The Criminality of Wall Street

 William K. Tabb

 Monthly Revew  2014, Volume 66, Issue 04 (September) 

The current stage of capitalism is characterized by the increased power of finance capital. How to understand the economics of this shift and its political implications is now central for both the left and the larger society. There can be little doubt that a signature development of our time is the growth of finance and monopoly power.1

In 1980 the nominal value of global financial assets almost equaled global GDP. In 2005 they were more than three times global GDP.2 The nominal value of foreign exchange trading increased from eleven times the value of global trade in 1980 to seventy-three times in 2009.3Of course it is not certain what this increase means, since such nominal values can fluctuate widely, as we saw in the Great Financial Crisis. They cannot be compared directly and without all sorts of qualifications to the value added in the real economy. But they do give an impressionistic sense of the enormous magnitude by which finance grew and came to dominate the economy. Between 1980 and 2007, derivative contracts of all kinds expanded from $1 trillion globally to $600 trillion.4 Hedge funds and private equity groups, special investment vehicles, and mega-bank holding companies changed the face of Western capitalism. They also brought on the collapse from which we still suffer. Ordinary people may not be acquainted with the numbers (and even those best informed are not sure of their significance), but people generally understand in different and often deep ways what has been happening: namely, an ongoing process of financialization that has come to dwarf production.

What is particularly important is that despite the huge bubble created by this metastasizing growth of finance, the economy did not expand as rapidly as it had in the postwar years, before the goods producing industries lost ground in terms of employment to other sectors of the economy, and when government spending was used actively to promote growth. While the nature of much of the growth that occurred then is certainly open to criticism from all sorts of standpoints, at the time there was widespread understanding in policy circles that government spending was necessary to absorb the surplus which capitalism generated.

It nonetheless became harder and harder to generate growth by the combination of government spending and financial inflation, and an overaccumulation of capital that grew more unhealthy over time culminated with the Great Recession in 2007–2008. A temporary stimulus created by the profusion of “fictitious capital,” in the form of debt claims that did not have a counterpart in the real value of assets, was not sustainable. Nor was the “growth” as substantial as might have been expected from such an enormous financial explosion. In considering why this was the case we may start by noting a partial acceptance by important mainstream economists of the Marxist expectation of secular stagnation which was developed by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy in their 1966 book, Monopoly Capital.

In a November 8, 2013 speech at the International Monetary Fund Larry Summers suggested that the United States might be stuck in what he correctly called “secular stagnation,” described byBloomberg Businessweek as “a slump that is not the product of the business cycle but a more-or-less permanent condition.”5 Summers’s conclusion was deeply pessimistic. “If he is right, the economy is incapable of producing full employment without financial bubbles or massive stimulus, both of which tend to end badly.”6 The speech got a lot of attention. Summers after all had been a U.S. Treasury Secretary and is noted as one of the smartest, if not the most politic, economists around. He has accepted many millions from major financial firms he has advised and is widely understood as a Wall Street-oriented policy maker. Therefore, important people take his analysis seriously. It is also a powerful indictment not simply of financial capital, but of capitalism itself that the logic of its development now takes the form it does.

There have always been financial crises; as Marx long ago explained, they are part of capitalism. The question now being raised is whether the expansion of the parasitic financial control currently being experienced is historically unprecedented. It is prompted by the inability of the system to reinvest in the production of the goods and services people need. In short, the problem is the system, and more and more people are seeing this. I shall try and explain how and why it is true that, although we could potentially create the jobs and economic security, the ecological sustainability, and the participatory democracy we desire, existing class forces prevent this from happening.

Let us look first at some of the problems that we face due to the financialization of the economy. As the power of transnational corporations and international finance has grown (with financialization came globalization)—and new possibilities have been offered by computers, the Internet, and robotics—there has been a loss of middle-class jobs in the United States, and a race to the bottom in jobs globally. The political power of the very rich in the United States has grown, manifested in the increasing extent to which their income escapes taxation—as does that of corporate capital, which parks significant quantities of money in offshore tax havens and moves the profits they received in such abundance to low tax jurisdictions. Between increased consumer lending and marketing new financial products to investors, the financial industry grew dramatically. In 1950 it was equal to 2.8 percent of GDP; in 1980, 4.9 percent; and 7.9 percent in 2007.7 Money management fees from mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity accounted for over a third (36 percent) of the industry’s increased share of GDP.8 The other major source of growth was consumer lending, especially mortgage lending. According to the International Monetary Fund, in the advanced economies during the five years preceding 2007, the ratio of household debt to income rose by an average of 39 percent, to 138 percent.9When such credit booms go bust, the ensuing downturn is long-lasting and painful.

Finance contributes to GDP through income created in the FIRE (Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate) sector and through the “wealth effect,” i.e., the increase in consumption that is the result of the gains in asset value—almost all of this is luxury consumption. But it generates little in the way of use values and can be seen as appropriating value produced by working people elsewhere in the economy—thus Matt Taibbi’s colorful description of Goldman Sachs as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”10

Harvard finance professor Jeremy Stein suggests “banks’ private incentives lead them to overdo it.”11 One indication of the “overdoing” by today’s newer aristocracy of finance is that financial profits as a percent of total domestic profits for 1998–2007 averaged 33 percent, with a few years (2001, 2002, and 2003) over 40 percent.12 Needless to say, after the collapse the losses have been ours and not the bankers.

The top executives at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, two investment banks that failed spectacularly, did quite well. Over the 2000–2007 period, the top five executives at Bear received cash bonuses in excess of $300 million and at Lehman in excess of $150 million. These numbers exclude what they received in sale of company shares. Unloading their banks’ stock netted the ten executives $2 billion.13

The impact of financial incentives was devastating to many U.S. companies and their employees; as a combination of extracting maximum shareholder value and the extraction going to top executives removed resources from other shareholders and undermined corporate America’s future prospects. And while Dodd-Frank and other legislation was supposed to make the system safe, the too big to fail banks are much bigger than they were before the crisis, with the six largest banks possessing assets equal to more than 60 percent of U.S. GDP.14

All this has created a different economic reality in the United States. The CIA’s ranking of countries by income inequality finds the United States to have a higher degree of inequality than Egypt or Tunisia; as noted earlier the 1 percent have more wealth in the United States than the bottom 90 percent.15 The Congressional Budget Office reported in 2011 that the top 1 percent of earners had more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the previous three decades.16 A lot of these people are in finance.

Politically the power of finance capital comes from its having become a major source of financing for politicians; for instance, Hillary Clinton has received generous Wall Street contributions, including large speaking fees from the likes of Goldman Sachs. That there is so much buzz around a possible challenge from Elizabeth Warren, and that Obama was not able to get liberal senators to go along with Larry Summers as head of the Fed, are indications that there is wide recognition that mainstream Democrats are in Wall Street’s pocket. Summers has received millions from venture capital and asset management firms. He has consulted for Citibank and Nasdaq. Because of the power of Wall Street there is not the needed financial regulation. And there is little to no penalty for financial fraud. This is hardly surprising. As former Delaware Senator Edward E. Kaufman commented to the New York Times in response to the Justice Department’s failure to pursue financial wrongdoers in connection with the bursting of the housing bubble: the report of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task force “fits a pattern that is scary for a democracy, that there really are two levels of justice in this country, one for the people with power and money and one for everyone else.”17

The right always blames workers, unions, and the poor (most of whom, of course, are also workers) for being greedy. One of our tasks is to get the basic facts across to people.

The focus must be on the 1 percent whose share of after-tax income has doubled in the last thirty years and nearly tripled between 1980 and 2006. The top 1 percent took 95 percent of the gains between 2009 and 2012.18 Real median income earnings for full-time workers between twenty-five and sixty-four have stagnated since their peak in the late 1970s. This may explain why the most recent poll shows 75 percent of Americans rating the state of the economy as “negative” or “poor.”19

From 2000 to 2007, Emmanuel Saez’s research tells us, the richest .001 percent doubled the share of total income they received to 6 percent of the total of all Americans, and the top 1 percent captured half of all of the overall growth between 1993 and 2007.20 Between 1993 and 2012 the top 1 percent captures just over two-thirds of income growth.21 This was the group the Republicans protected with the threat of closing down the government. But it is also the fraction of capital that supports the Clintons and Obama.

