95% of Bahrainis against normalization deal with Israel: Opposition tells UN
Press TV – October 18, 2020
Bahrain’s largest opposition group calls on the United Nations to intervene in the kingdom’s unbridled push to deepen its relations with the Israeli regime, saying the move falls short of the general population’s consent.
The Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society released the statement on Sunday, as the two sides are expected to sign a “joint communique on establishing peaceful and diplomatic relations” during a visit by Israeli and US delegations to the Bahraini capital Manama.
The move marks a major step forward in formalizing Manama and Tel Aviv’s ties after a September 15 event at the White House during which Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed “normalization” deals with the occupying regime.
All the Palestinian factions besides countless independent Muslim figures and bodies have unanimously blasted the détente as a stab in the back of the Palestinian nation and a US-facilitated attempt at betraying the Palestinian cause of ending the Israeli occupation and aggression.
The opponents of the rapprochement say the move that has been taken by a handful of unelected authorities in Manama and Abu Dhabi never qualifies to represent the opinion of the world’s millions-strong Arab and Muslim community.
“More than 95% are against the agreement and the normalization with the Zionists and the absence of any authority representing the people” in the push towards cementing the détente, al-Wefaq said, addressing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“We call on the secretary-general and the international community to ask the Bahraini regime to allow Bahrainis to give their final word on the agreement between the Bahraini regime and the Zionist occupation,” it added.
“The people of Bahrain need to express their opinion about this illegal agreement,” the statement read, calling the deal unconstitutional and contrary to “patriotic and national values.”
The movement said another reason for the agreement’s illegality was that Manama was going ahead with it while stifling all instances of opposition at home.
Since 2011, Bahrain has been witnessing near-daily peaceful rallies against Manama’s routine practice of heavily discriminating against its Shia Muslim majority. The state has come down hard on the protests, killing scores of people and jailing hundreds of others.
An Environmental Nakba: The Palestinian Environment Under Israeli Colonization
Artwork by Andrea Settimo
By Mazin B. Qumsiyeh and Mohammed A. Abusarhan | Volume 23, number 1, Science Under Occupation
Prior to the 1948 war and even the Zionist Congress of 1897, Palestine had some thirteen hundred villages and towns, each with a small and manageable population living sustainably with nature. The land was owned or worked by the Palestinian people, who were 85 percent Muslim, 9.2 percent Christian, and 5.3 percent Jewish.1 This structure changed radically when mostly European Jews mobilized for massive migration to Palestine and began to assume colonial control over the land. In its long recorded history, Palestine has indeed undergone significant environmental and demographic changes, but it is really only in the past century that these changes took on a colonial dimension. The best-known of these changes is the forcible removal of the indigenous population, which reached its peak between 1948 and 1950. During those years, five hundred villages and towns were destroyed by Zionist militias, resulting in the largest wave of refugees after the Second World War.2 But the environmental dimensions of the catastrophe, or Nakba, is little talked about.3 In 1967 Israel occupied the remaining 22 percent of historic Palestine, namely Gaza and the West Bank, and built settlements throughout these occupied territories in contravention of to international law (the Fourth Geneva Convention).4 These dramatic transformations were detrimental to the people and nature of Palestine. Here, we focus on the environment and sustainability in Palestine, an often overlooked casualty of the colonial occupation.
Colonial Impact on the Environment
Once Israel was declared a Jewish state in May 1948, native trees (such as oaks, carobs, and hawthorns) and agricultural crops (olives, figs, and almonds) were systematically uprooted and replaced by European pine trees. These planted pines reduced biodiversity and harmed the local environment.5 Pines shed leaves that are acidic and prevent the growth of underbrush plants. These trees are also very susceptible to fire because of their resins. Indeed, fires are now a common occurrence in the areas in which they were planted. Trees, however, were not the only targets of Israel’s colonial practices. Natural resources, primarily water aquifers, have also been confiscated from the Palestinians. This often happened by deliberately building Israeli colonies on hilltops to ensure effective access to these resources and to maintain surveillance over the Palestinians.6 Environmental sustainability was never a priority for Israel, whose practices detrimentally affected the landscape, resulting in the destruction of diverse habitats and water runoff.7
The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 opened opportunities for Israeli industries. Many of the highest polluting companies moved to the West Bank and were provided with tax incentives to do so.8 There the companies only faced the opposition of the Palestinians who had no way to stop them. For example, pesticide and fertilizer manufacturer Geshuri, which faced significant court setbacks in its original plant in Kfar Saba, was moved to an area adjacent to Tulkarm inside the West Bank in 1987. Significant pollution caused by Geshuri and other companies in this area has damaged citrus trees and vineyards.9 Moreover, research on genotoxicity in the Occupied Territories shows the significant impact of the Barkan industrial settlement on the Palestinians of Burqeen village.10 As DNA and chromosomes are damaged, there are increasing cases of miscarriage, cancer, and congenital birth defects. Air and water pollution has also caused diseases ranging from respiratory illness to gastrointestinal failures. Other health-related problems have resulted from the Israeli practice of sending trash, including electronic debris, across the Green Line.11 This debris is often recycled by destitute Palestinians in environmentally harmful ways, such as using fire to remove plastic from useful metals. This practice releases substances that cause serious ailments, including cancer and lung diseases.
Israel has also built an extensive network of roads and other infrastructure serving settlers. Trees and any buildings within seventy-five meters of these roads are bulldozed and declared closed military zones to the Palestinians. The total area used in the West Bank for settler roads was 51.2 km2 in 2000 and has doubled since. Added to the 150.5 km2 of built settlement-colonies, this is a huge area that was previously used by Palestinians for agriculture, pasture, or leisure.12 The disparity between settlers and natives in land control and standard of living is compounded by disparity in access to other natural resources, especially water.13 Israeli officials have deliberately ignored facts and selectively presented falsified or inaccurate data to serve their political interests in the Jordan River while catastrophically impacting Palestinian access to water. For example, 91 percent of the total water of the West Bank is expropriated for Israeli settler use.14
The Israeli occupation has resulted in considerable loss of biodiversity in the Palestinian territories. This began many years ago when Israel diverted the waters of the Jordan Valley, and when trees surrounding destroyed Palestinian villages were replaced by monoculture crops. More recently the apartheid wall in the West Bank obstructs human activities and animal movement, causing a loss of both human and animal biodiversity.15 Humans and nature have been intertwined in Palestine for thousands of years, and the continuing loss of biodiversity irreversibly damages Palestine’s cultural and natural heritage, threatens endangered species, and harms agriculture and environmental sustainability.16
There are many other practices through which the occupation has undermined sustainable development and protection of the environment. These include refusal to issue building permits in most of the West Bank and destruction of any “unauthorized” structures, even including cisterns and solar panels.17 Another example is the policy of Israel to absorb the Palestinian tourism sector, including ecotourism.18
One of the major threats to the Palestinian landscape is the confiscation of land for settlements, sometimes with temporary false excuses of preventing damage to nature.19 For example, the Palestinian village of Ras Imweis and six adjacent areas were initially confiscated under such an excuse then turned into the settlement of Nahal Shilo. In many other instances, the Israeli occupation authorities prevented Palestinian sustainable development by claiming certain stretches of land as “green areas,” then turning them into Jewish settlements within the span of two to three years. Such exploitation was also obvious in the Bethlehem district, where Abu Ghuneim Mountain, one of the largest forests in the Bethlehem district, was turned into the Har Homa settlement in 1997. This is how Israel is “green-washing” the occupation.20
International Failure
Israel’s colonial settlements have had a devastating impact on the Palestinian environment and on indigenous Palestinian lives. This raises significant questions about the possibility of sustainable development under occupation.21 Indeed, there are ample grounds, backed by solid scientific and legal research, to bring claims of environmental injustice to local, national, and international forums.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (which Israel ratified) states that “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies,” adding that life in military occupied areas must be allowed to proceed as normally as possible. UN Security Council Resolution 465 of 1980 reads in part that “all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof have no legal validity and that Israel’s policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Israel has largely ignored international law. This impunity is enabled by the international community. For example, a 2003 United Nations Environment Program report identified key effects of the occupation on the environment and made over one hundred recommendations but failed to prioritize them or set target dates. This failure of the international legal system to hold Israel accountable is not just related to environmental issues, but extends across many other areas including Israel’s abuse of prisoners and destruction of civilian life.22 Israel’s aggressive political lobby has also influenced many governments and shapes decisions at the UN, where the United States has veto power. [Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2004).] The international failure to hold Israel accountable has left the issue—like in South Africa under apartheid—up to organizers and activists on the ground.23
Grassroots Organizing for Environmental Justice
In situations where international law fails, civil society often intervenes, as we have seen in the movements for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) in South Africa and in Palestine against the respective apartheid regimes. The BDS movement and other forms of civil or popular resistance do make a difference.24 That we have not yet reached the post-apartheid era like South Africa is due to the fact that the settler-colonial occupation of Palestine has been strengthened by international complicity and by agreements, such as the Balfour Declaration and resolutions by the League of Nations and the UN, that exclude the Palestinians. The international community has long abrogated its responsibilities and has thus given Israel a green light to engage in significant violations of human rights (including environmental rights). Civil society must increase pressure on international leaders to assume their responsibility to return dignity and sovereignty to the Palestinian people. International bodies must enforce law and implement sanctions against Israel to rectify the rampant environmental injustices that disproportionately harm the indigenous Palestinian population. Palestinians have no recourse to domestic laws since what laws are available are those of an apartheid settler-colonial state.25 There is recent scholarly and activist interest in using international law to buttress environmental justice claims, especially in developing countries, but as Noura Erekat pointed out, this is undermined by the imbalance of power and influence of the Zionist movement around the world.26 Although we are witnessing the growth of the BDS movement, we need much more pressure and mobilization to enforce recognition of Palestinian rights.27
Nevertheless, a significant movement for environmental justice and sustainability is growing even under the very difficult conditions of occupation and colonization. People are working at the grassroots level to build popular institutions that enhance and promote sustainable natural and human communities in the context of a larger anti-colonial struggle.28 Educating new generations of Palestinians in their culture and history can also help address some of the challenges Palestinians are facing.29 Because colonizers work to separate the colonized from their land and destroy their culture and history, strengthening the connection between the indigenous people and their land will help new generations understand the value of nature beyond the exploitative framework imposed by colonialism.30 Environmental struggles are an integral part of the struggle for freedom and justice in Palestine as elsewhere.
