It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, March 11, 2023
France 24 Fires Palestinian Journalist Over Supporting Palestine
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French state-owned international news television network, France 24, fired on Saturday, 11 March 2023 the Palestinian journalist Laila Odeh over her pro-Palestinian positions.
Media sources reported that France 24 fired Odeh from her job as a correspondent citing anti-Semitism posts as a pretext.
This crackdown on free speech was not the first since the topic is Palestine. Western democracy is being destroyed to protect the Israeli occupation and whitewash its crimes and violations against the Palestinian people.
These blatant attacks on supporters of Palestine have been seen before in a concerted effort to silence Israeli occupation critics once.
CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill as a contributor after he called for “a free Palestine from the river to the sea” during a speech at the UN.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute revoked Angela Davis’s award for supporting the BDS movement.
Political scientist and son of Holocaust survivors Norman Finkelstein, whose tenure was denied and his reputation was tarnished by DePaul University over his criticism of Israel.
Yale University’s Department of History Yale University’s Department of History rejected Historian Juan Cole for criticizing Israel.
Guardian dismissed Journalist Nathan Robinson as a columnist after joking about U.S. aid to Israel.
The University of Georgia banned Journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin from speaking at the University for refusing to sign a pledge to forbid her participation in the BDS movement.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign fired the Scholar Steven Salaita over “disrespectful” tweets he published from his personal Twitter account criticizing Israel’s aggression on Gaza Strip in 2014.
ONE DAY IN PALESTINE
Israeli Occupation Threatens 1500 Palestinians in Occupied Jerusalem with Forced Displacement
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Israeli occupation threatens 1500 Palestinians in the occupied Jerusalem neighborhood of Al-Bustan with forced displacement under the pretext of building without a permit.
Since 2005, the Israeli occupation municipality has been seeking to demolish the entire neighborhood citing buildings without a permit as a pretext. 116 Palestinian-owned homes in the district are at risk of demolition after the Israeli occupation court refused to freeze demolition orders which could be executed at any moment.
The al-Bustan neighborhood is located in the heart of Silwan town and extends over 70 dunums.
In protest against the Israeli illegal demolition policy, Al-Bustan residents continue their protest steps and perform Friday prayers in the sit-in tent in the neighborhood, affirming their adherence to their homes and resisting all Israeli occupation Judaizing plans.
Since 1967, the Israeli occupation has demolished more than 5000 buildings in occuiped Jerusalem under the pretext of non-licensing, displacing 39,000 people including women and children.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation has demolished 2,150 Palestinian houses in Silwan since 1967.
Israeli occupation seeks to demolish 116 houses in the Al-Bustan neighborhood and forcibly displace its residents after demolishing 15 houses in the last five years.
Al-Bustan is one of the six Jerusalemite neighborhoods threatened by the nightmare of demolition and ethnic cleansing in Silwan to control the town and the vicinity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Settlers assault a youth in occupied Jerusalem and herders in the south of the West Bank The beaten boy in Jerusalem arrested. (Wadi Hilweh Information Center)
JERUSALEM/HEBRON, Saturday, March 11, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers today assaulted a Palestinian youth in occupied East Jerusalem and herders in the south of the occupied West Bank.
In Jerusalem, witnesses said settlers and police beat a youth at Damascus Gate, one of the main gates into the Old City. He was also detained by the occupation forces.
In the south of the West Bank, settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds while herding their sheep in the pastures in the Jawiya area in Masafer Yatta and forced them to leave the area, according to Rateb al-Jabour, a local activist.
He told WAFA that the settlers also attempted to steal the sheep of one of the shepherds.
M.K.
Palestinian youth attacked by Israeli settlers, police in east Jerusalem
Palestinians were subjected to a series of attacks and instances of harassment in occupied east Jerusalem and the southern region of Masafer Yatta at the hands of Israeli settlers and forces.