The tax system has become a joke for leading corporations, who can legally avoid taxation. An estimated 30 percent of multinational corporate profits passing through tax havens costs the U.S. taxpayer $255 billion annually; this includes not only lost individual income taxes but also vastly more in lost corporate taxation (based on crude calculations from the Government Accounting Office in 2008 of the one hundred largest U.S. companies’ subsidiaries abroad and especially in tax havens).22 Citigroup alone had over 400 tax-haven subsidiaries, ninety-one in Luxembourg, and another ninety in the Cayman Islands.23 Apple, one of the most profitable and highly valued corporations, moves its profits to low-tax countries. Apple is an innovator in the tax area. It pioneered the accounting trick known as the “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich.” Now used widely, this strategy routes profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands, and then to the Caribbean.24 iTunes, it turns out, has a letter box and a few employees in Luxembourg where downloads made in Africa, the Middle East, or other places are registered as having originated for tax purposes. Its overseas stores are part of a system that routes sales through Cork, Ireland. The company has reorganized its corporate chart so it needs to reveal less information about its business practices. Through such techniques Apple manages to pay less than 10 percent in corporate income taxes in this country. As far as state taxes go, although its actual headquarters are in Cupertino, California, it claims a small office in Reno, Nevada for tax purposes, thereby denying the state of California and twenty other states millions of dollars in taxes. (While California’s corporate income tax rate is 8.84 percent, Nevada’s is zero.) The company explains that all of this is perfectly legal. It probably is.25

Greater inequality makes restoring economic growth hard because working people have less money to spend and so demand does not go up. The rich get so much of the surplus that this feeds new speculative activity and threatens a new collapse. Much of the surplus appropriated by the 1 percent cannot be realized from the sale of expanded output and so stays within the sphere of financial speculation (including loans—student, credit card, mortgage lending—and the bundling of receipts receivable from these loans as collateralized debt obligations that are pyramided and so eventually collapse).

It is important to understand that the various asset bubbles of recent years arose in large part from the large amount of surplus funds that could not find profitable investment in the “real economy,” where goods and non-financial services are sold to businesses, government, and households. From 1980 when working-class incomes began a three decade plus period of stagnation and all the gains from productivity growth went to capital, to the present, there has been an enormous increase in inequality. Ordinary Americans, feeling pinched by their inability to maintain living standards, were compelled to borrow in an attempt to maintain them; they became an enormous source of profit to banks and other financial institutions. Mortgage debt, credit card debt, and student loans grew in absolute terms and as a proportion of national income. The campaign to delegitimize taxation forced governments to borrow in lieu raising revenue, and government debt increased as well (with the wars in the Iraq and Afghanistan adding significantly to this debt).

Much of the assistance given to the major Wall Street banks was extended to them by the New York Federal Reserve at the time it was headed by soon-to-be Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. Serving on the board of the New York Fed were people such as JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who was asked in senate hearings by Senator Bernie Sanders, “How do you sit on a board, which approves $390 billion of low-interest loans to yourself?” Dimon was hardly the only self-interested banker on the board. As another member of the committee, Senator Barbara Boxer, stated, “There is a clear conflict of interest…not a perceived conflict of interest, but a real conflict of interest when bank presidents and employees of banks sit on the very boards that regulate them and sometimes bail them out.” Soon-to-be Senator Elizabeth Warren also called on Dimon to step down from the board of directors of the New York Fed.

The extent to which central banks prop up financial institutions has grown enormously. Between 2007 and the end of 2012, the central banks flooded the world with trillions of dollars in liquidity to support asset markets and keep banks solvent. This process continues with quantitative easing—essentially printing money—to avoid collapse, and holding interest rates to historic lows (a fraction of a percent above zero). Yet, despite these efforts, the global economy stagnates.

The goal of course is to lower borrowing costs and stimulate financial markets. This has been achieved, but the impacts desired—encouraging more spending and real investment outside of finance—have been disappointing. This is hardly a surprise. Central bankers are the first to say that expanding the money supply is not a substitute for better fiscal policy. In the absence of governments creating demand to replace the lack of private spending and addressing structural problems in the economy, central banks can have only limited positive impact. Households already burdened by large debt positions are not inclined to borrow more—indeed the fact that consumer debt is creeping up again, much of that as student debt, is more a sign of desperation on the part of households than anything else.

There are all sorts of reasons to worry about the impact of extended low interest rates which feed new asset bubbles. One might also be concerned about the quality of the tens of billions of mortgage-backed securities that the Fed has been buying each month.26 The Bank of Japan is buying corporate debt and stock, an intervention in the market that, while it holds the economy up, also distorts allocation. Such emergency measures, if carried on too long, may come back to haunt central bankers and governments when they eventually try to unwind these positions.

Almost daily headlines tell of one bank or another being hit with a large suit by the Justice Department for some “brazen” fraud including “robo-signing” and preying on the unsophisticated. The names of those agreeing to settle with the government are a Who’s Who of U.S. finance. From defective mortgage processes that hoodwinked homeowners, to dishonest debt collecting and foreclosures, to credit card lawsuits where the bank or collection agency cannot prove that the person owes the debt (the situation in 90 percent of the cases, according to a judge who presides over as many as a hundred such cases a day), the headlines never cease.27 A 2012 audit by San Francisco county officials of hundreds of recent foreclosures determined that almost all involved either legal violations or suspicious documentation.28Violations ranged from the failure to notify borrowers when their loans fell into default (as required by law) to auctioning properties where banks and other assignees had no proof of ownership. Nationally the foreclosure system was found to be riddled with false documents, forged signatures, and all manner of other abuses.

The big banks lobby to influence mortgage rules so they can continue practices that make them money. Federal and state authorities allowed the banks to settle for their extensive illegal activities with a mere $26 billion worth of relief, a small part of the damage they had done in wrongful denials of loan motivations, wrongful foreclosures, and other documented abuses.29Certainly the settlement did not end bank abuses. People who paid off debts years before are harassed by collection agencies. People who have been cheated on their mortgages are cheated again in a new round of abuse coming with the loans that are supposed to help them stay in their homes—this by brokers selling new mortgages especially targeting the elderly. Foreign banks are charged with money laundering for assisting U.S. citizens to avoid taxes owed. Private investors who bought toxic collateralized debt obligations, believed to have been sold by banks knowing they would soon collapse, continue to pursue compensation in the courts.

Perhaps the most lasting impact of the Great Recession, holding back recovery, was the housing market collapse. Millions lost their homes while millions of other homeowners went underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their homes were worth. Many borrowed up to 90 percent of the selling price and then, having negative equity and facing foreclosure, were unable to sell because of the millions of other homes that stood empty, holding prices down.

The Obama administration has had to come up with plan after plan even where federal subsidies to banks are involved, with each and every one a failure from a homeowner’s standpoint, largely because bank participation is voluntary. With housing values so drastically reduced, and vacant properties bringing whole neighborhoods down, local governments face declining property tax income which ravages local finances and adds to budget deficits. They thus have little choice but to make deeper cuts in public services and lay off teachers and police. We are all, the metaphorical 99%, paying to restore the banks’ profitability while for the majority the economy is stuck in an extended secular stagnation with widespread, and from a socialist perspective unnecessary, suffering of working people.

This is at some level understood, especially by young people, half of whom when polled by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press favor socialism and reject capitalism.30 They have lived through constantly deteriorating economic conditions coupled with increased corruption and cronyism; they expect, if nothing is done fundamentally to change things, that they will have to continue their struggle to live in an economy in which they incur insupportable student debt that, because of failing job prospects, promises a life of indentured servitude to the banks.

The shrillness of the hard right and the obtuseness of the mainstream media not withstanding, the system stands exposed to a substantial extent. More people of all ages see the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department efforts to support the banks at all cost as preventing changes they can believe in. The general attitude of solicitousness to the banks shown by the administration has been termed the Geithner Doctrine, to call attention to the clear policy choice to protect the banks from any threat to their post-bailout recovery. While most people may not understand all the details of corporate abuse and financial manipulations, the prominent movement slogans both capture the essence of Wall Street criminality and propose solutions. Indeed, those with ears to hear and eyes to see recognize the truth in now familiar placards: “America Is Not Broke,” “Tax the Rich,” “Money Is Not Speech,” “Assure Everybody a Good Job,” “Young, Educated, and Unemployed,” “Corporations Are Not People,” “Stop Foreclosures,” “Speculation Never Creates Anything,” “Wall Street: Where Crime Really Pays,” “Economic Inequality Is the Enemy of Prosperity,” “Stop the Wars,” and “Trickle Down Is Baloney.” The majority support for Occupy Wall Street and its project strongly suggests that ordinary people understand the demands of the movement.

These placards announce the unjust state of things. They are not really asking a corrupt political system to meet demands. They are not really asking the 1% for anything. They are saying “we need a society and we will create a society in which there is not a 1% and a 99% and these injustices will not exist.” This is not to say that participants do not want Obama to change, that they do not have ideas for meaningful reforms. But it does say that the system itself is on trial as it has not been since the 1930s. Undergirding even the mildest reforms and the most idealistic hopes is an undercurrent of rejection of the system under which we live. There is discovery of the truth, in the words of Dorothy Day, a fore- mother of the movement, that “Our Problems Stem from Our Acceptance of this Filthy Rotten System.” People increasingly do not accept it. The issue is not only to make this rejection manifest but to develop sustainable institutional forms of resistance and transformation.

