FALSE ‘CHRISTIAN’ VALUES ARE PREVENTING JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE

For justice in Palestine, we need democratic values ​​and not lying “Christian” values.

Justice for Palestine is as far away as the “Christian values” in politics

By Evelyn Hecht-Galinski

After Trump’s announcement of the “Fraud of the Century”, disillusionment and hopelessness returns. It is frustrating to see the hypocritical community fail to respond appropriately to the century’s one-sided fake Zionist plan. Even the affront and open racism that no Palestinian was invited to the White House and asked to do so would have required a keen response. Far from it, you could almost feel the helplessness and cowardice that you showed to this idea.

Zionist colonization along the lines of racist colonial powers

Let us not forget that the Palestinians have never been given a say in their fate; they have always been condemned to endure and to Zionist oppression. This intelligent and highly educated people tried everything possible to steal, take away and break their will. The Zionists who invaded Palestine dubbed them “dirty, lazy peasants” and, following the example of the racist colonial powers, they built their own Zionist colonization, which is still unique in the world today.

For centuries, the colonial powers have tried to secure the “supremacy of the white master race” – by all means. Let us only think of South Africa and white apartheid, where it took decades to overcome them. We Germans should not forget the British concentration camps in South Africa, since the German National Socialists were the worst imitators and builders of these concentration and extermination camps in the Third Reich.

Since the founding of the “Jewish State” Israel in 1948, which was accompanied by the Nakba, the displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestine, this sad “model of success” of Zionist-Jewish oppression has been vehemently supported by “Christian states and their values”. Zionist apartheid is becoming ever more pronounced and powerful – also as a result of the international “Christian values” support – and enables the unrestrained final solution to Judaism.

Naksa Day: another sad day in the history of Palestine

On June 5, Naksa Day (which means “setback in Arabic”), the Palestinian people annually commemorate the displacement that accompanied Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six Day War. As a result of this war, Israel took control of the Palestinian-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, which had previously been annexed by Jordan and controlled by Egypt. Another sad day in the history of Palestine.

Since the so-called British Balfour Declaration, which brought only suffering and division to the Palestinians and has paved the way for injustices and disenfranchisement for the Palestinian people until today, nothing has changed for the better, on the contrary. The guns were immediately put on the chest of the Palestinians after the Balfour Declaration, and they had no chance of defending themselves against colonial superiority. Even then, the indigenous people of Palestine were not asked if and why they should be willing to share their country with the Zionist invaders. Why too? Colonial power saw itself as always right and had the power of the fittest.

This declaration made the Nakba possible, because it gave the Zionists the right to drive a large part of the Palestinian population out of their homeland through terror and to establish the “Jewish State” on burned Palestinian earth. Then as now, the Palestinians were not regarded as equal partners on an equal footing and to this day they have been denied their legal right to return to their home country of Palestine, which is covered by international law. The international community, which otherwise full-bodily demands human rights everywhere, including with military force, fears the Zionist ban and is silent about it.

Nakba has to become the German state reason!

While the Palestinians expelled from their country with violence and terror have to vegetate in refugee camps under the worst conditions, Jews from all over the world are granted a more than dubious “right of return” to Israel. The Holocaust has a lasting effect and grants Jews and Zionists rights that are completely legal. This fact must never be forgotten, despite the Holocaust or precisely because of it. The Nakba may and must be seen in the context of the Holocaust, and this connection, which is always negated by the “Christian-Jewish community of values”, should finally become the German rationale.

It should be painful for all of us how Trump, the US government and the European states are “ripping the Palestinians” away and how interest in their unsustainable situation is becoming less and less important. Everything was brilliantly planned by the Zionist Hasbara and its Christian Zionist helpers. The “Jewish State” has managed to portray itself not only as a US favorite, but also as a small, threatened state, which is ridiculous in view of its armed forces and its nuclear arsenal and therefore a bold lie. It is true that the security of the “Jewish state” is in no way at risk, because it is this Zionist aggression-armed state that threatens its neighbors Lebanon, Syria, Iran and world peace.

Who helped spark the Syria conflict and who is trying to win hegemony across the Middle East, which is increasingly possible thanks to US and also European and especially German support? Who, apart from Jewish people, lets refugees die in prisons or pushes them, including women and children, into their deadly homeland, regardless of their circumstances?

Disparage Erdogan but remain silent about Netanyahu?

That in this country the left and the Greens are raging against Turkey and vilifying Erdogan as a despot and “sultan” – after all, the president of the country that accepted more than 3.8 million Syrian refugees – but about Netanyahu and his state terror regime, which sees refugees as “infiltrants” , silence, I can only describe as lying.

Despite the attacks by the “young world” because of my support for Turkey and Erdogan, one of the few important statesmen and western politicians of a democratic state that is committed to Palestine and the end of the Israeli occupation, I will continue to do so with full conviction! I also see TRT-German as an important antipole to certain German news portals and media, and this left-wing daily newspaper should ask itself whether it does not contribute to the fact that Turks in Germany feel increasingly uncomfortable and undesirable in Germany. In any case, I feel empowered by this “left-wing criticism”, which only shows me that I am on the right path.

To date, nothing has changed in the fact that the Palestinians are treated as a people without rights and without the right to self-determination. For more than a hundred years, the peaceful and intelligent Palestinian people have been treated with arrogance and racist contempt. If all plans are made over their heads, they should accept that. And the Palestinian leadership is not ashamed to participate in this unsustainable situation as a willing collaborator of the Zionists. What did it bring them? Only more and more oppression, land grabbing and disenfranchisement. The attempt to criminalize their legal right to legal resistance and to link them with the “Christian struggle for values” against terror is particularly infamous. This “anti-terrorist struggle”, which is nothing more than an excuse, to take action against Muslims and Islam as the supposed “religion of terror” and to portray the “Christian-Jewish community of values” as peaceful. Warfare around the world speaks volumes! So much hypocrisy is difficult to bear and plays into the hands of Christian and Jewish racists.

“Normalize” the “special” relationship with the Jewish occupation-apartheid state!

That the “special” relationship with this Jewish occupation-apartheid state is finally “normalized”. That means: No German rationale for the security of the “Jewish state” as long as Palestine is occupied, and no “state reception” for representatives of states that violate international law and human rights. For justice in Palestine, we need democratic values ​​and not lying “Christian” values.

