From the Jewish Daily Forward
In the Shmitta Year, Lifting the Burden of Pay Day Loans
Enslaved by an Insurmountable Debt
The beginning of 2015 is also the halfway point in the year of shmitta, the once in seven years when the Bible commands that land be left fallow — a tradition that is followed today in a number of symbolic ways.
One of the powerful practices of the shmitta year is society coming together to erase oppressive debt, in a practice called shmittat kessafim — the release of money.
In biblical times, those trapped in debt would eventually wind up in chains as slaves. A year of release from debt stops that cycle. Today, 12 million Americans are trapped each year in a cycle of payday loans. These are small loans marketed as a quick, easy way to tide borrowers over until the next payday. However, the typical payday loan borrower is indebted for more than half the year with an average of nine payday loan transactions at annual interest rates of more than 400%.
From PressTV
Israeli settlers attack Palestinians in West Bank, injure 3
Israeli settlers backed by army soldiers attack Palestinians. (File photo)
At least three Palestinians have been wounded during an attack by Israeli settlers on a village north of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli soldiers were at the scene of the raid in Aqraba on Saturday, but did nothing when Palestinian shepherds and farmers were assaulted, Palestinian sources said.
The armed settlers set a car ablaze and opened live fire at the villagers.
The Palestinian shepherds had gathered in the village, saying their herds had been stolen.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said later that the herds were found, without saying whether the herds had been found inside the Israeli settlements or not.
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From PressTV
Palestine tax freeze new war crime: Palestine official
A senior Palestinian official has condemned Israel’s freeze on Palestinian tax revenues as a “new war crime.”
“This decision is a new Israeli war crime, but we won’t back off in the face of those pressures,” Chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said on Saturday.
He added, “Israel is once again responding to our legal steps with further illegal collective punishments.”
An Israeli official confirmed that Tel Aviv has blocked the transfer of taxes it collects on behalf of Palestinians in retaliation for their application to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and file war crimes charges against Israel.
“The funds for the month of December were due to pass on Friday, but it was decided to halt the transfer as part of the response to the Palestinian move,” the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted an unidentified Israeli official as saying.
The official went on to say the halting involves 127 million dollars worth of value-added tax (VAT) and customs duties on Palestinian goods that pass through Israel.
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From PressTV
Israeli naval forces target Palestinian fishing boat off Gaza coast
This file photo shows Palestinian fishermen off the coast of Gaza City.
Israeli naval forces have opened fire on a Palestinian fishing boat off the southern coast of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the forces fired machine gun rounds before lobbing a shell at the boat off the coast of the city of Rafah, located 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Gaza City, early on Saturday.
The fisherman, identified as Jamal Numan, was critically injured in the incident and was taken to Youssef al-Najjar hospital in Rafah.
Palestinian fishermen in Gaza experienced their toughest year on record in 2014 because of Israeli crimes.
The fishermen suffered recurring attacks before, during and after Israel’s summer military aggression against Gaza.
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From PressTV
Hamas slams Egypt army for killing Gazan on Rafah border
Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has condemned a fatal shooting attack by Egyptian border guards which led to the death of a Gazan teenager in the border town of Rafah.
In a Saturday statement, Hamas condemned “the killing of the child Zaki Hopi by Egyptian army gunfire on the borders,” adding, “We consider what happened as a dangerous development and excessive use of force.”
“What happened is not appropriate to neighborly relations between brothers,” the statement added.
According to Gaza emergency services spokesman, Hopi, 17, was shot in the back on Friday, with the bullet hitting his heart and killing him on the spot. The motive behind the attack is not clear yet.
The incident comes as Egypt announced on Tuesday that it wants to double the width of a buffer zone along the border with the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade for the past seven years.
The Egyptian military has also stepped up destruction of tunnels into Gaza since it ousted Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically elected president, in July 2013.
More than 1,600 tunnels have been destroyed since the military-backed government came to power in Cairo last year.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Israel Freezes $125M in Palestinian Cash To Retaliate for ICC Move
Ramallah Relies on Tax Revenues To Pay Salaries
Israel has decided to freeze a monthly revenue transfer to the Palestinians in response to President Mahmoud Abbas’s approach to the International Criminal Court and other international agencies, an Israeli official said on Saturday.
The official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayhu had decided, in consultation with cabinet ministers, to freeze a planned monthly transfer of 500 million Israeli shekels (about $125 million), which Palestinians rely on to run their government and pay civil servants’ salaries.
Israel had condemned Abbas’s move last Wednesday as a unilateral step that undermined prospects for a negotiated peace settlement.
From the Jewish Telegrapic Agency
Abbas’ Fatah faction distances itself from from provocative Facebook post
New York (JTA) – The political faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas distanced itself from an image of skulls adorned with Jewish stars posted on its official Facebook page.
The image, posted Wednesday on the Fatah Facebook page, also displays a rifle, the Fatah flag and the words “lingering on your skulls.” It was posted on the occasion of Fatah’s 5oth anniversary.
A spokesman for Fatah told CNN on Friday that the group was not responsible for the image.
“Fatah did not design this image,” Mahmoud al-Aloul said, who added that the person who posted it “is currently being asked to remove it. The image and the text do not reflect the opinions of Fatah.”
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Israel Plans To Target Top Palestinian Leaders for ‘War Crimes’
Abbas and Others ‘Ought To Fear’ Trials After ICC Move
Jerusalem — Israel is looking at ways to prosecute senior Palestinians for war crimes in the United States and elsewhere in response to Palestinian steps to join the International Criminal Court, an Israeli official said on Saturday.
The Palestinians delivered to U.N. headquarters in New York on Friday documents on joining the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and other global treaties, saying they hoped to achieve “justice for all the victims that have been killed by Israel, the occupying power.”
The Hague-based court looks at cases of severe war crimes and crimes against humanity such as genocide.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Alan Dershowitz Denies Claim of Sex With Teenage Girl
Investor Jeffrey Epstein Got Prostitution Plea Deal
Alan Dershowitz declared “totally, unequivocally and completely false” allegations that he enjoyed sexual services from a minor employed by a friend and client.
The former staffer for investor Jeffrey Epstein named Dershowitz in a lawsuit charging that federal prosecutors in Florida bypassed victims’ rights legislation in granting Epstein a plea deal, Politico reported on Dec. 31.
“One such powerful individual that Epstein forced then-minor Jane Doe #3 to have sexual relations with was former Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, a close friend of Epstein’s and well-known criminal defense attorney,” Politico quotes a filing as saying.
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From the Jewish Daily Forward
Deconstructing the Jewishness of the Frankfurt School
Book Eyes Religious Background of Legendary Social Thinkers
Among these still-resonant names are the philosopher/sociologists Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse. Horkheimer and Adorno co-authored the weighty “Dialectic of Enlightenment” (1947), while Marcuse’s political theorizing, updating Marxism for current conditions, received a boost of publicity in the revolutionary 1960s. Then there was Erich Fromm, a social psychologist and yet another philosopher/sociologist, from an Orthodox Jewish background. Several more noted German Jewish authors merit attention as members or in the periphery of the Frankfurt School, such as Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin, so it was a useful idea for Jack Jacobs, professor of political science at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center, to offer this compellingly detailed analysis.
