In this episode of Occupied Thoughts FMEP’s Lara Friedman speaks with +972’s Amjad Iraqi about recent developments — what is happening and how it fits into the status quo that defines Israeli policies and rule over Palestinians.

FMEP publishes two resources on (most) Fridays: Lara Friedman’s Legislative Round-Up and Kristin McCarthy’s Settlement & Annexation Report. To subscribe to those reports, click here. To read last week’s reports, click here.

“An elderly Palestinian American man who was found dead after being detained by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank earlier this month suffered a stress-induced heart attack probably brought on by being bound and gagged and held in a cold construction site, according to the results of an autopsy released Wednesday….Three witnesses at the scene, as well as leaked testimony by the soldiers involved, described how Assad was pulled from his car and marched to the construction site, where he was held for more than an hour with a cloth tied around his eyes and gag over his mouth….The examination found evidence that Assad had been tightly bound and blindfolded, with abrasions on his wrists and bleeding on the insides of his eyelids.” See also: Witnesses: Elderly Palestinian Who Died After Israeli Detention Lay Motionless as Soldiers Looked On (Haaretz); Israeli soldiers blindfolded and gagged elderly Palestinian American later found dead: Leaked report (Washington Post); Israeli soldiers unlikely to face consequences over elderly Palestinian American’s death (Middle East Eye)

“Al Haj Suleiman al-Hathaleen was a shepherd in the West Bank and a well-known anti-occupation activist. Suleiman was a small man with no weapons. He resisted the occupation through civil disobedience….Ali Velshi met Haj Suleiman on his last trip to Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank at the end of 2019. Two weeks ago, Israeli forces entered Haj Suleiman’s village of Umm Al-Khair and began confiscating unregistered Palestinian cars. Haj Suleiman did what he had done for decades: he peacefully resisted. Then he was run over by a tow truck, under contract to the Israeli police. Witnesses say the tow truck driver and their police escort simply fled the rural village. They did not render aid to Haj Suleiman. They did not even call for an ambulance. Al Haj Suleiman al-Hathaleen never emerged from his coma, and died of his injuries this week. Suleiman was a man with little to his name, except for his land, his village, and his ability to stand up to an illegal occupation. This small man with just his words and his staff, was a thorn in the side of the Israeli occupation, because he had become a symbol of the resistance, and an emblem of the Israeli occupation.” See also “The Cruel, Petty Killing of an Anti-Occupation Activist” (Ben Ehrenreich in The Nation) and “January 18, 2022.   Umm al-Khair, Hajj Suleiman’s Funeral. Text: David Shulman, Photographs: Margaret Olin” (Touching Photographs)

“At least three Palestinians, including a three-year old boy, were slightly wounded and property was damaged when dozens of settlers rioted in a West Bank village on Monday… The settlers who drove through the West Bank village in a convoy of cars as they rioted, were celebrating the release of one of their number from detention, after he was charged with hurling a stun grenade at a Palestinian home.” See also: Israeli settlers rage through Palestinian town, marking the latest ‘nationalistically motivated’ attack in the region (CNN); Opinion | For Israel’s Settlers, It’s War. Their Target: Palestinian Land – and Bodies (Haaretz); At a West Bank outpost, Israeli settlers flaunt their power (AP)

“Footage from the scene depicts a group of masked people attacking activists who had come to help Palestinian farmers plant trees with clubs, hurling stones at them and setting one of their cars on fire.”

“Last Thursday, thousands gathered in the Naqab region (Negev), southern Israel, to protest the dispossession of Palestinian Bedouin communities – and the response from the Israeli state was brutal. Heavily-armed Israeli police showered crowds with tear gas launched from drones, while opening fire with rubber-coated metal bullets. Three people were hit directly in the face and needed surgery…Afforestation has a long history in Palestine as a political tool for Israeli authorities – used to hide the history of Palestinian presence by planting forests over the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba. It has also been a mechanism of holding the land and preventing displaced communities from returning. The targeted land constitutes valuable agricultural land – what is going on, therefore, is an attack on people’s very livelihoods and is seen as a precursor for their displacement.” See also: Why Israel is accelerating its expansionist plan in the Naqab (Middle East Eye); Ongoing Resistance in the Naqab with Riya Al-Sanah (Al Shabaka’s Rethinking Palestine podcast)

