Category: Israel, Palestine & Zionism

Israel Imprisons Palestinian Legislator without Charge, Detained for 20 Months and Counting

Israeli leaders, and their Zionist cohorts, frequently describe themselves as “the only democracy in the Middle East.”  But as Gideon Levy points out in his lasted piece at Haaretz, this claim can only be accepted if we redefine “democracy” to mean “an ethnocratic state providing democracy to Jews while confining all others to a police-state devoid of liberty or due process of law.”

Levy’s article is entitled, “Remember: Israel is Still Holding a Palestinian Law Maker as Political Prisoner Indefinitely.”  I have excerpted his article below.  You can read the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

Palestinian legislator, Kalida Jarrar, being imprisoned indefinitely, without charges or trial, in an Israeli military prison

“Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. Will she come home?

“Khalida Jarrar is Israel’s No. 1 female political prisoner, the leader of the inmates in Damon Prison, on Mt. Carmel, and the most senior Palestinian woman Israel has jailed, without her ever having been convicted of any offense.

“The public struggle for her release has been long and frustrating, with more resonance abroad than in Israel. Here it encounters the implacable walls of the occupation authorities and the startling indifference of Israeli public opinion: People here don’t care that they’re living under a regime in which there are political prisoners. There is also the silence of the female MKs and the muteness of the women’s organizations.

“Haaretz has devoted no fewer than five editorials demanding either that evidence against her be presented or that she be released immediately. To no avail: Jarrar is still in detention and she still hasn’t been charged…

“…Reminder: On April 2, 2015, troops of the Israel Defense Forces raided the Jarrar family’s home in El Bireh, adjacent to Ramallah, and abducted Khalida, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

“She was placed in administrative detention. In the wake of international protests over Israel’s arrest without charges of a lawmaker who was elected democratically, the occupation authorities decided to try her. She was indicted on 12 counts, all of them utterly grotesque, including suspicion of visiting the homes of prisoners’ families, suspicion of attending a book fair and suspicion of calling for the release of Ahmad Saadat, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who has been in prison for years.

“The charge sheet against Jarrar – an opponent of the occupation, a determined feminist and a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee – will one day serve as the crushing proof that there is not even the slightest connection between “military justice” and actual law and justice…

“…During Khalida’s last arrest, recalls her husband, IDF soldiers and Shin Bet security service agents burst into the house by force in the dead of night. They entered Suha’s (their daughter) room and woke her up. He remembers how she shouted, panic-stricken at the sight of the rifles being brandished by strange men in her bedroom wearing black masks, and how the soldiers handcuffed her from behind. As Ghassan replays the scene in his mind and remembers his daughter’s shouts, he grows distraught, as if it had happened this week.

“Not knowing know what the soldiers were doing to her there, and only hearing her shouts, he tried to come to his daughter’s rescue, he recalls. He says he was almost killed by the soldiers for trying to force his way into Suha’s bedroom.

“After the soldiers took Khalida, preventing Ghassan from even kissing her goodbye, despite his request – he discovered his daughter, bound by plastic handcuffs.”

 

 

Rep. Omar Speaks Truth to Power and Pays the Price

Newly elected Representative Ilhan Omar is being accused of Tweeting anti-Semitic slurs for speaking the truth:  AIPAC (the American Israel Public

Rep. Ilhan Omar

Affairs Committee) is among the most powerful lobbying organizations in this country.

Working in coordination with the Israeli government, AIPAC deploys sizeable financial and public relations resources in order to destroy any and all congressional voices that are critical of Israel.  They don’t hesitate to destroy the political careers and personal reputations of anyone with sufficient moral backbone to criticize Israel’s inhumane treatment of the Palestinian people.

Please watch the 4-part Al-Jazeera documentary, “The Lobby,” to see for yourself how insufferably dishonest pro-Israel lobbying groups can be.  I have discussed it in a previous post, “Discover Why Pro-Israel/Zionists Groups Fought to Stop You From Seeing This Documentary.”  You will find embedded links to the documentary there as well.

