I en artikkel i Haaretz 28 juni beskriver reporter Amira Hass om to veier ved Ramallah.
Som et mikrokosmos utgjør historien om disse to veiene i sum det som er hverdagen på den okkuperte Vestbredden ... hverdagen veimessig for de okkuperte palestinerne, og ulovlighetene når de ulovlige "nybyggerne trenger" veier seg imellom.
En lesverdig reportasje om to veier. Og om hvordan okkupasjonen korrumperer okkupanten i det konkrete og hverdagslige.
The blockage of a road into the village of Aaboud, on WednesdayCredit: Nidal Shtieh
With the center-right government crumbling and the settlers increasing
their organized assaults on Palestinians, with help from our beloved
soldiers, writing about two roads in the Ramallah district seems like a luxury, even
an act of journalistic suicide: Who cares about such trifles? But it’s
precisely the small things and becoming accustomed to them that show the
success of Israeli-Jewish society in methodically breaking
international law with impunity.
Persons unknown blazed a road through the lands of El Bireh and Ein Yabrud, north of Ramallah. It’s three kilometers long, and
mysteriously it stretches between the settlements of Ofra and Beit El.
The Civil Administration confirmed it was an illegal road, but did not
explain how illegal work with heavy equipment could take place near its
main base and opposite two other military camps. We can only conclude
that the illegal road construction was done with the army’s blessing
while the Civil Administration turned an intentional and encouraging
blind eye – until the Palestinians started to protest.
Great resources and money, one hand (military) washing the other
(civilian) and the knowledge that no one will be punished for breaking
the law: These are the trifles behind this road and hundreds of others
built by similar methods in the occupied West Bank. They shorten the way
between settlements and outposts – all tainted with smug Israeli
criminality – and among these entities and Israel. This is robbery of
land and space, which we have learned cum laude from our British,
French, Dutch, Portuguese and other forebears on continents not their
own.
Israel also excels at robbing the natives’ time, as seen on a small
scale in the blockage of the road into the village of Aaboud, northwest
of Ramallah. There is a military outpost there with the slogan “The
mission – victory in every encounter with the enemy.” That same attitude has guided Israeli commanders and planners in
the past: The village land was stolen to build the settlements of Beit
Aryeh and Ofarim. After that, for the comfort and growth of those
settlements, the roads leaving the village westward were permanently
blocked. In May 2002, the Israel Defense Forces blew up an ancient,
5th-century church on the land, the Church of St. Barbara. “We didn’t
know it was a church,” the army explained. Ignorance is part of the
necessary contempt for the natives.
An orange, iron barrier is installed at the top of the entrance road. The high-tech nation knows how to use low-tech to overcome the enemy.
Concrete blocks, a lock and two armed soldiers are allowed at any time
to rob the time of some 2,500 residents. Similar gates have been
installed at most, if not all, Palestinian communities. In a single
decision, any Palestinian village can become a cage. The army says it’s
because of stone throwing. Collective vengeance is also prohibited by
international law. But those who give and carry out the orders know that
they will not be arrested when they land in Berlin or Rome.
For two weeks the gate was locked.
People wasted time, effort and fuel to drive a narrow detour road. Take
a thousand people, multiply it by 30 minutes added to their travel time
– and that gives you 500 hours a day. Multiply that by 12 days and it
brings you to 6,000 hours that could have been devoted to livelihood,
rest, study, gardening and family, but which dissipated into the air.
Such dissipation of Palestinian time is one of Israel’s tried-and-true
weapons, in addition to the engineering of Palestinian geography: We put
the Palestinians into ever-shrinking pales of settlement, increase the
time and distance between them by means of checkpoints, roadblocks,
settlements, fences, security roads, etc.
Last Wednesday night the barrier was
opened. On Sunday, the soldiers locked it again. Without being told,
they know that one of their missions in exhausting the elderly, young
people, women and children is to steal their time.
It’s
the small things and their normalization that show the success of
Israeli-Jewish society in methodically breaking international law with
impunity.
"The Gaza Strip: An Israeli Crisis, Not a Climate Crisis"
En gjennomgang av den langvarige israelske blokaden av Gaza, og bombing av infrastruktur der, beskriver en tilstand for 2,1 millioner mennesker som blir stadig verre miljømessig.
Kommentoren kaller denne israelske behandlingen: "Gaza Aquarium".
