One of the Israeli Apaches which launched airstrikes on Jenin, pictured firing flares over the West Bank city during a battle between the Israeli army and resistance fighters. 19 June, 2023. (Photo credit: AFP)
Israeli troops launched a massive raid into the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on the morning of 19 June, resulting in the death of five Palestinians and the injury of at least 66, Palestinian media outlets reported.
The four killed have been identified as 21-year-old Khaled Assasa, 21-year-old Qais Jabareen, Ahmad Daraghmeh, 19-year-old Qassam Sariya, and 15-year-old Ahmad Saqr.
The raid began as usual, with the Israeli army storming Jenin to make arrests and facing heavy gunfire from resistance fighters.
Confrontations escalated significantly after members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s (PIJ) West Bank-based Jenin Brigade managed to ambush Israeli troops and detonate explosive devices targeting their military vehicles. Members of the Jenin Brigade opened fire at the vehicles following the explosions.
The Jenin Brigade named the operation “Fury of the Free.”
Israeli media outlets confirmed that seven Israeli soldiers were injured in one of the blasts, with unconfirmed reports suggesting deaths among the troops.
In a brief statement, the Jenin Brigade said: “We still have more surprises … we warn the occupation against continuing their aggression.”
As violence continued to escalate, Israeli helicopters launched airstrikes on Jenin, targeting the West Bank in an aerial attack for the first time in over 20 years.
The airstrikes were launched in order to secure the evacuation of the Israeli soldiers wounded in the resistance’s explosive attack, Israeli media said. Resistance fighters reportedly attempted to target Israeli helicopters with gunfire.
According to Palestinian media reports, the wounded Israeli soldiers remain trapped within one of the vehicles targeted in the blast.
In another brief statement, the Jenin Brigade claimed that the Israeli army was attempting to withdraw from Jenin, but the resistance was obstructing their escape from the area.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted as saying, in response to the events in Jenin, that “the time has come” for Israel to launch a full-scale military operation against the resistance in the occupied West Bank, which has grown beyond unprecedented levels in the last two years.
“I will request an emergency meeting of the Security and Political Security Council,” Smotrich said.
For months, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have been calling for a wide-scale West Bank operation to root out ‘terrorism’ in the area.
However, the military establishment has been mulling over the idea and is conflicted, as some believe that a cost of such an operation would be too high.
June 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Israel, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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A top advisor to US President Joe Biden has reportedly traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of Washington’s relentless push to broker a normalization deal between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.
The US-based news website Axios reported on Saturday that Brett McGurk, Biden’s senior Middle East adviser, had arrived in Saudi Arabia to hold “talks with Saudi officials that will focus on the administration’s efforts to reach a normalization agreement between the Israel and the kingdom as well as other issues.”
According to the report, McGurk was also expected to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman to discuss the kingdom’s normalization of relations with Israel.
McGurk’s visit is part of attempts by the White House to push for a Saudi-Israeli deal in the next six to seven months before Biden’s presidential election campaigns.
The top advisor’s trip to Saudi Arabia comes less than two weeks after US Secretary of State Tony Blinken visited the kingdom and met bin Salman, with Saudi officials having snubbed the US diplomat’s latest push for the normalization deal.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said at a joint press conference with Blinken that “without finding a pathway to peace for the Palestinian people… any normalization will have limited benefits.”
Saudi Arabia cautiously welcomed the US-brokered normalization deals between the Israeli regime and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco in 2020.
The oil-rich kingdom itself, however, has been expected to jump on the bandwagon since then, as the two sides have seen growing contacts and de-facto rapprochement in recent years, despite claims that it is committed to the 2002 so-called Arab Peace Initiative, which conditions normalizing ties with Israel on the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.
The Riyadh regime in November 2020 granted permission for Israeli airlines to use its airspace, hours before the first Israeli flight to the UAE was set to take off.
Palestinian leaders, activists and ordinary people have repeatedly rejected Arab-Israeli normalization deals as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.”
June 18, 2023
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Illegal Occupation | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United States |
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BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday put forward a three-point proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the meeting with his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas.
“First, the basis for settling the Palestinian issue is the establishment of an independent state of Palestine with full sovereignty within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” Xi Jinping was quoted as saying by the Chinese national broadcaster.
Second, the Chinese president pointed out that the needs of the Palestinian economy should be met and the international community should increase humanitarian and development assistance to Palestine.
“Third, the right course of peace negotiations should be followed. Respect the historical status quo of Jerusalem’s religious shrines, refrain from radical and provocative statements and actions, promote a larger, more authoritative and more influential international peace conference, create conditions for the resumption of peaceful talks and make concrete efforts to help Palestine and Israel coexist peacefully,” Xi concluded.
Abbas is on a state visit to China from June 13-16.
