April 2021
Israel lobby interference in British politics
Asa Winstanley EI 9/04/2021
In a new book, Britain’s former deputy foreign minister Alan Duncan accuses the Israel lobby of “disgusting interference in our public life.”
Speaking to the Mail+ website this week Duncan said that lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel “interfere at a high level in British politics in the interest of Israel, on the back of donor power within the UK.” He told journalist Michael Crick that this is “a sort of buried scandal that has to stop.”
Duncan’s new book In The Thick of It was serialized by the Daily Mail this week. The book comprises his diaries from his time in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Duncan writes that Conservative Friends of Israel successfully vetoed his appointment as Middle East minister in 2016. Then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told him that Conservative Friends of Israel were “going ballistic” at the prospect, Duncan writes.
“It is for no other reason than that I believe in the rights of Palestinians and it’s quite clear that they don’t,” he adds. “They just want to belittle and subjugate the Palestinians.”
Duncan was instead appointed as minister of state for foreign affairs – effectively deputy to the foreign secretary. Duncan’s diary records that he was offered the role – which “they insist is the most serious portfolio” – because “everyone is very concerned that I might immediately resign and cause a massive stink about this outside interference” by the Israel lobby.
How “corrupt” British minister Priti Patel lied for Israel
Asa Winstanley EI 22/04/2021 . . .
In another section of the book – the diaries of his time in the Foreign Office – he excoriates Priti Patel, currently the British home secretary, as “compromised,” “deceitful,” “morally corrupt,” “contemptible” and “quite despicable.”
All these characterizations were used by Duncan to describe Patel’s relationship with Israel.
Patel was then the UK minister for international development, deciding how to dole out British aid money around the world – a form of “soft power.”
Duncan’s diary entries on Patel stand out, because they shed new light on a 2017 scandal Patel briefly but memorably caused for May’s government.
Now that Patel is back in power – indeed, she has been given a major promotion under Prime Minister Boris Johnson – it is worth looking closer at what Duncan wrote about her in his then-private, but now published diaries from 2017.
Priti Patel’s ministry did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Read more: How “corrupt” British minister Priti Patel lied for Israel | The Electronic Intifada
UK school textbooks on Middle East conflict altered to favour Israel
Middle East Eye 01/04/2021
The international publisher Pearson has paused further distribution of two textbooks used by UK high schools after a group of academics said in a report that they distorted the historical record and failed to offer pupils a balanced view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The report found that alterations had been made to text, timelines, maps and photographs, as well as to sample student essays and questions. It concluded that “school children should not be supplied with propaganda under the guise of education” and called for their immediate withdrawal.
Read more: UK textbooks on Middle East altered to favour Israel
Palestinian village becomes prison for residents
Taghreed Ali al Monitor 7/4/21
“Since its occupation in 1967, the village has turned into a large prison isolated from Jerusalem and the cities of the West Bank and surrounded by the settlements of Ramot Alon, Mafi Sirte, Nitzfi Tafouh, Har Samuel and Atarot. Ever since, its residents started to migrate to neighboring areas. The number of people who migrated reached 35,000.”
Kiswani noted, “The [Israeli] occupation controls the movement of residents entering and leaving the village through an Israeli checkpoint that is set up at the only entrance to the village, where residents are thoroughly inspected and their identity cards checked; the checkpoint gates close at 10 p.m.” . . .
“The Israeli restrictions are not limited to residents, as they also apply to commercial activity. Merchants are prevented from entering the village, and the [Israeli] occupation only allows in 40 gas cylinders per week for domestic use. There is only one health center in the village that is open until 2 p.m., so if a resident requires treatment in the evening hours, they must wait at the Israeli checkpoint to be given permission for treatment outside the village.
Israel throws dancer in prison
Ciaran Tierney EI 9/04/2021
The arrest, in February, and continued detention without charge of acclaimed dance choreographer Ata Khattab underlines just how threatening Palestinian culture and identity is considered by Israel’s occupation forces. Dance communities and rights groups across the globe are now calling for the release of Ata, who has been detained in a notorious Israeli prison since a raid on his West Bank home in the middle of the night on 2 February.
