http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4728603,00.html

NORTH CAROLINA - After 10,956 days behind bars in the US, convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard left his prison in North Carolina in the early hours of Friday morning.

Pollard's lawyers appealed the terms of his release in the US District Court in New York soon after he left the prison. The lawyers have appealed what they termed illegal stipulations placed on the former spy, including an ankle bracelet with 24 hour GPS monitoring, and tracking of his and his employer's computer systems. The lawyers say the conditions prevent Pollard from being hired, as no employer would agree to the tracking of their systems.

Politicians in Israel wasted no time in reacting to the release, "The people of Israel welcome Jonathan Pollard's release," said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement released shortly after the news broke.

"May this Sabbath bring him much joy and peace that will continue in the years and decades ahead."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4728851,00.html

A major American Academic association, the American Anthropological Association, overwhelmingly approved a resolution to boycott Israeli academic institutions during the group's annual meeting in Denver, Colorado on Friday.

The motion, which sought to support the BDS movement, was passed by a landslide majority of 1,040 votes in favor, to 136 against. A final electronic vote is set to be held in the coming months.

The meeting also voted down a measure to oppose the BDS movement with a majority of 1,173 votes against to 196 for.
---
The AAA is the largest academic association within the US to endorse the boycott movement at an annual meeting.

A new video released by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel features eight leading artists stating, “I endorse the cultural boycott of Israel.” The artists include Tony-nominated stage and television actress Kathleen Chalfant; musician Roger Waters, a founding member of Pink Floyd; musicians Kyp Malone and Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio; musicians Kool A.D and Tamar-kali; artist and author of Drawing Blood, Molly Crabapple; and visual artist Swoon.

The movement for a global boycott of Israel — launched by a coalition of over 170 Palestinian trade unions, political parties and human rights groups in order to advance their movement for freedom, justice and equality — has steadily gained support worldwide over the last decade. The video was released by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel and is accompanied by an appeal for more cultural workers to pledge their support for the boycott of Israel.

When asked why she participated in the video, Kathleen Chalfant said: “The Israeli government and army restrict the freedom of Palestinian cultural workers almost daily. A growing movement for the cultural boycott of Israel helps to amplify the voices of Palestinian artists who are struggling under occupation, and will help to pressure Israel to respect the rights of Palestinian artists, and of all Palestinians.”

The Israeli government launched a Brand Israel public relations campaign in 2006, which attempts to use art and music to distract attention from Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. Nonetheless, a growing number of artists have declined to perform or participate in cultural events in Israel or with institutions complicit with Israeli rights abuses, including Ms. Lauryn Hill, Roger Waters, Elvis Costello, Santana, Talib Kweli, the late Gil Scott Heron, Cassandra Wilson, Cat Power,Stevie Wonder, Mira Nair, Ken Loach, Alice Walker, Mike Leigh,Arundhati Roy, and Jean Luc Godard.

http://972mag.com/evidence-casts-doubt-on-idf-version-of-deadly-west-bank-shooting/113951/

The IDF Spokesperson and Israeli media outlets said that a young Palestinian man from the village of Budrus was shot while trying to snatch a soldier’s weapon. An eye witness, photographs and the autopsy tell a different story — that he was shot in the back, from some distance.

First, the Palestinian testimony. According to Iyad Awad, who was at the scene, the soldiers set up an ambush near the fence. When Yousef approached they hit him, shot a rubber bullet in his leg and grabbed him. When his friends saw what was happening, they tried to free him, he pushed one of the soldiers and managed to escape. As he ran away, one of the soldiers shot him from a distance of 10 meters — this was the shot that killed him.

According to this version, Awad was shot in his back while running away. According to the IDF’s version, if he was shot while trying to grab a weapon, then it is likely that he was shot on his front side. Photos that were given to Local Call clearly show that Awad was shot in his back; there is an entry wound in the center of his back, and an exit wound in the left side of his stomach. There difference between the wounds is stark: the entry wound is close in diameter to a 5.56 millimeter bullet, which is used by the IDF. The exit wound in Awad’s stomach is far larger, which is usually the case with such bullets. We chose not to publish the photos, although we did manage to confirm their authenticity.

