Palestine

Political archaeology amid Jerusalem tensions

Israel’s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made a visit to al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, flanked by by a heavy security detail—eliciting outrage from the Palestinian leadership. The Palestinian Authority called the move “an unprecedented provocation,” with Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accusing Ben-Gvir of staging the visit as part of an agenda to turn the site “into a Jewish temple.” The fracas comes as Israeli authorities have launched another supposed archaeological project in East Jerusalem which critics say masks an ongoing program of “Judaization” of the Old City. This concerns the Pool of Siloam, a small reservoir believed to have served Jerusalem in biblical times. In making the announcement, officials visited the site, accompanied by a large detachment of police—sparking a spontaneous protest from local Palestinian residents. Three members of a Palestinian family that claims rights to the land in question were detained. (Photo: Купальня Силоам, Иерусалим via Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

UN seeks World Court opinion on occupation of Palestine

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution referring Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian territories to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for a legal advisory. The vote, which followed approval of a draft resolution by the Special Committee on Decolonization, was 87-26, with 53 abstentions. The Palestinian Authority welcomed the vote, saying in a statement: “The time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people.” But the response of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who returned to power just two days before the vote, makes clear his government’s annexationist agenda. He stated: “The Jewish people is not occupying its land and is not occupying its eternal capital Jerusalem. No UN resolution can distort this historical truth.” The far-right coalition that now takes power has pledged to expand Israeli settlement of the West Bank. (Photo: delayed gratification via New Jewish Resistance)

Palestine

Chile to open embassy in Palestine

Chile is planning to open an embassy in Palestine, President Gabriel Boric has announced. Speaking at a private ceremony hosted by the local Palestinian community in the capital Santiago, Boric acknowledged that he is “taking a risk” with the move, but added: “We are going to raise our official representation in Palestine from having a charge d’affaires. Now we are going to open an embassy.” The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs immediately commended the decision, saying it “affirms the principled position of Chile and its president in support of international law and the right of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state.” (Image: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr)

Palestine

Robo-Zionist policing of West Bank

The Israeli military has installed robotic weapons that can fire tear-gas, stun-grenades and “non-lethal” bullets in two volatile locations on the West Bank. One is atop a turret at al-Aroub refugee camp; the other in the nearby city of Hebron, where soldiers often clash with Palestinian residents. When young protesters pour into the streets hurling rocks and improvised firebombs at Israeli soldiers, the robotic weapons unleash gas and projectiles on them, according to witness accounts. The robo-weapons, produced by Israeli firm Smart Shooter, use artificial intelligence to track targets. Israel says the technology saves lives—both Israeli and Palestinian. But, as YNet states in its report on the installation, “critics see another step toward a dystopian reality in which Israel fine-tunes its open-ended occupation of the Palestinians while keeping its soldiers out of harm’s way.” (Photo: Filippo Minelli)

Palestine

UN report: occupation of Palestine ‘unlawful’

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, released its second report, stating there are “reasonable grounds to conclude that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is now unlawful under international law due to its permanence and the Israeli Government’s de-facto annexation policies.” The commission called for the UN Security Council to bring to an end the “illegal situation resulting from the permanent occupation imposed by Israel” and require Israel to bring “its permanent occupation to an end immediately.” (Photo: RJA1988 via Jurist)

Palestine

Catalan parliament recognizes Israeli ‘apartheid’

The Parliament of Catalonia passed a resolution recognizing Israel’s actions in the Palestinian Occupied Territory as “against international law and…equivalent to apartheid as defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.” The resolution was approved with support from all the left parties in the regional body: Esquerra Republicana (ERC), Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (CUP), En Comú Podem (ECP), and the Socialists (PSC). The pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (JxCat) voted against it, while the center-right Ciudadanos and far-right VOX abstained. In a tweet celebrating the resolution, the ECP said that the regional parliament is “the first European institution to recognize that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against the Palestinian people, as noted by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.” (Image: HRW)