Notes

1. ↩ The classic analysis of this problem on the left, describing the role of monopoly, stagnation, and financial expansion was provided by Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy. See, for example, their article “The Logic of Stagnation,” Monthly Review 38, no. 5 (October 1986): 1–19.
2. ↩ Charles R. Morris, Two Trillion Dollar Meltdown (Philadelphia: Perseus, 2008), 140.
3. ↩ Charles Leadbetter, “The Right Kind of Innovation,” Financial World, February 2011, https://fw.ifslearning.ac.uk.
4. ↩ See William K. Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 100.
5. ↩“Larry Summers at IMF Economic Forum, Nov. 8,” November 8, 2013, http://youtube.com; “Larry Summers has a Wintry Outlook on the Economy,” Bloomberg Business Week, November 18, 2013, http://businessweek.com.
6. ↩ Ibid.
7. ↩ Robin Greenwood and David Scharfstein, “The Growth of Modern Finance,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27, no.2 (2013): 3–28, http://pubs.aeaweb.org.
8. ↩ Ibid.
9. ↩ International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook, August 2012, chapter 3, http://imf.org.
10. ↩ Matt Taibbi, “The Great American Bubble Machine,” Rolling Stone, July 9, 2009, http://rollingstone.com.
11. ↩ Jeremy C. Stein, “Central Banking and Financial Stability,” October 2011, 31, http://bancaditalia.it.
12. ↩ Economic Report of the President, 2014, Table B-91, http://whitehouse.gov.
13. ↩ Tabb, The Restructuring of Capitalism in Our Time.
14. ↩ Simon Johnson, “Testimony Submitted to the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Hearing on ‘Examining the GAO Study on Government Support for Bank Holding Companies,’” January 8, 2014, http://piie.com.
15. ↩ Central Intelligence Agency, World Fact Book, accessed March 2013, https://cia.gov.
16. ↩ Congressional Budget Office, “Trends in the Distribution of Income,” October 25, 2011, http://cbo.gov.
17. ↩“A Loan Fraud War That’s Short on Combat,” New York Times, March 15, 2014, http://nytimes.com.
18. ↩ Emmanuel Saez, “Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States,” September 3, 2013, http://elsa.berkeley.edu.
19. ↩ “October 2013 Post-ABC Poll- Obama, Republicans and Shutdown Fallout,” Washington Post, October 25, 2013, http://washingtonpost.com.
20. ↩ Saez, “Striking it Richer.”
21. ↩ Ibid.
22. ↩ “Revealed: Global Super-Rich Has At Least $21 Trillion Hidden in Secret Tax Havens,” Tax Justice Network, July 22, 2012, http://taxjustice.net; United States Government Accountability Office, “International Taxation: Large US Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions,” December 2008,http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv; Kenneth Thomas, “Offshore Accounting on the Rise and Costing Taxpayers,” Fiscal Times, July 29, 2012.
23. ↩ U.S. GAO, “International Taxation.”
24. ↩ Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski, “How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Taxes,” New York Times, April 28, 2012, http://nytimes.com.
25. ↩ Ibid; “Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices,” New York Times, April 28, 2012,http://nytimes.com.
26. ↩ Schuyler Velasco, “Bernanke, Fed Say No Taper. Will Housing Bounce?,” Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 2013, http://csmonitor.com.
27. ↩ Jessica Silver-Greenberg, “Problems Riddle Moves to Collect Credit Card Debt,” New York Times, August 12, 2012, http://dealbook.nytimes.com.
28. ↩ Gretchen Morgenson, “Audit Uncovers Extensive Flaws In Foreclosures,” New York Times, February 15, 2012, http://nytimes.com.
29. ↩ Mark Memmott, “Settlement Reached with Banks on Relief for Some Homeowners,” NPR, the Two-Way, February 9, 2012, http://npr.org/blogs.
30. ↩ “Little Change in Public’s Response to ‘Capitalism,’ ‘Socialism’,” PewResearch Center for the People & the Press, December 28, 2011, http://people-press.org.

Alejandro Nada: Las leyes de la economía: Piketty

Sin Permiso

07/09/14

Algunos de los libros más citados son con frecuencia los menos leídos. Y la obra de Thomas Piketty Capital en el siglo XXI es quizás el ejemplo más reciente. Lástima, porque la lectura desordenada de algunos pasajes y crónicas conduce a conclusiones superficiales y apreciaciones equivocadas sobre uno de los fenómenos más importantes de la historia, la desigualdad económica. El texto de Piketty se convirtió en un fenómeno literario, una proeza para un libro sobre economía de más de 650 páginas. Se trata de una aportación importante al promover el debate sobre desigualdad económica y los males que entraña, en especial para la democracia y la vida en sociedad. Pero, ¿es que Piketty es el primero en analizar la desigualdad económica y sus implicaciones en la economía del siglo XXI? La respuesta es negativa. Muchos antes que Piketty han examinado este problema y de manera más profunda. Dos ejemplos son James Galbraith y su equipo en la Universidad de Texas y el grupo de economía política de la Universidad de Massachusetts en Amherst, con Gerald Epstein y Bob Pollin a la cabeza. Otra muestra es el economista Branko Milanovic, cuyo trabajo sobre desigualdad internacional cubrió encuestas ingreso-gasto en hogares de 91 países. Destacan también los trabajos que publica desde 1988 el equipo del Economic Policy Institute en sus informes sobre empleo, desigualdad, salarios e ingresos familiares en Estados Unidos. Y como la lista no se acaba, surge otra pregunta: ¿por qué el libro de Piketty atrajo tanta atención sobre un tema que se había venido trabajando desde años atrás? La respuesta de Thomas Palley, otro macroeconomista con importantes investigaciones sobre el tema, es que el pequeño mundo de la economía dominante en las universidades delestablishment, nunca quiso reconocer el valor de estos trabajos porque sus autores permanecen etiquetados como de izquierda y reconocerlos como interlocutores equivale a legitimarlos. Según Palley parece que el tema de la desigualdad sigue siendo un tabú a menos que sea discutido por la persona ‘correcta’. Piketty es quizás esa persona. Su libro encuentra perturbadoras tendencias en materia de desigualdad creciente, pero sus herramientas analíticas y sus recomendaciones de política económica dejan mucho que desear. Los conceptos utilizados son los que convencionalmente utiliza la teoría económica neoclásica y han sido desacreditados en debates teóricos bien conocidos. La ignorancia de Piketty sobre estos debates es sorprendente porque tienen que ver precisamente con la definición decapital, palabra clave en el título de su obra. Entre otras cosas, Piketty sostiene que cuando la tasa de remuneración al capital aumenta más que la tasa de crecimiento de la economía se fortalece la tendencia a una creciente desigualdad. Pero eso implica que Piketty posee una medida del capital pues, de otro modo, su tasa de remuneración carecería de sentido. El problema es que en la definición de este autor el capital es una colección de bienes heterogéneos (edificios, máquinas) y lo único que los une es una medida en términos monetarios. Ahora bien, se sabe desde la controversia sobre la teoría del capital de hace cincuenta años que el valor monetario de esos bienes heterogéneos no puede ser utilizado en sustitución de la cantidad de máquinas y edificios utilizados en la producción. Este no es un detalle técnico. El corolario de lo anterior es que el capital no recibe una ganancia por su participación en la producción. Los propietarios de las máquinas y edificios no reciben una remuneración ligada a la productividad marginal del capital. Y ahora sí estamos cerca de la médula del problema. En sus leyes fundamentales del capitalismo Piketty utiliza el principal elemento ideológico de la teoría convencional sin cuestionarlo. El establishment le ha respondido: con este tipo de análisis edulcorado sí podemos entablar un diálogo sobre la desigualdad. Bueno, quizás algo es algo. Piketty encuentra que la desigualdad existe y que hay épocas en las que puede intensificarse. Pero vayamos a la pregunta de fondo: ¿cuál es la causa de esa desigualdad creciente según Piketty? La respuesta se encuentra en varios pasajes y se puede sintetizar en sus palabras: el principal impulso de la desigualdad proviene de la difusión del conocimiento y la inversión en capacitación. Esto es música a los oídos del coro de economistas neoliberales que llevan años afirmando que la desigualdad proviene de un sesgo en el proceso de cambio tecnológico en la economía que proporciona mayor remuneración para ciertos grupos de trabajadores (los que poseen mayor calificación) y menor para otros (los menos calificados). Todo esto explica por qué el libro de Piketty carece de una buena discusión sobre las causas del estancamiento de los salarios en las principales economías capitalistas a partir de los años setenta. Podemos hablar de desigualdad, por cierto, pero no de salarios. Podemos hablar del capital en el siglo XXI, pero no demasiado sobre capitalismo. Alejandro Nadal es miembro del Consejo Editorial de Sinpermiso

Guatemala: Comunicado de la Marcha Indígena, Campesina y Popular por derogatoria de la Ley Monsanto

La Ley de obtención de vegetales, Decreto 19-2014, conocida como Ley Monsanto, ha sido derogada de urgencia nacional
Por el Marcha Indígena, Campesina y Popular – MICP- Guatemala, 6 de septiembre de 2014

La Ley de Protección de Obtenciones Vegetales, decreto 19-2014, conocida como "Ley Monsanto", ha sido derogada de urgencia nacional, hoy jueves 4 de septiembre de 2014, con el voto favorable de 117 diputados, 3 en contra (sería conveniente saber quienes son) y 38 ausentes.

