Monthly Archives: June 2016

Israel’s water cuts: West Bank ‘in full crisis mode’

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Israel stands accused of using ‘water as a weapon’ as some West Bank homes have gone without water for a week.

'There are little excuses left not to give Palestinians back their water rights,' says Corradin [Getty Images]
‘There are little excuses left not to give Palestinians back their water rights,’ says Corradin [Getty Images]

Salfit, occupied West Bank – Salfit sits atop an underground wealth of water, but the city’s residents are forbidden from accessing it – and they are now in crisis, as Israel’s national water company, Mekorot, has reduced water supply to the northern West Bank.

Since the start of the month, residents of Salfit have been receiving between 30 and 40 percent of their normal water allowance, said Saleh Afaneh, the head of the local water and wastewater department.

“On the first day of Ramadan, the water stopped for 24 hours, with no notice,” Afaneh told Al Jazeera. “Since then, it has been coming in at less than half the capacity. We’ve done everything we can to try and make residents comfortable, but this is a crisis.”

“He hasn’t slept in two days,” the city’s mayor, Shaher Eshtieh, cut in. “We’ve never seen anything like this; we are in full crisis mode, working around the clock to help our people, but we are doing this on our own … We’ve continuously reached out to the Palestinian government, the prime minister even, but they’ve been no help, and the Israelis are denying there is a problem.”

A Palestinian Authority spokesperson did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

READ MORE: Israel – Water as a tool to dominate Palestinians

Water shortages and cuts have also been reported throughout the northern Jenin and Nablus districts of the West Bank, although Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, the Israeli body in charge of the occupied West Bank, denied water had been cut or reduced at all.

In a statement, COGAT said the shortages in the Jenin area were reported due to a broken water pipe that had since been repaired. COGAT also stated that a pipe had burst in Salfit, although local water officials said they had no knowledge of this.

Water is running under our ground while our taps run dry … The people are getting angry. They won’t continue to accept this.

Shaher Eshtieh, Salfit mayor

The Israeli water company Mekorot, meanwhile, said that owing to shortages in the water supply, it had made “a broad reduction of the supply to all residents in the area”, referring to both Israeli settlements and Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank.

Camilla Corradin, the advocacy task force coordinator for the Emergency, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (EWASH) group, told Al Jazeera that Israel is using “water as a weapon”.

“EWASH believes that Israel has managed to achieve a water surplus, thanks to its advanced water and wastewater technology and its control over Palestinian water resources,” Corradin said.

“There are little excuses left not to give Palestinians back their water rights, so that Palestinian towns and villages will no longer be left without the most basic of rights – water – in hot summer months.”

Boycott Campaigns Should Be Commended Not Punished

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  • Ariel Gold CODEPINK staff

    • ELIJAH GOLD
    Protestors outside the the New York State Capitol building in Albany

    Last Wednesday around 200 protesters descended on the New York State Capitol building in Albany to demand that Governor Cuomo repeal his executive order requiring New York State to create a blacklist of companies and organizations that engage in or promote boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Opponents of the BDS movement claim that it is anti-semitic and unfairly targets Israel. Contrary to that, however, the BDS movement is rooted in an anti-oppression framework, opposing all forms of racism, including anti-semitism. It utilizes similar tactics to those that were successful in dismantling South African apartheid and is firmly within the tradition of American Civil Rights Era campaigns, such as the Montgomery bus boycott. Rather than seeking to destroy Israel, the BDS movement seeks to leverage economic pressure to influence Israel to end its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its siege on Gaza. The most well known and widespread BDS campaigns are those that strategically target companies involved in egregious human rights abuses and violations of international law, including the detention and abuse of Palestinian children; stealing of land, water, and other resources; restricting Palestinians’ freedom of movement; maintaining an apartheid systems of different roads, schools, and laws for different people; and  the support of Israeli settlements, which are entirely illegal under international law. Below are five examples of why Governor Cuomo should be applauding the BDS movement rather than attacking it:

    Remodel RE/MAX

    The Remodel RE/MAX campaign asks RE/MAX LLC to set standards prohibiting their franchises from selling, renting or advertising properties on illegally seized land in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and to establish that members of the RE/MAX network should not refer clients to agents and brokers who are involved in such activities. On July 29, 2015 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated that Israeli settlements are “an impediment to peace, and cannot be reconciled with the Government of Israel’s stated intention to pursue a two-state solution.” A January 2016 report from Human Rights Watch entitled“Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights,” directly indicted RE/MAX LLC, stating:

    By advertising, selling and renting homes in settlements, both the Israeli franchise of RE/MAX and RE/MAX LLC, the owner of the global franchise network, facilitate and benefit from the transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied territory and the associated human rights abuses, contravening their rights responsibilities.

