#Talia Sasson

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Scenes of chaos and horror after the Israeli occupation army bombed a gathering of civilians attempting to obtain a clear internet signal in the Al-Jarn area of the Jabalia Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of at least three Palestinians. 📈 The endlessly rising death toll in the Zionist entity's ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip now exceeds 37'713 Palestinians killed and over 86'377 others wounded since October 7th. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

WAR IN GAZA, DAY 264: SENIOR ISRAELI OFFICIALS AND ACADEMICS DEMAND U.S. CANCEL NETANYAHU'S VISIT TO CONGRESS, GENOCIDE GOES ON AS CIVILIANS ARE TARGETED BY OCCUPATION BOMBS

On 264th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 60 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 140 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands, of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or who's bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

Writing in an opinion piece published by the New York Times, several former Israeli officials and academics have called upon the United States to cancel a planned speech to the Congress by the embattled Zionist entity's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The officials writing the opinion piece include David Harel, President of the Israeli Academy of the Sciences and Humanities; Tamir Pardo, former director of the Mossad spy agency; Talia Sasson, former director of the special tasks department at "Israel's" State Attorney's Office; Ehud Barack, the former Israeli Prime Minister; and Aaron Ciechanover, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The officials and academics write that inviting Netanyahu to speak before Congress is a "terrible mistake," and that his appearance before Congress will "not represent the State of Israel and its citizens," resulting in the rewarding of Netanyahu's "scandalous and destructive conduct."

Coming from positions of politics, the sciences, technology, defense and law, the writers feel they are well placed to judge the effects of Netanyahu's extremist government, adding that "like many, we believe that he is driving Israel downhill at an alarming speed, to the extent that we may eventually lose the country we love."

The officials continue by saying that Netanyahu and his regime have failed to create a plan for ending the war in the Gaza Strip, and that the Occupation Prime Minister has been unable to secure the release of Israeli hostages detained by the Palestinian Resistance in the Strip.

"At the very least, an invitation to address Congress should have been contingent upon resolving these two issues and, in addition, calling for new elections in Israel," they write in the Times.

The officials go on to declare that, "Inviting Mr. Netanyahu will reward his contempt for U.S. efforts to establish a peace plan, allow more aid to the beleaguered people of Gaza and do a better job of sparing civilians."

They warn that, again and again, the Netanyahu administration has rejected U.S. President Joe Biden's plans to remove Hamas from its position of power in the Gaza Strip by establishing a peacekeeping force in the Palestinian enclave.

"Such a move would very likely bring in its wake a far broader regional alliance, including a vision to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is not only in Israel’s interest but also in the interest of both political parties in the United States. Mr. Netanyahu constitutes the main obstacle to these outcomes," the officials said in the Times.

"The man who will address Congress next month has failed to assume responsibility for the blunders that allowed the Hamas assault, initially blaming security chiefs (then quickly backtracking), and has yet to announce the establishment of a direly needed state commission of inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge to look into the fiasco," they added.

The writers go on to list the many ways in which the Israeli Prime Minister has weakened the Israeli occupation, while giving examples of the ways in which Netanyahu's coalition partners endanger the rights of Israeli citizens, including the example of the violent suppression of Israeli protests against the government, as well as Netanyahu's insistence on enshrining into law the exemption from military service for the Ultra-Orthodox at a time of war.

"Above all, many Israelis are convinced that Mr. Netanyahu has obstructed proposed deals with Hamas that would have led to the release of the hostages in order to keep the war going and thus avoid the inevitable political reckoning he will face when it ends," the former officials and academics said of Netanyahu's corrupt administration.

The writers go on to point to Israeli public opinion, which they say has turned against the Prime Minister's administration as Netanyahu's coalition hangs on tightly to its slim majority in the Israeli Knesset.

The officials continue by slamming Netanyahu's seeming lack of concern for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah's retaliation in the north of the occupied Palestinian territories, resulting from the continued Zionist aggression in the Gaza Strip, while growing demonstrations in the occupied territories threaten Netanyahu's position as the protest movement continues to grow in strength.

"That’s where Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress fits in with his political needs. No doubt it will be carefully stage-managed to prop up his shaky hold on power and allow him to boast to his constituents about America’s so-called support for his failed policies," the officials said of Netanyahu's speech to Congress.

They warn that Likud and the far-right's supporters in the occupied territories will be emboldened by the speech before Congress, coming to the conclusion that it will further hinder the chances of making a deal that could see the Israeli hostages released.

The officials conclude by saying, "Giving Mr. Netanyahu the stage in Washington will all but dismiss the rage and pain of his people, as expressed in the demonstrations throughout the country. American lawmakers should not let that happen. They should ask Mr. Netanyahu to stay home."

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation continued in the Gaza Strip, with several airstrikes overnight and into the morning that resulted in dozens of casualties.

In just a few examples of the Zionist entity's war crimes in Gaza, an occupation air raid targeted a residential house belonging to the Abu Awad family in the city of Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip, with initial reports stating that three Palestinians were killed in the assault, while at least a dozen others were wounded.

Subsequently, additional reporting stated the death toll in the Beit Lahiya strike had risen to 15, while several others remained in critical condition.

