The news is that Amnesty International is poised to issue a report tomorrow describing Israel as an apartheid state, thereby joining a list of other human rights organizations that reached the same conclusion in the last year, notably Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem — following Palestinian groups that documented the crime years ago.
Pro-Israel groups such as NGO Monitor have been circulating the news to try to preempt Amnesty International and control the damage. “[P]ro-apartheid propagandists are again in hysterics that another internationally renowned human rights org — @amnesty — agrees with @hrw, @btselem, @alhaq_org, @AlMezanCenter & more that the reality on the ground in Israel-Palestine amounts to apartheid,” Simone Zimmerman of IfNotNow writes this morning.
The Israel lobby is enraged because it understands the report, as we do, to be part of the tsunami of delegitimization that Israel’s own leaders have long warned it would face by refusing to grant Palestinians rights.
Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL writes that Amnesty International will be responsible for attacks on Jews around the world.
As we saw last May, unhinged rhetoric leads to unhinged actions; @amnesty must accept responsibility for the damage this will do to Jews around the world.
What Greenblatt actually means by “last May” is the global demonstrations against the Israeli assault on Gaza. He has nothing critical to say about that onslaught.
His organization has issued an angry statement with the same theme: accusing Israel of apartheid will foster antisemitism, and endanger Jews.
We have reviewed Amnesty International UK’s upcoming report on Israel and strongly condemn it as an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. In an environment of rising anti-Jewish hate, this type of report is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible and likely will lead to intensified antisemitism around the world . . .
These are not simply abstract words but the kind of spurious charges that, time and again, have placed Jews in danger around the world.
How does the report endanger Jews? Because by accusing Israel of hateful crimes, the ADL says, Amnesty International “casts aspersions” on the “vast majority” of Jews who support Israel. So Judaism does in fact equal Zionism (as other advocates have also argued).
by using extreme language to attack Israel – including calling it an apartheid state, accusing it of ethnic cleansing and of committing war crimes – it feeds into an environment that emboldens those who seek to dismantle Israel, and casts aspersions on those who support a Jewish and democratic state, including the vast majority of Jews around the world, and creates fertile ground for a hostile and at times antisemitic discourse. In an age of expanding antisemitism, this cost simply cannot be ignored.
The ADL is particularly angered that the report calls for the right of return of refugees — its anger based not on the actual rights of Palestinian people who were forced off their land, but because the organization believes in the necessity of a “Jewish state.”
Finally, we reject altogether the report’s call for a right of return of all Palestinian refugees, which would mean, in effect, the end of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.
Greenblatt also implicitly attacks refugee rights in his pro-Zionist tweet.
This report goes beyond criticizing Israeli policies to painting its creation as a Jewish state as illegitimate & immoral.
David Harris of the American Jewish Committee has reacted to the report with a five-minute speech that includes a baldfaced lie — that desperate Jews “found” in Israel/Palestine a Jewish majority country.
Jews who were unable to live as free people whether in North Africa, whether under Communist systems, or of course during the Nazi era found one place where Jews were a majority and had the right to govern themselves.
That Jewish majority was created by the expulsion/flight of more than 700,000 Palestinians. So Harris’s statement is a form of Nakba denial — before the Nakba, Palestinians were a majority in the lands that became Israel, and an overwhelming majority in the entire land.
Like the ADL, Harris cannot bring himself to mention either Israel’s occupation of the West Bank/Jerusalem or Gaza, or the Nation State law of 2018 — which is what impelled Human Rights Watch to begin its apartheid investigation leading to its own declaration last year.
Harris emphasizes the rights that what he calls “Israeli Arabs” enjoy within pre-1967 Israel. He even has the temerity to point out that the present Israeli government depends on the political support of an “Arab” party, without explaining that this never happened before in Israeli history, and that the majority of Arab legislators would not be part of this government.
In the video, Harris looks as uncomfortable as a hostage, as if he is making statements under duress that he doesn’t fully believe. He says that South African apartheid was a “stain” on human history that is now fortunately in the past, but insists that
Israel has nothing to do with apartheid and apartheid has nothing to do with Israel. What happened in South Africa during the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, into the early 90s was a unique system that I hope we will never see again on the face of the earth. We will certainly never see it in Israel.
