I spent Thursday in Kiryat Gat, Kiryat Malachi, Ashkelon and Sderot–the Israeli cities under Hamas fire. I spoke to dozens of Israelis; support for Operation Pillar of Defense was unanimous, though no one thought it would bring lasting peace. Most felt it would bring temporary quiet; many believe that Israel needs to reoccupy the Gaza Strip. 

At a commercial center in Kiryat Malachi, a short walk from the apartment building where three Israelis were killed Thursday morning by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, an elderly man selects tomatoes at a small produce stand. The 74-year-old man, who immigrated to Israel from Algeria with his family when he was a teenager and who does not wish to be identified, says that he is not worried about additional rockets.

“I’m safe here,” he says, as he examines a tomato, “I’m following the [Israeli Army Home Front Command’s] directions and doing what they say. So there’s no problem.”

The father of six and grandfather of nine said that he like most Israelis support “Operation Pillar of Defense,” which has taken the life of 15 Palestinian residents of Gaza since it began on Wednesday.

“I support our [army] officers, Defense Minister [Ehud Barak], and Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu],” he adds.

***

Two men, sipping beer out of plastic cups outside of a nearby cell phone accessories store, voice similar feelings.

Eli Chalilo, a 38-year-old who emigrated from Uzbekistan with his parents when he was 18, says, “Right now we feel fine, but this morning was a little stressful.” He adds that his house is just 200 meters from the building that was hit by a rocket.

Chalilo, who is currently unemployed, wears a white sweat suit and sunglasses. He sent his two children to family in Jerusalem because he is worried about their safety. But, he adds, he is not concerned about his own security. He points to the sky, “God’s up there.”

The two men are joined by Eli Pozielov, 31, the owner of the cell phone accessories store. The father to three children, aged three, four and five, says, “My kids are crying. They’re scared, I’m scared, I don’t know what to do, where to go.”

Chalilo and friends in Kiryat Malachi, just a few minutes walk from the apartment building where three Israeli were...

Wednesday, November 14: Israeli forces have just killed a four-year-old and a seven-year-old in Gaza. Two children.

Jeffrey Goldberg tweets*, correctly, that the fighting won’t solve anything. But his phrasing embodies everything that’s wrong with the mainstream media. It also points at the Israeli attitude towards both the Palestinians and the region:

Israel’s Gaza problem?

The fatalities suggest it’s the other way around. According to B’Tselem, 6500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces from the start of the Second Intifada in September 2000 until to September 30, 2012—4660 of which were Gazans. The same ten-year-period period saw 590 Israelis killed by Palestinians.

And then there’s the issue of Gaza’s economy, which Israel has systematically de-developed for over 40 years. There’s the blockade. There’s Israel’s separation policy, which, in a further attempt to fracture the Palestinian territories, tears families into two—leaving one spouse in the West Bank, another in Gaza, ripping parents from their children.

Israel’s Gaza problem?

These are people. 1.7 million people live in Gaza. They shouldn’t be collectively referred to as Israel’s “problem.”

***

I get on the train to go to a protest in East Jerusalem. People are talking and laughing and smiling as though nothing is going on. People are dying in Gaza. I boil. I sit. Two teenage girls stand in the aisle next to me. Their chatter is mindless and light-hearted.

The girls are about the same age as the Palestinian students I teach at a university in the West Bank. One has told me about her aunts and uncles and cousins in Gaza. I wonder what she’s doing right now. I wonder if her family is okay.

I think about the Palestinian woman, Nisreen, I interviewed via the phone recently. Her kids are in Ramallah; she is stuck in Gaza with no work and no family and hasn’t seen her son and daughter in five years. When I asked Nisreen about Operation Cast Lead, she said that the hardest part was not what she experienced but her parents’ and children’s panic and fear as they watched the news in the West Bank.

The teenage girls next to me giggle. I can’t bear...

As America celebrated the re-election of Barack Obama, it was business as usual in Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank. At least two Palestinian homes were demolished today. The residents’ ‘crime?’ They didn’t have building permits, which are issued by Israel and are next to impossible for Palestinians to obtain. 

According to Operation Dove, an Italian organization that maintains an international presence in the South Hebron Hills, one home was destroyed in Ad Deirat, while another house and a water cistern were destroyed in Jawwaya.

