Middle east crisis.

[sandGroundZero]

Palestinian academic despairs of getting visas for family stuck in Gaza A lecturer doing his PhD on a British Council scholarship in York is frightened for his wife and two small children who are under Israeli bombardment Karim and Talya in Gaza three weeks before the deadly 7 October attacks by Hamas. … The authorities have told him repeatedly that before they can get the visa application process off the ground, his wife must have fingerprints taken in Gaza and fill out the necessary forms. The only trouble is, Abudagga says, there are no facilities left to get fingerprinting done in Gaza – no communication system, no help, no infrastructure. So it is impossible to complete this first set of tasks before being able to cross the border to Egypt to complete the application process. … Toby Helm | Sat 2 Mar 2024 © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited

[sandGroundZero]

Jerusalem ‘land grab’: Armenian community fear eviction after contentious deal A developer has acquired historic land at seemingly bargain rates, amid claims of links to a settler group

… Armenians say the deal is illegal, and will destroy the oldest Christian diaspora in Jerusalem, tearing out its spiritual heart and splintering a small community, which today numbers about 2,000 people. … Emma Graham-Harrison & Quique Kierszenbaum | Sun 3 Mar 2024 © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited

[Hamble]

Jerusalem ‘land grab’: Armenian community fear eviction after contentious deal A developer has acquired historic land at seemingly bargain rates, amid claims of links to a settler group

Nearly 500,000 Israelis and an estimated 300,000 Palestinians live in Area C. There are 81,317 illegal Palestinian structures in Area C, placed strategically and for the express purposes of Palestinian territorial annexation and isolation of Israeli communities.


And.....

https://www.regavim.org/rate-of-ille...by-80-in-2022/

[sandGroundZero]

Blurring the line between criticism and bigotry fuels hatred of Muslims and Jews … In practice, though, that line can appear blurry. Claims about “Islamophobia” or “antisemitism” are often wielded in ways designed specifically to erase the distinction between criticism and bigotry, either to suppress dissent or to promote hatred. Such muddying enables some to portray criticism of Islam or of Israel as illegitimate because it is “Islamophobic” or “antisemitic”. It also allows those promoting hatred of Muslims or Jews to dismiss condemnation of that hatred as stemming from a desire to avoid censure of Islam or Israel. … Kenan Malik | Sun 3 Mar 2024 © 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited

[local]

Looks like Kamala has broken ranks, or is she the useful idiot to test the water?

So we might expect Israel to push hard in their military action as their time is running out.

[Hamble]

Looks like Kamala has broken ranks, or is she the useful idiot to test the water?

So we might expect Israel to push hard in their military action as their time is running out.

My first thought was Kamala has decided Jill needs to make way for her.

[sandGroundZero]

A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid More than 14 million people, roughly half of them Jews and the other half Palestinians, live between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea under a single rule. The common perception in public, political, legal and media discourse is that two separate regimes operate side by side in this area, separated by the Green Line. One regime, inside the borders of the sovereign State of Israel, is a permanent democracy with a population of about nine million, all Israeli citizens. The other regime, in the territories Israel took over in 1967, whose final status is supposed to be determined in future negotiations, is a temporary military occupation imposed on some five million Palestinian subjects. Over time, the distinction between the two regimes has grown divorced from reality. This state of affairs has existed for more than 50 years – twice as long as the State of Israel existed without it. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers now reside in permanent settlements east of the Green Line, living as though they were west of it. East Jerusalem has been officially annexed to Israel’s sovereign territory, and the West Bank has been annexed in practice. Most importantly, the distinction obfuscates the fact that the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is organized under a single principle: advancing and cementing the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. All this leads to the conclusion that these are not two parallel regimes that simply happen to uphold the same principle. There is one regime governing the entire area and the people living in it, based on a single organizing principle. When B’Tselem was founded in 1989, we limited our mandate to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, and refrained from addressing human rights inside the State of Israel established in 1948 or from taking a comprehensive approach to the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Yet the situation has changed. The regime’s organizing principle has gained visibility in recent years, as evidenced by the Basic Law: Israel – the Nation State of the Jewish People passed in 2018, or open talk of formally annexing parts of the West Bank in 2020. Taken together with the facts described above, this means that what happens in the Occupied Territories can no longer be treated as separate from the reality in the entire area under Israel’s control. The terms we have used in recent years to describe the situation – such as “prolonged occupation” or a “one-state reality” – are no longer adequate. To continue effectively fighting human rights violations, it is essential to examine and define the regime that governs the entire area. …

[sandGroundZero]

I met the Israeli settlers Biden placed sanctions on. They’re bad – but part of a rotten system I saw settlers attack Palestinian shepherds with dogs, destroy their crops, and steal their homes – all under the aegis of rightwing Israeli leaders

This month, the US, British and French governments placed sanctions on more than 30 Israeli settlers for acts of violence and incitement against Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank. It was a historic move. Israeli and international human rights organizations have protested the lack of accountability for settler violence for years. Now these settlers, with documented histories of arson, theft, physical assault and destruction of property, will have their assets frozen, travel abroad restricted, and ability to do business constrained.

These sanctions materially disrupt the machinery of settler violence and send perhaps the strongest signal yet to the Israeli government that it must curb attacks on Palestinian communities, because there will be consequences. But sanctions on just a few settlers won’t solve the fundamental problem; these are not just a few bad apples. Sustained settler assaults on Palestinian lives and livelihood are part of systematic, longstanding Israeli government policy to push Palestinians off this land to expand settlements. It’s the bad policy that produces the bad apples.

