* Last hour: the Israeli police repress a solidarity protest with the prisoners in front of Ramleh prison hospital.  (Al Quds)
* Early election in Israel. (Al Quds)
* UN’s special rapporteur on human rights is concerned by the continuation of violation of human rights in the Israeli jails. (Al Quds)
* The”Financial Times” unveils an Israeli plan to Judaize mixed Palestinian cities. (Al Quds)
* The new Jordanian government led by a-Tarawneh sworn in. (Al-Quds)
* Killed and injured people in fierce clashes in the center of Cairo. (Al-Quds)
* Prisoner Bilal evacuated to a hospital and the solidarity campaign continues. Crucial hours in the prisoners` strike awaiting response from the occupation prison service. (Al Ayyam)
* Tunisia: officials and lawmaker express solidarity with the hunger striking prisoner by announcing on one-day hunger strike tomorrow.  Ayyam)
* The president receives the Japanese foreign minister and Fayyad applauds the Japanese support. (Al-Ayyam)
* The Knesset will debate next Monday dissolving itself to head towards an early election next September. (Al-Ayyam)
* Smugglers infiltrate the new fence at the Egyptian-Israeli border. (Al-Ayyam)
* The president discusses with the Japanese foreign minister the latest developments, congratulates the Jordanian prime minister for the formation of a government and receives a phone call from Joudeh. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)
* The USA is trying to prevent the formation of a probe committee on settlements. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)
* An Egyptian policeman killed in offensive near Rafah. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)
* FAO: new species of foot and mouth disease in the Gaza strip. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)
* The Investment Fund and “PADICO” establish a developed company for Jericho industrial zone. (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida)

Al-Quds: 1) Jenin- Scene from a military funeral of Jenin governor late Qaddoura Fares.  
Al-Ayyam:  1) Demonstrators near “Ofer” prison” before clashes with the occupation forces yesterday.  
Al-Hayat Al-Jadida:  1) President Abbas during his meeting in Amman with the Japanese FM; 2) women at a solidarity protest ten with prisoner Ja`far Izz a-Dein in Arrabeh village; 3) Thousands of participators in the funeral of Jenin governor.

Jerusalem: there are activities with the prisoners; yesterday Israeli troops attacked a sit-in outside the Ramleh Prison calling for the release of prisoners. In Jerusalem a solidarity tent was set up in Essawiyeh in addition to a number of other tents in the city. Today there will be a sit-in in front of the Israel High Court while the court is looking into the prisoners’ appeal.
Israeli police and soldiers handed seven demolition orders to families in Al Bustan in Silwan. The homeowners have been given 30 days to vacate the homes.

**Head of the Committee for Defense of Silwan, Fakhri Abu Diab on the home demolition orders handed out in the town
Q:  Are all the solidarity campaigns and international condemnations against the orders having any affect or are Israel’s plans proceeding as planned?
There are around 80 homes being threatened with demolition in order to build the Torah Gardens. So why the seven now? They were planning on handing out the 80 orders but after they delivered the seven, clashes broke out and they were forced to withdraw. For sure, next week they will continue handing out the orders. I just got a paper from the lawyer yesterday with an order to demolish 29 houses with the names of the families.

Q: Does the paper you received yesterday say when the demolitions will take place?
Israeli occupation forces never say when. These are arrangements they make among themselves and don’t inform the residents. The Israeli government wants to get a message across that is completely contrary to the one it says in public. It wants to tell us that on the ground, it does not want peace; it only wants to take control over Jerusalem. The international community must intervene to stop this. They say the homes were built illegally. They were not. Even the seven homes that just got demolition orders – some of them were built before 1967. It is the occupation that it illegal, not us. International law says this is occupied territory and should not be built on.

**Attorney Jameel Saadeh from the Prisoner Affairs Ministry, on the situation of prisoners
Q: What prisons have you visited lately and can you tell us about the situation there?
Yesterday we visited the Ramleh Prison Hospital and visited with Ahmad Saadat. He is in good condition so far. He told us about the three hunger strikers – Bilal Diab, Thaer Halahleh and Hassan Safadi and their extremely dangerous situations. Saadat called on the PA to intervene at the highest levels in the prisoner issue. We also visited Lina Jarboui in the Hasharon prison. She has broker her strike upon request from the other female prisoners since she is their spokesperson and the longest standing female prisoner.