Harris fails to explain that the 2002 Rome Statute redefined “apartheid.” Apartheid does not have to match the specific South African example in every particular. No international jurist, beyond maybe a handful of pro-Israel apologists, will accept Harris’s interpretation.
Most of Harris’s commentary is about how offended he is by Amnesty’s apartheid finding without rebutting the facts. For instance, who really believes that Israel has sought peace since its “rebirth,” and that Palestinians have rejected one peace offer after another? This is pure mythology. (Jerome Slater’s magnificent Mythologies Without End demolishes these falsehoods.)
To equate [Israel’s] shortcomings with the system of apartheid in South Africa is nothing short of a canard, of a libel. Israel seeks peace. Israel has sought peace since its rebirth. It has been unable to achieve peace with its Palestinian neighbors sadly. They have rejected one peace offer after another. Hopefully one day they will embrace peace. ..
h/t Scott Roth, who addressed David Harris: “You people need new people. This is pathetic. I can do much better defending Israel and I wouldn’t believe a word of what I was saying.”
“Israel seeks peace. Israel has sought peace since its rebirth. It has been unable to achieve peace with its Palestinian neighbors sadly. They have rejected one peace offer after another. Hopefully one day they will embrace peace. ..” says Harris.
I’m near the end of my third military-diplomatic-political history of Israel (Jerome Slater’s “Mythologies Without End”, “War Over Peace: One Hundred Years of Israel’s Militaristic Nationalism” by Azriel and Vardi, and Patrick Tyner’s “Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run The Country – and Why They Can’t Make Peace) and the ‘Israel seeks peace’ narrative is b.s., over and over it ignored diplomatic solutions like the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative because it wanted more land and water and fewer Palestinians. Here’s a word from the man who ran the Occupation in its early years, “Trapped Fools” by Shlomo Gazit, page 334, 335:
“The first natural process clearly expressed the Israeli dehumanization of Palestinian Arabs. Both the top political echelon and the administrative and political echelon conspired in this. Prime Minister Golda Meir said “There is no Palestinian people”. Prime Minister Menachem Begin followed suit when he only recognized ‘The Arabs of the Land of Israel’. While Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan, referred to the Palestinians as ‘drugged cockroaches….”
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EXCERPT cont’d:
“Squatter violence goes back at least into the 1980s. In 1983, an 11-year-old girl from Nablus was murdered by Jewish squatters. “In their defense, the chief rabbi of the Sephardic community reportedly cited a Talmudic text justifying killing an enemy on occasions when one may see from a child’s perspective that he or she will grow up to become your enemy.” One can imagine that a similar logic could justify, in the eyes of some Palestinians, the killing of every Israeli Jewish child.
“Subsequently, “in the 21st century, there has been a steady increase in violence and terror perpetrated by Jewish settlers against Palestinians.” In 2008, the Israeli army command in the West Bank acknowledged that “a hard core of a few hundred activists were involved in violence against the Palestinians.” Though the army said it planned to address the situation, the problem persisted and grew worse. In 2011, the Israeli government again acknowledged “a growing problem with extremists.” Again, little was done about it. The United Nations and organizations such as Human Rights Watch have repeatedly voiced concern that the number of attacks were growing. The latter noted that “In many cases, settlers abuse Palestinians in front of Israeli soldiers or police with little interference from the authorities.”
“Here is suggested a reason for the lack of any crackdown on squatter violence. It goes on with the tacit consent of the government. To quote B’Tselem, Israel’s main human rights organization, “Israel has been using settler violence as a major informal tool to drive Palestinians from farming and pasture lands in the occupied West Bank.”
Part II—Pogrom
“What is the appropriate historical term for “informal,” supposedly “unofficial,” violence nonetheless carried out with the tacit approval of a government? How about pogrom? In this case, we can also call it an obscene embarrassment for all Jews who value human rights….”
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https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/29/destruction-of-palestinian-homes-in-east-jerusalem-2
“Destruction of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem goes to ICC”“Israel is taken to the International Criminal Court as it continues to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied territories.” Al Jazeera, Jan.29/22 by Al Jazeera Staff.
“Beit Hanina, Occupied East Jerusalem – Nine people were injured and journalists were attacked by Israeli security forces this week as the Jerusalem Municipality demolished a two-story building and home of the Karameh family in the East Jerusalem suburb of Abu Tor on the pretext of being constructed without a building permit.
