2 mar 2020
by Kathryn Shihadah
Israeli occupation authorities have permitted large pharmaceutical firms to experiment on Palestinian prisoners, and have been testing weapons on Palestinian children, a Hebrew University professor disclosed in a recent lecture series.
An Israeli professor disclosed in a recent lecture series at Columbia University that Israeli authorities have permitted large pharmaceutical firms to experiment on Palestinian prisoners, and have been testing weapons on Palestinian children.
Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at Israel’s Hebrew University, also presented in Amsterdam in January on the same topic.
Promotional material for the events describe her lecture as illustrating through “the voices and writings of Jerusalemite children who live under Occupation” that Israel’s practices of “surveying, imprisoning, torturing, and killing can be used as a laboratory for states, arms companies, and security agencies to market their technologies as ‘combat proven.’”
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s presentation was based on data she gathered for a research project for the university. The work, titled Arrested Childhood in Spaces of Indifference: The Criminalized Children of Occupied East Jerusalem, was published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law in 2018 and co-authored by Shahrazad Odeh, who is also on the Faculty of Law and Institute of Criminology at Hebrew University.
In the article, the authors demonstrate how Israel’s policy of targeting Palestinian children and childhood through the criminal justice system is fundamental to the state’s mechanism of colonial dispossession. They shed light on the critical role that the Israeli legal system plays in the state’s “racist project.”
Drug experiments on Palestinian prisoners
Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed in her lecture at Columbia University that Israeli occupation authorities issue permits to large pharmaceutical firms, which then carry out tests on Palestinian prisoners.
Telesur recalls that as far back as July 1997,
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported remarks for Dalia Itzik, chairman of a parliamentary committee, acknowledged that the Israeli Ministry of Health had given pharmaceutical firms permits to test their new drugs of inmates, noting that 5,000 tests had already been carried out.
The recent, well-publicized incident of the death of an Israeli prison inmate, Palestinian Fares Baroud, raised suspicions that he may have been a test subject. Israeli authorities refused to relinquish the body. Baroud suffered from a number of illnesses.
Weapons testing for profit
Shalhoub-Kevorkian also pointed out that Israeli military firms test weapons on Palestinian children in the Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem.
“Palestinian spaces are laboratories,” she explained. “The invention of products and services of state-sponsored security corporations are fueled by long-term curfews and Palestinian oppression by the Israeli army,” and “Israeli security industry [is] using them as showcases” to boost security technologies and weapon sales in the global market.
Hebrew University response
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem distanced itself from Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s claims, releasing a statement,
The views expressed by Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian don’t represent or express in any way the views of the Hebrew University or the university administration, but are her personal opinion that reflect only her views.
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law-Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary University of London. Her research focuses on law, society, and crimes of abuse of power.
She studies the crime of femicide and other forms of gendered violence, crimes of abuse of power in settler colonial contexts, surveillance, securitization and social control, and children, trauma, and recovery in militarized and colonized zones. Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a criminologist and specialist in human rights and women’s rights.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s most recent book is entitled: Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear,” published by Cambridge University Press. She also authored “Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East: The Palestinian Case Study” published by Cambridge University Press, 2010.
She has published articles in multi-disciplinary fields including British Journal of Criminology, International Review of Victimology, Feminism and Psychology, Middle East Law and Governance, International Journal of Lifelong Education, American Behavioral Scientist Journal, Social Service Review, Violence Against Women, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy: An International Forum, Social Identities, Social Science and Medicine, Signs, Law & Society Review, and more.
As a resident of the old city of Jerusalem, Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a prominent local activist. She engages in direct actions and critical dialogue to end the inscription of power over Palestinian children’s lives, spaces of death, and women’s birthing bodies and lives.
Kathryn Shihadah is staff writer for If Americans Knew. She blogs at Palestine Home.
Israeli occupation authorities have permitted large pharmaceutical firms to experiment on Palestinian prisoners, and have been testing weapons on Palestinian children, a Hebrew University professor disclosed in a recent lecture series.
An Israeli professor disclosed in a recent lecture series at Columbia University that Israeli authorities have permitted large pharmaceutical firms to experiment on Palestinian prisoners, and have been testing weapons on Palestinian children.
Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at Israel’s Hebrew University, also presented in Amsterdam in January on the same topic.
Promotional material for the events describe her lecture as illustrating through “the voices and writings of Jerusalemite children who live under Occupation” that Israel’s practices of “surveying, imprisoning, torturing, and killing can be used as a laboratory for states, arms companies, and security agencies to market their technologies as ‘combat proven.’”
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s presentation was based on data she gathered for a research project for the university. The work, titled Arrested Childhood in Spaces of Indifference: The Criminalized Children of Occupied East Jerusalem, was published in the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law in 2018 and co-authored by Shahrazad Odeh, who is also on the Faculty of Law and Institute of Criminology at Hebrew University.
In the article, the authors demonstrate how Israel’s policy of targeting Palestinian children and childhood through the criminal justice system is fundamental to the state’s mechanism of colonial dispossession. They shed light on the critical role that the Israeli legal system plays in the state’s “racist project.”
Drug experiments on Palestinian prisoners
Shalhoub-Kevorkian revealed in her lecture at Columbia University that Israeli occupation authorities issue permits to large pharmaceutical firms, which then carry out tests on Palestinian prisoners.
Telesur recalls that as far back as July 1997,
Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported remarks for Dalia Itzik, chairman of a parliamentary committee, acknowledged that the Israeli Ministry of Health had given pharmaceutical firms permits to test their new drugs of inmates, noting that 5,000 tests had already been carried out.
The recent, well-publicized incident of the death of an Israeli prison inmate, Palestinian Fares Baroud, raised suspicions that he may have been a test subject. Israeli authorities refused to relinquish the body. Baroud suffered from a number of illnesses.
Weapons testing for profit
Shalhoub-Kevorkian also pointed out that Israeli military firms test weapons on Palestinian children in the Palestinian neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem.
“Palestinian spaces are laboratories,” she explained. “The invention of products and services of state-sponsored security corporations are fueled by long-term curfews and Palestinian oppression by the Israeli army,” and “Israeli security industry [is] using them as showcases” to boost security technologies and weapon sales in the global market.
Hebrew University response
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem distanced itself from Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s claims, releasing a statement,
The views expressed by Prof. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian don’t represent or express in any way the views of the Hebrew University or the university administration, but are her personal opinion that reflect only her views.
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is the Lawrence D. Biele Chair in Law at the Faculty of Law-Institute of Criminology and the School of Social Work and Public Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a Global Chair in Law at Queen Mary University of London. Her research focuses on law, society, and crimes of abuse of power.
She studies the crime of femicide and other forms of gendered violence, crimes of abuse of power in settler colonial contexts, surveillance, securitization and social control, and children, trauma, and recovery in militarized and colonized zones. Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a criminologist and specialist in human rights and women’s rights.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s most recent book is entitled: Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear,” published by Cambridge University Press. She also authored “Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East: The Palestinian Case Study” published by Cambridge University Press, 2010.
She has published articles in multi-disciplinary fields including British Journal of Criminology, International Review of Victimology, Feminism and Psychology, Middle East Law and Governance, International Journal of Lifelong Education, American Behavioral Scientist Journal, Social Service Review, Violence Against Women, Journal of Feminist Family Therapy: An International Forum, Social Identities, Social Science and Medicine, Signs, Law & Society Review, and more.
As a resident of the old city of Jerusalem, Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a prominent local activist. She engages in direct actions and critical dialogue to end the inscription of power over Palestinian children’s lives, spaces of death, and women’s birthing bodies and lives.
Kathryn Shihadah is staff writer for If Americans Knew. She blogs at Palestine Home.
21 jan 2020
Billions of US taxpayers’ dollars will continue to be funneled into Israel in the next fiscal year, and for many years in the foreseeable future.
Republican and Democratic Senators have recently ensured just that, passing a bill aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in aid every year.
The Bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Chris Coons and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, was passed on 9 January, only one day after Iran struck US positions in Iraq. Enthusiasm to push the Bill forward was meant to be an assurance to Tel Aviv from Washington that the US is committed to Israel’s security and military superiority in the Middle East.
