513 Israeli ambassador tried to scuttle 60 Minutes program on Palestinian Christians

Israeli ambassador tried to scuttle 60 Minutes program on Palestinian
Christians

(1) Israeli ambassador tried to scuttle 60 Minutes program on
Palestinian Christians
(2) Israeli diplomats: 60 Minutes report on Israel's treatment of
Christians was a Strategic Threat
(3) Knesset members celebrate latest E. Jerusalem settlement by posing
on evicted Palestinian family's sofa
(4) Stockholm airport bars Israeli airline over security inspection methods
(5) Ethnic cleansing of Palestine: destruction & demolition of Arab
homes continues throughout the West Bank
(6) Police unit being formed to evict Bedouin from their homes
(7) ICC refuses to investigate Israeli War Crimes in Gaza: says it has
no jurisdiction because Palestine is not a state
(8) 'We must expel Arabs and take their place': 1937 Ben-Gurion letter
advocating expulsion of Palestinians
(9) Israel has approved 1,800 illegal settlement units since the
beginning of 2012
(10) Head of Bill Kristol's lobby group calls on Israeli army to use
Palestinian protesters as 'target practice'

(1) Israeli ambassador tried to scuttle 60 Minutes program on
Palestinian Christians

From: "Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences)"
<sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:53:11 -0400

<http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=OkE6vsJC78ItX303LgZ8i2gHjEQCSS6x>


Thank 60 Minutes for Segment on Palestinian Christians

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57417408/christians-of-the-holy-land/
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7406228n&tag=api

Last night, 60 Minutes aired a segment entitled "Christians of the Holy
Land" that offered American viewers an unprecdented look into the lives
and circumstances of Palestinian Christians and warned about the
potential effects of, among other things, Israel's occupation, wall and
policies toward Palestinians on the continued presence of Christians in
the Holy Land. It alerted viewers to the fact that, if continued, these
policies will likely lead to the end of a Christian presence in the
birthplace of Christianity itself. The segment,
<http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=SU6fYHOZQT%2BSi2438hnEQ2gHjEQCSS6x>which
can be seen here, was undoubtedly eye-opening to many Americans who
have, for too long, remained unaware of the conditions suffered by
Palestinian Christians, the self-described "living stones" of the Holy Land.

The segment was also notable in that the Israeli Ambassador to the
United States, Michael Oren, called the Chairman of CBS News and the
Executive Producer of 60 Minutes to protest the reporting of the piece,
before it was even aired, a fact that veteran 60 Minutes correspondent,
Bob Simon, noted in the segment and about which he confronted Ambassador
Oren on air, saying that he had never received such a call in his many
years as a journalist. The disclosure of the Israeli Ambassador's
attempt to prevent the segment from even airing offered Americans a
revelaing look into the kind of censorship and behind-the-scenes efforts
to stifle public discourse about Israeli occupation and discrimination
that the Israeli government and its American supporters have practiced
for many decades.

In response to the segment, ADC President Warren David stated, "60
Minutes' segment was an important contribution to our nation's
understanding of the appalling conditions of the Palestinian people in
general and the tragic plight of Palestinian Christians in particular.
While there were some aspects of the story that we would have liked to
have seen emphasized more or less, overall, we found the segment to be a
balanced, responsible and informative treatment of a very important
subject to Americans, Christians and people the world over who wish to
see a Holy Land that is not limited to people of one or another faith,
but that instead reflects, celebrates and perpetuates the vibrancy and
splendor of religious diversity."

ADC urges you to contact 60 Minutes to thank them for their courageous
and important segment on Palestinian Christians by emailing them at
<mailto:60m@cbsnews.com>

(2) Israeli diplomats: 60 Minutes report on Israel's treatment of
Christians was a Strategic Threat

Nashid Abdul-Khaaliq <nashidg@yahoo.com> 25 April 2012 05:20

http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/israeli-officials-60-minutes-report-on-treatment-of-christians-a-strategic-threat/

Israeli Officials: 60 Minutes Report on Treatment of Christians a
Strategic Threat

Tuesday, 24 April 2012 19:00 | Written by antiwar.com | | |

Diplomats Do Damage Control After On-Air Blow-Up of Israeli Ambassador

Sunday's '60 Minutes' broadcast of a 12+ minute story on Israel's
mistreatment of Palestinian Christians was a 'strategic threat' to
Israel, according to top Israeli diplomats who are struggling to defend
Ambassador to the US Michael Oren's efforts to force CBS to kill the
segment.