Acknowledgement: We thank the Darwin Initiative (UKaid) and the European Union for their support of some of our work at PMNH/PIBS/Bethlehem University.
About the Authors
Mazin B. Qumsiyeh is a professor and researcher at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke University, and Yale University. He and his wife returned to Palestine in 2008 to start a number of institutions and projects, including the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University. He, his wife, and volunteers and staff at PIBS have “joyful participation in the sorrows of this world” and make a difference for sustainability of nature and human communities.
Mohammed A. Abusarhan is a masters student in biotechnology at Bethlehem University and Palestine Polytechnic University. He earned a degree in Biology from Bethlehem University. Since 2017, he has worked at the Palestine Museum of Natural History as a Museum Biologist conducting animal collecting, taxidermy, and identification. His research interests are focused on conservation, museum digitization, biodiversity databases, and bat echolocation. He has published several research articles and spent the summer of 2019 in Germany in a prestigious laboratory as an exchange researcher.
References
- “Demographics of Historic Palestine prior to 1948,” Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East CJPME, July, 2004, https://www.cjpme.org/fs_007.
- Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oxford: Oneworld Publication, 2006).
- Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, “The Coming Environmental Nakba” in The Third Palestinian Environmental Awareness and Education Conference. EEC (Bethlehem, 2013), 57–59.
- Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992). See also Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
- Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
- Meron Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). See also Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (Brooklyn: Verso Books, 2012).
- ARIJ, Status of Environment in OPT (Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, 2015).
- United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, “The Economic Costs of the Israeli Occupation of the Palestine People: The Unrealized Oil and Gas Potential,” United Nations, 2019 Report.
- ARIJ, Status of Environment in OPT.
- Khloud M. Hammad and Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, “Genotoxic Effects of Israeli Industrial Pollutants on Residents of Bruqeen Village (Salfit District, Palestine),” International Journal of Environmental Studies 70, no. 4 (2013): 655–62.
- Nadia Khlaif and Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, “Genotoxicity of Recycling Electronic Waste in Idhna, Hebron District, Palestine,” International Journal of Environmental Studies 74, no. 1 (2017): 66–74.
- ARIJ, Status of Environment in OPT.
- Neve Gordon, “From Colonization to Separation: Exploring the Structure of Israel’s Occupation,” Third World Quarterly 29, no. 1 (2008): 25–44. See also Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation.
- Clemens Messerschmid and Jan Selby, “Misrepresenting the Jordan River Basin,” Water Alternatives 8, no. 2 (2015): 258–79.
- Qumsiyeh, Mazin B. Unpublished data.
- Alon Tal, Pollution in a promised land: An environmental history of Israel (Berkeley, Calif:Univ. of California Press, 2002); International Union for Conservation of Nature – Regional Office for West Asia (IUCN – ROWA), State of Palestine Fifth National Report to the Convention on Biodiversity. Amman, Jordan 2015; Abdallah T, Swaileh K. “Effects of the Israeli Segregation Wall on biodiversity and environmental sustainable development in the West Bank, Palestine,” International Journal of Environmental Studies 68: 543-555 (2011).
- MOPAD, “State of Palestine National Development Plan 2014-2016’” (Ministry of Planning and Administrative Development, 2014).
- Talia Shay, “The Ethnocracy of the Palestinian Urban Space and the Indigenous Approach: Praxis and Theory,” Archaeologies 12 (2016): 73–90. See also Rami Isaac, C. Michael Hall, and Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, eds., The Politics and Power of Tourism in Palestine (London: Routledge, 2015).
- Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran, “Construction of Settlements and Outposts on Nature Reserves in West Bank,” Peace Now, February 13, 2007, https://peacenow.org.il/en/nature-reserve.
- Sara Hughes, “‘Greenwashing’ the Occupation: The Role of Environmental Governance and the Discourse of Sustainability in Sustaining the Israeli Occupation of Palestine,” in The Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, 2018.
- Jad Isaac, Khaldoun Rishmawi, and Abeer Safar, “The Impact of Israel’s Unilateral Actions on the Palestinian Environment,” (Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem, 2004).
- Susan M Akram et al., eds., International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Rights-Based Approach to Middle East Peace (London: Routledge, 2010). See also Noura Erakat, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2019).
- Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment (London: Pluto Press, 2012).
- Qumsiyeh, Popular Resistance in Palestine.
- “Environmental Injustice in Occupied Palestinian Territory: Problems and Prospects,” Al-Haq, August 4, 2015.
- Ruchi Anand, International Environmental Justice: A North-South Dimension (London: Routledge, 2017); Erakat, Justice for Some.
- Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, “A Critical and Historical Assessment of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) in Palestine,” in Conflict Transformation and the Palestinians (Routledge, 2016), 114–29.
- Mazin B. Qumsiyeh, “Nature Museums and Botanical Gardens for Environmental Conservation in Developing Countries” BioScience 67, no. 7 (2017): 589–90. See also Mazin B. Qumsiyeh et al., “Role of Museums and Botanical Gardens in Ecosystem Services in Developing Countries: Case Study and Outlook,” International Journal of Environmental Studies 74, no. 2 (2017): 340–50, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207233.2017.1284383.
- Mazin. B. Qumsiyeh, “Ethnoecology of Palestine: Preserving Culture Heritage of Palestine’s Natural History,” presented at the 4th Hyperheritage International Seminar Proceedings (International Conference): Smart Heritage, 2018.
- Michael R Dove, “Indigenous People and Environmental Politics,” The Annual Review of Anthropology, 35 (2006): 191–208.
Facebook COO pledges $2.5 mill to Israel advocacy group, brushing off Palestinian complaints of censorship
If Americans Knew | October 17, 2020
In the midst of a campaign by Palestinian journalists accusing Facebook of suppressing their content, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has pledged $2.5 million to the ADL, an organization that devotes much of its work to Israel advocacy.
We’ll first look at the complaints about censorship, then at the ADL, and then at Sandberg.
The current campaign is the latest in a long line of complaints that Facebook discriminates against Palestinian users.