Q: We have heard about the punishments being meted out against prisoners on strike. Did you confirm this?
There is a ban on family visits. Israeli prison authorities are claiming the prisoners on hunger strike are not strong enough to visit the lawyers or family. Also, any prisoner who refuses to stand up for morning count is banned from lawyer visits. Conditioning lawyer visits to standing in the morning lineup is in contravention to international law. Every prisoner has a right to visit with his/her attorney.

**Police chief Adnan Dmeiri on the statement by PA saying they would crack down on anyone who tampered with the security of the homeland, following the death of Jenin governor Qaddoura Mousa.
Q: Some ask what does this statement have to do with the death of Qaddoura Mousa?
The death of Qaddoura Mousa, while it is the will of God – still the night before he died, there was shooting towards his house. This is an indication that brings back to our minds those who wants to push our situation back into the years of chaos and the absence of the rule of law. I think what the PA meant is that we in the security services will not allow the situation to go back to the chaos it used to be. Now there is an investigation into who opened fire at the home of Qaddoura Mousa.

Q: Are there suspects?
I don’t want to get into details now but I can confirm that the security services are seriously and diligently pursuing those who were involved to bring them to justice. But I don’t think it is just this case. I think the occupation is trying to bring back the state of chaos to the Jenin area and to others as well after the Palestinian security services imposed safety and security for so long.

**Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqe, on the request for Palestinian officials to visit the prisoners
Q: Are there any arrangements for Palestinian officials to meet with prisoners on hunger strike?
Of course we know that there many hunger strikers whose lives are in danger, which Ahmad Saadat told his attorney. Saadat is in the room near the hunger strikers who were not allowed to meet with the lawyer, namely Thaer Halahleh and Hassan Safadi. Saadat did call for high-level intervention from the PA so there could be a settlement on their behalf to save their lives. So, there have been many political moves in this direction taken by Saeb Erekat. He said he was making intensive contacts with international parties to save their lives. We hope there will be positive results to save their lives because it seems as though Israel is planning on carrying out a dangerous crime against the prisoners.
Q: Could Palestinian officials visit the prisoners soon?
We have requested visits to the prisoners on strike and also Arab Knesset members have requested permission. But until now, the prison authorities have not given any permits for these visits. They have even begun to ban lawyers from visiting. So there is an ongoing policy of isolation. Right now, the international will be held responsible if anything happens to the prisoners. And I think if this happens, this will have many ramifications.

Q: The prison services are supposed to give their response to the demands within hours. Who do they give the response to and what are your expectations?
According to the prisoners, namely Kareem Younis who held negotiations with prison authorities with other prison leaders, the prison director said the response would be mid-week, in several days. the reason he gave for the delay was that some demands had to be discussed with the Shabak such as solidarity confinement  and some had to do with the army such as visits for Gaza residents, which he said would need several days. The prisoner gave this chance but will not give much more and if the responses are not serious and address the demands, the prisoners said more than 3,000 prisoners would join the strike.

**Foreign affairs minister Riyad Al Malki on the President’s tour and the prisoners
Q: Where are you now and how have you addressed the prisoner issue in the places you have been?
The president right now is in Amman and will return today to Ramallah. As for the prisoners, the last development are the discussions President Abbas had with the Arab League chief Nabil Al Arabi; the decided to transfer the prisoner file to the UN General Assembly so it can take the suitable steps. There will be an urgent meeting of the Arab League next Saturday at the level of representatives to prepare for a conference on this subject and to discuss the steps we need to take to go to the UN. The prisoner affairs minister will go to Cairo at the beginning of the week to brief officials there on the prisoner issue.

Q: What can we Palestinians do on our own in the UN to support the prisoners?
There are things we can do not only in the UN. We sent a memo to all of our embassies abroad to propose this issue to the officials of each country and to call on them to take action in this regard and pressure Israel. I will go to Sharm Al Sheikh soon to attend the non-aligned countries meeting and I will take advantage of this meeting to propose the prisoner issue.

