How 700 settlers wrecked a town of 150,000 Palestinians

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com HEBRON, West Bank -- The barrier Israel is constructing in the largely rural West Bank is effectively separating Arab from Jew along much of its 456-mile length. But the broader project of disentangling the two peoples in the absence of a peace agreement is failing in urban areas such as Hebron, where the most radical elements of Islamic and Jewish nationalism are gaining strength. Within Hebron, the separation is enforced not only by Israeli barriers but also by military checkpoints and curfews intended to protect the roughly 700 Jewish settlers living within the city's most historic and religiously important areas. Securing the small Jewish minority has a potent impact on the lives of the city's 150,000 Arabs,

International observers here say the settlers regularly toss debris and dirty water into the Arab market below, now largely shuttered in a city where unemployment stands at 60 percent. Asked whether Arabs and Jews can share Hebron, Maraga, his hair and beard a gray fuzz, looked up at the chain-link canopy.

Hemmed in and harassed, the Palestinians are fleeing today. Nearly half the homes in and around the Israeli-controlled Old City of Hebron have been vacated, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem recently reported. The group also said that more than three-quarters of the Palestinian shops and restaurants in the casbah and adjacent commercial districts have been shuttered, many by military order.

Via Marx Sawicky.

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Israel : popular support for apartheid

Interesting poll from the "Center for the Campaign Against Racism "(who are they ? Anyone ?). Shows quite strong popular support for apartheid policies directed against arabs within Israel proper.

clipped from www.voltairenet.org Opinion poll: A majority of Israeli Jews are in favour of the Apartheid According to a survey conducted for the Center for the Campaign Against Racism and published on March 20th, 2007: Culture: 37 % of the Israeli Jews polled think that the Arabic culture is inferior to the Jewish one. Arabophobia: Each time overhearing someone speaking Arabic, 50 % of Israeli Jews feel fear and 31 % feel hatred. Security: 56 % of the Israeli Jews think that Israeli Arabs pose a security problem to the State of Israel. Segregation: 55 % of the Israeli Jews wish that the Jews and Arabs are kept apart in the places of leisure. Citizenship: 40 % of the Israeli Jews think that Israeli Arabs should be deprived of their right to vote.

Jewish worshipers desecrate Palestinian cemetery

clipped from www.metimes.com Jewish worshippers desecrate Palestinian cemetery June 8, 2007 Jewish worshippers desecrated a Palestinian cemetery in the occupied West Bank where they were taken by the army to pray at a holy site, witnesses and military sources said Friday. Several hundred Israelis arrived in Kifel Hares village where the army imposed a curfew so that the worshippers could gather at the grave where they believe that Biblical figure Joshua is buried, Palestinian witnesses said. Mayor of the northern village, Ahmed Buzieh, said that Jewish worshippers shouted slogans such as "death to the Arabs" and scrawled insults on the walls before heading onto the cemetery where they desecrated nine tombs. An Israeli military source said that the religious Jews wrote death to Arabs on the graves and broke stone tombs. "The army is taking the matter with the utmost seriousness," the source said.