13 may 2018
Al-Quds Foundation in Malaysia has launched an informative webpage in Malay and English about the 1948 Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe).
Director of the foundation Sharif Abu Shammala stated that “the launch of the page comes on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba and the establishment of a Zionist entity called Israel on the land of Palestine, which resulted in the killing, displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people, as well as the occupation of 78 percent of the Palestinian territories.”
According to Abu Shammala, the pages talks briefly about the beginnings of the Zionist movement and the escalation of its danger under British protection as well as the systematic plan that was pursued to ethnically cleanse the native population from their land and the subsequent suffering that has afflicted the Palestinian people at home and abroad since then.
The English page can be accessed via the link:
Director of the foundation Sharif Abu Shammala stated that “the launch of the page comes on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba and the establishment of a Zionist entity called Israel on the land of Palestine, which resulted in the killing, displacement and genocide of the Palestinian people, as well as the occupation of 78 percent of the Palestinian territories.”
According to Abu Shammala, the pages talks briefly about the beginnings of the Zionist movement and the escalation of its danger under British protection as well as the systematic plan that was pursued to ethnically cleanse the native population from their land and the subsequent suffering that has afflicted the Palestinian people at home and abroad since then.
The English page can be accessed via the link:
11 may 2018
The US diplomatic delegation to Israel changed, this week, the location of the US Embassy, on Twitter, from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
“The name of the official account has been changed to the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and we are still looking for a suitable picture,” US embassy tweeted, according to Al Ray.
Last Monday, Israeli authorities put up banners with the words “American Embassy,” in the Arnona neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem, in preparation for the opening of the embassy next Monday, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba, when Israel established its official state.
US president Donald Trump declared on 6 December, 2017, occupied Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and revealed its intentions to move the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem on 14 May, 2018.
“The name of the official account has been changed to the US Embassy in Jerusalem, and we are still looking for a suitable picture,” US embassy tweeted, according to Al Ray.
Last Monday, Israeli authorities put up banners with the words “American Embassy,” in the Arnona neighborhood of occupied Jerusalem, in preparation for the opening of the embassy next Monday, which coincides with the 70th anniversary of Nakba, when Israel established its official state.
US president Donald Trump declared on 6 December, 2017, occupied Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and revealed its intentions to move the US embassy to occupied Jerusalem on 14 May, 2018.
9 may 2018
Israel’s alleged temple mount organizations have launched calls for stepping up sacrilegious break-ins at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque—the third holiest site in Islam.
A hashtag reading “2,000 on the Jerusalem Day” has been launched by Israeli fanatics on the occasion of the so-called “reunification of Jerusalem”, referring to the day when Israel grabbed hold over the city following the notorious 1967 Six-Day War, which culminated in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, in what is commonly referred to as the Nakba.
The Israeli organizations also distributed leaflets urging the Israeli masses to gradually intensify presence at al-Aqsa Mosque.
A hashtag reading “2,000 on the Jerusalem Day” has been launched by Israeli fanatics on the occasion of the so-called “reunification of Jerusalem”, referring to the day when Israel grabbed hold over the city following the notorious 1967 Six-Day War, which culminated in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, in what is commonly referred to as the Nakba.
The Israeli organizations also distributed leaflets urging the Israeli masses to gradually intensify presence at al-Aqsa Mosque.
7 may 2018
Israeli Knesset on Monday approved by a 55-14 a bill to deduct money paid to Palestinian prisoners by the Palestinian Authority from its monthly tax revenue.
The bill still needs to pass its second and third readings.
If the bill passes its second and third readings, it will allow Israel to deduct the sums of money given to Palestinian prisoners each month from the overall sum of tax revenues.
According to Israeli media, the bill also proposes that the Israeli cabinet be authorized to freeze the transfer of tax money under certain conditions.
In a tweet, Israel's Army Minister Avigdor Lieberman called to put an end to "the madness of us giving money to the Palestinian Authority so they can use it to encourage acts of terror against us."
