Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution' (OP)
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With Trump in power, Netanyahu has a free hand.
Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Land grab law 'allows theft, stalls peace process'
Law that retroactively legalises settler homes on private Palestinian land widely condemned as legitimising theft.
Israel's land grab law that retroactively legalises thousands of settlement homes in the occupied West Bank legitimises theft, violates international law and ends the prospect of a two-state solution, according to politicians, legal experts and human rights groups.
The so-called "Regulation Bill" instantly drew wide condemnation as it was voted in by members of the Knesset late on Monday with a 60 to 52 majority.
The law applies to about 4,000 settlement homes in the West Bank for which settlers could prove ignorance that they had built on privately owned Palestinian land and had received encouragement from the Israeli state to do so.
Three Israeli NGOs - Peace Now, Yesh Din and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel - and numerous Palestinians said they intend to petition the Supreme Court to cancel the law.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday in a statement: "This bill is in contravention of international law and will have far reaching legal consequences for Israel."
The EU's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement that the bloc "condemns" the law and urges against its implementation "to avoid measures that further raise tensions and endanger the prospects for a peaceful solution to the conflict".
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the law was an aggression against the Palestinian people.
"That bill is contrary to international law," Abbas said following a meeting with French President Francois Hollande in Paris. "This is an aggression against our people that we will be opposing in international organisations.
"What we want is peace ... but what Israel does is to work toward one state based on apartheid."
Hollande called on Israel to go back on the law, saying it would "pave the way for an annexation, de-facto, of the occupied territories, which would be contrary to the two-state solution".
Hours before Abbas' meeting with Hollande, Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, told the Associated Press news agency that the law puts "the last nail in the coffin of the two-state solution".
Calling the move "theft", Erekat said the ruling showed "the Israeli government trying to legalise looting Palestinian land".
The Arab League also accused Israel of "stealing the land" from Palestinians.
"The law in question is only a cover for stealing the land and appropriating the property of Palestinians," said the head of the Cairo-based organisation, Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
Palestinian owners will be compensated financially or with other land, but cannot negotiate their terms.
The law is a continuation of "Israeli policies aimed at eliminating any possibility of a two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state", Aboul Gheit said.
Jordan, one of the few Arab states to have diplomatic ties with Israel, also denounced what it called "a provocative law likely to kill any hope of a two-state solution".
According to the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, the law crosses a "very thick red line" towards annexation of the occupied West Bank, and sets a "very dangerous precedent".
Speaking to the AFP news agency, he said: "This is the first time the Israeli Knesset legislates in the occupied Palestinian lands and particularly on property issues."
He also raised the possibility the law could open Israel up to potential prosecution at the International Criminal Court, a threat Israel's own top government lawyer, attorney general Avichai Mandelblit, has also warned of.
Mladenov called for strong international condemnation of the legislation but declined to criticise the US after President Donald Trump's administration refused to comment on it.
Trump is more sympathetic to Israel's settlement policies than previous US presidents; the Israeli government has approved plans to build thousands of new homes on occupied territory since the far-right leader settled into the White House.
"I think that is a very preliminary statement," Mladenov said. "Obviously they do need to consult, this is a new administration that has just come into office and they should be given the time and the space to find their policies."
White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the US was likely to discuss the law with Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister visits on February 15, but did not comment further in a press briefing on Tuesday.
David Harris, head of AJC, the global Jewish advocacy organisation, said that "Israel's High Court can and should reverse this misguided legislation" ahead of Netanyahu's meeting with Trump in February.
That was also the message from Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said last week: "The chance that it will be struck down by the Supreme Court is 100 percent."
'Against all international laws'
International law considers all settlements to be illegal, but Israel distinguishes between those it sanctions and those it does not, dubbed outposts.
A Palestinian Cabinet minister also called on the international community for support.
"Nobody can legalise the theft of the Palestinian lands. Building settlements is a crime, building settlements is against all international laws," said Palestinian Tourism and Antiquities Minister Rula Maayaa. "I think it is time now for the international community to act concretely to stop the Israelis from these crimes."
Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called the law "unacceptable" and urged the international community to act immediately.
