13 aug 2019
The Big Ride for Palestine in London, on 27 July 2019
Last week the Palestine Solidarity Campaign revealed that a council in East London had banned the use of any of its parks by a charity bike ride for Palestinian kids.
The Big Ride for Palestine holds annual sponsored events in London and Manchester to raise money for Palestinian children’s charities.
This year its chosen cause was the Middle East Children’s Alliance, which focuses on the mental health of those traumatised living under Israel’s vicious military dictatorship.
It has raised tens of thousands of pounds for such good causes over the years.
Organisers back in March had gone through the whole rigmarole of filling in the necessary applications to use Tower Hamlets’ public parks for the final rally for the event.
It took more than a month’s worth of follow-up emails for council officers to finally give their reply to the organisers’ application: it was declined.
The reasons given seemed nebulous – “rallies with political connotations” were deemed “problematic” especially if one of the speakers was to “say something controversial”.
The email also talked vaguely about “community cohesion and equality issues.”
Nothing in the email, however, mentioned alleged anti-Semitism, or the discredited IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism – which the council adopted last year.
Organisers, however, smelled a rat. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign then put in a freedom of information request, and eventually obtained 158 pages worth of council officers’ emails discussing the application.
They reveal the real reason for the council barring the event from using any of its public parks or open spaces.
The stated justification in the refusal email to organisers – that “rallies with political connotations” are not allowed on council facilities – was a smokescreen.
(This was transparently untrue in any case – Altab Ali park, which the Big Ride initially asked the council if it could use, has been used for rallies many times in the past, including by none other than Tower Hamlets’ own mayor, John Biggs, during his election campaign in 2015.)
The real reason was that council officers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that the Big Ride for Palestine’s website was “anti-Semitic” based on the fact that it condemned “the crimes of the Israeli state” and spoke of “the parallels between apartheid South Africa and the state of Israel.”
The council manager in question ignored – seemingly deliberately – a sentence on the same webpage stating the group’s unequivocal opposition to anti-Semitism.
To justify this twisted and bizarre inversion of reality, the manager, Oudwa Idehen, invoked the IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism in some detail, claiming that the examples quoted from their website would “fall foul” of the document.
The definition was written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but based on a much older and almost identical discarded and discredited definition written by a US Israel lobbyist.
It is a confusing definition, far longer than would be necessary for any real anti-racist work. Even worse, several of its “examples” of anti-Semitism bring Israel into the mix, when not necessary.
The whole purpose of the document is to attack Palestine solidarity campaigning. This incident in Tower Hamlets makes that clearer than ever.
The Tory government in 2017 first put the pressure on local authorities to “formally adopt” the IHRA definition, even while admitting it has no legal standing.
But the Labour Party too has helped to censor Palestine solidarity by adopting this document. It did so last year, after a massive pressure campaign by the right-wing of the party, by many MPs, and by the Israel lobby.
All the while, critics in local communities and in the grassroots of the Labour Party were constantly gaslighted by the right and by the Israel lobby groups, and even by some figures on the Labour left, like Jon Lansman.
We were told we were making a fuss over nothing, and that the definition did not prohibit “legitimate” criticisms of “the Netanyahu government” that didn’t go beyond their permissible boundaries.
This was always a lie. But the evidence in Tower Hamlets is a slam dunk.
You could not imagine a more, cuddly, fluffy, family-friendly form of Palestine solidarity than the Big Ride to Palestine.
These was not the radical, hard left, anti-Zionist organisation of the Israel lobbyists’ fevered imaginations. This was simply a fun way to raise much-needed cash for a children charity – some of the most vulnerable children in the Middle East, if not in the world.
But for the anti-Palestinian racists behind the constant push to adopt the IHRA “working definition”, the problem is not the way solidarity with Palestine is expressed, it is the very existence of Palestine that is the problem.
And that is what the IHRA’s poisonous definition is all about – erasing any support for Palestine and Palestinian existence from this country.
Anyone concerned about resisting this, should therefore struggle to overthrow the IHRA definition it its entirety.
Last week the Palestine Solidarity Campaign revealed that a council in East London had banned the use of any of its parks by a charity bike ride for Palestinian kids.
The Big Ride for Palestine holds annual sponsored events in London and Manchester to raise money for Palestinian children’s charities.
This year its chosen cause was the Middle East Children’s Alliance, which focuses on the mental health of those traumatised living under Israel’s vicious military dictatorship.