June 14, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation | China, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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While Blinken tells AIPAC of Team Biden’s “iron clad” support for Israel
There would appear to be no limit to Israeli bestiality towards the Palestinians and likewise no limit to how much that brutality has been enabled by the positions taken by successive US governments and the national media. Indeed, the self-defined Jewish state, which ironically claims to be a democracy, is perhaps the leading human rights violator in all the world due to its officially condoned genocide directed against the Palestinian people and its bombing and killing of neighboring Syrians and Lebanese without providing any convincing evidence that it is being threatened by them.
That apartheid Israel is essentially a criminal state that blithely goes about killing and stealing from the original inhabitants of the Middle East region might well be accepted as substantially true by most observers. But even given all of that, there is sometimes a story that emerges that is so shocking and disturbing that it becomes difficult to contemplate why the rest of the world has not risen-up and demanded an end to Israeli atrocities.
One such story is the recent murder by Israeli soldiers of a two-year-old boy Mohammad al-Tamimi. Unfortunately, heavily armed Israelis illegally occupying the West Bank and killing Palestinian children is not a rare occurrence. Fully 27 children have suffered that fate in the past six months, including some children being killed by Israeli bombing and rockets in Gaza. And the stories are often the same, with the Israeli government claiming that there were “terrorist threats,” often deliberately contrived provocations that rapidly develop into shooting ranges with the unarmed Palestinians as targets.
In this case, Mohammad al-Tamini was with his father, Haytam al-Tamimi, and had just been buckled into the back seat of the family car to go on a short trip to visit an uncle in a nearby village to celebrate an aunt’s birthday. The al-Tamimis live in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, located twelve miles northwest of Ramallah, which passes for the capital of what fragments of land the Palestinians have been able to preserve as a symbol of their national identity. The Israelis de facto are occupiers of nearly all of the West Bank and have military outposts scattered through the region to protect the armed and illegal Jewish settlers who are constantly harassing the remaining Palestinians and destroying their crops to force them to emigrate. The remaining Palestinians in their villages and towns are constantly under siege and are subject to checkpoints, arbitrary arrests, and even murder at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces. One observer notes how the remaining Arab “communities are actually Palestinian enclaves that are prisons” with heavily armed 18 year old Israeli conscript soldiers free to run amok as they see fit. And when a Palestinian is killed, the Israeli soldiers know well that they will not in any way be punished. An Israeli peace group has calculated that between 2017 and 2021 a soldier who murdered a civilian faced only a 0.87% probability that he would be investigated and indicted. There were only 11 such indictments in those years and the punishments eventually meted out were slaps on the wrist.
On June 1st, Mohammad was the victim of a band of Israeli soldiers, who later claimed to be chasing a car from which shots had allegedly been fired at a nearby illegal Jewish settlement Neveh Tzuf. The problem with the tale is that no one heard any shots until the Israeli soldiers blocked the village entrance before arriving in the center of Nabi Saleh in their jeeps and starting shooting in all directions. They then settled in for a few hours to engage in a bit of tormenting of the local residents by beating them and even firing at them at close range. Haytam Tamimi and his son Muhammad were among five Palestinians injured during the raid.
Seated in their vehicle, Mohammad was shot through the head and his father was wounded in the shoulder, apparently by fire from a sniper. Taken to a hospital, Mohammad lingered for four days before dying on Monday June 5th. His body was returned to his village for burial, which took place on the following day, but even then the Israelis chose not to avoid interfering in what was a tragic ceremony. Before and during the funeral, the Israeli military had surrounded the village and later that afternoon, while mourners were gathered at the al-Tamimi grandparents’ home, they entered into it for the third time since Mohammad was shot, beating and shooting villagers, injuring six people. One man sustained a gunshot wound in the pelvis, with the bullet entering his intestines. A woman was struck in her face with a rifle butt while another mourner was hit in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet.
Ironically, on same day that Mohammad died the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at its annual policy summit in Washington. AIPAC, it might be observed, exists to promote Israeli interests, which should make it subject to registry under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) but no one in the White House seems interested in enforcing that particular law or any other existing legislation pertaining to secret nuclear arsenals when Israel is involved. The last president who tried to register AIPAC’s predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was John F. Kennedy, and consider what happened to him possibly as a result.
Blinken, is himself a Jew and an avowed Zionist in an Administration awash with Jews and Zionists to include President Joe Biden, a supermarket Catholic, who calls himself a Zionist and effectively swears fealty to the Jewish state. Blinken is not really very good at blaming Israel for anything and when he is with a hardline Jewish gathering like the AIPAC Summit he is fully energized while he is making the audience feel good about its love for Israel. He enthused how the US-Israel partnership “touches on every aspect of our lives, from security to business, from energy to public health. And the depth and breadth of that partnership between our governments are matched only by the strength of the ties between our peoples. This partnership between the United States and Israel is indispensable.”