**Government press spokesperson Ghassan Khatib on the PA’s financial crisis
Q: There is talk that the crisis will be overcome within the next two months. How possible is it that salaries will be paid on time?
We hope they will be paid. The prime minister talked about the near future and about the mid-future – or in two months. I gave signs that he is confident that the crisis will be overcome in two months due to his contacts with international parties and donor countries. There are promises from some that they will transfer money as of two months from now. The second reason is because of the diligent financial policy towards expanding tax collection and efforts towards ending tax evasion. This has helped the PA to increase its revenues in the first part of this year. As for the short term, the PA is making contacts with banks to get a collective loan of $300 million. While this will increase the PA’s debt, it will also close the immediate gap in the next two months.

Q: If the PA takes these loans, will this make their debt the largest in its history?
Yes, it will be a record for the PA but this is not a high number in comparison to other countries, especially neighboring ones. This number still puts us under the average range of debts but it is high for the PA.  We hope this will be temporary until some funds are transferred to us.

Q: Today is international press freedom day. What does the government want to symbolize in its award to be given out today on this occasion, especially in light of the recent clashes between journalists and the executive authority?
The government usually takes his occasion as an opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to the freedom of journalism and expression and more importantly, to express its ongoing commitment to local media, which can strengthen and promote transparency and accountability and one of the pillars of good governance. I encourage all journalists to come to the awards ceremony today at 2:00 pm.  

Early elections in Israel…what about Palestine?
By Oraib Al Rintawi
Israel has entered into the ‘mood’ of early elections…until the end of the year, we can be assured that no major decisions will be made at any level. Except perhaps if it about waging a war here or an invasion there just to pump up the stocks of the factional coalition (Likud in particular) and to ensure its ‘shoe-in’ victory over its components.

As for the “negotiations by letters”, the ‘exploratory talks’ and side meetings, they are all part of a vicious circle that has no substance. Most likely, Israel’s elections will take place next September 4 and there will surely be the formation of a new government that will take a few months. That is, Israel will be under ‘caretaker’ and ‘inactive’ governments for the remaining eight months of this year. That is the simple truth.
However, in terms of Israel’s aggression, settlements and siege, nothing will change. This action will continue with the same efficiency and speed. On the contrary, we will see even more settlement expansion, the beginnings of which have emerged in the new settlement assault on Jerusalem and its suburbs in addition to the list of draft laws being submitted to the Knesset including the ‘recruitment’ of Arabs.  It is not unlikely that we may also see an imminent escalation on Gaza, assassinations and aggressions all for the sake of the elections.

On this road to elections, the picture looks pretty clear: political paralysis overshadows the option of negotiations and negotiators and aggressive settlement activity bites off more land and rights.  However, the question on what will happen after the elections is one that is not difficult to answer. In the best case scenario, the day after elections will be no different than the one before it. However, the worst case scenario and the one most likely says that the day after will be worse than the day before because Israel is leaning more and more to the extreme rights, both fundamentally (religiously) and secularly.

Given this prediction, which is backed by public opinion polls in Israel which predict that the various right-wing parties will win close to 67 seats in the Knesset, the Palestinian leadership, the PLO and all those who are wagering on the negotiating process should be very worried. There will be no political solution to the Palestinian cause or for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not now or in the foreseeable future. For the next eight months, Israel will be preoccupied with getting its own house in order so why don’t the Palestinians do the same during this time? Why don’t they take this period to review and contemplate their positions and to assess the path they are on? Why do they not learn from the other side?

It is like we are turning and turning in an endless cycle. This is perhaps the 10th article written on Israel’s early elections and they all come to the same conclusion and ask the same questions. It is as if we were destined to sit on our chairs and just wait. Israel bids farewell to one government and welcomes another, establishes parties and cancels others – the ‘chief negotiator’ comes and the ‘chief negotiator’ goes…but everything in the Palestinian situation stays stagnant and keeps churning in the same vicious cycle – the same policies, same wagers and the same names and faces. And there are still those who wait for a different result?

Is it time to break this vicious cycle? Is it time to formulate an alternative national strategy both in word and deed? Is there a chance for the reconciliation that has been talked about so much between Hamas and Fatah?

