Israel's nation-state law to unleash 'deepening apartheid'

Experts in London warn of new stage in 'settler-colonial' process amid fears for Palestinian citizens under 2018 law.

Palestinian citizens of Israel and their supporters participate in a rally to protest against Jewish nation-state law in Rabin square in Tel Aviv, Israel, August 11, 2018 [Ammar Awad/Reuters]

London, United Kingdom – Israel is poised to unleash a new round of oppressive apartheid policies against Palestinian citizens within its own borders, according to leading experts.

The re-election of Benjamin Netanyahu, a hard-righ nationalist, as prime minister sets the scene for a new phase in an historic project to end the "demographic threat" posed by Palestinian citizens of Israel to the Jewish majority, they say.

On Saturday, experts at a London conference explored the challenges facing the 1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, a group that comprises 20 percent of the Israeli population yet faces widespread discrimination.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, panellist Jonathan Cook, a prominent writer on Palestine, said the controversial 2018 Nation State Law has essentially heightened a "comprehensive apartheid" that reflects the demographic fear of Palestinian citizens of Israel among the country's leaders.

Palestinian citizens had long been regarded as a "Trojan horse" by Israeli politicians, he added.

The Nazareth-based author told the conference: "Stating that the law turns Palestinians into second-class citizens or risks turning it into an apartheid state can easily become a trap.

"It suggests that Israel was a normal Western-style liberal democracy before the law. But the law changes very little: Israel was established as an apartheid state."

Middle East Monitor organised the London event, which brought together prominent academics and writers from across the world who all agreed on the characterisation of Israel as an apartheid state.

Attention has turned to Palestinian citizens of Israel since the Nation-State Law declaring Israel to be the "historical homeland of the Jewish people" was passed last summer, and since Netanyahu won a fifth term on pledges to annex additional parts of the occupied West Bank.

Lawyer Suhad Bishara, a Palestinian human rights expert, told delegates: "The Nation-State Law has no one state vision. There will be annexations, and we can see that from what's happening on the ground."

Referring to the efforts by Israel's Zionist left to conceal mistreatment of the Palestinians behind liberal democratic language, Cook said: "The law may have done us a favour: it makes it clearer what kind of state Israel is."

Speakers outlined a broad range of areas - social, economic, legal and geographic - in which apartheid policies operate to discriminate against Israeli Palestinian citizens, many of whom were declared "present absentees" by Israel under a 1950 law to enable it to appropriate their land and property.

New stage in 'settler-colonial' process

Comparing Israel with apartheid South Africa, whose government corralled the indigenous majority into self-governing "bantustans", Professor Oren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University said the Nation-State Law opens a new stage in the Israeli "settler-colonial" process, which he called one of "deepening apartheid".

"Apartheid, of course, is illegal, it is a war crime, it is a crime against humanity."

Mapping out the process of "Judaisation" by which the Israeli state has taken control of Palestinian ancestral lands, he said the Nation-State Law enshrines this process in a legal framework, and likened the hierarchy of citizenship that now exists in the country to that of apartheid South Africa.

Mazen Masri of City University in London explored the legal strategies that now exist in Israeli law to discriminate against Palestinian citizens.

He said: "Discrimination already exists in a range of legal strategies that are meant to discriminate without actually officially sanctioning discrimination.

"The main concern of the Nation-State Law is not really the ethnoreligious and inherently exclusivist principles and also the entrenchment of Israel's colonial nature and policy, the main problem is that this act demonstrates that Israel is closer to apartheid than democracy."

An Israeli Palestinian politician, Dr Yousef Jabareen, told the conference that he had sat in the Knesset and had to listen to other politicians making racist arguments in which the Palestinians were depicted as both a dangerous "fifth column" but also as inferior.

"The basis of democracy is equal rights and equal citizenship and for the Palestinians these have been violated for over 70 years," he said. "The Nation-State Law restates this: it opens the door for further policies and tools of oppression."

by Gavin O’Toole

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA NEWS

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/nation-state-law-opens-stage-settler-colonial-process-190427214518436.html

Israeli forces assault Palestinians, prepare to demolish village

At least 35 Palestinians wounded as Israeli forces prepare to demolish the entire Khan al-Ahmar village near Jerusalem.

