Two of the most well-spoken public figures in Israel are MK Ahmad Tibi and former settler leader Dani Dayan. Dr. Tibi is known to lecture to the Knesset plenum in prose, and is considered one of the MKs with the best command of the Hebrew language. Dayan, on the other hand, has the uncanny ability to make even the most die-hard two-state advocate question their political belief system.

But just because two people are elegant and gifted orators doesn’t mean they can’t get into an old fashion, tit-for-tat Twitter battle — and that’s exactly what happened today. I’ve translated the entire back-and-forth below.

The heated 140-character-at-a-time quasi debate started when MK Tibi tweeted a picture of two Palestinians bound and blindfolded in a humiliating way by the IDF at the Hawarra checkpoint.

Tibi was quickly called out by others on Twitter, however, who pointed out that the picture was from 2011. Dayan, who is active on Twitter himself, replied with a picture of Jewish settlers mourning the the victim of a Palestinian shooting attack. He wrote: “This is from 2013″.

A few hours later, Tibi retorted: “The difference between me, you and [you all] is that I condemn and condemned the harming of Jewish children, see the murder in Itamar. And vastly different, you are participants in the suffering and harming of Palestinians.”

Dayan wasn’t having it. “Not true,” he retorted, “I condemn ‘price tag’ acts against Palestinians much more clearly and explicitly than you condemn acts of terror, [which are] 100-times more severe.”

Of course it couldn’t stop there. “Price tag?!”, Tibi virtually shouted, “What about the biggest land theft in history, which you are a part of? Let me put it this way: There’s no symmetry between an occupier and the occupied! None!”

History? He went to history? I’ll show him history,Dayan must have thought. He replied: “MK Tibi: There’s no symmetry between an aggressor and someone defending themselves. He who tries to take everything by force and loses, pays a price for his belligerence. There’s nothing more just than...

If passed as is, Finance Minister Lapid’s new budget would increase the price of produce by 18 percent. VAT and sales taxes on produce are rare in the Western world because they disproportionately harm the poorest and weakest segments of society, which is exactly what Lapid’s proposal stands to do.

‘Food not bombs’ action in south Tel Aviv, March 6, 2008 (Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

It may seem like small potatoes, but Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s proposal to levy the Value Added Tax (VAT) on fruits and vegetables is one of the most harmful proposals he could make when it comes to the poor, and for public health.

In 2011, 18.7 percent of Israelis did not have food security, according to the National Insurance Institute (Hebrew). In the same year, more than one in three Israeli children (and one quarter of the total population) lived below the poverty line.

Like most U.S. states (California, Texas, New York), the UK and countless other countries, fruits and vegetables are exempt from sales tax or VAT in Israel. The logic? Taxes on food products are a flat tax that disproportionately impact the poor. While taxes on food will not harm a middle- or upper-class consumer, even a small increase in the cost of eating represents a significantly higher percentage of a poor person’s net income.

Furthermore, assuming that Israel’s VAT rises as planned by one point to 18 percent, that would constitute an 18-percent price increase on fruits and vegetables in Israel (consumers currently pay no point-of-sale tax on fruits and vegetables).

As Welfare and Social Services Minister Meir Cohen said in no uncertain terms last month, “…applying value added tax to fruits and vegetables mean[s] there will be more applicants for welfare services.” In other words, doing so will make the poor poorer. It also means that static and dropping levels of welfare assistance won’t go as far.

From a public health standpoint, levying VAT on produce could lead to the Americanization of the Israeli diet. An 18-percent increase in the price of healthy foods can drive poor people toward cheaper, processed, engineered, unhealthy and generally more fattening foods.

To...

One Palestinian citizen of Israel will have to pay NIS 1,500 ($420) for being the victim of a so-called “price tag” attack, Ynet reports. After his car was torched and racist graffiti spray-painted nearby, the fire department sent him a bill for extinguishing his burning car.

There is something inherently troubling about charging for emergency services like firefighting and policing (beyond taxes paid), but that is nothing unique to Israel. What is most problematic is charging the victims of hate crimes.

After staging an intermittent hunger strike for some nine months, hunger striking Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi agreed to start eating again, pending the signing of a deal later in the day. The deal would see him released to his home in Jerusalem in eight months.