Two recent articles also provide helpful information with some historical context to the campaign of public shaming Rep. Omar has suffered for speaking the truth.  They are:

“Pro-Israel Lobby Caught on Tape Boasting That Its Money Influences Washington,” by Ryan Grimm at The Intercept.

“Democratic Party Insiders Create Group to Promote Israel to Progressives,” by Alison Weir at MPN News.  This well-researched piece is particularly apt in that Weir highlights AIPAC’s influence within the upper

Rep. Rashida Tlaib

echelons of the Democratic Party specifically designed to stop politicians like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from ever criticizing Israel.

The two excerpts below come from the two articles mentioned above.  The first is from The Intercept, the second is from MPN News.

First excerpt: “A debate about the power in Washington of the pro-Israel lobby is underway, after Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., responded sharply to reports that Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was targeting both Omar and fellow Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan.

“Omar quoted rap lyrics — “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” — to suggest McCarthy’s move was driven by the lobby’s prolific spending. Asked specifically who she was referring to, Omar responded, “AIPAC!”

“The debate over the influence of pro-Israel groups could be informed by an investigation by Al Jazeera, in which an undercover reporter infiltrated The Israel Project, a Washington-based group, and secretly recorded conversations about political strategy and influence over a six-month period in 2016. That investigation, however, was never aired by the network — suppressed by pressure from the pro-Israel lobby.

“In November, Electronic Intifada obtained and published the four-part series, but it did so during the week of the midterm elections, and the documentary did not get a lot of attention then.

“In it, leaders of the pro-Israel lobby speak openly about how they use money to influence the political process, in ways so blunt that if the comments were made by critics, they’d be charged with anti-Semitism…  

“…Without spending money, Ochs argues, the pro-Israel lobby isn’t able to enact its agenda. “Congressmen and senators don’t do anything unless you pressure them. They kick the can down the road, unless you pressure them, and the only way to do that is with money,” he explains.”

Second excerpt:  “Some Democratic heavy hitters have formed a new pro-Israel organization focused on progressive Democrats. The new group, “Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI),” is the latest in a long line of groups working for Israel in the United States.

“New York Jewish Week reports that the group was formed “to counter the drift

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)

— if not dive — away from support for Israel within the party.” Israel partisans are concerned at the growing support among Democrats for Palestinian human rights, as awareness of the situation has grown in recent years.

“Numerous humanitarian agencies have documented Israeli human rights violations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Christian Aid, the International Red Cross, and others.

“In addition, videos of Israeli settlers destroying Palestinian crops, Israeli soldiers beating people, including children, and killing unarmed protestors have become increasingly available on the Internet.

“This has had a perception-shattering impact.

“For many years surveys showed that more Americans sympathized with Israel than with Palestinians. But growing knowledge of the region among progressive Democrats has now reversed the numbers within that group. A 2018 Pew survey found that “nearly twice as many liberal Democrats say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel.”

“In addition, the New York Times reports, Israel partisans were jolted by the election of  Representatives Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI), who support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) who has called the occupation of Palestine a humanitarian crisis.”

History tells us that AIPAC, with the covert support of the Israeli government, will  do everything it possibly can to defeat these brave, new congresswomen when they run for reelection.  The current character assassination of Rep. Omar is only the first volley of pro-Zionist dirty tricks.

I can’t vote for any of these women, but I have written them letters of support, thanking them for their honesty and encouraging them not to give up.  I hope that you may take similar steps yourself.

No, Mr. President, Israel’s Border Wall Has Not Worked

President Trump regularly appeals to Benjamin Netanyahu’s claims about the supposed success of Israel’s border wall with the West Bank as ironclad evidence in favor of his own border wall plans with Mexico.

The problem is, it’s not true.

The wall dividing Israel from the West Bank has not “worked” to stop terrorism, but then that was never its actual intent.  It has, on the other hand, been very successful in accomplishing its actual purpose, which Israel will never acknowledge in public.