Following that strike, occupation aircraft fired a missile towards a gathering of civilians attempting to obtain an internet signal in the Al-Jarn area of the town of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, after which, three Palestinians who were killed in the strike were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital in the city of Beit Lahiya.

At the same time, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) bombed, and detonated with explosives, several residential homes in neighborhoods southwest of Gaza City, as well as the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of the city, while the systematic destruction of residential neighborhoods and public infrastructure in the city of Rafah in the south continued unabated.

According to local reporting, the occupation army detonated a number of residential squares in the Saudi neighborhood, west of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, as well as in neighborhoods east and northeast of Khan Yunis, while violent occupation artillery shelling and airstrikes hammered the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

Local reporting states that a number of civilians were killed, and many others wounded, as a result of IOF artillery shelling of various neighborhoods of Gaza City, including the Al-Sabra, Al-Zaytoun, and Tal al-Hawa neighborhoods.

Simultaneously, Zionist artillery detatchments resumed their bombardment of the eastern areas of the Bureij Refugee Camp, as well as targeting agricultural lands west of the Nuseirat Camp, both in the central Gaza Strip.

Local reports write that 5 civilians were killed in an artillery strike, and were subsequently taken to Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat Camp after being targeted in their residential apartment, while occupation artillery shelling also targeted farmers in the grape vineyards, west of the New Camp area in the Nuseirat Camp.

Occupation soldiers also detonated a number of residential buildings in the vicinity of the Zoroub roundabout, west of the city of Rafah, south of Gaza, coinciding with heavy artillery shelling of the central and western neighborhoods of the city.

Palestinian sources have also reported that a number of wounded civilians arrived at the European Gaza Hospital in the city of Khan Yunis, south of Gaza, after intense occupation bombing pummeled citizen's homes in the town of Al-Khuza'a.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the infinitely rising death toll now exceeds 37'718 Palestinians killed, including at least 10'000 women and more than 15'000 children, while another 86'377 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

June 26th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[gregor-samsung]

"Nel 1996, nel bel mezzo del processo di pace di Oslo, Israele promise all’amministrazione USA che avrebbe smesso di costruire nuove colonie nei Territori Occupati. Ma mentre il governo israeliano stava conducendo i negoziati con i palestinesi, stava anche incoraggiando 50.000 cittadini ebrei a trasferirsi da Israele in Cisgiordania e nella Striscia di Gaza. Contemporaneamente, il governo israeliano stava aiutando concretamente il movimento dei coloni a creare una molteplicità di “avamposti illegali” – fuori dai confini delle colonie esistenti – fornendo a questi insediamenti energia elettrica e acqua e costruendo la rete stradale per raggiungerli.* Entro il 2001, cinque anni dopo il divieto da parte degli Stati Uniti di costruire nuovi insediamenti, i coloni avevano creato piú di sessanta nuovi “avamposti illegali” su terreni espropriati ai palestinesi. Il governo israeliano dipingeva spesso i coloni ebrei come dei cittadini sprezzanti e indisciplinati, nonostante avesse stanziato milioni di dollari a favore della loro “insubordinazione”, principalmente perché ciò permetteva allo Stato – quando criticato – di rivendicare il fatto di essere una democrazia con una società civile vitale e pluralista. Durante l’impennata dell’edificazione dei cosiddetti avamposti, la polizia e l’esercito israeliani intrapresero solo sporadicamente azioni simboliche per far rispettare la legge, evacuando coloni dai nuovi avamposti. In parallelo a questo processo di espansione degli insediamenti e di rara applicazione della legge – spesso coincidente con periodi in cui aumentavano le pressioni internazionali a riprendere il processo di pace –, l’esercito israeliano eseguiva invece demolizioni di case palestinesi su larga scala, una pratica sulla quale le ONG israeliane e palestinesi concentrarono la loro attività. È stato in questo scenario legale e politico di espropriazione di terre palestinesi da parte dei coloni e di demolizioni di case palestinesi da parte del governo che Yesha for Human Rights ha iniziato la propria attività. Era la prima volta che i coloni creavano una ONG per difendere i propri diritti umani – il diritto umano di non essere evacuati dagli insediamenti e di continuare a colonizzare la terra palestinese."

  * In realtà, gli avamposti sono nuovi insediamenti. Oggi ci sono piú di cento avamposti in Cisgiordania. Circa cinquanta sono stati creati dopo il marzo del 2001. Analogamente ad altri insediamenti, questi avamposti sono stati costruiti con l’obiettivo di dare una continuità territoriale alla presenza israeliana occupando piú terra palestinese possibile e creando una barriera tra i vari centri abitati palestinesi. Cfr. Peace Now, “Settlements and Outposts”, http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/settlements-and-outposts (consultato il 01/05/2014); vedi anche Talia Sasson, Report on Unauthorized Outposts: Submitted to the Prime Minister, Prime Minister’s Office, Jerusalem 2005.

---------

Nicola Perugini, Neve Gordon, Il diritto umano di dominare, traduzione di Andrea Aureli, edizioni nottetempo (collana conache), 2016¹; pp. 166-167.

