It is primarily in the hands of Israelis to reject their settler colonial occupation, their apartheid laws, and their current government and nationalist parties. The alternative means the loss of their humanity.
Hundreds of Israeli settlers set out across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to take part in an unprecedented effort to erect a number of illegal settlement outposts in the territory. Led by Daniella Weiss, a leader of the religious-Zionist and settler movements and an advocate of an “Arab-free” Jewish state, the plans started as a goal of establishing “10 Evyatars” – named after the Evyatar outpost in Beita, what the group considers to be one of its most successful settlement projects in years. Although technically illegal under Israeli law, the new campaign appears to have tacit government support, and is bringing a new wave of violence against Palestinians along with it.
The Israeli government has approved initial plans for thousands of new housing units in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, along with hundreds of Palestinian units in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full control of the Israeli government. “It seems that the approval of a handful of plans for the Palestinians is only intended to try to reduce criticism of the government and to please the US administration ahead of Prime Minister Bennett’s expected visit to Washington in the coming weeks,” settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement.
Liberal Zionists say there are 2 regimes in Israel and West Bank, and apartheid in the West Bank doesn’t undermine democracy in Israel. It’s a fiction, Nathan Thrall shows in London Review of Books. Israel’s discriminations against Palestinians demonstrate there has been an apartheid policy in Israeli government since 1948.
Israel is planning to build a new Jewish settlement of 6,000 to 9,000 units in the Atarot area of East Jerusalem — on a swath of land that was slated by US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to go to the Palestinians.
Israel has demolished a record number of homes in occupied East Jerusalem in 2019, the most in the past 15 years, Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported on Thursday. More than 140 Palestinian homes were demolished, resulting in the displacement of 238 Palestinians.
Israel’s human rights NGOs pushed back this week after the Knesset passed a transparency law that critics say was the most recent attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to persecute the country’s left. Leading Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now vowed to wage legal war against the new law, which requires NGOs that receive more than half of their funding from foreign donors to declare their funding sources prior to addressing Knesset committees, speaking with public officials, as well as on publications and websites.
Jordan’s King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters) The headlines on Israel/Palestine today predictably…