Occupation By COVID: Palestine As a Viral Export, 2020
By Michael Lesher | OffGuardian | December 7, 2020
As the year 2020 expires in an embattled welter of politicized suffering, I feel I need to address my fellow advocates for Palestinian rights, too many of whom seem not to notice – or actively deny – that, under cover of coronavirus hysteria, the unhealed wounds of Palestine are steadily infecting us all.
Yes, I know all of you face calumny enough from the Israel lobby without being smeared by pro-lockdown propagandists – many of whom, alas, cling to the name “progressive” even as they abjectly submit to the most massive civil rights violations of our lifetimes.
And I know the task I am setting for you is a hard one. After all, few Americans have paid much attention to Palestine in the past; how likely is it that today, punch-drunk from the creeping despotism unleashed as COVID-19 “health” regulation, a large public will turn from its troubles long enough to realize that the blows our country is tasting for the first time – curfews, closures, mass confinements, official lying, economic warfare – have been the lot of occupied Palestine for decades?
But there is no escaping the obligation to tell the truth: and that means, first of all, that we have to acknowledge the truth. And while advocates for Palestine are well aware of what the American government has done to that land – with its money and military hardware, the systematic violence of its client [sic] state, Israel, and the cruel deceit that is called U.S. “diplomacy” – too many remain strangely blind to the poisoning of our own nation with the same evils that have blighted the lives of millions in the West Bank and Gaza.
Yes, the venue is shifting – from foreign training ground to domestic soil – but we are only deluding ourselves if we refuse to see the connection between the two. The historian Alfred McCoy warned as far back as 2009 that what the U.S. was developing in the Middle East would inevitably come home to haunt us:
the War on Terror has proven remarkably effective,” he wrote, “in building a technological template that could be just a few tweaks away from creating a domestic surveillance state – with omnipresent cameras, deep data-mining, nano-second biometric identification, and drone aircraft patrolling ‘the homeland.’
By 2013, McCoy had concluded, sadly, that…
that prediction has become our present reality.
And it was only the start.
Israel’s example already figured in the militarization of American police forces: think Ferguson, think Chicago. But that was child’s play compared with this year’s reconstruction of West Bank-style administrative repression throughout much of the United States.
Israel rationalizes its imprisonment of Palestine as a “defense” against “terror”; here, state authorities prefer the pretext of combating an infectious disease. But the systems of control are ultimately the same.
Do I exaggerate? Who, then – before last March – ever heard U.S. politicians talk eagerly about “lockdowns”? Or bans on political demonstrations? Or the thought-policing of social media? And who would have thought that such instruments of mass repression could be introduced, not through legislation, but by means of “emergency” decrees from a handful of state executives whose edicts purport to be above the law?
These things are new to the United States; but none of them would have surprised Palestinians, whose entire lives – from where they can go to what they are allowed to post on Facebook – have been governed by arbitrary decrees for decades.
And more repression is on the way. Already there’s talk of U.S. citizens being “encouraged” to carry “contact-tracing” technology; even the first hints of travel restrictions, controlled through universal registration with a government-run monitoring agency, have begun to percolate in the “liberal” press. A year ago all of this would have been unthinkable. But Palestinians have lived under such a regime since the 1990s.
Nor should the Mideast-coronavirus connection really surprise anyone – least of all, those of us who have made it our business to follow the wrongs of Palestine. After all, we’ve been warned.
The exportation of Israel’s occupation to the West was predicted with uncanny accuracy by Jeff Halper in his book War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians, and Global Pacification. In 2016, Halper told In These Times that the success of capitalist states in controlling unruly populations would depend on what he called “globalizing Palestine.”
He said, back then:
“Israel-Palestine is the microcosm of the larger world. What Israel’s doing to the Palestinians… reflects the kind of war that capitalism is having to fight now…. The wars that are being fought in Syria, or the wars being fought against poor people in the States aren’t wars that F-35s or nuclear submarines are any use for… [W]hen they’re actually going to fight wars among the people, Israel becomes the go-to place. They [the Israelis] have the weaponry, the tactics, the surveillance systems and the security systems that are more relevant for the types of capitalist wars of repression that are being fought today than the big systems that the Pentagon has.
It’s a shame that Halper’s insight hasn’t been given more attention in public discourse – even on the left – during the critical nine months since last March’s declaration of a global “pandemic.” But then, maybe it was inevitable that Palestine would be marginalized in exact proportion to its growing importance to the West as a blueprint for domestic oppression.
