Plan Bibi C, a refinement of Nutanyahoo’s Bar Ilan speech, highlights the moral and political bankrupty of two state idealism:
‘Israel has already de facto annexed Area C. The route of the separation barrier is no longer relevant. Creeping annexation is taking place deep within the West Bank, coming right up against Palestinian population centers in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron. Israel is investing billions of shekels in land in Area C and deliberately preventing the development of Palestinian infrastructure there. At the same time, a sophisticated campaign is under way to change the way the public regards Area C, and the Levy report is part of that. Also, in light of proposals to apply Israeli sovereignty to “all the communities in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu will be able to portray his plan as relatively moderate.’
Plan Dalet is still being implemented in the West Bank – expansionism – settler colonialism – remains Israel’s strategy, tactic and aim; apartheid, strangulation and dispossession of Indigenous Palestinian people the desired outcome.
The limp protestations of the new NIF director, Brian Lurie display the hollow contradictions of ‘Jewish and democratic state’ hasbara and the racism underlying the liberal zionist response to the voracious Likud vision.
‘To me, the occupation is like a cancer. It’s eating us. Forget about them [the Palestinians]: It’s about what it’s doing to us.’
As long as the cry of Indigenous Palestinians for basic human rights, justice and freedom is ignored, there can be no claim of democracy or morality. Israel continues to delegitimise itself.
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Time to expose the duplicitous morally bankrupt hasbara behind this malicious attempt to submerge the rights of Palestinian people behind the impact of ziocolonialism had throughout the ME region after zionists invaded Palestine where emigrants were often enticed to emigrate in order to boost cheap Jewish labour and numbers to colonise Palestinian land. Palestinians are not to blame for their own invasion and their rights as invaded, dispossessed people are not secondary to the claims Jewish people in the ME might make against Mossad for its false flag ops and the zionist elite who encouraged and often bribed them to emigrate to the ziocolony. Jewish folks who have legitimate claims can pursue their cause through the appropriate bodies, but Palestinian rights are not contingent upon fulfillment of these claims, despite what the US congress might think.
When, as I shall eventually argue, the idea of the individual as “inherently limited and sovereign” collapses, the nation is doomed to follow suit, since its very conceptualisation feeds on the concept of the individual. If the individual can be shown to have several histories, so can the nation — and the two concepts collapse simultaneously when the consequences are fully worked out.’
Three pieces today detailing crimes committed by the apartheid Israeli entity bring a sickening lurch to an already nauseated stomach and reaffirm the need for boycott, divestment and sanctions against it.
The first – where Israel is complaining like a torturer unsatisfied with the volume of the victim’s screams, is recorded by Ma’an News agency:
Israel’s military department governing civil affairs in the occupied West Bank regards a UN agency’s assistance to displaced Palestinians as illegal operations, a spokesman said Sunday.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported earlier that the department, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are seeking to “reassess” the role of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the West Bank.
The UN office “are assisting Palestinian communities who have demolitions because they are built in an illegal way. OCHA gives them tents and by that is doing illegal work, without seeking Israeli permission,” COGAT spokesman Guy Inbar told Ma’an.
Humanitarian officials say providing a temporary tent to a displaced family falls under international definitions of emergency humanitarian assistance, rather than a building project that requires a permit.
Israeli authorities insist there is a legal process for Palestinians living in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israel civil and security control since the 1993 Oslo Accords, to build in their communities.
“In the last year (COGAT) approved many international projects, even UN OCHA projects, but not in an illegal way, like what they are doing in the south Hebron hills,” Inbar said, while warning: “International work does not get immunity.”
But the United Nations and humanitarian agencies say in reality it is almost impossible for Palestinians to obtain a building permit, and highlight that Israeli settlers in the same area are able to expand communities that are illegal under international law.
The south Hebron hills is one area of the West Bank facing repeated demolition orders. Israeli forces last month warned that they intend to demolish all 50 buildings in one village in the region, Susiya, after a settler group filed a legal petition calling for its removal.