 

Originally posted AT

UNCOVERING THE ATTEMPTS TO STEAL ALL OF PALESTINIAN LAND

Thanks to the Israeli daily Haaretz, this attempt, which has been going on for years, to make the Nakba (catastrophe) disappear into secret archives, has been uncovered.

Soon it will all be gone 😦

Zionist, you stole Palestine, give it back. 

By Evelyn Hecht-Galinski

 

No, the story can not be covered up, every attempt is doomed to failure in the long run. Even though the “Jewish State” maintains the most efficient “cover-up center”, the secretive security section of the Zionist “War Department” for “blue-and-white washing”. (1) The documents about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the evidence of expulsion, deportations of about 800,000 Palestinians, massacres, rape, raids and destruction by the “Jewish Defense Army” at the founding of the state on its murderous way to the Judaisierung, one wants again to the secret thing do. Thanks to the Israeli daily Haaretz, this attempt, which has been going on for years, to make the Nakba (catastrophe) disappear into secret archives, has been uncovered. (2)

“Jewish state” finally revealed as an apartheid state

According to Haaretz, a group of civil society organizations, historians and archivists called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to order the current Malmab cover-up leader Nir Ben Menashe to end the agency’s policy and thus the cover-up and immediately re-open the documents or return the ones that had already been removed and to preserve the last appearance of democracy. This authority causes serious damage to any historical research. However, it is unlikely that this state will reflect, but rather it will try as usual to discredit unpleasant researchers and scientists. It is the direct attempt to eradicate Palestine forever. It’s just the one more attempt to guarantee the sole claim of the “chosen Jewish people” forever. This claim is as false and unlawful as the national state law, which finally exposes the “Jewish state” as an apartheid state.

Do not distort history unilaterally Zionistically

As little as the sole claim to Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital of the “Jewish state” will endure, it will be impossible in the long run to falsify history unilaterally Zionistically. The plundering of the PLO archives in 1982, the transfer of parts of the documents to Israel as well as the raid and plundering of the Orient House in East Jerusalem were already attempts to free themselves from their own war crimes and their own guilt – always with the reference to the security interests of the “Jewish state”

Even Jewish citizens are denigrated as anti-Semitic

The fact that Malmab’s former director, Yehiel Horev, who led the agency until 2007, justifies the cover-up with reference to state security, which can also affect foreign policy, is exactly the same as that country’s “only” democracy in the country The Middle East, however, more and more proves how far away it is from this claim. A country that has been built on destruction and permanent violation of international law and denounces any criticism of its policies as anti-Semitic, even defamed even Jewish citizens as anti-Semites, has forfeited any claim to recognition and support.

Primer in the Nakba

Also, the expulsion of the Bedouins, which continues to this day, is a dark chapter of the founding of the state. Of course, it is completely impossible to unwrap all the documents, books and studies on the subject. So what remains is the Hasbara (propaganda), which is state-sponsored and scientifically supported, to draw these writings as implausible and untrue into Zionist mud. It seems that only after the publication of many historical books on the Nakba, did they notice which explosives were in them and how the public reacted to them.

Zionist methods of the state terror regime

It is the usual Zionist methods with which this state terror regime wants to make its documented crimes and massacres disappear into Zionist Nirwarna. As forcefully as Ilan Pappe described these events and thus historically documented for eternity, hardly any other historian did and does, no wonder that he is so hostile to the Israel lobby. After all, so many details about the secretive facts of founding a state are hard to bear.

The myth of clean Zionism has long since become a farce. Even today, people are afraid that even more details will be published than known, which could lead to unrest and turmoil. It would be so easy to finally clean and face the blame.

Holocaust impossible without connection to Nakba

Instead, one refers again and again to the guilt of the Holocaust and its uniqueness. But how can you see the Holocaust without a connection to the Nakba? Is not the founding of the state and the mass expulsion of the Palestinians as a sad consequence of the Holocaust to see? After all, it is this uniqueness of this Zionist state foundation at the expense of the Palestinian people, with the attempt to make Palestine disappear in order to make the Jewish state shine. How Israel has succeeded in wiping out the Palestinian villages, all cultural traces, the language, the identity, is beyond perfidy. Yes, the “Jewish state” is the master of Judaization at the expense of another people. People were blown up without pity for homeless families.

Like many other massacres, Deir Yassin is still unpunished today, as is the Nakba in general. The attempt to undo it by covering up has already failed forever. It is thanks to Israeli organizations such as Zochrot that the tracks of hundreds of Palestinian villages and people have not been forgotten. When the National Socialists tried to make Germany “Jew-pure” in order to make the “Aryan race” the only German representation of the “bio-German”, this was an attempt to destroy a religious community. Just as one remembers this annihilation to this day, it is time finally to commemorate the systematic evictions of the Nakba. Today, German politicians keep making a pilgrimage to the memorial site for the millions of murdered Jews after Yad Vashem.

Only the path of memory leads to a new beginning

What recklessness is gone over is unprecedented and should just shame Jewish citizens and their philosemitic helpers and finally move to thinking and rethinking. How can one remember a guilt without remembering the other? After all, only the path of memory leads to a new beginning.

When will we see the international community finally becoming aware of what it is doing with the support of this Jewish apartheid state? This state, which also has nuclear weapons and the worst new weapons systems, and is becoming increasingly threatening for its neighbors Lebanon, Syria and Iran, thanks to US and European aid, must finally be sanctioned. For let us not forget, it is not Iran that threatens Israel, but it is the Netanyahu regime and its US aides threatening peaceful Iran.

Covering up the story is impossible

Although historical past and war crimes can be covered up for a while, they can not be made to disappear. A “revision” of its history is impossible, and the State of Israel has no legal basis for doing so. But is this state still ready to submit to the law? Probably not, because law and democracy are incompatible with Zionism and the Jewish state, which is only concerned with obscuring historical truth and lying to a suitable and glorifying Jews together. But lies and defamation have short legs, and Zionists who stole Palestine have to give it back.

footnotes

(1) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-how-israel-systematically-hides-evidence-of-1948-expulsion-of-arabs-1.7435103

(2) https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/wie-israel-berichte-about-massaker-an-palaestinensern-nachtraeglich-sperr-16301027.html

 

Originally posted AT

ISRAELI SOLDIERS CELEBRATE ‘VICTORY’ OVER PALESTINE

Yesterday I posted about the latest in illegal home demolitions in Palestine by Israeli soldiers …. 