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

Update (April 23, 4:10 p.m.): Issawi has signed the deal and ended his hunger strike, Maan reports. He is expected to be released in late December of this year.

Palestinian hunger striking prisoner Samer Issawi has agreed to end his hunger strike, and will be released to his home Jerusalem in eight months’ time, Reuters reported late Monday night.

The details of the deal were not immediately clear, but Issawi has insisted all along that he would not agree to be exiled, like other released prisoners have. Read more background: here, here and here.

Demonstration in support of Samer Issawi in East Jerusalem last month (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Updated:

Samer Issawi was released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange in October, 2011, having served 10 years of a 30-year sentence. He began his hunger strike nine months later, shortly after the IDF re-arrested him in the summer of 2012.

In February, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court sentenced him to eight months in prison for violating the terms of his release, with credit for time served. According to that conviction and sentencing, he was to be released on March 6. However, he still faced the re-sentencing hearings in military court.

Activists in Jaffa have been holding daily protests in solidarity with Samer Issawi, a Palestinian on hunger strike held in an Israeli medical detention center, February 4, 2013. (Photo by: Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

Issawi announced this week...

Israeli airlines stopped flying this morning in an open-ended strike opposing the country’s Open Skies agreement with the EU. The issue is complicated and there are no easy ways to resolve it.

On the one hand, there is no question that opening Israeli airport(s) to more flights is good for consumers: it will bring more tourists, create new jobs and lower prices, making it cheaper for Israelis to fly. But the way Israeli airlines are structured at the moment, it would drive the three companies out of business.

As Gideon Afek writes in the Times of Israel:

Well that sounds great, but there’s no foreseeable way to make it happen. As Afek notes, the issue of longer flight paths to the East (in order to avoid flying over enemy states) is certainly constricting and makes Israeli flights more expensive. But the main problem is the Israeli security establishment’s tight controls over who and what flies into and out of Israel.

There is no way the Shin Bet, which is responsible securing for all air travel in Israel and all Israeli flights overseas, could handle the amount of traffic that a transformation of Ben-Gurion Airport into an expanded El Al hub would bring. But beyond that, the currently mandated security measures would certainly turn off a large number of potential transit passengers (both voluntarily and involuntarily).

More so, opening El Al flights to non-Israel-bound passengers (infinitely more non-Jews than currently fly on the airline) could open the airline to be targeted by discrimination suits in Western countries. Assuming El Al is able to become a competitive alternative for European Asia/Africa-bound passengers, a decent portion of the potential customer base is an enemy population Muslim. Would they be allowed to fly through Ben-Gurion Airport?

Jonathan Pollard, the U.S. Naval Intelligence officer who betrayed his country, has served a long time in prison for his crime. Instead of continuing to rely on the failed strategy of presidential clemency in seeking early release, the convicted spy should do something he has never tried: apply for parole.

Free Pollard sign in Jerusalem, Hebrew reads: ‘We want Pollard at home’ (Photo: Tamar Hayardeni)

Jonathan Pollard betrayed his country and he continues paying the price for doing so. Whether or not he has fully paid his debt to society, the claim by Pollard’s supporters that his release can only be secured by a presidential clemency request is deeply flawed.

U.S. President Obama was flooded with pleas to grant Pollard clemency ahead his visit to Jerusalem last month. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 on the eve of his trip, the US president addressed the issue. Although Obama stated clearly that he has no plans to grant Pollard clemency, he did extend a subtle invitation to Pollard to do something he has never before attempted: apply for parole.

“There is a justice system that allows for periodic review, and the potential for him ultimately being released,” Obama said about Pollard. “What I am going to be doing is to make sure that he, like every other American, who has been sentenced, is accorded the same kinds of review and same examination of the equities that any other individual [would receive].”

Jonathan Pollard (US Naval Intelligence ID photo)

Pollard has never applied for parole (he was eligible after 10 years) because he fears the consequences of rejection could prejudice his chances for presidential clemency, according to the Justice for Jonathan Pollard website. But with Obama making clear that he will not grant Pollard clemency, and with the invitation to use the available legal tools for release, Pollard’s excuse has expired. More so, Pollard’s systematic failure to obtain clemency from four consecutive US presidents should have led him and his legal team to seek other legal avenues years ago.