“We submitted a complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about the administrative detention of Amal Nakhleh. Israeli authorities have detained him for a year w/o charge. Their conclusion: He should be released immediately….Amal Nakhleh is one of six Palestinian children held in administrative detention by Israeli authorities whose cases @DCIPalestine have documented in the last year. He was first detained just after his 17th birthday, and turned 18 last week. Amal suffers from myasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disorder that weakens the muscles used to swallow & breathe. He just contracted COVID-19 while in Israeli military detention and has not been vaccinated due to his condition. He must be released immediately.” See also “UN agencies call on Israel to immediately, unconditionally release severely ill Palestinian child” (Middle East Monitor)

“On January 12, the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Civil Affairs, Hussain Al-Shaikh, jubilantly announced a “victory” of Palestinian diplomacy and the key fruit of the PA president’s controversial meeting last month with Israel’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz. The news concerned a new batch of 1,000 Palestinian national IDs that was granted by Israel, mostly to people who have lived in Gaza for years without official papers, because Israel had refused to add them to the population registry. This follows an earlier announcement by Mr Al-Shaikh from late December, where he indicated that based on family reunification, Israel will gradually grant 10,000 Palestinians the right to legally reside in designated parts of the occupied territories where they had already been living for years.….The most pressing question raising itself here is: how come Israel gets to decide which Palestinians are included or excluded from the PA’s own population registry of Gaza and the West Bank?”

I visited the area last week, and asked the soldiers what exactly they were doing there: …”The [checkpoint] we’ve set up here is to create pressure on the village itself. We’re causing adults to be late for work in the morning, we’re really making their daily lives difficult. The adults are aware of what’s happening with the young children, and they are against it. They don’t want them throwing stones.” So this is actually a form of collective punishment imposed on the village? “Completely. It’s collective punishment over the whole village.”

“Israeli forces demolished on Tuesday a two-apartment house in the Al-Tour neighborhood in east Jerusalem, according to Palestinian sources.The building was home to the Karameh family, the owners, and another Palestinian family who rented one of the apartments. Altogether 16 Palestinians including 12 minors were reportedly expelled.”

“On Tuesday, during a home demolition in East Jerusalem, Israeli police shot a Palestinian photographer in the chest with a sponge-tipped bullet. Ahmad Gharabli, who works for the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), was taken to the hospital for treatment, before being released that evening…This is the second time that Gharabli has been wounded by Israeli police in the last half year. In May, amid violence in East Jerusalem, police beat him with batons inside Al-Aqsa Compound, even after he identified himself as a journalist and was carrying numerous cameras.” See also Statement by the Foreign Press Association regarding police violence towards photographer working for Agence France-Presse.

“It is no secret that the Israeli state, with all of the powers at its disposal, has been waging an overt and determined war against the city’s Palestinian residents for decades. But in this instance, there is something that overshadows even the cruelty of demolishing a family’s home and throwing them out onto the street on one of the coldest nights of the year, and that is the astonishingly cynical excuse in whose name this violent act of barbarism took place: building a school on the land that was expropriated by the Jerusalem municipality. I want to ask Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon: What will children learn in this school? What values will the education system promote in a school built on the ruins of the lives of the Salhiyeh family? This is a cynical and wicked excuse, precisely because in East Jerusalem there is indeed a dire shortage of classrooms, for which the Jerusalem Municipality itself is largely responsible, due to its longstanding policy of neglect.” See also: Sheikh Jarrah: Residents promise to stand firm after Salhiya demolition (Middle East Eye); Sheikh Jarrah Palestinian residents take turns guarding their homes (Al Monitor)

“Last week, on January 19th, Israeli police violently expelled two branches of the Salhiye family from their homes before demolishing them to make way for a local school…But even many of the Democrats who spoke out at the height of last year’s violence have been conspicuously silent on the brutal actions taking place in a country to which the US sends $3.8 billion annually in military aid. Only a handful of members of Congress—including frequent occupation critics Mark Pocan, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Marie Newman, and Cori Bush and J-Street stalwarts Andy Levin and Jackie Speier, all of whom are Democrats—tweeted condemnations of Israel’s actions against the Sulhiye family, which, The New York Times reported, marked at least the tenth instance of evictions or demolitions of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem so far this month. I directly reached out to the offices of 25 additional representatives and senators…Despite multiple days’ notice, with one last-minute exception, none of these members of Congress provided any kind of comment in response to my inquiries.”

