O

n Sunday, October 15, Israeli warplanes targeted a residential building in Al-Nuseirat refugee camp where dozens of my family members live, killing nine of them. Among the victims were my father’s cousin Azmi Aljamal, 63, a retired nurse, his wife Hanan, 60, and their children Mustafa, 33, Suad, 36, and Sondos, 28. Three of their grandchildren, Omar, Mustafa, and Jana, were also killed, along with their niece Ola, 33, who had sought refuge in her father’s house from where she lives in southern Gaza because of the intense Israeli bombardment.

When I was in Gaza, I remember visiting them during the holidays and seeing a picture of our great-grandfather, Ahmad Aljamal, on the wall. Our great-grandfather was killed in 1948, days before the Zionist militias depopulated my ancestral village and forced its inhabitants at gunpoint “further south” to Gaza, where we have lived for the past 75 years. Today, nothing has changed as Israel demands that Palestinians move from the north of Gaza and Gaza City “further south” in what looks like another horrific scene of the Nakba that continues since 1948.

Even as thousands of Palestinians followed the orders or threats of the Israeli army and moved south, their convoys were targeted by Israel, killing at least 70. It became clear to many Palestinians in Gaza that there is no safe place in Gaza, and that being in Rafah is as deadly as being in Jabaliya, as the Israeli massacres targeted everyone and planted death and fear once again in the hearts of Gazans.

As I turn on the news, I see a heartbroken Palestinian father telling an Aljazeera reporter: “The Israeli army asked us to move south, and we did. They targeted us in Rafah; I ran from death in Gaza City to find it in Rafah. I lost three of my children. I don’t know who to bury first.”

Doctors find their beloved among the dead

As dozens of bodies are brought to Gaza’s hospitals, many of which are on the verge of collapse, tragic stories are repeated. Medical teams sometimes find their own family members among the dead, and burst into tears, unable to treat them or others. As hospitals overflow with corpses, families are urged to take the bodies of their loved ones and bury them as soon as possible. A Palestinian from Gaza posted a video showing the body of his dead father in the back seat as he drove to bury him alone after losing the rest of his family the day before.

In Gaza, Palestinians feel that their deaths do not count. They feel that they are being treated as “human beasts,” as described by Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant who ordered the cutting off of water, internet, and electricity supplies to Gaza without worrying about any reaction from the so-called international community. Even those who keep animals as pets, provide them with food and water—something Israel refuses to do in Gaza. Israel’s ability to shut down life in Gaza is a reminder of its complete control over the coastal enclave and the fact that it is the occupying power there, as it always has been.

My aunt Somaiya appears in a video as I scroll through social media, asking my cousin Ayman to let her touch the body of my cousin Ola, lying on the ground and enclosed in a coffin for the last time. She has tasted death several times. “The dead have survived, the living have not,” comments another cousin, describing how people in Gaza comfort themselves in the face of death while the world watches in silence as Israel kills them. Death also haunts Palestinians in Chicago, thanks to fabricated news from Israel that led to the tragic death of a Palestinian boy named Wadee Alfayoumi, who was stabbed 26 times by a landlord who repeated Islamophobic and anti-Palestinian slogans.

Entire families removed from civic records

As I write, entire families are being killed by Israeli strikes in Rafah, Khan Younis, and Al-Burij. Dozens of Palestinian families have already been erased from the civil registry. Palestinians are still being asked by the mainstream media to condemn themselves. Palestinians are still expected to pay the price for European guilt, military and political interests, and shared values with Israel, which has been described by reputable human rights organizations as an apartheid state with different laws for different peoples.

Palestinians are even targeted in UNRWA schools, where at least 600,000 have sought refuge. Where can Palestinians go? Gaza looks like the last haven and Palestinians are not willing to become refugees for the second and third time in their lives. They would rather die than become refugees and be displaced again.

After all, in 1948, they were told that they would be allowed to return “within a few days” and 75 years later they are still waiting for their return. Will anyone intervene and stop this death march that the Palestinians have been forced to take because they don’t want to live another Nakba, this time with the world watching and TV stations broadcasting the imminent expulsion of the Palestinian people?

For many Palestinians, death in Gaza is preferable than becoming refugees in Sinai, as Israel wants. Israel has not shied away from targeting Palestinian civilians, killing a total of 3,300, including 1,000 children and 400 women, and injuring more than 12,000 others. Around 1,000 Palestinians are still trapped under the rubble. Will the world intervene and stop the ongoing death march of Palestinians in Gaza towards the south, which is a crime under international law?

Shortly after an Israeli air strike killed 500 Palestinians at the Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on October 17, an Israeli air strike destroyed one of the two bakeries in my refugee camp. Palestinians are not safe in hospitals, nor do they have access to bread, even in the south, where Israel has asked them to evacuate.

It is important to remember that throughout history, Gaza has always risen from the ashes, and Israel’s military might will not bring it peace; treating Palestinians as equal human beings with full dignity will bring it peace. Palestinians in Gaza are being treated worse than animals; as victims of siege, military occupation, and a slow death, their treatment is as unacceptable as their imminent death.

T

he Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a century old. Throughout the years, there have been many actors involved in this conflict. After 1967 and 1973, the Palestinians developed different entities that fought Israel using their own local means. Hamas recently appeared on the stage and has increased its effectiveness primarily in the Gaza Strip. In the past decade, Hamas has become an effective actor in the West Bank.

The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation launched by Hamas has brought the Palestinian issue back on the agenda. In the context of regional developments, the Palestinian experience has been increasingly disregarded, which can be seen as the external reason for the intensive operation against Israel on October 7. The current developments increase the responsibility of the Arab nations in the region, and signify a shift in the Palestinian leadership against Israel.

Palestine returns to the regional agenda in a brand-new light

With the Arab uprisings, the issue of Palestine and Jerusalem was left on the sidelines as other events and other actors in the region came to the fore. In the past decade, Palestine has been overlooked and become a victim of the Arab uprisings.

During this period, the Egyptian tunnels, which were Gaza’s only connection to land, were closed with Sisi’s coup in 2013. This exacerbated the difficulties that 2.5 million people experience daily in the narrow strip of Gaza. Not to mention the fact that the number of Palestinians killed by Israel since the Arab uprisings exceeds 5,000—in the last year alone, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed.

A second regional issue is that other Arab countries from Morocco to Jordan, and Saudi Arabia to the Gulf countries have not included the Palestinians in their normalization policies with Israel, known as the Abraham Accords. In other words, they have presented the matter of normalization with Israel as one that is solely between them and Israel, and have left the Palestinian actors out of the picture. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood has brought the Palestinian issue back to the agenda.

Countries like Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, which support the Palestinian cause, have not been able to take a political stance on the Palestinian issue due to their internal turmoil. Arab countries, especially the Gulf countries which have been carrying out the normalization process with Israel may be prompted to rethink the process.

In this context, it should be taken into account that until recently, one of the sources of legitimacy of the regimes, monarchies, and states in the Arab world was the nature of their relations with Israel. Now, Palestine and Jerusalem are back on the agenda in a brand-new light, imposing great responsibilities on other countries in the region in the forthcoming process.

O

n October 7, the Palestinian armed group Hamas carried out a surprise attack on Israeli military posts surrounding the Gaza Strip, which has been blockaded by Israel since 2007. The unprecedented attack shocked not only Tel Aviv but the whole world, as it was carried out against Israel, a country that prides itself on its past victories against Arab countries thanks to its professional army and advanced weapons.

The death toll on the Israeli side is still being counted at the time of writing. However, it is almost certain that around 1,300 Israeli soldiers have been killed so far, along with a number of civilians. Whether the number of casualties will remain stable is not yet known, but Israeli officials have admitted that October 7 was the worst day in the country’s history, having lost fewer people in the Six-Day War of 1967 when Israel fought four Arab countries simultaneously. What is more, the perpetrator of this latest defeat is a non-state armed group, confined to Gaza City and without even access to conventional weapons.

Immediately after the attack went viral, the U.S. and European countries expressed solidarity with Israel and condemned the Hamas attack. For example, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, posted several consecutive tweets saying that they [the EU] stand with Israel. Thierry Breton, a member of the EU Commission, asked Elon Musk, owner of X, to remove pro-Palestinian posts. The EU Commission tried to suspend financial assistance to Palestine, but failed as several countries rejected the proposal; however, some EU members, such as Denmark and Austria, suspended Palestinian development aid but decided to maintain humanitarian assistance.

In addition, the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, and Italy issued a joint statement supporting Israel’s right of self-defense. British Home Secretary Suella Braverman even said that the flying of the Palestinian flag might not be legitimate. In addition, U.S. President Joe Biden, senators, and many other American politicians not only verbally expressed their support for Israel, but immediately ordered the U.S. Army to supply arms to Israel. At present, a U.S. aircraft carrier has docked close to the Israeli coast and another is about to arrive in the region.

As for the Western mainstream media, it can be said that unsurprisingly their coverage has been anything but neutral. In almost all the reports, Israel is portrayed as the victim and the Palestinian side as the guilty party. Their bias can be seen in headlines: BBC News’ X account wrote, “More than 500 people have died in Gaza after Israel launched massive retaliatory air strikes, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Israel since Hamas launched its attacks on Saturday.” [emphasis added] According to the BBC, when a Palestinian is killed by the Israeli army, they just die, but when it is the other way round, the action becomes murder. Moreover, almost all British newspapers on their October 10 front pages claimed that 40 babies had been beheaded by Hamas, although no such brutality took place. The editorial approach of other Western media was more or less the same as that of the BBC.

However, despite the staunch and unrelenting support of Western capitals and media, it can be argued and substantiated that Israel has long lost the information war against Palestine. A poll conducted by Pew Research Center in 2022 shows that the U.S. public opinion is only slightly more favorable towards Israel than Palestine, which was not the case before. The striking aspect of the poll is that American youth have more positive feelings towards Palestine than Israel.

A year later, a poll conducted in July 2023, shows that views of Palestine are more favorable than those of Israel. Polls conducted in Europe show similar results, with younger generations having more positive perceptions of Palestine than Israel, in contrast to their elders. In general, while Westerners’ perceptions of Palestine and Israel are almost the same, support for the former is gradually increasing while the latter is losing momentum in terms of positive perceptions. Across the world, people are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than to the Israelis.

When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, the Israeli government reported that civilians were among the casualties. Although the number of civilians killed is not currently conclusive, it is clear that this will affect perceptions of Palestine, but it may not stop the growing support for Palestinian rights at the grassroots level.

There are several reasons for this positive momentum. First, anyone with a conscience and the ability to apply reason can fathom that the attacks by Palestinian groups are a response to previous Israeli attacks, the blockade of Gaza, the killing of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, the deprivation of basic rights, and the occupation of Palestinian land. It is straightforward to compare the asymmetry of power between the two sides, the number of victims, and the violations of international law, among others. Moreover, anyone can deconstruct narratives that are clearly biased; for example, if one side argues, “Israel has the right to defend itself,” the other side can ask, “Why do the Palestinians not have the same right?”

Second, the internet, in general, and social media, in particular, allow access to different sources of information, including those of the disadvantaged side and even the victims. Giant media corporations may be the mouthpiece of Israel all the time, but a video taken by a Gazan can easily refute the lies. Disinformation is no longer dominant in the flow of information. Thanks to the internet, people learn the truth not through biased media(tors) but directly from the sources.

Finally, with the ever-increasing number of Palestinians expelled from their land over the last decades, the Palestinian diaspora has grown larger and stronger. Living among foreigners, the diaspora has the opportunity to explain what is happening in their homeland. The BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, a platform fighting for Palestinian rights, Palestinian academics, pro-Palestinian communities, NGOs, and governments are helping to make the Palestinian cause known transparently and without malicious interceptions. As a result, people sympathize and empathize with the Palestinians and their suffering.

Palestine is winning the information war; technology hates bias, and people have the ability to distinguish truth from lies—and, first and foremost, Palestinians are right in their cause.

O

peration Al-Aqsa Flood was launched on Saturday, October 7 against Israel from the Gaza Strip, which has been under Israeli blockade since 2007. It has once again become necessary to address the many legal issues such as the rights and responsibilities of the Palestinian and Israeli sides in the context of international law, as well as the legality of their actions and methods.

Israel’s military response to the operation prompts a series of legal considerations. At this stage, however, the most important one is to determine within what limits and up to what extent Israel, which has invoked its right of self-defense, can legally exercise this right.

Israel’s expansive control of occupied territories

When Israel was established in 1948, it was based on a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution which allocated a territory to a Jewish state to be established on Palestinian territories. In other words, the resolution itself did not establish a Jewish state—it defined a region where the state would be established.

The resolution also defined a region where an Arab state would be established and proclaimed Jerusalem to hold international status.  With and following the establishment of Israel, Resolution 181 was never properly followed. Especially with the 1967 war, Israel went far beyond the 181 Resolution. Today, there is a large area known as the “Occupied Territories,” which Israel controls, but which are unequivocally Palestinian territories.

Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories is omnipotent and omnipresent: the presence of Israeli soldiers, the lack of separation between East and West Jerusalem, Gaza being essentially an open-air prison. The Gaza Strip is a narrow band of Palestinian land on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, which stretches for about 40 kilometers and at its deepest measures about 12 kilometers. It is said that about two million people try to live here in very difficult conditions. Since 2007, Israel has been imposing a blockade regarding what can go in and what can come out.

When we consider the United Nations resolutions in terms of international law, we are talking about a geography in Palestine where the borders are legally unclear, blurred, and, most of the time, even lost. These are completely illegal circumstances.

It is questionable whether Israel will be bound by the current borders. Considering that the Netanyahu government is already in a difficult position politically, it may see the current escalation as an opportunity to go to extremes and push legal limits to prove it is strong and able to provide security for Israel.

The Israeli army spokesperson has claimed that Hamas militants are hiding in schools, mosques, and residences, and, therefore, that these are all legitimate targets. Israel also claims that it has warned civilians to evacuate Gaza. The fact that Gaza is facing the possibility of coming under the de facto control of Israel and the tensions that this will later create make the situation even more worrying.

Within Israel, a strong emphasis needs to be given to the two-state solution. Currently, Israel does not even feel the need to discuss this anymore as it has established almost complete control everywhere.

The extent of Israel’s right of self-defense (under international law):

Even if Palestinian actions were to constitute an aggression and give rise to the right of self-defense, many legal limits and constraints await Israel when it declares that it is exercising its right of self-defense.

The right of self-defense is regulated in Article 51 of the UN Charter. The crucial elements emerging from this article are as follows:

• The right of self-defense is inherent, that is, every state has such a right.
• There must be a current armed attack.
• States may exercise their right to self-defense alone or in conjunction with other state(s) that may assist them.

First, as indicated in Article 51, since the right of self-defense is a right inherent in natural and customary law, there is an element of proportionality in this right. Therefore, the force used within the framework of this right must be proportionate.

Responses that are not proportionate to the action that gives rise to the right of self-defense, or that aim to punish the other party or take revenge, exceed the legal limits of the right of self-defense. In short, the response can only be sufficient in stopping and repelling an attack, and when force is used beyond this condition, the limits of the right of self-defense are exceeded. Statements made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seem to go beyond the scope of the right of self-defense as concepts such as retribution and revenge are used.

Israel can only continue its counter-military actions until the Palestinian attack is stopped and until it reclaims its captured territories—if any. Proportionality, in this case, indicates that the response must not go beyond what is necessary to stop the attack and recover legal parts of territory.

The second point indicates that there must be an ongoing attack against Israel, so the issue of whether Hamas is actively carrying out an attack is important and needs to be evaluated.

Third, the article mentions that the right of states to self-defense can be exercised alone or together with other states. In this context, the statements made by the United States in the last few days may indicate the intent to exercise Israel’s right to self-defense collectively.

In this context, the use of warships and aircraft, which the United States claims to have sent to the region to assist Israel, presumably on the basis of the right of collective self-defense, would grossly violate the principle of proportionality. On the opposing side of the combined U.S. and Israeli armed forces is a piece of Palestinian territory where some two million people are squeezed into a narrow zone of 41 kilometers that never exceeds 12 kilometers depth.

W

ael Khoudary, a 60-year-old patient who relies on a nebulizer to inhale his medication, is one of many Gazans impacted by the new reality of climate change. The constant power outages that have persisted for more than 16 years prevent him from taking the necessary medication regularly.

“I must use the nebulizer once or twice a day. But when the power is out, imagine what happens next,” laments Wael.

Wael is used to such power outages; when his home loses power, he can hardly afford to pay for transportation to the closest hospital.

The Gaza Strip is a densely populated Palestinian territory occupied by Israel. Israel maintains a blockade on Gaza since 2007 which has had a significant impact on its economy and infrastructure, including the Gaza Strip’s electricity supply.

Israel controls several entry points and border crossings for goods and fuels into Gaza, including the supply of electricity. Due to the blockade, Gaza’s electricity infrastructure is heavily dependent on imports from the Israeli occupiers. The main power plant in Gaza, which is capable of producing electricity locally, has been operating well below its capacity due to limited fuel and restrictions on the import of spare parts.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the Gaza Strip has faced a sixteen-year-long Israeli siege. Recently the situation worsened when the Israeli government restricted the electricity supply, inflicting further collective punishment on the Palestinian people.

The siege has severely impacted all aspects of life, with hospitals forced to postpone non-urgent surgeries and prematurely release patients. The lack of reliable power also poses life-threatening risks for those dependent on dialysis machines and newborns, while nights become engulfed in complete darkness due to power restrictions.

“A Pitch-Black Sauna”

Ibrahim Hasan, a father of two, finds solace in taking his small family to the beach to escape the stifling daytime heat, while thousands seek refuge there from the oppressive temperatures at night as well. Many families in Gaza adopt this strategy to survive the extreme weather conditions.

“I can never stand to spend even a single second inside my house during the heat of the day,” Ibrahim explains. “I accompany my wife and children to the beach until almost midnight every day.”

Ibrahim compares power outages at home in Gaza to spending time in a sauna in a pitch-black room.

This year, around two million Palestinians will endure scorching temperatures over 35.2°C, deprived of air conditioning or any means of cooling, exposing them to perilous living conditions.

Each night, Gaza City is cloaked in darkness, except for the faint glimmer of windows from the fortunate few who own generators. These generators, few and far between, are a lifeline for hospital patients and represent the only hope for access to water.

Chronic electricity shortages have plagued the Gaza Strip for the past ten years, making the already precarious living circumstances worse. The continuous power outage has had a negative impact on Gaza’s already unstable economy, particularly the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, and has severely limited accessibility to basic services, such as health, water, and sanitation.

In the face of such challenges, Gazans are courageously enduring each day, navigating life on the edge of surviving the realities of climate change and a prolonged electricity crisis.

T

hanks to the Iraqi army, the Palestinian city of Jenin was not captured in 1948 when Israel was created. The Iraqi army was able to retake the city, and the dozens of graves in the Iraqi Army Martyrs’ Cemeteries bear witness to the battle that took place there against armed Jewish militias, which eventually lost control of the city. But in 1967, Jenin was captured when Israel “finished the job” and occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai, and the Golan Heights in the Six-Day War.

Just outside the city of Jenin, a refugee camp was built in 1948 and became home to thousands of Palestinian refugees who were expelled at gunpoint when Israel was created. In 1967, more Palestinians were driven from Jenin into Jordan, becoming refugees for a second time. Mornings in Jenin is a novel by Palestinian writer Susan Abulhawa that tells the story of a Palestinian family from the village of Ein Hod, near Haifa, who became refugees in Jenin in 1948. The scenes of Palestinians leaving the refugee camp en masse on July 4 was a stark reminder of the Nakba.

Jenin is more than a Palestinian refugee camp. It is a symbol of the refugee issue and of the defiance in the face of Israel’s expansion; in 2005, Israel withdrew from the Hermesh settlement near Jenin when it also decided to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. The right-wing Israeli coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu decided to legalize the settlement as part of its drive to expand settlements and annex parts of the West Bank, namely Area C, which makes up 60% of the territory. In the eyes of Israel’s most right-wing government, the 2005 disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank was a strategic mistake that needed to be reversed.

Area C and taming Jenin

For this reason, and to pave the way for Israel’s plans to annex Area C of the West Bank, the Israeli army has launched a campaign targeting the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Over the past year, Israel has carried out repeated incursions into the refugee camp, killing dozens of Palestinians. For Israel, the crushing of any Palestinian resistance is a precondition for its annexation plan. For the first time since 2002, when Israel razed the Jenin refugee camp to the ground, the Israeli army used drones and helicopters to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes, calling the incursion “Operation Home and Garden.”

Ironically, Operation Home and Garden left many Palestinian homes and gardens in Jenin in ruins. Israeli bulldozers deliberately destroyed roads, targeted media and medical crews, and forced thousands of Palestinian refugees out of the camp after threatening to bomb their homes. In this manner, Israel announced the start of the second phase of the operation in which it plans to target every single house in the refugee camp and capture or kill Palestinian armed men inside the crowded refugee camp. So far, the Israeli operation in Jenin has killed 12 Palestinians and injured 100 others, 20 of whom are in critical condition.

The Israeli army will extend its operations to other towns and refugee camps in the West Bank—Jenin is just the beginning. The Israeli government is determined to confiscate more Palestinian land, demolish more Palestinian homes, and give the green light to Israeli settlers to carry out more pogroms against Palestinian towns, as happened recently in the West Bank towns of Huwara and Turmus Ayya.

Jenin is the only the start

Palestinians on the ground know only too well that Israel will never leave the West Bank and will only expand there. They also knew back in 1993 when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel agreed to establish a Palestinian state “within five years,” it was simply a trap and that Israel would never have allowed the Palestinians to have their own sovereign and independent state. All the Palestinians can aspire to is a couple of mayorships outside Area C of the West Bank, without any political representation or rights. The Israeli invasion of the Jenin refugee camp, and probably other West Bank towns, is proof of this.

In Israel’s eyes, Palestinians are merely cheap laborers that can build Israeli cities and settlements, and granting them full rights is out of the question. For Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who make up 20% of Israel’s population, all that is in store for them is more violence and crime that will eventually force them to leave, without the Israeli police ever intervening to make any arrests. What is certain, sadly, is that there are worse days ahead for the Palestinian people and that their conditions will only get worse under Israel’s continuing military occupation: Jenin is only the beginning.

I

n Zionist literature, Israel’s foundation in 1948, which followed a mass expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, is always portrayed as a success story. The story is presented as follows: the country “defeated seven Arab armies” and emerged victorious. There is no mention of the expulsion of the Palestinian people who ended up as refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. The narrative of Israel’s creation is fictious and romanticized, and does not reflect the reality of the country now–a country steadily nearing an existential crisis.