"This is an escalation that would only lead to more instability and chaos," Rdeneh said.
Palestinians want the occupied West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip - territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war - for their future state.
The international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to reaching peace.
Shortly before leaving office, US President Barack Obama allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution declaring settlements illegal.
Tobias Ellwood, Britain's Middle East minister, also condemned the land grab bill, saying it "is of great concern that the bill paves the way for significant growth in settlements deep in the West Bank".
Yuval Shany, an international law professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the law violates basic rights, interferes with property rights and is discriminatory because it regulates only the transfer of land from Palestinians to Jews.
Ivanka Trump: "On behalf of the 45th president of the Unites States of America, we welcome you officially and for the first time to the Embassy of the United States here in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel."
Trump moving the US embassy to Jerusalem may cause a chain reaction in the Middle East that he can’t control
The outlook in the region, so rarely optimistic, is dismal for peace, the scene set for intensification or the extension of the proxy wars and campaigns of terror beyond their present borders of geography and ferocity
It is easy, and often correct, to dismiss President Trump’s initiatives in foreign affairs as dangerous, ill-judged, badly timed and about as ill-informed as it is possible for them to be.
The decisions to relocate the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and to recognise the city as the capital of the Israel, provides ample evidence for that view. Already dozens of people have died as a direct, immediate consequence of this high profile and highly provocative move. It was all entirely predictable, which makes it so much the more unforgivable, though the speed with which the Israeli Border Police moved through their armoury from teargas to rubber bullets and then live rounds was perhaps surprising, even for them. It was, so far as can be judged, a disproportionate response driven by the need to maintain appearances for the sake of the various dignitaries gathered for this move. It had the opposite effect.
Despite the pomp and circumstance, the presence of the president’s daughter and son-in-law (a surely unprecedented use of the first family on highly politicised diplomatic business) and the video message from Donald Trump himself, this was in truth a lonely little ceremony. For the rest of the world has not, and will not, recognise Jerusalem as the “eternal capital of the Jewish people” as the various Trumps put it. Not only has the move divided and inflamed emotions in the region, and built more hostility towards Christianity, but it has appalled America’s friends in the West, and, inasmuch as either side care, Russia and China.
The Trumpian rhetoric about a “strong commitment to peace” sounded especially empty when juxtaposed on the split-screen rolling global news coverage with the scenes of burning, shooting and ambulances around the occupied territories. Briefings about a Trump Middle East peace plan sounded almost an act of sarcasm in the circumstances, and there is now open talk of a third intifada.
Moreover, the embassy move comes swiftly after America’s withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which will merely encourage Iran to go nuclear, if only to balance Israel’s missiles. If the United States wanted to consciously set the Shia against the Sunni world and then overlay that with a boost for Israel’s increasingly close-combat conflict with Iran, they could hardly have mapped out a more effective roadmap than the last few weeks’ diplomacy.
So the outlook in the region, so rarely optimistic, is dismal for peace, the scene set for intensification or the extension of the proxy wars and campaigns of terror beyond their present borders of geography and ferocity. Isis, driven out of much of Iraq and Syria, is already starting to operate closer to Israel, and a third intifada would provide all the motivation they require to regroup and renew their murderous efforts. They are adept at exploiting grievances, and what some might perceive as a diplomatic US-Israeli annexation of the holy site of Jerusalem provides a particularly painful one.
The consequences are all too clear. Conflict in Lebanon, long feared, now also looks increasingly inevitable, and the war in Yemen will continue, as will Turkey’s war of attrition against Kurdistan, while the coming peace in Syria is merely the quiet of a graveyard, and not necessarily sustainable, even with Russia’s brand of ruthlessness backing President Assad. Somalia, Egypt and Libya remain unstable, Qatar is blockaded by its Gulf neighbours and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia is running risks with his own conservative theocrats in the name of modernisation and crushing the Houthi rebels.
The Middle Eastern “order” has never been closer to collapse.