…
2023 was the worst year on record for settler violence. Settlers attacked Palestinians and their property in more than 1,200 separate incidents. They killed at least 10 Palestinian people. They torched dozens of houses. And this was all before the Hamas attacks of 7 October. In the aftermath of the deadly violence, which left 1,200 Israelis dead and hundreds held hostage, Ben-Gvir explicitly ordered Israeli law-enforcement officers not to enforce the law in cases of Jewish nationalist violence. The Israeli military drafted and armed thousands of settlers, issuing them guns, uniforms and the protection of the state.

These policies have enabled settlers and Israeli armed forces to forcibly remove at least 198 Palestinian households (1,208 people, among them 586 children) from more than a dozen villages in the two months of November and December. As Yesh Din succinctly put it: “Settler violence is the policy of the Israeli government.”

It isn’t just this current government that’s the problem. During my months in the West Bank in 2022, the “government of change” led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid was in power, and it presided over what was, at the time, a record-setting year for settler violence. Since 1967, when Israel initially occupied the West Bank, every single Israeli government has made a choice to maintain Israel’s military presence there and enable the settlement enterprise.

Settler violence is not a glitch in the system. It is a feature. While the state pursues a slow and steady strategy of dispossession by issuing demolition orders, night raids of villages and onerous checkpoints, settlers like Levi and Federman use vigilante violence and illegal construction to more quickly and directly achieve the same goals.

The US, UK and France imposing sanctions on these individuals sends a strong message to the Israeli government, and settlers across the West Bank, that the international community will no longer tolerate this level of violence. But, truthfully, it is not enough. The leader of Zanuta, Fayez al-Tal, said in an interview after the sanctions were made public, that he hopes that Biden’s executive order will extend to officials such as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Human rights leaders around the world agree that this would be a helpful next step, one that the administration is reportedly considering.

But targeting individuals, even powerful ones, fails on a basic level: it leaves intact the structures which allow Jewish Israelis to militarily, economically and legally dominate Palestinians in the West Bank. For the sake of both nations who live in the land between the river and the sea, we must uproot that system of Jewish supremacy in order to sow the seeds of a shared future for all Palestinians and Israelis.

Zak Witus | Mon 4 Mar 2024
© 2024 Guardian News & Media Limited

Zak Witus is the young leadership & education coordinator at the New Israel Fund

[Hamble]

I met the Israeli settlers Biden placed sanctions on. They’re bad – but part of a rotten system I saw settlers attack Palestinian shepherds with dogs, destroy their crops, and steal their homes – all under the aegis of rightwing Israeli leaders

Zak Witus is the young leadership & education coordinator at the New Israel Fund

I am so proud of Israeli Jews attempts at peace.

[sandGroundZero]

Hamble I am so proud of Israeli Jews attempts at peace. As for instance Regavim that you linked in your post #2298 — an Israeli organization evidently involved in the annexation of the West Bank?

[Hamble]

As for instance Regavim that you linked in your post #2298 — an Israeli organization evidently involved in the annexation of the West Bank?

I do not support any move designated illegal by Israel not being an Israeli.
It is not illegal in Israel in Israel to work with or campaign for peace as it is in Gaza.

I posted the link to highlight yet another example of your hypocrisy and
discrimination against Israeli's and Jews.



https://www.regavim.org/rate-of-ille...by-80-in-2022/

[sandGroundZero]

Hamble I am so proud of Israeli Jews attempts at peace. As for instance Regavim that you linked in your post #2298 — an Israeli organization evidently involved in the annexation of the West Bank?

Hamble

I do not support any move designated illegal by Israel not being an Israeli. It is not illegal in Israel in Israel to work with or campaign for peace as it is in Gaza. I posted the link to highlight yet another example of your hypocrisy and discrimination against Israeli's and Jews.

Annexation of the West Bank, far from being illegal, has been the goal of Israeli governments. But that being so, where will the Palestinian state you've insisted throughout that you favour be located, if not the West Bank and Gaza?

[Hamble]

Hamble I am so proud of Israeli Jews attempts at peace. As for instance Regavim that you linked in your post #2298 — an Israeli organization evidently involved in the annexation of the West Bank?

Hamble

I do not support any move designated illegal by Israel not being an Israeli. It is not illegal in Israel in Israel to work with or campaign for peace as it is in Gaza. I posted the link to highlight yet another example of your hypocrisy and discrimination against Israeli's and Jews.

Annexation of the West Bank, far from being illegal, has been the goal of Israeli governments. But that being so, where will the Palestinian state you've insisted throughout that you favour be located, if not the West Bank and Gaza?

?

Palestinians are already living in Israel on Jewish Land built by a
Jewish land owner.

[sandGroundZero]

Hamble

Palestinians are already living in Israel on Jewish Land built by a Jewish land owner.

— in the West Bank?

[Hamble]

Hamble

Palestinians are already living in Israel on Jewish Land built by a Jewish land owner.

— in the West Bank?

As the West Bank is part of the proposed Palestinian State I think Israeli settlers should withdraw.
Whether Israel would insist the Palestinian palatial mansions built illegally on the State of Israel land should also go-that I do not know.

The goal is the release of the Israeli hostages and destruction of Hamas
means to invade and inflict rape,torture, murder, paedophillia, necrophilia and kidnap on Israeli's.

The fear for me is that Palestinian's will not accept defeat in a war or to accept a State of their own resulting in mass claims for asylum in the West.

So you will appreciate that although galling your hypocrisy on illegal settlements by Palestinians is not on par with your hypocrisy on promoting a one State Israel/Palestine is repulsively ignorant.