Israeli forces have assaulted dozens of Palestinians protesting the demolition of a Bedouin village near occupied East Jerusalem and the forcible transfer of the entire community.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at least 35 Palestinians were wounded, including four who were hospitalised, during the events which took place on Wednesday at the Khan al-Ahmar village.

Videos taken by witnesses and circulated online showed Israeli forces beating and attempting to arrest men, women and children. In one video, Israeli forces were seen violently dragging a Palestinian woman on the ground and pulling off her headscarf. 

Israeli forces arrived to the scene with heavy equipment and at least one bulldozer early on Wednesday, after a long legal battle between the community's close to 180 residents and the Israeli Supreme Court.

Khan al-Ahmar falls in Area C of the occupied West Bank - under total Israeli administrative and military control.

While the Israeli court has sanctioned the demolition of the village because it was built without the necessary construction permit, Israeli authorities rarely, if ever, approve construction permits in Area C due to the expansion of illegal Jewish-only Israeli housing settlements there.   United Nations figures show that Israeli authorities have approved just 1.5 percent of all permit requests by Palestinians between 2010 and 2014. 

The Jahalin Bedouin community that lives in Khan al-Ahmar set up camp in the area as early as 1953, long before two Jewish-only settlements were built around it. 

The community believes they are being forcibly removed to allow Israel to expand its settlements on their land. 

From Al Jazeera 

From Gaza with hope

Last August, Palestinians commemorated the three-year anniversary of the end of Israel's devastating war against the Gaza Strip. The war had killed over 2,200 Palestinians - the vast majority among them civilians - and 71 Israelis, the majority of them soldiers.

The war left Gaza in ruins with over 17,000 homes completely destroyed, and thousands of other buildings, including hospitals, schools and factories, destroyed or severely damaged. The war fully shattered whatever semblance of an economy the Gaza Strip had. Today, 80 percent of all Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian aid.

The story of Palestinians in the eyes of its people

There is a whole generation of Palestinians in Gaza that grew up knowing nothing but war and siege and have never seen the world beyond Gaza's deadly borders. 

These are the voices of some of these young Gazans, who shared their tragic personal stories, hoping that the world would heed their calls for freedom and for justice.

Our recurring Nakba Shahd Abusalama - a Palestinian artist, blogger and a PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam University

This is not just a commemoration of the catastrophic human, material and emotional costs that Issrael inflicted on Gaza in its deadliest attack during the summer of 2014. This is a remembrance of an ongoing Naqba which Palestinians have experienced since 1948.

I am a third-generation refugee, born and raised in one of Palestine's largest refugee camps, Jabalia, originally from Beit-Jerja, my grandparents' evergreen home village which they had to flee under Israeli fire nearly 70 years ago.

I was born a survivor - my mother went into labour during a curfew that Israeli military forces imposed on Jabalia, the place from which the first Intifada erupted a few years before I was born.

While fearing for her life and her yet-to-be-born child, she walked through Jabalia's alleys, leaning on my grandmother who held a white piece of cloth and a lantern, hoping for mercy from the Israeli soldiers who shot at everyone that dared break the curfew.

This is just my birth story in short, and this piece would not be enough to cover the immense trauma that I shared with the population of Gaza ever since. In Gaza, no family could escape the grief of having a relative killed, wounded, detained or exiled - mine is no exception.

This context is necessary to remind everyone of the uninterrupted cycle of violence we endured since Israel's inception. Such stories, as harrowing as they may sound, are Palestinians' daily reality for the past 70 years.
How can a whole population, locked in an inescapable ghetto, be subjected to such brutality for this long, as the whole world looks the other way?
One would expect that such an inhumane reality would encourage world governments to impose sanctions on Israel. Instead, world leaders compete over sponsoring Israel's lethal security apparatus, asserting Israel's right to "self-defence" on every possible occasion.
They accept Israel's misleading media narrative at face value and justify its crimes against my people, who are portrayed as "terrorists", effectively blaming the oppressed for legitimately resisting their colonial oppressor, so that they may attain their right to live in dignity and freedom.

