Democrat Jayapal apologises for calling Israel 'racist state'

On July 9^th the Times published an article by Catherine Philip concerning the previous weeks counter-terrorism operation in Jenin which was analysed here by CAMERA UKs Adam Levick.

While the article begins by suggesting that a Palestinian in Jenin named Abdulrahman Hasan Ahmad Hardan was unarmed when he was shot by soldiers, it then proceeds to claim that he was an uninvolved civilian, and not a terrorist as was reported.

TIMES REPORTER TRIES TO TURN PALESTINIAN TERRORIST INTO A CIVILIAN

TIMES CORRECTS FALSE CLAIM ABOUT PALESTINIAN KILLED IN JENIN

On the same day, the BBCs international and Middle East editor told his Twitter followers that Philips article was important reporting.

Late on July 10^th UK time (early on July 11^th Israel time) the BBC News website published a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureaus Tom Bateman which relates to the same subject matter.

Headlined Jenin: Palestinian boy killed during Israeli assault w...

The deadly Israeli invasion of Jenin on July 3 was not a surprise. Unsurprising also is the fact that the killing of 12 Palestinians, wounding of 120 more, and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of the Jenin Refugee Camps homes and infrastructure will not make an iota of a difference. Even Israeli Prime Minister Continue reading "Jenin is Just the Start: Did Palestinians Finally Bury the Ghosts of the Past?"

The post Jenin is Just the Start: Did Palestinians Finally Bury the Ghosts of the Past? appeared first on Antiwar.com Original.

JUL 14, 2023 Israeli settler terrorism is a strategy employed by Israel to advance its territorial gains and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Robert Inlakesh US President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahus government as being the most extreme hes seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Ministers coalition as being part []

Israeli settler terrorism is a strategy employed by Israel to advance its territorial gains and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. US President Joe Biden recently called out Benjamin Netanyahus government as being the most extreme hes seen, and pointed to members of the Israeli Prime Ministers coalition as being part of the problem. His comments []

The deadly Israeli invasion of Jenin on July 3 was not a surprise. Also unsurprising is the fact that the killing of 12 Palestinians, wounding of 120 more and the destruction of nearly 80 percent of the Jenin Refugee Camps homes and infrastructure will not make an iota of a difference. Even Israeli Prime Minister []

Francesca Albanese's June report to the UN Human Rights Council says Israel uses physical, bureaucratic, military, and surveillance means to "de-Palestinianize" the occupied territory, threatening "the existence of the Palestinians as a people."

Written by CAMERAs Karen Bekker 

In much of the reporting about Israel and the Middle East, terrorist organisations are entirely absent. In a recent article in the Economist, however, terror groups are the focus but the effects of terrorism are glossed over, and the members are glamorised as if they were social media influencers. Inside the Lions Den: the West Banks Gen Z fighters, reads the headline, strangely applying a US marketing term, Gen Z, to terrorists halfway around the world. (July 7, 2023, by Ayman Oghanna.)

Consider, for example, this bizarre description of the Second Intifada:

When al-Ajoud was 14, in 2002, he and a friend were hit by a shell from an Israeli tank. Al-Ajoud survived but his friend was killed instantly. It was a formative event: Every fighter was inspired by the second intifada (uprising). At the time, Nablus was a centre of opposition. Armed and unarmed Palestinians jousted with the Israeli armys tanks, armoured personnel carriers and Apache helicopters. The Israelis imposed strict curfews and house-to-house searches. Thousands of Palestinians were arrested and many homes were destroyed.

The peace that followed was an unhappy one. Memories of Israeli violence lingered.

Theres no mention of the reason for Israels actions the many suicide bombings that caused so much devastation to Israeli civilians as well as to Americans such as Malki Roth and her family. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed, including teenagers in pizza shops and nightclubs. Nor does reporter Ayman Oghanna mention the fact that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat started the Second Intifada intentionally, after rejecting the Camp David offer of an independent Palestinian state that would have included...

Three Israeli settlers wounded in shooting near West Bank settlement

A post by CAMERA Arabic.

