2023Sept: Israeli Settlers Target the Weakest Link as Ethic Cleansing Becomes Policy

Levy, Gideon, Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 07 Sep 2023.  

Out of sight, at the edge of a darkened backyard, ethnic cleansing is happening. What until a few months ago seemed like a chance string of violent incidents committed by unruly settlers, tormenting their neighbors purely out of sadism, including beating up old men and children with iron bars, is growing before our blinded eyes to monstrous dimensions. It's no longer a coincidental string of incidents; now it's a policy, with the government either supporting it or turning a blind eye. One can no longer ignore it or remain silent. It looks like ethnic cleansing, acts ethnic cleansing and that's what it is.

Word count: 103

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Israeli Settlers Target the Weakest Link as Ethic Cleansing Becomes Policy." Haaretz, Sep 07, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israeli-settlers-target-weakest-link-as-ethic/docview/2861455777/se-2.

2023Aug: Another Terror Attack That Never Was: Israeli Troops Kill a Palestinian and Beat Up His Friend

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 19 Aug 2023.  

Soldiers rained down dozens of rounds on a car in which two students were traveling in their West Bank village. One was killed, the other was wounded and then beaten by the troops. It was a reprise of yet another incident, from last month, which the army also claimed, falsely, was an attempted car rammingA young university student is standing on the road, crying. His whole body is shaking, his voice is choked; a relative tries to hug and soothe him. Clearly he is in a state of shock. How could it be otherwise? It was at this place, on a narrow road that leads out of the center of his West Bank village, Sebastia, that he lost his closest friend, before his very eyes. Indeed, the deceased's bloodstains are still visible on the ground.

Levy, G. (2023, Aug 19). Another terror attack that never was: Israeli troops kill a palestinian and beat up his friend. Haaretz Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/another-terror-attack-that-never-was-israeli/docview/2852795364/se-2

2023Sept: Israeli Settlers Target the Weakest Link as Ethic Cleansing Becomes Policy

Levy, Gideon, Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 07 Sep 2023.  

Out of sight, at the edge of a darkened backyard, ethnic cleansing is happening. What until a few months ago seemed like a chance string of violent incidents committed by unruly settlers, tormenting their neighbors purely out of sadism, including beating up old men and children with iron bars, is growing before our blinded eyes to monstrous dimensions. It's no longer a coincidental string of incidents; now it's a policy, with the government either supporting it or turning a blind eye. One can no longer ignore it or remain silent. It looks like ethnic cleansing, acts ethnic cleansing and that's what it is.

Word count: 103

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Israeli Settlers Target the Weakest Link as Ethic Cleansing Becomes Policy." Haaretz, Sep 07, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israeli-settlers-target-weakest-link-as-ethic/docview/2861455777/se-2.

2023Aug: Another Terror Attack That Never Was: Israeli Troops Kill a Palestinian and Beat Up His Friend

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 19 Aug 2023.  

Soldiers rained down dozens of rounds on a car in which two students were traveling in their West Bank village. One was killed, the other was wounded and then beaten by the troops. It was a reprise of yet another incident, from last month, which the army also claimed, falsely, was an attempted car rammingA young university student is standing on the road, crying. His whole body is shaking, his voice is choked; a relative tries to hug and soothe him. Clearly he is in a state of shock. How could it be otherwise? It was at this place, on a narrow road that leads out of the center of his West Bank village, Sebastia, that he lost his closest friend, before his very eyes. Indeed, the deceased's bloodstains are still visible on the ground.

Levy, G. (2023, Aug 19). Another terror attack that never was: Israeli troops kill a palestinian and beat up his friend. Haaretz Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/another-terror-attack-that-never-was-israeli/docview/2852795364/se-2

2023July: Yet Another Shepherding Community Is Driven Out by Settler Violence

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 22 July 2023.  

They loaded their belongings on two trucks and two tractors, and left the place they’d lived for decades. A brutal history, repeating itselfJust Bobi remained under the broiling-hot, 40-degrees Celsius sun. At first he tried to run after the convoy, but he quickly became exhausted and returned to what had been his home. Confused, helpless and frightened, he ran to and fro, not understanding what had happened, where his master had gone, where the sheep had disappeared to. The flames and black smoke that rose from the bonfire of tires and animal waste only heightened his anxiety, as well as the heat that enveloped him. He stood there at the top of the hill, casting furtive, heartbreaking glances in all directions. Not a slice of shade or a drop of water, nor any food, was left for him.

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Yet another Shepherding Community is Driven Out by Settler Violence." Haaretz, Jul 22, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/yet-another-shepherding-community-is-driven-out/docview/2840400578/se-2.

2023July: An Israeli Soldier 'Shot in the Air,' Killing a Disabled Palestinian

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 15 July 2023.  

Mohammed Hasanain became disabled four years ago when Israeli soldiers shot him in the leg during a protest in Ramallah. During a demonstration sparked by the recent IDF invasion of the Jenin refugee camp, he was shot and killedA bereaved father is sitting alone in a new and empty apartment in an affluent quarter of the West Bank city of Ramallah, recalling the disasters that have struck him since the beginning of the year. No emotion is betrayed in the voice of Imad Hasanain, 47, who is originally from the Gaza Strip and serves as an officer in Palestinian intelligence. This has been Hasanain's "Job year."

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "An Israeli Soldier 'Shot in the Air,' Killing a Disabled Palestinian." Haaretz, Jul 15, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israeli-soldier-shot-air-killing-disabled/docview/2837141451/se-2.

2023July: Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System Is 'Liberating' Jerusalem

Levy, Gideon | Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 13 July 2023.  

So how did you sleep, cursed settlers, in the house in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter that you coveted and robbed from a sickly, elderly couple who had been thrown out of it? What was your first night among the ancient walls like?

What is it like to enter a home safeguarding 70 years of a family's memories, memories not your own? What is it like to enter, just like in 1948, into the homes of the evicted, with the pots still simmering on the burners and the clothes in the closets? How does it feel to invade someone else's home? And what is it like to see policemen dragging an old man out of his home to clear out the plundered property for you?

Did you see the graffiti on the walls, "We'll be back" and "Palestine will be free?" I see you've already hung the Israeli flag in the window, like a thief hastily switching the license plates of the car he stole to conceal evidence. Now the house is Jewish forever and ever. Now it's yours, thanks to the renowned Israeli justice system, which is corrupt, rotten and racist when it comes to your nation's rights. How the judges in Jerusalem settle the unsolvable contradiction between the fate of Jewish property from before 1948 and the fate of Palestinian property? Is there another way to describe the verdict except as a proper apartheid response?

How did you sleep at night, cursed settlers? And how will you sleep in the nights to come? Will you think, if only for a moment, about the fate of Mustafa Sub Laban, a polite Palestinian of 74, who served in the Israel Police and now, in his old age, is homeless, crowding into his son's home in Shoafat? And the fate of his impressive wife, Nora Gheith Sub Laban, who was born in this house 68 years ago and was hospitalized on Tuesday? Did you bother to look them in the eye? Does their image rise in front of you? One can only wish that the image of them being thrown out of their home, will haunt you in your nightmares until the end of your days. May their image rise before you every night as you put your children to bed.

But that's not going to happen. They're not human beings to you, they're less than human - they're not Jews. And this disgrace was authorized by the justice system.

Have you heard of the poor man's sheep proverb? Perhaps you'll open the Book of Samuel, chapter 12, and read? You're religious Jews, aren't you? The picture of one of you, a settler wheeler-dealer in a huge kippa and a beard, carrying loudspeakers to the house, an evil smile of triumph smeared over his face, a police officer by his side, is like a thousand accusing words. Ahmad Sub Laban, the son of the evicted couple, told me yesterday that the bearded man used to harass the family with deafening Jewish music over that large loudspeaker he was carrying.

The Israeli nation won again on Tuesday, this time an especially glorious victory, a victory over an old couple. The Sharabi, Wormser and Friedman families, who already live in the ancient building in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, will be joined by another family renting the property from the Kollel Galicia trust. If they enter the apartment today, they could still eat the rice and chicken casserole the couple's daughter prepared for her parents and is in the fridge, on the top shelf. It had been cooked in the middle of the week, and can still be eaten. All the family's possessions are still in the apartment, except for the family picture albums she took with her.

Meanwhile, the lock on the main entrance has been changed and the family no longer has access to what has been its home, where the couple lived as protected tenants. Again it became apparent the Palestinians have no protection, not even as tenants.

"This house will remain a prison until we return," Nora told me sadly about a month ago, in her home. On Tuesday, the day the Israeli protest scored another impressive achievement, when hoarse voices cried "democracy" and "shame" from the ends of the country, this disgrace took place in Jerusalem. Nora and Mustafa don't live there anymore. The Muslim Quarter will be Jewish, and Israel will be an apartheid state - officially as well.

Word count: 737

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System is 'Liberating' Jerusalem." Haaretz, Jul 13, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israels-rotten-racist-justice-system-is/docview/2836061511/se-2.

2023Jun: And Who Is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 25 June 2023.  

There aren't many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and property, let alone their dignity, and no one intends to do so. They are totally abandoned to their fates, as is their property. Their houses and cars can be torched, their fields set on fire. It's all right to shoot them mercilessly, killing old people and babies, with no defense forces at their side. No police, no military: no one. If some such desperate defense force is organized, it's immediately criminalized by Israel. Its fighters are labeled "terrorists," their actions "terror attacks," and their fates sealed, with death or prison the only options.

Amid the utter chaos created by the occupation, the ban on Palestinians defending themselves is one of the craziest rules; it's an accepted norm that isn't even discussed. Why aren't the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves? Who exactly is supposed to do it for them? Why, when talking about "security," it's only about Israel's security? Palestinians have more victims of assaults, bloodshed, pogroms, and violence - and no defensive tools at their disposal.

Over three days last week, 35 pogroms have been carried out by settlers. Since the beginning of the year, around 160 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, the vast majority of them unnecessarily and most of them criminally. From baby Mohammed Tamimi to the elderly Omar As'ad, Palestinians have been killed for no reason.

There was no one to stop the soldiers from firing indiscriminately, no one to face the sharpshooters. No Israeli authority even considered holding back hundreds of rampaging settlers. Through its actions and omissions, the IDF was a full accomplice to the pogroms -as were the police. The Palestinians were abandoned to their fates.

Abandoned, the Palestinian residents watched helplessly as the abhorrent settlers torched their homes, fields, and cars, afraid to even breathe. Try to imagine hundreds of loathsome thugs at the entrance to your home, burning and destroying everything, and yourself hoping they don't enter your house and hurt your children, and being able to do nothing about it until they finally leave. There's no one to call or turn to for help. There are no police, no authorities, and no one to call for help. Any step taken in self-defense would be considered an act of terrorism. Try to imagine it.

When the courageous fighters in the Jenin refugee camp - who are much more courageous than the well-protected IDF soldiers, as well as more just - try to stop military invasions of the camp with their less powerful weapons, they are, of course, considered terrorists, with only one fate awaiting them. The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria and rules are incomprehensible in their absurdity. Each killing by a soldier is considered just, including that of Sadil, a 15-year-old refugee girl killed on the roof of her home last week. Any shooting in self-defense at an invading soldier is considered a brutal act of terrorism.

In another reality, one might at least dream about an Israeli Jewish force mobilizing to defend defenseless Palestinians. One might dream of an Israeli left mobilizing in defense of their victim, like what some remarkable individuals, including some exemplary Jews, did to help defend Black South Africans under Apartheid, fighting with them and being wounded and imprisoned for many years alongside them.

