out Bin Laden back in ‘98 and getting blamed unfairly for wagging the dog? I should shut up about the obvious thoughts pursuant to the above intelligence.
Today, there’s yet another ‘deeply disappointing’ from the UK foreign minister as Israel swipes more Palestinian land to sprout illegal Jews-only housing.
Israel’s interior ministry announced its sanction of 1,600 new homes in Ramat Shlomo, and impending approval of 2,000 more in Givat Hamatos and 700 in Pisgat Zeev on Thursday, a week after 900 housing units were announced in Har Homa.
On August 11, the US was ‘deeply disappointed’ with Israel’s new East Jerusalem construction plan, on April 6, Catherine Ashton arched an eyebrow and sighed she was ‘deeply disappointed’ at previous land theft.
Without concerted action, this ‘deep disappointment’ is shallow. When will there be a ‘totally despicable’ and ‘we are going to sanction and divest from you until you stop stealing land from Palestinians, end your illegal occupation and apartheid?’
Disability and Palestine
RT @Tweet_Palestine: i wish we had people fighting for disabled peoples’ rights here there is no regards to disability despite large numbers
RT @Tweet_Palestine: 1of the biggest problems now is that the PA is not paying all benefits to those with disability which are very low to start with Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
@occpal also read Art 30, 2nd paragraph, of 1949 Geneva Convention III :Special facilities shall be afforded for the care …etc”
RT @Budouroddick: Disability rights in Pal are criminally overlooked. I tried to start an empowerment project, but none helped. Help this radio station in Gaza get equipment for blind reporters
Consumerism says “Buy”, crisis capitalism says “Only if you are rich.” UK debtor’s prisons don’t have walls these days, they are council estates with invisible class walls. Since David Cameron can’t see any relationship between poverty, cuts in youth service funding and social services, and an increase in youth crime, he needs to get out of the Circumlocution Office more often.
As he introduces further austerity measures which will impact most upon already disadvantaged people, Cameron forgets that prevention is better than cure, ignoring the existing vast wealth and privilege inequities, the alienation of youth who feel and are made to feel unwanted. Ostracism is society’s most powerful tool against vulnerable people and the UK government is leading the charge.
Three years after Wall Street precipitated a global crisis, British youth unemployment reached record levels earlier this year, An analyst noted that “”Being out of work for more than a year can have a scarring effect, making it harder to get a job as well as having a negative impact on one’s health and wellbeing,” adding: “The Government’s decision to abolish job guarantees for young people may leave a generation of young people scarred for many years to come.”
By 2008, Great Britain had reached the highest level of income inequality in more than half a century, and the austerity measures imposed by the new government targeted the victims of that inequality. As a recent report showed, the poorest 10% of the population saw their real income fall over the last decade, while “richest tenth of the population have seen much bigger proportional rises in their incomes than any other group.”
The riots began in Tottenham, which has the highest unemployment rate in London. Youth clubs have been closed, because the austerity economics regime slashed 75% of the youth services budget. And, as Seumas Milne points out, young people in the neighborhood said the club closings could lead to rioting, as bored and anxious young people take to the streets.
And the austerity crowd has slashed police budgets, too, just as the House Republican budget did here in the United States. Even law and order, that shibboleth of conservatism, takes a back seat to the radical austerity ideology. That makes it harder for the right and the pseudo-center to justify their discredited policies, leaving them to come up with increasingly shrill and implausible explanations for the violence.
Where are the tallest pillars of this society to provide ethical models and strategies to lead youth toward hope and a future of their choice? As David Harvey highlights:
But the problem is that we live in a society where capitalism itself has become rampantly feral. Feral politicians cheat on their expenses, feral bankers plunder the public purse for all its worth, CEOs, hedge fund operators and private equity geniuses loot the world of wealth, telephone and credit card companies load mysterious charges on everyone’s bills, shopkeepers price gouge, and, at the drop of a hat swindlers and scam artists get to practice three-card monte right up into the highest echelons of the corporate and political world.
A political economy of mass dispossession, of predatory practices to the point of daylight robbery, particularly of the poor and the vulnerable, the unsophisticated and the legally unprotected, has become the order of the day.
…
Thatcherism unchained the feral instincts of capitalism (the “animal spirits” of the entreprenuer they coyly named it) and nothing has transpired to curb them since. Slash and burn is now openly the motto of the ruling classes pretty much everywhere.
