settlements

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From the Desk of Father Dave – October 11, 2023

I think we’ve all been shocked by the recent events in Israel and Palestine. Hamas made a well-coordinated military assault on Israel by both land and air that apparently took the Israeli military completely by surprise. Hundreds of people were killed, prisoners were taken, and the whole region has been thrown into turmoil.

I don’t think any of us in the Fighting Fathers community could celebrate the Hamas’ attack. Civilians have been killed and hostages taken. There’s already been a terrible loss of human life, and I’m no fan of Hamas. I’ve seen firsthand some of the things done, if not by them directly, by their parent organisation, The Muslim Brotherhood. I do not support Hamas and I do not support this kind of violence in any way. Having said that, I equally cannot support the sort of retaliation that is being talked about, both within Israel and by Israel’s supporters around the world – a retaliation that Benjamin Netanyahu has promised “will be remembered for decades to come”.

There is a lot being said about this conflict at the moment, and I appreciate that it can all be a bit confusing. I want to say just two relatively straightforward things that I think need to be said. Then I’ll leave it to you to think it through further as you pray for Israel and for Palestine and for our fragile and fracturing world.

The first thing I want to say is that this eruption of violence coming out of Gaza should not have surprised us. Of course, in its timing and in its military success, it has surprised everybody, but that the Palestinians of Gaza should rise up and fight should not surprise us. Indeed, at one level, this is just another round in a long fight, and this despite the fact that US President Joe Biden refered to the Hamas attack as ‘unprovoked. That really should have picked him up by the fact-checkers because the attack was certainly not unprovoked. Indeed, this attack is part of an ongoing fight has been being waged for nearly a hundred years, and has already claimed tens of thousands of lives, and displaced millions of people.

It all goes back to1917 when the Brits issued the Balfour Declaration – a letter written by then Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, committing the British government to “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” This led to a massive migration of people into Palestine between 1923 and 1948 – a land where, up to that point, 90% of the population had been Palestinian Arabs.

This influx of immigrants eventually led to the first Arab revolt, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, when it was crushed by a combined army of 20,000 British troops and 15,000 immigrant Jewish settlers. 5,000 Palestinians were killed, and three to four times that many were wounded. These were the early rounds of the fight, taking place while the British still had colonial control of the country.

By 1947, the immigrant Jewish population had grown to comprise a third of the population of Palestine though they only owned about six percent of the land. This led the United Nations to adopted ‘Resolution 181’, calling for the establishment of an official Jewish state, comprising a little less than fifty percent of the land. The Palestinians rejected the plan, of course, because they didn’t want to give away that much land, which included most of the fertile coastal region. In response, the immigrant leaders took matters into their own hands and started a military operation to evict Palestinians from their homes and to take control – an operation that has since been referred to by the Palestinians as ‘al nakba’ (meaning ‘the catastrophe’).

As a result of al nakba, around 15,000 Palestinians were killed, as many as 750,000 were forced out of their homes, and seventy-eight percent of historic Palestine was captured. On May 15, 1948, Israel announced its statehood, and the neighbouring Arab states responded by declaring war on the new state. The first Arab-Israeli war ended six months later with an armistice signed between Israel with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria,

At that point there were still around 150,000 Palestinians living in the new state of Israel, with others living on the West Bank of the Jordan (subsequently known as the ‘West Bank’) and in Gaza, but things degenerated further after the war of 1967, where Israel again fought against all its Arab neighbours. After decisively winning, Israel took control of areas in both Lebanon and Syria, along with the Palestinian settlements. This was, formally, the start of the military occupation of Palestine.

Since 1967, the violence has, for the most part, been less overt. What we’ve seen over those years, and continue to see, is a process whereby the Israeli government builds settlements of Jewish-only communities in the West Bank, often evicting Palestinian families from their homes to make way for their new residents. This process has been unrelenting, despite repeated international appeals to halt these developments.

