[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Palestine and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Palestine Page co-editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each roundup to Palestine@jadaliyya.com.]
The Occupation Forces
Israeli Troops Attack Palestinian Protesters at Gaza Border, 70 Injured Israeli troops wounded at least seventy Palestinians during protests near the border fence separating the besieged Gaza Strip from the occupied territories.
Palestinian Boy Loses Leg After Israeli Soldier Shot Him As He Retrieved Football According to Defense for Children International, fourteen-year-old Mahmoud Salah from al-Khader village was playing football with friends on the evening of 21 May, when he went to fetch the ball. An Israeli soldier then shot him in the leg with live ammunition, after which, the boy testified, “two soldiers approached and kicked him” before he was taken to the hospital and his leg was amputated due to “irreversible tendon damage.”
Domestic Policy
End of Nomination for the 2019 Re-run Local Elections The Central Elections Commission announced today the end of nomination for the upcoming rerun of local council elections in seventeen localities in the West Bank scheduled on 13 July 2019.
Hamas Denies Any Progress on Palestinian Reconciliation Hamas spokesman Ismail Ridwan yesterday denied that there had been any new developments towards reconciliation of the Palestinian factions. “Hamas has offered too much for the sake of reconciliation and it is offering everything in order to be able to face the conspiracies against the Palestinian cause,” Ridwan said, denouncing what he said was the harsh treatment of Hamas compared to the lenient requirements asked of Fatah.
‘Israel does not want peace’, Former Mossad Chief Says The former chief of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, Shabtai Shavit, has said that Israel does not want peace and that, if it had, it would have made peace with the Palestinian Authority long ago. “The strong can do for itself what the weak cannot do […] We can run over the other side if we want,” he added.
Foreign Policy
Palestinians Reject Economic Part of US Peace Plan The plan was posted on the White House website on Saturday, two days before a US-led workshop in Bahrain where the economic portion of the so-called "deal of the century" is set to be discussed. Involving a fifty-billion-dollar investment fund that essentially pays the Palestinian Authority and the surrounding states to accept very little change in Palestine’s political situation, the economic plan left unaddressed the main issues of the Palestinian people such as Right of Return, the status of Jerusalem, and rights within Israel. It was rejected wholesale by Palestinian society.
Lebanon ‘will not be lured into settling Palestinians’ Lebanon will not be lured by a US plan to invest billions in the country in return for settling Palestinian refugees, Lebanese parliament speaker, Nabih Berri said on Sunday (23 June). “Those who think that waving billions of dollars can lure Lebanon, which is under the weight of a suffocating economic crisis, into succumbing or bartering over its principles are mistaken,” Berri said in a statement from his office.
Arms Sold From UK to Israel During Gaza Protests The British government approved arms sales to Israel worth over seventeen million dollars in 2018 when Israeli soldiers were accused of intentionally firing on and murdering Palestinian protestors at the Gaza border, reports Anadolu Agency.
Oman to Open Embassy in Occupied West Bank Oman will open an embassy in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, the sultanate's foreign ministry said. The decision announced on Wednesday was made "in continuation of the sultanate's support for the Palestinian people," it said. "I hope the embassy will help in educating the Omani government on the real nature of the Israeli occupation," Hanan Ashrawi said at a news conference in Ramallah.
Writing in the New York Times, Israeli UN Ambassador Says Palestinian Surrender And ‘national suicide’ is Needed For Peace Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon’s opinion piece, titled “What’s Wrong With Palestinian Surrender?” posits that the current Bahrain conference is something that Palestinians should have embraced, rather than rejected.
Settlers and Illegal Settlements
Palestinian Neighborhoods in Jerusalem Are Targeted For Increase in Housing Demolitions The Jerusalem Center of Socio and Economic Rights, Monday, warned of the escalation of Israeli demolitions in occupied Jerusalem, noting it bears the nature of a collective form of punishment. The director of the center Zeyad al-Hamouree warned, in a statement, that the Israeli municipality and civil administration are carrying out demolitions in Qalandia, Sur Baher, Silwan, and al-Bustan neighborhoods.
Israeli Settlers Attack, Seize Palestinian Land in West Bank City of BethlehemLocal Palestinian media reports said that several bulldozers belonging to the settlers, under the heavy protection of Israeli soldiers, entered the Khillat al-Nahla area south of Bethlehem City. The bulldozers leveled properties on more than seventy-four acres of land owned by the Palestinian farmer Mohammed Ayesh.