Click HERE to see post

Today I post the reactions of those soldiers as they celebrate their ‘victory’.

SHAME ON THEM!

 

THE NAKBA CONTINUES … A MUST WATCH VIDEO

After 24 years of back and forth in an Israeli court, this Palestinian family was forced out of their home in occupied East Jerusalem.

IN PALESTINE TODAY WHERE DEMOLITION REPLACES TUITION

Israeli forces demolish a Palestinian school

THE UNGENTRIFICATION OF PALESTINE

They are “demolishing our Palestinian heritage.”

“The Palestinian identity of [Haifa] city is being reinvested and reshaped for the benefit of the hegemonic Zionist narrative.”

“The Artists’ Quarter,” a new condo development in Wadi Salib. Advertisements outside the building feature families and the slogan,”You are the Quarter” (“Atem haRova”). (Photo: Yuula Benivolski)

Gentrification in Haifa soars as Palestinian homes are converted into luxury real estate

Israel’s Haifa municipality is unveiling major plans to transform the city in northern Israel into a Barcelona of the Middle East – a city with captivating ancient architecture redolent of a storied past.

However, there is one problem: these homes belonged to Palestinians. Most of whom were among some 750,000 who fled or were expelled from their homes and lands in 1948 during the Arab-Israeli war that marked Israel’s creation – referred to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” by Palestinians.

During Israel’s first years of statehood, the buildings, including many large villas, were shuttered and blocked up with concrete, left that way for decades. Palestinians often kept records of their original deeds and house keys, yet they were never allowed to return to their homes.

Other homes were until recently rented to Palestinians by Israeli companies that acquired Palestinian properties in the years after the Nakba. These decrepit buildings were often neglected until the city deemed them unliveable, and evicted the Palestinian residents. Now the homes are being flipped into luxury units.

Many of the refugees from Haifa and their descendants now reside in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jenin in the occupied West Bank. In 1948, some 40,000 Palestinians also became internally displaced within the borders of the newly established Israeli state.

“They are essentially turning the ruins of the Nakba into economic projects for Israel’s free market,” said Orwa Switat, a Haifa-based activist and urban planner. Switat told Mondoweiss the municipality’s new projects in the historic Palestinian areas in Haifa include the development of “luxury apartments, prestige condos, an artist village and galleries, and a commercial area and offices.”

“Now the municipality is reshaping and turning this space into a center for leisure and art, and luxury and boutique apartments in order to gentrify it and turn it into projects that the Israeli market profits from,” he said.

Boarded up building in the Wadi Salib neighborhood with “The Gallery” condo in the background (Photo: Yuula Benivolski)

Wadi Salib: ‘Demolishing our Palestinian heritage’

Gentrification hit Haifa about 20 years ago, but it was gradual at first. That process has increased significantly in the past five years, according to Jafar Farah, director of the Mossawa Center in Haifa. The change in speed came when the municipality opened more homes for purchase from private developers, selling sometimes 45 homes in one bid, Farah said.

“In this case, no Arab investor or family can buy these houses. The target is big companies,” he said, adding that many Palestinian residents of the city suffer from poverty and are therefore unable to purchase the homes.

Most of the development is in Wadi Salib, which was the largest Palestinian neighborhood in Haifa before 1948, when it was depopulated of its Palestinian residents.

In Wadi Salib, 14 Israeli developers purchased the whole neighborhood, amounting to hundreds of housing units, between 2010 and 2012. The purchased houses were either demolished with modern structures built in their place or the historic homes were renovated and marketed for their so-called authenticity.

They are “demolishing our Palestinian heritage,” Johnny Mansour, a Haifa-based author and historian, told Mondoweiss.

Switat noted that Wadi Salib is “not just a place of gentrification.” But it is also a “historical Palestinian area that was captured, neglected for decades, and now is being gentrified and recreated into new Israeli projects that do not serve the indigenous Palestinian community.”

“This change will change the meaning of the neighborhood itself and the historical Palestinian center of Haifa into an orientalist project, where the municipality uses that Arab style of architecture and heritage, and then depoliticizes and neutralizes it from its political context and historical displacement,” Switat said.

Meanwhile, “the actual owners of the houses are still refugees today in Lebanon.”

According to Farah, vacant refugee buildings in the nearby Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Nisnas also in Haifa have recently been targeted for development.

Yaacov Zitser accounting firm bought one of the old buildings for its offices. across from it are dozens of emptied and gutted Palestinian buildings, Haifa. (Credit: Yuula Benivolski)

Hadar: ‘I still remember the families who used to live there’

Uphill from Wadi Salib, Emil Afara, 90, was 20 years old when Zionist militias expelled his family from their home in the Hadar neighborhood in Haifa city.

He and his family sought refuge, along with some 13 other families, at the Stella Maris Monastery nestled on the slopes of Mount Carmel, about five miles away from their home. They survived on bread made of ingredients donated by the priests at the religious compound, Afara said from his home in Wadi Nisnas in central Haifa where he lives today. It is walking distance from his original home.

“I know the families who own these homes. It’s not easy. When I look at the homes, I still remember all the families in Haifa that used to live there,” Afara continued, “It’s very sad, because they are not here anymore.”

Activists and rights groups are challenging this “ethnic gentrification” in Haifa. Several organizations in Haifa are attempting to convince the new mayor, Einat Kalisch-Rotem, to include the Palestinian communities into their development plans and halt economic projects that would destroy the Palestinian history and heritage of the city.

The Israeli municipalities often do not include Palestinian communities into their strategic plans for development, even if the plans are laid on top of Palestinian neighborhoods or in cities with sizable Palestinian populations. Oftentimes, Palestinian residents  become aware of the municipality’s plans only after they are implemented.

Afara, however, does not hold much hope that the municipality’s plans will change. “I saw them take the homes from us. They gave them to Jews or blocked them up so their owners could never come back,” he said. “Now they are demolishing them and some of our beautiful [Palestinian] homes are being renovated and sold.”

“Israel has taken everything from us,” he said.

