Israel – Page 11

Egyptian dictator president says his regime is ready to protect Israel

November 26, 2014 by Nasheman

Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi told an Italian newspaper that his country is ready to send troops to Palestine in order to guarantee Israel’s security and work jointly against terrorism.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, Al-Sisi said: “We are prepared to send military forces inside a Palestinian state. They would help the local police and reassure Israelis in their role as guarantors.”

The former military general stressed that any such troop deployment would only be for the time needed to restore trust between the two sides.

According to Reuters, Al-Sisi added that he has spoken about this idea ‘at length’ with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

“I told [Netanyahu] a courageous step was needed otherwise nothing would be resolved,” he said.

Al-Sisi led the July 2013 military coup that ousted Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi. Since then, the Egyptian government has criminalised the Muslim Brotherhood organisation, which Morsi was a member of, and deepened the Israeli siege of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by closing the Rafah Border crossing in order to raise pressure against the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, which is an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Post by Middle East Monitor.

Danish parliament to vote on Palestine recognition

November 25, 2014 by Nasheman

by Andrew Rettman, EUobserver

Brussels: Danish MPs are to vote on a resolution instructing the government to recognise Palestine, but Denmark’s foreign minister says the time is not right.

The motion was introduced by deputies from three small left-wing parties: the Red-Green Alliance; the Socialist People’s Party; and Greenland’s Inuit Ataqatigiit.

“The parliament directs the government to recognise Palestine as an independent and sovereign state within pre-1967 borders and, by extension, [to] provide the state of Palestine with full diplomatic rights”, the draft text says.

The Danish assembly is to hold a first debate on 11 December and to vote on a final text in early January.

Holger K. Nielsen, one of the MPs behind the initiative, doesn’t fancy its chances.

“I don’t think we’ll get a majority, but at least we’ll have a good discussion”, he told EUobserver on Monday (24 November).

He noted that if it does get through, the government is not legally obliged to comply but would find it “impossible” to say No in political terms.

Nielsen, a former foreign minister, said he was “inspired” by Sweden’s recent decision to recognise Palestine.

He added that EU recognitions could be “a tool” to help restart peace talks: “It would give the Palestinians a better position in the negotiations, or, at least, a less unequal position”.

But Denmark’s current foreign minister, Martin Lidegaard, disagrees.

“The positions of member states [on Palestine recogntion] are evolving. This, in my view, makes sense as the peace process is not showing any progress”, he told this website.

“Denmark will also come to recognise Palestine, but the timing has to be right”.

He urged the EU to take joint steps against Israeli settlements instead.

“Israel continues to, unacceptably, expand the illegal settlements and thus de facto undermines the possibilities for a two-state solution”, he said.

“The chances of bringing together the EU and actually influencing the conflict would be greater if we consider further action against the settlements”.

For its part, Israel says settlements are “not a hurdle” to peace.

It also says European recognitions harm the peace process.

Michal Weiler-Tal, a spokeswoman for Israel’s EU embassy, told EUobserver: “Recognition at this stage without direct talks between the two sides only pushes them further apart … it [sends] the wrong message – that negotiations are futile”.

“This damages the EU image in Israeli public opinion”.

The Danish resolution comes amid a series of similar votes in Europe.

The British, Irish, and Spanish parliaments recently urged their governments to recognise Palestine.

The European Parliament will vote on Thursday, while French MPs are to vote on Friday or next Tuesday (2 December).

Echoing Lidegaard, one EU diplomat told this website that even if other EU governments follow Sweden it is unlikely to have much impact.

“There was a lot of excitement back in the 1980s when [the late Palestinian leader] Arafat was threatening to proclaim a unilateral declaration of independence [UDI]”, the diplomat said.

“More than 130 countries have now recognised Palestine. But little has changed on the ground, and the whole UDI issue has lost significance”.