Illegal settler numbers growing faster than Israel population, Jerusalem council reveals Hanna Issa, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) Secretary-General for the Islamic-Christian Council for Jerusalem and the Holy Places, has announced that the number of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt) has reached 503, with 474 located in the West Bank and twenty-nine in East Jerusalem. In a press release today, Issa also stated that the illegal settlers living in these settlements number over one million, adding that the settler population is increasing at a far higher rate than the population growth rate of Israel itself.
Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement
From Spying to Lobbying, Israel's Fight Against BDS Intensifies Gilad Erdan, the Israeli strategic affairs minister and a senior figure in Israel's fight against BDS, met Mossad head Yossi Cohen to discuss "the struggle against the boycott," according to the politician's 2018 official diary.
Robert Kraft Pledges $20 million to Set Up Foundation That Will Fight BDS New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft has pledged twenty million dollars to establish a foundation that will fight anti-Semitism and BDS. Kraft made the announcement while in Israel accepting The Genesis Prize, which Natalie Portman rejected last year due to “distressing” events in Israel. Kraft explained that the new foundation will focus on social media messaging and target individuals between the ages of eighteen to thirty-five.
I’m Marching for Palestine in the First Queer Liberation March in NYC June 30 In an article written for Mondoweiss, Pauline Park outlines how she was the first openly transgender grand marshal of the New York LGBT Pride in March but has become disillusioned because of the role that giant corporations and police have taken in recent years. She outlines how the Reclaim Pride Coalition will hold its first Queer Liberation March in June, which will be marching in solidarity with Palestine.
Germany: BDS Activist Banned From pro-Palestine Events Germany has banned Palestinian writer and journalist Khalid Barakat and his wife Charlotte Keats from attending pro-Palestine events for their support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. He was banned from taking part in any political or cultural events, including family meetings with more than ten members.
Chuck Schumer Says He Supports Senate Resolution that Denounces the BDS Movement The Jewish Insider is reporting that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will announce his support for a new resolution that targets the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement today. S.Res.120 is a bipartisan piece of legislation that was introduced by Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH).
France Facebook Deal Could See BDS Targeted In a world first, France’s new deal with Facebook means information on users can be handed directly to the French judiciary, if requested, allowing it to bypass the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process. France holds some of the toughest laws on BDS; its “Lellouche Law” bans discrimination against persons of another country of origin and has previously been used to target BDS activists, seeing criminal convictions handed out for peaceful protests.
British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Endorses Boycott of Israeli Universities The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies has endorsed the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, in a vote taken at its AGM in Leeds on Monday
Law
10 Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike Ten Palestinian prisoners have begun open-ended hunger strikes to protest their detention conditions, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Prisoner Society.
Rights Group: Illegal ‘admissions committees’ Enforcing Segregation in Dozens of Israeli Communities Dozens of Israeli communities are using ‘admissions committees’ to filter potential residents, in violation of the law. According to legal rights center Adalah, the “committees in Israeli Jewish towns can reject potential residents based on ‘social suitability,’ essentially enforcing de facto housing segregation between Jewish and Arab citizens.”
Environment, Economy, and Other
Arab Finance Ministers Committed to Monthly $100 Million Safety net to Palestinian Budget Arab Ministers of Finance announced Sunday their commitment to the decisions of the League of Arab States to activate a monthly one hundred-million-dollar financial safety net to support the Palestinian government's budget to cope with current financial crises.
Palestinian Refugees Constitute Almost Half of the Palestinians in the world, Says Statistics Bureau UNRWA records indicated that the number of registered Palestinian refugees in 2018 amounted up to about six million and those figures represented the minimum number of Palestinian refugees, where they constitute almost half of the Palestinians in the world, about thirteen million, said the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics on the occasion of the International Day of Refugees.
EU, France & Palestine Launch the Nexus North Project The European Union, France, and the Palestinian Government launched today a new innovative project linking renewable energies and water infrastructures in the North of Palestine. This project will include the first windmills to be constructed in Tubas and Jenin Governorates.
Palestinians Announce the Discovery of An Important Archaeological Piece During the Restoration Works in Nativity Church Minister Ziad al-Bandak, Head of the Presidential Committee for the Restoration of the Nativity Church, announced that during restoration on the octagonal baptismal font, an additional circular baptismal font was found concealed within the current one. Al-Bandak added that this important discovery would grant experts further knowledge about the church’s history, its importance across the various historical periods, and the significance of it being made of the same material as the original church pillars.