Closing bank accounts: Israel’s new displacement policy

Middle East Monitor report, 22 June 2017 

Israel is closing the bank accounts of Arab institutions in Jerusalem in an effort to displace Jerusalemites and force them out of the city, the Department of Jerusalem Affairs has said.

In a press release, the organisation said the Israeli occupation’s moves against social, cultural, educational, relief, housing, legal or engineering institutions were political and go hand in hand with the Israeli policy of collective punishment against the defenseless Palestinian civilians in order to Judaise the city by force.

Organisations had been told verbally seven months ago that their accounts could be closed however no paperwork was issued to confirm the action, the Director of the Yabous Cultural Centre, Rania Elias, told Quds Press.

“The bank specified an amount of money for us to deposit in the account and of course we did that. The bank was to be informed in the case that any sum was added to clarify the source of the funds. And this is what we have actually done,” Elias explained.

“Since the first procedure took place months ago, we tackled the issue from a legal standpoint and hired a lawyer in order to keep track of the issue and pursue all the unjustifiable requirements of the bank so as not to offer them any alleged reason to close the account.”

However, this was in vain as the Israeli bank rejected a bank transfer coming from the EU for no reason.

The groups affected have maintained that their operations are legal, their operations comply with the missions and objectives they have set up for themselves when they were launched and registered, their taxes are paid and that they Israeli auditors to ensure their operations comply with the law.

Rafah crossing still closed after 100 days

IMEMC News, Gaza Strip, 22 June 2017

Rafah Crossing, the main artery for Palestinians in Gaza to travel out of the Strip, has been closed for 103 consecutive days, with no indication that it will reopen soon, Quds Press reported yesterday.

The crossing’s gates were last opened on 9 March when a few thousand people travelled through it. More than 30,000 Palestinians have registered to travel through the border, most are students, patients and those separated from their families.

Rafah was opened in May only to allow those stranded in Egypt to return to their homes in Gaza, PNN further reports.

So far, this year, the crossing has been opened in both directions for only six days, meaning it has been closed for 160 — the longest spell that the border has been sealed since the start of an Israeli blockade on the enclave, which has now entered its eleventh year.

Even Egypt has allowed diesel to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing. According to the information office at the border, 11 trucks entered Gaza loaded with one million litres of diesel which are destined for the enclave’s power plant.

More trucks are expected to arrive later today, a source said, adding that fuel pumping would continue for several days.

The Rafah crossing has been opened for the entry of diesel only, the official said.

Gaza’s electricity plant is expected to start operating within 24 hours, after it was forced to shut down in mid-April, due to a shortage of fuel.

This week, Israel reduced the electricity it supplies to the besieged enclave even further, worsening an already dire humanitarian situation. The Palestinian Energy Authority said the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) had cut by eight megawatts the 120 megawatts it supplies to the Gaza Strip.

Egypt’s actions come following a meeting between a Hamas security delegation and officials from the Fateh movement, who support former leader Mohammed Dahlan, under the auspices of the Egyptian leadership, last week.

EU washes its hands of Gaza

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, left, has remained silent about Israel’s electricity cuts to Gaza. (European External Action Service)

By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 22 June 2017

EU washes its hands of Gaza

After 10 years of Israeli blockade, conditions for two million Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip are by all accounts worse than ever.

Israel’s blockade, according to the human rights group B’Tselem, has consigned Gaza’s residents “to living in abject poverty under practically inhuman conditions unparalleled in the modern world.”

Yet the European Union, which markets itself as a champion of freedom, democracy and human rights, has washed its hands of the people there.

After four successive days of reductions, Israel has now cut the electricity it supplies to the Gaza Strip by 60 percent.

This comes on top of chronic shortages that meant most households only had about four hours of electricity a day.

As numerous international bodies have warned, the territory is in the midst of an unfolding humanitarian crisis.

In mid-May, the International Committee of the Red Cross said that Gaza was on the brink of “systemic collapse” as operating rooms, water and sanitation systems cease functioning.

Already, Gaza City’s main hospital has slashed surgeries by one-third, and as a result of the blockade, exacerbated by the electricity crisis, the territory is swimming in sewage.

Israel furious as UN plans ’50 yrs of Israeli occupation’ event

Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

By Itamar Eichner, Ynet News (Israeli media), 21 June 2017

Israel furious as UN set to host ’50 years of Israeli occupation’ event

Minister Gilad Erdan appeals to UN Secretary-General Guterres to stop hostile conference scheduled to take place at the UN headquarters this month; writing to Guterres and telling him the groups participating are entirely dedicated to defaming and ‘delegitimizing Israel’ Erdan also reaches out to US Senator Marco Rubio, urging him to ‘continue to speak out against use of UN funds to promote the BDS campaign.’

Israel is gearing up to push back against a conference being hosted next week by the UN in the organization’s New York headquarters to mark what it describes as the “anniversary of the Israeli occupation.”