It has raised tens of thousands of pounds for such good causes over the years.
Organisers back in March had gone through the whole rigmarole of filling in the necessary applications to use Tower Hamlets’ public parks for the final rally for the event.
It took more than a month’s worth of follow-up emails for council officers to finally give their reply to the organisers’ application: it was declined.
The reasons given seemed nebulous – “rallies with political connotations” were deemed “problematic” especially if one of the speakers was to “say something controversial”.
The email also talked vaguely about “community cohesion and equality issues.”
Nothing in the email, however, mentioned alleged anti-Semitism, or the discredited IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism – which the council adopted last year.
Organisers, however, smelled a rat. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign then put in a freedom of information request, and eventually obtained 158 pages worth of council officers’ emails discussing the application.
They reveal the real reason for the council barring the event from using any of its public parks or open spaces.
The stated justification in the refusal email to organisers – that “rallies with political connotations” are not allowed on council facilities – was a smokescreen.
(This was transparently untrue in any case – Altab Ali park, which the Big Ride initially asked the council if it could use, has been used for rallies many times in the past, including by none other than Tower Hamlets’ own mayor, John Biggs, during his election campaign in 2015.)
The real reason was that council officers, in their infinite wisdom, had decided that the Big Ride for Palestine’s website was “anti-Semitic” based on the fact that it condemned “the crimes of the Israeli state” and spoke of “the parallels between apartheid South Africa and the state of Israel.”
The council manager in question ignored – seemingly deliberately – a sentence on the same webpage stating the group’s unequivocal opposition to anti-Semitism.
To justify this twisted and bizarre inversion of reality, the manager, Oudwa Idehen, invoked the IHRA “working definition” of anti-Semitism in some detail, claiming that the examples quoted from their website would “fall foul” of the document.
The definition was written by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but based on a much older and almost identical discarded and discredited definition written by a US Israel lobbyist.
It is a confusing definition, far longer than would be necessary for any real anti-racist work. Even worse, several of its “examples” of anti-Semitism bring Israel into the mix, when not necessary.
The whole purpose of the document is to attack Palestine solidarity campaigning. This incident in Tower Hamlets makes that clearer than ever.
The Tory government in 2017 first put the pressure on local authorities to “formally adopt” the IHRA definition, even while admitting it has no legal standing.
But the Labour Party too has helped to censor Palestine solidarity by adopting this document. It did so last year, after a massive pressure campaign by the right-wing of the party, by many MPs, and by the Israel lobby.
All the while, critics in local communities and in the grassroots of the Labour Party were constantly gaslighted by the right and by the Israel lobby groups, and even by some figures on the Labour left, like Jon Lansman.
We were told we were making a fuss over nothing, and that the definition did not prohibit “legitimate” criticisms of “the Netanyahu government” that didn’t go beyond their permissible boundaries.
This was always a lie. But the evidence in Tower Hamlets is a slam dunk.
You could not imagine a more, cuddly, fluffy, family-friendly form of Palestine solidarity than the Big Ride to Palestine.
These was not the radical, hard left, anti-Zionist organisation of the Israel lobbyists’ fevered imaginations. This was simply a fun way to raise much-needed cash for a children charity – some of the most vulnerable children in the Middle East, if not in the world.
But for the anti-Palestinian racists behind the constant push to adopt the IHRA “working definition”, the problem is not the way solidarity with Palestine is expressed, it is the very existence of Palestine that is the problem.
And that is what the IHRA’s poisonous definition is all about – erasing any support for Palestine and Palestinian existence from this country.
Anyone concerned about resisting this, should therefore struggle to overthrow the IHRA definition it its entirety.
Israeli soldiers abducted, Tuesday, a Palestinian teenage boy in the town of al-‘Isawiya, in occupied East Jerusalem.
Media sources said the soldiers abducted Odia Ayman ‘Obeid, 17, after invading his family’s home and violently searching it.
They added that the soldiers cuffed and blindfolded the Palestinian teen, and took him to an interrogation facility in Jerusalem.
On Monday, the soldiers abducted four Palestinians, including a paralyzed man and his son, in two separate incidents in al-‘Isawiya.
Media sources said the soldiers abducted Odia Ayman ‘Obeid, 17, after invading his family’s home and violently searching it.
They added that the soldiers cuffed and blindfolded the Palestinian teen, and took him to an interrogation facility in Jerusalem.
On Monday, the soldiers abducted four Palestinians, including a paralyzed man and his son, in two separate incidents in al-‘Isawiya.