    The Remodel RE/MAX campaign encourages RE/MAX shareholders to pressure the company to abide by international law and organizes protests at RE/MAX offices, shareholder meetings, and conventions.

    Stolen Homes

    In January 2016 a coalition of organizations, including CODEPINK, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, Jewish Voice for Peace, US Palestinian Community Network, and others, formed to demand that Airbnb stop listing vacation rentals in Israel’s illegal settlements. Aswith RE/MAX’s sale of these homes, Airbnb’s listing of these properties directly profits from and contributes to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. Airbnb’s website states that they “prohibit content that promotes discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group.” They have recently reiterated their commitment to disallowing racism. However, by listing vacation rentals in illegal Jewish-only settlements, Airbnb is directly violating its own policies and assertions.

    The Stolen Homes coalition collected over 150,000 signatures that were delivered to Airbnb’s headquarters on a March day of action and to Airbnb major investor Fidelity Investments on a  June day of action. Internationally renowned nonviolent human rights defender Issa Amro, of the West Bank city of Hebron, voiced his support for the Stolen Homes campaign, saying, “As a Palestinian activist struggling to end Israel’s half-century occupation of our land, it is profoundly disturbing to know that Airbnb would seek to profit from our misery through rentals in illegal Israeli settlements.

    Stolen Beauty: Boycott Ahava

    On March 9, 2016 after a seven year long BDS campaign, Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories announced that they will be moving their factory from the West Bank to within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Ahava, an Israeli cosmetics concern with its main manufacturing facility and visitors center located in the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Shalem, labels its goods as “product of Israel” when they are in fact made in the occupied West Bank. Ahava pillages mud from occupied shores for use in its products. The announcement that Ahava will be moving its factory out of the West Bank has been applauded by human rights and international law advocates around the world, although the boycott campaign will continue until the facility in Mitzpe Shalem is shuttered and there is proof that Ahava no longer plunders occupied natural resources..

    Boycott Soda Stream

    As with Ahava, the Israeli home beverage company SodaStream chose to locate its main production facility in an illegal Israeli West Bank settlement while labeling its product “made in Israel.” By placing their factory in the industrial zone of Mishor Edomin, the company was able to exploit a captive Palestinian labor force and take advantage of inequitably distributed water, cheap land, tax benefits, and lax regulation of environmental and labor protection laws. After a coordinated and persistent boycott campaign by many organizations, SodaStream saw it revenues drop and was forced to yield to pressure, finally moving their factory within the 1967 boundaries of Israel.

    G4S

    Global security giant G4S Secure Solutions has contracts with the Israeli prison system where Palestinian children as young as 12 are tried in military court, denied access to lawyers and their parents, detained in adult prisons, and abused at the hands of guards and interrogators. In 2013 UNICEF reported that the maltreatment of imprisoned Palestinian children is “widespread, systematic and institutionalised”. G4S is known for maltreatment of prisoners and fiascos around the world as well.  There have been numerous reports of sexual abuse and use of excessive force at their Florida Juvenile Justice facilities. Between 2010 and 2012 they were investigated in the UK for the death of Jimmy Mubenga who died at the hands of G4S guards while being deported. Recently they have come under fire for having been the employer of Orlando, FL shooter, Omar Mateen.

    In June 2014, the international campaign to stop G4S was successful in getting the Gates Foundation to divest the entirety of its $170 million holdings in the company. During the same month in 2014, the US Methodist Church voted to divest from the company. As a result of BDS campaigns G4S has lost numerous contracts with universities, charities, and others, including a contract with UNICEF in Jordan. On March 9th, 2016, G4S announced that for the purpose of “extracting itself from reputationally damaging work” they would be selling their Israeli subsidiary.