“The family of 15 was forcibly evicted by Israeli police while six of those injured required hospitalisation, according to the Red Crescent. Hundreds of Palestinians are facing forced expulsion from homes in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want to be their future capital.
“But one family, the Salhiyehs, is taking the Israeli authorities to the International Criminal Court (ICC) after they were evicted from their home in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem last week, and the subsequent destruction of their home by the Jerusalem Municipality.
“’There is no justice, as an Israeli I don’t believe in my country any more. They have destroyed my life,’ Lital Salhiyeh, 40, told Al Jazeera.
“Last week Lital’s husband Mahmoud, 43, several of their sons and their friends staged a demonstration on the roof of their house in Sheikh Jarrah, threatening to blow themselves up with a gas canister after the Israeli authorities attempted to evict them from the home they have lived in for decades.
“Several days later, during a cold and rainy night, Israeli special forces raided their home, arrested them at gunpoint, and beat them up. They were taken to prison for several days before their lawyer secured their release on bail.
“While Mahmoud was in jail their home was destroyed by the municipality, leaving 18 people homeless.
“’The police drove me past my destroyed home the next morning and showed me what they had done. We were not informed that the home would be destroyed,’ Mahmoud told Al Jazeera” (cont’d)
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‘Mahmoud and I knew that the eviction order was against us personally but not the rest of the family and neither was there a demolition order against our home,’ said Lital from the home they have temporarily rented in the East Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina.
“’We lost everything and left with only the clothes on our back. I don’t even have pictures of my children,’ Lital, who has been married to Mahmoud for 23 years, said. The couple has six children.
“A family agricultural nursery, where Mahmoud worked, and ancient olive trees on their plot of land were also destroyed.
“Lital, an animal lover, managed to rescue some of the family pets who were left stranded in the rain and cold after the family’s home was demolished.
“It was the second time the Salhiyeh family has been made refugees. In 1948 they were expelled from their home in the village of Ein Karem during the Arab-Israeli war.
“In 1984 Jerusalem Municipality’s district planning committee approved a building plan for the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and designated the plot on which the family home and nursery were built for public building – even though other public areas can be found for this purpose without requiring the eviction of a family home.
“In July 2017, the municipality announced the expropriation of the plot of land, which Mahmoud’s parents purchased in 1958.”
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Blog: http://www.tothepointanalyses.com
EXCERPT:
The Israeli Pogrom—An Analysis (1 February 2022) by Prof. Lawrence Davidson
Part I—Israel’s Violent Squatters
“On 21 January 2022, an organized gang of over a dozen masked Zionist “settlers” from the Givat Ronen outpost on the Occupied West Bank attacked Palestinians planting trees near the village of Burin. There were seven Israeli Jewish supporters with the Palestinians. The “settlers” attacked them as well.
“I place the term “settler” in quotation marks because what we are really talking about are not settlers but squatters. I will use the term squatter except where settler appears in a quotation.
“As is normal in cases of Israeli squatter violence, the Israeli authorities were slow to arrive at the scene of the attack and, subsequently, made no arrests. The Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev explained that “until the army gets there it takes time. Until the [Israeli] police were sent it took time and therefore … the moment the [Israeli] police arrive at the site, the terrorists are no longer there.” “The Palestinian police, for their part, could not respond because they are “forbidden from reacting to acts of violence by Israeli settlers.” One can just imagine the army and the police rate of response if it was the Palestinians attacking the squatters. The double standard is obvious.
“However, there was something novel in Bar-Lev’s statement. He said that “in my view” the attackers constituted “a terror group.” This designation apparently had nothing to do with the attack on Palestinians, but rather was warranted because the attackers had “targeted and harmed Israeli citizens.”
“This might well be something like a “false flag” statement on the part of the public security minister. It was meant to reassure the Europeans and Americans who are concerned by the violence of the Israeli squatter movement. The minister subsequently told a U.S. official that the Israeli government takes the problem seriously and “is taking steps to tackle the phenomenon.” This is almost certainly a lie. Prime Minister Bennett has called squatter violence “insignificant,” and several of Bar-Lev’s fellow ministers criticized him for promoting a “distorted narrative.” (cont’d)
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