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Al Jazeera English, July 17, 2010

For most children summer is a carefree time. But for the children of Israel’s undocumented migrant workers, deportation looms on the horizon.

It has been a hotly contested issue since last July, when the Oz Unit, a strong arm of the interior ministry’s population and immigration authority, first hit the streets.

As the state took aim at Israel’s 250,000 illegal labourers, 1,200 children were marked for expulsion along with their parents.

The move, a sudden reversal of Israel’s long-standing policy against deporting minors, sparked public outrage. Protests and media scrutiny delayed the deportations but only temporarily.

In October, Eli Yishai, the interior minister, indicated that the families would indeed be expelled. The following month, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announced that the children would be allowed to finish the school year.

Roei Lachmanovich, a spokesman for Yishai, commented: “The government’s decision is that Israel should minimise the number of foreign workers in Israel. It is nothing against those 1,200 children – the decision is against the illegal workers who think getting pregnant gives them permission to stay here.”

Continue reading “Israel’s ‘illegal’ children”

Al Jazeera English, July 10, 2010

Mahmoud Alami, a Jerusalem taxi driver, knows the city like the back of his hand. He knows the neighborhoods, the streets. And he knows the stop lights.

There’s one in particular that troubles him not professionally but personally. It stands between Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood, and Pisgaat Zeev, a Jewish settlement. “It stays green for [settlers] for five minutes. But to go in and out of Beit Hanina? Only two or three cars can pass,” Alami says. “It’s too short. It causes a lot of traffic jams.”

Al-Jazeera English found that stoplights that lead to Jewish settlements and neighborhoods stay green for an average of a minute and a half. In Palestinian areas, it’s 20 seconds. One light in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem is green for less than 10.

“[Palestinians] are stuck,” says Amir Daud, another taxi driver. “It reflects a very bad situation for the people.”

Continue reading “Israel’s ‘street apartheid’”

The Huffington Post, July 10, 2010

The headline excited me.

“Analysis: Trying one soldier for Gaza war crime doesn’t solve root of problem,” it read. Finally, a discussion of the Israeli army’s culture of impunity, I thought. Or perhaps some reflections on a state that behaves as though neither the international community nor its own Supreme Court exist.

Imagine my disappointment when I read the article.

Continue reading “Israeli victimhood a threat to the Jewish state”

The Huffington Post, July 1, 2010
Maan News Agency, July 2, 2010

Fidaa Talal Hijjy, a resident of the Gaza Strip, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in 2007–the same year Israel’s blockade of Gaza began. As her health deteriorated, so did Gaza’s medical system. Drugs are in short supply. Hospitals lack necessary equipment. And because the siege on Gaza also impedes the movement of people, medical staff cannot leave to get the training they need.

Continue reading “Israel continues to ignore human toll of siege on Gaza”

Al Jazeera English, June 21, 2010
Maan News Agency, July 10, 2010

Jewish settlers storming the garden of an elderly Palestinian woman– it seems like a page from Hebron’s book, not that of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv. But that’s exactly what happened to Zeinab Rachayel, an Arab resident of Tel Aviv’s mixed suburb, Yafo.

Rachayel was in her courtyard on a Sunday afternoon when several buses full of settlers from the West Bank arrived, parking nearby. Armed with Israeli flags, young men lined the sidewalk outside her home chanting “This is our land.” One by one, they entered her garden. Rachayel, a grandmother, was soon facing dozens of settlers in their late teens and early twenties.

“Another one entered and he said, ‘Listen, you’re not staying here. Yafo is just for Jews. Get out of Yafo,'” Rachayel says. The men continued to threaten and intimidate her, repeating over and over that the Arab presence in Yafo is only temporary.

Continue reading “Settlers target Israel’s “shared cities””

Maan News Agency, June 8, 2010
(Click here for Arabic)
The Huffington Post, June 9, 2010

Alex Harrison, a British activist who participated in the Freedom Flotilla, was on the neighboring Challenger 1 when the Israeli army overtook the Mavi Marmara, leaving nine activists dead and dozens injured.

The Israeli army has released edited video footage showing soldiers being beaten by passengers on the Mavi Marmara. The army’s footage depicts soldiers dropping down from helicopters into a crowd armed with sticks and chairs. Many Israelis have likened this scene to a “lynch.” The Jewish Israeli public also firmly believes that its soldiers were lured into a “trap.”

But the army’s footage does not include the crucial moments prior to the soldiers’ boarding that would allow viewers to determine if the activists were behaving in self-defense as Israel overtook its ship in international waters.

Continue reading “Challenger I passengers: Commandos shot first”