Settlers torch Palestinian home as HRW slams Israel's demolition policy

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

A relative of Abdulrahman Shaludi displays his portrait inside his family home after it was demolished by Israeli Occupation Forces in annexed East Jerusalem Silwan neighborhood on November 19, 2014. AFP / Ahmad Gharabli

by Al-Akhbar

Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian home northeast of Ramallah early Sunday, an official told Ma’an news agency, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) slams Israel’s demolition policy as “collective punishment.”

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that a group of extremist settlers raided the village of Khirbet Abu Falah and torched the home of Abdul Karim Hussein Hamayil.

The settlers threw a fire bomb into the house through a window before fleeing the scene, Daghlas said, adding that Hamayil’s widow and her three daughters were inside the house at the time.

The settlers also spray-painted “death to Arabs” and “vengeance” on the house.

Daghlas added that the settlers first attacked the house with tear gas and stun grenades before attempting to break in, without providing further details.

Also in Ramallah, a group of settlers attempted Friday to burn down a house in the village of al-Mughayyir, but Palestinians were able to prevent them.

The arsons come about a week after a group of settlers attacked the village and torched a mosque as well as 12 copies of the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, in an incident that sparked widespread Palestinian fury.

In mid-October, settlers torched a mosque in the village of Aqraba in the Nablus district and vandalized the interior with racist slogans.

According to Palestinian Religious Endowments Minister Yousef Adeis, in October alone Israeli settlers carried out 110 separate attacks on religious sites across the Palestinian territories.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are systematic and Israeli authorities rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

A report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) monthly report stated that one Palestinian child was killed and six others Palestinians injured, four of them children, after being deliberately hit by Israeli settler vehicles in October.

Unrest has gripped annexed Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and killed 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir because of his ethnicity.

Israeli authorities have also allowed Zionist settlers to take over homes in Palestinian neighborhoods both in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and announced plans to build thousands of settlements strictly for Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem while ignoring Palestinian residents.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

More than 600,000 Israeli settlers, soaring from 189,000 in 1989, live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

HRW: Israel’s demolition of houses is a “war crime”

While Israeli settlers burn down Palestinian properties, Israeli forces demolish thousands of Palestinian houses and livelihood structures.

HRW called on Israel Saturday to stop razing the homes of Palestinians accused of attacking Israelis, saying the practice can constitute a “war crime.”

“Israel should impose an immediate moratorium on its policy of demolishing the family homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis,” the New York-based group said, as the fate of three houses slated for demolition awaits a court ruling.

“The policy, which Israeli officials claim is a deterrent, deliberately and unlawfully punishes people not accused of any wrongdoing. When carried out in occupied territory, including East Jerusalem, it amounts to collective punishment, a war crime.”

The East Jerusalem families of Mutaz Hijazi, Ibrahim al-Akkari, and of cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, killed by police after two separate attacks, have been served demolition orders on their homes but have appealed.

Al-Akkari, 47, was shot dead by Israeli forces after he ran over a group of Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem on November 5, killing one and injuring 13.

Hijazi was accused of shooting and critically wounding a far-right Zionist rabbi on October 29. Police shot him dead during a raid on his home in Abu Tur the following morning.

The Abu Jamal cousins, from Jabal al-Mukabbir, were shot dead Tuesday after they attacked a synagogue with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing four Zionist rabbis and an Israeli policeman.

Mohammed Mahmoud, the lawyer of the Hijazi and Abu Jamal families, said in a statement that an Israeli military court would hear their petition on Sunday morning.

On Wednesday, Israeli forces razed the East Jerusalem home of a Palestinian who killed two Israelis after running them over with his car last month.

Home demolitions have long been used as a deterrent punishment in the occupied West Bank, but this is the first time they have been adopted as a matter of policy in occupied East Jerusalem.

The practice has been condemned by human rights watchdogs and the international community as collective punishment that targets the families of perpetrators rather than the assailants themselves.

Last Sunday, Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that punitive house demolitions are “fundamentally wrong” and contravene “basic moral standards by punishing people for the misdeeds of others.”