Israeli forces and settlers regularly intimidate, harass and assault Palestinians in the occupied territories [Getty]
Israeli settlers on Saturday carried out a series of attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories of east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The settlers, as well as police officers, assaulted and beat up a Palestinian youth at Damascus Gate, located at the Al-Aqsa compound in the Old City of east Jerusalem, reported the Palestinian WAFA agency on Saturday, citing witnesses.
The boy, whose identity was not revealed, was later detained by Israeli police officers.
Settlers also attacked a group of Palestinian herders in the southern West Bank, who were herding their sheep in fields near the Jawiya area of Masafer Yatta, according to a local activist.
Rateb al-Jabour told the Palestinian news agency that the herders were forced to leave their field while a settler attempted to steal one of the group’s livestock.
The Masafer Yatta region has been the site of increased anxiety and confrontations, due to Israel wanting to forcibly expel Palestinian residents of the region’s 12 villages to make way for a military live-fire training ground.
In May 2022, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld a law enabling the expulsion of some 1,000 Palestinians from the area, after a two decades-long legal battle.
Since then, Israeli authorities have gone on to demolish a number of homes and structures belonging to Palestinians, and have put forward the eviction of several residents. The Israeli Supreme Court claims that Palestinians living in the villages were not permanent residents of the area in the 1980s, when the army declared the area as a firing zone.
Rights groups, such as Amnesty International, have slammed the move.
Israel has carried out a number of violent incidents in the occupied territories this year, in what has been described as the "bloodiest" period in recent Palestinian memory.
At least 80 people have been killed in 2023 so far, including 15 children, while scores more are subjected to attacks at the hands of Israeli settlers and forces.
One Palestinian killed, dozens injured in Zionists attack
TEHRAN, Mar. 11 (MNA) – A 16-year-old Palestinian was martyred and dozens of others were injured during the attacks launched by the Zionists on different regions of the West Bank on Friday.
The Palestinian youth was shot dead by the Israeli regime's forces during the clashes in Qalqilya.
Zionist military forces also shot at Palestinians with war bullets and plastic bullets during Qalqilya skirmishes.
Dozens of Palestinians were also wounded during the Israeli regime's troops' attacks on different areas in the West Bank.
The Zionists attacked the Palestinian protestors with tear gas and bullets, according to the reports.
Clashes were also reported between the Zionists and Palestinians in the south of Al Khalil and the Occupied al-Quds.
Israeli Forces Kidnap Several Palestinians in West Bank
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Israeli occupation forces IOF kidnapped five Palestinians during raids in different parts of the occupied West Bank on Saturday morning, March 11, 2023.
Palestinian local sources reported that Israeli occupation forces kidnapped five Palestinian youths, including four ex-detainees, after raiding their homes in occupied Qalqilia.
In addition, Israeli occupation forces invaded different towns and villages in occupied Jenin, which triggered confrontations.
In Bethlehem, Israeli occupation forces kidnapped a Palestinian woman and four youths in their 20 after breaking into and searching their homes.
Local sources reported that the Israeli forces assaulted a Palestinian man after wreaking havoc on his home in Battir town, west of occupied Bethlehem.
Meanwhile, Israeli occupation forces invaded Nablus and removed several Palestinian flags in the town of Sabastia, north of the city.
Earlier on Friday, Israeli occupation forces abducted two Palestinian children in Tel Rumeida in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
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Israeli occupation forces carry out daily incursions into the Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
The Israeli raids result either in arrests, injuries, or terror. Other deadly raids result in murders.
According to Palestinian figures, Israeli occupation forces detained 480 Palestinians, including 62 children and 10 women, in February 2023.
On Friday, Israeli soldiers injured many Palestinians in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, in the West Bank’s southern part.
Media sources said the soldiers invaded the Beit Za’ta area, in the eastern part of the town, leading to protests, and fired many live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets, and gas bombs.
They added that the soldiers shot a Palestinian with an expanding bullet in the leg, causing serious bone fractures before he was rushed to a hospital.
