Palestinian/ Israeli update 9/02/2016..struggle will inevitably be transformed from demanding independence into demanding equal rights
Retired Israeli general glorifies Palestine occupation
Why is Mahmoud Abbas boasting of jailing Palestine’s youth?
Charlotte Silver
Six men have launched a hunger strike after being arrested by secret police working for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
On Sunday, Basil al-Araj, Muhammad Harb, Haitham Siyaj, Muhammad al-Salameen, Ali Dar al-Sheikh and Seif al-Idrisi started refusing food to protest how they are being detained without charge or trial for indefinite periods.
They will consume nothing but water until they are released, their lawyer says.
According to Samidoun, a group supporting Palestinian prisoners, their detention has been repeatedly extended since they were first arrested at the end of March and the beginning of April. Samidoun has been in contact with the families of the six men.
Muhannad Karajah, a lawyer who is representing the prisoners, told The Electronic Intifada that the PA has not presented any charges against the six men. But a PA official has verbally made allegations against them. The allegations relate to their political activities.
Samidoun believes their arrest took place as part of Israel’s “security coordination” with the PA.
Al-Araj, Harb and Siyaj were picked up on 30 March and told they were just going to be brought in for questioning.
But they were kept for prolonged interrogations and subjected to various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, stress positions, beating and denial of access to toilets.
For ten days their families did not know where they were.
When their arrests were eventually announced, Israeli media reported they were suspected of planning a “large-scale” attack against Israelis.
Al-Salameen, Dar al-Sheikh and al-Idrisi were detained around the same time. The PA briefly detained a Palestinian student and left-wing activist, Kifah Quzmar, after he posted a comment on Facebook criticizing the detention of his friend and fellow activist, al-Idrisi.
Karajah believes the torture that was inflicted on the men at the beginning of their arrest stopped only after Addameer, a prisoner support group which he represents, and other human rights organizations intervened.
read more here……..Israel-PA cooperation
‘Dreams under siege’: Gaza women fight Israel ban to attend tech mentorship program in US
THE POLITICS OF WATER AND SEWAGE
https://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/inpalestine-the-politics-of-water-and-sewage/
West Bank villagers suffer from sewer politics
Abu Mazen Square has become a bit of a joke for Palestinian residents in the occupied West Bank town of Bruqin.
To understand why, it is imperative to delve into recent history.
Two years ago, the site of what is now a public square was an open cesspool. Wastewater pumped out of the nearby Israeli settlement Ariel, one of the largest in the West Bank. This wastewater mingled with overflow from nearby Salfit.
Salfit, a town of some 9,000 Palestinians, has spent the past 22 years trying to update its sewage management system, according to chief municipal engineer Saleh Afaneh, but has not been able to get the necessary permits from the Israeli military authorities. Consequently, wastewater has been flowing down freely, joining the natural stream that runs through Bruqin village.
The Salfit government has little power to reduce the amount of sewage entering Bruqin and the neighboring Palestinian village Kufr al-Dik, but it has supplied a few kilometers of pipeline to keep the mess underground in the most densely populated parts of the two towns.
While only four out of 15 planned kilometers of pipeline have been built so far, the Palestinian Authority took the opportunity to build a lavishly decorated new town square, dedicated to Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president, directly over the line, giving Bruqin’s local residents Abu Mazen Square. A kilometer away, the sewage continues to flow openly.
The story of Abu Mazen Square is an execrable reminder for many in Bruqin that their problems are being glossed over by the Palestinian Authority. While sewage leaks have plagued the village for years, the PA and its Ministry of Health have offered a minimal amount of relief, and have abandoned attempts to advocate for rural communities suffering from wastewater mismanagement.
The PA might claim that all is well, but beneath the surface the situation stinks.
read more here…….Sewer politics
Ghassan’s Prediction and the Emerging New Palestinian Reality
By James Zogby
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-emerging-new-palestinian-reality-ghassans-prediction/5543635
………..I have just finished reading a compelling Haaretz article ”Stop with the Nonsense that Palestinians Are a Minority In Israel”. The writer Gideon Levy argues that since Israel has refused to separate from the occupied territories and continues to entrench its settler colonies deeper into the heart of the West Bank and the Arab areas of what they call “Greater Jerusalem”, the “era of the two state solution [is drawing] to a close” and has been replaced by a de facto “bi-national state” in which the numbers of Jews and Arabs are roughly equal. In this new reality, Arabs are not a minority, they are half of the population.
If this is to remain the case, and I see no evidence that the Netanyahu government will change direction or that any outside power will compel them to do so, then the Palestinian struggle will inevitably be transformed from one demanding independence into a movement demanding equal rights. This will merely be an extension of the fight that the “inside” Palestinians have been waging for seven decades. If this is to be the case, we may well see the day when the Palestinian citizens of Israel will emerge, as Kanafani predicted, as the new leadership of a unified Palestinian community fighting for justice and equality.
Source: http://blogdogcicle.blogspot.com/2016/09/palestinian-israeli-update_2.html
