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Commentary

TitleDescriptionDate
Netanyahu vs Gantz: Gaza Escalation as Reflection of Israel’s Political RivalryRamzy Baroud - CounterPunch - "Certainly, for as long as Israeli leaders continue to see a war on Gaza as a political opportunity and a platform for their own electoral games, the siege will carry on, relentlessly" [ry] 31/8/2020
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UAE-Israel Accord, Palestinian-Israeli ConflictGalia Golan - Times of Israel blog - In many ways, we should be pleased that one more Arab state is now open to Israelis, for trade, travel and normal relations. Yet, is this move in fact good for us? (...) The willingness of Arab states like the UAE and probably others (Oman, Bahrain?) to normalize relations with Israel without regard for the Palestinian issue suits today’s Israeli government to a tee. But it does not bode well for the country, for Israel and Israelis. The reason is that the Palestinian issue is still the core issue. As it has been since the beginning of the conflict. The Arab states adopted the issue for a while, even exploiting it upon occasion, but it is not a life or death issue for them, as it is for the Palestinians and for Israelis. [bz]25/8/2020
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How Far Can Israel Go in Trying to Erase Palestinians? Mariam Barghouti - Quds News Network - IMEMC - Living in Ramallah, I recognise that the imminent threat to be expelled is less acute than for Palestinians living in Area C or in East Jerusalem, who are regularly evicted and their land and property confiscated to make way for Israeli settlers. I also know that unlike Palestinians in Gaza, I am safe from Israeli bombardment, because the West Bank is surrounded by Israeli settlers and settlements. Bombing is not an option. Preserving my identity and the Palestinian character of my immediate surroundings is relatively easier than it is for Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. The systematic erasure they face within the Israeli state is coupled with a broad range of discriminatory laws, ensuring they remain second-class citizens. Living in Ramallah also means that I do not face the hostility of a host nation, denied the right to work or receive healthcare, like millions of Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. Living in Ramallah, also means that I do not experience the discrimination faced by Palestinians living in Western society. Yet, I too face the violence of the occupation and the insecurity of being Palestinian in this world. If I am not shot randomly at a checkpoint, my home can still be raided at any Israeli official’s whim, or attacked by settlers surrounding our villages. [ak]25/8/2020
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What peace? Gush Shalom - Here we have a war, missiles are falling said Alon Davidi, Mayor of Sderot. Netanyahu heard him but continued to boast of having achieved "Peace in return for peace, not for territories". Still, he understood it would be better not to try going to elections on this basis. [bz]25/8/2020
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How Israel Wages War on Palestinian HistoryJonathan Cook - CounterPunch - “Israel’s archives are being hurriedly sealed up precisely to prevent any danger that records might confirm long-sidelined and discounted Palestinian history. Last month Israel’s state comptroller, a watchdog body, revealed that more than one million archived documents were still inaccessible, even though they had passed their declassification date. Nonetheless, some have slipped through the net” [ry] 24/8/2020
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Ask the farmers Gush Shalom - Will direct flights to Abu Dhabi bring us peace and quiet? Ask the farmers on the Gaza border whose fields are burning. [bz]18/8/2020
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Netanyahu Posing as Shimon PeresChemi Shalev - Haaretz - Unlike Peres’ escapades, which split Israel between left and right along traditional ideological lines, public reactions to the UAE normalization agreement are blurrier and more complex. The hard left, including the mainly Arab Joint List, view the UAE deal as a continuation of President Trump and Netanyahu’s efforts to sideline the Palestinians and to humiliate them into submission. The center-left generally supports the deal, but its enthusiasm is curbed by suspicions about Netanyahu`s true motives. The right is split between Netanyahu fans who sing his praises and settler leaders who claim the prime minister led them on about annexation and then betrayed them. In their eyes, by conceding annexation, Netanyahu had indeed forfeited historically sacred lands in exchange for the same kind of visions of paradise that Peres used to peddle. Netanyahu’s valid claim that the UAE deal and impending others is a historic milestone that changes Israel’s strategic and regional situation for the better fell on deaf ears, just as it did when Peres would make the same argument. All of which leads to the inevitable conclusion Netanyahu did not mastermind the opportunity to trade annexation (centerpiece in successive elections) for what he now describes as a once-in-a-lifetime, history-changing achievement, but was forced into it. [bz] 18/8/2020
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The Politics of War: What is Israel’s Endgame in Lebanon and Syria?Ramzy Baroud - CounterPunch - “Israeli policymakers and military planners must be busy trying to analyze the situation in Lebanon, to understand the best way to exploit Lebanon’s tragedy in order to advance Israel’s strategic interests. The future of Lebanon is, once more, in the hands of war generals” [ry] 17/8/2020
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The One-State RealitySARI NUSSEIBEH - Tablet - The likely short-term outcome of the historic process envisioned in Trump’s conception map and whose physical/political infrastructure on the ground is already set in stone will be a Jewish state that is effectively sovereign throughout the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Life-support systems for Palestinians living in the territory will be ensured through different mechanisms, while “Palestinian identity needs” will be provided through symbolic arrangements. (...) In the Israel of tomorrow, several cracks will take their toll. The most fundamental is that of the notion of peoplehood—whether the Jewish sovereign will continue to be seen as an embodiment of their peoplehood by world Jewry. (...) The deconstruction of the empire will not be sudden, nor will one people eventually come out on top. Indeed, an altogether new citizen might be born, attached to the country as a homeland, and to a new version of political identity, perhaps configured constitutionally in any number of different ways, but which in the end reflects a just distribution of rights. Ceteris paribus, such would be the rise and fall of the Jewish empire. [bz]11/8/2020
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How will annexation change the legal landscape in the West Bank?Jonathan Kuttab - EI - "Israel’s planned annexation of West Bank land is on hold, for now at least. If and when it takes place, annexation will in all likelihood take the form of a law extending Israeli sovereignty to certain areas of occupied territory. In reality, Israeli law and administration has been implemented throughout the occupied West Bank to varying degrees in a process of creeping annexation since 1967" [ry] 10/8/2020
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Apartheid or One State: Has Jordan Broken a Political Taboo?Ramzy Baroud - CounterPunch - "These two factors – colonialism and ethnic cleansing – can never coexist with the principles of justice and peace. For Zionism to remain relevant, Israel and Palestine must remain in the throes of a protracted, interminable war" [ry]10/8/2020
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The coronavirus betrays NetanyahuAkiva Eldar - Al Jazeera - The mishandling of the pandemic fallout and his bid for early elections could bring down the Israeli prime minister [ry] 10/8/2020
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The two-state idea is comatose but not dead.Roger Cohen - The New York Times - Let’s play the Israel-Palestine impossibility game. It’s timely because the two-state peace for which I have long argued is now widely deemed unattainable. The impossibility game goes like this: You list the reasons that a two- state outcome is impossible, before listing the reasons that a one- state solution is impossible, and then you decide which of the two is less impossible.[ak]4/8/2020
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Crying coupGush Shalom - Netanyahu is in trouble./ Tens of thousands of protesters/ Outside his residence/ And his own supporters/ Stay at home,/ Fissures in the coalition/ In the right wing block/ And even in his own party [bz]4/8/2020
List of Targets Leaked: Israel Fears the Worst in ICC Investigation of War CrimesRamzy Baroud - CounterPunch - "When International Court of Justice (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, confirmed last December that the Court has ample evidence to pursue a war crimes investigation in occupied Palestine, the Israeli government responded with the usual rhetoric, accusing the international community of bias and insisting on Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’" [ry] 3/8/2020
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