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20/08/2020
| | Israel will have to reckon with the occupation one way or another
Henry Siegman - Responsible Statecraft - Far from being an
unprecedented breakthrough, the UAE initiative is a pale repeat of an
initiative by the Saudis and by the entire Arab League already in
2002. The difference between the two is that the earlier one required
Israel to accept UN decisions and international law regarding
Palestinian rights, and that negotiations between the parties begin
at the pre 1967 armistice internationally recognized borders, while
the UAE’s offer was made contemporaneously with Netanyahu’s defiant
declaration that Israel intends to annex parts of the West Bank
whenever it chooses to do so. Saudi Arabia and the Arab League were
in constant consultation with the Palestinians, but the UAE never
even bothered to inform the Palestinians of their intentions.
Consequently, the self-righteous indignation of Beinart’s critics,
most of whom are also outraged by any proposed punishment of Israel
for its transgressions, are entirely hypocritical. For his critics
know that no future Israeli government is prepared to agree to a
Palestinian state that would end Israel’s current de facto apartheid
rule in the West Bank. (rh) | | | Revenge against Palestinians is understandable, Israeli judge says in acquitting two security officers who attacked innocent man
Jonathan Ofir - Mondoweiss - Yesterday, an unbelievable verdict came
down at the Beersheba District Court in Israel: Two Israeli security
officers were acquitted in a case involving the lynching of Haftom
Zarhum, an Eritrean refugee, although they were filmed beating him
and repeatedly dropping a bench on his head. The judge cited
“reasonable doubt”. The bloodthirsty mob lynching in October 2015 was
part of a string of “mistaken identity” incidents in Israel. A terror
attack had in fact taken place earlier at the Beersheba central bus
station; a man from an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev
opened fire, killing a soldier and wounding 11 others.
Zarhum was a passerby, who was mistaken for the shooter by a security
guard because he was dark skinned. A police spokesman in the wake of
the incident said that it was “not clear if [Zarhum] is involved with
the event or if he was shot due to his exterior appearance.” Zarhum
was shot 8 times. Though he had been incapacitated, the mob continued
to beat him heavily, shouting “terrorist!”, “Kill him!”, “break his
head, son of a bitch!”. The two officers were in that mob. The Times
of Israel notes: “The indictment said that in the aftermath of the
attack, [combat soldier Yaakov] Shimba kicked Zarhum in the head and
upper body with force. It said [Prison Services officer Ronen] Cohen
threw a bench onto him, and after another man removed the bench he
took it and again dropped it on the prone man.” The indictment states
that although Zarhum was one of the most seriously wounded in the
fracas, he was evacuated to hospital only after all other wounded
were evacuated (per Haaretz). The lynchers celebrated the killing on
live TV broadcast, when they still believed that Zarhum was the
shooter. (rh) | | | Two-state solution: The worst and only way to solve Israeli-Palestinian conflict
DAVID HOROVITZ - Al-Monitor - From the left, Israel is increasingly
being told by opponents, critics and self-styled supporters at home
and abroad that it has wrecked its foundational commitment to
maintaining both a Jewish majority and a democracy by expanding the
settlement enterprise deep and wide across the West Bank. Since it
can no longer disentangle itself from the Palestinians, and has thus
destroyed the option of the two-state solution on whose basis Jewish
statehood was revived, it has no choice now but to consent to a kind
of sovereign suicide — and usher in a single binational state between
the river and the sea, in which a higher Arab birthrate means Jews
will become an increasingly small minority as the decades pass. From
the right, here and overseas, by contrast, Israel is loudly
encouraged to expand its presence still farther into the biblical
Judea and Samaria, to realize its historical rights and connections,
punish the Palestinians for their perennial rejectionism, and put an
end to the dangerous delusion that a tiny country in a toxic region
can ever safely withdraw from an adjacent territory whose residents
dream of its destruction. If expanding sovereignty can somehow be
presented as according with democratic principles, so much the
better, but if not, so be it.(rh) | | | Beirut`s tragedy may befall Israel as well
Lior El-Hai - YnetNews - The horrendous images of the explosion at
Beirut`s port, especially the enormous mushroom cloud enveloping
Lebanon`s capital all as it slowly rises, should terrify many around
the globe. For the residents of the city of Haifa- where Israel`s
largest seaport is located - these sights represent a nightmare that
one day might actually come to live. There is hardly a single person
living in Haifa, whose body did not tremble at the sight of the
footage emerging from Lebanon. The word ammonia is the single most
terrifying word for the residents of the cities of Haifa, the Krayot,
Neshser and the town of Kiryat Tiv`on, which is connected to Haifa`s
port. (rh) | | | ‘I ask you for your support and solidarity’: Prof. Imad Barghouthi writes from Ofer prison
MAD BARGHOUTHI - Mondoweiss - Dear colleagues, Israeli authorities
arrested me on July 16th 2020 simply because of my publicly-expressed
opinions and social media activity. I am currently in the Ofer prison
camp, located near Ramallah city. I consider this arrest to be
against my right to freedom of speech which is protected by
international law. I have the right to express my own opinion and
speak up to defend my country from military occupation. Also, my
detention infringes on the rights of my students, my research and
scientific activities. I do not expect any justice from the Israel
military court system which is designed to subjugate the Palestinian
population and lacks any credibility./// Dear scholars, I appeal to
you to support the rights of myself and my students to continue
pursuing our research. I therefore ask you for your support and
solidarity to call for either my release from Israeli prison or, at
minimum, demand that they provide me with the necessary tools to be
able to teach online and set up my own lectures. Preferably located
in my house in order to be able to teach and supervise my students.