The Gaza Strip: An Israeli Crisis, Not a Climate Crisis
File:
a Palestinian boy fills a donkey-pulled cart with recyclable waste and
other items he collected, in hope to be able to sell them, at a garbage
dump in Rafah, southern Gaza.Credit: AFP
The Institute for National Security Studies
in Tel Aviv recently published an alarming report warning of the dire
consequences for the Gaza Strip as a result of the climate crisis. The
report, also published by Ynet, raises troubling information about the
miserable circumstances of Gaza’s civilian Palestinian population, and
suggests a number of possible measures to halt the deterioration.
This is indeed a critical issue. Climate change is hitting the Middle East at a fast pace,
and it demands urgent consideration and action. However, the INSS seems
to regard the humanitarian situation in Gaza as a given, caused by a
“combination of factors,” the conflict with Israel among them. This is a
mistaken view, which knowingly obscures the fact that the central
reason why the residents of Gaza are significantly more exposed to the
effects of the climate crisis is the Israeli blockade.
Pushing the civilian population in Gaza to the brink of a humanitarian disaster is a deliberate and almost stated aim of Israeli policy towards Gaza.
Therefore, regardless of whatever creative measures are taken to ease
the water or energy crises in the Strip, the Israeli government must
first decide that isolating Gaza from the West Bank and Israel is an
immoral and ineffective and must be stopped.
Autarkic
resource-based economies no longer exist in the world we live in. Yet
the blockade on Gaza expects a territory of 2.1 million people to
subsist on desalinated water pumped primarily from its own territory.
The poor water quality in Gaza
is presented in Israeli discourse as the result of “excessive
extraction” from the local aquifer. All this despite the fact that there
isn’t a single region in Israel, or around the world really, that is
forced to provide water for millions of people through this method.
The INSS states that Gaza’s electricity
supply is restricted due to a lack of cash and fuel, but what it doesn’t
say is that Israel often uses punitive collective measures against the
local population and prevents the entrance of fuel, even when funding
sources are available. But even if fuel was abundant, the infrastructure
and plants available to distribute energy are for the most part still
dysfunctional due to recent Israeli bombardment.
Israel
is delaying the entry of thousands of items required for the smooth
functioning of the water and electricity systems, and this risks their
continued operation. According to the organization Gisha, water and
electricity installations in Gaza are in need of thousands of spare
parts. The INSS agrees that the restrictions on entry of parts that
Israel classifies as “dual purpose” – materials necessary for
construction and development but that may also serve military purposes –
undermine any attempt to rebuild the electricity grid.
In short, Israel is knowingly condemning
the residents of Gaza to freezing winters and boiling summers (imagine
an August night on the Israeli coastal plain without an air conditioner
or fan), restricting water pumping and sewerage drainage, and limiting
all essential services, including medical ones, to only a few hours a
day.
The
report, somewhat approvingly, states that Gaza’s electricity supply is
becoming more and more reliant on solar panels. The INSS sees this as an
opportunity to encourage reliance on renewable energy. How cynical of
them. Maybe following the model of the water supply, Gaza’s electricity
system will be limited to exploiting only the rays of sunlight shining
in between the border fences.
We could discuss many other examples: Should we worry about the rise of
Co2 concentration in Mediterranean waters and the decline in available
fish for consumption in Gaza as a result of the climate crisis? Either
way, Israel expands and limits Gaza’s fishing zones as it sees fit and
purposely prevents Gazan fishermen from making a living from their only
directly accessible natural resource. Even discussion about the decline
in the amount of rainfall can wait. First of all, Israeli crop dusters
should stop using pesticides to decimate the grassy areas around the
border areas (“clearing the terrain”) and damaging Gaza’s agricultural areas near the perimeter fence.
The Gaza Strip is not especially exposed to the ravages of climate
change because of its geographic location or climate. It is not a
climatically unique and autonomous region, but rather a political
enclave hemmed inside artificial borders. Gaza has been isolated from
its agricultural expanses and catchment areas that provided it with
water since 1949 in the cease-fire agreements with Egypt. After 1967, it
was shaped by Israel as a reservoir of cheap labor and a captive market
for Israeli goods, and since 2007 it has been under an Israeli military
blockade that has turned it into what many consider to be the “largest
open-air prison in the world.” The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza
today is a feature of Israeli policy, not a bug. With or without the
climate crisis.
If we wanted to draw a connection between the situation in Gaza and the
climate crisis, it would be more precise to think of it as a window onto
the nightmarish scenario of a world plunged into rivalry over
resources, and the creation of environmental enclaves for undesirable
populations. The Gaza Strip is in essence a forgotten aquarium, for
which an all-powerful external force determines the amount of food and
resources that will enter, when they will enter, and under what
circumstances. If this external power wishes, the subsistence level will
drop to the point of risking survival (a humanitarian disaster), and if
it wishes, welfare will be provided.