Here’s why:

First, it is true that after Israel began construction of its separation/annexation wall during the Second Intifada in 2000, terrorist attacks within Israel came to a slow but steady halt.  But in 2001, Hamas leaders (the organization headquartered in Gaza largely responsible for the suicide bombings) claimed that their decision was driven by internal, political considerations and had nothing to do with Israel’s wall.  Check out this 2001 article in the British newspaper, The Independent, “Hamas Orders Halt to Suicide Bomb Attacks.”

Of course, Hamas leaders could be lying about their motives in order to save face.  But I suspect not, for the simple reason that Israel’s wall is not much of a barrier to the determined terrorist.

I have seen people climb over the wall quite easily.

Long stretches of the wall are nothing more than a fence, mostly strung up in far-flung, isolated areas.  It would be easy for a would-be bomber to dig under, climb over or cut through this fence at any number of spots where they would never be seen, or long-gone by the time a border patrol appeared.

This is why I believe Hamas is telling the truth.  They chose to stop their bombing campaign because it was costing them support for their cause in the international community and creating division within the membership of the Palestinian Authority.

Second, regardless of all this, touting the awesome success of Israel’s “wall” makes for great P.R. among the Zionist community.  It also provides a good illustration of a classic logical fallacy.  It’s just a shame that logic never stood in the way of a Zionist hoping to score political points – especially when that Zionist’s name is Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps you have heard of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.  If not, I’ll clue you in.  It’s a Latin phrase meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”  Its purpose is to point out the invalid assumption that just because one event follows after another event, we cannot assume that the first event was the cause of the other.

Yes, the rooster crows every morning just moments before sunup.  That doesn’t mean, however, that Mr. Sunshine is hovering below the horizon, waiting for Mr. Rooster’s signal.

In other words, correlation is not proof of causation.

Just because suicide bombings ended soon after Israel began building its separation wall is not proof, in and of itself, that suicide bombings ended because of the wall.  We must search for other evidence to prove this claim to be either true or false.

I think that the wall’s easy permeability – any determined bomber could get through if he/she wanted to – tips the scales in favor of believing Hamas’ own explanation:  they chose to stop using that particular tactic.

So, NO.  When president Trump says over and over again that these walls are always 99.9% effective, he is simply one presidential blow-hard mimicking another presidential blow-hard’s propaganda point. But then, both of these men, Trump and Netanyahu, are 99.9% die-hard political opportunists and only 0.1% intelligent thinkers – and I suspect even that figure is too generous for Trump.

Third, without going into the background here, political Zionism has a very, very long history of believing in the need for a literal wall of some sort to isolate Israel from the bloodthirsty Arab hordes around them.  Their current isolation/separation/annexation barrier is the product of Zionist colonial racism.  If you want to learn more about this issue, read Avi Shlaim’s important book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (W.W. Norton, 2000).

The only way in which this wall has actually “worked” has been its success in illegally expropriating more land for Israel, in stopping Palestinian farmers and herdsmen from tending their flocks, their fields and their orchards, in dividing villages and families.

Israel’s wall is only one more Zionist tactic for stealing Palestinian land and oppressing the people of the West Bank.

In that way, it works marvelously.

Forward Magazine: “Does Israel Have the Right to Exist?”

Yousef Munayyer has an excellent article in the Forward entitled “‘Does Israel Have a Right to Exist’ Is a Trick Question.”  Mr. Munayyer provides an

Yousef Munayyer

excellent demonstration in critical thinking and the value of recognizing a leading question when asked.

Asking this question, do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?, is a favorite “go-to” strategy for Zionist apologists when debating critics of Israel.  It can arise in different forms.  Another favorite is the Zionist accusation that non-Zionist criticisms of Israeli policies “delegitimize” the state.

What does that mean, “to delegitimize Israel”?

The implied answer is that critics of Israel’s Zionist policies are denying Israel’s right to exist.  It’s another rhetorical trap.  Don’t fall for it.

Below is an excerpt from Mr. Munayyer’s article.  You can find the entire piece here.

“The truth is that no state has a ‘right to exist’ — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”

“States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.

“And these states don’t exist because they have a ‘right’ to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense.