Hay que dejar muy claro que esto se ha conseguido gracias a la masiva movilización permanente de lxs guatemaltecxs. Hay que dejar muy claro que si este masivo rechazo no se hubiera producido, los diputdxs hubieran seguido haciendo lo que les da la realísima gana menospreciando al pueblo guatemalteco.

Hay que dejar muy claro que es necesario seguir atentxs, esto no acaba aquí. Acaba de empezar. La sociedad guatemalteca ha dado un paso importante hacia la madurez política. Esta rectificación por parte de lxs diputadxs no significa que los vamos a perdonar, en las próximas elecciones los 82 que votaron a favor del decreto 19-2014 no deberían recibir ni un sólo voto, si es que tienen la desfachatez de volverse a presentar, porque ya son cadáveres políticos.

Hay que dejar muy claro que esto es sólo el principio, hay más leyes lesivas contra la sociedad guatemalteca que pretenden aprobar antes de que termine la legislatura, y no debemos permitirlo. Ya aprobaron la Ley de Túmulos, una ley represiva y criminalizadora de la protesta social que permite detener a cualquier ciudadano que proteste contra proyectos mineros e hidroeléctricos (la aplicaron en La Puya en el desalojo violento del 23 de mayo de 2014 y en Alta Verapaz el 14 y 15 de agosto de 2014 donde la PNC ejecutó a tres campesinos), ya aprobaron la Ley de Control de

Telecomunicaciones, "ley Tigo", por la que muchxs diputadxs recibieron suculentas dádivas.... ¿dónde estábamos entonces los guatemaltecxs para expresar nuestro rechazo?.

Hay que dejar muy claro que los 158 diputadxs a partir de ahora van a tener a toda la sociedad guatemalteca encima de ellos porque no debemos permitir que aprueben estas propuestas de ley que están en la agenda legislativa y que nos AFECTAN A TODXS:

Ley de Inversión y Empleo, Ley de Servidumbre Forzosa, Ley Marco del Sistema Nacional de Competitividad y Productividad, Protocolo para Consultas Comunitarias y la iniciativa de Ley de Terrorismo y Espionaje Industrial y Comercial (que pretede restringir la investigación periodística que hacemos desde la comunicación independiente, popular, comunitaria y ciudadana).

Sigan atentos a los medios de comunicación independientes, compartan y difundan la información, sensibilicen a lxs guatemaltecxs dormidos, a los callados, a los indiferentes, a los miedosos..... sigamos sembrando las semillas de una nueva sociedad. ¡Florecerás Guatemala!

Asamblea de la Marcha Indígena Campesina y Popular

Gaza. UNRWA Report on Situation in Gaza published today

• 29 UNRWA school buildings – every fifth building – continue to serve as collective centers for over 63,000 displaced. The number of displaced in UNRWA schools remains higher than the number of displaced sheltered during the peak of the hostilities from 27 December 2008 to 19 January 2009. The predicted maximum absorption capacity of UNRWA schools – 50,000 displaced for a short period of time – is the new normalcy. All government facilities sheltering the displaced are closed.
• UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl delivered a speech in Cairo at the Foreign Ministers Arab League conference on Sunday, asking for USD 47 million in urgent support for Gaza. Funds are needed within the next four weeks to finance a comprehensive support package to Palestine refugees, which will include support to host families, rental subsidies, minor damage and repair assistance, and a reintegration package through vouchers which can be used to purchase non-food items from pre-selected vendors. Commissioner General Krähenbühl told the ministers that “there is a crying need for financial support now, today. Longer term reconstruction must be addressed but will depend on the outcome of negotiations on access for building materials”. He said that “with funds now, immediately, UNRWA can facilitate minor repairs like new doors and windows for hundreds of houses before the winter. With funds now we can give cash to thousands of homeless in order to rent temporary rooms, and to others to buy essentials to find again their feet.” Commissioner-General Krähenbühl concluded with a powerful appeal for freedom and justice for all Palestinians: “As I have stated repeatedly during the war, Palestinians are not statistics. They are men, women and children with hopes and expectations similar to those of people everywhere else in the world. Fundamentally, it is time for a change of paradigm in Gaza and in the West Bank. It is time to address the underlying causes of conflict and occupation and to provide freedom to move, to trade and to work. In the meantime, I urge you to renew and strengthen your support to UNRWA so that we can give these children and their families a decent life and the basis for a dignified future.”
• Shelter repair and reconstruction of Palestine refugee homes is expected to cost USD 526 million according to preliminary estimates, but a final number can only be confirmed after the assessments. In coordination with the National Consensus Government and UNDP, UNRWA started shelter assessments on Sunday 7 September. UNRWA relief and construction personnel and engineers work simultaneously in all five governorates of the Gaza Strip and are expected to complete the shelter assessments within 60 to 90 days. During the 50 day war, it is estimated that some 60,000 homes were impacted. 40,000 of these homes are assumed to be inhabitable; requiring minor repairs with materials available on the local market, such as for example doors and windows. Of these 40,000 homes, and based on the proportion of the Palestine refugee population in Gaza, some 28,000 are likely to be Palestine refugee homes. Based on average costs for shelter repair from the 2008/09 and 2012 conflict, repair of these 28,000 refugee homes will cost the Agency USD 26 million. The remaining 20,000 of the 60,000 homes are expected to be either destroyed or having sustained major damage and are uninhabitable. 14,000 of the 20,000 homes are Palestine refugee homes, with an approximate cost of USD 500 million to repair and reconstruct. For the uninhabitable homes, it remains unclear how shelter construction is to start under the current access regime imposed by the Government of Israel, which does not allow construction material on the local market.
• The emergency declaration remains in place and the UNRWA Operations Rooms in Gaza City and in the five governorates are fully functioning. Pending a political solution which addresses the causes of the conflict, UNRWA’s priority is to get regular programming back in service as quickly as possible. Emergency and early recovery programmes focus on the back to school initiative for 241,000 children studying in UNRWA schools, with school starting on 14 September. Recruitment of staff for collective center management is underway, which will become a stand-alone programme in UNRWA. Comprehensive assistance to those with damaged or uninhabitable homes and support to those in need who currently fall through all support networks are a further priority. UNRWA is looking into a scheme for determining vulnerability and need for food assistance in the community for those not currently receiving food assistance. The Proxy Means Test Formula, which is used by the Agency to determine eligibility to over 830,000 Palestinians currently receiving regular food aid through distribution centers, is unsuitable for this unstable environment.
• UNRWA is continuing assessments of its installations that were damaged during the 50 day war. UNRWA Infrastructure and Camp Improvement Program (ICIP) teams have been visiting the damaged installations, assessing minor and severe damages since mid-July and as security permits. So far, an estimated 111 UNRWA installations have sustained damage during the conflict. Three installations – two schools and a maintenance office – might require reconstruction.
• The Gaza Power Plant (GPP) remains inoperable, resulting in electricity outages of 18 hours a day. Some 450,000 people remain unable to access municipal water due to damage or low pressure. The Gaza economy has been brought to a virtual standstill due to damage in the main industrial areas, mostly situated in Eastern Gaza. The average seven year old Palestinian child from Gaza has never left the 365 square kilometer coastal enclave due to the blockade in place since 2007, and has witnessed three major military escalations. Over the years, people in Gaza have developed various coping mechanisms as a normal response to a very abnormal situation, but this most recent escalation depleted all resources.
• 501 Palestinian children are confirmed killed during the 50 day war. The cumulative death toll among Palestinians is at least 2,132, according to the continued collection of preliminary data by the Protection Cluster from various sources, including 257 women. The cumulative Israeli fatality toll is 71, of whom 66 were soldiers and one civilian fatality was a child.