[Edizione originale: The Human Right to Dominate, Oxford University Press, 2015]

P.S.: Ringrazio @dentroilcerchio per avermi consigliato la lettura di questo saggio che esamina e denuncia l’uso strumentale dei diritti umani da parte dei gruppi dominanti.

[t-jfh]

A member of an Israeli ultranationalist group known as Hilltop Youth, which seeks to tear down Israel’s institutions and establish ‘‘Jewish rule.’’

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

Palestinian villager Iskhak Jabarin near his home in Shab al Butum. He is part of a petition to Israel’s Supreme Court seeking protection from Israeli settlers, including those from Avigayil, the settlement behind him at right.

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

After the Arab-​Israeli War of 1967, Israel controlled new territory in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem. In 1979, it agreed to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt.

(Map illustration: The New York Times)

A home in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Since Oct. 7, some 7,000 settler reservists were called back by the I.D.F., put in uniform, armed and ordered to protect the settlements.

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

Baruch Goldstein, a doctor from Brooklyn who moved to Israel in 1983. He opened fire in a mosque in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994, killing 29 Muslim worshipers before he was dragged down and beaten to death. His gravesite is now a place of pilgrimage for ultraright settlers.

(Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Talia Sasson delivering a report on unauthorized Jewish settlements in 2005. Her report found that it “was state and public agencies that broke the law, the rules, the procedures that the state itself had determined.”

(Photo: Flash90 / EPA)

Israeli settlers planting trees near an illegal settlement called Mitzpe Yair, in the South Hebron hills, as a way of claiming territory.

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

Ahmad Dawabsheh, the sole survivor of the arson attack by Amiram Ben-Uliel that killed his parents and younger brother, at the house in Duma where the murders occurred, which has been left untouched.

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

Israeli far-right nationalists, Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) and Bezalel Smotrich, attending a special session at the Knesset to swear in a new right-wing government in 2022.

(Photo: Amir Cohen / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Palestinian villagers at the Israeli Supreme Court in January. They are among the residents of six villages in the West Bank asking the Israeli government to enforce the law there.

(Photo: Peter van Agtmael / Magnum, for The New York Times)

The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel

After 50 years of failure to stop violence and terrorism against Palestinians by Jewish ultranationalists, lawlessness has become the law.

This story is told in three parts.

PART I. IMPUNITY documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank.

PART II. WARNINGS shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace.

PART III. A NEW GENERATION explores how this ultranationalist movement gained control of the state itself.

Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.

By Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti

The New York Times Magazine - May 16, 2024

How we reported this article: The reporters spent years interviewing more than 100 former and current Israeli government officials — including four former prime ministers — scoured secret government documents, and reported from Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the West Bank and Washington. Natan Odenheimer, who contributed reporting from Israel and the West Bank, also obtained documents about how ultranationalist crimes went unpunished.

•

[savewritingnsw]

Save Writing NSW

An open letter to Create NSW and the NSW Minister for the Arts

We, as writers and active members of the literary community, were dismayed by Create NSW’s decision not to grant Writing NSW Multi-Year Organisations Funding in their latest round, despite the fact that Writing NSW was recommended for funding.

This decision demonstrates the ongoing devaluation of literature within the Australian arts funding landscape. We know literature is the most popular artform in the country, with 87% of Australian reading some form of literary work in any given year, yet in this round Create NSW offered only 5.7% of their ongoing funding to literature organisations.

The decision to defund Writing NSW carries a particular sting. Writing NSW is the leading organisation representing writers in a state with a long literary history and one that is home to many of Australia’s leading publishers, writers, literary agents and other core participants in the Australian literary industry.

Writing NSW is an important stepping-stone for writers at the beginning of their careers, providing high quality professional development programs, and it also employs emerging and established writers to deliver and lead these programs. For decades the organisation has provided high-quality courses, seminars, workshops, festivals, events, grants and literary prizes. In putting such programs at risk, Create NSW is jeopardising both an entry point and an ongoing support system for writers.

Macquarie University research shows that the average income of an Australian author from their practice is $12,900. The current economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic makes the situation of writers even more precarious. Writing NSW offers key employment opportunities to writers, through teaching, publication, speaking engagements and both curatorial and judging positions. The removal of these opportunities will mean many writers will not be able to maintain the other income streams that support their writing careers.

The removal of $175,000 from a single source would be catastrophic for any business – not-for-profit or otherwise. For a government funding body to enact such a blunt economic withdrawal in the midst of a global pandemic and without concern for the economic flow-on effect to hundreds of industry professionals is deeply distressing.

We call on Create NSW to reverse this decision and ask them to reveal their future strategies for arts funding and how they plan to rectify the disparity in funding between other funded artforms and literature.

As writers, we will never accept the loss of a vibrant, essential cultural network such as Writing NSW.

What you can do We invite anyone affected by Create NSW’s decision – writers, publishers, literary agents, illustrators, readers alike – to co-sign this letter. You can copy and customise this letter to draft a version from your own point of view on this matter to send to a Member of Parliament.

