1/3 of Jerusalem homes for demolition

According to a  report, details of which are at PNN: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/politics/5800-1-3-of-jerusalemite-homes-threatened-with-demolition one third of non-Jewish homes in Jerusalem have been listed for demolition; the usual excuse being that they were built or repaired without permission. Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights revealed in a report on Thursday 26th September. According to the human rights group, Israeli authorities are
continuing their demographic war against Palestinians in the Holy City, as they only allocated 13 % of the area of occupied East Jerusalem for Palestinians to meet the needs of their growing population. The report added that the Israeli colonisation activity in Jerusalem is increasing, as the financial committee of the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality approved financial support for 1,500 new housing units at the end of August. The Euro-Mid pointed out that Israel’s bulldozers began in the same month to demolish homes in al-Tur neighbourhood, in order to establish the National Israeli Park”. The report included figures from the United Nations (UN) that show an increase in poverty rates among Palestinians in Jerusalem, due to high unemployment rates. According to Euro-Mid, the unemployment rate rose to 78% in 2012 compared to 64% in 2006, stressing that more than 40% of Palestinian Jerusalemites now live below the poverty line.

Israeli court to rule on property theft

 <http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=628528>
BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 10 Sept — Israel’s high court on Tuesday will discuss
whether to apply a controversial law in East Jerusalem which would enable
the Israeli government to seize private Palestinian property. The
Absentees’ Property Law (1950) was originally enacted to transfer the
property of Palestinian refugees, who had been forcibly displaced in 1948,
to the state of Israel. A court hearing on Tuesday will determine whether
the law can be applied to property in East Jerusalem which is owned by
Palestinians who live in the occupied West Bank. In June, Israeli attorney
general Yehuda Weinstein wrote a recommendation to the Israeli government
which supported applying the law to Palestinians residing outside of
Israel’s unilaterally declared Jerusalem boundaries. In effect, the law
would mean that Palestinians forced to flee their Jerusalem properties, who
now reside in the occupied West Bank, would be considered “absentees,”
enabling the Israeli government to seize their land.
  www.maannews.net<http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=628528>

 Palestinian in Kafkaesque battle over family’s hotel
<http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-palestinian-hotel-lawsuit-20130909,0,1873058.story>
ABU DIS, West Bank (Los Angeles Times) 9 Sept by Edmund Sanders — The year
Ali Ayad was born, his father broke ground on a majestic home perched on a
bluff overlooking Jerusalem, with views of the Dead Sea in one direction
and the golden Dome of the Rock in the other. For all of his 59 years,
Ayad’s life has revolved around the 1-acre plot. He played under the olive
trees as a boy and became manager after the home was converted into the
Cliff Hotel. He met his Norwegian wife from behind the reception desk,
married her in the dining room and raised two daughters amid the daily
bustle of visiting tourists and diplomats. But the idyllic life turned into
what he describes as a Kafkaesque nightmare a decade ago after Israel
seized control of the hotel. Using a combination of military orders and a
controversial absentee-owner law, the government kicked him off the
property, banned him from returning and then "confiscated" it as abandoned.

Colonial expansion continues despite 'talks'

Leshim_settlement _active_stills

Army uproots lands to build 'settlement' units in
Salfit<http://www.imemc.org/article/66051>
IMEMC 1 Sept — Local sources in Salfit district, in the central part of the
West Bank, have reported that Israeli bulldozers uprooted Palestinian lands
west of Salfit, in preparation for building new units in Leshim illegal settlement. The lands are located between Deir Ballout and Kufr Ad-Deek towns. Leshim was built last year on privately owned Palestinian lands.
Israeli Housing Minister, Uri Ariel, placed the corner stone of the illegal
settlement. The Salfit district is one of the most impacted districts due
to Israel’s illegal settlement activities as it contains 23 Israeli
settlements swallowing more than half of Salfit’s farmlands. It is worth
mentioning that there are 18 Palestinian towns and villages in the Salfit
District.