Of course, the Palestinians have not just quietly acquiesced to the theft of their land and the loss of their homes. There have been ongoing, endless, peaceful protests, as well as multiple violent attacks on military and civilian targets. There have also been two major ‘intifada’ (‘uprisings’) – the first going from 1987 to 1993 and the second (far bloodier) uprising going from 2000 to 2005.

Since the suppression of the second Intifada, we’ve seen Israel build an enormous wall around the Palestinian areas in the West Bank that has been successful in reducing terrorist attacks in Israel, though at enormous cost to the Palestinians living inside those walled-off areas, and in 2007 the Israelis (with the help of Egypt) completely sealed off Gaza from the rest of the world – walling the people of Gaza into what has been described as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’. Israel has complete control over who and what comes in and out of Gaza, which has allowed them now to cut off all fuel supplies, electricity, food and water.

This is obviously a very superficial history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, and if you read the official statement by Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas, you’ll find that he lists a whole series of other grievances that he believes justify the recent military assault. As well as the settlements and the Gaza blockade, Haniyeh speaks of the 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the recent actions of Jewish settlers ‘defiling’ the Al-Aqsa Mosque – an action that was bound to mobilise Palestinian Muslims against the Israeli government.

Now, as I say, I don’t like Hamas and I don’t like Ismail Haniyeh, and I’m not suggesting that any of these actions or the terrible history of pain between Israel and the Palestinian people justifies this latest surge in violence. Even so, I am saying that this attack was not ‘unprovoked’. It’s another round in a long history of violence.

That is the first thing I want to say – that this is just another round in a long fight. The second very important thing that needs to be said is that this is not just another round in this long fight, in that sense that there are some very unique aspects to this latest round of violence that should be of particular concern to all of us.

One unique aspect to this latest round of violence, of course, is that it’s the first time in a long time that anyone representing Palestine has had any real military success, which is why many Palestinians will inevitably see this as a cause for celebration. More concerning though, from my perspective, is the timing of this assault in terms of current regional and global power dynamics, as I believe this conflict has the potential to escalate rapidly, and could engulf the whole world.

Hamas have called on al Muslims around the world to support this latest Palestinian military operation, and this call is well-timed. Despite the fact that opposition to the Palestinian Occupation is almost an article of faith for Muslim people worldwide, in recent months we’ve seen a series of Middle-Eastern countries normalise relations with Israel. Both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have done this, and pressure has been put on Saudi Arabia by the US to follow suit. Interestingly, I read only today that the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, (known as ‘MBS’) has publicly expressed his support for Palestine, which more or less scuttles any prospect of the Saudis normalising relations with Israel. This is a major political win for Hamas and for Palestine, and I suspect that it may have been one of Hamas’ key strategic goals in launching their military assault when they did.

Of course, Saudi Arabia is not likely to be alone in the Arab world in showing support for Palestine in this uprising. Indeed, Lebanon-based Hezbollah has already fired rockets into the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in support of the uprising, which is particularly significant, I think, because Hezbollah is a Shia organisation that normally would have nothing to do with Hamas, who, as I say, are a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. These two do not normally get on, despite having a common enemy, yet it may be that a ‘3rd Intifada’ could see the two working together.

What will Syria do, I wonder? If they were in a better state, militarily, I suspect that Syria might take this opportunity to retake the Golan Heights, which is sovereign Syrian territory, occupied by Israel ever since the war of 1967. There has never been a peace treaty signed between Israel and Syria since that time, and Israel has indeed been bombing Syria continuously over the last ten years, so there will be little sympathy for Israel coming from Syria at the moment, nor, I expect, will there be from many of Israel’s Arab neighbours. The question is, if some of those Arab neighbours do get militarily involved in this struggle on behalf of Palestine, would this draw the big international players further into the conflict, initiating a third world war?

Certainly, the rhetoric of the some of America’s political leaders suggests that they are more than ready for a global ocnflict. Current US Presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador, Nikki Haley, said, “The fanatic Hamas terrorist group must be destroyed. But Hamas is only a small symptom of a larger disease… Iran, Russia, and China are in league together, attacking Americans, American allies, and American values. This is a battle between the civilized world and barbarians. America must stand up for our citizens, our values, and our friends.”