Accompanying students to schools for their protection is noble, but it's not enough. It's easy to talk but difficult to take action. This idea has never taken off during all the years of occupation, except for one or two attempts immediately blocked by Israel. It's difficult to blame the left for this, but it's impossible not to feel some bitterness about its inaction. This week, more Palestinians will be killed for no reason, and their property will be destroyed. Children will wet their beds, fearing any rustle in the yard, knowing that their parents can't do anything to protect them. Again, the Palestinians will be left helpless.

The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria are incomprehensible in their absurdity.

Word count: 698

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "And Who is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?" Haaretz, Jun 25, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/who-is-supposed-protect-palestinians/docview/2829106350/se-2.

2023June: The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of Them Kids, Became Homeless

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 24 June 2023.  

Israeli authorities raze homes in the Negev town of Arara, where this family has lived for generations. What was done to us has not been done to anyone else, Odeh Alghol declares. It was the total erasure of everything we ever had, Hussein Alghol adds. Silently lying nearby, on the floor of the tent they erected this week, Salman Alghol has a look in his eyes that bespeaks despair.

Word count: 68

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of them Kids, Became Homeless." Haaretz, Jun 24, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/morning-50-israelis-15-them-kids-became-homeless/docview/2828955553/se-2.

2023June: The Success Story of the White Protest

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 June 2023.  

The white protest has succeeded. It has stopped the overhaul of the judiciary and for that, its participants deserve all due respect and gratitude. There have not been many protest movements in this country's history, and this one seems to have been the most successful. Applause, dear friends. You've proven that Israelis are not Hungarians or Poles. But the eager applause should not mask the ills and flaws of this protest. The symptoms have recently only grown worse.

The more successful the protest became, the more the self-satisfaction swelled among its initiators - look how wonderful we are - and with that came the meticulous safeguarding of the camp's purity, not allowing any other issue to muddy the waters. This self-satisfaction caused the protest to become satiated; the camp's purity made it too white. History may remember it as a movement that blocked some dangerous legislation; and it will certainly remember it as a movement that was systematically cowardly in avoiding more fateful issues.

After all, even if the protest fully achieves its objectives, Israel will only return to what it was up until a few years ago. To remind you, it too was a morally twisted country, only mildly less so than the Netanyahu-led present one.

On the weekend, protest organizers invited Dr. Rawia Aburabia, a law professor at Sapir Academic College, to talk about violence in Arab communities. The protest is expanding its wingspan, diversifying its campaign issues, becoming more relevant and topical. But then it turned out that the invitation included a catch: There was to be no mention of the occupation. Aburabia obviously decided to refuse this generous invitation, writing that "If this is what freedom of speech looks like at a protest aimed at democracy for Jews only, in which ethno-national power structures and policing of speakers are copy-pasted [from other spheres], truthfully, I no longer know what to say."

This was obviously an incident foretold, in a protest determined to combat the people fighting the occupation. The occupation is obviously not connected to democracy in the eyes of the democrats from Kaplan Street.

The photogenic heroine of the protest, Shikma Bressler, who was recently photographed in a Che Guevara pose, holding an Israeli flag, said that "seeing Israelis defending democracy, protesting everywhere around the world and in Israel, should make one understand that we are like [the Hasidic movement] Chabad, only championing democracy. We are full of faith in our way, fighting by being who we are. The flag has replaced the black clothes [worn by Chabad disciples]."

We're so lucky. The Israeli flag has replaced the black garb and we now have a new Chabad. Leave aside the unbelievable comparison to an ultra-nationalist religious organization, that dangerous one called Chabad, which the leader of the protest movement draws on.

Let's also leave aside her attitude to black garb, which is harmless even if it is different - a protest which lauds itself this way is one that has grown fat and satiated, a protest of the privileged. If such a protest rejects any contact with people who understand that a democracy built on the underpinnings of a cruel military dictatorship will never be a true democracy, it will be a hollow protest movement, a misleading and specious one.

It's good that masses of people continue to take to the streets. It's hard to criticize political awareness and a readiness to act on the part of good people. But alongside marching with flags, one should also state the truth. And the truth is that this protest has one objective: the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the true passion of the demonstrators.

This is a legitimate and even just goal. Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the crazy breakdown of the system over the last few months. But people holding flags on Kaplan Street, white and satiated, Jewish and Zionist, please remember that even if Netanyahu goes, Israel will continue to be an apartheid state.

An apartheid state will never be a democracy, even if Jews retain their rights, even if you continue marching with flags on Kaplan Street for years to come.

Therefore, it's not a true democracy you're fighting for. Thus, true democrats cannot join your struggle.

Word count: 701

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Success Story of the White Protest." Haaretz, Jun 11, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/success-story-white-protest/docview/2824389999/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2023July: An Israeli Soldier 'Shot in the Air,' Killing a Disabled Palestinian

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 15 July 2023.  

Mohammed Hasanain became disabled four years ago when Israeli soldiers shot him in the leg during a protest in Ramallah. During a demonstration sparked by the recent IDF invasion of the Jenin refugee camp, he was shot and killedA bereaved father is sitting alone in a new and empty apartment in an affluent quarter of the West Bank city of Ramallah, recalling the disasters that have struck him since the beginning of the year. No emotion is betrayed in the voice of Imad Hasanain, 47, who is originally from the Gaza Strip and serves as an officer in Palestinian intelligence. This has been Hasanain's "Job year."

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "An Israeli Soldier 'Shot in the Air,' Killing a Disabled Palestinian." Haaretz, Jul 15, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israeli-soldier-shot-air-killing-disabled/docview/2837141451/se-2.

2023July: Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System Is 'Liberating' Jerusalem

Levy, Gideon | Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 13 July 2023.  

So how did you sleep, cursed settlers, in the house in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter that you coveted and robbed from a sickly, elderly couple who had been thrown out of it? What was your first night among the ancient walls like?

What is it like to enter a home safeguarding 70 years of a family's memories, memories not your own? What is it like to enter, just like in 1948, into the homes of the evicted, with the pots still simmering on the burners and the clothes in the closets? How does it feel to invade someone else's home? And what is it like to see policemen dragging an old man out of his home to clear out the plundered property for you?

Did you see the graffiti on the walls, "We'll be back" and "Palestine will be free?" I see you've already hung the Israeli flag in the window, like a thief hastily switching the license plates of the car he stole to conceal evidence. Now the house is Jewish forever and ever. Now it's yours, thanks to the renowned Israeli justice system, which is corrupt, rotten and racist when it comes to your nation's rights. How the judges in Jerusalem settle the unsolvable contradiction between the fate of Jewish property from before 1948 and the fate of Palestinian property? Is there another way to describe the verdict except as a proper apartheid response?

How did you sleep at night, cursed settlers? And how will you sleep in the nights to come? Will you think, if only for a moment, about the fate of Mustafa Sub Laban, a polite Palestinian of 74, who served in the Israel Police and now, in his old age, is homeless, crowding into his son's home in Shoafat? And the fate of his impressive wife, Nora Gheith Sub Laban, who was born in this house 68 years ago and was hospitalized on Tuesday? Did you bother to look them in the eye? Does their image rise in front of you? One can only wish that the image of them being thrown out of their home, will haunt you in your nightmares until the end of your days. May their image rise before you every night as you put your children to bed.

But that's not going to happen. They're not human beings to you, they're less than human - they're not Jews. And this disgrace was authorized by the justice system.

Have you heard of the poor man's sheep proverb? Perhaps you'll open the Book of Samuel, chapter 12, and read? You're religious Jews, aren't you? The picture of one of you, a settler wheeler-dealer in a huge kippa and a beard, carrying loudspeakers to the house, an evil smile of triumph smeared over his face, a police officer by his side, is like a thousand accusing words. Ahmad Sub Laban, the son of the evicted couple, told me yesterday that the bearded man used to harass the family with deafening Jewish music over that large loudspeaker he was carrying.

The Israeli nation won again on Tuesday, this time an especially glorious victory, a victory over an old couple. The Sharabi, Wormser and Friedman families, who already live in the ancient building in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, will be joined by another family renting the property from the Kollel Galicia trust. If they enter the apartment today, they could still eat the rice and chicken casserole the couple's daughter prepared for her parents and is in the fridge, on the top shelf. It had been cooked in the middle of the week, and can still be eaten. All the family's possessions are still in the apartment, except for the family picture albums she took with her.

Meanwhile, the lock on the main entrance has been changed and the family no longer has access to what has been its home, where the couple lived as protected tenants. Again it became apparent the Palestinians have no protection, not even as tenants.

"This house will remain a prison until we return," Nora told me sadly about a month ago, in her home. On Tuesday, the day the Israeli protest scored another impressive achievement, when hoarse voices cried "democracy" and "shame" from the ends of the country, this disgrace took place in Jerusalem. Nora and Mustafa don't live there anymore. The Muslim Quarter will be Jewish, and Israel will be an apartheid state - officially as well.

Word count: 737

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System is 'Liberating' Jerusalem." Haaretz, Jul 13, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israels-rotten-racist-justice-system-is/docview/2836061511/se-2.

2023Jun: And Who Is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 25 June 2023.  

There aren't many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and property, let alone their dignity, and no one intends to do so. They are totally abandoned to their fates, as is their property. Their houses and cars can be torched, their fields set on fire. It's all right to shoot them mercilessly, killing old people and babies, with no defense forces at their side. No police, no military: no one. If some such desperate defense force is organized, it's immediately criminalized by Israel. Its fighters are labeled "terrorists," their actions "terror attacks," and their fates sealed, with death or prison the only options.

Amid the utter chaos created by the occupation, the ban on Palestinians defending themselves is one of the craziest rules; it's an accepted norm that isn't even discussed. Why aren't the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves? Who exactly is supposed to do it for them? Why, when talking about "security," it's only about Israel's security? Palestinians have more victims of assaults, bloodshed, pogroms, and violence - and no defensive tools at their disposal.

Over three days last week, 35 pogroms have been carried out by settlers. Since the beginning of the year, around 160 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, the vast majority of them unnecessarily and most of them criminally. From baby Mohammed Tamimi to the elderly Omar As'ad, Palestinians have been killed for no reason.

There was no one to stop the soldiers from firing indiscriminately, no one to face the sharpshooters. No Israeli authority even considered holding back hundreds of rampaging settlers. Through its actions and omissions, the IDF was a full accomplice to the pogroms -as were the police. The Palestinians were abandoned to their fates.

Abandoned, the Palestinian residents watched helplessly as the abhorrent settlers torched their homes, fields, and cars, afraid to even breathe. Try to imagine hundreds of loathsome thugs at the entrance to your home, burning and destroying everything, and yourself hoping they don't enter your house and hurt your children, and being able to do nothing about it until they finally leave. There's no one to call or turn to for help. There are no police, no authorities, and no one to call for help. Any step taken in self-defense would be considered an act of terrorism. Try to imagine it.

When the courageous fighters in the Jenin refugee camp - who are much more courageous than the well-protected IDF soldiers, as well as more just - try to stop military invasions of the camp with their less powerful weapons, they are, of course, considered terrorists, with only one fate awaiting them. The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria and rules are incomprehensible in their absurdity. Each killing by a soldier is considered just, including that of Sadil, a 15-year-old refugee girl killed on the roof of her home last week. Any shooting in self-defense at an invading soldier is considered a brutal act of terrorism.

In another reality, one might at least dream about an Israeli Jewish force mobilizing to defend defenseless Palestinians. One might dream of an Israeli left mobilizing in defense of their victim, like what some remarkable individuals, including some exemplary Jews, did to help defend Black South Africans under Apartheid, fighting with them and being wounded and imprisoned for many years alongside them.

Accompanying students to schools for their protection is noble, but it's not enough. It's easy to talk but difficult to take action. This idea has never taken off during all the years of occupation, except for one or two attempts immediately blocked by Israel. It's difficult to blame the left for this, but it's impossible not to feel some bitterness about its inaction. This week, more Palestinians will be killed for no reason, and their property will be destroyed. Children will wet their beds, fearing any rustle in the yard, knowing that their parents can't do anything to protect them. Again, the Palestinians will be left helpless.