The best that can be said for Mr Trump’s Jerusalem policy is that it somehow shocks the Palestinians towards a lasting settlement, and with that might come a wider lowering of regional tension. The idea is that it is such an act of naked partisanship towards Israel that the Palestinians become so dispirited that they beg the Americans and Israelis to offer them any kind of “peace” deal – an “unequal treaty” under duress.
This – the logic runs – they will then accept as gracefully as they can for fear of worse to come – yet more humiliations and cruelties being heaped upon them, until they have no rights, territory or independence left – and they capitulate.
Yet that has not been the lesson of history so far: occupation, illegal settlements, the wall, trigger-happy Israeli soldiers – all have merely pushed peace further out of sight. Besides, the likes of Isis and other groups will offer different methods to defeat the Israelis, as politics and confidence in the United States is seen to have failed. There will be no shortage of “martyrs”.
Any single one of the pitiless wars now burning their way through the Middle East has the potential to run out of control and towards an all-out conflagration, escalating, most likely accidentally, to direct fighting among the regional superpowers, including nuclear and wannabe nuclear states. What would an Israel-Iran nuclear war do for American security interests? Will Mr Trump tell us that?
So it is difficult to envisage that the security of the United States or of Israel will be much improved by the US withdrawal from the JCPAO and the embassy move, and all too easy to see how more innocent peoples of every nationality and religion will lose their lives or find themselves homeless through war and terror. There will be more casualties, more refugees and more misery. It need not have been so. We will know who to blame.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
format_quote Originally Posted by Silas
I saw Trump's speech on TV today, or at least some of it.
I couldn't watch all of it. The whole thing is outrageous and unnecessary, and simply portrays the US as an Israeli puppet
There's an explanation somewhere, I don't understand the US 'on the surface' servile behaviour, though Israel did become a strategic asset after the 1967 war, its one of the gendarmes that keeps the surrounding countries in line.
Ive got a feeling the US doesn't want to be the guarantor of the Middle East anymore, they want out, so its leading to a lot of jockeying for position and influence, its complicated, lots of smoke and mirrors.
Another update.
This is deeply disappointing
“Hamas Violence”? In the Moment of Truth, Bernie Sanders’ Big Lie Betrays the People of Gaza
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
Gaza Now Has a Toxic 'Biosphere of War' That No One Can Escape
Undrinkable drinking water is just one example of how blockades and war have permeated an entire ecosystem.
Gaza has often been invaded for its water. Every army leaving or entering the Sinai desert, whether Babylonians, Alexander the Great, the Ottomans, or the British, has sought relief there. But today the water of Gaza highlights a toxic situation that is spiralling out of control.
A combination of repeated Israeli attacks and the sealing of its borders by Israel and Egypt, have left the territory unable to process its water or waste. Every drop of water swallowed in Gaza, like every toilet flushed or antibiotic imbibed, returns to the environment in a degraded state.
When a hospital toilet is flushed, for instance, it seeps untreated through the sand into the aquifer. There it joins water laced with pesticides from farms, heavy metals from industry, and salt from the ocean. It is then pumped back up by municipal or private wells, joined with a small fraction of freshwater purchased from Israel, and cycled back into people’s taps. This results in widespread contamination and undrinkable drinking water, about 90% of which exceeds the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines for salinity and chloride.
Incredibly, conditions are getting worse, thanks to the emergence of “superbugs”. These multi-drug resistant organisms have developed thanks to an over-prescription of antibiotics by doctors desperate to treat the victims of the seemingly endless assaults. The more injury there is, the more chance there is of re-injury. Less regular access to clean water means infections will spread faster, bugs will be stronger, more antibiotics will be prescribed – and the victims will be ever-more weakened.
The result is what has been termed a toxic ecology or “biosphere of war”, of which the noxious water cycle is just one part. A biosphere refers to the interaction of all living things with the natural resources that sustain them. The point is that sanctions, blockades and a permanent state of war affects everything that humans might require in order to thrive, as water becomes contaminated, air is polluted, soil loses its fertility and livestock succumb to diseases. People in Gaza who may have evaded bombs or sniper fire have no escape from the biosphere.
