Armed Israeli Settlers Parade in West Bank Town

BETHLEHEM, December 30, 2011 (WAFA) – Around 200 armed Israeli settlers paraded in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem Friday morning and walked around the convention center and nearby Solomon’s Pools, said local activists.

Awad Abu Sway, member of the local anti-settlements committee, said the settlers, protected by Israeli soldiers, took pictures of the convention center and the pools and held prayers in the area.

The settlers then left the area and went to another neighborhood of al-Khader, where a settlement outpost was erected.

Another area activist, Ahmad Salah, said settlers have increased their activities in that area of al-Khader. The Israeli army declared on Thursday dozens of dunums of al-Khader closed military zone.

He said area farmers are regularly harassed by settlers who prevent them from working on their land.

M.S.

http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18535

Land Expropriation and Settlements in the International Law

The establishment of settlements in the West Bank violates international humanitarian law which establishes principles that apply during war and occupation. Moreover, the settlements lead to the infringement of international human rights law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring citizens from its own territory to the occupied territory (Article 49). The Hague Regulations prohibit an occupying power from undertaking permanent changes in the occupied area unless these are due to military needs in the narrow sense of the term, or unless they are undertaken for the benefit of the local population.

The establishment of settlements results in the violation of the rights of Palestinians as enshrined in international human rights law. Among other violations, the settlements infringe the right to self-determination, equality, property, an adequate standard of living, and freedom of movement.

The illegality of the settlements under international humanitarian law does not affect the status of the settlers. The settlers constitute a civilian population by any standard, and include children, who are entitled to special protection. Although some of the settlers are part of the security forces, this fact has absolutely no bearing on the status of the other residents of the settlements.

http://www.btselem.org/settlements/international_law

Video: Elderly Israeli Fighter Talks About 1948 Genocide

Jeremy Sapienza, December 29, 2011 

 

Electronic Intifada‘s Benjamin Doherty shared a video from “Nakba”-awareness group Zochrot – “Remembering” – of a former Palmach fighter who participated in the expulsion of unarmed Palestinian Arabs from their villages in Southern Israel. Amnon Neumann casually describes that he helped kill people, burn their villages, and chase off women and children. He regrets his actions but notes he is one of the few to admit his crimes; even so, he is loath to talk about the details of the atrocities.

In one grimace-inducing moment, Neumann talks of the Palestinians who didn’t quite realize they wouldn’t be coming back, who sneaked out of Gaza refugee camps at night to tend their villages’ grapevines. There, says Neumann, they were gunned down.

As late as the 50s, he notes, Arab villages were being evicted wholesale and forced to Gaza. The desert was made to bloom, it seems, only after its villages were ploughed under.

The reason for the Nakba, said Neumann, was “the Zionist ideology.” Like all ultranationalist movements, Zionism requires the murder and expulsion of a people and the destruction of all evidence of their existence. Those not destroyed must be permanently subjugated by the ethnicity in charge. It seems that for many, the tragedy of the Holocaust was that it happened to Jews. That the Nakba happened to Arabs means it’s not worth our attention — or worse, they are revised as aggressors.

“This is very clear. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit from? If the land is empty you inherit it from no one. The land was not empty when we inherited it.”

 http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/12/29/video-elderly-israeli-fighter-talks-about-1948-genocide/

Israel doesn't really want to end gender segregation

 Published 03:37 29.12.11 Latest update 03:37 29.12.11

Walking in the streets of a big city at night is dangerous, and not only for girls - much more dangerous than in Beit Shemesh. Which collective is held responsible for that?

By Israel Harel

Are we really interested in ending gender segregation in Haredi (ultra-Orthodox ) society, or any of the similar and even graver ills that exist in that society, as well as others? Not likely. From the strident tones of the past few days, one can safely assume that the goal of most of the critics, including the religious ones, is Haredi-bashing, pure and simple.

Most social ills happen because, as the Bible puts in, "In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes." And it is not at all clear that the ultra-Orthodox community is taking greater advantage than others of the lack of reverence for sovereignty.

	Protesters at Beit Shemesh last week.
	Photo by: Michal Fattal

But the Haredim are subject to different laws than everyone else - except, perhaps, the settlers. How easy it is to unite against them, especially during Hanukkah, and sing with great feeling that old holiday favorite, "Banu Hoshech Legaresh," "We have come to banish darkness."

The violent sect in Beit Shemesh could have been dealt with while it was still small and weak. However, there were weaker parties: the police, the municipal authorities and the silent majority of its residents. Now that the media has woken us all up, what should have been done years ago but wasn't will finally be done in Beit Shemesh and beyond.

The weeds that grew in the gardens of the settlement movement should also have been nipped in the bud. But there too, there was no hurry. Yet amazingly, only two weeks after an attack on soldiers sparked a public outcry, there are persuasive signs that the police have begun to act decisively.

Problems similarly in need of eradication, but on an incomparably greater scale, also exist in other communities. But political correctness accords greater import to the segregation of women in Haredi society than to emotional abuse, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and pornography in other communities.

