As top rabbis declare that attempts to draft ultra-Orthodox men into the army constitute a ‘religious war,’ masses turned out for an anti-draft rally in Jerusalem. Violent confrontations broke out between a few demonstrators and police. Thirteen were injured and 10 arrested.

The rally was a rare show of unity between different factions (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Around 30,000 ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) demonstrators, many more than anticipated, showed up for a mass rally against the planned induction of Yeshiva students outside the Israeli army’s recruiting offices in Jerusalem Thursday night. The government plans to revoke a special exemption given to these ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, part of plan to “equalize of the national burden” orchestrated by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennet. Rabbis on stage declared the government’s plans as “decrees of destruction” and said they are part of a “religious war” being fought between the regime and “believers,” calling on all good men to join the struggle.

“There is no room for compromise,” said Rabbi Israeli Zikerman, “just like you cannot compromise by having one eye plucked out instead of two. No child of ours will go to the army. We would rather go to prison.” Another speaker said that the rally should have taken place inside an army base, as “soldiers know that we are the ones protecting them with our studies and prayer.” The rally was attended almost solely by men, while a few women stood in small groups on its outskirts.

Rabbis called the new draft initiative a “religious war.” (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The rally was an unusual show of unity within otherwise rival sectors of the Ultra-Orthodox community: the extreme anti-statist and utterly anti-Zionist Ashkenazi faction of Edah HaChareidim was joined by one of the two larger and more mainstream Ashkenazi factions of the Misnagdim, who usually cooperate with the state, as well as by several prominent Sephardic rabbis...

Dozens of Tel Aviv municipal officers, border policemen and private movers raided several businesses run by African asylum seekers around Tel Aviv’s central bus station, confiscating goods and welding the doors shut. Officials also poured bleach into food in a Darfur refugee’s restaurant. Is city hall preparing for the upcoming municipal elections?

Tel Aviv Municipality officials showing an asylum seeker out of his resturant (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A group of municipal officials led an operation to close African asylum seekers’ illegal businesses in the south Tel Aviv neighborhoods of Neve Sha’anan and Shapira at around 7 p.m. Sunday night. The municipal officers were accompanied by Border Police officers, a photographer and several large moving trucks complete with African workers.

Splitting into groups, the law enforcers went to several bars, restaurants and grocery stores owned by asylum seekers. As their legal status in Israel forbids them from either working or owning a business, most Sudanese and Eritrean asylum seekers are forced to make a living illegally, which leads authorities to chase them down and either punish their employers or close down their shops.

A policeman and an attack dog watch over African workers emptying an asylum seeker’s store (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Such was the case Sunday evening. All the goods, furniture and other equipment in all the businesses were inventoried and confiscated, and the doors were welded shut. In none of the locations photographer Oren Ziv and I visited was there any resistance by the shop owners and the armed policemen (and one police attack dog) were left without much to do. Several Israeli bystanders cheered the officials for helping pushing foreigners out, while other muttered insults at them for enforcing racist policies.

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Over 12,000 Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities to protest against proposed tax hikes and spending cuts in the state’s new budget. But will the latest iteration of Israel’s social justice protest movement continue? The anger in the streets Saturday may be an indication that the movement will continue and possibly grow.

Thousands on the streets of Tel Aviv last night (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Back on the streets. It was probably the largest demonstration for social justice and against austerity in the past year, if not since the Israeli ‘Summer of 2011.’ More than 12,000 protestors blocked the streets of central Tel Aviv Saturday night to protest against the government’s proposed new budget. Hundreds also took to the streets in Haifa, Modi’in and Jerusalem, while about 250 others demonstrated outside the Ramat Gan home of Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom, demanding that the natural gas found off Israeli shores remains here for local use, and not sold off abroad.

The central demonstration started out on Rothschild Boulevard, the birthplace of 2011′s #J14 movement, and proceeded with great energy through much of central Tel Aviv, ending up back at the same location. There was a feeling of anger in the air, much greater than in 2011, which might indicate that this will not be a one-time event.