    Any day now the UN is expected to release a database of companies involved in Israel’s settlement enterprise. Both RE/MAX and Airbnb will surely be on this list and the campaigns against them will continue. It remains to be seen whether G4S will actually follow through with their announcement that they will sell their Israeli subsidiary. If not, the campaign against G4S will continue with renewed strength and persistence.

    Gov. Cuomo’s executive order will not stop the work on BDS campaigns such as these. This executive order will likely be challenged in court, as boycott is a constitutionally protected form of speech, association, and assembly. But more than a first amendment right, the BDS movement is something that should be commended, supported, and furthered. It is nonviolent change in action, placing those who participate in it on the right side of history.

    Father of Tel Aviv terrorist victim attacks Israeli government; creating ‘despair’ and ‘hatred’

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    By Martin Smith

     Family and friends mourn by the body of Ido Ben Ari, 42, during his funeral in Yavne, Israel, June 9, 2016. Ido Ben Ari died after being shot during a terror attack inside a restaurant in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night after two Palestinians opened fire killing four and wounding sixteen. Israeli security arrested the two Palestinian gunmen who were in Israel illegally from the West Bank.
    YAVNE , Israel, June 10 (UPI) — The Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians has been heavily criticized by the father of one of the victims of Wednesday’s attack in Tel Aviv.

    As he buried his son, the father of Ido Ben Ari said Thursday that Israel was not doing enough to resolve the conflict, and he accused his country’s government of provoking Palestinians with its hard-line approach.

    “The leaders we elect at democratic elections are supposed to find a strategic solution, which demands far-reaching vision, concessions, a creative solution, and not mantras and laundered words,” the father, whose name was not published, said at the funeral in Yavne, which was attended by hundreds of people, including deputy minister Ayoub Kara.

    “Last night, after the attack, the prime minister and two of his ministers arrived and yet another security cabinet issued decrees — not to return corpses, to put up barriers, to destroy houses, and to make lives harder. These solutions create suffering, hatred, despair and [lead] to more people joining the circle of terror,” he said.

    “What’s needed is a solution rather than saying all the time that there’s nobody to make peace with. We chose you to stop the cycle of blood, already 49 years you’ve been trying to solve things tactically and you haven’t succeeded. The time has come for a strategic solution.”

    Ido Ben Ari was one of four people killed when two Palestinians opened fire at the Sarona Market in central Tel Aviv on Wednesday.

    The 42-year-old Coca-Cola executive and former IDF elite commando unit fighter was dining with his wife and two children at the Benedict Restaurant at the time of the attack. His wife was also injured.

    “Ido served in [the elite commando unit] Sayeret Matkal. He went through [the] Lebanon [War] and all the horrors of the army, and yet it was over this nonsense that he was taken,” his sister Reut Fishman told The Times of Israel.

    The two gunmen, who had been posing as customers at the market’s Max Brenner cafe, were caught shortly after they went on their deadly rampage. They are cousins who came from the Palestinian town of Yatta in the southern West Bank. At least one was reportedly injured in gunfire.

    Within hours of the attack, Israel announced that it was suspending 83,000 Palestinian entry permits, which will prevent those living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from visiting relatives in Israel, attending Ramadan prayers in Jerusalem and from traveling via Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

    The Max Brenner restaurant in Tel Aviv returned to normal just hours after two Palestinian gunmen carried out the attack on Wednesday night, killing four and wounding sixteen. Israeli security arrested the two Palestinian gunmen who were in Israel illegally from the West Bank. Photo UPI
    Meanwhile, the scene of Wednesday’s shootings returned to normal Thursday morning as shops, bars and restaurants at Sarona Market reopened.

    The blood, broken glass and bullets had been cleared away, along with the belongings of the people who had died, reports The Times of Israel. And customers and workers returned to the various businesses, as if nothing had happened.

    Charles Peguine, the owner of Le Palais des Thes, a tea shop in the market, said that it was the third terror attack in Tel Aviv that he and his family narrowly avoided since the start of the year.