Certainly its plight was never more belittled than last spring, while more than forty U.S. governors were effectively Palestinianizing their populations with mass confinements, business closures, school shutdowns and restraints on public protest. If that was a rehearsal for something like Israel’s West Bank occupation on American soil – and it certainly looked like one – you’d never have known it from listening to the few politicians around the world who even bothered to talk about Palestinians.
Donald Trump – the outgoing President who wasn’t sure whether the Western Wall was in Palestine – first declared international law irrelevant to Israelis, then claimed to have a “solution” that would resolve the “conflict” once and for all.
What he proposed was predictably outrageous, of course. But was it really any worse than the apathy that greeted the “plan” throughout Western Europe? Was it more reprehensible than the behavior of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who – while still feeding at the Israeli trough – pretended for months to be leading a rebellion against an “annexation” of West Bank territory that, for all the noise the word’s novelty generated, was actually launched a long time ago and continues to this day?
At least it’s clear now (if it wasn’t all along) that the whole to-do over “annexation” was a conjuror’s trick. Israel and its allies use the word when it’s politically convenient and forget about it when it isn’t; the verbal fashion of the moment has no effect on the pace of Israeli land theft.
As for Abbas, he’s already making nice with President-elect [sic] Joe Biden despite the latter’s ostentatious Zionism – and why not? The actual measure of Israel’s purloining of West Bank territory is the amount of its illegal colonization by Israeli Jews. And that colonization, which began almost immediately after Israel seized the territories in June 1967, has never been more rampant than it is now.
This year alone, Israel approved a record-high 12,000 new “housing units” for its squatters in occupied Palestine, who already control nearly all of the most valuable land and whose pastimes include regular violent attacks against the rightful owners – not to mention the frequent destruction of their homes and olive groves. By early 2019 the number of illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, which by then had mushroomed to over 650,000, was growing even faster than the overall Israeli population.
And what was Mahmoud Abbas doing all that time? Nothing. What was the European Union doing to halt Israel’s land theft? Nothing. What did the Democratic Party “resistance” to Donald Trump, apart from some ritual harrumphing over “annexation” proposals, have to say about the monstrous expansion of illegal West Bank colonies? Nothing.
Against that background, was Trump’s insult to international law even worth mentioning?
To tell the truth, it’s hard to think of any Palestine-related mainstream headline over the last year that didn’t crackle with absurdity. A warmed-over reprise of Israel’s long-standing demand for Palestinian capitulation was unblushingly called “the Deal of the Century.” A cynical bargain between the crime family that runs the United Arab Emirates and a blood-stained, racist Israeli Prime Minister with one foot already in a prison cell was heralded as “the dawn of a new Middle East” – by Washington’s Con-Artist-in-Chief, a man who could make Becky Sharp look innocent by contrast.
And where was Palestine – the actual land and people – amid all the sputtering? Not one square inch of occupied territory has been reclaimed from Israel’s occupation in over fifty years of Palestinian suffering and international indifference. Not one prisoner has been freed from the concentration camp called Gaza since the heroic sacrifices of its people that began in March 2018. No wonder Israel is doing so well at exporting its occupation: its techniques represent an unqualified success story.
In fact, the most accurate pointer to where matters stand comes from a little-noticed news item about the one real consequence of the Palestinian Authority’s “refusal to cooperate” with Israel’s annexation threats. According to 972 Magazine, tens of thousands of Palestinian children born since May do not officially exist – as far as Israel is concerned – since the P.A. has not communicated their names to the Israelis. Nor can the P.A. confer legal status on its own. It follows that these children have no official identity and, therefore, no rights; they can never, for instance, leave the Occupied Territories even if their parents are permitted to. Whether they will be allowed to own their homes one day, or even to work, will apparently be at the whim of the Israelis.
Let that image sink in a moment: people who do not legally exist, in a country that is not a country, administered by a “government” that is not a government. If there’s a better summary of what “Palestine” means today, I can’t think of it.
And if you think Palestine’s fate has no relevance for what awaits the American public, think again.
Under President-elect Biden’s latest coronavirus plan, just for instance,…
the CDC will be in charge of announcing recommendations for when it is safe to open or close restaurants, schools and businesses.
This means that an unelected and unaccountable panel of bureaucrats – working in a political environment where the dominance of Big Pharma is a matter of record – will have unprecedented control over American education and economic life. And for how long? Biden is careful not to say.
As for Palestine, the incoming administration’s top foreign policy adviser, Tony Blinken, announced last June that a Biden government…
would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.
So the whims of Israel’s apartheid government will trump American law (no surprise there), and corporate plutocrats will have increasing power over whether and when Americans can go to school, work, or gather in public places. Nablus, here we come!