Blinken chose not to acknowledge that the “indispensable ties” between the US and the Jewish state is attributable to the large scale corruption of America’s political system by Israel and its Lobby to achieve such a status. And inevitably, Blinken made sure his friends in AIPAC understood that the Biden Administration sees the “blame” for the unrest in the Middle East just as does the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Iran and Palestinian “terrorists” are largely at fault and Israel is the perpetual victim. He recalled how “Over the past several years, we’ve seen a rising tide of horrific violence that’s tragically and senselessly resulted in the loss of life of scores of civilians on both sides. That violence must end; its perpetrators must face equal justice under the law. The recent acts of terrorism – including nearly 1,000 rocket attacks launched toward Israel over just three days, some of them targeting Jerusalem – demonstrate the daily threat under which Israelis are forced to live. The fatal event at the border with Egypt – which resulted in the deaths of three Israeli soldiers – is another tragic reminder of these daily dangers.”
Blinken did not seem interested in the dead Palestinian children nor in the murder of Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli soldiers back in May 2022. He is more enthusiastic when he is telling AIPAC how much US Treasury money and other goodies are flowing to a wealthy Israel from the American taxpayer, describing how “Now, we have to start from this. The US-Israel relationship is underwritten by the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security. That commitment is non-negotiable; it is ironclad. We are – we are providing $3.3 billion in foreign military financing to Israel each year. On top of that, Israel receives $500 million in funding for missile defense. Tens of millions more for new counter-drone and anti-tunneling technologies. That is in keeping with the 2016 memorandum of understanding negotiated by the Obama-Biden administration – and it is more than at any point in the history of our relationship. We’re also delivering an additional $1 billion in funding to replenish supplies for Israel’s Iron Dome, the missile defense system that we developed together and that has saved countless lives. All of this – all of this has been secured in partnership with our Congress, with bipartisan support. We’re also expanding our joint military exercises that improve how our forces work together seamlessly. This year, we have more joint exercises scheduled than at any point in our history. We’re also conducting joint research and development on advanced military capabilities, working together on cutting-edge defense systems, including Israel’s new laser-focused Iron Beam. This robust support continues to be critical in [my emphasis] maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, buttressing its ability to defend itself, and to advancing our national interests. America is more secure when Israel is strong.” [My emphasis]
It is interesting how Blinken concludes his argument supporting throwing bushels of money to Israel based on serving an American “national interest” and making us “more secure,” which is a complete lie, similar to what is being promoted to explain why we are in Ukraine. Maybe the Administration might consider some new talking points as the lies are getting ever more preposterous and the deficit spending of trillions of dollars has reached the point of no return. Blinken also lies big time when he attempts to resurrect the totally dead two state solution to Israel-Palestine, saying “Israel was founded — our partnership was built — on democratic values which include equal access by all people to their rights. And a two-state solution is vital to preserving Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Blinken should perhaps be someday reincarnated as a Palestinian who has just lost his livelihood and home to an “equal access” Jewish settler and who every day experiences the Israeli organized increasing state violence that is directed against him. That might provide a different perspective. And it is interesting to note that the threat to Blinken’s imaginary two-state solution is also framed as coming from the Palestinians rather than from Israel. He denounced in his speech to AIPAC “any actions taken by any party that undermine the prospects of a two-state solution. That includes acts of terrorism, payments to terrorists in prison, violence against civilians, incitement to violence.” Take note that bombing and shooting children is not included, which is an Israeli speciality.
And, by the way Mr. Blinken, Israel was not founded on “democratic values.” It engaged in a massive program of ethnic cleansing that defined its creation — the Nakba for Palestinians, which killed thousands and drove at least 650,000 civilians from their homes. For the first 19 years of Israel’s existence, its Arab “citizens” were ruled under martial law and since then Palestinians have been legally discriminated against with Jewish supremacy and entitlement serving as the defining characteristics of the state.
Interestingly, in contrast to Blinken and Biden, at least one US Senator appears to have a conscience regarding dead people and he is surprisingly enough a Democrat! Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is calling on the Joe Biden administration to “publicly release its findings” into the shooting death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Van Hollen believes that a report compiled by the US security coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority shortly after the fact provides important information about the “the conduct of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit involved in that operation as well as other IDF units operating in the West Bank.” He commented “I strongly believe that its public release is vital to ensuring transparency and accountability in the shooting death of American citizen and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and to avoiding future preventable and wrongful deaths – goals we should all support.” Van Hollen has been denied access to the classified State Department report over the past eleven months, which has been attributed to Biden Administration desire to block any demands for accountability on the part of Israel.
