Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared an end to “all agreements and understandings” with Israel and the United States in response to Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank with U.S. support. But many are doubtful he will follow through.
The Palestinian Authority is facing its most serious existential threat yet: bowing down to Kushner or insisting on returning to a dead political paradigm that was constructed, then abandoned, by Washington.
The entire experience of the coronavirus in the West Bank serves as a perfect example of how Israel rules over Palestinians. While the coronavirus doesn’t differentiate between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel sure does. Everything in this country is politicized and affected by the colonial structure. The epidemic is just another perspective to understand it from.
The Israeli army Thursday allowed dozens of Jewish settlers into Sebastia archeological site in the north of the occupied West Bank despite a Palestinian Authority decision closing tourist sites and banning gatherings in an effort to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
The Trump administration has dealt another blow to the the flailing Palestinian Authority (PA) in the form of more budget cuts, this time to the PA’s security forces. It is understood that future funding is contingent upon the PA accepting Trump’s “peace plan” that was released two weeks ago, which they have categorically rejected.
President Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” much like his presidency, is a morbid joke. Sadly, however, the punchline running centerstage in this theater of the absurd is set to come at the expense of the Palestinians.
For over a decade Israel and Egypt prevented Palestinians from exiting Gaza by tightly controlling crossings that lead outside of the besieged strip. Palestinians now say that another block they face in traveling abroad is from their own government who have used a quiet policy to deny travel documents over the last decade.
While electrical blackouts are common across the West Bank, scheduled outages are due to continue as the Palestinian power distributor has not paid overdue bills from the Israeli energy provider since 2014.
Trump’s acceptance of the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank actually hastens the end of Zionism’s discriminatory ideology. What had always been the reality will be on full display for the world to see: Israel is an apartheid state. And the call for simply equality will be Israel’s ultimate defeat.
The Palestinian Authority has blocked access to dozens of news websites and social media accounts in the occupied West Bank in its ongoing crackdown of opposition voices and those critical of Mahmoud Abbas’ presidency.