    “This is our life,” says Peguine, who grew up in Belgium. “Unfortunately four people died; but there haven’t been fewer customers today. We are used to this.”

    Here are some of the comments on this article.

    Kevin Mardesich ·California State University Maritime Academy

    Awwww… jews steal Palestinian land and resources for decades, oppress them and then cry when the Palestinian’s resist and fight back.
    Have a tissue.

    Robert Johnson

    What a brave and honest man. My heart goes out to him for his loss and my admiration for his objectiveness and honesty. The violence in the Middle East is religious violence. Israel claims God gave all of that land to them. It’s time to move beyond ancient myth and embrace reason. As Albert Einstein said regarding Israel, “Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us.” ( http://deism.com/einstein.htm )

    We need to take the advice of the Deist Thomas Paine who wrote in The Age of Reason that we need a revolution in religion based on our innate God-given reason and Deism. This will eventually put an end to religious violence.

    Chidambaranadar Jeyabalan ·

    Indian Institute of Science

    Collective punishment is an inducement to convert a normal person into an agitated person, who then transforms into a militant, then terrorist.

    For all backward progress in Israel, the present leadership is totally responsible. I have plenty of Israel friends who live in US and Israel. Whoever visits Israel, they feel insecured.

    The mentally corrupt politicians are responsible for the bitterness among the brothers (Israelites and the Palestinians). I condemn the present stupid Israel leadership first before I do the terrorists.

    The Greedy Doctor

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    A doctor asked his lawyer friend.

    The Doctor: I want to ask you a legal question.

    The Lawyer: What is it?

    The Doctor: Can I charge for a medical advice?

    The Lawyer: Of course. You can charge up to $100.

    The Doctor: OK. You owe me $100 for the medical advice you asked me last week.

    The Lawyer: No Problem, but guess how much I charge for a legal advice? you guessed it…$100. That makes us even.

    ARE ANTI-ISRAEL BOYCOTTS LEGAL? DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT

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    This article was recently published on the YAHOO website. A comment is posted after each paragraph.

    BY

    05_19_Israel_Boycott_01
    Israelis celebrate Israel’s 68th Independence Day with fireworks in the southern city of Ashkelon. The author argues that attempts by educational nonprofits to boycott Israel breaks the law that nonprofits’ funds from members cannot be used to push a political agenda that has nothing to do with the association’s mission.

    Israelis try very hard to stifle the voice of freedom not only in the land of Palestine but also in the United States and anywhere in the world they can. We should encourage everyone, specifically college students, to speak their minds and get their opinions heard. But, as the Israelis see it and want everyone to see and believe it that when people’s opinions and the truth is not to the Israelis liking, it’s against the law.

    Boycotts against Israel are making headlines again. The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is voting this month on whether to boycott Israel. If the resolution passes, AAA will be the largest and oldest academic association to do so.

    The AAA is doing the right thing, and boycotting Israel is the right thing to do. The Israelis need to know that their lies and intimidation are not as effective as they used to be. People in this country are waking up and realizing the reality in the Middle East which’s driving the Israelis off the wall.

    In response, many heads of U.S. universities, including MIT, the University of Chicago and all 10 University of California campuses, recently reaffirmed their opposition to academic boycotts, specifically citing ones targeting Israel.

    The pressure and intimidation still works on those heads especially when added to the lack of morality on their part. Those heads should be chopped off and replaced by more reasonable and encouraging ones to the freedom of fact finding and opinions’ expression. 

    The graduate student unions at University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst and New York University (NYU) just voted to boycott Israel. Both UMass chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy and NYU president Andrew Hamilton responded with unequivocal opposition and condemnation.

    Bravo to UMass and NYU for not allowing the chancellor and president of those universities to influence their opinions and votes.

    Fierce debate has surrounded boycotts since the American Studies Association (ASA) endorsed an Israel boycott two years ago. Are boycotts antithetical to the mission and values of academia? Do boycotts violate academic freedom?

    Boycotts do not violate academic freedom. In fact they have nothing to do with academic freedom. They are a matter of opinions’ and should not be associated with academic value in any way.