In Haifa, out of 75,000 Palestinian residents only 3,000 remained in the city after 1948. According to Mansour, the historian, during the fighting Palestinians were pushed into Wadi Nisnas where they were placed under a siege for about two months, unable to leave the area unless receiving special permission from authorities.

“Those who remained in Wadi Nisnas lost all of their properties to the Israeli state,” Mansour said. “They became strangers in their own city.”

Mansour added that the original Palestinian owners, some of whom are still within the boundaries of Haifa, are “very afraid and conscious about what is happening to their properties.”

After Israel passed the Absentees’ Property Law in 1950, the properties of Palestinian refugees and those internally displaced, who were referred to as “present absentees”, were transferred to Israel’s General Custodian.

Amidar, a state-owned and state-run housing company, was created by Israel and tasked with managing these properties. In 1953 Israel passed the Land Acquisition Law, allowing the state to use these confiscated properties and assets for Jewish settlement, development, and Israeli security and military interests.

This was the last step to “complete the process of formal transfer of ownership of confiscated [Palestinian] land,” Switat said, paving the way for historic Palestinian neighborhoods to be transformed into profitable economic ventures for private Israeli companies and the state.

Turkish hammam built by the Ottomans, now a luxury restaurant and “interior design studio” called Studio 99 (Credit: Yuula Benivolski)

Barcelona, Israeli style

A major plan for Haifa’s municipality is to develop the coastal area in order to create a touristic port similar to Barcelona. This project is called “Haifa waterfront,” Switat told Mondoweiss, and will result in the eviction of an entire Palestinian neighborhood.

The development project involves moving the port, which is now disconnected from the city, to the east of Haifa city. Throughout this project, residents of the al-Mahatta neighborhood — located near the port — are being evicted and their homes demolished to make room for 700 luxury apartments and a touristic area including bars, restaurants and hotels.

The al-Mahatta neighborhood, according to Switat, is one of the oldest Palestinian neighborhoods in Haifa, representing the origins of the city.

Many of the residents in al-Mahatta were evicted under the pretense that their homes were “too dangerous” for them to continue to reside in, owing to Amidar — which owns almost half of the homes in al-Mahatta, failing to repair or improve the buildings, Mansour said. The company then uses the dilapidated state of the buildings as an excuse to kick residents out.

Meanwhile, others were evicted after losing their protected tenancy rights, which had permitted them to live in the homes for a fixed, reduced rent. These policies in the city are “creating a reality in which people [Palestinians] are being slowly pushed out of their historical neighborhoods,” Switat said.

According to Mansour, out of 600 apartments in the neighborhood, only 28 remain standing.

Haifa’s artists’ quarter: an advertisement for the gallery and boutique apartments on the facade of a boarded up Palestinian building in Haifa (Credit: Yuula Benivolski)

It starts with the artists

The gentrification taking hold in Haifa city has been implemented by Israel’s municipalities and government in other Palestinian urban areas in Israel, particularly Jaffa and Akka.

Jaffa was one of the first Palestinian urban areas to undergo major transformations. The Israeli government began destroying Palestinian homes and evicting families as early as the 1960s, Switat explained.

From 1949 to 1992 it was illegal for Palestinians to repair homes built before Israel declared statehood in 1948, thus forcing Palestinians to live in units where lack of repairs caused them to fail to meet zoning codes.

Much like the plans for Haifa today, the city of Tel Aviv approved an urban renewal plan in 1992 that catered to Israelis seeking to buy and renovate homes that were priced out of reach for most Palestinians. The plan made no specific accommodation to Palestinians renting homes in Absentee properties. It further created cumbersome terms for Palestinians who inherited houses in Jaffa.

In 1996, Israel then approved a policy that legalized the sale of all remaining Palestinian Absentee houses. This created a fire sale. More than 900 shuttered homes belonging to Palestinian refugees in Haifa, Jaffa, and Akka were privatized and sold at auctions between 2010 and 2015, Switat said.

As a result of this gentrification process, “Jaffa today is no longer Palestinian,” Switat said.

In Jaffa, this same gentrification process is almost complete, transforming the historical Palestinian city into an affluent Israeli neighborhood. Switat tells Mondoweiss that Israeli artists are often the “pioneers” of this “ethnic gentrification” in historic Palestinian areas in Israel.

“The artists are the ones willing to live in buildings that are in bad shape, where they can make it an art gallery. And then they create a coffee shop and then restaurants,” he said. “They start the movement through festivals in order to attract students and middle class young couples who are attracted to that kind of ‘authentic’ cultural atmosphere that the artists create.”

In a similar process, “the Palestinian identity of [Haifa] city is being reinvested and reshaped for the benefit of the hegemonic Zionist narrative,” Switat noted.

Haifa city was founded some 250 years ago by Daher el-Omar, a Palestinian who ruled the Galilee during the Ottoman Empire. However, the city’s Palestinian history does not exist in Haifa’s public spaces.

“In Haifa, you have museums for exhibiting Japanese art, but you can’t find an exhibition that describes the Palestinian history of the city,” Switat said.

This gentrification process, Switat added, is aimed at “erasing the Palestinian narrative” from the city.

WATCH LIVE ON VIDEO …. THE DESTRUCTION OF PALESTINE

Village of Al-Issawia (East Jerusalem) early this morning. The genocidal forces of the terrorist Israeli occupation destroyed one of the residential buildings in the village. The building structure also contained a dry cleaning business and a pizzeria that served Palestinian residents. After demolishing this dwelling, the owner will be forced to pay for the demolition or face prison time

As Israel ‘grows’ at the expense of stolen Palestinian land, one has to think of the following ….

YET ANOTHER PALESTINIAN VILLAGE TO BE ERASED BY ZION

And Abbas remains silent ….

Image by Latuff

Historical village perched in Jerusalem’s hills may soon vanish

Lifta residents protest government plans to build villas, hotels, in historical village.

A small but picturesque village on Jerusalem’s hillside may soon be transformed forever.

Lifta, an historic village in a bucolic spot at the entrance to Jerusalem, is at the center of a preservation fight over an Israeli plan to build villas there.

The village, located on the outskirts of Jerusalem, is on a tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites, and the World Monuments Fund organization has put it on its list of sites under threat.

