How Israel Targets Palestinians for Imprisonment

by Stephen Lendman

Israel is an apartheid state, racism institutionalized against Palestinians for not being Jewish - treating them ruthlessly throughout its odious history.

On Sunday, Haaretz, in an unusually lengthy piece, explained they're targeted for imprisonment if fit a so-called "terrorist profile." 

Since September 2015, Israel "arrested hundreds of Palestinians," in part by "analyzing social media posts," according to Haaretz.

Previous articles discussed Israel's war on press freedom, including social media, wanting views opposing its own censored or suppressed, especially anything related to support for Palestinians in their longstanding struggle for justice.

Israeli bloggers are censored, requiring them and social media users to submit material for screening before posting - a military censor having final say over what's acceptable or not, one of the defining features of a police state.

In 2012, Israel began recognizing bloggers as journalists, treating them as possible fifth column threats.

New censorship rules accompanied heightened Israeli persecution of Palestinians, brutalizing them, killing them extrajudicially in cold blood.

Regime critics and human rights defenders are targeted, called traitors, recklessly accused of incitement, Israel's catch phrase, labeling defenders of fundamental freedoms enemies of the state.

Palestinians are most vulnerable of all - ruthlessly persecuted, more than ever under Netanyahu's fascist regime.

Under its escalated reign of terror, beginning in September 2015, hundreds, maybe thousands of Palestinians were rounded up, detained, interrogated, then imprisoned. 

Israel targets Palestinians based solely on baseless suspicions, not evidence of criminality or intent to commit it. 

Spurious accusations of "incitement" and "terrorism" are made by monitoring social media content, criminalizing free expression, assembly and related activities.

Being Palestinian in a Jewish state is reason enough to be targeted, multiple arrests and detentions made daily, an entire population victimized by state terror.

According to Haifa University's Itamar Mann, "there is a difference between the way Israel allocates rights within Israel and the way it allocates rights in the Palestinian Territories." 

(S)pecifically, there is a difference in the limits on the right to freedom of speech. Human rights laws do not apply in the Palestinian Territories, and therefore freedom of speech is not given the same protection in the military courts."

PA security forces work in cahoots with Israeli police, the IDF and Shin Bet in persecuting Palestinians, arresting and imprisoning thousands, including women and children, treating them brutally in captivity - why hundreds hunger struck for freedom and dignity, a heroic 40-day ordeal, getting most of their demands met for as long as they can keep them.

What Israel spuriously calls appropriate and necessary, international law considers illegal, immoral and brutal.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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