31 aug 2012
Welcome to Israel's first settler university
Welcome to Israel's first settler university

Student accommodation in the Ariel settlement in the West Bank
Ariel University is part academic institution, part political statement.
With the well-kept grass verges and cafes serving paninis and chilled beer and coke, Ariel University could resemble any modern campus college in Britain or the US. It isn’t: it is Israel’s first settler university, given official status with a great deal of controversy in July. With Salfit to its south and Nablus further to its north, Ariel is deep inside the West Bank. It is one of the major population centres annexed to "greater Israel" by the construction of the separation wall, whose route loops around the city, taking vast tracts of land from local Palestinian communities.
To look at, Ariel’s campus and media presence barely hints at the significance of its geographical location. Its emphasis, couched in the semi-managerial language becoming common to the academic world, is on “reaching out to every corner of Israeli society”, “research excellence” and “keeping its finger on the pulse of the needs of the Israeli economy”. The tension between Ariel’s claim to be normal university and its political role in cementing an Israeli civilian population in the West Bank is rapidly becoming a symbolic battleground over the future viability of a two-state solution, and, for many, a sign that Israel’s academia should be boycotted internationally.
The pretence to normality that emanates from Ariel is echoed by its students. “I don’t want to say I don’t care about these issues,” says Avishi, an economics student from Haifa, “but I study and live here – I don’t really follow it.” Sitting with Avishi and two of his classmates on a picnic bench outside a library on the university’s upper campus, I ask them why they chose Ariel. Talya, a media and communications student from Ashkelon replies. “I didn’t really think about the fact that it was in the West Bank. The main reason I chose Ariel was that my grades from high school were bad, and I couldn’t get into Be’er Sheva.”
Then, in an almost surreal moment, everyone at the table gestures to the sunset over the West Bank – “and the views are also amazing,” she says. When I ask which Palestinian town we are looking at, no one can tell me.
These unknown Palestinian villages all knew what Ariel was: the settlement exists because of land taken from the very villages that make up its picturesque views; the grass growing under our feet was almost certainly possible only because of the vast stocks of water which have been taken from under the West Bank – leaving most Palestinians either short or cut off entirely. Ariel’s sewage has on several occasions been allowed to spill over into neighbouring Salfit, polluting its water supply.
This is the bizarre reality that Ariel University’s establishment both reflects and promises for Israel. For the inhabitants of this new seat of academic inquiry, the scenery that rolls out into the sunset across from the hill-tops of Ariel is inanimate, its inhabitants and their concerns are picturesque, but not an issue.
The wilful moral oblivion that can be observed on campus is not merely a question of ignorance, especially given that most students will have done military service and seen the occupation. Rather, it is the ideological symptom the fact that Ariel’s academics and students are becoming an integral part of a project of colonial normalisation. West Bank settlements are illegal under international law primarily because the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits occupying powers from moving their civilian population into the occupied area. In these terms, the establishment of a university here could not be clearer in the message that it has sent.
With a population of around 19,000, Ariel is now host to 14,000 students – and the university aims to make it 20,000 by 2020. Ariel’s new university is not a part of the natural growth even, as a true-believer would put it, of "any normal city in Israel". Here, far from being dragged along reluctantly, academics are playing a leading role in Israel’s colonial project.
Any attempt to recognise Ariel University internationally will almost certainly be met with protest – but the situation also raises renewed questions about the role and credibility of Israeli academia more generally. Its seeming inclusion into the fold of Israeli universities is symbolic because it demonstrates the extent to which Israeli society has become enmeshed with its colonisation of the West Bank.
Just as it is often impossible to tell whether Israeli grapes in any given supermarket are from Israel itself or from its West Bank settlements, Ariel’s presence as a university will further intertwine self-assuredly normal Israelis with the Occupation. As Liel, another of Ariel’s Economics students put it to me: “It’s obvious. [Ariel] will be harder now to evacuate in negotiations... People in Israel will be forced to really fight for Ariel if their kids are at school here.”
What makes Ariel’s university status particularly notable in this process is that many ostensibly normal – or even supposedly leftwing – parts of Israeli civil society have begun to support it, often from behind the language of academic freedom and democracy. A recent letter signed by the student union heads of several Israeli universities defended Ariel’s upgrade to university status, stating that “we must not forget that there should be a complete separation between academia and Israeli politics.”
There has been opposition from Israeli universities to the Ariel’s status upgrade, but it has been partial and often caveated. Last week, university heads presented an appeal to the Israeli High Court asking calling on for the decision to be reversed. It was couched cautiously, and, like most of the mainstream debate about Ariel, in terms of funding; the primary references to the university’s illegality are limited to its contravention of procedure, rather than expropriation of Palestinian land or role in the Occupation. When individual academics came out in large numbers and said that they would boycott Ariel, Rivka Carmi, the chair of the head of universities group, attacked them, again citing academic freedom: "Academic activity is supposed to be detached from ideological or political appeals.”
Meanwhile, Ariel’s existence is a political act with every passing day, not only in terms of its location and role in the occupation, but also in the activities of its leadership. Yigal Cohen-Orgad, its Chancellor and a former Likud Member of the Knesset, has already used his position to demand that students be forced to swear allegiance to the state of Israel before being allowed to study – a measure whose primary effect will be to humiliate or exclude the Palestinian population in higher education.
The question of how international civil society should interact with Israeli institutions has always been a sharp one. For years, Britain’s academics’ union, the UCU, has along with a growing number of trade unions internationally, adopted a full boycott of Israeli universities and official cultural institutions – and this pressure is only likely to grow in the wake of the establishment of a university inside the occupied West Bank. If there is one thing that the experience of the past few years of steady colonisation has shown, it is that without being made to pay the price of the occupation, it is difficult to imagine Israeli civil society or its official institutions moving towards a just peace.
Settlers stone Palestinian bus near Ramallah, 5 hurt
Five Palestinians were wounded on Friday morning after a group of settlers threw stones at their bus near Ramallah, witnesses said.
The bus was traveling from Nablus, when it was attacked by the settlers from a hill near Burqa village, one of those injured, Raed Ewais, said.
Settlers threw stones, damaging the bus and injuring passengers, witnesses said.
The incident came after settlers gathered on the same road on Thursday night near Sinjil, throwing stones at passing vehicles.
Locals said a number of vehicles were damaged by rocks. The group caused the road to close for over an hour, they added.
A Palestinian Authority official on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of settler attacks ahead of a planned evacuation of an illegal Israeli outpost near Ramallah.
The hilltop settler outpost Migron is set to be evacuated this Tuesday.
Israel's fundamentalist horizon
If the current demographic trends continue, Israel will have a joint Haredi-settler majority by 2050.
Sometimes the news cycle is so short that you blink and it's gone. If I hadn't glanced at Ynet on Sunday evening, I would have missed it. But I did see the report and assumed that the story would be around at least by the next morning, but I was wrong. There was no sign of it on Monday and for a moment I wondered if it wasn't a dream.
Google confirmed I had not been hallucinating - it had appeared briefly on a handful of websites and been pushed off the agenda. Where was the follow-up? What about the angry condemnations? It had sunk without trace. What am I talking about? You couldn't possibly know if you hadn't checked the headlines exactly at that right moment, so I will have to repeat the entire report.
On Sunday at the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, an organization called Komemiut held a "day of introspection and prayer" to mark seven years since the dismantling of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. It was an event of remembrance but with a contemporary tone as those present were determined to prevent another evacuation - this time of the West Bank "outpost" of Migron, built partly on private Palestinian land.
One of the main speakers at the event was Elyakim Levanon, a man who holds the state-funded position of Regional Rabbi of the Samaria Regional Council. "Whoever raises a hand on Migron - his hand will be cut off," said Levanon. "And the prime minister should also know this. There is a law and a judge."
That a public servant can call for the prime minister's violent downfall without causing so much as a stir is chilling. In 17 years since the eve of Yitzhak Rabin's murder we have become inured to such talk, apathetic, until we reached the point that such words by a rabbi who is financed by the tax payer spoken in a synagogue recently renovated at the public's expense are so unsurprising that they warrant no more than a fleeting, almost coincidental headline.
Perhaps the news editors gave a passing thought to the report, whether it was worth following up on, and decided that a far-right rabbi attacking the right-wing prime minister who has done so much to shield that rabbi and his constituency is not news. Maybe there was a short moment of schadenfreude that Netanyahu, who 17 years ago tolerated similar words when they were targeted against his rival, has now had his feeding hand bitten. That grim satisfaction was not a reason for all the self-appointed guardians of Israeli democracy to rise up in defense of the lawfully elected prime minister.
Levanon later clarified his words, saying that he did not mean to call upon anyone to physically harm Benjamin Netanyahu for allowing Migron's removal - he had meant divine retribution. I believe he was not calling for an immediate and violent insurrection. The rest of his Hurva speech proves as much: "Recently two elderly men passed away," he regaled his listeners, "Benzion Netanyahu and Rabbi Elyashiv. One left 1,400 offspring, the second 10. That's the difference between us."
And he had a plan: "We will go forth to conquer the State of Israel. Today in mighty forces we will go to every place. The yeshiva students will go to the army because if they don't there will be no army. Who will go to the army? Those who raise a couple of kids and a dog?"
Levanon was conceding that the government may yet be forced by the Supreme Court to destroy Migron and other outposts, just as the settlements of Gush Katif were swept away, but don't worry, these are only temporary setbacks. It may seem strange on the face of it that he mentioned Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv's Haredi descendants and exhorted yeshiva students to serve in the army in the same breath. But while military service is anathema for any Elyashiv great-grandson, the two strands of Jewish fundamentalism are intertwined.
The dispute over whether or not young men should exchange their Talmud for an M-16 for a couple of years is a bridgeable difference. The rabbis of both camps agree that everything will be solved in a couple of generations, once the secular infertile Israelis who insist on not seeing the light have died out or left the country to be assimilated among the goyim. Not every religious Israeli, not even every Haredi or settler, believes or even desires that one day every Jew in the world will share their beliefs. Many, if not most of them are honest enough to admit, at least to themselves, that Jews were always a mixed bunch of lunatics, heretics and skeptics and should remain that way. But the fundamentalists are in ascendance.
