❶ Israeli occupation shuts down Arab 48 TV
. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) Dozens protest for release of Palestinian poet under house arrest

• From Washington Report On Middle East Affairs

❷ UN experts urge Israeli Knesset not to adopt pending legislation that could target critical NGOs

• From Space & Polity

❸ Opinion/Analysis: FREEDOM  OF  EXPRESSION  AND  SOCIAL  MEDIA  IN  PALESTINE
❹ POETRY by Dareen Tatour
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❶ ISRAELI  OCCUPATION  SHUTS  DOWN  ARAB  48  TV
Days of Palestine
Jun 25, 2016
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan decided on Thursday to ban for six month Arab 48 TV which operates in Israel [in Nazareth].
___Erdan decided to shut down the TV channel, which changed its name after a previous ban, over claims that the TV undermines Israeli sovereignty.   [See Article 19.2 of the ICPPR]
___In July 2015, the minister ordered the Palestine 48 channel to stop operating for six months, arguing the television station was not authorised for broadcasting in Israel. The station subsequently changed its name to Musawa Channel.     MORE . . . 

From: Washington Report On Middle East Affairs 
Of course, Israeli censorship has long been a part of Palestinian reality. One recalls Prime Minister Golda Meir’s 1971 edict erasing Palestine and the Green Line from all maps produced in Israel, or Israeli occupation forces ordering the removal of Palestinian political symbols–flags, posters and more. Israeli authorities censored coverage of the first and second Palestinians intifadas, meticulously reviewing Arabic publications for “security”-related material, and enforced its ban on critical reporting with arrests, beatings and the confiscation of press cards. According to Reporters Without Borders, Israeli soldiers have shot at least nine Palestinian journalists, including reporters for the Associated Press, Agence France Presse (AFP) and Al Ayyam newspaper.
___According to HRW, blame for the wholesale destruction of freedom of the press and of expression in Palestine originates with political protection and funding by the United States and the European Union of Israeli and Palestinian security forces. This bias, moreover, ensures that the abuses continue. In its report, HRW calls upon the enabling nations to cease providing aid to all agencies, regardless of affiliation, implicated in serious violations of human rights and to publicly criticize abuses committed by West Bank and Gaza security forces.
___Without such intercession by the international community, Israel, Hamas and Fatah will continue restricting freedom of expression, abusing journalists, closing media offices, confiscating equipment, preventing the distribution of newspapers, and assaulting journalists during demonstrations–all of which serve to prevent information from reaching those directly affected, it also renders the entire world ignorant of facts–facts which in time will lead to a peaceful resolution of the longest running conflict in the Middle East.  Omer, Mohammed. “Casualty Of War: Censuring Truth In Palestine.” Washington Report On Middle East Affairs 27.8 (2008): 19-41.    SOURCE.

. . . ❶ ― (ᴀ) DOZENS  PROTEST  FOR  RELEASE  OF  PALESTINIAN  POET  UNDER  HOUSE  ARREST
+972 Blog
By Yael Marom
June 26, 2016
Dozens of Palestinians and Israelis demonstrated at Jaffa’s Clock Tower Square on Saturday evening to call for the release of Palestinian poet, Dareen Tatour, who has been held under house arrest for the past five months.___ Tatour, 33, from the Arab village Al-Reineh near Nazereth, was arrested by Israeli police on October 10, 2015 because of a poem she had posted to Facebook. . . .  She was charged with incitement to violence and identifying with a terrorist organization — all because of her poem.     MORE . . .       SEE ALSO . . .   