The bill still needs to pass its second and third readings.
If the bill passes its second and third readings, it will allow Israel to deduct the sums of money given to Palestinian prisoners each month from the overall sum of tax revenues.
According to Israeli media, the bill also proposes that the Israeli cabinet be authorized to freeze the transfer of tax money under certain conditions.
In a tweet, Israel's Army Minister Avigdor Lieberman called to put an end to "the madness of us giving money to the Palestinian Authority so they can use it to encourage acts of terror against us."
4 may 2018
A Palestinian poet was convicted of "inciting violence" and "supporting a terrorist organization" by an Israeli court on Thursday for anti-occupation content she posted on social media.
Nazareth magistrates' court found Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian citizen, guilty over a poem titled "Resist, My People, Resist Them" posted on Facebook. Prosecutors claimed that the poem incited violence.
According to the Israeli indictment, Tatour also uploaded a video on her Facebook and YouTube accounts that shows footage of Palestinians throwing stones at the Israeli army troops, with her reading in the background of her "Resist, My People, Resist Them" poem.
Analysts argued the poem had been misinterpreted by Israeli translators, that the content was "artistic expression" rather than a call to violence, and that the Israeli charges ran counter to the freedom of expression.
"The verdict violates the right of speech and freedom of expression. It is an infringement on cultural rights of the Palestinian minority inside Israel. It would lead to self-censorship and self-criminalization of poetry," her lawyer told reporters.
Tatour said after the verdict that her trial "ripped off the masks" of Israeli democracy and justice.
"The whole world will hear my story. The whole world will hear what Israel's democracy is a democracy for Jews only. Only Arabs go to jail. The court said I am convicted of terrorism. If that's my terrorism, I give the world a terrorism of love," she said.
In an interview before the verdict, Tatour told Middle East Eye she had already spent two and a half years flitting between custody and house arrest.
She said Israeli interrogators initially had little to question her about.
"First, they accused me of incitement based on a poster I posted in 2014, which contained the words "I'm the next martyr". The martyrs are the victims of the Israeli occupation, who are being shot by soldiers," Tatour said. "The accusation was weak, so they dug into my Facebook and found the poem."
"Here, they interpreted a line in the poem that says 'Resist, my people, resist them, Resist the settler’s robbery, And follow the caravan of martyrs' - as inciting people to be killed and be martyrs," she said.
PEN International strongly condemned the decision of the Nazareth Magistrate's Court to convict Tatour of ‘support for a terrorist organization’ and ‘incitement to violence’.
PEN International President Jennifer Clement, who met Dareen Tatour at her home in Nazareth last year, said: “Dareen Tatour has been convicted for doing what writers do every day – we use our words to peacefully challenge injustice. I was incredibly honored to meet Dareen at her home last year and PEN will continue to call for justice in this case.”
PEN said it believes that Dareen Tatour was targeted for her poetry and peaceful activism and vowed to continue campaigning for her immediate release and for the charges against her to be dropped.
Tatour was arrested on 11 October 2015, about a week after she published her poem.
Tatour was arrested for three months and was interrogated five times by Israeli officers. Each interrogation lasted five to six hours, she told the MEE.
In January 2016 Tatour was released, after being fitted with an ankle monitor, to a house arrest for six months at the home of her brother in Kiryat Ono neighborhood in Tel Aviv.
"They considered me a danger for Israelis, but when they dictated the location of my house arrest, they could not find a place more Israeli than Tel Aviv to do that. I find this ironic," she said.
She added that the house arrest was a harsh experience.
Far from her family in Reineh village, she was not allowed to use a mobile phone or the internet or even to publish texts in the media. After four months of house arrest, she was allowed to leave the house for two hours on weekends, if accompanied by a relative.
More than 150 American literary figures have also called for Israel to free Tatour, including nine Pulitzer Prize winners. The list included Alice Walker, along with Claudia Rankine, Naomi Klein and Jacqueline Woodson.
