His Name is Ezra Nawi… His Name is Ezra Nawi… His Name is Ezra Nawi

by Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and Neve Gordon

(video of his arrest after letter)

Every so often someone comes along who is so brave and so inspiring that you can’t just sit back when you learn they need your help.

I am writing you today about one of these rare people.

His name is Ezra Nawi

His name is Erza Nawi.

You probably have never heard of him but because you May know our names, now you will know his.

Ezra Nawi is one of Israel’s most courageous human rights activists and without your help, in less than 30 days, he will likely go to jail.

His crime? He tried to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region. These homes and the Palestinians who live in them have been under Israeli occupation for 42 years. They still live without electricity, running water, or basic services. They are continually harassed by Jewish settlers and the military.

No Hope for Peace: Israel’s Settlement Escalation Will Kill Any Peace Plan

Peace Now: Israel planning 73,300 new homes in West Bank

by Sarah Miller, from Haaretz

A report by the Israeli left-wing NGO Peace Now released Monday says that the government is planning to build more than 73,300 new housing units in the West Bank.

Peace Now estimates that if all of the units are built, it would mean a 100-percent increase in the total number of Israeli settlers. The report says that some settlements, including the two largest Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim, would double in size.

Israeli Settlers Yelled “niggers don’t expel Jews” At (Jewish) Ethiopian IDF soldiers

This is what our “beacon of democracy in the region” did THIS WEEK…

(“IDF sources described how the right wing activists “want to spark a religious war that would inflame the entire region.” “…settlers opening fire on Palestinian civilians…” “…there has been remarkably little coverage in the American mainstream media…” “...graffiti has been scrawled (on Palestinian homes) reading “Mohammed the pig” and “Death to the Arabs“

“…Ethiopian IDF soldiers “enjoyed” their own variation on the abuse theme, being told “niggers don’t expel Jews“.

“they have messianic insanity in their eyes“…”they have to be stopped, now.”

Senior sources in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office were quoted as saying “these Jewish terrorists are as bad and dangerous as Arab terrorists.“)

by Daniel Levi, from TPM

A week of Israeli settler outrages against Palestinians and against Israel’s own security forces reached a crescendo over the last 24 hours with settlers opening fire on Palestinian civilians and unleashing violent disturbances across the West Bank. Israel’s Justice Minister, Daniel Friedman, has just called the events a “shocking pogrom”, journalists have described how their presence saved Palestinian residents of a home near Kiryat Arba from a lynching, and IDF sources described how the right wing activists “want to spark a religious war that would inflame the entire region.” The belated IDF action in upholding a court order to evict settlers from a home that they illegally occupied in Hebron, led by Defense Minister Barak, was at least effective, although the same cannot be said of the limp-wristed measures taken in the face of settler rampages against Palestinians, and of the general approach to settler lawlessness.

Settler violence continues in Hebron, 2-3 August 2008

(More violence perpetrated by Israeli “settlers” caught on film. Children throwing rocks at Palestinians and an assault on a reporter from an Israeli news crew there to document conflict in the occupied territories. When the video makes it to YouTube, I will put it up here. Till then, follow the link to the video.)

“Settler violence in Hebron continued over the weekend. The following footage shows minors throwing stones at Palestinian homes and at a car driven by international TIPH observers, as well as soldiers barring B’Tselem worker, Issa ‘Amro, from filming settlers who were assaulting a group of wedding guests. When a settler attacked ‘Amro and broke his camera, the soldiers stood by and did nothing. “  B’TSELEM

See video, here.

Israeli police evict Palestinian couple from home of 52 years

(Our “beacon fo democracy in the Middle East” kicked an elderly couple from their home of 52 years because they were the wrong “race”.)

by Guardian UK

Israeli police have evicted a disabled Palestinian man and his wife from the home where they had lived for 52 years, in a Palestinian district of east Jerusalem which is now surrounded by hardline Jewish settlers. The eviction came after years of litigation which culminated in an Israeli supreme court ruling in July ordering them out of the house.

What “Our Interests in the Region” Did This Week: Terrorized Children

(A couple weeks ago Israeli settlers (who think God decreed all Palestinian lands to Israel) viciously attacked an elderly farming couple with baseball bats. Last week Israel announced that they were going to expand the settlements in the West Bank, regardless of what it does to the Peace Process. And this week, these rogue “settlers” are now going after the weakest and most defenseless in the West Bank: kids. These settlers are paid stipends by their government which really comes straight from money sent from the United States. That’s right: in order to create this world that the Israelis want, they pay “settlers” to terrorise the inhabitants of areas of Palestine so that they will give up and leave their ancestral homes. That, by definition, is terrorism. Pure and simple. And that is what our “leaders” call our “beacon of democracy in the region”: state sponsored terrorism. “Terrorism is “the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” Wiki.)

Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank

by Kathy Kelly from CounterPunch, here.

 6:45 a.m. yesterday morning, our friend, Joel Gulledge, called from At-Tuwani, a village in the West Bank where he and another Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) member were escorting Palestinian children to a local summer daycamp, protecting them from hostile Israeli settlers. A masked settler, carrying a slingshot, was threatening the children. While Jan Benvie, the other CPT team member, raced the children to safety, Joel paused to film what was happening. The masked settler caught up with Joel and attacked him. “He smashed my head again and again,” said Joel, “with my video camera, and punched me in the face, repeatedly, with his other hand.” Joel managed to remain standing. He didn’t fight back, but he screamed for help. The attacker broke Joel’s glasses, and Joel was bleeding from a gash over his eyes. When he called, he was waiting for an ambulance to arrive.