At a time of worsening environmental conditions, it isn’t out of the question to fear that powerful countries will adopt the Gaza Aquarium model,
imprison enemy populations, restrict their access to water and energy
and feed or starve them as they see fit. All this of course out of
national security considerations and the right of sovereign states to
protect themselves. The resulting misery, hunger and despair can be
explained, conveniently, as a result of global warming.
Many claim that Israel has an important
role to play in implementing global reforms towards clean energy
transition and sustainable economies. Not because Israel is a major
polluter of carbon dioxide, but because its technological capacity and
geopolitical significance can make it a model and source of solutions
for other countries. We can only hope that the model others choose to
implement is not the one Israel adopted for the Gaza Strip.
It
is right and good to seriously consider our preparedness for the
nightmarish scenarios that may occur because of the climate crisis. But
it is even more critical that this debate not obscure the fact that the
reasons why certain populations are more exposed than others are overtly
political.
The solutions for the crisis in Gaza won’t
be found in creative methods to avoid this issue while maintaining
Gaza’s isolation from the rest of the world, but by reconnecting it to
its geographic and economic surroundings. First of all, by opening the
checkpoints to the regular flow of goods and people, and then connecting
the Strip to Israel’s power and water networks. It is worth mentioning
that due to Israel’s considerable control of Palestinian territory, it
is required by international law and morality to provide for the
civilian population under its control.
Whether
Israel likes it or not, 40 years of occupation de facto and an
additional 15 years of military blockade in Gaza come with
responsibility. The damage caused in this period, and that is
continuing, cannot be blamed on the climate crisis any longer.
Dotan Halevy is a post-doctoral fellow at the Polonsky Academy, The Van-Leer Institute.
Bennett samarbeidet med "United Arab List" og fikk dermed flertall i Knesset.
Nå betegner Netanyahu "United Arab List" som antisemittisk.
Artikkel i Haaretz 26. juni 2022:
'Antisemitic': Netanyahu Blasts Likud Lawmaker for Suggesting Cooperation With Arab Party"
"After
months of harsh attacks by Netanyahu against Naftali Bennett's
coalition for including the United Arab List, a member of his own party
said that Likud could also form a government with UAL after the
election. Netanyahu: He wasn't speaking on my behalf
"The United Arab List is an anti-Zionist and antisemitic party, an
advocate of terror representing the Muslim Brotherhood – who seek to
destroy Israel," Netanyahu said."
Netanyahu fornekter seg ikke. Selv arabiske partier som har deltatt i den nylige israelske regjering blir av Netanyahu stemplet som antisemittiske og terrorstøttende.
Fyldig dokumentasjon i artikkel i Haaretz 26. juni: (Se HELE artikkelen nederst under Kilde)
"How the Bennett-Lapid Government Ruled Over the West Bank
The
presence of left-wing parties in the coalition did little to hinder the
'change government' from continuing construction in the West Bank and
destroying Palestinian residences"
Ingen tvil om at nybyggingen øker. Og spesielt på ny områder på Vestbredden UTENOM dert som kalles "Settlement blocs".
I artikkelen pekes det på den som godkjenner disse nye byggeriene er forsvarsminister Benny Gantz.
How the Bennett-Lapid Government Ruled Over the West Bank
The
presence of left-wing parties in the coalition did little to hinder the
'change government' from continuing construction in the West Bank and
destroying Palestinian residences
Palestinians built new houses in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Bruchin near the Palestinian town of Nablus, in 2021.Credit: Ariel Schalit /AP
In an alternate reality, Har Bracha would
be considered a suburb of Nablus, probably going by a different name.
The settlement, with its 3,000 residents, abuts the West Bank’s second
largest city, but is relatively isolated. When people in Israel talk
about “settlement blocs,” they don’t mean this one. And yet, over the
last year, under the Bennett-Lapid government, it has taken a few steps
to drive further stakes into the ground.
Under
the noses of Meretz, Labor and the United Arab List, the government
oversaw the construction of a new neighborhood there, with 300 housing
units. That is but one example. In fact, in its first and last year in
office, the government promoted the construction of thousands of housing
units beyond the 1967 borders, mainly outside settlement blocs, deep
within the West Bank.
The entrance to the Evyatar settlement, in February.Credit:
The controversial plan to build in the E1
area near Ma’aleh Adumim was also put into motion recently. Moreover,
for the first time, funds were transferred to settlers’ regional
councils for the purpose of taking action against Palestinian
construction.
