PLEASE NOTE: The content of this blog has slightly changed. It presents fewer news items and gives more background for those items. This is in hopes of providing the reader (and the blogger) with deeper understanding of the issues that shape the news. Soon a means of linking to all of the articles will be provided. All can be found through an EBSCO search through any library with online databases.  Thank you. H.K.

❶ Israeli minister orders suspension of return of Palestinian bodies
❷ Israeli Bulldozers Demolish Tin-Sheet Muslim Chapel in Jerusalem Neighborhood
❸ Occupied Jerusalem’s Silwan under attack
❹ Opinion/Analysis: GAINING  GROUND:  ISRAEL’S  PERMANENT  REPRESENTATION  AT  NATO
❺ POETRY by Samih Al-Qasim
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❶ ISRAELI  MINISTER  ORDERS  SUSPENSION  OF  RETURN  OF  PALESTINIAN  BODIES
Ma’an News Agency
May 24, 2016
Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan announced on Tuesday that he had ordered Israeli police to suspend the return of bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces [. . . .]
___Israel dramatically increased its policy of withholding bodies since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory since October, although it has scaled back on the policy in recent months.
___A joint statement released in early April by Addameer and the Israeli minority rights group Adalah condemned Israel’s practice of withholding bodies as “a severe violation of international humanitarian law as well as international human rights law, including violations of the right to dignity, freedom of religion, and the right to practice culture.”
MORE . . .

International Committee of the Red Cross
“Customary IHL – Rule 114.  Return of the Remains and personal Effects of the Dead”
Rule 114. Parties to the conflict must endeavour to facilitate the return of the remains of the deceased upon request of the party to which they belong or upon the request of their next of kin. They must return their personal effects to them.

Laucci, Cyril. “Customary International Humanitarian Law Study: Fundamental Guarantees.” Slovenian Law Review 6.1/2 (2009): 191-204.
___Rule 104: Respect for convictions and religious practices
Religious convictions and practices are protected by IHL treaties. [. . . .]
___Rule IO5: Respect for family life
Family life is protected under Articles 27 and 82 of Geneva Convention N and Articles 4(3) and 5(2)(a) of Additional Protocol II. [. . . .]

Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
Israel’s Refusal to Return Bodies of Deceased Palestinians Violates International Law
12 December 2015
At the time of writing, Israel has the bodies of 41 killed Palestinians in its possession and is refusing to return them to their families. Rather than reducing conflict, this practice has created more tension with Palestinians, and sparked demonstrations and clashes.
___Israel’s refusal to return Palestinian bodies violates provisions of both international humanitarian law and international human rights law.
International Humanitarian Law
___Returning bodies of the deceased from a conflict is an obligation under customary international law  [. . . . ]
___Failing to return the bodies of the deceased is a violation, inter alia, of the right to dignity, freedom of religion, and the right to practice one’s culture.

❷ ISRAELI  BULLDOZERS  DEMOLISH  TIN-SHEET  MUSLIM  CHAPEL  IN  JERUSALEM  NEIGHBORHOOD
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
May 23, 2016
Israeli bulldozers Monday dawn demolished a Muslim chapel made of tin sheets in al-Musrara neighborhood opposite to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, said a local information center [. . . .]
___The chapel was set up by Palestinian traders and public bus drivers who needed a chapel where they can perform their prayers.
___Meanwhile, Minister of Waqf and Religious Affairs Yusef Id’eis slammed the chapel demolition as an “aggression” and a “terrorist attack”.      MORE . . .

Matar, Ibrahim. “The Jewish Conquest of West and East Jerusalem: 1948 to the Present.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture 17.1/2 (2011): 214-223.
Throughout its history Jerusalem was  a  united city. From the 7th  century  up  to  May  1948,  it was an Arab-Palestinian city with open access to the  faithful  of  the::  three  monotheistic religions.
___Jerusalem was a model of tolerance and coexistence, administered over the years by  a Palestinian  municipality  headed  mainly  by a Muslim mayor.
___The events of 1948 and 1967 changed this picture, when Jewish forces conquered Jerusalem: Its west, then eastern, parts came under sole Israeli control. As a consequence, the conquering forces engaged in uprooting and displacing the indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian population . . . .

Safieh, Afif. “On Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture 17.1/2 (2011): 224-229.
There were several Palestinian residential neighborhoods [in Jerusalem] where middle-class Palestinians, civil servants, lawyers, engineers and doctors lived and worked. To name just a few: Qatamon , Upper and Lower Baq’a -before 1948 my family lived in Upper Baq’a -Talbiyeh , Mamillah, Shamma’a, Musrara, Abu-Tor, etc. The Palestinians left with only the key to their houses and one of the sad jokes among Palestinians is that their country was taken furnished. The late Professor Henry Cattan has analysed in great depth the “legalised theft” that followed, where all these real estate properties were declared “absentee property.”

❸ OCCUPIED  JERUSALEM’S  SILWAN  UNDER  ATTACK
Alternative Information Center – AIC
Danielle Natan
Published: 25 May 2016
Israeli forces raided Palestinian homes and commercial stores in the Ein al-Lozeh area of Silwan on Monday afternoon. Israeli Border Patrol officers arrested two brothers and served a warrant for the arrest of a third man for alleged stone throwing [. . . .]
___In addition to targeting Palestinian family’s homes in Silwan, Israeli forces raided shops in the area [. . . .]
Monday’s raid of Silwan’s stores supports suspicions that Israel is escalating its efforts to undermine Silwan’s local businesses.      MORE . . .

Klein, Menachem. “The Shift — Israel’s New Goals in Jerusalem.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture 17.1/2 (2011): 135-140.
. . . . A few conclusions can be drawn. First, neither the line of June 4, 1967, nor the Israeli annexation line of June 29, I 967, is relevant today from the Israeli point of view. On the ground they do not exist. Israel expands beyond them to create “Greater Jerusalem” along the line delineated by the wall and to impose it on the Palestinians.

❹ Opinion/Analysis: GAINING  GROUND:  ISRAEL’S  PERMANENT  REPRESENTATION  AT  NATO
The New Arab
May 18, 2016
Ramona Wadi
The news that Israel will now have a permanent representation at NATO headquarters is a prime example of how the colonial security rhetoric has been approved and endorsed at an international level.
­­­___Israel, which was previously a participant in the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue Programs, along with Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, can now look forward to more direct contributions to the alliance, as well as reaping its benefits.  MORE . . .

“HOW I BECAME AN ARTICLE,” BY SAMIH AL-QASIM

They killed me once

Then wore my face many times.

From: Adonis, Mahmud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim. VICTIMS  OF  A  MAP:  A  BILINGUAL  ANTHOLOGY  OF  ARABIC  POETRY.  Trans. Abdullah al-Udhari. London: Saqi Books, 2008. Available from Amazon.