The police killing of Ahmed Erekat, 27, near Bethlehem echoes three other cases in which mistaken identify of a terrorist triggered extra-judicial execution. Other cases include lynching of Haftom Zarhum in Beersheba bus station and killing of teacher Yaqub abu al Qia’an in Umm Al-Hiran.
Anti-annexation forces counted on Yair Golan in Meretz to oppose plans. He has folded, while former hero Benny Gantz uses scatological derision of Palestinians in pushing forward on annexation. “We won’t get into Palestinian deep shit.”
Netanyahu is sending Tzipi Hotovely to be ambassador to the UK even though she has attacked the leading body of British Jews, the Board of Deputies, for supporting a Palestinian state. “[A]n organization that supports the establishment of a Palestinian state is clearly working against Israeli interests. It is important to say explicitly: A Palestinian state is a danger to the State of Israel.”
U.S. liberals opposed to annexation use Israel-centric and racist arguments, that it will hurt Israel or threaten a Jewish majority, Jim Zogby explains.
Once Israel annexes the Jordan Valley, the 65,000 Palestinians living there won’t become Israeli citizens, but will be in an “enclave,” Netanyahu says. “Call it what you want,” he says of Palestinian bantustan state that might result. “At the heart of the Trump plan are foundations we have only dreamed about.”
Joe Biden’s idea of criticizing Israel was being 90 minutes late to dinner at the Netanyahus on the day the Israelis insulted him as vice president in 2010 by announcing more settlements. And Biden embraces Trump’s move of the embassy to Jerusalem and offers only mild criticism of annexation plans.
Israeli activist Yifat Doron took a stance of solidarity with Ahed Tamimi, icon of Palestinian resistance, by slapping a military prosecutor. And she will pay the price: 8 months in prison. Her sentence echoes Tamimi’s sentence for a similar action in occupied Nabi Saleh.
Ambassador David Friedman’s racist advice to Israeli — “you don’t have to live with [a] Palestinian state, you have to live with the Palestinian state when the Palestinians become Canadians,” is a perfect echo of Dov Weissglas saying Palestinians could have a state when they became Finns. And it reveals the bad faith in Trump’s deal of the century.
The creation of the modern Hebrew language in Israel built upon romantic and messianic concepts of ‘return’ to the ‘promised land.’ It served a purpose of ethnic cleansing, as it serves the application of apartheid today.
Polls showed that Netanyahu would win a fourth election in Israel, and the deal he cut for a unity government with Benny Gantz reflects his strength. Fewer than a third of Israeli voters believe Netanyahu will respect his rotation agreement with Gantz.