In advance, thank you very much for your help and support.(rh) | | | America’s death march: Even beating Trump won’t stop the empire’s terminal decline
Chris Hedges - Alter Net - The terminal decline of the United States
will not be solved by elections. The political rot and depravity will
continue to eat away at the soul of the nation, spawning what
anthropologists call crisis cults — movements led by demagogues that
prey on an unbearable psychological and financial distress. These
crisis cults, already well established among followers of the
Christian Right and Donald Trump, peddle magical thinking and an
infantilism that promises — in exchange for all autonomy —
prosperity, a return to a mythical past, order and security. The dark
yearnings among the white working class for vengeance and moral
renewal through violence, the unchecked greed and corruption of the
corporate oligarchs and billionaires who manage our failed democracy,
which has already instituted wholesale government surveillance and
revoked most civil liberties, are part of the twisted pathologies
that infect all civilizations sputtering towards oblivion. I
witnessed the deaths of other nations during the collapse of the
communist regimes in Eastern Europe and later in the former
Yugoslavia. I have smelled this stench before.(rh) | | | Erekat: I never expected this poison dagger to come from an Arab country
JOSEF FEDERMAN - The Times of Israel - AP — Israel’s agreement to
establish diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates marks a
watershed moment in its relations with Arab countries, but the
Palestinians say it puts a just resolution of the Middle East
conflict even farther out of reach. The UAE presented its decision to
upgrade longstanding ties to Israel as a way of encouraging peace
efforts by taking Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the
occupied West Bank off the table, something Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu swiftly rebuffed by insisting the pause was “temporary.”
From the Palestinian perspective, the UAE not only failed to stop
annexation, which would dash any remaining hopes of establishing a
viable, independent state (rh) | | | Attention UAE Leaders: Israel Is Advancing De Facto Annexation
Amira Hass - HAARETZ - So there’s no official annexation. However,
one should bring to the attention of Hend al-Otaiba, spokeswoman of
the UAE Foreign Ministry, and Yousef al-Otaiba, the country’s
ambassador to the U.S., who are so proud of their diplomatic
achievement, that at any given moment Israel is advancing de facto
annexation. You didn’t know? When you come visiting, members of the
Otaiba family, drive eastward towards the West Bank (including East
Jerusalem). You’ll see that it’s hard to tell where sovereign Israel
ends and where the West Bank begins. Route 443, the Shiloh valley,
the western and eastern Etzion blocs, the “tunnel road,” the Binyamin
district, the “sovereignty road,” the Jordan Valley, the Trans-
Samaria highway, the Givat Ze’ev bloc, the Adumim bloc, the Talmonim
bloc, the Gilo bloc, the Karnei Shomron bloc and its environs, the
City of David, the Har Homa neighborhood, the seam line area, etc.
etc. All of these are emblematic of the way Israel has encroached on
Palestinian space that was intended to be part of their state under a
peace agreement. All of these have become ever-expanding Israeli-
Jewish areas – arrogant, imperious, enclosing Palestinian enclaves
that are becoming less and less visible.(rh) | | | Shalom, Abu Dhabi! Why the Israel-UAE agreement changes (almost) everything
DAVID HOROVITZ - The Times of Israel - It was always widely believed
in Israel that much of the Arab world, and certainly many in the
Gulf, were fairly indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians, and,
at worst, not particularly ill-willed toward Israel. My trip in 2016
anecdotally indicated the same, though I stress it was a brief visit,
I was speaking with local citizens as opposed to foreign workers, and
I know other Israelis have had less pleasant interactions. It was
also widely believed in Israel that much of the Arab world, including
the Gulf, would nonetheless not overtly partner with Israel, much
less fully normalize relations with Israel, so long as the Israel-
Palestinian conflict went unresolved. And so it proved. Until
Thursday. The UAE-Israel deal has not yet even formally been
consummated, but we have already entered the honeymoon period. After
endless domestic political deadlock, and months of a pandemic and a
collapsing economy, Israeli media is understandably delighted to be
reporting some good news, and the coverage is downright giddy —
thanks, in great part, to interviewees in the UAE itself mirroring
the Israeli delight.///A complex process led to Thursday’s
extraordinary diplomatic bombshell. In the mix was the Gulf’s shared
concern with Israel at the ongoing strengthening of Iran, and the
awareness that Israel simply cannot and will not allow itself to be
cowed by an Islamist regime aiming for our demise and bent on
achieving nuclear weapon capability. Somewhere in the mix, too, was
that indifference to the Palestinians, or at least impatience with
them, and ultimately a decision no longer to be constricted by the
Palestinian conflict in their dealings with Israel.(rh)
| | | Water in Gaza: Scarce, polluted and mostly unfit for use
B`Tselem - Some two million Gazans suffer from a constant shortage of
water, which gets worse in summer. The tap water is salty and
polluted and is not fit for drinking. In the absence of other
alternatives, residents are forced to use this water for bathing and
washing, yet the supply is irregular and unpredictable. For drinking
and cooking, they no choice to buy water privately – despite severe
financial hardship – and even then it is usually substandard. The
shortage of water in the Gaza Strip and the substandard quality of
tap water have been known for years. The coastal aquifer, which Gaza
relies on as its only water source, has been polluted by over-pumping
and wastewater contamination. As a result, 96.2% of household water
from the aquifer is non-potable. Moreover, about 40% of the domestic
water supply is lost on the way to consumers because of Gaza’s
outdated infrastructure. Due to irregularities in supply, residents
have to stock water in containers in their rooftops to use on days
when the supply is cut off. The power supply in Gaza is also
intermittent, and often does not come on at the same time as the
water supply. This limits residents’ ability to operate pumps to fill
up the containers. Families that do not get a chance to pump water to
the roof before the power supply runs out find themselves with no
running water. (rh)
| | | For previous articles since 2004 go to respective sections | |
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