What can anti-occupation activists do about all this?
First…
It seems to me, we can take seriously what we have said for years: Israel’s conduct in Palestine is not an isolated problem spurred by unique historical or religious circumstances; it is an international crime that threatens us all. In fact, Israel values its occupation of Palestine precisely because its methods and technology are so readily marketable. The longer we tolerate the repression of Palestinians, the sooner we will see that system replicated in countries around the world – including our own.
Second…
We need to apply the same skepticism with which we have long viewed Israeli propaganda to the extravagant web of fear-mongering, distortions and dissent-shaming now being spun to aid the importation of Israeli-style repression onto American soil. Coronavirus hysteria is really no different from the emotional exploitation of “terrorism”: a genuine but limited danger is shamelessly manipulated to cow the public into accepting measures that are far worse than the evil they are supposed to cure. As far back as early May, I was warning in print that the unconstitutional “emergency” orders of more than forty state governors in response to COVID19 involved unprecedented attacks on civil liberties.
Now things are actually looking worse – and with still less justification. A makeshift political system intended to respond to a massive bioterror attack – and even then, only temporarily – has been implausibly stretched to rationalize the long-term suspension of representative government, in four-fifths of our states, to counter one moderately serious respiratory virus. Meanwhile, the press has bombarded us with “expert” assurances that we have too much freedom for our own good, and that wanting to “get back to normal” – that is, to democracy and constitutional rule – is a product of “bias,” if not of some psychological malady. There’s no mistaking the official message: either we surrender the Bill of Rights or we all die.
But the official tally of each week’s deaths, state by state, hardly supports these apocalyptic pronouncements. New Jersey (where I live) provides a convenient example. Since the beginning of July and right up through the first week of November – the last for which statistics are available as I write this – the number of deaths from all causes in New Jersey has been virtually identical to the figure for the same period in 2019; the totals vary by barely a third of one percent. In other words, since the midpoint of the year, COVID19 has had no significant effect on the mortality rate in New Jersey.
True, the massive application of an unreliable testing procedure has managed to generate what New Jersey’s Governor Phil Murphy called an “uptick in cases”; but if you’re still looking for the Emperor’s new clothes amid these tales of a “deadly pandemic,” you can save yourself the effort – even the “experts” admit that the new “cases” seem to have materialized out of thin air.
So, when Murphy once again (on October 24) unilaterally extended a “state of emergency” that, by law, was originally supposed to end on April 9 – insisting that the “dangers presented” by the coronavirus required him to hold onto quasi-dictatorial power in order “to save lives” – he was taking pretty much the same tack as Israeli propaganda that claimed the Jewish State had to poison children in Gaza to protect itself from exploding helium balloons.
(Meanwhile, across the Hudson, New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo is slated to receive an International Emmy Award for “his once-daily televised briefings on the coronavirus pandemic”; like Murphy, Cuomo excels at convincing jaded audiences that he has averted a catastrophe with edicts that more likely exacerbated it.
If there were an Oscar for Best Dramatic Performance by a Nation-State, Israel would win hands down every year,
… Norman Finkelstein has written. It looks as though Israel is finally getting some competition.)
So the question is not whether Israel’s occupation is being transported – in fact, it has already been transported – far beyond the borders of Palestine. That much should be obvious. For advocates for Palestinian rights, there are really only two issues:
First, are we prepared to recognize the repressive measures we have long identified with occupied Palestine wherever they appear and under whatever pretext? Second, are we determined to resist them once they arise?
My own experience indicates that, so far, most pro-Palestinian pundits have not passed either test. I’ve been condemned by some, and cold-shouldered by others, for even mentioning the connection between lockdown policies and Israel’s long-standing outrages in the Occupied Territories.
When I submitted a version of this column to a left-wing site that has run many of my pieces in the past, the publisher responded that it was…
simply not something I can present.
Since I know him to be a reasonable and thoughtful person, I conclude that the publisher’s “not something I can present” means that his donors – to say nothing of other contributors – aren’t ready to see coronavirus policy as the police-state pretext it really is.
Yes, they’ll complain about the imprisonment of Palestine – and they’re right to do that. But refusing to notice similar abuses in their own country puts them in the absurd position of trying to keep a finger in a dike while a whole city floods around them.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. If the wrongs of Palestine mean to us what we’ve always said they do, we can be – and should be – in the vanguard of resistance to what is surely the most alarming phase of the occupation to date: its spread across Europe and the United States, even as it intensifies in Palestine itself.