Palestinian medics also treated five young men who were shot with rubber-coated steel bullets, one who was shot with a gas bomb in the head and many who caused many who suffered the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Also Friday, a paramilitary Israeli colonizer killed Abdul-Karim Badea’ Sheikh, 21, at an illegal colony after he reportedly attacked him with a knife, near Qalqilia, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Thursday morning, the Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the death of Walid Sa’ad Daoud Nassar, 14, who was seriously injured by Israeli army fire two days ago when the soldiers killed six Palestinians in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.
Newspapers Review: Israeli killing of Palestinians in West Bank highlight of dailies
RAMALLAH, Saturday, March 11, 2023 (WAFA) - The three Palestinian dailies published today, al-Quds, al-Hayat al-Jadida, and al-Ayyam, highlighted the killing of a young man by a settler’s bullets, and a child by the occupation forces’ bullets in Qalqilya, as well as the injuries during the Israeli army suppression of the weekly protests in the West Bank.
Following are the main headlines of these newspapers:
Al-Hayat al-Jadida:
Exchanging roles in the crime: Two martyrs from Qalqilya and Sineria were shot by the occupation forces and settlers
The President congratulates his Chinese counterpart on his unanimous election to a third term
Shtayyeh warns of the dangerous repercussions of the Israeli occupation's crimes
Prisoners sit-in in the prison yards; solidarity activity in Bethlehem
Education Ministry: Cuts in salaries of teachers to be redeemed in the March pay for those who return to work and compensate the students
Palestine and the Vatican stress that freedom of worship and access to holy places must be guaranteed
Xi Jinping wins a third term as president
Riyadh and Tehran agree to resume relations
The legal advisor to the Israeli government ordered a freeze on the decision to dismiss the police chief in Tel Aviv
Novelist Hassan Hamid won the Naguib Mahfouz Award in Egypt and the Arab world
The Factions’ Coordination Committee: The language of violence and treason is a violation of the most basic moral and patriotic values
Al-Ayyam:
Qalqilya: A settler shoots dead a young man, and the occupation army kills a boy during a demonstration
Netanyahu insists on passing the judiciary law, despite Herzog's warning of a catastrophe
The occupation authorities retract a decision to deliver the body of a martyr from Ni'lin
Friday's marches on time: Clashes and injuries; confronting incursions in Tulkarm, Beit Ummar, and Tuqu
Citizens and solidarity activists renew the demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah
Riyadh and Tehran announce the resumption of their diplomatic relations and the activation of security and trade cooperation
General Israeli concern: A dangerous, perilous, and very bad agreement that represents a complete failure
Education Ministry: Reimbursing cuts in salaries for teachers committed to work
Al-Quds:
Two martyrs in Qalqilya, one of them a child
The prisoners continue their collective mutiny for the 25th day
Saudi Arabia and Iran agree to restore diplomatic relations between them
A European delegation held and prevented from reaching the Jordan Valley
Injuries during the suppression of the weekly peaceful marches
Europe is preparing a joint statement against the death penalty for Palestinians, which Israel is working to enact
Washington warns against canceling the disengagement from the settlements evacuated in the northern West Bank
Netanyahu and Meloni discuss improving relations
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120+ Organizations Campaign Against Israel’s Retention of Palestinian Martyrs
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Above 140 International organizations have launched a campaign calling for Israel to release the bodies of Palestinian victims held by its authorities.
The International Campaign to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs expressed solidarity with the families of Palestinian victims whose bodies are held.
The campaign is scheduled to start from March 11 to March 18, Samidoun Network reported.
Israeli occupation authorities hold the bodies of 256 Palestinian victims killed by Israeli forces in the Cemetery of Numbers. 131 others are held in the morgues.
Human rights institutions said that the Israeli policy of holding the bodies of Palestinian victims has been used since 1948.
Israel has significantly escalated holding the victims’ bodies since the development of the Palestinian revolution after 4 June 1967
Time to Challenge Canadian Schools’ Anti-Palestinian Racism
While Jewish settlers launch pogroms and Israeli ministers call to “wipe out” Palestinian towns, Canadian schools suppress Palestinian symbols and celebrate colonial violence.