A 2016 Fortune magazine article reported accusations that a Facebook agreement with the Israeli government had led to the closing of some Palestinian accounts.
A 2017 article in The Intercept reported: “Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials. Indeed, Israeli officials have been publicly boasting about how obedient Facebook is when it comes to Israeli censorship orders.”
In 2018 there were reports that Facebook had closed 500 Facebook pages of Palestinian activists, journalists and bloggers.
This month a campaign called “Facebook Blocks Palestine” was launched by Palestinian journalists and activists saying that Facebook restrictions against Palestinian pages had “dramatically increased,” including deleting pages and accounts, removing posts, banning comments sections, restricting pages, blocking live streaming, etc.
Mohammad Kareem’s Facebook page was suddenly taken down. Kareem tweeted: “Facebook has blocked my account after 8 years of using it. This is like deleting a history of someone for a weird reason. ‘Something you posted’! What is it?”
An organizer explained that one of the campaign’s goal is to expose the “double-standard policy of Facebook management” in dealing with Israeli and Palestinian content.
A day or two later Facebook deleted yet another Palestinian page: the Arabic account of the Palestinian Information Centre (PIC), a news organization founded in 1997 that had almost five million Facebook followers. According to PIC, Facebook provided no prior warning or justification for its action.
Photograph posted by Palestine Information Center, Aug. 31, 2019
Over the years it appears that Facebook has tried to develop strategies to make fair, rational decisions about which content to remove and which accounts to take down. These have included using content reviewers, instituting a review process, and writing algorithms to catch “hate speech” and “incitement.”
At the heart of of all this, however, are the human beings who review the content, who write the algorithms, and who are in charge of the process.
It is, therefore, problematic when Facebook executives work with the Israeli government to decide what content to remove, when Facebook collaborates with an Israel advocacy organization to “combat cyberhate,” and when top Facebook executives such as Mark Zuckerberg are connected to the top rung of the Israeli government.
And it is problematic when the number two person at Facebook – especially during a time period when Facebook is specifically being charged with anti-Palestinian, pro-Israeli bias – makes a large, very public donation to an organization devoted to advocating for Israel.
The ADL and Israel
On Oct. 16th Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced (on Facebook, of course) that she was making “a personal gift” to the ADL. Sandberg is considered one of the most powerful figures in the tech world.
While many people consider the ADL a benign, almost official organization–and news media virtually always repeat its claims without scrutiny–it is a highly political, private organization with no public accountability and with very clear agendas.
One of its main agendas is being a “a strong voice for Israel.”
While the ADL was allegedly formed to oppose discrimination, it actively supports a nation based on discrimination. Israel was established in 1948, in the words of an Israeli historian, through a war of ethnic cleansing, and continues this process today.
Numerous groups and individuals have documented Israel’s current systemic discrimination, its long record of human rights violations, as well as its violations of U.S. laws and damage to the U.S.
Nevertheless, the ADL devotes much of its effort to Israel, advocating on its behalf with American elected officials, U.S. media and on American campuses, including producing a guide about how to block campus events aimed at informing students about the Palestinian situation.
Screen shot of ADL page.
And while the ADL claims to oppose defamation, it often attacks groups and individuals its dislikes, particularly those who provide information on Israel-Palestine that the ADL doesn’t wish Americans to know.
While the ADL’s statements may at times constitute outright defamation, almost no one is able to take on the organization, given its assets of $145 million+. Rare exceptions were 1993 lawsuits over the ADL’s vast spying operation on Americans, which had gone on for decades. Eventually, the ADL was forced to settle the suits, paying out unknown sums of money. (In the interest of full disclosure, I’m among the ADL’s more recent targets, the organization having published false statements about me that it has refused to retract.)
In 2017 the ADL collaborated with an Israeli think tank to produce a 2017 strategy paper on how to counter the growing public awareness of Israeli violations of human rights. The Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, Brigadier General Sima Vaknin-Gil, said of the ADL-coauthored paper: “The correlation between the Ministry’s mode of operation and what comes out of this document is very high, and has already proven effective… ”
Among its recommendations, the 32-page document called for “industry engagement with corporations such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter.”
That same year the ADL launched the “Center for Technology and Society,” whose advisory board contains a number of tech executives.
One is Facebook Vice President Guy Rosen, who studied in Israel and is a member of the TechAviv Community LinkedIn Group, formed “to help Israeli startup founders and their companies succeed by harnessing the collective energy, knowledge, and networks of the global Israeli startup community.”
ADL’s “educational materials”
The ADL considers many criticisms of Israel to be “anti-Semitism,” using a definition formulated by an Israeli minister. The materials it provides for schools are highly selective, often have clear agendas, and are glaring in the ADL’s “PEP” stance (Progressive Except Palestine). For example:
• There is a high school unit on the Rohingya people but nothing on the Palestinian people.
• The ADL provides a lesson plan on “Refugee Crisis in Europe” that makes no mention of Palestinian refugees, a major refugee group and one that began long before the current crisis.
• There is a teaching unit on nonviolent resistance that includes materials on The Holocaust, Civil Rights, sanctuary cities, opposition to the U.S. wall on the southern border, etc, but completely ignores the Israeli wall confiscating Palestinian land, the ongoing nonviolence movement in the Palestinian West Bank (including the killing of participants Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall), and the massive nonviolent movement launched in Gaza a year and a half ago that has continued for every week since.
• A unit on “Challenging AntiSemitism: Debunking the Myths and Responding with Facts” includes a number of references to Israel and uses as a reference the Jewish Virtual Library, a website managed by the American-Israeli Cooperative Project in order to “to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship.” (The unit includes derogatory references to Christianity, Islam, and Arabs.)
The ADL’s facebook posts periodically focus on Israel. For example, it “welcomed” the decision to remove Palestinian Zahra Biloo from the Women’s March over her criticism of Israel, announced that it would discuss “bias against Israel” with UN officials, and alerted its Facebook followers to a discussion about “how to fight” anti-Zionism.
Sheryl Sandberg and Israel
Sandberg has visited Israel periodically throughout her life.
In August, she went on another family visit to Israel, met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and others, and inaugurated a new Facebook venture in Tel Aviv.
“I am so excited to be in Israel today.” she announced at the celebration. “This is a country that is deeply meaningful to me personally. But this country is also deeply meaningful for Facebook because… this is a country of startups and entrepreneurs.”
In her Facebook post, Sandberg described the importance to her of her Jewish identity. She said that her horror at the recent tragic “mass murder” of Jews in Pittsburgh (11) and Germany (2) inspired her to make the donation.
The timing of her announcement is startling in its lack of concern for the current Palestinian campaign against unfair treatment by Facebook, and of recent Palestinian deaths and injuries inflicted by the Jewish state.
In the past year and a half Israeli forces have killed at least 326 and injured over 28,000 men, women, and children taking part in demonstrations in Gaza.
Abdullah al-Anqar, 13, at a Gaza clinic, 10 June 2018. He was shot by an Israeli sniper during a demonstration along the Gaza-Israel border in May. (Photo from Medicins San Frontieres)
A search for donations that Sandberg may have dedicated on behalf of these victims turns up only an ambulance – which she presented to Israel, which has suffered massively fewer deaths and injuries.
Given Sandberg and the ADL’s opposition to “hate” and “bias,” they may wish to read the extensive documentation of widespread discrimination and hatred in Israel.
Israeli academic and author Nurit Peled-Elhanan has spent years documenting the pervasive anti-Palestinian bias in Israeli textbooks.
“One question that bothers many people,” she says, “is how do you explain the cruel behaviour of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians, an indifference to human suffering, the inflicting of suffering. People ask how can these nice Jewish boys and girls become monsters once they put on a uniform.”
Peled-Elhanan said: “I think the major reason for that is education. So I wanted to see how school books represent Palestinians.” In studying hundreds of Israeli textbooks she did not find one photograph that depicted an Arab as a “normal person.”
Peled-Elhanan says that as a result of the Israeli school system, Israeli children grow up to serve in the army and internalize the message that Palestinians are “people whose life is dispensable with impunity. And not only that, but people whose number has to be diminished.”
Perhaps Steinberg’s next anti-hate donation could go to Peled-Elhanan.