Lifta (Flash 90)

IN IMAGES ~~ REMEMBERING A PROUD LAND THAT ONCE WAS

Remembering the Nakba

Seventy years on from the Nakba, Palestinians seem to move from one cycle of oppression to another

A Palestinian man walks front of graffiti that reads “Returning” as Palestinians attend “camp of return” to mark refugees’ ties to lands lost in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, during a gathering to mark the 69th anniversary of the “Nakba” (catastrophe). Nakba means “catastrophe” in reference to the birth of the state of Israel 69 years ago in British-mandate Palestine, which led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who either fled or were driven out of their homes during the 1948 war over Israel’s creation.Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash 90

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I didn’t sell my house they stole it ..

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69 yrs later, we are still here, all over the world, keeping our keys & hope that every day passes we are getting closer to return

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To our homes in Palestine, we will return!

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69 yrs of dispossession, forced exile and oppression
We still resist & We Will Return

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Latuff adds the following

Their creation was our Nakba!

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“al-Nakbah” means “catastrophe”. Nakba Day when more than 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homeland

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Free Palestine!

BREAKING THE SILENCE ON ISRAELI RACISM

Where are the outcrys against this injustice?

When a government removes its Bedouin citizens from their home in order to settle its own Jewish citizens in their stead, this is racist dealing. Dispossessing people of their land in order to plant a forest on that same land is inhuman. Had these Bedouins been Jewish settlers, the government certainly would not evict them before finding an alternative dwelling for them that would suit their demands.

By its own acts the government of Israel proves that the UN’s outrageous ruling was not erroneous. Citizens of Israel who do not protest this extreme injustice in fact support the government in its racist policy.

Bedouins hold placards during a protest against a plan to uproot Umm Al-Hiran Village

Bedouins hold placards during a protest against a plan to uproot Umm Al-Hiran Village

Racism

By Amos Gvirtz

Anxiety is fierce. Israeli citizens are in their homes, demolition orders hovering that may be acted upon any day now. What will happen to them? Where will they go? Where will they live? No one offers them any alternatives. They are not, after all, settlers who settled lands that are not theirs, violating Israeli and international law. They are citizens of Israel. Their sole “crime” is to have been born Bedouins in the State of the Jews. They were evicted of their land – of which they were dispossessed – in 1949. The Israeli government transferred them twice until it finally settled them, sixty years ago, in Umm Al Hiran and Attir. Now this government claims they are invaders! Invading the localities where the government itself settled them sixty years ago…

Why is it so important for the government to remove them from the localities it had settled them in? Anyone visiting Umm Al Hiran will see a vast, empty area all around. But apparently the government of Israel has decided to create a Jewish settlement, named Hiran, right where it once settled the Bedouin inhabitants of Umm Al Hiran. And plant a forest right where the government of Israel once settled the inhabitants of Attir!

The question is why does the government of Israel do this. Unfortunately, the simple answer is because it can. Because there are not enough citizens who oppose such racist policies.

The UN General Assembly once came out with an outrageous declaration, ruling that Zionism is racism. The insult was severe. How could once accuse the State of the Jewish Peoplel – who had suffered so long from racism – of racism? Indeed, a few years later the UN General Assembly revoked its own outrageous ruling.

In the 1980s the Isrsaeli Knesset (parliament) legislated a law against racism. I fear that this law is actually against racist incitement, not against racist deeds. The law in fact protects all the racist deeds committed by the government. No one may demand to outlaw the Israeli government because of its own racist acts.

When a government removes its Bedouin citizens from their home in order to settle its own Jewish citizens in their stead, this is racist dealing. Dispossessing people of their land in order to plant a forest on that same land is inhuman. Had these Bedouins been Jewish settlers, the government certainly would not evict them before finding an alternative dwelling for them that would suit their demands.

By its own acts the government of Israel proves that the UN’s outrageous ruling was not erroneous. Citizens of Israel who do not protest this extreme injustice in fact support the government in its racist policy.

60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF PALESTINE

Sixty years is a long time to mourn a death, even a cold-blooded murder. It is even longer when you must live among those, and under the system of those, who murdered your loved ones. Had this been merely an isolated incident of the Israeli military machine killing Palestinians, one may have already regulated it to the history books. But it was and is not.

Photographs of the victims are displayed at the Kafr Qassem Massacre Museum. (Photo credit: Dylan Collins)

Photographs of the victims are displayed at the Kafr Qassem Massacre Museum. (Photo credit: Dylan Collins)

The Almighty Military Order

Forty-eight civilians, 1 fetus and 10 pennies

By Sam Bahour

If your Palestinian neighbors and friends seem slightly on edge today, please excuse them. October 29th brings back horrific memories to Palestinians everywhere, young and old. It was 60 years ago today that a scene of cold-blooded murder fell upon the hill-top Palestinian village of Kafr Qassem (also written Kfar Kassim), located in Israel about 20 km east of Tel Aviv, near the Green Line (1949 Armistice Agreement’s demarcation line) separating Israel and the West Bank. It was in Kafr Qassem on this day in 1956 where the Israeli military literally mowed down in cold blood 48 innocent civilians, one being a pregnant woman whose fetus is counted as the 49th victim. It was said that all of this was done in the service of the almighty Israeli “military order,” which no one dared to challenge.

Sixty years is a long time to mourn a death, even a cold-blooded murder. It is even longer when you must live among those, and under the system of those, who murdered your loved ones. Had this been merely an isolated incident of the Israeli military machine killing Palestinians, one may have already regulated it to the history books. But it was and is not.

There were other massacres prior to Kafr Qasssem, such as the case of Deir Yassin in 1948. Since that dark day in Kafr Qassem there have been numerous other incidents, too many to list. One that comes to mind is 13-year old Iman al-Homs who, in October 2004, was walking home from school in Gaza when an Israeli soldier emptied his magazine into her after she was wounded and lay on the ground. The soldier was caught on radio communications saying he was “confirming the kill.” The most recent example that comes to mind is the Israeli soldier caught on camera in Hebron this past March as he executed a wounded and immobilized Palestinian man lying on the ground by firing a bullet into his head as his fellow soldiers casually watched on.