At the turn of the 20th century, Mark Twain noted bitterly how the oppression of other peoples led an empire’s citizens to submit to tyranny within their own borders:
trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her [the “Great Republic”], by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home.
Surely those who object to the trampling of Palestinians should be the first to raise our voices against the dissemination of similar crimes throughout the world – especially when those crimes reach our own doorsteps.
If not, what have we been campaigning for all these years?
Mission Accomplished: Hezbollah Drone Flew over Galilee, Returned Safely
Al-Manar | December 3, 2020
A Hezbollah drone flew over the occupied territories’ Galilee and returned safely to Lebanon despite high alert among the ranks of the Israeli occupation army last October, a report said on Thursday.
Lebanese Daily Al-Akhbar reported that a Hezbollah drone managed to enter the airspace of occupied Palestine on October 26 as the Israeli occupation army was on high alert and waging the so-called “Lethal Arrow” maneuver.
“The maneuver was accompanied with high activity by the Israeli air force,” the Lebanese daily said.
“One of the maneuver’s goals was to prevent drones from getting into the Palestinian airspace,” Al-Akhbar said, highlighting the paradox.
The drone managed to capture photos and footage of the occupied region of Galilee and then returned to its base in Lebanon safely, the daily revealed.
Al-Manar will broadcast the photos and scenes captured by the drone in the last episode of “The Second Liberation” documentary series.
UN calls for probe into Israel’s use of armed force against children
Palestine Information Center – December 2, 2020
RAMALLAH – The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner has called for a transparent investigation into the use of armed force by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank.
The UN Human Rights Office said that the Israeli forces critically injured at least four children with live ammunition and rubber-coated metal bullets in separate incidents across the West Bank in the past two weeks.
“All injuries resulted from the use of potentially lethal force in circumstances where available information suggests the children did not pose a threat to life or serious injury of the soldiers or to anyone else.”
“It thus appears the force used was not in accordance with international law,” the Human Rights Office said in a statement, pointing out that a 16-year-old boy was shot in the chest and critically injured in al-Bireh city on November 29.
“On 27 November, during protests in Kafr Qaddum village in the north of the West Bank, soldiers shot a 16-year old boy in the head with a rubber-coated metal bullet. The boy fell from the impact and is hospitalized with a fractured skull.”
“On November 17, a 15-year old boy on his way back from school lost his right eye after being hit by ricochet ammunition in Qalandia refugee camp north of Jerusalem. Although there were clashes taking place between soldiers and residents of the camp, none of the available information suggests the boy would have posed a threat to anyone at the time he was shot,” the statement elaborated.
“UN Human Rights Office calls on Israel to promptly, transparently and independently investigate all instances of (Israeli army) use of force that have led to killing or injury and to hold those responsible accountable,” the statement said.
“In accordance with international law, use of lethal force is only allowed as a measure of last resort, in response to a threat to life or of serious injury. Stone-throwing does not appear to constitute such threat. In addition, force must always be used in a manner which causes the least possible harm. Shooting in the head or upper body does not appear to conform with this requirement.”
“Children enjoy special protection under international law and must be protected from violence at all times.”
UN General Assembly adopts five anti-Israeli resolutions
Press TV – December 3, 2020
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has approved five anti-Israeli resolutions, which are part of a package of 20 pro-Palestinian texts that the 193-member body adopts on an annual basis.
One of the documents, passed on Wednesday, condemned Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights — a territory the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and annexed four years later — in a move that was never recognized by the world community.
Endorsed by 88-9 votes with 62 abstentions, the resolution urges Israel to withdraw from the “occupied Syrian Golan to the line of 4 June 1967 in implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions.”
It also affirmed that Israel’s unilateral annexation of the Syrian territory in 1981 “constitutes a stumbling block in the way of achieving a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region.”
Over the past decades, Israel has built dozens of settlements in the Golan Heights in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its construction activities on the occupied land.
Damascus has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying the area must be completely restored to its control.
In a major pro-Israel policy shift, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in 2019 recognizing Israel’s control over occupied Golan in a blatant violation of international law.
The second resolution, entitled a “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” was approved 145-7, with nine abstentions.
It called on the Tel Aviv regime to withdraw from all territory over the pre-1967 lines in occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
The document also demanded a halt to Israel’s settlement construction activities, spoke of the illegality of annexation plans, and warned the occupying entity against making changes in East Jerusalem al-Quds.
It further took Israel to task for a wide range of actions against the Palestinian people, including the demolition of their homes in Area C of the West Bank.
The three remaining UNGA resolutions affirmed the work of UN Committees operating on behalf of the Palestinians.
