While Israel keeps urging the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resume largely discredited peace talks, Tel Aviv is continuing unabated the expansion of Jewish colonies throughout the West Bank.

Disingenuous as they are, Israeli calls for resuming peace talks are apparently aimed at giving the impression that the Palestinians, not Israel, is the party impeding efforts to revive the stalled process.

However, for Palestinians at least, facts on the ground speak louder than public relations.

In recent weeks, the Israeli government, arguably the most extremist since the creation of the Israeli state, decided to build thousands of additional settler units in the central West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In Jerusalem, the so-called Planning and Building Committee has been considering a plan to build a "park" in the heart of the Palestinian neighbourhood of Jabal Al-Mukaber in East Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials as well as peace-minded Israelis insist the planned park is nothing but a ruse to set up a new settlement designed to besiege Arab demographic growth in the occupied city.

"The plan is aimed at strangulating Arab presence in Jerusalem," says Khalil Tufakji, a prominent Jerusalemite cartographer. "They hope this will kill any possibility for building a viable Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital."

Israel is also planning to build some 4000 settler units in the Silwan neighbourhood south of the occupied Arab city.

US Vice President Joe Biden protested the plan last year. However, the Israeli government waited a few months until the issue was forgotten before reviving the plan.

Israeli pundits seemed convinced that US officials critical of Israeli settlement activities don't really mean what they say and that in any case they are not capable of acting on statements critical of Israel given Israeli clout and influence on domestic American politics.

Israel also calculates, seeming correctly, that the Obama administration will not undermine its own re-election chances at home by pressuring Israel to rethink its settlement expansion plans.

The intensive expansion of settlements in the West Bank has coincided with a serious escalation of Jewish terrorist activities against Palestinians and their property. The wave of terror and vandalism included, among other things, kidnapping Palestinian villagers and shepherds, torching Palestinian olive groves, and denying access to Palestinian traffic.

This week, Jewish settlers kidnapped a Palestinian shepherd near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Eyewitnesses said the settlers also seized 50 of the man's sheep. Normally, the Israeli occupation army, which controls the area, doesn't take meaningful action against settlers who attack Palestinians and vandalise their property with impunity.

As for the Israeli justice system, it deals quite lightly with settlers as many of the judges in Israeli courts are ideologically affiliated with the religious Zionist camp, or the settler camp.

This week, Israel decided to transfer to the PA the sum of $100 million dollars, which the Israeli government withheld earlier this month in an effort to bully the PA leadership into reconsidering efforts to seek recognition of a Palestinian state by international organisations such as the UN.

According to the Israeli media, Israel released the money after German Chancellor Angela Merkel threatened Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu with halting a German plan to deliver a submarine to Israel if the latter refused to resume the transfer of tax revenues to the PA.

According to a report published in the right-wing Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Israel yielded to pressure from Berlin and unfroze the Palestinian funds.

Germany reportedly announced it would build and pay up to one-third of the cost of a sixth Dolphin-class submarine to be delivered to the Israeli navy.

The agreement stipulated that Germany would pay the sum of 135 million Euros in partial financing of the deal.

The submarine will cost between 372 million and 520 million Euros. Defense experts believe the submarine will enhance Israel's second-strike capability since it can carry nuclear weapons.

Merkel has repeatedly appealed to Netanyahu to unlock the peace process, only to be met with prevarication from the Israeli premier.

Meanwhile, some Israeli officials have been voicing their anxiety over the initial results of the Egyptian elections; with the Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak admitting that Israel didn't like the ostensible victory of Islamists in the first round of the parliamentary poll.

Barak said he hoped that Israel's partners and friends in Cairo would retain significant influence that would keep the cold peace between Israel and the largest Arab country "as warm as possible".

Some Israeli commentators are already referring to the Egyptian elections results as a "nightmare coming true," bringing to the fore Israel's worst fears.