This week, as children returned to school, another public servant, Deputy Education Minister Rabbi Menachem Eliezer Moses, was quoted at a gathering of Haredi school principals saying with satisfaction that this year, for the first time, a majority of children in Israeli kindergartens are either ultra-Orthodox or religious. It was a misleading statistic - Moses was not including Arab children in his calculations and not all the children enrolled in religious kindergartens are actually religious. Many parents place them there for the longer hours or simply because they are closer to their homes and next year they will continue in secular schools. But the Haredi rabbis who privately despise the national-religious for their compromises with modernity are happy to include them in their camp when it pushes secular Israelis into a minority. Today the kindergarten - tomorrow the Knesset.
But despite Malthusian demographic trends indicating a joint Haredi-settler majority in Israel by 2050, both Moses and Levanon are aware how tenuous their advantage could be. None of the current trends are inexorable. As the Haredi community grows, the hold of its ancient leaders over a generation who have grown up in the 21st Century is rapidly eroding and the trickle of defections will increase to a torrent. The growing number of West Bank settlers is also misleading. Three-quarters live in comfortable suburbs by the Green Line, easily absorbed into the sovereign Israeli state as part of a two-state solution which a clear majority of Israelis still support.
The fundamentalists see their majority beckoning on the horizon if only they can hold on for another 20 years, perpetuating the settlement program and shutting off their young from outside influences. It is impossible to foresee whether they will prevail, but we are giving them a much better chance of success by not listening to what they say.
30 aug 2012
Settler firebomb attack 'turned our lives upside down'
A Palestinian woman whose husband and two young children were severely injured in an Israeli settler attack says the roadside firebombing had "turned our lives upside down."
On Aug. 16, Israeli settlers firebombed a Palestinian taxi south of Bethlehem, injuring Jamila Hassan, her husband Ayman and their children Iman, 4, and Muhammad, 6, as well as the driver.
"We are lost, our life has turned upside down, the father, son and daughter are each in different worlds, our life is difficult and we’re miserable," Jamila told Ma'an at Haddassah Hospital, where Mohammad and Ayman are being treated.
Muhammad has severe burns on his back, hands, legs and face.
"Yesterday he had an operation and he came out screaming calling me to come in and scratch his back due the severe pain he felt, he screams from the pain a lot," his mother said.
Mohammad was due to start school in the first grade in September, but won't be attending as he'll need to stay in hospital for at least one month, Jamila said. "He will not buy a back pack, notebooks and will not go to school, they killed his dream."
Jamila was not allowed to see her husband in intensive care for several days after the attack. He suffered third degree burns on his face and 30 percent of his body.
She was able to see him when his condition stabilized.
"He spoke really softly, I could barely hear. I got close to him and he asked me about our two children and I reassured him they were fine. He asked me not to allow them in to see him in his condition. He said: 'I am afraid.'"
Four-year-old Iman is staying with her aunt, Fida, who said the girl is constantly in tears.
"Iman is living in constant fear especially at night and can't handle hearing sounds of cars. She refuses to leave the house. She spends most of her time talking about the fire and how the car was burned and asks where her father, mother and brother are … her situation is really difficult," her aunt told Ma'an.
Iman said: "I am afraid and I don’t want to ride the car … I am afraid a fire will start and burn everything."
She remembers seeing a person in "a hat and two braids of hair" throw the firebomb and flee.
Jamila told Ma'an the family was going shopping for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr when the attack happened.
"When we were driving we got near a settlement entrance. We saw a settler looking at us and all of a sudden he threw something at our car which turned into a huge fire and smoke surrounding us for a few minutes until we were able to leave the car," she said.
"We were sitting in the back seat which protected us somehow, because the Molotov hit the front seat where my husband and the driver were sitting. My daughter Iman had the least injuries because she fell between the seats and was protected."
Israeli police have arrested three children from Bat Ayin settlement suspected of carrying out the attack.
IOF arrests 13 Palestinians including children
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested at dawn Thursday 13 Palestinians in different parts of the West Bank cities and transferred them to interrogation centers under the pretext of being wanted by the Israeli intelligence for security concerns.
In Nablus, IOF arrested four citizens from Awarta east of the city. Eyewitnesses said that Israeli patrols stormed the town, raided several houses and damaged property, and arrested a number of citizens.
In Qalqilya, IOF also arrested four citizens from the town of Azzun east of the city, including two children, Mohammad Abdel Fattah Radwan, 14, and Qusai Saleh Mashaal, 16, where IOF stormed the town at two o'clock in the morning, and began a massive search campaign in dozens of homes.
Eyewitnesses told the PIC that IOF raided Beit Awwa, and arrested five citizens, aged between 15 and 17, after raiding their homes.
The sources added that IOF searched dozens of houses in the town, and set up checkpoints at the northern western and eastern entrances of Al-Khalil city.
In the same context, Jewish settlers attacked, in the Old City of Al-Khalil, the citizen Abdul Rahman Idris and brutally beat him in the late hours of the evening. The man was hospitalized with moderate injuries and bruises.
High Court Orders Evacuation of Illegal Israeli Outpost. Settlers Cry the Verdict Has Left them ‘Raped’
Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled evacuation of the illegal Israeli outpost of Migron, located near Ramallah, on the occupied territory of the West Bank. The houses, deemed unathorized, must be vacated within a few days.
Upon hearing the verdict, the settlers cried they were "raped" by the court.
Migron houses 50 families, mostly Jewish Orthodox, who live in mobile houses across the area. First settlers moved there in 1999.
The legal battle over the outpost has continued for over 10 years.
In 2001 later Israeli Court deemed the outpost illegal but it did not stop the government of Israel from pumping money into its infrastructure.
Israeli Court ordered the settlers evacuation already last summer on the grounds that the land where the outpost was built belonged to local Palestinians who, to date, remain the legitimate owners of the land. They come from nearby villages of Burqa and Deir Dibwan.
The settlers argued they had legally purchased the land but they were never able to present evidence in court that would support the claim. The selling documents had reportedly been forged.
Faced with evacuation order and fading political support for their struggle, 17 families from Migron petitioned the court in a last-ditch effort to allow them to stay in the outpost. But last Wednesday the Israeli High Court ruled that all settlers, without exceptions, must leave the outpost within six days.
After the verdict was announced, the settlers held a press conference expressing their outrage at the court decision and slamming Prime Minister Netanyahu for abandoning their cause.
They declined to say whether they would accept the court's decision and evacuate from the area.
Yehuda Weinstein, General Attorney, urged the settlers to leave Migron peacefully.
"Relevant actors should avoid inflaming the situation and must act responsibly. They must respect the rule of law and evacuate their homes peacefully," Weinstein said in a comment quoted by JPost.
In their editorial, Israeli newspaper Haaretz called the settlers conduct "thuggish".
"Instead of quietly vacating the outpost that was built in sin, in gross violation of the law, they went to the High Court for a battle they had no chance of winning" -- Haaretz editorial reads
Israeli settlers have only themselves to blame for Migron outpost ruling
Once again, the robbed Cossacks are crying foul, a moment before they relocate to the shiny new settlement that the state built for them nearby at a cost of NIS 30 million.
No one was surprised by the High Court of Justice ruling ordering all residents of the settlement outpost of Migron to be out by next Tuesday - except, of course, for the settlers themselves. Television news shows reported that "shock" reigned in the illegal outpost last night. Its residents claimed the court had "raped" them.
Once again, the robbed Cossacks are crying foul, a moment before they relocate to the shiny new settlement that the state built for them nearby at a cost of NIS 30 million.
After having driven the government and its representatives crazy, after having vilified ministers Benny Begin and Moshe Ya'alon, who moved heaven and earth for them, after having cursed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is building like a maniac in the territories, as well as the staff of the World Zionist Organization's settlement division, who worked night and day to build the new neighborhood of Givat Hayekev, they are complaining of rape.
The Migron residents went too far. Through their brazen, thuggish conduct, they succeeded in turning a major achievement into a searing failure. Instead of quietly vacating the outpost that was built in sin, in gross violation of the law, they went to the High Court for a battle they had no chance of winning.
And before that, they were beaten in the political arena: The Likud members whom they threatened and denounced did not mobilize to aid them; they didn't even come to visit and offer encouragement as they did for the evicted settlers of Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood. The strongest political lobby in the country failed.
"They weren't gifted with the wisdom to cut their losses or to celebrate their victories," a senior Likud official who cannot be suspected of leftist tendencies said this week. "They always want more. They are always owed change."
Even Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, sounded on Wednesday as if he'd had it with that bunch.
"It's true: Because of our behavior, this is perceived as a failure rather than an achievement, and that's a pity," he said. "The main battle has already been decided in favor of the settlement movement. Therefore, it's possible to make localized compromises and we need to work with the government, not against it. We need to help the government against the prosecution, not take on both the government and the prosecution. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this, just as not everyone understands that [the settlers'] power among Likud members isn't always the answer to everything. It isn't."
29 aug 2012
Israel court tells settlers to evacuate outpost by Tuesday
Israel's high court ruled on Wednesday that an illegal Jewish settler outpost in the occupied West Bank must be evacuated by Tuesday.
The court rejected an appeal by the settlers to delay the evacuation of Migron, a hilltop settlement of about 50 families, which an earlier court ruling had decided was built on privately-owned Palestinian land.
The Migron settlement was one of dozens built more than a decade ago without Israeli government authorization on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War but which Palestinians claim for a hoped-for independent state.
The court had delayed an initial Aug. 1 deadline due to the settlers' appeal.
Some had contested the ruling in order to seek a delay in moving out, saying temporary homes for them elsewhere in the West Bank were not ready. Others maintained they had purchased the land in question.
"We order the petitioners be evacuated from the outpost not later than Sept. 4, 2012 and that the buildings be removed no later than Sept. 11, 2012. The appeal has been rejected," the written court ruling said.
The Israeli authorities have voiced concern in the past that settlers could respond violently to any evacuation orders. Settlers have in numerous instances defied government orders and rebuilt unauthorized outposts removed.
The United Nations deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 settlements it has sanctioned and about 100 outposts erected by settlers without authorization.
Migron settlers have long said they were encouraged by the state to erect their outpost. Though it never received official sanction, the government has spent at least 4 million shekels ($1.1 million) on maintaining the cluster of mobile homes.