Nazareth magistrates' court found Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian citizen, guilty over a poem titled "Resist, My People, Resist Them" posted on Facebook. Prosecutors claimed that the poem incited violence.
According to the Israeli indictment, Tatour also uploaded a video on her Facebook and YouTube accounts that shows footage of Palestinians throwing stones at the Israeli army troops, with her reading in the background of her "Resist, My People, Resist Them" poem.
Analysts argued the poem had been misinterpreted by Israeli translators, that the content was "artistic expression" rather than a call to violence, and that the Israeli charges ran counter to the freedom of expression.
"The verdict violates the right of speech and freedom of expression. It is an infringement on cultural rights of the Palestinian minority inside Israel. It would lead to self-censorship and self-criminalization of poetry," her lawyer told reporters.
Tatour said after the verdict that her trial "ripped off the masks" of Israeli democracy and justice.
"The whole world will hear my story. The whole world will hear what Israel's democracy is a democracy for Jews only. Only Arabs go to jail. The court said I am convicted of terrorism. If that's my terrorism, I give the world a terrorism of love," she said.
In an interview before the verdict, Tatour told Middle East Eye she had already spent two and a half years flitting between custody and house arrest.
She said Israeli interrogators initially had little to question her about.
"First, they accused me of incitement based on a poster I posted in 2014, which contained the words "I'm the next martyr". The martyrs are the victims of the Israeli occupation, who are being shot by soldiers," Tatour said. "The accusation was weak, so they dug into my Facebook and found the poem."
"Here, they interpreted a line in the poem that says 'Resist, my people, resist them, Resist the settler’s robbery, And follow the caravan of martyrs' - as inciting people to be killed and be martyrs," she said.
PEN International strongly condemned the decision of the Nazareth Magistrate's Court to convict Tatour of ‘support for a terrorist organization’ and ‘incitement to violence’.
PEN International President Jennifer Clement, who met Dareen Tatour at her home in Nazareth last year, said: “Dareen Tatour has been convicted for doing what writers do every day – we use our words to peacefully challenge injustice. I was incredibly honored to meet Dareen at her home last year and PEN will continue to call for justice in this case.”
PEN said it believes that Dareen Tatour was targeted for her poetry and peaceful activism and vowed to continue campaigning for her immediate release and for the charges against her to be dropped.
Tatour was arrested on 11 October 2015, about a week after she published her poem.
Tatour was arrested for three months and was interrogated five times by Israeli officers. Each interrogation lasted five to six hours, she told the MEE.
In January 2016 Tatour was released, after being fitted with an ankle monitor, to a house arrest for six months at the home of her brother in Kiryat Ono neighborhood in Tel Aviv.
"They considered me a danger for Israelis, but when they dictated the location of my house arrest, they could not find a place more Israeli than Tel Aviv to do that. I find this ironic," she said.
She added that the house arrest was a harsh experience.
Far from her family in Reineh village, she was not allowed to use a mobile phone or the internet or even to publish texts in the media. After four months of house arrest, she was allowed to leave the house for two hours on weekends, if accompanied by a relative.
More than 150 American literary figures have also called for Israel to free Tatour, including nine Pulitzer Prize winners. The list included Alice Walker, along with Claudia Rankine, Naomi Klein and Jacqueline Woodson.
2 may 2018
Shooting practice at an Israeli school: targets set up by police depicted figures wearing the Palestinian kuffiyeh headdress.
Israeli police planned to teach children how to shoot at Palestinians as part of a training exercise in a school.
The incident in the Menashe Regional Council, near Haifa in northern present-day Israel, was brought to light in recent days when Palestinian citizens of Israel took photos of what was happening.
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament from the Joint Arab List, is demanding an investigation into the training sponsored by the Israeli police and the education ministry, which he said “prepares students psychologically to kill Arabs.”