My identity: Defined, fragmented Sondos Alqutat - a Palestinian social worker; holds a Bachelor's degree in English Literature

The ongoing Israeli occupation and siege made me understand the occupier the way it proudly portrays itself: Israeli, Zionist, Jewish. This has heightened my sense of identity as a Palestinian, Arab, Muslim. But new factors emerged following the decade-long siege imposed on Gaza. Now, I also feel "Gazan". Like two million other Palestinians, I belong to this coastal enclave which is subjected to daily suffering.
The political division, due to the absence of one unified leadership representing both Gaza and the West Bank has accentuated the geographical and cultural differences between both locations. The gap gets wider every day, resulting in a separate identity for me, and many other young Gazans, compared with that held by those living in the West Bank.
Gaza is under a tight siege, yet despite all the hardships, there is a collective sense of autonomy. On the other hand, the West Bank has a semblance of freedom, while in reality every aspect of life, there is controlled by Israel. Over the course of years, my sense of national identity has fragmented.
But whether in the West Bank or Gaza, we must not forget, we both struggle against the same military occupier, and will always remain linked through our resistance. Only through resistance to injustice, our identity can, once more, become one.

Gaza women are not a stereotype Sarah Ali - a teacher working in Gaza; holds a Master's degree in English Literary Studies from Durham University

For years, Palestinian women have been part of the struggle against the Israeli occupation. Yet it remains hard to escape the stereotypical depictions surrounding them, with many commentators incessantly indulging in Orientalist tropes, constantly referring to rooted patriarchy in Palestinian society to score political points, thus justify Israeli aggression.

The Gaza Strip, wrecked by the Israeli siege and repeated wars, is no haven for Palestinian men. But life for women is harder still. In a culture that conforms to traditional gender roles, where females do most of the housework, women in Gaza bear the brunt of the effects of the siege on the household.
Due to daily power-cuts, women frequently have to wake up in the middle of the night to use the sparse hours of electricity to wash clothes, iron, vacuum and bake bread.
Breast cancer patients who are referred to Israeli hospitals have to endure a long and bureaucratic process to get Israeli permits to leave Gaza through the Erez Crossing [known to Palestinians Beit Hanoun]. Israeli authorities frequently delay permits and send patients back to Gaza between therapy sessions. Female patients who can't leave Gaza suffer from the shortage of healthcare equipment and medicine.

During the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza, when hundreds of families fled their homes for relatives' houses, women would cook for large groups of men and children every day, provide shelter for relatives and strangers alike.
Nowadays, although still underrepresented in the workforce and positions of power, and despite the Israeli blockade that continues to strangle Palestinian education and economy, thousands of Palestinian young women in Gaza go to university. Thousands go on to become teachers, doctors, architects, nurses, housewives, mothers, political activists, educators, and social workers.

"I am from there. I am from here" Yousef M Aljamal - a Palestinian PhD candidate at the Middle East Institute of the University of Sakarya in Turkey

When I am in my temporary home, my Gaza refugee camp - my home is the village of "Aqir" in historic Palestine - I feel the combined pressures of siege and war, and the constant desire to leave. Many Gazan youth feel the same way.

The people of Gaza live under extremely abnormal conditions where basic services and human rights, such as clean water, electricity and the freedom to travel are a privilege, not a right. Nothing is taken for granted there, even the right to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Many Palestinians in Gaza want to see the world past the confines of that tiny strip, but if they ever do, they become trapped. They want to stay outside Gaza, due to the difficult conditions at home, and the difficulty of adapting to life outside. I too feel stuck between this feeling of entrapment in Gaza and feeling exiled outside it; this heavy feeling of alienation and exile is not unique to me. Most Palestinians feel it, Gazans especially.
This feeling is part of the complexity of the Palestinian identity after nearly 70 years of displacement following the Nakba - our collective "catastrophe", when Israel was established atop the ruins of our homes. This feeling of alienation and exile is passed from one generation to the next, and will continue to get more complicated as the situation in Palestine gets more difficult.

As the Gaza's siege enters its 11th year, and Israel's active apartheid system in the West Bank is becoming more entrenched, the Palestinian identity will get more painful and intricate, where the concept of home and exile will be even harder to define.
I am afraid that this feeling of alienation and exile will continue to shadow Palestinians, wherever they go.

