❶ Israeli settlers assault Palestinian in Hebron’s Old City as Israeli forces watch
❷ Abu Khdeir family: ‘We never had high hopes for Israel’s legal system’

Background: Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid. United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia.

❸ Residency Revocation: Israel’s Forcible Transfer of Palestinians from Jerusalem
❹ Opinion/Analysis: “The One-State as a Demand of International Law: Jus Cogens, Challenging Apartheid and the Legal Validity of Israel.”
❺ POETRY by Majid Abu Ghoush
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❶ ISRAELI  SETTLERS  ASSAULT  PALESTINIAN  IN  HEBRON’S  OLD  CITY  AS  ISRAELI  FORCES  WATCH 
Ma’an News Agency  
July 5, 2017.   A group of Israeli settlers “violently beat” a Palestinian on al-Shuhada Street in the Old City of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank Tuesday night, according to a local activist.
___Palestinian activist Badi Dweik, a member of Human Rights Defenders, said that a group of Israeli settlers violently attacked and beat 22-year-old Hisham Raghib Abu Isha on al-Shuhada Street, while Israeli forces stood by watching.
___Dweik added that after a while of watching the assault take place, Israeli forces tied Abu Isha up, placed him a military jeep, and transferred him to an unknown location.     [. . . .] Some 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers live under the protection of the Israeli military in the Old City, surrounded by more than 30,000 Palestinians.  MORE . . .    RELATED . . .
❷ ABU  KHDEIR  FAMILY:  ‘WE  NEVER  HAD  HIGH  HOPES  FOR  ISRAEL’S  LEGAL  SYSTEM’    
Ma’an News Agency  
July 5, 2017.   After Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a petition to demolish the homes of three Israelis convicted of brutally killing 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir in 2014, Abu Khdeir’s family told Palestinian lawyer Muhannad Jibara on Wednesday that they “never had high hopes” that Israel’s legal system would actually order the demolitions.
___The Abu Khdeir family had presented the petition to the Israeli courts demanding that Yosef Haim Ben-David and two minors, who were convicted of kidnapping and burning the Palestinian teenager alive three years ago, have their homes demolished, in line with an official Israeli policy carried out overwhelmingly against Palestinians who have killed Israelis.
___Jibara said that the Abu Khdeir family had submitted the petition in the Israeli courts in order to expose the “racism” of the Israeli government against Palestinians in their policies of punitive home demolitions and to “cause embarrassment” to the Israeli courts.   MORE . . .           BACKGROUND . . .

“ISRAELI  PRACTICES  TOWARDS  THE  PALESTINIAN  PEOPLE  AND  THE  QUESTION  OF  APARTHEID. Palestine and the Israeli Occupation.”  United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). By Richard Falk and Virginia Tilley. Global Research, March 19, 2017
(The report has been removed from the UN website. It is available at link below.)       [. . . .] Since 1967, Palestinians as a people have lived in what the report refers to as four “domains”, in which the fragments of the Palestinian population are ostensibly treated differently but share in common the racial oppression that results from the apartheid regime. Those domains are:  Civil law, with special restrictions, governing Palestinians who live as citizens of Israel;   Permanent residency law governing Palestinians living in the city of Jerusalem;     Military law governing Palestinians, including those in refugee camps, living since 1967 under conditions of belligerent occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip;      Policy to preclude the return of Palestinians, whether refugees or exiles, living outside territory under Israel’s control.     [. . . .] This report finds that, taken together, the four domains constitute one comprehensive regime developed for the purpose of ensuring the enduring domination over non-Jews in all land exclusively under Israeli control in whatever category. To some degree, the differences in treatment accorded to Palestinians have been provisionally treated as valid by the United Nations, in the absence of an assessment of whether they constitute a form of apartheid. In the light of this report’s findings, this long-standing fragmented international approach may require review.     [. . . .] The report concludes that the weight of the evidence supports beyond a reasonable doubt the proposition that Israel is guilty of imposing an apartheid regime on the Palestinian people, which amounts to the commission of a crime against humanity, the prohibition of which is considered jus cogens in international customary law. The international community, especially the United Nations and its agencies, and Member States, have a legal obligation to act within the limits of their capabilities to prevent and punish instances of apartheid that are responsibly brought to their attention . . . .    FULL REPORT . . .

❸ RESIDENCY  REVOCATION:  ISRAEL’S  FORCIBLE  TRANSFER  OF  PALESTINIANS  FROM  JERUSALEM 
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network 
July 3, 2017.   Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered an occupied territory and the de facto annexation of the city by the Israeli government is considered illegal. Throughout its occupation, Israel has enacted discriminatory laws and policies to diminish the presence of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem. By granting Palestinians a “permanent” residency status to live in Jerusalem, entry into and residency in Jerusalem becomes a revocable privilege, instead of an inherent right.
___The second infographic focuses on the unlawful Israeli policy of residency revocation targeting Palestinians from Jerusalem.  The revocation of permanent residency status is the most direct tool used to forcibly transfer Palestinians from occupied East Jerusalem, so that a Jewish-Israeli majority can be maintained in the city. 1 Since 1967, Israel created and consistently expanded the criteria for revoking the residency status of Palestinians, leading to the revocation of the residency rights of more than 14,500 Palestinians from Jerusalem to date.   MORE . . .

❹ Opinion/Analysis:  “THE  ONE-STATE  AS  A  DEMAND  OF  INTERNATIONAL  LAW:  JUS  COGENS,  CHALLENGING  APARTHEID  AND  THE  LEGAL  VALIDITY  OF  ISRAEL.”
Ben-Dor, Oren.
Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal  (Edinburgh University Press), vol. 12, no. 2, Nov. 2013, pp. 181-205
[. . . .] However, on closer look, apartheid in Israel is as constitutionally inbuilt as it was in South Africa and structurally limits, directly or indirectly, the ambit of possible egalitarian reforms. Central governmental investment turns out to be inherently biased in favour of the country’s Jewish population, and official property law regimes and land policies push towards the ‘Judaisation’ of the land, meaning the transfer to Jewish citizens or institutions of lands expropriated from non-Jewish Arab citizens and/or institutions while discouraging, or even actually forbidding, non-Jewish Arabs from taking up residence in Jewish areas. . . .  ‘Emergency’ Regulations caused many cases of uprootedness and internal displacements. Many housing projects in new development towns are not open to non-Jewish Arabs. Arab municipalities are given far less investment than their Jewish counterparts. Many welfare benefits such as higher education places, preferential loans, have purposely been made conditional upon army service so as to exclude non-Jewish Arabs who are generally barred from serving, and, of course, cannot be expected to have any great wish to serve, in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). ‘Non-Jewish Arab second class ‘citizens’ are not entitled to compete for university scholarships that are given by the Jewish Agency. . .  Tax benefits are open to ‘returning’ Israeli Jews or to Israeli Jewish citizens who have spent a long time abroad thus tempting them to emigrate to Israel, while these are not open to non-Jewish Arabs.   FULL ARTICLE (begin page 4) . . .

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 Barnes and Noble.