A diplomatic source told Ma’an: “It is outrageous that (the Israeli) administration which condones illegal settlement construction is here using an argument against construction that helps some of the most disadvantaged communities, who have the right to protection under international law.”
Already in 2012, Israeli authorities have demolished 330 Palestinian buildings in the West Bank, displacing 536 people, half of whom are children, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories Richard Falk said in late June.
Meanwhile international law experts say that under the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel must provide for the needs of the occupied Palestinian population, and are prohibited from demolishing any structure that has a civilian purpose.
Haaretz reported that COGAT asked the Foreign Ministry to lodge a formal complaint with the UN, and on July 10 Israel’s UN ambassador wrote to the UN humanitarian affairs chief asking for staff lists, past and future activities and a review of the agency’s role.
Israeli authorities are considering limiting visas for foreign OCHA employees and stopping work and travel permits for Palestinian staff members, the newspaper said.
Inbar said COGAT is perturbed that OCHA is over reaching its mandate through its work in Area C, while OCHA says it does not undertake building projects but is mandated to coordinate international agencies’ response to humanitarian emergencies.
The second gut-churning criminal abuse involves Israel’s continuing mistreatment of Palestinian children incarcerated in its dungeons. Unfortunate child prisoners are forced to stand in the sun for three hours and be strip-searched while their rooms are searched:
The administration of the Israeli Hasharon jail has forced Palestinian minors to stand in the sun heat for three hours at the pretext of searching their rooms.
Amjad Siraj, who is representing those minors, told a lawyer for the Palestinian prisoner’s society that the incident took place three days ago and that the rooms were turned upside-down in the savage search by the Israeli Nahshon unit members.
Siraj said that the conditions in the Israeli jails, as far as minors were concerned, did not change, adding that the prison administration only responded to a number of simple requests.
He said that the Nahshon unit members rummaged through the minors’ ward and forced minors to strip search.
Since 2008, DCI-Palestine has documented 53 cases in which children have been held in solitary confinement in facilities located inside Israel, mainly Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centres, and Hasharon prison. The children report being held in isolation at these facilities for an average of 10 days.
Ahmed Abu Amrain, the Director of Information Center of the Energy Authority, said during a press conference yesterday that the Authority and Gaza Electricity Distribution Company are working on scheduling the electricity consumption in order to manage the crisis noting that the electricity will be running for 8 hours then cut off for 8 hours, successively throughout the 24 hours.
He attributed the main reasons behind the deficit to the reduction in the amounts of fuel provided for Gaza and which is resulting from the Israeli arbitrary measures and Egyptian inaction in allowing the fuel donated by Qatar into the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, the circumstances in which she gave her statement suggest Ashton acted in order to ensure that Israel’s human rights abuses would not be discussed by the Foreign Affairs committee of the European Parliament.
These vile, ongoing crimes remind us all, in the absence of action by governments, to support the international boycott of Israel called by Palestinian civil society until Palestinian people receive their full human rights which Israel denies them, including the end of Israel’s Occupation, apartheid and colonialism, equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel and the recognition of right of return of Palestinian refugees.
In New York, TIAA-CREF shareholders will be attending the annual meeting to question new trustees about their stance on profiting from companies whose products are used by the Israeli military in grave and systematic human rights violations. “We are here to remind TIAA-CREF that their investments destroy Palestinian schools, make Palestinian families homeless, and deny Palestinians freedom of movement,” said Allison Brown of Adalah-NY, a We Divest Campaign coalition partner. “These are not investments ‘for the greater good.’
The empire is back to using the Egyptians as intermediaries, washing its hands of Obama’s failure to stop the settlements – not that he cared enough to put sufficient pressure onto Israel, in fact rewarded them with increased joint miltech projects.