9 aug 2019
On July 29, 4-year-old Muhammad Rabi’ Elayyan was reportedly summoned for interrogation by the Israeli police in occupied Jerusalem.
The news, originally reported by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), was later denied by the Israeli police, likely to lessen the impact of the PR disaster that followed.
The Israelis are not denying the story in its entirety, but are rather arguing that it was not the boy, Muhammad, who was summoned, but his father, Rabi’, who was called into the Israeli police station in Salah Eddin Street in Jerusalem, to be questioned regarding his son’s actions.
The child was accused of hurling a stone at Israeli occupation soldiers in the Issawiyeh neighborhood, a constant target for Israeli violence. The neighborhood has also been the tragic site for house demolition under the pretext that Palestinians there are building without permits.
Of course, the vast majority of Palestinian applications to build in Issawiyeh, or anywhere in Jerusalem, are denied, while Jewish settlers are allowed to build on Palestinian land, unhindered.
With this in mind, Issawiyeh is no stranger to the ridiculous and unlawful behavior of the Israeli army. On July 6, a mother from the beleaguered neighborhood was arrested as a means to put pressure on her teenage son, Mahmoud Ebeid, to turn himself in. The mother “was taken by Israeli police as a bargaining chip,” Mondoweiss reported, quoting the Jerusalem-based Wadi Hileh Information Center.
Israeli authorities are justified in feeling embarrassed by the whole episode concerning the 4-year-old boy, thus the attempt at poking holes in the story. The fact is WAFA’s correspondent in Jerusalem had, indeed, verified that the warrant was in Muhammad’s, not Rabi’s, name.
While some news sources bought into the Israeli ‘hasbara’, readily conveying the Israeli cries of ‘fake news’, one must bear in mind that this event is hardly a one-off incident.
For Palestinians, such news of detaining, beating and killing children is one of the most consistent features of the Israeli occupation since 1967.
Just one day after the summoning of Muhammad, Israeli authorities also interrogated the father of a 6-year-old child, Qais Firas Obaid, from the same neighborhood of Issawiyeh, after accusing the boy of throwing a juice carton at Israeli soldiers.
“According to local sources in Issawiyeh the (Israeli) military sent Qais’ family an official summons to come to the interrogation center in Jerusalem on Wednesday (July 31) at 8 am,” reported the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC). In one photo, the little boy is pictured while holding up to a camera the Israeli military order written in Hebrew.
The stories of Muhammad and Qais are the norm, not the exception. According to the prisoners’ advocacy group, Addameer, there are currently 250 children in Israeli prisons, with approximately 700 Palestinian children going through the Israeli military court system every single year.
“The most common charge levied against children is throwing stones, a crime that is punishable under military law by up to 20 years,” Addameer reports.
Indeed, Israel has so much to be embarrassed about. Since the start of the Second Intifada, the popular uprising of 2000, some 12,000 Palestinian children have been detained and interrogated by the Israeli army.
But it is not only children and their families that are targeted by the Israeli military, but also those who advocate on their behalf. On July 30, Palestinian lawyer, Tariq Barghouth, was sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Israeli military court for “firing at Israeli buses and at security forces on a number of occasions.”
As flimsy as the accusation of a well-known lawyer firing at ‘buses’ may sound, it is important to note that Barghouth is well-regarded for his defense of many Palestinian children in court. Barghouth was a constant source of headache for the Israeli military court system for his strong defense of the child, Ahmad Manasra.
Manasra, then 13-years of age, was tried and indicted in Israeli military court for allegedly stabbing and wounding two Israelis near the illegal Jewish settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev in Occupied Jerusalem. Manasra’s cousin, Hassan, 15 was killed on the spot, while wounded Ahmad was tried in court as an adult.
It was the lawyer, Barghouth, who challenged and denounced the Israeli court for the harsh interrogation and for secretly filming the wounded child as he was tied to his hospital bed.
On August 2, 2016, Israel passed a law that allows authorities to “imprison a minor convicted of serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder or manslaughter even if he or she is under the age of 14.”
The law was conveniently crafted to deal with cases like that of Ahmad Manasra, who was sentenced on November 7, 2016 (three months after the law was approved) to 12 years in prison.
Manasra’s case, the leaked videos of his abuse by Israeli interrogators and his harsh sentence placed more international focus on the plight of Palestinian children in the Israeli military court system.