If
left-wing parties in the unraveling coalition attempt to hide these
facts in the coming months, it’s possible that their partners on the
right will not rush to reveal other trends from the passing year. These
include the augmented law enforcement against the so-called “hilltop youth” settlers, and the fact that a plethora of promises, such as an agreement on the status of the outpost of Evyatar and the hookup of outposts to the national grid are far from being realized. Construction plans in the settlements
If
the story consisted of absolute numbers, the 7,292 new housing units up
for approval in the territories would tell the whole story, especially
considering that the average under former Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was less than 6,000 a year.
But the figures, compiled by Peace Now,
show that things are somewhat more complex. First, because Netanyahu’s
last years involved an increase in construction, compared to his earlier
years. Second, because most of the plans that received approval still
face a long journey before officially being allowed to commence. In
fact, only 3,000 units have passed through all the required hoops.
The
complexity of these figures is further reflected in the identities of
those who made them possible. In contrast to the policies they promote,
Meretz and the Labor Party were party to a government that approved
construction in isolated settlements, including Har Bracha and Elon
Moreh, near Nablus, Kiryat Arba near Hebron, and in Dolev, near
Ramallah. Especially prominent was the approval for a five-fold increase
of the settlement of Shvut Rachel, located in the heart of the West
Bank and not included in the so-called “settlement blocs.” The main
person behind all these approvals was Defense Minister Benny Gantz
(Kahol Lavan).
These facts may not jibe well with the declarations of the left-wing
parties as they head into their election campaigns, and they bother
others as well. The international community, which is monitoring
construction in the occupied West Bank, is worried. Sources told Haaretz
that there is disappointment over the fact that the Bennett-Lapid
government in fact continued the policies of the Netanyahu's government,
in a manner that is blatantly inconsistent with the natural growth of
these settlements.
The Shvut Rachel settlement, 2016.Credit: BAZ RATNER
The settlers didn't welcome the government’s actions either. The Yesha
(Judea and Samaria) council believes that the government actually made
the situation of construction in the territories worse, citing the fact
that the supreme planning committee convened less than in the past (even
though in the twilight of Netanyahu’s government it was in no hurry to
convene either). Furthermore, they say, not all the planned housing
units were brought up for discussion. Settlers say that 2,000 promised
housing units have remained on paper.
Construction tenders
Both
the settlers and Palestinians know that construction plans could very
well be just the first stage. The urban settlements, under the
responsibility of the Construction and Housing Ministry, need to issue a
competitive bidding tender for contractors for construction – with the
approval of the Defense Minister. This rule was definitely applied under
the Bennett-Lapid government. According to a report issued by Peace
Now, “The government of unequivocal annexation: One year of the
Bennett-Lapid Government", which surveys the present government’s
policies concerning the settlements, it seems that a not so short list
of tenders exists.
A partial list includes the settlements of
Adam, Emanuel, Karnei Shomron and Elkana. One bid that was especially
important for the settlers incuded 364 housing units in Beit El – on
land where the Binyamin regional brigade is located. The plan has been
stalled for a long time because of the high cost of evacuating the army
base.
Yet another project is to build a
new neighborhood in the city of Ariel with 730 residential units. It
would seem as if the project is meant to expand the city, which is a
settlement bloc in its own right – but that is not quite true – the new
neighborhood does not have territorial continuity with the already
constructed area of the city.
Strategic plans
E1, a term which seems to have been
resigned to the history books, made a surprising return, and became
relevant once again. At the end of May, the state informed the High
Court of Justice that the large construction plan near Jerusalem, a part
of Ma’aleh Adumim, is back on the agenda, despite having drawn quite a
bit of international criticism. This might be the most controversial
plan in the West Bank. It is particularly worrisome for the
international community, which belives that, should the plan come
together, it could put an end to the two-state solution.
Next
month, a hearing will be held on the objections to the plan, and it is
possible that with the dissolution of the Knesset, there will be renewed
political opposition.
Over the past
month, construction has begun on an elevator at the Tomb of the
Patriarchs in Hebron, a project intended to make the holy site
accessible to disabled persons on the Jewish side of the complex.
For years, the project was delayed because
of a long list of court petitions by left wing groups and Palestinians.
Ultimatly, all of the petitions were denied and the project is now
underway. This is not the only plan concerning Hebron: This year,
construction began on a new Jewish neighborhood with 31 housing units in
the old city.