David Buki, a pro-settler commentator, lashed out at those Western powers that advocated and pressed for democracy in the Arab world. "When you give a Muslim a free voice in electing his leaders, he will pick an Islamist leadership every time because that is what he knows and appreciates."

"Israel's worst fears regarding its relationship with the Arab world -- and with Egypt in particular -- are coming true before our eyes. The rise of the Islamists in Egypt means the end of the peace treaty with Egypt and the rise of a government committed to the ideological Islamist goal of the destruction of Israel."

The Israeli commentator ignored the fact that Israel is made up of several fascist parties advocating discrimination and apartheid and even genocide against non-Jews.

Earlier this year, the spiritual mentor of Shas, a main coalition partner in the current Israeli government, was quoted as saying during a Sabbath homily in West Jerusalem that all non-Jews were very much like donkeys who were created by the Almighty on two legs so that they will serve the master race, the chosen people -- Jews.

Some http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/tag/rabbis/ have gone so far as permitting a Jew to murder a non-Jew in order to extract his organs if the Jew needs them.

* Khalid Amayreh a journalist based in the Occupied Palestinian town of Dura. He obtained his MA in journalism from the University of Southern Illinois in 1983.

Leader of Jewish settlers in the occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) neighborhood of Silwan has deliberately run over two Palestinian children and fled the scene. (see video below)

These stunning images show the incident happened during protests that followed the Friday Prayers.

The Israeli car driven by David Be'eri, the leader of hardline Elad organization trying to settle Jews in Silwan, charged a group of Palestinian kids, hitting one boy full on and throwing another off his feet.

The boys, Imran Mansur, 11, and Iyad Gheit, 10, both sustained severe injuries and were rushed to hospital. The incident was recorded by photographers and journalists present on the scene.

The disturbing footage also shows that one of the injured boys resisted efforts to get him into a car and to the hospital. Palestinian youngsters fear getting into strangers' cars because they have seen their friends taken away by Israeli troops on a regular basis.

Israeli intelligence and police have been accused of torturing confessions out of Palestinian children, subjecting them to sexual abuse and removing the organs of injured Palestinians.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2unZIzIwp0

(Press TV, Al Jazeera)

Is it the isolation and insulation that Israel has imposed on Gaza, or the cynicism with which the decision makers continue to turn the population of East Jerusalem into welfare clients and slum dwellers, and then pride themselves of the national insurance payments they grant them?

By Amira Hass* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Worshipers attempt to cross into Jerusalem from Bethlehem are often turned away by the Israeli Army. (Maan Images)

Graduates of the Shin Bet security service pride themselves on being able to recite Arabic proverbs, claiming this is the way to win over an Arab interlocutor. If it sounds to you as if I'm a bit envious of the linguistic training they receive, you are not mistaken; in my sort of school - the field - I have been able to memorize only a few Arabic adages.

One I learned from one of the many villagers who was handed an expropriation order for his land. Sitting at the entrance to his home, he looked like he was attending a funeral. "To whom can a grain of wheat complain when the cock is the judge?" he said, in response to my dumb question about what he planned to do.

This saying is useful in situations when all other words fail. For example, in a military tribunal that convicts and detains demonstrators protesting the robbery of their land, like Adib and Abdullah Abu Rahma.

Another adage often quoted goes something like this: "He who lives with a tribe for 40 days will begin to behave like it." Not exactly, but like the Palestinians, who hold some strange competitions, I have found myself wondering which Palestinians have it the worst under the Israeli rule.

For many years, I thought there was nothing worse than life in Gaza. I even argued my point with a friend, who claimed the absolute worst is to be a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship because "we live in the midst of the Nakba [1948 catastrophe] sites and experience the daily racism masquerading as democracy."

But for more than a year now, I have been vacillating between Gaza and Jerusalem. That is to say, I have been trying to decide which is worse - the isolation and insulation that Israel has imposed on Gaza (which includes being cut off from water sources and from the cultural, social and family ties those residents have with their People ); or the cynicism with which the decision makers continue to turn the population of East Jerusalem into welfare clients and slum dwellers, and then pride themselves of the national insurance payments they grant them.