This is the new normal in which we live. This is what the next grand commission of enquiry should address. Everyone, not just the rioters, should be held to account. Feral capitalism should be put on trial for crimes against humanity as well as for crimes against nature.
Cameron’s reaction is to glower about the social media, like a petty dictator in the Middle East which imperials implanted and cossetted then looked down upon and chastised for draconian measures against insurrection, foolishly imagining he can commit a human rights violation by preventing internet access and escape public opprobrium. When other countries use social media to struggle for democracy, it is acclaimed, yet now Cameron wants to control it and demonises it. For easy approval in uncertain times, Cameron fervently supports Laura Norder – Tory opportunism and personal conviction coincide. If looters’ parents are to be held responsible for their childrens’ crimes and evicted from their homes, why is Murdoch able to evade his corporation’s crimes? Is it a surprise that youth without hope and nothing to lose have followed the UK elite’s no-blame no-criminality culture? Prepare for the fight against increased withdrawal of civil liberties, as the ruling elite defend their piles of loot by any means they can muster. The local small businesses targeted by youthful insurrectionists on their rampage are the meat in the sandwich and offer Cameron a wedge – he can protect them from and coopt them againt the loathsome youth menace without reference to the underlying malaise which has festered during years of neglect.
Cameron could ensure affordable education, health, social services and housing, but prefers to raid taxpayer funds to employ more cops with increased leeway for brutality to protect property, which for Tories, comes before people, particularly hated youth. Businesses damaged by looting will be recompensed from the public purse, yet where’s Cameron’s compensation to the public for decades of economic irrationalism and elite looting? When will shorters of banking stocks get their comeuppances? Cameron’s response to unrest caused by vast inequities of wealth and privilege is to add fuel to the fire with mass arrests and incarceration – sure to enrage youth further and solidify their untouchability. With thousands of arrests promised, the 3 private corporations – G4S, Kalyx and Serco – who run 11 of Britain’s prisons will be dining well this week. Perhaps Australia will be seeing more British ships loaded with the raddled empire’s unwanted felons arriving on its shores.
Dr. Clifford Stott, who specialises in crowd psychology at the University of Liverpool, sounds a prescient note:
While there is no real causal relationship, however, he [Dr. Clifford Stott] noted that in societies that see outbreaks of riotous behaviour, the existence of large disenfranchised population is a common factor.
“One of the things that we know about riots is that they are underpinned by perceptions of illegitimacy of authority,” he said.
The tendency to cast crowd action as either explosions of mob irrationality or criminality – something common to both authoritarian and democratic governments, Stott said – undermines attempts to understand the root causes behind the violence.
“It is the dominant discourse around riots, it always has been,” he said. “Society tends to pathologise collective action.”
Fascists love scapegoats, and conveniently, youth don’t vote. But their mums and dads do – Cameron and his foppish old school tie set’s days in power are numbered. But will there be sufficient mobilisation amongst the UK people to support an end to an obscenity which sacrifices the futures of UK children and livelihoods of small business people in their community to obscure malevolent ruling class pillage? A vicious, classist society which doesn’t care about all of its youth sabotages its own future.
“Things got out of hand & we’d had a few drinks. We smashed the place up & Boris set fire to the toilets.” David Cameron, 1986
RT @ciderpunx: #londonriot hotspots are /all/ in areas w high child poverty. See @newint #map http://is.gd/6kLjp4 #inequality #poverty #
If we want to live in a society where people feel included, we must include them, where they feel represented, we must represent them and where they feel love and compassion for their communities then we, the members of that community, must find love and compassion for them.
Meanwhile Cameron threw cash at firms that have lost money in the riots, saying even uninsured shops will get payouts.
He said any shop affected won’t have to pay business rates, can defer its tax and claim from a £20 million “high street support scheme”.
So while he claims there’s no money for youth centres, or workers’ pensions, or anything else being cut, he can suddenly produce piles of cash for businesses.
…
Meanwhile it was revealed that MPs will be getting all their flight costs and hotel bills on expenses to compensate them for having to come back from their holidays.
And they’ll also be given money to fly back out again and continue their getaways.
Even growth’s blunt promise of material prosperity is failing. GDP in the UK increased by 11% from 2003 to 2008. Over the same period, median real incomes stagnated. The economy boomed, but few shared in its rewards. Living standards were maintained through unsustainable debt. As we crawl back into recession, the majority will find those rewards still harder to come by – even if a minority continue to grow fat.