Outposts
Though
one cannot credit the government – or alternatively to condemn it – for
the outposts that went up over the past year, according to Peace Now,
six new outposts have been constructed under the Bennett-Lapid
gvernment: Givat Hadegel in the southern Hebron Hills, Karnei Re’em in
the Salfit area, Havay Mevo’ot Yeriho north of Jericho, the Yulious farm
in the northern Jordan Valley, the eastern farm of Neria in the Jordan
Valley, and Givat Ohavei-Yah west of Bethlehem.
Most of them are farm outposts, meaning
they do not make use of the land for construction but take control of it
for pastureland. That is why, in principle, they are more easily
removed than the outposts that have larger numbers of residents. For
example Givat Ohavei-Yah was demolished this week – though not for the
first time – and a closed military zone order was issued for the site
for one year.
In general, the
Bennett-Lapid government took pride in its relatively low tolerance
concerning the establishment of outposts. Outposts built by the Hilltop
Youth have been removed much more frequnetly than the Civil
Administration has done in the past.
While putting up an outpost can be done
without the government necessarily agreeing, making an existing outpost
legal is a whole different story. There are three in this category:
Mitzpe Dani, Oz and Givat Habustan. At the same time, a few steps were
taken on the way to legalizing older and more established outposts that
been advancing in this direction. The objections to one of them, Adi Ad,
was dismissed in April.
Another example
is Havat Yair, which was connected to the electrical grid – according
to the settlers, as part of a promise given back in the days of the
Netanyahu government. Under the present government, connecting outposts
to the electrical grid was the most im
As a condition for his vote in favor of the
law to connect unrecognized Bedouin communities to the electrical grid,
Orbach asked to allow a large number of outposts that have not yet been
legalized to connect to the Israel Electric Corporation network.
According to a defense official, the order is still being worked over by
legal teams and is not expected to be approved anytime soon. In light
of the political developments, it is doubtful whether it will happen
while the present government is still in office.
One
of the first names that appeared on the Bennett – Lapid government’s
road map was Evyatar. The outpost, which went up on land above the
Palestinian town of Beita during Operation Guardian of the Walls in the
Gaza Strip in May 2021– with houses built and roads paved – seemingly
entered the fast track for legalization in the early days of the
government.
The entrance to the outpost of Evyatar in March.Credit: Moti Milrod
The government signed an agreement with the settlers in which they would
evacuate and the government would start the process of examining
legalizing the status of the land. The government promised that if it
was possible, a yeshiva or community would be built there. None of this
actually happened, and with the government running out of time, it's
doubtful any of it ever will. Regardless, Palestinians are still
forbidden to enter the site and the army is deployed on the hill 24
hours a day.
Demolishing Palestinian structures
This
past year came in third in the dubious competition of most Palestinian
strctures demolished since 2009, with 2016 and 2020 taking first and
second place. The total was 614 buildings, according to the United
Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Not
all of these structures were residences at the time of their demolition;
some were empty, others were used for agriculture or kitchens. At the
top of the list of demolitions was Ras al-Tin, a community of shepherds
who live in the area near Kochav Hashahar, where 84 people lost their
homes.
But it wasn't all about destruction for the
Palestinians. The numbers may be relatively small compared to
construction for settlers, but over the past year, the construction of
1,303 housing units for Palestinians was advanced – the highest number
in years. However, over 1,100 of these units have only made it through
the preliminary approval stage, and it seems it will take a very long
time before the Palestinians see bulldozers coming to do something other
than demolish.
Advancing construction
for Palestinains on paper didn't last long either. After the Yesha
Council of settlements condemned the move, advancing construction in the
West Bank was halted - for anyone who isn't a settler that is.
Enforcement budgets
One
of the innovations in allocating funds in the West Bank over the past
year is a sort of dowry from the previous Netanyahu government: 18.6
million shekels ($5.4 million) were allocated to the settlements for the
purpose of establishing a land survey department.
The goal was clear – to survey and map out
illegal Palestinian construction in Area C and to report on it to the
Civil Administration, the body in charge of law enforcement in the West
Bank. Along with the salaries of inspectors in the field, this budget
funded drones, the purchase of arial photographs, fencing, vehicles and
Arabic lessons for the inspectors – and it is not yet clear if this
budget will be renewed next year.
An
only slightly smaller sum, 18.5 million shekels, was budgeted for “the
battle for Area C," the title given to the Israeli government's attempts
to curb illegal Palestinian construction. The budget is the result of
the coalition agreement between Yamina and Yesh Atid, and is earmarked
to pay for an additional 46 employees of the Civil Administration,15 of
whom will take part in this supervisory unit.
