OUTRAGEOUS: US Offering $1m To Exposers Of Human Rights Violations In Israel- Here’s Our Exposé

NEW YORK (VINnews) — The US State Department has offered a grant of up to $987,654 for projects that include reporting human rights violations by Israel, according to a Jerusalem Post report. The new grant raises concern about the potential for organizations seeking boycotts, sanctions and law tribunals against Israel to use the grant to promote their aims.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announced “an open competition for projects that strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza” last month. The new project is the first of its kind, and requires participants to “collect, archive and maintain human rights documentation to support justice and accountability and civil society-led advocacy efforts, which may include documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land and property rights.”

In the spirit of the competition and in a genuine attempt to document egregious violations of human rights, VINnews presents a number of human rights violations taking place daily in Israel.

One of the most basic and inalienable human rights is freedom of worship. The First Amendment of the US Constitution states that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof “. Yet Israel inexplicably does not allow Jews to worship in the most sacred place to Judaism in the entire world – Temple Mount.

Leaving aside the issue of impurity, as some areas on Temple Mount are clearly permitted to Jews, the prohibition against any form of prayer by Jews is an egregious violation of their basic human rights. Even whispering Shma Yisrael or performing Birkat Kohanim in the unique way permitted on Temple Mount is punishable by arrest. The putative reason for this is to prevent Muslim violence but this is a cowardly and untenable surrender to terrorism by a sovereign state and a travesty of justice.

Another basic tenet of the constitution is the second amendment which states that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In a state like Israel, fraught with enemies both from within and on its borders, this right should be protected and vigilantly upheld. Yet the police have the temerity to question this right and remove weapons from people even when it endangers their very lives.

Take the example of M, the brave settler who succeeded in eliminating the Bedouin terrorist whose murder spree cost the lives of four innocent Israelis on Tuesday. In any other country he would immediately have been pronounced a hero and given a medal and reward for his actions. Instead the settler’s weapon was taken away from him, ostensibly to make a ballistic assessment of the shooting. If a public outroar had not ensued, the settler would not have received his weapon back, despite living in a dangerous region near Hevron populated by numerous Hamas Palestinians. Moreover the settler is in immediate danger of revenge killing, a common phenomenon in Bedouin society. If this does not constitute a violation of human rights, the constitution will require some serious modification.

On to the Fifth Amendment, protecting citizen’s private property, which states clearly that “No person shall…… be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

On this one Israel might claim to maintain due process, since after all its courts exercise their jurisdiction to determine land rights. However the Achiya farm, which produces high-quality olive oil near Shilo, proves otherwise. One day the farm decided to buy land from other farmers, who had legal rights to the land. Achiya then planted an olive grove and made a flourishing business from its oil. One day, the state came along and claimed that the land belonged to Palestinians, even though no Palestinian had ever staked a claim to the land.

For some reason, the state sees the Palestinians as a collective as the rightful owners of Judea and Samaria. This means that the state can invent a spurious “interference clause” stating that the Jewish land “interferes” with Palestinians. This despite the land having been cultivated by Jews for over 10 years which according to the Ottoman laws maintained by Israel is enough to claim ownership.

However the law is racist: If a Palestinian tills the land for 10 years, it belongs to him even if others have a legal claim to the land. Only a Jew in Israel cannot benefit from the protection of the law and can be thrown off his land despite purchasing it legally and cultivating it.

Thus, even the Fifth Amendment is routinely violated by the state of Israel against its own legal citizens.

Now the question is: After proving all of these human rights violations, where can we pick up the grant being offered by the US?