Demonstrators in central Tel Aviv (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Meanwhile in Ramat Gan, protestors clashed with police and one person was arrested – and then de-arrested by activists. While marching toward the central demonstration, activists also shortly blocked the Ayalon Highway, where police reportedly utilized more violence and used pepper spray on demonstrators. After the two demonstrations were united and the masses began heading home, a group of about 200 people went on to block another road, and were dispersed by police. InHaifa, the windows of a Yesh Atid party branch were smashed. No other irregular events were reported.

Will Israeli masses return to the streets for social justice?

After nearly a month of weekly protests outside the house of Yair Lapid, the new finance minister – numbering about 400 people each and organized by post-#J14 groups for public housing – a much bigger demonstration is planned for Saturday night with more than 10,000 people declaring they will attend on the Facebook event page.

The protests are erupting as Lapid promotes a new budget, which looks much like the one planned by the previous government. It was ultimately public pressure that led the government to scrap the budget and call for elections, in which Lapid got massive support on the ticket of “defender of the middle class.” Lapid supporters feel betrayed by the former TV presenter and columnist, who is about to raise taxes and cut subsidies and government spending instead of tackling the banks, massive corporations and large-scale capitalists. On Saturday they are likely to join opposition forces out on the streets.

Demonstration outside home of Lapid, Thursday night (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

The revival of larger public protests for social justice is accompanied by the same old questions that hung over #J14 in the summer of 2011. While the official event is targeting not only capital but the settlements in the West Bank, and while leftist parties are preparing to make their presence felt on the streets, some are once again calling for the protests to be “a-political” (that is: not to mention the occupation) so as to “allow a wider base of support.” Tensions might also arise between the old and somewhat centrist leadership of the movement and other leaders from the social periphery, who have been constantly active since July 2011. It remains to be seen how these differences will be played out this time around and whether the protests could be hijacked by militarism once again. Saturday night might be a serious test for all these questions, as well as for the movement’s ability to get the masses back out on the streets.

Although many critics claim the J14 movement failed by not challenging the occupation or achieving sufficient results for Israeli workers and the middle class, a wave of revived labor organizing indicates new potential for worker power — a May Day update.

“Closing a paper = a damage to democracy”. Journalist facing guards at the offices of one of Ma’ariv’s owners (Yotam Ronen / Activestills)

One thing is certain: personally, it’s been a hell of a ride. About 18 months ago the new Union of Journalists in Israel (UJI) was set up and I quickly joined. It took us a couple of months of hard work until April 22, 2012 when the UJI announced it was officially representing journalists in 10 media organizations; I was appointed chair of the union (or Father of the Chapel) of the Ma’ariv daily newspaper. Little did I — or anyone else — know that within four months, what was once one of the largest newspapers in Israel, owned by one of the country’s strongest capitalists (Nochi Dankner), would collapse altogether. Around 2,000 workers were left at risk of losing their jobs without the paper paying what it owed them.

For more than two hot summer months the paper’s journalists and workers flooded the streets in protest. They blocked Tel Aviv’s main roads, stormed the 41^st floor of the Azrieli Towers, where Dankner’s headquarters is conveniently located, marched on the owners’ houses, visited the Knesset, took strike actions and utilized the paper and its website (NRG) as part of a struggle against the paper’s closure and mass layoffs without compensation.

It was a hard struggle but in part, we won. The paper was not closed but rather sold to Shlomo Ben-Tzvi, owner of the religious right-wing paper Makor Rishon. More than half the jobs were saved, full compensation was promised to all and a new collective bargaining agreement was signed, guaranteeing the rights of those who remained. It was the first such agreement in the private media sector for nearly 20 years (the old Journalists...

In what is likely the first statement of its kind, Egyptians and Israelis call upon their governments to exempt conscientious objectors from mandatory military service.