The generation of Israel’s founders is almost non-existent today; the young soldiers who fought Israel’s “war of independence” in 1948 no longer govern the country. Today, Israel is ruled by the second- and third-generation politicians and former officers who served in Israel’s various wars and share a different strategic approach based on expansion and economic peace with Israel’s neighbors without settling the Palestinian issue. One such Israeli leader, who has been active for a couple of decades in Israel’s political spectrum, is Benjamin Netanyahu, or as he is known locally, “Bibi.”

Netanyahu was born in 1949 in Petah Tikva (Openning of Hope), the first Jewish colony to be built in Palestine in 1878. He served in the Israeli army as part of the elite unit Sayeret Matkal, taking part in the war of attrition between Israel and Egypt in 1967-1970. His ambitions didn’t stop at the army, which is the case for many Israeli politicians who have emerged over the years from the ranks of the military. He ran for politics, becoming the head of Israel’s opposition in 1993-1996. His eventful return to Israeli politics in 2009-2021 and his recent return to office have sent mixed messages and marked the start of a new era in Israeli politics.

A country without a constitution

When Israel was established in 1948, it had no constitution. Instead, there was a set of laws and regulations given that Israeli political parties have always been divided and bringing them together under one constitution would not be feasible. At the same time, the Supreme Court of Israel is supposed to be independent and apolitical. The last two years have seen five snap Israeli elections due to the inability of Israeli political parties to form a stable political alliance, resulting in the return of Netanyahu as  prime minister, after serving as Israel’s head of opposition for almost a year.

Netanyahu’s plan to appoint judges to the Supreme Court has faced a fierce Israeli opposition, accusing Netanyahu of attempting to take over the judiciary. This time, Netanyahu had to seek the support of extreme far-right political parties to form a fragile coalition, including ministers with a criminal record in his cabinet to the dislike of Israeli allies such as the U.S. The statement of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that there is a need to wipe out the Palestinian village of Huwara in the West Bank, which saw a pogrom, only added fuel to fire. In a recent conference, Smotrich tried to save face by whitewashing his earlier statement.

This Israeli generational gap which has only been widening due to politics and perspectives is manifested today in the ongoing protests in Israel against Netanyahu. This divide could challenge Israel’s whole existence, and has pushed Israel’s president to warn of a “very serious” crisis over Netanyahu’s plan to make a judiciary overhaul. “We are in a very serious situation that may have political, economic, social and security consequences,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said before a ceremony in Tel Aviv on March 13, 2023. He went on to warn that a civil war in Israel is a possibility and that politicians should understand that Israel is not immune to such a development.

Unrest in Israel could lead to regional unrest

Israel’s growing turn towards the right disturbs some of its allies and is a threat to regional instability. This is especially true considering the growing protests in Israel, which, in turn, might push the Israeli government to export its crisis to the wider region and especially to Gaza, translating into another military confrontation with the Palestinian factions there. In the past, Israeli politicians have tried to resolve internal crises by creating other crises and by showcasing the Palestinians as the “true” enemy of all Israelis, who need to stand united behind the government.

This is a likely scenario given Israeli ministers’ growing anti-Palestinian discourse ahead of Ramadan and the repeated Israeli incursions and assassinations in the West Bank. These developments have made some Arab governments feel more wary of Israel’s actions, pushing them to take steps that reflect a sense of unease with the policies of the Israeli government.

Another development that might push the Israeli government to export its ongoing crisis is the recent China-brokered Saudi-Iranian deal, which was surprising to many. Israeli commentators have described the deal as a defeat to Israel’s diplomatic efforts to isolate Iran, in a region where some countries looked to Israel as a “savior” against a possible Iranian expansion. Israel’s securitization of Iran’s regional ambitions and its nuclear program have pushed certain regional state actors that feel threatened by Iran’s interventionalist policy closer to Israel.

As Ramadan approaches, escalation with the Palestinians because of incursions by Israeli settlers into Al-Aqsa, is very possible. In light of the escalation that has been building up in the West Bank, a confrontation in the region this spring or summer might be Israel’s way out of its domestic crisis. The divide in Israel is widening by the minute, and the second- and third-generation Israeli leaders might be taking the country and the whole region into a new unknown direction.

Only responsible international pressure on the Israeli government might stop another confrontation. One fact, however, is certain: the Israel of 1948, which was created by a different generation, is not the Israel we see today. Second- and third-generation Israeli politicians are not only gambling with the future of the whole region but also with the future of Israel itself.

W

hen hundreds of Israeli settlers burned 15 Palestinian homes and 100 Palestinian cars in the West Bank’s town of Huwara near the city of Nablus on February 26, 2023, some analysts, government spokespeople, and political commentators expressed their shock at the magnitude of organized violence against Palestinians. Unfortunately, this violence comes as no surprise to the Palestinian people and has been building up for the years.

The town of Huwara has been repeatedly attacked by Israeli settlers and it has almost become the norm to read news about such attacks. What is different this time, however, is that formerly convicted settlers are now ministers in Netanyahu’s fragile coalition such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, who serves as Israel’s National Security Minister and who openly incites violence against the Palestinian people.

To damage control the horrific crime, which resulted in the death of Palestinian Sameh Aqtash, 37, who had just returned from Turkey after volunteering to help with the recent earthquake, and the injuring of a hundred other Palestinians, after setting fire to their houses, some Israeli commentators tried to link the violence to the earlier killing of two Israeli settlers in the town on Sunday. But the ongoing Israeli settler violence in Huwara has been taking place for years now and it was not a reaction to any one particular event.

Violence against Palestinians continues unabated

Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in the two weeks prior to the shooting incident that killed two Israeli settlers near Huwara. Following the latter incident, the Israeli army closed the two entrances of Huwara and allowed armed Israeli settlers to go inside on foot, providing them with cover to carry out their crime after Israeli politicians made calls to burn the village.

The Israeli army also prevented medics from evacuating those injured by the Israeli settler attack, which reveals the extent of the protection and collaboration between Israeli settlers and the Israeli army. This pushed some commentators including from Israel itself to make a comparison between what Israeli settlers did in Huwara to Kristallnacht, where Nazis in Germany burned Jewish-owned homes and businesses and murdered close to 100 Jews on November 9 -10, 1938.

Out of the 300-400 settlers who took part in the Huwara pogrom, nobody was arrested. Not only this, Israeli settlers jubilantly danced following the deadly violence in Huwara. In fact, the violence in Huwara came after calls made by Israeli Knesset Member Zvika Fogel to burn the town down.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told journalist Matan Hodorov, “I think Huwara needs to be erased. The state should be the one to do that.”

Smotrich added that “we shouldn’t be dragged into anarchy in which civilians take the law into their own hands.”

U.S. reacts to Israeli violence in Huwara

On March 1, 2023, Ned Price, U.S. State Department spokesperson, said, “I want to be very clear about this. These comments were irresponsible. They were repugnant. They were disgusting.”

Meanwhile, Hady Amr, the U.S. Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs, visited Huwara and met with victims of the Israeli settler attacks, while the State Department warned against increasing violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers. The U.S. Office of Palestinian Affairs stated, “Amr visited with the victims of Sunday’s Huwara attack. He expressed his deepest condolences and condemned the unacceptable widescale, indiscriminate violence by settlers. Extremely concerned by recent escalating violence in the West Bank.”

Fogel tweeted that “we have to stop with the word ‘proportionality.’ Stop the lack of will for collective punishment because it doesn’t suit the courts. Hawara closed + burnt down, that’s what I want to see.”

On an earlier occasion, Fogel said that “100 Palestinians must be killed a day,” whom he described as “terrorists” to force them to “the Israeli will.”

A state in the service of settlers

In the same context, to understand better the link between Israeli settlers and the Israeli army, a closer look at a video published by the Israeli Human Rights Organization B’Tselem in 2021 is revealing as it exposes the connections many of these settlers have with the army. In the video, an Israeli settler named Zvi, who established the “Zvi Bar Yosef Farm” on the lands of the Palestinian village of Deir Nizam in the West Bank, threatens the Palestinian farmers and owners of the land with his gun. When they tell him that they are going to call the Israeli Civil Administration and army, he responds, “I am the army.”

In light of these developments, it is ironic that the settler violence in Huwara came a day after the Aqaba Summit, attended by Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Israel, and the United States, which aimed to de-escalate the situation in the West Bank ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The situation in Israel today is clear: Israel has become a state for the settlers where some of these militias have the support of Israeli ministers such as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. Israeli settlers who chant “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn” have the direct support of people in uniform and the Israeli government. The same as other Israeli settlers who set hundreds of Palestinian homes on fire and uprooted thousands of Palestinian olive trees got away with their crimes, it is highly unlikely that the Israeli settlers who burned homes in Huwara will be touched.

U

ndercover Israeli forces invaded Jenin refugee camp in the early hours of Thursday, January 26, 2023, and fired at a group of Palestinians who refused to hand themselves over. The invading force, in turn, was targeted by Palestinian fire after their activity was exposed by locals.

According to Palestinian health authorities, nine Palestinians were killed, including three Palestinian fighters and an elderly woman, and 20 others were injured. Four of those injured were shot in the upper part of their bodies and are in critical condition.

Palestinians rushed some of those injured by Israeli fire to a local sports club, but invading Israeli forces attacked them inside, demolishing the walls. Local sources have revealed that the Israeli forces also crushed a Palestinian car in which two Palestinians who were injured were inside and killed them before leaving the refugee camp, following four hours of clashes in which an Israeli drone was also downed by Palestinian fighters.

Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli reactions

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has called for an emergency meeting in Ramallah to discuss the implications of killing nine Palestinians in Jenin, as Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA, called for lowering the Palestinian flag for three days as a sign of mourning.

The spokesperson of the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sinan Al-Majali said the invasion into Jenin camp will only serve to escalate the situation and lead to yet another cycle of violence whose price will be paid by all. The Israeli incursion into Jenin came a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Jordanian King Abdullah II in Amman, during which meeting he affirmed that the status of Al-Aqsa Mosque will stay the same, after Israeli forces prevented Jordan’s ambassador to Israel from entering the compound.

Following the Israeli operation in Jenin, Netanyahu held security consultations with army officials, whereby the Israeli army activated the Iron Dome battery in the south, fearing a retaliation from Gaza.

The Israeli army said it killed three Palestinians who were planning an attack against Israel during the invasion.

Saleh Al-Arouri, the deputy head of Hamas, said the retaliation for what Israel did in Jenin will not take long.

Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip announced a general strike to mourn the killing of the nine Palestinians in Jenin.

The Israeli invasion into Jenin refugee camp was the most serious since Israel’s invasion and destruction of large parts of the refugee camp in 2002.

Following the killing of 9 Palestinians, a number or home-made projectiles were fired into Southern Israel on January 27, which prompted the Israeli army to attack targets in Gaza over night.

The Palestinians killed in the Jenin refugee camp are the following:

Nour Ghunaim

Motasim Abu Al-Hassan

Hamoudi Al-Washi

Abdallah Al-Ghoul

Hamodui Al-Shaqi

Talip Izriqi

Izzideen Salahat

Waseem Jai’is

Majeeda Obaid

P

alestinian cinema was among the first to emerge in the Middle East and North Africa along with Egyptian and Syrian cinemas. Egyptian cinema started production in 1923, followed by Syrian cinema in 1928 and Palestinian cinema in 1935. However, at the time, it was barely possible to separate Palestinian and Syrian national identities, which only emerged after the division of the region by imperial powers. Before then, Palestine was known as “Southern Syria” and was part of Greater Syria, which included today’s Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine.

Yet, with the start of the British mandate in Palestine in 1917 and the French mandate in Syria in 1920, national identities gained a strong meaning. This translated into political, social, economic, and military actions against the imperial powers of the time that acted as if the region was theirs, dividing it in a humiliating manner into chunks of land.

The film industry in Palestine, which in a period of a few years saw a mass displacement of its people, was among the political, economic, and social changes taking place in the region. This mass displacement was reflected in a series of films that addressed the injustice against the Palestinian people alongside their life prior to the Nakba.

The first Palestinian movie theater was established in Jerusalem in 1908 and was known as “Cinematographe Oracle,” showing films on Saturday and Sunday nights. In 1912, a silent movie theater was established in the city, known as the “Cinema International,” where shows were organized based on ticket sales. At the time, these shows were mostly attended by male audiences who came from elite backgrounds.

In 1927, a law regulating movie theaters came to light in Palestine, which established the conditions under which the British mandate authorities were to control the sector.  he first Palestinian filmmaker was Ibrahim Hassan Sarhan, who shot a 20-minute short film of the visit of Saudi King Saud Bin Abdilaziz to Palestine in 1935. Other prominent Palestinians in the field included Ahmad Hilmi Alkilani who graduated from Cairo in 1945, and Muhammad Saleh Al-Kayali, who upon returning from his studies in Italy, established a cinema studio in Jaffa in 1940. He collaborated with the League of Arab Nations in 1945 to produce a film on Palestine.

Although the number of Palestinian films produced before 1948 was limited, the content of these films varied and provided important documentation of life before the Nakba. Such films include Realized Dreams, Studio Palestine, Ahmad Hilmi Pasha, and The Eid’s Night. Palestinian-Egyptian filmmaker Salaheddin Bardakhan produced the film A Night’s Dream in 1946, which was shown in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Amman, and Cairo at the time.

The impact of the Nakba on the film industry in Palestine

Following the Nakba and the establishment of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1965, more Palestinian films saw the light. The first Palestinian film that was shot under PLO supervision was No to Peaceful Settlement in 1968. At the time, all production units were factional, where the Fatah movement, for example, had its own production unit. The Palestine Film Unit, which was part of the PLO’s research center, published a 12-minute short film about Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip in 1967 and its impact on the Palestinian people there. Leftist Palestinian groups such as the PFLP and DFLP had their own production units, and produced films at the time such as The Path in 1973 by Rafiq Hajjar and Our Little Houses in 1974.

A dozen films unfolded carrying titles such as Why We Take Arms, Why We Plant Flowers, and Palestine in the Eye. Arab producers also contributed to the Palestinian film industry at the time; for example, Iraqi producer Muhammed Tawfik who produced dozens of films such as the Child and the Toy (1986), and Syrian Muhammed Malas who produced The Dream of the City in 1983.

With the establishment of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1993, the Media and Culture Department of the PLO was converted into the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. In light of limited contributions, the Palestinian “Revolution films” could be considered dead today, as film productions by Palestinian factions outside the PLO are different in their approach and content from the productions of the Palestinian Revolution Cinema, including those produced by Islamic parties.

Emergence of Palestinian Cinema?

The last decade has seen an emergence of Palestinian cinema which had lost momentum in the 1990s and 2010s. Palestinian filmmaker Elia Suleiman is among the top contributors to the Palestinian film industry with his masterpiece It Must Be Heaven (2019). In 2022, a storm of pressure on the film platform Netflix was launched after it published Farha, a Palestinian film that narrates the story of a 12-year-old Palestinian child during the events of the Nakba, which saw the displacement of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

In the film, Farha’s father hides her in a room to protect her, promising to be back. He is unable to return, and from her room, Farha sees the horrors of the Nakba unfolding in front of her eyes: a Palestinian family is executed in the backyard of her family’s house by a group of Jewish soldiers. The film reveals a snippet of what Palestinian refugees had to endure, while the implications of the Nakba are still very present today. Today, as Israeli politicians who threaten Palestinians with a second Nakba are becoming ministers in Netanyahu’s new government, films like Farha seem even more ominous.

Farha and other Palestinian films send a message that the Palestinian film industry is coming back into the spotlight after decades of being almost inactive. The second generation of Palestinian refugees educated itself and the third generation is now taking action, supported by the fine education it has received, which will translate into more Palestinian films and novels in the coming years. The cultural war between Palestinians and Israel seems to be taking a new turn, and it will only become more heated in the coming years.

The fact that Farha is among the top 10 films on Netflix, shows that the Israeli counter-campaign to defame it has failed. As the impact of the Palestinian film and cinema industry increases, more Palestinian films are likely to be made, creating more pressure on platforms by pro-Israeli groups. Yet, the message of Farha has resonated loud and clear: the Palestinian narrative cannot be stopped.

S

ince my first trip to the United States in 2014, I knew justice in Palestine is not an unattainable illusion. On October 14, Asmaa Abu Mezied and I landed in Chicago for our book tour with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). While my first tour with the AFSC was in 2014 to promote the book Gaza Writes Back, visiting the United States again over the years has led to important observations of how domestic politics and foreign policy have been changing in the country. This time, Asmaa and I toured seven cities in the United States to promote the recently published book Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire by Haymarket Books.

The tour kicked off with an event that included Palestinian community members, many of whom are from the West Bank. Chicago is home to a large Palestinian community, many of whom come from the central mountains of Palestine, from villages such as Turmus Ayya, Ayn Yabrud, and Al Mazraa. Organized by the American Muslims for Palestine, the event allowed us, two Palestinians from Gaza, joined by the book’s co-editor, Jennifer Bing, to exchange ideas with fellow Palestinians, ironically in the United States and not in Palestine.

The event was followed by a talk at the Grace Place church in Chicago, where Asmaa and I explained our perspectives on the future of Gaza. My chapter “Travel Restrictions as a Manifestation of Nakba: Gaza, the Path backward Is the Path Forward” highlights the generational and ongoing aspect of the Nakba, revealing that travel restrictions are only a manifestation of the Nakba that Palestinians inherit the same way they inherit their refugee status. Although my chapter highlights family tragedies, such as losing my sister as a result of being denied a permit to receive medical care in Jerusalem in 2007, and my mother not being able to see her family for 12 years in the West Bank because of the same system of permits imposed by Israel, it ends on a hopeful note. I narrate how I was able to challenge these travel restrictions and meet my West Bank family, including my aunt in Jordan in 2014, who needed time to recognize me after 14 years.

Asmaa spoke about how agriculture and space in Gaza have been shaken by the 1948 Nakba, in her chapter titled “Lost Identity: The Tale of Peasantry and Nature,” where Gaza has to absorb 200,000 refugees over a few weeks, doubling its population to 300,000. Asma stressed that agriculture has played a prominent role in Palestinian history, such as the 1936 Revolution, which was led by Palestinian farmers who protested taxation and migration policies imposed by the British. She narrated her own family experience cultivating the land and how her grandmother told her, “A lap filled with soil is better than a lap filled with gold.” However, Asmaa adds, due to systematic policies, young Palestinians have been shying away from agriculture and even landlords no longer want their children to be farmers.

After being reminded, again and again, that Chicago deep dish pizza is better than New York pizza (in your dreams, Chicagoans!), we flew to Washington D.C. In D.C., Jennifer, Asmaa, and I were joined by the co-editors of the book, Jehad Abusalim and Mike Merryman-Lotze. We noticed that the public perception on Palestine has been changing in the U.S., to the extent that a cameraman we met near Capitol Hill told us one of his friends had come back from Israel recently and remarked, “He said it is Apartheid there.” He was with a man who was dressed like Donald Trump and was making a film asking people to vote in the U.S. midterm elections, which took place on November 8, 2022.

We took the train to Virginia where we met a group of Palestinians and people working for Palestinian rights. In the guesthouse where we had dinner, we sat with Palestinians from Gaza, the Galilee, Ramallah, Beit Sahour, Jerusalem, and, for a moment, it all felt unreal. In Gaza, we rarely get to see Palestinians from other parts of Palestine, thanks to Israel’s travel restrictions. Many of the people who attended the gathering had ties to the Ramallah Friends School, where Jennifer has previously taught. Joyce Ajlouni, the director of the AFSC, joined us and drove us back to D.C. We had an event at the Jerusalem Fund in D.C. followed by an interview with Aljazeera about the book. The next day, Jehad, Asmaa, and Dorgham Abusalim, a contributor to Light in Gaza, spoke at Busboys and Poets, an event that was moderated by our friend and activist Andrew Kadi. We had a full house and the energy of the people at the event gave us much hope that an imminent change in the U.S. policies vis-à-vis Palestine will occur.

One interesting conversation we had at the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) was about the balance between what needs to be done and what can be done. There was an agreement that the discourse on Palestine and Gaza has to change, but also an understanding of what could be done and the limits of politics on Capitol Hill. We joked that an act should be introduced carrying the title “End Settler-Colonialism in Palestine Act.” This balance which limits our demands to what is “achievable” felt suffocating though, because it literally meant giving up on some of what the Palestinian people back home see as their basic human rights.

On the same day, Jehad, Mike, Asmaa, Jennifer, and I met with the staff of Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, and explained to them the situation in Gaza and the impact the siege has had on people over the years, and the need to lift the siege now. The staff took notes as we spoke, seemed engaged in our conversation, and promised to deliver our remarks to Senator Durbin. We concluded the meeting by inviting Senator Durbin to visit Gaza. In fact, the need to connect Gaza with the rest of the world was a key part of our conversations in the United States.

Mike, whom I met back in 2014, drove Asmaa and me to the “City of Brotherly Love,” Philadelphia. The city just had experienced fierce U.S. midterm elections, which saw Democrat Senator John Fetterman win the race. Billboards financed by Republican supporters on the road read, “Fetterman = poverty and crime.” This was another reflection of the growing divide within the United States over domestic politics which became clearer than ever with the election of Donald Trump to the White House. As we settled in Philadelphia and began preparing for our first event, I felt weak. I tested for COVID and the result was positive. Unfortunately, we had to cancel events scheduled for the day, and I had to isolate for five days until I tested negative. The AFSC, represented by Mike, showed me unlimited love and care. Mike took me to Urgent Care and got me all the medications I needed. Tonya, who I stayed with for one night before I tested positive, and Mike sent me all the food I needed during my isolation. I felt they were more than a family to me.

Meanwhile, I joined an event organized by the NYU Kevorkian Center on Light in Gaza online. Jehad and Asmaa joined in person and the book tour went on. Just like the Busboys and Poets event, the NYC event was full of young people, drawing attention to the importance of U.S. campuses for Palestine advocacy work. At all events we attended, the book sold out, revealing people’s interest in learning about Gaza from its own people. During the tour, it was equally important to have intellectual discussions on Gaza, as one of the chapters in the book address the intellectual siege the people of Gaza have been subjected to over the years and the need to break it by all means necessary.