No light had ever been shone on the behaviour of Mr Howard and former foreign minister Alexander Downer.
“They have never been made to sit down and explain why over many, many weeks and months arguing about WMD and terrorism when it was very quickly apparent that the official case for war was a lie,” Mr Wilkie said.
“The government is deceased even if the obituary has yet to be published. The public understands that this government represents everything that is ugly from day one, its ministers and deputy ministers are redundant.
“Sowing fear of external threats, muzzling, an impervious government – for all these reasons we went out to the streets with one message and different reasons, for social justice and against Benjamin Netanyahu.”
20 of her 28 Kadima Knesset compatriots are supporting a fascist bill which ‘would make democratic rule subservient to the state’s definition as “the national home for the Jewish people.”‘
‘According to Elkin, the law is intended to give the courts reasoning that supports “the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character.”
Elkin said: “The courts deal with this issue quite a lot, such as with the Law of Return as a discriminatory law.”
The bill redefines basic consensus regarding the character of the state. For example, it also proposes that Hebrew would be the only official language in Israel, as opposed to the present situation – based on current mandatory law, Arabic and English are also recognized as official languages.
The bill accords Arabic “special status,” and states that Arabic speakers “have the right to linguistic access to the services of the state, as determined by law.”
Jewish inspiration
Another clause states that Jewish law will be a source of inspiration to the legislature and the courts.
This would mean that MKs would be asked to legislate in the spirit of Jewish law, and courts to adjudicate by it in cases where no other express law exists. In the language of the bill: “If the court sees a legal question requiring a ruling, and finds no solution in legislation, custom or clear analogy, it will rule in light of the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace in Jewish heritage.”
The bill also calls on the state to “act to ingather the exiles of Israel and [further] Jewish settlement within it, and allocate resources to this end.”
As for other ethnic groups in Israel, according to the bill: “The state is permitted to allow a community, including people of another faith or nation, to maintain a separate community.”
Elkin says he is not concerned over the implications of the bill for the image of Israel internationally. “If we were talking about the world in which the United Nations equates Zionism with racism, there might be a problem. But today the world is ready to accept this,” he said.
As opposed to other Basic Laws, this one can only be changed by passing another Basic Law in its stead.
The bill was formulated on the initiative of, and jointly with, the Institute for Zionist Strategies, a conservative think tank.
Elkin and Rotem have supported a number of controversial pieces of legislation presented during the Knesset summer session. They include the successfully-passed Boycott Law, which calls for economic sanctions on people who boycott West Bank settlements; and laws restricting the activities of associations that oppose the existence of Israel and requiring political groups to reveal sources of funding they received from foreign countries. ‘
Kadima cannnot escape the fact that it too, along with Likud and the Labour parties, is mired in neoliberalism, a love for US hegemony, militarism and acceptance of the hideous Occupation. None of these parties can be trusted to adher to a platform based on real social justice.
The street protests are a broad-based movement with Palestinian rights represented at Tent No. 1948 which supports one state co-existence. Even the settler Yesha Council has been welcomed into the movement because of its ‘political influence’. Yet despite the high sustaining cost to the occupying Israeli entity and outrageously generous subsidies to illegal settlers by the state, a call for the end of the occupation is not one of the key demands of the tent protest. In Israel itself, Palestinians are particularly discriminated against in regard to housing.
All the residents are suffering from the price rises, but the Arab residents in particular feel as if they are being pushed out with nowhere to go.
“When the landlord heard me speak Arabic to my husband, he said, ‘Sorry, we don’t rent to Arabs,” said Wafa Abu Shamis, 37 and a mother of three, recalling a recent effort to check out an apartment. Those present confirm that such stories are common.
‘Had the protesters begun by hoisting signs against the occupation, they would most likely still be just a few people in tents. By removing the single most divisive issue in Israeli politics, the protesters have created a safe space for Israelis of all ethnic, national and class identities to act together. And by decidedly placing the occupation outside of the debate, the protesters have neutralized much of the fear-mongering traditionally employed in Israel to silence discussions of social issues.
But even as they call for the strengthening of Israel’s once-robust welfare state, the protesters are disregarding the fact that it is alive and well in the West Bank.’
The way many demonstrators are pitching it to me, these protests are an opportunity for coalition building, an opportunity to bring down the government’s current “security first, people second” policy and subsequently elevate the minority voices. But I have yet to see any of that happen on a concrete basis, and until I hear these demands making headlines as well, the protests will remain fundamentally flawed, at least in my eyes.’