Egyptian draft refuser Mohamed Fathy and peace activist Lulu Loren (Photo: No to Compulsory Military Service)

A small group of young Egyptians gathered in downtown Cairo for a vigil yesterday, the likes of which have probably never before been seen in any Arab country. The group held signs calling for the release of Israeli draft resister Natan Blanc, who was recently sent to prison for a record-breaking ninth consecutive sentence. According to Israeli movement Yesh Gvul, the gesture was highly appreciated by Blanc’s family.

The Cairo vigil is part of a new type of cooperation between the Israeli feminist and anti-militarist movement New Profile (in which I myself am an activist) and the Egyptian group, No to Compulsory Military Service – a movement which was started by Maikel Nabil Sanad, the first known Egyptian conscientious objector. Nabil Sanad was imprisoned briefly in 2010 and once again right after the revolution for criticizing the army in his blog (he was only released following a hunger strike and public and international pressure).

In the joint message published by the two groups, they write:

A story in ‘The Australian’ newspaper offers a glimpse into the makings of a UN report on Palestinian children detained by Israel, including a look into how Israeli pressure reportedly muffled the report’s criticism. 

Soldiers arresting youths in Nabi Saleh, 2013 (Yotam Ronen / Activestills)

The issue of Israel’s treatment of detained minors has been gaining more and more attention in recent weeks. Aside from ongoing parliamentary debates in the UK, Israel’s Channel 2 News aired a story on the nighttime arrests of child stone-throwers in the Al-Arub Refugee Camp (Hebrew), and we at +972 published Samar Hazboun’s beautiful and horrific photo essay of children’s testimonies from their detention.

Both of these were preceded by a UNICEF report published last month, which has gained much attention for its criticism of Israel’s policies towards minors in the occupied territories. Israel differentiates between Israeli and Palestinian minors by law, offering them different sets of rights, subjecting the Palestinian youths to a military court system, and often denying them basic rights in interrogations in an attempt to extort confessions. The UNICEF report concluded that “ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized.” Harsh words indeed.

However, it now appears that even these words have been scrutinized and carefully picked, intentionally leaving out words such as “torture,” reportedly due to Israeli pressure on the UN body. Research published this week by John Lyons, Middle East correspondent for The Australian, alleges that attempts were made by UNICEF to blur the severe implications of its own findings. Lyons describes the press conference in which the report was released, and writes about how the room was surprisingly empty due to the agency’s intentional inviting of few journalists following what one UNICEF official reportedly called intense “pressure to cancel this event.”

Things got even stranger when journalists were told they could only film and quote the first five minutes of the press conference, during which Israel was praised for its cooperation and willingness to act upon the report’s recommendations. Only after cameras and microphones were...

The annual March of Return brought approximately 7,000 people to the destroyed village of Khubeizy on Israel’s Independence Day. The march, which went through village lands and debris, now a national park, ended with a rally in which speakers called for the implementation of UN Resolution 194, recognizing the Palestinian refugees’ right of return, and for the release of political prisoners.

Speakers call for the implementation of UN resolution 194. (Haggai Matar)

The march was organized by the Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Displaced People (ADRID), and was attended mostly by Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (dubbed “’48 Palestinians”) and a few Jewish Israeli activists. Aside from the speeches, the rally included a cultural festival with book and food stands, and Palestinian flags and accessories and “Free Samer Issawi” shirts were sold in mass numbers. The event ended with a performance by singer Walaa Sbeit, himself a descendant of the displaced from Iqrit, who gained a large round of applause when he mentioned the outpost he and his friends have been holding for nine months now on the old village lands.

Thousands march through the village lands. (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

A small counter demonstration of about 40 Israeli flag-wavers welcomed the marchers to Khubeizy’s lands. Within the Palestinian protest itself, two arguments caused rifts within the crowd: one small group near the stage pulled out Syrian flags in support of Assad’s regime and against the “American-Zionist plot” to topple it, despite the request by organizers not to bring any party sign nor signs of support for either side of the Syrian civil war (arguments within the group almost turned violent). Another small group resented the fact that a Jewish Israeli, Dr. Gerardo Leibner of the Tarabut movement, was invited to speak on stage. Leibner himself responded to critics and said that unity between Arabs and non-Zionist Jews was important for the struggle.