“Most people understand this. I’ve never heard anyone demand to know whether Switzerland, or even the United States, has ‘a right to exist.’ States come and go over time; borders can change, names can change, regimes can change and yes, discriminatory systems underpinning regimes can change, too. But one state demands to be beyond reproach through a mythical ‘right to exist’: Israel.

“Can you imagine asking indigenous Americans and indigenous rights activists — fighting for the rights of a population whose languages, societies, culture and possessions were categorically decimated in the process of erecting the United States — whether the United States has a ‘right to exist’?

“That you can’t imagine this is testimony to the disingenuousness of the question. For this question is asked — almost always of critics of Israel’s policies — not for the purposes of debate and discourse, but rather, to create a gotcha moment, to undermine the credibility of the person questioned.

“It is intellectually dishonest and intended, almost always, to silence critics and criticism of Israeli policies.

“Worse, factors like the unfortunate though all-too-often-commonplace conflation of the State of Israel with Judaism and world Jewry, coupled with the awful history of persecution Jews have faced, mean that anyone who doesn’t answer the question about Israel’s right to exist with an unequivocal ‘yes’ risks being portrayed as an eliminationist radical worthy of labels like ‘anti-Semite’ and otherwise marginalized.

“In other words, it’s a set-up.

“Criticizing Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people, including during its establishment and since, in the form of discriminatory policies against refugee repatriation, should never be conflated with eliminationism. The policies of all states should be open to criticism.

“…it is humans, not states, that have a right to exist. This includes all people: those who identify as Israelis and Palestinians alike, along with seven billion others.

“People also have a whole set of other rights — human rights, which states cannot deny. These include the right to free movement, the right to consent to being governed, the right to enter and exit their country, the right not to be tortured or collectively punished, and so on.

“It is by guaranteeing these rights and only by guaranteeing them that states derive their moral legitimacy; it is not from some mythical ‘right to exist’ or even the historical need of their people, but rather from the extent to which their policies respect the rights of people.

“The question should not be ‘Does Israel have a right to exist’ but rather, ‘Is the way in which Israel exists right?’”

Congress Should Not Be Criminalizing My Right, And Yours, to Boycott Apartheid Israel

Below is the most recent Action Alert from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

Please digest this explanation of the first Congressional vote scheduled for tomorrow (1/8/19) and call your  elected officials.  Explain to them that no foreign government, including Israel, can nullify your right to participate in BDS campaigns in your own country.

“Last Thursday, the Senate’s first bill of the new Congress – S.1 – was introduced

Marco Rubio is another senator receiving large contributions from AIPAC

by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and it encourages states to punish people for boycotting for Palestinian rights.

To make matters worse, the Senate is scheduled to vote on the bill tomorrow.

Friend, please click here to get a sample script and phone numbers for your Senators.

Then please pick up the phone RIGHT NOW and tell your Senators to vote NO on S.1.

Sen. Rubio’s new bill incorporates language from the Combating BDS Act, his unconstitutional bill which we defeated in the last Congress. 

The Combating BDS Act calls upon states and cities to enact laws that curtail our constitutional freedoms by denying government contracts to people who boycott for Palestinian rights. In response to lawsuits filed by the ACLU, these types of laws have already been stopped by federal judges in Kansas and Arizona on constitutional grounds, and there are three additional lawsuits currently challenging similar laws in Texas and Arkansas.

Even though courts are siding with us and reaffirming our constitutional right to boycott for Palestinian rights, Sen. Rubio is still trying to pass legislation to deny our First Amendment rights.

That’s why it’s so important for you to call your Senators today to oppose S.1.

Thank you for taking action.”

The Intercept has been following this story closely for some time (see here and here).

The headline of their most recent article is “The U.S. Senate’s First Bill, In the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a Bipartisan Defense of the Israeli Government from Boycotts.”

The title captures the ludicrous nature of this bill and the corruption generated by the pro-Zionist lobby, especially AIPAC, in the US Congress.