War surgeons, health anthropologists and water engineers – including ourselves – have observed this situation developing wherever protracted armed conflict or economic sanctions grind on, as with water systems in Basrah and health systems throughout Iraq or Syria. It’s now well past time to clean it up.
There is water – for some
It’s not as if there is no fresh water nearby to alleviate the situation in Gaza. Just a few hundred metres from the border are Israeli farms that use freshwater pumped from Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee) to grow herbs destined for European supermarkets. As the lake is around 200km to the north and lies 200 metres below sea level, a massive amount of energy is used to pump all that water. The lake water is also fiercely contested by Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Palestinians in the West Bank, each of which is seeking their legal entitlement of the Jordan River basin.
Meanwhile, Israel desalinates so much seawater these days that its municipalities are turning it down. Excess desalinated water is being used to irrigate crops, and the country’s water authority is even planning to use it to refill Tiberias itself – a bizarre and irrational cycle, considering the lake water continues to be pumped the other direction into the desert. There is now so much manufactured water that some Israeli engineers can declare that “today, no one in Israel experiences water scarcity”.
But the same cannot be said for Palestinians, especially not those in Gaza. People there have resorted to various ingenious filters, boilers, or under-the-sink or neighbourhood-level desalination units to treat their water. But these sources are unregulated, often full of germs, and just another reason children are prescribed antibiotics – thus continuing the pattern of injury and re-injury. Doctors, nurses, and water maintenance crews meanwhile try to do the impossible with the minimal medical equipment at their disposal.
The implications for all those who invest in Gaza’s repeatedly destroyed water and health projects are clear. Providing more ambulances or water tankers – the “truck and chuck” strategy – might work when conflicts are at their most acute, but they are never more than a band aid. Yes, things will get better in the short term, but soon enough Gaza will be onto the next generation of antibiotics, and dealing with teflon-coated superbugs.
Donors must instead design programmes suited to the all-pervasive and incessant biosphere of war. This means training many more doctors and nurses, providing more medicines, and infrastructure support for health and water services. More importantly, donors should build-in political “cover” to protect their investments (if not the local children), perhaps by calling for those who destroy the infrastructure to foot the bill for repairs.
The ConversationAnd there is an even bigger message for the rest of us. Our research shows that war is more than simply armies and geopolitics – it extends across entire ecosystems. If the dehumanising ideology behind the conflict was confronted, and if excess water was diverted to people rather than to lakes, then the easily avoidable repeated injuries suffered by people in Gaza would become a thing of the past. Palestinians would soon find their biosphere a whole lot healthier.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
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Another update
Israel Celebrated the Catastrophe Day in Cairo
Israel’s Embassy in Egypt celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Catastrophe(Nakba Day), which commemorate the catastrophe day of the establishment of the State of Israel, on Tuesday in Cairo.
It is the first such event since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising and the 25 the January Revolution. Israel closed its Cairo embassy in 2011 after crowds stormed the building, but it has since reopened in a more secure facility.
The celebration took place at the Nile Ritz Carlton in Cairo, where relations with Israel have deepened under the rule of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, who came to power after ousting Egypt’s first democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
It was attended mostly by foreign diplomats, businessmen, as well as representatives from the Egyptians government.
The event also raised eyebrows in the Egyptian media, traditionally known for its opposition to the Zionist State. Moreover, one commentator voiced opposition to the event, especially given Israeli soldiers’ recent killing of Gazan demonstrators.
In a speech, Israeli Ambassador David Govrin welcomed the Arab world’s recent warming toward Israel, led mostly by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, underlining how the Palestinian issue has largely taken a back seat amid years of revolutionary fervor and counterrevolution shook the region. He also took a few shots at Israel’s enemy Iran.
“The joining of the Saudi Crown Prince to the vision of stability and economic development shared by Egypt and Israel constitutes an important cornerstone. We have to broaden this partnership to additional states in order to advance common interests and in order to combat states and terror organizations, that are acting under Iran’s inspiration,” he said.
“Only a regional common struggle may confront Iran’s striving for nuclear weapons and undermine its consistent support to the terror organizations in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.”
Growing signs of a diplomatic opening between Saudi Arabia and Israel have been traced recently.