Yeah. ☹

I did hear via a Jewish friend in Israel that evangelical Christians there were saying to her, “Don’t worry. This is just the beginning of Armageddon.” If they are referring to prophecies of the end times, I think they give us every reason to be worried. Moreover, a global conflagration that could potentially could kill millions and millions of people is in no way something that any sane person should support.

We are not there yet, and we don’t have to get there, but the way to pull back from this potential Armageddon is not by further escalating the violence. The way forward, and the only way forward in my view, is for Israel to accept what the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) has been calling for since 2005. Namely:

  • An end to the military occupation of Palestine
  • Equal rights for Arabs in Israel
  • The right of return for Palestinian refugees.

You’ll notice that this list, which has been agreed to by representatives of every section of Palestinian society, doesn’t even mention an independent Palestinian state. These goals are not impossible to achieve. We can do this. We should do this. For the sake of Israel and Palestine, and for the sake of all humanity, we need to do this.

Pray with me, please. Pray that peace will come, and come quickly, but pray that with peace comes justice – the only thing that can make for lasting peace – a justice that entails the end of the Occupation, equal rights for all, and the right of return.

May the blessing of God Almighty – Father, son and Holy Spirit – be amongst us and remain with us always. Amen.

Father Dave – 13th October 2023

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This latest criminal act has me stupified! What could be the reason behind it?

It makes sense that Netanyahu would upscale the development of settlements in order to ensure the failure of the so-called ‘peace talks’ but why alienate the Christian community at this stage?

Is Netanyahu really thumbing his nose at John Kerry or is there some more subtle rationale at work? Either way, this can only serve to further isolate Israel!

Father Dave

source: www.indcatholicnews.com…

Patriarch Fouad Twal

Patriarch Fouad Twal

Holy Land: Israel demolishes house belonging to Latin Patriarch

In the same week that US Secretary of State John Kerry has been visiting the Holy Land in an effort to broker peace talks beween Israel and Palestine,  bulldozers of the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by Israeli Security forces, demolished a house belonging to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Mgr Fouad Twal. The residential property on the Jerusalem-Hebron road, near the northern checkpoint number 300 was home to a family of 14 people.

The Patriarch inspected the demolished home yesterday,  in the company of Bishop William Shomali, Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem, and Bishop Giacinto Boulos Marcuzzo, Patriarchal Vicar for Israel, Fr Humam Khzouz, General Director of the Patriarchate, Fr George Ayoub, Chancellor; a number of other priests, the director of the Patriarchate Endowment, lawyers, engineers; consuls of foreign countries, including Italy and Belgium; representatives of churches and institutions; and a crowd of journalists from local and foreign news agencies.

In a press conference held at the site of the demolished home, the Patriarch said: “looking upon a painful and upsetting scene raises discontent and anger. There is no justification for the demolition, but when the municipality and the Israeli government enact demolitions and displace people from their homes, these practices increase hatred and endanger the future of peace. This land has belonged to the Latin Patriarchate long before 1967. The Patriarchate possesses the official deed, and all legal paperwork proving ownership. Even worse, the legal tenants of the property, Mr Salameh Abu Tarbush and his family, were taken by surprise by the demolition.”

The Patriarch added “We are the rightful/lawful owners, and you will hear our voice before all governments worldwide, and we will take legal action in appropriate courts to rectify this injustice, to bring back justice and rebuild this home. We have willpower and a spirit of belonging to this land of our ancestors, this sacred land which is home of our past, present and future.”

The home’s residents spoke about the displacement, which was carried out in the early hours of the morning, rendering them suddenly homeless. Their living situation is now tragic, in the open without shelter. The Red Cross is providing them with tents and assistance.

The lawyer of the Latin Patriarchate, Mr. Mazen Copti, confirmed the illegality of the demolition of this home and land declaring: “We will take all legal measures against the municipality of Jerusalem and the Israeli Ministry of the Interior to rebuild the house as it was.”

