Norwegian City Boycotts Israeli Settlements

A banner reads “Recognize Palestine, Boycott Israel” during a May Day parade in Oslo this year.(Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills)

News Briefs

Elected representatives in Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, have voted to boycott goods and services from Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Trondheim’s city council has also called on the Norwegian national parliament to take a similar decision and urged the city’s residents to shun goods from Israeli settlements.

The Trondheim decision has been hailed as a victory for the Palestinian-led movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

“Although this is limited to occupied territories it is an important step forward for the BDS movement in Norway,” Kathrine Jensen, chair of the Palestine Committee of Norway, told The Electronic Intifada.

The Trondheim vote – taken on Thursday last week – was the result of a citizen’s initiative. Under that initiative, members of the public may put an item on the council’s agenda if they collect a sufficient number of signatures.

The initiative was undertaken by the Norwegian Union of Municipal and General Employees (known as the Fagforbundet).

imemc.org

Israeli politicians enthusiastically ally with the temple movement

by Alternative Information Center (AIC)

A conference of Israelis seeking to change al-Aqsa’s status quo takes place in parliament. A Temple Mount Lobby is born.

The tenth annual the Seekers of Zion conference was held in Israeli parliament on Monday, Haaretz reports.  

Israeli citizens and politicians gathered at the event to discuss and organize around altering al-Aqsa’s status quo. Participants also rallied around the creation of a new “Temple Mount Lobby” in the Israeli Knesset.

The Temple Mount, revered as al-Aqsa by Muslims, is a compound above the Western Wall in Jerusalem that includes the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque. Since the 1967 occupation, an agreement with Jordan has maintained that Jewish prayer takes place at the Western Wall plaza – which was built on the site of a Palestinian neighborhood destroyed by Israel in 1967– but not in al-Aqsa compound itself.

Settler, temple movement leader, and recently appointed Likud Member of Knesset (MK) Yehuda Glick organized the conference. Other Israeli politicians in attendance included Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Parliament speaker Yuli Edelstein, Agricultural Minister Uri Ariel, Deputy Minister of Defense Eli Ben-Dahan, Environmental Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin, Deputy Foreign Minister Tizipi Htovely, as well as MKs Amir Ohana, Anat Berko, and Shuli Mualem.

A few of the politicians took the stage to profess their support for Jewish prayer at al-Aqsa. 

“In my opinion, our right to the Temple Mount is unshakeable,” Erdan stated. Echoing Glick’s rhetoric of “apartheid” at al-Aqsa, Erdan added, “I have said many times, the current status quo at the Temple Mount discriminates against the Jewish people.”

When Ariel spoke to the audience, he insisted, “open the gates to the Temple Mount… End the disgrace, end the wretchedness, end the lack of sovereignty.”

“We have to call upon the government and Knesset to permit Jewish prayer, to make Jewish prayer something normal and permitted,” Ben-Dahan offered.

Hotovely urged, “everyone who has not ascended to the Temple Mount to visit the Temple Mount.”  

Right-wing Israeli activists partook in the conference as well. In attendance included Temple Mount joint council head Yaakov Heimann, settler Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, and leader of “Return to the Mount” Rafael Morris.

Morris connected imposing Israeli sovereignty over al-Aqsa to the establishment of so-called Greater Israel:

When we can say the Temple Mount is ours and only ours and there isn’t room there for anyone else, then we can be victorious in Amona, then we can conquer not only the Temple Mount but Jordan, and Syria, too, and establish a real Jewish state over all the land of Israel.

Mainstream Judaism perceives the reconstruction of a Jewish temple on al-Aqsa compound as not as an immediate task, but one meant for eschatological times, after the coming of the messiah. Most orthodox rabbis maintain that access to the site is prohibited for Jews until then.