One photo shows a person – most of their body blurred with a black marker – using a paintball gun to fire at cutouts of men and women wearing checkered kuffiyeh headscarves that are associated with Palestinians.
Zahalka made his demand in a letter to public security minister Gilad Erdan, according to the publication Arab48.
The activity in Menashe Regional Council is part of widespread training of children by police in Israeli schools, according to Arab48.
In 2011, the newspaper Haaretz reported on how a group of Israeli high school students from Herzliya took part in a simulated shooting attack at a military base “in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab kuffiyeh headdress.”
One source told Haaretz that the exercise, which was also supported by the education ministry, was tantamount to “educating toward hatred of Arabs.”
The training in the Menashe Regional Council school is also reminiscent of an incident last year in which Israeli police put on a demonstration for a group of fifth-graders for how to “confirm a kill” – in other words how to perpetrate an extrajudicial execution.
Early this year, American comedian Jerry Seinfeld visited a training center in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank where tourists are given demonstrations on how to kill Arabs.
And in a disturbing parallel in 2015, police in North Miami Beach, Florida, were found to be using photos of African American men for target practice at a shooting range.
Separate and unequal
Zahalka noted that the incident occurred in Menashe Regional Council, which bills itself as a paragon of coexistence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. They are the survivors and their descendants of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Unlike Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, they hold Israeli citizenship and a right to vote, but nonetheless live under dozens of laws that discriminate against them because they are not Jewish.
Israel operates a separate and unequal school system for Jewish and Arab students.
Anti-Arab incitement and indoctrination is endemic in schools for Jewish children from the earliest grades.
Proud to kill
The Israeli police said that the targets in the Menashe Regional Council school had been set up as part of an activity day to teach children “about good citizenship” and that to “engender interest among participants, a paint gun station was erected.”
“Before the activity began, the activity’s commanders and the school staff noticed the matter and hid the images, and no children saw them during the activity itself,” the police claimed.
The education ministry also called the use of the targets, according to the publication Ynet, a “serious mishap.”
Zahalka also wrote to Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett calling for those responsible for organizing the shooting training to be punished.
He stated that it was unacceptable for the ministry to merely cancel the activity without seeking accountability, and to try to shift the blame to the police alone.
Zahalka quipped that had a similar activity taken place in a school run by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “would have demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council.”
Nadav Perez-Vaisvidovsky, an Israeli college lecturer, expressed shock at the training, tweeting, “This is the type of thing you see in history books and wonder how it could be allowed to go on.”
Yet this is only a small part of what the so-called international community is allowing Israel to do with impunity.
The European Union, for instance, which never ceases to issue reminders of the importance of learning “lessons from the past,” is currently pretending not to see how Israel is deliberately massacring unarmed civilians besieged in the Gaza Strip.
And there is little chance of accountability, since the incitement comes from the top, with Israeli ministers regularly calling for or applauding extrajudicial executions.
Naftali Bennett, the education minister, himself notoriously declared in 2013, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
Ending complicity
Last December, Belgium’s KU Leuven university announced that it would end its role in an EU-funded “research” project carried out in partnership with Israeli police.
“The participation of the Israeli public security ministry indeed poses an ethical problem taking into account the role which the strong arm of the Israeli government plays in enforcing an unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories and the associated repression of the Palestinian population,” university rector Luc Sels explained.
In light of Israel’s ongoing premeditated killing and maiming of unarmed protesters in Gaza, Palestinian activists recently renewed their calls for an international arms embargo on Israel, including a ban on cooperation and joint training with Israel’s police and military.
In a major victory for this campaign, Durham, North Carolina, recently became the first city in the US to pass such a ban.
“What the Israeli police did is not that unusual, especially in the current atmosphere of racism against Arabs,” Zahalka wrote.
“In any case, the Israeli police do not require such an atmosphere as their record is full of disregard for the lives of Arab citizens, whom they continue to treat as enemies and not as citizens.”