Palestine Film Festival – Waiheke

Tivoli Theatre, Oneroa.

 To mark the 50 years of Israel’s military Occupation of Palestine – since the Six Day War in June 1967 – TIVOLI is presenting recent films on Palestine and the Occupation.

6pm Saturday June 24

Decolonising Israel

Ilan Pappe, March 2017, 60 mins

A lecture on settler-colonialism at the U.S. National Press Club, by Israeli historian Prof Ilan Pappe. European Centre for Palestinian Studies, Exeter University.

6pm Saturday July 1
Open Bethlehem
Director Leila Sansour,  2015

The film-maker returns to her famous hometown as a wall is being built around it… ‘one of the most remarkable and moving documentaries I have seen’, Jon Snow. [See trailer above].

Koha appreciated. Donations to Medical Aid for Palestinians. If you wish BYO.

 

Gaza asks Egypt for fuel to keep lights on

People in Gaza are used to power cuts — but things have now got much worse [THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images]

By Gregg Carlstrom, The Times, Gaza City, 22 June 2017

In the paediatric wing of a Gaza hospital where nine young children are undergoing dialysis, the power suddenly cuts out. Alarms blare and the machines flash red warning lights. Yet the children do not flinch. One boy does not even wake from his nap.

Gazans are used to power cuts — but not like these. Until this week Gaza had about 240 megawatts of electricity, half what is needed to meet its fast-growing demand. About 120 megawatts of that was supplied by Israel and paid for by the Palestinian Authority (PA).

In April the PA decided to reduce its electricity payments by 40 per cent. Last week Israel agreed to lower the supply by the same amount — even after its top generals warned that it would deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. It started the cuts on Monday.

“We do this four hours a day, four days a week,” Umm Yahya, whose son was hooked up to one of the machines, said. “We’re used to it.” The hospital has a generator and the room soon buzzed back to life — at least this time.

Nabil Iyad, one of the doctors, said: “Sometimes there’s no fuel to run the dialysis machine so we have to close the department and send all our patients elsewhere. Any time there are interruptions it damages the equipment.”

 

Where is Israel’s anti-Palestinian dark money going?

Gilad Erdan, pictured speaking to a US Senate committee in Washington in June, heads the Israeli strategic affairs ministry’s fight against the global movement for Palestinian rights. (Senator Claire McCaskill)

By Ali Abunimah ,The Electronic Intifada, 20 June 2017

Where is Israel’s anti-Palestinian dark money going?

Last September, a group of Israeli citizens filed freedom of information requests to force the Israeli government to reveal its financial support to foreign organizations, individuals, journalists or bloggers assisting Israel in its battle against what it calls “delegitimization.”

The two departments that received the requests – the strategic affairs ministry and the foreign ministry – have replied, each claiming that they have no working relationships with such foreign entities.

This is baffling, according to attorney Eitay Mack who prepared the requests, since Israel has allocated tens of millions of dollars to fight the global movement for Palestinian rights, and especially the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign.

“Unless the two ministries have lied to us, the fact that no foreign elements abroad have been willing to officially join the global campaign which the state of Israel conducts for the perpetuation of the occupation, attests to the failure of this campaign,” Mack observes drily.

In reality, the strategic affairs ministry alone has an annual budget of more than $40 million dollars. But it only has a couple of dozen employees. All this money “is obviously not used just for the salaries of its relatively few workers, but for contracts with various elements, whose identity, as well as the criteria for the cooperation” the ministry refuses to disclose, says Mack.

“It is not clear at all what the two ministries’ official definition of delegitimization is,” Mack states, “and it seems they regard their struggle against foreign citizens who criticize the state of Israel as a military campaign.”

A cool million

The strategic affairs ministry, headed by Gilad Erdan, spearheads Israel’s effort to thwart the growing Palestine solidarity movement.

The ministry is reportedly engaged in secret “black ops” which, according to a veteran Israeli analyst, may involve “defamation campaigns, harassment and threats to the lives of activists” as well as “infringing on and violating their privacy.”

In April, The Electronic Intifada revealed the name of the strategic affairs ministry’s “intelligence chief” – Shai Har-Zvi – which like the names of its other employees is a state secret.

The strategic affairs ministry and the foreign ministry are also fighting a turf war over who should lead Israel’s global anti-Palestinian struggle.

In January, an undercover Al Jazeera investigation into Israel’s efforts to influence British politics revealed clear evidence that Israel is spending large sums of money to influence foreign governments and societies to support its violations of Palestinian rights.

 

The Al Jazeera film The Lobby shows Israeli embassy political officer Shai Masot telling Labour Friends of Israel chair Joan Ryan that he had “more than one million pounds” approved in Israeli government funding to bring UK lawmakers on junkets to Israel.

The film also reveals that the Israeli embassy funds the Union of Jewish Students, which has played a key role in the UK’s Israel lobby.