The story by reporter Bob Simon began as a segment about the
disappearance of Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, with emphasis
on a family whose Bethlehem home, once on the busiest street in town, is
now surrounded on three sides by Israeli military walls.

It became much more however, when Oren approached CBS before the story
was even completed and demanded that the network not air the story,
accusing Simon of a "hatchet job" on Israel.

Ensuring this story really was must-see TV, it included a sit-down
between Simon and Oren, with Simon confronting the Israeli ambassador on
his position, and insisting that he had never had a government try to
kill a story before broadcast.

Oren started out smugly, insisting there was a "first time for
everything," but the segment quickly went off the rails as a visibly
angry Oren insisted that the questions he was being asked "proved" that
the story was a threat to Israel, and that it was his job as ambassador
to see that it never saw the light of day.

Elsewhere in the interview, Oren was confronted about his government's
hostility toward Palestinian Christians, and in particular its angry
condemnation of a pamphlet urging Palestinians to abandon violence and
endorse peaceful protest as a means to oppose the occupation. Oren
responded that the groups responsible for the pamphlet (shown in the
segment to include Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican Christians)
are "known" for their anti-Semitism.

Though the story more or less ends there in the US, Israeli press has
been all over the story, with concerns that Oren's behavior could do
serious harm to Israel's tourism industry, which is almost exclusively
Christian in nature.

Officials maintain that Oren acted entirely appropriately, and diplomats
say that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "fully briefed" of the
plan to try to kill the story. The Prime Minister's office even crowed
about the effort, saying that Oren's efforts had managed to "delay" the
report for several weeks.

(3) Knesset members celebrate latest E. Jerusalem settlement by posing
on evicted Palestinian family's sofa

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/knesset-members-celebrate-latest-e-jerusalem-settlement-by-posing-on-evicted-palestinian-familys-sofa.html

by Allison Deger on April 24, 2012 27

{photo} Knesset members Michael Ben-Ari (left) and Aryeh Eldad on the
evicted Natcheh family's sofa in Beit Hanina. (Photo: Michael Ben-Ari)
{end}

Following last week's eviction of the Palestinian Natcheh family from
their Beit Hanina home, Israeli Knesset members Michael Ben-Ari and
Aryeh Eldad visited the house now inhabited by some eight settlers. To
mark the occasion they posted a picture of themselves lounging on the
Natcheh's sofa on Facebook.

"We are at the start of the establishment of a new Jewish neighborhood
in the area, which will create a continuous sequence of Jewish
neighborhoods in northern Jerusalem," said Eldad to the settler online
mouthpiece, Israel National News. "Only the stubbornness of the Jewish
landowners and Aryeh King of the National Land Redemption Fund
ultimately led to the achievement of the day and we are confident law
enforcement agencies will be required from now on to remove Arab
squatters from all the properties of the Jews in the area." Ben-Ari and
Eldad "affixed mezuzahs" inside of the house, rituatlistically marking
the takeover.

The Knesset ministers hope to judaize Beit Hanina, though historically
there have never been Jewish residents in this East Jerusalem
neighborhood. On Facebook, Ben-Ari said the settlers will build 50 new
housing units on the property.
Screen shot of photo caption on Ben-Ari's Facebook page, announcing
hopes to build
"50 housing units."

Since 2004, settlers have tried to confiscate the Natcheh family's
property. Part of the land had belonged to the Hebrew University, and
in 2004 their shares were sold to the Palestinian Authority, despite a
steeper counter offer from King. Then about a year ago, King tracked
down an alleged Jewish owner who he claimed purchased the land in 1974.
King then presented documents to the Jerusalem municipality, though the
Palestinian family said the papers were forged. Khaled Natcheh called
the magistrate a "settlers' court," as reported by Haaretz's Nir Hasson.