Israel is moving forward and we keep taking steps backwards. Israel is selling us time and delusions and we are buying it. Israel is putting its house in order and we are fooling around in our bedrooms…Israel succeeds in hunting the bear and we fight over its fur. This is our state and the state of our adversary plain and clear. (http://www.addustour.com/ViewTopic.aspx?ac=\OpinionAndNotes\2012\05\OpinionAndNotes_issue1659_day03_id411093.htm)


'We've gone way beyond Apartheid'

I caught up with Jeff Halper, long time Israeli peace activist, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and author of numerous books, while he was on a European speaking tour. Here is what he had to say about the situation in Palestine/Israel:

Frank Barat: I'd like to start by talking about what's happening in Jerusalem. When I came in 2007, you took us to Silwan, explaining the huge house demolition plan the Israeli government had in mind, telling us that thanks to the efforts of many and including an intervention by the US, the demolitions didn't happen. Today, nonetheless, it looks like the demolitions will take place. Could you give us an update on this, and also give us a broader view of what people now often refer to as the 'ethnic cleansing' of Jerusalem?

Jeff Halper: Well let me give you a broader picture about the whole thing and then we can go back and put it into context. I think what's coming down the pipeline is that Israel today has basically finished this. We've gone beyond the occupation. The Palestinians have been pacified and from Israel's point of view the whole conflict, the whole situation has been normalised.

Netanyahu went last month to Washington to meet with Obama. When he came back his adviser was asked what was new about this meeting. And his adviser said, "This is the first time in memory that an Israeli Prime Minister met with a US president and that the Palestinian issue was not even mentioned, it never came out." So, in that situation where the US is really paralysed because Netanyahu has both parties in congress and Obama does not want to do anything - Netanyahu is going to make the last move in nailing this whole thing down.

Israel could well annex Area C. Area C is 60 per cent of the West Bank. Now, the European council general in Jerusalem and Ramallah, a couple of months ago sent a report to the EU, saying that Israel has forcibly expelled the Palestinians from Area C. Forcible expulsion is hard language for European diplomats to use.

So Area C has less than 5 per cent of the Palestinian population. In 1967 the Jordan Valley had about 250,000 people. Today, it's less than 50,000. So the Palestinians have either been driven out of the country, especially the middle class, or they have been driven to Area A and Area B. That's where 96 or 97 per cent of them are.

The Palestinian population has been brought down low enough, there is probably somewhere around 125,000 Palestinians in Area C, so Israel could annex Area C and give them full citizenship. In other words Israel can absorb 125,000 Palestinians without upsetting the demographic balance, you see. And then, what is the world going to say? It's not apartheid; Israel has given them full citizenship. So I think that Israel feels it could get away with that. No one cares about what's happening in Area A and Area B. If they want to declare a state, they can declare a state. Israel has no interest in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.

The US, by the way, has already agreed that the settlement blocks are part of Israel. Annexing Area C does not go so much beyond the settlement blocks. It's just pushing the envelope a little bit more. Then you come to Jerusalem. I think what Israel is going to do is that it will give the Palestinians in the north and the south, in Beit Hanina, Shuafat, Tubat... it will allow them to have Palestinian citizenship. Israel, in a sense, gets rid of 100,000 Palestinians. What the government has already indicated it was going to do is that the wall around Jerusalem will be the border. So what's happening today is that because of the house demolitions and the policy of freezing the constructions Israel is allowing - it's still illegal of course - but Shuaffat and Anata, have now been cut out by a huge wall a huge terminal.

The tremendous building behind the wall is still in Jerusalem, so  Palestinians are moving from inside the wall into that area. And the same thing is true in the north. So you are getting maybe another 100,000 or so Palestinians to move into those areas. Then, once they are there, Israel cuts them off. Israel now says the wall is the border, we give up Anata, Shuafat - and so in a sense, what you've done is join those areas into Area C. So now Israel has the whole country, its isolated the 97 per cent of the Palestinians into area A and B. Jerusalem is now 80 to 85 per cent Jewish because these big Palestinian populations you either got them out completely like Shuafat and Anata or inside the wall you've given them Palestinian citizenship so you don't have to deal with them. So Israel retains kind of that centre.

And it's over.

In other words, we're finished. Israel is now from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, the Palestinians have been confined in Areas A and B or in small enclaves in East Jerusalem, and that's it. Now the wrinkle is that I think they will do this with the agreement of the Palestinian Authority because Fayyad is a neoliberal.