Senator Chuck Shumer is also on the AIPAC gravy train

Here is an excerpt:

“…in the 2019 GOP-controlled Senate, the first bill to be considered — S.1 — is not designed to protect American workers, bolster U.S. companies, or address the various debates over border security and immigration. It’s not a bill to open the government. Instead, according to multiple sources involved in the legislative process, S.1 will be a compendium containing a handful of foreign policy-related measures, the main one of which is a provision — with Florida’s GOP Sen. Marco Rubio as a lead sponsor — to defend the Israeli government. The bill is a top legislative priority for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.”

Who do your senators and congressional representatives really represent?  You or Israel?

Haaretz Magazine Explains Another Lost Opportunity in Israel’s History

Adam Raz has a good article in the most recent Haaretz news magazine investigating the debate that raged among Zionism’s leadership immediately after the 1948-49 War, when Israel declared its “independence,” over the future status of Palestinians remaining within the borders of the new state.

I have excerpted selected paragraphs below to give you a sense of the attitudes held by these men. If you want to know more, you can find the entire article here.

There were early Zionist leaders who possessed the remnant of a

Moshe Sharett, Israel’s second Prime Minister

humanitarian conscience.  Men such as Moshe Sharett.

Although, frankly, any leader who failed vociferously to protest against the ethnic cleansing committed by Israel’s military forces in that war – which includes all of the men mentioned here — has abdicated any right to be respected, in my book.

Nevertheless, the article does a good job of showing that Israel did not have to end up where it is today: an oppressive apartheid state.  There were alternatives on the table at the time.  There were men advocating for a multi-ethnic state where Palestinians would have been fully integrated into Israeli society.

Sadly, those humane voices were a minority, and they lost the argument.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister

The iron-fisted racism of David Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan and their equally savage ilk won the day, dooming both Palestinians and Israelis to the catastrophe that is Israel/Palestine today.

For those who are interested, I highly recommend a book by the Jewish, Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, The Forgotten Palestinians: A History of the Palestinians in Israel (Yale, 2011).

Pinhas Lavon, Minister of Defense

“(Pinhas Lavon, minister of Defense,) insisted, ‘The State of Israel cannot solve the question of the Arabs who are in the country by Nazi means, he stated, adding, Nazism is Nazism, even if carried out by Jews…’

 “’It is impossible to work among them if the policy is to oppress Arabs – that prevents concrete action. What is being carried out is a dramatic and brutal suppression of the Arabs in Israel…’

 “(Moshe) Sharett maintained that Ben-Gurion had not given consideration to the root of the problem. ‘Terrible things were being done against Arabs in the country,’ he warned. ‘Until a Jew is hanged for murdering an Arab for no reason, in cold blood, the Jews will not

David Hacohen, Knesset member

understand that Arabs are not dogs but human beings…’

Zalman Aharon, Knesset member

 “(Knesset member David Hocohen argued), ‘These laws that we are coming up with in regard to Israel’s Arab residents cannot even be likened to the laws that were promulgated against the Jews in the Middle Ages, when they were deprived of all rights. After all, this is a total contrast between our declarations and our deeds.’..

 “’Zalman Aran compared the situation of the Arabs in Israel with the situation of Jews in other countries. On the basis of what we are doing here to the Arabs, there is no justification for demanding a different attitude toward Jewish minorities in other countries. I would be contemptuous of Arabs who would want

Moshe Dayan, military commander and politician

to form ties with us on the basis of this policy. We would be lying…we are lying to ourselves and we are lying to the nations of the world…

 “He (David Ben Gurion) added, ‘We view them [Palestinian Arabs] like donkeys. They don’t care. They accept it [their subjugation] with love… To loosen the reins on the Arabs would be a great danger,’ he added: ‘You and your ilk – those who support the abolition of the military government or making it less stringent – will be responsible for the perdition of Israel.’”

Let me make two observations on these citations.

First, the hard-line, political Zionists like Ben-Gurion make it very clear from the beginning that they envisioned a nation for Jews only.  There was no room for anyone else to have equal rights in Zionist Israel.

Here we see the essentially racist heart of political Zionism, the strain of Zionism that won these early contests and has controlled Israeli political life ever since.  For nearly twenty years Israel enforced two different sets of laws for its citizens.  Jews were governed by the state’s normal, civil legislation.  Palestinians, on the other hand, were governed by draconian military law stripping them of their civil rights.