The PLO said that Israeli forces demolished at least 32 Palestinian structures, including houses, barracks, shops and stores in Jerusalem and the West Bank during the month of October.

They also gave demolition notices for five water wells and a barrack near Hebron, as well as eviction notices to 27 houses.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in 2013, Israel demolished more than 500 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

Moreover, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimates that Israeli authorities have demolished about 27,000 Palestinian structures in the West Bank since 1967.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous “Balfour Declaration,” called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

(Ma’an, AFP, Al-Akhbar)

Israel bombed 161 mosques in Gaza

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

by Middle East Monitor

Israel has so far destroyed 161 mosques in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Awqaf Minister Yousef Dois said yesterday.

He said 41 mosques were completely destroyed and 120 were partially destroyed during the war adding that a number of religious institutions have also been attacked.

Dois continued by saying Israel is taking advantage of the fact that the world’s attention is on Gaza and using this to stop Muslim worshippers from gaining access to Al-Aqsa Mosque. He said rabbis are delivering provocative speeches.

“These acts are clear proofs on the continued religious persecution practiced against Muslims and their places of worship,” he said.

He called upon the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to take serious steps to deter Israel for its “crimes and violations”, which are increasing daily in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Sexual abuse of Palestinian Child prisoners in Israel

November 22, 2014 by Nasheman

by IMEMC News & Agencies

At least 600 Palestinian children were arrested in Jerusalem since last June. Of these chlidren, nearly 40% were reportedly exposed to sexual abuse during arrest or investigation by the Israeli authorities, according to a report by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC).

The PCC says that the daily arrest campaigns constitute a collective punishment against Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

Attorney with the PCC, Mufeed al-Haj, said that other violations were reported during the apprehension of children, including but not limited to night and predawn raids on family homes, physical and sexual abuse.

According to WAFA, Al-Haj added that, under the applicable laws, minors undergoing investigation should be accompanied by their parents, yet Israeli authorities pay no respect to these laws in many cases.

Forces often ignore laws and arrest Palestinians without even having warrants.

Since last June, Israel has arrested hundreds of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, most during predawn and night raids on their family houses.

Israeli settlers step up violent attacks against Palestinians

November 20, 2014 by Nasheman

A Palestinian is seen during a protest against Israeli raids in al-Ram district in annexed Jerusalem on November 18, 2014. Anadolu / Issam Rimawi

by Al-Akhbar

An Israeli settler shot and seriously injured a 16-year-old Palestinian teenager on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Beitin village, Ma’an news agency reported, hours after settlers stabbed a Palestinian in north Jerusalem and attacked a Palestinian school in the village of Urif in the occupied West Bank.

Ibrahim Mahmoud, 16, was shot with a live bullet following a settler demonstration on the outskirts of Beitin, east of Ramallah. Medical sources at the Palestine Medical Complex said his injuries were serious but his condition was stable.

Tuesday’s hate crimes against Palestinians came two days after a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged inside his vehicle in Jerusalem.

Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch announced on Tuesday that Israeli authorities are to ease regulations on Israelis carrying weapons for “self-defense,” raising fears that the number of attacks on Palestinians will increase.

“In the coming hours, I will ease restrictions on carrying weapons,” he said in remarks broadcast on public radio, indicating it would apply to any Israeli with a license to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers.

Aharonovitch’s announcement followed news of an attack on a synagogue by two Palestinians that left four Israelis dead in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Soon after the synagogue attack, dozens of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian school in the village of Urif in the occupied West Bank, prompting Palestinian villagers to clash with the attackers and stop them from storming the school.

Six Palestinians were injured by “sponge rounds” after the Israeli Occupation Forces interfered.

Sponge-tipped bullets are made from high-density plastic with a foam-rubber head, and are fired from grenade launchers. Even though protocol explicitly prohibits firing them at the upper body, last week an 11-year-old Palestinian was left blind in one eye after being shot in the face with a sponge-tipped bullet.