From: Space & Polity
This politics of trauma underscores the significance of aesthetics in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. . . .  this paper understands aesthetics not as the philosophy of art or beauty, but as “a relation between what people do, what they see, what they hear and what they know” . . . . this paper examines the role of beauty in disrupting the discourse of trauma that dominates humanitarian aid projects targeting Palestinian children . . .  In so doing, this research takes aesthetics beyond its traditional focus on visual arts and representation, and towards the role of aesthetics in reproducing everyday life.
[. . . .]
In thinking about affective political communities, J. Thompson suggests that the ‘affect of beauty’ provides an attractive alternative to the ‘aesthetics of injury’. While pain, he argues, “reduces the person to the boundary of her or his body,” beauty, in contrast, opens the body to an “intimate politics of sharing,” as the sensual generosity of beauty provokes an “affective impulse towards engagement with others.” This urge to share beauty with others serves as a modest “universal claim to some form of good.” . . .  Since beauty inspires an engagement with others in defining what is good, which in many contexts will involve a “comparison with circumstances that are experienced as unjust,” beauty is not a distraction from injustice but “can be part of its critique.” For this reason, beauty takes on added significance in situations of violence. More than a mere coping mechanism, beauty contrasts with and draws attention to injustice, pointing towards other more hopeful futures. . . . Marshall, David Jones. “‘All The Beautiful Things’: Trauma, Aesthetics And The Politics Of Palestinian Childhood.” Space & Polity 17.1 (2013): 53-73.    SOURCE.

❷ UN  EXPERTS  URGE  ISRAELI  KNESSET  NOT  TO  ADOPT  PENDING  LEGISLATION  THAT  COULD  TARGET  CRITICAL  NGOS
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
Press Release
June 25, 2016
Three United Nations human rights experts today urged Israeli lawmakers not to approve the so called ‘NGO transparency bill’ that would, in effect, target non-governmental organizations that are critical of government policy. The experts expressed grave concern that the legislation would chill the speech of human rights NGOs by subjecting them to harsh penalties for violations and delegitimizing them publicly.
[. . . .]
___“The promotion of transparency is indeed desirable and legitimate,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, David Kaye. “However, the pending legislation has the evident intent of targeting human rights and civil rights organization . . .”
___ The UN human rights experts urged members of the Knesset to withdraw the proposed legislation and uphold its international obligation to safeguard the broad and expansive right to freedom of expression guaranteed to everyone under Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.     MORE . . .

❸ Opinion/Analysis:  FREEDOM  OF  EXPRESSION  AND  SOCIAL  MEDIA  IN  PALESTINE
The Palestine-Israel Journal Politics, Economics, and Culture
By Ziad Khalil AbuZayyad
The greatest challenge that Palestinians face while trying to use social media as a tool for freedom of expression is the change in Israeli policy toward those who dare to express themselves on Facebook or Twitter. Recently Facebook posts have been used as grounds for possible imprisonment when used to express political opinions. Israel has sent dozens of Palestinians to jail for several months, asserting that they expressed extreme points of view on Facebook. Internationally, the discourse has always been that freedom of expression should be maintained on the Internet and that regulations should not allow digital expression to be used as a pretext to hunt down political activists.
[. . . .]
Palestinian activists clearly need to be given support and training that will help them face the political challenges presented by the censure of digital expression. Since we are talking about a conflict, the international Internet community must understand that it is dangerous to allow Israeli policies to prevent Palestinians from expressing their opinions freely and to sentence them to prison simply because they expressed their opinions in the digital world.      MORE . . .    

THE  POET  TARIQ  AL HAYDAR  TRANSLATES  TATOUR’S  POEM  INTO  ENGLISH:

Resist, My People, Resist Them
Resist, my people, resist them.
In Jerusalem, I dressed my wounds and breathed my sorrows
And carried the soul in my palm
For an Arab Palestine.
I will not succumb to the “peaceful solution,”
Never lower my flags
Until I evict them from my land.
I cast them aside for a coming time.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the settler’s robbery
And follow the caravan of martyrs.
Shred the disgraceful constitution
Which imposed degradation and humiliation
And deterred us from restoring justice.
They burned blameless children;
As for Hadil, they sniped her in public,
Killed her in broad daylight.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist the colonialist’s onslaught.
Pay no mind to his agents among us
Who chain us with the peaceful illusion.
Do not fear doubtful tongues;
The truth in your heart is stronger,
As long as you resist in a land
That has lived through raids and victory
So Ali called from his grave:
Resist, my rebellious people.
Write me as prose on the agarwood;
My remains have you as a response.
Resist, my people, resist them.
Resist, my people, resist them.

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