Zahalka concluded that firing on cutouts of Arab citizens “falls within the racist policies of Netanyahu and his government, and therefore everyone is called upon to confront this racism until it is defeated.”
Israeli police planned to teach children how to shoot at Palestinians as part of a training exercise in a school.
The incident in the Menashe Regional Council, near Haifa in northern present-day Israel, was brought to light in recent days when Palestinian citizens of Israel took photos of what was happening.
Jamal Zahalka, a member of the Israeli parliament from the Joint Arab List, is demanding an investigation into the training sponsored by the Israeli police and the education ministry, which he said “prepares students psychologically to kill Arabs.”
One photo shows a person – most of their body blurred with a black marker – using a paintball gun to fire at cutouts of men and women wearing checkered kuffiyeh headscarves that are associated with Palestinians.
Zahalka made his demand in a letter to public security minister Gilad Erdan, according to the publication Arab48.
The activity in Menashe Regional Council is part of widespread training of children by police in Israeli schools, according to Arab48.
In 2011, the newspaper Haaretz reported on how a group of Israeli high school students from Herzliya took part in a simulated shooting attack at a military base “in which the targets were figures decked out with the Arab kuffiyeh headdress.”
One source told Haaretz that the exercise, which was also supported by the education ministry, was tantamount to “educating toward hatred of Arabs.”
The training in the Menashe Regional Council school is also reminiscent of an incident last year in which Israeli police put on a demonstration for a group of fifth-graders for how to “confirm a kill” – in other words how to perpetrate an extrajudicial execution.
Early this year, American comedian Jerry Seinfeld visited a training center in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank where tourists are given demonstrations on how to kill Arabs.
And in a disturbing parallel in 2015, police in North Miami Beach, Florida, were found to be using photos of African American men for target practice at a shooting range.
Separate and unequal
Zahalka noted that the incident occurred in Menashe Regional Council, which bills itself as a paragon of coexistence between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
There are approximately 1.5 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. They are the survivors and their descendants of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
Unlike Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, they hold Israeli citizenship and a right to vote, but nonetheless live under dozens of laws that discriminate against them because they are not Jewish.
Israel operates a separate and unequal school system for Jewish and Arab students.
Anti-Arab incitement and indoctrination is endemic in schools for Jewish children from the earliest grades.
Proud to kill
The Israeli police said that the targets in the Menashe Regional Council school had been set up as part of an activity day to teach children “about good citizenship” and that to “engender interest among participants, a paint gun station was erected.”
“Before the activity began, the activity’s commanders and the school staff noticed the matter and hid the images, and no children saw them during the activity itself,” the police claimed.
The education ministry also called the use of the targets, according to the publication Ynet, a “serious mishap.”
Zahalka also wrote to Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett calling for those responsible for organizing the shooting training to be punished.
He stated that it was unacceptable for the ministry to merely cancel the activity without seeking accountability, and to try to shift the blame to the police alone.
Zahalka quipped that had a similar activity taken place in a school run by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “would have demanded a meeting of the UN Security Council.”
Nadav Perez-Vaisvidovsky, an Israeli college lecturer, expressed shock at the training, tweeting, “This is the type of thing you see in history books and wonder how it could be allowed to go on.”
Yet this is only a small part of what the so-called international community is allowing Israel to do with impunity.
The European Union, for instance, which never ceases to issue reminders of the importance of learning “lessons from the past,” is currently pretending not to see how Israel is deliberately massacring unarmed civilians besieged in the Gaza Strip.
And there is little chance of accountability, since the incitement comes from the top, with Israeli ministers regularly calling for or applauding extrajudicial executions.
Naftali Bennett, the education minister, himself notoriously declared in 2013, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”
Ending complicity
Last December, Belgium’s KU Leuven university announced that it would end its role in an EU-funded “research” project carried out in partnership with Israeli police.
“The participation of the Israeli public security ministry indeed poses an ethical problem taking into account the role which the strong arm of the Israeli government plays in enforcing an unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories and the associated repression of the Palestinian population,” university rector Luc Sels explained.
