❶ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAELI FORCES DEMOLISH WEDDING HALL AND WORKSHOPS NORTH OF JERUSALEM
July 29, 2015
JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces on Wednesday demolished a wedding hall and several other structures belonging to a Palestinian resident in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina north of Jerusalem.
____Israeli bulldozers were reported to have stormed the neighborhood under Israeli army escort and demolished the “al-Khayma” wedding hall belonging to Akram Abu Shalbak.
____They then gave Abu Shalbak an hour to empty a printing shop, a carpentry workshop, and a yard used for selling construction material that also held a small gas station.
____ Abu Shalbak told Ma’an that all the structures were demolished when the hour was up.
(More. . .)

❷ From PALESTINE NEWS & INFORMATION AGENCY – WAFA
PALESTINIAN ATTACKED, DETAINED FOR WISHING AN ISRAELI SOLDIER A GOOD DAY
July 29, 2015
RAMALLAH (WAFA) – A Palestinian youth was assaulted by an Israeli soldier as he was crossing Jabara police station to cross into Hebron, for simply wishing the soldier a ‘good day’, Wednesday reported the Palestinian detainees and ex-detainees affairs committee.
____The committee reported on Naser Jaber, 22, saying after he got his identity card checked by an Israeli soldier at the police station in order to allow him to cross into Hebron, Jaber wished the soldier a ‘good day’, when the soldier stopped him immediately, asking him, ‘Am I your friend to wish me a good day?’ The soldier then smacked Jaber on his chin and on the back of his head with his riffle, causing him serious cuts and fractures in his chin and jaw, as well as an intensive internal bleeding in his head.
____Jaber was then detained and left to bleed for two hours before transferring him to hospital for treatment. He was taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, where he received medical care . . . .
____Jaber told the committee that he has not been provided with any additional treatment despite of his bad condition following the assault . . . .
(More. . .)

❸ From MA’AN NEWS AGENCY
ISRAEL PM APPROVES 300 SETTLER HOMES IN OCCUPIED WEST BANK
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday approved the “immediate” construction of 300 settler homes in the occupied West Bank as his government came under pressure from right-wing Jewish groups.
____”After consultations in the prime minister’s office, the immediate construction of 300 homes in Beit El has been authorized,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said, adding that planning for another 504 homes in annexed East Jerusalem had also been approved.
(More. . .)

❹ Analysis
From MONDOWEISS
ANNIVERSARIES: WHO COUNTS?
Alice Rothchild
July 28, 2015
An early July letter from Hillary Clinton to Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban reveals her intentions to “defend Israel at every turn” and to ignore Israel’s serious human rights violations raised by the United Nations. . . . Calling Israel “a vibrant democracy” and equating critical discourse on Zionism and Israeli policy with anti-Semitism, she does a grave disservice to the growing international awareness of the massive Jewish settlement growth in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the crushing siege of Gaza.
____As a guest of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, I traveled to the region in March with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility to listen to the voices of and work with physicians, mental health clinicians, UN and human rights workers, teachers, students, youth groups, artists, and ordinary people. . . .
____I listened to psychiatrists discuss the 51 days of intense fear and insecurity and the challenges of caring for traumatized patients when the clinicians themselves had lost homes, family members, and were equally traumatized.
[. . . .]
____Historical memory is a contradictory process, churning the narratives of the powerful against the realities of those who have suffered the most and are often left voiceless. Now, at the first anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, we are facing a crisis of memory.
(More. . .)

❺ Opinion
From AL-MONITOR (PALESTINE PULSE)
TRAVEL PERMITS AIM TO MANAGE, NOT SOLVE, PALESTINE-ISRAEL CONFLICT
Daoud Kuttab
July 27, 2015
When Saja Attaiya traveled on July 19 from the Palestinian village of Beit Sira, west of Ramallah, to the Mediterranean Sea, it only took her 30 minutes to get there. Previously, her attempts to visit Jaffa and Tel Aviv had been met with restrictions and checkpoints, as Israel has rarely given travel permits to Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Israel since 2000, especially to young Palestinians.
____ This year, travel restrictions were eased for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, thus allowing Attaiya, 21, and thousands of Palestinians to cross into Israel and spend time at the beach. . . .
[. . . .]
Freedom to travel is a basic right that is taken for granted in most parts of the world, and after decades of travel restrictions on Palestinians, a worrisome situation has emerged, whereby Israel is making small gestures to the Palestinians, thereby ignoring the important decisions that could end the occupation. It appears that Israel has decided to manage the conflict with the Palestinians rather than solve it.
Daoud Kuttab is a Palestinian a columnist for Palestine Pulse. He is a former Ferris Professor of journalism at Princeton University and is currently the director-general of Community Media Network, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing independent media in the Arab region.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/07/palestinians-visit-beach-israel-travel-permits.html
CAPTION:
Hillary Clinton wrote a letter to Haim Saban, the biggest giver on the Democratic side, saying that she will be speaking out publicly against BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign aimed at Israel, and will work “across party lines” to oppose it. –

“THE WANDERING REED,” BY FOUZI EL-ASMAR

Of what benefit is it, if man were to gain the whole world
But lose the green almond in his father’s orchard?
Of what benefit is it, if man
Were to drink coffee in Paris
But none in his mother’s house?
Of what benefit is it, if man were to tour the whole world
But lose the flowers on the hills of his native land?
He gains nothing but deadly silence
Within the hearts of the living.

You look through the mirror of lands not your own
And see your exiled face;
You recognize your face
Despite the deadly dust of travel
From Jaffa, to Lydda, to Haifa,
Through the Mediterranean to exile;
You recognize your face
And try to deny that face!
Your worship your own face
Even though exile has obliterated its features;
The hangman of the twentieth century assumes the countenance
Of the eternal face!
You close your eyes
To worship your face in the darkness of this century.
You deny . . . you worship,
You deny . . . you worship,
And the God of truth cries to your face:
“He who denies his face
Is renounced by all the birds of paradise in this universe,
And those whom silence has turned mute
Will never be heard by the roses of the field
He who kills the nightingale of his dreams
Will be buried in the forgotten graveyard of the living.”
You open your eyes
And see the face of your country in the mirror of exile.

The deadly silence in the hearts of the living
Strips away the skin of your face;
It cuts and dries your flesh,
Then hangs what remains on poles
Under the forgotten sun of the West.

From THE PALSESTINIAN WEDDING: A BILINGUAL ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE POETRY. Ed. and Trans. A. M. Elmessiri. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2011. Reprint from Three Continents Press, Inc., 1982. Available from Palestine Online Store.
Remembering Fouzi El-Asmar.