This political correctness certainly bars open discussion of serious problems in Arab and Bedouin society (such as polygamy, which the law clearly prohibits; marriage between close relatives; female genital mutilation, etc. ). It's not even permissible - and this is self-evident - to discuss incidents of Arabs and Bedouin enticing Jewish girls from peripheral communities and poor homes to leave their parents and move to Arab villages, though this is kidnapping in every sense of the word when the girl is a minor.

Although this phenomenon is well known, it is rarely reported, and the police and welfare authorities rarely take action even when parents file complaints. Nor is anyone as interested in the stories of those girls who manage to flee psychological, physical and sexual abuse as they were in the story of Naama Margolese last week (not to mention the fact that the abusers are never indicted ). Why?

Walking in the streets of a big city at night is dangerous, and not only for girls - much more dangerous than in Beit Shemesh. Which collective is held responsible for that? Which public leaders are blamed, or at least required to explain? Why are only the ultra-Orthodox and the settlers collectively to blame for what happens in their back yards, while people in Tel Aviv, or the intellectuals who are perceived as their spiritual fathers, are never accused of bearing responsibility as rabbis are? Why is an accusing finger pointed at the collective in Beit Shemesh, while severe problems in other places are orphans, with no educational or public fathers?

The main problem for which the ultra-Orthodox can be collectively blamed, and their rabbis held responsible, is the degeneration to which they have sentenced themselves, of which segregation is only one symptom. But the productive part of society must ask itself: Why does it docilely accept and fund this ongoing decline? Why, in response to this burden and this injustice, does a protest movement not rise up, the way it did against the cost of housing, and a "million-person demonstration" not take place?

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-doesn-t-really-want-to-end-gender-segregation-1.404259

Orthodox Judaism treats women like filthy little things

• Published 02:48 30.12.11 Latest update 02:48 30.12.11

If a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they'll save the man, 'who is obligated to perform more commandments,' whereas a woman's 'wisdom is only in the spindle.' In fact, 'words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women.'

By Yossi Sarid

If you would like to know the source from which your brothers derive their brazen behavior, go over to the study hall and open a page of Talmud. It's true that the Torah has 70 faces, but the trend of these faces is clear: The source of the pollution is in halakha (Jewish law ) itself. What is happening in Beit Shemesh and its satellites is not "contrary to halakha," it is mandated by halakha. And the rest will be told to the grandmothers, daughters and granddaughters.

Anyone ignoramus knows that the Torah's "ways are ways of pleasantness," that "the honor of a king's daughter is within," and that "proper behavior comes before the Torah," but it's worth knowing more. It's worth knowing that a woman is unfit to be a judge, and is also unfit to give testimony. She is unfit for any public position with authority. "Thou shalt appoint a king over thee" - a king and not a queen.

A daughter, commanded the sages, must not be taught Torah, because "the mind of woman is not suited to be taught, but [only] to words of nonsense." Women are light-minded and have little knowledge.

And if a man and a woman are drowning in a river, first they'll save the man, "who is obligated to perform more commandments," whereas a woman's "wisdom is only in the spindle." In fact, "words of Torah should be burned rather than being given to women."

A man must say three blessings every day during morning prayers: He thanks God "that He didn't make me a gentile, that He didn't make me a woman, that He didn't make me an ignoramus." And it's not proper to speak to a woman too much, since "all her conversation is nothing but words of adultery," and whoever talks to her too much "causes evil to himself and will end up inheriting hell." And let's not even talk about the fate of someone "who looks even at a woman's little finger."

The extremists who spit at women, who call themselves Sikarikim, learned their lesson 101 times and learned it well: A husband would do well not to let his wife go outside, into the street, and should restrict her outings "to once or twice a month, as necessary, since a woman has no beauty except by sitting in the corner of her house."

Because inside the house - very deep inside - her glorious honor awaits her: "Every woman washes her husband's face and feet and pours him a cup and prepares his bed and stands and serves her husband. And any woman who refrains from doing any of these tasks that she is obligated to perform - is forced to do them." Some recommend forcing her with a whip or by starvation "until she gives in."

And needless to say, she is at her husband's disposal whenever he is overcome by a desire "to satisfy his urges with her." And if she continues to rebel, he always has the right "to divorce her without her consent."

And there are many similar halakhot, only a few of which we have collected here. Nor have we cited everything in the name of the ones who said them, for lack of space. The readers are invited to find the references on Shabbat - and to browse around - on their own; this is a good opportunity for study. We will direct your attention to Tractate Shabbat, which does a good job of summing up halakha's attitude toward women: "a sack full of excrement" with a bleeding hole.

Some people will seek to console themselves: It's true that this is the halakha both m'doraita (from the Torah ) and m'drabanan (from the rabbis ), but that is not what is taught nowadays. But it suffices to listen to the sermon the sage Rabbi Ovadia Yosef delivered five years ago, based on the well-known halakhic work "Kitzur Shulchan Aruch": "A man must take care not to walk between two women or between two dogs or two pigs, and men should also not allow a woman or a dog or a pig to walk between them."

Treating women as impure and filthy begins with halakha and continues with actions. As long as the religious and ultra-Orthodox parties - Shas, United Torah Judaism, Habayit Hayehudi and National Union, none of which have any women in the Knesset - are not disqualified, their nakedness will continue to sing out and the nakedness of the land will be revealed.
 
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/orthodox-judaism-treats-women-like-filthy-little-things-1.404505