This week we saw what happens when the United States puts even mild political pressure on Israel. The right-wing Israel government accedes, because it doesn’t want any trouble. Yet the victory is trivial in the grand scheme of things.
The issue this time were 38 Palestinian houses in occupied Jerusalem’s last agricultural village – al-Walaja – which was seized by Israel after the 1967 war. The Israeli government wants to destroy houses to make room for more Jewish settlements in south Jerusalem, but 50 Democratic congresspeople wrote to the secretary of state demanding that Antony Blinken call on the Israeli government not to demolish the houses. Blinken was said by his spokesperson to be taking up the issue of house demolitions with Israeli leaders when he visited the country last week – and abracadabra – the Israeli Supreme Court delayed the demolitions for another six months.
Liberal Zionists such as Americans for Peace Now claimed a big victory. And good for them. But it’s not much of a victory when you consider the overwhelmingly racist nature of Israeli laws, which have earned the country the apartheid label from one human rights group after another. Halting a bulldozer on 38 houses doesn’t change that at all. No those discriminatory practices are stronger than ever.
Bear in mind that Michigan’s Andy Levin, a champion of the so-called two-state solution, signed that congressional letter, and he’s involved in a dogfight to keep his job with another sitting congressperson, Haley Stevens, who is running with the support of the right-wing Israel lobby. AIPAC is pouring money into her race.
But of course both Levin and Stevens profess their adoration of Israel, and would never do anything serious to stop Israeli apartheid. Just as the Biden administration will spend no political capital on Palestinian rights– let alone to establish a Palestinian state. That possibility ended years ago…
We also marked Land Day this week. Please read Tareq Hajjaj’s report of Gazans’ telling about the centrality of land to their worldview. “Our land means our existence.”
And read Nada Elia’s essay on the hypocrisy of the Seattle City Council, working to demilitarize a police department with a history of racial injustice — and yet bowing to lobbying by the pro-Israel group ADL, and refusing to stop police training junkets to Israel.