 

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Another excellent piece of analytical work from Jonathon Cook – unraveling the rhetoric to reveal the stone-cold logic behind John Kerry’s latest proposal for ‘economic peace’ for Israel/Palestine.

By focusing on economic development, Kerry directs attention away from the real issue – the Occupation! At the same time, if the Palestinian leadership balks at the proposal for economic aid they will be held responsible (once again) for scuttling the peace process. It’s a genuine lose-lose situation for the Palestinians.

Father Dave

Jonathon Cook

Jonathon Cook

source: mondoweiss.net…

Kerry’s plan – Palestinians to be cast as fall guys . . . again

by Jonathon Cook

Under heavy pressure from the US, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has paid grudging lip service over the past four years to the goal of Palestinian statehood. But his real agenda was always transparent: not statehood, but what he termed “economic peace”.

Ordinary Palestinians, in Netanyahu’s view, can be pacified with crumbs from the master’s table: fewer checkpoints, extra jobs and trading opportunities, and a gradual, if limited, improvement in living standards. All of this buys time for Israel to expand the settlements, cementing its hold over the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

After 20 years of pursuing Palestinian statehood implied in the Oslo Accords, the US indicated last week it was switching horses. It appears to be adopting Netanyahu’s model of “economic peace”.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, flanked by the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, and the Palestinian Authority chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, at the World Economic Forum in Jordan, revealed an economic programme for getting peace talks on track.

Some 300 Israeli and Palestinian business people were on board, he said, and would invest heavily in the Palestinian economy in a venture that was “bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything since the Oslo accords”.

No more details were forthcoming, except that it will be overseen by Tony Blair, Britain’s former prime minister who has been the Quartet representative, the international community’s “man in Jerusalem”, since 2007.

He is a strange choice indeed, given that the Palestinian leadership has publicly dismissed him as “Israel’s defence attorney” and privately argued — as revealed in the Palestine Papers leaked in 2011 — that he advocates “an apartheid-like approach to dealing with the occupied West Bank”.

Kerry’s claims for his programme were grand yet vague. Some $4 billion in private investment over three years would boost the Palestinian economy by 50 per cent; agricultural production and tourism would triple; unemployment fall by two-thirds; wages rise by 40 per cent; and 100,000 homes would be built.

But the proposal left few impressed, and for good reason.

Kerry is simply repackaging the task Blair was entrusted with six years ago. His job has been to develop the Palestinian economy and build up Palestinian institutions in preparation for eventual statehood, so far to little effect.

As David Horovitz, editor of the right wing Times of Israel newspaper, scoffed: “If there was $4 billion to be had in private investment in the Palestinian economy, you can rest assured that Tony Blair would have found it.”

Or seen another way, the Palestinian economy’s problem is not a lack of investment; it is a lack of viable opportunities for investment.
Palestinians have no control over their borders, airspace, radio frequencies, water and other natural resources, not even over the currency or internal movement of goods and people. Everything depends on Israel’s good will. And few investors will be prepared to bet on that. Israel has repeatedly shown itself more than ready to crush the PA’s finances by, for example, withholding Palestinian tax revenues it collects and is mandated to pass on.

Blair’s role has been heavily criticised because his narrow focus on economic development has not only failed to foster a climate conducive to talks but has served as cover for Israel and Washington’s inaction on Palestinian statehood. Instead of rethinking Blair’s failed mandate, Kerry appears set on perpetuating and expanding it.

Abdallah Abdallah, a senior Fatah official, summed up the Palestinian response: “We are not animals that only want food. We are a people struggling for freedom”.

Israel, meanwhile, is only too ready to push Kerry down this hopeless path.

From Israel’s perspective, the US plan usefully distracts attention from the Arab Peace Initiative, the Arab states’ renewed offer last month of full diplomatic relations with Israel in return for its withdrawal from most of the occupied territories.