Van Hollen obviously was not briefed on the fact that Israel has a White House approved license to kill Americans and just about anyone else due to its “chosen” status. He should check out what happened to the death by Israeli army bulldozer of Rachel Corrie in 2003 and to the 34 sailors murdered and another 172 wounded by an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on June 8th, 1967. When the Liberty was struggling to stay afloat President Lyndon Johnson ordered a cover-up which has led to Washington de facto taking orders from Tel Aviv and paying what amounts to an annual tribute to Israel as outlined in some detail by Blinken in his AIPAC speech. So, there you have it. We have on one hand a militarized ethno-religious state that rules over a suppressed minority with terror and killing that is being coddled by both US Republican and Democratic administrations because of Jewish power and, more to the point, the corruption obtainable by money and knowing how to use it for political advantage.
Killing a two-year-old little boy sitting in a car with his father is only the most recent of Israel’s war and human rights crimes, but it is particularly heinous and no one in the White House or State Department dares say squat. The murders in Palestine and the fantasy denial of Israeli culpability for anything by Blinken and Biden as well as by Donald Trump when he was in office speak for themselves. Who really rules the United States? What kind of monsters have we become under neocon/Zionist control? Is the bell that is tolling ringing for the demise of us as a nation? Ask about all those things now, because when Biden’s War on Antisemitism really goes into high gear one will likely be facing a jail sentence just for daring to pose those questions.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
June 13, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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The Israeli government is at it again, actively discussing the construction of thousands of illegal settlement units as part of a massive settlement expansion scheme known as E1.
Though Israeli construction in the East Jerusalem area has supposedly been halted under international pressure, the Israeli government has found ways to keep the plan alive.
It did so through constant expansion of the various settlements in the name of ‘natural expansion’, confiscation of Palestinian land and the ruthless yet routine demolition of Palestinian homes.
But why does Washington, Israel’s main defender and benefactor, oppose, at least verbally, the construction in E1, while turning a blind eye to illegal construction throughout the West Bank?
The answer lies in the fact that E1 will further expand the Jerusalem municipal boundaries, minimise any Palestinian demographic presence in the city (from the current 42 per cent to about 20 per cent), and prejudice any political solution that includes East Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem is a Palestinian city, occupied by Israel during the June 1967 war. It is recognized by the United Nations and international law as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel should have neither legal rights nor jurisdiction there.
Washington, which rarely cares about the rights of Palestinians, is concerned that, without East Jerusalem as part of the political equation, any discussion of a ‘two-state solution’ will become forever obsolete.
In other words, the US is more worried about the political, not territorial consequences of the Israeli decision. Indeed, the US’s entire political program in Palestine and Israel is situated within the two-state solution template. Without it, Washington’s role would cease to serve any purpose.
This is precisely why US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, criticized Israeli settlements during his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on 5 June.
Though he covered the habitual US commitment to Israel’s security, describing it as “non-negotiable” and “ironclad”, he also warned against “any move toward annexation of the West Bank … disruption of the historic status quo at holy sites (and) the continuing demolitions of homes.”
These steps, and more, will “damage prospects for two states”, the cornerstone of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel, on the other hand, is neither interested in a two-state, one-state nor any ‘solution’ to its military occupation and apartheid in Palestine. Instead, Tel Aviv is working towards a specific end, a formula of permanent domination, one that would satisfy its quest for ‘security’, demographic superiority and ‘defensible’ borders.
It matters little that Israel’s vision for its own border lines is largely inconsistent with international law. All that matters to the current, in fact, all Israeli governments, are the ‘national interests’ of the country’s Jewish population, whose future has been linked to the crushing of political aspirations and civil rights of the country’s native Arab, Palestinian inhabitants.
Jerusalem’s particular significance stems from two factors: one, its historical, spiritual, economic and administrative centrality to all Palestinians and, two, the fact that it has been the Holy Grail of Israel’s settler colonialism in Palestine for the last 75 years.
A quick look at the map of Occupied East Jerusalem is enough to explain Israel’s ultimate motive in the Palestinian city: Maximum land with an absolute Jewish majority.
For this to take place, much work has to be done, namely ensuring the territorial continuity between the massive illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim and Jerusalem.
Israel’s motives are not a secret. A long report by the Zionist Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs champions and illustrates Tel Aviv’s objectives in detail. The report warns against allowing “security and urban discontinuity between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, or the reversion of Jerusalem to a border-town status … that would preclude the city’s eastward development.”
The reference to ‘eastward development’ is particularly dangerous, as many illegal Jewish settlements have purposely been planted in various parts of the West Bank, all the way to the Jordan Valley for the sole purpose of linking them all up, thus dividing the West Bank into two main regions, south and north.
Considering the current administration and ‘security’ divisions of the Occupied West Bank, a major territorial division will deny Palestinians any sense of physical continuity, let alone statehood. In other words, apartheid will become permanent and, from Israel’s perspective, also sustainable.