The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria are incomprehensible in their absurdity.

Word count: 698

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "And Who is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?" Haaretz, Jun 25, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/who-is-supposed-protect-palestinians/docview/2829106350/se-2.

2023June: The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of Them Kids, Became Homeless

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 24 June 2023.  

Israeli authorities raze homes in the Negev town of Arara, where this family has lived for generations. What was done to us has not been done to anyone else, Odeh Alghol declares. It was the total erasure of everything we ever had, Hussein Alghol adds. Silently lying nearby, on the floor of the tent they erected this week, Salman Alghol has a look in his eyes that bespeaks despair.

Word count: 68

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of them Kids, Became Homeless." Haaretz, Jun 24, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/morning-50-israelis-15-them-kids-became-homeless/docview/2828955553/se-2.

2023June: The Success Story of the White Protest

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 June 2023.  

The white protest has succeeded. It has stopped the overhaul of the judiciary and for that, its participants deserve all due respect and gratitude. There have not been many protest movements in this country's history, and this one seems to have been the most successful. Applause, dear friends. You've proven that Israelis are not Hungarians or Poles. But the eager applause should not mask the ills and flaws of this protest. The symptoms have recently only grown worse.

The more successful the protest became, the more the self-satisfaction swelled among its initiators - look how wonderful we are - and with that came the meticulous safeguarding of the camp's purity, not allowing any other issue to muddy the waters. This self-satisfaction caused the protest to become satiated; the camp's purity made it too white. History may remember it as a movement that blocked some dangerous legislation; and it will certainly remember it as a movement that was systematically cowardly in avoiding more fateful issues.

After all, even if the protest fully achieves its objectives, Israel will only return to what it was up until a few years ago. To remind you, it too was a morally twisted country, only mildly less so than the Netanyahu-led present one.

On the weekend, protest organizers invited Dr. Rawia Aburabia, a law professor at Sapir Academic College, to talk about violence in Arab communities. The protest is expanding its wingspan, diversifying its campaign issues, becoming more relevant and topical. But then it turned out that the invitation included a catch: There was to be no mention of the occupation. Aburabia obviously decided to refuse this generous invitation, writing that "If this is what freedom of speech looks like at a protest aimed at democracy for Jews only, in which ethno-national power structures and policing of speakers are copy-pasted [from other spheres], truthfully, I no longer know what to say."

This was obviously an incident foretold, in a protest determined to combat the people fighting the occupation. The occupation is obviously not connected to democracy in the eyes of the democrats from Kaplan Street.

The photogenic heroine of the protest, Shikma Bressler, who was recently photographed in a Che Guevara pose, holding an Israeli flag, said that "seeing Israelis defending democracy, protesting everywhere around the world and in Israel, should make one understand that we are like [the Hasidic movement] Chabad, only championing democracy. We are full of faith in our way, fighting by being who we are. The flag has replaced the black clothes [worn by Chabad disciples]."

We're so lucky. The Israeli flag has replaced the black garb and we now have a new Chabad. Leave aside the unbelievable comparison to an ultra-nationalist religious organization, that dangerous one called Chabad, which the leader of the protest movement draws on.

Let's also leave aside her attitude to black garb, which is harmless even if it is different - a protest which lauds itself this way is one that has grown fat and satiated, a protest of the privileged. If such a protest rejects any contact with people who understand that a democracy built on the underpinnings of a cruel military dictatorship will never be a true democracy, it will be a hollow protest movement, a misleading and specious one.

It's good that masses of people continue to take to the streets. It's hard to criticize political awareness and a readiness to act on the part of good people. But alongside marching with flags, one should also state the truth. And the truth is that this protest has one objective: the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the true passion of the demonstrators.

This is a legitimate and even just goal. Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the crazy breakdown of the system over the last few months. But people holding flags on Kaplan Street, white and satiated, Jewish and Zionist, please remember that even if Netanyahu goes, Israel will continue to be an apartheid state.

An apartheid state will never be a democracy, even if Jews retain their rights, even if you continue marching with flags on Kaplan Street for years to come.

Therefore, it's not a true democracy you're fighting for. Thus, true democrats cannot join your struggle.

Word count: 701

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Success Story of the White Protest." Haaretz, Jun 11, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/success-story-white-protest/docview/2824389999/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2023July: Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System Is 'Liberating' Jerusalem

Levy, Gideon | Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 13 July 2023.  

So how did you sleep, cursed settlers, in the house in Jerusalem's Muslim Quarter that you coveted and robbed from a sickly, elderly couple who had been thrown out of it? What was your first night among the ancient walls like?

What is it like to enter a home safeguarding 70 years of a family's memories, memories not your own? What is it like to enter, just like in 1948, into the homes of the evicted, with the pots still simmering on the burners and the clothes in the closets? How does it feel to invade someone else's home? And what is it like to see policemen dragging an old man out of his home to clear out the plundered property for you?

Did you see the graffiti on the walls, "We'll be back" and "Palestine will be free?" I see you've already hung the Israeli flag in the window, like a thief hastily switching the license plates of the car he stole to conceal evidence. Now the house is Jewish forever and ever. Now it's yours, thanks to the renowned Israeli justice system, which is corrupt, rotten and racist when it comes to your nation's rights. How the judges in Jerusalem settle the unsolvable contradiction between the fate of Jewish property from before 1948 and the fate of Palestinian property? Is there another way to describe the verdict except as a proper apartheid response?

How did you sleep at night, cursed settlers? And how will you sleep in the nights to come? Will you think, if only for a moment, about the fate of Mustafa Sub Laban, a polite Palestinian of 74, who served in the Israel Police and now, in his old age, is homeless, crowding into his son's home in Shoafat? And the fate of his impressive wife, Nora Gheith Sub Laban, who was born in this house 68 years ago and was hospitalized on Tuesday? Did you bother to look them in the eye? Does their image rise in front of you? One can only wish that the image of them being thrown out of their home, will haunt you in your nightmares until the end of your days. May their image rise before you every night as you put your children to bed.

But that's not going to happen. They're not human beings to you, they're less than human - they're not Jews. And this disgrace was authorized by the justice system.

Have you heard of the poor man's sheep proverb? Perhaps you'll open the Book of Samuel, chapter 12, and read? You're religious Jews, aren't you? The picture of one of you, a settler wheeler-dealer in a huge kippa and a beard, carrying loudspeakers to the house, an evil smile of triumph smeared over his face, a police officer by his side, is like a thousand accusing words. Ahmad Sub Laban, the son of the evicted couple, told me yesterday that the bearded man used to harass the family with deafening Jewish music over that large loudspeaker he was carrying.

The Israeli nation won again on Tuesday, this time an especially glorious victory, a victory over an old couple. The Sharabi, Wormser and Friedman families, who already live in the ancient building in the heart of the Muslim Quarter, will be joined by another family renting the property from the Kollel Galicia trust. If they enter the apartment today, they could still eat the rice and chicken casserole the couple's daughter prepared for her parents and is in the fridge, on the top shelf. It had been cooked in the middle of the week, and can still be eaten. All the family's possessions are still in the apartment, except for the family picture albums she took with her.

Meanwhile, the lock on the main entrance has been changed and the family no longer has access to what has been its home, where the couple lived as protected tenants. Again it became apparent the Palestinians have no protection, not even as tenants.

"This house will remain a prison until we return," Nora told me sadly about a month ago, in her home. On Tuesday, the day the Israeli protest scored another impressive achievement, when hoarse voices cried "democracy" and "shame" from the ends of the country, this disgrace took place in Jerusalem. Nora and Mustafa don't live there anymore. The Muslim Quarter will be Jewish, and Israel will be an apartheid state - officially as well.

Word count: 737

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "Israel's Rotten, Racist Justice System is 'Liberating' Jerusalem." Haaretz, Jul 13, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/israels-rotten-racist-justice-system-is/docview/2836061511/se-2.

2023Jun: And Who Is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 25 June 2023.  

There aren't many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and property, let alone their dignity, and no one intends to do so. They are totally abandoned to their fates, as is their property. Their houses and cars can be torched, their fields set on fire. It's all right to shoot them mercilessly, killing old people and babies, with no defense forces at their side. No police, no military: no one. If some such desperate defense force is organized, it's immediately criminalized by Israel. Its fighters are labeled "terrorists," their actions "terror attacks," and their fates sealed, with death or prison the only options.

Amid the utter chaos created by the occupation, the ban on Palestinians defending themselves is one of the craziest rules; it's an accepted norm that isn't even discussed. Why aren't the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves? Who exactly is supposed to do it for them? Why, when talking about "security," it's only about Israel's security? Palestinians have more victims of assaults, bloodshed, pogroms, and violence - and no defensive tools at their disposal.

Over three days last week, 35 pogroms have been carried out by settlers. Since the beginning of the year, around 160 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, the vast majority of them unnecessarily and most of them criminally. From baby Mohammed Tamimi to the elderly Omar As'ad, Palestinians have been killed for no reason.

There was no one to stop the soldiers from firing indiscriminately, no one to face the sharpshooters. No Israeli authority even considered holding back hundreds of rampaging settlers. Through its actions and omissions, the IDF was a full accomplice to the pogroms -as were the police. The Palestinians were abandoned to their fates.

Abandoned, the Palestinian residents watched helplessly as the abhorrent settlers torched their homes, fields, and cars, afraid to even breathe. Try to imagine hundreds of loathsome thugs at the entrance to your home, burning and destroying everything, and yourself hoping they don't enter your house and hurt your children, and being able to do nothing about it until they finally leave. There's no one to call or turn to for help. There are no police, no authorities, and no one to call for help. Any step taken in self-defense would be considered an act of terrorism. Try to imagine it.

When the courageous fighters in the Jenin refugee camp - who are much more courageous than the well-protected IDF soldiers, as well as more just - try to stop military invasions of the camp with their less powerful weapons, they are, of course, considered terrorists, with only one fate awaiting them. The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria and rules are incomprehensible in their absurdity. Each killing by a soldier is considered just, including that of Sadil, a 15-year-old refugee girl killed on the roof of her home last week. Any shooting in self-defense at an invading soldier is considered a brutal act of terrorism.

In another reality, one might at least dream about an Israeli Jewish force mobilizing to defend defenseless Palestinians. One might dream of an Israeli left mobilizing in defense of their victim, like what some remarkable individuals, including some exemplary Jews, did to help defend Black South Africans under Apartheid, fighting with them and being wounded and imprisoned for many years alongside them.

Accompanying students to schools for their protection is noble, but it's not enough. It's easy to talk but difficult to take action. This idea has never taken off during all the years of occupation, except for one or two attempts immediately blocked by Israel. It's difficult to blame the left for this, but it's impossible not to feel some bitterness about its inaction. This week, more Palestinians will be killed for no reason, and their property will be destroyed. Children will wet their beds, fearing any rustle in the yard, knowing that their parents can't do anything to protect them. Again, the Palestinians will be left helpless.

The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria are incomprehensible in their absurdity.

Word count: 698

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "And Who is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?" Haaretz, Jun 25, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/who-is-supposed-protect-palestinians/docview/2829106350/se-2.

2023June: The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of Them Kids, Became Homeless

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 24 June 2023.  

Israeli authorities raze homes in the Negev town of Arara, where this family has lived for generations. What was done to us has not been done to anyone else, Odeh Alghol declares. It was the total erasure of everything we ever had, Hussein Alghol adds. Silently lying nearby, on the floor of the tent they erected this week, Salman Alghol has a look in his eyes that bespeaks despair.

