It’s the 75th anniversary of Al-Nakba this year, and things never appear to have been worse for the Palestinian people.
The On-Going Palestinian Nakba
By Jafar M Ramini
May 15th, is the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe). And counting. I say ‘and counting’ because the theft of our land, the occupation, the siege on Gaza, the disposition of our people, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and replacement of the Palestinian nation, with Jews, often of dual nationality, from around the world, continues more aggressively than ever. So does the building of illegal settlements to house those interlopers. They too are still going on apace with no end in sight.
Add to that toxic mix, the total indifference of western leaders and the conniving and betrayal of some Arab leaders, not to mention the shameful capitulation and collaboration of the Palestinian Authority and the picture is complete.
Try as I may to look for the infamous light at the end of the long, dark tunnel, I can’t find even the tiniest glimmer.
And I haven’t even got around to mentioning the Israeli prisons which are full of Palestinian men, women and children, tortured and held in disgusting conditions without charge or legal recourse. As if all of this was not enough to emphasise the cruelty and inhumanity of the occupation of our land, the longest in history, the Israeli Occupation Forces continue to raid, unhindered, cities, towns and villages all over Palestine. And what does the ‘free, democratic world’ do about it? This is but a small example of what they do.
The President of the European Commission, Madame Ursula Von der Leyen lauded Israel’s democracy and its ties to Europe.
“Today, we celebrate 75 years of vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East,” the German politician said. “We also celebrate 75 years of friendship between Israel and Europe,” pointing out that; “We have more in common than geography would suggest: our shared culture, our values and hundreds of thousands of dual European-Israeli citizens have created a deep connection between us.”
Really, Mme Von der Leyen? Shared values? Is the European Union proud to share with the Israeli Government the concentration camps and the ghettos Israel created for us Palestinians, in our own land? Is Israel’s ‘Administrative Detention policy’ which allows the imprisonment of Palestinians, men, women and children, indefinitely, without charge or legal representation, or even family visits, one that Europe might embrace? Is this what you might call a shared value?
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Filed under Israel and Palestine, israel and palestine articles by on May 24th, 2023. Comment. 
Nablus 2022
An increase in violence across the West Bank appears as the natural outcome of the far-right policies of the new Israeli government. More settlements are being approved, unrest builds, and the US continues to block all censure of the Israeli government by the UN.
Even so, it isn’t clear how much longer the Netanyahu government will be able to act like this with impunity. The recent reproachment between Iran and Saudi Arabia signals a dramatic shift in the balance of power in the region. It is not a shift that bodes well for the state of Israel, though it may also drive extremists to want to accelerate the process of annexing Palestinian land and the subjugating its people.
The following article, published in Countercurrent.org…, details a terrible example of the larger crisis:
Israel kills 11 in daytime raid on Nablus
By Maureen Clare Murphy
Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians, including a boy and at least two men over the age of 60, during a daytime raid in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday.
More than 100 others were injured, several of them critically, the vast majority by live ammunition, suggesting a further loosening of Israel’s already permissive open fire regulations.
Israeli forces stormed Nablus’ bustling downtown in the mid-morning and besieged a home in which three Palestinian resistance activists were killed, according to media reports.
A military correspondent for Israel’s Channel 13 news said that occupation forces applied the “pressure cooker” procedure, a form of extrajudicial execution.
Under that procedure, occupation forces fire progressively more powerful weapons at the targeted building in an effort to force those inside to surrender. If they refuse to do so, the occupation forces demolish the building, killing all those inside.
Video shows smoke rising from the besieged home in Nablus on Wednesday after it was hit by anti-tank missiles:
Israel released body cam footage recorded during the raid, showing its forces targeting and blowing up the home:
Israeli media reported that the military aimed to arrest three Palestinians “involved in the planning of shooting attacks” in the future and the shooting death of a soldier near a settlement last October.
The three reportedly targeted men – Muhammad Abdalghani Abdalfattah, 23, Walid Dakhil, 26 and Hussam Isleem, 24 – were killed, along with Adnan Saba Baara, 72, Muhammad Khalid Anbusi, 25, Tamer Nimer Minawi, 33, Musab Munir Muhammad Uweis, 26, Abdelaziz Ashqar, 65, Muhammad Farid Muhammad Haj Ahmad, 16 and Yasir Jamil Abdalwahab Qanir, 23.
Palestinian media outlets reported late Wednesday that an older man died from his injuries after inhaling tear gas during the raid.
Read the rest of this article here.
Filed under israel and palestine articles by on Apr 26th, 2023. Comment.
Al-Aqsa Mosque
While the Western church celebrated Good Friday, it was a bitter Friday indeed for the Palestinians of East Jerusalem. It was the third Friday of Ramadan, and Muslim worshippers went to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque but were prevented entry, and a number were beaten by Israeli Police. Street vendors and shopkeepers were also attacked by Police.
At the same time, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leaked a recording in which he said, “There’s nothing we can do. They murder. It’s in their nature. That’s the mentality of the Arabs.” Given the history of racial persecution and religious oppression experienced by the Jewish people, it is hard to believe that any representative of the State or Israel could speak like this.
The UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People released the following statement on Wednesday, 05 April 2023
BUREAU CONDEMS ISRAEL FORCES INTRUSION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST PALESTINIAN WORSHIPERS IN HOLY SITES IN JERUSALEM
Following is a statement by the General Assembly Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, issued today:
The Bureau of the United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People condemns the raid by Israeli Forces inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound/Al-Haram Al-Sharif on 4 April 2023, which resulted in hundreds of Palestinian worshippers beaten, injured and detained while also causing damage to the building of the al-Qibli mosque. This violence is particularly egregious during a time of heightened religious sensitivity with the observance of Ramadan, Passover, and Easter.