US Congress to import Israel's discriminatory laws

America's celebrated Civil Rights Bill - the anti-racialism legislation - could soon be weakened if Israeli lobbyists have their way. That part of the law which assumes reciprocal action by other nations just will not be accepted by Israel, which does not intend to make travel easy for US/Palestinians. US Arabs, or just US citizens known to be less than full of praise for the Israeli regime.  At the moment US lawmakers in looking at codifying a bill that would legitimise Israel's discriminatory behaviour towards US citizens, appear to be set to quietly ignore this elephant. As Electronic Intifada states: The State Department refuses to release the exact number of US citizens denied entry into Israel, but Israel’s denial of entry and harassment of travelers is so common that the State Department warns “some US citizens holding Israeli nationality, possessing a Palestinian identity card, or of Arab or Muslim origin have experienced significant difficulties entering or exiting Israel or the West Bank.” The State Department’s unwillingness to hold Israel accountable has prompted civil society organizations like the Arab American Institute and American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee to document these cases themselves and follow up with lawmakers.
Read more at http://electronicintifada.net/content/why-does-us-government-let-israel-discriminate-against-americans/12729

Children defy Israel to demand right of return

'This return is permanent' -- refugees' grandchildren defy Israel with
Galilee camp<http://electronicintifada.net/content/return-permanent-refugees-grandchildren-defy-israel-galilee-camp/12711>
Electronic Intifada 22 Aug by Patrick O. Strickland -- Young people with
family connections to Iqrit <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/iqrit,
an "ethnically-cleansed" village in the
Galilee<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/galilee>,
assembled recently for a week-long "camp of return." According to
organizers, more than 200 participants between eight and eighteen years old
registered and attended the camp in Iqrit, which was destroyed by Israel’s
military in 1951. The village’s vibrant green hills -- situated in the
northern Galilee region of present-day Israel and hugging the boundary with
Lebanon <http://electronicintifada.net/tags/lebanon> -- are dotted with
campers’ tents and the decaying rubble of demolished homes. The "Camp of
Return" has been held annually since 1996. For many years, its participants
left Iqrit after only a week. Activists have, however, now decided to
complement the annual camp with a constant presence in the village.
< http://electronicintifada.net/content/return-permanent-refugees-grandchildren-defy-israel-galilee-camp/12711>link
to electronicintifada.net<http://electronicintifada.net/content/return-permanent-refugees-grandchildren-defy-israel-galilee-camp/12711>

On the ground - bad news, good news

Despite renewal of peace talks, Israel approves plans for hundreds of
residential units in West Bank
settlements<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.540481>
[with map/diagram] Haaretz 8 August by Chaim Levinson -  Some 550 units in
the settlements of *Talmon*, 60 in Alon Shvut and 38 in Kokhav
Yaakov*have been approved, out of a total 878; discussion of some of
the plans had been postponed amid renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians.
< http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.540481>
www.haaretz.com<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.540481>

*Video interview: Architects help envision Palestine's landscape after
apartheid*<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/architects-help-envision-palestines-landscape-after-apartheid>
Electronic Intifada 7 Aug by Nora Barrows-Friedman -- An in-depth interview with a former researcher with Decolonizing Architecture<http://www.decolonizing.ps/>was published by Toronto-based writer and interviewer Justin Podur. A collective of architects and artists doing political work on the ground in occupied Palestine, Decolonizing Architecture’s work "combines discourse, spatial intervention, education, collective learning, public  meetings and legal challenges … It proposes the subversion, reuse, profanation and recycling of the existing infrastructure of a colonial occupation," according to its website. In recent years, members of the Decolonizing Architecture collective have worked in the occupied West Bank to reclaim land <http://electronicintifada.net/content/architectural-planning-different-future/8916> and,
envisioning for the future, re-map the land inside and around illegal Israeli settlement colonies< http://electronicintifada.net/tags/settlements> in preparation for a post-apartheid era.palestines-landscape-after-apartheid
to electronicintifada.net<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/architects-help-envision-palestines-landscape-after-apartheid>
< http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/architects-help-envision-
 Facing Al Aqaba, a multi-media installation for Art Prize <http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/938933977/facing-al-aqaba-a-multi-media-installation-for-art>

This is an edited bulletin from Today in Palestine

Palestinians forced to lease from colonisers

West Bank water shortage forces Palestinians to lease land from
'settlers' - as published in Haaretz:
<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.539325>
Haaretz 2 Aug by Amira Hass -- Shortage of water and agricultural land in
area leads local farmers into embarrassing predicament. -- Settlers in the
Jordan Valley are leasing some of their land to local Palestinians and to
Israeli citizens, but both sides prefer to keep the matter a secret.
Official Israeli sources say they know nothing about the matter, and in any
case it is not common and there are only a few marginal cases involved. The
Palestinians are forced to lease the land from the settlers because of a
shortage of land and water, which Israeli policy in the Jordan Valley has
brought on, and because of limitations placed on the marketing of their
produce ... such leasing is embarrassing for the Palestinians since the
farmed land is land Israel confiscated through various means from
Palestinian communities and residents, then allocated it to settlers in the
Jordan Valley.
link to www.haaretz.com<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.539325>