Rafah: My salvation, my curse  Ahmed Salah (not his real name) - a Palestinian student

I am a Palestinian from Gaza. I got a scholarship to do a Master's degree in a European country. I was supposed to travel after the war, but the Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border refused to grant entry to me.

All the devastation death caused by Israel left many young people like me in a state despair and shock. But it also gave us greater determination to oppose the lethal, colonial Zionist enterprise, and those who support it.

For a while, there were talks about opening an airport or a seaport. The idea was quite uplifting for it seemed to offer a way out of the Gazan open-air prison. But the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, along with Egypt made that impossible. Instead, they collaborated to tighten the noose around Gaza's neck. Each Palestinian of the two million people living in Gaza is punished for being Palestinian and for resisting occupation and siege.
When I tried to travel through the Rafah border crossing, the Egyptian authorities sent me back without any reason. After months of waiting and long hours of being vetted on the Egyptian side of the border, I was sent back without even an explanation. I was one of about 100 people, mostly students, but there were also some who were gravely ill and others who were wounded in the war.

I was determined to try again, a process that would take at least four months because at that time the border was opened by Egypt merely three days every two or three months. But then, I was advised by a friend that Egyptian officers at the border ban as many Gaza travellers as possible to force them to bribe their way out. And that is precisely what I did. I contacted a border coordinator who told me I am "blacklisted" by the Egyptians because they have a report about me, and that the only way to travel is to pay $2,000 US. And just like that, I paid the money and, miraculously was no longer a "security threat". I left Gaza, and I am yet to go back.
For me and many like me, the Rafah border crossing has become an unbreakable curse. For now, I plan to continue my studies abroad. The decision is painful because it means I will not be able to see my family or my home anytime soon.

Hope through my oud Mohammed Ahmad Ballour - a Palestinian musician

I am 22-year-old Palestinian refugee from Gaza and I love to play the oud. For me, it is not only an instrument of music, but of hope as well.

Youth in Gaza somehow manage to remain hopeful despite the lack of opportunity and a decade-long siege. We have no other option but to remain empowered. We are the future of this place, and we cannot submit to oppression or defeat.

At times, we take on social media to convey our stories, our hopes and our pain to anyone who cares to listen. For me, I combine both music and social media to send a positive message from Gaza.
Music inspires me. It is a universal language. It is effortless to understand. All it takes is an open heart. And its relatable by everyone regardless of age, gender or background. I play my oud and share my videos online. I want the world to know that in Gaza we live to the fullest every day and we find ways to survive, to live and to grow.
We don't have to accept that pain is our destiny. I feel happy and empowered when I hold on my oud and convey the story of my people through music to the world.
We will survive this and we will fight to challenge and, eventually change our painful reality, no matter the pain or the passing of time.
Ramzy Baroud 

Reproduced from Al Jazeera
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/09/2014-war-eyes-gaza-youth-170912143258604.html

                

Geography, History and other issues

                                            Lebanon

Danilo Antón

Geography

Lebanon is a small country with coast on the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its area is 10,452 km2 and the population approximately 4,500,000 inhabitants. The Lebanese geographical environment is heterogeneous. It consists of a coastal plain on the Mediterranean Sea that has more than 3 kilometers wide and is very densely populated.  Abruptly the relief climbs to a humid mountain range parallel to the coast  averaging 2,000 meters high with forests of cedars and pines called Mount Lebanon. The highest peak is Qumat as Sawda at 3.088 meters.

East of Mount Lebanon is the Beqaa, an elongated valley 120 kilometers long and about 18 wide average which is the main agricultural region. Finally, in the easternmost region there is another more arid mountain range called Anti-Lebanon, which marks the border with Syria. This chain peaks exceed 2,500 meters, the highest is Mount Hermon at 2,814 meters and Ta'la't Musa at 2.669 meters.