The settlements issue is one of the main obstacles to a resumption of the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and say the settlements deny them a contiguous, viable entity. No Palestinian reaction to the Migron ruling was immediately available.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israeli court sets new deadline to evacuate illegal settlement outpost
Israel's high court rejected on Wednesday an appeal by Jewish settlers to delay the evacuation of an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank, a court document showed.
The court also set a new deadline of Sept. 4 to evacuate all settlers from the enclave of Migron, after rejecting an appeal to stay an earlier finding that the outpost had been built on privately owned Palestinian land.
Settlers 'burn car, spray racist graffiti' in Ramallah village
A group of settlers set fire to a car and sprayed racist graffiti in a Ramallah village early Wednesday, locals said.
Hatem Abdul Latif told Ma'an that a number of settlers attempted to set fire to his brothers car, with the vehicle only partially igniting.
Settlers then sprayed racist graffiti on other vehicles and the walls of homes in al-Zira village, located by al-Jalazun refugee camp opposite the settlement of Beit El settlement.
"Death to Arabs" and other slogans were written in the neighborhood. Israeli police and army forces arrived at the scene to investigate the crime, Latif said.
On Tuesday, settlers set fire to three cars in the Hebron village of Sair, locals said.
On Sunday, Israeli police arrested three Israeli settlers, aged 12 to 13, suspected of firebombing a Palestinian taxi near Hebron.
Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in Jewish-only communities which Palestinians say threaten the viability of a promised Palestinian state.
Rights groups say settlers are rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities for attacks against Palestinians, which take place frequently in the West Bank.
Jewish settlers burn a car and write racist slogans
A group of Jewish settlers burned on Wednesday a Palestinian vehicle then wrote slogans on cars and houses near Jalazoun refugee camp northeast of Ramallah.
Local sources said that groups of Jewish settlers stormed a residential suburb on the main street adjacent to the Jalazoun refugee camp and burned a vehicle then wrote racist slogans on another.
They also wrote racist slogans calling for killing Arabs and expelling citizens from their land on the parked cars and the walls of houses in the area.
The sources added that the Israeli occupation forces provided protection to the settlers during their attack.
Jewish settlers have been launching hostile campaigns throughout the West Bank targeting Palestinian citizens and their property, in protest against the decisions to evacuate some outposts such as "Magrot" established on Palestinian lands northeast of Ramallah next to the settlement of "Beit El".
For its part, the Popular Resistance Movement in Palestine denounced the Zionist settlers’ attacks on Palestinian civilians in the village of Laban in Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
It noted that the Israeli repeated aggressions on citizens are part of a scheme to uproot the Palestinian citizens from their homeland and to allow the settlers to occupy the land and displace its indigenous people.
The movement urged the Palestinian police in the West Bank to provide the necessary protection for the residents of the regions in contact with “the enemy” against the “threats and criminal plans” and to prevent all attacks on them by all possible means.
28 aug 2012
Daraghmeh family home is attacked by settlers
Ariel University is part academic institution, part political statement.
With the well-kept grass verges and cafes serving paninis and chilled beer and coke, Ariel University could resemble any modern campus college in Britain or the US. It isn’t: it is Israel’s first settler university, given official status with a great deal of controversy in July. With Salfit to its south and Nablus further to its north, Ariel is deep inside the West Bank. It is one of the major population centres annexed to "greater Israel" by the construction of the separation wall, whose route loops around the city, taking vast tracts of land from local Palestinian communities.
To look at, Ariel’s campus and media presence barely hints at the significance of its geographical location. Its emphasis, couched in the semi-managerial language becoming common to the academic world, is on “reaching out to every corner of Israeli society”, “research excellence” and “keeping its finger on the pulse of the needs of the Israeli economy”. The tension between Ariel’s claim to be normal university and its political role in cementing an Israeli civilian population in the West Bank is rapidly becoming a symbolic battleground over the future viability of a two-state solution, and, for many, a sign that Israel’s academia should be boycotted internationally.
The pretence to normality that emanates from Ariel is echoed by its students. “I don’t want to say I don’t care about these issues,” says Avishi, an economics student from Haifa, “but I study and live here – I don’t really follow it.” Sitting with Avishi and two of his classmates on a picnic bench outside a library on the university’s upper campus, I ask them why they chose Ariel. Talya, a media and communications student from Ashkelon replies. “I didn’t really think about the fact that it was in the West Bank. The main reason I chose Ariel was that my grades from high school were bad, and I couldn’t get into Be’er Sheva.”
Then, in an almost surreal moment, everyone at the table gestures to the sunset over the West Bank – “and the views are also amazing,” she says. When I ask which Palestinian town we are looking at, no one can tell me.
These unknown Palestinian villages all knew what Ariel was: the settlement exists because of land taken from the very villages that make up its picturesque views; the grass growing under our feet was almost certainly possible only because of the vast stocks of water which have been taken from under the West Bank – leaving most Palestinians either short or cut off entirely. Ariel’s sewage has on several occasions been allowed to spill over into neighbouring Salfit, polluting its water supply.
This is the bizarre reality that Ariel University’s establishment both reflects and promises for Israel. For the inhabitants of this new seat of academic inquiry, the scenery that rolls out into the sunset across from the hill-tops of Ariel is inanimate, its inhabitants and their concerns are picturesque, but not an issue.
The wilful moral oblivion that can be observed on campus is not merely a question of ignorance, especially given that most students will have done military service and seen the occupation. Rather, it is the ideological symptom the fact that Ariel’s academics and students are becoming an integral part of a project of colonial normalisation. West Bank settlements are illegal under international law primarily because the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits occupying powers from moving their civilian population into the occupied area. In these terms, the establishment of a university here could not be clearer in the message that it has sent.
With a population of around 19,000, Ariel is now host to 14,000 students – and the university aims to make it 20,000 by 2020. Ariel’s new university is not a part of the natural growth even, as a true-believer would put it, of "any normal city in Israel". Here, far from being dragged along reluctantly, academics are playing a leading role in Israel’s colonial project.
Any attempt to recognise Ariel University internationally will almost certainly be met with protest – but the situation also raises renewed questions about the role and credibility of Israeli academia more generally. Its seeming inclusion into the fold of Israeli universities is symbolic because it demonstrates the extent to which Israeli society has become enmeshed with its colonisation of the West Bank.
Just as it is often impossible to tell whether Israeli grapes in any given supermarket are from Israel itself or from its West Bank settlements, Ariel’s presence as a university will further intertwine self-assuredly normal Israelis with the Occupation. As Liel, another of Ariel’s Economics students put it to me: “It’s obvious. [Ariel] will be harder now to evacuate in negotiations... People in Israel will be forced to really fight for Ariel if their kids are at school here.”
What makes Ariel’s university status particularly notable in this process is that many ostensibly normal – or even supposedly leftwing – parts of Israeli civil society have begun to support it, often from behind the language of academic freedom and democracy. A recent letter signed by the student union heads of several Israeli universities defended Ariel’s upgrade to university status, stating that “we must not forget that there should be a complete separation between academia and Israeli politics.”
There has been opposition from Israeli universities to the Ariel’s status upgrade, but it has been partial and often caveated. Last week, university heads presented an appeal to the Israeli High Court asking calling on for the decision to be reversed. It was couched cautiously, and, like most of the mainstream debate about Ariel, in terms of funding; the primary references to the university’s illegality are limited to its contravention of procedure, rather than expropriation of Palestinian land or role in the Occupation. When individual academics came out in large numbers and said that they would boycott Ariel, Rivka Carmi, the chair of the head of universities group, attacked them, again citing academic freedom: "Academic activity is supposed to be detached from ideological or political appeals.”
Meanwhile, Ariel’s existence is a political act with every passing day, not only in terms of its location and role in the occupation, but also in the activities of its leadership. Yigal Cohen-Orgad, its Chancellor and a former Likud Member of the Knesset, has already used his position to demand that students be forced to swear allegiance to the state of Israel before being allowed to study – a measure whose primary effect will be to humiliate or exclude the Palestinian population in higher education.
The question of how international civil society should interact with Israeli institutions has always been a sharp one. For years, Britain’s academics’ union, the UCU, has along with a growing number of trade unions internationally, adopted a full boycott of Israeli universities and official cultural institutions – and this pressure is only likely to grow in the wake of the establishment of a university inside the occupied West Bank. If there is one thing that the experience of the past few years of steady colonisation has shown, it is that without being made to pay the price of the occupation, it is difficult to imagine Israeli civil society or its official institutions moving towards a just peace.
Settlers stone Palestinian bus near Ramallah, 5 hurt
Five Palestinians were wounded on Friday morning after a group of settlers threw stones at their bus near Ramallah, witnesses said.
The bus was traveling from Nablus, when it was attacked by the settlers from a hill near Burqa village, one of those injured, Raed Ewais, said.
Settlers threw stones, damaging the bus and injuring passengers, witnesses said.
The incident came after settlers gathered on the same road on Thursday night near Sinjil, throwing stones at passing vehicles.
Locals said a number of vehicles were damaged by rocks. The group caused the road to close for over an hour, they added.
A Palestinian Authority official on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of settler attacks ahead of a planned evacuation of an illegal Israeli outpost near Ramallah.
The hilltop settler outpost Migron is set to be evacuated this Tuesday.
Israel's fundamentalist horizon
If the current demographic trends continue, Israel will have a joint Haredi-settler majority by 2050.
Sometimes the news cycle is so short that you blink and it's gone. If I hadn't glanced at Ynet on Sunday evening, I would have missed it. But I did see the report and assumed that the story would be around at least by the next morning, but I was wrong. There was no sign of it on Monday and for a moment I wondered if it wasn't a dream.
Google confirmed I had not been hallucinating - it had appeared briefly on a handful of websites and been pushed off the agenda. Where was the follow-up? What about the angry condemnations? It had sunk without trace. What am I talking about? You couldn't possibly know if you hadn't checked the headlines exactly at that right moment, so I will have to repeat the entire report.
On Sunday at the Hurva Synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem, an organization called Komemiut held a "day of introspection and prayer" to mark seven years since the dismantling of the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. It was an event of remembrance but with a contemporary tone as those present were determined to prevent another evacuation - this time of the West Bank "outpost" of Migron, built partly on private Palestinian land.