Before the vote, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan chastised the General Assembly for not referencing the regime’s recent normalization deals with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain.
“Can this forum be any more detached from the real world?” he asked, claiming, “Instead of encouraging the Palestinians to see how these agreements can transform the region and be used as a catalyst for peace with Israel, this institution votes in favor of these biased resolutions.”
A Palestinian representative denounced Erdan’s “flip” and “offensive” comments, including one where he accused the UNGA of being detached from reality.
“On the contrary, what was discussed today in this debate is the reality. What was discussed today is not so-called ‘Palestinian talking points.’ These are the international talking points,” she said. “This is the international consensus that Israel, the occupying power, continues to object, obstruct, to deny, to belittle and to attempt futilely to destroy.”
The regime has gotten “accustomed to violating the law with zero consequences,” she added. “Only accountability can change this miserable situation and give hope for a future of justice and peace… The hypocritical and degrading claim by the Israeli representative that this institution’s approach has failed perhaps should highlight even more the need of concrete actions by states to implement the resolutions adopted by the UNGA to ensure accountability.”
She also stressed that the passage of the anti-Israel texts showed that support for the Palestinian people remained strong.
Before the General Assembly’s vote, a Jordanian representative, whose country is the custodian of the holy sites in Jerusalem al-Quds, said Israel must maintain the status quo at Haram al-Sharif or Temple Mount.
Israel is attempting to “impose a fait accompli on al-Aqsa mosque and Jerusalem,” he said, adding that the occupied city’s “holy sites will remain the focus of Jordanian care and guardianship.”
Jordan will “combat a new fait accompli or change the historic or legal status of the holy city especially at the al-Aqsa Mosque,” he emphasized.
Separately, Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour asked the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law and stick to the so-called two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.
He also called for a boycott of Israeli settlement products and urged Western nations to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Palestinian PM calls for boycott of Israeli settlements
In another development on Wednesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh urged donor countries and international organizations to take serious measures towards boycotting Israeli settlements.
He stressed that the status quo imposed by Israel is deteriorating as the Palestinian land is shrinking, the settlers’ violence is escalating, and access to resources is decreasing daily.
“Economic development is not separate from the political and national project. Rather, it is a lever towards ending the occupation and establishing the Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” he said, noting that the world must move to end this occupation because the current status quo cannot continue.
Iran envoy blasts Israel for violating Palestinians’ rights
Mohammad Reza Sahraei, counselor at Iran’s Mission to the UN, said the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People provides an opportunity to “highlight the dire and painful situation endured by Palestinians over the course of decades as a result of the gross and systematic violation of their rights by the Israeli regime.”
“The question of Palestine is the longest-running crisis of our time with no foreseeable conclusion in sight…. In fact, the non-compliance of the occupying regime with relevant international laws and regulations has further prevented the international community from achieving a just and lasting solution to the crisis,” he said.
“After more than seven decades, the Israeli regime has continued to violate the fundamental human rights and dignities of the Palestinian people as well as other Arabs living under its occupation. As a result, Palestinians are not only deprived of their lands and properties while being forcibly evicted but also subjected to violence, terror, and intimidation,” the diplomat added.
The Fallacy behind ‘Normalization’
By Lubna Tarabey – Al-Manar – November 28, 2020
“Normalization” is the process through which relationships can become normal or the process of bringing or returning something to a normal state or condition. Normalcy requires a balance of relationships, a regularization, an orderly state of affairs. Is that really the basis of the relationship between the so called “State of Israel” and the other countries of the Arab World that appear to be rushing to sign such ‘normalization’ agreements? Would such a state of affairs result in something that is even remotely balanced?
Let us take a look at this assumed balance and see if it is skewed in any direction – in whose direction. What does the “State of Israel” have? It has a nuclear ability- unlike the Arab countries, the strongest army, and the unconditional support of the United States of America and the Western world. What do any of the Arab states embarking on normalization have? Nothing of the above – not even the support of their people. Yes, they do have an oil-based wealth which can be robbed, used or abused, and that is what the Israelis are after. What resources does ‘Israel’ have that it promises to share with these Arab states? It promises to share nothing – promising peace. The idea in itself would be funny if it was not so pathetic. When were these Arab states now signing agreements ever in a state of war with ‘Israel’? When did any ever offer to send one soldier to fight alongside the Palestinians? The promised peace is pathetic as it is being offered as a gift among two parties that had never even been in war. Arab regimes are fools if they think they would benefit from the Zionists controlling the policies, both internal and external, in ‘Israel’. Which Arab state – those who actually were engaged in armed conflict – ever benefited from any agreement with the Zionists? Did Egypt benefit? Did Jordan benefit? The answer is categorically NO. None of these states benefited and none can hope to ever benefit from such agreements. That is against the policies of the Zionists state as the following clarifies.