Yet the Natcheh family states they have owned the land since the 1930s,
using it first as a cement factory, later building three homes during
the 1980s, according to Michael Salisbury with the Israeli Committee
Against Home Demolitions who has visited with the Natcheh family several
times in the past few weeks.

Ben-Ari and Eldad are both members of the right-wing National Union
party. Previously, Ben-Ari was a member of the now illegal Kach party.

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on
twitter at @allissoncd.

(4) Stockholm airport bars Israeli airline over security inspection methods

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 20 April 2012 06:52

http://www.haaretz.com/business/stockholm-airport-bars-israeli-airline-over-security-inspection-methods-1.425201

Published 03:30 19.04.12

Latest update 03:30 19.04.12

Stockholm airport bars Israeli airline over security inspection
methodsSwedish port refuses to allow Israeli methods of security
inspections dictated by Shin Bet, which inlcude ethnic, personal
profiling, extensive questioning.

By Zohar Blumenkrantz

Arkia has to stop flying to Stockholm because the Swedish capital's
international airport now refuses to allow Israeli methods of security
inspections dictated by the Shin Bet security service, TheMarker learned
on Wednesday. Thus, Stockholm's airport joined those in Malmo, Sweden
and in Copenhagen in refusing to allow Israeli security inspections,
which involve ethnic and personal profiling, extensive questioning and
selective inspections based on the perceived degree of risk to security.

Arkia, the only Israeli airline flying to Sweden, had to move its
operations to Malmo and Stockholm this year after Denmark refused to
permit Israeli security procedures at its airports last summer. Arkia
elected to fly passengers to Sweden and take them by land to Denmark.
Now this avenue is closed.

The foreign and transport ministries are working with the Shin Bet to
resolve the dispute, especially since thousands of Israelis bought
tickets to the region for summer.

"It seems from the international media that additional European
countries waving the flag of civil rights and equality will refuse the
Israeli security demands, which I've warned would happen," said Arkia
CEO Gadi Tepper. Arkia and other Israeli airlines would face serious
difficulty if much of Europe is blocked to them, he said.

"We are talking with security authorities in Sweden and other countries
where problems have surfaced, to understand the meaning of the new
restrictions imposed on Israeli flights," said the Transport Ministry,
noting it was working with the Foreign Ministry, the embassy in
Stockholm and Israeli security authorities.

"The Transport Ministry intends to continue allowing Israeli companies
to fly to all destinations without restrictions, while providing for all
aspects of security and safety," it said. ...

(5) Ethnic cleansing of Palestine: destruction & demolition of Arab
homes continues throughout the West Bank

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 19 April 2012 22:27

It's important to remember that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine is
constantly on-going.

Kris

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/from-yamit-to-the-jordan-valley-the-idf-continues-to-force-arabs-from-their-homes-1.424503

Published 01:18 16.04.12

Latest update 01:18 16.04.12

From Yamit to the Jordan Valley, the IDF continues to force Arabs from
their homes

Three decades after the IDF expelled Bedouins from Sinai, destruction
and demolition of Arab homes continues throughout the West Bank.

By Amira Hass

Last week, evacuees of Yamit marked the 30th anniversary of the
demolition of their illegal settlement in the northern part of the Sinai
Peninsula. Radio reports blithely skirted the fact that the construction
of these Sinai settlements was preceded by mass destruction. Under
orders from then-defense minister Moshe Dayan and Southern Command head
Ariel Sharon, in 1972 the Israel Defense Forces secretly expelled 1,500
Bedouin families from the Al-Ramilat tribes, from a 140,000 dunam area.
As Oded Lipschits wrote in a February 2002 column of the kibbutz
movement journal Hadaf Hayarok, his memory of those facts was jogged
when the IDF demolished houses in Rafah in 2002. Referring to what
happened in the Sinai years earlier, he wrote, "A group of members from
kibbutzim in the region, including me, started to investigate. We went
out and toured the area, and were stunned by the dimensions of the
wreckage, and by the number of persons who were expelled. The IDF and
the government denied the facts that we presented, and claimed that they
had merely evacuated a few nomads from state lands onto which the nomads
had recently encroached."

