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Palestinian/ Israeli update11/22/2015..Banning all settlement products produced on stolen Palestinian land is essential
Death and violence in the West Bank
West Bank violence grows as Israel shuts down, bans 17 affiliates of Islamic group
Israeli forces shoot dead young Palestinian woman, man in West Bank
Settler runs over, shoots and kills 16-year-old Palestinian in Nablus
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A prominent Israeli settler ran over a 16-year-old Palestinian girl and then shot her dead, saying that he believed she intended to carry out a stabbing attack at Huwarra checkpoint in the northern occupied West Bank district of Nablus, Israeli media reported.The Palestinian military liaison office identified the teenager as Ashraqat Taha Ahmad Qatanani from Nablus, and said they had notified her family of their daughter’s death.Israeli news site Ynet identified the man who ran over and shot Qatanani as Gershon Mesika, the former head of the “Samaria regional council,” which represents Israel’s illegal settlements in the northern West Bank. After running the girl over with his car and landing in a ditch, Mesika reportedly got out of his car and opened fire on the girl, alongside Israeli forces who also opened fire, Israeli media reported. An Israeli army spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked for comment.No Israelis were reported injured in the alleged attack.
The girl’s death was the second violent incident in 24 hours.On Saturday evening, a Palestinian, identified as Muhammad Shaker al-Tarda,18, stabbed and wounded four Israelis, including a 13-year-old girl, in the southern Israeli city of Kiryat Gat, before being arrested hours later, Israeli police said.Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld said at the time that an Israeli man was seriously wounded and two women and a 13-year-old girl moderately wounded in what he described as a “confirmed terrorist attack,” which took place on the city’s King David Street.Shortly afterwards, Israeli police said that a mob of Israeli civilians violently beat and bound the hands of a Palestinian Bedouin man they incorrectly believed was the attacker.The four Israelis and the Bedouin were evacuated to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon.Two days earlier, four Israelis and one Palestinian were killed in two separate attacks in Tel Aviv and the illegal settlement bloc of Gush Etzion in the southern West Bank. The Palestinian attackers were afterwards arrested.The attacks have accompanied a wave of popular unrest that has swept the the occupied Palestinian territory since the beginning of October.While Israelis have sought to blame the unrest on religious incitement, Palestinians have pointed to the nearly 50-year military occupation of the Palestinian territory, no prospect of a political solution, and a deep sense of frustration and despair.At least 86 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during the period — many shot dead under circumstances in which rights groups said that Israeli forces used unnecessary force — while at least 16 Israelis have been killed in the same period.
UK Labor Party boycotts security firm G4S over business ties with Israel
American academic association votes to boycott Israeli institutions
Largest German department store boycotts Israeli products
Europe’s Largest Department Store Removes Israeli Settlement Products from Shelves
by Stephen Lendman
The announcement sounds better than the reality. Still, any action nicking Israeli near-impregnability is welcome.
Following EU-mandated labeling guidelines for settlement products, Berlin-based Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) removed all Israeli settlement produced items from its shelves. Growing numbers of European companies refuse to import them.
Store spokeswoman Petra Fladenhofer said “(o)nly after fixing the labels, we’ll return the products to our shelves.” Labeling is far short of what’s needed.
Banning all settlement products produced on stolen Palestinian land is essential – a first step toward a total boycott of Israeli goods and services, as well as Security Council action mandating an arms embargo, prohibiting nations from selling Israel weapons, munitions and related products, anything potentially aiding its killing machine, raging daily against defenseless Palestinians.
Palestinian BDS National Committee coordinator Mahmoud Nawajaa called the new labeling requirement a “sign that European governments are reacting to public opinion, civil society campaigning and Israeli intransigence and are becoming more willing to take some basic action against Israeli violations of international law.”
At the same time, “putting some labels on a small number of Israeli products is hardly a proportionate response to repeated Israeli war crimes.”
Israel is a rogue terror state, one of the world’s most ruthless, a democracy in name only, far from it in reality. Tough, uncompromising measures are need against it. Labeling does nothing to stop daily atrocities committed against Palestinian men, women and children.
EU countries and America partner with Israeli high crimes – an evil axis fostering endless wars of aggression and unspeakable human suffering throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Reacting to announced EU labeling guidelines, The New York Times shamelessly equated the move to Nazis’ use of yellow stars – typical Times “yellow” journalism, on the wrong side of major issues.
Expected reactions followed KaDeWe’s decision. Israeli hardliners call anything critical of their policies anti-Semitic – when made by Jews they’re ludicrously called self-hating.
Netanyahu raged, asking German officials to stop what he absurdly called a “total boycott,” ranting at his Sunday cabinet meeting as follows:
“This department store was under Jewish ownership. The Nazis took it. (N)ow this department store is marking products from settlements in Judah, Samaria and the Golan. It started with marking products, and now we have been told that they removed the products – a total boycott.”
“We protest this unacceptable step – unacceptable from an ethical point of view, substantively improper and historically invalid. We expect the German government, which came out against the labeling of products, to take action in this serious matter.”
Separately, he accused EU officials of mandating labeling for “the side being attacked by terror” – his usual blame the victim bluster.
He openly wears his racist extremism on one sleeve, his fascist credentials on the other. KaDeWe didn’t ban settlement products, as Netanyahu knows. They were pulled from shelves for re-labeling, according to mandated EU guidelines.
Germany’s government is over-the-top pro-Israeli. It’s long past time it stopped supporting a rogue regime in remembrance of Nazi crimes it had nothing to do with.
EU envoy to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, said comparisons to World War II era anti-Semitism were unwarranted. They cheapen the holocaust’s memory.
Whether intervention for Israel by German officials is forthcoming remains to be seen. Merkel’s CDU party called labeling “wrong,” stopping short of refusing to honor the new guidelines.
It bears repeating. Much tougher measures are needed. Slaps on the wrist accomplish nothing.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2015/11/palestinian-israeli-update11222015banni.html