‘Participants haven’t minced their words, which seem grandly aware that they are potentially making history. “We are broadcasting Revolution. We want a better Israel. We want Israel to be lived with a sense of justice, a State of love among all its citizens. Those of Beersheba and those from Raanana. These from Hebron and Tel Aviv. Jews and Arabs.”
…
A homeless single mother says “I’m here because I have no alternative. This is the tent of no choice. I ask for equal rights irrespective of degree, religion and nationality.”’
According to Joel Beinin, the inequitable spending by the Israeli government on illegal settlements is also out of focus.
‘The great majority of the protesters have insistently avoided linking the lack of investment in affordable housing to the vast sums invested to construct government-subsidized housing in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, build the infrastructure to support the settlements and sustain the military apparatus to defend them. A provocative article by Yediot Aharonot’s economics correspondent Gidion Eshet, published on July 28, suggested that the subsidized apartments the protesters are seeking are in the West Bank and that ending Israel’s settlement policy would free capital for construction of affordable housing in Israel.’
Political writer, Emma Rosenthal, makes some insightful observations on the anomalous nature of this new Israeli ‘social justice’ movement and protests within settler colonial states:
This contradiction isn’t new to popular uprisings within settler colonial states. I can’t remember the last left action in the U.S. on any basic need – wages, baill outs, jobs, unemployment, access to education, etc., that had indigenous rights (either in the U.S. or as victims of U.S. foreign policy) as a key component of the demonstration. Maybe an afterthought, a few aztec dancers, etc. a t-shirt that said “I hate paying rent on stolen land”, but not as a core, central demand as part of a workers’ movement. though one could argue that in the U.S. there is very little that is left, politically.
It’s not uncommon for the working class of a settler colonial or neo-colonial entity (the U.S. is both, the former, domestically, the latter, internationally) to be concerned when their own entitlements are threatened – their homes, their schools, their jobs, and to ignore the larger social context.
Could this bring Israelis into greater contradiction with the Israeli ruling class? that has yet to be seen. Seeing as they willingly go into the military in mandatory service, it seems unlikely. and that these protests may provide the ruling class with even another wedge between the Israeli working class, the Palestinians and “guest” workers.
It’s the difference between fighting for justice, or just us. I have yet to see the israeli working class separate itself from the Israeli ruling class (a key feature of the settler colonial narrative, as in the U.S.), and identify with the Palestinians or the guest workers.
Forming ANY real left within a settler colonial entity is very difficult.
With the passing of the new Housing bill, Nutanyahoo is playing it cool, at present drenching the media with positive hasbara. No doubt he is considering all options to dispel protest and protect his power base – some commentators think this might include war, others consider the situation might impel him to make a grand gesture for ‘peace’ with Palestinians. Might he also consider annexation of the Palestinian territories which the rightwing settler movement covets, concurrent with the PA’s declaration of a fake state in September? or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel? Nutanyahoo doesn’t seem concerned about a spill from Likud, despite the support by Likud members for the grassroots movement, and seems to be in hard sell mode.
In about six weeks, before the high holidays, Netanyahu will present a plan that will “change the face of the country,” the sources quoted him as saying.
Netanyahu said the plan’s main points were to break the monopolies that are preventing competition and to slash indirect taxes.
By the beginning of next week, Netanyahu will announce the makeup of a “dialogue team” to consist of ministers and economic experts. They will meet with the heads of the protest movement and hear their demands.
Netanyahu said he did not intend to meet with the protest leaders, who he believes are backed by leftist political parties and organizations. But he said he identifies with the grievances that are at the basis of the protest.
“This can be our great opportunity,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. “No one can complain about the economy. The economy is working. But there are complaints, justified complaints, about the hardships of daily life, about the high cost of living.
“Everyone is asking me how I plan to deal with the political situation. My political strategy for the coming year is simple: Take real and serious care of these problems. My goal is not to dismantle the tents. They will not be dismantled. They are there to be there.”
Will Nutanyahoo’s gestures and machinations prove sufficient? will the social justice movement bring down the Likud government and install the other head of racist Israeli neoliberalism? or will the social justice movement create a party of its own with a winning platform for equal rights and justice for all? we’ll just have to wait and see.
