The UN and the Invisible Palestinian Knives of Allege-gate
By Vacy Vlazna | Dissident Voice | February 17, 2016
In Palestine, you would be forgiven for thinking that there was no United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.
The SR, Christof Heyns, in the past 6 years, has never made a country on-site visit to Palestine to get first hand information on the hundreds of cases of Zionist perpetration of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions of the people of Palestine.
Not even the dozens of extrajudicial street executions of Palestinian children and youth carrying the invisible knives of Allege-gate since October 1, 2015 has impelled Heyns to rush to Palestine to ensure the zionist war criminals uphold Palestinian right to life.
In Palestine ‘alleged’ is a synonym for ‘extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary execution’.
Yes, there is a Palestinian youth intifada, and, yes, there have been acts of resistance to the illegal occupation involving knives, rocks, and cars that have taken some occupier-settler lives.
But the Zionist Occupation Forces (ZOF); i.e., military and police death squads are running amok in Occupied Palestine shooting, seemingly for grisly amusement, innocent Palestinian school children, workers, housewives and youth.
In a wimpy statement on 16 November 2015, SR Heyns welcomed the assurance of the Zionist “Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to the effect that Israeli security forces are prohibited from firing at a suspected assailant unless an immediate danger to human life cannot otherwise be prevented and that the use of fire must be proportional to the threat.”
You can be certain that the devastated parents of Wisam Qasrawi, 21 who buried their beloved child – transformed from family breadwinner into a martyr by lawless zionist bullets – know Wisam was killed in an indisputable and illegal extrajudicial execution.
Wisam was born in a village, Misilya. It was described for the Palestine Exploration Fund (patron was Queen Victoria) by Royal Engineers’ surveyor Lieutenant Condor in 1881 as a village with ancient wells beneath it and a rounded hilltop above with extensive views north east across the great plain to Nazareth, west to Carmel, and to Jenin behind a neighbouring hill, ‘north west across a broad corn vale’.
Today, Misilya continues its ancient agricultural lineage of growing olives and cereal. Its 3000 residents are close-knit and mainly poor because of the crippling zionist occupation.
Wisam was outgoing, energetic, well liked and had lots of friends with whom he enjoyed playing playstation and billiards at the local cafe. Wisam also had an admirable sense of responsibility; he left school in year 11 to become the family breadwinner because his father had a severe back injury and his mother had small twins plus his other younger siblings to care for. Even while at school he worked as a part-time farm or building labourer to help out.
The early morning of Sunday, January 17th, gave no hint of impending tragedy. Wisam got dressed for his work at a brick/stone factory in Nablus, gave his mother the remaining money in his wallet and armed only with his mobile joined his mate who was giving him a lift as far as the Huwwara checkpoint. He was dropped off about 500 yards from the checkpoint.
Eyewitnesses reported that the heavily armed soldiers were calling out to Wisam, “Come on, come to us”. Wisam walked, relaxed and hands in the air, and at 50 metres military shots burst hitting his chest and head. Typically, he was left to bleed out and die.
Within 10 minutes, even before Wisam’s mate returned to Misilya, the Zionist news reported an alleged attempted stabbing at the Huwwara checkpoint with no soldiers injured (understandable).
By the afternoon the ZOF had made incursions into Wisam’s village, set up checkpoints and closed off the village which was in collective shock, helplessness, anger and mourning.
Wisam’s body was returned at night and respectfully given a martyr’s burial; the body is not washed as usual with scented water and wrapped in a shroud, but the martyr is buried in the clothes in which he/she died and the blood is left unwashed. According to a Hadith – on Resurrection Day, the Shahid’s blood -“Its color saffron, and its odor musk”.
With 68 years of the violent unrestricted bloodletting of martyrs, the scent of this holy musk is tragically Palestine’s oxygen.
Wisam is no more, just as Ehab, Khalil, Ahmad, Ruqayya, Dania, Nihad, Fuad, Naim, and all the other young innocent invisible-knife wielders, are no more.
The UN was set up to maintain international peace, security and human rights for all. In 68 years, the now 192 member states of the UN have not furthered one moment of peace and justice for the people of Palestine.
The Zionist state has over and over, day to day, blatantly violated every UN declaration and convention it has ratified and it has never been suspended or expelled from the UN:
A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
The UN is as fake as the fake knives of Allege-gate. Both are smokescreens for impunity for Zionist brutality and crimes against humanity.
Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Aceh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 and then withdrew on principle. Vacy was coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.
Israel levels lands, demolishes structures in East Jerusalem
Ma’an – February 17, 2016
JERUSALEM – The Israeli authorities on Wednesday demolished agricultural structures and leveled land in the outskirts of al-Issawiya village in occupied East Jerusalem, locals said.
Muhammad Abu al-Hummas, a spokesperson for a local popular committee, told Ma’an that bulldozers had started leveling around five acres of land, adding that they “deliberately” ruined the dirt roads used by farmers to access their fields as well as their fences.
He said they were accompanied by Israeli police forces as well as officials from Jerusalem’s municipality and the Israeli Nature and Parks Authority.
The land is located in an area Israeli authorities have earmarked for a national park, in a controversial plan known as “11092”, which aims to turn around 740 dunams (175 acres) of Palestinian land in the East Jerusalem neighborhoods of al-Issawiya and al-Tur into Israeli parkland.
The Israeli planning council suspended the plan in September 2014 until the needs of the neighborhoods could be assessed.
However, the council, which previously approved the annexation of the 740 dunams, said approval of the plan could potentially be justified and was not fundamentally illegal.
Abu al-Hummus said the Israeli authorities were “leveling and ruining private Palestinian lands despite an Israeli court decision to freeze the settlement plans.”
One of the owners of the land leveled on Wednesday, Adnan Darwish, told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers had ruined eight dunams (two acres) of his property, uprooting a number of olive and cypress trees.
He said they had also demolished a structure used as a sheep barn belonging to Salih Abu Turk. Other landowners affected were identified as Ali Abu al-Hummus, Atif Ubeid, and Shaaban Ubeid.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has previously described Israel’s plan in al-Issawiya as “part of the Israeli government’s plans to create a Jewish demographic majority in the occupied city.”
East Jerusalem was seized by Israel along with the West Bank in 1967 during the Six-Day War, and since then, the Israeli government has undertaken a policy of “Judaization” across the city.
PA seizes Israeli truck loaded with chemical waste
MEMO – February 16, 2016
The Environmental Quality Authority yesterday seized an Israeli truck full of chemical remains heading to illegally unload in occupied Palestinian territories, Quds Press reported.
The truck, which left the Israeli settlement of Karnei Shomron, was seized between the Palestinian villages of Kafr Thulth and Azzun near the West Bank city of Qalqilya.
The truck was to be offloaded near a residential compound in Qalqilya, a statement by the Environmental Quality Authority revealed.
The load included remains of several chemical industries, including paint.
The authority said it handed the truck and driver over to the District Coordination Offices.
A senior official in the authority said a complaint regarding this Israeli violation would be filed to the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, which is in charge of the transport of dangerous goods.
He also said that the Palestinian contractors, who were involved in this issue, would be prosecuted.
Environment expert George Karzam told Quds Press: “The Israeli occupation recently closed a number of its dumps and facilities related to treating solid and chemical waste in the lands occupied in 1948 [Israel] moving them to new sites in the West Bank, mainly in the Jordan Valley.”
This was because of the poisonous substances which were being discarded as well as the odors coming from the dumps, Karzam explained.
Israel has also been putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority to open new waste sites for illegal settlements in the West Bank, he added.
Israeli forces uproot 100 olive trees in Wadi Qana
Ma’an – February 16, 2016
SALFIT – Israeli forces uprooted 100 olive trees in the Wadi Qana area west of the village of Deir Istiya in Salfit district on Tuesday amid ongoing efforts to push Palestinians out of the area, locals said.
Farmers from Deir Istiya told Ma’an the forces arrived in Wadi Qana and uprooted the trees without prior notice.
Soldiers then forced locals from the area in order to allow Israeli settlers to arrive there, the farmers said.
Ibrahim al-Hamad, director of the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture’s Salfit branch, told Ma’an that soldiers removed the seven-year-old trees on the grounds that the area is a nature reserve, with planting prohibited in the area.
Al-Hamad added that Israeli soldiers also removed a water tank belonging to Palestinian locals.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) was not immediately available for comment.