“The Palestinian Authority (PA) has called for the formation of an international commission to investigate the massacres committed by Israel in the Palestinian village of Tantura in 1948. The call came after Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Thursday the discovery of a mass grave in Tantura village of Palestinians killed by Zionist gangs in 1948, when the modern state of Israel was formed….“The crimes of the occupation did not stop at the year 1948, but are still continuing in a racist and hateful manner, which calls for the opening of investigations into these crimes,” the PA Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. The statement continued, “What is required is a broad international campaign to bring justice to the Palestinian victims and to punish Israeli officials and the official Israeli institution that continues to conceal and cover up the ugliness of these crimes and massacres.”

“The day Palestinians’ native knowledge is legitimized and acceptable to Israeli ears, Jewish filmmakers and researchers will be able to spare us the embarrassing and subjugating reminder time after time. Tantura, as you have just discovered, illustrates the mechanisms of silencing and erasure that serve the Zionist narration of history – as all the information is buried in the archives just like Palestinians were buried without anyone knowing of their existence….Despite Palestinian testimonies about the massacre, proof and approval of the knowledge is still required from Jews to prove that a massacre indeed occurred, and not just from any Jews, but from fighters who were part of that colonial apparatus.”

“This is not the first time when an Israeli admission of guilt, though always conditional, has been considered the very validation of Palestinian victimization. In other words, every Palestinian claim of Israeli misconduct, though it may be verified or even filmed on camera, remains in question until an Israeli newspaper, politician or historian acknowledges its validity.”

“an investigative task force comprised of historians, forensic experts and pathologists, both Arab and Jewish, should be set up to go over the testimony and excavate the ground to determine whether the remnants of a mass grave are indeed located there and what can be learned from them. They will have to do this despite the fact that the suspicions of a massacre stem solely from oral testimony; no documents providing evidence of it have yet been found. In addition to this research, a memorial plaque should be posted there – not just for the Jews who fell there, but also for residents of the Arab village who were buried there after being executed, whether through a systematic massacre or sporadic murders.” See also Opinion | The Ghosts of Tantura (Gideon Levy in Haaretz)

“A member of BDS Austria is being sued by the Municipality of Vienna for sharing a Facebook post stating: ”Visit Apartheid – Free Palestine”. The Municipality has filed a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) to deliberately repress and intimidate BDS-Austria and Palestinian rights advocates. Such a tactic threatens democratic values and fundamental rights. The hearing at the Commercial Court of Vienna will take place on the 28th of January 2022.”

“A UK-based Palestinian academic has said she was targeted by a “cyberbullying” campaign by pro-Israel social media accounts and outlets over her activism and advocacy of Palestinian issues. The campaign follows Sheffield Hallam University PhD candidate Shahd Abusalama‘s claim last month that she had been removed from taking up a teaching position at the university due to “outside pressure” on the university.”

“Dubbed “ProZ,” the virtual training is slated to feature six sessions beginning this February in an effort to mentor activists to become masters in combating antisemitic content and act together against intolerance on social media.” See also On eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, ‘Students 4 IHRA’ campaign launched (JPost)

“…in many cases, rhetoric and statements about Israel endorsed by public figures, academics and others went beyond criticizing Israeli policies or actions to assertions that Zionism, the self-determination movement of the Jewish people, is an inherently racist ideology and a form of racial supremacy, suggesting that supporting Zionism is inherently equivalent to supporting racial discrimination. Not only is this narrative false; it has also shown to fuel resentment against Jews and normalise bias against Jewish communities worldwide….Experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, have encouraged the use of the IHRA working definition as a non-legal tool, especially in the areas of data collection, education and awareness-raising. Using this working definition in accordance with international human rights standards will not only contribute to the global efforts in combating antisemitism but will also make the space for contentious public debates more capacious and inclusive.”

“I’ve spent my entire career working to defend people’s rights, and now a government is trying to use me as a tool to undermine them. It’s paralyzing and chilling, and it’s why the stakes are so high when it comes to ending unlawful surveillance…Because of the way Pegasus covers its tracks it was impossible to find out the extent of the attack against me. NSO Group says it only sells its products to governments, but which government was responsible for the attack?…I’ve been living with the reality of not knowing who targeted me and what they stole, not knowing how they have used my data or plan to, and whether I will be attacked again. I don’t know who may be at risk because of the attack or future attacks.” See also Human Rights Watch Among Pegasus Spyware Targets (Human Rights Watch); Top Human Rights Watch investigator allegedly hacked with Pegasus spyware (Guardian); Lessons for policymakers from the NSO Group saga (Brookings)