Palestinian security sources said that several Israeli settlers smashed Palestinian vehicles as they passed the al-Lubban al-Sharqiya road and threw rocks at Palestinians late on Tuesday.

Earlier that day, Fadi Jalal Radwan, 22, was attacked and stabbed three times in the leg and once in the back by four Israelis while walking in the town of Kafr Aqab. The victim was found bleeding in the street and was rushed to Hadassah hospital for treatment. Doctors said he was in a critical condition.

Hate crimes by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property, referred to as “price tag” attacks, are systematic and often abetted by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

Unrest has gripped Jerusalem and the West Bank on an almost daily basis for the past four months, flaring up after a group of Zionist settlers kidnapped and killed a young Palestinian because of his ethnicity.

Last month, Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah slammed Israel for failing to hold Zionist settlers accountable for a recent wave of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

“The Israeli government has never brought settlers to account for the terrorism and intimidation they commit [against Palestinians],” Hamdallah said.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there were at least 399 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2013.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

The roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict date back to 1917, when the British government, in the now-famous Balfour Declaration, called for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

(Ma’an, Al-Akhbar)

India opts out of admonishing Israel

November 20, 2014 by Nasheman

Union home minister Rajnath Singh (left) during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right). Photo: PTI

by Ninan Koshy

While every other ally of Israel has distanced itself from Israel’s policies after its offensive in Gaza this summer – especially on settlements – India has pledged to strengthen its relations with the country.

A visit by India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh to Israel this month became an chance for India to proclaim its steadfast support for the country. During the trip, Singh said India sought closer ties with the country adding, “Israel plays a major role in world politics”. India has invited Israel to become a partner in a “Made in India” initiative in the defense sector and Israel has expressed a desire to share cutting edge weapon technologies with New Delhi.

Even before the ink on the indefinite ceasefire agreement in the Gaza conflict had dried in August, Israel announced a decision to grab nearly 1,000 acres (404 hectares) of Palestinian land to build Jewish settlements. This expansionist act was condemned by the US, the UK, the European Union and the United Nations. British Prime Minister David Cameron called it “utterly deplorable”.

Israel had two objectives in the war against Hamas. One was to delegitimize Hamas as a political movement and degrade it to a sheer terrorist organization and if possible to destroy it. The other was to scuttle the process of Palestinian unity which had strengthened with the formation of a unity government.

Israel failed in both objectives. The world witnessed the increasing acceptance of Hamas as a legitimate political movement of Palestine and Palestine as a state. The Swedish government officially recognized the state of Palestine on October 30. Before that came a non-binding resolution in the British parliament, with similar votes in the pipeline in France, Spain and Ireland.

New European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini last week appealed for the establishment of a Palestinian state, saying the world cannot afford another war in Gaza. “We need a Palestinian state. That is the ultimate goal and this is the position of all the European Union”, Mogherini said during a trip to Gaza. “We cannot just sit and wait. If we sit and wait it will go on for another 40 years. We have to have act now”

Israel’s other objective of scuttling the process of Palestinian unity also failed – Fatah-Hamas relations have strengthened since the ceasefire.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu in September, the first such meeting between the prime ministers of the countries in more than a decade, was significant for a number of reasons. During the meeting, Netanyahu said that “the sky is the limit” in terms of prospects for cooperation.

It was also made clear that Modi would seek the views of the Israeli prime minister on the Islamic State. “The two leaders discussed the situation in West Asia. Given that Israel is well-placed in that region PM [Modi] requested and was given a briefing of their understanding of the situation”, the amiable spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs helpfully explained. The Indian Prime Minister did not need any briefing on the situation from any other West Asian leader.

The conversation came just before Modi’s dinner with President Barack Obama in Washington and the prime minister’s address to the Council on Foreign Relations, to outline his government’s foreign policy objectives. Netanyahu’s views were sought by Modi in his preparations for these two events.