GENERAL 

Past 24 hours: Thirteen days after the announcement of the ceasefire, relative calm prevails in Gaza. On the morning of 8 September, the Israeli navy opened fire towards Palestinian boats, forcing them ashore. Whilst calm for calm continues between Gaza and Israel, civil unrest is a significant threat, and it is feared that anger might also turn against UNRWA and its staff. Displaced in the North are refusing to leave specific UNRWA schools and move to another shelter, unless the Agency agrees to an immediate comprehensive financial assistance package. The consolidation process of UNRWA shelters is required so that buildings can be made available for Sunday’s planned start of the school year. In the Middle Area, UN vehicles were blocked and anti-UNRWA leaflets were distributed near a shelter. The National Consensus Government, formally in place since 2 June 2014, is yet to resume effective power. Key issues remain unsolved, for example payments to former de facto government staff who continue reporting to work but have received no full salaries for over one year, and no salaries since March 2014.

UNRWA RESPONSE

As part of the Agency’s commitment to support the children of Gaza in returning to school and as a component of a new, innovative three-phase “back to school” approach, UNRWA teachers are receiving training in the provision of psychosocial support to children returning to school on 14 September.

While the current ceasefire has brought relief to children who have endured more than seven weeks of intense violence and some the destruction of their homes, it will take time for students to experience anything close to a normal school routine. UNRWA is thus facing a tremendous challenge to ensure that children are able to attend and focus while at school.

In order to provide children with the ongoing support they need, UNRWA has commenced training of its 7,800 school teachers in Gaza. Each teacher is receiving two days of training by counselors from the Agency’s Community Mental Health Programme (CMHP). Upon completion of the training, teachers will be better equipped to identify children that may be affected by post traumatic stress, will have learned to anticipate likely associated behaviours and will be in a better position to provide support to children through recreational activities. The training will also enable teachers to identify children who might require referral to psychosocial counselors.

UNRWA’s psychosocial interventions build on the support provided by the CMHP in it shelters during hostilities. One of the children enjoying the recreation and CMHP activities is 11 year old Khitam. She took refuge with her family in an UNRWA school following the shelling of her house, which caused injuries to her brother’s head and eye. Khitam says she is haunted by nightmares and feels frightened. She plays in the school every day, where she and her peers are provided with support. “I long to return to live in my home in peace and security, return to my school to play with my friends, I yearn to play with my toys which have been buried under the rubble of our home. I want to feel secure,” said Khitam.

The Agency recognizes that over the past two months, parents have endured tremendous stress and fear for the safety of their children. To this end, the Agency seeks to alleviate parents’ every day pressures and assist in helping children return to school, meet with their friends and transition slowly into traditional classroom learning.

Amal Al Gharabli is one such parent. She is a 40 year old single parent of four children. Amal and her family were forced to leave their home in Shuja'iyya, Eastern Gaza, following heavy shelling, taking refuge in an UNRWA school. Amal returned home during a humanitarian ceasefire, in order to collect items for her disabled parents. Upon arriving, she found her home was severely damaged and largely burned down. Amal said, “I do not know how to continue life as we are living in an UNRWA shelter and with the help of food and non-food assistance. The psychosocial support in the shelter is very beneficial and it helped us to cope with the isolation of our children from their usual community.”

The counseling and support provided to teachers, students and parents is set to continue throughout the school year. This includes activities for learning and recovery, diversified teaching styles, opportunities to work in groups, child friendly discipline and peer support for teachers and other educationalists. 

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• The exceptional food distribution in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs and WFP is completed. The exceptional food distribution targeted all families not currently receiving regular food aid from either UNRWA or WFP. Between 11 August and 2 September, 121,680 families received a 30kg ration of flour and a 10kg ration of rice, representing 81 per cent of the total eligible families of the amended distribution plan of 150,774 families. During the 20 days of the exceptional food distribution, a total of 3,650 metric tonnes of flour and 1,217 metric tonnes of rice were distributed from all operating UNRWA food distribution centers. On average, 541 families received their rations per distribution center per day. Of the 121,680 families who received food under the exceptional distribution, 69 per cent are registered Palestine refugees and 31 per cent are non-refugees.
• Between Friday 5 September and Sunday 7 September, UNRWA delivered 12 truckloads of non food items as well as 42 truckloads of food to shelters. The food support to shelters is provided in cooperation with WFP.
• UNRWA’s regular food distribution to a total caseload of over 830,000 beneficiaries continued. On 7 September, food rations were provided to 3,769 families through UNRWA distribution centres. Distribution centres continue to remain open six days a week, with the exception of Friday when food commodities for the regular distribution is moved to the food distribution centres for the following week.
• UNRWA, in cooperation with partners and donors, continued daily water distribution to the shelters. Between 4 and 7 September, 1,314 cubic metres of potable water were trucked, which is equivalent to between 4.7 and 6 litres of drinking water per person per day. In addition to potable water, 2,049 cubic metres of non-potable water were trucked by UNRWA, municipalities and contractors to the shelters. A total of 484 cubic metres of washing water were trucked to former shelters for the cleaning of the school buildings with a view to the resumption of the next school year.  
• The hygiene campaign continued to focus on lice cases in shelters, referring cases to medical focal points and organising awareness sessions on how to use lice shampoo appropriately. Lice shampoo is distributed to shelters across the Gaza Strip. The first phase of the anti-lice campaign will be completed on Monday.
• Following the ceasefire, the Water and Hygiene Campaign had to establish new committees in the consolidated shelters, as many displaced who were actively involved left. As of Saturday 6 September, there were 55 IDP committees with overall 639 members (268 men and 371 women). 100 awareness sessions were held among 4,665 IDPs, focusing on cleanliness, usage of cleaning materials, best practices in water use, how to keep food from being contaminated and how to treat lice and scabies and avoid other diseases related to hygiene conditions. On Saturday 6 September, 173 persons were referred to medical focal points and 1,394 IDPs took part in cleaning campaigns. Distribution of cleaning materials was completed for all Gaza schools and is ongoing in other areas.
• On 4, 6 and 7 September, a total of 66,544 patient visits were recorded. Health centers continue to serve refugees and non-refugees.
• Between 5 and 7 September, a total of 814 tonnes of waste were removed from all of Gaza’s 8 camps.
• Between 5 and 7 September, the 11 water wells in Jabalia Camp (6), Beach Camp (3), Khan Younis Camp (1) and Rafah (1) supplied 28,045 cubic meters of water. 

SUMMARY OF MAJOR INCIDENTS

The ceasefire holds.

UNRWA INSTALLATIONS

Data on damage to UNRWA installations is based on preliminary information and subject to change based on further verification. UNRWA estimates that 111 installations have been damaged since 8 July 2014.

FUNDING NEEDS

The revised flash appeal can be found here.

CROSSINGS

• The Rafah crossing was open for humanitarian cases and international visa holders.
• The Erez crossing was open for humanitarian cases and international staff. On Friday, the crossing closed at noon and Saturday the crossing was closed.
• The Kerem Shalom crossing was open, except Friday and Saturday. 
• 
  

PCHR Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

 Sunday September 07, 2014 23:56 by PCHR - Gaza 

Israeli violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the oPt continued during the reporting period (28 August – 03 September 2014).

Israeli forces continue systematic attacks against Palestinian civilians and property in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt)

Israeli attacks in the West Bank & Gaza:

Shootings:

In the Gaza Strip, although 9 days have passed following the Egyptian-brokered truce agreement between the Palestinian resistance groups and Israel, the catastrophic consequences of the 51-day Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip have been present. During the reporting period, a number of wounded persons died of wounds they sustained during the offensive.

During the reporting period, a Palestinian baby died because of tear gas inhalation in occupied Jerusalem, as Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters to disperse the Palestinian protesters in al-Tour Mountain, east of the city. Moreover, 2 civilians, including a woman and a child, died of wounds they sustained during the latest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, while hundreds of wounded Palestinians have been receiving medical treatment in hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and other hospitals abroad for the seriousness of their wounds. In the meanwhile, Israeli forces violated the truce several times by opening fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within the allowed fishing area and arresting a number of fishermen.

A Palestinian baby died in Jerusalem because of tear gas inhalation when Israeli forces were dispersing Palestinian protesters in al-Tour Mountain, east of the city, while 4 other civilians, including a woman and a child, died of wounds they sustained during the latest Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. During the reporting period, 10 Palestinian civilians were wounded in the West Bank, including 3 children, and old woman and a journalist. Wounds of some of them were described as serious. 

In the West Bank, a baby, Hanadi Abu Sbeitan, from al-Tour neighbourhood in occupied east Jerusalem died on Thursday, 28 August 2014, because of tear gas inhalation, when Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters at her family's house on 26 August 2014.

On 29 August 2014, a 17-year-old male sustained 2 bullet wounds to the left leg when Israeli forces opened fire at a number of boys in Daher al-Baragheesh area, east of Beit Ommar, north of Hebron. The boys threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who opened fire in response.

On 01 September 2014, a 40-year-old man sustained a bullet wound to the belly, and a 78-year-old elderly woman suffered tear gas inhalation, when Israeli forces moved into al-Far’ah refugee camp. The woman was taken to Tubas Turkish Hospital for the seriousness of her health condition.