An inquiry committee ultimately established that the expulsion was
carried out without government authorization; Dayan had acted upon his
own initiative. There were some censorious rebukes about "transgression
of authority," and some low-ranking officers were demoted. Nonetheless,
the Golda Meir government carried out a pre-prepared plan to build
settlements on the very same region from which the Bedouins had been
expelled. Lipschits wrote, "Sadat and top Egyptian officials wrote in
retrospect that the Israeli government's decision to establish a large
Israeli city [Yamit] was the straw that broke the camel's back, and
caused Egypt to give up hopes for a peace agreement, and to initiate the
Yom Kippur War."

Destruction and dejection

Now, moving from Lipschits and the Sinai to today's occupied
territories: destruction and demolition continues all the time. Silence
is maintained, even without coercive actions taken by the censor, and
the goal of using "C" areas to prevent natural Palestinian growth is
promoted all the time. New master plans developed by Israel have left
the Palestinians in area C out, so building remains forbidden.
Connecting to water and electrical grids is illegal, and each act of
demolition is "legal" and "authorized."

Since the beginning of the current year, through April 3, the Civil
Administration has demolished 184 Palestinian structures, and 338 people
have lost their homes, according to data compiled by the UN's Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). For example, during the
week of March 21-27, authorities demolished 24 structures, including six
residential structures. That week, 36 people, including 13 children,
lost their homes. Six structures belonging to the herding communities of
Tel al Hema and Frush Beit Dajan, in the northern Jordan Valley, were
destroyed. Dafna Banai and Dorit Hershkowitz of the Checkpoint-Watch
grassroots movement visited al Hema two days after the demolition.
Following is Banai's translated March 29th report, from the Rebuilding
Alliance website:

"On Monday, March 26, 2012, darkness fell on Khabis Sawaftah's family.
While the family members were busy with their morning tasks, two
bulldozers, 12 vehicles from the Civil Administration, Border Police
personnel and about 40 additional soldiers descended upon them, ordering
them out of their home. Khabis, his wife and their five children stood
20 meters away, with the soldiers standing between them and their house.
The family watched Civil Administration personnel dump their belongings
- sacks of lentils and rice, blankets and mattresses, schoolbooks and
clothing - all tossed around as if they were garbage.

When they finished emptying the house of its inhabitants' things, Civil
Administration personnel entered to photograph the empty structure (to
prove that the compassionate occupier destroys only empty homes and not,
God forbid, their contents). Then it was the reaper's turn; in a few
minutes the home was turned into a pile of stones, boards and plastic
sheeting.

The family cat refused to abandon her kittens; the house was demolished
around them. A few hours later the family saw the cat climbing out of
the rubble, carrying her six kittens, hale and hearty. The chicken that
hid in the aluminum stove also survived but, traumatized, refused to
leave it.

The lives of Khabis and his children (the oldest is 13) have been
destroyed. Khabis is a wage laborer, the poorest of the poor, living on
land belonging to our friend N., which is registered in his name in the
tabu - the land registry. N. employs him to cultivate the fields and
take care of the date palms in return for meager pay and housing. But
Khabis somehow managed to survive. Now the house is gone. Everything
that provided even a minimum of security - a place to lay their heads,
store some food and get shelter from the burning sun and the rain - all
gone.

People from the UN, the Red Cross (which brought a small plastic tent)
and many politicians from the Palestinian Authority arrived a few hours
later with fine, encouraging words. After they departed, however, Khabis
was left with his pain, helpless.

What happens now? What can he say to Khaled, his 13-year-old son, who
refuses to greet the Jewish women two days after their countrymen
destroyed his life, looking at us with such justifiable hatred. We sit
with the family, the little girl on the ground in the tent, doing her
homework, listening to the family tearfully repeat what occurred during
those forty terrible minutes. And we have nothing at all to say in
reply. Because, no matter how much solidarity we feel, we can't even
begin to imagine how terrible it must be when a bulldozer demolishes
your home."

Civil Administration data relayed to Haaretz indicate that desist orders
for illegal building were issued on December 19, 2011, and a demolition
order was passed on to the family weeks later, on January 12.

