According to the updated data of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israel is the fifth largest arms supplier in the world with $1.26 billion of sales last year, following the US, Russia, France and Germany. India is by far Israel’s largest weapons market, having bought $715 million worth of weaponry in 2017, down…
For the first time, the Knesset Ethics Committee has decided to bar an MK from traveling abroad on a trip subsidized by an organization that supports the boycott of Israel. Hadash, the party of MK Yousef Jabareen (Joint List), was informed on Tuesday, March 13, by committee chair Yitzhak Vaknin (Shas) that the committee had…
A special joint meeting of the Knesset’s House Committee and its Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved on Tuesday, March 13, a version of a bill for the first of three readings before the country’s legislature that would enshrine Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” as a new Basic Law having constitutional…
The Knesset Ethics Committee reprimanded two cabinet ministers on Monday, March 12, for branding lawmakers from the Joint List “terrorists” and “traitors.” The committee also acknowledged that the Joint List MKs had breached protocol when they disrupted US Vice President Mike Pence’s speech to the Knesset on January 22. MKs from the Joint List held…
Last week, the Knesset passed new legislation which empowers the Israeli Minister of Interior to revoke the permanent residency status of persons allegedly involved in “terrorism, treason or espionage.” In response to the passage of the new Israeli law, the European Union issued a statement last weekend expressing its grave concern, parts of which are…
Over 700 women, both asylum seekers and long-term residents of south Tel Aviv, gathered Friday morning, March 9, for a solidarity march through the city’s southern neighborhoods, calling for the government to stop the planned deportation of asylum seekers from the country. The women marched from the Achoti (“My Sister”) center, until they reached Levinsky…
Israeli lawmakers have passed a controversial bill allowing its police to indefinitely hold the corpses of alleged Palestinian terrorists. The act was passed late Wednesday, March 7, by a vote of 48 to 10, a Knesset statement said. It applies only to Israel within the Green Line and occupied and unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem, where…
The Knesset granted overwhelming initial approval on Monday, March 5, to proposed legislation allowing Israel to deduct money from various taxes it collects for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to punish it for “supporting terrorism.” Fifty-two lawmakers voted for the bill, which openly violates a 1994 interim agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Only 10 refused to…
The Knesset passed a law Wednesday, March 7, allowing the Minister of the Interior to revoke the permanent residency status of Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem who “engage in terror or other anti-Israel activities.” Furthermore, under this law, the state can deport anyone whose permanent residency status has been withdrawn. Specifically, the government-sponsored law…
Two days before International Women’s Day, March 8, the government’s far-right Minister of Science and Technology, Ofir Akunis, sparked a controversy in the Knesset when he told women parliamentarians that if “you continue to whine, you will never become leaders.” “You want to mark Women’s Day, and that’s fine,” Akunis said in remarks during a…
An urgent request to launch an investigation into the forcible deportation of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers by Israel to Rwanda was submitted on Monday, March 5, by prominent Israeli human rights and Left activists to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The State of Israel has made a secret agreement with the…
Another mass rally against the deportation of African refugees and asylum seekers will be held in Tel Aviv, this time in Rabin Square, on Saturday night, March 24, under the slogan “Israel is stopping the deportation!” According to organizers, “This is a struggle for our values, for the State of Israel. Throughout Israel and across…
Israel’s Interior Ministry is stalling the process of naming the streets of Umm al-Fahem, one of the largest Palestinian Arab cities in Israel with a population of 60,000 residents. Hadash Knesset Member Yousef Jabareen (Joint List) and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – sent a letter to Interior Ministry…
AMEC (The Afro-Middle East Centre of South Africa) hosted in Johannesburg last week a seminar entitled “Resistance from Within: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Struggle for Democracy, Equality and Justice.” Speakers included MK Ayman Odeh, Mustafa Abu Raiya and Ran Greenstein; the seminar was chaired by Tasneem Essop. “We’ve come to spread our cause…
Israeli military occupation authorities renewed on Monday, February 26, the administrative detention of Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hamouri for an additional four months Hamouri, who works with the prisoners’ rights group Addameer has been held by Israel since its military forces detained him last August. Under administrative detention, a holdover from British colonial rule,…