On 31 August 2014, Israeli forces fired rubber-coated metal bullets at Mohammed Abdul Majid Sonoqrot (16), east of the Old City in East Jerusalem. Sonoqrot sustained a bullet wound to the head and his wound was serious. His father said that an Israeli soldier targeted his son and fired at him from a close range during the Israeli incursion into the said area.

On 02 September 2014, Israeli forces stationed at “Eyal” checkpoint, north of Qalqilya, opened fire at a jeep with an Israeli registration plate driving through the checkpoint. As a result, 2 civilians, who had no permits to enter Israel, were wounded. The wound of one of them was serious. The 2 persons were arrested and taken to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment.

On 03 September 2014, a Palestinian adult and a child were wounded when Israeli forces moved into Nablus, as a group of youngsters gathered and threw stones at Israeli soldiers. The Israeli forces surrounded a 3-storey house and shelled a wall in the building, while opened fire at the second floor. Israeli forces claimed there was a wanted person hiding in the building, but it was proved untrue.

Israeli forces used excessive force against peaceful protests organised by Palestinian civilians, international and Israeli human rights defenders in protest at the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. As a result, a reporter of Palestine TV was hit by a tear gas canister to the right side while covering Bil’in weekly protest, west of Ramallah. Many other civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and 2 international solidarity activists were arrested in the same protest.

In the Gaza Strip, medical sources in Palestine Hospital in Egypt declared that Wedad Abu Zaid died on 29 August 2014 because of wounds she sustained during the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip on 29 July 2014.

On 01 September 2014, medical sources pronounced Basem ‘Ajour (60) dead of wounds he sustained during the Israeli offensive on 25 August 2014.

On the same day, medical sources pronounced Zeyad al-Rifi (13) dead of wounds he sustained on 21 August 2014 in an attack in al-Nafaq area. On 03 September 2013, medical sources in Egypt pronounced Nasser Abu Marahil (40) dead of wounds he sustained on 25 July 2014 in al-Nusairat area.

In the context of chasing Palestinian fishermen in the sea, on 02 September 2014, Israeli gunboats stationed off Rafah shore in the southern Gaza Strip opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats, while gunboats stationed off al-Sudaniya shore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats for the second time. Neither arrests nor material damage were reported.

On 01 September 2014, Israeli gunboats stationed off al-Waha resort opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats. They arrested 2 fishermen and confiscated their fishing boat and net. There has been no information so far about the destination to which they were taken so far.

Incursions:

During the reporting period, Israeli forces conducted at least 77 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. During these incursions, Israeli forces arrested at least 60 Palestinians, including 5 children. Fourteen of these civilians were arrested in Jerusalem.

On 03 September 2014, Israeli forces moved into Nablus. They surrounded a 3-storey building that is rented by a charitable society and a sport club. They shelled a wall in the building and opened fire at the second floor under the pretext there was a wanted person hiding inside, but there was no body in. A few hours later, Israeli forces moved into the city and raided al-Zahra’ building in al-Ma’ajeen neighbourhood. They raided an apartment belonging to Ahmed Ali Ahmed Ali Ahmed (75), Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for the Change and Reform Bloc. They bombed the apartment’s door and those of other apartments under the pretext of looking for Ahmed. 

Restrictions on movement:

Israel continued to impose a tight closure on the oPt, imposing severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

The illegal closure of the Gaza Strip, which has been steadily tightened since June 2007 has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli authorities impose measures to undermine the freedom of trade, including the basic needs for the Gaza Strip population and the agricultural and industrial products to be exported. For 7 consecutive years, Israel has tightened the land and naval closure to isolate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and other countries around the world. This resulted in grave violations of the economic, social and cultural rights and a deterioration of living conditions for 1.7 million people. The Israeli authorities have established Karm Abu Salem (Kerem Shaloum) as the sole crossing for imports and exports in order to exercise its control over the Gaza Strip’s economy. They also aim at imposing a complete ban on the Gaza Strip’s exports.

Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians throughout the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinian civilians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continue to be denied access to Jerusalem.

As part of using military checkpoints and border crossings as traps to arrest Palestinian civilians under the pretext they are wanted, Israeli forces arrested 9 Palestinian civilians, including 3 children and a woman, at military checkpoints in the West Bank.

Efforts to create Jewish majority:

On 28 August 2014, Israeli forces bulldozed 5 residential barracks and 3 animal barracks belonging to Saidi and al-Jahalin families. They also destroyed a cow shed belonging to Muahmmed Abu al-Hawa in Zaim village, east of Jerusalem after Civil Administration staffs and Israeli forces raided the aforementioned village. The affected families confirmed that the lands in question belong to them and that they have lived in them since the 1950s.

On 03 September 2014, Israeli forces accompanied by bulldozers and the Israeli municipality's staff moved into Beit Hanina neighborhood, north of Jerusalem. They surrounded residential buildings belonging to Izz Abu Nijma, and started bulldozing under the pretext of not having a construction license.

The Israeli construction and planning committee approved the construction of a religious school in al-Sheikh Jarah neighborhood in Jerusalem. The committee had approved the plan last February. According to the construction plan (68858), a building of 12 floors will be built on an area of 1.9 dunums out of 4 dunums. The building will include a religious school, residential rooms, and gymnasiums. 1The project is located behind Nasif gas station and al-Hayat medical center. The land was confiscated in the 1980s allegedly because it was absentees’ property.

Settlement activities:

Israel has continued its settlement activities in the oPt, in a direct violation of international humanitarian law, and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property.

Attacks carried out by Israeli forces

On 31 August 2014, Israeli forces backed by several military vehicles and a vehicle for the construction and organization department in the Israeli Civil Administration, raided the western area of Surif village, west of Hebron. The Civil Administration officers distributed notices claiming the confiscation of 3,799 dunums of Surif village and the villages of Bethlehem (al-Jaba’a, Nahlin, and Wadi Fokin) after dividing them to 10 squares, according to the notices which were signed by the official of the government and the absentees’ properties in Judea and Samaria. 

On the same day, Israeli forces backed by 3 military vehicles moved into al-Rahwa area, west of al-Zahrya village, west of Hebron. Israeli forces deployed in the area while the bulldozer destroyed a number of houses under the pretext of having no construction permit to build in the areas classified as “C” according to the 1993 Oslo Accord. 

On 02 September 2014, Israeli forces, backed by several military vehicles, a vehicle of the construction and organization department in the Israeli Civil Administration, 2 bulldozers, a GCB bulldozer and a digger, moved into Haram al-Rama in the eastern area in Hebron. They surrounded al-Rahma factory for dairies, which is part of al-Rayyan cow farm which is one of the branches of the Islamic Philanthropist Society in Hebron. Israeli soldiers deployed in the area while the bulldozers started destroying the 350m2 factory and the 7-dunum farm under the pretext of having no construction permit to build in the areas classified as “C” according to the 1993 Oslo Accord. 

On the same day, Israeli forces bulldozed a 70-square-meter, tin-made barrack which was used as a carwash. Later, they bulldozed another 40-square-meter tin barrack which was used as a pottery factory. 

On 03 September 2014, Israeli forces demolished 2 residential tents in al-Rakheem valley, south of Yatta, south of Hebron. 

Attacks carried out by Settlers

On 28 August 2014, Israeli settlers from ”Beit Ain” settlement which is established on confiscated lands west of Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, smashed the branches of 30 olive and almond trees belonging to Abdel Hamid Bright (78) in Abu Rish area.

On 28 August 2014, 2 Israeli extremists attacked Ziad Musa al-Qawasmi (48), a Palestinian taxi driver when he was driving in one of the streets in Jerusalem.

On 31 August 2014, 3 settlers tried to kidnap Ahlam Awad Muhei Awadallah (26) when she was returning to her house in Shufat. Her husband, Muahmmed Awadallah told PCHR that 3 extremist settlers were driving a Mitsubishi car. The stopped the car near her when she was walking towards her house in al-Sahel neighborhood in Shufat. They verbally attacked her and tried to grab her and pull her into the car. They failed to do as residents of the area intervened.

Israeli attacks on non-violent demonstrations: 

During the reporting period, Israeli soldiers used excessive force against peaceful demonstrations organized by Palestinian civilians, international and Israeli human rights defenders in protest at the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. As a result, Ali Dar Ali (30), a reporter of Palestine TV, was hit by a gas canister to the right side while covering Bil’in weekly protest, west of Ramallah. Besides, several demonstrators suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises as they were beaten up by Israeli soldiers. Israeli forces arrested 2 international solidarity activists during the said protest.

In the same context, an 18-year-old male was hit by a gas canister to the left side of his chest during a peaceful protest that was organized on Friday, 29 August 2014, at the western entrance of Selwad village, northeast of Ramallah, condemning the Israeli attacks in the oPt.