‘Even us Anarchists couldn’t stay indifferent to the fact that the white middle class was rising up. To us, the housing protest is a great opportunity to bring Lyd, Jaffa, Ramle, Silwan and Al-arakhib to the forefront of middle-Israel, and try to connect occupation with habitation, appropriation with apartheid, and gentrification with genocide. The limits to this idea would soon be vividly illustrated to us, as our “Anarchists Against the Wall” banner and ActiveStills exhibition were torn down. We went back into our closet and came out as “Salon Mazal”, a radical info shop that somehow managed to find a way into the hearts of center-left Tel-Aviv, who were now boulevard residents.
Unfortunately, even though we were generally well-received, the most common question asked by the boulevard dwellers was “What do Arabs have to do with it?” ‘
“Governments who are led by a person that does not work for the good of the majority, but spends all their money on small segments of society – they generate complete distrust for the system”
But Livni takes care to reiterate the ever-present mantra that dictates zionism’s contradictions:
Livni took advantage of the opportunity to also attack the prime minister for his security policies. “Security and economy are connected. The protesters took to the streets because the country’s economic situation is good and the social situation is bad, and as the security situation worsens it will affect the economic situation.”
Aziz Abu Sarah, a Palestinian-Israeli journalist, points out in this vid the overspending the Likud government has been making on housing in the illegal settlements – 3 or 4 times that which it spends in Israel, the resentment this creates in Israel where the majority of people are against the occupation, but says people still haven’t made the connection between government policy, the occupation and economic inequality.
‘Titled “Guidelines for a new social and economic agenda,” the eight initial demands include a reduction in indirect taxes (in particular VAT); the investment of surplus tax revenues in social programs by way of the state budget; the disbanding of a commission aimed at speeding up construction, but which protesters believe would only enrich building companies; an increase in the budget for the Ministry of Construction and Housing’s mortgage and rental assistance programs; free education from the age of three months; an increase in medical supplies and infrastructure at health facilities across Israel; a halt to the privatization of welfare and mental health facilities; and a gradual cancellation of private-contractor- run construction projects in the public sector.’
Hamas, Hezbollah threaten our ports and oil rigs : According to Levi, Hezbollah’s model “is being copied today to the Gaza Strip. In the future, we will have to deal with missiles, torpedoes, mines, above-surface weapons and underwater ones, both in Gaza and Lebanon.” He added that Iran is a major player in the smuggling of naval weapons, and that “we assume that everything that Iran has can be brought to theaters closer to us.” ‘
‘In this interview firebrand grandmother Daniella Weiss, leader of radical settlers, appears to present the protesters as the modern version of the ten spies who famously gave the Children of Israel a negative report about the Land of Israel. The protesters’ negativity echoes the negativity of the spies, she claims. They “are lamenting, people are complaining, people see all the bad sides of life instead of seeing the prosperity of the Land of Israel.”’
‘But there is a very strong push against the protests in terms of the political debate. It’s not just the governments. It’s the entire elite that are pushing against these protests, and the more of a challenge they feel, the harder they’ll push.
…
I think the protests itself will disappear, but I also think that Netanyahu is coming to his showdown in September with the Palestinian leadership much weaker than he wanted. The entire world saw that he doesn’t have a consensus of Israelis behind him—I think that’s a pretty important achievement.’
For the last two weeks have seen greater delegitimization of Israel in the eyes of its supporters in the West than the last two years of the BDS movement. How will AIPAC and the Israel Campus Coalition spin this? That the protesters are not being shot at, like in Syria? But these are not protests that challenge the Israeli regime – these are protests that are asking for the government to do something.
‘It all began on December 7, 2006 when workers in the industrial city of El-Mahalla El-Kubra broke the country’s 20-year strike hiatus over the government’s failure to fulfill promises it had made about bonuses. For three days the strikers occupied a factory, calling for the government-backed Labor Federation to be dismantled. The government buckled under the pressure and gave in to the workers’ demands, but the event opened a Pandora’s Box of strikes and protests across the country.
The strikers were responding to the fast-track imposition of neo-liberal economic policies by a cabinet led by Ahmed Nazif, the then prime minister who relentlessly implemented the demands of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). These measures included the privatisation of public factories, the liberalisation of markets, decreasing tariffs and import taxes and the introduction of subsidies for agri-businesses in place of those for small farmers with the aim of increasing agricultural exports.’
“This was also a surprise because the economy is in very good shape by every measure, with a low unemployment rate.
…
“There is a debt problem in the periphery. There has been in attitude to small countries; they are prepared to thinking about cutting debt in countries with very high debt. The Europeans can deal with the small countries, but it will be much harder to deal with larger countries if they face more serious problems. Growth forecasts for Europe are starting to be lowered. The current situation is even worse than we thought a few months ago.”