In fact there was no need to seek Netanyahu’s views on the Islamic State in Modi’s conversation, since the Israel prime minister had clearly stated his views in the UN General Assembly, “Hamas and the Islamic state group are branches of the same poisonous trees, both bent on world domination through terror just as the Nazis were.”

India’s relationship with Israel was sparked by L K Advani, a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), following a visit to Israel in 1995. He returned with rhetoric on civilizational bonds, but also on terrorism. Five years later, Advani returned to Israel, this time as India’s Home Minister.

During the visit in June 2005, Advani said at the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv, “In recent years we have been facing a growing international security problem. We are concerned with cross-border terrorism launched by proxies of Pakistan. We share with Israel a common perception of terrorism as a menace, even more so when coupled with religious fundamentalism. Our mutual determination to combat terrorism is the basis of discussions with Israel whose reputation in dealing with such problems is quite successful.”

Rajnath Singh had a helicopter tour of the Jordan valley and Israel’s northern and southern regions with National Security Adviser Yossi Cohen “to get a sense of the security situation there”. The security situation there is simply the military preparedness of Israel, mainly against the Palestinians.

Of course, Rajnath Singh was following in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor Advani who in 2000 had “visited northern border areas to study border management that Israel has displayed so successfully”.

The talk about cross-border terrorism and border areas seems unlikely considering Israel has refused to define its borders and is grabbing more and more Palestinian territory borders on legitimizing occupation. During the Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ visit to New Delhi in January 2002, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson had said, “India finds it increasingly beneficial to learn from Israel’s experience in dealing with terrorism since Israel has long suffered from cross-border terrorism”.

What are the borders of Israel crossed by terrorists, the spokesperson was speaking about? As Robert Fisk asked, “Which particular Israel? The Israel of 1948? The Israel of the post-1967 borders? The Israel which builds and goes on building vast settlements for Jews and Jews only on Arab lands, gobbling up even more of the 22% Palestinian land still left to negotiate?”

India-Israel cooperation in counter-terrorism is based on equating the Palestinian struggle with cross-border terrorism. It is this flawed and skewed stance that is reflected in India’s attitude to Israel’s periodic wars against Palestinians.

Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in contributing. Articles submitted for this section allow our readers to express their opinions and do not necessarily meet the same editorial standards of Asia Times Online’s regular contributors.

Ninan Koshy is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, and formerly Visiting Fellow, Harvard Law School, is the author of War on Terror: Reordering the World and Under the Empire: India’s New Foreign Policy.

Spain to cast symbolic vote in recognition of Palestinian state

November 19, 2014 by Nasheman

by Al-Akhbar

Spanish lawmakers were set to vote on Tuesday in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state, parliamentary sources said, in a symbolic move intended to promote a “two-state solution.”

The non-binding vote was brought forward by the opposition Socialist party but has the support of the ruling People’s Party (PP) and other groups in the lower house of parliament, sources from the two parties said.

“It (the vote) is not binding, it does not set a timeline for the recognition, it gives the government the margin to proceed with the recognition when it feels it will be opportune,” Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo told reporters in Brussels on Monday.

“If we want to be effective this recognition must be done in coordination with the European Union,” he added.

The motion calls on the Spanish government to “recognize Palestine as a state,” according to a draft text presented by the Socialists, and urges Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy “to promote in coordination with the European Union the recognition of the Palestinian state as sovereign, contiguous, democratic and independent which lives in peace and security with the state of Israel.”

It echoes similar moves in other European countries intended to increase pressure for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Britain and Ireland approved similar non-binding motions last month that call on their governments to recognize Palestine. Neither government has heeded that call.

France is also eyeing a similar non-binding resolution for November 28 after Sweden’s center-left government took the lead by officially recognizing the state of Palestine within days of taking office last month.