Once I recovered from COVID, I got on a train to Boston and met with Jennifer, Jehad, Asmaa, and Shireen from the AFSC office there. In Boston, we had two remarkable events, one at the Community Church of Boston and another at Harvard University. We met with Dr. Sara Roy who supervised the writing of some of the chapters in Light in Gaza. She facilitated an academic discussion on Gaza at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the renowned school. It felt promising to speak at community centers, churches, and universities with Americans who are willing to listen to our narrative about Gaza. After our lectures, Jehad drove us to the airport and on the way, we got a taste of home, as he played loud popular music from Palestine in the car and stopped by the Atlantic ocean to walk on the beach. Boston felt like Gaza on that sunny day, a home many of us miss.

We flew back from Boston to Chicago. I could maintain civil relationships with my Chicago hosts in the “Windy City” as New York style pizza had not touched my lips (due to COVID) and thus didn’t provoke a conflict over which big city wins the “best pizza” distinction. This time, we had a tour of “Little Palestine” in the southwest suburbs and learned more about the history of the Palestinian-American community there. I also toured other communities of the city including the Polish, Mexican, Cuban, and Peurto Rican neighborhoods, and, of course, tasted their food. I was lucky enough to have a civil rights tour of the city, showcasing its civil rights history and the history of the different communities mentioned above. My understanding of race, domestic politics, gentrification, red-lining, and contract-buying deepened as we toured the different communities.

The Palestinian mass displacement in 1948 known as the Catastrophe, or Nakba, which proceeded the creation of the state of Israel after Zionist forces depopulated 532 Palestinian villages and carried out dozens of massacres, continues to be denied by Israel today.

For the founders of Israel, these massacres and forcing between 750,000 to one million Palestinian refugees out was merely a process that happened when “the war broke out” between the Palestinians and forces from seven Arab countries, on one side, and Jewish militias, on the other. In this article, I present and debunk a number of myths about the Israeli narrative of the Nakba events and the creation of Israel.

Israel claims that seven Arab armies took part in the fighting against Jewish militias in Mandatory Palestine, which includes the entire land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, after Britain decided to end its mandate on May 15, 1948.

Looking at the numbers, one can easily point out that the Arab forces, and Palestinian volunteers by extension, were poorly trained and equipped, and that their numbers were much lower than the Jewish militias taking part in the systemic depopulation of Palestinian towns and villages in 1948. Some 67,000 well-trained and equipped Jewish forces—many of them having served in World War II under British command—took part in the fighting against some 14,962 Arab forces from seven countries. Hundreds of other Palestinian fighters took part in the fighting, most of them were poorly equipped.

The Israeli narrative claims that Palestinians chose to leave their towns and villages. Israel negates what actually happened, and the mass depopulation of villages and cities in Palestine, including committing dozens of massacres against the Palestinians to push them out. One such example is the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, where some 250 Palestinian civilians were massacred, including pregnant women and children.

The news and smell of death of Deir Yassin sent waves of shock and panic across Palestine pushing many Palestinians to run for their lives, lest they face a similar fate to Deir Yassin and dozens of other villages. Israeli leaders praise the role of the massacre of Deir Yassin in establishing Israel. Menachem Begin, in his 1952 memoir, says that “without Deir Yassin there wouldn’t have been an Israel.”

Some 150,000 Palestinians remained in villages and towns in what became Israel. Although they hold Israeli citizenship today, Israel still refuses to allow many of those who were internally displaced in 1948 to return to their hometowns and villages. Some of these locations are just a couple of miles away from where Palestinians live today.

Israel wants Palestinians to forget their ancestral homes completely, and Palestinians resist this masterplan by the annual return marches to villages and towns that were depopulated in 1948. The annual March of Return to the village of Miyar is an example. However, it is given no mention in English-speaking media and was faced by brutal Israeli police force this year.

Israel claims that the Nakba is an isolated incident that Palestinians can’t get over, and that they refuse to “engage in peace.” On the contrary, the Nakba is ongoing to this day with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip literally caged by Israeli walls and navy ships suffocating them, and Israeli forces counting the number of calories Palestinians can consume. The Nakba is ongoing with Israeli house demolitions on a daily basis in the West Bank. The most recent example is the decision of an Israeli court to displace and depopulate eight Palestinians communities in Masafer Yatta in the Southern Hebron Hills on May 5, 2022.

The Nakba is ongoing with Israeli forces continuing to execute Palestinians in cold blood at checkpoints, the most recent example being Mahmoud Abuiram, 27, a Palestinian daily laborer in Israel who was shot dead near the Palestinian city of Tulkarim on May 9, 2022. The Nakba is ongoing with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Israel as second-class citizens. The Israeli settlers’ attacks against Palestinians in Jisr al-Zarqa, supposedly holding Israeli citizenships, is the just the tip of the iceberg.

The Nakba continues today with Palestinian families still scattered across the globe, with most Palestinian families not having met in a single place since 1948. It continues with the separation imposed on Palestinians by Israel, which has in practice turned the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians in Israel into isolated communities.

Israel’s denial of the Nakba is the root cause of the bloodshed we continue to witness today, its overwhelming majority on the Palestinian side. In 2020, Palestinians outnumbered Israeli Jews between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and with this reality galvanized in the Israeli Nakba denial, Israel will increasingly find itself chained by this apartheid reality that will render it a prisoner of its own policies.

The way to heal is to listen and consider the narratives of Palestinian Nakba survivors, many of whom are still alive, and their decedents, and to make this narrative part of the solution. By listening to their experiences and taking these stories into account, the victims of war in Palestine can heal and justice can be realized through the return of Palestinian refugees.

Denial of the Nakba will only create a settler society that is not aware of its country’s recent history, a history that is deep and rooted. The history of a land cannot simply be overwritten by living behind walls and denying it ever happened, as most Israelis choose to do today.

Sinn Féin, the Irish nationalist party, has won a historic vote in Northern Ireland, making it the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly for the first time. On Saturday, May 7, with nearly all of the votes from Thursday’s election counted, Sinn Féin took 27 of the Assembly’s 90 seats.

As voting completed in the early hours of Sunday morning, the final results confirmed what had long been expected: the Republican Party would push the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) into second position. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which has dominated Northern Ireland’s assembly for the last two decades, came second with 24 seats.

The President of Sinn Féin, Mary Lou Mcdonald, has increased her efforts for an Irish reunification referendum. She stated, in an interview, “I believe the referendum would be possible within a five year timeframe, much more importantly, I believe the preparation needs to start now.”

Similar sentiments were expressed by Michelle O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s deputy president and first minister-elect, who stated, “today ushers in a new era which I believe presents us all with an opportunity to reimagine relationships in this society on the basis of fairness, on the basis of equality and on the basis of social justice.”

Economic sanctions

Ireland made international news in May 2021 when it became the first EU country to call Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory unlawful. The motion’s unanimity generated widespread attention. Ireland joined the list of other countries and human rights organizations in calling out the annexation of Palestinian lands. John Brady, Sinn Féin’s spokesman for international affairs, reaffirmed: “we are baldly stating that Israel is acting illegally under international law.”

The Irish lower house of parliament passed the Occupied Territories Bill 2018, which prohibits trade between unlawful settlements and was introduced by independent TD Frances Black. Despite the fact that the measure has yet to be passed into law, its passage is viewed as a significant win for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to put economic pressure on Israel in order to end its unlawful occupation of Palestine.

Israel never misses an opportunity to repress Palestinians’ joy and happiness during Eid al-Fitr. Israel and its settlers escalate their crimes in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem during the holy month of Ramadan and Eid. Israel seems to have taken up a new hobby in Gaza: starting wars during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr.

Eid al-Fitr is the earlier of the two Eids celebrated in Islam and lasts ‘three days. Muslims visit their relatives and give them gifts and eideya, pocket money. The religious holiday is celebrated by Muslims around the world marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, in which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.

Like any Palestinian Gazan family, my family and I, watched the breaking news about the Israeli flagrant violations at the al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan. My daughter, Batool, 15 years old—or in Gazan time, four wars’ old—asked, “Are we going to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, dressed in our new clothes, or will it come with bombs like the previous one, mom?”

I stroked her head and told her there would not be a war this year. However, the pictures and videos on TV and social media were telling a different story, a story of Israeli aggression and escalation that eventually ends up with a war against Gaza.

Bitter memories

On Tuesday, April 19, at dawn, Israeli warplanes struck Khan Younis. In Gaza City, where my family lives, we did not hear bombings. As we heard the news in the morning, I could see horror and fear on my children’s faces. 

Batool recollected painful memories of the first night of Eid al-Fitr a year ago. She reminisced about that terrible night: “I remember the terrifying explosions, which I had never heard before. I thought that we were going to die. I lay on the ground, petrified. My siblings, Ahmed and Tala, were screaming and trembling in fear. Mohammed was sobbing.” My heart broke when she wrapped her arms around me and wondered whether we will survive if another war starts. 

I felt deep sorrow for my children, who were eagerly awaiting Eid al-Fitr to wear their new clothes, play with their toys, and visit our relatives. My children could not sleep all night due to the heavy bombardment and because my little child was crying uncontrollably.

Despite the bombardment, I was singing to Mohammed to help him sleep. Together with my husband, we were doing what we could to relieve our children’s fear and anxiety. It was a barbaric war against children. 

Dreadful crimes in Gaza

Israel’s 2021 barbaric war against Gaza started two days before Eid al-Fitr. While children around the world were celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the war continued on the days of Eid and did not stop until the end of its eleventh day.

Instead of celebrating, playing, wearing new clothes, and receiving eideya, sweets, and gifts, Palestinian children spent eleven days in horror and fear. Israel killed 320 Palestinians, among them 66 children. 

The rest of the children in Gaza were traumatized. Children lost their loved ones and homes, and missed out on beautiful memories, happiness, and joy. The constantly renewed Israeli war against Gaza during Ramadan has made children deeply stressed and sad. These children are living in a war zone, they are emotionally exhausted and psychologically vulnerable.

My friend Amani lives in Gaza’s al-Shojaeya neighborhood. Last year, in May 2021, Israel targeted their neighbor’s home without previous warning. Amani and her small family were sleeping in their flat. The loud explosion terrified them, especially her daughter, Sham.

They had to evacuate their partially damaged home. After the war ended, they came back to their apartment, but little Sham had recurring nightmares. The horrific memories of that night never faded away. Amani and her family were forced to move. “Imagine when your home is the place you hate the most! Imagine all the good memories turning into traumas and nightmares,” Amani told me.

I have heard so many heartbreaking stories from my friends and their children. During the eleven days, we did not live, we survived. We survived with traumatic memories that will not go away because Israel repeats the scenario every year.

“Death to Arabs” in Jerusalem and Gaza

Last year, Israeli Jewish settlers organized a flag march and stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The settlers’ mantra “Death to Arabs” was their main refrain.

Israel obliged their request. Israeli forces targeted and shot Palestinian worshipers in Jerusalem. Soon, Israel waged a war on Gaza. Every time settlers chant for the death of Arabs, the Israeli occupation government grants them their wish. 

For Muslims, al-Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest place. Israeli settlers and forces attempt to storm it and violate its sanctity, especially during Muslim holy days and festivals. A year ago, on the 28^th day of Ramadan, two days before Eid al-Fitr, the Israeli forces stormed al-Aqsa Mosque and attacked Palestinians, causing more than 350 injuries among worshipers, paramedics, and journalists. 

With each Israeli attack on al-Aqsa Mosque, my heartbeat accelerates, and a voice inside me tell me that things will get worse. In Gaza, we have learned to expect nothing but the worst from Israel.

As a mother, I try to protect my children and shield them from all harm, but if Israel decides to launch a war against Gaza, no motherly love can protect them or their memories. 

I am not a Ukrainian mother for the world to care about me. We are not white Europeans. We are Palestinians, and we, too, deserve to live in peace. Israeli occupation must end. 

Palestinians across the globe mark April 17 of each year as Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, a day that was introduced by the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) on April 17, 1974, to recognize the sacrifices of Palestinian political prisoners and to call for international solidarity. Yousef M. Aljamal spoke to freed Palestinian prisoner Esmat Mansour, 45, who spent 20 years in Israeli jails, where he authored three novels, about the situation of Palestinian prisoners, prison literature, and Palestinian prisoners’ message to the world.

Q. Let’s start by getting to know you more closely. Could you introduce yourself and tell us about your life before you were arrested by Israeli forces in 1993? Why were you arrested?

My name is Esmat Mansour from Deir al-Jir village, east of Ramallah in the West Bank. I was imprisoned in 1993 before the Oslo Accords for participating in a military operation in which an Israeli settler was killed near Ramallah in the Beit El settlement, which is an illegal settlement established on the lands of Ramallah and Al-Bireh. At the time, I was a high school student, and I was 17 years old. I was sentenced to life, but because I was below the legal age, I was sentenced for 22 years, of which I spent 20 in Israeli prisons.

Of course, I was subjected to an Israeli interrogation that lasted sixty-three days in Al-Maskubiya Detention Centre in Jerusalem, in which all methods of torture were used against me. This is because I was part of a military operation, thus the act was viewed as dangerous because an Israeli settler was killed. We were young, 17 and 19 years old, which was an unprecedented experience for Israel. We were of non-partisan backgrounds and carried the attack individually. After that, I was moved between different prisons and served 20 years of imprisonment before being released in 2013 as part of talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel to resume peace talks.

Q. You published three novels while in prison. What are these novels about? Can you talk to us about the literary and cultural scene in Israeli jails, including the contributions of Palestinian prisoners to prison literature?

I entered prison at a young age. Being imprisoned and having much time encourages prisoners, especially young ones, to learn more about culture and politics. The prisoners consider reading, writing, and culture as important tools in our struggle for liberation, because we carry and convey a message and struggle in the name of our Palestinian people. It is a sign and a guarantee for the continuity of our struggle.

Thus, Palestinian prisoners are engaged in culture. At the beginning of their hunger strikes and with the start of Israel’s military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) banned prisoners from having access to books and newspapers. The Israeli occupation prevented Palestinian political prisoners from even owning a piece of paper or pen. Palestinian prisoners were only allowed to have the three holy books. In addition to holy books, Israeli newspapers were allowed as well.

When Palestinian political prisoners started their first mass, open-ended hunger strike on February 18, 1969, their demand was to have access to paper and pens. We wanted books. We wanted to communicate with the world and know about culture, science, and the revolutionary experiences of others such as that of Ireland. As a result of the successful hunger strike of 1969, prisons filled with books. This meant that huge libraries came into existence over the years in prisons.

Even though the IPS has repeatedly prevented the entry of books, Palestinian political prisoners smuggled them through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC): brochures, novels, plays, collections of poetry, books about the struggles of other peoples, political readings, translations, and analyses, all of which were handwritten. They were placed in pamphlets—what prisoners call the “cultural department” inside prisons.

Q. How long were you placed in solitary confinement?

I spent two months straight in solitary confinement, but there were times when they moved me to the regular prison department for a week. This period gave me an idea of ​​isolation. I know political prisoners who spent from 7 to 15 years in solitary confinement. Our lives are joined and mixed, and we live our experiences almost collectively.

This novel was part of a competition to publish the works of prisoners, and was ranked first by the evaluation committee and published by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture. After that, I published a collection of short stories called A Closed Space. The collection talks about the barrier between prison and freedom, the moments when prisoners move outside the regular cells to meet their families, who ironically enter prison to see them. It is known that the family visitation rooms are located in an area inside the prison but are separate from the prison cells.

Prisoners’ cells are a few meters away. We get out of the prison cells and our families enter the prison walls. I call it the grey area in which you are freed from prison for moments and our families enter the prison. There are human and emotional scenes there, where families and prisoners are separated during the visits by a net or, later, glass barriers. These barriers still stand between a child and his father, a prisoner and his daughter, or a wife and her husband.

Q. Can you recall a scene that particularly struck you from these visits?

Watching a Palestinian mother age and lose her ability to see and hear over the more than 20 years she visited her son in prison. At the beginning of the visits, she would communicate with him directly through the prison window’s nets. After 20 years, she had aged, and was in her seventies or eighties, and her hearing and sight got weaker. The IPS replaced iron nets with glass barriers and installed landlines for prisoners to communicate with their families. The prisoner spent the whole visit trying to show his mother where the phone was, knocking on the glass barrier while she couldn’t see or hear him. It was a very sad moment. Even when she picked up the phone, she couldn’t hear anything. I engraved these scenes in my memory and later in short stories and literary texts.

The third book I wrote was about Gaza, and it is called Silek (fence in Arabic). It talks about the border fence in Gaza. I was at the Beer Al-Saba prison. Most of the prisoners from Gaza were placed there. They would talk about their experiences and adventures when crossing the border fence. It caught my attention that when they were talking about Egypt, they were talking about the Egyptian border, and when they were talking about Israel, they were talking about the fence. In other words, they did not recognize the border walls and fences as such. So, I said in my mind that this is a sign that people refuse, both emotionally and spontaneously, to consider Gaza as not belonging to Palestine.

I wrote these stories and spoke about my own experiences after what happened in Gaza in 2007, when Hamas took control of power, and the changing reality there. These are the three books that I published while in prison. When I was freed, I wrote a novel titled Al-Khazneh, the Arabic word for for a vault, treasury, or safe. The novel speaks of escape attempts from Israeli jails, aside from the recent one that took place at the Gilboa prison in September 2021. I used the term “Al-Khazneh”, because in Israel, they consider Gilboa prison a safe, yet six prisoners were able to break out even though it was a fortified safe—that is how I decided on the title of the book.

Q. How did you smuggle these writings out of Israeli prison?

Palestinian prisoners are pursued in every aspect. I personally used to write after 12 at night because only then the conditions were suitable for writing. There were ten and sometimes twelve or even eighteen prisoners in the same cell. One above me, another next to me, and I didn’t have enough personal space. It is not the perfect solitary situation that a writer needs.

So, I used to wait until the prisoners sleep at 12 and start writing until dawn, when prisoners would wake up to perform their prayers. I would go to bed then and give what I wrote to a prison mate, who would start copying my writings, and give them to another prison mate to make a third copy. We would make three copies and keep them in different places, because, if a copy gets confiscated, we’d have the other copies left.

We would follow the same strategy until the writing is over. The next challenge was how to send it out of Israeli prison. Smuggling writings was our only way out, because we can’t send these writings in the forms of letters, which get read and censored by the prison’s administration. We also could not send them with our families, so we had to smuggle them either with prisoners finishing their prison terms in capsules that they would swallow or hide in their bodies or clothes, with lawyers, or by some other means.

I personally smuggled my writings with prisoners who served their sentences. Sometimes, novels are ready to be published, but we have to wait for a long time to smuggle them out. The process may be delayed for months, waiting for a prisoner to be released. During this time, we could check the text and do some edits and notes. Other prisoners might also read and review the writings until we find a way to smuggle them.

A video of an Israeli interrogator violently interrogating then 13-year-old Palestinian child prisoner Ahmad Al-Manasra went viral in November 2015. In the video, Al-Manasra repeatedly told his Israeli interrogator that he couldn’t remember as his interrogator screamed at him, accusing him of not telling the truth. Ahmad was referring to the day his cousin Hassan, 15, was killed in Jerusalem, and he himself was injured and left to bleed on the ground after being run over by an Israeli car.

The ramming attack took place after Israeli settlers accused both Ahmad and Hassan of attempting to carry out a knife-stabbing attack. Meanwhile, Israeli settlers cursed him, damning him to death, and the Israeli police—as seen in videos of the incident—kept watching.

The issue of Palestinian prisoners impacts every single Palestinian family, with nearly a million Palestinians arrested by Israel since 1967. At the end of February 2022, 4,400 Palestinians were arrested by Israel, of whom 160 are children and 33 women, while 490 have been placed under administrative detention without a charge or trial.

A separate military judicial system

The Israeli occupation authorities have a separate military judicial system before which Palestinians are brought to court, unlike Israelis who live in the same area in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Palestinians brought before military courts are handed tough sentences and their conviction rates are extremely high. Since Israeli law does not allow convicting children below 14, the Israeli authorities waited for Al-Manasra to turn 14 before convicting him, handing him a sentence of 12 years. Al-Manasra’s sentence was later reduced to 9.5 years.

Following much physical and psychosocial violence, Al-Manasra’s mental health has deteriorated significantly—a process that only got worse when he was placed in solitary confinement. The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has isolated Al-Manasra since November 2021, claiming that his mental health is not stable and putting him with other inmates might cause harm to them!

Bargouthi was arrested again in 2019 after defending Al-Manasra and was sentenced to 13.5 years in Israeli prison by the Ofer Military Court, the same court where he once defended several cases of Palestinian child prisoners. Many viewed the sentence as an attempt to silence lawyers who defend Palestinian child prisoners.

The deteriorating mental health of Al-Manasra is the logical outcome of Israeli prison conditions where Palestinian prisoners are held lacking the minimum standards of human dignity. Such conditions push Palestinian prisoners to stage both individual and mass, open-ended hunger strikes to improve their prison conditions.

The family of Al-Manasra held a press conference in February this year during which they revealed more information about their son’s mental health. The family noted that “Ahmad was severely beaten when arrested, which caused a fracture in his skeleton that caused him to suffer from hemangioma.” They went on to say that “due to the extreme psychical and psychological suffering he was exposed to, Ahmad has been suffering from severe headaches.”

The family added, “The repeated placement of Ahmad in solitary confinement [For four months now], along with psychological and physical torture, and depriving him of the needed medication has resulted in psychological disorders, which got only worse by isolating him from the rest of prisoners.”

Al-Manasra’s family stressed that the Israeli authorities refused to release him from solitary confinement and put him in the normal prison sections as recommended by a mental health specialist who was able to pay him a rare visit. The specialist condemned the Israeli authority’s claim that the reason for placing Al-Manasra in solitary confinement was to protect him and the rest of the prisoners following the deterioration of his mental health.

In a recent statement, Al-Manasra’s mother called for his immediate release, noting that her son is “a child whose condition would make a stone cry.” She added that her son needs her and that not being able to meet face to face is costing him dearly.

In light of this reality and following a call for solidarity with Ahmad Al-Manasra by his family, an international campaign was launched. The hope is that this call for solidarity will pressure the Israeli authorities to improve his prison conditions and move him to the regular prison sections.

Palestinian child prisoners should receive the attention of the world whose deafening silence allows for the violations against them to continue. Such efforts should build on previous campaigns and initiatives including “No Way to Treat a Child,” a campaign launched by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) of the Quaker Church in the U.S. Legal actions should be taken in various parliaments across the globe to provide protection for Palestinian children.

The U.S. House of Representatives draft bill 2407 calls for linking American foreign aid to countries’ treatment of children, including Israel. The bill calls for making sure that Palestinian children’s rights are not violated by American tax money. Other draft laws and bills could be introduced at a national level in other countries to build more pressure on Israel to end its military occupation of Palestine.