In light of Israel’s ongoing premeditated killing and maiming of unarmed protesters in Gaza, Palestinian activists recently renewed their calls for an international arms embargo on Israel, including a ban on cooperation and joint training with Israel’s police and military.
In a major victory for this campaign, Durham, North Carolina, recently became the first city in the US to pass such a ban.
“What the Israeli police did is not that unusual, especially in the current atmosphere of racism against Arabs,” Zahalka wrote.
“In any case, the Israeli police do not require such an atmosphere as their record is full of disregard for the lives of Arab citizens, whom they continue to treat as enemies and not as citizens.”
Zahalka concluded that firing on cutouts of Arab citizens “falls within the racist policies of Netanyahu and his government, and therefore everyone is called upon to confront this racism until it is defeated.”
26 apr 2018
Bayit Yehudi lawmaker tweets Palestinian teen provocateur convicted of assaulting IDF soldiers should have been shot in knee to restore deterrence; ban did him a service, he says, in getting his message out to exponentially more people.
Bayit Yehudi MK Betzalel Smotrich's Twitter account was blocked for 12 hours after he tweeted that Palestinian teenager and convicted felon Ahed Tamimi should have been shot. Tamimi was sentenced to eight months in prison for her part in a scuffle with IDF soldiers late last year.
In a response to journalist Yinon Magal, who expressed his relief over Tamimi's arrest, Smotrich wrote he would rather have seen her shot by the soldier she attacked.
"In my opinion, she should have been shot, at least in the kneecap. It would have put her in house arrest for life," Smotrich tweeted.
The MK then received a message from Twitter, reading: "We've temporarily restricted some of your account features, so you still have the ability to browse Twitter, but you're only limited to sending direct messages to your followers."
His ban was a warning, lasting only 12 hours.
Nevertheless, Smotrich called the ban "a new record of stifling of speech," claiming that "freedom of expression is reserved only for one side of the political map," meaning the Left.
"I stand behind every word of this tweet and the explanation for it was written extensively (Tuesday) on my Facebook page," he added.
In his post on Facebook, Smotrich explained that actions such as Tamimi's could erode the IDF's power of deterrence, thereby causing further harm to Israeli citizens. Therefore, he opined, her actions should have been dealt with quickly and harshly.
The MK wrote, "When children ... are not afraid to confront the soldiers, the deterrence of the IDF disappears (if children are not afraid then certainly older terrorists will not), and then we get stabbing and shooting attacks by lone terrorists that there is no way to prevent (because the infrastructure to gather intelligence in advance does not exist).
"So an event like the one filmed in the video is a serious and dangerous event whose consequences are murder and injury.
"In order to prevent the next murder, it is very justified to act in any way to restore the IDF's deterrence against the terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Were it up to me, each encounter would end with a sharp and painful decision. After a few of them are confined to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives, there are likely to be fewer who dare to do so and deterrence will be restored."
Smotrich provided further comment on the matter in a Ynet studio interview earlier this week, in which he stated his temporary Twitter ban only helped get his message out to a wider audience.
Asked whether he regretted the tweet in retrospect, the lawmaker said he absolutely did not and that he stood behind every word. "It should be remembered the IDF's defensive ability is predicated on deterrence, which can be achieved in a variety of ways—partly through concluding encounters between an enemy and our forces in a sharp, painful decision."
Smotrich was pressed whether a slap in the face truly justified being shot, to which he reiterated that such photos and videos "seriously eroded" the IDF's deterrent capabilities. "When Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Judea and Samaria terrorists see images like that, deterrence is eroded," he explained.
"When a girl isn't afraid, an adult man will not be afraid to take a car and run over soldiers or a knife and stab someone at a bus stop," he added.
Confronted with the morality of such actions, their efficacy in restoring deterrence aside, the MK said the jeopardy to morality was "arguable," adding he considered Tamimi a terrorist that harms the state's security and endangers its citizens rather than an "innocent teenager guilty of mischief."