And perhaps instead of working with the Israeli government to remove Palestinian posts that document the results, Facebook executives could meet with the Palestinian journalists and activists they’re censoring and listen to what they have to say.
38 billion reasons to vote for Joe Biden – If you’re Israeli
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) watches Vice President Joe Biden sign his guestbook, March 9, 2010.
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | October 14, 2020
The Jewish Forward has just published an article saying that Joe Biden’s long loyalty to a foreign country is a reason to vote for him. The article is entitled “38 billion reasons to vote for Joe Biden.”
The title refers to the $38 billion aid package to Israel, which works out to $7,000 per minute from American taxpayers and is approximately $23,000 per each Jewish Israeli family of four.*
This money is going to Israel even while the U.S. economy has been crippled by COVID-19 closures – 163,735 US businesses have closed down and millions of Americans have lost jobs.
The article celebrating this aid to Israel is by Robert Wexler, who was a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2010, allegedly representing Florida’s 19th district.
Wexler fails to mention that Israel has a long, thoroughly documented record of human rights violations, beginning with its founding war of ethnic cleansing against the Muslims and Christians who had been the large majority of the region’s inhabitants.
Israeli violence against Palestinian men, women, and children occurs every day, though it’s rarely reported by U.S. media.
In addition, the Forward fails to inform readers that Israel is known for a system of supremacy in which unwelcome religious/ethnic groups, such as Muslims and Christians, are discriminated against and oppressed.
While Israelis reap the benefit of massive US aid packages, these drain much-needed money from American taxpayers and can lead to job losses. Israel has a history of stealing US technology, sometimes selling it to American adversaries.
For former U.S. Congressman Wexler, however, Biden’s leading role in siphoning US tax money to Israel is a reason to vote for him. Below is an excerpt of Wexler’s article published in the Forward:
“…I want to assure these voters that we can count on Joe Biden to fight for Israel’s safety and security. Under his administration, the United States will take steps to strengthen our ties with Israel and enhance Israel’s ability to survive and flourish as a democratic, Jewish state.
Elections are binary choices. We don’t pick and choose the best qualities of each candidate. Regardless of your assessment of President Trump’s performance on Israel, you can vote for Biden with confidence, knowing that his presidency will reflect the deep friendship he has shown toward Israel throughout five decades in public service.
As Vice President, Biden took a leading role in negotiating the 10-year, $38 billion U.S. aid package to Israel that Congress passed in 2016 — the largest in U.S. history. Biden opposes conditioning aid to Israel, even when the U.S. and Israel disagree on policy. Biden is also committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge. Based on Biden’s past support for Israel’s QME, it is unlikely that a Biden administration would authorize the sale of F-35s or any sophisticated arms to Israel’s neighbors without consulting with Israel and ensuring that safeguards were in place to protect Israel’s security.
Since the 1960s, American presidents have made commitments to Israel’s security and qualitative military edge, a core pillar of Israel’s security strategy that allows the Jewish state to defend itself despite its adversaries’ advantages in size, population, and resources. [Editor’s note: Israel has one of the most powerful militaries in the world, and is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons.] The Trump Administration’s promise of advanced weapon systems tied to the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates has made reaffirming this principle all the more important.
Biden has been a strong friend of Israel since his first trip there in 1973. He opposed the sale of AWACs to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s because of his commitment to maintaining Israel’s QME, and within the Obama administration, he advocated providing Israel with crucial missile-defense systems like Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow 3.
Biden supports humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, which will stabilize the Palestinian Authority and enhance Israel’s security. But Biden has been clear that this aid must comply with the Taylor Force Act, which means that the Palestinian Authority must end payments to Palestinian prisoners and families of “martyrs” and eliminate any financial reward for committing acts of terror. [Editor’s note: To understand this legislation for Israel read this and this.]
Biden would restart a positive dialogue with the Palestinians by unequivocally stating that U.S. policy is anchored in a vision of two nation-states — Israel, and a new Palestinian state — living side by side in peace and security. Taking steps with both parties designed to simultaneously improve lives, narrow the conflict, and build a two-state reality would strengthen Israel’s security and bolster bipartisan support for Israel in the U.S. [Editor’s note: In reality, the “state” proposed for Palestinians would be a nonviable entity composed of non-contiguous cantons on, at most, 20 percent of the land; also see this.]
Republicans claim Trump even more dedicated to Israel
While Wexler favors Biden, the Republican Jewish Coalition is promoting Trump, dropping $3.5 million on TV ads for Trump in South Florida. In one ad the narrator says: “Only one candidate has stood with the Jewish community: President Donald Trump, the most pro-Israel president in history.”
Israel partisan Sheldon Adelson is often credited with driving Trump’s policies on the Middle East.
Adelson has said that he regrets that he served in the US military rather than the Israeli one:
* A bill to set the agreement into U.S. law is currently before Congress. It would increase the amount to Israel and provide additional perks to the Jewish state.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
UAE official accuses Palestinians of ‘ungratefulness’ after criticism of Israel ties
Press TV | October 14, 2020
A high-ranking United Arab Emirates (UAE) official has accused Palestinians of “ingratitude” and “lack of loyalty” after Ramallah’s envoy to France harshly criticized the Persian Gulf state and Bahrain over signing normalization agreements with the Israeli regime.
“I was not surprised by the statements made by the Palestinian Ambassador to Paris [Salman El Herfi], and his ungrateful discussion of the Emirates,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.
“We have grown accustomed to the lack of loyalty and the ingratitude. We proceed toward the future confident in all our actions and beliefs,” he added.
Earlier, El Herfi told French magazine Le Point in an interview that UAE and Bahrain “have become more Israeli than Israel” itself and are violating the Charter of the United Nations.
‘UAE dictator playing with fire’
The Palestinian diplomat said that the UAE had long abandoned the Palestinian cause and that he wasn’t surprised by Abu Dhabi’s decision to normalize with Tel Aviv.
“The only new thing was the formalization of this relationship. I thank them (UAE officials) for having revealed their true face,” he said.
“The truth is that the Emirates were never at the Palestinians’ side,” El Herfi went on, noting that the UAE froze aid for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) back in 1985.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is merely “a little dictator who wants to become known, and he’s playing with fire,” the veteran Palestinian diplomat said.
The UAE’s de facto leader “surrendered to Israel without a fight,” El Herfi added.
He said the UAE and Bahrain violated a long list of Arab League and UN resolutions by normalizing ties with Israel.
The Palestinian ambassador also denounced the two deals as “pure propaganda,” saying they had neither parliamentary approval nor public support.
“And with all due respect, how many Emiratis are there in the world, 800 thousand? And Bahrainis, 500 thousand? There are 340 million Arabs,” he said.
“In fact, these two countries have come more Israeli than the Israelis. But we have full confidence in the fact that their people will not accept this over the long term,” El Herfi pointed out.
Relations between the UAE and the Palestinians have soured ever since the Emirates and Israel agreed as part of a US-brokered deal to establish formal relations on August 13.
Emirati officials have described the normalization deal with the Tel Aviv regime as a means to stave off annexation and save the so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Palestinians, however, dismiss the claims, saying the deal had long been in the works in the course of secret contacts between Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
Israeli leaders have lined up to reject the UAE’s bluff that Israel’s annexation plans were off the table. Netanyahu has underlined that annexation is not off the table, but has simply been delayed.
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, view the deals as a betrayal of their cause and say they run counter to a long-standing Arab consensus over a “two-state solution” along the 1967 borders.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said the agreements will be fruitless as long as the United States and the Israeli regime do not recognize the rights of the Palestinian nation and refuse to resolve the issue of Palestinian refugees.
Dying Alone: When We Stopped Caring for Palestinian Prisoners
By Ramzy Baroud | Dissident Voice | October 12, 2020
“No one cares about the prisoners.” Over the past few years, I have heard this phrase — or some variation of it — uttered many times by freed Palestinian prisoners and their families. Whenever I conduct an interview regarding this crucial and highly sensitive topic, I am told, repeatedly, that ‘no one cares.’
But is this really the case? Are Palestinian prisoners so abandoned to the extent that their freedom, life and death are of no consequence?
