As 2022 comes to a close Palestinians face the harsh reality of increased oppression from the most extreme right-wing government ever to be installed in the apartheid state of Israel.
Former right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is back as PM and this time he is joined by the blatant racist Itamar Ben-Gvir, a Jewish settler once convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization, as Minister of National Security and Bezalel Smotrich who, as well as finance has been given extensive powers over Israeli settlements and Palestinian construction in the West Bank – an appointment which has been described as tantamount to annexing areas of the West Bank.
Most commentators politely describe the leadership of the new regime as far-right or ultranationalist but a more accurate description would be fascist.
Even before this new government has been installed, brutal attacks by Israeli settlers and the cold-blooded killing of Palestinians, has stepped up. Reports from the occupied West Bank say the Israeli occupying forces have become more callous, more vicious and more extreme than ever.
In the last week alone 10 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank.
The main reason for the stepped up brutality is Netanyahu’s appointment of the extreme racist Itamar Ben-Gvir as Minister of National Security. Wikipedia reports:
Ben-Gvir, an extremist who had faced dozens of charges of hate speech against Arabs, was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre.
Since the recent election which brought Ben-Gvir to prominence, Israeli troops have taunted Palestinians and Israeli peace activists with threats Ben-Gvir will “sort them out”. With this vile racist as Minister of National Security effectively giving the green light to murder Palestinians the situation is getting more tense and dangerous for Palestinians.
We all need to be vigilant and ready to take solidarity action at short notice.
Thank you for doing this John.
It must be hard to manage the feelings aroused by these many, many human ??? God I can’t even think of a word.
If only someone had offered the Palestinians an opportunity to make peace and have their own state – oh, wait…meanwhile, the Arab world has moved on, with Israelis and Emiratis now happily visiting each others countries.
Openly murdering children. This is the new techno-fascism. Obviously our government and opposition approve, judging by the silence. Where is our pouty PM with the headscarf now? and Luxflakes? oh right he’s on good terms with Netanyahu, apparently. Don’t expect bio-engineered people to have a conscience.
The 2020 Abrahamic Accords – restoring relations between the governments of the nations Morocco, UAE and Bahrain and Israel and a reality check at the World Cup with the people of ME.
*** Recent polling shows that ordinary citizens in many Arab countries, including those that participated in the Abraham Accords, disapprove of formalizing ties with Israel.
*** “There is clearly not much love in the Arab world for Israel,” wrote the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington-based risk consultancy that focuses on the region. “The decades of humiliation, resentment, and anger which many Arabs feel toward Israel cannot simply vanish with the signing of such normalization agreements.”
The present
*** For years, most Arab governments conditioned normalization with Israel on the advent of a separate Palestinian state. But the process to create that state has effectively collapsed, while Israel’s new far-right government contains numerous politicians who oppose any scenarios in which Palestinian statehood could ever be viable.
The Israeli perspective
*** That’s a view recognized by some in Israel. “After the Abraham Accords were signed with several Arab countries in 2020, rightist pundits claimed that the Palestinians’ fate no longer interests other Arabs,” wrote Uzi Baram in left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “They didn’t bother to read the article in the agreement stating that their fulfillment requires establishing a Palestinian state.”
The Arab
*** “Ordinary Arabs are against this occupation and see it as inhuman and unacceptable,” said Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor of history and contemporary politics at Qatar University.
Zweiri said the political tenor of the tournament in Qatar has offered a clear message not just to the United States and Israel, but to Arab governments that also seem intent on obscuring the political priorities of Palestinians. The presence of Palestinian flags at stadiums was “not organized by states, but something genuine from within the people themselves,” he said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/06/world-cup-arab-world-rallies-palestinian-cause/
It was sort of inevitable since the recent restoration of Netanyahu to power in the most right wing government in their nations history, ending the brief period of coalition governance including an Arab party for the first time. In some ways, it’s a bit like the let diplomatic down after the failure of the 2000 peace talks (followed by Israeli disengagement and Palestinian intifada).
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