Unlike today, decades ago Israel did undertake more serious investigations of actions of its military. This is not to say that justice was ever served—it rarely is. Such a landmark investigation was the Israeli Kahan Commission, established by the Israeli government on September 28, 1982, to investigate the Sabra and Shatila massacre (September 16–18, 1982) where 1,000-3,000 (exact number is disputed) Palestinians were slaughtered over three days.

The Kahan Commission was chaired by the Israeli President of the Supreme Court, Yitzhak Kahan. Its other two members were Israeli Supreme Court Judge Aharon Barak and Major general (res.) Yona Efrat. The Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon was found to bear personal responsibility. Sharon’s negligence in protecting the civilian population of Beirut, which had come under Israeli control, resulted in a recommendation that Sharon be dismissed as Defense Minister. Although Sharon grudgingly resigned as Defense Minister, he remained in the Cabinet as a Minister without Portfolio. Years later, Sharon would be elected Israel’s Prime Minister.

Back to Kafr Qassem.

The Israeli English newspaper, Haaretz, reported in a story by correspondent Ofer Aderet (60 years after massacre, Kafr Qasem doesn’t want an apology from the Israeli government, October 28, 2016) that, “In the 60 years since the [Kafr Qasem] carnage Israel’s attitude has been complicated. Those involved in it were court martialed, convicted and some sentenced at first to long prison terms [these “long terms” were less than what the law stipulated for premeditated murder]. [Israeli] Judge Benjamin Halevy coined the phrase “a blatantly illegal order” in his verdict. The instruction to Israel Defense Forces soldiers that they are obliged to refuse an order “that has a black flag flying over it” has become part of the Kafr Qasem legacy.”

The Haaretz story goes on, “But the convicted parties’ sentence was soon commuted by the chief of staff, they were pardoned by the president and released from jail. The most senior defendant, Col. Issachar Shadmi, commander of the brigade in charge of the area, was sentenced to a symbolic fine of 10 pennies for exceeding authority. Major Shmuel Malinki, commander of the Border Patrol battalion, testified at the trial that Shadmi had ordered him to enforce the curfew with gunshots. Asked what would happen to those who return to the village after the curfew, Kedmi said Shadmi had said “may God have mercy on their soul.””

And maybe most shocking of all coming from an Israeli newspaper is that, “The comparison between the Kafr Qasem massacre and the Holocaust was first made at the trial, when the [Israeli] judge asked one of the defendants if he would have justified a Nazi soldier who was obeying orders.” The Haaretz correspondent continues, “In 1986, 30 years after the massacre, Shalom Ofer, one of the convicted soldiers, said in an interview to Ha’ir: “We were like the Germans. They stopped trucks, took the Jews off and shot them. What we did is the same. We were obeying orders like a German soldier during the war, when he was ordered to slaughter Jews.””

Many, especially those in the Jewish community in Israel and abroad, will rightfully find the above words hard to swallow. I don’t blame them. This horrendous act was revolting and when undertaken in “your” name it makes one sick to their stomach.

Aderet’s article offers but a glimpse into the legal proceedings surrounding Kafr Qassem. One of the first people to document those proceedings wasattorney Sabri Jiryis in his landmark book, The Arabs in Israel, published in Haifa in Hebrew in 1966. A fuller account of the testimonies recorded by the Israeli commanders and soldiers who took part in this killing spree can be found printed here [with the author’s permission] in English. Warning: it’s a disturbing read.

And this, my friends, is the buried past and not so buried present, of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), “the most moral army in the world.” It is imperative that we all redouble our efforts to not make it its future as well, military order or not.

 

Originally posted AT

Related Post (Click on link)

Commemorating Kafr Qasim Massacre at its 60th Anniversary

A HOT AND DRY RAMADAN IN PALESTINE

Ramadan 2016: Israel ‘cuts off water supply to West Bank’ during Muslim holy month

 Israel Cuts Water to West Bank During Ramadan Image by Carlos Latuff


Israel Cuts Water to West Bank During Ramadan
Image by Carlos Latuff

Israel has cut off the water supply to large areas of the West Bank, Palestinian authorities have claimed.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have reportedly been left without access to safe drinking water during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting, at a time when temperatures can exceed 35C.

The northern city of Jenin, which has a population of more than 40,000, said its water supplies had been cut in half by Mekorot, Israel’s national water company. Jenin is home to a refugee camp, established in 1953, which contains 16,000 registered refugees.

Ayman Rabi, the executive director of the Palestinian Hydrology Group, told Al Jazeerathat in some areas people had not received water for more than 40 days.

He said: “People are relying on purchasing water from water trucks or finding it from alternative sources such as springs and other filling points in their vicinity.

“Families are having to live on two, three or 10 litres per capita per day.”

A spokesperson for the Israeli government told The Indepedent there is “no truth” in the claims, and said the shortages were down to faulty water lines.

They said: “Several hours ago, COGAT’s Civil Administration team have repaired a burst pipe line, which disrupted the water supply to the villages of Marda, Biddya, Jamma’in, Salfit and Tapuach. The water flow has been regulated and is currently up and running.

“Any effort to connect the disruptions with terror is mistaken and misleading.

“Given the failure to develop infrastructures as a result of the unwillingness on behalf of the Palestinians to convene  the Joint Water Committee (JWC), there are problems in the water supply.”

Saleh Hijazi, Amnesty International’s Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories researcher, said the reports were “alarming”.

He told The Independent: “Israel already allows Palestinians access to only a fraction of the shared water resources in the occupied West Bank, with unlawful Israeli settlements getting almost unlimited water supplies which enable settlers to maintain lush gardens and even fill up numerous private swimming pools.

“Water is a basic need and a right. Mekorot should restore any water supplies to Palestinians it has cut off and the Israel authorities should end their discriminatory water policies, lifting all arbitrary restrictions it currently imposes on Palestinians’ access to this vital resource.”

According to UN guidelines, 7.5 litres per person per day is the minimum requirement under nornal conditions but in some areas of the Palestinian territories the minimum requirement is much higher.

The municipality of Jenin, several villages in Nablus and the city of Salfit and its surrounding villages claimed to have suffered cuts to their water supply.

Almost 200,000 Palestinians in the West Bank do not have access to running water, and require permission before collecting it themselves, according to a report by Amnesty International.

Since 1967, Israel has limited the water available to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since its forces occupied the territories.

