West Bank

Amnesty International's Saleh Hijazi speaks to +972 about his organization's new report, the Israeli government’s harsh response, and why our analysis of Israeli apartheid needs to begin from 1948. By: Edo Konrad Even before Amnesty International’s bombshell new report on Israel-Palestine was released on Tuesday morning, the Israeli government and some of the most prominent pro-Israel organizations around the world were on the offensive. The report, titled “Israel’s Apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime against Humanity,” was leaked to the Israeli government as well as the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League, each of which roundly accused Amnesty International of outright antisemitism. It’s not hard t...

Israeli soldiers force closure of Palestinian stores in Hebron’s Old City After settlers attacked Palestinian store owners, the Israeli army punished the Palestinians by shutting their businesses for nearly a week. By: Basil al-Adraa Israeli soldiers are seen enforcing the closure of Palestinian-owned stores in Hebron's Old City, occupied West Bank, Jan. 29, 2022. (Basil al-Adraa) This article was published in partnership with Local Call. Last week, the Israeli army shut 45 Palestinian stores in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, without telling the business owners why or when they would be permitted to reopen. The closure, which Palestinian residents described as collective punishment, began on Jan. 27 after the shops were targeted by Israeli settlers...

כדי לשנות את המציאות, צריך קודם כל להכיר בה כהווייתה: בכל מרחבי השליטה הישראליים, משני צדי הקו הירוק, מתקיים משטר אחד החותר לבסס ולהעמיק את העליונות היהודית, באופן בלתי הפיך. קוראים לזה אפרטה 12.1.2021 אחת המשימות הקשות ביותר העומדת בפני מי ששואפים לשנות את המציאות, היא ההכרה במציאות עצמה. זוהי סכנה האורבת תדיר לפתחם של יחידים וקבוצות הפועלים לשינוי חברתי, פוליטי או אחר: לא פעם אנחנו נוטים להיות כל כך מרוכזים בפעילות למען המטרה שהצבנו לעצמנו, עד שאנחנו לא ערים לכך שהנסיבות שבתוכן אנחנו פועלים השתנו באופן מהותי. שאנחנו משחקים לא רק על מגרש משחקים אחר, אלא משחק אחר לחלוטין. כאשר מנגד פועלים כוחות רבי עוצמה כדי לטשטש את מהותה של המציאות הזו, אזי המשימה להכיר בה, לקרוא לה בשמה המדויק, הופכת לחיונית עוד יותר. את הדבר הזה בדיוק עושה כיום ארגון בצלם, בקביעה כי בין הים ...

One of Israel's top human rights groups recognizes the occupation cannot be viewed in isolation from the goal of Jewish supremacy inside the Green Line. Israeli troops confiscate a vegetables vendor as they guard construction work by a main road south of Hebron in the West Bank on December 16, 2019. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90) By: Orly Noy There is a constantly lurking danger for individuals and groups struggling for social or political change. We tend to concentrate so intently on our goal that we no longer realize that the circumstances in which we are acting have fundamentally changed. Not only are we on a different playing field, we’re playing a different game entirely. When the forces we face use their enormous power to distort and disguise this reality, our mission of re...

The U.S. gives Israel's military $3.8 billion a year. According to a new Amnesty report, that money funds apartheid. PHYLLIS BENNIS One day last spring, Palestinians in Israel and the occupied West Bank declared a general strike to protest years of repression they faced under Israeli rule. U.S. foreign policy everywhere should be based on human rights, international law, and equality for all—including when it comes to Israel. The nonviolent strike came as Israel attempted to evict seven Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, part of a longstanding effort to expand illegal Israeli settlements and transfer Jewish settlers to what had been Palestinian land and homes. How did Israeli forces respond to this peaceful protest? According t...

Instead of Freeing Palestinian Prisoners, New Scheme Aims at Punishing Their Families BY RAMZY BAROUD Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair A scheme is underway to withhold or to reduce payments made by the Palestinian Authority to the families of Palestinian prisoners. According to Israeli media, the Biden Administration has requested that the PA entirely overhauls its support system of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian leadership had already expressed willingness to engage the US in a ‘discussion’. According to Israel’s Channel 12, the Biden Administration has called on PA President Mahmoud Abbas to stop paying stipends to Palestinian prisoners’ families and, instead, to consider an alternative ‘welfare’ system. For example, over 60-year-old prisoners wou...

The Israeli Pogrom: Settler Violence in the West Bank BY LAWRENCE DAVIDSON On 21 January 2022, an organized gang of over a dozen masked Zionist “settlers” from the Givat Ronen outpost on the Occupied West Bank attacked Palestinians planting trees near the village of Burin. There were seven Israeli Jewish supporters with the Palestinians. The “settlers” attacked them as well. I place the term “settler” in quotation marks because what we are really talking about are not settlers but squatters. I will use the term squatter except where settler appears in a quotation. As is normal in cases of Israeli squatter violence, the Israeli authorities were slow to arrive at the scene of the attack and, subsequently, made no arrests. The Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev explai...