Word count: 68

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of them Kids, Became Homeless." Haaretz, Jun 24, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/morning-50-israelis-15-them-kids-became-homeless/docview/2828955553/se-2.

2023June: The Success Story of the White Protest

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 June 2023.  

The white protest has succeeded. It has stopped the overhaul of the judiciary and for that, its participants deserve all due respect and gratitude. There have not been many protest movements in this country's history, and this one seems to have been the most successful. Applause, dear friends. You've proven that Israelis are not Hungarians or Poles. But the eager applause should not mask the ills and flaws of this protest. The symptoms have recently only grown worse.

The more successful the protest became, the more the self-satisfaction swelled among its initiators - look how wonderful we are - and with that came the meticulous safeguarding of the camp's purity, not allowing any other issue to muddy the waters. This self-satisfaction caused the protest to become satiated; the camp's purity made it too white. History may remember it as a movement that blocked some dangerous legislation; and it will certainly remember it as a movement that was systematically cowardly in avoiding more fateful issues.

After all, even if the protest fully achieves its objectives, Israel will only return to what it was up until a few years ago. To remind you, it too was a morally twisted country, only mildly less so than the Netanyahu-led present one.

On the weekend, protest organizers invited Dr. Rawia Aburabia, a law professor at Sapir Academic College, to talk about violence in Arab communities. The protest is expanding its wingspan, diversifying its campaign issues, becoming more relevant and topical. But then it turned out that the invitation included a catch: There was to be no mention of the occupation. Aburabia obviously decided to refuse this generous invitation, writing that "If this is what freedom of speech looks like at a protest aimed at democracy for Jews only, in which ethno-national power structures and policing of speakers are copy-pasted [from other spheres], truthfully, I no longer know what to say."

This was obviously an incident foretold, in a protest determined to combat the people fighting the occupation. The occupation is obviously not connected to democracy in the eyes of the democrats from Kaplan Street.

The photogenic heroine of the protest, Shikma Bressler, who was recently photographed in a Che Guevara pose, holding an Israeli flag, said that "seeing Israelis defending democracy, protesting everywhere around the world and in Israel, should make one understand that we are like [the Hasidic movement] Chabad, only championing democracy. We are full of faith in our way, fighting by being who we are. The flag has replaced the black clothes [worn by Chabad disciples]."

We're so lucky. The Israeli flag has replaced the black garb and we now have a new Chabad. Leave aside the unbelievable comparison to an ultra-nationalist religious organization, that dangerous one called Chabad, which the leader of the protest movement draws on.

Let's also leave aside her attitude to black garb, which is harmless even if it is different - a protest which lauds itself this way is one that has grown fat and satiated, a protest of the privileged. If such a protest rejects any contact with people who understand that a democracy built on the underpinnings of a cruel military dictatorship will never be a true democracy, it will be a hollow protest movement, a misleading and specious one.

It's good that masses of people continue to take to the streets. It's hard to criticize political awareness and a readiness to act on the part of good people. But alongside marching with flags, one should also state the truth. And the truth is that this protest has one objective: the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the true passion of the demonstrators.

This is a legitimate and even just goal. Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the crazy breakdown of the system over the last few months. But people holding flags on Kaplan Street, white and satiated, Jewish and Zionist, please remember that even if Netanyahu goes, Israel will continue to be an apartheid state.

An apartheid state will never be a democracy, even if Jews retain their rights, even if you continue marching with flags on Kaplan Street for years to come.

Therefore, it's not a true democracy you're fighting for. Thus, true democrats cannot join your struggle.

Word count: 701

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Success Story of the White Protest." Haaretz, Jun 11, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/success-story-white-protest/docview/2824389999/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2023Jun: And Who Is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 25 June 2023.  

There aren't many populations in the world as helpless as the Palestinians who live in their own country. No one protects their lives and property, let alone their dignity, and no one intends to do so. They are totally abandoned to their fates, as is their property. Their houses and cars can be torched, their fields set on fire. It's all right to shoot them mercilessly, killing old people and babies, with no defense forces at their side. No police, no military: no one. If some such desperate defense force is organized, it's immediately criminalized by Israel. Its fighters are labeled "terrorists," their actions "terror attacks," and their fates sealed, with death or prison the only options.

Amid the utter chaos created by the occupation, the ban on Palestinians defending themselves is one of the craziest rules; it's an accepted norm that isn't even discussed. Why aren't the Palestinians allowed to defend themselves? Who exactly is supposed to do it for them? Why, when talking about "security," it's only about Israel's security? Palestinians have more victims of assaults, bloodshed, pogroms, and violence - and no defensive tools at their disposal.

Over three days last week, 35 pogroms have been carried out by settlers. Since the beginning of the year, around 160 Palestinians have been killed by soldiers, the vast majority of them unnecessarily and most of them criminally. From baby Mohammed Tamimi to the elderly Omar As'ad, Palestinians have been killed for no reason.

There was no one to stop the soldiers from firing indiscriminately, no one to face the sharpshooters. No Israeli authority even considered holding back hundreds of rampaging settlers. Through its actions and omissions, the IDF was a full accomplice to the pogroms -as were the police. The Palestinians were abandoned to their fates.

Abandoned, the Palestinian residents watched helplessly as the abhorrent settlers torched their homes, fields, and cars, afraid to even breathe. Try to imagine hundreds of loathsome thugs at the entrance to your home, burning and destroying everything, and yourself hoping they don't enter your house and hurt your children, and being able to do nothing about it until they finally leave. There's no one to call or turn to for help. There are no police, no authorities, and no one to call for help. Any step taken in self-defense would be considered an act of terrorism. Try to imagine it.

When the courageous fighters in the Jenin refugee camp - who are much more courageous than the well-protected IDF soldiers, as well as more just - try to stop military invasions of the camp with their less powerful weapons, they are, of course, considered terrorists, with only one fate awaiting them. The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria and rules are incomprehensible in their absurdity. Each killing by a soldier is considered just, including that of Sadil, a 15-year-old refugee girl killed on the roof of her home last week. Any shooting in self-defense at an invading soldier is considered a brutal act of terrorism.

In another reality, one might at least dream about an Israeli Jewish force mobilizing to defend defenseless Palestinians. One might dream of an Israeli left mobilizing in defense of their victim, like what some remarkable individuals, including some exemplary Jews, did to help defend Black South Africans under Apartheid, fighting with them and being wounded and imprisoned for many years alongside them.

Accompanying students to schools for their protection is noble, but it's not enough. It's easy to talk but difficult to take action. This idea has never taken off during all the years of occupation, except for one or two attempts immediately blocked by Israel. It's difficult to blame the left for this, but it's impossible not to feel some bitterness about its inaction. This week, more Palestinians will be killed for no reason, and their property will be destroyed. Children will wet their beds, fearing any rustle in the yard, knowing that their parents can't do anything to protect them. Again, the Palestinians will be left helpless.

The invader is legitimate, and the one defending his life and property is a terrorist. The moral criteria are incomprehensible in their absurdity.

Word count: 698

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "And Who is Supposed to Protect the Palestinians?" Haaretz, Jun 25, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/who-is-supposed-protect-palestinians/docview/2829106350/se-2.

2023June: The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of Them Kids, Became Homeless

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 24 June 2023.  

Israeli authorities raze homes in the Negev town of Arara, where this family has lived for generations. What was done to us has not been done to anyone else, Odeh Alghol declares. It was the total erasure of everything we ever had, Hussein Alghol adds. Silently lying nearby, on the floor of the tent they erected this week, Salman Alghol has a look in his eyes that bespeaks despair.

Word count: 68

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of them Kids, Became Homeless." Haaretz, Jun 24, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/morning-50-israelis-15-them-kids-became-homeless/docview/2828955553/se-2.

2023June: The Success Story of the White Protest

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 June 2023.  

The white protest has succeeded. It has stopped the overhaul of the judiciary and for that, its participants deserve all due respect and gratitude. There have not been many protest movements in this country's history, and this one seems to have been the most successful. Applause, dear friends. You've proven that Israelis are not Hungarians or Poles. But the eager applause should not mask the ills and flaws of this protest. The symptoms have recently only grown worse.

The more successful the protest became, the more the self-satisfaction swelled among its initiators - look how wonderful we are - and with that came the meticulous safeguarding of the camp's purity, not allowing any other issue to muddy the waters. This self-satisfaction caused the protest to become satiated; the camp's purity made it too white. History may remember it as a movement that blocked some dangerous legislation; and it will certainly remember it as a movement that was systematically cowardly in avoiding more fateful issues.

After all, even if the protest fully achieves its objectives, Israel will only return to what it was up until a few years ago. To remind you, it too was a morally twisted country, only mildly less so than the Netanyahu-led present one.

On the weekend, protest organizers invited Dr. Rawia Aburabia, a law professor at Sapir Academic College, to talk about violence in Arab communities. The protest is expanding its wingspan, diversifying its campaign issues, becoming more relevant and topical. But then it turned out that the invitation included a catch: There was to be no mention of the occupation. Aburabia obviously decided to refuse this generous invitation, writing that "If this is what freedom of speech looks like at a protest aimed at democracy for Jews only, in which ethno-national power structures and policing of speakers are copy-pasted [from other spheres], truthfully, I no longer know what to say."

This was obviously an incident foretold, in a protest determined to combat the people fighting the occupation. The occupation is obviously not connected to democracy in the eyes of the democrats from Kaplan Street.

The photogenic heroine of the protest, Shikma Bressler, who was recently photographed in a Che Guevara pose, holding an Israeli flag, said that "seeing Israelis defending democracy, protesting everywhere around the world and in Israel, should make one understand that we are like [the Hasidic movement] Chabad, only championing democracy. We are full of faith in our way, fighting by being who we are. The flag has replaced the black clothes [worn by Chabad disciples]."

We're so lucky. The Israeli flag has replaced the black garb and we now have a new Chabad. Leave aside the unbelievable comparison to an ultra-nationalist religious organization, that dangerous one called Chabad, which the leader of the protest movement draws on.

Let's also leave aside her attitude to black garb, which is harmless even if it is different - a protest which lauds itself this way is one that has grown fat and satiated, a protest of the privileged. If such a protest rejects any contact with people who understand that a democracy built on the underpinnings of a cruel military dictatorship will never be a true democracy, it will be a hollow protest movement, a misleading and specious one.

It's good that masses of people continue to take to the streets. It's hard to criticize political awareness and a readiness to act on the part of good people. But alongside marching with flags, one should also state the truth. And the truth is that this protest has one objective: the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the true passion of the demonstrators.

This is a legitimate and even just goal. Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the crazy breakdown of the system over the last few months. But people holding flags on Kaplan Street, white and satiated, Jewish and Zionist, please remember that even if Netanyahu goes, Israel will continue to be an apartheid state.

An apartheid state will never be a democracy, even if Jews retain their rights, even if you continue marching with flags on Kaplan Street for years to come.

Therefore, it's not a true democracy you're fighting for. Thus, true democrats cannot join your struggle.

Word count: 701

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Success Story of the White Protest." Haaretz, Jun 11, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/success-story-white-protest/docview/2824389999/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2023June: The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of Them Kids, Became Homeless

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 24 June 2023.  

Israeli authorities raze homes in the Negev town of Arara, where this family has lived for generations. What was done to us has not been done to anyone else, Odeh Alghol declares. It was the total erasure of everything we ever had, Hussein Alghol adds. Silently lying nearby, on the floor of the tent they erected this week, Salman Alghol has a look in his eyes that bespeaks despair.

Word count: 68

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Morning 50 Israelis, 15 of them Kids, Became Homeless." Haaretz, Jun 24, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/morning-50-israelis-15-them-kids-became-homeless/docview/2828955553/se-2.

2023June: The Success Story of the White Protest

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 June 2023.  