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Exactly 11 years ago today, PM Ariel Sharon ordered the start of construction on a ‘separation barrier’ in the West Bank. It would soon become what is probably the biggest, most expensive and most influential construction project in Israel’s history. Eleven years later, how is construction of the wall progressing, and what is to become of it? A project update.

Jerusalem (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Last year I published a 12-part series analyzing the repercussions the Wall has had on various aspects of Israelis’ and especially on Palestinians’ lives. I described the wall’s history, its effects on the peace process, on Jerusalem, on villages on both sides and the popular struggle that started in those villages and its results. None of these have dramatically changed in the year that passed.

Regarding the issue of Palestinian workers, which I mentioned in the series, Israel launched a new segregated bus line a few weeks ago. This measure both normalizes the wall and its checkpoints and strengthens segregation between Israelis and Palestinians, even within Israel proper. The devastating implications the wall will have on Battir and Wadi Fukin are still looming over the two serene villages, and recently the Defense Ministry offered the High Court to build a fence instead of the planned wall in that area – a compromise the villagers are rejecting. Lastly, plans to resume construction of the miles-long gap in the wall around the Gush Etzion settlement bloc (south of Bethlehem) have since been put on hold once again following pressure from settlers against the wall. Since the series came to its end, it also won me the Anna Lindh Mediterranean Journalist Award, which was a great honor indeed, and a very exciting experience.

But perhaps the most important development in the story of this gigantic geo-political construction project came just a couple of days ago, when former Defense Minister Moshe Arens told Ma’ariv he supports tearing down the wall altogether. That call, interestingly enough, was supported by settler representatives in the Knesset, while Zionist left-wingers came to the barrier’s defense, as Dimi Reider pointed out and explained. Arens supports a claim previously made by others and presented in the series, saying...

Although Republicans and Unionists still have extremely different ideas as to where the country should be heading they still accept each other’s right to imagine opposite identities and futures. Fifteen years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, there is much Israelis and Palestinians can learn from Northern Ireland.

Unionist murals in Belfast (Haggai Matar)

“No two conflicts are alike, and a solution that fits one conflict could never be copied successfully to anywhere else.” The same sentence, in minor variations, was said to me by countless members of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly, as well as journalists, academics and political activists during my short visit to Belfast about a month ago (which resulted in a piece published in Haaretz in Hebrew today). Had it not been coming from people who disagree on pretty much everything else and who support rival political parties, one might even assume they were all simply stating the party line.

All of them have a lot of experience talking to people like myself. Over the past couple of years most of them have either hosted or have been hosted by politicians, NGOs and journalists from conflict zones around the world trying to learn something from the model that put an end to the three decades of bloodshed during “The Troubles,” and the hundreds of years of conflict that preceded that period. But while it is true that one cannot simply copy and paste the Good Friday Agreement (signed this week 15 year ago, full text in PDF here) in order to create world peace, there is nothing wrong with tapping into the world of knowledge and experience the people of Northern Ireland have gained in order to try and rethink our own troubles here.

Republican mural of MP Bobby Sands, who died during a hunger strike in prison (Haggai Matar)

The first interesting thing about the GFA from an Israeli perspective is that it does not...

Physicians are extremely worried by the deteriorating medical condition of Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, who has not put food in his mouth for more than half a year.

Activists demonstrate solidarity with Samer Issawi, on hunger strike in Israeli prison for more than 200 days, and other Palestinian political prisoners, Damascus Gate, East Jerusalem, March 12, 2013 (Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org)

Doctors are concerned by the state of Issawi’s heart, which is weakening and losing rhythm, and are assessing that he might also be suffering from brain damage due to severe lack of minerals, in addition to partial failures of his lungs and kidneys. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club attorney, Jawad Boulus, who visited Issawi in the Kaplan Hospital in Petah Tikva this morning, told +972 that there is a growing risk of sudden death.