Conrad, bedre å forklare hvorfor Bennett gikk av, ref denne meldingen: https://twitter.com/janmarton/status/1538977494858190848 Sitat:
"Bennett kaster kortene. Han MÅTTE se til at apartheid-lovene som beskyttet settlerne ble fornyet".
"Engang settler-leder - alltid settlerleder".
Konklusjon: Det var ikke flertall for å forlenge lovgivningen for settlerne. Ved å gå ble disse lovene automatisk forlenget til de kan vedtas på nytt under et Knesset. Det oppsiktsvekkende var at Israels høyreside stemt MOT fornyelse, med Likud og Netanyahu i spissen. - ALT for å velte regjeringen.
"Jewish Man Suspected of Involvement in Fatal Stabbing of Palestinian"
"Ali
Hassan Harb, 27, was stabbed to death near the settlement of Ariel
while trying to clear out settlers who were trying to erect an outpost
on his family's land in the West Bank"
..............................
Artikkel fra 972-Mag gir en rekke detaljer og korrigerer IDFs utsagn, se Ny info. Det ble til og med levert til IDF et bilde av gjerningsmannen ...
Spørsmål som gjenstår: Hvorfor er der en "gag order" på å referere om denne arrestasjonen?
Verter analysere aktørene og bruker sterke karakteristikker, spesielt om Netanyahu:
"Just a year ago, we ushered a prime minister
who set the opposite example into the opposition. Any agreement he
signed was trampled on, violated and thrown into the trash a moment
after the ink had dried. Benjamin Netanyahu’s swindling, thuggish
behavior toward his decent, well-meaning partner, Benny Gantz, should be
taught in criminology departments. A
year earlier, to avoid obeying the letter of the law and giving Gantz a
chance to form a government, he forced the country into another round of elections.
And since there’s no justice, this man who drags a gang of racist
nationalists, ultra-Orthodox politicians, criminals and messianists in
his wake – people who, like him, are determined to destroy the legal
system and the rule of law – is currently in the pole position to become prime minister.
Sterke ord om Netabyahu.
Han levnes ingen ære av kommentatoren i Haaretz.
Allikevel kan han bli Israels neste statsminister.
Israel's Government of Change Nears End Along With Bennet's Political Career
Bennett
will apparently resign soon and not run in the upcoming election as
renegade lawmakers who brought down the government in hopes of joining
the opposition may be left with nothing
Prime Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Lapid at the Knesset on Monday.Credit: Ohad Zwigenberg
The way Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced that he was passing the
torch to Yair Lapid sounded a fitting final chord to the tune the
government they led has played for 375 days. They are political rivals
who were wise enough to create a rare partnership, almost utopian by
Israeli political standards. They began nicely and ended even better. We
were as dreamers – is this Israel, or Denmark?
Just a year ago, we ushered a prime minister who set the opposite
example into the opposition. Any agreement he signed was trampled on,
violated and thrown into the trash a moment after the ink had dried.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s swindling, thuggish behavior toward his decent,
well-meaning partner, Benny Gantz, should be taught in criminology
departments.
A year earlier, to avoid obeying the letter of the law and giving Gantz a
chance to form a government, he forced the country into another round of elections.
And since there’s no justice, this man who drags a gang of racist
nationalists, ultra-Orthodox politicians, criminals and messianists in
his wake – people who, like him, are determined to destroy the legal
system and the rule of law – is currently in the pole position to become
prime minister.
Bennett said he made his decision – the right one – after meeting Monday
night with two of his party’s lawmakers, Ayelet Shaked and Nir Orbach.
The latter made it clear that in his view, it’s over. He intended to
vote on Wednesday in favor of dissolving the Knesset. Shaked urged him
to wait a week. Government officials in Morocco were waiting for her.
Orbach did her a favor and agreed to wait until next Wednesday – a
decision he, poor guy, is doubtless cursing energetically.
Shaked took off with a quiet mind. Meanwhile, Bennett held another conversation, by phone, with Orbach.
It was very vocal and emotional. After it, the prime minister began
drafting what he would say in the joint announcement with Lapid.
His decency, collegiality and gentlemanly behavior toward Lapid was left
by the wayside in his relations with Shaked. It’s not just the
embarrassment she will face in Morocco. It’s the knowledge, which
certainly shocked her, that her political career is on the brink of an
abyss, and that Bennett didn’t even bother to wait a few days for her.
He did this in cold blood. He called to inform her 15 minutes before he
and Lapid issued their official statement, and after he had already
informed the heads of the other parties in the governing coalition.