Last week Park West School in Halifax forced a half dozen Palestinian-Canadian students to remove Kufiyahs they were wearing during a cross-cultural day. In a flagrant display of anti-Palestinian racism, the principal said the Palestinian scarf “represents the colors of war.”
In a similar case of cultural/political suppression, Palestinian students in Ottawa were blocked from flying the Palestinian flag alongside those from dozens of other countries. The Palestinian Youth Movement has been engaged in a year-long battle with the Ottawa Carleton District School Board over anti-Palestinian discrimination.
Recently a guest speaker, part of the English Montréal School Board Holocaust Education Program, told Westmount high school students that people say “Israel is a terrible country, [that] they’re abusing the Palestinians – which is a bunch of crap. I lived in Israel.
Trust me they’re doing everything but abusing the Palestinians.” Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other establishment human rights groups have concluded Israel is committing the crime of apartheid.
Last month the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation complained to the Toronto Sun about a workshop offered by an Ontario Secondary School Teachers Foundation (OSSTF) local titled “Anti-Palestinian racism: Nakba denial.” In recent years pro-Israel groups have lobbied Canadian school boards to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) anti-Palestinian definition of antisemitism.
While Palestinian solidarity and symbols are targeted, schools expose children to aggressive pro-Israel messages. On January 24 the Jewish National Fund of Canada reported, “270 students from various Jewish day schools in Montreal participated in JNF Day at Beth Zion Synagogue.” A large map showing the grade schoolers included the illegally occupied West Bank as Israel.
The kids were probably subjected to other anti-Palestinian positions. The session was led by JNF Educational Emissary, Yifat Bear Miller, who spent more than a decade as an education officer for the Israeli military. A registered Canadian charity, the JNF is an explicitly racist institution that’s played an important role in the colonization of Palestine.
The JNF educates Canadian educators in its racist worldview. On the “JNF Educators mission to Israel” participants “Learn about Eco–Zionism and the connection between Judaism, Israel, and the environment”.
In a recent JNF Canada Facebook post a young student is wearing an Israel Defense Forces shirt. Has any Canadian school banned shirts promoting this violent organization?
At Canada’s largest private high school kids are pressured to wear IDF shirts. During “IDF Days” at Toronto TanenbaumCHAT they fundraise for Israeli military initiatives. A summary of a 2020 IDF day noted, “Shavuah Yisrael continued today with IDF day. The TanenbaumCHAT community — under the leadership of our Schlichim [Israeli emissaries] Lee and Ariel — showed their support for the Israel Defence Forces by wearing green, eating green, and donating green! Proceeds from the delicious green-sprinkled donuts that were sold during the 10-minute break are being donated to help the well-being of Israeli soldiers on active duty on behalf of TanenbaumCHAT thru the Association for the Soldiers of Israel – Canada.”
Recent posts on the school’s Facebook page mention a presentation by a former member of an elite IDF unit and students taught “Krav Maga is a martial art developed by the IDF”. According to TanenbaumCHAT’s statement of purpose, “Israel engagement pervades our curricular and extracurricular programming and it is a shared vision–part of the consciousness of all our teachers and educators. Through connecting with our staff, guests and visiting speakers, our students develop relationships with Israeli peers and other Israeli role models. Students enjoy special Israel weeks and IDF days.”
As part of TanenbaumCHAT’s Israel engagement, some students attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, D.C. In 2019 there was controversy over one of the school’s teachers, Aviva Polonsky, who posted a group picture on social media of her students meeting Sebastian Gorka, a far-right figure in the Donald Trump administration. Polonsky has stated publicly that she doesn’t accept students expressing non-Zionist views in her classes.
Netivot HaTorah, Bialik Hebrew Day School, Bnei Akiva, Toronto Heschel School are other schools breeding anti-Palestinianism. A December post from Leo Baeck Day School notes, “we are a Zionist institution with a core responsibility to preserve Israel.” An Israeli emissary spends a year at the Toronto elementary school and when they return, noted the Canadian Jewish News, “engages with students by way of live video chat from their Israel Defence Forces barracks dressed in their military uniforms.” Leo Baeck students also pay “tribute” to Israel’s fallen heroes” and fundraise for Beit Halochem Canada/Aid to Disabled Veterans of Israel, which supports injured IDF soldiers.