The scenes of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war to Europe have received unprecedented western media coverage and solidarity. To be clear, there is nothing wrong in expressing solidarity with any people fleeing war and no group of people should be denied this solidarity. No one should ever become a refugee in the first place and only people who were once refugees can really feel the pain and relate to the experience of other refugees.

However, the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and victims of war has triggered comparisons with other conflicts and war-torn countries, and only reveals the limits of western liberalism and its selective solidarity towards refugees and victims of war.  In this regard, Palestine and other war-torn countries in the Middle East can speak volumes to this selective solidarity, which reveals the limits of western liberalism and its perception of who makes an authentic victim and refugee.

Soon after mostly Ukrainian refugees started flooding into Europe from war-torn Ukraine, statements of solidarity by members of the public, journalists, and politicians started pouring in. These particular statements only reflected an orientalist view of war-torn countries in the Middle East, whose people were not white or blonde enough (some of them ironically are!) to win the solidarity of right-wing political parties and politicians in Europe.

Middle Eastern refugees don’t fit the criteria

For shocked Europe, Middle Eastern refugees and people fleeing war in that region of the world were not civilized enough. Speaking of Kyiv and people fleeing the city, Charlie D’Agata of CBS news said, “This is a relatively civilized, relatively European—I have to choose those words carefully, too—city,” He later had to apologize for this statement. This was said despite the fact that cities such as Baghdad, Damascus, or Aden are hundreds and sometimes thousands of years older than Kyiv and other European cities.

David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, joined the orientalist chorus, speaking to the BBC News, and noting that “European people with blue eyes and blonde hair are being killed every day.” For Sakvarelidze, the exception is to have Europeans with colored eyes and blonde hair killed, indirectly suggesting that it is the norm, or maybe more acceptable, that people with brown eyes and dark skin suffer the same fate daily. The only difference here is that the death of “people of color” goes unnoticed or at least don’t seem to shock Sakvarelidze and Europeans.

In Palestine, too, which has the longest unsettled refugee crisis in recent history, there are many ironies and parallels that could be drawn with the refugee crisis in Ukraine. When Israel bombed Gaza repeatedly over the years 2008/9, 2012, 2014, and most recently in May 2021, western media outlets were very careful with their “both sides” language so as not to hurt the feelings of the Israeli army that was killing civilians in Gaza and levelling entire residential buildings to the ground.

Of the 256 Palestinians who lost their lives at the hands of the Israeli army in May 2021, 60 were children and 40 were women. We could hardly read a news piece in western media mentioning their names, ages, or talking about their dreams cut short, and when the New York Times did so once, the Israeli lobby lost its mind. These Palestinian victims were once again invisible, because they didn’t fit the definition of western liberalism and its selective solidarity with the victims of war and refugees.

European: definition by appearance?

Some victims of war in Palestine were actually Europeans or looked like what Europeans are supposed to look like. But they still didn’t fit the definition of a people who deserve the same level of solidarity. Palestinian-German Ibrahim el-Kilani, his wife Taghreed and their five children were massacred after an Israeli airstrike hit a building in central Gaza to which they evacuated after warnings for evacuation from the Israeli army. They rarely got any mention by the German media, which rather keeps an eye on silencing Palestinian journalists who dare to speak of Israel’s human rights violations.

On the contrary, Palestinian Ahed Al-Tamimi got unusual coverage in the western media after she slapped an Israeli soldier in 2017 who entered the courtyard of her family’s house in the West Bank. Moments earlier, her cousin was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper and a considerable portion of his skull had to be removed.

An Israeli court eventually sentenced her to eight months in prison. Her mother said the family thinks her blonde hair was her ticket to western media coverage. The same Ahd Al-Tamimi’s photo spread like fire on social media claiming that she was a Ukrainian girl facing Russian forces.

The same way it made use of all other crises in the past to bring in Jewish settlers, Israel announced plans to settle 25,000 Ukrainian Jews, along with 5,000 non-Jewish Ukrainians.

Meanwhile, Palestinian refugees who live in refugee camps in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a few miles from where Israelis protested the invasion of Ukraine, observe in shock, and wait. They are waiting for the day western media will give them the same treatment that Ukrainian refugees in Europe are receiving—a treatment Palestinians also deserve.

They are waiting for the day when they can return to their homes and when Israel stops accepting refugees based on their religion. All refugees and victims of war deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and on the basis of justice and equality because no refugee’s life is less valuable than another’s—be they Ukrainian, Palestinian, or Jewish.

Amnesty International’s February 1 report on apartheid in Israel puts the spotlight on Israel’s character as a state. The report comes at a crucial juncture in international scrutiny of Israel for its original takeover of Palestine’s territory, its expulsion of Arab population, and its erection of a discriminatory legal order.

Coming on the heels of similar analyses by Human Rights Watch and by the Israeli rights organization B’tselem, the Amnesty International report does not simply point to violations of various human rights. Instead, it focuses on the totality of violations to show Israel to be a criminal enterprise. That orientation is reflected in the report’s title, “Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: a cruel system of domination and a crime against humanity.”

The point of all three reports is that the aim of Israel’s government is unlawful domination of the Arab population. B’tselem was the first, with its January 2021 report “A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid.” Amnesty International followed in April 2021 with a report headed “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.”

Now comes Amnesty International, confirming this analysis with its own research. Its report may have more impact, if only because Amnesty International enjoys more international visibility than the other two groups. Amnesty International is often cited by the United States as an authoritative source when the U.S. State Department criticizes other governments for violating rights. The importance of the Amnesty International report, however, lies less in the organization’s status than in the fact that one now has three major rights organizations arriving at the same conclusion about Israel.

The Amnesty International report has been condemned by Israel’s government, which denies the report’s characterization of the country. The report was labeled as “false, biased and anti-Semitic” by Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.

The vehemence of this retort can be explained by the fact that the conclusion reached by the three human rights organizations may have serious consequences for Israel. Apartheid is a crime for which perpetrators may be prosecuted and jailed. The timing of the Amnesty International report is important, coming after the hostilities between Israel and Gaza of May 2021.

The three reports provide an opening for Palestine advocacy organizations, in particular because of the formation of the commission of inquiry. Palestine advocacy organizations can propose to the commission of inquiry a variety of Israeli policies as “root causes” of the 2021 Gaza-Israel conflict. Perhaps the most important one is Israel’s refusal to offer repatriation to the Arab families expelled from their home areas in Palestine in 1948. Given that the majority of Gaza’s inhabitants are from families that were expelled in 1948, the refusal to allow repatriation qualifies as a “root cause” of the May 2021 hostilities.

The perpetrators of the 1948 expulsions of Arab families are no longer living, so they cannot be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. But their successors who deny repatriation to those Arab families occupy high positions in Israel. Their denial of repatriation qualifies as a “crime against humanity” as defined by the International Criminal Court. Human Rights Watch in its report calls the refusal to repatriate “persecution” and “apartheid,” both of which are sub-categories of “crime against humanity” in the Statute of the International Criminal Court.

The commission of inquiry has just now formed and has issued a “terms of reference” document to guide its work. Commission of Inquiry  The commission is asking the public to submit information. Information can be submitted in English, Arabic, or Hebrew. In its “terms of reference,” the commission provides an upload feature to submit information. It also provides an e-mail address for questions about how to submit information.

Ever since 1948, the United Nations has called on Israel to repatriate persons displaced in that year. However, no concrete action has been taken by the international community to force Israel to comply. Now for the first time an international procedure has opened whereby Israeli officials responsible for Israel’s policy of denying repatriation can be brought to account. The commission of inquiry will be cooperating with the International Criminal Court, preparing criminal dossiers that the Court’s Prosecutor can use to prepare indictments.

Apart from whether any actual indictments are ever issued by the International Criminal Court for denial of repatriation, advocacy efforts in that direction hold the prospect of changing the discourse around the 1948 Nakba and the entire Palestine issue. Repatriation will come to be seen not simply as an agenda item for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Instead, the Israeli officials who refuse to repatriate will be seen as criminals.

The commission of inquiry is made up of three members, who have already been appointed. All three are seasoned human rights advocates. All three are well schooled in the history behind the establishment of Israel. The three human rights organizations in their reports have provided solid factual information that is now available to the commission. What could be particularly compelling for the commission is submissions from Palestinians who are from families that were forced out of their home areas in 1948.

Such submissions will make clear that the crime of denial of repatriation has real victims. Submissions could explain the circumstances under which the family left in 1948. Submissions could explain the hardships their families encountered subsequently. For those whose place of refuge is Gaza, submissions could include information about the quality of life in Gaza, and why the flow of large numbers of Palestine Arabs into Gaza in 1948 is a “root cause” of the hostilities of May 2021.

Since Israel’s establishment in 1948, the Zionist project moved to effectuate and legitimize the gains of its ethnic cleansing campaign through various means, one of which is education. Education is a human right. On this fourth annual International Day of Education, under the theme of “Changing Course, Transforming Education,” it’s important to emphasize the nature of Israel’s education curriculum vis~a~vis its Arab-Palestinian citizens, which serves to uplift the nationality of one group (Jews), and dimish or omit the nationality of another (Palestinians). The indigenous Palestinian community was the majority in Palestine, and now live as a “foreign” minority in the newly founded state, with second-class citizenship.

Israel is required to recognize the right and freedom of its Palestinian minority to practice their culture, religion and language, and to adopt positive measures to avoid discriminating against them. Moreover, indigenous minorities have the right to have their history expressed in state institutions, including the education system. In Israel however, Palestinians are limited in their political and cultural expressions, especially through Israel’s education system. A prime example of this is the Nakba Law, which prevents publicly funded institutions, including schools, from commemorating the Nakba (i.e. catastrophe).

The Nakba represents the ongoing forcible displacement, ethnic cleansing, land theft, and systematic oppression of the Palestinian people. It rests in the collective memory of the Palestinian people, yet it’s suppressed, and hidden in the Israeli history curriculum. In fact, the 1948 ethnic cleansing campaign that caused the dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians is taught from an Israeli perspective as a “just war” while purveying the myth of “the few against the many.”

When the Nakba is mentioned in textbooks, it’s framed as part of the unfolding events of the Israeli war of independence, and Jews and Palestinians as equal sufferers, in effect positing parity between them. Moreover, the resulting refugee crisis is blamed on Arab states or the Palestinians themselves. The purpose of this pedagogical approach is to absolve the crimes of the state’s Zionist settler-colonial project, or at least provide justification for it.

Israeli textbooks reinforce Jewish-israeli territorial identity, wherein Palestinians are not regarded as ancestral inhabitants of the land, and therefore have no claim to it.

Israeli textbooks reinforce Jewish-israeli territorial identity, wherein Palestinians are not regarded as ancestral inhabitants of the land, and therefore have no claim to it. While Palestinians have been appointed to lead the Department of Arab Education since 1987, they lack decision-making authority, which remains exclusively under the direct control of the Ministry of Education. This contrasts sharply with the state’s Jewish religious school system, which is physically and administratively separate from the state’s secular Jewish school system, and maintains complete autonomy over its educational policy, aims and goals.

Israel enacted the State Education Law in 1953, the main object of which is to “educate” on the “loyalty to the State and the Jewish people.” The law as amended in 2002 references the Palestinian minority, referred to as Arabs in Zionist discourse, by “acknowledging” their language, history, and heritage. A mere acknowledgement implies mere mention, as opposed to education.

Palestinian students in Israel are deprived of the Palestinian literary classics taught throughout the Arab world. In addition to not learning about the Nakba or Palestinian history, they also spend many more class hours on the study of Hebrew, Jewish history, and Jewish culture than they do on Arabic literature and history. One example is that of foremost Palestinian poet laureate, Mahmoud Darwish, whose work Israel tried to ban in both Jewish and Palestinians schools. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman described Darwish’s texts as “fuel for terror attacks.”

A study found that over the years, generations of Israeli jews were taught from Hebrew textbooks that portrayed Palestinian-Arabs in a negative and deligitimizing way. Furthermore, on a general level, Palestinian society was presented as “primitive, backward and passive.” Israeli Jews were thus subjected to this form of negative and dehumanizing stereotyping, which ultimately conditioned how they perceive Palestinians.

What makes this trend more troublesome is that Palestinian history teachers can do little to correct it. They’re limited by the state curriculum and textbooks and banned from using other texts. The inevitable result of this educational regime is that Palestinian students are forced to memorize history as it is presented in these textbooks, because their final high school graduation exams depends on it.

Jewish exclusivity to Palestine was not only taught since the founding of the State of Israel in 1948; in fact, a study shows that history textbooks in the pre-state era (1900-1948) stressed the exclusive rights of the Jewish people to ownership of Palestine. The indigenous Palestinian-Arabs were portrayed as “backward, primitive,” and thus left the land “neglected” while awaiting “Jewish redemption.”

Additionally, the earliest geography textbooks, produced by Zionist authors in Europe who embraced the Zionist slogan of “a land without a people for a people without a land,” omitted the presence of the indigenous population. This orientalist framework represented the indigenous Palestinians as a “negative homogenous mob that threatens, assaults, destroys, eradicates, burns and shoots . . . who strive to annihilate the most precious symbols of Zionism.”

Israel’s education system is designed to maintain racial domination of one racial group over another, while systematically oppressing them. There’s a word for such a system: Apartheid.

Even the updated history textbook of 2016 reinforces the omission, dehumanization, and denationalization of the indigenous Palestinian minority that characterizes Israel’s prior history curricula. They’re referred to in the negative as “non-jewish groups,” and viewed as an amalgamation of religious, cultural and linguistic groups, thereby reinforcing the notion that Palestinians are not a national group, let alone in a struggle for national liberation. Palestinian citizens are thus alienated from their ancestral connection to Palestine, and the Zionist-Israeli ideology, narrative, and history is amplified to reinforce colonial domination.

As we reflect on the right to education, we must first understand how education is sometimes employed to undermine the existence of an entire people. Palestinian citizens of Israel learn their diluted history from within that prism. Israel’s education system is designed to maintain racial domination of one racial group over another, while systematically oppressing them. There’s a word for such a system: Apartheid. This week is that of the International Day of Education, and we recognize Israel’s apartheid education system and rally for all educators and educational institutions to incorporate this fact and knowledge in how we educate about the world.

Jokes can reflect how people think of themselves and their future, and tell us a great deal about culture, politics, and ideology. On occasion, they can spread faster than rumors. Given the constant upheavals and instabilities, the Middle East, in general, and Palestine, in particular, are popular topics of political humor.

Life in parts of the Middle East has become miserable with conflicts and civil wars on the rise, and ordinary people often resort to humor to escape the dreadful reality of dark days. For a Middle Easterner, it is humor that helps them make fun of and ultimately forget their daily agonies. As politics become ever more complicated, people escape their reality and resort to humor. If you can’t change your life, then simply mock it.

Dance with Israeli soldiers

My father, upon his return from work at a factory in Israel during the First Palestinian Intifada in the late 1980s, was asked by an Israeli patrol unit stationed at the entrance of our Gaza neighborhood to stop and dance. Dozens of Palestinians at a popular café on the other side of the street were listening to the late Egyptian legend Umm Kulthum and drinking Arabic coffee, and the Israeli soldiers thought this was the best time to be entertained by humiliating my father in front of onlookers.

Knowing that if he declines, he might be beaten, tortured, or even killed, my father bitterly accepted their dictate and asked them to clap for him so that he could dance. The soldiers cunningly smiled and put their guns aside and started clapping. Once they did so, my father picked up his shoes and ran towards an adjacent orange orchard where he climbed a tall tree without being noticed by the Israeli soldiers and hid for the rest of the day.

My grandparents breathed a sigh of relief when they heard my father’s voice coming from the mosque’s minaret. It was his way of telling them “I am still alive.”

Everyone in the café laughed at the soldiers as my father disappeared into the horizon: those very soldiers who wanted everyone to laugh at my father became the butt of the joke in the refugee camp. The soldiers went crazy and started running after my father to catch him and teach him a lesson. He was faster than them, but all types of rumors about his fate started circulating in the popular café with people suggesting that he was caught and his arms and legs were broken by the soldiers, while some even said he was shot dead.

My grandmother headed to the Israeli army’s camp, erected to the east of Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, hoping that she could find him as tears trailed down her cheeks, but she couldn’t locate him. When it was time for the sunset prayer, my father communicated with his family by performing the call to prayer from a nearby mosque. At the time, there were no phones to call his family and my father was too worried that he might be captured if he returned home early. My grandparents breathed a sigh of relief when they heard my father’s voice coming from the mosque’s minaret. It was his way of telling them “I am still alive.”

Israel’s occupation of Palestine includes the control of even the minutest details of Palestinian lives. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip joke that Israeli drones which hover over the Gaza Strip 24/7 can tell if a Palestinian family has used frozen or fresh meat in their food!

Recently, a Chinese national named Mousa who is married to a Palestinian from Gaza published a video in Arabic joking about the lack of jobs. He joked that a Gaza man went to propose to a woman telling her father who asked him about his job that he works in diamond mining. Her father asked him if he lost his mind because there are no diamond mines in Gaza. The groom replied by asking him if he was the one who had lost his mind because he expected him to have a job in Gaza!

Palestinians in the Gaza Strip joke that Israeli drones which hover over the Gaza Strip 24/7 can tell if a Palestinian family has used frozen or fresh meat in their food!

In recent years, with conflicts and wars extending to other parts of the Middle East, people have developed similar techniques to deal with the worsening political, economic, and social conditions. AlHudood is a satirical news website that tackles issues related to the Middle East and describes itself as follows: “Not a news website. What is news anyway, but organized gossip?” AlHudood highlights life in the Middle East and Palestine under occupation by using satire.

One of its headlines reads, “Whitewashing Occupation Atrocities Added to Prerequisites for Choosing Miss Universe” to criticize how the Israeli government is using the Miss Universe beauty pageant to cover up the mistreatment of Palestinians under occupation. Another headline reads “Israel Welcomes Anhar al-Deek’s Newborn with Extra Small Handcuffs and a Baby-Sized Prison Jumpsuit,” which highlights the story of female Palestinian prisoner Anhar al-Deek, whom Israel refused to release to give birth at her family home and only did so after an international outcry.

The worse the situation on the ground becomes for Palestinians, the more Palestinians seek refuge in humor to release their stress and bring some joy to their lives. This brings to mind a quote by Palestinian novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah in his masterpiece, Time of White Horses, which reads: “After all these years under occupation, we are still beautiful, as if we live above occupation not under it.”

Despite everything, the truth is that Palestinians under occupation are not a laughing matter. However, Palestinians will continue to seek laughter in jokes to escape the awful reality which they are subjected to – because laughing can heal, and smiling and laughing under occupation is a form of resistance.

On the morning of May 10, 2021, I rolled out of bed and headed to Capital Mall, Gaza’s only shopping mall. My plan was to buy a gray hat for my son Ayman (4) and pink hair clips for my daughter Mariam (3) to complement their Eid clothes. I wanted to please my kids and avoid their temper tantrums.

On the evening of the same day, however, my concern shifted to whether I will die or live, whether I will leave my kids behind or we will all die together.

On that evening, Israel started a war on the Gaza Strip and used internationally prohibited weapons: a total of 1,500 strikes took place in the 11-day war, injuring 1,900 Palestinians, and killing at least 260. Gaza health authorities reported 39 women, 17 elderly, and 66 children among the dead, and 1,800 houses, 3 towers, 437 apartments, and 3 mosques destroyed.

When the Israeli warplanes hit Gaza again recently, my daughter, Mariam, woke up from her nap, crying because of the loud noise. This brought back memories of the May war seven months ago.

A day before the war, we were eagerly awaiting Eid al-Fitr. I remember the smiley little faces of my kids while they rummaged through the shopping bags to see what I had bought. Mariam loved her new hair clips; however, Ayman didn’t like his new hat and tossed it to the side. I promised him I will replace it with whatever he liked. My kids are everything to me.

When the Israeli warplanes hit Gaza again recently, my daughter, Mariam, woke up from her nap, crying because of the loud noise. This brought back memories of the May war seven months ago.

A day after the start of the May war, we heard the shocking news that Israel had threatened to destroy the Hanadi Tower using warplanes. My thoughts traveled, “Is it going to be destroyed? Are they going to start a war? Is it our turn to die? What would happen to my kids if I were no longer around?”

What should I answer? He hadn’t lived through such terrible events before, and he is too young to understand the horrible truth. So, I decided to lie. “They are fireworks to celebrate the coming Eid.”

He looked at me, unconvinced, and asked, “Why is this tower being destroyed on TV?”

I smiled sadly and said, “They destroyed it because it’s old and they didn’t want it anymore.” He was convinced.

The next day, Al-Shorouq Tower was also threatened to be leveled to the ground in ten minutes by Israeli warplanes. It hosted nothing but companies, businesses, and press offices and was located at the heart of Gaza City, opposite my family’s house. My parents didn’t have time to leave their home. I called my mother to beg them to come to my place, but she said, “There is not enough time and no vehicles to pick us up. If we go on foot, the shrapnel will kill us. And if the tower collapses on us, we will die.”

I couldn’t hold my tears, I hung up the phone, waited for their news, and sent my prayers to God. One of my eyes was on the TV and the other on the window waiting for an explosion to happen.

A few minutes later, the awaited explosion occurred and Al-Shorouq Tower was leveled to the ground by Israeli F-16s warplanes. I didn’t dare to call my parents. How would I live without them? I am still young and I needed them. Ayman interrupted my tears, “Mom, why are you crying? Don’t be sad, they don’t need this tower anymore; it is old,” he innocently comforted me.

I took a deep breath and played the strong mom’s role and lied again, “Yes, that is true. But I’m worried about your grandfather and grandmother.” I picked up my phone to call them. I received a message. My mother wrote to me: “Don’t worry. We are completely fine. The house was damaged badly, but it’s okay.”

I was confused whether to feel happy for my parents’ safety or to feel sad for the disaster and destruction.

Every night, my husband and I would take shifts. One stays awake, and the other sleeps until the next explosion. We slept on the floor to protect our children from any flying glass.

Despite the danger that surrounded my mother, she used to contact me every single hour to make sure that we were fine. There is nothing in this world like a mother.

The morning after the war, I was busy cleaning the house, when little Ayman asked me, “Mom, did the fireworks end? Is today finally Eid? Can we go out now?” I said that we could. When I looked at him, he was putting on his gray hat, the one he had disliked before the war.

I smiled and thanked God that we were somehow back to our normal life.