The subject, and the claim, resurfaces every time a Palestinian prisoner launches a hunger strike or undergoes extreme hardship and torture, which is leaked outside Israeli prisons through lawyers or human rights organizations. This year, five Palestinian prisoners died in prison as a result of alleged medical negligence, or worse, torture.
Even international humanitarian aid workers, like Mohammed el-Halabi, are not immune to degrading treatment. Arrested in August 2016, el-Halabi is yet to be charged for any wrongdoing. News of his plight, which originally received some media attention — due to his work with a US-based organization – is now merely confined to Facebook posts by his father, Khalil.
As of October 1, el-Halabi has been paraded before 151 military trials, yet unaware what the charges are. The cherished Palestinian man, who has played a major role in providing cancer medicine to dying children in Gaza, now holds the record of the longest military trial ever carried out by the Israeli occupation.
Desperate for some attention, and fed up with cliches about their ‘centrality in the Palestinian struggle’, many prisoners, whether individually or collectively, launch hunger strikes under the slogan: ‘freedom or death’. Those who are held under the draconian and illegal ‘administrative detention’ policy, demand their freedom, while ‘security prisoners’, who are held in degrading conditions, merely ask for family visitations or food that is suitable for human consumption.
Health complications resulting from hunger strikes often linger long after the physical ordeal is over. I have interviewed families of Palestinians who were freed from Israeli prisons, only to die in a matter of months, or live a life of endless pain and constant ailments for years following their release.
According to some estimates, over 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israeli jails since the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in June 1967.
Maher al-Akhras is currently writing the latest chapter in this tragic narrative. At the time of writing this article, he has just concluded 77 days of uninterrupted hunger strike. No medical opinion is necessary to tell us that al-Akhras could die any moment. A recent video released of al-Akhras on his Israeli hospital bed conveyed a glimpse of the man’s unbearable suffering.
With a barely audible voice, the gaunt, exhausted-looking man said that he is left with only two options: either his immediate freedom or death within the confines of Israel’s “phony justice system.”
On October 7, his wife, Taghrid, launched her own hunger strike to protest the fact that “no one cares about” her husband.
Once again, the lack of concern for the plight of prisoners, even dying ones, imposes itself on the Palestinian political discourse. So, why is this the case?
The idea that Palestinian prisoners are all alone in the fight for freedom began in the early 1990s. It was during this period that the various Oslo Accords were signed, dividing the Occupied Territories into zones governed by some strange Kafkaesque military system, one that did not end the Israeli occupation, but, rather, cemented it.
Largely dropped from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations agenda at the time, but permanently, eventually, were several pressing issues fundamental to Palestinian rights and freedom. One of these issues was Israel’s brutal system of incarceration and imprisonment without trial.
Certainly, some Palestinian prisoners were released in small batches occasionally, as ‘gestures of goodwill’; but the system, itself, which gave Israel the right to arrest, detain and sentence Palestinians, remained intact.
To date, the freedom of Palestinian prisoners — nearly 5,000 of them are still held in Israel, with new prisoners added daily — is not part of the Palestinian leadership political agenda, itself subsumed by self-interests, factional fights and other trivial matters.
Being removed from the realm of politics, the plight of prisoners has, over the years, been reduced to a mere humanitarian subject — as if these men and women are no longer political agents and a direct expression of Palestinian resistance, on the one hand, and Israel’s military occupation and violence, on the other.
There are ample references to Palestinian prisoners in everyday language. Not a single press release drafted by the Palestinian Authority, its main Fatah faction or any other Palestinian group fails to renew the pledge to free the prisoners, while constantly glorifying their sacrifices. Unsurprisingly, empty language never produces concrete results.
There are two exceptions to the above maxim. The first is prisoner exchanges, like the one that took place in October 2011, resulting in the freedom of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. And, second, the prisoners’ own hunger strikes, which are incremental in their achievements, but have, lately, become the main channel of resistance.
Sadly, even solidarity with hunger strikers is often factional, as each Palestinian political group often places disproportionate focus on their own striking prisoners and, largely ignores others. Not only has the issue of prisoners become depoliticized, it has also fallen victim to Palestine’s unfortunate disunity.
While it is untrue that ‘no one cares about Palestinian prisoners’, thousands of Palestinian families are justified to hold this opinion. For the freedom of prisoners to take center stage within the larger Palestinian struggle for freedom, the issue must be placed at the top of Palestine’s political agenda, by Palestinians themselves and by Palestinian solidarity networks everywhere.
Maher al-Akhras, and thousands like him, should not risk their lives to obtain basic human rights, which should, in theory, be guaranteed under international law. Equally important, Palestinian prisoners should not be left alone, paying a price for daring to stand up for justice, fairness and for their people’s freedom.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs, Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). Read other articles by Ramzy, or visit Ramzy’s website.
Non-Aligned Movement Demands Israel Withdraw to 1967 Borders With Syria
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 10.10.2020
The 120 member-strong Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has issued a political declaration whose demands include Israel withdrawing from occupied Syrian territories in the Golan Heights.
In a statement published Friday after a virtual ministerial meeting, the NAM said its members “condemn all measures taken by Israel to change the legal, physical and demographic status of the Occupied Syrian Golan, and demand once again that Israel should abide by the United Nations Security council resolution 497 (1981), and to withdraw fully from the Occupied Syrian Golan to the borders of 4 June 1967, in the implementation of Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973).”
In addition, the NAM reiterated that “a just, lasting solution to the question of Palestine in all its aspects must remain its priority and also a permanent responsibility of the United Nations until it is satisfactorily resolved in all aspects in accordance with international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions.”
The group of nations also reaffirmed the need to “respect the territorial integrity, sovereignty, the sovereign equality, political independence and inviolability of international borders of other states,” and to refrain from intervention in other countries’ internal affairs.
Established in 1961 at the height of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, the NAM was seen as an alternative to the idea of a bipolar world order of two competing military blocs. Today, the NAM consists of 120 member nations, with most countries in the Middle East and Africa, plus much of Latin America and Asia and several post-Soviet republics among its members. China, Mexico, Brazil and more than a dozen other countries serve as observers.
The Trump administration formally recognised Israeli “sovereignty” over the Golan Heights in March 2019. Dozens of countries, including the US’s European allies, condemned the decision. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called it a “conscious, deliberate demonstration of lawlessness.”
Earlier this summer, on the occasion of President Trump’s birthday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “practical steps” to create a so-called “Trump Heights” settlement in the area to honour the President’s recognition of Israeli control over the territory. The Israeli government plans to allocate some $2.3 million for construction of the settlement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the inauguration of a new settlement named after President Donald Trump in Golan Heights, Sunday, June 16, 2019.
Israel occupied the Golan Heights in June 1967 after launching a preemptive air strike against Egyptian airfields and thereby starting the Six Day War against a coalition of Arab states including Egypt, Syria and Jordan. In 1981, Tel Aviv formally annexed the territory, but the decision was not recognised by the Security Council, including the US, despite its alliance with Israel. In December 1981, the Security Council unanimously declared that Israel’s move was “null and void”. Behind the scenes, however, the Reagan administration did not press Israel to rescind its decision, and in January 1982 Washington and its allies vetoed a second resolution calling on the international community to take action to put pressure Israel.
Damascus has repeatedly stressed that it would never give up its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and has warned that it has the right under international law to regain its territories using any means necessary.
Along with the Golan Heights, Israel continues to occupy a 22 sq km strip of Lebanese territory known as Shebaa Farms, as well as the internationally recognised Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
Rare maritime talks do not mean normalization with Israel: Hezbollah
Press TV | October 9, 2020
The Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement says a UN-brokered indirect maritime negotiations with Israel do not signify “reconciliation” or “normalization” with the Zionist entity.
Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc said in a statement on Thursday that the talks have “absolutely nothing to do with either any reconciliation with the Zionist enemy… or policies of normalization recently adopted… by Arab states.”
“Defining the coordinates of national sovereignty is the responsibility of the Lebanese state,” it said in a statement.
Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri last week announced the talks would go ahead.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric has recently said Lebanon’s maritime border talks, to be held at the headquarters of the UN peacekeeping force UNIFIL in the southern town of Naqoura, will start around mid-October.
The issue of the sea frontier is especially sensitive as Lebanon hopes to continue exploring for oil and gas in a part of the Mediterranean.