As for the westward expansion, connecting Ma’ale Adumim to the so-called “metropolitan Jerusalem” through construction in E1 will help Israel resolve a fundamental component of its expansionist strategy. According to the Zionist Jerusalem Centre, such a merger will “incorporate both settlement and security as two vital, complementary components of Israel’s national interest.”
And, wherever there is Israeli construction in Occupied Palestine, there is always the destruction of Palestinian properties and confiscation of land.
According to the European Union Office in Palestine, in 2022, 28,208 illegal settlement units “were advanced” in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, compared to 22,030 in 2021. A higher number is expected in 2023.
As for Palestinian home demolition, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) paints a grim picture: in the first quarter of 2023 alone, 290 Palestinian structures in East Jerusalem and the West Bank were demolished or seized. This represents an increase of 46 per cent, compared to the same period of the previous year.
East Jerusalem has had a major share of this destruction, specifically 95 homes and other structures between 1 January and 28 March, according to the World Council of Churches. The outcome has been the displacement of 149 Palestinians. Among them, 88 children have been rendered homeless.
The price of Israel’s major plans in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank is not just humanitarian. It is essentially political, aimed at cutting off Palestinian communities from one another, isolating Jerusalem completely, and ensuring a Jewish demographic majority for generations to come.
Though Secretary Blinken tries to emphasise the danger of such actions to the two-state solution, the real danger lies in the fact that such measures threaten the very fabric of Palestinian society and the political future of the Palestinian people.
Israel’s quest to reactivate its E1 plan requires not just mere condemnation, but tangible and decisive action, especially as Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government is more unhinged than ever before.
June 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Human rights, Israel, Israeli settlement, Jerusalem, Palestine, United States, West Bank, Zionism |
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Israel has informed the White House that it intends to announce the planning and building of thousands of new settlement units in the occupied West Bank later this month, according to US and Israeli officials speaking to Axios. One of the sources told the outlet, at a minimum, the plan includes 4,000 new housing units being built in existing West Bank settlements.
The Joe Biden administration is ostensibly opposed to these moves as the settlements are seen as undermining prospects for a two-state solution in Palestine. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition includes extremist settlers dead set on substantial colonial expansion, eyeing annexation of the West Bank, and this has not diminished US support.
According to the report, the White House wants Tel Aviv to either cancel its plans or at least tone down the announcement to draw as little attention as possible. This seems unlikely even though the US provides almost $4 billion per year to Israel in military aid.
Jewish only colonies, or settlements, which continue to be built inside these territories – militarily occupied for almost sixty years – are illegal per international law. This is a view shared by most of the world community, including in Middle Eastern capital cities like Riyadh where Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently urged Gulf Cooperation Council foreign ministers to normalize with the Israeli apartheid state.
The Israeli government is also facing criticism from its supporters for temporarily shelving a meeting to discuss a plan for settlement expansion in the West Bank’s E1 area. Located between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement, the area is highly sensitive. If a Jewish-only settlement is built there it would remove any remaining territorial contiguity between the northern and southern West Bank. Thus, these additional “facts on the ground” would make a future Palestinian state even more unviable.
On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the extremist leader of the Religious Zionism party, vowed “we will have big news for the settlements in the West Bank imminently.” Smotrich holds sweeping powers over the West Bank including the approval of new settlements and the demolition of Palestinian homes.
2022 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005, according to the UN. Since taking power last December, the current regime in Israel has waged a brutal bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip which murdered 33 people, while Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 119 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem so far this year.
Muhammad Tamimi, a two-year old Palestinian boy from the Nabi Saleh village in the West Bank, succumbed to his wounds last Monday after he was shot in the head by the Israeli army.
June 12, 2023
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Israel, Palestine, United States, West Bank, Zionism |
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Saudi officials have snubbed US Secretary of State’s latest push for the Kingdom’s normalization of relations with the Israeli regime and his bid to win further concessions on oil prices and Riyadh’s recent resumption of ties with Syria and Iran during his high-profile visit to Saudi Arabia.
Speaking in a news conference alongside Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Riyadh on Thursday, the visiting Antony Blinken reiterated that Washington will continue to play an integral role in expanding normalization between the Tel Aviv regime and Saudi Arabia.
Blinken, who was in the kingdom as part of a US push to defuse rows that have touched on oil prices, and Riyadh’s opening to Iran, further insisted that normalizing relations between Israeli regime and its neighbors was a priority for Washington.
The Saudi foreign minister, however, rebuffed his American counterpart, saying that the kingdom believes “normalization of ties with Israel will have limited benefit without a pathway to peace for the Palestinians.”
“The Palestinian issue was and remains the central issue for Arab countries, and it is at the top of the kingdom’s priorities,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had also underlined during the Arab League summit in Jeddah on May 19.