Mekorot could not be reached for comment.

Source and photos HERE

SUNDAY MATINEE ~~ PALESTINIAN ART OF STEADFASTNESS

The history of modern Palestine can be traced through the work of its artists.

Sliman Mansour and the art of steadfastness

After the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, what has become known as the Nakba, the theme of refugees — “hopeless, helpless and without homes” — dominated.

But, as veteran artist Sliman Mansour explains, after the emergence of the armed struggle in the 1960s, “Palestinian art became proud.”

“The Palestinian woman with her nice dress, flowing hair and long neck: the woman is a symbol of the revolution,” he says.

Jerusalem soon became a symbol for Palestine, and Mansour is perhaps best known for his painting of an elderly man carrying its walled Old City, with the Dome of the Rock as its crown jewel, on his back.

“The main idea behind our work was to try to promote and develop and show that there is a Palestinian people and Palestinian identity and culture,” he says.

Political

Artists like Mansour didn’t choose to be political, but were only responding to their environment, he adds.

Mansour and his comrades in the Palestinian Art League printed their work on posters to reach the widest audience possible.

Their work was wildly successful.

“You can find Palestinian art posters in every home,” he says.

“This sudden fame also made the Israeli authorities aware of our existence,” he adds. “They confiscated some artwork. What happened to these artworks, we don’t know until now.”

Censorship

Israel began censoring Palestinian artists, and banned the colors red, white, black and green — the colors of the Palestinian flag.

During this time in the late 1980s known as the first intifada, Palestinian artists began working with natural materials, in observance of the boycott of Israeli products.

“Instead of painting a landscape, I will use the land to paint,” Mansour recalls thinking.

Mansour was once part of an initiative to try to change Israeli public opinion through art, under the banner of ending the occupation.

“We came to a conclusion that it is not working … so we stopped,” he says.

*Linda Paganelli is a visual anthropologist based in Palestine.

JERUSALEM DAY IN PALESTINE ~~ THE ONGOING NAKBA

Following are reports and photos from the Palestinian Press (Click on links)

Right-wing Jews tour Al-Aqsa to mark Jerusalem Day

(MaanImages)

(MaanImages)

Settlers uproot hundreds of olive trees near Hebron

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Israeli forces chase 5-year-old with ‘skunk water’

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Special Report ….

67th commemoration of the ongoing Palestinian Nakba

Palestinians in the Baqa'a refugee camp in Jordan in 1970. (UNRWA Archives/AFP)

Palestinians in the Baqa’a refugee camp in Jordan in 1970. (UNRWA Archives/AFP)

More New and Views at Ma’an News Agency

INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE GETS STAMP OF APPROVAL FROM ISRAELI SUPREME COURT

Don’t miss my earlier post …. We are supposed to ‘love’ these people (sic)

Participants in Jerusalem Day parade, a show of strength for the religious right. Photo by Tali Mayer

Participants in Jerusalem Day parade, a show of strength for the religious right. Photo by Tali Mayer

Thousands of Israelis waving Israeli flags participate in the annual Jerusalem Day march of flags entering the Old City through the Muslim Quarter and making its way to the Western Wall. Jerusalem Day marks the reunification of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War.

Last year, marchers were caught on video shouting “Death to Arabs” and “Muhammad is dead.”

Israel’s Supreme Court rejects removing Muslim Quarter from Jerusalem Day route

The annual Jerusalem Day march will still go through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City after the Supreme Court rejected a petition to change its route.

The court ordered police to arrest any participants who shout racist slogans or engage in violence or vandalism during Sunday’s march. Arab residents of the Old City must be given full access to their homes and businesses during the march, the ruling also said.

“With a heavy heart, we reject the petition,” Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein reportedly said.

The petition was filed by the Israeli NGOs Ir Amim and Tag Meir.

Last year, marchers were caught on video shouting “Death to Arabs” and “Muhammad is dead.”

Thousands of Israelis waving Israeli flags participate in the annual Jerusalem Day march of flags entering the Old City through the Muslim Quarter and making its way to the Western Wall. Jerusalem Day marks the reunification of the city following the 1967 Six-Day War.

From JTA

HaAretz report HERE

Also see update on THIS POST from the archives …

The ‘White Man’ in question just received a gun licence from the Jerusalem Municipality …. he is now legally allowed to kill!

Surely he will be a participant in the upcoming march … with his gun in hand.

WE LIVED IN PEACE TILL THE WHITE MAN CAME

WHAT DO ISRAELIS REALLY KNOW ABOUT THE NAKBA?

What do Israelis really know about the Nakba? What do they think about the right of return of the Palestinian refugees?
De-Colonizer went out to meet and asked them…

Mazin Qumsiyah, PhD adds the following ….

On the eve of the 67th year anniversary of the Nakba (the catastrophic
ethnic cleansing of Palestine), Benjamin Netanyahu finally formed a
“coalition government” a group of ministers who are honest about their
racist and genocidal tendencies (see article by Gideon Levy below). It
includes a “Justice” who called for murdering Palestinian mothers so that
they do not bring out more “snakes”. It includes the head of “civil
administration” who openly supports ethnic cleansing and genocide. A
government more right wing in its composition than Germany was in 1933-1939
or South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s but an honest one indeed without
double talk or hypocrisy. What is disappointing is not the make-up of the
government but the hypocritical response to it. Words from the “Palestinian
Authority” wining about the new government were accompanied by continuing
security coordination with Israel and the PA arrest of dozens of
Palestinians simply for having different political affiliation (e.g.
students who against all odds were voted to student councils at Palestinian
Universities). Geopolitically, there are now two choices: US/Israel that
attempt to dominate the Arab World and Western Asia through a class of
puppet dictators (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt) and the axis of Russia,
China, Iran, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon (led by Hizbollah) and large segments of
Iraqi society. It would be nice to have a third axis (like the non-aligned
movement led by Egypt and India in the 1960s) but it does not currently
seem possible.