In February 2018, Lebanon signed its first contract for offshore drilling for oil and gas in two blocks in the Mediterranean with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek.
Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem on Monday strongly condemned normalization with Israel as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause, emphasizing that Arab rulers scrambling to establish diplomatic ties with the Tel Aviv regime have reaped nothing but humiliation and disgrace.
He underlined that Palestinians are at the vanguard of the resistance front seeking to liberate Jerusalem al-Quds, calling for support for them.
Qassem was reacting to the recent decisions by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to sign contentious US-mediated normalization deals with Israel.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed the deals with UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani during an official ceremony hosted by US President Donald Trump at the White House on September 15.
Palestinians, who seek an independent state in the occupied West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, view the deals as betrayal of their cause.
Hezbollah is credited with ending two decades of Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon marks the Resistance and Liberation Day on May 25 each year. In May 2000, the Israeli regime was forced by Hezbollah to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, ending nearly two decades of occupation of the country’s south.
Hezbollah was established following the 1982 Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon.
Since then, the movement has grown into a powerful military force, dealing repeated blows to the Israeli military, including during a 33-day war in July 2006.
Facing Down Israel’s Stooges at the Heart of Our Parliament
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | October 6, 2020
A debate in Parliament recently on the Occupied Palestinian Territories drew some very silly remarks from the ‘usual suspects’.
It was opened in commonsense vein by Stephen Kinnock who said:
“It is so vital and urgent that the rule of law be brought to bear as the foundation upon which a viable and sustainable Palestine can be negotiated and built—a Palestine that protects the rights of its citizens and lives in peace with its neighbours.
“The illegal Israeli settlements… cause violence on a daily basis and they are a flagrant breach of international law, yet they continue and expand. In 2018, we marked 25 years since the signing of the Oslo accords. That moment in 1993 was meant to herald a new and lasting era of peace and co-existence—the beginning of a genuine two-state solution—but since then, the number of illegal settlers has increased from 258,000 to more than 610,000. Fifty thousand homes and properties have been demolished, and an illegal separation barrier has been built that carves up the West Bank and brutally disconnects towns, cities, families and communities from each other.”
‘This Israeli Government will continue on their current path.… further annexation‘
Labour’s Jeff Smith kept the show on a sane level by reminding the House that Israel’s accords with the UAE and Bahrain have led only to a suspension of trouble, not an end. “Netanyahu has said that the plans for annexation remain on the table, and many of us fear that his Government could still bring those plans into practice”.
You can count on it. That is the Zionist Project’s main purpose.
“The single message that I took away from a visit to the West Bank—the one thing that came from many human rights groups and a range of people on the ground including diplomats and strong supporters of Israel—is that unless there are consequences for their actions, this Israeli Government will continue on their current path. That means, ultimately, moves towards further annexation and the end of a two-state solution.”
But from there the debate went downhill to the extent that a colleague, Elizabeth Morley, decided to write to the most irritating participants. It’s a classic put-down and, I think, well worth sharing with readers. Elizabeth wrote:
Dear MPs,
Thank you all for taking part in this debate.
It was disappointing but not surprising that both the Minister and those who declare themselves Friends of Israel ostensibly pay only lip service to peace, justice, and the rule of international law where Israel is concerned. FoIs invariably shift blame onto the Palestinians, urging HMG to apply more pressure on them than on Israel.
To Mr Crabb, concerned about the threat of violence and death for Jewish Israeli citizens, I would suggest he force himself to try and extend his concern to non-Jewish Israelis too, let alone to Palestinians in the Occupied territory.
Mr Wakeford wondered if new elections in Palestine would “bring not only an impetus for negotiation, but hope for the Palestinian people to move forward and find peace in the middle east?” Has he forgotten what happened after Hamas won the legislative election in 2006 with an overwhelming majority? The so-called free world refused to accept that outcome, thereby facilitating a further 15 years of violence.
To Mr Howell I would say settlements are not just unhelpful, they are illegal. His remark that it is Palestinians ramming Israeli cars that makes the settlements necessary is nothing if not laughable.
Mr Moore, possibly blinded by his support of Israel, says “Violence against Jews in the region had been taking place even before the state’s establishment in 1948”. He should remember that in the same period the non-Jews of Palestine had suffered violence both from the British Mandatory and from the Jewish terror gangs who committed atrocity after atrocity right up to the declaration of the State of Israel. As for his remark that: “For millennia, Jews lived in the west bank, known as the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria”, he should recall that the proportion of Jewish to non-Jewish Palestinians in what was fondly known as the Holy Land before the Balfour Declaration was approx. 5% to 95%! Regarding his comments on Gaza, would he consider his life would have improved after Israel withdrew settlers but destroyed its infrastructure, polluted its land and waters, restricted access to electricity and water, made it unfit for human occupation and, to use David Cameron’s phrase, turned Gaza into “an open-air prison camp” surveilled night and day from land, sea and air? Finally, as for “Palestine—meaning modern-day Israel” – no, it does not!
Mr McCabe is worried about Palestinian text books. Has he ever studied Israeli textbooks? I assume not. So let him, and others who are similarly worried, read the recent study by Prof. Avner Ben-Amos of Tel Aviv University’s School of Education which shows that the occupation barely figures in Israeli school textbooks, in which Palestinians are all but invisible, while at the same time the Jewish control and the Palestinians’ inferior status appear as a natural, self-evident situation that one doesn’t have to think about. The Bible is used as a historical source and as a moral justification for Jewish occupation of the West Bank.
Mr Largan follows up his cynical remark about Palestine recognition by describing Hamas as “openly committed to the genocide of Jewish people”. I would suggest he and others of that persuasion (Mr McCabe included) brush up their somewhat flimsy knowledge about Hamas and its history.
Mr Clarke-Smith says: “Conflict is in no way as clearcut as it is so often presented, just as the settlements issue requires greater nuance than some are willing to provide.” To him I would say: On the contrary, “the conflict” IS clear cut! It started with the Balfour Declaration, which gave a free ticket to foreign Jews to take over Palestine. Let him “nuance” the history of Palestine beyond all recognition!
Good to see the Minister dismissed Mr Shannon’s puerile attempt to divert attention to Iran.
I have copied in my MP. Unfortunately he did not take part in the debate. Nevertheless, I am confident that he would have agreed with those who urged HMG to recognise Palestine, ban settlement goods and cease trade with companies profiting from the Occupation.
Thank you for your attention.”
Crabb is an especially sad case. He’s Parliamentary Chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), a lobby group at the centre of UK government which in 2014 claimed to include 80% of Conservative Party MPs. An utterly shameful state of affairs when you consider what message is sent by eagerly waving the flag of a brutal, lawless and racist regime that has few friends outside the conceited Westminster and Washington ‘elites’.
He is also a Christian who believes in the practical value of prayer. But if he’s such a dedicated supporter of the Zionist Project which god does he pray to?
In 2017 he told the Jewish Chrinicle:
“My interest in supporting Israel through CFI is less to do with faith and much more to do with basic values about liberalism, tolerance, democracy and freedom. When you put yourself on the side of Israel you are putting yourself on the side of those values, which as a Conservative I believe are the essential underpinnings of prosperity in the modern world.
“You cannot fail to be impressed by Israel as a beacon of freedom and liberalism.”
Funny man. Israel’s ‘values’ don’t include letting the Palestinians have their freedom or even the slightest sniff at the underpinning of prosperity.
And he recently wrote:
“As I have emphasised to you on numerous occasions in the past, the way forward is for a renunciation of violence and terror by Hamas and a resumption of full peace talks. It was very encouraging to see Israel and the United Arab Emirates reach a ground-breaking peace agreement over summer and this has to be the way forward. It is tragic that the Hamas leadership remain determined to turn Gaza into a terrorist statelet, rather than a prosperous home for Palestinians.”
The way forward is, and always has been, compliance with international law and UN resolutions and an end to Israel’s illegal and vicious military occupation which, as even Crabb must see, deprives Palestinians of any hope of prosperity.
Mrs Morley, I think, would have pointed out to Crabb (as she did to someone else) that if he and his colleagues truly want peace – which I personally doubt because that’s the last thing their adored Israel wants – they are “doing all the wrong things, namely:
– failing to recognise Palestine;
– failing to sanction Israel for its decades long illegal occupation of Palestine and its ongoing crimes against Palestinian life;
– failing to hold Israel to its obligations under international law as regards the return of refugees;
– failing to stop selling lethal weapons to Israel which are used to maim and murder Palestinians, including children.