The white protest has succeeded. It has stopped the overhaul of the judiciary and for that, its participants deserve all due respect and gratitude. There have not been many protest movements in this country's history, and this one seems to have been the most successful. Applause, dear friends. You've proven that Israelis are not Hungarians or Poles. But the eager applause should not mask the ills and flaws of this protest. The symptoms have recently only grown worse.

The more successful the protest became, the more the self-satisfaction swelled among its initiators - look how wonderful we are - and with that came the meticulous safeguarding of the camp's purity, not allowing any other issue to muddy the waters. This self-satisfaction caused the protest to become satiated; the camp's purity made it too white. History may remember it as a movement that blocked some dangerous legislation; and it will certainly remember it as a movement that was systematically cowardly in avoiding more fateful issues.

After all, even if the protest fully achieves its objectives, Israel will only return to what it was up until a few years ago. To remind you, it too was a morally twisted country, only mildly less so than the Netanyahu-led present one.

On the weekend, protest organizers invited Dr. Rawia Aburabia, a law professor at Sapir Academic College, to talk about violence in Arab communities. The protest is expanding its wingspan, diversifying its campaign issues, becoming more relevant and topical. But then it turned out that the invitation included a catch: There was to be no mention of the occupation. Aburabia obviously decided to refuse this generous invitation, writing that "If this is what freedom of speech looks like at a protest aimed at democracy for Jews only, in which ethno-national power structures and policing of speakers are copy-pasted [from other spheres], truthfully, I no longer know what to say."

This was obviously an incident foretold, in a protest determined to combat the people fighting the occupation. The occupation is obviously not connected to democracy in the eyes of the democrats from Kaplan Street.

The photogenic heroine of the protest, Shikma Bressler, who was recently photographed in a Che Guevara pose, holding an Israeli flag, said that "seeing Israelis defending democracy, protesting everywhere around the world and in Israel, should make one understand that we are like [the Hasidic movement] Chabad, only championing democracy. We are full of faith in our way, fighting by being who we are. The flag has replaced the black clothes [worn by Chabad disciples]."

We're so lucky. The Israeli flag has replaced the black garb and we now have a new Chabad. Leave aside the unbelievable comparison to an ultra-nationalist religious organization, that dangerous one called Chabad, which the leader of the protest movement draws on.

Let's also leave aside her attitude to black garb, which is harmless even if it is different - a protest which lauds itself this way is one that has grown fat and satiated, a protest of the privileged. If such a protest rejects any contact with people who understand that a democracy built on the underpinnings of a cruel military dictatorship will never be a true democracy, it will be a hollow protest movement, a misleading and specious one.

It's good that masses of people continue to take to the streets. It's hard to criticize political awareness and a readiness to act on the part of good people. But alongside marching with flags, one should also state the truth. And the truth is that this protest has one objective: the removal of Benjamin Netanyahu. This is the true passion of the demonstrators.

This is a legitimate and even just goal. Netanyahu bears full responsibility for the crazy breakdown of the system over the last few months. But people holding flags on Kaplan Street, white and satiated, Jewish and Zionist, please remember that even if Netanyahu goes, Israel will continue to be an apartheid state.

An apartheid state will never be a democracy, even if Jews retain their rights, even if you continue marching with flags on Kaplan Street for years to come.

Therefore, it's not a true democracy you're fighting for. Thus, true democrats cannot join your struggle.

Word count: 701

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "The Success Story of the White Protest." Haaretz, Jun 11, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/success-story-white-protest/docview/2824389999/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2023May: They Had Already Lost Six Children When Their 15-year-old Son Was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 20 May 2023.  

Mustafa aspired to be a police officer, and had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot himBy the time 15-year-old Mustafa Sabah died last month, his parents had already lost six of their 11 children. Mustafa, though, was leading a normal life. Aspiring to be a police officer, he had fashioned himself a wooden rifle and insisted on carrying it with him. Perhaps that's why soldiers shot him

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "They had Already Lost Six Children when their 15-Year-Old Son was Shot Dead by Israeli Troops." Haaretz, May 20, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/they-had-already-lost-six-children-when-their-15/docview/2815702080/se-2.

2023Apr: In Jenin, New Graves Are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 29 Apr 2023.  

The Jenin refugee camp has turned into a veritable fortress: steel barriers on every streetcorner, security cameras, surveillance of every outsider who dares enter, hundreds of armed men preparing for the army's next incursion. And there will be bloodThree open graves are waiting in the Jenin refugee camp for the next residents to be killed by the Israel Defense Forces. Here the graves are dug in advance - and, appallingly, they don't remain empty for very long. Almost 50 armed fighters and others have been killed here in the past year by Israeli soldiers. The camp, in the northern West Bank, is experiencing its most difficult and violent time since the second intifada, some two decades ago.

Word count: 117

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Works Cited

Levy, Gideon. "In Jenin, New Graves are Ready for the Aftermath of the Next Israeli Army Incursion." Haaretz, Apr 29, 2023. ProQuest, http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/jenin-new-graves-are-ready-aftermath-next-israeli/docview/2807137707/se-2.

2024Jan: Ahead of world court hearing, Netanyahu rejects calls for Gaza population transfer

Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 Jan 2024.   by Michael Hauser Tov, Ben Samuels

Ahead of ICJ hearing, Netanyahu publicly opposes calls from far-right allies on Gaza population transfer for first time

On the eve of the genocide hearing against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come out publicly for the first time against his far-right allies who have been calling for Israel to recapture the Gaza Strip, encourage the transfer of the civilian population and reestablish Israeli settlements.

In a post of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Netanyahu wrote: "I want to make a few points absolutely clear: Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population. Israel is fighting Hamas terrorists, not the Palestinian population, and we are doing so in full compliance with international law. "

The world court begins hearing South Africa's charges of genocide against Israel on Thursday in The Hague.

Anshel Pfeffer

IDF finds forensic evidence that Hamas held hostages in newly uncovered tunnel under Khan Yunis

IDF forces operating in the northern parts of Khan Yunis have uncovered a tunnel used to hide Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

Forensic evidence located in the tunnel, including bloodstains, proves that hostages were held there. As far as the IDF is aware, the hostages were taken to the tunnel immediately after they were captured on October 7 and were released as part of a hostage/cease-fire deal in late November.

On Wednesday, Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfus, the commander of the 98th Division, toured the Khan Yunis area, along with IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari and representative of the international media. The three-meter-deep tunnel stretches for several miles underneath the city. It includes bathrooms and what appear to be bedrooms and is just part of the comprehensive infrastructure that Hamas has built under Khan Yunis.

Goldfus said that the IDF has changed its policy from earlier in the war, whereby it just located and destroyed the entrances to the tunnels – without sending soldiers into them. Now, he said, "we are maneuvering above ground and below ground. This is a learning curve for us with regard to the fastest and most effective way to defeat Hamas – and Hamas' core is underground. That is where we will defeat it. "

Haaretz

RECAP: Netanyahu rejects allies' calls for Gaza population transfer for first time; Blinken, Abbas discuss PA reforms in Ramallah

South Africa will present its case for charging Israel with genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on Thursday. On the even of the opening of hearings, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out his far-right allies' calls for the transfer of Palestinians from Gaza and the Israeli reoccupation of the Strip.

Here's what you need to know 97 days into the war:

■ IDF finds forensic evidence that Hamas held hostages in newly uncovered tunnel under Khan Yunis

■ U. N. Security Council approves resolution demanding Yemen's Houthis immediately cease shipping attacks

■ Lebanese parliament deputy speaker Elias Abu Sa'ab said that returning the residents of Lebanon's southern villages is only possible through diplomatic efforts, and that "war is not the solution. "

■ U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Bahrain for a previously unannounced visit to meet with King Hamad, to discuss preventing further regional escalation.

■ ICJ: South Africa and Israel exchanged barbs on the eve of hearings at the International Court of Justice at the Hague triggered by a South African petition claiming that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

■ "As a people who once tasted the bitter fruits of dispossession, discrimination, racism and state-sponsored violence, we are clear that we will stand on the right side of history," South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said. Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy said Israel will "dispel South Africa's absurd blood libel," and that the country is giving "political and legal cover to the Hamas Rapist Regime. "

■ South Africa's Justice Ministry confirmed Tuesday that Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the U. K. Labour Party, who has publicly refused to define Hamas as a terror group and under whose leadership antisemitism festered, will be part of its ICJ delegation.

■ Despite a warning by Israel's Attorney General to politicians to stop making incendiary statements that could be construed as incitement, Likud MK Nissim Vaturi doubled down Wednesday on his call, initially made in December, to "burn down" Gaza. He told a religious radio station: "It is better to burn, to bring down buildings than for soldiers to be hurt. "

■ GAZA: The IDF said its reservist Gaza Division has taken over Khirbat Ikhza'a, a Palestinian village just over the border from Kibbutz Nir Oz. Objects stolen from Nir Oz were found there, a military source said.

■ Israel's security cabinet will discuss this evening a deal mediated by Qatar to release all the Israeli hostages held in Gaza in several batches in exchange for safe passage out of Gaza into exile for Hamas leaders and an IDF retreat from the Gaza Strip, according to Israeli news channel 13.

■ An Israeli delegation landed in Cairo on Wednesday for a new round of talks with Egypt on a possible swap of hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel, according to an Egyptian official.

■ According to a report in the Qatari outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, Israel's focus is on a hostage deal resulting in a temporary cease-fire, not a permanent one.

■ The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza said a total of 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 have been wounded since the war began.

■ White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby said that Washington still does not "support a cease-fire at this time" because "we don't believe that benefits anybody but Hamas. We continue to support humanitarian pauses. "

■ ISRAEL: The IDF announced the name of a soldier who had been killed fighting in Gaza.

■ About 10,000 people participated in a vigil at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, praying for the release of hostages and swift recovery of the wounded soldiers.

■ War cabinet minister Benny Gantz said that Hamas no longer controls a large part of Gaza, and that "the Gazan civilian does not have a government to turn to," adding that if Israel were to withdraw from Gaza now, "Hamas will regain control. "

■ Likud lawmaker Danny Danon said that he does not understand why U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected Israeli lawmakers' talk of "voluntary migration" of Gaza residents out of the Gaza Strip.

■ WEST BANK: U. S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met on Wednesday with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The two discussed efforts to minimize civilian harm in Gaza, U. S. efforts to address extremist settler violence and the handing over of Palestinian tax revenues collected by Israel to the PA, according to a State Department statement.

■ During the meeting, President Abbas told Blinken that "Gaza is an inseparable part of the Palestinian state, and we will not allow any attempt to uproot our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. "

■ Palestinian sources in Jenin said that a large IDF force, accompanied by bulldozers, entered the West Bank city late on Tuesday, accompanied by reports of gunfire.

Word count: 1222

© Haaretz Daily Newspaper Ltd. All Rights Reserved Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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2023Oct: Forced transfer of Gaza population 'a crime': Arab League

AFP International Text Wire in English; Washington. 13 Oct 2023.  

Israel's order to Palestinians to evacuate the north of the blockaded Gaza Strip is a "forced transfer" that constitutes "a crime", Arab League chief Ahmed Abul Gheit said Friday.

The secretary general of the pan-Arab body, in a letter sent to UN chief Antonio Guterres, also accused Israelof carrying out "an atrocious act of revenge... punishing helpless civilians in Gaza" rather than a "planned or studied military operation" on uprooting Hamas militants over their deadly attacks on Israeli soil.

str-sbh/hmn/dv

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2023Sep: Far From the Eyes of the World, an Unbelievable Population Transfer Is Underway in the West Bank

Levy, Gideon Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 09 Sep 2023.  