Despite a palpable sense of war fatigue among all Americans, regardless of their political leaning, their country continues to sink deeper into Middle East conflicts simply because it is unable – or perhaps unwilling — to challenge Israel’s benefactors across the US government. “What’s good for Israel is good for America” continues to be the supreme maxim within Washington’s political elites, despite the fact that such irrational thinking has wrought disasters on the Middle East as a whole, and is finally forcing a hasty and humiliating American retreat.
The latest aid package to Israel will officially put into law a “Memorandum of Understanding” that was reached between the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Barack Obama administration in 2016. At the time, Obama had offered Israel the largest military aid package in US history.
Senator Rubio explained the passing of the recent Bill in terms of the “unprecedented threats” that are supposedly faced by Israel. Coons, meanwhile, said that “the events of the past few days [the US-Iran escalation], were a stark reminder of the importance of US assistance to Israel’s security.”
What is particularly odd about Coons’ statement is the fact that it was not Israel, but US positions in Iraq that were struck by Iranian missiles, and that they were fired in response to the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Yet, the American taxpayers’ funding of Israel’s military adventures continues unabated, despite the rapidly changing political reality in the Middle East, and the shifting US role in the region. This confirms further that the blind US support of Israel is not motivated by a centralized, distinctly American, strategy that aims to serve US interests. Instead, the unconditional – and, often, self-defeating — US government funding of the Israeli war machine is linked largely to domestic American politics and, indeed, the unparalleled power wielded by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
According to the public policy research institute of the United States Congress, the Congressional Research Centre (CRS), between 1946 and 2019 (including the requested funds for 2020) US aid to Israel has exceeded $142 billion.
Most of this immense sum of money — over $101 billion — went directly to the Israeli military budget, while over $34 billion and $7 billion went to Israel in terms of economic aid and missile defense funding respectively.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the US no longer possesses a well-defined and centralized strategy in the Middle East; President Donald Trump changes American priorities from one speech or tweet to the next. However, the one consistent key phrase in whatever political agenda happens to be championed by Washington in the region at any particular time is: “Israel’s security”.
This precarious term seems to be linked to every American action pertaining to the Middle East, as it has for decades under every American administration, without exception. Wars have been launched or funded in the name of Israel’s security; human rights have been violated on a massive scale; the five-decade — and counting — military occupation of Palestine, the protracted siege of the impoverished Gaza Strip and much more, have all been carried out, defended and sustained in the name of Israel’s security.
US aid to Israel — the occupying state — continues, while all American aid to the Palestinians — the people under Israeli occupation — has been cut off, including the $300 million annual donations to the UN Agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The Agency has provided education, healthcare, and shelter for millions of refugees since 1949, but is now, bizarrely, seen by both Israel and the US as “an obstacle to peace”.
Inexplicably, Israel receives roughly “one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though (it) comprises just .001 percent of the world’s population and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes,” wrote Professor Stephen Zunes in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
This massive budget includes much more than the $3.3 billion of annual funding, but the other amounts and perks rarely make headlines. Anywhere between $500 million to $800 million is given to Israel every year as part of a missile defense package; an additional $1 billion benefits Israel in the form of tax-deductible donations, while $500 billion is invested in Israeli bonds.
Then there are the loan guarantees, where the US government assumes the responsibility for billions of dollars that Israel can access as a borrower from international creditors. If Israel defaults on its loans, it is the legal responsibility of the US government to offset the interest on the borrowed money.
Since 1982, Israel has been receiving US aid as a lump sum, as opposed to scheduled payments, as happens with other countries. To fulfill its self-imposed obligations to Israel, the US government borrows the money and is thus left to pay interest on the loans. “Israel even lends some of this money back through US treasury bills and collects the additional interest,” Zunes explained.
US relations with Israel are not governed by the kind of political wisdom that is predicated on mutual benefit. But they are not entirely irrational either, as the American ruling classes have aligned their interests, their perception of the Middle East and their country’s role in that region with that of Israel, thanks to years of media and official indoctrination.
Despite the fact that the US is retreating from the region, lacking strategy and future vision, lawmakers in Washington are congratulating themselves on passing yet another generous aid package to Israel. They feel proud of their great feat because, in their confused thinking, a ‘secured’ Israel is the only guarantor of US dominance in the Middle East. That is a theory that has been proven false, time and time again.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
Republican and Democratic Senators have recently ensured just that, passing a bill aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in aid every year.
The Bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Chris Coons and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, was passed on 9 January, only one day after Iran struck US positions in Iraq. Enthusiasm to push the Bill forward was meant to be an assurance to Tel Aviv from Washington that the US is committed to Israel’s security and military superiority in the Middle East.
Despite a palpable sense of war fatigue among all Americans, regardless of their political leaning, their country continues to sink deeper into Middle East conflicts simply because it is unable – or perhaps unwilling — to challenge Israel’s benefactors across the US government. “What’s good for Israel is good for America” continues to be the supreme maxim within Washington’s political elites, despite the fact that such irrational thinking has wrought disasters on the Middle East as a whole, and is finally forcing a hasty and humiliating American retreat.
The latest aid package to Israel will officially put into law a “Memorandum of Understanding” that was reached between the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Barack Obama administration in 2016. At the time, Obama had offered Israel the largest military aid package in US history.
Senator Rubio explained the passing of the recent Bill in terms of the “unprecedented threats” that are supposedly faced by Israel. Coons, meanwhile, said that “the events of the past few days [the US-Iran escalation], were a stark reminder of the importance of US assistance to Israel’s security.”
What is particularly odd about Coons’ statement is the fact that it was not Israel, but US positions in Iraq that were struck by Iranian missiles, and that they were fired in response to the killing of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.
Yet, the American taxpayers’ funding of Israel’s military adventures continues unabated, despite the rapidly changing political reality in the Middle East, and the shifting US role in the region. This confirms further that the blind US support of Israel is not motivated by a centralized, distinctly American, strategy that aims to serve US interests. Instead, the unconditional – and, often, self-defeating — US government funding of the Israeli war machine is linked largely to domestic American politics and, indeed, the unparalleled power wielded by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.
According to the public policy research institute of the United States Congress, the Congressional Research Centre (CRS), between 1946 and 2019 (including the requested funds for 2020) US aid to Israel has exceeded $142 billion.
Most of this immense sum of money — over $101 billion — went directly to the Israeli military budget, while over $34 billion and $7 billion went to Israel in terms of economic aid and missile defense funding respectively.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the US no longer possesses a well-defined and centralized strategy in the Middle East; President Donald Trump changes American priorities from one speech or tweet to the next. However, the one consistent key phrase in whatever political agenda happens to be championed by Washington in the region at any particular time is: “Israel’s security”.
This precarious term seems to be linked to every American action pertaining to the Middle East, as it has for decades under every American administration, without exception. Wars have been launched or funded in the name of Israel’s security; human rights have been violated on a massive scale; the five-decade — and counting — military occupation of Palestine, the protracted siege of the impoverished Gaza Strip and much more, have all been carried out, defended and sustained in the name of Israel’s security.
US aid to Israel — the occupying state — continues, while all American aid to the Palestinians — the people under Israeli occupation — has been cut off, including the $300 million annual donations to the UN Agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The Agency has provided education, healthcare, and shelter for millions of refugees since 1949, but is now, bizarrely, seen by both Israel and the US as “an obstacle to peace”.
Inexplicably, Israel receives roughly “one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though (it) comprises just .001 percent of the world’s population and already has one of the world’s higher per capita incomes,” wrote Professor Stephen Zunes in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
This massive budget includes much more than the $3.3 billion of annual funding, but the other amounts and perks rarely make headlines. Anywhere between $500 million to $800 million is given to Israel every year as part of a missile defense package; an additional $1 billion benefits Israel in the form of tax-deductible donations, while $500 billion is invested in Israeli bonds.
Then there are the loan guarantees, where the US government assumes the responsibility for billions of dollars that Israel can access as a borrower from international creditors. If Israel defaults on its loans, it is the legal responsibility of the US government to offset the interest on the borrowed money.
Since 1982, Israel has been receiving US aid as a lump sum, as opposed to scheduled payments, as happens with other countries. To fulfill its self-imposed obligations to Israel, the US government borrows the money and is thus left to pay interest on the loans. “Israel even lends some of this money back through US treasury bills and collects the additional interest,” Zunes explained.