When the United Nations passed Resolution 3379 in 1975 declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination” they were absolutely correct insofar as “Zionism” was represented on the world stage exclusively by Israel.

Second, notice that drawing comparisons between Nazi Germany’s treatment of Jews and Zionist Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has a very long history.  Many Jewish critics of political Zionism have made the comparison, as you can see in this article.  It is not, in and of itself, an anti-Semitic slur, but a simple, fair-minded observation of “facts on the ground,” as Israeli politicians like to say.

A Story of Christian Self-Denial in Palestine

Terry and I always make a point of worshiping with Bethlehem Evangelical Church whenever we are visiting the West Bank.  On this occasion I took some time to visit and have coffee with pastor Nihad Salman.  I specifically wanted to talk with him about what it is like to be a Christian leader in the Occupied Territory.

Pastor Salman not only answered my questions, he provided a moving example of what it means to live a life devoted to faithful Christian discipleship.  The Christian population in Gaza and the West Bank has dropped dramatically in recent decades, not so much because of “Muslim extremism” (though it certainly can be difficult for Christians to live freely in a predominately Muslim society) but because of the many pressures and insecurities created by Israel’s military occupation.

Pastor Salman’s repeated message to me were these words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross

Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity

and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”  (Matthew 16:24-25)

Whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.

Whoever works to save their life will lose it.

Nihad repeated those words over and over again in the course of our conversation…with a great big smile on his face.  And he shared story after beautiful story of the ways in which God’s grace is changing lives in the West Bank.

Many members of Nihad’s extended family have moved to the United States.  They regularly call trying to persuade him to relocate with his family as well.  “You can pastor another church here in America,” they insist.  “Your children will have more opportunities with better educational choices.  Get out of there while you can.”

Becoming a parent can sometimes become the greatest stumbling block to

Illegal Jewish Settlements are surrounding Bethlehem cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank

faithful discipleship.  Which is the reason Jesus warns us that his followers must love Him more than their own children.  He said, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

So, this is what Nihad tells his family living in America: “Yes, my children could have better opportunities for important universities and high-paying jobs in the United States.  Yes, they may only have basic employment here and never make much money or have the opportunities your children will have.”

 “But Jesus has called me to be a pastor in Bethlehem.  He tells me that I must lose my life for His sake if I am to find true life at all.  And that includes the lives of my children.  They, too, must learn to lose their lives for Jesus. And we are all finding a wonderful life of mercy and grace here in the West Bank.”

Yes, I had the privilege of drinking coffee, praying and reading scripture

The light of the gospel is shining brightly in Bethlehem

with a saint in Bethlehem.

I was encouraged by Nihad’s model of genuine Christian discipleship, for here is a man who has said No to himself and Yes to our crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus.

This is what real Christianity looks like in every part of the world.

Please remember to pray for Pastor Salman, his family and the ever-expanding ministry of Bethlehem Evangelical Church.

P.S.  This particular church is not alone.  Over the years, Terry and I have worshiped with a wide variety of Christian churches throughout the Bethlehem area.  The gospel is being proclaimed widely by many faithful men and women in Palestine.

Evangelicals Share in War Crimes Remaining Blind to Oppression All Around Them

Every time I return to Israel’s Occupied Territory, I am taken aback by the irreversible transformations foisted onto the resident Palestinians by Israel’s illegal settlements project.

Every year, more and more hilltops sprout cookie-cutter apartment blocks, all covered by the same red-brick tiles, stretching end-to-end from one

Ariel settlement in the West Bank

settlement rooftop to the next.  Older settlements have grown.  Newer settlements appear as if by magic.  All of them shamelessly blushing brick-red under heaven’s gaze.

What little forest and greenery once existed in this barren land has been uprooted, plowed under and paved over to make way for more Jewish settlers, a good many of whom come from the United States, happy to take advantage of the many financial enticements Israel offers to this new generation of “pioneers.”