Fayyad is saying to Israel, we don't need territory. If you give us economic space, to do business, and our business class can do okay and we can trickle down to our working classes, it's good enough. So we don't need Area C. As a matter of a fact what the European Counsel General said in its report is that the Palestinian Authority has given up Area C. Completely. When government or agencies come to the Palestinian Authority for investments, the PA tell them invest only in Area A and Area B. Do not invest in Area C. They've given up C.

The idea is that Israel allows trade, to move freely between these Palestinian enclaves. I call it "viable apartheid". I think Fayyad has developed a viable apartheid, saying that in the neoliberal world we need economic space, not territorial space. You let us move our goods freely into the Arab world, you give us an access to the Israeli market, and it's fine. In other words, all the developments, like this new city Rawabi for upper-class Palestinians, are in the contours of Area A and B. They are now building a highway from Ramallah to Jericho; the Japanese are building it with the PA. Then either the Japanese or USAID will build from Ramallah to Bethlehem so greater Jerusalem, with E1, will be incorporated into Israel.

I think you can get into a deal where Israel annexes Area C, it's taken Jerusalem, they'll give the Palestinians something symbolic like control of Haram Al Sharif/The Temple Mount, you can put up a capital in Abu Dis again. Basically, what I am saying is not only that they are they going to nail this down but they will do it with the agreement of the Palestinian Authority. If you give Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians in Area C and the PA agrees, that's economic peace that Netanyahu and Fayyad talk about. So that's the big picture.

FB: So when people talk about a Palestinian state on 22 per cent of historical Palestine, it's not even that, right? The number is much smaller.

JH: Yes, what Fayyad is saying is our state does not have to be on any particular amount of territory; our state is an economic state and we can work around you annexing this and that because we can make our cities. The idea is that Israel we'll give them a bit of Area C, to put the enclaves a little bit more together. So you still have the cantons, of the north, the south and Gaza. So they will still be cantonised but what Fayyad is saying is we can make a go of that. Both Netanyahu and Fayyad have moved from a territorial conception of two states to an economic conception of two states, which is a whole different kind of thing.


The problem that the bosses have is how to sell that to the Palestinian people. But it seems to me that this is what is coming down the pipeline.

What Israel is relying on, maybe the PA as well, I don't know how to put this exactly. Israel feels that the Palestinians have been defeated. It's over. Resistance is impossible because of the Israeli army, the Palestinian proxy army, the wall, I mean, you can't mount a third intifada. Israel policy since the Iron Wall of 1923 has been despair.

I wrote an article about this once "Despair as a policy". The Zionists have always said that once the Arabs despair, and Jabotinsky put it interestingly "despair of the land of Israel ever becoming Palestine" - that was the end, victory for them. Israel feels that it's what we have got now. If you go today to the West Bank, Gaza might be different, you'll hear the people say that they don't care anymore, let me have a job, let me live my life and I'll be happy. In a sense, Fayyad feels he can respond to that.

FB: Some pogroms took place recently when a group of Beitar soccer fans attacked Palestinian workers in a shopping mall. Were those people a few bad apples, or are these type of events do indeed say something about Israeli society?

JH: They are more than bad apples. They are not completely Israeli society either. This football team in Jerusalem is connected to the Likud. In Israel many football clubs are associated with political parties. There is a very close relation between the ideology of Likud and Begin and the Beitar football team. They see the Arabs as the enemy. So it reflects about a third of the Israeli public, that is very committed to expansion, settlements, see the Arabs as the enemies. It reflects that.

You know, in Beitar, their chants, it's not just the pogroms. They chant every time their team scores a goal, "Death to the Arabs". That's what 20,000 people chant. Beitar for example has never ever had an Arab player. The Arabs are beginning to be more prominent in Israeli football teams. Not in Beitar Jerusalem. This pogrom is kind of an extension of this. It's all in the context of kids, for the most part its kids that have seen Israel moved into a neoliberal economy, more and more Thatcherite, and you have tremendous income disparity in Israel. Israel is now in the OECD, it has one of the highest income disparity I think, maybe the US excluded.