When Arabs arrived in Central and South America, they had nothing but the clothes they wore. They were called “Turcos” as they carried Ottoman passports. Today, they are wealthy and occupy important positions. Are they “sons who lost their mothers,” as a poet once put it? Do they maintain their ties to Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, the lands of their ancestors? Yousef M. Aljamal of Politics Today spoke with Simán Khoury, a Palestinian-Salvadorian, who serves as the president of the Palestinian Federations in Latin America, about the ethnically Arab populations in Latin America today.

Q. When people of the Levant arrived in Latin America in the late nineteenth century, they were called “Turcos.” Can you tell us about this? What does it mean and how do South Americans perceived the term?

The Arab immigration, especially from the Levant or Greater Syria, to Latin America was mostly in the late nineteenth century during the period of the Ottoman Empire. All those immigrants held Ottoman passports. So basically, people there did not distinguish between Arabs and Turks, and they called us all “Turcos” (Turks).

Q. What is the reason for this contempt of “Turcos”?

The majority of those who immigrated at that time were poor and ordinary people, mostly peasants. Ordinary Latin Americans, who lived and thought in feudal structures, considered them as inferior, lower-class people.

When our grandparents and our great-grandparents arrived there, four, five, or six generations back, they did it barefoot, which means that they were in a dire economic situation.

Q. What was the stereotype in the minds of immigrants about Latin America? I mean economically.

They were men of modest substance. Everyone wanted to go to America, meaning North America, and had no idea about possible differences between North, Central, and South America. They thought that they were going to North America. However, they arrived at Puerto Colombia, in Colombia, or in Cuba, where they split up. Some went to Chile, some went to El Salvador, and from there to other places, especially the places where they had relatives, if any.

Q. Why are Levant immigrants mainly concentrated in Chile, El Salvador, and Honduras?

There are about a million Palestinian immigrants in Latin America. The majority almost are from Palestine, especially from Bethlehem. In addition, the majority of those immigrants were Palestinian Christians from the city of Bethlehem. Chile has about half a million Palestinians, and there are maybe some 200,000 in Honduras, and 120,000 in El Salvador. Although there are people who say that these numbers are exaggerated, I am sure that they exist and we have statistics supporting that.

Chile has about half a million Palestinians, and there are maybe some 200,000 in Honduras, and 120,000 in El Salvador.

Q. There is a saying, which goes “In every town in Chile, there is a priest, a policeman, and a Palestinian.” Can you tell us more about Palestinians’ impact in Latin America today? What are their positions, their economic status, their cultural, political, and societal status?

When immigrants arrived, they were in a miserable economic situation and suffered from extreme poverty, but they managed to integrate. First, they worked as street vendors and this contributed to their marginalization by the feudal and wealthy classes. But they managed to set up shops and work in textile factories. Gradually, their financial situation improved, which led to an improvement in their social situation. These immigrants struggled for their children to live a better life. They sent their children to schools and universities, and were able to obtain a better social status.

Q. You have spoken about the relations that still link the Latin American Levantines with the Middle East. How do you see the new generation, especially with the Internet and easy access to information? Do they try to restore this relationship and the link between them and their countries of origin? If yes, how do they express this?

Although these migrations took place a long time ago, 80, 100, or 120 years ago – for example, I immigrated 41 years ago – the link between Palestinians and their homeland, despite the fact that they belong in the countries they are currently in, is excellent. They visit their homelands, whether Palestine, Syria or Lebanon – especially the Lebanese, who live in large numbers in Brazil, reaching 7 million.

They still send money and other kinds of aid, whether from Chile, Brazil, or El Salvador to their families there and continue to visit them. As an expression of our cultural identity, we participate in pro-Palestine political and cultural events on every possible occasion and follow the latest news. We have activities, including political ones, to support the Palestinian cause. We have many people in El Salvador who are politically active and support the cause.

Q. Historically, the relationship between South and Central America and the Middle East is strong, but recently, there has been a rise of the right wing in South and Central America. This, of course, also applies to the whole world. Do you observe any impact of this trend on South American interest in Middle Eastern affairs?

This has a great impact on our relationship. In 2017, with the presence of a left-wing government and the activism of the Palestinian community, we were able to close the Israeli embassy in El Salvador. However, the current situation is different due to the economic power of the Jewish lobby in South America.

In 2017, with the presence of a left-wing government and the activism of the Palestinian community, we were able to close the Israeli embassy in El Salvador.

At present, Palestinian embassies are not showing enough effort to influence these countries diplomatically and win their support. This is surprising because this cause is fundamental, it is about displaced people who are being expelled from their lands by brutal force. I personally blame Palestinian diplomacy because there are many countries, even when Chile was ruled by the right, which are still supportive of Palestine. For example, the President of the Republic of El Salvador Elías Antonio Saca González visited Palestine and he was a right-wing politician. He visited his family, the city of Bethlehem and Palestine, while currently, there are leftist countries that try to destroy these relations.

Two months ago, we published an article on the controversial issue of using models with the Palestinian keffiyeh in the training of the Panamanian police by the Israeli police. What are the reflections on this in local society?

Even though we have a large group of Palestinians in Panama, who have the upper hand in the country economically, the incident shows that the Israeli lobby is strong. I have personally been to the city of Cologne, where the greatest merchants in the Colon Free Zone are Palestinians. The community is doing what it can and we cannot blame them. What’s sad is that the Palestinian community has not had enough support from the Palestinian government or the PLO during the last three or four decades.

Is it possible to form a lobby that supports the rights and demands of the Arab Middle Eastern communities in Central and South America, similar to, for example, the Jewish lobby in the U.S. so that it presses, for example, for the recognition of the Palestinian state? In entire South America, Mexico and Panama are the two states, which haven’t yet recognized Palestine.

There is a lobby in Chile. For example, we have around 12 parliamentarians of Palestinian origin, and there is a league of these parliamentarians to support the Palestinian cause.

There is a lobby in Chile. For example, we have around 12 parliamentarians of Palestinian origin, and there is a league of these parliamentarians to support the Palestinian cause. Similarly, although this lobby is currently less effective in El Salvador, they nurture considerable support in Latin America in general.

Espionage of the Palestinians and their leaders by the Zionist movement is documented to have taken place in the 1930s and 1940s, with the Palmach, an underground force which included the Arab Platoon. The Arab Platoon recruited people who might pose as Arabs, such as Isaac Shoshan, a Syrian-born Israeli undercover operative, who passed away in 2020.

Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister, tweeted about his death, noting that he was one of many people who learnt at the hands of Shoshan, adding that “generations of warriors learned their trade at his feet.” The Haganah also collected information about the residents of Palestinian villages and towns, which paved the way for occupying these villages and expelling their residents throughout 1947-8.

During my conversations with Palestinian Nakba survivor Ahmad Alhaaj, who now resides in Gaza, he told me that the Zionist movement had recruited a Yemeni Jew named Ali to work as a spy and that he posed as a Palestinian imam leading the Muslims of the town of Al-Majdal (today’s Ashkol) in their prayers. Palestinians learnt his origin and that he was a spy when the invading Zionist militias entered the town in 1948 and expelled its population at gunpoint. An officer had hugged the supposed imam in front of the people who were still in shock and had thanked him for his services.

Israel’s espionage and surveillance of Palestinians have only increased over the years, and technology has contributed to making them even more complicated. In the past, it was people on the ground who would do the job, but today, Israel does not stop bragging about its technology. From social media to drones, satellites to monitoring phone calls and the internet, Israel has circled the Palestinians from land, air, and sea, and learns of every step they take.

Artificial intelligence has been increasingly used by the Israeli security, and the surveillance of Palestinians by Israel has become ever more automated. This Israeli surveillance comes as no surprise as Israel learns of the birth of every single Palestinian and keeps record of Palestinian civil records. No ID card is given to any Palestinian that Israel deems unworthy based on the Oslo Accords of 1993, which gives Israel the final say on issuing ID cards to the Palestinians, such as Palestinians who came on family visit permits and stayed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Apple’s recent legal case against the Israeli NSO group for hacking Apple users’ devices does not come as a surprise to Palestinians. Some Palestinians joke that Israeli drones, which fly over the Gaza Strip 24/7, can tell if a Palestinian family is going to cook fresh or frozen meat on a random day. Not only this, but it is also widely believed that Israel plants spy sims in every single phone device brought into Gaza through Israel – this is the main way Palestinians have access to phones and other technologies.

The recent revelation that an NSO software was used by the Israeli authorities to monitor the phones of six Palestinian human rights workers came as no surprise either. Since NSO is an Israeli company, which works under the watch of the Israeli government and has been used to advance the goals and agendas of the Israeli government in the region, it was almost certain that the Israeli government itself has also used NSO’s Pegasus software, and that the Palestinians were most likely the target in this case as well.

A recent Washington Post article has revealed that, according to former Israeli soldiers, the Israeli security authorities are promoting a software known as “Blue Wolf,” which aims to use facial recognition to further monitor the Palestinians and to keep a database of the data. The former soldiers added that they were given rewards for taking photographs of Palestinians crossing checkpoints using cameras and smartphones.

Since NSO is an Israeli company, which works under the watch of the Israeli government and has been used to advance the goals and agendas of the Israeli government in the region, it was almost certain that the Israeli government itself has also used NSO’s Pegasus software.

The program, which was launched two years ago, served as a secret Israeli “Facebook for the Palestinians.” This Israeli software complements the monitoring of Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron, where racial recognition allows Israeli soldiers to recognize Palestinians at checkpoints in the Old City before they even hand over their IDs for regular checks.

The use of artificial intelligence and automation as part of the Israeli mass surveillance of Palestinians and exporting these technologies and software to other countries after testing them on Palestinians and proving they are effective is something civil society across the globe should speak out against. The last thing the world needs is to import Israeli software tested on caged Palestinians whose privacy has been completely violated.

Civil society across the globe should raise their voice against Israeli surveillance technologies which will only serve to violate the privacy of peoples in exactly the same way they violate the privacy of Palestinians.

Civil society across the globe should raise their voice against Israeli surveillance technologies which will only serve to violate the privacy of peoples in exactly the same way they violate the privacy of Palestinians. The U.S. government’s blacklisting of NSO over the use of Pegasus to spy on different human rights activists and journalists is an indication of how serious this Israeli software should be taken, and the need to protect other nationals from the violation of their privacy and their subjection to mass surveillance.

It must be very boring and sadistic for Israeli officers monitoring the Palestinians 24/7 as they listen to stories about the devastating impact of Israel’s military occupation and siege on the lives of those being spied on. International civil society must act to end the violations of Palestinians’ privacy and the automation of their surveillance, because no one knows, who will be next. Israelis have no reason to ask a Palestinian crossing a checkpoint out of Gaza the reason his family placed another door in their grandmother’s house. The answer is truly mundane.

Olive trees and harvests have an exceptionally important place in Palestinian culture, especially in villages where farming is the main source of income for Palestinian families. Palestinians and especially farmers have always looked at olive trees as a national symbol that should be kept and protected as it speaks of the thousands of years of their history in Palestine. This special importance has been expressed in the Palestinian culture, through oral history, songs, and poetry.

Late iconic Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish famously spoke of the relationship that connects Palestinians and Israeli soldiers with olive trees.

These soldiers, these modern soldiers

Besiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineage

of earth.

They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,

Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.

She did not weep or cry out. But one of her grandsons

Who witnessed the execution threw a stone

At a soldier, and he was martyred with her.

Olive harvest in Palestine sees the gathering of families where all members for days participate in picking the olives. The olive harvest in Palestine starts after it rains for the first time in autumn – an indication that olives are ripe and ready to be picked. This usually happens every year in early October and lasts for a couple of weeks. In the Gaza Strip, some people use the expression “The cross has materialized,” to declare the start of the olive harvest season. The expression has its roots in the city’s oral history which saw conversions to Christianity following the worship of stars and fire in the past.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that olive trees are like children to Palestinians.  When my family wanted to tear down our house to build a new one, my aunt resisted the idea because we had to cut down two olive trees my grandfather planted some 35 years ago. My aunt cried when they cut the trees, and all our attempts to save them by planting them elsewhere didn’t succeed. Although we planted new olive trees later, my aunt would always speak of the two olive trees her father had planted, alongside which she grew up in our Gaza refugee camp.

Palestinian author Sarah Ali once wrote, “If a Palestinian bulldozer were ever invented (Haha, I know) and I were given the chance to be in an orchard in Haifa for instance, I would never uproot a tree an Israeli planted. No Palestinian would. To Palestinians, the tree is sacred, and so is the land clasping it.”

Today, the scene of olive harvest in Palestine is not only about family gatherings, traditional songs, and family bonds. The olive harvest in Palestine is about proving a connection to the land, a battle to maintain existence on the land as Israeli settlers – day and night – burn hundreds of olive trees as part of their ongoing attacks against Palestinians. Attacks that include stoning Palestinian cars, and burning Palestinian houses (with families inside), mosques, and churches.

These very Israeli settlers also move the olive trees they uproot to decorate the entrance of settlements built on Palestinian lands in order to prove their claimed connection to the land. The image of Palestinian Mahfoza Oude hugging an olive tree as a group of Israeli soldiers attempted to uproot it speaks of the Palestinians’ relationship with olive trees and the land.

Most of the olive trees the settlers uproot are older than the state of Israel, which was only declared in 1948 on the ruins of Palestinian cities and villages. These olive trees stand as a striking reminder to settlers of the history of Palestine, which has always been a land of peaceful religious co-existence, where a person like my mother, who was born in Bethlehem, the city where Jesus was born, still says “The cross has materialized” to mark the start of the olive harvest, without even realizing its meaning.

Although the situation for Palestinians is very grim on the ground, the increasing international solidarity for the Palestinian people – and their olive trees which attest to their history on this land – will continue to preserve this existence and culture.

Palestinian poet Tamim al-Barghouti said in one of his poems that a state that was built on enmity towards olive trees would not survive in the Levant. It is true. Darwish said, “If the olive tree knew [what was happening to] its planter, its oil would become tears.” The ongoing Palestinian commitment to the land, represented by planting more olive trees as Israeli settlers uproot hundreds of them, is telling that a future solution that ignores Palestinians and their connection and claim to the land is unlikely to see the light.

The future must unequivocally include the Palestinians. All Palestinian refugees and their descendants should be able to have breakfast on their lands which always has abundant olive oil. No more olive trees should ever be uprooted just because some Israeli settlers have decided to rewrite history.

On October 21, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced the issuance of a military order designating six prominent Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist organizations’. Gantz claimed that they are secretly linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a socialist political group that Israel considers, along with most Palestinian political parties, ‘a terrorist organization.’

The Palestinian organizations included in the Israeli order are Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights, Al-Haq, the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children Palestine, Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees.

Considering the significance of these organizations in Palestine and their global networks among like-minded civil society organizations, the Israeli decision provoked a public outcry. One of the many statements of condemnation was a joint statement by rights groups, Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), in which they called Gantz’s move an “appalling and unjust decision”, which represents “an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement.”

Strong Words, but No Actions

AI and HRW, which have documented Israeli human rights violations of Palestinians for many years, fully understand that the ‘terrorist’ designation is consistent with a long trajectory of such unlawful moves:

“For decades, Israeli authorities have systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring and punish those who criticize its repressive rule over Palestinians. While staff members of our organizations have faced deportation and travel bans, Palestinian human rights defenders have always borne the brunt of the repression. This decision is an alarming escalation that threatens to shut down the work of Palestine’s most prominent civil society organizations.”

Equally important in the world’s leading rights groups’ statement is that it did not fail to highlight that the “decades-long failure of the international community to challenge grave Israeli human rights abuses and impose meaningful consequences for them has emboldened Israeli authorities to act in this brazen manner.”

True to form, the international community did react to Gantz’s decision, albeit it was the kind of ineffectual reaction, which persisted in the realm of rhetoric that is rarely followed by substantive action.

A joint statement by UN experts called the Israeli decision “a frontal attack on the Palestinian human rights movement, and on human rights everywhere”.

Raids, Arrests and Death Threats

Addameer – In December 2012, the Israeli army raided the headquarters of Addamer in Ramallah, confiscating laptops and a video camera. The offices of the Union of Palestinian Women Committees were also raided by Israeli occupation forces on the same day. The organization is one of the six now designated by Israel as ‘terrorist.’

In September 2019, Addameer’s offices were raided, once again. The Israeli military raid at the time, however, did not generate as much attention or outrage, despite the accompanying violence, let alone the blatant violation of human rights. Then, Al-Haq – also one of the other six effectively banned Palestinian groups – issued a statement warning that “the private property of human rights organizations in occupied territory is especially protected under Article 46 of the Hague Regulations (1907).”

In March 2009, Jabarin was prevented by Israel from traveling to the Netherlands to receive an award on behalf of his organization. Again, in November 2011, this time, Jabarin was now allowed to travel to Denmark.

Expectedly, such legal constraints mattered little to Israel.

Al-Haq – Al-Haq’s staff have faced many restrictions throughout the years. Shawan Jabarin, the General Director of Al-Haq, has been banned from travel on various occasions, starting in 2006.

In March 2009, Jabarin was prevented by Israel from traveling to the Netherlands to receive an award on behalf of his organization. Again, in November 2011, this time, Jabarin was now allowed to travel to Denmark.

The Israeli obstacles began taking even more sinister turns when, in March 2016, Jabarin began receiving death threats over the phone. These anonymous calls began arriving “in the context of increasing harassment of Al-Haq and its members, amid their recent work at the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking justice for human rights violations being committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” the Front Line Defenders website reported.

Defense for Children International-Palestine – In July, and again August 2021, Israeli forces raided Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) offices in Al-Bireh, in the occupied West Bank. They seized computers, hard drives and other material, alleging a link between the organization and the PFLP.

This allegation had already been advanced in 2018, when UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) persuaded Citibank and the Arab Bank PLC to stop providing banking services to DCIP, providing what they defined as “evidence of the close ties” to the PFLP.

While it is true that the recent Israeli measures against Palestinian NGOs are a continuation of an old policy, there are fundamental differences between the growing perception of Israel, now, as an apartheid state and the misconstrued perception of the past, namely Israel as an oasis of democracy.

Even international entities and groups that are yet to brand Israel an apartheid state are becoming familiar with the Israeli government’s undemocratic nature.

A ‘Tectonic Shift’

In December 2019, and after years of haggling, the ICC resolved that “there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine, pursuant to Article 53(1) of the (Rome) Statute.” Despite intense Israeli and western pressure, the last hurdle in the way of the investigation was removed last February, as the ICC has finally approved the Prosecutor’s request to open legal proceedings regarding war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, including Gaza.

This legal milestone was cemented by major declarations, one made by Israel’s own rights group, B’tselem, in January, and another by HRW in April, both slamming Israeli policies in Palestine – not just the occupied territories – as ‘apartheid’.

This critical change in the international legal position regarding Israel’s new, unflattering status, was boosted by Israel’s own violent actions in East Jerusalem, Gaza and throughout Palestine in May. Unlike previous wars, the May events have shifted sympathy mostly towards Palestinians, who are fighting for their freedom, homes and other basic human rights.

The change was also notable within the US government itself, which is unprecedented by any account. An increasing number of US lawmakers are now openly critical of the State of Israel, due to a radical change in the US public opinion and, again, unprecedently, they are not paying a heavy price for it as was often the case in the past due to the great influence of the Zionist lobby in Washington.

“The shift is dramatic; it’s tectonic,” the BBC, on May 21, quoted US pollster, John Zogby, as saying. “In particular, younger generations are considerably more sympathetic to the Palestinians – and that age gap has been on full display with the Democratic Party,” the BBC noted.

Following the United Nations Resolution 181, also known as the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, on November 29, 1947, which called for establishing two states in Palestine, an Arab and a Jewish one, the only fact that has materialized on the ground today is a Jewish state for Israeli Jews. The Palestinian people are still struggling to build their own state 73 years down the road, living today as a diaspora, in refugee camps in neighboring countries, or in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with almost no rights.

Palestinians rejected the UN Partition Plan in 1947 because it gave Jews, most of whom were migrants and who made 33% of the population and owned nearly 6% of the land, 55% of Mandatory Palestine, while it gave Palestinians, who made 77% of the native population and owned 94% of the land, 45% of it. Jerusalem was designed as an international zone.

According to this UN plan, the rights of the native population, including their cultural and political rights, should not be harmed. Yet, what happened was the exact opposite: the majority of Palestinians became refugees and the newly established Jewish state took over 78% of the land.

Palestinians who remained in the Gaza Strip fell under Egyptian control and those who remained in the West Bank fell under Jordanian control. The Palestinian state was never established in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank because Palestinians, many of whom were refugees from what became Israel, never believed that Palestine is only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The discourse of major Palestinian political parties and later, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, was about establishing a democratic state in Mandatory Palestine where Muslims, Christians, and Jews would live in peace. This is still the official program of some leftist Palestinian parties such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The Palestinian state was never established in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank because Palestinians, many of whom were refugees from what became Israel, never believed that Palestine is only the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The failure to materialize a one-state solution in Palestine meant that the PLO would adopt a stance that is more willing to accept a two-state solution. This is especially true with the Palestinian Declaration of Independence proclaimed in Algiers in 1988, which called for establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, namely the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

With a Palestinian population of five million in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and nearly 1.8 million in Israel, Palestinians have become the majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. All attempts to erase the existence and identity of Palestinians have failed, and Israel today, considering its refusal of the two-state solution – which was born dead anyway – is faced with one reality: apartheid, where the minority governs the majority.

With a Palestinian population of five million in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and nearly 1.8 million in Israel, Palestinians have become the majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, whose presidency term ended in 2009, warned Israel during the 76^th UN General Assembly that an apartheid one-state reality is emerging in Palestine/Israel, and that if the latter does not end its military occupation of the Palestinian territories in one year, the PLO will withdraw its recognition of Israel.

“Circumstances on the ground will inevitably impose equal and full political rights for all on the land of historical Palestine, within one state,” he said. Neither Israel nor the majority of Palestinians take Abbas’s declarations seriously, and polls suggest his popularity is at its lowest levels.

The truth is that engaging with Israel in peace talks by counting on its goodwill gestures alone was a strategic mistake by the PLO in the first place. Israel has only utilized these negotiations and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority to advance its expansion plans, and to claim before the whole world that it is not an occupying power and that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are “disputed territories.” Not only this, the PLO’s entry into peace talks with Israel has created a serious Palestinian political rift that Palestinians are yet to recover from.

The PLO should correct its strategic mistake of 1993 and call on all Palestinians, regardless of their location, to adopt a struggle on the premises of achieving equal rights. In practical terms, this includes Palestinians in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian diaspora, and those living in today’s Israel.

This struggle by definition includes the demand that all Palestinian refugees be allowed to return back – including to what is today Israel. This approach also means that Palestinians should be treated and act based on the notion that they are a unified collective that see their shared future together regardless of the divisions imposed on them, be they geographic or political.