One of the main speakers at the event was Elyakim Levanon, a man who holds the state-funded position of Regional Rabbi of the Samaria Regional Council. "Whoever raises a hand on Migron - his hand will be cut off," said Levanon. "And the prime minister should also know this. There is a law and a judge."
That a public servant can call for the prime minister's violent downfall without causing so much as a stir is chilling. In 17 years since the eve of Yitzhak Rabin's murder we have become inured to such talk, apathetic, until we reached the point that such words by a rabbi who is financed by the tax payer spoken in a synagogue recently renovated at the public's expense are so unsurprising that they warrant no more than a fleeting, almost coincidental headline.
Perhaps the news editors gave a passing thought to the report, whether it was worth following up on, and decided that a far-right rabbi attacking the right-wing prime minister who has done so much to shield that rabbi and his constituency is not news. Maybe there was a short moment of schadenfreude that Netanyahu, who 17 years ago tolerated similar words when they were targeted against his rival, has now had his feeding hand bitten. That grim satisfaction was not a reason for all the self-appointed guardians of Israeli democracy to rise up in defense of the lawfully elected prime minister.
Levanon later clarified his words, saying that he did not mean to call upon anyone to physically harm Benjamin Netanyahu for allowing Migron's removal - he had meant divine retribution. I believe he was not calling for an immediate and violent insurrection. The rest of his Hurva speech proves as much: "Recently two elderly men passed away," he regaled his listeners, "Benzion Netanyahu and Rabbi Elyashiv. One left 1,400 offspring, the second 10. That's the difference between us."
And he had a plan: "We will go forth to conquer the State of Israel. Today in mighty forces we will go to every place. The yeshiva students will go to the army because if they don't there will be no army. Who will go to the army? Those who raise a couple of kids and a dog?"
Levanon was conceding that the government may yet be forced by the Supreme Court to destroy Migron and other outposts, just as the settlements of Gush Katif were swept away, but don't worry, these are only temporary setbacks. It may seem strange on the face of it that he mentioned Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv's Haredi descendants and exhorted yeshiva students to serve in the army in the same breath. But while military service is anathema for any Elyashiv great-grandson, the two strands of Jewish fundamentalism are intertwined.
The dispute over whether or not young men should exchange their Talmud for an M-16 for a couple of years is a bridgeable difference. The rabbis of both camps agree that everything will be solved in a couple of generations, once the secular infertile Israelis who insist on not seeing the light have died out or left the country to be assimilated among the goyim. Not every religious Israeli, not even every Haredi or settler, believes or even desires that one day every Jew in the world will share their beliefs. Many, if not most of them are honest enough to admit, at least to themselves, that Jews were always a mixed bunch of lunatics, heretics and skeptics and should remain that way. But the fundamentalists are in ascendance.
This week, as children returned to school, another public servant, Deputy Education Minister Rabbi Menachem Eliezer Moses, was quoted at a gathering of Haredi school principals saying with satisfaction that this year, for the first time, a majority of children in Israeli kindergartens are either ultra-Orthodox or religious. It was a misleading statistic - Moses was not including Arab children in his calculations and not all the children enrolled in religious kindergartens are actually religious. Many parents place them there for the longer hours or simply because they are closer to their homes and next year they will continue in secular schools. But the Haredi rabbis who privately despise the national-religious for their compromises with modernity are happy to include them in their camp when it pushes secular Israelis into a minority. Today the kindergarten - tomorrow the Knesset.
But despite Malthusian demographic trends indicating a joint Haredi-settler majority in Israel by 2050, both Moses and Levanon are aware how tenuous their advantage could be. None of the current trends are inexorable. As the Haredi community grows, the hold of its ancient leaders over a generation who have grown up in the 21st Century is rapidly eroding and the trickle of defections will increase to a torrent. The growing number of West Bank settlers is also misleading. Three-quarters live in comfortable suburbs by the Green Line, easily absorbed into the sovereign Israeli state as part of a two-state solution which a clear majority of Israelis still support.
The fundamentalists see their majority beckoning on the horizon if only they can hold on for another 20 years, perpetuating the settlement program and shutting off their young from outside influences. It is impossible to foresee whether they will prevail, but we are giving them a much better chance of success by not listening to what they say.
30 aug 2012
Settler firebomb attack 'turned our lives upside down'
A Palestinian woman whose husband and two young children were severely injured in an Israeli settler attack says the roadside firebombing had "turned our lives upside down."
On Aug. 16, Israeli settlers firebombed a Palestinian taxi south of Bethlehem, injuring Jamila Hassan, her husband Ayman and their children Iman, 4, and Muhammad, 6, as well as the driver.
"We are lost, our life has turned upside down, the father, son and daughter are each in different worlds, our life is difficult and we’re miserable," Jamila told Ma'an at Haddassah Hospital, where Mohammad and Ayman are being treated.
Muhammad has severe burns on his back, hands, legs and face.
"Yesterday he had an operation and he came out screaming calling me to come in and scratch his back due the severe pain he felt, he screams from the pain a lot," his mother said.
Mohammad was due to start school in the first grade in September, but won't be attending as he'll need to stay in hospital for at least one month, Jamila said. "He will not buy a back pack, notebooks and will not go to school, they killed his dream."
Jamila was not allowed to see her husband in intensive care for several days after the attack. He suffered third degree burns on his face and 30 percent of his body.
She was able to see him when his condition stabilized.
"He spoke really softly, I could barely hear. I got close to him and he asked me about our two children and I reassured him they were fine. He asked me not to allow them in to see him in his condition. He said: 'I am afraid.'"
Four-year-old Iman is staying with her aunt, Fida, who said the girl is constantly in tears.
"Iman is living in constant fear especially at night and can't handle hearing sounds of cars. She refuses to leave the house. She spends most of her time talking about the fire and how the car was burned and asks where her father, mother and brother are … her situation is really difficult," her aunt told Ma'an.
Iman said: "I am afraid and I don’t want to ride the car … I am afraid a fire will start and burn everything."
She remembers seeing a person in "a hat and two braids of hair" throw the firebomb and flee.
Jamila told Ma'an the family was going shopping for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr when the attack happened.
"When we were driving we got near a settlement entrance. We saw a settler looking at us and all of a sudden he threw something at our car which turned into a huge fire and smoke surrounding us for a few minutes until we were able to leave the car," she said.
"We were sitting in the back seat which protected us somehow, because the Molotov hit the front seat where my husband and the driver were sitting. My daughter Iman had the least injuries because she fell between the seats and was protected."
Israeli police have arrested three children from Bat Ayin settlement suspected of carrying out the attack.
IOF arrests 13 Palestinians including children
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested at dawn Thursday 13 Palestinians in different parts of the West Bank cities and transferred them to interrogation centers under the pretext of being wanted by the Israeli intelligence for security concerns.
In Nablus, IOF arrested four citizens from Awarta east of the city. Eyewitnesses said that Israeli patrols stormed the town, raided several houses and damaged property, and arrested a number of citizens.
In Qalqilya, IOF also arrested four citizens from the town of Azzun east of the city, including two children, Mohammad Abdel Fattah Radwan, 14, and Qusai Saleh Mashaal, 16, where IOF stormed the town at two o'clock in the morning, and began a massive search campaign in dozens of homes.
Eyewitnesses told the PIC that IOF raided Beit Awwa, and arrested five citizens, aged between 15 and 17, after raiding their homes.
The sources added that IOF searched dozens of houses in the town, and set up checkpoints at the northern western and eastern entrances of Al-Khalil city.
In the same context, Jewish settlers attacked, in the Old City of Al-Khalil, the citizen Abdul Rahman Idris and brutally beat him in the late hours of the evening. The man was hospitalized with moderate injuries and bruises.
High Court Orders Evacuation of Illegal Israeli Outpost. Settlers Cry the Verdict Has Left them ‘Raped’
Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled evacuation of the illegal Israeli outpost of Migron, located near Ramallah, on the occupied territory of the West Bank. The houses, deemed unathorized, must be vacated within a few days.
Upon hearing the verdict, the settlers cried they were "raped" by the court.
Migron houses 50 families, mostly Jewish Orthodox, who live in mobile houses across the area. First settlers moved there in 1999.
The legal battle over the outpost has continued for over 10 years.
In 2001 later Israeli Court deemed the outpost illegal but it did not stop the government of Israel from pumping money into its infrastructure.
Israeli Court ordered the settlers evacuation already last summer on the grounds that the land where the outpost was built belonged to local Palestinians who, to date, remain the legitimate owners of the land. They come from nearby villages of Burqa and Deir Dibwan.
The settlers argued they had legally purchased the land but they were never able to present evidence in court that would support the claim. The selling documents had reportedly been forged.
Faced with evacuation order and fading political support for their struggle, 17 families from Migron petitioned the court in a last-ditch effort to allow them to stay in the outpost. But last Wednesday the Israeli High Court ruled that all settlers, without exceptions, must leave the outpost within six days.
After the verdict was announced, the settlers held a press conference expressing their outrage at the court decision and slamming Prime Minister Netanyahu for abandoning their cause.
They declined to say whether they would accept the court's decision and evacuate from the area.
Yehuda Weinstein, General Attorney, urged the settlers to leave Migron peacefully.
"Relevant actors should avoid inflaming the situation and must act responsibly. They must respect the rule of law and evacuate their homes peacefully," Weinstein said in a comment quoted by JPost.
In their editorial, Israeli newspaper Haaretz called the settlers conduct "thuggish".
"Instead of quietly vacating the outpost that was built in sin, in gross violation of the law, they went to the High Court for a battle they had no chance of winning" -- Haaretz editorial reads
Israeli settlers have only themselves to blame for Migron outpost ruling
Once again, the robbed Cossacks are crying foul, a moment before they relocate to the shiny new settlement that the state built for them nearby at a cost of NIS 30 million.
No one was surprised by the High Court of Justice ruling ordering all residents of the settlement outpost of Migron to be out by next Tuesday - except, of course, for the settlers themselves. Television news shows reported that "shock" reigned in the illegal outpost last night. Its residents claimed the court had "raped" them.
Once again, the robbed Cossacks are crying foul, a moment before they relocate to the shiny new settlement that the state built for them nearby at a cost of NIS 30 million.