Smotrich also claimed during the interview that Tamimi—16 at the time of the incident—should not be considered a girl or even a teenager. "If Ahed Tamimi was walking around with an explosive vest at her age, would you still call her a girl or a teenager?" he wondered.
"I think her and her friends' actions are perpetrated continuously and issue to the world images that highly erode the IDF's deterrent power, and are therefore a type of terrorist attack," he opined.
Interviewers then asked Smotrich whether someone disseminating anti-IDF propaganda is also carrying out a terrorist attack and should be shot. "What Tamimi did certainly does not fall under freedom of speech, I hope," he replied. "She's at war with us. She supports terrorism, wants terrorism and calls for terrorism against IDF soldiers."
His response prompted the interviewers to wonder how such actions serve Israel's interests in the Western world. "The world should be told there is a violent struggle between peoples here—with one side seeking to annihilate the other," the MK answered.
"The service I seek to provide is to prevent soldiers from going into a situation in which they are beaten, cursed at and humiliated without being able to respond. They interest me a lot more than what someone in London thinks," he stated.
Concluding the interview, Smotrich was asked whether he intended to change anything about this tweets now that he had been temporarily banned once. Offering quite an opposite response, the lawmaker said he owed Twitter "a bouquet of flowers."
"The fact they acted as bullies and stifled speech is mostly an embarrassment to them. Only a handful of people defended the move. Most people—from both the Left and the Right—thought this was a serious injury to freedom of speech, especially of MKs," he claimed.
"The end result is that many more Israelis were exposed to my position on the matter. I have 80,000 Twitter followers, and welcome any new ones. I think many more people saw it on other media outlets. They ended up doing me a service," he said contently.
Bayit Yehudi MK Betzalel Smotrich's Twitter account was blocked for 12 hours after he tweeted that Palestinian teenager and convicted felon Ahed Tamimi should have been shot. Tamimi was sentenced to eight months in prison for her part in a scuffle with IDF soldiers late last year.
In a response to journalist Yinon Magal, who expressed his relief over Tamimi's arrest, Smotrich wrote he would rather have seen her shot by the soldier she attacked.
"In my opinion, she should have been shot, at least in the kneecap. It would have put her in house arrest for life," Smotrich tweeted.
The MK then received a message from Twitter, reading: "We've temporarily restricted some of your account features, so you still have the ability to browse Twitter, but you're only limited to sending direct messages to your followers."
His ban was a warning, lasting only 12 hours.
Nevertheless, Smotrich called the ban "a new record of stifling of speech," claiming that "freedom of expression is reserved only for one side of the political map," meaning the Left.
"I stand behind every word of this tweet and the explanation for it was written extensively (Tuesday) on my Facebook page," he added.
In his post on Facebook, Smotrich explained that actions such as Tamimi's could erode the IDF's power of deterrence, thereby causing further harm to Israeli citizens. Therefore, he opined, her actions should have been dealt with quickly and harshly.
The MK wrote, "When children ... are not afraid to confront the soldiers, the deterrence of the IDF disappears (if children are not afraid then certainly older terrorists will not), and then we get stabbing and shooting attacks by lone terrorists that there is no way to prevent (because the infrastructure to gather intelligence in advance does not exist).
"So an event like the one filmed in the video is a serious and dangerous event whose consequences are murder and injury.
"In order to prevent the next murder, it is very justified to act in any way to restore the IDF's deterrence against the terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Were it up to me, each encounter would end with a sharp and painful decision. After a few of them are confined to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives, there are likely to be fewer who dare to do so and deterrence will be restored."
Smotrich provided further comment on the matter in a Ynet studio interview earlier this week, in which he stated his temporary Twitter ban only helped get his message out to a wider audience.