Kids have got no real future, that's part of the context too. Those kids come from the housing projects, very much like National Front in France or EDL in England, people that only have this racist emotional outlet for their frustrations, and football is great for that. It channels anger away from the government. That's why they sponsor football teams!

FB: How important are the words we use, in your opinion when it comes to Palestine/Israel? Ilan Pappe recently told me that we should rethink our dictionary/vocabulary. Can we objectively still talk about peace/occupation? Shouldn't we talk about the right to resist and apartheid instead?

JH: For sure. We deal a lot with words in our analysis. There are two words, because I think occupation is an old word. We are way beyond occupation. I think we are also way beyond apartheid. There are two words that capture the political reality but don't have any legal substance today. One of them is Judaisation. It's a word that the government uses, to Judaise Jerusalem, the Galilee, so that's a Judaisation process that really is the heart of what's going on. But it has no legal reference. So one of our project, we're working with Michael Sfard and some other lawyers, is to try to introduce those terms into the discourse with the idea of trying to give them some legal frame.

We have to try to match the political process, the political reality, because it is unprecedented in the world. Another term is "warehousing" because I think that captures what's going on better than apartheid. Warehousing is permanent. Apartheid recognises that there is another side. With warehousing it's like prisons. There is no other side. There is us, and then there are these people that we control, they have no rights, they have no identity, they're inmates. It's not political, it's permanent, static. Apartheid you can resist. The whole brilliance of warehousing is that you can't resist because you're a prisoner. It's like prisons. Prisoners can rise in the prison yards but prison guards have all the rights in the world to put them down. That's what Israel has come to.

They are terrorists and we have the right to put them down. In a sense Israel has succeeded with the international community, and the US especially to take out of this situation the political. It's now solely an issue of security, just like in prisons. It's another concept that does not have any legal reference today but we'd like to put that in because warehousing is not only in Israel. Warehousing exists all over the capitalist world. That's why I am writing about Global Palestine. I'm saying that Palestine is a microcosm of what's happening around the world.

FB: You recently wrote: "Unlike most of my comrades, I do not think that activism by itself can achieve political results...until a reinvigorated Palestine National Council (PNC) or other representative agency can be constituted, a daunting but truly urgent task, Palestinian civil society might coalesce enough to create a kind of interim leadership bureau". Is this being done in your opinion and what could we, solidarity activists, do better?

JH: No, and that's the problem. Because even if there is a collapse of this political situation we are talking about and new possibilities emerge, like a one state, bi-national or regional confederation, all kinds of possibilities that don't exist today. And let's say BDS and resistance have an effect. I really believe this conflict is unsustainable. I don't think Israel can win. So if Israel's project collapses, then what? Because today, there is no Palestinian agency.

The only Palestinian agency is the PA - and it has no legitimacy. And then, in a way, to tell you the truth, I was a little bit upset with the Palestinian Left when Abu Mazen (President Mahmoud Abbas) went to the UN to ask for recognition of Palestine and they undercut him. Not because they were wrong; I could agree with them. I agree that it does not help, but don't do that two weeks before he goes. This whole thing was gelling for a year. So you say, a year, nine months before, no. We don't accept this. You don't undercut the person who for most people represents Palestine two weeks before he goes. Where were you before?

The other question I have for people who say that Abbas has not legitimacy, that he should not have gone... so what? I mean, we have to liberate Palestine, right? And Abu Mazen is not the one to do it, so what? I kept asking all those people, so what do you suggest? You're against him going, fine. So what are you suggesting? The only thing they came back with, weakly, was BDS. BDS is a tool, not a strategy, it's not going to liberate Palestine. It's a tool. OK, let's say BDS succeeds, Israel is brought down to its knees by this tactic. So what? Who is going to pick up the pieces? There is no agency. Who is going to decide if it is a two-state solution, a one state, who is going to negotiate? That's the real problem.

The only agency that has that mandate, legitimacy, and is really representative is the Palestine National Council (PNC). I have no idea where that initiative is going. I understand in a way why they are not talking about it because it's very delicate and they are doing it quietly. I mention this but I am not writing about it, because it's not my issue, it's a Palestinian issue. But the point is that without Palestinian leadership and without an agency, we're stuck. I feel that we've gone as far as we can go.