In a damning comment on Canadian political culture, some schools celebrate the colonizers’ military while others repress symbols of the colonized. Fortunately, there’s been some resistance. Thousands emailed and dozens rallied in opposition to the recent banning of Kufiyahs in Halifax, which prompted officials to label the incident a misunderstanding.
The Palestinian Youth Movement has organized protests against discrimination in Ottawa schools and a parent complained about the anti-Palestinian comment made at Westmount High school (these incidents have only come to light because of the protests)
While essential, defensive protests are insufficient. There should be public letters and rallies challenging “IDF Days” and the colonial indoctrination at Canada’s largest private school. We need to directly challenge schools breeding anti-Palestinian racism.
– Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and a number of other books. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit his website: yvesengler.com.
Remove Ignorance, Not Kufiyahs: Challenging Anti-Palestinian Racism in Halifax
Last week in Halifax several students were asked to remove their Kufiyahs, known to many as the checkered (black and white) Palestinian scarf, from their person at Park West School. To boot this was during a “Culture Day” at the school to honor the uniqueness and diversity of different peoples.
Saltwirereportedthat according to Lana Khammash, president of the Atlantic Canada Palestinian Society (ACPS), the principal told students that the Kufiyah signified “war.” The Maritimes news outlet however, like several others, did not make clear whether it was the principal themselves who asked the kufiyahs be removed.
It’s surely bad enough when anyone, let alone young people, is asked to remove their Kufiyah —representing the strength, resilience, and unity of the Palestinian people. An entirely positive symbol, there is no reason why someone should ever be asked to take it off.
I reached out to Khammash to learn more about what happened at Park West. By phone, she shared with me that, according to information ACPS obtained, “[The principal] gave instructions [to staff]…that if the kids in the classroom are wearing the kufiyahs tell them to remove it. …[If they don’t] they will be sent to the principal’s office.”
It surprised by that the principal would be so obvious in expressing their anti-Palestinian racism. Far from the more subtle or insidious forms of such racism, I’m used to learning about in Canada at least, their “instructions” mimic those of a dictator, issuing a public command to be carried out immediately, rather than an educational administrator—genuinely concerned about the well-being and dignity students.
Moreover, as a principal, you should know that when you single out students, for whatever issue, it’s a serious deal. Whether the student has in fact done anything wrong the consequence of this—and I believe many of us can speak from experience having once been young students—is typically not good. They will often be left feeling fearful, ashamed or apprehensive.
In light of that fact alone you must make extra sure that treating a student differently from others is warranted. The principal at Park West did not. Had they done so, which would have involved them doing some responsible research on what the kufiyah means (and there’s no shortage online or elsewhere to find such information), they would have learned that it does not signify war and thereafter made students remove theirs on that erroneous basis.
The actual extent to which the principal was involved in the students removing their kufiyahs, not to mention the teachers who facilitated that, is yet to be determined by any thorough investigation. At any rate that the school played a direct role in the students removing their kufiyahs undermines what it’s set up to do: engage students in learning. Instead, it sent the message, both to the students wearing the kufiyahs and the larger student body, that “we do not tolerate or accept Palestine here.”
Indeed this is part of the erasure, through much of the West, of Palestinian history, culture, and identity. But to say that is not enough. In addition, the message confirms that the school is committed to preventing students from learning about Palestine, through their fellow peers—as could’ve happened if Park West was hosting a Culture Day where all students were allowed to share and exchange ideas about their backgrounds, including why somewhere the kufiyah.
I don’t think using the term “committed” is too strong, especially when we think of how the principal allegedly acted. Specifically, they did not wait til the end of the school day or another time to discuss their concern, if you will, with the students about the kufiyah. By Khammash’s account, they acted swiftly, as if the kufiyahs themselves posed a threat to the integrity of the school. And it’s not a stretch to say that in the mind of the principal that’s the exact meaning they had. After all symbols of war are often invitations to violence. The only real violence however that took place at Park West was that endured by the students who had to remove their kufiyahs, thereby forced to experience unnecessary humiliation and shame.
