Author: KPSC

Mark Braverman on Peter Beinart, Liberal Zionism and the Battle for Palestine.

By Mark Braverman | Tikkun  | Mar 18 2021

 The “separate regimes delusion” has been a key element of the almost five-decades long “peace process” to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

In January, 2021, Jerusalem-based journalist and analyst Nathan Thrall called out the Zionist left for promoting the fiction that as long as Israel refrains from annexing occupied Palestinian land, it does not cross the line into apartheid (“The Separate Regimes Delusion: Nathan Thrall on Israel’s Apartheid,” London Review of Books January 21, 2021). “The premise that Israel is a democracy,” he wrote, “rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control.” The “separate regimes delusion” has been a key element of the almost five-decades long “peace process” to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. As Israel has continued to take land and impose a system of control and fragmentation that has made the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state impossible, liberal Zionists have clung desperately to the fiction of the “two-state solution” as all that stands in the way of the now undeniable reality that Israel and its occupied territories comprise a single apartheid state. Accordingly, a storm of protest erupted in response to the Knesset’s green lighting of the annexation of an additional 30% of the West Bank in early summer 2020. It was in the midst of this controversy that Peter Beinart’s “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” appeared in the July 7, 2020 edition of Jewish Currents. Cutting the Gordian knot of a Jewish and democratic Israel, Beinart endorsed the idea of a single state for Jews and Palestinians.

Continue reading “The Tormented Dance of the Colonizer:”

On Friday March 5, between 10,000-20,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel marched in Umm al-Fahm against police abuse and neglect, as months of violence reached a boiling point.

By Yoav Haifawi | Mondoweiss | Mar 5, 2021

In those areas that were occupied by Israel in 1948, Palestinians are officially citizens of Israel but the state still relates to them as “internal enemy”.

The combined problem of a hostile racist government and the growing prevalence of organized crime are haunting the Palestinian Arab society within the green line. The lack of personal security is multiplied by the feeling that there is no one to turn to for protection when your life is in danger. In the last few years there have been many struggles against organized crime and against the Israeli police giving free hand to the criminal gangs to terrorize the Arab population, while at the same time the police acts with excessive violence against people who are struggling for their rights or even against ordinary Arab citizens.The Israeli Police force used tools that killed and inflicted evere harm to disperse the demonstrations, which is in violation of international standards and is classified as a crime where the perpetrators must be held accountable.

On Friday March 5, I took part in one of the biggest demonstrations of this kind. It was held in Umm al-Fahm, the main Palestinian town in the northern Triangle area. The protest was a high point in a long struggle of the people of the region, led by “al-Herak al-Fahmawi al-Muwahad” – “The United Fahmawi Movement.” This movement started following the regular occurrence of violence from armed gangs against local citizens as well as the murder attempt against Dr. Suleiman Aghbaria, a former mayor and one of the leaders of the Islamic Movement, in January 2021.

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The Biden administration, the International Criminal Court and the dangerous theology of American exceptionalism.

By Peter Beinart | The Beinart Notebook | Mar 8, 2021

“We firmly oppose and are disappointed by the ICC prosecutor’s announcement of an investigation into the Palestinian situation.”
— Ned Price, US State Department spokesperson

A remarkable exchange took place last Wednesday at the State Department. Asked about the International Criminal Court’s decision to launch an investigation into Israeli and Palestinian crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, State Department spokesman Ned Price began dutifully reciting his lines: “We firmly oppose and are disappointed by the ICC prosecutor’s announcement of an investigation into the Palestinian situation. We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”

Price wasn’t making an argument—he never explained why Israeli security necessitates impunity for war crimes, or why the court’s investigation is unfair. He was reading a script. He sounded like a Soviet commissar delivering statistics on the wheat harvest.

Continue reading “American exceptionalism as magical thinking”

Officials recognize there is a real risk of prosecution over the deadly 2014 conflict.

By Peter Beaumont | The Guardian | Mar 3, 2021

If this conflict was different from previous wars, however, it was in the immediate recognition by some Israeli officials that there was a serious risk of investigation by the ICC that could ultimately lead to Israeli soldiers and politicians in the chain of command being investigated for war crimes

The date of 13 June 2014 listed by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, as the starting point for its investigation into potential war crimes committed by Israelis and Palestinians is a significant one.