The Zionists have a long history of using others. Ends justifies means. No other principle matters to them. Not justice, not equality, not fairness, not even peace. The principle of ‘end justifies means’ is the only principle they adhere to and to achieve their aims they gladly walk over other people. They even did that to Americans themselves – their number one ally. This is something that was seriously and meticulously documented by Alison Weir, the author of a must read book titled “Against Our Better Judgment: the hidden history of how the U.S was used to create Israel” (2014). Describing the scheming of the Zionist movement in the US, the author writes, “It has targeted virtually every sector of American society; worked to involve American in tragic, unnecessary and profoundly costly wars, dominated congress for decades; increasingly determined which candidates could become serious contenders for US presidency; and promoted bigotry towards an entire population, region and culture.”(Weir, 2014:2). The Zionist movement has constantly used any and whichever method to realize its end – using other people, benefiting from other nations economic powers, draining their resources and even stealing and appropriating other people’s history and culture. This is what they have done all over the world. This is what they have done in Palestine.
How can one even consider a normal relationship with an entity that is anything but normal. Its very existence represents an abnormality among nations. The only state in the world that has no history – a mere 60 years of existence – younger than my own father! Created in a land whose people have a history of more than 4000 years. This abnormal state was established at the cost of killing and displacing the natives of the land. The ‘engineers’ behind the establishment of this abnormality were quite aware that their claim to the land had no foundation. So, what was their brilliant solution? Let us steal the needed foundations! It was not enough to steal the land and houses of the Palestinians. Why not go the extra mile? Steal their history and, along the way, their culture. After all, no one can stop them. They enjoyed the support of the almighty western superpowers along with all the technological resources need to do so. The plan was deviously simple: Erase all traces of anything Palestinian and replace it with ‘Israeli’. Hence, the world wide famous Middle Eastern dish called the hummus became Israeli Hummus. The famous relics of the church of Bethlehem were stolen and documented as part of the Jewish heritage. The embroidery work of the Palestinians which for thousands of years stood as a signature of the clothing of the people of Palestine was also stolen and renamed ‘Israeli’. Even names of villages were changed in line with the Jewish pronunciations to establish a sense of continuity and belonging. For example Asqalan became Ashkelon …. The story goes on and on. Palestine was removed from the maps used all over the world and replaced with ‘Israel’. One theft after another. All carried out under the eyes of the so called ‘free world’ which mostly reacted by turning a blind eye, intentionally so, further supporting these atrocities.
Such practices cannot be allowed to continue. People of the Arab World must become active agents, calling out and exposing these practices. A documentation of Palestinian cultural heritage must be embarked upon. The youth of the Arab world must be reminded of how the ‘state of Israel’ was established. Whose houses were destroyed? Whose land was stolen? Whose culture was destroyed? Normalization of what! What a fallacy! There can be no normal relationships – the very basis of the concept is not applicable.
Lubna Tarabey is a Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Institute of Social Sciences, Lebanese University.
Alison Weir is an American research with a lot of publications on the Zionist movement and the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
Calling on International Civil Society to Join Them: Palestinians, Israelis Call for a Single Democratic State
One Democratic State Campaign
The following statement was issued by the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC) on November 15, 2020. The ODSC is one the largest initiatives of Palestinians and Israelis championing a one-state solution as an alternative to the Israeli military occupation and apartheid in Palestine.
(November 15, 2020) The Palestinian-led One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), comprised of Palestinians from every major community (’48, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the refugee camps and the Diaspora/Exile), together with their critical Israeli Jewish partners, has issued a call for the establishment of a single democratic state including everyone living between the River and the Sea, including Palestinian refugees who choose to return to their homeland.
Over the past three years, the ODSC, founded in Haifa but with working relations throughout the worldwide Palestinian community, has formulated a 10-point political program setting out the vision and framework of a shared democracy in which all the inhabitants of historic Palestine would enjoy common citizenship and equality under the law in a new and pluralistic political community. After decades in which the justice of the Palestinian struggle against Zionist colonization has been recognized by the international community, after decades of chasing after the chimera of a “two-state solution,” and after decades of asserting Palestinian rights with no viable political expression, the time for an effective campaign of decolonization and liberation is now, and it is urgent. Every day the Israeli government, aided by the international community, imposes draconian and irreversible “facts on the ground,” locking the country’s majority population, the Palestinians, into tiny, impoverished enclaves, perpetuating as well the exile of half the Palestinian population. A democratic state in historic Palestine is no utopia if we organize around a just political program, organize, strategize and effectively mobilize our forces, the global grassroots, the international civil society — you. We call on you to join our One Democratic State Campaign and help us build it into an effective anti-colonial, liberation movement.