We've brought this to governments, we've raised public awareness, we've had campaigns, we've done this for decades, we've made this collectively, one of two or three really global issues. But without Palestinians we can only take it so far. This is their moment. If there is no PNC and the PA is either going to collapse or be collaborationist, then what? I am trying to challenge a little bit my Palestinian counterparts. Where are you guys?

To tell me "BDS" is not the answer, that's a tool. In some ways, the Palestinians that we work with owe us a certain strategy. Even if they don't want to get into the details of this PNC thing, they should say something is cooking. Because what's going to happen is that people will get fed up, depressed, and move on to other issues. There are many issues around the world.

One word embodies that: colonialism. For the Palestinians it is definitely settler colonialism. There is no question, it's obvious. People coming in from Russia, saying it's my country. Okay. For the Jewish point of view it is no settler colonialism. There is a genuine feeling that there is a tie to this country, they speak Hebrew - in other words, the Jews are not strangers.

You can agree to disagree or whatever but the problem is that as the colonial discourse gets stronger and stronger in the Palestinian left, there really is going to be a deligimitisation of anything Israeli. It's important because our conception with the left in Israel has always been that whatever the solution was, it had to be inclusive, like in South Africa. Now, there is a retreat from that. In other words, the alternative to the South African model is the Algerian one.

Once you liberate Palestine you guys go back to where you came from - you're out of here. That is why I don't think it is settler colonialism. There is no mother country. It isn't like France where you could go back to France. Where are the Israelis going to go back to, especially now with all those new generations? It's not being articulated, nobody is saying it. It's being articulated under the rubric of normalisations.

The Palestinian Left is pulling back from working with groups like ours, even the anti-Zionists like ourselves. You see it, for example, in the global march to Jerusalem. It's always phrased as "this is a Palestinian and international struggle". Where are we? Even non-Zionist? Where are we? The answer that I got from a few people was "we put you with internationals". Which is wow, that means something.

My problem is that I cannot obviously be part of a struggle which is not inclusive. It deserves to be addressed in-house, in the movement, not in public. I was forced to bring it up in the global march to Jerusalem. I was pressed to endorse the march publicly but they said not as the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions because we can't use the word Israeli. You have to endorse the march as the head of the committee against house demolitions. I said no and that set up a whole discussion. An organiser of the march wrote that this whole issue of inclusivity was a western preoccupation.

We are at a very crucial stage here where first of all the Palestinians have to take over and second of all, there has to be an end goal. If in fact the left is starting to say "it's colonialism" and we are not working with you guys anymore, this has tremendous implications.  (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/04/2012428124445821996.html)


Frank Barat is a Human Rights activist based in London. He is the coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine. He has edited two books; Gaza in Crisis with Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappe, and Corporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation with Asa Winstanley. He has also participated in the book Is There a Court for Gaza? with Daniel Machover.

Olive trees are not explosives
Al Quds Editorial
Israeli occupation forces ordered a number of Palestinian residents to uproot around 1,000 olive trees planted on their land in Wadi Qana near Salfit, claiming that the land is a ‘natural reserve’ under Israeli control.

How did this area fall under Israeli control? Through the occupation, of course. And how did it become a natural reserve? Also from the occupation. And what did the residents plant there? They planted olive trees, the symbol of peace, good and love. But this will never satisfy the occupation of course which has ordered that they be uprooted and eliminated as if they were explosives or dangerous material not compatible with a “reserve” or with any of the occupation’s concepts.

This is not the first time and it will definitely not be the last. The occupation practices these policies to deny the people from these trees and to tighten their means of making a living around their throats. The settlers also play a central role in uprooting trees whether in the so-called natural reserves or in any other area because the goals and clear and the methods known.

It is allowed that they confiscate land and build settlements on it then offer financial incentives to settlers, demolish homes and then offer free housing for settlers who built homes on top of stolen Palestinian land.

What kind of logic is this? What sort of contempt is this to all humanitarian concepts and how much do they belittle international law and charters, which prohibit any occupation to carry out such practices on occupied land?

Uprooting trees or ordering them to be uprooted is a crime that we should not be quiet about. such issues should be followed up in international institutions and legal centers and not through the Israeli judiciary which is politicized in everything concerning the Palestinians whether in terms of land or people. (Al Quds)