‘As for the housing shortage and increase in housing starts, Fischer said, “Things have begun to move. We’re building at a rate of over 42,000 apartments a year, but housing starts are not housing completions. We must wait for two years. We’re still at around 34,000 housing completions a year, but there is a supply response in the market, and that’s very important.” ‘
‘The protests went up a notch last night. Chants about high rents were rare. “The people demand social justice,” was the most common, followed by “Hoo ha, mi zeh ba? Medinat harevaha” (Who’s that coming? It’s the welfare state ). Socialism, today? Yes, with choked throats and emotional tones. The protest took flight last night. Forget the housing protest, it’s no longer alone. Those who feared that the protest was too narrow, too spoiled, yesterday watched it expand. Its goals are already way beyond a small rented apartment. ‘
‘The reality is the PA was built to be a governmental structure not a liberation movement. Its time is up. The government was supposed to be there to embrace a state. There is no state coming. Netanyahu has confirmed it, Obama has confirmed it and the maps speak for themselves.’
In terms of legitimizing discrimination and conferring discretion to the state, Israel has achieved far more than the apartheid regime could have hoped to accomplish.’
“Our aim is to empower women here with basic things. Bedouin women are at the lowest level of employment in Israeli society; 90 percent of Bedouin women living in recognized villages are illiterate. In unrecognized villages, that number is more like 100 percent. If a woman has education and economic empowerment, she can take more control, make decisions, be more useful to her society and her family.”
‘When will the world understand that the deterioration of the situation of women in Gaza over the past four years is not solely attributed to the Hamas control of the Strip, but because of the Israeli siege, which tends to be left out in such discussions.’
On Friday four people were injured and four arrested, as Israeli troops attacked anti-wall protests organized in a number of West Bank communities. Protests took place in the central West Bank villages of an-Nabi Saleh, Bil’in, and Nil’in in addition to al-Ma’ssara in the southern West Bank.
Three women, two local and one international, were injured and a journalist and three activists were arrested as Israeli troops attacked the anti-wall and anti-settlement protest in the village of an-Nabi Saleh. Villagers and their Israeli and international supporters marched to local farm lands Israel had taken to build a new settlement.
Troops attacked protesters with tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets. Then soldiers forced people back into the village and fired rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at journalists and medics. The three injured women sustained moderate wounds as soldiers beat them up. The arrested journalist was identified as Moheeb al-Barghouthi who works for al-Ayam newspaper.
In the nearby village Bil’in, soldiers fired tear gas at the weekly protest there as internationals and Israeli supporters joined the villagers after midday prayers. Many were treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation. Joining the protest today were a group of supporters from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland, who had reached Palestine by bicycles covering a distance of 7 thousand kilometers from London, to advocate and support the Palestinian popular resistance movements.
Also on Friday in the central West Bank, Israeli troops attacked the weekly anti-wall protest in the village of Nil’in, villagers were joined by Israeli and international supporters after the midday prayers and marched up to the wall. Troops fired tear gas at protesters causing many to suffer from tear gas inhalation.
In southern West Bank, one local organizer was injured, and many treated for the effects of tear gas inhalation as troops attacked the anti-wall protest organized in al-Ma’sara village near Bethlehem. Soldiers attacked protesters as they tried to reach land owned by local farmers Israel confiscated to build the wall. Mohamed Brijiyah, 35, a local organizer, sustained moderate wounds when soldiers beat him up.
Ankara strongly condemned Israel for approving the building of new homes in West Bank settlements a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said.
The comments were in response to the Israeli Ministry of Housing and Construction’s publishing of tenders for 336 housing units in West Bank settlements last week.
“Israel’s illegal actions on the lands it has invaded are unacceptable,” the statement said. “This decision will deepen the suspicions of Israel’s sincerity in pushing the peace process forward. We stress that we don’t recognize the illegal steps Israel is taking, challenging international law,” the Turkish ministry statement said.
According to the tender, 294 new homes will be built in Beitar Illit settlement outside of Jerusalem and 42 units in Karnei Shomron in Samaria near Kfar Saba.
In April the Defense Ministry approved the construction of the homes in Beitar Illit.
Both West Bank settlements are located within the settlement blocs Israel believes will be included in its permanent borders once a final status agreement with the Palestinians is achieved.