“We will not delay in providing assistance to the Palestinian people in recovering their lands, restoring their legitimate rights and establishing an independent state on the 1967 borders with East al-Quds as its capital,” he further noted at the time.
Blinken also reiterated on Thursday that Washington will not normalize relations with Syria and does not support other nation’s normalization of ties with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
For his part, Prince Faisal defended the landmark decision to lift Syria’s Arab League suspension, which came shortly after the start of the country’s foreign-sponsored conflict 12 years ago.
“Syria made very clear commitments to address concerns of the international community,” the chief Saudi diplomat said.
“We have differences of opinion but we’re working on finding a mechanism for us to be able to work together,” the Saudi foreign minister also pointed out during the press conference with the US secretary of state.
The Saudi foreign minister also highlighted that China and Saudi Arabia are close and strategic allies and have been increasing cooperation in the energy and financial sectors, and that “cooperation is likely to grow.”
Saudi ties with US, China not a ‘Zero-sum game’
He said Saudi Arabia’s ties with the United States and China were not a “zero-sum game.”
“I don’t ascribe to this zero-sum game,” Prince Faisal said in Riyadh. “We are all capable of having multiple partnerships and multiple engagements and the US does the same in many instances.
“So I’m not caught up in this really negative view of this. I think we can actually build a partnership that crosses these borders,” the top Saudi diplomat said.
Riyadh’s strengthening its commercial and security ties with Beijing comes as US influence wanes in the Middle East region.
Blinken was the second top US official to visit Saudi Arabia in less than a month, following a May 7 trip by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
However, Blinken’s meetings with bin Salman and Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers were relegated to the inside pages of Al-Watan and Okaz, the two major newspapers in Saudi Arabia.
Blinken and the crown prince had “open, candid” talks for an hour and 40 minutes, a US official said, covering topics including the conflict in neighboring Yemen, the war in Sudan, Israel, and human rights.
Riyadh has also leveraged its growing relationships with Russia and China as the Biden administration has pushed back against some Saudi demands including lifting restrictions on arms sales and help with sensitive high-tech industries.
Riyadh has clashed repeatedly with US President Joe Biden on its supply of crude oil to global markets, its willingness to partner with Russia in OPEC+ and its decision to restore full diplomatic relations with Iran in a deal brokered by China.
June 8, 2023
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Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | China, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, United States |
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The Israeli occupation authorities demolished several Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem on Tuesday, displacing three extended families, Anadolu has reported.
Eyewitnesses told the news agency that Israeli police officers accompanied the team from the Jerusalem municipality that demolished the house owned by the Totah family in Wadi Al-Juz. The house was built 24 years ago. Yesterday’s demolition was the fourth for this family; three other homes were demolished in March because they didn’t have building licences. A stable near the house was also demolished.
Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation authorities forced the Burkan, Nassar and Al-Tawil families to demolish their own homes, which consisted of five apartments in Silwan’s Wadi Qaddoum. The families either had to demolish their homes or pay large fines to have the municipality do it. At least 30 people were rendered homeless by the demolitions, including children.
Earlier this week, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that the Israeli occupation authorities have demolished, forced local people to demolish or seized 290 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank and Jerusalem in the first quarter of 2023.
“All but 19 of the structures were targeted for lacking building permits, which are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain,” explained OCHA. “As a result, 413 people, including 194 children, were displaced, and the livelihoods or access to services of over 11,000 others were affected.”
OCHA added that, “The number of structures targeted in the first quarter of 2023 has increased by 46 per cent compared with the same period in 2022, which already saw the highest number of demolitions recorded in the West Bank and Jerusalem since 2016.”
June 7, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Israel, Jerusalem, Palestine, West Bank, Zionism |
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Remarks on 24 May by China’s Ambassador to the UN on the situation in Occupied Palestine were impeccable in terms of their consistency with international law. Compared with the position of the US, which perceives the UN and the Security Council in particular as a vehicle to defend Israeli interests, the Chinese political discourse reflects a legal stance based on a deep understanding of the realities on the ground.
Articulating Beijing’s thinking during a Security Council “Briefing on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine Question”, Ambassador Geng Shuang did not mince his words. He spoke forcefully about the “irreplaceable” need for a “comprehensive and just solution” that is based on ending Israel’s “provocations” in Jerusalem and respect for the right of “Muslim worshippers” as well as the “custodianship of Jordan” in the occupied city’s holy sites.
Widening the context of the reasons behind the latest violence in Palestine, and the 9 May Israeli attack on Gaza, Geng went on to state a position that both Tel Aviv and Washington find totally objectionable. He condemned unapologetically the “illegal expansion of [Israeli Jewish] settlements” in Occupied Palestine and Israel’s “unilateral action”, urging Tel Aviv to “immediately halt” all of its illegal activities. The Chinese ambassador then proceeded to discuss issues that have been relatively ignored, including “the plight of the Palestinian refugees”.