During his US tour last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old son of the king and heir to the Saudi kingdom, said that Israel also had a right to its own land.
King Salman called Trump hours later to reaffirm the kingdom’s support for “the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to establish their own independent state with its capital in Jerusalem.”
In the same context, Saudi daily newspaper Al-Riyadh published an editorial entitled before the last Arab Summit in April 2018,”Dhahran summit: peace with Israel and confrontation with Iran.
It argued that “the Arabs must realize that Iran is more dangerous to them than Israel.”
In an unprecedented statement for Saudi newspaper, it said,”The Arabs have no other option than reconciliation with Israel, signing a comprehensive peace agreement and freeing themselves up to tackle the Iranian project in the region.”
Regarding Egypt, both countries signed a peace treaty in 1979. Before the peace accords in Camp David, the two countries had specifically fought many wars. However, since the peace treaty, wars between Israel and Arab states have stopped as Egypt came out of the scene.
Nevertheless, the Egyptian-Israeli peace has remained “cold” in the Egyptian public opinion spectrum due to their popular support to the Palestinians cause. In 2011, Pew survey reported that 98% of Egyptians were holding anti-Semitic sentiments.
However, since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi reached power through a military coup in 2013, the relations with Israel has flourished in an unprecedented way on the security and intelligence levels in Sinai Peninsula.
Moreover, al-Sisi had pointed in different occasions his intention to enhance intimate diplomatic relation with Israel-in other words full normalization or what al-Sisi called “warmer peace”.
In 2016,al-Sisi promised Israel “warmer” peace adding that Egypt is ready to mediate to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the same year, Egypt’s FM Sameh Shoukry to Israel, which was the first state visit for an Egyptian foreign minister in nine years.
The visit looked like the meeting of old friends and partners as both Shoukry and Netanyahu watched football together, exaggeratedly exchanged pleasantries, and met in Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv.
In a former separate occasion, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry has also considered Israel practices against Palestinians within the context of “security” rather than “aggression” during a meeting with High School top students at the foreign ministry headquarters last August.
At that time, Shoukry’s statement on the Israeli policies was reported by the Israeli media as a move from the Egyptian Foreign Minister for defending Israel. “Egypt FM defends Israel, Says Policy, not Terrorism”, said the Times of Israel news heading on Shoukry’s comments.
On the economic front that has thawed recently however with a $15 billion deal with an Israeli company to supply natural gas to Egypt. Al-Sisi has come out publicly in support for the deal, saying it brought big advantages to Egypt and will help turn the country into a regional energy hub.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
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Another update
Norman Finkelstein: Outrage over Israeli Massacre Shows Power of Nonviolent Palestinian Resistance
Blurb
The United States is refusing to criticize Israel after Israeli forces shot dead at least 61 unarmed Palestinian protesters taking part in the Great March of Return in Gaza Monday. More than 2,700 Palestinians were injured. At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has blocked a call for an international investigation into Israel’s actions. On Tuesday, she repeatedly blamed the violence on Hamas while praising Israel for showing restraint. During her remarks, Nikki Haley refused to place any blame on Israel.
She later walked out of the Security Council chamber when the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., Riyad Mansour, addressed the council. Since Palestinian protests began on March 30, Israel forces have killed at least 112 Palestinians and injured more than 12,000. On Tuesday, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said she was closely following the situation in Gaza and would “take any action warranted” to prosecute crimes. Meanwhile, the United Nations human rights office has condemned the “appalling deadly violence” by Israeli security forces in Gaza. For more, we speak with Norman Finkelstein, author and scholar whose most recent book is titled “Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.”
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
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Another update
An Honorable Statement by the Ever-Diminishing Number of Decent Israelis
Calls for inquiry into Israel’s Gaza killings
Nine prominent Israelis compare the shooting of Palestinians to South Africa’s Sharpeville Massacre
We, Israelis who wish our country to be safe and just, are appalled and horrified by the massive killing of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza (Reports, 15 May). None of the demonstrators posed any direct danger to the state of Israel or to its citizens. The killing of over 50 demonstrators and the thousands more wounded are reminiscent of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 in South Africa. The world acted then. We call upon decent members of the international community to act by demanding that those who commanded such shootings be investigated and tried.