Both villages are located in Area C of the West Bank, where Palestinians are under increasing pressure from Israel. Tamar Feldman of ACRI told me recently that 14 Palestinian villages in the south Hebron Hills are in legal battles initiated by the state and the settlers in an attempt to expel the residents from the land. Another 12 villages live in area that the Israeli army wants to turn into Firing Zone 918. If the state has its way, 1,500 people will be forced from their homes.

Israeli soldiers arrive with heavy machinery to carry out the demolition (photo: Operation Dove)

A majority of Palestinians cannot receive building permits to expand their homes or build new houses in Area C, which is controlled by Israel. Jewish settlements, however, continue to expand.

The two-story home is destroyed as a Palestinian man records the demolition with his cell phone (photo: Operation Dove)

On Monday, Israeli forces evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem. One of the houses was demolished. According to the United Nations’ Displacement Working Group:

DWG adds that the couple does not have anywhere else to live and is now homeless.

A family of six was evicted from their home on the Mount of Olives on Monday morning, as well. DWG reports:

In its response to a petition filed by human rights organizations and six African asylum seekers, the State Attorney’s office said today that the government has not made an official decision to arrest Sudanese refugees. The reply also said that Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who stated publicly that asylum seekers have until October 15 to leave the country on their own accord, spoke without government authorization. 

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, one of the organizations that filed the petition in hopes of preventing the state from detaining asylum seekers:

The State Attorney’s response to the petition comes two weeks after a Jerusalem court answered the same with petition with a temporary injunction prohibiting the detention of Sudanese.

Speaking of the State Attorney’s remarks, ACRI attorney Oded Feller said:

Approximately 100 Palestinians and a handful of international activists entered the Rami Levy supermarket in the West Bank settlement of Sha’ar Binyamin Wednesday morning to ‘protest occupation and settler terror’ and to call for the boycott of ‘the occupation and its products.’ Two Palestinians and two internationals were beaten and arrested. 

Activists in Rami Levy supermarket in Shaar Binyamin settlement (photo: flickr/Activestills)

Palestinian and international activists were unarmed. Carrying flags and signs, they entered the supermarket, chanting for freedom. They say that the Israeli police used excessive force to disperse the nonviolent protest.

Activist Abir Kopty, who was at the scene, reported that “as activists exited the building, about forty policemen and soldiers were waiting outside, they attacked physically the demonstrators and fired stun grenades at them, causing several injuries, two of which were taken by ambulance to the hospital.”

Bassem Tamimi, head of Nabi Saleh’s Popular Committee, was among the injured. He reportedly suffered broken ribs as a result of being beaten by Israeli forces as he was arrested.

This protest emphasizes, according to Kopty, that “as long as there is no justice to Palestinians, Israeli and settler daily life can’t continue on as normal.”

Bassem Tamimi being arrested in the Shaar Binyamin settlement today (photo: flickr/Activestills)

Last week also saw a protest that disrupted the flow of Israelis and settlers everyday life when a group of 50 Palestinian activists blocked Route 443 for half an hour. The road is built on occupied Palestinian land and connects settlements, which the international community considers illegal, to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. To an Israeli driver, Route 443 essentially erases the Green Line and gives the impression that the occupied West Bank is part of the country. The action of blocking the road may have reminded the Israelis who use it that the land 443 runs through is, indeed, occupied.

After a three and a half year legal battle, Israeli NGO Gisha has obtained the state’s ‘Red Lines’ documents, which detail Israel’s severe restrictions on the amount of food that could enter the Gaza Strip between 2007 and 2010, including calculations of Palestinians’ caloric needs. 

Keren Shalom Crossing, Gaza-Israel border. (photo: Activestills)

The “Red Lines” document was based on research compiled by the security establishment and the Israeli Ministry of Health, and aimed to “identify the point of intervention for prevention of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip.” According to Gisha, the document “includes tables calculating the food consumption needs of people in Gaza according to age and gender.”

The documents includes tables detailing Palestinians’ caloric needs according to age and gender. Following these calculations, as well as estimations of how much food is being produced inside of Gaza, the report concludes that Israel should allow 106 trucks a day into Gaza to supply Palestinians with their “daily humanitarian portion” of food, medicine, and other products. Between 2007 and 2010, however, Israel allowed an average of only 67 trucks a day to enter the Gaza Strip–falling far short of the recommended number.

Other Israeli governmental documents previously obtained and published by Gisha detail which foods Israel allowed into the Gaza Strip and which were forbidden. Among the prohibited products, Gisha reports, were “hummus, fresh meat and ground coriander.”