Issawi, who was released in the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap and then re-arrested based on covert intelligence which the army prosecution continues to withhold from him and his lawyers, has been on hunger strike since July 29^th. He has only been taking water with sugar along with intravenous food supplements. Recently, he has stopped accepting the latter in protest of the Israeli Prison Service policy of handcuffing him to his bed for 12 hours a day, which he says causes him much pain and prevents him from sleeping. Following a drastic deterioration in his condition, Issawi returned to talking mineral supplements on Tuesday morning.

Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi taken to his court hearing in the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, February 19, 2013 (Oren Ziv/ Activestills.org)

On Monday, the Hebron-based Youth against Settlements group published a “Hunger Speech by Samer Issawi”, addressed to Israelis. In the message, Issawi calls upon Israelis to break free from the “military camps of the mind” and to come visit him and see “a skeleton tied to his hospital bed, and around him three exhausted jailers.”

Natan Blanc is sentenced to prison for the eighth time after he once again refused to be inducted into the IDF. Palestinian prisoner dies of cancer in Israeli custody, prisoners launch hunger strikes.

Natan Blanc at the induction base this morning (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Conscientious objector Natan Blanc was sentenced to an eighth prison term today. After having served 116 days in prison, Blanc received another 14-day sentence this morning when he reported to the induction base and once again refused to be inducted, due to what he defines as the “wave of aggressive militarism” in Israeli society, the occupation of Palestinian territories and the siege and military campaigns on Gaza.

Once released, Blanc will have to report to the induction base again and might face a ninth prison term, with no visible end to the process in sight. Recently the army’s “unsuitability committee,” which examined his case, found Blanc to be suitable for service and denied his request for an exemption based on his conscientious beliefs. As Blanc continues to refuse to see to the army psychologist for the extremely common “profile 21″ discharge on mental health grounds, there is no telling when he might be released. Blanc’s full statement can be found in the previous post I wrote about him.

Natan Blanc in prison waving a towel to thank supporters in a demonstration last month (Haggai Matar)

As the young refuser spends more time in prison, support for him and his release is growing. Video clips made by Yesh Gvul (“There is a Limit”), the oldest refuser movement in Israel, show Blanc talking about his refusal and feature statements of support from Israeli and Palestinian activists. Activists have so far held three demonstrations on the hilltop opposite Military Prison No. 6, where Blanc is being held, played music to him over the wall and waved at him,...

About 100 Palestinians from the ancient village of Sebastia and their supporters held a demonstration today to protest against settlers spilling their sewage onto the village’s agricultural lands. This was the third demonstration in two months; villagers are starting weekly demonstrations, much like the ones against the wall and settlements that take place every Friday in Bil’in, Ni’ilin, Ma’asara, Nabi Saleh and Qaddum. Demonstrations took place in all of those villages as well on Friday, some of them with violent confrontations with army forces. In addition, activists in the newly formed popular committee say they are planning to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

Sebastia villagers on their way to their lands (Haggai Matar)

Demonstrators convened in the center of the village at around noon and were joined by Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti (of the Mubadara party), activists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, some from popular committees in other villages and Israeli and international solidarity activists. Several speakers talked about the sewage, that since December has been flowing into their fields from the nearby settlement of Shavei Shomron. However, they also explained that the sewage was only one symptom of the occupation, alongside land grabs, uprooting of trees, limitations on freedom of movement and they stressed that the protest was against the occupation as a whole.

The Shavei Shomron settlement is out of reach of the demonstration. (Haggai Matar)

“Settlers offered [to] avoid spilling the sewage onto our lands if we let them connect to our sewage system,” explained Ahmed Qaid, a computer engineer, football trainer and activist in the popular committee. “We refused because they are sitting on lands that were stolen from us and four neighboring villages, and we want them out of our lands – not to welcome them and offer them use of our infrastructure.”

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