Contrary to what Baskin claims, Palestinian nationalists are talking (and working) with Israelis, if and when the Israelis fulfill the conditions set by the Palestinian national leadership. It is not and should not be a matter of negotiation between the Palestinian national movement and the tiny minority of Israelis supporting their rights. Israeli anti-occupation activists are not the UN, working between the two camps: either Israelis are with the Palestinian national struggle, or they are a kind of cover-up for the Israeli colonial occupation.
The Barrier consists of concrete walls, fences, ditches, razor wire, groomed sand paths, an electronic monitoring
system, patrol roads, and a buffer zone.
The Barrier’s total length (constructed and projected) is approximately 708 km, more than twice the length of
the 1949 Armistice (‘Green’) Line, which separates Israel from the occupied West Bank.
Approximately 62.1% of the Barrier is complete, a further 8% is under construction and 29.9% is planned but
not yet constructed.
When completed, some 85%, of the route will run inside the West Bank, rather than along the Green Line,
isolating some 9.4% of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem
71 of the 150 Israeli settlements in the West Bank and over 85% of the total settler population are located on
the ‘Israeli’ side of the Barrier’s route.
Palestinians with West Bank ID cards who are granted special permits can only enter East Jerusalem through
four of the 14 Barrier checkpoints around the city.
Around 7,500 Palestinians who reside in areas between the Green Line and the Barrier (Seam Zone), excluding
East Jerusalem, require special permits to continue living in their own homes; another 23,000 will be isolated if
the Barrier is completed as planned.
There are about 150 Palestinian communities which have part of their land isolated by the Barrier and must
obtain ‘visitors’ permits or perform ‘prior coordination’ to access this area.
Access to agricultural land through the Barrier is channelled through 80 gates. The majority of these gates only
open during the six weeks olive harvest season and usually only for a limited period during the day.
During the 2011 olive harvest, about 42% of applications submitted for permits to access areas behind the
Barrier were rejected citing ‘security reasons’ or lack of ‘connection to the land.’
Despite the presence of the Barrier, Israeli sources estimate that some 15,000 Palestinians without the required
permits smuggle themselves from the West Bank to look for employment in Israel every day in 2011 (Israeli
Government Special Committee).
The UN Register of Damage (UNRoD) has to date collected over 26,000 claims for material damage caused by
the construction of the Barrier in the northern West Bank.
Many black South Africans have traveled to the occupied West Bank and have been appalled by Israeli roads built for Jewish settlers that West Bank Palestinians are denied access to, and by Jewish-only colonies built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.
Black South Africans and others around the world have seen the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which “describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.” This, in my book, is apartheid.
Yousef Abu Maria, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, stated that the army violently attacked and clubbed the protests leading to several injuries.
Abu Maria added that the army also closed the area and declared it a military zone in an attempt to prevent the peace activists from holding their protest and to prevent them from reaching the lands that became isolated behind the Annexation Wall, in addition to the lands Israel intends to steal for settlement construction and expansion.
Similar to other villages and towns in the West Bank, Beit Ummar holds weekly protests against the wall and settlements; Israeli and international peace activists join these protests, Israeli soldiers continuously resort to the use of excessive force to stop these protests.
Israel’s land heist must be reversed, the apartheid wall torn down and the rights of Palestinians to their lands preserved.
The Committee is particularly appalled at the hermetic character of the separation of two groups, who live on
the same territory but do not enjoy either equal use of roads and infrastructure or equal
access to basic services and water resources. Such separation is concretized by the
implementation of a complex combination of movement restrictions consisting of the Wall,
roadblocks, the obligation to use separate roads and a permit regime that only impacts the
Palestinian population (Article 3 of the Convention).
The Committee draws the State party’s attention to its General Recommendation 19
(1995) concerning the prevention, prohibition and eradication of all policies and
practices of racial segregation and apartheid, and urges the State party to take
immediate measures to prohibit and eradicate any such policies or practices which
severely and disproportionately affect the Palestinian population in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory and which violate the provisions of article 3 of the Convention.