A visit to the neighborhood of Isawiyah decided the issue. Heaps of concrete, uncollected garbage, roads that are becoming narrower due to pirate additions to buildings - forced on residents thanks to construction prohibitions and the expropriation of vacant lots - all lies in sight of the Hebrew University campus and the city's French Hill, which are so green, spacious and civilized.

'Unsafe space'

And now a report from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel has confirmed my determination. The report, titled "Unsafe space: The Israeli authorities' failure to protect human rights amid settlements in East Jerusalem," is based on testimonies, media reports and official documents. It highlights the loss of personal and collective security in Jerusalem's Palestinian neighborhoods, in the heart of which hostile bodies have settled over the past 30 years - settlers supported by millionaires and religious and archeological associations.

Some 2,000 such people live in fortified, well-guarded complexes in Palestinian neighborhoods like Silwan, Sheikh Jarrah and the Muslim Quarter of the Old City - and there are more to come. Life in Palestinian Jerusalem is shaped by these Israeli statics: 65.1 percent of the city's Palestinian residents live below the poverty line, as compared with 30.8 percent of the city's Jewish population; and 74.4 percent of the Palestinian children in Jerusalem live below the poverty line, as compared to 45.1 percent of the city's Jewish children.

The city's Palestinian neighborhoods have a dearth of 1,000 classrooms; 50 percent of the school children drop out; and 24,500 dunams of private land - more than one third of the area annexed to Jerusalem - have been appropriated from the Arab owners, while more than 50,000 housing units have been built on this land for Jews alone.

The authorities who prevent Palestinians from building and developing their lands allocate vacant plots to the Jews, not only outside of the populated areas but also in their very heart. These spaces are allocated for parking or entertainment, archeological digs or construction.

As these neighbors are the authorities' darlings, confrontations are unavoidable, so the Housing and Construction Ministry provides hundreds of armed guards for the Jews at the public's expense (some NIS 54 million in 2010 ). When Palestinians complain to police about harassment, they find themselves treated like suspects. When they call the police, they feel like the officers are in no hurry to get there. And when police investigate cases in which Jews are suspected of causing bodily harm, these cases are closed swiftly. In this way, the Palestinians are left at the mercy of the aggressive, belligerent and officially sanctioned invaders.

The guards, who are employed by a private company, think their position permits them to hit people, to act abusively and even to shoot. The people in whose midst these fortified complexes are sprawling are afraid to get in and out; relatives and friends think twice before coming to visit them. These complexes are also characterized by a great deal of noise - digging at archeological sites that goes on until night, and dancing and religious celebrations accompanied by anti-Arab songs.

The ACRI report was presented to the police and the Housing and Construction Ministry for perusal. The legal adviser to the police, Roni Leibowitz, asked the organization to delay publication of the report so he could examine the specific charges, saying seven days was not enough time to conduct a serious investigation.

Nevertheless, his first impression was that the ACRI report "describes the reality in a partial and sometimes tendentious manner... It relates in a forgiving light to serious violent events that took place in the village of Silwan, that by some miracle did not end in death - such as firing from live weapons by a terrorist cell, mass riots, and the throwing of Molotov cocktails, stones, iron bars and other harmful objects at security forces..."

In addition, Leibowitz says the claims of deficient treatment on the part of the police are based solely on "the testimonies of those who were interrogated as suspects in these events, which obviously can lead to an erroneous portrayal of the way the situation developed."

Ariel Rosenberg, the ministry's spokesman, firmly denies any claims that guards harass Palestinians and praises their professionalism and the instructions they receive to show restraint and forbearance.

"In the past year," he writes, "the situation in the area under discussion has significantly worsened and the guards are witness to extremely hostile activity."

