Will this increase or decrease the likelihood of terrorist actions in America, Europe and the rest of the world?

If you were a member of a family murdered in this conflict, would you be seeking revenge?

Should Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert, be tried for war crimes if or when this conflict comes to an end?

What will the price of oil be in 4 weeks time?

3 December 2015

A UN body that has been facing pressure to end its links with security company G4S over its role in Israeli human rights abuses has announced that it no longer has contracts with the company.

G4S has been providing services to UNHCR in Jordan but a spokesperson told a reporter on Monday that the body does not have any contracts with the firm.

The announcement was made following a wave of protests online and at UN offices across 5 major cities over the weekend calling on the UN to end all of its contracts $22m worth of contracts with G4S.

G4S is the target of an international campaign over its role in Israeli prisons and check points and the fact it helps to run an Israeli police academy.

Investigations in September 2014 found G4S guards to be working at UNHCR buildings in Amman and at Syrian refugee camps in Zaatari and Azraq, leading to the start of BDS campaigning on the issue. UN documents show that UNHCR in Jordan had contracts with G4S worth $1.7m in 2014.

Sources familiar with the matter have told campaigners that UNHCR started moving security contracts from G4S to a local company earlier this year.

Other UN bodies including UNICEF, the UNDP and UNOPS still have contracts with the company. More than 200 organisations have called on the UN to bar the organisation from having contracts doing so violates the UN’s procurement code of conduct.

A report by Richard Falk, then a UN special rapporteur on Palestine, calling for a boycott of G4S over its role in Israeli human rights violations was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2012.

The #UNdropG4S campaign has set up a web page that makes it easy for people to write to the UN to voice their concerns and are urging people to join a Thunderclap social media action.

Yazeed Halaseh, member of the Jordan BDS group who campaign against G4S in Jordan, said:

“We welcome the announcement of UNHCR in Jordan that it is no longer hiring G4S. G4S is at the heart of Israel’s use of mass incarceration to repress Palestinian opposition to its military occupation and settler colonialism. We hope that the UN will listen to the thousands of people who are taking action and will end all of its contracts with G4S.”

Reverend Don Wagner, Friends of Sabeel North America, who began investigating the relationship between G4S and the UN in 2014, said:

“We were shocked to discover G4S agents ushering refugees into the UNHCR Amman office in September of 2014. News that this office no longer holds contracts with G4S is refreshing. It builds momentum for the UN as a whole to follow suit and to uphold human rights and human dignity everywhere.”

Rafat Sub Laban from Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer, who started lobbying the UN on its contracts with G4S in April, said:

“Recent weeks have seen a wave of mass arrests by Israeli occupation forces aimed at repressing protests and imposing control and collective punishment on Palestinians in the occupied territory. Since the beginning of October, Israeli occupation forces arrested over 2,050 Palestinians including at least 350 children and over 210 Palestinians including 4 minors who were placed under administrative detention without charge or trial. Many of those who were arrested remain detained by Israel.”

“These political prisoners are held in prisons and interrogation centres that G4S helps Israel to run, making G4S complicit in Israel’s torture, ill-treatment and administrative detention without charge or trial of Palestinians.

“Addameer welcomes this news from UNHCR in Jordan and hopes the UN will now terminate all its contracts with G4S and to distance itself from complicity in human rights violations.”

In June 2014, the Gates Foundation divested the whole of its $170m holding in the company as a result of an international campaign.

The US Methodist Church, the largest protestant church in the US, divested from G4S after coalition campaigning brought the issue to a vote.

Universities in Oslo and Bergen refused to give G4S contracts over its role in Israel’s prison system following student campaigns. In the UK, at least 5 student unions have voted to cancel contracts with G4S, and students successfully pressured 2 other universities not to renew contracts with the company. Major charities in South Africa, the Netherlands and elsewhere terminated contracts with G4S

Facing mounting international pressure, G4S announced in 2014 that G4S “did not expect to renew” its contract with the Israeli Prison Service when it expires in 2017, and it has also said it will end some aspects of its involvement in illegal Israeli settlements. BDS activists have said they will continue their campaign until G4S ends all aspects of its support for Israeli violations of international law.