To co-sign this letter, add your name here: shorturl.at/dERX6

Signatories

Pip Smith, Writer, creative writing teacher Sam Twyford-Moore, Writer and arts administrator Fiona Wright, Writer, editor, critic, reader Gabrielle Tozer, Author, writer, editor Brigid Mullane, Editor Jules Faber, Author, Illustrator Dr Christopher Richardson, Author and academic Liz Ledden, Author, podcaster, book reviewer Kate Tracy Ashley Kalagian Blunt, Writer, reviewer, reader Julie Paine, Writer Nick Tapper, Editor Belinda Castles, Writer and academic Simon Veksner, Writer Amanda Ortlepp, Writer, reader, reviewer, High School English Teacher Bronwyn Birdsall, Writer, editor Robin Riedstra, Writer, reviewer, reader, English teacher Dr Delia Falconer, Writer, critic, academic Robert McDonald, Author, writer, creative writing teacher Dr Kathryn Heyman, Author Wai Chim, Author Kirsten Krauth, Writer, editor Tricia Dearborn, Poet, writer, editor Dr Mireille Juchau, Writer Gail Jones, Writer Dr Jeff Sparrow, Writer, editor, academic Linda Jaivin, Writer, editor, translator Adara Enthaler, Poet, editor, literary arts manager Keighley Bradford, Writer, editor, arts and festival administrator Nicole Priest, Reader and aspiring writer Shamin Fernando, Writer Andrew Pippos, Writer Bianca Nogrady, Writer and journalist James Bradley, Writer Ali Jane Smith, Writer Dr Eleanor Limprecht Idan Ben-Barak, Writer Jennifer Mills, Writer Nicole Hayes, Writer, podcaster Michelle Starr, Writer/journalist Phillipa McGuinness, Writer and publisher Vanessa Berry, Writer and academic Blake Ayshford, Screenwriter Emily Maguire, Writer Sarah Lambert, Screenwriter Anwen Crawford, Writer Sarah Bassiuoni, Screenwriter Jackson Ryan, Writer, journalist, academic Simon Thomsen, Journalist, editor, other wordy stuff Ivy Shih, Writer Miro Bilbrough, Writer, filmmaker, screenwriting teacher, script editor Graham Davidson, Writer, artist, festival director Christos Tsiolkas, Writer JZ Ting, Writer, lawyer Susan Francis, Writer, teacher Suneeta Peres da Costa, Writer Dr Harriet Cunningham, Writer, critic, journalist Adele Dumont, Writer, reader Sheree Strange, Writer, book reviewer, book seller Phil Robinson, Reader Ashleigh Meikle, Reader, writer, book blogger Naomi RIddle, Writer, editor Cathal Gwatkin-Higson, Writer, book seller Hannah Carroll Chapman, Screenwriter Angela Meyer, Writer, editor Steve Blunt, Reader, supporter Ambra Sancin, Writer, arts administrator Michelle Baddiley, Writer, reader, archive producer Dinuka McKenzie, Writer, reader Catherine C. Turner, Writer, reader, freelance editor and publisher, arts worker Hilary Davidson, Writer, poet, academic, reader Dr Eleanor Hogan, Writer Nicola Robinson, Commissioning Editor Kim Wilson, Screenwriter Jane Nicholls, Freelance writer and editor Lisa Kenway, Writer Virginia Peters, Writer Sarah Sasson, Physician-writer and reader Dr Joanna Nell, Writer Laura Clarke Author / Copywriter Nicole Reddy, Screenwriter Anna Downes, Writer Sharon Livingstone, Writer, editor, reader Lily Mulholland, Writer, screenwriter, technical editor Benjamin Dodds, Poet, reviewer, teacher Markus Zusak, Writer Alexandria Burnham, Writer, screenwriter Sam Coley, Writer Marian McGuinness, Writer Selina McGrath, Artist Adeline Teoh Natasha Rai, Writer Catherine Ferrari, Reader Jessica White, Writer & academic Zoe Downing, Writer, reader, creative writing student Amanda Tink, Writer, researcher, reader Lisa Nicol, Children's author, screenwriter, copywriter Aurora Scott, Writer Gillian Polack, Writer, academic Susan Lever, Critic and writer Denise Kirby, Writer Michele Seminara, Poet & editor Meredith Curnow, Publisher, Penguin Random House David Ryding, Arts Manager Catherine Hill Genevieve Buzo, Editor Hugo Wilcken DJ Daniels, Writer Linda Vergnani, Freelance journalist, writer and editor Tony Spencer-Smith, Author, writing trainer & editor Dr Viki Cramer, Freelance writer and editor Petronella McGovern, Author, freelance writer and editor Jacqui Stone, Writer and editor Talia Horwitz, Writer, reader & writing student Sophie Ambrose, Publisher, Penguin Random House Rebecca Starford, Publishing director, KYD; editor and writer David Blumenstein, Writer, artist Rashida Tayabali, Freelance writer Sheila Ngoc Pham, Writer, editor and producer Rosalind