A group of Israeli settlers set fire to some 100 olive trees owned by Palestinian farmers near Nablus as the 2014 olive harvest began last week. "A group of settlers from the Yitzhar settlement located near Huwara town in Nablus set fire to the town's olive fields, causing the destruction of 100 trees," said Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official in monitoring settlements file in the northern West Bank. The attack sparked clashes between the settlers and local residents, which ended upon the arrival of Israeli forces. Around 20,000 Jewish settlers live near Nablus in 39 Zionist-only settlements. Palestinian residents complain of repeated attacks by settlers, who usually enjoy the protection of the Israeli forces (Al-Akhbar, Oct. 22) At Deir al-Hatab, near Nablus, the olive harvest has been spoiled by constant incrusions from settlers at Elon Moreh. The Palestinian farmers are allowed access to their lands only in coordinaiton with military expoort—just a few days per year. They were barred from their lands entirely between 2002 and 2007. (Haaretz, Oct. 26)

Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli police at East Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound Oct. 9, leaving three officers lightly injured, according to police. Israeli authorities said the clashes erupted after several dozen masked Palestinians began throwing stones, fire crackers and other pyrotechnical devices at police when al-Aqsa mosque opened for prayers. Police chased the demonstrators towards the mosque, where they barricaded themselves inside and continued hurling objects toward the police, authorities said. Palestinian sources said the clash erupted after dozens of Israelis tried to invade the mosque while marking the Sukkot feast. They said soldiers threw tear-gas bombs, concussion grenades and rubber-coated bullets at the Palestinians in the complex and even into the interior of the mosque. (IMEMC, Al Jazeera, Oct. 8)

The Israeli military's Civil Administration on the West Bank has filed plans for establishing a new settlement in the Jordan Valley, where thousands of Bedouins will be forced to relocate. The Civil Administration is advancing several such plans. The current plan was drawn up without consulting the residents themselves, and is part of the Civil Administration's attempt to concentrate the Bedouins living in the West Bank's Area C in "permanent sites," with a view to annexing most of this area to Israel and leaving it free for settlement expansion. The new settlement for the relocated Bedouin, to be named Ramat Nu'eimeh, will be built in Area C near Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, and is slated to house about 12,500 people from Bedouin communities in the Jordan Valley and the Ma'ale Adumim area.

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral for two Palestinian men killed by Israeli forces overnight during an "ambush" in the Hebron area. The funeral for Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan al-Qawasmeh, suspects in the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens in June, set off from the al-Hussein Bin Ali mosque in central Hebron. Abu Aisha's mother took part in carrying her son's coffin, as her husband and other sons are currently being held in Israeli detention centers. The governor of Hebron said Israel "executed" the men and at no point attempted to detain them. The two were killed following a gunfight after Israeli forces surrounded a property they were hiding in. The bodies were given to the Palestinian Red Crescent and the Palestinian Military Liaison. Clashes broke out before the funeral, with 20 Palestinians injured by live fire and rubber-coated bullets. One man was shot in the head and medics say he is in a critical condition.

The director of the Euro-Mid Observer For Human Rights said Sept. 16 that eight Palestinian migrants from Gaza survived a devastating shipwreck near Malta, with dozens feared dead. "We have search teams in Malta, Italy, and Greece trying to get information on those Palestinians," Rami Abdo told Ma'an News Agency. According to survivors of the Sept. 14 shipwreck, the Syrian, Palestinian, Egyptian, and Sudanese migrants set out from Damietta in Egypt on Sept. 6, and were forced to change boats several times during the crossing towards Europe. The traffickers, who were on a separate boat, then ordered them onto a smaller vessel, which many of the migrants feared was too small to hold them. When they refused to cross over to the new boat, the furious traffickers rammed their boat until it capsized, the survivors told the maritime organization.

We've stated repeatedly: Ritual squawking that "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" is just that—an empty ritual bereft of meaning—if we don't call out real anti-Semitism. Beyond that, the failure to call out real anti-Semitism only plays into the Israeli propaganda ploy that seeks to tar all anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism. A frustrating case in point is provided by Ben-Dror Yemini, who writes an opinion piece today on the Israeli news site YNet entitled flatly "Anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism." Certainly providing examples of anti-Zionists who are anti-Semitic does not in itself prove the thesis. But one of the examples he provides really is pretty damn disturbing. Yemini writes:

Israeli authorities on Aug. 31 announced the confiscation of around 4,000 dunums (1,000 acres) of private Palestinian land south of Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. Palestinian owners of the land were given 45 days to submit formal objections in Israeli courts, otherwise all confiscated lands would automatically become Israeli government property. Mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of Surif, Muhammad Ghuneimat, told Ma'an News Agency that Israeli forces posted signs in private olive tree orchards in the area warning that they have been confiscated by the Israeli government. Ghuneimat added that the confiscated fields belong to Palestinians from the towns of Surif, Husan, al-Jabaa and Bethlehem.

An Israeli court on Aug. 29 extended the detention of a Palestinian activist who was detained for political activities on Facebook for a week, a Ma'an News Agency reporter said. An Israeli court in Petah Tikva extended the detention of Suhaib Zahida, 31, until Sept. 4, after he was arrested on Aug. 28 for creating a page on Facebook called "Intifada of Hebron," in addition to leading a campaign for the boycott of Israeli products. Zahida had previously participated in several nonviolent campaigns opposing the Israeli occupation and was an active member of groups working to oppose the recruitment of Palestinian citizens of Israel to the Israeli military. Palestinians inside Israel have been previously detained for short periods of time and questioned regarding their political activities on Facebook, but such arrests rarely occur in the West Bank. In October, Israeli authorities arrested Palestinian citizen of Israel Razi al-Nabulsi, 23, for a week as a result of Facebook posts they argued constituted "incitement."