Yossi Gurvitz writes: “As these words are written, I have no idea just what sort of proclamation Trump will issue today regarding Jerusalem. But the signs are not good. My government is about to be given a surprise gift by Trump, and it does not care that dozens are likely to die.”
No one is pushing Trump to move the Embassy to Jerusalem, so he’s doing it so he can blame someone else — an Arab explosion — for the failure of his peace initiative in Israel and Palestine, says Shibley Telhami. But Telhami leaves out the fact that Trump’s biggest donor, Sheldon Adelson, wants the U.S. to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
A New York Times story on the history of Jerusalem says that violence began in May 1948 after Israel’s creation and that “huge numbers of Jews and Arabs were displaced.” These are all lies that function as “hasbara,” explanations of the conflict that serve the Israeli claims to greater Israel.
This morning President Donald Trump called Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to notify him he of plans to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to a spokesperson for President Abbas. Abbas responded and “warned of the dangerous repercussions of such step on the [long-stalled] peace process, security and stability in the region and the world,” his spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh told the Palestinian outlet Wafa, adding that Abbas will seek out support from other governments “to prevent this rejected and unacceptable” action.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regards American liberal Jews as a “lost cause.” They are assimilating socially and are wedded to a worldview that is incompatible with Israel’s future as the military superpower in the Middle East. So Israel should invest in cultivating stronger ties to Orthodox Jews and Christian evangelicals.
Cycling fans around the world were shocked by the news in September that the first of the three great annual bike races– the Giro d’Italia, which kicks off in May — would start in occupied Jerusalem. A coalition of 120 groups, joined by Noam Chomsky and Richard Falk, are calling on the Giro to move the start, saying that it is an effort to mask Israel’s human rights record and clean up its international image on its 70th birthday.
An open letter from Susiya Village Council spokesperson Nasser Nawajaa: “As I write this letter, our village, Susiya, located in the south Hebron Hills of the occupied West Bank of Palestine, is in immediate threat of demolition. The only way to stop the demolition is through international pressure.”
The late Arthur Finkelstein converted Israeli society to identity politics by having politicians pose two simple questions, says Ehud Barak. Are you an Israeli first, or a Jew first? Do you love Arabs or do you hate Arabs? If you think of yourself as an Israeli and you love Arabs, you are left. If you hate Arabs, you are right.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyadh Malki has called for an emergency meeting of the Arab League to discuss recent rumors that U.S. President Donald Trump soon plans to go through with threats to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, de facto recognizing the city as the capital of Israel.
Thousands of Palestinians marched on Saturday in the funeral of Mahmoud Odeh, the 48-year-old Palestinian farmer who was shot and killed by Israeli settlers on Thursday in the Qusra village, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.