Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution' (OP)
Salaam
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.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has witnessed 14 months of repeated attacks on civilians, the dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure including healthcare facilities, and a systematic denial of humanitarian assistance, seemingly underpinning Israel’s campaign to unravel the very fabric of society in Gaza. In the first 12 months of hostilities, MSF staff themselves have endured 41 attacks and violent incidents, including airstrikes, shelling and violent incursions in health facilities, direct fire on its shelters and convoys and arbitrary detention by Israeli forces. Eight MSF colleagues and many of their family members have been killed, many more have been injured. Medical personnel and patients alike have been forced to urgently evacuate health facilities on 17 separate occasions, often literally running for their lives. MSF has only been able to restart activities in three facilities.
"Extermination & Acts of Genocide": Human Rights Watch on Israel Depriving Gaza of Water
Human Rights Watch is accusing Israel of committing acts of extermination and genocide by deliberately restricting safe water for drinking and sanitation to the Gaza Strip.
The report details how Israel has cut off water and blocked fuel, food and humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, and deliberately destroyed or damaged water and sanitation infrastructure and water repair materials. We speak to one of the report's editors, Bill Van Esveld, the acting Israel and Palestine associate director at Human Rights Watch, who describes "a clear state policy of depriving people in Gaza of water," that HRW is, for the first time in the current Israeli assault on Gaza, characterizing as a genocidal act.
Hmmm again dont expect much but we will see where this goes.
Blurb
A new lawsuit accuses the State Department of failing to ever sanction Israeli military units under the Leahy Law, which was passed in 1997 to prevent the United States from funding foreign military units credibly implicated in gross human rights violations.
The case was brought by five Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States and is supported by the human rights group DAWN. Former State Department official Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights office tasked with implementing the Leahy Law, says there is a mountain of evidence of Israel carrying out torture, extrajudicial killings, rape, enforced disappearances and other abuses.
"Despite all that, the State Department has never once held any Israeli unit ineligible for assistance under the Leahy Law," says Blaha, now a senior adviser at DAWN. We also speak with Palestinian American writer Ahmed Moor, one of the plaintiffs in the suit, who has family in Gaza and says the last year of genocide has made the lawsuit more urgent. "The conditions of basic life are not being met. Gaza is unlivable," says Moor.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
More news from the Westbank. Palestinian Authority is cracking down on the resistance movements.
Blurb
There’s fighting in the Jenin refugee camp between Palestinian Authority (PA) forces, who have raided the camp, and Jenin Brigades fighters.
Jenin holds a special place in the hearts and minds of the people living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.
In an exclusive interview, he said his armed group was the only thing keeping Palestinians safe from the violence of Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank.
Blurb
A young Palestinian journalist was shot dead overnight in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. On Sunday, her family accused the Palestinian Authority's (PA) security forces of killing her.
Shatha al-Sabbagh, a journalism student in her early twenties, was fatally shot in the head. According to her family, the bullet was fired by a PA security forces sniper during a period of calm, with no clashes occurring at the time.
The PA security forces, however, attributed her death to Palestinian "militants," referring to resistance fighters, and claimed she was shot during nocturnal clashes in the camp. In a statement, the PA described the incident as a "heinous crime committed by outlaws inside the Jenin camp."
Shatha’s family strongly refuted these claims, holding the PA security forces directly responsible for her death.
The Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate has called for an independent investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding her killing.
Her death is the latest in a series of fatalities in the Jenin area, where ongoing clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and PA security forces have escalated tensions.
Shatha’s death brings the total number of fatalities since the clashes began on 5 December to eleven.
Blurb
Clashes between Palestinian security forces and resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank have continued for over a week, escalating violence in the region. On Saturday, a man was killed—identified by Hamas as a fighter—and several people, including both militants and Palestinian Authority (PA) personnel, were wounded.
The city of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, has been at the epicentre of the violence. The clashes began after the PA, which coordinates security with Israel, arrested several militants.
In response, the Islamic Jihad military wing called for Palestinians in the West Bank to "strike, declare a general mobilisation, and a day of rage" in solidarity with Jenin camp militants. Hamas, the PA's rival and dominant force in Gaza, accused the security forces of "deliberate targeting" of fighters and individuals wanted by Israel.
The PA exercises partial administrative control in the West Bank, a territory Israel has occupied since 1967. The recent clashes add to the escalating violence in the West Bank, which has seen a surge in Israeli military raids and settler attacks since the Gaza war began in October 2023.