By not banning settlement products, HMG actively assist those who support the illegal Israeli settlements whose main aim is the displacement, disenfranchisement, elimination by any means of the Palestinian people on their own land.
In fact HMG are for ever tilting the balance in Israel’s favour in countless other ways. And no amount of peace deals with Israel’s other Arab nations will make any difference.”
Managing it, never solving it
And I’d be saying to Mr Crabb, if you are seriously interested in Christianity you should connect with the Christian churches out there instead of constantly hobnobbing with the Zionist Tendency. And I do mean the real Christians, those in the front line battling the jackbooted mayhem in the Holy Land.
And he ought to acquaint himself with the Kairos Document. Eleven years ago a group of Christian Palestinians issued “a cry of hope in the absence of all hope”, reflecting their country’s decades of suffering under brutal Israeli occupation.
They said they had reached a dead end in the tragedy of the Palestinian people because international decision-makers contented themselves with ‘managing’ the crisis rather than solving it. The situation was, and still is, destroying human life and that must surely be of concern to the Church.
“We call out as Christians and as Palestinians to our religious and political leaders, to our Palestinian society and to the Israeli society, to the international community, and to our Christian brothers and sisters in the Churches around the world.”
Eight years later, in 2017, came an Open Letter from Christian Palestinians to the World Council of Churches and the ecumenical movement. It was a heart-rending cry for help from the National Coalition of Christian Organisations in Palestine (NCCOP) saying the situation for Palestinians was “beyond urgent”.
They were concerned that States and churches were still dealing with Israel on a business-as-usual basis and ignoring the criminal reality of the military occupation. After all, the world’s churches had come together in opposition to apartheid in South Africa and helped to defeat it. So why hadn’t they done the same for Palestine?
Then came a third Red Alert “standing on the cliff-edge looking into an abyss”. On the 10th anniversary of their first warning document, Kairos Palestine reached out to world’s Churches yet again, saying that life in Palestine had deteriorated even further under another decade of illegal occupation.
- “The oppression is more aggressive and brutal.”
- “Our imprisoned and besieged sisters and brothers in Gaza, non-violently gathered for the March of Return, were the targets of a bloody and deadly response.”
- “Settlements continue to expand.”
- “Threats to annex the Jordan Valley and the settlements themselves grow without a word of condemnation from the major powers.”
- “We are experiencing the continued dispossession of our land, our freedom and our human rights.”
- “Add to this, three more appalling developments:
– US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel;
– the US Secretary of State’s announcement that the US government no longer deems West Bank settlements to be ‘inconsistent with international law’;
– and the State of Israel’s recent adoption of their Nation State Law which clearly reveals that de facto apartheid has become de jure apartheid.”
- “The failure of the peace process is further evidence that the current status quo is unsustainable.”
The statement went on:
“There are still many who use the Bible to justify the occupation and who unquestioningly support the State of Israel. And, for the most part, the global Church is failing us. We are standing as if on the edge of a cliff, looking into an abyss.”
The essential point of their 2017 Open Letter was that time had run out: it was beyond urgent. And it ended with the chilling words: “This could be our last chance to achieve a just peace. As a Palestinian Christian community, this could be our last opportunity to save the Christian presence in this land.”
So did the efforts of these Palestinian clergy, Christ’s front-line troops who daily face hostility, abuse and physical danger, finally get through to our comfy Holy Joes here in the UK’s leafy suburbs? Has the penny dropped that the wellspring of their faith, the birthplace of Jesus, is being stolen and may be lost forever if Israel gets its way?
How has the World Council of Churches responded to all those urgent pleas from Palestine? Did the message percolated down through the ranks? And have our spiritual leaders, those upstanding ‘men of the cloth’, been mobilising their troops? They promised to study and analyse. “We want churches in Palestine to know that their perspective is heard and it is vitally important,” said the WCC’s general secretary. “We will continue with the same passionate spirit to work on specific objectives, strategies and partners for advocacy to end the occupation and to work for just peace in Palestine and Israel.”
Or was it all bollox?
Rejecting Christian Zionism
Meanwhile, if Mr Crabb is the true, prayerful Christian he claims to be he’ll be eager to read The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism by the Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem in 2006. It says among other things:
“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message.
” We reject the alliance of Christian Zionist leaders and organizations with elements in the governments of Israel and the United States [add the UK] that are presently imposing their unilateral pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine.
“We reject the teachings of Christian Zionism that support these policies as they promote racial exclusivity and perpetual war.
“We call upon all Churches that remain silent, to break their silence and speak for reconciliation with justice in the Holy Land.
” We call upon all people to reject Christian Zionism and other ideologies that privilege one people at the expense of others.
“We are committed to non-violent resistance as the most effective means to end the illegal occupation.”
And Palestinians – Muslim and Christian – are one people. Don’t anyone forget that.
“A man is known by the company he keeps”, said Aesop the legendary storyteller. So what is Mr Crabb, who prays a lot, doing wedded to an organisation that celebrates the Israeli regime’s cruel and criminal ambition to crush its Palestinian neighbours, including their Christian communities, who have always been in that land?
Hundreds of Palestinian children ethnically cleansed by Israel as world remains silent
An Israeli soldier detains a Palestinian boy during an anti-Israel protest in al-khalil in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on November 29, 2019. (Via Reuters)
By Robert Inlakesh | Press TV | October 8, 2020
Israel has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes, this year, leaving hundreds more without a place to live. Yet despite the fact that Israel is set for a record number of home demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds, the International Community not only refuses to act but also remains silent.
In East Jerusalem al-Quds alone, since 2004, Israeli home demolitions have left 3,459 Palestinians homeless (including 1,847 minors), which is concerning enough, without the added stress to local Jerusalemite Palestinians of this year being on track to break all previous records for the number of home demolitions since 1967.
What the refusal to confront this issue shows is the complete lack of care from the international community and also when it is properly investigated, that house demolitions in of themselves, reveal that inside of Israel itself, there is no democracy for Palestinians.
In order to understand the issue of house demolitions, we have to differentiate between the succinctly three different circumstances under which Palestinians experience this form of ethnic cleansing. The three key areas are inside of what is now Israel, inside of East Jerusalem al-Quds and inside of the West Bank. The Gaza Strip is not included due to the fact that these demolitions are not undertaken in the same way, but rather occur primarily due to airstrikes.
House demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds
So far this year, according to Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem, 89 housing units and 27 non-residential buildings were ordered to be demolished in East Jerusalem al-Quds by the Israeli regime. Israel is in fact on track for a record number of house demolitions in the occupied territory this year, according to Israeli paper Haaretz, which will inevitably cause a record number of homeless cases.
Something key to understanding cases of home demolitions in East Jerusalem al-Quds is the ongoing effort to Judaize the city. Palestinians living in East Jerusalem al-Quds do not have Israeli citizenship or Palestinian citizenship, but rather Jerusalem ID cards. If Palestinians choose to live outside of the territory for more than 7 years or claim citizenship of any country (normally Jordan), they can also be stripped of this right to their ID and be expelled. As a result of such policies, significant numbers of Palestinian Jerusalemites have been forced out of Jerusalem al-Quds. Also on top of this is the issue of illegal settlement expansion, with hundreds of thousands of settlers moving into the area.
Despite the oppressive policies, Palestinians make up 40% of the total population of Jerusalem al-Quds, yet are only granted roughly 7% of the total building permits for the city.
The issue of Israeli issued building permits is the main reason for the forced destruction of Palestinian properties in Jerusalem al-Quds. Palestinians have to pay, often unaffordable, prices to apply for permits, yet the approval is near impossible even when they do pay. The reason it is nearly impossible, is because of Israeli implemented building schemes, under which Israel has designed a system built to bolster Jewish construction and prohibit Palestinian construction.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds in 1967, later formally annexing it in 1980, meaning that Israel imposes its own law of Palestinians living in the territory and has even built a wall through areas which constitute part of the East Jerusalem al-Quds territory. However, the Israeli application of its own laws over Palestinians is in violation of International Law as the territory is still considered as occupied territory, meaning that the laws of occupation apply to the area.