The testimonies and photos are buttressed by an autopsy conducted in Qalqilya, whose results were passed on to Local Call by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The autopsy showed that Awad was indeed shot in the back, and that the bullet hit two aortas, a kidney and his pancreas. His feet and knees were also bruised. According to the pathologist, the findings show that Awad was shot at a range of up to 10 meters — not at point-blank range during a struggle.

http://972mag.com/israel-targets-boycotters-as-eu-moves-against-settlements/113838/

According to the guidelines, the EU does not recognize Israeli sovereignty beyond the Green Line, regardless of how those territories are regarded by Israeli law. EU member states will determine which punishments they will enforce on anyone who does not abide by the regulations (the regulations require states to levy sanctions against those who violate them). The European Commission will retain the option of opening proceedings for clarifying violations in the event that member states do not deal with the matter themselves.

According to Haaretz’s Barak Ravid, EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem to be reprimanded for the decision on Wednesday evening.

A statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the EU for choosing “for political reasons, to take such an exceptional and discriminatory step, inspired by the boycott movement, at a time when Israel is confronting a wave of terrorism targeting any and all of its citizens,” adding that “it is puzzling and even irritating that the EU chooses to apply a double standard concerning Israel, while ignoring that there are over 200 other territorial disputes worldwide, including those occurring within the EU or on its doorstep.”

Over 550 Israelis, including former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg and political scientist Zeev Sternhell, published a petition Wednesday in support of the EU’s decision, saying that Europe’s distinction between Israel and the settlements is a “step that could help promote a peace agreement, and it will also strengthen Israel’s overall status in the world and will undermine attempts to delegitimize it.”

Obama’s position on the Israel Palestine conflict was flawed from the beginning and people cut him way too much slack on this. He’s always talked about settlements being a problem and he talked about Palestinian “aspirations” two days ago, but he has never condemned Israeli violence against Palestinians the way he condemns Palestinian terror. This is the safe, acceptable mainstream way of saying you favor a two state solution without crossing a line. The line is this–Israel gets to use violence and Palestinians don’t, that’s the unspoken rule, and that explains why Obama says Israel has a “right, even an obligation to defend itself” when he would never use such words about Palestinians.

He is saying that Israel has human rights that must be respected right now without qualification, while Palestinians have aspirations that need to be negotiated. This is also how the New York Times editors think.

I’m starting to think this is the fundamental issue–who gets to use violence, or alternatively, whose violence gets condemned? I hate to put it that way because I don’t want the Palestinians to use violence either, but as a matter of principle that’s what the issue is. There is always going to be violence until a true solution is reached–Palestinians live with it on various levels, up to and including the occasional killing by an IDF soldier or settler during periods of “calm,” and this causes no outrage with the Obama/New York Times type of liberal, but when Palestinians use violence, whether against civilians or police or soldiers, it is terrorism and Israel has the right to do whatever it chooses to stop it. When you take that attitude then the “settlement” issue is more of a long-term abstract sort of thing, something to be negotiated. Aspirational. Even when Obama wanted a freeze it didn’t mean much, because he wasn’t going to do anything about it. For him, the freeze was also aspirational. Because, gosh, without a cessation in settlements someday in the future Israel might cease to be a Jewish democracy. But it’s a future problem and it is concern on behalf of Israel more than on behalf of Palestinians, though to be fair Obama does mention the hopes of Palestinians sometimes. That Palestinian rights are violated right now–well, he doesn’t see any urgency.

Only when Israelis get hurt should something forceful (literally) be undertaken and then it doesn’t matter how many Palestinians get hurt in the process.

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/netanyahu-conversation-twilight

Tanden bent over backwards not to offend the prime minister. Even her most direct thrust — asking him about his racist appeal to voters on the eve of last March’s election, when he said that ‘Arab voters were coming out in droves’ — she couched. Some in the progressive community were concerned about this, she said. She never called it racism. She used the same Some-have-said locution to bring up the settlement expansion. Imagine a liberal thinktank inviting Lester Maddox or George Wallace to Washington in the 60s and softballing them. . . . It would never have happened.

Yesterday was a display of the Israel lobby’s strength in the Democratic Party. Netanyahu’s audience was obtained by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee — AIPAC — and the room was rigged, the questions were rigged, every moment from start to finish was scripted to make Netanyahu seem acceptable in Democratic circles. The crowd in the room looked like it was drugged. There was no animation, little audible response, no effervescence. The room was stocked with pro-Israel Jews. The only questions from the audience were from stalwarts of the Israel lobby: Morton Halperin of J Street, David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Greg Rosenbaum of the National Jewish Democratic Council. The arrangement of these three questions, two of them putatively adversarial (a Jewish publication quotes J Street saying it was the first time that J Street had ever had a direct encounter with the PM), was straight out of the history of the Soviet Union.