Without a shadow of a doubt, calling for equal rights in Palestine means establishing one state that includes Israeli Jews who wish to live in peace. As time has proven, any other solution that ignores the historical injustices against the Palestinians and the question of Palestinian refugees is doomed to fail.

Today, Gaza’s population has hit the 2.25 million milestone, and in the third quarter of this year alone, 15,216 Palestinian babies were born in the Gaza Strip. The situation in Palestine is unsustainable and it is only a matter of time before things run out of hand. Then, it might be too late for Israel to keep Palestinians under control, because investing in apartheid is not a winning strategy.

Young Palestinians should take the initiative to give life to the aging political parties and leadership, and make sure that their voices are heard. Once they have embraced the younger generations, these aging Palestinian political parties and leaders should adopt a unified strategy based on calling for the granting of full rights to Palestinians and allowing refugees to return back to their homes and towns, based on UN Resolution 194.

This means that a one-state reality in Palestine, completely free of apartheid, is the only way out. Given that this is materializing anyway on the ground thanks to Israeli policies which are replete with apartheid, it seems a matter of time before Palestinians adopt a one-state solution approach with equal rights as the way forward.

In June of this year, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, failed to pass a law extending a ban on family unifications for Palestinian families, both those living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and those holding Israeli passports. The discriminatory law could not pass due to domestic competition and political differences among Israeli political parties following the formation of a government led by Naftali Bennet, a right-wing politician who replaced Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now haunted by charges of corruption while in office.

The Family Unification Law, designed to separate Palestinian families, came into effect in 2000, with the Israeli authorities claiming security concerns behind not giving residency and citizenship to Palestinians (or Arabs) marrying either Palestinians who hold Palestinian passports or Palestinians who hold Israeli passports. Here is the story of how some 22,000 Palestinians, according to the “Family Unification Is My Right” campaign, have ended up stateless under this law.

In 1967, Israel conducted a population registry. At the time, it excluded some 270,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who happened to be outside of the Palestinian territories or were forced to leave the area when Israel occupied it. These Palestinians and their children became stateless and were unable to return back to the Gaza Strip or the West Bank.

Israel also applied the same regulations to Palestinians living in Israel and holding Israeli citizenship, where family unifications were banned under security concerns. This family unification ban targeted Palestinians who married Arabs, mostly from countries such as Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and other countries which Israel categorizes as “enemies.”

Since 2000, when the Second Palestinian Intifada broke out, Israel has used family unifications as a bargaining chip against Palestinians.

Since 2000, when the Second Palestinian Intifada broke out, Israel has used family unifications as a bargaining chip against Palestinians, whereby it has granted only a few thousand Palestinians residence permits in return for political gains from the Palestinian Authority in 2008 and 2021.

Recently, and following the Israeli parliament’s failure to extend the family unification law, Israel announced its plan to grant 5,000 Palestinians the right to reside in Gaza and the West Bank, claiming that it will lift the extra restrictions on them.

The family unification ban includes Palestinians who returned to Palestine on “tourist visas” and “overstayed.” Depriving these Palestinians of national ID cards has meant that they suffer immensely. Palestinians who have no IDs – which are issued and approved by Israel – have difficulty accessing healthcare, education, and, most importantly, travel. They are trapped in the Palestinian territories, and they are afraid that if they leave, they will not be allowed to return. Many of them have been denied their right to travel for the past 20 years.

Najah Aby Khadra, 65, is a Palestinian who currently lives in Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. In 1967, she was forced to leave Gaza and flee to Jordan. When she came to visit her family in the Gaza Strip in 2000, she decided to stay as some of her children still live there. Three of her children were granted family unification while in Gaza, but their mother was denied this right causing her a series of challenges such as not being able to open a bank account, purchase real estate, or work in a trade.

“I have first degree relatives who passed away in Jordan, and my daughters there got really sick, but I was not able to travel and see them for the past 20 years. I was not able to perform Haj, my religious duty,” she told Politics Today. “I call on concerned parties to grant me a full citizenship and my right to travel,” she added.

Palestinians who have no national ID number can get a Palestinian Authority passport, but their return to Palestine is not guaranteed as they don’t hold ID numbers. Palestine’s neighboring countries also allow only Palestinians with a national ID number to enter and exit.

Recently a video has emerged of a Palestinian woman standing at the Palestinian-Jordanian borders (controlled by Israel) while greeting her family with teary eyes from the West Bank and her family on the other bank of the Jordan River looking at her without being able to meet her in person. Sana Muhammad stated that she is willing to take the risk of standing at the border without an ID – which comes with the risk of deportation – in return for seeing her family after 24 years. “All I ask for is an ID. My parents, may God’s mercy be upon them, have passed away without me being able to pay them a final farewell,” she says.

The Israeli family unification law, which keeps Palestinian families apart, also applies to Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship. Dozens of Palestinians live illegally and in secret with their families in Israel because the Israeli authorities refuse to issue them residence permits even though many of them have children and have been living with their families for years – and in some cases even decades.

The Israeli family unification law exposes a hypocritical and racist view of Palestinians. The law does not apply to Jewish Israelis who can be united with their families and even granted citizenship in many cases before even arriving in Israel. If such a racist law were in existence anywhere else in the world, calls to terminate it would be loud and clear.

With the exception of a number of human rights organizations such as Adalah, the world has chosen to turn a blind eye to this racist law, whose existence is designed solely to reduce the number of Palestinians in Israel and the Palestinian territories, viewed by Israel as a demographic threat. Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law, which came into effect in 2018, is only a further manifestation of the ongoing bigoted Israeli policy against the Palestinians – those with Israeli and those with Palestinian passports.

Granting some 5,000 Palestinians family unifications reminds one of a famous quote by Palestinian intellectual and author Ghassan Kanafani, who was assassinated by Israel in 1972. He said, “They steal your bread, then give you a crumb from it… Then, they demand you to thank them for their generosity… Oh, their audacity!”

Israel’s lifting the ban on family unifications and granting 5,000 Palestinians the right to stay in Palestine is the perfect example of such audacity.

The recent capture of six escaped Palestinian political prisoners from Israel’s Gilboa prison meant their freedom was tragically short-lived. But the escape itself, reportedly through a tunnel dug with a rusty spoon, helped put a spotlight on the plight of Palestinian prisoners and their steadfast resolve to resist the Israeli settler-colonial regime.

The publication of A Shared Struggle: Stories of Palestinian & Irish Hunger Strikers (2021) by Norma Hashim and Yousef M. Aljamal is likely to help steady the focus of that spotlight and add another dimension; namely, the use of the hunger strike to call attention to the freedom struggle and the long history of this tactic which has been used not only to improve prison conditions and uphold the dignity of prisoners but also to expose the fundamental nature of colonialism.

A Shared Struggle is the third in a series of books on Palestinian prisoners by the authors. It is preceded by The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag (2013) and Dreaming of Freedom: Palestinian Child Prisoners Speak (2016). What makes A Shared Struggle unique is its focus on the hunger strike and the parallels it draws between the Irish hunger strikers who helped bring about the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 and Palestinian hunger strikers who have long been an integral part of the fight for the Palestinian right of self-determination.

Of course, numerous other parallels between the Irish and Palestinian struggles abound. In their valuable introductions, the Palestinian-Irish academic Asad Abu Sharkh and former Irish political prisoner Danny Morison point out many of them, including the settler-colonial Plantation of Ulster and the role of Herbert Samuel, the British Home Secretary who oversaw the internment of thousands of Irish revolutionaries during the Easter Uprising of 1916 and who later advocated for the Balfour Declaration and became the High Commissioner to Palestine, where he helped repress Palestinian resistance to British colonialism.

Ultimately, it’s the contrast between the Irish and Palestinian hunger strike experience that seems most politically instructive, as noted by international law expert Richard Falk in his foreword.

It becomes easy to understand why to this day popular sentiment in Ireland is often with the Palestinians, why murals in Belfast testify to this solidarity, and why the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made such headway there.

But ultimately, it’s the contrast between the Irish and Palestinian hunger strike experience that seems most politically instructive, as noted by international law expert Richard Falk in his foreword. Chief among the differences, Falk notes, was the willingness of the Western corporate media to cover the Irish hunger strikers in 1981, most notably Bobby Sands who was elected to the British Parliament while on hunger strike and whose death from starvation, along with nine other strikers, is often credited as a pivotal moment.

That same media, however, studiously avoided coverage of Palestinian hunger strikers, denying them the publicity that is essential to the success of a hunger strike, as several contributors to this book point out in their accounts of their experience.

Currently, Israel incarcerates about 4,650 Palestinian political prisoners, including 200 children, 40 women, and 520 held under “administrative detention”, which is a suspension of habeas corpus that means people are never charged and never have their day in court, the kind of draconian, Kafkaesque measure that the United States duplicated in Guantanamo.

The testimonies in A Shared Struggle provide flesh and blood to these statistics and give readers a glimpse of the courage and determination of the hunger strikers who risk death, do serious harm to their own health, and experience agonies that few can even imagine.

As A Shared Struggle shows, several hunger strikes have been carried out to protest administrative detention, along with cruel and inhuman treatment, torture, restrictions on and denial of family visits, medical neglect, solitary confinement (itself a form of torture), and other violations of international law that the Israeli government implements on a daily basis.

The testimonies in A Shared Struggle provide flesh and blood to these statistics and give readers a glimpse of the courage and determination of the hunger strikers who risk death, do serious harm to their own health, and experience agonies that few can even imagine. Their heroism is all the more profound when you realize that being removed from society does not mean you are removed from history. In fact, as both the Irish and Palestinian struggles demonstrate, prisoners make history.

In late June 2006, and soon after Palestinian factions captured the Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit in an attack against an Israeli military outpost southeast of Gaza, Israel started a destructive military operation in the coastal enclave to bring its solider back. One of the main infrastructures destroyed by Israel’s military operation in Gaza at the time was Gaza’s only power plant, located in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp where I grew up.

Israel’s F-16s destroyed the power plant with a dozen missiles as my family gathered in the middle of the night to seek some sort of protection. I remember that night vividly as my mother brought us together while Israeli warplanes fired their missiles at the power plant a mile away from my family’s house. The house would shake and the screams of children at night would be heard even clearer, breaking the relative silence of the night which was violated by the sonic sounds of the Israeli warplanes.

In the same year, my youngest brother Omar was born. Today, he is 15 years old – the number of years of Israel’s siege on Gaza – and he has probably not enjoyed a single full day of electricity in his entire life in Gaza. The year 2006 saw the start of the power outages crisis in the coastal enclave, which has only got worse over the years. At the start of the crisis, electricity was cu off for four hours a day. As the demand for more electricity increased with Gaza’s population doubling by some 70,000 a year, and as fewer people were able to pay electricity bills due to the lack of jobs, the crisis has only got worse.

For years, Israel has prevented the entry of materials needed to fix the damaged power engines and the oil tanks destroyed by its warplanes. In many instances, Israel would link allowing shipments of manufactured fuel to run the Gaza Power Plant to ceasing hostilities. Meanwhile Gaza’s power plant, which produces 140 MW of Gaza’s total need of 450 MW, has rarely been able to function at full capacity. Gaza depends on other sources to cover the rest of its needs including two Egyptian and Israeli supply lines. In many instances, these two lines have gone down, and Israel has used the pretext of the security situation in the Gaza Strip to postpone fixing the Israeli supply line.

The electricity crisis has impacted all aspects of life in Gaza. From 2006 to this day, dozens of patients have passed away due to the lack of electricity in the intensive care units (ICUs).

As forest fires continue unabated in many parts of the world due to the recent heat wave, one can only imagine what this heat wave means for the people of Gaza. In a place like Gaza, where green areas are limited, and where thousands of people live in tin houses in ever-crowded refugee camps, the heat is even worse. The only place people can escape to is the Mediterranean Sea, much of which is polluted by untreated sewage water that is pumped into the sea because the only desalination treatment in the Gaza Stirp was also destroyed by Israel in 2008/9.

The electricity crisis has impacted all aspects of life in Gaza. From 2006 to this day, dozens of patients have passed away due to the lack of electricity in the intensive care units (ICUs). It has become nearly impossible for students to sit their exams or study due to the lack of electricity. Many factories and industries have stopped working due to the lack of electricity which is crucial to their functioning. All the people living in Gaza have had to change their lifestyle including when to cook, use the washing machines, or sleep, based on the power outage schedule.

So far, the international community has failed to provide tangible solutions to Gaza’s ongoing electricity crisis. First, it has failed to make Israel accountable and ensure it does not target Gaza’s already fragile electricity infrastructure. The international community has also failed to pressure Israel to allow the implementation of long-term projects in the Gaza Stirp that would solve the issue of power outages in the coastal enclave such as the proposal by Turkey to send a floating power plant; the proposal by Qatar to convert the power plant so that it operates on gas and to establish a gas line to provide Gaza’s power plant with the needed gas; or Algeria’s proposal to send fuel to operate the power plant.

The Palestinian division between Hamas and Fatah has added fuel to the fire in this regard. In many instances, the Palestinian governments of Gaza and the West Bank would exchange accusations over who is responsible for the crisis. Meanwhile, Israel, the occupying power, which should provide Palestinians with all needed services according to international law, acts with impunity.

The international community should hold Israel responsible and make sure that it provides Palestinians, who live under its tight siege in Gaza, with electricity.

The people of Gaza, who have experienced four major Israel offensives – the latest of which was in May 2021 and which resulted in the destruction of more infrastructure in the Gaza Stirp – deserve to live in dignity and to enjoy full, basic services. The international community should hold Israel responsible and make sure that it provides Palestinians, who live under its tight siege in Gaza, with electricity.

The denial of basic rights to the Palestinians has created a Palestinian generation that sees no hope in achieving a just solution to their plight. Meanwhile, the continuing electricity crisis in Gaza means that it is only a matter of time before another Palestinian family dies in a fire caused by candles.

Israel and the international community should fear the reaction of people like my youngest brother Omar. The situation in the Gaza Strip is unsustainable, and if the dignity and freedom of Palestinians there are not respected, regional security will always be at stake, and it will be a matter of time before another conflict breaks out, bringing even more destruction to Gaza’s infrastructure.

Settler-colonialism is violent in nature and is built on the negation of natives’ basic rights and their very existence. Algeria under French rule and Palestine under Israeli rule are no exception to such colonial violence. In an attempt to push them to surrender to the will of their colonial masters, the use of excessive and brutal violence against settler-colonized people in both countries has been well documented. But history has proven that this tactic does not work, and it backfires at a high human cost.

On May 8, 1945, France killed 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence from France following the victory of the Allied Forces over Nazi Germany. Today, the world is watching the ongoing violent displacement of Palestinians in Jerusalem and elsewhere in silence, without doing more than condemning it.

The proven violent nature of settler-colonialism often produces violent reactions from the colonized people. This is true about the National Liberation Front (NLF) in Algeria, and all Palestinian factions and groups such as Fatah, Hamas, and the PFLP. The NLF in Algeria engaged in a campaign of revolutionary violence that was extraordinary in nature and included, among many other methods of torture, cutting the throats of French soldiers captured by the group “like sheep.” The same applies to the Palestinians who have used various violent means including bombings and kidnappings.

In the cases of both Palestine and Algeria, the state violence against colonized people has excessively surpassed the violence used by non-state Algerian and Palestinian actors. To give an example, France’s use of violence against Algerians was remarkably brutal with hundreds of NLF members being killed under torture – in some cases, they were thrown from high places and announced to have committed suicide. In its most recent confrontation with the Palestinians in May 2021, Israel killed more than 250 Palestinians in 11 days compared to 13 Israelis killed by Palestinian fire.

The use of violence by non-state actors in Algeria and Palestine does not negate their attempts to end colonial rule by dialogue. The NLF was ready to engage in dialogue with the French authorities, but France, which called Algeria “French Algeria,” refused any form of dialogue with the NLF. Although many Palestinian factions consider armed resistance central to their struggle with Israel, factions such as Fatah and Hamas have in many instances engaged in non-violent resistance against Israel, which was also met with violence.

Just like in Palestine, in Algeria, France responded with full force to Algerian non-violent actions, including the 1956 strike, as it viewed any Algerian action against its rule an issue of law and order, negating Algerians’ desire for independence.

This is also true for the protests of the first Palestinian Intifada, which started as non-violent and turned violent as Israel used excessive force against protesters, including breaking their bones. The Great March of Return in the Gaza Strip is another example of how Israel responded to Palestinian engagement in non-violent resistance, with Israeli snipers killing 214 Palestinian, and injuring 36,000 others, while many were intentionally shot in the knee to be maimed. Just like in Palestine, in Algeria, France responded with full force to Algerian non-violent actions, including the 1956 strike, as it viewed any Algerian action against its rule an issue of law and order, negating Algerians’ desire for independence.

The refusal of state actors to use violence can’t win moral ground as long as it permits the use of violence against colonized people. Israel’s creation was accompanied by a surge of violence not just against the Palestinians, who were made refugees, but also against the colonial British forces in Palestine.

In addition to dozens of documented massacres against Palestinians, Zionist militias have used car bombings and assassinations both against Palestinian and British targets, forcing some 750,000 Palestinians out of their towns and villages. The same applies to France, which today glorifies the French (violent) resistance to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. Glorifying the use of arms by states and denying its use by the very people they occupy deprives these states, namely France and Israel, of the moral high ground.

Today, the use of violence is condemned by most world governments, and non-state actors engaged in violence are often isolated and placed under pressure. The anti-colonial movement of the 1950s and 1960s no longer exists. Today, the challenge for the Palestinians is to be committed to their rights and exert all needed efforts to obtain these rights without being internationally isolated because of their use of violence.

Committing to non-violence as a strategy is one way to achieve this and it proved effective during the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. and the Salt March in India staged by Mahatma Gandhi. However, whether this will be the case in Palestine is debatable. So far, the use of violence and non-violence alike have not led to their liberation.

The morality of the use of violence in (settler-) colonial contexts should not be questioned in isolation from the state violence used against the colonized people. Settler-colonialism is violent in nature – including that of France and Israel – in the same way the response to it is also violent. Violence creates a vicious cycle and the way to end it passes through ending colonial violence, which creates this cycle in the first place by denying people their national and political rights.

It is no coincidence that today Palestinians and Algerians can relate to each other based on their experiences under colonial rules – similar experiences produce a sense of solidarity emanating from relating to the experience of others. For this reason, the Palestinian flag is a familiar object at Algerian protests and the Algerian flag is an equally familiar object at Palestinian protests against the ongoing Israeli colonization.

Today, Israeli restrictions imposed on the freedom of movement of Palestinians shape our lives to the minutest details. The separation of Palestinians from one another due to Israeli policies is not new and takes different forms. My family, like thousands of others, have suffered a great deal because of Israeli travel restrictions.

My mother grew up in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. Having moved to Gaza upon her marriage to my father, she had to change her address, which meant that she had to give up her West Bank ID. She never thought that this would create a problem for her later in terms of her ability to see her own family in the West Bank.

In the 1970s and 1980s, movement between Gaza and the West Bank was relatively easy. All one needed was to take a taxi or drive between the two territories. This changed after 1993, the year that saw the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

When the Oslo Accords were signed a new yet more complicated system of permits was put in place which affected the freedom of movement of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. According to this system, Palestinians needed to get a permit to be able to move between the two territories. Obtaining these permits became more complicated and they were issued for a short period of time.

I remember that in 1999, an Israeli officer turned my sister back, who was 16 then, saying that she needed a special kind of permit to be able to travel with us. The outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000 was the straw that broke the camel’s back in relation to Israel’s travel restrictions on the Palestinians: it became nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain a permit to move between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

In 2003, my maternal grandfather passed away in Jericho without my mother being able to obtain a permit to mourn his death.

In 2003, my maternal grandfather passed away in Jericho without my mother being able to obtain a permit to mourn his death. He was buried without her being allowed to bid him a final farewell, although she literally lived an hour away. Travel restrictions have only got worse over the years. In 2008, my grandmother passed away in Jericho too, and again, my mother was not able to participate in her funeral procession.

It was only in 2012 that my mother was finally able to get a permit for four days to visit her West Bank family. She was given four days, but she stayed there for 32. By Israeli definition, she “overstayed” her permit in her own hometown. The irony lies in the fact that Israel now considers my mother a Palestinian from Gaza who has no right to travel to the West Bank except under exceptional circumstances, and with the provision that she applies for and gets a permit.

Israel now allows Palestinians in a limited number of cases to travel between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This includes some patients with chronic or life-threatening diseases. Some of these patients get a permit for the first time, but not for a second. This has been the case for some cancer patients who were given a permit to have their first chemotherapy session, but not the second one. Many of these patients died waiting for these permits. Others are asked to collaborate with the Israeli security in return for being given a permit.

The Palestinian passport, or rather the travel document according to the Oslo Accords of 1993, allows its bearer – theoretically – to enter the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In 2015, my uncle passed away in the West Bank and my mother was given another exceptional permit to attend his funeral; however, it was issued after he was buried. In 2019, my mother was given another permit that allows her to go to Jerusalem for breast cancer treatment, but this same permit didn’t allow her to visit her West Bank family, many of whom live a few miles away.

The Palestinian passport, or rather the travel document according to the Oslo Accords of 1993, allows its bearer – theoretically – to enter the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Practically, no Palestinian from Gaza can travel to the West Bank either from Gaza or Jordan except after obtaining an Israeli permit, which is near impossible to acquire, especially for younger people. It is even harder for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank who have family in Israel to visit them, especially if they are from the former.

As a result of this system of permits, Palestinians have become fragmented like never before. It is easier for us to meet in another country than to meet in Palestine. I personally have met some of my West Bank family members in Jordan, Turkey, Sweden, Germany, and the U.S. – but not in Palestine. In light of this reality of fragmentation, Palestinians have sought refuge in virtual spaces with social media becoming the platform where they meet online and discuss issues of concern, be it family or political issues.

The recent offensive on the Gaza Strip in May 2021 and the ongoing violations in Sheikh Jarrah have revealed without a shadow of doubt the importance of online and social media organizing. The growing solidarity with the Palestinian people during and after this offensive has shown that online spaces could create an alternative for a people who have been systematically silenced in physical and mainstream spaces and outlets. These online spaces are not without challenges, but they created a window for Palestinians to interact.

Citizen journalism became prominent in the recent escalation in Gaza with millions of people worldwide turning to people on the ground to listen to their stories. From Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem to the Gaza Strip, and Lod to Jaffa, Palestinians seemed to finally have a unified narrative that can’t be suppressed by travel restrictions and physical barriers. This narrative has shaped the discourse of political debates in the Middle East and beyond.