Despite its smallness, historical and geopolitical importance of the country far exceeds its size and population. First, it is worth remembering that the Lebanese diaspora in the world is much larger than the country's own population. It is estimated that there are more than 14 million Lebanese descendants distributed worldwide. Only in Brazil there are estimated 6 million Lebanese, there are more than 1 million in Argentina, 500,000 in the United States, 200,000 in Canada and over 50,000 in Uruguay. Figure 1 Beirut
                               

                                         

History

The Lebanese territory was populated by Semitic peoples 3,500 years ago who came from the South and founded cities on the coast: Byblos, Sidon, Tyre (now Beirut). They were commercial societies who were called Phoenicians by the Greeks.

It was in Byblos, around 2000 BC, that the first alphabet, composed exclusively of consonants, was created. From the shores of Phoenicia came out commercial expeditions and several cities were founded along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea :  Carthage, Genoa, Venice, Marseille, Cadiz, Cagliari, Palermo, Malaga. Huelva, Tarragona and Tangier among others.

Phoenicia fell under Assyrian domination (IX-VII centuries BC).  It was conquered by the Babylonian Kingdom (VII-VI centuries), by Persia (VI-IV centuries B.C.), by Macedonian ( IV centuries BC) and in 54 B.C. It became part of the Roman province of Syria. The Arab period began in 636 A.D. until 1516 when the Lebanese territory (Phoenicia) was dominated by the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans granted Lebanon a semi-autonomy under the rule of the Maans, a feudal family Druze and Shibabs, a Sunni family that had converted to Christianity.

After World War Lebanon and Syria became part of a mandate from the League of Nations under French colonial control until 1943 when unilaterally declared its independence. Figure 2 Mount Lebanon

                                                                                                                  

From the religious point of view the country is divided into numerous religions and churches. The percentages have varied due to emigration and presence of refugees, but in recent years Muslims have constituted almost 60% of the population, of which which 27% are Shi'a and Sunni the rest. There are also Alawite and Ismaili minorities. Christians belonging to the Maronite Catholic church represent 30% of the population. This church, which was founded by St. Maron in the late fourth century, is an Eastern Rite church that is in full communion with the Apostolic See of Rome, without giving up their own structures.

In addition to Muslims and Christians there are 5% Druzes (a monotheistic religion that does not practice neither the five pillars of Islam nor the Christian Eucharist).

These various religions confrontation each other for a long time. In order to solve that problem in 1943, when independence was declared, an unwritten agreement was established to distribute the power between the different ethnic and religious communities. It was agreed that the president would be a Maronite, the Spokesperson of Parliament, a Shiite, the Prime Minister a Sunni and the Deputy Minister a representative of the Greek Orthodox faith.

After the war the region Lebanon became very unstable due to the decolonization processes that resulted in the separation of Syria and Lebanon which became independent countries, and the withdrawal of the British from Palestine. The latter coincided with the creation of the state of Israel due to Jewish settlements that were gradually established on Palestinian land. Conflicts between Arabs and Jews in Israel were reflected in Lebanon who was forced to receive a very large contingent of Palestinians. Moreover, the successive wars between Israel and Arab countries, indirectly involving the various Lebanese groups, alternately supported or fought against Israel.

From 1976 to 2005, Lebanon was occupied by the Syrian army, who only retired following an impressive demonstration of 1 million people who demanded the withdrawal of these troops. The withdrawal became effective on March 14, 2005.  Figure 3 Beqaa Valley

                                                                                                                         

In Lebanon there are various political movements that generally have religious connotations.

The Amal Movement (abbreviation for Afwaj al-Mouqawma Al-Lubnaniyya) or Movement of Hope, is a Shiite political party founded in the early 1970s, from the Movement of the Disinherited, vindicating the rights of all religious groups to be respected in their rights and, in particular, denouncing the poverty in which the Shiite communities were living.

Hezbollah (Party of Allah) is a Lebanese Shiite militant Islamic group with its paramilitary wing, the Jihad Council. It emerged from the Amal Movement, but with an Islamic fundamentalist approach. It has had political support from Iran and Syria. It has developed an important military force, which is said to be more powerful than the Lebanese army itself. It has been described as a state within the state. It has parliamentary seats, a radio station and television, social services and even deployment beyond the country's borders. In the 2006 war Israel fought Hezbollah.

The Lebanese Phalangist or Kataeb party is the main movement of Christian denomination in the country. As Hezbollah has its own militia and has been involved in most of the internal conflicts since 1936.