In doing so, Geng has enunciated his country’s political vision regarding a just solution in Palestine, one that is predicated on ending the Israeli occupation, halting Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies, and respecting the rights of the Palestinian people.
Is this a new position, though?
While it is true that China’s policies on Palestine and Israel have historically been consistent with international law, in recent years it has attempted to tailor a more “balanced” position, one that does not impede growing trade with Israel, particularly in the area of advanced microchip technology.
However, Chinese-Israeli affinity was motivated by more than trade. Since its official launch, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has served as the cornerstone of Beijing’s global outlook. The massive project involves nearly 150 countries and aims to connect Asia with Europe and Africa via land and maritime networks. Due to its location on the Mediterranean Sea, Israel’s strategic importance to China which, for years, has been keen on gaining access to Israeli ports, has thus doubled. Predictably, such ambitions have been of great concern to Washington, whose naval vessels often dock in the port city of Haifa.
Washington has repeatedly cautioned Tel Aviv against its growing close relationship with Beijing. The then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went as far as warning Israel in March 2019 that, until Tel Aviv re-evaluates its cooperation with China, America could reduce “intelligence sharing and co-location of security facilities.”
Appreciating fully China’s current and potential global power, Israel has laboured to find a balance that would allow it to maintain its “special relationship” with the US, while financially and strategically benefiting from its closeness to Beijing. Israel’s balancing act has encouraged China to translate its growing economic relationship with the Middle East into a political and diplomatic investment as well.
For example, in 2017, China put into motion a peace plan — formulated initially in 2013 — called the Four-Point Proposal. The plan offered Chinese mediation as a substitute for US bias and, ultimately, the failed “peace process”. The Palestinian leadership welcomed China’s involvement, while Israel refused to engage, causing embarrassment to a government that insists on respect and recognition of its rising importance in every arena.
If balancing acts in geopolitics were possible back then, the Russia-Ukraine war has brought it all to a sudden end. The new geopolitical reality can be expressed in the words of former Italian diplomat Stefano Stefanini. The former ambassador to NATO wrote in an article in La Stampa that the “international balancing act is over” and “there are no safety nets.” Ironically, Stefanini made this point in reference to Italy’s need to choose between the West and China. The same logic can also be applied to Israel and China.
Soon after China succeeded in brokering a landmark deal between Saudi Arabia and Iran on 6 April, it again floated the idea of mediating between Palestine and Israel. China’s new Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, reportedly consulted with both sides on “steps to resume peace talks”. Yet again, the Palestinians accepted while Israel ignored the subject.
This partly explains China’s frustration with Israel, and also with the US. As China’s former ambassador to Washington (2021-23), Qin must be familiar with the inherent US bias towards Israel. This was expressed succinctly by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying during the latest Israeli war on Gaza: “The United States should realise that the lives of Palestinian Muslims are equally precious,” he said on 14 May.
A simple analysis of China’s language regarding the situation in Palestine clarifies that Beijing sees a direct link between the US and the continued conflict; or at the very least the failure to find a just solution. This assertion can also be gleaned from Ambassador Geng’s most recent Security Council remarks, where he criticised “piecemeal crisis management”, a direct reference to US diplomacy in the Middle East, while offering a Chinese alternative based on a “comprehensive and just solution”.
Equally important is that the Chinese position seems to be linked intrinsically to that of Arab countries. The more that Palestine takes centre stage in Arab political discourse, the greater emphasis the issue receives in China’s foreign policy agenda.
In the recent Arab Summit held in Jeddah, Arab governments agreed to prioritise Palestine as the central Arab cause. Allies with great and growing economic interests in the region, such as China, took notice immediately.
All of this must not suggest that China will be severing its ties with Israel. However, it certainly indicates that Beijing remains committed to its principled stance on Palestine, as it has been over the decades.
The relationship between China and Israel will soon face the litmus test of US pressure and ultimatums. Considering Washington’s unparalleled importance to Israel on the one hand, and the Arab-Muslim world’s significance to China on the other, the future is easy to foresee. Nevertheless, judging by China’s political discourse on Palestine — situated solidly within international and humanitarian law — it seems that Beijing has already decided what to do.
June 7, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | China, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, United States |
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The Israeli Knesset advanced two bills yesterday that stipulate increasing the security grip over Arab schools in Israel and easing restrictions on firing Arab teachers, local media reported.
According to Haaretz, if approved, the bills would see the Israeli authorities upping the Israeli secret service’s background checks on staff and making it easier to fire teachers who affiliate with or support anti-occupation Palestinian groups.
The bills refer to the anti-occupation groups as “terror organisations” and stipulate punishments for supporting them.