    Others questioned: Why the obsession with Israel?  Considering all the non-democratic, non-feminist and non-free religion, free speech and free press countries, why Israel? Israel is the only country in the Middle East to provide equal rights to women and all members of the LBGTQ community, to guarantee freedom of press and religion and to safeguard the opportunity to vote, regardless of ethnicity. In fact, Jews, Christians and Muslims all serve in Israel’s government. North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, Russia and many other recidivist human rights violators are not singled out for boycott. Among the 196 nations in the world, why is the only Jewish state being singled out? Are boycotts of Israel really thinly veiled anti-Semitism?

    It is typical of the Israelis and their allies to try to divert the attention of the facts and discussion matter at hand. What does the treatment of women and members of the LBGTQ have to do with boycott of Israel? and why Israel is comparing itself to those counties? We are not discussing any of those countries or  their democracies, we are discussing Israel and it’s illegal occupation of the Land of Palestine and demolishing the homes of Palestinians which prompted the call for boycott of Israel. Incidentally, the statement above is not true. The so called democracy in Israel applies to the Israelis only, not the Palestinians. And only to the Jews, not Christians or Muslims.

    Putting those concerns aside, though, there is a new question gaining much traction in legal circles: Are such boycotts even legal? Law professors Eugene Kontorovich and Steven Davidoff Solomon on the Wall Street Journal opinion page recently concluded they are not. And days ago, a group of distinguished American Studies professors and longtime ASA members, two of whom were recipients of the highest ASA award for outstanding teaching and program development, sued their Association.

    Boycott of Israel is not only legal but necessary. I challenge all those so called Law Professors to show me where it’s stated in the law that it’s illegal to boycott Israel. The Israelis need to know that the days of suppressing the truth and forcing their lies on the American people are over. Those so called professors prove that not only goods can be bought, people can be as well.

    The American Studies professors describe how a handful of radicals, including founding members of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, hijacked their academic association to ram through a personal and political mission having absolutely nothing to do with American Studies. This new legal question is probably the most relevant.  Let me explain. Nonprofits incorporated in D.C. are governed by the D.C. Non-Profit Corporations Act. It provides that an organization is limited to the terms of its charter. Knowing that nonprofits are often run by a handful of active members, the law was created to protect the entire membership from officers and directors who abuse their positions and coopt an organization for political purposes.

    Let me ask you a question “Mr. know it all”, if those so called, according to you, announced their unconditional support to Israel, would you call them radicals, and more importantly, would you call them “Law Brakers”? and in your opinion, would they be abusing their positions for political reason? Of course not. That’s the divination of hypocrisy which Israel and its supporters demonstrate on daily bases.  

    Funds from members cannot be used for purposes beyond activities authorized in the charter. Activists cannot legally trade on an academic association’s reputation to push a personal political agenda that has nothing to do with the association’s mission. At the time the boycott was initiated, ASA’s constitution clearly stated that “[the object of the association [is] the promotion of the study of American culture through the encouragement of research, teaching, publication…about American culture in all its diversity and complexity.” According to the American Studies professors, for 60 years, ASA has been an association focused on American Studies. It is not a social justice organization, nor is it a foreign policy organization. Indeed, according to the professors, boycotting a foreign nation has absolutely nothing to do with ASA’s mission and is therefore illegal.

    How much does it cost for someone to endorse someone else or agree with an idea or a philosophy? When a political candidate is endorsed by someone or some group or organization, does the endorser start packing to move into the poor house? Or does he or do they have to spend any amount of money for the endorsement? Of course not. So, why are you accusing the ASA of misappropriating the organization’s funds for the purpose of pushing a personal political agenda? You know something, even if they were, it will be well worth it using those funds to promote the boycott. Whether you admit it or not, the US is very much involved in the Middle East and this falls in the category of American studies.

    I agree, which is why my organization has assembled a team of lawyers to represent these esteemed American Studies professors in this significant and pivotal case.The question of whether an arguably anti-Semitic academic boycott of Israel violates academic freedom continues to be debated. But whether it violates the law seems pretty clear.

    Yes it is. It clearly does not violate the law in any form or fashion.