In an...

With Holocaust Remembrance Day upon us once again in Israel, I am republishing a piece I wrote four years ago. I’ve decided not to make any changes because not that much has changed and the spirit of the piece remains true to today. This year, I dedicate it to the people of Syria, may someone or something stop the slaughter and suffering of our neighbors.

As a “second-generation Holocaust survivor,” Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) has always been of great importance to me; its lessons were etched into my conscience from the earliest times in my childhood memories. The words, “never again,” represent the values I was most deeply instilled with. However, those very values, which I once thought were universal, appear to be lost on so many. Perhaps my understanding of the values and memories of the Holocaust differs from others’: never again – not to anyone, ever.

As a child, I received the same Holocaust education as most other Jews. I heard first-hand memories from my grandmother and less so from my mother – both survivors of Nazi concentration camps. I went on to hear nearly identical stories in Holocaust museums all over the world, one such museum even has an exhibit specifically about my mother. Over several years, I helped my grandmother put her story onto paper and video so they would not be lost once she left this world. The value of those stories remain close to my heart and I am glad that they have been preserved so I might one day pass them on to my own children and grandchildren. The meaning of those stories has helped to shape my morals, values and personal goals. I was taught that they define us Jews as a people.

I was taught that the words “never again” mean never again to anyone. I was taught that the story of survival was about perseverance, not persecution. I was taught that as survivors of one of the most horrific and unimaginable crimes in the history of mankind, the Jewish people were endowed with a special responsibility to prevent such atrocities from ever occurring to any man, anywhere, any time, ever again. However, after living in Israel for almost three years, I am beginning to believe that this education was not universal. Searching through the three major Israeli newspapers on Yom HaShoah, I could not find even one op-ed that...

Police make rare arrests in connection to settler violence against Palestinians. But the circumstances surrounding the shooting were unique, and likely played no small role in pushing police to investigate seriously.

Settlers attack Palestinians in Qusra as IDF soldiers stand by (photo Sa’ad Al-Wadi)

Update (April 3): Police released all of the suspects and cleared them of wrongdoing, according to The Jerusalem Post. 

In a rare display of law enforcement against violent Jewish settlers, Israeli police raided the notorious illegal outpost of Esh Kodesh early Tuesday morning. Police arrested five settlers, including an active duty soldier, in connection with the near-fatal shooting of a young Palestinian man from the nearby village of Qusra a month and a half ago.

While the arrests are commendable, there are two things to keep in mind. Firstly, arrests do not necessarily mean that indictments will be filed, and if they are, what charges will be brought.

More significant, however, is that the shooting of Hilmi Abdul Azizi in Qusra was a unique case in several regards.

The shooting came at the crescendo of Palestinian protests surrounding hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, six killings in as many weeks of unarmed Palestinians by the IDF, and a price tag attack against the village only days before.

Media outlets in Israel and around the world were speculating at the time that a third Intifada might be around the corner. Israel was so worried that Abdul Azizi’s death might spark more widespread violence that it even sent Israeli doctors on a covert mission into Nablus (a truly exceptional step), in order to transfer him to a hospital in Israel for lifesaving treatment.

Additionally, Israeli media picked up on the story and was highly critical of the “embarrassing” lack of law enforcement when it came to the string of settler attacks against Qusra. (Watch the Channel 2 report in Hebrew.) Police inexplicably closed their investigation into the price tag attack, in which six Palestinian cars were torched, based on “evidence” they “gathered” — without ever exiting their vehicles or stepping foot in the village.

Furthermore, the incident in which Abdul Azizi was shot, was captured in a series of photos...

With Israel and Palestine no closer to a peaceful two-state resolution 20 years after the start of Oslo, the burden of proof is on its believers, not its detractors, settler leader Dany Dayan says. Even the woman set to be in charge of any future peace process, Tzipi Livni, is speaking about the need to formulate backup plans.