When Palestinians build and are not granted a permit, or start construction whilst the permit is processing – sometimes delayed until years later before a decision is made by Israel to destroy the home – or are told an old building has not got updated papers, the building is ordered to be demolished.
When Israel orders a home demolition, the pain does not end there, Palestinians are required to pay for the Israelis to forcibly evict their family and demolish their home. This has forced many to pay for bulldozers themselves in order to destroy their own home, so that they do not have to pay for Israel to do it, which often carries a fee double or triple the amount. For Palestinians who cannot afford demolition costs, they are forced to destroy their own homes by hand.
House demolitions in al-Naqab
According to a report released in June, by ‘The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality’, during the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, Israel ordered the demolition of 2,000 homes in the al-Naqab (Negev in Hebrew).
Key to this issue is the fact that Bedouin Palestinians living in the Naqab are Israeli citizenship holders, some of which serve in the occupation army, yet are still persecuted and pushed out of their home lands. At this point, Palestinian Bedouin’s can only inhabit 12% of their ancestral homelands and if they live in villages “unregistered” by the Israeli regime, they are “transferred” to overcrowded villages and camps, reminiscent of the way in which native Americans were crowded into reservations.
This year alone, hundreds of Bedouins have been made homeless, compounded by the fact that the pandemic is affecting these communities badly and they are still being crammed into overcrowded camps.
Some villages have even been demolished over 100 times. The 17th of September for instance was the last time an entire village was demolished for the 178th time in a row.
House demolitions inside West Bank
From the start of 2020 until the 31st of August, 78 housing units were demolished in the West Bank, leaving 320 people homeless, including 166 minors according to Human Rights Organization B’Tselem.
In the West Bank, according to the United Nations, roughly 1.5% of building permits are approved by Israel, making it nearly impossible to obtain one. This is despite the fact that Israeli settlements and outposts continue to rapidly expand into West Bank territory. If a Palestinian does wish to attempt to attain a permit, it will often cost roughly around $30,000 US just to file the application, a price most just cannot afford, or even for those who can afford the price, it’s too much of a gamble.
Often used propaganda, by Israel and its supporters, suggests that house demolitions are primarily done as a reaction to “Palestinian terrorism” and therefore they argue it’s justified. However, this is not the case. In fact, when Israel does blow up the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank, after the Palestinian in question has been alleged to have committed a violent attack against an Israeli occupation soldier or illegal settler, it is not him who suffers for it.
Palestinians that either attempt to attack an Israeli, or are wrongly accused of it, are almost always shot and killed by the occupation forces. Following this, the family is not able to even grieve in peace, as family homes, sometimes housing multiple families are blown up leaving the entire family homeless. This policy has been described by Israeli Human Rights Group B’Tselem as follows: “Demolishing the homes of relatives of Palestinians who harmed or attempted to harm Israeli civilians or security personnel is prohibited collective punishment, and is one of the most extreme measures used by Israel. Over the years Israel has demolished hundreds of homes, leaving homeless thousands of people who had done no wrong and were not suspected of any wrongdoing. It is an immoral and unlawful policy. The fact that the High Court of Justice has upheld it does not make it legal, rather, it makes the justices accomplices to the crime.”
Despite the fact that these Israeli policies of house demolitions, ultimately aimed at ethnically cleansing Palestinians, are ongoing and have grown more aggressive over the past year, the story is relatively untouched by West Media and largely ignored by the International Community.
Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer and political analyst, who has lived in and reported from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He has written for publications such as Mint Press, Mondoweiss, MEMO, and various other outlets. He specializes in analysis of the Middle East, in particular Palestine-Israel. He also works for Press TV as a European correspondent.
Israel sets its sights on the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandeb
Dr Adnan Abu Amer | MEMO | October 6, 2020
Day after day, the magnitude of the Israeli benefits from normalisation with the Gulf become clearer, especially on the military and strategic levels. The latest benefit is talk about establishing Israeli military bases in the Gulf, the Red Sea and Bab El-Mandab, or benefiting from the Emirati bases scattered in these areas, and the military benefits for Israel brought about by controlling these international seaports.
The Emirati-Israeli agreement included many clauses with security and military aspects, which stipulate bilateral cooperation in these areas, and their commitment to take important measures to prevent the use of their territories to carry out a hostile or “terrorist” attack targeting the other party, and that each side will not support any hostile operations in the territory of the other party. It also stipulates bilateral security coordination and strengthening the military security relationship.
These carefully worded texts have increased the assumptions regarding the possibility of Israel benefitting from the Emirati military bases in the region, whether in the Gulf, Bab El-Mandab, or the Red Sea. This may lead to the establishment of Israeli military base in the Emirates, as well as its use of Emirati waters, and the possibility that it will continue down this path to increase its foothold in Socotra, the Bab El-Mandab Strait and Djibouti.
It is worth noting that the possibility of establishing Israeli military bases in the Gulf, or Israel benefiting from the Emirati military bases, is not easy, but very dangerous. This is because as much as it may give hope to the Gulf states, and the UAE in particular, to defend itself against the threat of any imagined attack from Iran, it, at the same time, exposes it to danger. This is because the fulfilment of this premise means that Israel can strike Iranian targets in the Gulf waters, or in the heart of Iran itself, which will be matched by Iran targeting these Israeli bases in the Gulf.
The agreement allows Israel to get geographically closer to Iran and allows it to improve ties with the Gulf which is a strategic area in terms of trade and oil.
Iran will not stand idly by and remain silent regarding the Emirati-Israeli move, which means the situation in the Gulf region is likely to grow tense and suffer. Iran is present everywhere through the Revolutionary Guard and its sleeping armed cells.
Security of maritime navigation in the Gulf is a purely Israeli interest within the strategy of “curbing the Iranian threat” and strengthening the relationship with the Gulf states, former Israeli Foreign Minister, Yisrael Katz, has said.
Israel aims to gain control over the most important sea straits in the region, which belong to the Emirati and Saudi bases, which enhances the expansion of Israel’s military and strategic influence.
A document by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence revealed that the agreement with Abu Dhabi paves the way for intensifying military cooperation between them in the Red Sea. This is because it is interested in expanding security cooperation in the region, leading to strengthening the military alliance between them. This includes intensive Israeli military movement, especially through the countries of the Horn of Africa, most notably Ethiopia, at a time when Israeli arms companies are seeking to increase their exports to the Emirates.
US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced that the UAE and Israel had agreed to build a security and military alliance against Iran to protect American interests and the Middle East, and to increase security and intelligence cooperation to confront what he referred to as “terrorism”.
But Israel has not left Yemen out of its view, the country offers a gateway to the Bab El-Mandab Strait. Tel Aviv aims to crack down on the Palestinian resistance to prevent it from receiving the weapons that reach it from Iran through the Red Sea, reaching the Sinai, and then the Gaza Strip.
As long as the most important provisions of the Emirati-Israeli agreement are related to security and military relations, Israel will work to exploit the agreement to increase its influence in the Gulf. Meanwhile, the UAE is looking for control in the Gulf with the support of the US and Israel, so there is joint Israeli and Emirati work in Yemen to establish joint military bases and areas of influence, specifically on the island of Socotra, which would allow it to completely control the path that passes from India to the West, and penetrates into Africa, which is a strategic location for Israel.
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From the Archives
Genetic baloney in thick slices
MAYBE COULD BE INC.
By Jon Rappoport | No More Fake News | July 8, 2021
Gene research companies tend to come and go. They start out banging and popping like fireworks in the sky, and then they fade out—selling themselves to larger outfits who’ve hired better liars…
Once upon a time, it sounded easy. Start with a disease, find the gene responsible for the disease, and correct the problem.
Then, researchers wondered, was disease the result of one gene or a group of genes acting together?
Either way, the proof would be in devising cures for diseases using gene therapy. “Not yet, but soon…”
And regardless, the major need was: money. Lots and lots of money.
This need required good PR people. “We have to pump up the idea that we’re on the edge of tremendous breakthroughs. We’re always on that edge…”
This hype also needed to obscure the fact that there wasn’t (and isn’t) ANY gene cure for ANY disease. … continue
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