In extensive coverage of the UN Security Council resolution against settlements, the New York Times has quoted only four Palestinians. One article was headlined that the focus is now “back on Palestinians,” but quoted numerous Americans and Israeli voices, but only one Palestinian.
2016 has been deadliest year of the past decade for West Bank children, according to Defense for Children International–Palestine. In the past year Israeli forces have killed 31 Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at DCIP, says, “Intentional lethal force now appears to be routinely used by Israeli forces, even in unjustified situations, with no accountability, putting more and more children at risk.”
President Obama’s decision to allow passage of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal has done more to change the shape of the conflict than any other action in the last ten years, even than Israel’s massacres in Gaza. Israel supporters always said that the country would not move toward peace if the U.S. was tough on it. But the UN Security Council resolution against settlements shows the opposite to be true: a little distance is already causing huge positive developments, isolating the country in world opinion and licensing criticism of PM Netanyahu. Obama has nudged Israel, and the media, toward recognition of the country’s new status, as a rogue state.
Judah Ari Gross of the Times of Israel offers unflinching description of “ugly” Israeli occupation at a NY synagogue: Israeli police who deal with settler crimes are “terrible,” Israeli soldiers come out of service “crazy.” And it’s perfectly reasonable to discuss a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone, “call it a day and what will be will be.”
Journalist Eli Lake has been unhinged by the UN resolution against Israeli settlements that Obama allowed to go through, and has been accusing Obama of cowardice and hatred, invoking biblical claims to Jerusalem and attacking writers who disagree with him as terrorists
On Wednesday evening, Dec. 21st, in 25 cities across the United States, Jews, Muslims, and other communities joined together to say with clarity and strength: No to Islamophobia; No to Racism: Yes to Justice; Yes to Dignity for All Communities. Organized to coincide with the holiday of Chanukah, which begins Saturday evening, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and its Network Against Islamophobia (NAI), together with JVP chapters and partners, initiated the actions to reignite their commitment to challenging all forms of Islamophobia and racism.
Israeli opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog said the UN resolution passed last week “seriously harms our capital Jerusalem, the settlement blocs and Israel’s status and diplomatic achievements accumulated over the years,” thereby expressing the strong Labor Zionist support for the illegal colonization project.
Diana Buttu writes, “If we are ever to awaken the world to what Israel stands for, we will do it with the power of our stories. I respect enormously the ability Mondoweiss has developed to gather these stories and share them more broadly all the time. By reaching millions of people each year, Mondoweiss is taking on the responsibility the mainstream media shirks: educating the public about Palestine. Join me today in growing Mondoweiss’s influence.”
Israeli authorities have arrested Beny Steinmetz, once the richest man in the country, for stealing billions from one of the poorest nations in Africa.
Jason Greenblatt, the 49-year-old real estate attorney representing Donald Trump’s business conglomerate, has been named special representative for international negotiations which will include the Israel-Palestinian peace process. Greenblatt once studied at a religious school in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shuvot and may be the first leading adviser on Israel to a US President that’s done guard duty at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank “armed with an M-16 assault weapon.” In perhaps a sign of things to come Greenblatt told Israel’s Channel 1, “[Trump] has gone on record to say that the settlements in the West Bank can stay…I personally believe that they should stay. I don’t believe that they’re an obstacle to peace.”