Israel’s cruel imprisonment of Akram Rikhawi continues despite 94 days on hunger strike. Reclaiming the PLO: an urgent call to unite all Palestinians Reasons for optimism and answers to BDS critics. ‘This book is about much more than answering the critics of BDS, however. Hind Awwad, a coordinator with the BDS National Committee, makes a powerful argument for why BDS not only unites Palestinians but also unites the Palestinian struggle with other popular struggles, including those in the US that seek reforms in education, healthcare, and social justice. “The BDS movement,” she writes, “has provided a way for us to break our collective chains.”’ American Carolyn Cicciu after a visit to Palestine: “Why should we be sending money to a country that is enslaving a people?” she said. “We make it too easy for Israel to follow a military solution when they don’t get their way.” Nutanyahoo bars access to sites of inquiry to an all female UNHRC panel set up to probe illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Zionist now supports BDS ‘Last night in Tel Aviv, during the social justice #J14 demonstration, a 57 year old man set himself on fire and is currently in the hospital. According to his letter, he was about to become homeless after going bankrupt and not receiving state assistance. In Israel, a person over the age of 55 is not eligible for housing assistance; a person who owned an apartment in the past 5 years – regardless of his current economic situation – is not eligible for rent assistance. These are the results of the continuous decline in eligibility for any form of social aid – this is part of the tragedy of the ongoing draining of social services, described by ACRI in this recently published report.’ (See ‘Crushing the opposition by delegitimizing labor unions and workers’ struggles’ – this is what fascist governments do.) Juan Cole examines five key areas where Israel’s image is cracking like an old dry creek bed. Perhaps add another – institutionalised racism and bigotry which ridiculous mountains of hasbara highlight, rather than obscure. Lecture in Melbourne, Victoria with Dr. Virginia Tilley
How obsession with “nonviolence” harms the Palestinian cause – As Lina says: ‘Oppressed people do not and should not have to explain their oppression to their oppressor, nor tailor their resistance to the comfort of the oppressors and their supporters.’
Yet Lina is noticing that Palestinian participation and leadership is limited by the current PSCC model, despite it being effective in terms of international awareness, and is funded inadequately by Fayyad who has his own dubious neoliberal, collaborator agenda, and foreign NGOs with their agendas. So how can this really be ‘popular’ resistance? instead, it can look more like normalisation – including with Fayyad’s neoliberalism. For a popular movement there has to be mobilisation.
Israeli Committee against House Demolitions Mr. Itay Epstein, Interactive Dialogue with: – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 A/HRC/20/32 . Item 7: Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories – 25th Plenary Meeting. 20th Session of the Human Rights Council. HRC Extranet.
It was Shamir who taught Bibi the method of pushing off the risk of concession without saying “no” to the Americans and inventing preconditions for the political process that the Arabs would undoubtedly reject. Shamir demanded that the PLO not be invited to the Madrid Conference that the administration of Bush senior convened at the end of 1991. Shamir demanded the Palestinian delegation be part of the Jordanian one and not include any representative from East Jerusalem. And just to be sure, he also demanded that every Arab nation, especially Syria, show up in Madrid.
To Shamir’s great surprise, the Palestinians agreed to all the conditions and found indirect stratagem that made a laughingstock out of Israel, such as finding East Jerusalem representatives who also happened to have addresses is Ramallah. I remember the panic in the Prime Minister’s Office after its staff read a piece I published in this newspaper about an American congressman who had visited Damascus bearing the message that Hafez Assad had decided to dispatch his foreign minister to the Madrid Conference. When I met Shamir a few days later, I couldn’t resist, and said to him, “You’re right, Mr. Prime Minister, you just can’t trust those Arabs.” Shamir, knowing what I meant, didn’t laugh. He was not amused.
Netanyahu’s policy on the settlements and his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people demonstrate that Netanyahu is Shamir without the mustache.