(All translations, emphases and in-bracket remarks are by CAMERA Arabic unless otherwise specified)

Sarit Ahmad Shaqur was an 18-year-old Druze woman from northern Israel whose murder on the afternoon of June 9^th came after years of her brothers threatening her life because she was gay.

Several hours later, when the background to the murder had already been reported by various Israeli media outlets, BBC Arabics producer in Israel and the West Bank Michael Shuval tweeted the following from his personal twitter account:

Shuval made a general reference to a wave of violence against the [LGBTQ] community in order to promote his coverage of the Jerusalem and Tel Aviv pride marches but his pre-recorded report and his Tweet did not mention Sarit Ahmad Shaqur at all. 

The next day (June 10^th), BBC Arabics live updates webpage added the following background to a 10:30 AM bulletin about former police chiefs protesting against the record-breaking crime rates amongst Israels Arab and Arabic-speaking citizens:

Among the issues that raised concerns recently is the sharp increase in the rate of criminal killings in Israels Palestinian [i.e., Arab and Arab...

A building damaged by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Jenin on July 5, 2023. (Photo by Reuters)

Press TV July 15, 2023

The Israeli militarys deadly raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank fits into the parameters of war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, legal experts argue.

Susan Akram, a clinical professor at Boston Universitys School of Law, said the raid, which killed at least 12 Palestinians and wounded dozens more, clearly amounts to a war crime for a number of reasons, including intentionally attacking a civilian population and attacking medical units.

The Geneva Conventions include as war crimes during occupation, willful killings, willfully causing great suffering to an occupied population and extensive destruction of property not justified by military necessity, Akram said during a webinar hosted earlier this week by the Arab Center Washington, DC.

Theres no doubt, she...

When Tom Friedman says the possibility of a Palestinian state was always a "fiction," he shows contempt for Palestinians and reveals his role, promoting support for Israel in the U.S. establishment, no matter what.

What does it mean to be antisemitic in modern Britain? The answer seems ever more confusing.

We have reached the seemingly absurd point that a political leader famed for his anti-racism, a rock star whose most celebrated work focuses on the dangers of racism and fascism, and a renowned film maker committed to socially progressive causes are all now characterised as antisemites.

And in a further irony, those behind the accusations do not appear to have made a priority of anti-racism themselves not, at least, until it proved an effective means of defeating their political enemies.

And yet, the list of those supposedly exposed as antisemites often only by association keeps widening to include ever more unlikely targets.

That is especially true in the Labour Party, where even the vaguest ties with any of the three iconic left-wing figures noted above Jeremy Corbyn, Roger Waters and Ken Loach  can be grounds for disciplinary action.

One of the Labour Partys most successful politicians, Jamie Driscoll, North of Tyne mayor, was barred last month from standing for re-election after he shared a platform with Loach to talk about the Norths place in the directors films.

Not coincidentally, Driscoll has been described as the UKs most powerful Corbynista or supporter of Corbyns left-wing policies. The nadir in this process may have been reached at the Glastonbury Festival.

Back in 2017, Corbyn, then-Labour leader, was given top billing as he set out a new, inspirational vision for Britain. Six years on and organisers cancelled the screening of a film, Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie, highlighting the sustained campaign to smear Corbyn as an antisemite and snuff out his left-wing agenda.

The decision was taken after pro-Israel pressure groups launched a campaign to smear the film as antisemitic. The festival decided showing it would cause division.

So what is going on?

To understand how we arrived at this dark moment, one in which seemingly anyone or anything can be cancelled as antisemitic, it is necessary to grapple with the terms constantly mutating meaning and the political uses this confusion is...

Gods Chosen People

Stripped, Beaten, and Blindfolded: ongoing violence and abuse of Palestinian children detained by Israeli military

Defence for Children Palestine | July 13, 2023

16-year-old Omar was hiding in a school when Israeli forces threw a stun grenade inside, which exploded in his face and blinded him in his right eye.

In a visit this week, Mahmoud Abbas hailed the Jenin refugee camp as an icon of resistance even as the PA continues imprisoning resistance fighters. But as a member of the Jenin Brigade once told Mondoweiss, "Ramallah will not see freedom" while the PA rules there.