(6) Police unit being formed to evict Bedouin from their homes

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 19 April 2012 08:16

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/police-unit-being-formed-to-resettle-bedouin-in-israel-s-south-1.424959

Haaretz, April 18, 2012

Police unit being formed to resettle Bedouin in Israel's south

New unit to number some 100 law-enforcers in the first stage; another
100 or so are expected to be enlisted later on.

By Yanir Yagna

A new police unit is being set up to enforce eviction and destruction
orders served by the Israel Lands Administration to Bedouin in the
Negev, and to deal with Bedouin incursions onto state lands.

Israel Police's Southern District has been recruiting dozens of police
officers in the past few weeks, to join the new unit, which will number
some 100 law-enforcers in the first stage. Another 100 or so officers
are expected to be enlisted at a later stage. Most of the officers are
new recruits, but others will be transferred from existing units.

The unit will be part of the coordinating authority in the Prime
Minister's Office, whose duty it is to apply land laws in the Negev on
the basis of recommendations from the Goldberg Committee that looked
into the matter of Bedouin settlements in 2008. Following a government
decision on the matter last September, Public Security Minister Yitzhak
Aharonovitch began setting up the unit, which, he said, will start
operating in August 2012. The unit, which does not yet have an organized
operational plan, will operate in coordination with government offices
including the Interior Ministry, the ILA, the Environmental Protection
Ministry's Green Police unit, and the PMO.

Residents of the south have criticized the plan to set up the unit,
saying that it is a mistake to use the police to solve land disputes.
"We do not need the police in order to reach an agreement. We must sit
down and solve the issue through negotiations," said Ibrahim al-Wakili,
who heads the regional council of unrecognized Bedouin communities in
the Negev. "We are not interested in a confrontation with the police
officers who ... in the past, used violent force in front of young
children."

Minister Benny Begin (Likud) has visited the Bedouin settlements in the
Negev several times since September. He has held talks with the
residents in what he says was an attempt to understand their needs and
their positions on the resettlement matter.

Three weeks ago, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination called on the Israeli government to withdraw a
draft law for regulating the settlement of the Bedouin in the Negev,
known as the Prawer Plan, saying that it was discriminatory and would
legalize racist practices. The plan envisages the transfer of some
30,000 Bedouin residents from unrecognized villages to new neighborhoods
in existing Bedouin towns and villages, including Rahat, Kseifa and
Hura. Under the proposal, the Bedouin would receive alternate lands in
these communities as well as monetary compensations.

The plan is expected to cost some NIS 6.8 billion, of which NIS 1.2
billion would go toward development in existing Bedouin communities.

(7) ICC refuses to investigate Israeli War Crimes in Gaza: says it has
no jurisdiction because Palestine is not a state

From: "Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences)"
<sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 09:19:57 -0400

Published on Wednesday, April 4, 2012 by
<http://www.commondreams.org>Common Dreams

ICC Refuses to Investigate Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

World criminal court says it has no jurisdiction because Palestine is
not a state

- Common Dreams staff

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/04/04

The International Criminal Court refused on a Tuesday to consider a war
crimes tribunal against Israel for its military assault on the Gaza
Strip in 2009 or for other possible criminal acts in occupied Palestine.
Israel welcomed the news, but human rights groups condemned the
announcement, including the legal justifications used by the ICC in its
decison.

Palestinians run for cover during the Israeli phosphorus strike over the
UN Relief and Works Agency HQ in Gaza in January. The ICC rejected its
obligation to investigate Israeli war crimes in occupied Palestine.
(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images) "This dangerous decision opens the ICC
to accusations of political bias and is inconsistent with the
independence of the ICC. It also breaches the Rome Statute which clearly
states that such matters should be considered by the institution's
judges," said Marek Marczyn´ski, Head of Amnesty International's
International Justice campaign.

The attack on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009 killed nearly 1,400
Palestinians and devastated vital infrastructure. Palestinians last year
petitioned for full UN membership, but that effort has been blocked so
far with the most fierce resistance coming from the United States and
Israel.
* * *

Al-Jazeera:
<http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/20124318028457229.html>

ICC says it cannot investigate alleged Israeli crimes in Gaza because
Palestine is not a state

The International Criminal Court has halted a Palestinian Authority bid
to clear the way for the permanent war crimes tribunal to investigate an
Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip that began in December 2008.