US relations with Israel are not governed by the kind of political wisdom that is predicated on mutual benefit. But they are not entirely irrational either, as the American ruling classes have aligned their interests, their perception of the Middle East and their country’s role in that region with that of Israel, thanks to years of media and official indoctrination.
Despite the fact that the US is retreating from the region, lacking strategy and future vision, lawmakers in Washington are congratulating themselves on passing yet another generous aid package to Israel. They feel proud of their great feat because, in their confused thinking, a ‘secured’ Israel is the only guarantor of US dominance in the Middle East. That is a theory that has been proven false, time and time again.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
9 jan 2020
The legislation puts into law 'Memorandum of Understanding' reached between Israelis and Americans 4 years ago; the bill was rushed due to growing tensions in the Mideast and includes provision that bans boycotting Israel
Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Thursday to provide $3.3 billion in annual aid to Israel, seeking to put into law an aid agreement between the two countries reached in 2016 amid concern over rising Middle East tensions.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Coons co-sponsored the bill, a standalone provision of a broader measure that stalled a year ago.
The measure that stalled last year included some provisions broadly supported by members of both parties, including the aid, but it also included a plank that would have let state and local governments punish Americans for boycotting Israel.
Opponents, including many Democrats, saw that provision as an impingement of free speech.
Rubio and Coons introduced the bill amid increased tensions in the Middle East after President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Tehran retaliated with a missile attack on an Iraqi base housing U.S. soldiers.
On Thursday, the region remained on edge as Iran spurned Trump's call for a new nuclear pact and its commanders threatened more attacks.
The bill would put into law a "Memorandum of Understanding" reached between Israel and the Obama administration from four years ago that was the biggest pledge of U.S. military assistance made to any country.
In statements emailed to Reuters, Rubio said Israel faces "unprecedented threats" and Coons said: "The events of the past few days are a stark reminder of the importance of U.S. assistance to Israel's security."
Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Thursday to provide $3.3 billion in annual aid to Israel, seeking to put into law an aid agreement between the two countries reached in 2016 amid concern over rising Middle East tensions.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Coons co-sponsored the bill, a standalone provision of a broader measure that stalled a year ago.
The measure that stalled last year included some provisions broadly supported by members of both parties, including the aid, but it also included a plank that would have let state and local governments punish Americans for boycotting Israel.
Opponents, including many Democrats, saw that provision as an impingement of free speech.
Rubio and Coons introduced the bill amid increased tensions in the Middle East after President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Tehran retaliated with a missile attack on an Iraqi base housing U.S. soldiers.
On Thursday, the region remained on edge as Iran spurned Trump's call for a new nuclear pact and its commanders threatened more attacks.
The bill would put into law a "Memorandum of Understanding" reached between Israel and the Obama administration from four years ago that was the biggest pledge of U.S. military assistance made to any country.
In statements emailed to Reuters, Rubio said Israel faces "unprecedented threats" and Coons said: "The events of the past few days are a stark reminder of the importance of U.S. assistance to Israel's security."
6 jan 2020
Hike sees lawmakers' monthly salary rise to NIS 45,251, ministers' pay increases to NIS 50,623 - fourfold national average of NIS 11,000
Knesset members voted to raise their monthly salary by 2.8% starting January, despite more than a year of parliamentary inaction due to the political turmoil engulfing Israel.
A lawmaker's monthly pay was increased by NIS 1,232 ($354) per month to NIS 45,251 ($12,992), while ministers see their wages increased to NIS 50,623 ($14,535$) per month. The average national salary is approximately NIS 11,000, roughly one quarter of what lawmakers earn.
President Reuven Rivlin will also see an increase in his salary, receiving NIS 64,616 ($18,552) a month, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - who is currently seeking permission to solicit donations for his legal expenses - will see his monthly income grow to NIS 56,295 ($16,163).
Only 15 MKs asked to be excluded from the pay rise, including Yisrael Beytenu Leader Avigdor Liberman, Likud lawmaker Ofir Katz and Labor leader Amir Peretz.
Just five MKs from Blue & White declined the increase, despite the party's previous announcement that all of its lawmakers would refuse to receive the pay rise.
All 120 members of Knesset went on hiatus in December 2018 due to the April 2019 elections. Parliament was active for a mere total of two and a half months in 2019, due to Israel's major parties inability to form a government, the two national elections and the upcoming third ballot in March.