Israel’s illegal policies and practices have continued to entrench its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory it has occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, with the Gaza Strip additionally severely isolated under a nearly 16-year blockade. Since the start of 2023, Israel has increased its military operations inside the Occupied Palestinian Territory, resulting in the killing of at least 95 Palestinians, including 17 children. The Bureau calls for accountability for all of these violations.
The Bureau reiterates its calls for respect of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Israel must comply with its international legal obligations, including in accordance with UN resolutions. The Bureau also reiterates its calls for respect of the historical status quo of the Holy Sites, respect for the sanctity of all places of worship, and for a halt of provocations by Israeli forces and incitement by extremist Israeli settlers in and around them. Furthermore, the Bureau calls for respect the freedom of all worshippers to access the religious sites in accordance with established parameters.
Finally, the Bureau calls on leaders to exert influence and ensure de-escalation and calm during religious festivities. The Bureau believes that a just and lasting peace will only be achieved with the end of Israel’s occupation, the realization of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the Palestine refugees and the achievement of the two-State solution according to international law and past agreements resulting in the independence of the State of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
Filed under israel and palestine articles by on Apr 11th, 2023. Comment.
I reprint below an excerpt from an article by Steven Sahiounie – a Syrian journalist and friend. The bulk of this article, published in the Middle East Discourse, is an interview with Palestinian writer and political analyst, Jafar Ramini, who points out that this savage attack on Gaza may, ironically, serve to bring unity between the various Palestinian factions – something that the Palestinians have struggled to accomplish on their own!
Father Dave
How can we look at Palestine with no moral compass and no sense of justice or fair play?
“This is truly a massacre that cannot be described,” said Dr. Al Reesh at the al-Shifa Hospital which received the bodies of 10 Palestinians killed, including eight children, and 15 people wounded by an Israeli air raid on the Shati Refugee Camp in the Gaza strip in the hours of Friday night and Saturday morning. Among the dead were visiting relatives of a family on the second day of the Al-Fitr holiday.
Shati is the third largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight refugee camps and one of the most crowded, with more than 85,000 refugees, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
The crisis began Monday, following days of protests against the forced expulsion of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Israeli security forces brutally crackdown on the peaceful protests, and further inflamed tensions with a raid on the Al-Aqsa mosque, preventing prayers in the holy month of Ramadan. This unprovoked Israeli aggression led to Hamas firing rockets at Israel.
The Israeli bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 139 Palestinians, including 40 children, and wounded more than 920 since Monday. Palestinians in the occupied West Bank began protesting at security checkpoints in solidarity with their countrymen in Gaza under siege. Israeli forces have killed at least 13 in the West Bank while Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship rose in protests in mixed cities such as Lod, where Jews attacked their Palestinian neighbors and damaged homes and businesses.
To better understand the current crisis, and the underlying root causes, Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse reached out to Jafar Ramini, a Palestinian writer and political analyst and activist born in May 1943 in Jenin, northern Palestine. He was educated at Jenin local secondary school and then completed his education in London where he has resided for the past 53 years. In January 2021 he moved to Perth, Western Australia. Jafar lectures, and writes, and appears regularly on various international TV networks explaining both the history and modern-day politics of the Palestinian NAKBA. At 78 years old he is still as passionate and as vocal as he has always been and has traveled extensively through Europe, the Middle East, and North America looking for the answer to a question that still eludes him. Why have successive US Administrations since Harry Truman, supported Israel and its land-grabbing theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestine so blind-folded? And why do the UK, Canada, and Australia follow their lead without question? It would seem, says Jafar that we look at a country and a people with no moral compass and no sense of justice or fair play.
1. Steven Sahiounie (SS): What is your opinion of the report by Human Rights Watch labeling “Israel” as an Apartheid state?
Jafar Ramini (JR): Of course I support the Human Rights Watch declaration that Israel is an Apartheid state. It is about time it was recognized as such having been practicing Apartheid, albeit undercover, since the inception of the Zionist state. Now with the Nation-State Bill passed into law on1 May 1918 declaring that only Jews in Israel have the right to self-determination it is an unapologetic, unashamed admission of Apartheid as you could get. Israeli Arabs may have, so far, the right to vote but their vote is of little consequence and in all other matters they are second or even third-class citizens in Israel. As for the West Bank, occupied since the six-day war of June 1967 with citizens having no rights of any kind and for Gaza, continually under siege and especially now with this latest savage bombardment the Palestinian people have been described by Bishop Desmond Tutu under a worse version of Apartheid than South Africa in the 60s and 70s.
read the rest of this article here.
Filed under israel and palestine articles by on May 17th, 2021. Comment.
Friends of Sabeel, Australia, join the rest of the world in distaining the US President’s ‘Deal of the Century’ as a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The fact that no Palestinian was involved in the formulation of the proposal, nor was present when it was unveiled, is indicative of the fact that the US and Israeli leaders prepared their deal for domestic consumption. It offers nothing to the Palestinian people – no land, no real sovereignty, and no right of return for refugees. It is, as some commentators have suggested, the Monty Python parody of Israel-Palestine peace initiatives.
Friends of Sabeel, Australia, stands with the Palestinian people in the fundamental demands as outlined in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) program:
- An end to the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian lands
- Equal rights for Arabs in Israel
- The right of return for refugees
No meaningful deal can be made with the Palestinian people that does not address these basic demands.
Father Dave Smith, President of Friends of Sabeel, Australia, said “If Mr Trump wants to make a deal with the Palestinian people, he needs to actually deal with the Palestinian people and their demands. This one-sided parody of a peace initiative does nothing to move us closer to a just settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict”.
Filed under Israel and Palestine by on Feb 14th, 2020. Comment.
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