* Amira Hass is a prominent Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz. She is particularly recognized for her reporting on Palestinian affairs in the West Bank and Gaza, where she has also lived for a number of years. The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. On Oct. 20, the International Women's Media Network reward Hass the 2009 Lifetime Achievement Award. Hass was the recipient of the Press Freedom Hero award from the International Press Institute in 2000, the Bruno Kreisky Human Rights Award in 2002, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003, the inaugural award from the Anna Lindh Memorial Fund in 2004 and Hrant Dink Memorial Award in 2009.

Above: A map showing the area of Silwan threatened with demolition and settlement expansion, including an indicator of the area in which settlements already exist. As highlighted on the map, Silwan as well as the adjacent villages of Tur and Ras Al Amud will be on the western side of the Wall, as Jerusalem is being isolated from the rest of the West Bank, in the Occupation’s continued plans to control the city. With most of Jerusalem outside the Walled-in areas, it is expected that the Apartheid Wall and therefore the isolation and ghettoization of Jerusalem, will act as a springboard for increasing land confiscation, settlement expansion and expulsion in the area.

"Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past." (George Orwell, 1984)

Historically, Jerusalem began as a small village where the Palestinian village of Silwan sits today. Currently, Silwan has a population of over 45,000 Palestinians. Underneath their homes and ragged streets lie the remnants of 5000 years of glorious nations who lived there.

Silwan is located in East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel in 1967. Since then, behind the Zionist claim of reconnecting with the ancient heritage of the Jews, the truth is, archaeology has become a weapon of dispossession of Palestinians. Archaeological excavations are being carried out as part of a concerted campaign to expel them from their ancestral home and history.

In an unprecedented act, the state of Israel has handed over the responsibility of the archaeological site to ELAD - an Israeli religious settlers' gang whose proclaimed purpose is the takeover of Silwan. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) financed by ELAD's $10 million yearly budget is excavating under the houses of Silwan’s residents, without informing them about it and ignoring their property rights. In fact, ELAD has used a variety of means to evict East Jerusalem Palestinians from their homes and replace them with Jewish settlers.

Silwan is one of the Jerusalem neighborhoods most threatened with Judaization as a result of continuous settler attacks and occupation of its houses. Just last year in Silwan, in March 2004, settlers occupied two buildings that together are comprised of 12 flats. These can be added to the houses and lands in Silwan already taken over by settlers during previous years, a large part of which are located in Wadi Hilwa, which overlooks Bustan and is adjacent to the Old City. The settlements in Silwan - caravans and occupied houses - are located in the middle of the neighborhood, and are as well located very near to one another, making clear their function of ultimately turning the entire neighborhood into a settlement.

In April 2005, the Occupation Forces and its municipality in Jerusalem declared its plan to demolish some 122 houses in both the areas of Bustan and Wadi Hilwa. Demolishing these houses is part of the Occupation's plan to "evacuate" and expropriate all lands surrounding the Old City, in the closest hills and mountains surrounding the Old City that include Tur, Silwan and Abu Tur, along with other areas. The planned settlements are to also include car parks, recreational and commercial areas. Source: stopthewall.org

Today, all the green areas in the densely populated neighborhood of Silwan have been transformed into archaeological sites, which have then been fenced and posted with armed guards. Some of these 'archaeological sites' have been transformed to homes for the Jewish settlers.

ELAD has made it clear that they want the land without the people and their history. In fact, Elda is now trying to hide the history as reported here:

Dozens of skeletons from the early Islamic period were discovered during excavations near the Temple Mount, on a site slated for construction by a right-wing Jewish organization. Contrary to regulations, the skeletons were removed, and were not reported to the Ministry of Religious Services. The Israel Antiquities Authority termed the incident ‘a serious mishap’."

The IAA's Dr. Doron Ben Ami is directing the excavations at the Givati parking lot in Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood, across from the entrance to the Dung Gate. ELAD, an association devoted to Judaizing East Jerusalem, is funding the dig at the site, where it plans to build an events hall with underground parking. The IAA is excavating there even though ELAD never filed building plans with the planning authorities.