Netanyahu, worried the offer might corner him into serious talks, has responded with stony silence. At the same time, Yair Lapid, the supposedly centrist finance minister who was originally promoted by the West as a peacemaker, has squashed the idea of a deal with the Palestinians as unrealistic. He told the New York Times last month that he supported expanding the settlements.

Israel, it seems, hopes that the Palestinian Authority, now permanently mired in financial crisis, can be arm-twisted with promises of billions of dollars in sweeteners. According to Palestinian sources, Abbas is facing intense pressure from the US, with the Kerry plan intended to leverage him into dropping his condition that Israel freeze settlement growth before negotiations restart.

Israel is keen to win that concession. Despite reports that Netanyahu has quietly promised the Americans he will avoid embarrassing them for the next few weeks with announcements of settlement building, a rash of projects is in the pipeline.

At the weekend, media reports disclosed a plan for 300 new homes in East Jerusalem, while nearly 800 more are to be released for sale. Several settlement outposts established without authorisation from the Israeli government are expected to be made legal retrospectively, including hundreds of homes in Eli, near Ramallah.

Reuters reported yesterday that Kerry expects a decision on restarting peace talks within two weeks – or, his officials say, he will walk away from the peace process. He told a meeting of the American Jewish Committee the same day: “If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance.”

For Netanyahu, such threats are hollow. If the US absents itself from the conflict, Israel will simply be left with a freer hand to intensify its subjugation of the Palestinians and the theft of their land.

Even though much more is at stake for the Palestinians, the PA has so far been quietly dismissive of the Kerry plan. It has stated it will not make “political concessions in exchange for economic benefits” – a diplomatic way of saying it will not be bribed to sell out on statehood.

But the real danger for the Palestinians, as they remember only too well from the 2000 Camp David talks, is that they are being set up as the fall guy. Should they refuse to sign up to the latest version of economic peace, Israel and the US will be only too ready to blame them for their intransigence.

This is win-win for Netanyahu, and another moment of disastrous slippage in the diplomatic process for the Palestinians.

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With President Obama now at a safe distance, the takeover of Palestinian lands continues as before.

It is tragic to think that only four years ago in Cairo Obama had spoken of Palestinian statelessness as ‘intolerable’. On this visit he spoke only of settlement construction being ‘unconstructive’.

Clearly the US is not going to stand in the way of Netanyahu’s program of annexation and ethnic cleansing. How ironic for Bethlehem’s Christians that a new ‘via dolorosa’ should appear during Easter week. 

Father Dave

Bethlehem today

Bethlehem today

source: www.worldbulletin.net…

Israel to build settlements on Palestinian lands in Bethlehem

 A military order has been issued by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank for the illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands and orchards, leaving dozens of families without their main source of livelihood and without the ability to build homes. 

A military order has been issued by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank for the illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands in the Khirbit Ed-Deer area, west of Nahhalin village, in the Bethlehem District, in order to build 70 units for Jewish settlers and public buildings, the Palestine News Network (PNN) had reported.

PNN quoted the deputy head of the Nahhalin village council Jamal Najajra stating that the lands in question are dozens of Dunams, located near the Beit Illit illegal settlement which is built on lands that belong to the residents of Husan, Nahhalin and Wad Fokeen, and are planted with olive trees.

Najajra added that Israel intends to build 70 units for Jewish settlers in addition to a number of public buildings.

He said that the new planned constructions are meant to connect the Beit Illit settlement with the Gavot settlement by illegally confiscating Palestinians orchards, leaving dozens of families without their main source of livelihood and without the ability to build homes.

Najajra added that the village council has contacted attorney Ghayyath Nasser so that the necessary appeals in Israeli courts can be filed.

Najajra also said that this is not the first time Israel has decided to annex Palestinian lands in the area. Israel previously confiscated lands in the Al-Jamjoum area, the Salem Valley, and Ein Fares where Israel dumps waste-water coming from the Beitar Illit settlement, PNN reports.

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