After having driven the government and its representatives crazy, after having vilified ministers Benny Begin and Moshe Ya'alon, who moved heaven and earth for them, after having cursed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is building like a maniac in the territories, as well as the staff of the World Zionist Organization's settlement division, who worked night and day to build the new neighborhood of Givat Hayekev, they are complaining of rape.
The Migron residents went too far. Through their brazen, thuggish conduct, they succeeded in turning a major achievement into a searing failure. Instead of quietly vacating the outpost that was built in sin, in gross violation of the law, they went to the High Court for a battle they had no chance of winning.
And before that, they were beaten in the political arena: The Likud members whom they threatened and denounced did not mobilize to aid them; they didn't even come to visit and offer encouragement as they did for the evicted settlers of Beit El's Ulpana neighborhood. The strongest political lobby in the country failed.
"They weren't gifted with the wisdom to cut their losses or to celebrate their victories," a senior Likud official who cannot be suspected of leftist tendencies said this week. "They always want more. They are always owed change."
Even Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, sounded on Wednesday as if he'd had it with that bunch.
"It's true: Because of our behavior, this is perceived as a failure rather than an achievement, and that's a pity," he said. "The main battle has already been decided in favor of the settlement movement. Therefore, it's possible to make localized compromises and we need to work with the government, not against it. We need to help the government against the prosecution, not take on both the government and the prosecution. Unfortunately, not everyone understands this, just as not everyone understands that [the settlers'] power among Likud members isn't always the answer to everything. It isn't."
29 aug 2012
Israel court tells settlers to evacuate outpost by Tuesday
Israel's high court ruled on Wednesday that an illegal Jewish settler outpost in the occupied West Bank must be evacuated by Tuesday.
The court rejected an appeal by the settlers to delay the evacuation of Migron, a hilltop settlement of about 50 families, which an earlier court ruling had decided was built on privately-owned Palestinian land.
The Migron settlement was one of dozens built more than a decade ago without Israeli government authorization on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War but which Palestinians claim for a hoped-for independent state.
The court had delayed an initial Aug. 1 deadline due to the settlers' appeal.
Some had contested the ruling in order to seek a delay in moving out, saying temporary homes for them elsewhere in the West Bank were not ready. Others maintained they had purchased the land in question.
"We order the petitioners be evacuated from the outpost not later than Sept. 4, 2012 and that the buildings be removed no later than Sept. 11, 2012. The appeal has been rejected," the written court ruling said.
The Israeli authorities have voiced concern in the past that settlers could respond violently to any evacuation orders. Settlers have in numerous instances defied government orders and rebuilt unauthorized outposts removed.
The United Nations deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 settlements it has sanctioned and about 100 outposts erected by settlers without authorization.
Migron settlers have long said they were encouraged by the state to erect their outpost. Though it never received official sanction, the government has spent at least 4 million shekels ($1.1 million) on maintaining the cluster of mobile homes.
The settlements issue is one of the main obstacles to a resumption of the stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.
The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and say the settlements deny them a contiguous, viable entity. No Palestinian reaction to the Migron ruling was immediately available.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Israeli court sets new deadline to evacuate illegal settlement outpost
Israel's high court rejected on Wednesday an appeal by Jewish settlers to delay the evacuation of an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank, a court document showed.
The court also set a new deadline of Sept. 4 to evacuate all settlers from the enclave of Migron, after rejecting an appeal to stay an earlier finding that the outpost had been built on privately owned Palestinian land.
Settlers 'burn car, spray racist graffiti' in Ramallah village
A group of settlers set fire to a car and sprayed racist graffiti in a Ramallah village early Wednesday, locals said.
Hatem Abdul Latif told Ma'an that a number of settlers attempted to set fire to his brothers car, with the vehicle only partially igniting.
Settlers then sprayed racist graffiti on other vehicles and the walls of homes in al-Zira village, located by al-Jalazun refugee camp opposite the settlement of Beit El settlement.
"Death to Arabs" and other slogans were written in the neighborhood. Israeli police and army forces arrived at the scene to investigate the crime, Latif said.
On Tuesday, settlers set fire to three cars in the Hebron village of Sair, locals said.
On Sunday, Israeli police arrested three Israeli settlers, aged 12 to 13, suspected of firebombing a Palestinian taxi near Hebron.
Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in Jewish-only communities which Palestinians say threaten the viability of a promised Palestinian state.
Rights groups say settlers are rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities for attacks against Palestinians, which take place frequently in the West Bank.
Jewish settlers burn a car and write racist slogans
A group of Jewish settlers burned on Wednesday a Palestinian vehicle then wrote slogans on cars and houses near Jalazoun refugee camp northeast of Ramallah.
Local sources said that groups of Jewish settlers stormed a residential suburb on the main street adjacent to the Jalazoun refugee camp and burned a vehicle then wrote racist slogans on another.
They also wrote racist slogans calling for killing Arabs and expelling citizens from their land on the parked cars and the walls of houses in the area.
The sources added that the Israeli occupation forces provided protection to the settlers during their attack.
Jewish settlers have been launching hostile campaigns throughout the West Bank targeting Palestinian citizens and their property, in protest against the decisions to evacuate some outposts such as "Magrot" established on Palestinian lands northeast of Ramallah next to the settlement of "Beit El".
For its part, the Popular Resistance Movement in Palestine denounced the Zionist settlers’ attacks on Palestinian civilians in the village of Laban in Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
It noted that the Israeli repeated aggressions on citizens are part of a scheme to uproot the Palestinian citizens from their homeland and to allow the settlers to occupy the land and displace its indigenous people.
The movement urged the Palestinian police in the West Bank to provide the necessary protection for the residents of the regions in contact with “the enemy” against the “threats and criminal plans” and to prevent all attacks on them by all possible means.
28 aug 2012
Daraghmeh family home is attacked by settlers

On 28 August 2012, the Daraghmeh family home is attacked by settlers as the children sleep and other family members work in the yard. Settlers beat an 11-year-old breaking his arm.
Noor ad-Deen, Mo’men and Jalal live with their family in Lubban ash-Sharqiya, a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. “The village is surrounded by Israeli settlements: the settlement of Ma’ale Levona about one kilometer to the southeast, the settlement of Eli about two kilometers to the north, and the settlement of Shilo about four kilometers to the east,” explains 11-year-old Noor ad-Deen. “Our house is located on 10 dunams (1 hectare) of agricultural land with a well and a spring,” he adds.
“On 28 August 2012, at around 8:30 am, Mo’men and I woke up to my mother shouting, ‘Please help us. Settlers are attacking!’” says Noor. “She grabbed me by my hand and pulled me out of the room. I was so terrified I was crying. We were about to exit the room when we were surprised by around 10 Israeli settlers in civilian clothes. They had stormed the house and started attacking us. They were wearing white shirts with straps dangling. They had hair ringlets and were wearing small caps [kippahs]. When I saw them, I started shaking and screaming loudly. I was still holding my mother's hand when suddenly, one of them grabbed me by my shirt, lifted me and threw me about one-and-a-half metres. I fell on the floor and another settler starting hitting me with a stick on my left arm and leg. He was wearing glasses. I was in pain and really terrified.”
Eventually, Noor’s father and older brother were able to drive the settlers out of the house, but continued to clash with the group outside, while more settlers returned in an attempt to regain access to the house. “I heard banging on the door and stones hitting the windows,” Noor recalls. “We locked ourselves in the room for about 15 minutes, until my father and Jalal called us out.” When the boys came out of the room they found the Israeli army in the house. The settlers had already fled in their cars. The family was held in one room for some time, and Noor’s 17-year-old brother Jalal was arrested for attacking the settlers.
Noor and his brother Mo’men we’re eventually taken to the hospital, where Noor found out his arm was broken. “We feel very scared at night,” says Noor. “We have nightmares because of the attack.” The children’s mother says the incident has affected them psychologically. According to her, since the day of the attack Noor ad-Deen and Mo’men refuse to sleep alone and are afraid to go out of the house. They are receiving psychological support from Doctors Without Borders. Their brother Jalal was released on bail on 13 September and is awaiting trial before the Israeli military court. The settlers who attacked them have not been brought to justice.
According to the UN, the attack against the Daraghmeh family is part of an ongoing attempt by Israeli settlers from Ma’ale Levona settlement to take over the water well and a historical building that are located on the family land. In a recent study, the UN found that Israeli settlers have taken total or partial control over 56 water springs located mostly on private Palestinian land.
Hundreds of settlers visit Nablus Tomb
Hundreds of settlers visited Joseph's Tomb in Nablus overnight Monday, local sources told Ma'an.
More than 20 buses carrying the settlers were seen by the tomb amid a heavy Israeli military presence, locals said.
Settlers performed prayers until the early morning hours before leaving the area. No incidents were reported.
Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the site was to remain under Israeli control. But the Israeli army evacuated the premises in October 2000 shortly after the start of the second intifada, or uprising, and it was immediately destroyed and burnt by the Palestinians.
The restoration of the tomb was completed recently, and following improved security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, the army allows Jewish worshipers to make monthly nocturnal pilgrimages to the site.
Migron residents vow non-violent eviction
A day before evacuation deadline, outpost residents appeal to High Court of Justice, asking to postpone relocation until alternate housing site has been completed; say they will respect court ruling.
More than six years after it first began, the legal battle surrounding the illegal West Bank outpost of Migron is expected to draw to an end in the High Court of Justice on Tuesday.
Security forces are preparing to evacuate at least 33 families, who will be relocated to a caravilla site in Giv'at HaYekev, and 17 other families, who claim they have purchased the land on which their houses are built, will find out whether they can stay in the outpost or whether they, too, will have to leave their homes.
On Monday, a day before the deadline issued by the High Court of Justice for the eviction of the outpost, Migron residents filed a petition asking the court to postpone the evacuation until after construction of homes has been completed at an alternate site in Giv'at HaYekev.
The petitioners wrote that the fact that the land Migron is built on is privately owned by a Palestinian does not justify the eviction, because it is clear that the owner will never make use of the land.
'Land owner will never use the land.' Migron outpost
In their petition, the residents said they would respect any ruling issued by the court and will not employ and violence during the evacuation – if and when it takes place.