The day before, as that year’s World Cup opened, three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and murdered by a Hamas cell on the West Bank while hitchhiking in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Tensions escalated rapidly: Israel would within weeks launch its third war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip while Palestinian militants would launch rockets into Israel.

It was one of the deadliest conflicts between the two sides in decades. On the Palestinian side, more than 2,100 people – including civilians – were killed during 50 days of fighting. On the Israeli side, 67 Israeli soldiers and five civilians were killed.

Continue reading “Why Israel fears the ICC war crimes investigation”

A conversation between Peter Beinart and Ben Rhodes discussing the realities of lobbying efforts by Israeli and Palestinian groups.

By Foundation for Middle East Peace | Feb 10, 2021

Peter Beinart speaks to Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor from 2009-2017, about working on Israel, Palestine, and Iran in the Obama Administration. Rhodes draws insights from interactions with different lobby groups, presidential travel to Israel and a memorable meeting with young Palestinians in Ramallah, and talks about navigating the assumption by Israel advocates that Blackness translates into sympathy for Palestinians living under oppression. Beinart and Rhodes end the conversation with a discussion of the Biden administration and Democratic foreign policy advisors’ approaches to the IHRA definition of antisemitism and Democrats’ longstanding commitment to the concept of the two state solution. Ben Rhodes’s new book, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, will be out in June 2021.

Continue reading “Occupied Thoughts: Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes with Peter Beinart”

The Philos Project is the latest Christian Zionist organization seeking to drive a wedge between Muslim and Christian Arabs.

By Rev. Alex Awad & Haher Massis | Mondoweiss | Feb 19, 2021

As Arab Christians, we say to the Philos Project that we refuse to be swayed by an ideology that seeks to separate us from our Muslim brothers and sisters.

The Philos Project is a well-financed outfit that is repackaging a worn-out colonial missionary ideology in a revamped format. With the financial backing of well known pro-Israel donors, the organization purports to “equip a new generation of Western Christians to support … liberty and justice” in the “Near East.” It does this by organizing highly subsidized tours of Israel and some Arab countries; pamphlets, podcasts, and video documentaries; and “networking and advocacy opportunities.”

It seems targeted to younger people and minorities who are less likely to swallow a straight-up Christian Zionist ideology that is totally oblivious to any kind of “worldly” rights. Similar to some of the more sophisticated figures on the right wing of the American political spectrum, it borrows from civil rights language to advance its agenda. For example, its Facebook page features a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr, attacking antisemitism, next to another quotation from Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Danon’s political views are well to the right of Benjamin Netanyahu’s, so much so that an Op-Ed in the Times of Israel said: “It is hard to conceive of a more short-sighted, shameful and damaging appointment than that of [Danny Danon as] UN envoy.”

Continue reading “The Philos Project: a modern version of a colonial missionary project for the Arab world”

Coexistence in Jerusalem isn’t equal, but could there be some benefit to improving enhanced cooperation and integration between the different local authorities.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Building the Bridge | Feb 22, 2021

That reality is Jerusalem as a shared city. And the very limited decisions of the Biden administration offer a key to engaging with that.

We can all breathe. Four weeks after his inauguration as President of the United States, Joe Biden finally gave Benjamin Netanyahu a call, and all is fine with the extra-special relationship.

And now that the long wait is over, we can finally get down to more relevant question of what plans, if any, does the new U.S. administration have for us.

One thing seems pretty clear by now. Biden’s team are on a collision course with the Netanyahu government over their intention to rejoin the nuclear agreement with Iran, pretty much on the same lines as the original deal signed by the Obama administration.

What’s less clear is their plans on the other potential minefield: the Israel-Palestine conflict.

For now at least, it looks like the administration doesn’t have any plan. For now, they seem content to stick with Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there, while balancing that somewhat by reopening the separate consulate in Jerusalem that dealt directly with the Palestinians.

Read the full article here →

The change in US administration may not produce significant shift in foreign policy relationship with Israel.

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle  |  Feb 17, 2021

…while Republicans increasingly ignore the rights and, sometimes, the very existence of the Palestinians, Democrats, who continue to support Israel with equal passion, use more moderate – although inconsequential – language.

Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed.

There are obvious differences in the Democrats’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but only in semantics and political jingoism, not policy. This assertion can be justified if the Democratic administration’s official language on Palestine and Israel is examined, and such language considered within the context of practical policies on the ground.

Continue reading “‘Leaving Aside’ International Law: Why Democrats are as dangerous as Republicans to a just peace in Palestine”