There was no end to the denunciation by Israelis of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s speech last Monday: “Laced with vile antisemitic conspiracy theories,” Abbas has “lost his marbles,” “disgraceful lies.” But Abbas’s crime, as Gideon Levy points out, is correctly identifying Zionism as a colonial project. That must not be said, and marks Abbas as an extremist.
On Monday, the Israeli parliament passed an amendment to the ‘Prevention of Infiltration Act’ so that it could continue to coerce African refugees to be deported. In 2011, former Interior Minister Eli Yishai said that the mere presence of the refugees is an “existential threat”, and vowed to defend the “Jewish majority”. This law shows that in the Jewish State Zionism informs each and every detail of Israel’s policy.
On December 14, the FCC will vote on a proposal to repeal government regulations known as “net neutrality” which ensure that internet service providers treat all data equally. As this critical issue unfolds in the U.S., it is worth looking at the case of internet freedom for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank where the severe technological gap is just another example of how Israel dominates and restricts almost all aspects of Palestinian life.
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.
55 Israeli lawmakers including the Prime Minister and several ministers have petitioned the President Reuven Rivlin to reconsider his refusal to pardon the soldier-medic-killer Elor Azarya. Azarya is likely to get out of prison next spring, but he is so popular in Israel these lawmakers don’t want him to spend the winter in prison.
Israel seeks to remove 40,000 African refugees by deportation. How convenient it is for Israel that so many countries in the West are now governed by right-wing, white-supremacist, anti-immigrant and fascist forces. Herzl knew this over a century ago, where he noted, “The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies”.
Lashing out against American Jews, Israel’s top diplomat Tzipi Hotoveli said that they were living “quite convenient lives” and that they don’t send their kids to the military. “People that never send their children to fight for their country– most of the Jews don’t have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going to Afghanistan, or to Iraq.”
“Your child is taken to an interrogation room and bullied into confessing a “crime”–insulting the honor of a soldier, for instance, or throwing stones at a wall. Like you, your son was born into a military occupation and under military law a soldier’s honor is worth 10 years of your son’s life.”–Nyla Matuk
“Have you gone mad?” Tamar Zandberg of Meretz challenged Labor after it supported Netanyahu’s plan to deport 40,000 African refugees. But Avi Gabbay, the Labor leader, is pushing the faction to the right in order to meet the Israeli public where they stand, in racist policies.
Israel will begin deporting 20,000 African asylum seekers, most from Eritrea and South Sudan, to an unnamed third party country “without their consent,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Sunday in a cabinet meeting. According to Israeli media the refugees will be sent to Rwanda and Israel will pay the African nation $5,000 per head.