Several weeks ago, the Israeli daily paper Haaretz published an interesting exposé about this settler movement, and its sad ties to American evangelicalism.  It is entitled:  “Inside the Evangelical Money Flowing Into the West Bank.”

The article details the vast sums of money being donated by U.S. Christian Zionists to Israel’s illegal settler movement.

According to Haaretz, “the total amount of funding raised in the past 10 years [is] somewhere between $50 million and $65 million.”

Yep, $50 to $65 million US dollars channeled from Christian coffers into the

An American family of Christian Zionists volunteering in an illegal settlement

last western, settler-colonial project occurring in direct violation of international law.

Believe it or not, it is another of the many bizarre ways in which Israel continues to mimic the behavior of Nazi Germany and every other settler-colonial project in history.  I kid you not.

Check out the Fourth Geneva Convention, if you’ve never read it.  Especially Section III, article 49 dealing with Occupied Territories.  The most relevant portions declare:

“Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.

 “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Written during a time of rising anti-colonial sentiment, this portion of the Geneva Convention was also drafted in the shadow of Hitler’s massive population transfers throughout Eastern Europe prior to the outbreak of World War II.  After his conquest of Poland in 1939, Hitler announced:

“a new order of ethnographical conditions, that is to say, a resettlement of nationalities in such a manner that the process ultimately results in the obtaining of better dividing lines.” 

Populations would be moved about in order to benefit the expansion of

American volunteers helping with an illegal grape harvest in Occupied Territory

ethnic Germans.

Hitler’s explicit goal was to protect all Germans in Europe who were “threatened with de-Germanization.”

THAT is the primary motive behind the inclusion of Section III, article 49 in the Fourth Geneva Convention.

How tragically ironic that the offspring of Holocaust survivors who found refuge in Israel now implement a similar ethnographic plan intended to “Judaize” Samaria and Judea (aka the West Bank) by means of massive population transfers, i.e. native Palestinians are being pushed out so that foreign, Jewish settlers can move in.

This is why Israel’s settler project in the Occupied Territory is illegal, folks.  It’s illegal because it would make Hitler proud.  It violates the Geneva Conventions, which was spearheaded by the United States.

Only weeks ago, I was driving past many of these settlements as my

Illegal settlements funded by Christian donations from the US

Palestinian friend pointed out the numerous, new expansions now under construction.  In several cases, he also told me the stories of how the Israeli authorities had, once again, used their laughable “laws” of land ownership to “legally” confiscate, i.e. steal, more of this Palestinian real estate.

As I read this article (and another on the same subject) I am struck by the near complete absence of any reference to the native inhabitants of this land – the Palestinian people.  When passing reference is made to the “other” folks who were living here long before the state of Israel, they are noted in passing as the restless hostiles who really ought to give up their struggle, if they know what’s good for them.

One American Zionist, working as a volunteer picking illegal grapes in an illegal vineyard rooted in stolen land, calmly passes judgement, “It’s impossible to remove the settlers from here, as long as they believe in the Bible.  The solution to the conflict will be for the media to stop encouraging the Arabs’ uprising and encourage them to live together with the Jews.”

So, I guess it’s all the media’s fault.  Too many reporters agitating the hapless Palestinians who, apparently, aren’t able to think for themselves.

But it’s hard for anyone “to live together” with the marauders who invaded your property, taken control of your home, pushed you out, made you homeless, and then warns you repeatedly not to put down new roots whenever you try to make a new start.

Another American volunteer confirms the Zionist prejudice that all Palestinians are violent agitators:

“Last February a number of [volunteers in an illegal settlement] found themselves in the midst of a clash between settlers and Palestinians near Har Bracha. According to them, Palestinians from the nearby village of Iraq Burin attacked them with stones while they were in the vineyard.

“The Har Bracha security coordinator came and fired on the Palestinians, who say they were defending their lands, wounding a shepherd.”

