❶ Israel’s Supreme Court orders demolition of settler outpost in Bethlehem by March

• Background:  “After 50 Years: Save Israel, Stop the Occupation.” Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics & Culture.    “. . . the occupation became a fundamental catalyst of far-reaching impacts on Israeli society. The state of Israel becomes more Jewish and less democratic . . .”
  

❷ Prime Minister Hamdallah: U.S. Appeals Court’s Decision is Just
❸ The metamorphosis of a Jewish supremacist
❹ POETRY by Majid Abu Ghoush
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❶ ISRAEL’S  SUPREME  COURT  ORDERS  DEMOLITION  OF  SETTLER  OUTPOST  IN  BETHLEHEM  BY  MARCH
Ma’an News Agency  
Sept. 2, 2016
Israel’s Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank district of Bethlehem be demolished by March 2018, sparking condemnation from right-wing Israeli parliament members who blamed the decision on left-wing groups aiming to “exploit the judicial system” for the benefit of a minority.
___The court ordered the removal of 17 homes, comprising of some 40 Israeli families, in the Israeli settler outpost of Derech HaAvot established in 2001 near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc after ruling that the outpost was built on privately held Palestinian land, according to a statement released by Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now.
___ The Jerusalem Post reported that the outpost was established with 300,000 shekels ($79,562) from the Israeli Ministry of Construction and Housing. Soon after its establishment, the outpost was challenged in the courts by Palestinians from the town al-Khader who claimed they owned the land.     MORE . . .  

• Schnell, Izhak, and Daniel Bar-Tal. “After 50 Years: Save Israel, Stop The Occupation.” Palestine-Israel Journal Of Politics, Economics & Culture 21.3 (2016): 72-80.   FULL ARTICLE.

(NOTE: Izhak Schnell is professor in the Department of Geography and Human Environment at Tel Aviv University. Daniel Bar-Tal is Professor Emeritus at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. He was co-editor of the Palestine-Israel Journal (2001-05) and president of the International Society of Political Psychology.) 

[Three] mechanisms stabilizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and avoiding the adoption of peace policies. . . The third mechanism relates to the institutionalization of a bureaucratic inertia that maintains and feeds the occupation regardless of declared policies. This mechanism acts at a governmental level when, for example, a senior clerk in the Ministry of Justice announces a regulation that the government does not have to prove ownership of lands in cases of land disputes. Instead, the Palestinians who claim ownership have to prove their ownership of the land in question, and, as a result, this regulation means that many Palestinians lost their lands due to the settlement process. . . . The military was also forced to serve the settlers’ interests by guarding unauthorized settlements that were ordered to evacuate based on the law and Supreme Court decisions. Finally, the settlers’ council represents a population of an estimated 500,000 settlers who have relatives and ideological support among the religious sections, allowing the movement to become a powerful lobby in Israeli politics.  The fact that they are more motivated and better organized than other political lobbies in Israel makes them even more powerful.
___ . . . the occupation became a fundamental catalyst of far-reaching impacts on Israeli society. The state of Israel becomes more Jewish and less democratic in the delicate balance between these two aspects. Jewishness is defined in a combination of religious and nationalist terms, promoting a particularistic identity that turns its back on the Hebrew identity that emphasized universal and humanistic values. By defining the OPT as the core of the Jewish state and identity, the new Israel antagonizes the Palestinians, the Arab world and, indirectly, Western societies, which in turn, strengthen particularistic aspects of Israel’s identity bringing new life to slogans such as “People who live unto themselves.”

❷ PRIME  MINISTER  HAMDALLAH:  U.S.  APPEALS  COURT’S  DECISION  IS  JUST
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
Sep. 1, 2016
Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah commended Thursday the decision by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan to dismiss a $655 million verdict against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), finding that U.S. courts should not have exercised jurisdiction, according to a statement issued by Hamdallah’s office.
___A number of American families had filed a multimillion dollar law suit in a New York federal court in 2004 against the Palestinian Authority and the PLO holding them responsible for the death of family members in attacks by Palestinians in the occupied territories and Israel between the years 2000 and 2002.    MORE . . .

❸ THE  METAMORPHOSIS  OF  A  JEWISH  SUPREMACIST
+972 Magazine
Orly Noy
Aug. 31, 2016
David Mizrahi was once a prominent member of La Familia, a notorious Jewish supremacist chapter of the Beitar Jerusalem fan club.
___Three years ago, he famously refused to shake hands with Arab footballer Mohammed Ghadir. But on Sunday, he published the following on Facebook:
[. . . .] ___”And today, three years on, I’m coming full circle. I’m going to meet with Mohammed Ghadir, shake his hand talk to him. I’m the happiest man alive.
___I’ve recently started speaking against racism and for love and tolerance. Many eyebrows were raised. I was harassed along the way, and many are still annoyed with me.”     MORE . . .   

OCCUPATION,”  BY  MAJID  ABU  GHOUSH
Occupied Ramallah 17/11/06

Strange days cast dour shadows
Dusk. The fragrance of death
on a windowsill.
In the lingering heat
an impossible burden weighs
down on eyelids and chest;
the throat aches, the spine throbs.

Rose petals all tarnished with foul dust
from the poisoned world.
Black limousines sail past, flying
the skull and crossbones.
The grave yawns open early,
nightmares never leave.
Death squads. Detention camps.

Somewhere, an oud
pronounces its sad chords.
The invaders smile; tap their feet.
―Translated by John Glenday

Majid Abu Ghoush (b. Amwas) is a prolific poet, a member of the secretariat of the General Union of Palestinian Writers, and a founding member of Poets Without Borders, Palestine.
From A BIRD IS NOT A STONE: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN POETRY. Ed. by Henry Bell and Sarah Irving. (Glasgow: Freight Books, 2014).    Available From Amazon.com.