Family members and neighbors were awakened by the sound of Israeli soldiers breaking into his family home in al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and calling out Ata’s name at 4 am. The arrest of Ata, artistic coordinator with the world-renowned El-Funoun Palestinian Popular Dance Troupe, highlights how those who promote Palestinian culture are routinely targeted by the Israeli authorities, say family members and colleagues.
He’s the second generation of his family to be targeted in such a manner. His father, Muhammad Ata Khattab, was imprisoned when Ata was a child.
Two weeks ago, his family discovered that Ata had contracted Covid-19 after being held at the infamous Russian Compound detention center, despite having being kept in solitary confinement since the raid at his family home. . .
Read more: Threatened by cultural defiance, Israel throws dancer in prison | The Electronic Intifada
ICC – UK encourages lawlessness and undermines international order
UK Palestinian Mission 14/04/2021
The announcement by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a letter to the Conservative Friends of Israel that the UK opposes the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into war crimes by Israel is deeply regrettable. It marks a low point in UK-Palestine relations and undermines the UK’s credibility on the international stage.
The letter is a contradiction of international law. It is a contradiction of British policy. It subverts the rules-based global order. And it sets back efforts to secure a lasting and just peace in Palestine. It is clear that the UK now believes Israel is above the law. There is no other interpretation of a statement that gives carte blanche to Israel to continue its illegal settlement project in occupied territory, and signals to Israel that no matter its actions vis-à-vis the Palestinian people in occupied territory, it will not be held to account.
Disrupted photo archive of Gaza
al Monitor 17/04/2021
Alia Rady, the exhibition’s assistant curator, told Al-Monitor, “The Gaza Strip was not documented like other places in Palestine. Kegham was the first and only photographer in Gaza for a while, and his archive is, by far, the largest we have to date. I think this archive is [a] narration of a place that does not exist in the same way it did. It is a documentation of places and people that mostly do not exist anymore, and it is a visual to the stories we hear about the Gaza that we never saw.”
She added, “Kegham’s archive encompassed all aspects of Gaza: studio headshots, daily life, road trips, beach trips, picnics, landscapes, political and military figures, refugee camps. Whatever happened in Gaza, Kegham captured it.”
Read more: Disruputed photo archive of Gaza
Human Rights Watch – Israel guilty of apartheid
Maureen Clare Murphy EI 27/04/21
The International Criminal Court should investigate Israeli officials “implicated in the crimes against humanity of apartheid or persecution,” Human Rights Watch says in a report released on Tuesday.
In its paradigm-shifting study, the New York-based group calls for an approach centered on human rights and accountability rather than the long moribund “peace process” that has been the prevailing framework for decades.
Human Rights Watch has now joined a growing consensus finding that “Jewish supremacy” – in the words of the human rights group B’Tselem – is Israel’s “single organizing principle.”Israel has “pursued an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians throughout the territory it controls,” Human Rights Watch concludes. In the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, “the intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them.”
The combination of these three elements “amount to the crime of apartheid,” the group adds.
Read more: HRW: Israel commits crimes of apartheid and persecution | The Electronic Intifada
Sparks from Jerusalem rain on Gaza’s tinderbox
Hana Salah Mondoweiss 29/04/2021
One day after Palestinian factions threatened to launch a new round of violence against Israel, 36 rockets and mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip at settlements in southern Israel April 24. On April 25, five more rockets were fired from Gaza toward southern Israel. Israel responded by striking a number of Hamas military positions inside the Gaza Strip.
The rocket attacks are widely seen as connected to the clashes in Jerusalem that erupted after police set up iron barricades near Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate) in the city.
The clashes that broke out in Jerusalem in mid-April between Palestinians and Israeli police and extremist right-wing Jewish groups have led to one of the most violent rounds of escalation between Gaza and Israel in months after cross-border attacks had subsided.
In an April 24 press release, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Tor Wennesland said, “I am alarmed by the recent escalations in Jerusalem and around Gaza.” He called for ceasing the “provocative acts across Jerusalem” and urged an immediate cessation of “the indiscriminate launching of rockets towards Israeli population centers.”
Read more: Sparks from Jerusalem rain on Gaza’s tinderbox
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