(PCHR keeps the names of the wounded in fear of being arrested by the Israeli forces within its policy to oppress the peaceful protests and prevent Palestinian civilians from participating).

Demonstrations against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activity

· Following the Friday Prayer on 29 August 2014, dozens of Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders organized a peaceful demonstration in Bil’in, west of Ramallah, in protest at the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities. The demonstrators took the streets raising the Palestinian flags and headed to the liberated territories near the annexation wall. Early in the morning, Israeli forces closed all entrances to the city to prevent Palestinian civilians and international and Israeli human rights defenders from participating in the protests. Protestors marched by the annexation wall and tried to cross the fence. Israeli soldiers stationed behind the wall, in the western area, and a large number of soldiers deployed along it, fired live bullets, tear gas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs and waste water at them and chased them into the olive fields. As a result, Ali Dar Ali, a reporter of Palestine TV, was hit by a tear gas canister to the right side. In addition, several demonstrators suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises as they were beaten up by Israeli soldiers. Moreover, Israeli forces arrested 2 international solidarity activists, whom were not identified. They were taken to an unknown destination.

· At the same time, dozens of Palestinian civilians organized a peaceful demonstration in Nil'in village, west of Ramallah, in protest at the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities and in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. The demonstrators made their way towards the annexation wall. Israeli forces closed the wall gate with barbwire and, when the demonstrators attempted to access the lands behind the barbwire, they were stopped by Israeli soldier. The demonstrators threw stones at the Israeli soldier who responded with live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullet, sound bombs, tear gas canisters, and waste water at them and chased them into the village. As a result, several demonstrators suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises as they were beaten up by Israeli soldiers.

· Around the same time, dozens of Palestinian civilians and Israeli and international human rights defenders organised a peaceful demonstration in Nabi Saleh village, southwest of Ramallah, in protest at the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities. The demonstrators made their way in the streets raising the Palestinian flags and chanting slogans against the occupation and in support of the Palestinian unity resistance, and then they headed to the lands that the settlers are trying to rob by force near “Halmish” settlement. Israeli forces had closed all the entrances of the village since the morning to prevent Palestinian and international activists and journalists from participating in the demonstration. When they arrived at the aforementioned land, demonstrators were met by live bullets, tear gas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, sound bombs and skunk water and were chased into the village. As a result, many civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises due to being beaten up by Israeli soldiers.

· At approximately 13:20 on the same day, dozens of Palestinian civilians and international activists organized a peaceful demonstration in the center of Kufor Qaddoum village, northeast of Qalqilya, in protest at the closure of the eastern entrance of the village with a metal gate since the beginning of the second Intifada. Protestors threw stones at the Israeli soldiers who fired live bullets, tear gas canisters, rubber-coated steel bullets, and sound bombs in response. As a result, many civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises due to being beaten up by Israeli soldiers.

Other Demonstrations

· On Friday afternoon, 29 August 2014, dozens of Palestinian young men gathered at the western entrance of Selwad village, northeast of Ramallah on the road between Selwad village and Yabrod village near Street (60) to throw stones at the aforementioned street. Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition, rubber-coated metal bullets, sound bombs and tear gas canisters at the civilians, and chased them into the village. As a result, an 18-year-old Palestinian was hit by a gas canister to the left side of his chest. He was taken to Palestine Medical Compound in Ramallah to receive the necessary medical treatment. Moreover, a number of civilians suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises as they were beaten up by Israeli soldiers.

Continued closure of the oPt:

Israel continued to impose a tight closure on the oPt, imposing severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

Gaza Strip

Israeli forces continuously tighten the closure of the Gaza Strip and close all commercial crossings, making the Karm Abu Salem crossing the sole commercial crossing of the Gaza Strip, although it is not suitable for commercial purposes in terms of its operational capacity and distance from markets.

Israeli forces have continued to apply the policy, which is aimed to tighten the closure on all commercial crossings, by imposing total control over the flow of imports and exports.

The total closure of al-Mentar ("Karni") crossing since 02 March 2011 has seriously affected the economy of the Gaza Strip. Following this closure, all economic and commercial establishments in the Gaza Commercial Zone were shut off. It should be noted that al-Mentar crossing is the biggest crossing in the Gaza Strip, in terms of its capacity to absorb the flow of imports and exports. The decision to close al-Mentar crossing was the culmination of a series of decisions resulting in the complete closure of the Sofa crossing, east of the Gaza Strip in the beginning of 2009, and the Nahal Oz crossing, east of Gaza City, which were dedicated for the delivery of fuel and cooking gas to the Gaza Strip, in the beginning of 2010.

Israeli forces have continued to impose a total ban on the delivery of raw materials to the Gaza Strip, except for very limited items and quantities. The limited quantities of raw materials allowed into Gaza do not meet the minimal needs of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.

The cooking gas crisis has fluctuated for 9 months due to the closure of Karm Abu Salem for security claims. According to PCHR’s follow-up, Israeli authorities only allow an average of 98 tons of cooking gas into Gaza per day. This limited quantity is less than half of the daily needs, which is 200 tons per day of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip during winter. The crisis has unprecedentedly aggravated for around six weeks due to cold weather and overconsumption in addition to the power outage and using gas as an alternative in many instances of electricity. The lack of diesel and benzene led to the aggravation of the crisis as a result of using the gas cylinder for cars or as an alternative for benzene to run generators. As a result, the demand for gas further increased.

For almost 6 consecutive years, Israeli forces have continued to prevent the delivery of construction materials to the Gaza Strip. Two years ago, Israeli forces approved the delivery of limited quantities of construction materials for a number of international organizations in the Gaza Strip. On 17 September 2013, they allowed the entry of limited quantities of construction materials for the private sector. However, on 13 October 2013, they re-banned it claiming that these materials are used for constructing tunnels. Last week, Israeli forces allowed the entry of construction materials only for UNRWA and UNDP projects. As a result, construction works have completely stopped impacting all sectors related to construction and an increase in unemployment levels.

Israeli forces also continued to impose an almost total ban on the Gaza Strip exports, including agricultural and industrial products, except for light-weighted products such as flowers, strawberries, and spices.

Israel has continued to close the Beit Hanoun (“Erez”) crossing for the majority of Palestinian citizens from the Gaza Strip. Israel only allows the movement of a limited number of groups, with many hours of waiting in the majority of cases. Israel has continued to adopt a policy aimed at reducing the number of Palestinian patients allowed to move via the Beit Hanoun crossing to receive medical treatment in hospitals in Israel or in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel denied permission to access hospitals via the crossing for new categories of patients from the Gaza Strip.

West Bank Israel has imposed a tightened closure on the West Bank. During the reporting period, Israeli forces imposed additional restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians:

· Hebron: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 08:00 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the northern entrance of Hebron. At approximately 15:00, a similar checkpoint was established at the entrance of al-Aroub refugee camp, north of the city. Both checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 15:00 on Saturday, 30 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Beit Kahel village, north of Hebron. The checkpoint was removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 07:00 on Monday, 01 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Bani Na’im village, south of Hebron. At approximately 08:00, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of al-Raiheya village, south of the city and another checkpoint at the entrance of Nouba village, west of the city, at approximately 15:00. All checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 07:00 on Tuesday, 02 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the northern entrance of Hebron. At approximately 07:30, a similar checkpoint was established the road connecting Doura with its western villages, southwest of the city. Both checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 06:30 on Wednesday, 03 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Kharsa village, south of Doura, southwest of Hebron. The checkpoint was removed later, and no arrests were reported.

· Ramallah: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 21:30 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces re-established their presence at the northern entrance of Birzait village, north of Ramallah. The checkpoint was removed later, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 09:30 on Friday, 29 August 2014, another checkpoint was established at the entrance of al-Nabi Saleh village, northwest of Ramallah. At approximately 10:00, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Ni’lin village, west of the city. At approximately 20:00, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Senjel village, north of Ramallah. Around the same time, Israeli forces established a checkpoint under a bridge in Yabroud village, northeast of the city. The checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 18:30 on Saturday, 30 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Beit ‘Our al-Foqa village, southwest of Ramallah. Around the same time, they established a similar checkpoint at the entrance of Deir Abu Mesh’el village, northwest of the city. They withdrew later and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 09:30 on Sunday, 31 August 2014, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrance of Aboud village, northwest of Ramallah, and the entrance of Deir Abu Mesh’el village. At approximately 20:30, they established a similar checkpoint at the entrance of Termis’ya village, north of the city. All the checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 11:00 on Monday, 01 September 2014, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrance of Ni’lin village, west of Ramallah, and under the bridge of Kherbatha al-Mesbah village, southwest of the city. At approximately 17:00, they established a checkpoint near the entrance of Beit ‘Our al-Fouqa village, southwest of Ramallah. The checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported. 