Gustafson, Writer Alan Vaarwerk, Editor, Kill Your Darlings Gillian Handley, Editor, journalist, writer Karina Machado Isabelle Yates, Commissioning Editor, Penguin Random House Michelle Barraclough, Writer Natalie Scerra, Writer Melanie Myers, Writer, editor and Creative Writing teacher Emily Lawrence, Aspiring Writer Nicola Aken, Screenwriter Jennifer Nash, Librarian, writer Clare Millar, Writer and editor Kathryn Knight, Editor, Penguin Random House Linda Funnell, Editor, reviewer, tutor, Newtown Review of Books Stacey Clair, Editor, writer, former events/projects producer at Queensland Writers Centre Virginia Muzik, Writer, copyeditor, proofreader, aspiring author Lisa Walker, Writer Sarah Morton, Copywriter, aspiring author, Member of Writing NSW Board Laura Russo, Writer and editor Vivienne Pearson, Freelance writer Justin Ractliffe, Publishing Director, Penguin Random House Australia James Ley, Contributing Editor, Sydney Review of Books Alison Urquhart, PublisherPenguin Random House Debra Adelaide, Author and associate professor of creative writing, University of Technology Sydney Magdalena Ball, Writer, Reviewer, Compulsive Reader Anna Spargo-Ryan, Writer, writing teacher, editor, reader Charlie Hester, Social media & project officer, Queensland Writers Centre Mandy Beaumont, Writer, researcher and reviewer Chloe Barber-Hancock, Writer, reader, pre-service teacher Dr Patrick Mullins, Academic and writer Wendy Hanna, Screenwriter Chloe Warren Dianne Masri, Social Media Consultant Jane Gibian, Writer, librarian, reader Dr Airlie Lawson, Academic and writer Karen Andrews, Writer, teacher, reader Tim Coronel, General manager, Small Press Network and Industry adjunct lecturer, University of Melbourne Tommy Murphy, Playwright and screenwriter Evlin DuBose, Editor, writer, screenwriter, director, poet, UTS's Vertigo Magazine Tony Maniaty, Writer Emma Ashmere, Writer, reader, teacher Alicia Gilmore, Writer Suzanne O'Sullivan, Publisher, Hachette Australia Jacqui DentWriter, Content Strategist Rachel Smith, Writer Intan Paramaditha, Writer Cassandra Wunsch, Director TasWriters (The Tasmanian Writers Centre) Meera Atkinson Eileen Chong, Poet, Writer, Educator Debra Tidball, Author, reviewer Beth Spencer, Author, poet, reader Lou Pollard, Comedy writer, blogger Bronwyn Stuart/Tilley, Author and program coordinator, Writers SA Gemma Patience, Writer, illustrator, reviewer Amarlie Foster, Writer, teacher Dr Felicity Plunkett, writer Angela Betzien Drew Rooke, Journalist and author Michael Mazengarb, Journalist RenewEconomy Katrina Roe, Children's author, broadcaster, audiobook narrator Liz Doran, Screenwriter Arnold Zable, Writer. Tom Langshaw, Editor, Penguin Random House Brooke Maddison Monica O'Brien, ProducerAmbience Entertainment Jacinta Dimase, Literary AgentJacinta Dimase Management Jane Novak, Literary AgentJane Novak Literary Agency Sarah Hollingsworth, Arts Organisation ManagerMarketing and Communications Manager, Writers Victoria Barbara Temperton, Writer Sandra van Doorn, Publisher Red Paper Kite Alex Eldridge, Writer Karen Beilharz, Writer, editor, comic creator Esther Rivers, Writer, editor, poet Jane Pochon, Board Member, lawyer and reader Zoe Walton, Publisher, Penguin Random House Eliza Twaddell Alison Green, CEO, Board Member, Pantera Press Emma Rafferty, Editor Sarah Swarbrick, Writer Dayne Kelly, Literary Agent, RGM Léa Antigny, Head of Publicity and Communications, Pantera Press Jenny Green, Finance, Pantera Press Sarah Begg, Writer Mark Harding, Writer, Brand Manager, Social Media and Content Specialist Shanulisa Prasad, Bookseller Katy McEwen, Rights Manager, Pantera Press Olivia Fricot, Content Writer/Bookseller, Booktopia Jack Peck, Writer, Open Genre Group Convenor, Writing NSW, Retired Kathy Skantzos, Writer, Editor Serene Conneeley, Author, Editor Kerry Littrich, Writer Merran Hughes, Creative Cassie Watson, Writer Lisa Seltzer, Copywriter, Social Media Manager and Marketing Consultant Gemma Noon, Writer and Librarian Tanya Tabone, Reader Laura Franks, Reader, Editor, Writer Dani Netherclift, Writer Who to contact We urge you to join us in advocating for Writing NSW and the state of funding for Australian literature, by contacting Create NSW, your NSW Member of Parliament, and the NSW Minister for the Arts.