By the same token, the students are wholly entitled to the apology that has been called for, on the part of those supporting the students. I would humbly suggest that the apology include robbing the student body from learning about what the kufiyah means, specifically by the school’s rendering it invisible (having certain students it off) and so not something that would otherwise provoke intellectual curiosity. This is particularly upsetting. It’s often through intellectual curiosity that we are most willing and prepared to learn, as opposed to when things are foisted on us as “mandatory”—in or outside the classroom.
What happened at Park West speaks to the observation by the well-known Italian philosopher of education, Maria Montessori, that “the fundamental problem in education is not an educational problem at all: it is a social one. It consists in the establishment of a new and better relationship between the two great sections of society—children and adults.”
The reason for this reflects Montessori’s more general view that within society adults, whether they recognize it or not, tend to oppress children for their “own good”, as when they are enrolled, for example, by parents in extracurricular activities (e.g. athletics) that constantly trouble them and in which they take no enjoyment. The destructiveness of this dynamic was also present at Park West’s Culture Day where staff—both cruelly and paternalistically—made students remove the kufiyah as if this had some educational value.
In a progressive school, the students would have the right to directly challenge staff, with impunity, about the “legitimacy” of having to remove the kufiyah. This has nothing to do with promoting adolescent rebellion for its own sake. Rather the right in question serves as an important check against the adult world, including teachers and administrators, who often and quite simply are wrong. Our society, however, perhaps paralleling its general attitude towards Palestine, continues to normalize the ageist view that adults are “always right.” Education is immediately jeopardized where schools, implicitly or explicitly, subscribe to this view.
American education critic and writer Jonathan Kozol is here instructive:
Teachers have the right to see what they believe without the fear of accusation or self-accusation. No student, however, should be forced to suffer social ostracism, nor compelled to pay a price, beyond that of the moral anguish of the issue, in itself, for taking a stance in opposition to that of the teacher. Both conditions can, and must, be realized by an ethical teacher in rebellion against all that is implied, inflicted, or reflected by the standard dogmatism of the textbooks, the curricula, and the time-embedded customs and conventions that prevail today.
By the same token, we must create the conditions in schools in which teachers and students alike can engage in meaningful dialogue about Palestine. This includes Palestinian students, with the lived experience that often entails (e.g. being the target of anti-Palestinian racism or enduring the intergenerational trauma of destructive Israeli militarism), being able to challenge their teachers in the classroom when they mischaracterize Palestine itself, let alone what they might be wearing such as the kuffiyeh.
To achieve this it is not enough that schools have “anti-oppressive” mandates. We see time and again how schools that do, whether in Toronto or Halifax, are hostile to Palestinian voices, expressions of Palestinian solidarity, and efforts to combat anti-Palestinian racism. For the same reason, it’s not assuring that the Halifax Regional Centre for Education sent a “diversity team” to Park West last Monday, to address the school’s anti-Palestinian racism.
To be anti-oppressive in the true sense of the term we need, paralleling Palestinian activist and scholar Ramzy Baroud’s notion of solidarity as an action rather than sentimentality, to develop schools that, on the one hand, allow students and teachers to talk about the colonial reality endured by Palestine (under Israeli rule and oppression) and, on the other, how they—as citizens of the world and people of conscience—can act to end it, as genuine allies to the Palestinian people themselves.
Some might object that this turns schools into sites of activism. That however is the point. Education is empty, if not altogether self-serving if it is not empowering students to figure out how to overturn injustice. This might ruffle staff at Park West but it’s how young people, however gradually, transform humanity for the better.
- Paul Salvatori is a Toronto-based journalist, community worker and artist. Much of his work on Palestine involves public education, such as through his recently created interview series, “Palestine in Perspective” (The Dark Room Podcast), where he speaks with writers, scholars and activists. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