Critics of the bills say they pose serious threats to freedom of expression and would undermine the right of teachers to condemn the aggression of the Israeli occupation.
One of the bills proposes the reinstatement of a permanent Shin Bet representative to the education ministry – a position which was cancelled in 2005.
In a previous report, Yedioth Ahronoth revealed that Shin Bet has a say regarding the recruitment of new Arab teachers.
… The bill was submitted by Ami Halevy, a Likud lawmaker, in order to establish licensing of Palestinian schools dependent on their “accommodating the fundamental requirements of the Israeli school system.”
This announcement came a day after the Israel Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, told Knesset members that the supreme court must feature judges who “understand” why Jewish settlers are “not prepared” to live alongside Arabs, which ultimately underlines the cabinet members’ pro-apartheid rhetoric. … Full article
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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A two-year-old Palestinian toddler has been severely wounded after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank yesterday.
According to the Wafa news agency, the toddler was shot in the head while sitting in a car with his 40-year-old father in front of their home.
The toddler was flown to Israel’s Sheba hospital by helicopter and is currently in a critical condition, while his father, who was shot in the arm, was driven to a hospital in Ramallah.
Local Palestinian activist, Bilal Tamimi, told Wafa that the toddler was shot in the head as a result of a raid imposed by Israeli occupation forces on the village.
The army said it was opening an investigation into the shooting, saying it “regrets harm to noncombatants” and that it does “everything in its power to prevent such incidents.”
Meanwhile, Naji Tamimi, the head of the Nabi Saleh Village Council, said Israeli soldiers locked the iron gate at the village entrance and proceeded to invade several neighbourhoods and fire live rounds at protesters.
Tension has been escalating across the occupied West Bank for months, amid Israeli raids on Palestinian towns.
More than 155 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli occupation forces this year, including 26 children, according to Palestinian figures. Last year was deemed the deadliest for the occupied West Bank since 2015, but this year’s death toll has already exceeded the number of those killed in 2022.
June 3, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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As Israeli colonial violence resulted in the forced displacement of the 200 residents of Ein Samiyah in Area C of the Occupied West Bank, the range of reactions, from silence to pathetic commentary, only increased impunity for the settler-colonial enterprise. A day after Al Jazeera reported on the recent Palestinian displacement, EU diplomats issued yet another futile reproach urging Israel to stop settlement expansion, warning that “settlement expansion has resulted in increased settler violence”. Do Palestinians really need EU diplomats to point out what they have been experiencing daily for decades?
Ein Samiyah’s displaced residents have now moved to Al-Mughayyir and Al-Nuwaimah, still within reach of settler violence, and illustrating how Israel’s ongoing Nakba has been perfected by the state for normalisation by the international community.
As expected, the Palestinian Authority excelled in nothing but complacency. Comments to Al Jazeera by the PA’s presidency spokesman, Ibrahim Melhem, not only highlighted Ramallah’s complicit silence, but also the carefully crafted impunity which it enjoys as a result of its collaboration with Israel.
“The PA does not have the ability to prevent such crimes,” Melhem stated. “It is a victim of these crimes, since the international community does not implement the agreed-upon decisions in dealing with Israel.”
The statement is partly true – the international community relishes non-binding resolutions when it comes to Israel’s war crimes and international law violations. However, the PA is to blame for its blind endorsement of the two-state paradigm, which provided Israel with the opportunity to expand into Palestinian territory, just as the 1947 Partition Plan paved the way for the colonial enterprise to take shape.
When Israel creates refugees, the PA stays silent, not because it is a victim, but because it does not want to veer away from the role the international community and Israel intended it to play. The current term of forcibly displaced Palestinians conveniently detracts from the perpetual cycle of refugees which Israel created since the 1948 Nakba. Yet, for the PA to stop at forced displacement is a form of political violence which Palestinians should not be suffering from their illegitimate, expired leadership.
Even if the PA does not have the ability to prevent settlement expansion – its illegitimate rule adds to its restrictions already imposed by the international community – there is much it could do if Palestine and Palestinians were truly a political concern. The PA stands in the way of political change by refusing to hold democratic elections, by failing to give refugees the necessary political space, by detaining and torturing its opponents, by exploiting the cycle of refugees Israel creates for the sake of temporary rhetorical embellishment and meaningless international solidarity gestures.
“Our main goal is to pressure for their return to their lands, not to submit to moving,” Melhem declared of the Ein Samiyah residents. The question is, how? How can the PA call for return when it persists in ignoring Palestinian refugees? At some point, the collective Palestinian refugees, who have now become a nameless multitude, were also current concerns. How long before Ein Samiyah’s people suffer the same fate, and the PA lapses into the same silence about Palestinian refugees’ political rights?
May 30, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism |
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