Asked whether he regretted the tweet in retrospect, the lawmaker said he absolutely did not and that he stood behind every word. "It should be remembered the IDF's defensive ability is predicated on deterrence, which can be achieved in a variety of ways—partly through concluding encounters between an enemy and our forces in a sharp, painful decision."
Smotrich was pressed whether a slap in the face truly justified being shot, to which he reiterated that such photos and videos "seriously eroded" the IDF's deterrent capabilities. "When Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Judea and Samaria terrorists see images like that, deterrence is eroded," he explained.
"When a girl isn't afraid, an adult man will not be afraid to take a car and run over soldiers or a knife and stab someone at a bus stop," he added.
Confronted with the morality of such actions, their efficacy in restoring deterrence aside, the MK said the jeopardy to morality was "arguable," adding he considered Tamimi a terrorist that harms the state's security and endangers its citizens rather than an "innocent teenager guilty of mischief."
Smotrich also claimed during the interview that Tamimi—16 at the time of the incident—should not be considered a girl or even a teenager. "If Ahed Tamimi was walking around with an explosive vest at her age, would you still call her a girl or a teenager?" he wondered.
"I think her and her friends' actions are perpetrated continuously and issue to the world images that highly erode the IDF's deterrent power, and are therefore a type of terrorist attack," he opined.
Interviewers then asked Smotrich whether someone disseminating anti-IDF propaganda is also carrying out a terrorist attack and should be shot. "What Tamimi did certainly does not fall under freedom of speech, I hope," he replied. "She's at war with us. She supports terrorism, wants terrorism and calls for terrorism against IDF soldiers."
His response prompted the interviewers to wonder how such actions serve Israel's interests in the Western world. "The world should be told there is a violent struggle between peoples here—with one side seeking to annihilate the other," the MK answered.
"The service I seek to provide is to prevent soldiers from going into a situation in which they are beaten, cursed at and humiliated without being able to respond. They interest me a lot more than what someone in London thinks," he stated.
Concluding the interview, Smotrich was asked whether he intended to change anything about this tweets now that he had been temporarily banned once. Offering quite an opposite response, the lawmaker said he owed Twitter "a bouquet of flowers."
"The fact they acted as bullies and stifled speech is mostly an embarrassment to them. Only a handful of people defended the move. Most people—from both the Left and the Right—thought this was a serious injury to freedom of speech, especially of MKs," he claimed.
"The end result is that many more Israelis were exposed to my position on the matter. I have 80,000 Twitter followers, and welcome any new ones. I think many more people saw it on other media outlets. They ended up doing me a service," he said contently.
25 apr 2018
Israel’s alleged Temple Mount organizations have launched calls for mass break-ins into Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque—the third holiest site in Islam—on May 13.
Leaflets circulated on social media networks by the Temple Mount groups urged Israeli settlers to collectively defile al-Aqsa Mosque on the so-called "Jerusalem Day", in reference to the day when Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem city.
Last year, similar break-ins carried out by Israel’s settler hordes into al-Aqsa fueled tension across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Over recent days, Israeli police stepped up crackdowns against the Muslim guards and staff at al-Aqsa Mosque, banning at least six from the site for periods ranging from 15 days to six months.
May 30, 2018, marks the 51st anniversary of Israel’s takeover of Jerusalem’s eastern part following the 1967 war, known as the Naksa Day, as it has resulted in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
Leaflets circulated on social media networks by the Temple Mount groups urged Israeli settlers to collectively defile al-Aqsa Mosque on the so-called "Jerusalem Day", in reference to the day when Israel occupied the eastern part of Jerusalem city.
Last year, similar break-ins carried out by Israel’s settler hordes into al-Aqsa fueled tension across the occupied Palestinian territories.
Over recent days, Israeli police stepped up crackdowns against the Muslim guards and staff at al-Aqsa Mosque, banning at least six from the site for periods ranging from 15 days to six months.
May 30, 2018, marks the 51st anniversary of Israel’s takeover of Jerusalem’s eastern part following the 1967 war, known as the Naksa Day, as it has resulted in the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes.