The Association of University Heads in Israel (VERA) penned a letter to the President of the American Anthropological Association Prof. Alisse Waterston on Monday calling on the organization to reconsider a motion to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

“We ask that before bringing this motion to a formal vote by all members of the association to consider revisiting the motion, which presents a distorted and false depiction of reality in Israel,” Prof. Peretz Lavie, chairman of VERA and president of the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology wrote.

The letter, signed by the presidents of all seven Israeli universities, was a response to a vote taken last month by members of the AAA in favor of adopting a motion to boycott Israeli academic institutions.

The resolution, in favor of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), was approved by an overwhelming majority (1040 in favor to 136 against) of some 1,400 members of the association participating in its annual conference in Denver, Colorado.

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.693575

Police Investigate Wedding Video of Settlers Dancing With Weapons and Singing Revenge Songs

The video also shows one guest stabbing a photo of the Palestinian boy killed in the Duma firebombing.

The Judea and Samaria district police said on Thursday it opened an investigation into a video shot at a wedding which shows Jewish radicals stabbing a photograph of the Palestinian toddler who was killed in the Duma firebomb attack. A statement said the inquiry commenced a few days ago.

The police said they were looking into the "numerous and serious offenses seen in the video," including those who were careless with their weapons. The police intends to question those responsible and to revoke their gun licenses.

The video shows Orthodox youths at a Jerusalem wedding singing songs of revenge and dancing with guns and knives. One masked youth holds up a firebomb, while another is seen stabbing a photo of Ali Dawabsheh, the toddler killed along with his parents in the West Bank arson attack earlier this year.

According to Channel 10, IDF-issued rifles and licensed pistols were passed around at the reception from hand to hand, including to children. The wedding was of a couple “very well known in the radical right,” said the report.

The video was condemned across the political spectrum. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the "shocking images" expose "the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security." Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni also denounced the video, calling those who participated "a group that wants to destroy Jewish Israel."

The clip itself is only a small part of the total gathered evidence, which was sent to the prosecutor's office for review.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3401468/Qatari-billionaires-Lords-manor-snapping-550-acre-Scottish-estate-add-property-portfolio-includes-Harrods-Shard-Olympic-Park.html?ito=social-facebook

http:// https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZrVd0XWV1rZquxpqW8VfPQ

http://m.jpost.com/#article=6017NjNDMTE1QjM0MjQyQTVDODE1MjJFRTVGNTY1RTY5OEM=

A group of over 1,000 Israeli sociologists announced on Monday that they will sever all academic ties to Ariel University "since it is not located in Israeli territory."

http://israeli-academics-for-peace.org.il/en/the-truth-about-the-ariel-university/

Ariel University is located in an Israeli settlement built in the occupied Palestinian territories (occupied by Israel since 1967). It is built on land confiscated from the local Palestinian residents [1], using military directives.
Israel applies a military rule over the local Palestinian inhabitants, including military court, for 47 years.
These occupied territories have never been annexed to Israel, as recently reiterated by the Israeli Supreme Court decision regarding Ariel University [2]. Ariel is NOT inside the state of Israel. The United Nations designation of this territory is Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT or oPt).
Thereby, Ariel University is not under the jurisdiction of the Council of Higher Education of Israel, and its university status was formally awarded to it by the army general in charge of the area.
The Israeli settlements in general, and Ariel University in particular, are deemed by most accepted interpretations to be in violation of international treaties such as the Geneva convention, which forbids the transfer of population from the conquering state into the occupied territory, and are therefore widely considered to be illegal.
The settlement of Ariel, and Ariel University, were built to advance the political agenda of the right-wing parties in Israel who wish to make the Israeli occupation permanent [3], thereby removing the possibility of the Palestinians having an independent state, free of Israeli occupation. Therefore, the academic staff in Ariel has to agree with this political agenda to a large extent, which makes it an academic institution with a clear political bias, unlike any other in Israel or in any other democratic country.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ISRAEL.

Stir the pot again!

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-israel-palestinians-idUKKCN0WH1ID?feedType=nl&feedName=uktopnewsearlyIsrael

Israel seizes large tracts of land in occupied West Bank - Army Radio

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.712125

Ben-Gurion in 1951: Only Death Penalty Will Deter Jews From Gratuitous Killing of Arabs
'Until a Jewish soldier is hanged for murdering Arabs, these acts of murder won’t end,' Israel’s first prime minister told his stunned cabinet 66 years ago, when Jewish murders of Arabs had become all too common.