In recent weeks, workers excavating at a depth of two to three meters reached a layer from the 8th or 9th century A.D., some 200 years after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem. They discovered several dozen skeletons, skulls and bone fragments, thought to date from the early Islamic period. An IAA source said there were ‘dozens of crates’ containing bone fragments that were removed, which suggests at least 100 skeletons were found.

IAA regulations require that any graves discovered be reported immediately to the Religious Services Ministry and to Atra Kadisha, an ultra-Orthodox organization dedicated to preserving ancient Jewish gravesites. For some reason this discovery was not reported, and the skeletal remains were carted away before ministry officials arrived to inspect the site. The ministry learned of the discovery only two weeks later, following inquiries by Haaretz.

Nor have the Muslim religious authorities been notified, even though the skeletons are thought to belong to a Muslim community.

An archaeologist who worked at the IAA expressed surprise at the manhandling of skeletons discovered less than a hundred meters from Al Aqsa mosque. "The moment a digger comes across bones, he must stop immediately and inform his supervisors," he said, adding that IAA director Shuka Dorfman has threatened to fire anyone who fails to report the discovery of bones.

The IAA refused to explain the ‘serious mishap’, but said Dorfman ‘accepts responsibility’ for it.

Another archaeologist familiar with excavations in Jerusalem lamented the lost opportunity to learn more about the city's past: "This was not a regular cemetery, since then they would also have found many tombstones. It may have been a private burial site, perhaps a mass grave following an epidemic or war, but in any case it is a very important discovery that could shed light on life in Jerusalem in that period. It's a scandal they destroyed it." Source: Haaretz.

It is not surprising that none of the Zionist archaeologists findings will be highlighted for the public if any proof of the Muslim rule comes to light. They are looking only for Jewish ruins as if Muslims (and others) were never there.

Although ELAD denies their intention of driving out Silwan's Palestinians, they still do not deny that they have a Zionist dream to reveal only a Jewish ancient city beneath the ground and create a Jewish neighborhood above the ground.

History is pulsing through Jerusalem, reeling off the names of history's giants, nations and religions associated with the city - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So what gives the right for Zionists to claim it as Jewish only land for any reason other than their racist ideology?

Amihai Mazar, a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the site has already revealed important details of Jerusalem's history. He mentioned the discovery of massive Canaanite fortifications 3,700 years old and of thousands of fish bones indicating the diet favored in this landlocked city on the desert's edge.

In spite of that, ELAD runs a visitors ' center which offers a highly one-sided, Zionist version of the history of Silwan. At the entrance, visitors to the site receive a propaganda pamphlet embodying a distorted historical narrative in a relentless process of turning Silwan into an area that seems to have a history that is Jewish alone, and will return to that state. At the same time, they are dispossessing many of the Palestinian residents to do just that .

A grass-roots protest in the neighborhood, including an appeal to the Israel Supreme Court, has met with violent suppression by the police, including the harassment and repeated arrests of the signatories to the appeal. On March 17, 2008, the Court issued a restraining order against ELAD and temporarily halted further extension of the digging.

In Silwan, sadly, archaeology -and the Israel Antiquities Authority - are being openly exploited for purely Zionist purposes that include the removal of innocent civilians from their homes.

In recent weeks, university professors and lecturers from all over the world have been signing a petition aiming at stopping using archaeology against the residents of Silwan. The petition calls to stop ELAD from exploiting archaeology for their Zionist dreams. It is still possible to sign the petition. You can find it here:

http://www.alt-arch.org/signpetition.html

On Wednesday, the 18th of June, 2008 at 11 a.m., there will be a hearing in the Supreme Court in Jerusalem regarding the archaeological excavations under the houses of the Silwan. If you can make it, your presence is important!

References:

- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/988803.html
- http://counterpunch.org/bronner04112008.html
- http://imeu.net/news/article008427.shtml
- http://stopthewall.org/photos/947.shtml
- http://www.alt-arch.org/index.html