Wadi Qana, a valley that has historically served agricultural and recreational purposes for local Palestinians who own land in the area, was declared a nature reserve by Israel’s Civil Administration in 1983.
Israel has used this designation for years to justify uprooting Palestinian crops and forcing Palestinians from the area, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Several Jewish-only Israeli settlements and outposts have been illegally established along the ridges of the valley since the 1970s.
Waste water dumped from the settlements has gradually polluted the river, forcing out Palestinians who have lived in and visited the valley for generations.
Palestinian owners of land in Wadi Qana and the village of Dir Istiya have meanwhile been prevented from building or planting in the area, the majority of which is in Area C, under the full civil and military control of Israel.
The NY Times Maps Jerusalem: Distilling the Worst of Israeli Propaganda
By Barbara Erickson – TimesWarp – February 15, 2016
In a new multimedia production The New York Times is now offering us “The Roots of the Recent Violence Between Israelis and Palestinians,” a series of 13 images accompanied by brief notes. The title promises much, and the teaser adds that this new offering presents us with “the geography of the issues surrounding the ongoing violence.”
Here, it seems, the newspaper has an opportunity to provide the context so often missing from Times stories about Palestine and Israel. With such an introduction readers might hope to learn about the historical beginnings of the conflict and to perceive the effects of occupation on the face of the land.
It was not to be. In fact, this slick presentation distills the worst of the Times reporting on the issue. The text never once mentions the occupation; it provides no historical context of any kind, and it blindly follows the preferred narrative of Israeli propagandists.
The visuals never leave Jerusalem, and the text sticks to events there. The presentation opens with an image of the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, accompanied by the comment that the violence “was set off in part over a dispute over Al Aqsa Mosque compound.” Nothing more is said about this complex issue.
The images then move on to highlight Jewish “neighborhoods” in Palestinian East Jerusalem and Jewish homes dotting the Palestinian neighborhoods, and we learn that the “neighborhoods” are “considered illegal settlements by most of the world.” This is the Times’ usual formulation, which distorts the fact that the entire international community—outside of Israel—deems the settlements illegal.
There is no mention of the impact these settlements have on Palestinians’ lives. We get nothing but maps and terse comments about who lives where, but the Times does finally provide a motive for the recent attacks: It comes from “frustration” over the lack of basic city services.
We are set up for this trivial claim in the fourth visual, which shows us Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem surrounded by a yellow line. “Israel built a barrier in response to Palestinian attacks from the West Bank in the early 2000s,” the text notes. “While effective at stopping suicide bombers, it cut off several East Jerusalem neighborhoods from the rest of the city, leaving them without basic services.”
In the following image the narrative continues, “Palestinians say these frustrations are at the root of the recent attacks. Israelis officials accuse Palestinian leaders of inciting violence.”
There we have it. Not a word about loss of land, the confiscation of resources, military incursions and all the many miseries associated with military occupation. So much for the “roots” of the conflict.
Although the Times attempts a show of balance, by referring to both sides, the text is heavily weighted toward the Israeli point of view. It twice mentions Israeli actions as “responses” to violence and never suggests that Palestinians are responding to oppression.
It repeats the Israeli claim that Palestinians who died in the recent uprising were all involved in attacks or “clashes” with troops, omitting the reports of human rights groups and others who charge Israel with “street executions” of Palestinians who pose no possible threat to security forces or civilians.
In addition, the Times gives a distorted account of the Separation Barrier. It fails to say that the 2004 International Court of Justice decision held that the wall is illegal and that its route (85 percent of it inside the West Bank) threatens “de facto annexation.” The newspaper also repeats the Israeli claim that the wall “effectively stopped suicide bombers.”
As an Israeli journalist recently observed in 972 Magazine, the recent assaults have demolished this facile claim. The latest attackers could have come with bombs instead of knives; the wall did not keep them out. The bombings ended when militants abandoned the tactic.
If the Times truly intended to illustrate the “geography of the issues surrounding the ongoing violence,” it could have shown some dramatic effects of the occupation on the landscape, such as:
- The route of the Separation Barrier, snaking well inside the boundary between the West Bank and Israel
- The rows of dead parsley and spinach fields in Gaza, where Israel has deliberately sprayed herbicides on hundreds of acres
- The contrast between lush West Bank settlements, with their lawns and swimming pools, and parched Palestinian villages nearby
- The shrinking cantons of the West Bank, where Israel is illegally confiscating more and more Palestinian territory
- The dead strip of land inside Gaza, where Israel has imposed a firing zone and has frequently entered to bulldoze crops and soil
Images such as these might provide a real sense of the “roots” of the recent violence. Instead, the Times has chosen to encapsulate Israeli propaganda in this latest presentation, perpetuating its ingrained bias in a package of misleading notes and slick visual effects.