For further information, contact us at contact@onestatecampaign.org. Much work still needs to be done to flesh out our program. We understand that we all will not agree on every issue, but our task in this historic moment is clear: armed with a clear and compelling political program, we need to fully enter the political arena. We call on the entire international community, and especially civil society, to support our Call for a democratic state in historic Palestine. The time has come.
It is in this spirit of solidarity, as part of a process of liberation, that we are reaching out to you to join us, beginning by endorsing our program. The struggle goes on.
In solidarity,
Awad Abdel Fattah, Galilee
Nadia Naser Najab, Ramallah, UK
Livnat Konopni, Tel Aviv
Haidar Eid, Gaza
Jeff Halper, Jerusalem
Leila Farsakh, USA
Diana Buttu, Haifa, Canada
Samah Sabawi, Australia
Mohamed Kabha, Galilee
Mohammad Al Helu, Ramallah
Rula Hurdal, Galilee
Jonathan Cook, Nazareth
Ilan Pappe, Haifa
Sami Miaari, Sakhnin
Saleh Hijazi, Ramallah
Nur Masalha, UK
Ramzy Baroud, USA
Jowan Safadi, Haifa
Rafah Anabtawi, Shefa-ʻAmr
Hamada Jaber, Ramallah
Naji al-Khatib, France
Sari Bashi, Ramallah
Bassem Tamimi, Nabi Salah
Johnny Mansour, Haifa
Jamil Hilal, Ramallah
Susan Abulhawa, USA
Haim Bresheeth, UK
Areen Hawari, Nazareth
Abdallah Grifat, Galilee, South Africa
Amir Kaadan, Galilee
Munir Nuseibah, Jerusalem
Ronnen Ben-Arie, Haifa
Eitan Bronstein, Brussels
Umar al-Ghubari, Triangle
Raja Deeb, Yarmouk Camp, Netherlands
Bilal Yousef, Galilee
Areej Sabbagh, Nazareth
Yoav Haifawi, Haifa
Mohamed Noman, Jordan
Mazin Qumsiyeh, Bethlehem
Majd Nasrallah, Triangle
Wehbi Badarni, Nazareth
Ghada Karmi, UK
Bana Shaghri, Kufr Yaseef
Miko Peled, USA
George Bisharat, USA
Issa Debi, Haifa, Switzerland
Ramez Eid, Eilabun
Radi Jarai, Ramallah
Hatem Kanaaneh, ‘Arrabat al-Battuf
Nidal Rafa, Haifa
Issam Odwan, Gaza
Asaad Abu Sharkh, Gaza, Ireland
Shir Hever, Germany
Israel woman who refused to take part in the country’s ‘killing, violence and destruction’ released
19-year-old conscientious objector, Hallel Rabin, poses outside the “number six” military prison near Atlit in northern Israel on November 20, 2020, [EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images]
MEMO | November 24, 2020
Nineteen-year-old Israeli woman, Hallel Rabin, who refused to complete her military service in the occupied Palestinian territories rejecting any involvement in what she called “killing, violence and destruction” has been released.
Rabin was kept in detention in a military prison for a total of 56 days for refusing to serve in the Israeli army and was facing a further 80 days in jail. But after four hearings, an army board finally accepted that her pacifism was sincere and not driven by “political considerations”, which would have landed her more prison time.
Initially members of the Israeli army’s “conscience committee” concluded that Rabin “opposes Israeli violence directed at the Palestinians” and this, according to the committee, is not regarded as conscientious objection, but political opposition. As such, the committee decided to imprison her.
Conscientious objectors in Israel are still limited in number and influence. They are seen as a minor departure from the norm and are considered by most Israelis to be traitors. Societies in the occupation state are still captive to colonial extremism, national and religious racism.
The army plays a central role in Israeli society and can impact a young person’s social status and job prospects. This is one of the ways in which some 20 per cent of the Israeli population that are Palestinians are discriminated against in the country. Job prospects and general access to state services are denied because they do not serve in the army.
Israel’s Ynet news reported Rabin standing at the gate of an army jail saying she was “the happiest person in the world”.
“My lawyer called me this morning and told me, ‘you’re free’,” she said.