“Israelis mostly shrugged last July when The Washington Post and 16 media partners revealed that spyware supplied by Israel’s NSO Group had been used by governments to hack the cellphones of journalists, diplomats and activists around the world.But after a report last week by a local newspaper that Israeli police have been using the same Pegasus surveillance technology without warrants to target Israeli political activists, mayors and other citizens, NSO has suddenly come under scrutiny at home by the public and media.” See also: Police used NSO malware to track activist’s secret use of gay dating app (YNet); Calls across political spectrum to probe Israel Police Pegasus spyware misuse (Al Monitor); Chairman of Israeli spyware firm NSO says he has stepped down (Reuters) Israeli police used NSO’s Pegasus to spy on local mayors, their relatives (Calcalist)

“But while the new government’s tone has slightly changed from that of its predecessor, its position remains the same — as reflected by what the NSO revelations make very clear: Israel is a belligerent occupying power with a thriving, offensive cybersurveillance industry. Israel is a leading exporter of state-of-the-art surveillance technology such as face recognition, internet monitoring and biometric data collection. (High-tech industry constituted 46 percent of Israeli exports in 2019.) It tests and utilizes these tools every day in the occupied territories as part of its intricate system of control over the movement and lives of millions of Palestinians.”

“Instead of capitalising on the fact that Palestinians across the diaspora face varying pressures, and that the unique positionality of each community can be wielded as an asset rather than lead to fragmentation, it has become increasingly clear that some activists espouse a one-size-fits-all strategy and a disdain for any sort of advocacy in formalised spaces. Anyone who engages in human rights organisations, international law organisations, think tanks or electoral politics is at risk of harassment and subject to bad-jacketing.”

“The Palestinian Authority (PA) has intensified its crackdown on political opponents in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the past months, analysts say….On several occasions, PA security forces turned violent, including the firing of tear gas at crowds, carrying out preemptive arrests of event participants, forceful confiscation of Hamas, PIJ and supporters of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) party flags, and firing live ammunition into the air….Popular support for Hamas dramatically increased during the 11-day Israeli bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, following Israel’s attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of occupied East Jerusalem, and the widespread confrontations with Israeli forces that ensued across historic Palestine.” See also Wave of political detentions, pursuit of activists in West Bank (Al Monitor); Ramallah court acquits Palestinians who protested after Nizar Banat’s death in PA detention (The New Arab)

“Last week, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, the ultra-hawkish think tank that promotes U.S.-Israel military relations, released its report on the 2020 Abraham Accords. The launch event featured laudatory remarks by the ambassadors to the United States of the three initial signatories – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Israel – all of which have shared an interest in shifting the regional balance of power against Iran….Seven of the report’s eight authors enjoy close and presumably lucrative ties with the U.S. arms companies. Unsurprisingly, weapons sales were praised throughout the report and heralded as the linchpin of the Accords’ success…Neither the authors nor JINSA disclosed what may be a serious conflict of interest underlying the report’s policy prescriptions: all but one of the report’s authors are in the weapons business.”

“Israel is planning a campaign to discredit a UN commission formed to investigate the violence in Gaza last May and the root causes of the protracted conflict in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry cable seen by Axios….Israeli officials say they are highly concerned that the commission’s report will refer to Israel as an “Apartheid state” and that its findings could damage Israel’s reputation, particularly among progressives in the West.”

“One year later…the Biden administration has failed to deliver on—or even make progress toward—any of the other pledges it made in addressing Israel/Palestine.”

“Liberal pro-Israel advocacy group J Street is launching the J Street Action Fund, through which it hopes to raise $1 million to drop on independent expenditures on congressional races during the 2022 cycle….J Street already operates a PAC called JStreetPAC…but the new independent expenditures arm will be a separate entity within the group’s existing 501(c)(4)…The group is also forming J Street Grassroots Action, which will send contributions to local organizations focused on grassroots organizing in key states, which for this year’s midterms include Georgia Alliance for Progress in Georgia and Living United for Change in Arizona, the sites of two key Senate races.” See also J Street ‘Pushes Back’ Against AIPAC by Announcing New Fund for 2022 Congressional Races (J Street)

“On July 22nd, Jessie Sander was fired from her job as a Hebrew teacher in the education program of the Westchester Reform Temple, a high-profile congregation in Scarsdale, New York. According to a legal complaint obtained by Jewish Currents, the dismissal—which occurred before Sander, 26, had even met her students—came in response to a blog post Sander co-wrote criticizing Israel…The complaint, which she filed on January 25th with the Supreme Court of Westchester County, argues that her firing constituted a violation of New York labor law. While the facts of Sander’s case are familiar, the legal argument is not. The complaint states that, by firing her for expressing her anti-Zionist beliefs before she was hired, and in a forum outside of work, the synagogue violated a state labor statute that bars an employer from firing a worker for “recreational activities” such as “sports, games, hobbies, exercise, reading and the viewing of television, movies and similar material.” If Sander prevails, the legal argument could provide a model for other plaintiffs who face retaliation in the workplace for their views on Israel.”