Tzipi Livni speaking at the Herzliya Conference. March 12, 2013 (Photo: Herzliya Conference PR)

Tzipi Livni, the only person in the soon-to-be-formed Israeli government who genuinely believes in the importance of the two-state peace process, splashed cold water on the prospect of it ever happening Tuesday. It’s time to start looking at alternative plans in case a two-state solution with the Palestinians proves impossible, she said.

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference, Livni said for the umpteenth time that the two-state solution is the only acceptable path for Israel.

But, and this is a big but, she admitted that it might not be a realistic goal and that Israel needs “to prepare interim measures or other measures, or unilateral ones that can lessen the damage, which can reduce the pressure a little.”

When those politicians who have dedicated much of their careers to advancing the peace process begin to express doubts about the viability of their own project, anyone who believes in those leaders and their political programs should be worried.

Former settler leader Dany Dayan drove the sentiment home, assuredly saying that “20 years after Oslo, the burden of proof is on [its] believers, not me.

Former settler council leader Dany Dayan at the Herzliya Conference, March 12, 2013 (Photo: Herzliya Conference PR)

The Oslo framework for a two-state solution has lost a number of long-time believers in recent months (and years). In December, Meretz chairwoman Zehava Gal-On called for cancelling the Oslo Accords, the mainstay and only lasting impact of peace talks that began 20 years go.

In its place, Gal-On called for enacting interim measures and revisiting the Arab Peace Initiative. But the API is not very...

Written in between the lines of the EU heads of mission report on Israeli settlements is a sense of frustration with the EU’s inaction against Israel. The EU makes regular statements against Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, but takes no action despite the existing tools it has at its disposal.

Building of the new settlement of Leshim on the lands of the West Bank village of Kafr ad Dik, near Salfit, December 7, 2012. (photo: Activestills)

At face value, the European Union heads of mission report on the Israeli settlement enterprise is a scathing indictment and call to action against Israel’s illegal settlement activities. In between the lines, however, the report reflects a frustration by European diplomats and bureaucrats at their own governments’ inaction. They are not implementing the existing legislation, decisions and declarations they themselves regularly make against Israel and its settlements.

The EU’s rhetoric against Israel’s settlement policies has always been damning, but its actions have never lived up to its words.

Read the full report here

“The EU and its member states now face the urgent challenge of translating the observations and recommendations of their own senior diplomats into concrete and effective policies that indeed maintain the possibility of the two-state solution,” a document obtained by +972 stated.

Reflecting the (perhaps naïvely optimistic) sense of a closing window for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a frustration with EU inaction despite its rhetoric, the document continues: “If the EU and its member states won’t accelerate the operationalization and implementation of their declared positions in 2013, the two-state solution will fail.”

This is a clear call to action – a frustrated plea by the EU’s professional ranks to their elected bosses to put their money where their mouth is.

Without action, the almost predictably regular condemnations of Israeli settlements by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, unequivocally declaring them illegal under international law are just that: empty statements and declarations.

The power of such a wide union of developed and influential countries such as the EU is meaningless if it limits itself to declarations and condemnations instead of exercising the power it is sitting on.

The message these diplomats...

European diplomatic heads of mission in Jerusalem submit report to Brussels calling on the EU and its member states to take economic measures to stop Israel’s settlement enterprise, and to prevent European companies from supporting the settlements.

Maale Adumim settlement near east of Jerusalem (Activestills.org)

European diplomats in the Palestinian Authority called on Brussels and their respective European states to take concrete measures to stop Israel’s “systematic, deliberate and provocative” settlement enterprise, including preventing economic and financial support for settlements – actions that could described as sanctions.

The report, obtained by +972, describes Israeli settlements as “the biggest single threat to the two-state solution,” and recommends specific measures that Brussels could or should take in order to mitigate that threat.

Read the full report here

Two of the recommendations most likely to irk Israel, directly relate to the economic activities of European companies that profit from settlements.

In addition to the standard practice of excluding settlement products from the free trade agreement between the EU and Israel, the report recommends “guarantee[ing] the consumers’ right to an informed choice,” asking the European Commission to provide guidelines on labeling of settlement products.

More significantly is the recommendation that EU governments “[p]revent, discourage and raise awareness about problematic implications of financial transactions, including foreign direct investment, from within the EU in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services”

It is followed by a recommendation that the EU inform businesses of the “financial and legal risks involved in purchasing property or providing services in settlements.”