According to the residents, the caravilla site that is being prepared for them at Giv'at HaYekev suffers from many security and safety impairments; in addition, they claimed that they will not be able to begin the new school year at the site.
In addition to the petition, the residents also submitted their response to the State's position on the status of the outpost, saying that they were told by official government sources that they could stay in the outpost if they purchase the land, but after doing so the State is still seeking to evict them.
The residents further noted that the State's claim, by which there is no access road to the outpost that does not pass on private Palestinian land, does not stand the test of time, adding that there are two access roads to the outpost – one for regular vehicles and one just for four wheel drive vehicles.
Peace Now organization stated in response that the settlers of Migron "put to shame the High Court and humiliate themselves.
"Their list of excuses proves that they never had an intention to evacuate the outpost and all they want is to buy more time. With their conniving behavior, the settlers managed to distance right wing ministers such as Begin and Ya'alon, who lost their patience. The High Court must put an end to this and instruct on an immediate and full evacuation of the outpost."
Report: State asks court to order Migron evacuation
The Israeli state asked the High Court of Justice to order an immediate evacuation of the Migron outpost on Tuesday, with a court ruling expected within the coming days, Israel's Ynet reported.
The motion will apply to settlers who had launched a petition claiming they had legally purchased the land, as well as to families who had requested the eviction be delayed until alternative housing was completed.
A Justice Ministry representative said that a new housing site for Migron settlers would be ready in the coming days, Ynet said.
Israel's high court ruled in 2008 that the Migron outpost is built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered its residents to vacate.
Migron settlers filed a High Court petition on Monday asking for the evacuation to be postponed until new housing is ready.
The UN deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 settlements it has sanctioned and about 100 outposts erected by settlers without official authorization.
Migron settlers have long said they were encouraged by the state to erect the hilltop outpost. Though it never received official sanction, the government has spent at least 4 million shekels ($1.1 million) on maintaining the cluster of mobile homes.
State motions court to order full, immediate evacuation of Migron
State asks High Court to order that all outpost residents be cleared in coming days; court yet to rule in case.
The State motioned the High Court of Justice on Tuesday to order an immediate evacuation of all Migron residents. It is estimated the court will issue a ruling in the coming days.
The motion also applies to those residents who petitioned the court claiming they had lawfully purchased the land. A Justice Ministry representative said that the alternative housing site prepared for the residents will be ready within a few days.
The Migron residents, on their part, argued that there is no reason for them to be evacuated claiming that the alleged Palestinian landowners were no longer relevant to the case.
On Monday, the outpost's residents filed another High Court petition asking to postpone their evacuation until the alternative housing site is ready. They claimed there were serious safety hazards in Givat Hayekev. They pledged to accept the court's decision and not take any violent actions during the evacuation.
The Defense Ministry estimates that there will be no violence on the part of the Migron residents themselves but that outside elements may try to resist the eviction and carry out "price tag" acts against Arabs or IDF soldiers.
Jewish settlers set Palestinian cars on fire
Dozens of Jewish settlers attacked and set three Palestinian cars on fire in Sa’ir village to the east of Al-Khalil city on Tuesday.
Village municipality officials told the PIC that the settlers sneaked into the village before dawn Tuesday and wrote racist slogans on buildings such as “Death to Arabs and Palestinians”.
They said that the settlers set three cars on fire before fleeing the village.
Israeli occupation forces were seen deployed in the vicinity of Sa’ir, which indicated that they were escorting the settlers.
In the same context, other groups of Jewish settlers attacked a house in Laban village in Nablus province while trying to seize control of a nearby water spring.
Jewish settlers storm al-Aqsa Mosque
A big number of Jewish settlers stormed on Tuesday morning Al-Aqsa Mosque escorted by dozens of police officers and intelligence elements.
Jerusalemite sources said that the intelligence agents and the settlers roamed al-Aqsa mosque yards accompanied by a Jewish tourist guide, who was talking about the mosque as a Jewish place claiming the existence of a link between it and the "alleged Temple."
MP Ahmed Abu Halabiya, head of Jerusalem Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, called for official and public protection of the occupied city of Jerusalem against the occupation crimes.
Abu Halabiya warned, during a press conference held at the headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza, of the ongoing Zionist plans designed to intensify settlement in Jerusalem and change the demographic equation in favor of the Zionist side by confiscating Jerusalemites’ lands, demolishing their homes, and building tens of thousands of settlement units in their place.
Jewish settler stabs Palestinian old man
Noor ad-Deen, Mo’men and Jalal live with their family in Lubban ash-Sharqiya, a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. “The village is surrounded by Israeli settlements: the settlement of Ma’ale Levona about one kilometer to the southeast, the settlement of Eli about two kilometers to the north, and the settlement of Shilo about four kilometers to the east,” explains 11-year-old Noor ad-Deen. “Our house is located on 10 dunams (1 hectare) of agricultural land with a well and a spring,” he adds.
“On 28 August 2012, at around 8:30 am, Mo’men and I woke up to my mother shouting, ‘Please help us. Settlers are attacking!’” says Noor. “She grabbed me by my hand and pulled me out of the room. I was so terrified I was crying. We were about to exit the room when we were surprised by around 10 Israeli settlers in civilian clothes. They had stormed the house and started attacking us. They were wearing white shirts with straps dangling. They had hair ringlets and were wearing small caps [kippahs]. When I saw them, I started shaking and screaming loudly. I was still holding my mother's hand when suddenly, one of them grabbed me by my shirt, lifted me and threw me about one-and-a-half metres. I fell on the floor and another settler starting hitting me with a stick on my left arm and leg. He was wearing glasses. I was in pain and really terrified.”
Eventually, Noor’s father and older brother were able to drive the settlers out of the house, but continued to clash with the group outside, while more settlers returned in an attempt to regain access to the house. “I heard banging on the door and stones hitting the windows,” Noor recalls. “We locked ourselves in the room for about 15 minutes, until my father and Jalal called us out.” When the boys came out of the room they found the Israeli army in the house. The settlers had already fled in their cars. The family was held in one room for some time, and Noor’s 17-year-old brother Jalal was arrested for attacking the settlers.
Noor and his brother Mo’men we’re eventually taken to the hospital, where Noor found out his arm was broken. “We feel very scared at night,” says Noor. “We have nightmares because of the attack.” The children’s mother says the incident has affected them psychologically. According to her, since the day of the attack Noor ad-Deen and Mo’men refuse to sleep alone and are afraid to go out of the house. They are receiving psychological support from Doctors Without Borders. Their brother Jalal was released on bail on 13 September and is awaiting trial before the Israeli military court. The settlers who attacked them have not been brought to justice.
According to the UN, the attack against the Daraghmeh family is part of an ongoing attempt by Israeli settlers from Ma’ale Levona settlement to take over the water well and a historical building that are located on the family land. In a recent study, the UN found that Israeli settlers have taken total or partial control over 56 water springs located mostly on private Palestinian land.
Hundreds of settlers visit Nablus Tomb
Hundreds of settlers visited Joseph's Tomb in Nablus overnight Monday, local sources told Ma'an.
More than 20 buses carrying the settlers were seen by the tomb amid a heavy Israeli military presence, locals said.
Settlers performed prayers until the early morning hours before leaving the area. No incidents were reported.
Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, the site was to remain under Israeli control. But the Israeli army evacuated the premises in October 2000 shortly after the start of the second intifada, or uprising, and it was immediately destroyed and burnt by the Palestinians.
The restoration of the tomb was completed recently, and following improved security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, the army allows Jewish worshipers to make monthly nocturnal pilgrimages to the site.
Migron residents vow non-violent eviction
A day before evacuation deadline, outpost residents appeal to High Court of Justice, asking to postpone relocation until alternate housing site has been completed; say they will respect court ruling.
More than six years after it first began, the legal battle surrounding the illegal West Bank outpost of Migron is expected to draw to an end in the High Court of Justice on Tuesday.
Security forces are preparing to evacuate at least 33 families, who will be relocated to a caravilla site in Giv'at HaYekev, and 17 other families, who claim they have purchased the land on which their houses are built, will find out whether they can stay in the outpost or whether they, too, will have to leave their homes.
On Monday, a day before the deadline issued by the High Court of Justice for the eviction of the outpost, Migron residents filed a petition asking the court to postpone the evacuation until after construction of homes has been completed at an alternate site in Giv'at HaYekev.
The petitioners wrote that the fact that the land Migron is built on is privately owned by a Palestinian does not justify the eviction, because it is clear that the owner will never make use of the land.
'Land owner will never use the land.' Migron outpost
In their petition, the residents said they would respect any ruling issued by the court and will not employ and violence during the evacuation – if and when it takes place.
According to the residents, the caravilla site that is being prepared for them at Giv'at HaYekev suffers from many security and safety impairments; in addition, they claimed that they will not be able to begin the new school year at the site.
In addition to the petition, the residents also submitted their response to the State's position on the status of the outpost, saying that they were told by official government sources that they could stay in the outpost if they purchase the land, but after doing so the State is still seeking to evict them.
The residents further noted that the State's claim, by which there is no access road to the outpost that does not pass on private Palestinian land, does not stand the test of time, adding that there are two access roads to the outpost – one for regular vehicles and one just for four wheel drive vehicles.
Peace Now organization stated in response that the settlers of Migron "put to shame the High Court and humiliate themselves.
"Their list of excuses proves that they never had an intention to evacuate the outpost and all they want is to buy more time. With their conniving behavior, the settlers managed to distance right wing ministers such as Begin and Ya'alon, who lost their patience. The High Court must put an end to this and instruct on an immediate and full evacuation of the outpost."
Report: State asks court to order Migron evacuation
The Israeli state asked the High Court of Justice to order an immediate evacuation of the Migron outpost on Tuesday, with a court ruling expected within the coming days, Israel's Ynet reported.
The motion will apply to settlers who had launched a petition claiming they had legally purchased the land, as well as to families who had requested the eviction be delayed until alternative housing was completed.
A Justice Ministry representative said that a new housing site for Migron settlers would be ready in the coming days, Ynet said.
Israel's high court ruled in 2008 that the Migron outpost is built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered its residents to vacate.
Migron settlers filed a High Court petition on Monday asking for the evacuation to be postponed until new housing is ready.