Israel lifted food restrictions on the Gaza Strip following the May 2010 flotilla incident. As part of a policy that Israeli officials call “economic warfare,” however, Israel continues to severely restrict exports from Gaza. The Israeli government also implements what it calls a “separation policy” between Gaza and the West Bank. Thousands of families have been split by this policy and Palestinian students from Gaza who wish to study in the West Bank are prohibited from doing so.

Gisha’s Executive Director Sari Bashi remarks: “Israel’s control over movement creates an obligation to allow free passage of civilians and civilian goods, subject only to security checks – an obligation that remains unfulfilled today.”

Although the media usually reports that the closure of Gaza began in 2007, the current blockade is the culmination of decades of movement restrictions that gradually shut the Gaza Strip and its economy down.

Restrictions on both...

At 1:00 a.m. Monday morning, Israeli forces entered ‘autonomous’ Area A and arrested Ayman Nasser, a researcher at Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Two soldiers held Nasser’s wife at gunpoint while other soldiers searched the house the couple shares with their four children, who range in age from three to 13.  

Nasser is currently being held at a detention facility in Jerusalem. Addameer says that the his arrest represents Israel’s “latest attempt… to target not only Addameer as an organization advocating for Palestinian prisoner’s rights but also the targeting of Palestinian civil society in general.”

Since 1991, Nasser has spent six years in Israeli prisons.

Addameer has been instrumental in publicizing the conditions Palestinian political prisoners face in Israeli jails. Many of these prisoners are in administrative detention without trial. While international law permits administrative detention under very specific circumstances, the Israeli NGO B’Tselem points out that:

A number of Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strikes to protest Israel’s use of administrative detention; the hunger strikes have generated international media attention, shining a light on Israel’s questionable treatment of Palestinian prisoners.

Addameer offers legal council to prisoners, monitors conditions, and advocates for prisoners. The organization says that it is under increasing pressure from the Israeli authorities.

Related:
Israel admits: Administrative detention unnecessary
Administrative arrests: Months or years without due process

A Jerusalem court issued a temporary injunction on Thursday, prohibiting the detention of Sudanese refugees. The group was slated for arrest and forced transfer to a prison camp in the Negev desert beginning on October 15.

The court’s move comes in response to an October 3 petition, filed by the Clinic for Migrants’ Rights at the Academic Center of Law and Business, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Hotline for Migrant Workers, ASSAF Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel, the African Refugee Development Center (ADRC), and Kav La’Oved, as well six African asylum seekers. The petition was filed against Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Defense Minster Ehud Barak, and the government’s legal counsel, and requested the court to issue an injunction stopping Yishai and the others from jailing refugees.

Yesterday’s ruling–which was issued by Jerusalem District Court Judge Nava Ben-Or, and which comes just three days before the arrests were scheduled to begin–means that the detention of Sudanese asylum seekers is temporarily delayed, pending a final decision on the petition. A hearing on the matter will take place October 30.

According to ACRI, “the Minister of the Interior’s policy would result in thousands of Sudanese asylum seekers along with their children being hunted down, arrested en masse, and detained indefinitely in extreme conditions in the desert.  Included among these people are survivors of genocide in Darfur and atrocities in other areas.”

ACRI attorney Oded Feller remarks:

Israel is home to approximately 60,000 African refugees, most of whom are from Sudan and Eritrea. Israel began deporting South Sudanese refugees this past June.

Hakem* believes that armed struggle and the strategic use of violence is the only way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He calls BDS ‘silly’ and says Hamas has gone soft. He calls Israel ‘the entity’ and says it must be dismantled. After that, Hakem adds, Jews are welcome to stay.

The situation in the West Bank is increasingly hopeless. The cost of living is spiraling out of control. Steady work is hard to find. Israeli settlements keep growing. And with the West Bank carved up by the Oslo Accords and Gaza under blockade, a Palestinian state seems more out of reach than ever.

While the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement seems to be picking up steam worldwide–and the nonviolent protests against the separation barrier have captured the international media’s eye–some Palestinians are calling for a renewal of armed struggle. In this context, I decided to publish excerpts of a lengthy interview I had with a young Palestinian man who is considering becoming a militant.

Like all Palestinians, Hakem’s life has been touched by the occupation. Because I promised him anonymity, I can’t give too many details. The wound is so deep that, Hakem says, “I have the ability to kill now…” And while he has yet to pick up arms, Hakem comments that he could “go the extremist way just to feel that I’m not under the control of somebody.”