The implication of this recommendation is that any EU-based company that invests in and provides services for settlements could be held legally (and financially) liable for supporting the illegal enterprise. While European companies like Veolia have long been targeted by activists for owning and operating land fills, waste-water treatment facilities and buses that serve Israeli settlements in the West Bank, implementing this recommendation would constitute a direct and official warning to similar companies by the EU itself.

In addition, the report recommends that individual EU member states explore the possibility of denying entry to known individual violent Israeli settlers.

It also places particular emphasis on East Jerusalem and Israel’s settlement activities there, ranging from construction that aims to completely isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of the...

Unlike Prisoner X, there is no public outrage in Israel over the way the legal system is preventing Samer Issawi from receiving a fair trial. But then again, Issawi is Palestinian.

Samer Issawi, the Palestinian prisoner who has been on an intermittent hunger strike for over 200 days, had his day in court on Thursday. According to the sentence handed down by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, one might ostensibly believe that Issawi would be released on March 6, when his prison term is completed. But Samer Issawi is Palestinian, and therefore subject to a multi-layered legal system in which his fate is not determined by civilian judges, but rather by three IDF officers.

Before Israel agreed to release 1,027 Palestinians in exchange for captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, the army quietly modified Article 186 to Military Order 1651. Article 186 codifies special military tribunals that have the power to cancel early releases. The panels operate using secret evidence and do not even reveal to Palestinians what they are accused of.

So while according to Thursday’s sentencing hearing in the Magistrate’s Court Issawi is to be released within weeks, he will likely be re-sentenced by the military tribunal to the 20 years that remained when he was freed in exchange for Shalit. He will not know for what alleged crime he is being re-incarcerated.

Even Israel’s most secretive prisoner in recent years, Prisoner X, knew what he was charged with. But Prisoner X was Jewish. Samer Issawi is Palestinian.

One other Palestinian hunger striker is being held under identical circumstances. Two others are being held in administrative detention, the practice of holding suspects without charge or informing them of what they are accused.

The injustice suffered by Issawi and the others is not theirs alone, it is one that has and continues to unite Palestinian society. Solidarity hunger strikes are being held both in and out of Israeli prisons. Protests are taking place across the West Bank and judging by the number of injured protesters, the Israeli military response to those protests is becoming more violent.

On Thursday, thousands of Palestinians marched toward the Ofer Military Prison compound in solidarity with the hunger strikers and to protest the practice of administrative detention. At that protest alone, at least 29 protesters were injured by rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas canisters.

Days earlier, nearly two-dozen Palestinian demonstrators were...

Four Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strikes to protest their administrative detention and the conditions in which they are being held. While the EU calls on Israel to respect its obligations toward Palestinian prisoners’ human rights, an Israeli NGO reports they are being treated unethically in hospital.

Prison guards wheel hunger striker Samer Assawi into the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on February 19, 2013 (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

All anyone in Israel has spoken about for the past week is ‘Prisoner X,’ the Jewish-Israeli-Australian Mossad agent held secretly by his own country, who supposedly took his own life in prison two years ago. But only a few miles from Israeli newsrooms in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, outrage over a different type of prisoner in Israeli jails has been mounting for months and is coming to a head.

Four Palestinian men in Israeli prisons are currently in the late stages of prolonged hunger strikes protesting the legal basis of their imprisonment: administrative detention and military committee sentencing decisions based on secret evidence. Both amount to imprisonment without knowledge of what they are accused and without the right to a trial.

In recent days, at least one of the prisoners reportedly intensified his hunger strike, refusing all medical treatment, including vitamins and minerals. Their health is said to be deteriorating.

Thousands of Palestinians have taken to the streets throughout the West Bank in recent weeks, leading to violent clashes with the IDF and including protests that shut down the Ramallah offices of the Red Cross and UN.

Tear gas outside Ofer prison (Oren Ziv / Activestills)

Hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel have also protested in solidarity with the hunger strikers on the other side of the Green Line.

Demonstration in front of Ramle prison in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Samer Issawi, February 4, 2013. Issawi is currently held...