The current leaders of the Israeli government are responsible for the criminal policy of shooting at unarmed demonstrators. The world must intervene to stop the ongoing killing.
Avraham Burg Former speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency
Prof Nurit Peled Elhanan 2001 co-laureate of the Sakharov prize
Prof David Harel Vice-president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and recipient of the 2004 Israel Prize
Prof Yehoshua Kolodny Recipient of the 2010 Israel prize
Alex Levac Photographer and recipient of the 2005 Israel prize
Prof Judd Ne’eman Director and recipient of the 2009 Israel prize
Prof Zeev Sternhell Historian and recipient of the 2008 Israel prize
Prof David Shulman Recipient of the 2016 Israel prize
David Tartakover Artist and recipient of the 2002 Israel prize
Michel Norman Hod Ha’sharon, Israel
Since 30 March, each week has seen more protests by Gazans at the border with Israel and more killings of largely unarmed protesters by Israeli snipers using live ammunition. As of the morning of 15 May, Nakba Day, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some thousands injured. The position has been aggravated by the provocation of the opening of a new US embassy in Jerusalem, hammering another nail into the coffin of an already moribund peace process.
The Independent Jewish Voices steering group wishes to express our horror at the flagrant disregard for the human rights of the Palestinians and the norms of international law, and our support for those many thousands who have been demonstrating their opposition around the world. We call upon the UK government to condemn the actions of the Israeli authorities, to demand an independent inquiry into the use of force on the Gaza border, to make clear that the UK embassy will remain in Tel Aviv, and to redouble all diplomatic efforts to bring the occupation to an end.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
Another update
"We Are All Palestinians Now"
By Minister John Shuck
Anti-Semite
Holocaust Denier
Conspiracy Theorist
People are beginning to awaken to the fact that the name-calling is connected to the violent oppression. The name-calling and the smearing is the weapon the oppressors use to silence the resistance. When someone is labeled as an anti-Semite, Holocaust Denier, Conspiracy Theorist and what have you, then we don't need to listen to what they have to say. You don't need an argument. Call someone an icky name, then avoid them and tell others to avoid them.
The surprising thing is that the name-calling often comes from the mouths of those in opposition to the oppressors. When pro-Palestinian activists call other pro-Palestinian activists these names, then we know the true power of the oppressor. The oppressor controls the language of the opposition.
When I met with divestment activists in the Presbyterian Church (USA) four years ago, I was surprised when one of them told me that we can now use the word "occupation." When the divestment movement in the PCUSA had begun over a decade previous, calling what Israel was doing to Palestine "an occupation" was not allowed. I asked, "Who makes those rules?" The answer had to do with strategy and who might be offended and who would support and not support their particular goals and so on and so forth.
The rules are self-made and guided by the oppressors.
The oppressors allow the little victories as long as the truth of what keeps the oppressors in power is not allowed to be revealed. When someone like for instance, Gilad Atzmon, starts talking about the ideology behind the oppressors, then an artificial line that has been drawn by the oppressors is crossed. All forces are then unleashed to smear not only Mr. Atzmon but anyone who might even give him space to defend himself against such attacks.
Meanwhile, mass murder continues while churches in America either cheer it on, satisfy themselves with smaller goals that won't offend the sensitivities of the oppressors, or, as in most cases, remain deadly silent.
I do think people are beginning to awaken to the fact that the name-calling is connected to the violent oppression and that the name-calling says much more about the name-caller than the name-called. The next step is heart or courage. If we are going to dismantle the oppressor by dismantling their control of the discourse, then we must accept that we, too, will be smeared when we give space to those who cross the oppressors' line. This may affect our reputations, our jobs, our livelihoods.
But that is nothing compared to what is happening to our sisters and brothers in Gaza on this 70th anniversary of the ongoing Nakba. As Mr. Atzmon writes, "We are all Palestinians now."
