Israeli Apartheid’s Great Leap Forward
Like its US/Western counterparts, Israeli democracy exists in fantasy form alone, the real thing banned from inception. Nearly two million Arab citizens of Israel, about 20% of the population, are denied rights afforded exclusively to Jews. Occupied Palestinians are treated as virtual enemies of the state.
Since Monday, Israeli forces killed 8 Palestinians for the “crime” of being Muslims in a Jewish state, for wanting rights afforded solely to Jews. Since January, Israeli forces virtually executed 214 Palestinians for the same reasons, including 54 children. According to freedom-fighting groups comprising the Palestinian Committee Committee for Resistance, Israel’s “policy of assassination will not curb” their struggle for long-denied justice.
The incoming Netanyahu regime promises to be the most extremist in Israeli history. Arab-hating, right-wing extremist, Itamar Ben Gvir is being given the regime’s national security ministry. In newly expanded form, it’ll control national and border police in the West Bank with an iron fist.
Lebanon’s broadsheet, Al-Akhbar, called Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit’s party 💬 “a symbol for racism in its new form.” It’ll “do as it pleases” unobstructed. “Fascists controlling (party) centers of power…will be able to torture (and kill) Palestinians without any actual disturbance or punishment afterward,” adding: “Even though this reality already exists in the occupied territories, now the gloves will come off in a direct and rough fashion, without fear of a reaction from within or outside.” DO NOT LOOK AWAY FROM THIS VIDEO. EXECUTION FROM POINT BLANK RANGE. THIS IS THE ISRAEL THAT THE WORLD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO SEE. pic.twitter.com/ePELGkU58O — Mohammed El-Kurd (@m7mdkurd) December 2, 2022
Gvir’s expanded ministry also includes control over what Jews call the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the al-Haram al-Sarif/Noble Sanctuary for Palestinians and other Muslims. It’s home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site — after Mecca’s Sacred Mosque and the Mosque of the Prophet in Madina. In 1947, UN Res. 181 designated Jerusalem an international city. Yet in July 1980, Israel illegally annexed Jerusalem as its exclusive capital, flagrantly breaching international law unaccountably to this day. Its longterm plans call for Judaizing the city by ethnically cleansing Arabs to make way for exclusive Jewish development and use.
What’s going on with impunity will likely accelerate with Gvir as national security minister and Religious Zionism party head, Bezalel Smotrich, in charge of Netanyahu’s expanded finance ministry. He’ll be empowered to control expansion of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land. He’ll also control COGAT — the Civil Administration and Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories. According to critics, granting him the above powers may permit him to virtually annex the West Bank, displacing Palestinians in favor of exclusive Jewish occupancy and development.
He’ll also control a newly established National Missions Ministry, its responsibilities to be explained at a later time. And he’ll appoint his own representative in Israel’s war ministry to oversee unrestricted expansion of settlements. 💬 “We are taking another historic step today to establish a Jewish, Zionist national government that will restore security and governance,” he roared, adding: (He intends to manipulate) “the legal system, regulate and develop the settlement enterprise, strengthen Jewish identity in the spirit of Religious Zionism and proudly wave the flag of Zionis(t)” tyranny. According to Netanyahu, what’s agreed on is “another significant step that brings us closer to the establishment of a national right-wing government that will take care of all (Jewish) citizens of Israel” — at the expense of Palestinians.
On Thursday, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association reported on what may become more commonplace ahead than earlier, saying: Unlawfully imprisoned human rights lawyer, Salah Hammouri, 💬 “will be forcibly deported in three days time for ‘breach of allegiance’ to Israel, following revocation of his Jerusalem ID.” His “deportation will be a definitive step in Israel’s prolonged harassment and targeting of him (and other human rights defenders) and (their) work through arbitrary arrests, travel bans, surveillance spyware, and family separation.”
Currently imprisoned in Ramleh, he and his attorney were excluded from a Thursday deportation hearing. Israel repeatedly operates extrajudicially at its discretion. Once in place, the new Netanyahu regime is highly likely to exceed the worst of its predecessors.
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Source: stephenlendman.org. IMG: © Ronen Zvulun/Reuters. AWIP: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/aL9P