The 23rd Knesset is supposed to be inaugurated on March 16, two weeks after the elections. Members of Knesset go on recess for Passover soon after, returning in mid-May - all while receiving their monthly salary.
If a government is indeed formed after the March 2 elections, Knesset will be resuming work after a year and a half of inactivity during which MKs also received their monthly salary.
According to the National Insurance Institute, there are approximately 2 million Israelis living in poverty, including 800,000 children, while the stipend given to the elderly stands at NIS 1,554 ($446) a month.
Knesset members voted to raise their monthly salary by 2.8% starting January, despite more than a year of parliamentary inaction due to the political turmoil engulfing Israel.
A lawmaker's monthly pay was increased by NIS 1,232 ($354) per month to NIS 45,251 ($12,992), while ministers see their wages increased to NIS 50,623 ($14,535$) per month. The average national salary is approximately NIS 11,000, roughly one quarter of what lawmakers earn.
President Reuven Rivlin will also see an increase in his salary, receiving NIS 64,616 ($18,552) a month, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - who is currently seeking permission to solicit donations for his legal expenses - will see his monthly income grow to NIS 56,295 ($16,163).
Only 15 MKs asked to be excluded from the pay rise, including Yisrael Beytenu Leader Avigdor Liberman, Likud lawmaker Ofir Katz and Labor leader Amir Peretz.
Just five MKs from Blue & White declined the increase, despite the party's previous announcement that all of its lawmakers would refuse to receive the pay rise.
All 120 members of Knesset went on hiatus in December 2018 due to the April 2019 elections. Parliament was active for a mere total of two and a half months in 2019, due to Israel's major parties inability to form a government, the two national elections and the upcoming third ballot in March.
The 23rd Knesset is supposed to be inaugurated on March 16, two weeks after the elections. Members of Knesset go on recess for Passover soon after, returning in mid-May - all while receiving their monthly salary.
If a government is indeed formed after the March 2 elections, Knesset will be resuming work after a year and a half of inactivity during which MKs also received their monthly salary.
According to the National Insurance Institute, there are approximately 2 million Israelis living in poverty, including 800,000 children, while the stipend given to the elderly stands at NIS 1,554 ($446) a month.
5 jan 2020
Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) / Brazil
Wednesday, 50+ Brazilian groups won a victory for Palestinians and for demilitarizing Brazil, mobilizing opposition in Brazil’s Parliament to filibuster a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel. We salute them as this struggle continues into 2020.
We thank 50+ Brazilian groups that together frustrated Bolsonaro’s military alliance with apartheid Israel. Opposition in Brazil’s parliament successfully filibustered a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel, proposed by MP Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son.
The struggle will continue in 2020 to fully derail the agreements and end Brazil’s military ties with Israel. Brazilian movements stated that this cooperation fuels not only Israeli apartheid, but “more militarization and police violence, aggravating a reality that is already desperate, especially for blacks, young people and residents of the favelas.”
Tweet BDS movement@BDSmovement
Wednesday, 50+ Brazilian groups won a victory for Palestinians and for demilitarizing Brazil, mobilizing opposition in Brazil’s Parliament to filibuster a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel. We salute them as this struggle continues into 2020.
Wednesday, 50+ Brazilian groups won a victory for Palestinians and for demilitarizing Brazil, mobilizing opposition in Brazil’s Parliament to filibuster a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel. We salute them as this struggle continues into 2020.
We thank 50+ Brazilian groups that together frustrated Bolsonaro’s military alliance with apartheid Israel. Opposition in Brazil’s parliament successfully filibustered a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel, proposed by MP Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son.
The struggle will continue in 2020 to fully derail the agreements and end Brazil’s military ties with Israel. Brazilian movements stated that this cooperation fuels not only Israeli apartheid, but “more militarization and police violence, aggravating a reality that is already desperate, especially for blacks, young people and residents of the favelas.”
Tweet BDS movement@BDSmovement
Wednesday, 50+ Brazilian groups won a victory for Palestinians and for demilitarizing Brazil, mobilizing opposition in Brazil’s Parliament to filibuster a bill to strengthen military and scientific cooperation with Israel. We salute them as this struggle continues into 2020.
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