Bennett will apparently resign soon and not run in the upcoming
election. He’ll await an opportunity outside of politics. Monday night,
he explained his dramatic decision by a desire to avoid “chaos” for West Bank settlers
when the regulations that apply Israeli law to them expire at the end
of the month. That is eminently believable. He doesn’t want that
catastrophe recorded under his name.
Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana, his loyal partner, will
inherit the Yamina party and run at its head in the next election, or
else as part of some kind of joint ticket. There are no buyers for
Shaked’s merchandise. Netanyahu’s Likud party will slam the door on her.
Nor can she pin her hopes on New Hope; that party isn’t enthusiastic
about her, either. Perhaps her race for the gold is over (though it’s
impossible to know; politics holds many surprises).
As for New Hope, a lot of spin about it has
been thrown into the political air in recent weeks. There were even
so-called scoops about party leader Gideon Sa’ar being in talks with
Netanyahu about forming an alternative government.
But Sa’ar has no intention of sitting with Netanyahu – not in thisKnesset, and not in the next one, should
Netanyahu form the next government. His slogan from the 2021 election –
“Anyone who wants Netanyahu shouldn’t vote for me” – will be replaced in
the 2022 election with the following: “I won’t be the one who brings
Netanyahu back.”
Really, why should his
position change? Has the man in question changed? Does he not still seek
to halt his trial, even at the cost of destroying the entire system?
Has he moderated? Has he become more statesmanlike? Less of a liar? Has
he not set new records for inciting against, smearing and declaring open
season on his rivals over the last year?
The disgustingness the political system sank into in recent weeks when a
gang of parliamentary grasshoppers lacking any substance or repute
dictated the pace and nature of events, will now come to an end. Orbach
will be left without anything, his soul-searching ending as a farce. The
most famous mortgage in the country is in danger. Idit Silman, who
caused the election, was promised a guaranteed slot on the Likud slate.
We’ll see what her fate is in light of the expected massacre there in
the party primary. Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi and Mazen Ghanayim will
disappear from our lives, she will return to Nof Hagalil and he to
Sakhnin. We won’t miss them.
As for Likud: For the first time in three years, and four rounds of
elections, the party will be forced to hold a primary again for its
Knesset slate – and also for party chairman. Yuli Edlestein promised to
run against Netanyahu. His chances, to be polite, are not good.
According to the system in Likud, about a third of the slate will not be
reelected. In addition, old new candidates are expected to join the
national primary list: Danny Danon and Gilad Erdan, the first a former
ambassador to the UN and the latter is still serving there.
Netanyahu could very well try to form an alternative government in the
present Knesset, but the chances are poor – as long as New Hope is not
in the game. Numerically, he could reach 61 lawmakers with parts of some
parties and individual lawmakers, but that is not how you build a wall.
Such a government would be a sort of temporary solution, until a new
election is set.
In the center-left camp, or in its alternative name the “anyone but Bibi
camp” – the opening situation is problematic. Meretz, after the Zoabi
trauma, is shuddering. New Hope has only four seats in most of the
polls. It looks like there will be new players, Gadi Eisenkot for
example, one of the most decent, moral and modest IDF chiefs of staff.
He will most likely join Yesh Atid as the number 2 of the camp’s
candidate for prime minister. Lapid earned this role honestly over the
past year, and with the concessions he made on the way to forming the
present government.
"Trump and Fox News told the ‘big lie’ for profit"
Artikkelforfatter mener Trump ( og Fox News) VISSTE at påstandene om et stjålet valg var løgn.
Men det var penger å hente: "Yet for both Trump and Fox News, profit triumphed over patriotism. Trump’s campaign used the “big lie” to raise $250 million after the election, according to the committee’s findings. Much of the money was supposed to go to an “Official Election Defense Fund,” but no such fund existed. Instead, the big beneficiary was the Save America political action committee that Trump controls. According to Jan. 6 committee researchers, more than $200,000 found its way to the bottom line of the Trump Hotel Collection.."
An
Israeli soldier argues with Palestinian demonstrators during a protest
against Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Monday.Credit: RANEEN SAWAFTA/ REUTERS
The baby who was born the day that Maj. Gen. Chaim Herzog signed a
proclamation declaring pompously that “the Israel Defense Forces entered
the region today and assumed control, security and public order”
celebrated his 55th birthday this week.
As the newborn drew his first breaths and his mother gave him his first
caressing human touch, the general was swaying, drunk on a dizzying
power trip: “All authority of government, legislation, appointment and
administration pertaining to the region or its residents will now be
exclusively in my hands and will be exercised only by me or by any
person appointed therefore by me or acting on my behalf,” he declared.