MEMO | July 14, 2023

The Hadash-Taal lists Chairman, Ayman Odeh, was forced out of the Knesset plenary last week during a vote on the Counterterrorism Law after condemning the Israeli attack on the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin.

He said: People killed in Jenin. People wounded in Tel Aviv. A killed soldier. All of their blood is because of your damned occupation. Occupation blinds you. Power blinds you. You are not only acting like occupiers, you are acting like idiots.

His speech came just days after Israel concluded its largest military operation in Jenin in more than 20 years. At least 12 Palestinians were killed, including four children, and more than 140 were injured in the offensive, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The raid also left a massive trail of destruction across the West Bank city, with dozens of homes, vehicles, shops and utility lines destroyed.

Every action has a reaction. These are the rules of nature, added Odeh. Theres a reaction to the occupation, so there will be resistance. Resisting against occupation is legal. Occupation is illegal. Long live the Jenin! Long live the Palestinian people! Long live their resistance! Shame on you! Take me down!  But the Palestinian people will continue to fight!

In response, Almog Cohen from the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party, shouted: The blood of those murdered is on your hands; go to Gaza. The more terrorists we kill, the better.

It all came amidst the approval of the Counterterrorism Law, which specifies that anybody who expresses support for terrorists may face up to five years in prison.

Religious Zionist Party MK Zvi Sukkot introduced the bill to stop the probability test that is required today due to the seriousness of expressing solidarity or sympathy for an act of terror or its perpetrators.

Following MK Odehs criticism against the Israeli invasion of Jenin, Sukkot appealed to the Ethics Committee of the Knesset, Israel Police, and the Attorney General to open an investigation against the MK for expressing his support for the residents of Jenin.

The Cradle | July 14, 2023

Palestinian Authority (PA) forces arrested journalist Aqil Awawdeh on 13 July after he refuted a statement from PA officials claiming there are no political arrests in the occupied West Bank.

There is no case of arrest on the basis of political affiliation in the West Bank, and all that is being circulated about its existence are baseless rumors, the PA statement released on Thursday reads.

Moments later, Awawdeh took to social media to refute this claim, highlighting that students and journalists are arrested regularly for supporting the resistance.

Hours after posting this video, PA troops took Awawdeh from his workplace in Ramallah under charges of insulting the security services and leaders of Fatah. Officials have yet to issue a statement on his arrest.

At least 54 political prisoners are currently being held in PA prisons, as the PA regularly hands over detainees directly to the Israeli army, Resistance News Network reported via Telegram.

Two years ago, Awawdeh was severely beaten inside a police station after covering a protest against the PA.

As discontent with PA rule in the occupied West Bank continues to grow exponentially, officials have maintained their grip on power by violently silencing dissent and crushing popular mobilizations.

In June 2021, Palestinian activist Nizar Banat was beaten to death by PA troops for accusing the PA of corruption and criticizing Ramallahs security cooperation with the Israeli military. Last December, Banats family took the case to the International Criminal Court, accusing the PA of alleged war crimes and torture.

Last month, the repressive tactics of the PA once again made headlines following the violent arrest of student leader...

Israel approved record number of housing units in illegal settlements, says Peace Now

US: Three more progressive lawmakers join boycott of Israeli president's speech to Congress

On July 7^th a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureaus Tom Bateman appeared on the BBC News websites Middle East page.

Despite the fact that the opening paragraph of that report informs readers that it concerns two Palestinian militants, the BBC nevertheless chose to airbrush that terror context out of its headline: Nablus: Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in West Bank.

Readers are told that:

Two Palestinian militants have been shot dead by Israeli forces during a raid in the occupied West Bank, as tensions surge in the region.

On Friday morning locals reported hearing heavy gunfire as Israeli troops surrounded a house in Nablus.

The men killed have been named locally as Khayri Shahin, 34, and Hamze Maqbool, 32.

Israel said they were wanted gunmen who fired on their forces before they could be detained.

Notwithstanding the BBCs long-standing refusal to describe Palestinian terrorism as such in its own words, Bateman had no qualms about promoting the talking points of a terrorist organisation proscribed by the UK:

The Palestinian militant group Hamas described the men as heroes of the resistance and accused Israel of terrorism. [emphasis added]

Readers are later told that:

...