The UN deems all Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. Israel disputes this and distinguishes between about 120 settlements it has sanctioned and about 100 outposts erected by settlers without official authorization.
Migron settlers have long said they were encouraged by the state to erect the hilltop outpost. Though it never received official sanction, the government has spent at least 4 million shekels ($1.1 million) on maintaining the cluster of mobile homes.
State motions court to order full, immediate evacuation of Migron
State asks High Court to order that all outpost residents be cleared in coming days; court yet to rule in case.
The State motioned the High Court of Justice on Tuesday to order an immediate evacuation of all Migron residents. It is estimated the court will issue a ruling in the coming days.
The motion also applies to those residents who petitioned the court claiming they had lawfully purchased the land. A Justice Ministry representative said that the alternative housing site prepared for the residents will be ready within a few days.
The Migron residents, on their part, argued that there is no reason for them to be evacuated claiming that the alleged Palestinian landowners were no longer relevant to the case.
On Monday, the outpost's residents filed another High Court petition asking to postpone their evacuation until the alternative housing site is ready. They claimed there were serious safety hazards in Givat Hayekev. They pledged to accept the court's decision and not take any violent actions during the evacuation.
The Defense Ministry estimates that there will be no violence on the part of the Migron residents themselves but that outside elements may try to resist the eviction and carry out "price tag" acts against Arabs or IDF soldiers.
Jewish settlers set Palestinian cars on fire
Dozens of Jewish settlers attacked and set three Palestinian cars on fire in Sa’ir village to the east of Al-Khalil city on Tuesday.
Village municipality officials told the PIC that the settlers sneaked into the village before dawn Tuesday and wrote racist slogans on buildings such as “Death to Arabs and Palestinians”.
They said that the settlers set three cars on fire before fleeing the village.
Israeli occupation forces were seen deployed in the vicinity of Sa’ir, which indicated that they were escorting the settlers.
In the same context, other groups of Jewish settlers attacked a house in Laban village in Nablus province while trying to seize control of a nearby water spring.
Jewish settlers storm al-Aqsa Mosque
A big number of Jewish settlers stormed on Tuesday morning Al-Aqsa Mosque escorted by dozens of police officers and intelligence elements.
Jerusalemite sources said that the intelligence agents and the settlers roamed al-Aqsa mosque yards accompanied by a Jewish tourist guide, who was talking about the mosque as a Jewish place claiming the existence of a link between it and the "alleged Temple."
MP Ahmed Abu Halabiya, head of Jerusalem Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, called for official and public protection of the occupied city of Jerusalem against the occupation crimes.
Abu Halabiya warned, during a press conference held at the headquarters of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza, of the ongoing Zionist plans designed to intensify settlement in Jerusalem and change the demographic equation in favor of the Zionist side by confiscating Jerusalemites’ lands, demolishing their homes, and building tens of thousands of settlement units in their place.
Jewish settler stabs Palestinian old man

A Jewish settler stabbed a Palestinian elderly man in Khirbet Msafer in Yatta south of al-Khalil on Monday causing him serious injuries.
Rateb Jabour, coordinator of popular and national committees against the wall and settlements in Yatta, told Quds Press that a settler from "Mitzpe Yair" settlement stabbed Ismael Ibrahim al-Abra, 65, in Khirbet Beer al-Adra near Yatta town.
He pointed out that the settler stabbed Abra in the head and that a Red Crescent ambulance transferred him to a hospital in the territories occupied in 1948 where his injuries were described as serious.
Meanwhile, groups of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian lands in Salfit governorate and bulldozed lands for settlement expansion.
Local sources said that settlers from Brochin settlement, established on the village of Bruqin's lands, bulldozed new lands in the west of the village in preparation for the establishment of new settlement neighborhoods.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) also stormed the village of Deir Estia and issued orders to uproot 176 olive trees in Wadi Qana owned by the village's farmers, at the pretext that they had been planted in an area classified as "a natural reserve".
Deir Estia's mayor, Nadhmi Salman, recalled in a press statement that the IOF soldiers uprooted 1300 olive trees in the same district last year, and destroyed irrigation channels project.
Four Palestinians wounded during confrontations with Jewish settlers
Four Palestinians were injured during violent clashes on Tuesday morning between citizens in the village of Laban, southern Nablus, and a group of Jewish settlers.
Local sources confirmed that the clashes erupted after the arrival of ten cars carrying a number of settlers to Al-Khan area located at the village entrance, where they made provocative actions, which led to the outbreak of a fight between the people of the region and the settlers. Four Palestinians and one settler were injured during the scuffle.
The sources added that the Israeli occupation forces that arrived to the scene arrested Samih Daraghmeh and his son Khaled, while two citizens were injured.
In the meantime, Palestinian sources reported that Jewish settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles this morning on the road between Nablus and Ramallah.
'Student's mouth stapled in reported anti-Semitic attack'
A Jewish student at Michigan State University said he was attacked at an off-campus party in what he is calling a hate crime. Just before the assault, which broke his jaw, Zach Tennen said his attackers asked him if he was Jewish, according to reports.
Tennen, 19, a resident of suburban Detroit, said he answered in the affirmative. He told WDIV-TV in Detroit that his attackers also "were making Nazi and Hitler symbols and they said they were part of the KKK."
Tennen was knocked unconscious during the attack, which took place early Sunday morning near MSU's East Lansing campus. The assailants stapled his mouth shut through his gums.
27 aug 2012
Settlers attack elderly Palestinian
A group of Israeli settlers on Monday attacked a Palestinian man from Khirbet Bir Al-Idd village, near Hebron, medics and the Israeli army said.
Eight residents of the illegal Mitzpe Yair attacked Ismail Ibrahim al-Adra, 65, and then fled the scene, locals told Ma'an.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said Israeli civilians threw rocks at al-Adra. She said Israeli soldiers provided medical treatment at the scene to the 65-year-old, and that soldiers were searching the area for suspects.
Red Crescent official Nasser Qabaja told Ma'an that Palestinian medics took al-Adra to Hebron Hospital, where he is being treated for moderate injuries.
Israeli forces and an Israeli ambulance arrived at the scene at the same time as Red Crescent medics, he added.
On Sunday, Israeli police arrested three Israeli settlers, aged 12 to 13, suspected of firebombing a Palestinian taxi near Hebron.
Four of the passengers wounded in the Aug. 16 attack were members of the same family, including two four-year-old children who suffered first degree burns.
PA official Ghassan Doughlas on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of Israeli settler attacks ahead of a court-ordered evacuation of an illegal outpost near Ramallah.
Migron residents have failed to comply with a High Court order to vacate the illegal outpost by Tuesday and may face forced evacuation by the Israeli army.
Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
The evacuation of the Ulpana outpost of Beit El settlement led to a spate of violent "price tag" attacks, including arson attacks on several mosques.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in Jewish-only communities which Palestinians say threaten the viability of a promised Palestinian state.
Israeli PM: Bethlehem settlements will always be part of Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Bethlehem-area settlement of Efrat on Monday, and insisted it and a nearby bloc of other settlements would forever remain part of the Israeli state, according to media reports.
"Efrat and Gush Etzion are integral parts of greater Jerusalem," Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post quoted Netanyahu saying.
"They are the southern gates of Jerusalem and will always be part of the State of Israel. We are building Efrat and Gush Etzion with enthusiasm, faith and responsibility."
The Palestinian villages surrounding Efrat and Gush Etzion fear plans to renew construction of Israel's separation wall around the settlements will result in their displacement, or encirclement by the barrier.
Palestinian leaders insist that Israel must halt all settlement expansion before they can return to peace talks. Negotiations have stalled since September 2010 when Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The international community has repeatedly stated that Israeli settlements threaten a two state solution with the Palestinians.
Migron Settlers To Resist Eviction
Settlers residing in the illegal settlement outpost of Mirgon, built on privately-owned Palestinian lands near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, said that they will resist their eviction, and will not cooperate with the Israeli military.
Originally, an Israeli court ordered the eviction of the settlers by March 31 2012, but the army never evicted it, and the government tried to reach an agreement with the settlers despite the fact that their outpost is illegal under Israeli law.
Israeli daily, Maariv, reported that, Israeli Cabinet Secretary, Zvi Hauser, visited the alternate location set by the government to the settlers on a nearby hill, and said that all preparations are nearly done, and that the site is ready to receive the evicted settlers.
Commenting on threats to use violence against the army during the eviction, Israeli official – former Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon, stated that those who resist the eviction will be excluded from the understanding reached with the government, and thus, will not be relocated in the new settlement, Givat Hayakev.
On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated in a special cabinet session that the government will respect the ruling of the High Court regarding the eviction, but added that Israel will continue to support settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank.
It is worth mentioning that Israeli High Court justice, Asher Gronis, will be looking into claims filed by 17 settler families who said that they bought their land from their Palestinian owners, therefore, the state cannot legally evict them.
PA official warns of attacks ahead of outpost evacuation
Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of settler attacks ahead of a planned evacuation of an illegal Israeli outpost near Ramallah.
Israel's high court ruled in 2008 that the Migron outpost is built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered its residents to vacate.
Settlers have not complied with the order to leave by Tuesday and may face forced evacuation by the army to an alternative site built and subsidized by the Israeli government. Migron residents have appealed against their removal and are expecting a decision this week.
Daghlas expressed concern that settlers would attack Palestinians in response to an Israeli attempt to evacuate them. Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
The PA official urged Palestinians to be careful on main roads and shared roads between Nablus and Ramallah.
Earlier this month, Israeli settlers firebombed a Palestinian taxi near Bethlehem, injuring two 4-year-old children and their parents.
A prominent Israeli rabbi on Sunday spoke out against the evacuation, the Israeli news site Ynet reported. "Whoever raises a hand on Migron will have it cut off and the prime minister should know that," Elyakim Levanon said.
The evacuation of the illegal Ulpana outpost in June led to a spate of "price tag" attacks on mosques, Palestinians and their property.
Jewish settlers control hilltop in Bethlehem
Jewish settlers occupied a hilltop in Khader village south of Bethlehem on Sunday under the protection of Israeli soldiers and surrounded it with barbed wire to build a third park and a biblical garden.
The coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall in Khader village, Ahmed Salah, said that the third park is being established at Ain Masur area next to Daniel settlement, which is built on the village's land.
He added that the Israeli occupation’s project establishing biblical parks and gardens comes within a project launched by "Green Berets Society" which calls for seizing Palestinian hills in the West Bank.
Salah said that seizing large areas of land in Khader village falls in line with an Israeli strategic plan to legitimize the settlement outposts in the region and to create new facts on the ground in Palestinian territories.
He noted that the settlers have put banners on the southern entrance to Khader village, adjacent to the bypass road linking between Jerusalem and Etzion settlements, calling on the settlers to visit the parks established in the area.
Setters Raze Land west of Salfit
Tens of settlers Monday razed land belonging to Palestinians from the town of Bruqin, in the Salfit governorate, in preparation for building a new settlement.
Bruqin mayor, Akrama Samara, said that settlers from Brukhin settlement razed land west of the town in preparation for building new settlement neighborhoods after Israel legalized the settlement of Brukhin.
On the other hand, Israeli authorities issued new eviction orders in the Wadi Qana area, leading to uprooting 176 Olive trees that belong to Palestinian farmers from the town of Deir Istiya.
Deir Istiya mayor, Nazmi Suleiman, said that Israeli soldiers continue their violations against farmers and their land to displace them and allow settlers to take over land.
Israeli forces have uprooted over 1300 Olive trees and destroyed irrigation canals project in 2011.
Rateb Jabour, coordinator of popular and national committees against the wall and settlements in Yatta, told Quds Press that a settler from "Mitzpe Yair" settlement stabbed Ismael Ibrahim al-Abra, 65, in Khirbet Beer al-Adra near Yatta town.
He pointed out that the settler stabbed Abra in the head and that a Red Crescent ambulance transferred him to a hospital in the territories occupied in 1948 where his injuries were described as serious.
Meanwhile, groups of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian lands in Salfit governorate and bulldozed lands for settlement expansion.
Local sources said that settlers from Brochin settlement, established on the village of Bruqin's lands, bulldozed new lands in the west of the village in preparation for the establishment of new settlement neighborhoods.
Israeli occupation forces (IOF) also stormed the village of Deir Estia and issued orders to uproot 176 olive trees in Wadi Qana owned by the village's farmers, at the pretext that they had been planted in an area classified as "a natural reserve".
Deir Estia's mayor, Nadhmi Salman, recalled in a press statement that the IOF soldiers uprooted 1300 olive trees in the same district last year, and destroyed irrigation channels project.
Four Palestinians wounded during confrontations with Jewish settlers
Four Palestinians were injured during violent clashes on Tuesday morning between citizens in the village of Laban, southern Nablus, and a group of Jewish settlers.
Local sources confirmed that the clashes erupted after the arrival of ten cars carrying a number of settlers to Al-Khan area located at the village entrance, where they made provocative actions, which led to the outbreak of a fight between the people of the region and the settlers. Four Palestinians and one settler were injured during the scuffle.
The sources added that the Israeli occupation forces that arrived to the scene arrested Samih Daraghmeh and his son Khaled, while two citizens were injured.
In the meantime, Palestinian sources reported that Jewish settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles this morning on the road between Nablus and Ramallah.
'Student's mouth stapled in reported anti-Semitic attack'
A Jewish student at Michigan State University said he was attacked at an off-campus party in what he is calling a hate crime. Just before the assault, which broke his jaw, Zach Tennen said his attackers asked him if he was Jewish, according to reports.
Tennen, 19, a resident of suburban Detroit, said he answered in the affirmative. He told WDIV-TV in Detroit that his attackers also "were making Nazi and Hitler symbols and they said they were part of the KKK."
Tennen was knocked unconscious during the attack, which took place early Sunday morning near MSU's East Lansing campus. The assailants stapled his mouth shut through his gums.
27 aug 2012
Settlers attack elderly Palestinian
A group of Israeli settlers on Monday attacked a Palestinian man from Khirbet Bir Al-Idd village, near Hebron, medics and the Israeli army said.
Eight residents of the illegal Mitzpe Yair attacked Ismail Ibrahim al-Adra, 65, and then fled the scene, locals told Ma'an.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said Israeli civilians threw rocks at al-Adra. She said Israeli soldiers provided medical treatment at the scene to the 65-year-old, and that soldiers were searching the area for suspects.
Red Crescent official Nasser Qabaja told Ma'an that Palestinian medics took al-Adra to Hebron Hospital, where he is being treated for moderate injuries.
Israeli forces and an Israeli ambulance arrived at the scene at the same time as Red Crescent medics, he added.
On Sunday, Israeli police arrested three Israeli settlers, aged 12 to 13, suspected of firebombing a Palestinian taxi near Hebron.
Four of the passengers wounded in the Aug. 16 attack were members of the same family, including two four-year-old children who suffered first degree burns.
PA official Ghassan Doughlas on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of Israeli settler attacks ahead of a court-ordered evacuation of an illegal outpost near Ramallah.
Migron residents have failed to comply with a High Court order to vacate the illegal outpost by Tuesday and may face forced evacuation by the Israeli army.
Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
The evacuation of the Ulpana outpost of Beit El settlement led to a spate of violent "price tag" attacks, including arson attacks on several mosques.
Over 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in Jewish-only communities which Palestinians say threaten the viability of a promised Palestinian state.
Israeli PM: Bethlehem settlements will always be part of Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Bethlehem-area settlement of Efrat on Monday, and insisted it and a nearby bloc of other settlements would forever remain part of the Israeli state, according to media reports.
"Efrat and Gush Etzion are integral parts of greater Jerusalem," Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post quoted Netanyahu saying.
"They are the southern gates of Jerusalem and will always be part of the State of Israel. We are building Efrat and Gush Etzion with enthusiasm, faith and responsibility."
The Palestinian villages surrounding Efrat and Gush Etzion fear plans to renew construction of Israel's separation wall around the settlements will result in their displacement, or encirclement by the barrier.
Palestinian leaders insist that Israel must halt all settlement expansion before they can return to peace talks. Negotiations have stalled since September 2010 when Israel refused to renew a partial freeze on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The international community has repeatedly stated that Israeli settlements threaten a two state solution with the Palestinians.
Migron Settlers To Resist Eviction
Settlers residing in the illegal settlement outpost of Mirgon, built on privately-owned Palestinian lands near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, said that they will resist their eviction, and will not cooperate with the Israeli military.
Originally, an Israeli court ordered the eviction of the settlers by March 31 2012, but the army never evicted it, and the government tried to reach an agreement with the settlers despite the fact that their outpost is illegal under Israeli law.
Israeli daily, Maariv, reported that, Israeli Cabinet Secretary, Zvi Hauser, visited the alternate location set by the government to the settlers on a nearby hill, and said that all preparations are nearly done, and that the site is ready to receive the evicted settlers.
Commenting on threats to use violence against the army during the eviction, Israeli official – former Chief of Staff, Moshe Yaalon, stated that those who resist the eviction will be excluded from the understanding reached with the government, and thus, will not be relocated in the new settlement, Givat Hayakev.
On Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated in a special cabinet session that the government will respect the ruling of the High Court regarding the eviction, but added that Israel will continue to support settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank.
It is worth mentioning that Israeli High Court justice, Asher Gronis, will be looking into claims filed by 17 settler families who said that they bought their land from their Palestinian owners, therefore, the state cannot legally evict them.
PA official warns of attacks ahead of outpost evacuation
Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas on Monday warned Palestinians to be cautious of settler attacks ahead of a planned evacuation of an illegal Israeli outpost near Ramallah.
Israel's high court ruled in 2008 that the Migron outpost is built on privately-owned Palestinian land and ordered its residents to vacate.
Settlers have not complied with the order to leave by Tuesday and may face forced evacuation by the army to an alternative site built and subsidized by the Israeli government. Migron residents have appealed against their removal and are expecting a decision this week.
Daghlas expressed concern that settlers would attack Palestinians in response to an Israeli attempt to evacuate them. Extremist settlers have adopted what they call a "price tag" policy in which they attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for Israeli government policies against settlements.
The PA official urged Palestinians to be careful on main roads and shared roads between Nablus and Ramallah.
Earlier this month, Israeli settlers firebombed a Palestinian taxi near Bethlehem, injuring two 4-year-old children and their parents.
A prominent Israeli rabbi on Sunday spoke out against the evacuation, the Israeli news site Ynet reported. "Whoever raises a hand on Migron will have it cut off and the prime minister should know that," Elyakim Levanon said.
The evacuation of the illegal Ulpana outpost in June led to a spate of "price tag" attacks on mosques, Palestinians and their property.
Jewish settlers control hilltop in Bethlehem
Jewish settlers occupied a hilltop in Khader village south of Bethlehem on Sunday under the protection of Israeli soldiers and surrounded it with barbed wire to build a third park and a biblical garden.
The coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall in Khader village, Ahmed Salah, said that the third park is being established at Ain Masur area next to Daniel settlement, which is built on the village's land.
He added that the Israeli occupation’s project establishing biblical parks and gardens comes within a project launched by "Green Berets Society" which calls for seizing Palestinian hills in the West Bank.
Salah said that seizing large areas of land in Khader village falls in line with an Israeli strategic plan to legitimize the settlement outposts in the region and to create new facts on the ground in Palestinian territories.
He noted that the settlers have put banners on the southern entrance to Khader village, adjacent to the bypass road linking between Jerusalem and Etzion settlements, calling on the settlers to visit the parks established in the area.
Setters Raze Land west of Salfit
Tens of settlers Monday razed land belonging to Palestinians from the town of Bruqin, in the Salfit governorate, in preparation for building a new settlement.
Bruqin mayor, Akrama Samara, said that settlers from Brukhin settlement razed land west of the town in preparation for building new settlement neighborhoods after Israel legalized the settlement of Brukhin.
On the other hand, Israeli authorities issued new eviction orders in the Wadi Qana area, leading to uprooting 176 Olive trees that belong to Palestinian farmers from the town of Deir Istiya.
Deir Istiya mayor, Nazmi Suleiman, said that Israeli soldiers continue their violations against farmers and their land to displace them and allow settlers to take over land.
Israeli forces have uprooted over 1300 Olive trees and destroyed irrigation canals project in 2011.