“Israeli interrogators are seen relying on verbal abuse, intimidation and threats to apparently inflict mental suffering for the purpose of obtaining a confession,” Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defense for Children- Palestine, said at the time.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Israel, as of 1991, is a signatory, “prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Yet, according to Parker, “ill treatment and torture of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli military and police is widespread and systematic.”
So systematic, in fact, that videos and reports of arresting very young Palestinian children are almost a staple on social media platforms concerned with Palestine and Palestinian rights.
The sad reality is that Muhammad Elayyan, 4, and Qais Obaid, 6, and many children like them, have become a target of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This horrendous reality must not be tolerated by the international community. Israeli crimes against Palestinian children must be effectively confronted as Israel, its inhumane laws and iniquitous military courts must not be allowed to continue their uncontested brutalization of Palestinian children.
Join the debate on Facebook
More articles by:Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.
The news, originally reported by the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA), was later denied by the Israeli police, likely to lessen the impact of the PR disaster that followed.
The Israelis are not denying the story in its entirety, but are rather arguing that it was not the boy, Muhammad, who was summoned, but his father, Rabi’, who was called into the Israeli police station in Salah Eddin Street in Jerusalem, to be questioned regarding his son’s actions.
The child was accused of hurling a stone at Israeli occupation soldiers in the Issawiyeh neighborhood, a constant target for Israeli violence. The neighborhood has also been the tragic site for house demolition under the pretext that Palestinians there are building without permits.
Of course, the vast majority of Palestinian applications to build in Issawiyeh, or anywhere in Jerusalem, are denied, while Jewish settlers are allowed to build on Palestinian land, unhindered.
With this in mind, Issawiyeh is no stranger to the ridiculous and unlawful behavior of the Israeli army. On July 6, a mother from the beleaguered neighborhood was arrested as a means to put pressure on her teenage son, Mahmoud Ebeid, to turn himself in. The mother “was taken by Israeli police as a bargaining chip,” Mondoweiss reported, quoting the Jerusalem-based Wadi Hileh Information Center.
Israeli authorities are justified in feeling embarrassed by the whole episode concerning the 4-year-old boy, thus the attempt at poking holes in the story. The fact is WAFA’s correspondent in Jerusalem had, indeed, verified that the warrant was in Muhammad’s, not Rabi’s, name.
While some news sources bought into the Israeli ‘hasbara’, readily conveying the Israeli cries of ‘fake news’, one must bear in mind that this event is hardly a one-off incident.
For Palestinians, such news of detaining, beating and killing children is one of the most consistent features of the Israeli occupation since 1967.
Just one day after the summoning of Muhammad, Israeli authorities also interrogated the father of a 6-year-old child, Qais Firas Obaid, from the same neighborhood of Issawiyeh, after accusing the boy of throwing a juice carton at Israeli soldiers.
“According to local sources in Issawiyeh the (Israeli) military sent Qais’ family an official summons to come to the interrogation center in Jerusalem on Wednesday (July 31) at 8 am,” reported the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC). In one photo, the little boy is pictured while holding up to a camera the Israeli military order written in Hebrew.
The stories of Muhammad and Qais are the norm, not the exception. According to the prisoners’ advocacy group, Addameer, there are currently 250 children in Israeli prisons, with approximately 700 Palestinian children going through the Israeli military court system every single year.
“The most common charge levied against children is throwing stones, a crime that is punishable under military law by up to 20 years,” Addameer reports.
Indeed, Israel has so much to be embarrassed about. Since the start of the Second Intifada, the popular uprising of 2000, some 12,000 Palestinian children have been detained and interrogated by the Israeli army.
But it is not only children and their families that are targeted by the Israeli military, but also those who advocate on their behalf. On July 30, Palestinian lawyer, Tariq Barghouth, was sentenced to 13 years in prison by an Israeli military court for “firing at Israeli buses and at security forces on a number of occasions.”
As flimsy as the accusation of a well-known lawyer firing at ‘buses’ may sound, it is important to note that Barghouth is well-regarded for his defense of many Palestinian children in court. Barghouth was a constant source of headache for the Israeli military court system for his strong defense of the child, Ahmad Manasra.
Manasra, then 13-years of age, was tried and indicted in Israeli military court for allegedly stabbing and wounding two Israelis near the illegal Jewish settlement of Pisgat Ze’ev in Occupied Jerusalem. Manasra’s cousin, Hassan, 15 was killed on the spot, while wounded Ahmad was tried in court as an adult.