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Israeli Soldiers Push Man from Wheelchair following Shooting
IMEMC News & Agencies – February 15, 2016
A video released by a Palestinian, immediately after Israeli forces shot and critically injured a 14-year-old girl, shows Israeli forces assaulting bystanders.
In the video, an Israeli soldier pushes a disabled man in a wheelchair backwards, flipping the man and his wheelchair over. Two more Palestinians rush to the disabled man’s aide, while Israeli forces charge forward at other bystanders, setting off a stun grenade.
The video shows Israeli forces attacking and threatening Palestinians who were attempting to get near Yasmin al-Zarou, who was shot near an Israeli checkpoint in Hebron city, according to Ma’an.
The Occupation Goes Missing from The NY Times
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | February 8, 2016
The occupation went missing from The New York Times this past week. Palestinians were there, as victims and attackers, but the brutal military regime that controls their lives made no appearance.
The newspaper had plenty to say about Israeli Jewish life, however: two lengthy stories about prayer space at the Western Wall and one discussing Zionism. Each of these stories ran over a thousand words.
Two shorter news articles reported that the murderers of a Palestinian teen had been sentenced to prison and that a knife attack left one Israeli police officer dead, but nothing in either of these provided the context crucial to understanding events in the occupied territories.
Meanwhile, as the Times obsesses over Israeli identity and attitudes, the occupation grinds on, producing news that appears elsewhere. At the top of the list were two major stories: A Palestinian prisoner was near death after passing his 75th day on hunger strike, and Israeli forces carried out a massive demolition of over 20 homes, rendering more than 100 Palestinians homeless in the dead of winter.
The ordeal of Mohammed al-Qeeq, a journalist held without trial since Nov. 21 of last year, drew the attention of Israeli and international media outlets, which recounted his legal appeals, protests on his behalf and an Israeli Supreme Court decision which “froze” his detention but confined him to a hospital. (Al-Qeeq refused the offer and continued his fast.)
Al-Qeeq’s hunger strike was deemed unfit to print in the Times, perhaps because it would touch on Israel’s use of administrative detention, which holds prisoners without trial. Readers are not to know that as of last December 660 Palestinians were held in this limbo, nor were they to be informed that a number of human rights groups have protested Israel’s unsavory use of the practice.
And then there is the matter of two impoverished villages in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank, Khirbet Jenbah and Khirbet Al-Halawah, which were made even more destitute after Israeli army crews arrived last Tuesday and demolished 22 structures, displacing 110 people, including dozens of minors. The army also confiscated solar panels, which, like many of the homes, had been donated by aid organizations.
The military claimed that it destroyed Jenbah and Al-Halawah because they were located in a declared firing zone. The Israeli publication 972 Magazine, however, noted that “Jewish settlements within [the zone] have not been served with eviction orders.”
This was the largest mass demolition in a decade, and the plan to destroy villages within the firing zone has drawn international attention and a petition from world-renowned authors to spare the communities. None of this, however, was enough to draw the interest of the Times.
Instead, the Times considered it more urgent to examine the effects of a new prayer space at the Western Wall—not once, but twice—and to take a look at Zionism today. Villagers thrown out in the cold of winter and a prisoner on the brink of death took a back seat to these concerns.
The Times claims that it gives readers “the complete, unvarnished truth as best as we can learn it,” and it insists that the newspaper’s overriding goal is to “cover the news as impartially as possible.” Readers who never stray to other sources of information may actually believe this.
Three new homes will be demolished in Jerusalem
International Solidarity Movement | February 7, 2016
South Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine – Yesterday, on Saturday February 6th, we visited the house of 49 year old, Salah Abukaf, who lives in the neighborhood of Sur Baher in occupied South Jerusalem, and two days ago received a house demolition order.