Hakem would join the armed struggle against Israel “if only there was an organization to join.” Fatah means the Palestinian Authority and, like many Palestinians, Hakem sees the PA as “a branch” of Israel: “The PA is a project of the Israeli government. [It has been] since the beginning, and it’s not changed… it facilitates the Israeli job within the Palestinian society.”

He is cynical about the peace process in general, and the Oslo Agreement in particular, saying that it has just enabled Israel to do what it likes with the land.

Like many Palestinians, he’s given up on all of the Palestinian factions–”there’s no big difference between them”–including Hamas. Hakem points to Hamas’ recent move to the Gulf, remarking, “Now they are playing with Qatar and it’s about money. ” That places Hamas firmly within the American-Israeli-Gulf axis, according to Hakem, turning it into yet another group that is beholden to Western interests, like the PA.

It’s not just the Palestinian political parties that are frustrating to Hakem, “I’ve...

A new book offers a fresh look at Ramallah, Palestine’s ‘temporary capital.’ Unfortunately, the book is dominated by a foreigner’s personal essay – the voices of those who live under occupation should be front and center. 

Running tests boundaries—both those we place on ourselves as well as those imposed upon us by the outside world. Whether those external limits are social, cultural, or political, the runner collides with them in a way that the casual pedestrian does not, thus, serving as a mirror for the issues that are relevant to one’s particular time and space. A woman in a male-dominated society, for example, might face cat calls or even physical assault while running; Palestinians living under Israeli occupation have, literally, nowhere to run. Trapped inside a labyrinth of Israeli military checkpoints and permits, bordered by illegal Israeli settlements, Palestinian freedom of movement is severely restricted.

In Ramallah, Running is a collection of prose and visual art that expresses how one moves through—or doesn’t move through—occupied space. Edited by Samar Martha, the co-founder and director of ArtSchool Palestine, and London-based writer Guy Mannes-Abbott, the book brings together prominent Palestinian artists and writers as well as internationals. They offer reflections on Ramallah, the city that has become the de facto center of Palestinian cultural and political life in the wake of the Oslo Accords and the ongoing Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. As contributor Najwan Darwish writes in his powerful but all-too-brief essay “Ramallah Versus Ramallah,” the post-Oslo focus on Ramallah as a “temporary capital” is “meant not only to make us forget Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, the Galilee, and all of Palestine that was occupied in 1948, but also to overshadow the importance of Jerusalem.”

Mannes-Abbott’s contribution to the collection is a 14-part series about his runs and walks through and around Ramallah. His descriptions sometimes border on the lyrical—rendering the beauty of the land and his love for the place and its people. But they are also laden with the claustrophobia and fear that typify Palestinian life: “…in the prison of these hills, in lovely Ramallah itself, there is no freedom. Here, in this place, life spirals within abysmal limits.” His essay reveals the physical limitations imposed by the Israeli occupation; more importantly, Mannes-Abbott points to how those restrictions linger inside the psyche, long after one has entered the so-called “autonomous” Palestinian areas.

But Mannes-Abbott’s depiction of Palestinians is so sympathetic that it sometimes toes...

Secular Israelis in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Kiryat Yovel are fighting the ultra-Orthodox’s growing influence in both the area and the state. The secular say that it’s a struggle for Israel’s identity and that they hope to protect the country’s “pluralism” and democratic space. But is their battle truly pluralistic? And how can we talk about democracy after 64 years of dispossession and discrimination?

On a recent Friday night, I attended a free, outdoor concert just a few blocks from my apartment in Kiryat Yovel. As religious families settled in for a quiet Shabbat, us secular settled onto mats to listen to Greek rebetiko, courtesy of Perach Adom. Because Kiryat Yovel has been the site of tensions between ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis, I worried that the amplifiers, lights, and donation jar might draw the anger of our neighborhood’s Haredi residents–handling electrical devices and money, among other things, are forbidden on the Sabbath as is playing musical instruments.

Will they throw things at us? I wondered. In other places in Jerusalem, the ultra-Orthodox sometimes stoned passing cars on Shabbat. And, after all, this was concert was a form of protest.

LISTEN:

The event was arranged by Free Kiryat Yovel, a local grassroots movement that seeks to build a strong, pluralistic country, starting with our neighborhood. It took place on the Warburg Lot, the piece of land that sparked the battle between the neighborhood’s veteran secular residents and the ultra-Orthodox newcomers. During the summer months, Free Kiryat Yovel sometimes screens movies on Warburg on Friday night.