But, there is a growing movement of Israelis that openly work to upend al-Aqsa’s status quo and force it open to Jewish prayer. Some even do so with the goal of building a Jewish temple there. Organizing Jewish tours with the intention of exceeding the “sightseeing” activities the status quo asks non-Muslims to adhere to is a key part of their effort. During the tours, participants attempt to utter Jewish prayers or walk barefoot at the site, at the same time as their armed Israeli police escorts exact violence and movement restrictions directed on Muslims and Palestinians.

Palestinians as well as the Jordanian Waqf that oversees the site say that though al-Aqsa’s status quo may appear contained to the rest of the world, Israeli police and settler conduct at have already changed it.

Settlements Aren’t an Obstacle to Peace says Top Trump Advisor

Jason Greenblatt, prospective advisor to Donald Trump on Israel, emboldens Israeli hopes of annexing the West Bank. 

~Sergio Yahni, Alternative Information Center (AIC)

The U.S. election results, on Wednesday, were welcomed with excitement in Israel.

Israeli minister of education Naftali Bennett (Habait Hayehudi) called the election of Donald Trump a once in a lifetime opportunity to end what remains of the Oslo Accords, as well as the prospect of a Palestinian state.

“A person has, in his life ,several opportunities to change its course,” Bennett’s Facebook post a day after the election began. He continued:

“However, opportunity… is not enough. We have to make decisions and act. Otherwise, this opportunity may be missed forever. The same happens in the life of a nation.

“It is time to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley, Ma’aleh Adumim, Gush Etzion, Ofra, Ariel and all Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria,” he clarified and concluded.

For Bennett, like many Israelis, Trump’s election compliments the so-called “the disintegration of the Arab-Muslim world” and thus supports the political conditions under which Israel can fulfill its yearning for annexation. This right-wing Israeli hope is nursed by the prospect that Jason Greenblatt will be Trump’s top advisor on Israel.

Greenblatt is a real estate attorney from Teaneck, New Jersey, who worked for Trump for the last 19 years on business matters, exclusively.

In an interview with the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Greenblatt admitted that he hasn’t met any Palestinians since he was a yeshiva student in the mid-1980s at Yeshivat Har Etzion – located in a West Bank settlement. He attests he “interacted” there with Palestinian laborers, gardeners and shopkeepers. He also did occasional armed guard duty for the settlement.

So, how does Greenblatt – a real estate attorney that hasn’t met a Palestinian since he studied in a settlement – keep up to date with current events in the region? Daily email alerts, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and a Jewish radio program with Malcolm Hoenlein.

“I also speak to people that I would say are involved in the Israeli government at certain levels and hear their thoughts,” Greenblatt added to his list of sources.

In a recent interview with the Israeli Army Radio station, on Monday, Greenblatt stoked Israeli settlers’ excitement by insisting that Trump does not view settlements as an obstacle to peace, nor does he believe Israeli settlement activity deserves condemnation.

“Trump does not view the settlements as being an obstacle to peace. It is certainly not Mr. Trump’s view that settlement activity should be condemned and that it is an obstacle for peace – because it is not the obstacle for peace.”

As Bennett and Greenblatt’s statements show, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent victory makes the contradiction between the leadership of the U.S. government and the concerns of average people around the world more acute.

Soon a Nobel Peace Prize winner who renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba at the same time as carrying out drone assassinations around the world will no longer be at the helm of the U.S. Instead, Trump will. And Trump, along with his team of advisors, represent a clear and dangerous attempt to imbue imperialism with a renewed sense of virility. For those of us in the Middle East, this is unequivocally bad news.

Israel Prepares to Build Thousands of Settlement Units Following Trump’s Victory

Israeli Public radio reported, Friday morning, that the Israeli occupation municipality of Jerusalem is to announce plans for building thousands of settlement units in different parts of the city, which had been frozen because of the international criticism of settlement activity, over the last three years.

PNN reports that, according to Israeli radio, the head of the local committee for construction in the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem, Meir Turgeman, announced that he intends to approve thousands of settlement housing units, especially those “exercised” by the current US Secretary of State, John Kerry.