It was five a.m. in Gaza, Monday, May 18, 2021. Five of us were catatonic under our blankets. Five percent battery is left on the only mobile device we had in the house. Five missiles had fallen near my house since dawn. Five times per minute, I begged the ceiling of this room, “Don’t fall on our heads this dawn.” I was filled with regret and ended up looking at the ceiling of my room. I recalled the many times I stuck balloons on it. I wished that my ceiling would understand me and I could ask it to fall on our heads softly, so that it wouldn’t wake up my little sisters and scare them.

It is still five a.m. My mind is awake, but my body is lost. The only sensation is the heat of a fresh tear streaming down my face. Even this sensation is stale because this tear reoccurs regularly as I relive this nightmare for the fifth night. This tear is a reminder that it is time to say goodbye to everyone dear to my heart.

It is time I have to respond forcibly again to the continuous calls of an unwelcome visitor called “death.” Today is the 10th day of the war and I have slept limited hours. I woke up after two hours of sleeping to the sound of a bomb exploding nearby. This has become a daily routine since the first day of the war. I stretch my shoulders with my half-opened eyes, feeling so lucky the pillars of my house are still standing. The small bag where I have collected my ID, certificates, and pictures of my siblings and myself, my kindergarten graduation picture, the first stories I ever wrote, all the letters written by my friends, and 40 shekels I was given this Eid stays close to me, within sight.

Luckily, I can collect these concrete things, but there is no way to collect all the insignificant fights with my younger sisters, the giggles that filled this house, the tears we shed, and the prayers my mom said to make the pillars of my house stand. These warm memories are hidden in the corners of my house, between the empty spaces, and are held tightly in the hearts of everyone here. Like every morning in Gaza, I start my day by counting: I count five souls; I count five minds with an endless number of dreams that have never been fulfilled; I count five mouths that tell stories of evading imminent death for the thousandth time.

My little sister, Malak, 4, clings to my trousers asking me to stand by the bathroom door, to guard her. Shivering in fear, she begs me not to leave the doorway; she begs me not to leave her. This fear is all she knows. She will never know of the everyday luxuries that Gazans cannot afford to experience since the first day of war. My youngest brother, Ahmed, calls out that my sister’s milk has been boiled and is ready. Even a simple cup of milk carries with it the connotation of death in Gaza.

I lost my dad at the age of four; the same age Malak is today. To this day, I do not allow myself to remember the sound of his voice, or his laughter, or even his anger.

I remember the 2004 military operation in Rafah, which most people I know have never even heard about, let alone lived through. I recall sitting in my aunt’s lap, drinking a cup of milk, trying to cover with my gulps the nearby tank shell sounds. My aunt ordered me to cover my ears so I wouldn’t hear my father’s screams as he fought for his life right before my eyes. I lost my dad at the age of four; the same age Malak is today. To this day, I do not allow myself to remember the sound of his voice, or his laughter, or even his anger. The only recollection I have of my father is the murderous scene, and his pain, that I witnessed at four. To this day, I refuse to drink milk.

Many people, even those closest to me, do not understand the pain that I hide behind my eyes, behind my smiles, and my laughs. I have lived with a brutal pain since the age of four. I lost my dad in Operation Rainbow, during a barbaric Israeli assault carried out exclusively against the camp I lived in, Tal al-Sultan.

I have created unforgettable memories with my dearest friends, having forced a smile onto my face to hide the great loss I’ve witnessed all my life. I’ve fooled my teachers, my colleagues, students, and strangers with these forced smiles and hollowed laughs. Behind my face of painted content, I hide the face sculpted by an ugly occupation. I am sorry to all who know me, but I am not sorry to the world. This is the brutal reality of occupation.

I used to spend my day during wars glued to news channels, reading mystery and crime books, tweeting, and making sure my dear ones are still alive.

Sometimes, you can’t afford to speak. Pain is born secretively within us, and sometimes a pain is so big it can only be handled individually. Speaking about it requires bravery.

I used to spend my day during wars glued to news channels, reading mystery and crime books, tweeting, and making sure my dear ones are still alive. It’s evening now. Evening has been the ghost that Gazans fear. The evening collects souls in their homes. But now, the daytime is no different. Bombs drop day and night.

The only difference is the morning is more trusting. “Sahar, don’t forget to wear your abaya before you sleep,” my mother and every mother in Gaza repeats every night. I wear my abaya with my hijab, and put the slippers in a way that makes it easy for us to run away if needed.

It was two a.m. when the Israeli occupation forces shelled Kullab’s family house in Tal al-Sultan camp located in the city of Rafah without any warning, only 20 meters from where I live. The sound of the barrel bombs fire cannot be described in words. I can still hear the ominous sound buzzing in my ears and my mom yelling to us to evacuate immediately. Here in Gaza, we are not being bombed because we are engaging with the enemy or because a rocket was launched over “Israel.” We are bombed and wiped from history simply because we exist in Gaza.

I counted the souls again, wore the backpack, and retreated downstairs in a blink of an eye. We were not alone running in the streets, all of us heading to the unknown. Fortunately, we could see the roads clearly enough because the bombs in the sky gave the illusion of daylight.

After a quarter of an hour of being lost in the chaos, we found a place to stay at a friend’s house. Our eyes did not even blink that night; none of us were able to sleep till the sound of bombs temporarily stopped. Two hours later, we returned to our home. “We shall meet soon, dear friends,” I said.

When I returned back home and turned on my laptop, a barrage of messages flooded my screen and eyes. Sahar, are you okay? Sahar, I heard your name on the radio reporting the latest shelling! Sahar, I’ve been trying to reach your mom since yesterday! Dozens of messages that could be reduced to the same question: are you alive? I was counted dead for more than 10 hours as a result of the misspelling of my last name. I burst into tears and was torn into millions of unseen shadows. I responded to the first message I saw in my inbox: Survivor Number Five.

Naftali Bennett is an Israeli ultranationalist politician, born on March 25, 1972, in Haifa to a Jewish family migrated from the United States. He attended the Yavne Yeshiva High School in Haifa, becoming a youth leader with the religious Zionist youth organization Bnei Akiva. Bennet and his family are followers of Orthodox Judaism.

Bennett graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem with a degree in law. He served in the Sayeret Matkal Unit, the elite unit of the Israeli army, which is in charge of carrying out critical operations. Much later in 2018, this unit would come under the spotlight when Hamas commanders in the Gaza Strip uncovered two of its vans, which hid intelligence equipment and a dozen Israeli special forces, resulting in the killing of one of the Israeli commanders.

Naftali Bennett served as a commander in Lebanon and the West Bank. In 1996, his force came under mortar fire in Lebanon. Following the shelling of the area by the Israeli army to cover his force, the shells hit the UN compound in the village, killing 102 Lebanese civilians.

Bennett owes his wealth to two information and data protection companies, which he co-owned. Cyota was sold for $145 million and Soluto, where he served as CEO, was sold for $100 million.

Bennett began his political life in 2005 when he was appointed the head of Benjamin Netanyahu’s team, then leader of the Israeli opposition. He led Netanyahu’s Likud party in the primary elections, which he won, paving the way for Netanyahu to become Israel’s prime minister in 2009.

In 2013, Bennet came under fire for saying, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”

In the same year, Bennet was appointed the director general of the Yesha Council, the main settler advocacy group in the West Bank. He advocated for annexing Area C of the West Bank, which comprises nearly 60% of the territory. Throughout his political life, Bennett has served as the head of a number of political parties, including the Jewish Home (2013-2018), the New Right (2018-2019), Yamina (2019), New Right (2019-2020), and again Yamina (2020-present).

Between 2013 and 2020, Bennett served as minister of economy, minister of religious services, minister of diaspora affairs, minister of education, and minister of defense.

In 2013, Bennet came under fire for saying, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.”

Bennet told the Israeli television channel Keshet 12 (Channel 12) that a war in Gaza would lead his coalition to collapse because the United Arab List, which is part of the coalition, would not support it.

He believes that the relationship with the United States is strategic to Israel, but he has also noted that Israel’s security comes first, and that Israel should not care about what the world has to say about it vis-à-vis Iran.

Bennett describes himself as “more right-wing than Mr. Netanyahu.”

Bennett has described himself as “more right-wing than Mr. Netanyahu.” He is also an advocate of keeping Israel a Jewish state and controlling the Syrian Golan Heights.

“As long as I have any power and control, I won’t hand over one centimeter of land of the Land of Israel,” he said in an interview in February 2021.“There are some things that we all know will never happen … The Sopranos will never return for another season … And a peace agreement with the Palestinians will not happen,” he continued.

Bennett’s vision for the Palestinians is made of a number of points. First, the annexation of most of the occupied West Bank, which will allow Jewish settlers to remain there and give Israel control over water resources.

He is in favor of squeezing most West Bank Palestinians into urban enclaves with limited control over their lives. A few tens of thousands of Palestinians would be granted Israeli citizenship, to “counter any claims of apartheid,” his vision reads.

Bennett notes that no connection between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank should be established, and that Israel should continue to have full security control there. He is staunchly against the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. He supports improving the living conditions of the Palestinians, rather than giving them a state. In an interview with the Guardian in 2017, Bennett said there would not be a Palestinian state on his watch. “It’s just not going to happen. A Palestinian state would be a disaster for the next 200 years.”

In 2013, Bennett stated that Palestinian “terrorists should be killed, not released,” and in 2018, Bennett thought Israeli forces at the Gaza fence should have a “shoot to kill” policy, which also includes minors.

For Palestinians, it does not matter if Israel’s prime minister is Benjamin Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett as their policies are ostensibly the same. Bennett has been inspired ideologically by Netanyahu’s approach of annexation and he has served as a minister under Netanyahu five times.

Palestine is back on the map. There’s no question about that. But who put it there, who’s taking the credit for the Palestinian resistance’s defeat of Israel’s infamous “Iron Dome”, who will benefit from proving Israel’s military vulnerability, and who will lead the Intifada 3.0 that has revived hopes for millions of people around the world who want to see Jerusalem saved from expanded occupation?

On paper, the most vocal and aggressive Palestinian resistance groups, inside Palestinian territories, are Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. With the latest round of military actions, they’ve proven, some would argue, that they are the strongest flag bearers for the cause of Palestinian freedom. Israel’s vulnerable nature was broadcast around the world as news outlets and the internet became flush with videos of barrages of rockets flowing out of Gaza at dozens of targets including Israel’s largest seaport Ashdod, the nearby Israeli settlement of Sderot, the seaside city of Ashkelon, Israel’s capital Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. Even though the “Iron Dome” managed to intercept a large number of incoming rockets, as Israel claimed, some did pierce the defense system.

According to Israeli sources 4,375 rockets were fired from the besieged Gaza Strip between May 9 – and May 20. More than 90% of them were intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system. The Palestinian resistance rockets caused extensive damage to Israeli infrastructure and killed 13 Israelis.

Targets included military bases, economic centers, and residential neighborhoods; much like the targets targeted by Israeli jets and drones. However, the Israeli operations, both offensive and the “Iron Dome” operation, came at a much higher financial cost than the Palestinian resistance had to incur. Something that will further pinch Netanyahu’s struggling political career. This is where the Palestinian succeeded to expose Israel’s military vulnerabilities.

According to Israeli experts, Palestinian short-range rockets fired at Israel cost between $300 – $800 each. The cost of longer-range rockets, like “Ayyash-250”, that targeted Ramon airport, is unknown. On the other hand, every rocket fired by the “Iron Dome” system carries a cost of $35000 – $100,000. The launcher system, known as “Tamir” holds 20 rockets, each with a range of 20km. Israel conducted over 1,000 interceptions according to some sources putting the cost of operating the “Iron Dome” at $35 to $100 million over a span of 11 days.

The question is how did Palestinian resistance groups manage to deal such a heavy blow to one of the most advanced and powerful militaries in the world?

The system identifies incoming rockets, decides which pose a threat, and launches a counter projectile to neutralize the threat in the air. But despite the highly advanced military technology and more than $1.3 billion worth of research and development put into developing the “Iron Dome”, Palestinian rockets managed to rain down on Israel changing the balance of power in the Palestine-Israel battle space for the foreseeable future.

The question is how did Palestinian resistance groups manage to deal such a heavy blow to one of the most advanced and powerful militaries in the world?

Following the announcement of a ceasefire that began on May 21, Hamas leaders spoke publicly about Israel’s capitulation to the Palestinian resistance’s military capabilities. Ismail Haniyeh and Khalid Mishaal boasted about the success of Palestinian resistance in the face of all odds.

In fact, Hamas leaders’ public statements overlooked a number of strategic victories achieved in their most recent parlay with Israel, including but not limited to: proving Palestinian military capabilities despite the 14 year-siege of Gaza, proving siege tactics are not enough to squash the Palestinian resistance, forcing Israel to endure huge costs to prevent even more damage to Israel, exposing Israel’s security vulnerabilities via the large scale widespread civil disobedience witnessed by the entire world via live stream, and proving its capacity to influence public sentiment deep inside occupied territories and in areas administered by the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas. To the dismay of millions around the world, all of these achievements, were subdued by an unsurprising Egypt brokered ceasefire announced by Israel and precariously accepted by Palestinian resistance groups.

Iran has proxy forces in a number of Middle East countries and especially in Lebanon and Syria. However, only three rockets were reported to have been launched from Syria at Israel during the 11 days and two of them landed in Syria. It isn’t clear who launched them. In southern Lebanon, at least four rockets were launched at Israel, causing no damage at all. Furthermore, protesters gathered at the border with Israel in Lebanon in support of Palestine scaling the border wall and destroying security cameras.

One protester was even shot by Israeli forces and later died of their wounds. Social media accounts boasted that the young man was a Hezbollah member and called him a martyr. At the same time, social media accounts published videos showing Hezbollah members detaining participants and scolding them for getting involved in the protests. While all of this was happening Palestinian groups, according to Hamas, who received support from Iran, were firing non-stop barrages of rockets at Israel, while Israel conducted airstrikes killing 248 people including 67 children and 39 women.

The potential for a larger scale operation were ripe and people around the world were waiting in angst for Intifada 3.0. But to the behest of many, nothing happened, no notable rocket fire by Iran happened, no ground forces amassed at the many borders with Israel controlled by Iran, and Jerusalem, along with the rest of Palestine, remains occupied by Israel.

One question in many people’s minds, but few are willing to ask, is why Iran didn’t put into action their tens of thousands of proxy fighters based in Syria, Lebanon and even Iraq. Iran funds and supports the Hash al Shaabi in Iraq, or Popular Mobilization forces, who came into the scene as part of the U.S. led international coalition’s Operation Inherent Resolve, to defeat the Daesh terror group.

In Syria there are more than 100,000 Iran backed militants in various capacities and in a variety of locations, including near the Golan Heights and the Lebanese border. Iran also controls a logistics route connecting Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut. Iranian proxies and their leaders including from Lebanese Hezbollah and the IRGC move freely between the four countries. The Iranian proxies have heavy and advanced weapons in their arsenal including medium range and long-range rockets, as well as tanks and armored vehicles.

They also have anti-tank guided missiles and heavy artillery as well as a large arsenal of small caliber artillery as well as vehicles mounted machine guns and ammunition to go along. More importantly, they have influence over tens of thousands of eager ideologically motivated fighters ready to use those weapons when the orders come in.

But history will show that during Gaza’s May 2021 conflict, and the widespread Palestinian defiance of Israeli aggression, deep inside occupied territories, as well as Israel, was not enough to bring that large cache of weapons and fighters into action. Yahya Sinwar, the recently released former prisoner and now head of Hamas explained the axis of resistance’s lack of action in a televised speech. He said that he was personally in touch with Iranian officials and the commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Hasan Nasrallah who offered their help, but Hamas rejected.

The justification is that the recent assault on Gaza and ensuing counter operation by Palestinian resistance groups was only a test of the resistance’s ability to hurt Israel and not a fight for liberation of Alaqsa. Now there’s talk of Hamas reopening their diplomatic channels with Damascus as well. Of course, a gesture that is fully backed by Iran, a renewed relationship with Damascus would allow Hamas to continue their hit and run campaign against Israel with even more depth. For several years, Hamas hasn’t been on the good side of the Assad family ever since some of its leadership spoke openly of their support for anti-regime protesters. Some of Hamas’ leadership that once took shelter in Syria was forced to flee to neighboring countries.

But that may all change now. Osama Hamdan, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, made the clearest statement following the latest Gaza – Israel standoff saying that Assad has been a loyal and consistent supporter of the resistance efforts. Some high -level Hamas supporters including Saleh Alnamy denounced the statement. According to Hamdan, Assad’s Arab origin and commitment to opposing Israel is well known. Of course, Hamdan overlooked the fact that the few rockets launched at Israel from Syria were completely ineffective. One could understand from Hamdan’s statements that the hundreds of thousands of people killed by Assad, backed by Iran, over the past decade, were only steppingstones towards the liberation of Jerusalem.

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning. Michael, who lives in Washington, D.C., is going on a picnic with his family. He checks his phone to catch up on the news. There is something about 67 children killed in Gaza during the previous week. He scrolls over the news.

Having read mainstream U.S. media, he thinks, it’s the Palestinians who are destabilizing Israel. There is a “clash” that began with the Palestinian people needlessly insisting to pray at some mosque, as was shown in the headlines. They have been attacking the police officials with stones, and escalating the conflict so much so as to fire rockets into civilian areas.

They may be occupied, but resisting even an illegal occupation with violence is not justified. “Hurry up, folks, we’re getting late,” he exclaims, starting his SUV, as if to take refuge from the voice within, pushing him to make a moral choice.

***

Somewhere in Gaza, Daoud is feeling completely helpless. A building in his neighborhood in Khan Yunis, was struck an hour back. He is confused whether to take his family out and hide somewhere, or to stay inside the building. Going out with his newborn is dangerous. “How long can we stay outside?” he asks, Iman, his wife, rhetorically. “What if a shrapnel injures Sarah (his newborn) and where will we hide?” he wonders. “The bombs can drop any moment, anywhere.”

While they’re discussing, their building is shaken by a huge explosion. It’s a shockwave from another strike that was aimed at the foundation of the building next to theirs. They look at the collapsing building from their shattered windows in horror. That building had a child playing on the balcony.

Even with the risks, Daoud decides to stay in his home, thinking that dying together, in one go, will probably still the lesser of two evils. One of his two sons, whom he has handed over to his brother, gives him hope that his generation may survive. But the rubble of the fallen building in front is also haunting him. What if his nephew, entrusted to him by his brother in exchange, dies with them?

***

Benjamin lives in Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel. Although most of the rockets are intercepted, one reached his neighborhood, injuring one person critically. He remains anxious throughout the night. The sirens can go off anytime. But unlike the Palestinians, he has a shelter to hide.

To him, Palestinians are at the center of all episodes of hostilities. Jews deserve to live in peace in their God-sanctioned lands, he tells himself, and Israel should do whatever it takes to ensure this. The sirens are blaring again. “When will this violence end!” he yells.

Since his expulsion from his real home in Acre, when the Zionist militias targeted Palestinian residents in the aftermath of the 1948 war, Ibrahim has lived in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, where his family fled during the Nakba. The Jordanian authorities, which had control of the West Bank then, agreed to give his family the ownership of the house they settled in. But then, another war broke out in 1967, and Jordan lost control of the territory, which was also occupied by Israel.

Ibrahim is in an Israeli prison, after being held on charges of rioting. He cannot understand how an Israeli court could order the eviction of his family from their house, and is worried how his family will manage. “As an occupied territory, how can an Israeli court have jurisdiction,” he asks himself. “How can the Israeli state expel them on the basis of a ‘legal’ order?” he wonders.

***

Miriam was raised in Lod, a mixed city of Israeli Jews and “Arab Israelis”, i.e., the Palestinians in Israel. Though the two communities were socially distant, she has at least one childhood friend who is Palestinian. She is upset about the “riots”, “the conflict”, and “the disproportionate use of force by Israel.”

Miriam’s great-grandfather lost his life in the Holocaust. When Miriam was young, her grandmother used to tell her about the tragic experiences of those times. She looks at the state with suspicion now. To her, the Israeli state is led by right-wing hateful politics, and politicians vilify and persecute Palestinians to their benefit.

She is trying to find words to offer condolences to her Palestinian friend, who lost her brother to a mob of Israeli violence in the city the other day.

***

Michael’s back from the picnic. His children are jumping on his bed, as he urges them to sit down. He’s scrolling his Twitter feed. Every other post seems to be about massive destruction in Gaza. Biden, whom Michael voted for, has declared support for Israel’s right to self-defense, despite the fact that more than 248 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, most of them civilians, including 67 children.

He comes across a picture of a man running with his daughter, who is probably dead, in his hands. Michael’s eyes fall upon his own daughter who is still jumping on the bed carelessly. His eyes are now filled with tears. He wonders how could so many families and children be hit in error by the Israeli military, known for its pinpoint targeting capabilities.

He wants to retweet an opinion article by Bernie Sanders criticizing America’s backing of Israel, but stops short of it. It could affect his apolitical image on social media and his work.

Before putting down his phone, he tweets a quote by Dag Hammarskjöld instead: “Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own convictions.”

Michael’s conscience is somewhat lighter now. He mumbles to his wife that Hamas’s rockets killed 13 Israelis in a week before going to sleep.

***

Years after establishing Israel on Palestinian lands in 1948, Israeli leaders were certain that the old Palestinians would die and the young would forget. But today, 73 years later, the old still remember and the young are more determined for freedom and return.

Between 1947 and 1949, Jewish militias and Israeli army expelled from 750,000 to 1,000,000 native Palestinians, committing over 20 massacres and destroying and depopulating over 400 villages. This is what made Israel.

In the years leading to 1948 Nakba (or catastrophe), Jewish militias had amassed weapons and western support and complicity and it was becoming clear to native Palestinians that these European gangs wanted one thing: forcefully expelling all Palestinians at all costs.

Omar Abedelal, 82, was only 9 years old when he along with his family members and neighbors was displaced from his village Burayr. They were forced to flee as the Jewish militias were closing in on Palestinian villages, burning, plundering, looting, and massacring.

Fighting Back

“We left behind the most fertile fields in the area. Just months before the Nakba, I was tending the land, daydreaming about my future. My father worked that land. My father’s father did before him and so many generations before,” recounts Omar Abedelal, as he remembered they were planning to harvest the wheat the year of the Nakba.

Omar Abedelal never forgets. He and millions of Palestinian refugees in Palestine and in the diaspora still cannot forget their inalienable right of return. Stories of the Nakba still harrow us and live in us, giving us hope of return.