Terrorized by settlers, Palestinian shepherds in the West Bank are being forced to leave the villages they have lived in for decades. Last week it was the turn of Al-Baqa'aAll that remains in the valley now is black, scorched earth, a memento of what was until last week a place of human habitation. There also is a sheep pen, which the banished residents left behind as a memorial or perhaps also in the hope of better days, when they will be able to return to their land - a prospect that looks very far-fetched indeed at present.

Levy, G. (2023, Sep 09). Far from the eyes of the world, an unbelievable population transfer is underway in the west bank. Haaretz Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/far-eyes-world-unbelievable-population-transfer/docview/2862617086/se-2

2019: The idea of population transfer rears its head again

DT News; Manama. 13 June 2019.

As the United States colludes with Israel’srightwing government in undermining a two-state solution with the Palestinians, it may help to revive an alarming idea. With Israelfacing an expanding number of Palestinians in the West Bank, and no plan for what to do with them, this may resuscitate the idea of transferring them out of the territories, allowing for a more complete integration of the West Bank into Israel.

To put this in context, this past weekend the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, told the New York Times: “Under certain circumstances, I think Israelhas the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.” Such a move would make a two-state solution impossible, unless the Palestinians were to accept an entirely dependent, quasi-entity, ringed by Israel’sarmy, with none of the attributes of sovereignty. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long sought to extend Israeli law to parts of the West Bank. However, his annexationist designs could return us to another time in Israel’shistory, before the declaration of the state in 1948.

During the 1930s, the idea of “transferring” the Palestinian population out of Palestine to make room for Jewish immigration was at the heart of Zionist thinking. Many in the Zionist movement considered that Palestinians could move to fellow Arab countries, without any prejudice to them, as there was no recognition among them of a Palestinian nationalist identity. A particularly revealing moment occurred in 1937, when the British Peel Commission proposed the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state.

The Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion supported the proposals, but understood that they would only be acceptable if there were provisions for the removal of the Palestinians who remained in the Jewish state. Because Arabs represented half the population of that state, unless they were “transferred” they would have quickly formed a majority, owing to their higher birth rate. If Israelannexes the West Bank, it will have to deal with upwards of what its Civil Administration estimated in 2012 to be some 2.6 million Palestinians in the territory.

While they may be penned into areas of Palestinian autonomy, the long-term prospect that relative peace will prevail is difficult to imagine – particularly if Palestinians continue to be denied civil and political rights, and are pushed into increasingly restricted areas, as Israelconsolidates and builds up the land under its control. That is not to say that the Israelis will engage in the mass expulsions of Palestinians. Such scenes would be too reminiscent of ethnic cleansing in places such as Syria and Bosnia, and would bring international condemnation. However, Israelis aware that it is also facing a demographic time bomb and that, sooner or later, the millions of Palestinians under its control may rise up, representing a threat in the West Bank.

This is all the more likely if annexation transforms many of its areas into Israelproper. In such an event, armed clashes between Palestinians and Israelis, particularly if the Palestinian security forces get involved, could lead to dynamics that Israelexploits. Heavy fighting could create major population movements towards safer areas, perhaps allowing Israelto channel Palestinians into neighbouring Jordan. Certainly, the Israelis would strenuously deny any such intention, but fighting shaped the demographic landscape in 1948.

So, why presume that such a thing could not happen again? Considering that something might happen is not the same as saying that it will. Israeli society may yet sense where all this is going, and decide that becoming a pariah is a prospect to be rejected. However, Mr Netanyahu does not believe that Israelhas to give up land, and in this he is backed by the US. There is a direct line between such thinking and the view before 1948 that it was in the interest of the Jewish community in Palestine to obtain the greatest amount of land with the fewest numbers of Palestinians. The Jordanians are particularly worried by the direction of Israeli policy today.

They don’t really believe that Mr Netanyahu, or a successor, will do everything possible to avoid a Palestinian takeover of their country. The “Jordan is Palestine” mantra has long been embraced by the Israeli right, and that is not about to change. In advancing Israeli expansionism, the leaders on the right will do whatever it takes to secure their aims. Would such “transfer” of the Palestinians work? In a region where millions of people have been forcibly displaced, with anaemic responses from the international community, it is difficult to rule out such an option.

Moreover, if a Palestinian exodus were the result of fighting, Israelcould spin it all as an act of self-defence. It has done so time and again in Gaza, despite the overwhelming level of Israeli destruction in the territory. We’re not in a region where victims are used to getting satisfaction. Hopefully, this will not occur. However, everything points to a profoundly destructive deadlock on the Palestinian-Israeli front in the years ahead.

Such deadlock already has existential implications, and so may bring about existential reactions. It is in such fraught environments that ethnic cleansing often takes place.

© 2019 News of Bahrain Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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2017: As Trump envoy set to visit, Liberman pushes population transfer plan

The Times of Israel; Jerusalem, Israel. 13 Mar 2017.  

Abstract

Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, is slated to land in Israel later Monday, and is expected to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders as part of an opening gambit to try and broker fresh peace talks after years of stagnation between the sides. According to reports, Trump and his team want to broker a regional peace initiative that will include Israel, the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia and others. According to a Channel 2 TV report Sunday, the prime minister will present Greenblatt with plans for a new West Bank settlement, one that he promised the residents of Amona ahead of their court-ordered evacuation in exchange for a peaceful evacuation of the hilltop community.

Full Text

Saying Arab politicians should not have Israeli citizenship, defense minister predicts any land-for-peace deal will fail if Arab towns not made Palestinian By Jacob Magid

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman cautioned the US against trying to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal on the basis of land for peace without also including a population transfer, as a senior Washington official tasked with kicking off peace efforts made his way to the region for the first time.

Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, is slated to land in Israellater Monday, and is expected to meet with both Israeli and Palestinian leaders as part of an opening gambit to try and broker fresh peace talks after years of stagnation between the sides.

In a statement posted to his Facebook page, Liberman said Greenblatt should "learn lessons from the past," pitching the US official on his long-held belief that certain Israeli Arab towns should be made part of a Palestinian state, with many of the residents of those towns taking on Palestinian citizenship instead of Israeli.

"The first takeaway is that any attempt to solve the Palestinian issue on the basis of land for peace will be dead on arrival. The only way to reach a sustainable solution is land swaps and population transfers as part of a general regional agreement," he wrote. "It can't be that there will be a Palestinian state without any Jews -- 100 percent Palestinian -- and alongside that Israelwill be a binational state with 22% Palestinians."

Liberman's controversial plan calls for towns in the "triangle" region southeast of Haifa, including heavily populated Arab cities, to become part of a Palestinian state in any peace agreement in exchange for Jewish settlement areas of the West Bank coming under Israeli sovereignty.

"There is no reason that Sheikh Raed Salah, Ayman Odeh, Basel Ghattas or Haneen Zoabi should continue to be citizens of Israel," Liberman added, referring to the leader of the banned northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israeland members of the Joint (Arab) List Knesset faction, respectively.

Responding to the statement, Ghattas said the fact that Liberman was born in the Soviet Union and moved to Israelmade him a "passing visitor" while "Palestinians living in Israelown the place."

"There's no doubt that Liberman, a migrant from Moldova, doesn't understand what it means to be born in your land, and in any agreement in the future, there is no room for settlers stealing the land of the Palestinian state, and no room for despicable racist migrants like Yvette," Ghattas wrote, using a common nickname for Liberman.

Greenblatt's visit will be the first major attempt by the new US administration to tackle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after two months which have seen officials dither on support for the two-state solution, the location of the US Embassy and opposition to building in settlements.

Time for morning prayer (shacharit) at unexpected stop in Frankfurt. Pray for peace. @jdgreenblatt45 pic.twitter.com/VHNAhOWwCY

-- Jason D. Greenblatt (@JasonDovEsq) March 13, 2017

On Friday, Trump held his first phone conversation with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, inviting him to visit the White House.

According to reports, Trump and his team want to broker a regional peace initiative that will include Israel, the Palestinians, Saudi Arabia and others.

On Sunday, Abbas said that his phone conversation with Trump was "constructive" and that Trump "confirmed his full commitment to the peace process and the two-state solution."

He added: "We will continue to cooperate with [Trump], in order to arrive at a comprehensive and just peace that will bring security and stability to everyone."

Other Palestinian sources said that Trump told Abbas he wanted to broker a deal, and that he referred to Abbas as a "partner."

The goal of Greenblatt's visit is reportedly to formulate the Trump administration's position on settlements, including what the US will accept in terms of where and how much Israelcan build, and to arrange Abbas's visit to Washington.

The visit comes a month after Trump's public request that Israel"hold back" on the settlement construction, whose literal meaning Jerusalem officials have been tirelessly dissecting.

Both Netanyahu and Liberman have recently tried to curb the discussion of settlements, with the understanding that the issue could cause tension with Washington.

According to a Channel 2 TV report Sunday, the prime minister will present Greenblatt with plans for a new West Bank settlement, one that he promised the residents of Amona ahead of their court-ordered evacuation in exchange for a peaceful evacuation of the hilltop community.

The Palestinians are expected to push the US administration to present its own peace plan, according to a report Monday in the Haaretz daily.

Tamar Pileggi contributed to this report.

© 2017 The Times of Israel. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

Word count: 805

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2014: Israeli FM defends controversial population-transfer plan

Xinhua News Agency - CEIS; Woodside. 08 Jan 2014.  

Abstract

[Avigdor Lieberman]'s plan designates that Arab towns in the "triangle" region southeast of Haifa, including some heavily populated towns, would become part of a Palestinian state in any future agreement, in exchange for the Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank. There are some 300,000 Israeli Arabs living in the area.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday expressed disapproval about the plan by calling it "impractical." He said: " Israel can't take away its citizens' citizenship simply because they're Arabs."

Full Text

Israeli FM defends controversial population-transfer plan

JERUSALEM, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman defended Wednesday his proposal to hand over Israeli Arab towns to the Palestinian Authority's rule in exchange for sovereignty over Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Lieberman's plan designates that Arab towns in the "triangle" region southeast of Haifa, including some heavily populated towns, would become part of a Palestinian state in any future agreement, in exchange for the Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank. There are some 300,000 Israeli Arabs living in the area.

However, Lieberman's proposal, known as the population-transfer plan, met strong opposition from the many Arabs living in the areas it suggests to cede to the Palestinians.

In his defense, the foreign minister said sarcastically: "The Arabs of Wadi Ara (an Arab village in northern Israel) suddenly become adorers of Zion," referring to Zionism, an early-20th- century movement in which ethnic Jews sought to return to Israelfrom exile.

"All of a sudden, they are an integral part of the state of Israel," he added, expressing doubts about the Arabs' sense of belonging to the state of Israel.

Israeli President Shimon Peres on Wednesday expressed disapproval about the plan by calling it "impractical." He said: " Israelcan't take away its citizens' citizenship simply because they're Arabs."

The plan also received mounts of criticism from left-wing politicians and from within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition.

On Tuesday, Interior Minister Gideon Sa'ar expressed objection to the plan and said that any long term agreement must stipulate that the Israeli Arabs remain in Israeli territories.

20 percent of the Israeli population is made of Arabs, who live in Arab villages and mixed cities across the country. They are citizens who can vote and run elections, but they suffer discrimination in many aspects of life since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

Word count: 332

Copyright Xinhua News Agency Jan 8, 2014

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2012: BADIL's Statements to UNHRC Reveal Extent of Forced Population Transfer in West Bank

Palestine News Network (PNN); Bethlehem. 09 Aug 2012.  

PNN Palestinian group BADIL, the Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, has now made available on its website their published written and oral statements to the UN Human Rights Council during its 20 Session last month. The organisation submitted both written and oral statements attesting to the extent of the Israeli occupation and its denial of their human rights.