There are other battle grounds in Jerusalem. At the shuk, ultra-Orthodox women have begun bullying secular women who dare go to the market in tank tops, Ynet reports (Hebrew). Groups of ultra-Orthodox women have started a modesty patrol, pointing at women’s bare shoulders, saying, “The next time, you won’t come to the shuk like this. The next time, you come in sleeves.”

This is the type of behavior that Kiryat Yovel’s secular residents are worried about.

The fight for Kiryat Yovel began on a hot August morning in 2008, when tractors arrived and began digging on Warburg. Residents understood the lot to be public and they used the space to exercise, walk their dogs, and to park cars. Surprised to see the construction, locals rushed out and asked the workers what they were...

Israeli officials will authorize 5,000 new work permits for Palestinian laborers. The move comes in the wake of the West Bank protests against the Palestinian Authority and the rising cost of living, and is meant to prop up the PA. The move is also a symptom of Israel’s hysterical reaction to foreign workers and African refugees.

July saw the Israeli government grant permits to 5,000 Palestinian construction workers, including those who work in illegal West Bank settlements. The cynical move harnessed a captive labor market whose own economy has been crushed by the occupation—the very occupation it is being recruited to build.

In August, Israel’s Defense Ministry also proposed another 6,000 permits for Palestinian workers.

Speaking to the Jerusalem Post about the proposal, the spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said, “We do not want the PA to crash,” adding that Israel needs to help keep the Palestinian economy afloat. He also remarked that Israeli authorities prefer Palestinians to foreign workers because the latter stay in the country.

The Israeli Population Immigration and Borders Authority echoed the preference for Palestinians to migrants who stay and make a home in Israel. So, as Israel deports the families of foreign workers – the same workers it brought to replace the Palestinians (see below) – and expels and jails African refugees, it begins upping the number of work visas for Palestinians.

Just as foreign aid is intended to keep the unsustainable and overextended PA afloat – giving some West Bank Palestinians a sedating sense of normalcy – so are Israeli work permits. Along with checkpoints and restrictions on freedom of movement, work permits are intended to shape the behavior of the Palestinian population.

A joint paper published by Kav LaOved and Gisha earlier this year pointed out that the salaries of Palestinian day laborers who work in Israel make up some 13 percent of the Palestinian GDP. While estimates of their numbers vary, Kav LaOved and Gisha report that approximately 60,000 Palestinians work with and without permits inside of Israel.

During the First Intifada, Israel revoked the general exit permits that were held by almost all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories which had previously allowed them to reach jobs inside of Israel, thus collectively punishing Palestinians for rebelling against the occupation. At the same time, Israel began...

Israeli exceptionalism continues. Iran is not allowed to go nuclear but it is perfectly okay for Israel to remain nuclear: that’s the message Israel sends the world as it opposes a U.S.-backed conference about a nuclear-free Middle East.

Here’s what I wrote in March about the issue in The New York Times’ Room for Debate:

Might Israel attend the meeting about a nuclear-weapon-free Middle East in Finland? Certainly. Just like it has “participated” in the peace process — with no real intention of making concessions. In both cases, there are no consequences for Israel sticking to its agenda. So why would Israel budge?

Israel won’t sign a nonproliferation treaty, because that would mean giving up its military edge in the Middle East.

Israel won’t sign a nonproliferation treaty, because that would mean giving up its military edge in the Middle East. Obama’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee suggests that the U.S. will ensure that Israel remains the regional powerhouse.

This question has arisen before, in 2010, when Netanyahu and Obama were already in office. The U.S. supported the initiative; Israel, of course, rejected it.

What’s changed since then? Little to nothing. If anything, Israel has only become more defiant. Last year, Obama called for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal based on 1967 borders. But 2011 saw Israel increase settlements in the West Bank.

For me, where it gets really interesting is that the U.S. initially wanted Israel to sign the nonproliferation treaty, back in the late 1960s, and Israel wouldn’t. This is a reminder that the six decades of friendship Obama spoke of [in March] weren’t always so friendly. Some argue that Israel’s refusal to sign this treaty may have given Iran the incentive to go nuclear. It’s similar, perhaps, to how Israel had a hand in creating Hamas. Israel wanted a rival to Fatah; instead, it got, as The Wall Street Journal says, “unintended and often perilous consequences.”

Speaking of Israel creating its own bogeyman, a pre-emptive strike on Iran might actually push Iran to accelerate its nuclear program, as it has been argued was the case with Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq — creating exactly the scenario Israeli leaders fear the most.