At approximately 20:30 on Tuesday, 02 September 2014, Israeli forces established 2 checkpoints at the entrance of Beit ‘Our al-Fouqa village, southwest of Ramallah, and under the bridge of ‘Ein Yabroud village, northeast of the city. At approximately 22:00, Israeli forces established a checkpoint near the entrance of Beit Luqia village, west of Ramallah. The checkpoints were removed, and no arrests were reported. 

· Jericho: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 09:30 on Friday, 29 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Fasayel village, north of Jericho. At approximately 20:00, they established a similar checkpoint at the entrance of al-Zbaidat village, north of the city. They withdrew later and no arrests were reported. 

At approximately 20:30 on Saturday, 30 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint near the southern entrance of Jericho. The checkpoint was removed later, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 20:00 on Sunday, 31 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of al-Nowai’ma village, north of Jericho. The checkpoint was removed later, and no arrests were reported. 

· Tulkarm: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 09:00 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces stationed at Enab checkpoint on Tulkarm-Nablus road, east of Tulkarm, imposed more restrictions, but no arrests were reported. At approximately 19:30, Israeli forces established a checkpoint on Tulkarm-Nablus road, east of Tulkarm. The checkpoint was removed, and no arrests were reported. At approximately22:30, Israeli forces stationed at Enab checkpoint redeployed around the checkpoint and imposed more restrictions on the Palestinian civilians.

At approximately 19:30 on Sunday, 31 August 2014, Israeli forces stationed Enab checkpoint on Tulkarm-Nablus road, east of Tulkarm, imposed more restrictions, but no arrests were reported.

At approximately 07:00 on Monday, 01 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint on Tulkarm-Nablus road near the intersection leading to Bazarya village, east of Tulkarm. The checkpoint was removed, and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 13:30 on Tuesday, 02 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint on the road connecting Tulkarm with its northern villages. The checkpoint was removed later, and no arrests were reported.

· Jenin: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 09:00 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Kfeirat village, southwest of Jenin. A similar checkpoint was established at the entrance of Ya’bad village, southwest of the city. At approximately 09:30, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of al-Yamoun village, northwest of Jenin. The checkpoints were removed later and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 11:00 on Monday, 01 September 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint at the entrance of Ya’bad village, southwest of Jenin. The checkpoint was removed, and no arrests were reported.

· Salfit: Israeli forces have continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinian civilians. At approximately 09:30 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces established a checkpoint between Kufol Hares and Hares villages, north of Salfit. The checkpoint was removed and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 20:35 on Saturday, 30 August 2014, Israeli infantry units were present on Kufol Hares and Hares villages’ road. They withdrew later and no arrests were reported.

At approximately 00:50 on Sunday, 31 August 2014, Israeli forces were present at the eastern entrance of Deir Ballout village, west of Salfit. They withdrew later and no arrests were reported.

Arrests and Maltreatment at Military Checkpoints

· At approximately 12:00 on Thursday, 28 August 2014, Israeli forces arrested Fida’ Mohammed Khader Suleiman (22), from Beit ‘Our al-Tahta village, southwest of Ramallah, near streets (443), which is adjacent to the village. No reasons were revealed behind the arrest. Her family said they learned that Fida’ was taken to Hasharon prison in Israel.

· At approximately 11:00 on Saturday, 29 August 2014, Israeli forces stationed on the gates of the Ibrahimi mosque, in the center of the Old City in Hebron, arrested Halah Jaber (19) under the pretext she did not listen to the Israeli soldiers’ orders. She was taken to “Kiryat Arba” settlement, but released later.

· On Sunday morning, 31 August 2014, Israeli forces arrested Yousef Ali Breigith (18), from Beit Ommar village, north of Hebron. Yousef was arrested at the entrance of al-Aroub refugee camp and then taken to an unknown destination.

· At approximately 16:00, on the same day, Israeli forces deployed behind the annexation wall, west of Ethna village, west of Hebron, arrested Badawi Abu Zalatah (16) and Kazem al-Najjar (17). The 2 children were taken to an unknown destination.

· At approximately 13:00 on Tuesday, 02 September 2014, Israeli forces stationed at the entrance of “Gosh Etzion” settlement, south of Bethlehem, arrested Jawad Riyadh Mahmoud Breigith (29) and Mefleh Ra’ed Ahmed ‘Adi (19) while heading to an interview with the Israeli intelligence service upon summonses handed to them previously.

· At approximately 19:15 on Monday, 01 September 2014, Israeli forces arrested Hussein Yasser Sultan (28), from Hares village, north of Salfit, and took him to an unknown destination.

· At approximately 16:00 on Tuesday, 02 September 2014, Israeli forces arrested Yazeed Mohammed Abdullah Taha (16), from Deir Mesh’el village, northwest of Ramallah, at a checkpoint established at the entrance of “Halmish” settlement, northwest of the city.

Recommendations to the International Community:

PCHR emphasizes the international community’s position that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are still under Israeli occupation, in spite of Israeli military redeployment outside the Gaza Strip in 2005. PCHR further confirms that Israeli forces continued to impose collective punishment measures on the Gaza Strip, which have escalated since the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, in which Hamas won the majority of seats of the Palestinian Legislative Council. PCHR stresses that there is international recognition of Israel’s obligation to respect international human rights instruments and the international humanitarian law, especially the Hague Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Geneva Conventions. Israel is bound to apply the international human rights law and the law of war sometime reciprocally and other times in parallel in a way that achieves the best protection for civilians and remedy for victims.

In light of continued arbitrary measures, land confiscation and settlement activities in the West Bank, and the continued aggression against civilians in the Gaza Strip, PCHR calls upon the international community, especially the United Nations, the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention and the European Union – in the context of their natural obligation to respect and enforce the international law – to cooperate and act according to the following recommendations:

1. PCHR calls upon the international community and the United Nations to use all available means to allow the Palestinian people to enjoy their right to self-determination, through the establishment of the Palestinian State, which was recognized by the UN General Assembly with a vast majority, using all international legal mechanisms, including sanctions to end the occupation of the State of Palestine;

2. PCHR calls upon the United Nations to provide international protection to Palestinians in the oPt, and to ensure the non-recurrence of aggression against the oPt, especially the Gaza Strip;

3. PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to compel Israel, as a High Contracting Party to the Conventions, to apply the Conventions in the oPt;

4. PCHR calls upon the Parties to international human rights instruments, especially the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to pressurize Israel to comply with their provisions in the oPt, and to compel it to incorporate the human rights situation in the oPt in its reports submitted to the concerned committees;

5. PCHR calls upon the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to fulfil their obligation to ensure the application of the Conventions, including extending the scope of their jurisdiction in order to prosecute suspected war criminals, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator and the place of a crime, to pave the way for prosecuting suspected Israeli war criminals and end the longstanding impunity they have enjoyed;

6. PCHR calls on States that apply the principle of universal jurisdiction not to surrender to Israeli pressure to limit universal jurisdiction to perpetuate the impunity enjoyed by suspected Israeli war criminals;

7. PCHR calls upon the international community to act in order to stop all Israeli settlement expansion activities in the oPt through imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements and criminalizing trading with them;

8. PCHR calls upon the UN General Assembly to transfer the Goldstone Report to the UN Security Council in order to refer it to the International Criminal Court in accordance with Article 13(b) of the Rome Statute;

9. PCHR calls upon the United Nations to confirm that holding war criminals in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a precondition to achieve stability and peace in the regions, and that peace cannot be built on the expense of human rights;

10. PCHR calls upon the UN General Assembly and Human Rights Council to explicitly declare that the Israeli closure policy in Gaza and the annexation wall in the West Bank are illegal, and accordingly refer the two issues to the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Israel to compel it to remove them;

11. PCHR calls upon the international community, in light of its failure to the stop the aggression on the Palestinian people, to at least fulfil its obligation to reconstruct the Gaza Strip after the series of hostilities launched by Israel which directly targeted the civilian infrastructure;

12. PCHR calls upon the United Nations and the European Union to express a clear position towards the annexation wall following the international recognition of the State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, as the annexation wall seizes large parts of the State of Palestine;

13. PCHR calls upon the European Union to activate Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which provides that both sides must respect human rights as a precondition for economic cooperation between the EU states and Israel, and the EU must not ignore Israeli violations and crimes against Palestinian civilians;

14. PCHR calls upon the Palestinian leadership to sign and accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and the Geneva Conventions, and calls upon the international community, especially the United Nations, to encourage the State of Palestine to accede to international human rights law and humanitarian law instruments.

Complete document, with details on Israeli violations in occupied East Jerusalem, at the official PCHR website, via link below.

 palestine | israeli attacks | news report  chris at imemc dot org

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