The EU’s new foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the bloc’s 28 foreign ministers discussed at a meeting in Brussels on Monday how they could start “a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians to re-launch a peace process.”

The moves reflect mounting frustration in the European Union at Israel’s illegal settlement plans on land the Palestinians who support a two-state solution want for a state following the collapse of US-sponsored peace talks.

Israel then occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Zionist state – a move never recognized by the international community.

In November 1988, Palestinian leaders led by Arafat declared the existence of a State of Palestine inside the 1967 borders and the state’s belief “in the settlement of international and regional disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the charter and resolutions of the United Nations.”

Heralded as a “historic compromise,” the move implied that Palestinians would agree to accept only 22 percent of historic Palestine, in exchange for peace with Israel. It is now believed that only 17 percent of historic Palestine is under Palestinian control following the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority this year set November 2016 as the deadline for ending the Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 and establishing a two-state solution.

It is worth noting that numerous pro-Palestine activists support a one-state solution, arguing that the creation of a Palestinian state beside Israel would not be sustainable.

They also believe that the two-state solution, which is the only option considered by international actors, won’t solve existing discrimination, nor erase economic and military tensions.

The Palestinian Authority estimates that 134 countries have now recognized Palestine as a state, although the number is disputed and several recognitions by what are now European Union member states date back to the Soviet era.

An AFP count puts the number of states that recognize Palestine at 112.

(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)

Is there a civil war brewing in Jerusalem and the West Bank?

November 19, 2014 by Nasheman

Anadolu / Salih Zeki Fazlıoğlu

by Juan Cole

Observers of the evolution of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians have long argued that there are only two likely outcomes of the alternating violence and diplomacy between the two sides that has gone on nearly 70 years now. One is a “two-state solution” wherein Israel accepts a rump Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. That possibility has by now been more or less forestalled because of the massive land theft and colonization drive of Israeli squatters on Palestinian land in the West Bank. (The UN General Assembly partition plan of 1947, whatever one thinks of its legitimacy, awarded the West Bank to Palestine). The other is a “one-state solution” wherein Israel bestows Israeli citizenship on the stateless Palestinians. There is no obvious path to such a decision on the part of what are essentially fascist ruling parties in Israel and it is hard to imagine a scenario in which such a thing happens.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman have another ending to the story in mind. And that is the “transfer” of Palestinian-Israelis and of Palestinians in the West Bank to some other country, probably Jordan. This crackpot plan of uprooting and moving 5 million people is also not very likely on the face of it.

But there is one scenario in which “transfer” (i.e. ethnic cleansing) could occur. That would be a repeat of the 1947-48 civil war in British Mandate Palestine, which eventuated in the ethnic cleansing by Jewish militias of 720,000 Palestinians out of a pre-war total of 1.2 million. Jewish terrorist organizations such as the Stern Gang simply mowed down Palestinian villagers with machine guns to scare their neighbors into fleeing their homes, which the nascent Israelis then usurped. After Israel was established, Prime Minister David Ben Gurion simply locked the Palestinians out of their homeland for good, creating a massive refugee problem in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon that has never really been resolved to this day (only Jordan gave the Palestinians citizenship, and even there it is sometimes revoked).

Israel conquered the West Bank in 1967 and militarily occupied it, then contravened the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations by flooding Israeli squatters into the territory. It also illegally annexed part of the Palestinian West Bank and awarded it to the Israeli district of Jerusalem, which is roughly 35 percent Palestinian. It also has gradually forced many Palestinians in East Jerusalem to depart, confiscating their property, and is building Jews-only squatter settlements all around Jerusalem with an intent of turning Jerusalem into a Jews-only city.

The Israeli government has now put 600,000 Israeli squatters into the Palestinian West Bank (including Palestinian Jerusalem), among nearly 3 million Palestinians. There is constant Israeli construction of housing on usurped Palestinian land. Squatters dig their wells deeper into aquifers and cause the wells in Palestinian villages to go dry. There is a low-intensity struggle between the incoming squatters and the indigenous Palestinians. Israelis have attacked mosques and villagers. Palestinians have killed Israelis whom they view as land thieves.

These two populations are not separate from one another in the West Bank. Nothing would be easier than for tit-for-tat killings to spiral out of control. Then you’d have a war on the West Bank, which of course the Israelis would win, being very well armed by the US and very well organized.

In the course of this coming civil war in the West Bank, Israeli squatter organizations would seek to repeat the Stern Gang’s achievements in 1947-48 of making the Palestinian population flee its homes for Jordan. Jordan, a country of 6 million, would suddenly be a country of 9 million.

On past experience, no one would do anything about such an ethnic cleansing of the West Bank Palestinians, who would end up penniless and living in tents in the desert. The spokesmen for Western governments would say they regret that it happened and maybe offer some aid money. The Arab publics would be outraged but the governments would do nothing. Some European governments might slap ineffectual sanctions on Israel. Others would praise the Israeli ethnic cleansing campaign.

The fascist parties in Israel would lock the Palestinians out of the West Bank permanently and flood in more settlers. They might even “transfer” the Palestinian-Israelis, stripping them of their citizenship and making Jordan 10 million, half of them in refugee tents in the desert). They would give press conferences where they regretted that the Jordanian government did not treat its new citizens well enough.

The Jordanian state likely could not survive being almost doubled in population overnight overnight, with most of the newcomers hostile to the Hashemite monarchy. There would likely be a republican revolution in Jordan against King Abdullah II. Extremism would flourish and an ISIL- like state in Jordan would not be impossible. The ethnic cleansing would be extremely destabilizing for the Middle East for decades to come and Israel’s security environment would deteriorate drastically. Eventually reprisals with things like small rockets would create such a sense of crisis that gradually Israelis might begin emigrating abroad in fair numbers, a process that could snowball.

The killings at the Jerusalem synagogue yesterday and the spate of Israeli killings of Palestinians in the West Bank are all small harbingers of this coming civil war.

Israeli forces shoot 10-year-old Palestinian in the head

November 18, 2014 by Nasheman

An Israeli soldier watches as activists and Palestinian protesters avoid a tear gas fired by the Israeli army during a protest over tension in Jerusalem, near the West Bank village of Hizma, south-east of Ramallah November 14, 2014. (Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad)

Jerusalem/Ma’an: An 11-year-old Palestinian child shot in the face by a sponge bullet during clashes in al-Issawiya on Thursday has been left blind in one eye, a local official said.

Member of a local neighborhood committee, Muhammad Abu al-Hummus, told Ma’an that Saleh Samer Attiyeh Mahmoud, 11, was shot in the face at close range by Israeli forces firing sponge bullets in al-Issawiya during clashes.

He was hit directly between the eyes, causing severe bleeding to his nose and the loss of sight in his left eye. The vision in his right eye is also severely damaged.

Villagers in the East Jerusalem neighborhood were protesting the closure of three out of four entrances to the village by Israeli forces when the incident took place.

Sponge rounds are made from high-density plastic with a foam-rubber head, and are fired from grenade launchers.

Israeli police have been using them in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem since the use of rubber-coated metal bullets was prohibited, but protocol explicitly prohibits firing them at the upper body.

Saleh Samer Attiyeh Mahmoud, 11, pictured in hospital.

Egyptian dictator president says his regime is ready to protect Israel

Danish parliament to vote on Palestine recognition

Settlers torch Palestinian home as HRW slams Israel's demolition policy

Israel bombed 161 mosques in Gaza

Sexual abuse of Palestinian Child prisoners in Israel

Israeli settlers step up violent attacks against Palestinians

India opts out of admonishing Israel

Spain to cast symbolic vote in recognition of Palestinian state

Is there a civil war brewing in Jerusalem and the West Bank?

Israeli forces shoot 10-year-old Palestinian in the head

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