It was the lawyer, Barghouth, who challenged and denounced the Israeli court for the harsh interrogation and for secretly filming the wounded child as he was tied to his hospital bed.
On August 2, 2016, Israel passed a law that allows authorities to “imprison a minor convicted of serious crimes such as murder, attempted murder or manslaughter even if he or she is under the age of 14.”
The law was conveniently crafted to deal with cases like that of Ahmad Manasra, who was sentenced on November 7, 2016 (three months after the law was approved) to 12 years in prison.
Manasra’s case, the leaked videos of his abuse by Israeli interrogators and his harsh sentence placed more international focus on the plight of Palestinian children in the Israeli military court system.
“Israeli interrogators are seen relying on verbal abuse, intimidation and threats to apparently inflict mental suffering for the purpose of obtaining a confession,” Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defense for Children- Palestine, said at the time.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Israel, as of 1991, is a signatory, “prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Yet, according to Parker, “ill treatment and torture of Palestinian children arrested by Israeli military and police is widespread and systematic.”
So systematic, in fact, that videos and reports of arresting very young Palestinian children are almost a staple on social media platforms concerned with Palestine and Palestinian rights.
The sad reality is that Muhammad Elayyan, 4, and Qais Obaid, 6, and many children like them, have become a target of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This horrendous reality must not be tolerated by the international community. Israeli crimes against Palestinian children must be effectively confronted as Israel, its inhumane laws and iniquitous military courts must not be allowed to continue their uncontested brutalization of Palestinian children.
Join the debate on Facebook
More articles by:Ramzy Baroud
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.
The Israeli occupation forces late Thursday evening arrested a Palestinian child in Jerusalem.
A local source reported that the Israeli forces arrested Mohammed Najib, 11, after violently beating him in the Old City of Jerusalem. video
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces raided the house of Sheikh Najeh Bkirat, deputy director of the Islamic Awqaf in Jerusalem, and handed him an interrogation order.
A local source reported that the Israeli forces arrested Mohammed Najib, 11, after violently beating him in the Old City of Jerusalem. video
Meanwhile, the Israeli forces raided the house of Sheikh Najeh Bkirat, deputy director of the Islamic Awqaf in Jerusalem, and handed him an interrogation order.
8 aug 2019
Many Israeli soldiers and police officers invaded, Thursday, a Palestinian home in the al-‘Isawiya town, in occupied East Jerusalem, after destroying the main door of the property, and abducted a child in front of his brothers.
Mohammad Abu al-Hummus, a member of the Follow-up Committee in al-‘Isawiya, said the soldiers used tools to damage the front door of a home, owned by Wa’el Abu Hadwan al-Fakhouri, and invaded it, causing severe anxiety attacks among seven children, who were alone in the property without their parents. video
The children were trying to open the heavy door for the soldiers to enter the property without causing damage, but the army went ahead and destroyed it.
The soldiers then abducted Saleh al-Fakhouri, 13, after placing him in a car driven by undercover officers.
Razan al-Jo’ba, a lawyer of Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan (Silwanic), said the soldiers abducted the child, and took him to the police in Salaheddin Street, in Jerusalem, after accusing him of throwing stones at army jeeps.
It is worth mentioning that the soldiers frequently invade the home and stores, owned by the family, and conduct very violent searches, in addition to imposing fines.
The family owns their home, stores and lands in the area since the year 1954, before Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, but are facing constant invasions, violent searches and attempts to confiscate their property and force them out.
Mohammad Abu al-Hummus, a member of the Follow-up Committee in al-‘Isawiya, said the soldiers used tools to damage the front door of a home, owned by Wa’el Abu Hadwan al-Fakhouri, and invaded it, causing severe anxiety attacks among seven children, who were alone in the property without their parents. video
The children were trying to open the heavy door for the soldiers to enter the property without causing damage, but the army went ahead and destroyed it.
The soldiers then abducted Saleh al-Fakhouri, 13, after placing him in a car driven by undercover officers.
Razan al-Jo’ba, a lawyer of Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan (Silwanic), said the soldiers abducted the child, and took him to the police in Salaheddin Street, in Jerusalem, after accusing him of throwing stones at army jeeps.
It is worth mentioning that the soldiers frequently invade the home and stores, owned by the family, and conduct very violent searches, in addition to imposing fines.
The family owns their home, stores and lands in the area since the year 1954, before Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, but are facing constant invasions, violent searches and attempts to confiscate their property and force them out.
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