Palestine

Israel high court approves Temple Mount development

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government’s planned cable car over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The ruling was met with approval by proponents such as Jerusalem’s mayor, Moshe Lion, who claimed the project will reduce air pollution and “allow comfortable and efficient access to the Western Wall and the Old City.” However, the project has been met with condemnation by many, including city planners and architects,environmental groups, and Karaite Jews, a minority sect with a cemetery located along the proposed cable car’s path. Palestinian groups have especially criticized the proposed path through East Jerusalem, an area ceded to Arab control in the 1949 armistice but occupied by Israel in 1967. Advocacy group Ir-Amim tweeted: “Folks will hop in in [West Jerusalem] and have no idea they’re cabling over the heads of occupied Palestinians.” (Photo: Adam Teva V’Din)

Greater Middle East

Middle East: ‘peak wheat’ fears amid deep drought

Facing long lines and bread shortages, Lebanon’s government has been forced to give private importers $15 million to bring more wheat into the country. But it’s a short-term fix for a government that is broke and waiting for the IMF to approve a bailout deal. And nations across the Middle East may be looking for similar solutions as they struggle with the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—both countries are key wheat producers, and exports are effectively cut off by the war. The food crisis is deepened by a decades-worst regional drought impacting Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and especially Iran. A new assessment on Iran from the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) documents water shortages, disappearing wetlands and emptying villages, making the impacts “impossible to ignore.” (Photo of IDP camp in Yemen: Moayed Al Shaibani/Oxfam)

Palestine

Israel: detention of ‘terror suspects’ without charge

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett instructed security services to hold “terror suspects” in “administrative detention,” even without charge. The order extends to Palestinians in Israel a policy long applied to Palestinians on the West Bank. Bennett cited “a new situation that requires suitable preparations and adjustment by the security services to the circumstances within which extremist elements of Arab society, directed by extremist Islamic ideology, are carrying out terror attacks and taking lives.” The order follows deadly attacks by Israeli citizens who were said to be supporters of the so-called “Islamic State.” (Photo: Wikimedia)

Palestine

Bedouin land protests rock the Negev

As part of a “forestation” plan, Israel’s Jewish National Fund began clearing cultivated lands at the “unrecognized” Bedouin village of Sawa in the Negev desert, sparking angry protests by the villagers. The protests started as villagers and Bedouin leaders expressed their objections the JNF plan to plant trees on an area of 5,000 dunums (1,250 acres), much of which had been planted with wheat only a few months ago. Things escalated as tractors arrived at the area to begin clearing the fields, and villagers physically resisted. Police detained 18 local youth for throwing stones. Protests continued for the following two days, with the security forces firing rubber-coated bullets, tear-gas and malodorous “skunk water,” causing several injuries. (Photo: WAFA)

Palestine

Israel outlaws human rights organizations

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declared six Palestinian human rights groups to be terrorist organizations, claiming they are “secretly linked” to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)–a leftist resistance group that Israel has long designated a “terrorist organization.” The groups on Gantz’s list are Addameer, al-Haq, the Bisan Center, Defense for Children Palestine (DCIP), the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC). International rights groups Humans Rights Watch and Amnesty International released a joint statement calling the announcement a “brazen attack on human rights.” The Israeli rights group B’Tselem called the declaration “an act characteristic of totalitarian regimes, with the clear purpose of shutting down these organizations.” (Photo of raid on DCIP office via YouTube)

New York City

Podcast: anti-Semitism and propaganda —again

In Episode 90 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines claims from New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul and local politicians of “anti-Semitic graffiti” spray-painted along Manhattan’s Harlem River Drive on the eve of Yom Kippur. The governor’s press release did not tell us what the graffiti actually said. This is rather critical information, given the contemporary controversies about what constitutes an anti-Semitic slur, and the confusion between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Yet most media coverage uncritically accepted Hochul’s claims. Weinberg parses the facts in the case, and (as usual) finds plenty to criticize on both sides: the spray-painters and the politicians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)