Max Blumenthal said Tanden was auditioning for her job in the forthcoming Clinton administration, and nailing it. Adam Horowitz said, It’s not entirely surprising that Tanden was unimpressive, given that it’s not her area of expertise, but she cowered and Netanyahu loved it. And by the way, the awkward chairs displayed the Prime Minister’s sizeable gut.

Yesterday was also a display of the downfall of the Israel lobby. This is what it’s reduced to: show-conversations, with a rigged room, inside the Democratic Party. Just about everyone in that room was older. It’s not American democracy on display; it’s the dead hand of an old order.

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/american-activists-western

Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 11:30 am, Jewish Americans CODEPINK activists, Ariel Gold, of Ithaca, NY and Ariel Vegosen, of Oakland, CA, unfurled a banner near the Kotel (Western Wall) reading, “American Jews support BDS.” Representing the women’s peace organization, Code Pink, the activists goal was to express Jewish opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and endorse the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as a nonviolent strategy to bring about a just peace in Palestine and Israel.

Gold and Vegosen were in Israel/Palestine for a week long CODEPINK delegation to the West Bank to participate in the Palestinian olive harvest . During their delegation, along with helping Palestinian farmers with their olive harvest, the group witnessed Israel’s apartheid system of different roads, services, and laws for different people. They experienced major restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement, the massive growth of illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land, and numerous human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Israel/Palestine is currently experiencing a serious escalation of violence to which Palestinians are bearing the brunt of the casualties, injuries and arrests. From October 1 until now, Israeli forces have killed at least 78 Palestinians and injured an estimated 2,500 including unarmed protesters. At least nine Israelis have been killed. CODEPINK recognizes that the occupation is the root cause of all of the violence currently been seen in Palestine and Israel

On November 4, American Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton reaffirmed her strong support for Israel and opposition to BDS. This week Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the US and meeting with President Obama to request 5 billion dollars annually in aid for the next ten years, a 60% increase in US military aid to Israel. CODEPINK supports ending all military aid to Israel.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/22143-what-does-israel-want-to-say-to-the-world

Israel has something it would like to say to the world. Now that the Palestinians have been angered once again and the period of calmness has ended, Israel wants to tell the world that the tension and clashes that have been occurring over the past few weeks have been motivated by a deep-seated hatred of Jews. That is basically all the Jewish state wants us to know.

Israeli propaganda does not reveal the actual reasons for all of this Palestinian anger and aggression, and it does not dare to use terms such as “military occupation” or “settlement expansion”. It also typically refrains from using important terms such as “Palestine” or “Palestinian people”, as such terms are illogical in Israeli discourse – there is simply no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians, merely unruly subjects of the settler-colonial Israeli project.

What Israel wants to say to the world today is that those very same “Palestinians” should shower the occupation forces with flowers and send out greeting cards to those who have stolen their land and fields, and that the long lines of Palestinians should smile at the occupation forces and the humiliating military checkpoints that have fragmented the West Bank. Israel also wants to proclaim that Arab Jerusalemites should open the doors of Al-Aqsa Mosque every morning and welcome the provocative stormings of those who are dreaming of the mosque’s destruction, while the people of Hebron should not miss a chance to take selfies with the closest armed settler who acts as if he is entitled to the land.

What we are to understand from Israeli propaganda is that life under Israeli military rule is heaven on Earth and that the Palestinians should enjoy this ideal opportunity to bask in the glory that is Israel, the “only democracy in the Middle East”.

The liberal Zionist Peter Beinart last night attributed the violence in Israel and Palestine to Israel’s “moral darkness.” Speaking at Beth Chayim Chadashim, a progressive synagogue in Los Angeles that came out of the gay community, Beinart said, “the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed” in Palestine because it has denied dignity and basic rights for millions of Palestinians for decades.

Here’s a fuller context for the remarks. He started by saying that it was hard for a traumatized people to hear the truth about terrorism:

The September 11th attacks were a monstrous, demented response to American foreign policy, a foreign policy of support for Arab dictatorships and Israeli policies which produced tremendous suffering in the Arab world. And today’s Palestinian terrorism is a monstrous, demented response to Israel’s denial of basic Palestinian rights.

That’s not a popular thing to say in Israel right now, but within a people as within a family, you don’t build real solidarity by telling people things they want to hear at the expense of what you believe is true.