And lest there be any doubt about his omnipotence, about his being a
sole ruler with no restrictions in the territory that his/our forces had
just conquered, he established that any legal obligation to consult or
receive authorization from others for appointments or legislation
"hereby void.” Yitzhak Rabin’s famous “I will decide, I will navigate” –
the occupation version.
The first Palestinian baby of the occupation was born into the
dictatorship of Maj. Gen. Chaim Herzog, who went on to become Israel’s
sixth president; his son Isaac now serves as the 11th.
From the very first day of this baby’s life – we’ll call him Abd,
“servant” in Arabic - though not like Abdullah, meaning 'servant of God'
in Arabic, and more like Abd-Israel – Herzog Sr. demonstrated his
authority over him, his parents and the hundreds of thousands of his
people living in the occupied territory: “I hereby declare,” he
announced in the second part of the proclamation, which sent military
jeeps to patrol the streets of Palestinian cities on June 7, 1967, “a
curfew throughout the region.” And for those with poor reading
comprehension, he added: “No one shall leave his home at any time during
the day or the night.”
Our
Abd was born into a tyrannical occupation and has lived in it his
entire life. He has never experienced a single minute of freedom, one
second of sovereignty.
In the years after his birth, his first ruler, Herzog, established his
successful law firm with his partners Michael Fox and Yaakov Neeman,
advanced a political career that culminated in the Knesset electing him
president of the Jewish state, pardoned Shin Bet security service agents
who had tortured Palestinian detainees and perjured themselves in
court, and who three times commuted the life prison term of a member of
the Jewish terrorist underground who had murdered Palestinian university
students, and attempted to murder the mayors of West Bank Palestinian
cities and Palestinian bus passengers.
In these years, the course of Abd’s life
was dictated by an absence of civil rights as a result of living under
the Israeli occupation and his subordination to Herzog and his
successors.
It
was they who decided what would happen to his family’s lands, whether
he would get a permit to build a home, and if he could travel abroad for
vacation or studies. And it was they who prohibited all political
activity, defined any criticism of the government as incitement, jailed
tens of thousands of Palestinians – some of them without trial – and
even outlawed human rights organizations, classifying them as terrorist
organizations.
In his teenage years, Abd saw how the landscape of his homeland changed
completely. He saw how hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland were
expropriated and new communities with alien, European architecture took
over the space.
He watched the arrival of new residents, who brought with them a mentality of being lords of the land and who received from “the Herzogs”
everything that had been taken from his family and his community: land,
water, natural resources, participation in decision-making and, of
course, dignity.
Half a million settlers and two intifadas
later, Herzog Jr. began his presidency by visiting the Har Bracha
settlement, where he inaugurated an ulpana – a religious girls’ high
school – and lit Hanukkah candles at the site where a Jewish physician
massacred Muslim worshipers, the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. He
did not visit Abd, and did not inaugurate anything in his village.
So don’t say Ben-Gvir and Smotrich,
say Herzog. From Chaim Herzog to Isaac Herzog, it is the Israeli
establishment, not its fringes, that expropriates land, builds
settlements, re-engineers the demographics of the occupied territory,
brutally throttles all opposition to its rule, including nonviolent
resistance, and inflicts disaster on Abd and his people.
The Herzogs may not be deluded messianists,
but even through the Cambridge-inflected Irish accent, they exude
Jewish supremacy in their deeds. They (we) may not hang the picture of
the Hebron murderer in our living rooms, but we are the effective
occupiers and dispossessors, not they.
So
while not all of us are Ben-Gvirs, we are all Herzogs. And besides,
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich are our legitimate children, fruit
of the tree that we all poisoned. To focus on them is to blame the stone
and absolve the person who threw it.
Abd is 55. He lives in a full apartheid state that all of us, we
Israelis, created, including those who consider themselves very distant
from the crazies in Hebron. The Israelis who work in high-tech, who
march in Pride parades, and each and every lawyer at Herzog, Fox &
Neeman – we all impose the curfew on Abd.
We all divert all of his land’s natural
resources to his settler neighbors at his expense, merely because he is
a Palestinian, and they are Jews. We are all signatories to a
government whose institutions are designed to serve its Jewish neighbors
and that subjugate him for this end, only because he is Palestinian,
and they are Jewish.
We have all
created a system with one separate and distinct law for settlers, who
also help write it, only because he is a Palestinian, and they are Jews.
Will he be forced to live out the rest of his days like this? That
depends almost entirely on us.
Welcome to the 56th year.
Michael
Sfard is a lawyer who represents one of the Palestinian human rights
organizations that Israel outlawed as a terrorist organization, as
mentioned above.