But, of course, the American visitor never bothered to learn the first thing about the history of this conflict.  He certainly does not know why he is helping these settlers to break international law.  He knows nothing about the resident Palestinians who have long depended on this very piece of land for their own livelihoods.  He has never ventured beyond the walls and electrified fence surrounding his settlement. He certainly has never asked a Palestinian about the difficulties of living under military occupation while watching strangers pick fruit from your soil.

As with most western accounts, there is no back-story; the narrative begins ex nihilo with a “Palestinian attack” that comes out of nowhere, seemingly for no reason.  It’s just another story about those pesky Injuns doin’ what Injuns do best.  Makin’ trouble, hinderin’ the advance of western civilization.

Christian Zionists are remarkably incurious people, by and large.  Rarely do they ask if the Palestinians might have a good reason to be angry.  If they did, they would hear stories about the many previous assaults launched against them by Israeli soldiers and the very settlers they are now helping to protect.

They might also stop to think about why they are helping Israel do for Jews in the Middle East what Hitler hoped to do for ethnic Germans in eastern Europe.

I encourage you to take a few moments to check out these articles for yourself.

Biggest Stories of 2018: Israel announced Apartheid, Shot Thousands of Civilians

Check out Juan Cole’s year-end review at Informed Comment here.

I have posted an excerpt below, but I encourage you to read the entire piece by following the link above.

“The horrible conditions of civilian siege under which people in Gaza labor (and

A handful of the thousands of Gazans crippled by Israeli snipers in 2018

half the residents of the strip are children) has become intolerable, and this year they began conducting marches demanding the right to return.

“These marches could have been a public relations disaster for Israel if the Western press actually did its job when it comes to Israel and Palestine (it does not, viewing the situation through a racialized and colonial lens rather as it used to view South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s).

“I do not believe any of the US news networks so much as mentioned the weekly protests in Gaza after the initial two or three.

“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his officer corps decided to deal with these marches by shooting the demonstrators down in cold blood on the Gaza side of the border. The American press, which despises the Palestinians with a passion for the crime of having been victimized by an American ally, invented entirely imaginary headlines claiming that the Palestinians had been killed or injured in “clashes.” But there were no clashes. They with perhaps one exception never reached the Israeli border or actually encountered Israeli soldiers. They were shot down well inside Gaza even though they posed no danger to any Israeli military personnel.

“They were sniped at by professional snipers. They were murdered. It is a measure of how ineffective and pusillanimous the mechanisms of international law and order are that no Israelis have been indicted for these murders.

“The US Senate passed a resolution naming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman as the murderer of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

“It did not pass a resolution about Netanyahu and his generals murdering unarmed, peaceful Palestinian demonstrators (not to mention journalists, medical personnel, and random children.

“As of October, Amnesty International reported that 150 Palestinians had been killed, 10,000 had been injured, “including 1,849 children, 424 women, 115 paramedics and 115 journalists. Of those injured, 5,814 were hit by live ammunition.” The death toll rose by early December to 175 and by the end of the year to an alleged 220, and those shot in the legs are by now at least 6,392.

“One Israeli soldier has been killed and one injured.”

Israel Bombed Syria for Christmas. Who Will They Attack for New Year?

F-16 Fighter Jets

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the following headline today:   Six Israeli F-16s fired 16 missiles at Damascus, Syrians intercepted 14 of them.

Apparently, by flying through Lebanese airspace, the Israeli government claims that the fighters were able to launch missiles striking Iranian targets near Damascus.

Setting aside, for the moment, the fact that Israel behaves as if it owns Lebanon, especially noteworthy is the fact that Syria’s defensive anti-

Syrian defensive missiles launching, December 25, 2018

missile system was inhibited (thus, the two missiles that got away) by the presence of two civilian airliners sharing the same airspace.

According to a Russian spokesman, Israel appeared to have used the two civilian aircraft as airborne ‘human shields.’

If so, this would not be the first time Israeli military forces have been caught using human shields during combat operations.  You may recall that the 2009 Goldstone Report uncovered incidents of Israeli soldiers using Palestinian civilians as human shields during Israel’s 2008 attack on Gaza, known as Operation Cast Lead.

Follow these  links to catch up on this unfolding story: here, here, here.