"The office [of the prosecutor] has assessed that it is for the relevant
bodies at the UN or the Assembly of State Parties to make a legal
determination whether Palestine qualifies as a state for the purpose of
acceding to the Rome Statute [the court's founding treaty]," the
prosecutor's office said in a statement on Tuesday.

The Palestinian Authority in January 2009 accepted the Hague-based
court's jurisdiction, asking prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to launch a
war crimes investigation against Israel following the Gaza war.

It wanted Moreno-Ocampo to look into "acts committed on the territory of
Palestine" going as far back as July 2002. Moreno-Ocampo's office then
opened a preliminary probe to see if there were grounds to proceed with
an investigation.

Tuesday's statement, however, said the court's reach was not based on a
principle of universal jurisdiction and it could open investigations
only if asked to do so by either the UN Security Council or by a
recognised state.
Palestine does not have full UN membership, though it has asked for it.
* * *

Amnesty International:
<http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/icc-prosecutor-statement-fears-over-justice-gaza-victims-2012-04-03>

A "Dangerous" Decision by ICC

"This dangerous decision opens the ICC to accusations of political bias
and is inconsistent with the independence of the ICC. It also breaches
the Rome Statute which clearly states that such matters should be
considered by the institution's judges," said Marek Marczyn´ski, Head of
Amnesty International's International Justice campaign.

"For the past three years, the prosecutor has been considering the
question of whether the Palestinian Authority is a "state" that comes
under the jurisdiction of the ICC and whether the ICC can investigate
crimes committed during the 2008-9 conflict in Gaza and southern Israel."

"Now, despite Amnesty International's calls and a very clear requirement
in the ICC's statute that the judges should decide on such matters, the
Prosecutor has erroneously dodged the question, passing it to other
political bodies."

(8) 'We must expel Arabs and take their place': 1937 Ben-Gurion letter
advocating expulsion of Palestinians

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 5 April 2012 05:51

CAMERA, a Zionist watchdog in the States, has accused Israeli historian
Ilan Pappé of fabricating a David Ben-Gurion quotation. In a letter from
Ben-Gurion to his son Amos, available at the URL below, Israel's first
Prime Minister did in fact write: "We must expel Arabs and take their
place."

To CAMERA, all I can say is: Nice try!

Kris

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/we-must-expel-arabs-and-take-their-place-institute-for-palestine-studies-publishes-1937-ben-gurion-letter-advocating-the-expulsion-of-palestinians.html

'We must expel Arabs and take their place': Institute for Palestine
Studies publishes 1937 Ben-Gurion letter advocating the expulsion of
Palestinians

by Adam Horowitz on March 28, 2012

From the Institute for Palestine Studies:

On 3 November 2011, the self-appointed media watchdog CAMERA (Committee
for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) informed the Journal
of Palestine Studies of an incorrect citation in an article by Illan
Pappé ("The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine") published in its autumn
2006 issue. The incorrect citation referred to a quotation by Israeli
founding father David Ben-Gurion supporting the expulsion ("transfer")
of Arabs from Palestine.

CAMERA asked JPS to "issue a correction stating that the quote
attributed to Ben-Gurion does not appear in the references cited" in JPS
and its website "to prevent further erroneous uses of this quote."

CAMERA's accusations (e.g., 3 February 2012) that Pappé "invented" or
"fabricated" the quotation, suggesting that the Zionist leader had never
supported transfer, led JPS to have the original source—Ben-Gurion's 5
October 1937 letter to his son—translated into English. The letter
vindicates Pappé's reading of Ben-Gurion's position on transfer and the
essential accuracy of his article. While JPS regrets the lapses of
citation, the 2006 article, fully consonant with the historical record,
remains in our view an excellent summation of Zionist planning behind
the Palestinian expulsions of 1948.

Here is the Journal for Palestine Studies official response to CAMERA
(published in their winter 2012 issue), and a link to the Pappé article
in question.