Salah Abukaf’s home
Last year, on September 13th, a 68 year old illegal Israeli settler died in a car accident near Abukaf’s home. The Israeli police first said that this was a regular car accident, but then decided to accuse his 18 year old son, Mohammed Abukaf, together with 4 other friends, all between 17 and 19 years of age, Walid al Atrash, Abed Dweyad, Jihad Tawil, and Ali Sabra, of throwing stones to the car and creating the accident.
At approximately 3 in the morning on September 24 and again on September 25, the Israeli police violently raided the homes of these five young men and arrested them. The police also confiscated their Jerusalem ID’s, which poses a serious problem because when Palestinian’s lose their Jerusalem ID they lose their right to live there and all other residents’ rights. These arrests were carried out despite the fact that the Israeli police have not yet presented evidence of them throwing stones at the car.
According to Salah Abukaf, the five young men were sitting in a place 500 meters away from the car at the moment of the accident, and denies the claims that his son threw stones. “They are accusing my son of things he didn’t do.”
Salah Abukaf talks in an interview for Ma’an news.
Salah’s wife is suffering with this situation and couldn’t help crying in her interview.
On Friday, February 5th, the Israeli police gave home demolition orders to three of the young men’s homes, for Mohammed Abukaf, Walid al Atrash and Abed Dweyad. According to these orders, the families have up to the 10th of February to make an appeal to the court. Nonetheless, the families say that according to the way Israeli authorities normally behave, they are afraid that when waiting for the court’s answer to their appeals, the Israeli forces will come to demolish their houses anyway, making their efforts futile.
Israeli forces came into Abukaf’s house and drilled holes into the walls. The family suspects they were measuring how thick the walls are in order to dynamite the house.
Another hole in the main room’s wall.
In the meantime, the family of Salah Abukaf is paying 50.000 shekels, Walid al Atrash 60.000 shekels and Abed Dweyad 75.000 shekels to cover their lawyers’ expenses to fight their cases in the court. These families already suffer from bad financial situations and paying these amounts of money is a big burden for them.
Abukaf explains; “If I knew my son had done something wrong, then I would be willing to accept this, but what the Israeli authorities are doing is simply collective punishment. It is illegal under International Law that they destroy my family’s home where my children live. Where are we going to go now?”
8 year old Hala, on the right side, and 9 year old Hadeel on the left, are the two youngest living in this home.
Mohammed’s sister, 17 year old Ala’.
In Walid al Atrash’s house, a total of 8 people, including his two parents and five siblings, will be left homeless if their home is demolished.
Abed Dweyad’s home includes a total of seven people, with his two parents and four siblings, will be left homeless as well if their house is demolished.
It is important to note that this event is happening following Israel’s master plan to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Jerusalem. The objective of this plan is to reduce today’s 37% Palestinian population to 20% by the year 2020, and allow for 80% of its total population to be Israeli Jewish.
Closed military zone in Shuhada Street and Tel Rumeida extended yet another month
International Solidarity Movement | February 6, 2016
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Since the 1st of November 2015 the Tel Rumeida area and Shuhada Street in occupied Al-Khalil (Hebron) has been declared a ‘closed military zone’. The first declaration of the closure was for one month, but since then the order has been extended several times.
The newest order from the 1st of February declares the area as closed till the 1st of March with the chance of extension.
Shuhada Checkpoint (Checkpoint 56)
The closure effects the residents of the area every single day. Every family living in the area has been given a number and was forced to register with the Israeli forces. When entering the area, through checkpoints, the residents have to show ID, give their number and often also answer questions and get bag and body searched. Friends and family of the residents are unable to visit them inside the area; even doctors or craftsmen are completely barred from entering the area.
Furthermore, the closed military zone has led to the eviction of two human rights organisations based in Tel Rumeida. These are now banned from living in their houses and working from their offices and since they are banned from the whole area are not able to observe and document the rampant Israeli human rights violations. The ‘closed military zone’ clearly intends to evict Palestinian residents in order to allow for an expansion of the illegal Israeli settlements, and by evicting human rights defenders to silence the truth on the Israeli forces harassment, attacks and human rights violations.
Israeli movement calls for separating 28 Palestinian villages from Jerusalem
MEMO | February 6, 2016
New Israeli movement Save Jewish Jerusalem has called for the building of a wall encircling 28 Palestinian villages in East Jerusalem in order to preserve the city’s Jewish identity, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported on Friday.