Turgeman added that, among what will be announced are 3,000 housing units in the settlement of Gilo, 2,600 housing units in the settlement of Givat Hamatos, and 1,500 units in the Ramat Shlomo.

He expressed his hope that elected US President Donald Trump will contribute to immediate implementations of these frozen units.

The announcement came after those close to Trump reportedly said that the new President does not see Israeli settlement activity in Palestine as an obstacle to peace.

These statements, which have not been officially confirmed by the elected president or his associates, encouraged officials and ministers in the Israeli government to announce their intention to build new settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

181 Settlement Units to be Built in Jerusalem

Israeli occupation authorities are planning to build 181 new housing units in Jerusalem, next week, according to the Bilateral Committee for Planning and Municipal Building in the “Gilo” neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem.

According to the report published by Israeli Channel 2, last night, the approval was delayed in order not to affect a recently signed US “security support” agreement.

The newspaper pointed out that construction was stopped during the recent visit of US President Barack Obama to Israel, for Shimon Peres’ funeral.

Al Ray further reports that, after the declaration of the project, international condemnation is expected, especially from the European Union and the United States of America, who consider the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories.

Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestine are the Jewish civilian communities built on lands occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War. Such settlements currently exist in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and in the Golan Heights.

Settlements also existed in the Gaza Strip until Israel evacuated settlements in 2005, under Israel’s unilateral disengagement plan. Israel dismantled 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and 4 in the West Bank, in 2005, but continues to expand settlements and seize new areas in the West Bank in spite of the Oslo Accords, which specified in article 31 that neither side would take any step that would change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.

However, Israeli settlement expansion has continued unabated, despite being condemned by almost all other nations and the UN.

1600 Israeli Settlement Units to be Built in Occupied Golan

According to reports, the Israeli Finance Ministry has approved plans for the construction of 1,600 homes in the illegal Israeli settlement of Katzrin, in the occupied Syrian Golan. Katzrin is the largest Israeli settlement (population 8,000) in the Occupied Syrian Golan.

According to the PNN, it was built over the destroyed Syrian villages of Qasrin, Shqef and Sanawber, whose inhabitants were either forced to leave their homes by the Israeli army or were displaced by fighting, at the time of the Israeli occupation in 1967. Once the hostilities came to an end, the native inhabitants of these villages were forbidden from returning.

Israel began to establish settlements in occupied Golan within a month of the occupation. Today, there are approximately 23,000 Israeli settlers in the area, living in over 34 illegal settlements. The construction and expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan is illegal, under international law, and has been repeatedly condemned by the international community. Nonetheless, the Israeli government continues its policy of settlement expansion — indeed, only last year, the Israeli government announced plans for 100,000 new settlers to relocate to the region over the next five years.

Meanwhile, due to discriminatory land, housing and development policies, Syrian residential areas are severely overcrowded. As a result of severe restrictions imposed by Israeli planning committees, it is close to impossible for the native Syrian population, in the remaining Syrian villages of the Golan, to obtain building permits. Therefore, the people are forced to build homes without building permits, as this is the only way to meet their housing needs. Consequently, Syrian home owners run the risk that their home could be destroyed: as was the case with Mr. Bassam Ibrahim, whose home in the Syrian village of Majdal Shams was demolished by Israeli authorities last month. Currently, the Syrian owners of between 80 – 90 houses have been notified that their homes are also due to be demolished.

Al-Marsad, an independent, not-for-profit, legal human rights organisation – and the only human rights organization operating in the occupied Syrian Golan, had strongly condemned the plans, and called on the Israeli government to abide by its obligations under international law, stop all illegal settlement expansion, and end discriminatory housing and development policies targeting the native Syrian population in the occupied Syrian Golan.

In addition, Al-Marsad called on the international community to strongly condemn plans for the illegal construction, and act to ensure that Israel abides by its obligations under international law.