Sunnis are generally integrated into the traditional institutional life. An example of this is the Jamaa Islamiya movement which left aside the claims of building an Islamic state in the country and participates in parliamentary activity. Another group with similar trends is Jam'iyat al-Mashari 'al-Khayriya, also known as Al Ahbash.

Other Sunni organizations seeking to create an Islamic state but without the use of violence, are Tabligh wa Dawa, also known as Tablighi Jamaat.

All Shiite, Christians and Sunni organizations that do not advocate violence are now faced with the radical group Al Qaeda and ISIS and many of them have suffered several attacks that have costed the lives of several leaders of these groups.

refugees

Some 450,000 Palestinian refugees are registered in the United Nations World Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in Lebanon of which 53% live in 12 refugee camps. Because they are not citizens of another state they do not have the same rights as foreigners living and working in Lebanon.  Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese refugees are living in abject poverty. Recently, due to the war in Syria, many Palestinian refugees who lived there moved to Lebanon in search of security by adding their social, economic and demographic weight in the country. Figure 4 Palestinian refugee camp

                                                          Since the war began in Syria in 2011 refugees have arrived from that country to settle in Lebanon. There are an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon of which 1,050,000 are registered with UNRWA. 53% of them are children . they have not been established in refugee camps but rather they were distributed nationwide.

Many of them (18%) live in makeshift camps concentrated in the border provinces. Currently only 29% have residence permits. Most Syrian refugees (89%) live below the poverty line.

Because of the war in Syria and the crisis of refugees, Lebanon has faced a humanitarian crisis, economic instability and increased sectarian violence. In general, Lebanon has maintained an open-door policy, however, because the influx of refugees has increased exponentially since August 2013 the economic and social impact has been very important. Reduced economic growth, rising poverty and unemployment, pressure on public services have increased social fragmentation and political tensions. There has also been a resurgence of sectarian violence with numerous reports of bombings, assassinations and isolated battles between the army and militias. Figure 5 Syrian refugees camp

                                                                          

The immediate future and stability of Lebanon rely heavily on the evolution of the Syrian conflict, on the will of the international community to provide adequate humanitarian assistance, and on a proper balance of sectarian tensions. In the long term, the problems of Lebanon are the problems of the region. They have been getting worse in most of the countries, and it will not be easy for a multi-denominational small country, which has been historically conflictual, inserted in an area of ​​great geopolitical instability, to stay apart from the influences of geopolitical tensions.

A Palestinian village was demolished 100 times by the Israelis in the Naqab desert  (Negev in Hebrew).

D.Anton
The Palestinian village of'Araqib is located in Desert Naqab (Negev).
Araqib Lands that belonged to its inhabitants since Ottoman times, were expropriated by Israel under the Law of Land Appropriation of 1952 and the villagers were forced to retreat. However many Araqib residents returned to the village, rebuilt it and over time its population reached 300 people living in a bedouin style of pastoral life.
On July 27, 2010 the buildings of the village were demolished for the first time on July 27, 2010.
A Palestinian from Araqib described the situation before demolition:
"Our life was beautiful. We were using the land. We planted barley or wheat in winter and melons in Summer. We all had tractors and worked. We had 500 olive trees. We were doing oil and sold it. We planted tomatoes, zucchini and fruits. We also had sheep. My wife and I had more than 500 hens. We used to sell everything in Beershelva markets, Rabat and elsewhere ... until that damn day of July 27, 2010".

Since then demolishers have returned to the village once or twice a month to destroy the temporary houses. Araqib Palestinians built it again and again. Besides destroying houses a hundred times the government of Israel also began their legal action to recover the costs of demolition which according to them would amount to 8 million shekels (467,000 dollars).
Araqib Palestinians, who are Israeli citizens, have not allowed to be threatened, they keep coming back and build new houses on the ruins of the ones that were demolished.
Haqmeh Abu Madigem, a villager lady from Araqib said:  "I'm tired of demolitions but I remain here. Even if our houses are destroyed 200 times, I will not move. For me it is the most beautiful place in Earth ."

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/israel-destroys-palestinian-village-100th-time-160703091747401.html