Their written statement argues that the policy of settling Israeli Jews on Palestinian land is 'a policy that amounts to forced population transfer' Notably, the statement reads:
"The widespread and systematic forcible internal displacement of Palestinians by the Israeli Occupying Power and the ongoing denial of Palestinian refugees right to repatriation for the purpose of acquiring land and altering the demographic composition of the territory amounts to a forcible transfer of population"

Pointing to the punitive consequences of committing such acts the statement continues the statement continues, "Forced population transfer is prohibited under international humanitarian law, a violation of customary international law, is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and may amount to a war crime pursuant to the Rome Statute." The statement cites the methods used to commit forced population transfer, including but not limited to "home demolitions, deportation of civilians, land expropriation, evictions by settlers, in combination with several government incentives to encourage settler implantation in the OPT" The demolition of homes by military order displaced over a thousand Palestinians in 2011, which was an 80% increase of the previous year.

The effect of the settler movement's population transfer is most pronounced in the East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley. In the former case Israelhas sanctioned Settler violence being used to drive Palestinians from their homes in addition to discriminatory permit policies aimed at maintaining legal ownership of land close to impossible for Palestinians living there. The consequences of the settlement enterprise are perhaps the worst in the Jordan Valley where the Palestinian population has been dramatically reduced from 320,000 in 1967 to just 56,000 today. The Israeli government has declared most of the valley to be State land and has established settlements in the area as well as moving military brigades in to establish bases there.

BADIL's statement said that the Israeli government offers rich financial incentives for settlers to move to the OPT, including but not limited to 'generous loans from the Ministry of Housing, lower prices to lease land from the Israeli Land Authority, incentives for teachers, grants from the Ministry of Industry & Trade, and tax breaks from the Ministry of Finance."

BADIL urged the UN to take further steps to protect the rights of Palestinians who are facing being uprooted from their homes. Amongst such steps are the recognition of the legal status of East Jerusalem and the illegality of Israel's annexation of it. BADIL also requested the UN set up a commission to examine whether Israel' policies of settlement expansion fall under the legal category of forceful population transfer. In an oral testimony Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights representative Ms. Rania Madi called on the UN to frame a holistic resolution to the conflict on the basis of human rights.

She stated "a sincere human rights based approach must take into consideration all Palestinians who have fallen victim to Israel's International law violations and should not base itself on the forced fragmentation of the Palestinian people." Madi also called for the International community to pay attention to the living conditions of the Palestinians residing in camps both in the OPT and outside of it. The individuals living in camps face "high levels of unemployment, poverty and discrimination as well as inadequate health and education infrastructure" she said.

Continuing, Madi noted that "the position of Palestinian refugees is precarious and has been for 64 years" as they have been victim to the ongoing human rights violations carried out by the State of Israel"and its persistent denial of the internationally recognised right of return". She concluded that 'In light of this only a holistic approach will be able to bring about a long overdue solution, the internationally recognised right to self-determination of the Palestinian people in conjunction with the implementation of the right of return for all Palestinian refugees in their homes and places of origin" reiterating that "it is of vital importance to recognize that forcible transfer predates 1948 and continues to this day."

The session drew fierd criticism from both the Unites States and Israel.

The following day the U.S State Department issues a decidedly negative response to the session's hearings. The State Department accused the UN of pursuing a 'biased Israel-specific agenda' and announced their strict opposition to the creation of a fact-finding mission to investigate the illegal settlement enterprise stating "as reflected by our vote against this measure at the March session, the United States strongly opposed the creation of the Fact Finding Mission." In an opaque move the Office Spokesman for the State Department reported, "Though much work remains, in particular ending the Council's disproportionate focus on Israel, U.S. engagement since joining the Human Rights Council has made it a more effective and credible multilateral forum for promoting and protecting human rights."

It is unclear what they intend to do towards 'ending the Council's disproportionate focus on Israel' but it should be clear that the US has made a point of shielding Israelfrom criticism at the United Nations. \

The US has long blocked Security Council resolutions condemning Israel's illegal settlement activity, which is currently engulfing the West Bank, and has in fact funded the enterprise through aid money and weapons sales to the IDF who protect the settlements. A major diplomatic and strategic ally, Israelreceives more than US 3 billion dollars per year in aid from the US making it the highest recipient of US aid money out of any country. The Fact Finding Mission announced in March of this year was met predictably with criticism from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

The Ministry released a statement describing the creation of a fact finding mission as 'another surreal decision from the workshop of a Council that is instrumentalized as a tool to push for one-sided politicized moves instead of promoting human rights" The blame was laid upon Palestinians who were said to be undermining the chances of negotiating a peaceful resolution to the conflict by asking the UN to investigate the settlements.

The Foreign Ministry continued in the press release: "The Palestinians must understand that they can't have it both ways: they can't enjoy cooperation with Israeland at the same time initiate political clashes in international fora." Seeking assistance from UN was ridiculed as "nothing but a destructive strategy that the international community should firmly reject"

The UN Fact Finding Mission that promises to examine the extent of the settlement enterprise was set to commence in this month and have a completed report to be presented to the UN by September, however the Israeli Government has not complied in any meaningful sense and has threatened to deny access to any UN officials who are part of the team. 

The Mission will not be granted access to the settlements themselves and will have to gather evidence through secondary sources, such as media and through interviews. This jeopardizes the investigation by drastically limiting its scope and potential. The Mission will seek to continue although its capacity as of yet is uncertain.  

Copyright © Palestine News Network, 2003 - 2012

Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company

Word count: 1246

Copyright Al Bawaba (Middle East) Ltd. Aug 9, 2012

BADIL's statements to UNHRC reveal extent of forced population transfer in west bank. (2012, Aug 09). Palestine News Network (PNN) Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/badils-statements-unhrc-reveal-extent-forced/docview/1032981979/se-2

2010: ACRI Wants Explanation On Population Transfer Exercise

Palestine News Network (PNN); Bethlehem. 13 Oct 2010.  

The Israel Prisons Service held a drill last week dealing with the scenario of Israeli Arab citizens being transferred to the Palestinian Authority in part of what could be a peace deal. In the letter Auni Bana wrote: "Citizenship is a basic right and every violation of it undermines the foundations of democracy. The Citizenship of members of Israel's Arab minority is not an exception. Citizenship is not a pawn in negotiations and cannot be conditionalized or revoked by force - this is also true in the context of political or diplomatic agreements or arrangements."The exercise could pose a problem and could send the public a message that the Israeli government could be setting the stage for an Arab citizen transfer. However, an IPS spokesman said in response to the letter; "There was no actual drilling of a scenario for the evacuation of any population group. The exercise, 'Crosswise' dealt, as it does each year, with scenarios such as rockets falling on two prisons, a prisoner escape, riots in prison, an attack on a facility from outside, absorbing a large number of detainees from the police or the army, dealing with incidents in which members of the IPS are taken hostage and more."Bana wrote that, "as a result (of the exercise) we felt compelled to write to you and to demand a clear and immediate assurance that there are no plans or discussions being held within the government regarding population transfer - and that there will be none in the future."

Copyright © Palestine News Network, 2003 - 2009

Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company

Word count: 266

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2010: Falk: Population transfer could be war crime.: EU labels east Jerusalem demolitions as 'illegal obstacle to peace'

Horn, Jordana; Selig, Abe; Lazaroff, Tovah; Jerusalem Post staff

Jerusalem Post; Jerusalem. 01 July 2010: 3.  

Abstract

"What is particularly shocking is that Israel appears ready to forcibly transfer these individuals based on their supposed lack of loyalty to the State of Israel," he stated. "Israel, as an occupying power, is prohibited from transferring civilian persons from east Jerusalem, and is prohibited from forcing Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the State of Israel."

"It was more, I suppose, an expression of concern and a sense that this was not a helpful development from a number of different perspectives," [Richard Falk] told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. "And part of my role is supposedly to comment on things that occur in between the times I make formal reports."

"The secretary-general reminds the Israeli government of its responsibility to ensure provocative steps are not taken which would heighten tensions in the city," a representative from Ban's office said last Thursday. "The current moves are unhelpful, coming at a time when the goal must be to build trust to support political negotiations."

Full Text

NEW YORK - An independent United Nations expert issued a warning to IsraelTuesday that population transfers in or from occupied territory would constitute war crimes under international law.

Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights, strongly encouraged Israelto prevent violations of international law in east Jerusalem. Falk specifically referenced Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat's development plan to demolish 22 buildings in Silwan, as well as the situation of four Palestinians whose residency permits in east Jerusalem may be revoked.

A municipal plan involving 22 house demolitions in the El-Bustan (King's Garden) section of the Silwan neighborhood passed an initial Local Planning and Construction Committee hearing on June 21.

"These actions, if carried out, would violate international law, with certain actions potentially amounting to war crimes under international humanitarian law," said Falk, who reports to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"It is disturbing that Israelis considering revoking the residency permits of Muhammad Abu-Tir, Ahmad Attoun, Muhammad Totah, and Khaled Abu Arafeh, all current or former members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and longtime residents of east Jerusalem," Falk said, noting that the High Court of Justice was scheduled to consider the case on September 6.

"What is particularly shocking is that Israelappears ready to forcibly transfer these individuals based on their supposed lack of loyalty to the State of Israel," he stated. "Israel, as an occupying power, is prohibited from transferring civilian persons from east Jerusalem, and is prohibited from forcing Palestinians to swear allegiance or otherwise affirm their loyalty to the State of Israel."

Falk's statements were issued not to any particular body, but were made in his capacity as special rapporteur as "an expression of concern" in relation to both the recent announcement of the Silwan building demolitions and the proposed expulsion of the four Palestinians said to be associated with Hamas.

"It was more, I suppose, an expression of concern and a sense that this was not a helpful development from a number of different perspectives," Falk told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. "And part of my role is supposedly to comment on things that occur in between the times I make formal reports."

The special rapporteur's report on the region is due in early August and will be released to the public in early September, after Israeland the Palestinian Authority have the opportunity to make comments on the text.

Last week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon expressed concern about the planned Silwan construction.

"The secretary-general reminds the Israeli government of its responsibility to ensure provocative steps are not taken which would heighten tensions in the city," a representative from Ban's office said last Thursday. "The current moves are unhelpful, coming at a time when the goal must be to build trust to support political negotiations."

Falk, saying that east Jerusalem was occupied territory under international law, urged the Israeli government to halt construction.

"International law does not allow Israelto bulldoze Palestinian homes to make space for the mayor's project to build a garden, or anything else," he said.

Falk, an American Jew, is an emeritus professor of international law at Princeton University.

UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer recently told The Jerusalem Post that Falk was so pro-Hamas that even the Palestinian Authority had asked him to quit.

Outside of his comments against Israel, he has advocated a number of outlandish theories about world events.

"He is one of the leading promoters in the US of the conspiracy theory that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the US were an inside job, perpetrated by the US government," said Neuer.

Meanwhile, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton called the planned demolitions in east Jerusalem an "obstacle to peace," AFP reported Wednesday.

Ashton called the demolitions illegal under international law and said they would make a two-state solution impossible.

"If there is to be genuine peace, a way must be found through negotiations to resolve the status of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states," she said.

The US has come out against the demolitions as well. The State Department said last week that the US was "worried" about Jerusalem's Silwan building project.

"This is expressly the kind of step that we think undermines trust that is fundamental in making progress to the proximity talks and ultimately in direct negotiations," said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.

A spokesman for Barkat told the Post on Sunday that the projects were designed to improve the quality of life of Silwan's Arab residents and that they would not "surprise" the international community.

Credit: JORDANA HORN, Jerusalem Post correspondent, Abe Selig, Tovah Lazaroff and Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Illustration

Photo; Caption: Richard Falk

Word count: 803

Horn, J., Selig, A., Lazaroff, T., & Jerusalem, P. s. (2010, Jul 01). Falk: Population transfer could be war crime.: EU labels east jerusalem demolitions as 'illegal obstacle to peace'. Jerusalem Post Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/falk-population-transfer-could-be-war-crime/docview/578479498/se-2

2002: Jordanian columnist warns government against allowing population transfer

BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political; London. 12 July 2002: 1.  