He says, “Our village resisted the Jewish militias with what little we had. But the well-armed Zionist gangs were singling out unarmed civilians and butchering them in hundreds. Weeks before the Nakba in 1948, armed Jewish militias besieged our village Burayr and pushed us to leave only after they killed a few villagers.”

Omar Abedelal is currently living in Gaza City and has recently recovered from COVID19. He still has hope of returning to Burayr.

“I was about 9 years old, but if we had had enough guns, I would have fought. Unfortunately, we were overcome and forced to leave our homes,” he pauses, “None thought we would never return back in days or weeks. We were made to believe the Arab armies would come and help liberate Palestine. They never came and we never returned.”

“The Zionists surrounded the Beit Darras, and we refused to surrender,” he narrates, “Each time they attacked, the young men armed only with rifles pushed them back. Three times we foiled their attempt to enter and killed many of the invading militia members. And many Palestinians fell martyrs. Then, they started firing shells wantonly burning the fields and destroying the homes. Like what happened in many Palestinian villages, after the destruction, the Jewish attackers executed some young men,” he continued clearly shaken retelling us the details of the forced expulsion.

Mansi Nassar’s father, Mohammed, was killed by the armed Zionists. In addition, Israel assassinated two of his sons, Emad and Akram, 40 and 60 years later in Gaza.

Historians talk about at least two dozen massacres committed by Zionist and later Israeli occupation forces, “which played a crucial role in spurring the mass flight of Palestinians from their homes.”

Mansi Nassar’s father, Mohammed, was killed by the armed Zionists. Israel assassinated two of his sons, Emad and Akram, 40 and 60 years later in Gaza.

For example, members of the Irgun and Stern Gang, that later became the Israeli occupation army, massacred about “100 Palestinian civilians, including women and children” in the town of Deir Yassin on April 9, 1948. Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, the leaders of these gangs, later were rewarded as they became Israeli prime ministers.

Pogroms in 2021

As this feature is being written, Israel is invading Al-Aqsa Mosque and beating and shooting Muslim worshippers.

Israel is ethnically cleansing Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in occupied Jerusalem, and Jewish mobs in occupied Haifa, Lydda, and Akka and other cities occupied in 1948 are wreaking havoc, lynching Palestinians and damaging or attacking, torching mosques, homes, and businesses.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israel has waged a barbaric war against the Palestinians of Gaza with Israeli forces carrying out hundreds of air strikes in the span of six days. They massacred over 145 Palestinians including 41 children, 23 women, and 1100 were injured. Hundreds of homes are either damaged or destroyed.

So, yes, the Nakba in occupied Palestine continues because it has never ended.

“The anti-Palestinian bigotry and hate and massacres we witnessed 73 ago at the hands of the Jewish militias have simply been repeated by Israeli occupation forces,” Omar Abedelal insists. “The Nakba never ended.”

Omar Abedelal and Mansi Nassar both spend their time around their grandchildren telling them stories about “the good old days”, because, to them, memory is an important weapon.

The recently released report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) which described Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians as apartheid is important. It should serve as a wake-up call and bring attention to the ongoing plight of the Palestinians. The truth, however, is that the conclusion of this report, although it surprised some, did not surprise the Palestinians.

Palestinians have been describing Israeli laws, practices, and orders against them as apartheid for decades now. Since Nakba, the Arabic word for “catastrophe” which Palestinians use to describe the mass expulsion and ethnic cleansing of 1948, the year Israel was established on the ruins of 532 Palestinian villages, Palestinians have been placed under a de facto rule of apartheid. Here is how.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians remained in major cities such as Jaffa, Haifa, and Lod, under Israeli control, while some 750,000 were made refugees. Those who remained in what became Israel were placed in fenced areas called “Arab ghettos.” Some Israeli officials called these places concentration camps, but later, the term was omitted from Israeli archives on purpose.

For years, these Palestinians have needed permits by the Israeli authorities to move from one city to another or merely to go to work. They became strangers in their land and next to their own homes, which were taken from them at gunpoint and given to Jewish settlers.

Since day one, Israel was established on the notion of separation, separating Palestinians from Jews, and European Jews from Arab Jews. For example, the babies of Yemeni Jews were taken to be adopted by European Jews and to be raised as white Europeans in the 1950s. This denial of the other has extended to the dead too.

Recently, I came across a video showing the graveyard of the village of Aqer, where my family comes from. The graveyard where my great-grandfather was buried in early May 1948, after being shot dead while defending the village before it was taken over by the invading Zionist militias, is almost empty today except for what seem to be a couple of stones belonging to graves and some scattered trees.

Israeli settlers, whose villas overlook the graveyard, throw their old furniture inside the graveyard, while some of them bring chairs and have BBQ parties there.

The 10-dunum (acres) graveyard appears to be covered in sand, hiding the graves and trying to obscure the accompanying memories. It would appear that the Israeli settlers who live in the nearby villas do not want to be reminded of what happened here once.

Israeli settlers, whose villas overlook the graveyard, throw their old furniture inside the graveyard, while some of them bring chairs and have BBQ parties inside the graveyard. This is the history they don’t want to remember or talk about, the gruesome truth that must haunt them as they host parties and grill meat over the bones of dead Palestinians beneath them.

Palestinians who became internal refugees in what became the state of Israel were not allowed to return to their villages. At the same time, Jewish migrants who chose to move to Israel were given easy access to these villages and were given houses that belonged to Palestinians. Palestinians ended up as refugees in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and some neighboring Arab countries.

Palestinian refugees who attempted to return to their villages and towns were shot dead or arrested. From 1948 to 1956 alone, 3,000 Palestinians were shot dead on the northern borders of the West Bank. The aim was to scare refugees not to return, but also to force those who had managed to stay in their homes in what became Israel to move to the West Bank, which was under Jordanian control, and the Gaza Strip, which was under Egyptian control until 1967.

The year 1956 was rife with Israeli massacres of Palestinians, both those living under military rule inside Israel and those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The year 1956 was rife with Israeli massacres of Palestinians, both those living under military rule inside Israel and those in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

In 1956, 49 Palestinians from the town of Kufur Qasim, 23 of whom were children, were shot dead by Israeli forces. The victims were workers returning from their daily jobs without knowing that Israel had imposed a curfew on their town. As of today, Israel refuses to take responsibility for what happened.

This is only an example of how Israel has always treated Palestinians in Israel. Today, Israel claims to be giving Palestinians citizenship and allowing them to vote in elections.

The expulsion of Palestinians continued even after the establishment of Israel. The residents of the coastal city of Al-Majdal were expelled from their homes in 1949-1950 to make space for Jewish migrants. Al-Majdal was famous for its textile factories and Palestinians were forced to leave and move to the Gaza Strip, leaving behind their textile factories and machines. The 105 residents of the town of Abu-Ghosh were also transferred to the West Bank in 1950 by Israeli forces.

Israeli-American activist Miko Peled notes that Israeli generals had described the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1967 as “finishing the job.” The “job” that they started in 1948, but were not able to finish then. The entire British Mandate of Palestine came under Israeli occupation in 1967, but the “job” was not over yet. Since then, Israel has engaged in a systemic campaign of expelling Palestinians from their land, be it Palestinians who hold Israeli citizenship or Palestinians who live in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Palestinians in Jerusalem were given blue IDs, which give them the status of temporary residents in the city and allow them to visit the West Bank or Israel. As for Palestinians in the West Bank, their IDs only allow them to visit areas in the West Bank, but not Jerusalem. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinians can visit the West Bank or Jerusalem, but only after they get an Israeli permit which is hard to obtain and is given only to a limited number of Palestinians – mostly cancer patients, many of whom have died waiting for these permits to be issued.

The Human Rights Watch report which described Israeli policies towards the Palestinians as apartheid is not the first of its kind by non-Palestinians. In 2017, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) issued a report by Prof. Richard Falk and Prof. Virginia Tilley calling Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians apartheid. The report was withdrawn following Israeli pressure which pushed Rima Khalaf, the under-secretary general and executive secretary of the ESCWA, to resign in protest.

The ongoing Israeli policies of mass expulsion of Palestinians from the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem is a continuation of a more than seven-decade-long policy of ethnic cleansing against native Palestinians following the creation of Israel on May 15, 1948.

Israel’s nature has been augmented in ethnic cleansing and settler-colonialism from day one, when its creation meant the mass expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians from 532 villages in 1948. Israel’s creation on the ruins of Palestine was based on a complete negation of their existence, forcing them out of their lands and houses, and replacing them with colonial-settlers from all over the world.

Israel’s settler-colonialism and viewing Palestinians as a threat to this project and, therefore, displacing them by all means possible – was and still is the backbone of this project. Despite the UN Resolution 194, which calls for the return of Palestinian refugees to their towns and villages, Israel continues not only denying these refugees the right to return, but also pursues its policies of expulsion against Palestinians who managed to remain in their towns and villages.

From relocating these Palestinians to ghettos such as those in Jaffa, to placing them under military orders in what became Israel, to mass expulsion such as the case of the village of Abu Ghosh in 1950 and Al-Majdal in 1949-1950, Israel has proven repeatedly that its settler-colonialism project necessarily means uprooting the Palestinians.

Not only this – Israel has engaged in another war of changing history by renaming most street names and villages taken from their Palestinian owners and giving them Hebrew names. The village of Yibna became “Yivne,” the village of Aqer became “Kiryat Ekron,” and so on. Zionism has taken over an entire country with institutions and infrastructure and has turned its people into refugees. The process of changing demographics and names targeted Palestinians from villages around Jerusalem, especially west of Jerusalem.

Flourishing Palestinian neighborhoods to the west of Jerusalem such as al-Qatamoun, al-Talbieh, al-Baqa’a, and others were depopulated, and the houses were stolen in the most barbaric manner and given to the families of high-ranking Israeli generals as war booty.

Flourishing Palestinian neighborhoods to the west of Jerusalem such as al-Qatamoun, al-Talbieh, al-Baqa’a, and others were depopulated, and the houses were stolen in the most barbaric manner and given to the families of high-ranking Israeli generals as war booty. Some of these houses belonged to well-known Palestinian families such as al-Dajani, al-Khalidi, al-Karmi, and many others.

The house of the family of the well-known Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said was among these houses in al- Talbieh. In some cases, invading Zionist militias found food still hot on stoves left behind by terrified Palestinian families who had to leave at gunpoint.

The return of Palestinian refugees is a taboo topic that Israel is not willing to discuss. The bad news for Israel is that despite all its plans to force Palestinians out of Jerusalem, it has failed miserably. The numbers speak louder than its actions. Khalil Tafakji, the head of the maps department at the Arab Studies Society in Jerusalem, in the Old City of Jerusalem, told Politics Today that out of 4,220 ownership deeds, Palestinians, either Muslims or Christians, or private owners, own a total of 84%, in addition to the 8% owned by Muslim waqfs. The remaining deeds are classified either as under state or municipality ownership, including real estate owned by Jewish settlers, most of which is located in the city’s Jewish Quarter, which has historically been predominantly Jewish. These numbers do not include waqf ownership associated with the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Some 35,000 Palestinians live in the Old City alongside some 4,500 Jewish settlers. The numbers of the latter fluctuate depending on tensions in the city as many of them live in settler outposts. This is despite all Israeli attempts to use legal loopholes to strip Palestinians off their houses by imposing high taxes on them, unleashing armed-to-the-teeth radical colonial-settlers against them, and using excessive police violence.

Israel uses all possible means to force Palestinians out of Jerusalem. This includes offering them huge sums of money. The owners of one of four houses currently under threat of expulsion in Sheikh Jarrah were offered $6 million to leave the house and they refused. The Israeli government claims that what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah is a “real estate dispute,” which is laughable. What Israeli settler told Palestinian Muna al-Kurd, whose house is under threat of confiscation, on camera says it all. “If I don’t steal it, someone else is gonna steal it,” he said in English. This only proves that this is a systemic campaign led by settler groups to kick Palestinians out.

In light of the Palestinians’ refusal to leave, the Israeli apparatus moved to using force to expel them. This included breaking into Al-Aqsa Mosque and firing rubber-coated canisters and sound bombs at worshipers, injuring 208 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Three of these Palestinians lost one or both of their eyes as the invading Israeli police intentionally targeted Palestinians in the head. Palestinians faced their repression with their bare chests with one Palestinian teen literally jumping into a group of Israeli soldiers. The battle conjures images of David and Goliath.

History proves that Israel’s use of force against Palestinians only backfires. The Israeli state has to recognize the rights of Palestinians because maintaining an apartheid system, as it has recently been characterized by Human Rights Watch, will end up costing them way more than giving the Palestinians their full rights. Palestinians are not going to disappear, be it in Jerusalem or inside Israel itself. Today, Israel has turned into apartheid state that thinks a Jewish settler who just arrived in the country has a right to houses that have been inhabited by Palestinians for hundreds of years.

Israel might have the power now to suppress the Palestinians, shoot them in the eye, fabricate claims that what is happening in Sheikh Jarrah is a “real estate dispute,” but its intellectual leaders, unlike its politicians, know very well that they can’t sustain this system of apartheid for very long. In the same way that the Second Palestinian Intifada erupted in Jerusalem, a Third Palestinian Intifada is now a stone’s throw away. But this time, no one knows where it will stop. And then, all the normalization agreements and all the recognitions of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital will not be able to stop the Palestinians and their supporters across the globe.

Israel’s provocative policies in Jerusalem, particularly in the Old City and at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the second holiest site in Islam, violate international law and threaten the existence of Palestinians in the city. Israel should end the occupation and cease all its policies that aim to reduce the Palestinian presence in the city by replacing the land’s rightful owners with Jewish settlers.

We view Israel’s measures in the city, the latest of which was the crackdown on Muslim worshipers while performing their prayers during the last days of the holy month of Ramadan, resulting in the injury of 208 persons, as a complete disregard for the feelings of Muslims worldwide and the international community. The latter usually chooses silence over morality, tacitly encouraging Israeli occupation authorities and settlers to violate the rights of the Palestinians further.

The expulsion of Palestinians from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah is a continuation of a seven-decade-long policy based on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the destruction of their lives, their social fabric, their houses, and, at the same time, an orchestrated effort to increase the city.

Before the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem in 1948 and 1967, the city had always been an example of religious co-existence where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived peacefully for centuries. The current Israeli colonial policies inflict harm on the residents of the city including the Jews who want to observe their rituals in peace.

Israel’s policies in the city of Jerusalem and elsewhere in Palestine have been characterized by various international and local human rights organization as apartheid. The mass expulsion of Palestinians from the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah is in line with Israel’s policies of denying Palestinians their basic rights and it has to end now. The power of people on the ground will always prevail over the power of guns, and it is time for Israel to allow the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, rather than making them refugees for the second time.

Many of the residents of the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem are refugees from West Jerusalem, whose houses were taken by Israeli Jewish settlers in 1948. Now is the time to allow all refugees to return back, in accordance with UN Resolution 194.

There is no doubt that the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has encouraged Israel to adopt more violent and oppressive policies against the Palestinians. This has been further advanced by the normalization agreements signed recently between certain Arab countries and Israel.

However, the global solidarity with the Palestinian people today is proof that these agreements will not outlive the terms of office of the current officials in power. All attempts to silence and censor solidarity with the Palestinian people by social media companies will also not help.

Politics Today believes that the only way forward is to grant the Palestinians their full rights on their land and to call a spade a spade. Today, Israel has become an apartheid state and the Palestinian people deserve to live in freedom from fear. Occupation and mass expulsion are not sustainable. We call for all countries of the world to invest in justice rather than apartheid.

“A deliberate domination of the Israeli Jewish population over the Palestinians,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced Israel’s policy towards Palestinians on its soil and those in the Occupied Territories as apartheid on Tuesday, April 27, 2021. The report is the first of its kind from an international human rights organization and comes after repeated Palestinian calls to adopt such as a discourse to describe Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

In recent months, Israeli NGOs such as B’Tselem had begun to use the term “apartheid” to refer to Israel’s policies towards Palestinians living in Israel – who remained on their land after the creation of Israel – and Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. But this is the first time that a major international human rights NGO has described Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians as “apartheid.”

Human Rights Watch denounces the “systematic oppression” of Palestinians and “inhumane acts,” which define a “crime of apartheid.”

“We base our work on two years of investigation and two decades of work in Israel and the occupied territories. In using the term “apartheid” we are not making a historical analogy, but applying international law.” says Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW, in an interview for Le Monde.

In more than 900 small communities in Israel, admission committees allow Jews to live there, but not Palestinian citizens of the country. “

The report also shows that the crime of apartheid only occurs in the Occupied Territories. In more than 900 small communities in Israel, admission committees allow Jews to live there, but not Palestinian citizens of the country. “An effort is being made to cluster Palestinian communities in limited areas, while Jewish communities are allowed to flourish,” continues Roth.

The need for an international investigation

The NGO, whose headquarters is based in New York, also urges the UN to set up an “international commission of inquiry” on the situation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and foreign states to “not be complicit” in the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, according the Omar Shakir, the Director of Palestine/Israel Director at Human Rights Watch, who was expelled from Israel on November 25, 2019 over his critical work of Israeli violations of human rights of the Palestinians.

The fresh report caused much anger among Israeli political circles, which feel increasingly encircled following the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to start an investigation of possible war crimes in the Occupied Territories. Even before the publication of the report of HRW, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted by describing it as a “propaganda leaflet.”

For its part, the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas described the report as “a strong and credible testimony of the suffering of the Palestinians.” In a press release published by PA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates noted “this detailed affirmation of the reality a test to the international community’s determination to end all forms of discrimination and racism.”

Mahmoud Hijazi was the first Palestinian political prisoner to be freed from an Israeli jail on April 17, 1971. On March 22, 2021, he passed away in the West Bank city of Ramallah aged 85. Since his release and deportation to Lebanon at the time, April 17 has been marked as the Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. Despite its immense importance to Palestinians and the fact that more than a million Palestinians have been arrested by Israel since 1967, the issue of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails has not won enough global publicity, and is not adequately reflected in Palestinian politics.

While researching the issue, I was shocked by the immense suffering and torment prisoners and their families have been subjected to throughout the years. Today, many in the West know Bobby Sands, the Irish prisoner who passed away in 1981 while on hunger strike, but few know Marwan Barghouti, a veteran Palestinian prisoner and political leader. Palestinian political prisoners have many stories that the world needs to hear. They might hold the key today to many problems that will impact the course of events in Palestine for years to come.

A few years ago, I had the chance to interview former Palestinian political prisoner Muhammad Abushawish, a neighbor, novelist, and avid cat lover. Abushawish passed away in April 2020 due to illness and health complications resulting from his incarceration in Israeli prisons that lasted a total of 14 years. Abushawish was arrested seven times by the Israeli military; at his first arrest, he was only six years old.

Abushawish’s wish was to bring his jailers and interrogators to account before it was too late. He wrote a novel in Arabic documenting his torture in Israeli prisons titled Before My Tormentor Is Dead. However, he passed away before he could confront his and other Palestinian political prisoners’ tormentors – the least of his tortures involved lighting a match under his genitals.

The story of Abushawish is not different from that of Ahmad Alhaaj, now 87 years old, who was arrested in 1967 by the Israeli military and imprisoned for nearly three years.

The story of Abushawish is not different from that of Ahmad Alhaaj, now 87 years old, who was arrested in 1967 by the Israeli military and imprisoned for nearly three years. While in jail, he was subjected to hanging and torture that made him lose his consciousness. Jokingly, his jailers used to offer him a pair of left socks to use because he was a leftist. Today, Alhaaj is as determined as when he first left to return to his village of Al-Sawafir in what is today Israel – imprisonment has not made him change his mind.

As of March 2021, according to Addameer, a Palestinian prisoner support and human rights association, there are 4,450 Palestinian political prisoners detained by Israel. Of these prisoners, 33 have spent more than 25 years in jail, 543 are serving life sentences, 300 are from Jerusalem, 250 are from the Gaza Strip, 70 hold Israeli citizenship, 140 are child prisoners, 37 are women, and 440 are administrative detainees.

Al-Jabis was arrested in 2018 and sentenced to 11 years in jail. She suffers from third degree burns and is the victim of medical negligence according to her family. Nearly 60% of her body is covered in burns and she has lost two of her fingers. Israel accuses her of attempting to carry out a vehicle-ramming attack.

However, al-Jabis denies the accusation, stating that her car caught fire and when she attempted to get out, Israeli forces at a nearby checkpoint locked the door and prevented her from doing so, causing her serious burns. Along with the issue of female prisoners, administrative detention is one of the most challenging forms of arrest for Palestinians.

Administrative detention is one of the most unjust systems used by Israel against Palestinian prisoners.

Administrative detention is one of the most unjust systems used by Israel against Palestinian prisoners. Having its legal roots in the practices of British colonial rule in Palestine, the Israeli authorities use this law to detain Palestinians without charge or trial for indefinite periods of time. Their detention can be renewed every six months, they are never charged or convicted, and are detained based on “secret evidence.” Some Palestinians have been held in administrative detention for up to 15 years without a single charge.

Palestinian children have not been spared Israeli detention either. The torment of Palestinian children in Israeli jails might sound shocking to many. Malak al-Khatib was only 14 years old when she was arrested in 2015 by Israeli forces as she unknowingly entered a closed Israeli military zone while attempting to pick a wildflower on her way back from school. She served two months in prison before being released.

According to Israeli law, which does not apply to Israelis who live in the West Bank, Palestinians under the age of 16 are considered children. Palestinian children are tried before a kind of military court where they are handed down harsher sentences. These children, just like adults, are detained outside the Palestinian Territories in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Some of them are placed under house arrest by Israeli courts, where their families become their own jailers, fearing having to pay fines if their children leave the house.

In 2015, Ayman Abbasi, a former Palestinian child prisoner, was shot dead in Jerusalem during a peaceful protest against Israeli policies. The Israeli army tried to kidnap his body to use it in future swap deals with the Palestinians. This policy, which has been in place for years, amounts to collective punishment. Mourners tried to smuggle Abbasi’s body, jumping from one wall to another, and managed to bury him before the Israeli forces were able to succeed in their plans. Yet, this meant that his family was not able to bid him a final farewell.

Despite the existence of many tragic stories, some Palestinian prisoners were able to turn their prison cells into schools. There are several examples of Palestinian prisoners who were able to finish their bachelor and master’s degrees while incarcerated. However, several years after its launching, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) suspended all access to education for Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian prisoner Hilal Jaradat from the West Bank city of Jenin, who was deported to Gaza upon release in 2011, managed to learn 16 different languages while in prison.