PA are subcontractors for the zios, doing their dirty work.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
God is the Most Great, to God is our Certain Return, I testify (to myself and to/before God and to anyone and anything) that there is none worthy of worship except God and that Muhammad (pbuh) is the Messenger and slave of God and that the holy Quran is from God, there is no god but God, the hereafter is real, hellfire and paradise are real, the judgment day is true, I shall live after death, I shall return to and meet God, everything in the universe praise God (except the dump unbelieving losers), God is the Light and Protector and Lord and Ruler and King and Creator of the heavens and the earth and all things in them!
-------------
Netanyahu will get punished (in the hereafter) severely by God for his evil.
May Israel get utterly destroyed, may Islam and the Muslims triumph over the pigs who call themselves nonbelievers, may Islam and the Muslims stand triumphant on earth.
The Jews (Isreal) hate Muslims, and the Christians (USA, Nato) has no difficulty fully supporting them, even due their evil in Gaza is clear and enormous. May the pigs who call themselves Christians and Jews, and the polytheists, get destroyed.
This, the Quran says.
The Quran is my witness.
Last edited by Marwan-Maroc; 2 Weeks Ago at 08:51 AM.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
Another update.
‘This is basically a civil war’: West Bank in fear as Palestinian Authority battles militant groups
PA seeking to prove it will be able to handle governing the Gaza Strip when the war there ends
Amid the echo of gunfire and explosions, 23-year-old Mariam picked her way through puddles on the unpaved streets of the refugee camp adjacent to the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, determined to get to a university class.
A sniper believed to be part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) forces shot and killed her friend, 22-year-old journalism student Shatha al-Sabbagh, a few days ago. Mariam said she was always afraid to leave the house, but an unprecedented PA operation on armed militant groups in the camp is now entering its second month, and shows no sign of ending. Her family has decided to try to preserve as much of their normal routine as they can.
“My mum is a teacher, and my sister studies with me. It’s not possible to go out every day. When we do, we risk our lives, and for what? This is basically a civil war, Palestinians killing Palestinians,” she said.
Jenin’s refugee camp, one of 19 across the West Bank built in the aftermath of Israel’s creation in 1948 to house displaced Palestinians, has always been an important centre of armed Palestinian resistance to the occupation. It is no stranger to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operations, which have increased in scale and scope since the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.
The new Palestinian Authority raid on the camp is the largest operation the western-backed governing body has undertaken in the 30 years since it was formed.
Israel hopes it can delegate stamping out militant activity to the Ramallah-based authority, and the PA is seeking to prove it will be able to handle governing the Gaza Strip when the war there ends. Instead, growing anger at the lengthy, destructive raid, and what is considered by much of the Palestinian public as increasing PA complicity in the occupation, could fuel further unrest.
During the Guardian’s visit to Jenin on Tuesday, ambulances raced up and down the main road leading to the camp, bouncing through muddy water on roads churned up during previous incursions by Israeli tanks and bulldozers.
The PA-run police station’s tall gates were shut, and the upper floors of the compound were covered in bullet holes; the west side of the local hospital on the outskirts of the camp was also pockmarked by bullets and shrapnel, and several windows were broken. Gunfire echoed in every direction as shoppers hurried away from the smell of teargas.
“When the Israelis come, it is tough, but we know what to expect. In this raid, this kind of fighting we haven’t seen before. It’s like there are no rules,” said a member of staff at the hospital, who asked not to be named so he could speak freely.
A new generation of fighters has now come of age in Jenin, as well as Nablus and the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm. They have no memory of the Oslo peace agreements of the 1990s; any hope their parents had that the diplomatic process would lead to the creation of an independent Palestinian state faded long ago.
Most of these young men are part of small, ad hoc militias only loosely affiliated with the traditional Palestinian factions, such as Fatah and its rival Hamas. During visits to Jenin, the militants have repeatedly told the Guardian that they readily switch allegiance to whichever group can provide the funding and weapons they say are needed to combat Israeli incursions.
The IDF began its most serious operations in camps around the West Bank for 20 years in the spring of 2023, after a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, and they have intensified since the war in Gaza began: the use of helicopter gunships, drone assassinations and weeks-long sieges are now commonplace.
Currently, Hamas’s armed wing, and the smaller, more radical Islamic Jihad, both of which have ties to Iran, control the camp. The PA, which is dominated by the secular Fatah, has dubbed the armed youth of the camp “outlaws”, launching the campaign against them on 5 December.