Abstract

In 1948 Jordan opened its borders to Palestinian immigration as a prelude for the annexation of the West Bank into the Kingdom. But Jordan completely closed its borders with the occupied territories after the creation of Israel. In 1967 Jordan opened its borders to the Palestinian immigration in the name of the unity of both Banks. It kept the bridges open for humanitarian reasons. But the latter contributed to the decrease of the density of the population in the [West] Bank to the degree that Israel was tempted to annex it without population.

Full Text

Text of article by Dr Fahd al-Faniq published by Jordanian newspaper Al-Ra'y on 8 July

In 1948 Jordan opened its borders to Palestinian immigration as a prelude for the annexation of the West Bank into the Kingdom. But Jordan completely closed its borders with the occupied territories after the creation of Israel. In 1967 Jordan opened its borders to the Palestinian immigration in the name of the unity of both Banks. It kept the bridges open for humanitarian reasons. But the latter contributed to the decrease of the density of the population in the [West] Bank to the degree that Israelwas tempted to annex it without population.

This situation was different to the Gaza Strip where Egypt did not take into account the humanitarian reasons and consequently the density of the population increased to a degree that Israelhoped that a Palestinian state would be created in Gaza, as the latter would be difficult to swallow.

In 1991 Jordan opened its borders to thousands of expelled [Palestinians] people from Kuwait on the basis that they hold Jordanian passports that were given to them to help them work in the Gulf states. This was another method of emptying the West Bank of its inhabitants.

Three consecutive waves of immigration, the first one produced refugees, the second one displaced people, and the third one produced returning immigrants. Consequently the return to Jordan instead of Palestine has become the rule.

We are now on the brink of the fourth wave that we have not named yet. But [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon has already called it "transfer". It is happening now on a rapid and gradual way under the cover of humanitarian reasons and in response to those who are expressing loudly their anger at Jordan on the bridges, while "Al- Jazeera" [TV channel] is reporting their shouting in order to pressurize for the implementation of the "transfer".

More than 40,000 people are gathered at the bridges and the government allows around 1,000 daily in Jordan on the basis that, according to what they say, Sharon would not allow them to return to their cities or refugee camps. If they cannot return while they are still in Palestine, will they be allowed to do so if they reach Jordan? This is in case they try to return.

We've had enough of slogans about the attachment of the Palestinians to their land and their willingness to resist the exile, but the presence of 5 million Palestinians outside Palestine (half of them in Jordan) does not support this conception. The occupied territories are pushing people into exile and it won't be long before the Jewish settlers will be the majority of the West Bank inhabitants and the majority of Jordan's inhabitants will be from the refugees and the displaced people. Consequently the Palestinian State will be created outside Palestine. This is what Sharon is planning and implementing.

It is not true that there is a balance between the arriving people and the returning ones at the bridges. The aim of such an allegation is to ignore the issue and to carry out the operation calmly. If we are not anxious to keep the West Bank Palestinian, we should at least be anxious to keep Jordan, Jordanian.

Credit: Al-Ra'y, Amman, in Arabic 8 Jul 02 p 24

Word count: 572

Al-Ra'y, Amman, in Arabic 8 Jul 02 p 24/BBC Monitoring/(c) BBC

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2002: Letter: Palestine and population transfer

By Masalha, Nur  | The Guardian; London (UK). 04 Oct 2002

Abstract

Contrary to the headline on your news story, (Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians), I have always detected in [Benny Morris] a deeply rooted, though subtle, streak of justification for the actual expulsion of the Palestinians that took place in 1948. This is not about a one-man conversion to the cause of the Israeli extreme right.

Full Text

As a Palestinian academic, born and brought up in Israel, I have debated the issue of "transfer" in Zionism with Benny Morris many times. In Morris's book on the Palestinian refugees there are only a couple of pages on the "idea of transfer in Zionism". Only after the publication of my book, Expulsion of the Palestinians, in 1992 (based on Hebrew archives) did Morris begin to accept that "the idea of transfer is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century" (Could this happen again, G2, October 3).

But, contrary to the headline on your news story, (Radical Israeli in u-turn on Palestinians), I have always detected in Morris a deeply rooted, though subtle, streak of justification for the actual expulsion of the Palestinians that took place in 1948. This is not about a one-man conversion to the cause of the Israeli extreme right. The repackaging of "demographic racism" by Morris into scholarship is an alarming symptom of a wider phenomenon in Israel. This phenomenon involves the brutalisation of mainstream Israeli culture, which is unable to think beyond the two racist options it currently offers the Palestinians: institutionalised inequality and racist apartheid, or ethnic cleansing and a new Palestinian holocaust.

Dr Nur Masalha

University of Surrey

Illustration

Caption: article-letters4.1

Word count: 240

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Rage, Neglect and Transfer: The Israeli Arab Region Lieberman Wants to 'Give' to the Palestinians

Haaretz; Tel Aviv. 11 Dec 2017.  

Wadi Ara is home to some 200,000 Israeli Arabs and has often been the scene of civil unrest, leading politicians to propose a population transfer - even if the residents themselves aren't interested David B. Green Israeli Arabs in the Wadi Ara town of Taibeh in March 2007. JINI

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's call Sunday morning for a "boycott" of a group of Arab towns in northern Israel is a less drastic version of a plan he's been hawking for years.

The Plan

Ever since he founded his Yisrael Beiteinu party in 1999, Lieberman has been the prophet of a policy he calls "transfer" - by which he means handing over the so-called "Little Triangle" of Arab towns bordering the West Bank, and home to more than 200,000 of Israel's approximately 1.7 million Arab citizens, to a future Palestinian state.

Wadi Ara ("Nahal Iron" in Hebrew), at the southern base of the Triangle, is the name of the roughly 20-kilometer (12-mile) long valley traversed by Route 65, running from just east of Hadera northeast toward Megiddo. (Hadera is some 50 kilometers north of Tel Aviv.)

The 15 villages in the region were ceded to Israeli forces by the Arab Legion in the 1948-49 War of Independence, in exchange for territory south of Hebron that was turned over to Jordan. Ironically, Lieberman - and reportedly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, too - want to give it back.

Lieberman was reacting to a demonstration late Saturday night at Route 65's Arara junction, west of Umm al-Fahm, which drew some 200 people protesting last Wednesday's announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump of Washington's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Some of the demonstrators threw stones at police and at passing cars on the busy thoroughfare. Three passengers on an Egged bus traveling south to Tel Aviv were injured, as well as the bus driver. A press photographer said demonstrators destroyed his motorcycle after pelting it with stones.

In response, Lieberman called on Israelis to "simply boycott Wadi Ara." Speaking on an early-morning radio news show, the defense minister went on to elaborate: "There's no reason to go into their stores, there's no reason to patronize their businesses." He added that the people of Wadi Ara should be "part of the Palestinian Authority. They have no connection to the State of Israel."

Asked by radio host Arye Golan if he wasn't overgeneralizing in blaming all of the residents of 15 different communities for the dangerous and subversive actions of a small number of protesters, Lieberman reminded the radio audience of events last July. After three Israeli-Arab men from Umm al-Fahm - the largest city in Wadi Ara and home of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel - murdered two Israeli policemen in a terror attack outside the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, he said, "thousands participated, thousands identified" in the funerals of the assailants.

"All that they learn, including in our [public] schools," continued Lieberman, in his famously impassive voice, "is hatred of the State of Israel. And therefore what we have to do is transfer them to the Palestinian Authority via the same framework for territorial exchanges" that he has been promoting for more than a decade.

Lieberman didn't address the question, and his interviewer didn't ask him, whether his proposal doesn't violate the so-called boycott law from 2011 that his party co-sponsored in the Knesset. The law calls for civil penalties against someone who calls for "deliberately avoiding economic, cultural or academic ties with another person or body solely because of their affinity with the State of Israel, one of its institutions or an area under its control."

Violent demonstrations

Wadi Ara has seen demonstrations turn violent before. In September 1998, demonstrations in Umm al-Fahm against government plans to expropriate 500 dunams (about 125 acres) of land for the state led to the police responding with tear gas and rubber bullets. The police also raided a protest tent and the local high school, where some of the protesters had taken cover.

The Or Commission into the October 2000 disturbances among Israeli Arabs pointed to the 1998 events as a contributing factor to the riots, which resulted in the use of live fire by police, killing 12 Israeli-Arab citizens and a Palestinian from Gaza.

In general, the commission of inquiry, though it pointed fingers at a number of Arab politicians (most significantly, Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, who was at the time mayor of Umm al-Fahm but is better known as the longtime leader of the Islamic Movement; it is he who regularly warns the Arab population that "Al-Aqsa is in danger" from the Jews) for stirring up unrest within the community, it also was quite direct in its criticism of the police and Israel's successive governments in general for being "primarily neglectful and discriminatory" in their treatment of the Arab population.

The 2000 demonstrations, which came immediately after the killing of seven Jerusalem Arabs a day after the visit to Temple Mount by then-opposition leader Ariel Sharon, took place spontaneously in a number of northern Arab towns. Three of the 12 citizens killed were in Umm al-Fahm. They were shot by police snipers.

The Or Commission was not empowered to bring charges against anyone, only to recommend further investigation of possible criminal activity to the Justice Ministry. When it released its findings in 2003, it did reprimand eight police officers for their actions but largely overlooked the political act. In any event, the government, by then led by Sharon, did nothing to implement any of the commission's recommendations, something that remains a source of anger and frustration among the country's Arabs.

The murderous attack on the Temple Mount on July 14 was carried out by three men from Umm al-Fahm, who hid their weapons on the mount for several days before bursting out of the holy site and shooting up a Border Police station near the Old City's Lions Gate. They killed two policemen, both of them Israeli Druze, before being shot to death themselves. Before being shot dead, one of them reportedly shouted out, "I'm from Ra'ad Salah's group!"

In response, Israel shut down the Al-Aqsa compound for two days while it checked for additional weapons and installed metal detectors at entrances to the site, which in turn led Muslim prayer-goers to boycott the site and conduct their Friday prayers in the streets of the Old City until Israel removed the devices. Only after things returned to normal did Israel release the bodies of the three assailants, and it was to their funeral, on the night of July 26, that thousands showed up and praised them as "shahidin" (martyrs).

The next day, Channel 2 News reported, with no attribution, that Netanyahu, in earlier discussions with American negotiators looking to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, had suggested his willingness to sign over Wadi Ara in its entirety to a future Palestinian state in exchange for Israel receiving sovereignty over the Jewish settlements of Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem.

It was the first time Netanyahu had ever been cited as endorsing Lieberman's "transfer" plan.

The premier's office did not deny the report. For his part, Lieberman responded immediately with a tweet to Netanyahu, saying "Welcome to the club."

By proposing to change the sovereignty over large tracts of the State of Israel, and their inhabitants, the transfer plan lacks the brutality of expelling people from their homes and moving them to a different country.

But both Israeli and international law would prohibit such a drastic move without the agreement of the parties involved - namely the residents of Wadi Ara themselves and the PA. Neither has shown any interest in making Lieberman's plan a reality: According to a 2013 poll, some two-thirds of Israeli Arabs were not interested in seeing Lieberman's plan realized.

David B. Green - Haaretz Columnist

Rage, neglect and transfer: The israeli arab region lieberman wants to 'give' to the palestinians. (2017, Dec 11). Haaretz Retrieved from http://ezproxy.lapl.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/rage-neglect-transfer-israeli-arab-region/docview/1974862376/se-2