“A number of activists were arrested Sunday after staging a sit-in protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington against Israeli settlement expansion and expulsions of Palestinians. About 400 to 500 activists protested in front of the embassy for about an hour on Sunday afternoon, against Israeli settlement expansion in Sheikh Jarrah, Hebron and the Negev (“Naqab“) Desert. The protest was organised by the Palestinian Youth Movement.”

“Huwaida Arraf is a civil rights attorney and activist running for congress in Michigan’s newly drawn tenth district. Mondoweiss spoke with the Democratic candidate about growing up Palestinian-American, her human rights work, and why she has decided to get involved in electoral politics.”

“The Israeli cabinet approved on Sunday a project that could inject up to NIS 100 million toward covertly funding government propaganda in the United States and other Western countries. Led by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, the initiative is expected to revive a failed plan entrusted until recently to the now-defunct Strategic Affairs Ministry, which closed in 2021. The plan is to transfer money indirectly to foreign organizations that will spread Israeli propaganda in the countries in which they operate, all while hiding the fact that they are backed by the Israeli government.” See also This anti-BDS Initiative Failed. So Israel Throws Another $30 Million at It (Haaretz)

“For the first time, Israel scores less than 60 in Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index, and is just nine points above corrupt country status.”

“With lots of misinformation and questions out there about Palestine, Mariam and I compiled and answered the most asked questions about Palestine on Google.” See also “How Liberals & Progressives Failed Us*” (Salem Barahmeh on ‘Progressive Except for Palestine’) 

“Gaza’s 20- and 30-somethings, it so happens, tend to be highly educated, multilingual—and jobless. Sixty-four percent of the youth labor force is unemployed, largely due to the occupation. Nonetheless, year after year, they have proved indefatigable. I came to Gaza this past summer to find out how—and why. I met with young entrepreneurs and farmers, artists and actors, environmental activists and computer coders, athletes and academics. With many women, I talked about their being powerful change agents in a male society. And everyone I encountered spoke not only about their sense of claustrophobia and fear, but also about their pride in what they’ve sought to accomplish in the tiny tinderbox they call home.”

“An alternative option would be for occupied Palestinians to demand equal rights as citizens, on par with everyone else Israel rules. This would be a reasonable demand, given that they live under Israeli governance, but without rights or citizenship. Such a move would ideally give Palestinians the advantages of equal civil and political rights, representation in parliament, and eventually an immigration policy that could admit Palestinian refugees…Nowhere can one find a proper Palestinian debate or discussion, inside or outside Palestine, about this question – or a demand for rights outside the present framework…There could be several explanations for this phenomenon…I believe that what underlies such objections is a deeply damaged sense of self among many Palestinians, scarred as they are by a history of colonial disdain for their rights since the time of Balfour; by having a settler state imposed on them without any concern for the consequences; and by decades of western partiality towards Israel, signalling to Palestinians that they are lesser beings. Israel’s ongoing campaign to erase Palestinian history and culture has further undermined their self-confidence.” 

“On the latest episode, Israeli archeologist Yonathan Mizrahi talks about Israel’s weaponization of archeology to expand Jewish settlement.”

“This report is intended for the progressive Jewish left in Israel and abroad to foster strategic thinking about how to relate to the discriminatory work of Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF)…the report’s first section summarizes KKL-JNF’s most problematic work; its second section provides a deep dive into the organization’s structure; and its third section offers recommendations for how those who oppose the occupation can challenge the work of KKL-JNF.”

“The aftermath of the Israel-Hamas war of May 2021 left many unanswered questions but one decisive assessment: the wartime footage shot by Palestinians had been unprecedented…Many activists hoped that this growing Palestinian-produced archive, with its unprecedented size and speed, was creating a body of evidence about the violence of Israeli occupation that global audiences could no longer ignore.”