Operation Protect the Homeland marks the first direct Fatah-Hamas clashes since 2007, when the PA lost control of Gaza to the Islamist group in a brief civil war. So far, the PA operation in Jenin is less deadly than Israeli raids – three fighters, three security officers and four civilians have been killed – but shows signs of morphing into a war of attrition.
The operation will continue until “outlaws serving foreign agendas” that undermine the PA’s efforts to “protect civilians, security and peace in the West Bank,” have been neutralised or surrendered, Brig Gen Anwar Rajab said.
“It is the outlaws who are helping Israel, they give the Israelis an excuse to annex the West Bank and weaken the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Above all, we want to avoid a scenario like Gaza right now happening in the West Bank.”
Rajab’s argument, however, appeared to hold little water with the people of Jenin. “The PA are traitors, people don’t trust them. From the beginning, they have always been against the resistance,” said Abu Yasin, 50, a baker from the camp selling cheese and spinach fatayer pies. He was a former member of Hamas’s armed wing, he said, and had spent time in both Israeli and Palestinian jails.
“Everyone knows they are in Jenin to send a signal to the Israelis and to America that they can handle security and take control of Gaza again.”
The PA was formed in 1994 as part of the Oslo peace accords as a five-year interim body designed to administer parts of the Palestinian territories and coordinate with Israel on security matters. Its final status was never agreed, however, as talks stalled and the second intifada, or uprising, erupted. The deeply unpopular Mahmoud Abbas, 89, was elected to a four-year term in 2005 and has remained in charge ever since.
Under his watch, a corrupt, repressive and ineffectual ruling class has emerged that has proved unwilling or unable to combat Israeli settlement expansion and the rising tide of settler violence in the West Bank. The PA is hated by much of the Palestinian public but supported by pragmatic elements of the Israeli political and defence establishment and western donors, who fear a power vacuum if it collapses.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has repeatedly said that he will not allow the PA to administer the Gaza Strip when the war ends, although the US and much of the international community back its return.
“Sooner or later Israel will run out of use for the PA and will discard them,” said Abu Yasin, the baker. “Then [the PA] will not be able to pretend they are protecting us any more.”
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
A timely reminder.
Blurb
Sami Hamdi provides a powerful perspective on what it means to be a Muslim who truly trusts in Allah’s promise of victory. He highlights the importance of viewing faith and politics as interconnected, reminding us not to separate the metaphysical from worldly affairs
And another
Blurb
Much of what has happened is premised on a set of collective myths the west has attempted to perpetuate about Israel and its intentions. A compliant media and a political class that have provided a thin veneer of acceptability to Israel’s murderous rampage has all but shattered the myth that the west holds the moral high ground.
Today we want to explore the myths that surround the current crisis. To help us understand the situation better we invite back onto the show Dr Azzam Tamimi who is a Palestinian British academic, author of Hamas the unwritten chapter.
Re: Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Salaam
What you can do.
Blurb
Consumers have expressed their ire against major corporations that support Israel’s genocidal policies with worldwide boycotts. The collective consumer effort has shown results. We look at the effects of a one-year global boycott.
Its a small but significant step. Those who support this genocide dont care about basic humanity - but they do care about maintaining their bottom lines.
Also (as mentioned in the previous posts) taking legal action against those who perpetuate the genocide.
Blurb
Belgian Lebanese activist Dyab Abou Jahjah, the founder of the Hind Rajab Foundation, discusses how the organization seeks to hold Israeli soldiers accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza. Named after a 6-year-old girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza almost a year ago, the Hind Rajab Foundation uses evidence gathered from soldiers' own social media to build cases against them.
The group recently filed a complaint against a soldier in Brazil, leading a local judge to issue an arrest warrant for him that he only avoided by fleeing to Argentina. "Unfortunately, the Israeli government smuggled the soldier out of Brazil, which is, of course, obstructing justice," Abou Jahjah tells Democracy Now! "We are relentless in seeking justice, and we are very convinced that one day justice also will be served in a court of law."
There are precedents for this, eg. the hunt for Nazis long after WW2 concluded.
BREAKING - A Ceasefire has been agreed!
Blurb
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have announced that mediation efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza have succeeded.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani made the announcement, saying that the deal will lead to the release of Israeli captives and surging humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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