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
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More comment
Opinion The Gaza Fence That Separates the Brave From the Cowardly
What is cowardice if not the decision to kill masses of unarmed detainees who are demonstrating against their prolonged imprisonment?
By Amira Hass
In the Gaza Strip the border fence separates the brave from the cowardly. It separates those armed with empty hands, kites and burning tires from a military power and its soldiers. It separates detainees serving a life sentence from their wardens.
The desperate courage demonstrated by tens of thousands of citizens of Gaza over the past few weeks in general and on Monday in particular hints at the energies, the talents, the dreams, the creativity and the vitality of the inhabitants of this strip of land — who has been subjected to a 27-year policy of closure and siege aimed at suffocating and crushing them. That policy has not been a total success, but it’s proved successful enough that so many people are willing to commit suicide with open eyes. In their death they are bequeathing to their friends and families the hope that someone there, in the world beyond the fences, will become alarmed and will finally understand.
The arrogant cowardice demonstrated by the well-protected soldiers and commanders – when I began writing these lines on Monday they had already taken the lives of 18 human beings – is Israel’s real calling card. Because what is cowardice if not the decision to kill masses of unarmed detainees who are demonstrating against their prolonged imprisonment?
Journalists report that four of those killed by Israeli fire are commanders in the Palestinian security lookout posts. In that case, every Israeli soldier in every one of the hundreds of lookout posts in the West Bank and around the Gaza Strip should also be doomed.
The earlier report by the Israel Defense Force’s spokesman mentions three people who were killed by gunfire when they tried to place an explosive device near the border fence. Even if that’s true (and incidentally, if Gaza is sovereign and independent, as Israel claims – it has the right to defend itself from inside, from enemy invasions) – what is the IDF spokesman’s explanation for all the rest? At the moment of writing these lines the number of Palestinian dead has already reached 37, including two minors. How many soldiers were required to kill dozens and to wound hundreds with live fire?
Despite the clear Israeli warnings, and the signals that the army intended to kill and wound indiscriminately, tens of thousands of residents of the Strip attended the demonstration. They did so even though they knew that the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are incapable of treating the hundreds and perhaps thousands of additional wounded, and that more than ever, the snipers’ bullets wound and destroy tissue and bones and muscles to the point of permanent disability. This is a desperate demonstration of courage, addressed to the nations of the world and to Europe in particular, which to their shame enabled Israel, which they consider democratic, to turn the Palestinian enclave into this terrible prison facility.
Despite the pleas of Israeli and international human rights organizations and of this newspaper that the IDF desist from the policy of slaughtering the demonstrators, despite their warnings that shooting unarmed civilians contradicts international law and will only add fuel to the fire — the army did as it pleased. Under the command of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, the IDF lawyers always say that we are the supreme interpreters of international law, because after all, U.S. President Donald Trump is on our side.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Lieberman and Eisenkot gave the orders, and the commanders and soldiers are only obeying them. But in that sense we’re a democracy: Behind Netanyahu, Lieberman and Eisenkot stands most of the Jewish Israeli public, which gives them its full support. No fact and no demonstration will convince that majority that those who are jailed without trial are rebelling against their imprisonment. The warden is asserting his supremacy.
In that sense we are also a startup nation of manufacturers and profiteers and exporters of weapons, who make a living from the availability of the human laboratories on which we constantly test and develop our profitable and popular products for killing. And now, on Tuesday evening, we reach the last line and the number of dead is 61.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
Another update
While Many US Outlets Equivocate on Israel's Massacre of Unarmed Palestinians, The Onion's Piercing Satire Destroys IDF Talking Points and War Crime Apologists
The searing satire of headline writers at this outlet over the last two days have perhaps done more than most mainstream journalists to expose just how wantonly cruel the actions of the IDF have become and how ludicrous and vile the arguments of its defenders remain
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
I hope the 20+ Arab countries in the region welcome the Palestinians. An Israeli land grab is the only peaceful way to end this conflict. Seeing as Palestinians are not distinct from Jordanians or other Levantines, I think Jordan or Syria would be good places for them. The Israelis and the Kurds are the only people in the Middle East who deserve our support.
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