Asked about Rabin’s case, the army noted that enlistment is mandatory and those who request “an exemption due to conscience-related reasons” are entitled to a hearing before a relevant committee.
UK amends status of Israel and Jerusalem following pressure from pro-Israel lobby
MEMO | November 21, 2020
The UK government has responded to pressure from the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Conservative Friends of Israel by listing Israel and occupied Jerusalem together as one country in its weekly update to COVID-19 related travel corridors.
Yesterday the Board condemned the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in a tweet which contained a screenshot of the revised FCDO list that had made a clear distinction between the status of Israel and Jerusalem by including the two territories on its list as separate countries.
Though the list was in line with US foreign policy, the Board, which over the years has adopted the hard-line positions of the Israeli far-right towards the Palestinians, slammed the UK Foreign Office. “Absolutely inappropriate to list ‘Jerusalem’ as a separate country. We have taken this up with @FCDOGovUK this morning & they are urgently reviewing it” said the Board in its tweet.
Members of the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) Stephen Crabb and Eric Pickles and President Lord Polak also urged the government to make an immediate correction to the advice about Jerusalem.
“The announcement of a travel corridor with Israel is excellent news. However, the FCDO’s decision to define Jerusalem as a territory separate from Israel is offensive and hostile,” CFI is reported saying in the Times of Israel.
“Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. To describe Jerusalem as anything other than an integral part of Israel is a fiction divorced from reality and the travel advice must be immediately corrected”.
Following the complaint, the FCDO published a revised list which had Israel and Jerusalem down as the same country, even though there has been no change in the UK’s position over Jerusalem.
“The position of the UK government has remained constant since April 1950” the FCDO says on its website. “We recognise Israel’s de facto authority over West Jerusalem. In line with Security Council Resolution 242 (1967) and subsequent Council resolutions, we regard East Jerusalem as under Israeli occupation”.
MEMO has asked the FCDO to explain its reason for listing Israel and Jerusalem as the same country when hours before it had made a distinction between the two territories in line with its long-held position that East Jerusalem is occupied territory. No response has been received at the time of publication.
Pompeo: US to Label BDS Movement as ‘Anti-Semitic’
Palestine Chronicle | November 19, 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington will take measures against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which seeks to isolate Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.
Washington “will regard the global anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” he said.
“We will immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct and withdraw US government support for such groups,” Pompeo said.
Israel sees BDS as a strategic threat and has long accused it of anti-Semitism.
Activists strongly deny the charge, comparing the boycott to the economic isolation that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa.
Last week Pompeo announced his intention to create a new process by which Washington can label organizations and NGOs as “anti-Semitic”, Politico reported on Wednesday.
Three people close to the issue confirmed the move, saying Pompeo may hold off on making an announcement.
Pompeo made the first visit by a US secretary of state to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, after labeling the pro-Palestinian BDS movement an anti-Semitic “cancer”.
Hamas condemns PA announcement on restoration of ties with Israel
Palestine Information Center – November 18, 2020
GAZA – The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, has strongly condemned the decision of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to resume its relations with the “criminal Zionist occupation”.
Hamas said in a statement on Tuesday evening that the PA is flouting all the national values and principles and the outcomes of the historic meeting of the Secretaries-General of the Palestinian factions.
The Movement added that this decision represents a betrayal of the national efforts towards building a national partnership and a struggle strategy to confront the occupation, annexation, normalization and the deal of the century. It highlighted that this decision was made after the announcement of thousands of Israeli housing units in Occupied Jerusalem.
The PA by this decision justifies the Arab normalization with Israel which it has consistently condemned and rejected, Hamas noted.
It demanded the PA to immediately reverse its decision.
“A real national unity based on a comprehensive national program that stems from the strategy of confrontation with the criminal occupation will only liberate the land, protect rights and expel the occupation”, Hamas stressed.
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Book Review
A Palantir Manifesto
By Alan Mosley | The Libertarian Institute | April 22, 2026
Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s book, The Technological Republic, is a clarion call for Silicon Valley to abandon its consumer trinkets and rush headlong into the arms of the military-industrial complex. According to Karp, America’s future depends on wielding hard power through technology—arming soldiers, AI-weaponry, and mass surveillance systems—rather than on the “soft” influence demonstrated by free markets and liberty-first principles. The book claims that “the survival of the American experiment depends on the technological revitalization of the military-industrial complex” and urges the country’s engineering talent to focus on national defense. Karp and his co-author, Nicholas Zamiska, argue that tech bros should “grow up” and start killing America’s enemies before they kill us. … continue
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