Chris Keely Executive Director, Create NSW Email: chris.keely@create.nsw.gov.au

The Hon. Don Harwin, MLC Phone: (02) 8574 7200 Email: office@harwin.minister.nsw.gov.au

Who to else to contact

The Hon. (Walt) Walter Secord, MLC Shadow Minister for the Arts Phone: (02) 9230 2111 Email: walt.secord@parliament.nsw.gov.au Ms. Cate Faehrmann, MLC Greens representative for Arts, Music, Night-Time Economy and Culture Phone: (02) 9230 3771 Email: cate.faehrmann@parliament.nsw.gov.au A full list of names and contact details for NSW State MPs is available here.

[progressivejudaism]

Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem at this time is a symbolic move that helps no one except hardliners. It would be a dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible move by a dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible American president, and Palestinians and Israelis will be the ones to pay the price. We, along with Israeli custom and law relate to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital – but international recognition of Jerusalem’s status has always hinged on a successful resolution to the conflict, as part of a negotiated, final status peace agreement. Doing so outside of that context severely damages prospects for a negotiated peace agreement. President Trump may not understand what’s at stake here, but we do. Moving the embassy risks igniting the tinderbox of anger, frustration, and hopelessness that already exists in Jerusalem. Fifty years of occupation, a string of failed peace negotiations since Oslo, and no resolution in sight has created a delicate balance for people on-the-ground and throwing that balance off with this unilateral gesture could have grave consequences. As NIF president Talia Sasson wrote earlier this year, “If the United States is not prepared to condemn the continued Israeli construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which with every passing day further repels peace from our region, the least it can do is prevent the tragic conflagration that would consume our region with the transfer of the American embassy to Jerusalem.”

- Daniel Sokatch, CEO of New Israel Fund (NIF)

[newstfionline]

In West Bank, 99.7% of Public Land Grants by Israel Go to Settlers

By Isabel Kershner, NY Times, July 17, 2018

JERUSALEM--Over five decades in control of the West Bank, Israel has marked out hundreds of thousands of acres as public land, and it has allocated almost half of them for use.

But only 400 of those acres--0.24 percent of the total allocated so far--have been earmarked for the use of Palestinians, according to official data obtained recently by an anti-settlement group after a freedom of information request. Palestinians make up about 88 percent of the West Bank’s population.

The group, Peace Now, said the other 99.76 percent of the land went to help Israeli settlements.

The lopsided allocation is hardly surprising. Israeli legal experts say the whole point of seeking out state lands, the bulk of which were designated in the 1980s, was to aid the growing settlement enterprise, which most of the world considers a violation of international law.

But the paucity of land allocated to the Palestinians shows the extent of competition over territory, and the effort Israel puts toward building the settlements.

“We took the most important and precious resource--the land--for our use only,” said Hagit Ofran of Peace Now’s settlement-watch unit.

“The protected population has nobody else to care for it,” she said, referring to the Palestinians, “so the occupier has to do that.”

Peace Now based its calculations on data obtained from the Civil Administration, the Israeli authority that carries out civilian policy in the West Bank, including land administration, under the command of the military.

The Civil Administration gave the numbers to Peace Now in mid-June, more than two years after the group submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act, together with the Israeli Movement for Freedom of Information.

The issue is a pressing one for the Palestinians in the 60 percent of the West Bank known as Area C, which remains under full Israeli security and civil control.

The fate of a tiny Bedouin community, Khan al-Ahmar, in dry, beige hills east of Jerusalem that Israel has declared as state land, now hangs in the balance. Bulldozers are at the ready to demolish the village’s makeshift shacks, tents and mud-and-tire school, erected without permits, and to forcibly relocate the residents. A settlement nearby has plans to expand.

But Israel’s Supreme Court has issued a temporary injunction to freeze the demolition orders after residents submitted a last-ditch application for permanent construction to the Civil Administration’s planning bureau. They have also raised claims that the village sits on private land.

Since capturing the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war, Israel has declared as state land nearly 347,000 acres, or about 42 percent, of Area C, where the settlements are, and it has allocated 167,000 acres of that, ostensibly for public use. The vast majority of West Bank Palestinians live in Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority exercises civil and partial security control. Roughly 300,000 Palestinians reside in Area C, according to the United Nations, as do up to 400,000 Jewish settlers.

Israel began marking out state land in earnest in the 1980s, on the basis of old Ottoman land laws, after a Supreme Court ruling in 1979 against the seizing of privately owned Palestinian land for nonmilitary purposes like settlement building.

In 2013, in response to a court petition filed by two other groups, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Bimkom, the Civil Administration reported that 1.27 percent of allocated state land had gone to the Palestinians. This figure proved to include all land allocations, not only those of state land.

The Israeli government considers the West Bank to be disputed, not occupied, territory, because it was not part of a sovereign Palestinian state before 1967. The settlers, it argues, were not deported or transferred there, in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but went voluntarily.

“According to the Hague regulations, as long as the land is not privately owned, then the occupying power has got the right to enjoy it,” said Alan Baker, a retired Israeli diplomat and former legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Citing the rule of usufruct, he said, “You can enjoy the apples but can’t cut down the tree.”

It is on this basis that Israel approves settlement building. Mr. Baker, who lives in Har Adar in the West Bank, noted that his home, like all those in the settlements, is built on land lent from the Israel Lands Authority.

He said it was “completely possible, and not a violation of the law” to allocate more land to Jews than to Palestinians.