According to Quds Press, which reported on the news published in Maariv, Save Jewish Jerusalem was set up by the former Cabinet minister Haim Ramon, alongside a number of former political, security and military officials.
Maariv noted that the movement does not belong to a certain political faction.
The manifesto’s authors explain that by removing some 200,000 Palestinians from the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem, the city’s Jews will constitute more than 80% of its residents, and the percentage of Palestinians will drop to less than 20%, from the nearly 40% today.
After the villages’ separation from Jerusalem, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and other security agencies would operate in them the way they currently do in the rest of the West Bank, according to the manifesto.
Intimidation through nightly ‘settler-tour’
Israeli forces blocking the entrance to the Palestinian market
International Solidarity Movement | January 31, 2016
Hebron, Occupied Palestine – On Saturday, 30th January 2016, large groups of settlers, accompanied by heavily-armed soldiers, entered the Palestinian market at night and took it over for about an hour during night-time in occupied al-Khalil (Hebron).
Around 9:30 pm, Israeli settlers from the illegal settlements throughout al-Khalil gathered at Bab al-Baladiyya, from where they walked into the Palestinian souq, the market, surrounded by heavily-armed Israeli forces. The group of more than 50 settlers started a ‘tour’ of the Palestinian market, with Israeli forces ‘guarding’ them throughout the Palestinian market. Palestinian residents were not allowed to pass and forced to wait at a distance, with soldiers repeatedly pointing the lasers from their guns at them to indicate they have to stop. A walk home at night though, for some Palestinians took almost an hour, instead of the usual 10 minutes.
This kind of ‘settler tour’ through the Palestinian market used to take place regularly on Saturday afternoons. During the ‘tour’ Palestinians are often denied to pass, stopped, ID-checked and detained. In the recent months, no ‘settler tours’ took place, but last week they started again with a nightly-tour at 11pm. For the Palestinian residents of the souq, these tours have become a regular form of intimidation and harassment in the past.
Israeli forces seize Palestinian vehicles, equipment in Jordan Valley
Ma’an – January 30, 2016
TUBAS – Israeli forces late Friday confiscated trucks and equipment being used to build a new agricultural road in the Palestinian village of Khirbet al-Dir in the northern Jordan Valley.
The head of a local council in the occupied West Bank village, al-Maleh Arif Daraghmah, told Ma’an that military forces had seized the equipment, without citing a reason for its removal.
Daraghmah added that days before, Israeli forces had ruined dozens of acres of agricultural land and roads while carrying out military drills in the area.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) told Ma’an: “Yesterday evening, two trucks, JCB and an excavator, were confiscated as they were used for illegal road building adjacent to Mehoula in Area C.”
The Jordan Valley — occupied with the rest of the West Bank in 1967 — is in Area C, under full Israeli military and administrative control, and residents of the area face a constant threat of destruction of structures and property.
Threats of displacement for the thousands of Bedouins living in the area have reportedly increased dramatically since 2012, notably the use of Israeli military training exercises as a means of forcible displacement.
Rights groups argue that Israel aims to fully annex the strategic area of land and is unlikely to return the occupied area to Palestinians.
Israeli media reported earlier this week that the Israeli government announced that it may revoke the closed military zone status of a number of land plots in the Jordan Valley, supposedly returning the land to their original Palestinian owners after decades of confiscation.
The news came several days after COGAT announced that plans to declare 1,500 dunams (370 acres) of land in the Jordan Valley as “state land” were in their “final stages.” The move will be the largest declaration of “state land” by Israel since August 2014.
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From the Archives
World War II Didn’t End The Great Depression
Stark Realities with Brian McGlinchey | April 4, 2024
A principal goal of Stark Realities is to “expose fundamental myths across the political spectrum” — and few myths are as universally embraced as the notion that US participation in World War II (1941-1945) lifted the American economy out of the Great Depression.
This myth is dangerous not only because it leads citizens and politicians to see a bright side of war that doesn’t really exist, but also because it helps foster a belief that government spending is essential to countering economic downturns. That belief, in turn, has helped propel us to a point where the national debt now exceeds $34.6 trillion, with interest payments alone on pace to reach $1 trillion a year in 2026, inviting financial catastrophe. … continue
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