Yasser Arafat managed to steer the PLO leadership to semi-neutrality or at
least flexibility in building alliances as need arose. But even acting as a
good honest broker to solve some regional disputes many times by asking
people to put the interests of their people ahead of their superpower
sponsors (then it was Soviet Union and the USA/NATO). In the time of Abu
Mazen, we see more a definitive side-taking (e.g. with Saudi Arabia against
Yemen) in a fashion that actually weakened the Palestinian cause
dramatically. The black and white attitude was applied in a way that is
like George Bush “you are either with us (USA right wing government) or
with the terrorists. In this case you are either with us (Fatah) or with
the terrorist Hamas.  There seems no room left for nuances or indeed for
diplomacy. From the agreement with Hamas, there is only the part about
holding elections for the PA that Abbas wants to implement. Other parts of
the agreement (holding elections for the PLO, economic issues etc) were
supposed to happen synchronously but they are now off the table. Meanwhile
Gaza was devastated and is still under siege (civil society is responding
and a flotilla of ships is moving to break the siege). Last time this
happened, there were martyrs and some high level PA officials ridiculed the
Free Gaza movement. Instead, it would have been nice to see PA officials
join Haneen Zoabi and Raed Salah on the boats. Alas wishful thinking for
change.

The old definition of madness still apply: repeating the same (failed)
tasks and expecting different results. And we live in a mad, very mad
world. US/Israel still fund terrorists, support dictators, and support
ethnic cleansing. Those who bet on them to help them achieve “independence”
still do not understand and still hope somehow magically, things will
change. They would be wise to listen to Russian President Putin. He was
speaking at the 70th anniversary of the win over Nazi Germany (26 million
Russian lives were lost) and was flanked by other world leaders including
China (though noticeably absent where key NATO leaders). He said, the
attempt at creating a unipolar world is failing and that we should look
towards a new system. Iran, China, most of Latin America and other
countries which long suffered from Western Colonialism agreed. President
Abbas was there but had no comment. I was reminded of Naji Al-Ali 1964. I
was reminded of Orwell 1984. I was reminded of the book Majanin Beit Lahmem
(the crazy people of Bethlehem) published 2014.

Life goes on in occupied Palestine. A Palestinian community (Susya) is
about to be uprooted. Colonial settlers and soldiers still attack native
Palestinians with impunity. Corruption and heroism happen, poverty and
greed happen, cooperation and collaboration happen, resistance and
normalization happen. Poor people struggle and rich get richer. It is hard
to cope sometimes but we keep going against all odds.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall….*

Stop whining. Long live Israel’s new and honest government

Israel’s new government won’t spout hollow slogans about peace, human rights, and justice. The truth will be thrust in the faces of Israelis – and the world.

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The 34th government will deserve Israel; Israel will deserve the 34th government. This is an authentic and representative government, the true manifestation of the spirit of the times and the deepest feelings of most Israelis. It will be a true government, without pretense, without makeup and without self-justification. What we’ll see is what we’ll get. Welcome to the fourth Benjamin Netanyahu government.

They won’t talk haughtily and they won’t spout hollow slogans. Not about peace and not about human rights; not about two states and not about negotiations; not about international law, justice or equality. The truth will be thrust in the faces of Israelis and the world. And the truth is this: The two-state solution is dead (it was never born), the Palestinian state will not arise, international law does not apply to Israel, the occupation will continue to crawl quickly toward annexation, annexation will continue to crawl quickly toward an apartheid state; “Jewish” supersedes “democratic,” nationalism and racism will get the government stamp of approval, but they’re already here and have been for a long time.

Neither Netanyahu, nor Habayit Hayehudi’s chairman MK Naftali Bennett nor that party’s faction members MK Ayelet Shaked and MK Eli Ben-Dahan, started this whole thing. They only expedited things. And there should be no shock or outrage, no bewailing the bitterness of fate. This government is a government of continuation, not a government of change.

True, some of its members are more extreme than their predecessors, but that is mainly about rhetorical differences. Even the most inflammatory appointment, of Shaked as justice minister, which reverberated throughout the world over the weekend, is less revolutionary than it seems. Shaked is blunt and violent, whereas Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni, her predecessor, was delicate and proper. But Justice Minister Shaked will not have to work hard to break open cracks in our democracy; they opened a long time ago.

The best test of the nature of the regime in Israel is the test of the occupation and the war crimes: the foundations of apartheid are already deep and the war crimes remain uninvestigated. From her office in the heart of occupied Jerusalem, Livni has not made Israel more just in that respect. True, Shaked’s ideas are more nationalistic and her understanding of the essence of democracy is nil. True, many in the world were shocked that a person who identified with one of the most violent articles ever written here against the Palestinian people (by Uri Elitzur), was appointed minister of Israeli justice. But there’s no place for such sanctimoniousness. Elitzur expressed what many people are thinking.

The appointment of another racist, Eli Ben-Dahan, as deputy defense minister, responsible for the Civil Administration, should not be earth-shattering either. True, Ben-Dahan said that “the Palestinians are animals, they are not human, they are not entitled to live” – but don’t these statements reflect the true attitude of many Israelis? Ben-Dahan will speak for them. That is how Israel has been treating the Palestinians for almost 50 years; Ben-Dahan is only saying things overtly. Now he will be responsible for the Civil Administration and the whole system of “humanitarian gestures” will be torn up. Ben-Dahan is the right man in the right place at the right time. An excellent appointment.

A person who proudly says “I killed masses of Arabs” and calls them “shrapnel in the buttocks” will be education minister – and who in Israel doesn’t think that? The general of Operation Cast Lead, with its crimes, the man who contravened building restrictions, Yoav Galant, will be construction minister. Is that not a fine appointment? MK Uri Maklev of United Torah Judaism is to head the Knesset Science Committee? Does that not correctly reflect the attitude of some Israelis to science?

Stop whining. Maybe Israel’s shadow government should be more enlightened, but not its real government. It is what the Israelis chose, it reflects their true stands. And so, long live the new government.

NETANYAHU’S TWO STATE SOLUTION ~~ ONE WITHOUT PEOPLE

zions mantra in establishing the State of Israel was “A land without a people for a people without a land”.

The mantra of today in reference to a State of Palestine is simply “A land without people”.

The Nakba of 1948 is an ongoing process

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Latuff ~~ The ongoing Nakba

Latuff ~~ The ongoing Nakba

Click on the following links to read what has been happening since Israel’s election …

The illegal settlers and the IDF are working hand in hand

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And President Obama remains silent

"Not my problem"

“Not my problem”

His silence speaks volumes