But Talia Sasson, an Israeli lawyer who worked in the state attorney’s office and is now the president of the board of the New Israel Fund, a nonprofit group that promotes civil rights in Israel, said: “This is beyond the question of legality according to international law or Israeli law or any other law--the Palestinians’ right to suitable housing and income from the land cannot morally be negated.”

Xavier Abu Eid, an official of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiations department, said, “The fact is that Israel is a belligerent occupying power trying to turn a territory under occupation into part of its own county.”

“These figures bring you back to the big picture--that Area C and state land are being used by Israel as a reservoir for Israeli settlement,” he added. “That’s the reality.”

[smithnewsco]

RT @IsraelHeadlines: Prominent scholar David Myers to succeed Talia Sasson as president of New Israel Fund https://t.co/YIr35onfO1 @SmithNewsCo #RealNews #SmithNews https://t.co/n4bHaWLKN3 https://t.co/Ssr7ugD5MP (via Twitter http://twitter.com/SmithNewsCo/status/1051147554052804608) https://ift.tt/2ITdLwC

[ringlawfirm]

Prominent scholar David Myers to succeed Talia Sasson as president of New Israel Fund - Israel News - Haaretz.com

Prominent scholar David Myers to succeed Talia Sasson as president of New Israel Fund – Israel News – Haaretz.com

As president of the organization, Myers says he hoped to focus on ‘pushing back attempts to tear down institutions of democracy in Israel’

Source: Prominent scholar David Myers to succeed Talia Sasson as president of New Israel Fund – Israel News – Haaretz.com

[publicsituation]

RT @MiddleEastInst: Settlements at 50 Years - An Obstacle to Peace and Democracy | Video from Friday's talk with Talia Sasson… https://t.co/CsbgMcpUG6

[vidoetv-blog]

Vidoe.TV

Rights groups in challenge controversial new Israeli settler law

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Rights groups in Israel have petitioned the country’s Supreme Court against a new law which legalises settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

The measure passed by the Israeli parliament on Monday drew widespread international condemnation.

Israel’s attorney-general says the law, which retroactively sanctions thousands of settler homes, is unconstitutional.

Other legal commentators say it is unlikely to survive judicial challenges.

Former state prosecutor Talia Sasson, who in 2005 spearheaded an inquiry into outposts said: “The state of Israel, when we are talking about Israel, has no sovereignty over there. And the Israeli law is not applying there, according to the Israeli government and Knesset. So how come the Knesset could legislate a law that applies there? If the Knesset can legislate law that applies in the West Bank, why can’t it legislate laws that apply in London or Paris?”

Under the law, settlers could remain if they built on land without prior knowledge of Palestinian ownership or with the Israeli state’s permission.

The EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has said the measure would cross a new and dangerous threshold if implemented.

President Mahmoud Abbas called it an aggression against the Palestinian people.

[publicsituation]

RT @philsweigart: Talia Sasson of @NewIsraelFund & @amirtibon discussing settlements, Israeli democracy now at @MiddleEastInst

[newstfionline]

Israeli settlements grew on Obama’s watch. They may be poised for a boom on Trump’s.

By Griff Witte, NY Times, January 2, 2016

SHILOH, West Bank--Through eight years of escalating criticism from the world’s most powerful leader, Israeli construction in these sacred, militarily occupied hills never stopped.

Thousands of homes were built. Miles of roadway. Restaurants. Shopping malls. A university.

And here in Shiloh, a tourist center went up, with a welcome video in which the biblical figure Joshua commands the Jewish people to settle the land promised to them by God.

Israeli settlements may be illegal in the eyes of the U.N. Security Council and a major obstacle to Middle East peace in the view of the Obama administration.

But every day they become a more entrenched reality on land that Palestinians say should rightfully belong to them. As the parched beige hilltops fill with red-tiled homes, decades of international efforts to achieve a two-state solution are unraveling.

And global condemnations notwithstanding, the trend is poised to accelerate.

Already, Israel has a right-wing government that boasts it is more supportive of settlement construction than any in the country’s short history. Within weeks, it will also have as an ally a U.S. president, Donald Trump, who has signaled he could make an extraordinary break with decades of U.S. policy and end American objections to the settlements.

The combination has delighted settlers here and across the West Bank who express hope for an unparalleled building boom that would kill off notions of a Palestinian state once and for all.

“If America interferes less, everything will be much easier,” said Shivi Drori, 43, who runs a winery in a Jewish outpost deep in the West Bank that the Israeli government considers officially off-limits to building but has tacitly backed. “I’d like to see bigger settlements. Major cities.”

Trump, Drori predicts, will help make that a reality simply by looking the other way.

“Obama was very confrontational,” Drori said. “The Trump administration seems much more sympathetic.”

Israel’s military conquered the West Bank in a matter of days 50 years ago this June in a war against neighboring Arab states. But settling the land has been the work of generations, accomplished hilltop by hilltop as temporary encampments and caravans have given way to suburban-style homes rooted firmly in the bedrock.

All the while, much of the world has opposed the settlements as an illegal infringement on occupied land. U.S. governments--Democrat and Republican alike--have urged Israel to halt the project and allow negotiations to dictate control of land that Palestinians say is vital to the viability of a future state.