Also, the Institute has published a full English translation of the 1937
Ben-Gurion letter Pappe refers to (the Institute says it's the first
time an English translation of the letter has been published). It is a
truly fascinating exchange between Ben-Gurion and his son Amos, who
appears critical of his father's decision to support a partition plan
put forward by the Peel Commission. Here, Ben-Gurion describes how he
sees partition fitting into the Zionist movement's long term goals:

My assumption (which is why I am a fervent proponent of a state, even
though it is now linked to partition) is that a Jewish state on only
part of the land is not the end but the beginning.

When we acquire one thousand or 10,000 dunams, we feel elated. It does
not hurt our feelings that by this acquisition we are not in possession
of the whole land. This is because this increase in possession is of
consequence not only in itself, but because through it we increase our
strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the
land as a whole. The establishment of a state, even if only on a portion
of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present
time and a powerful boost to our historical endeavors to liberate the
entire country.

We shall admit into the state all the Jews we can. We firmly believe
that we can admit more than two million Jews. We shall build a
multi-faceted Jewish economy-- agricultural, industrial, and maritime.
We shall organize an advanced defense force—a superior army which I have
no doubt will be one of the best armies in the world. At that point I
am confident that we would not fail in settling in the remaining parts
of the country, through agreement and understanding with our Arab
neighbors, or through some other means.

Here is the entire letter:

B-G Letter translation
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/117343519/B-G-Letter-translation

(9) Israel has approved 1,800 illegal settlement units since the
beginning of 2012

Kristoffer Larsson <krislarsson@comhem.se> 1 April 2012 20:41

http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/middle-east/3573-israel-has-approved-1800-illegal-settlement-units-since-the-beginning-of-the-year

Israel has approved 1,800 illegal settlement units since the beginning
of the year

Friday, 30 March 2012 11:42

It has been disclosed that the Israeli occupation authorities have
seized hundreds of acres of agricultural land in the West Bank and
occupied Jerusalem for the benefit of illegal settlement and Judaisation
projects. A report prepared by the Palestine Liberation Organisation to
coincide with Land Day also claims that Israel has given approval for
1,800 new housing units on illegal settlements since the beginning of
2012. It seems, says the PLO, that the pace and scope of the Israeli
occupation is being stepped up, with more Palestinian land being stolen
by force.

This year alone, Israel has seized more than 3.5 million square metres
of Palestinian land to expand its illegal settlements and construct the
"apartheid" wall. More than 1.2 million square metres of land owned by
Palestinians in Walajeh, south of occupied Jerusalem, has been earmarked
by the Israelis for a so-called "biblical garden".

According to the report, the Israeli government has approved the
building of 1,805 new settlement units in the Palestinian territories
during the last three months, including nearly a thousand units to be
built in settlements located in occupied Jerusalem.

The report added that more than 90 buildings including houses, tents,
barracks and industrial installations belonging to Palestinians were
demolished by Israel to make way for its illegal building plans. The PLO
mentions that while this ongoing colonisation is taking place, the
Israelis have also been destroying homes and other buildings in Gaza
with their aerial bombardments.

Details noted in the report include the 35 Palestinians who have been
killed by the Israelis in the first three months of 2012, including 7
children; 175 people were wounded in the recent attacks on the Gaza
Strip. Almost 800 Palestinians have been arrested by Israel in a period
which has seen the longest hunger strike ever to take place in an
Israeli prison; the prisoner was protesting against Israel's oppression
of the people of Palestine.

(10) Head of Bill Kristol's lobby group calls on Israeli army to use
Palestinian protesters as 'target practice'

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/head-of-bill-kristols-lobby-group-calls-on-israeli-army-to-use-palestinian-protesters-as-target-practice.html

by Philip Weiss on March 31, 2012 24

Bill Kristol is the chairman of the Emergency Committee for Israel, Noah
Pollak is the top staffer at the shop. From Pollak's twitter feed (and
thanks to ThinkProgress for spotting it):

{start twitter feed}
Global March to Jerusalem needs a more accurate name, like Global March
to Become Target Practice for the IDF.
{end}

Pollak has earlier called for "disproportionate force" against
Palestinians and for shooting released Palestinian prisoners.

Rachel Abrams is on the board of ECI and has called upon Israel to throw
Palestinian children into the sea to be eaten by sharks.