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Welcome to Palestine Today a service of the International Middle East Media Centre, www.imemc.org for Thursday, July 22, 2010.
Netanyahu reveals his true feelings about the US and Oslo accords and occupation forces sentence a Bil’in protest organizer these stories and more coming up, stay tuned.
In a video recorded in 2001 Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is shown talking candidly with settlers who lost family members in Palestinian attacks about Israeli military strategy, foreign policy, and its relationship with the US.
Netanyahu explained Israeli strategy during the Second Intifada as, ‘The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne.’
Netanyahu went on to talk about how he did not act in good faith during the Oslo Accords. He said that the use of the term ‘military zones’ in the West Bank was a term subject to interpretation.
He was not the Prime Minister at the time but discussed Israel’s most important ally in this way, ‘I know what America is. America is a thing you can move verily easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.’
A leader in the protest movement was sentenced by an Israeli court to two months in jail while facing another trial in the coming months.
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was first detained in 2005 then put on trial and was finally sentenced on Wednesday. He will serve two months with a suspended six-month sentence.
He also faces another case against him with a wide variety of charges leveled against him. Charges including, ‘activity against the public order,’ ‘obstructing a soldier in the line of duty,’ and ‘incitement.’
Many have pointed out that these charges effectively show him simply exercising his right to free speech and being punished by the occupation forces.
In response to Abu Rahmah’s sentencing, the spokesman for the Bil’in popular committee Mohammad Khatib said that Israel ‘is trying to intimidate us, to dissuade from fighting for our rights – but what other options do we have? Both the Wall and the settlements on our lands are built in contradiction of international law and even of Israeli law, but it is us that end up in jail.’
In Tiberius a 23 year old Arab man was beaten unconscious by an Israeli Jew after the suspected assailant saw the victim talking to a young Jewish girl whom he was previously acquainted with.
Israeli police say they know the attacker and are actively looking for him.
Out of Washington, a State Department spokesman has stated that any final status issues can only be discussed in direct talks between Arabs and Israelis. Final status issues include what the borders will look like of a two-state solution and Palestinian security autonomy.
These same issues Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas would like to have agreement on before any real direct talks start. Anything less would be ‘futile’ in his words.
There are also reports that the Israeli military and their bulldozers destroyed ten animal stables and some fruit stands in Jenin district Wednesday.
Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem, you have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, for constant update, please visit our website at www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Brian Ennis.