Today, some 400,000 Israelis live in roughly 150 settlements scattered across the West Bank. That’s up from fewer than 300,000 when Barack Obama was elected. An additional 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as their future capital.

Unable to halt settlement growth, a frustrated Obama administration lashed out late last month with a twin-barreled diplomatic assault.

First, Washington abstained in a U.N. Security Council vote that demanded Israel end all settlement activity--enabling the resolution’s passage. Days later, Secretary of State John F. Kerry delivered an impassioned speech accusing Israel of putting the two-state solution “in serious jeopardy” by building “in the middle of what, by any reasonable definition, would be the future Palestinian state.”

Rather than be chastened by the criticism from the nation that has long been its closest ally, Israel’s government was furious. Settlers, meanwhile, brush it off as an irrelevance.

“There’s no implication,” said Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the Yesha Council, which represents settlers.

Kerry, Revivi said, is fixated on an idea that, because of decades of Palestinian violence and intransigence, can never become reality--two states for two peoples between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Revivi instead has his eyes fixed on the incoming Trump administration, which has signaled it will abandon U.S. attempts at evenhandedness in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and throw its weight squarely behind Israel.

“Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” Trump tweeted before the Kerry speech.

Trump and his advisers “have learned from President Obama’s experience,” Revivi said. “They’re not going to go into a swamp just for the sake of saying they’re in it.”

Revivi, who is also mayor of Efrat, a settlement that is poised to grow from 10,000 to 16,000, has good reason to think so.

Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, New York bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, has expressed positions on the settlements that are further to the right even than those of Israel’s hard-line prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Friedman, for instance, has argued in favor of Israeli annexation of the West Bank, long a fringe position in Israeli politics but one now gaining currency as the political stars align against the two-state solution.

“Everyone who talks about a Palestinian state today knows it will not happen,” said Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party.

Instead, Bennett argues for unilateral Israeli annexation of “Area C”--the 60 percent of West Bank land where Israeli settlements are concentrated. The vast majority of the West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinians live in Areas A and B, where Bennett says they should be able to have autonomy but not a state.

“We have to say, ‘This is what we want, and this is what we are going to do,’” he said. “You can’t go on saying how the world is wrong, this is ours, and then at the end you forget to kick the ball into the net.”

It’s not clear whether Netanyahu will be willing to go as far as his education minister, an ally at times but a fierce rival at others. Netanyahu is still on record supporting a two-state solution, albeit grudgingly.

But the fact that annexation is being discussed at all shows how far Israeli public sentiment has shifted in the settlers’ direction.

On the fast-shrinking left of Israeli politics, such ideas are regarded as a dangerous overreach that threatens Israel’s core democratic and Jewish identities as the Palestinian population grows.

“As a patriotic Israeli, I think it’s in the crucial interest of the state of Israel to get out of the West Bank,” said Talia Sasson, president of the New Israel Fund. “Otherwise we can’t maintain our basic principles.”

Human rights advocates insist those principles have already been trampled by a decades-long policy designed to maximize land for Jewish settlement and make life as difficult as possible for Palestinians.

Adam Aloni, a researcher for the advocacy group B’Tselem, said Israel had already carried out “de facto annexation” in the West Bank by building a network of roads and other barriers that isolate Palestinians in an archipelago of disconnected towns and cities.

“Israel is creating Palestinian ghettos, islands of land that are doomed to failure without basic resources,” he said.

One such island is the poor, litter-strewn village of Salem, where residents say their water supplies have been choked off by adjacent settlements and their access to farmland severely restricted.

“The settlers tell me, ‘You’re not allowed to be here,’” said Shareef Shtyah, a 33-year-old shepherd who’s had to cull his herd of sheep from 400 to 15 because the Israelis bar his access to traditional grazing areas. “I tell them, ‘You’re the ones who aren’t allowed to be here.’”

The Obama administration may have been sympathetic to Shtyah’s plight. But Palestinians express disappointment that Obama wasn’t able to help them secure many tangible achievements. And they have few illusions that they will get any support from Trump.

“He has the mentality of blindly supporting Israel,” said Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority’s point person on settlements in the northern West Bank. “It’s not been a promising start.”

As with so many things, it looks just the opposite to the settlers.

In Shiloh, a settler community of 3,200 a few miles down the road from Salem, residents mark the site of what they believe to be an ancient Jewish capital with a newly constructed archaeology museum and visitors center. Tens of thousands of people visit annually, including tourists from the United States.

Freshly built homes and restaurants dot thriving new neighborhoods catering to Israelis seeking to connect with the biblical lands of their ancestors--or maybe to just get a better quality of life at a cut-rate price.

Even the developments that are not entirely legal by Israeli standards, much less international ones, boast finely paved roads, soaring electricity pylons and reliable water supplies--all courtesy of the Israeli government. And at all times, of course, Israeli soldiers stand guard.

Life here is good, residents say, but it will be even better when Trump takes charge.

“It could have been two or three times as much” development had it not been for pressure from the Obama administration, said Eliana Passentin, who raises her eight children atop a ridge with sweeping views from the river to the sea. “People want to come here and build homes and build companies and build schools. We’ve been restricted in expanding our community. Now we’ll have more freedom.”