A spy who shouldn't be freed | Palestine |Axisoflogic.com

A spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard was released from a US prison. He did so much damage to US security and could still do more damage that he should have never been released. He is to stay in the US for five years and then want to move to Palestine to settle on stolen lands as part of apartheid colonial regime. He divorced his American wife while in prison and married an Israeli wife. I would not be surprised to see him become an Israeli minister. After all, Israel rewarded those who even killed US Citizens (see here for example and here. Yet, Israel continues to infiltrate the US at the highest levels (see here for example).

Sunday, as almost every day, Palestinian natives were murdered by colonial settlers. In an incident Sunday morning, Israeli colonial settlement leader Gershon Mesika rammed a teenage girl with his car, claiming 'she had a knife'. When the girl, Ashraqat Taha Qatanany, 16, from Nablus, fell to the ground, another Israeli paramilitary settler pulled over and shot her multiple times.As in many similar incidents, eyewitness (and in some cases video evidence) showed there was no knives and knives are planted later near the victims. Later Sunday Taxi driver Shadi Mohammad Mahmoud Khseib from al-Bireh was killed when he had an accident and he was murdered by colonial settler as soon as he stepped out of his car to deal with the accident. A third Palestinian was also murdered. Several young people were kidnapped by occupation forces and children continue to be held and abused in Israeli gulags (see reports below on the war on Children).

In other news, the Israeli Knesset is considering more racist laws to add to the dozens of laws already making life hell for us native Palestinians. One new law will allow actual prison sentences for children under age 14 (of course only if they are Palestinian and do something to resist colonial occupation). Another law will force taxation of Israeli non-governmental organizations and apply draconian measures to them if they speak out for human rights and receive funding from abroad (of course Zionist organizations will be exempt from this law).

But then again other areas of life continue. Students are learning great things at our universities. An ecovillage design workshop in Farkha is ongoing (I had the privilege of speaking there and visited our friends in Nebi Saleh on the way back and was checked by Israeli military carefully!).

Good people are helping us in unexpected ways; we just got some donations in kind to the museum from a French and Swiss delegations including cameras and children coloring pens and toys for scientific exploration. To accelerate our work we submitted many proposals for funding (and began to get some positive answers ;-) and we invited and are expecting more visits by scientists from abroad. We are conducting field work more regularly and publishing more. Stay tuned with our activities by following us on Facebook (under Palestine Museum of Natural History). We continue to receive delegations from around the world (on average 2-3 delegations every week).

We always welcome visitors and are happy to show you around. We also welcome volunteers and supporters (see here).

Overwhelming approval by Anthropologists of Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) to bring peace with justice. See here and here.

Applications open and due soon for Master Program in Environmental Biology (Birzeit University)

Master Program in Biotechnology (Joint Bethlehem U/Polytechnic U). See here and here.

Kairos Palestine Christmas Alert 2015: PDF file to print and share with your local church

Marcel Leme International Human Rights Observer documents in meticulous detail the murder of an innocent girl by the Israeli army.

Traumatic accounts of minors tortured inside Israeli jails. There is a considerable literature on this over time. See here and see the website of Defence Child International-Palestine.

Autumn in Palestine

Mazin Qumsiyeh
Professor and Director
Palestine Museum of Natural History
Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability