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Tag Archives: occupation

UN passes resolution against Zionist entity annexation plans in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights

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Press TV: The United Nations General Assembly has approved a resolution declaring that the Israeli regime’s decision to impose its jurisdiction in Syria’s Golan Heights with the aim of changing the character and legal status of the strategic territory are “null and void” and constitute a flagrant violation of international law.

So here’s what we have: a warmongering former American Vice President (and virulent opponent of the current President); a media mogul of dubious ethics; the head of an international Jewish philanthropic entity dedicated to (among other things) “the environment, sustainable development and green energy”; a tightly bound confluence of American and Israeli business interests; and a former Israeli governmental minister who is one caveat shy of advocating mass genocide, all about to benefit from exploiting the natural resources of a large chunk of land that, according to international law, actually belongs to another country.

December 10, 2021

On Thursday, a total of 149 countries supported the resolution, entitled “The Occupied Syrian Golan”, the United States and Israel voted against it, and 23 abstained.

MAJDAL SHAMS, GOLAN HEIGHTS – APRIL 29: (ISRAEL OUT) A Druze shepherd looks for his flock on the slopes of Mount Hermon April 29, 2008 above Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

The resolution called on Israel as the occupying power to undertake its obligations as to the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, especially United Nations Security Council resolution 497 – adopted unanimously on December 17, 1981, which declares the Israeli annexation of the area as “null and void and without international legal effect” and further calls on the Tel Aviv regime to rescind its action.

“Israel’s” decision to impose its laws and jurisdiction on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights has no international legal effect, and the regime should immediately stop changing the urban character, demographic composition and legal status of the occupied Syrian Golan, particularly its settlement construction plans, the resolution pointed out.

It further called on the Tel Aviv regime to stop attempts to enforce its administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, put an end to issuing Israeli identity cards for local residents of the territory, and stop its repressive measures against them.

The resolution also denounced Israel’s violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, adopted on August 12, 1949, and once again called upon UN member states not to recognize any of the measures taken by Israel in the Golan Heights.

Last week, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that the Israeli regime fully withdraw from the Syrian Golan Heights, declaring “null” and “void” the regime’s imposition of its jurisdiction on the occupied territory.

The Assembly adopted the draft resolution titled “The Syrian Golan” by a recorded vote of 94 in favor to 8 against, with 69 abstentions.

Israel was joined by the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau in voting against the draft resolution.

The draft resolution reaffirmed that settlement construction and any other Israeli activities constitute a change in the demographic nature of the occupied Syrian Golan.

Last month, the United Nations overwhelmingly adopted a resolution in condemnation of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East al-Quds, and Syria’s Golan Heights, and demanded cessation of their construction.

In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war against Arab territories, during which it occupied a large swathe of Golan and annexed it four years later – a move never recognized by the international community.

In 1973, another war broke out; and a year later a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force, according to which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their troops and create a buffer zone in the Heights.

However, Israel has over the past several decades built dozens of illegal settlements in Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities.

In a unilateral move rejected by the international community in 2019, former US president Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over Golan.

Nevertheless, Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over Golan, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.

The United Nations has also time and again emphasized Syria’s sovereignty over the territory.

Secretary of State Blinken “Enthusiastically Embraces” IHRA

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Biden administration “enthusiastically embraces” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a February 23 letter to American Zionist Movement President Richard D. Heideman that the Biden administration “enthusiastically embraces” the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

The letter, which was obtained by Jewish Insider, stated that the administration will counter “efforts to delegitimize Israel” as well as efforts to “isolate” Israel as the United States and Israel work toward a two-state solution.

“As the stepson of a Holocaust survivor, I wholeheartedly believe that we must remain vigilant in speaking out against bigotry, intolerance, and those who seek to undermine democracy,” Blinken wrote.

ZIONISTS RUN THE STATE DEPARTMENT

“The Biden Administration enthusiastically embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, including its examples.

We are eager to work with allies and partners to counter Holocaust distortion and combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance abroad while we strengthen our efforts at home, including redoubling our efforts to counter violent extremism.”

The American Jewish Committee praised Blinken in a tweet. “We welcome the Biden administration’s ‘enthusiastic’ support for @TheIHRA definition of antisemitism,” they wrote. “Utilizing the definition is a critical step in combating this age-old hatred in America and around the world.”

Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff told Jewish Insider that Blinken’s letter shows how the IHRA definition has become the “gold standard” definition of anti-Semitism.

“It’s more acceptable, unfortunately, to call someone a ‘dirty Israeli’ than it is to call them a ‘dirty Jew,’” Daroff said.

“And we see this brand of antisemitism all over the world. It doesn’t mean it’s the only manifestation of antisemitism, it doesn’t mean that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but it reflects the reality of this growing plague.”

The progressive group IfNotNow, on the other hand, criticized Blinken’s support for IHRA.

“We know this won’t keep us safe,” they tweeted. “We’ve seen how it’s only been used by the right to curb the free speech of Palestinians and their allies.”

The Biden administration had previously announced in February that they were going to champion the IHRA definition. The definition states that the demonization and delegitimization of Israel as well as subjecting it to double standards amounts to anti-Semitism.

Kushner quitting politics to set up ties with Israel

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JTA — Jared Kushner, former US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and onetime senior adviser, is quitting politics to focus on investment, particularly on businesses that advance ‘Israeli-Arab peace’, according to a report.

Kushner’s business will be called Infinity Partners and will be based in Miami, where Kushner and his wife Ivanka now live, Reuters reported, quoting anonymous sources.

The couple live about an hour’s drive from Trump’s Palm Beach home.

Kushner will also open an office in Israel that will promote business ties between Israel, India, Persian Gulf states, and North Africa.

One of Kushner’s last acts as an adviser to Trump was leading the brokering of normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.

Much of Kushner’s emphasis while shaping his father-in-law’s Middle East policy was on peace nurtured through investment and economic development.

It was a winning formula with what he dubbed the “Abraham Accords,” but failed to bring about a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Kushner also took a leading role in running Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020, but has signaled that he is not going to be involved in a possible Trump campaign in 2024.

Kushner is a third-generation principal in a family real estate empire founded by his grandfather, a Holocaust survivor.

The company has done extensive business in Israel.

CIA-Backed Afghan Death Squads Massacred Muslim Children Campaign of Terror

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A shocking exposé reveals CIA-backed death squads in Afghanistan have killed children as young as 8 years old in a series of night raids, many targeting madrassas, Islamic religious schools.

In December 2018, one of the death squads attacked a madrassa in Wardak province, killing 12 boys, of whom the youngest was 9 years old.

The United States played key roles in many of the raids, from picking targets to ferrying Afghan forces to the sites to providing lethal airpower during the raids.

The Intercept reports this was part of a campaign of terror orchestrated by the Trump administration that included massacres, executions, mutilation, forced disappearances, attacks on medical facilities, and airstrikes targeting structures known to house civilians.

“These militias … were established in the very early days of the Afghan War by CIA officers, many of whom had been brought back into the fold after the invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 who had previously been working in Afghanistan during the 1980s,” says reporter Andrew Quilty.

“This network of militias was set up and appear to be entirely under the control of the CIA but made up entirely of Afghan soldiers.”

 

The New Apartheid Is Uglier Than The First

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No more of the two-country peace process sham that has been ongoing for over 70 years. It’s time to end this disgrace.

By Biblicism Institute

“I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.” – Desmond Tutu, Archbishop of Cape Town.

Israel is an apartheid country that is revved up by the anti-Christ spirit of “Hate Thy Neighbor.”

“Israel is not a democracy but an ‘apartheid regime’ that enforces Jewish supremacy over all the land it controls,” writes The Guardian.

It has repudiated the Prince of Peace’s message of neighborly love and peace, and has embraced the genocidal spirit of conquest, terror, and subjugation, which has injected into the Middle East a cesspool of conflict and hate that has begun to metastasize worldwide.

Palestinian David facing the Israeli Goliath

However, if one truly believes the Jewish-dominated media, their fake news, and their constant barrage of “Holocaust” movies, one genuinely thinks that there’s only one group of people that everyone on earth hates: Jews. That’s how effective the brainwashing has been.

But when one wakes up from the media’s induced stupor, one realizes that Jews are themselves the victimizers who camouflage themselves as victims.

APARTHEID JEWISH STYLE

“Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.” – Alice Walker, American novelist, poet, and activist.

Israeli monster and Palestinian fortitude

The new Apartheid (i.e., Segregation, Separation) by Jewish zealots in Israel is not only uglier than the first, it’s also disgustingly more barbaric.

It is taking place because Israeli Jewish leaders refuse co-existence with the Palestinians. The whole conflict is about their thirst for land. They want the whole enchilada. The whole of Palestine.

They want it without Arabs, when Palestine was 95% Arabs before non-Hebraic European Jews flooded in, stole it, kept the Arabs segregated, and renamed it Israel in 1948. Ironically, the whole country today, including the occupied territories, is 60% Christian and Muslim Arabs and 40% Jews of different origins.

Still, the Jewish goal is to turn the whole of Palestine into Greater Israel, a pipe dream that will never become reality. It’s an obsession the Ashkenazi leaders of Israel have successfully inculcated in their coreligionists. (To comprehend the Ashkenazim’s obsession with land, you must understand their origin and history by clicking here.)

That obsession has turned the majority of Israelis toward a malignant racism, which has morphed into an Apartheid system worse than the one that took shape in Apartheid South Africa.

Here’s how Miko Peled, son of an Israeli General, described the situation: “Those who cling to fear, mistrust or greed are under the false assumption that Palestinians and Israelis have a choice other than to live as equals. But it’s inevitable – the wall must come down, and the two people must be allowed to live as equal citizens in their shared homeland. Refusing this means condemning future generations of Israelis and Palestinians to ongoing mayhem and violence.”

Life in Israel and the occupied territories is extremely dire for Christian and Muslim Arabs. The whole country is openly talking about their genocide. They mistreat them, kill them, and bomb them at will in the hope they will leave the land in disgust. If you’re having difficulty grasping such hatred maybe this quote can help:

That's Apartheid“Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves.”— Menahem Begin, 6th Prime Minister of Israel’s speech to the Knesset (24 June 1982) [quoted in “Begin and the Beasts” Amnon Kapeliouk, in The New Statesman (25 June 1982)]

AMERICA SUPPORTS APARTHEID

“The U.S. is the last country that should see itself as an ally of the apartheid system.” –  Oliver Tambo, President of the African National Congress from 1967 to 1991.

Unfortunately, America, the supposed bastion of freedom and liberty, has become the de facto patron of that genocidal Apartheid state to the tunes of billions of dollars a year. Money that is plundered out of America’s coffers in order for Israel to wage war and oppress another people, while millions of Americans go hungry, jobless, and homeless.

“Evil men do not understand justice…” Proverbs 28:5

Even non-profit American Jewish and “Christian” organizations help in the fund raising efforts for Zionist “settlers”. In so doing, they’re actually helping these land thieves steal another people’s land, while empowering them to kill the original inhabitants in the process.

 Graphic2 Graphic
Strange! Where's the pro-life crowd?

These Apartheid enablers also lobby the US government to provide the criminal state of Israel with diplomatic cover in the international community, even when Israel is indiscriminately bombing innocent men, women, and children.

And when America flinches in its support, no matter how insignificant the wavering, they scream and yell and… scream and yell. So America relents, becomes an accomplice to mass murder, and sends them even more money.

As Pat Buchanan once quipped, “Congress is Israeli-occupied territory.” A nice euphemism for saying that Israel has taken over the American government, or that America has become a subservient country, an occupied nation, an Empire on a leash.

Berlin Wall - Palestine Wall

The Israeli Apartheid Wall disguised as a security wall

One would think that because of the many similarities Jews have with Muslims, such as circumcision and the like, that these Zionist Jews would concede to living in harmony. But they don’t want to.

“Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible . . . the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’ll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state,” admitted Israeli Minister thief Tzipi Livni.

The reason for such barefaced thievery is because it’s not about faith. It’s not about God and the Bible or God and His promises and commandments.

It’s about land. Pure and simple. Otherwise they would put this into practice: “If a stranger lives as a foreigner with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

The stranger who lives as a foreigner with you shall be to you as the native-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself… I am Yahweh your God.” Leviticus 19:33-34

Checkpoint for Arab

One of hundreds of checkpoints for Palestinians, but Israelis are free to roam

 

MODERN-DAY ISRAEL IS NOT THE ISRAEL OF THE BIBLE

“It is certain that there is no ethnic or racial continuum between the Biblical Israelites and the (Ashkenazic) Khazarians who lead the Jewish state.” – Gilad Atzmon, Jewish writer and musician.

Modern-day Zionist Israel is NOT the Israel of the Bible, because it is comprised of converted Jews and not of Hebrews with whom God had the Old Covenant.

It was founded in 1948 on stolen Palestinian land by Ashkenazi Zionists, who had lost their homeland Khazaria and were in search of a new country.

Chris HedgesThese land thieves forged that apartheid country by means of terrorist groups, such as the Irgun, the Stern gang, and Haganah.

They terrorized the Palestinian population, killed thousands upon thousands, and forced hundreds of thousands out of their homes and into neighboring Arab countries. Said dispossession is known as the Nakba.

“The Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’ in Arabic, need not refer only to the more than 700,000 Palestinians who were expelled or fled in terror during Israel’s founding.

It can also evoke the many expulsions that have occurred since: the about 300,000 Palestinians whom Israel displaced when it conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967; the roughly 250,000 Palestinians who could not return to the West Bank and Gaza after Israel revoked their residency rights between 1967 and 1994; the hundreds of Palestinians whose homes Israel demolished in 2020 alone,” wrote Peter Beinart in the New York Times.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Exodus 20:17

In fact, those who today are known as Jews are the non-Semitic and non-Israelite Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Samaritans, who in later times joined small numbers of other races that converted to Judaism/Pharisaism: Polish, Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, etc. These latter ones form a minority known as European Jews who, when coupled with the Ashkenazim, constitute a majority against the darker-skinned Samaritan, Sephardic, and African Jews. See what became of the Hebrews.

All the above groups are converts to Judaism, and none can claim to trace their ancestry to Abraham, Jacob, or Judah. 

In other words, they’re not the chosen Hebrews of the Bible with whom God had the Old Covenant, and therefore cannot claim Palestine as their Abrahamic inheritance.

And resurrecting the dead Hebrew tongue after centuries in the dustbin of oblivion, in order to make it modern Israel’s official language, won’t change those facts, much like parking a Subaru in a Lamborghini dealership won’t turn it into a Veneno Roadster.

Jews Stole the name Israel

Besides, when was the last time you heard of a prophet whom God sent to anoint a King over modern Israel, as He used to do in the old days? What of the animal sacrifices? What of the lamb to be killed and eaten during Passover, like Jesus did when He established the new covenant with his disciples, a lamb that was killed and eaten in a private home? The sacrifice of the Passover Lamb in the Hebrew home was God’s very covenant with each individual ancient Hebrew, and that’s why Jesus repeated it with his disciples in order to introduce the new covenant.

Do Jews today kill a lamb for Passover in their own homes to keep the old covenant alive? Is modern Israel comprised of only Judea and Samaria as it was in the Old Testament, and divided into seven lots as God directed Joshua, with each tribe settling on its own parcel? Are the bloodline descendants of the Levites still around to restock a future Temple, because no other Hebrew tribe can?

The answer to all of these questions is resoundingly negative. And ironically, Judea and Samaria of the Bible (i.e., the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel) are today mostly inside the West Bank of Palestine (aptly named Judea and Samaria even by thieving Zionists, map on your right) and not inside Modern-Day Israel.

Palestine New Testament Times West Bank

In other words, Zionist Jews, who claim that Palestine belongs to them, are simply barefaced impostors and liars pretending to be Hebrews in order to steal the land. They can’t possibly contend that Palestine, which they have stolen under biblical pretense, is their Abrahamic inheritance.

“The LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight… And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight.” 2 Kings 17:18,20

CONCLUSION

DeNiro“Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.” Deuteronomy 1:8

Those who today are known as Jews are not of the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and therefore have no right to the land of Palestine. See How the Ashkenazi Jews conquered the West

But, for the sake of peace and the end of Apartheid, a just and equitable one-country solution needs to be worked out. One where Palestinians – including the refugees who were kicked out of their homes by Zionist terrorists – can have equal rights in the same land.

One that would lead to One Country, One Person, One Vote.

No more Apartheid.

No more of the two-country peace process sham that has been ongoing for over 50 years. It’s time to end this disgrace.

“In you they have treated father and mother with contempt; in you they have oppressed the foreigner and mistreated the fatherless and the widow.” Ezekiel 22:7

Israeli high school students refuse to join the Israeli military citing the “continuing Nakba”

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Young people our age are required to take part in enforcing closures as a means of “collective punishment,” arresting and jailing minors, blackmailing to recruit “collaborators” and more– all of these are war crimes which are executed and covered up every day.

Sixty Israeli high school students sign letter refusing their compulsory enlistment in the Israeli military – “The Zionist policy of brutal violence towards and expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands began in 1948 and has not stopped since.”

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We are a group of Israeli 18-year-olds at a crossroads. The Israeli state is demanding our conscription into the military.

Allegedly, a defense force which is supposed to safeguard the existence of the State of Israel.

In reality, the goal of the Israeli military is not to defend itself from hostile militaries, but to exercise control over a civilian population.

In other words, our conscription to the Israeli military has political context and implications.

It has implications, first and foremost on the lives of the Palestinian people who have lived under violent occupation for 72 years.

Indeed, the Zionist policy of brutal violence towards and expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands began in 1948 and has not stopped since.

The occupation is also poisoning Israeli society–it is violent, militaristic, oppressive, and chauvinistic.

It is our duty to oppose this destructive reality by uniting our struggles and refusing to serve these violent systems–chief among them the military.

Our refusal to enlist to the military is not an act of turning our backs on Israeli society. On the contrary, our refusal is an act of taking responsibility over our actions and their repercussions.

The military is not only serving the occupation, the military is the occupation.

Pilots, intelligence units, bureaucratic clerks, combat soldiers, all are executing the occupation.

One does it with a keyboard and the other with a machine gun at a checkpoint.

Despite all of this, we grew up in the shadow of the symbolic ideal of the heroic soldier.

We prepared food baskets for him in the high holidays, we visited the tank he fought in, we pretended we were him in the pre-military programs in high school, and we revered his death on memorial day.

The fact that we are all accustomed to this reality does not make it apolitical. Enlistment, no less than refusal, is a political act.

We are used to hearing that it is legitimate to criticize the occupation only if we took an active part in enforcing it.

How does it make sense that in order to protest against systemic violence and racism, we have to first be part of the very system of oppression we are criticizing?

The track upon which we embark at infancy, of an education teaching violence and claims over land, reaches its peak at age 18, with the enlistment in the military.

We are ordered to put on the bloodstained military uniform and preserve the legacy of the Nakba and of occupation.

Israeli society has been built upon these rotten roots, and it is apparent in all facets of life: in the racism, the hateful political discourse, the police brutality, and more.

This military oppression goes hand in hand with economic oppression.

While the citizens of the Occupied Palestinian Territories are impoverished, wealthy elites become richer at their expense.

Palestinian workers are systematically exploited, and the weapons industry uses the Occupied Palestinian Territories as a testing ground and as a showcase to bolster its sales.

When the government chooses to uphold the occupation, it is acting against our interest as citizens– large portions of taxpayer money is funding the “security” industry and the development of settlements instead of welfare, education, and health.

The military is a violent, corrupt, and corrupting institution to the core.

But its worst crime is enforcing the destructive policy of the occupation of Palestine.

Young people our age are required to take part in enforcing closures as a means of “collective punishment,” arresting and jailing minors, blackmailing to recruit “collaborators” and more– all of these are war crimes which are executed and covered up every day.

Violent military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is enforced through policies of apartheid entailing two different legal systems: one for Palestinians and the other for Jews.

The Palestinians are constantly faced with undemocratic and violent measures, while Jewish settlers who commit violent crimes– first and foremost against Palestinians but also against soldiers- are “rewarded” by the Israeli military turning a blind eye and covering up these transgressions.

The military has been enforcing a siege on Gaza for over ten years.

This siege has created a massive humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip and is one of the main factors which perpetuates the cycle of violence of Israel and Hamas.

Because of the siege, there is no drinkable water nor electricity in Gaza for most hours of the day.

Unemployment and poverty are pervasive and the healthcare system lacks the most basic means. This reality serves as the foundation on top of which the disaster of COVID-19 has only made things worse in Gaza.

It is important to emphasize that these injustices are not a one-time slippage or straying away from the path.

These injustices are not a mistake or a symptom, they are the policy and the disease.

The actions of the Israeli military in 2020 are nothing but a continuation and upholding of the legacy of massacre, expulsion of families, and land theft, the legacy which “enabled” the establishment of the State of Israel, as a proper democratic state, for Jews only.

Historically, the military has been seen as a tool which serves the “melting pot” policy, as an institution which crosscuts social class and gender divides in Israeli society.

In reality, this could not be further from the truth.

The military is enacting a clear program of ‘channeling’; soldiers from upper-middle class are channeled into positions with economic and civilian prospects, while soldiers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are channeled into positions which have high mental and physical risk and which do not provide the same head start in civil society.

Simultaneously, women’s representation in violent positions such as pilots, tank commanders, combat soldiers, and intelligence officers, is being marketed as feminist achievement.

How does it make sense that the struggle against gender inequality is achieved through the oppression of Palestinian women?

These “achievements” sidestep solidarity with the struggle of Palestinian women. The military is cementing these power relations and the oppression of marginalized communities through a cynical co-opting of their struggles.

We are calling for high school seniors (shministiyot) our age to ask themselves: What and who are we serving when we enlist in the military? Why do we enlist? What reality do we create by serving in the military of the occupation? We want peace, and real peace requires justice.

Justice requires acknowledgment of the historical and present injustices, and of the continuing Nakba.

Justice requires reform in the form of the end of the occupation, the end of the siege on Gaza, and recognition of the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Justice demands solidarity, joint struggle, and refusal.

The letter is addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, army Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi, Minister of Defense Benny Gantz and Education Minister Yoav Galant.

In Israel, conscientious objectors like these are often jailed. In 2003 five male conscientious objectors were sentenced to about 2 years prison.

The longest-serving female conscientious objector is Hillel Kaminer, who was released from prison after 150 days, in 2016.

It is doubtful that those to whom the letter is addressed to will be very affected by it.

The most ‘liberal’ among them is probably Benny Gantz, former army chief of staff, who has boasted of bringing Gaza back to the “stone age” as his entry card into politics two years ago.

Gantz is precisely a depiction of what these ingenious and courageous youths are speaking about when they say that Israeli society is “violent, militaristic, oppressive, and chauvinistic”.

Yet there are many among us who listen very closely to what these young people are saying.

And here they are defining a critical discourse.

The 1967 occupation is not the start and it is not the end.

It is part of Israel’s overarching project of occupation, it’s the state in its entirety, enacting “Apartheid policies” as part of its very nature. The “proper democratic state” is a sad joke, it is for Jews only.

Lydda Air Port. Palestine Airways plane close-up

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1948: The British commander of Transjordan’s Arab Legion, had toured Palestinian Arab towns, including Lydda and Ramle, urging them to prepare to defend themselves against the Zionist horde.

The PLUNDER and LOOTING of Palestinian homes, farms, plantations, banks, cars, ports, railroads, schools, hospitals, trucks, tractors, etc. in the course of the 1948 war were a crime on a massive scale. For example, the looting of Lydda City was described by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property in mid-July, 1948:

“From Lydda alone, the army took out 1,800 truck-loads of property.” (1949, The First Israelis, p. 69)

It should be noted that the great majority of the Palestinian people have been dispossessed for the past five decades, meanwhile, their properties are being used by mostly European Jews (who were victims of similar war crimes committed by anti-Semitic Europeans). Prior to being ethnically cleansed in 1948, the Palestinian people owned and operated 93% of Palestine’s lands, and contributed up to 55-60% of its national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Zionists capture Lydda: Palestine’s main railway junction and its airport (now Ben Gurion International Airport) were in Lydda, and the main source of Jerusalem’s water supply was 15 kilometers away.

American President Bill Clinton and wife Hillary are welcomed at the Gaza airport by President of the Palestinian National Authority Yasser Arafat and wife Soha. (Photo by Ira Wyman/Sygma via Getty Images)

“The airport used to be packed with thousands of travelers and we received presidents and world leaders,” he said, pointing to parts of the site in various stages of decay.
“Now it’s turned into a ruin, a waste dump. It’s a tragedy.”

Daifallah Al-Akhras, the chief engineer of the airport, admitted he wept on a recent visit to the terminal.

“We built the airport to be the first symbol of sovereignty,” he said. “Now you don’t see anything but destruction and ruin.”

When the airport opened in late 1998 it was one of the most tangible symbols of the Oslo accords.

Many saw the deals as paving the way to the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but their five-year transitional period expired without a resolution to the conflict.

The airport was opened despite the assassination of the most senior Israeli signatory to Oslo, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, by a Jewish ‘radical’ opposed to the agreements.

By 1998 the accords were fraying, but Clinton, along with his wife Hillary, still attended the ceremony to inaugurate the Yasser Arafat International Airport.

Built with funding from countries across the globe, it hosted the newly formed Palestinian Airlines and was able to handle hundreds of thousands of passengers a year, with many airlines opening up routes there.

Once a commercial airport was established, the Palestinian Authority moved forward with a plan to establish a flag carrier for the embattled country.

The airline was officially announced in 1995 with financial backing coming from the Netherlands and Saudi Arabia, who donated two Fokker 50s and a Boeing 727 to help start operations.

The newly-formed Palestinian Airlines would also join the Arab Air Carriers Organization, with its introduction to the alliance coming in 1999.

While the airline officially started operations in 1997, limits were quickly established on where it could fly.

The Yasser Arafat International Airport was still under construction in Gaza, leaving the airline to commence service in the Egyptian towns of Port Said and Arish to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Amman, Jordan.

Once the airline’s home in the Gaza Strip was completed, all operations were transferred to the new airport.

Palestinian Airlines quickly expanded to include service to additional countries including Turkey, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

The airline would also come to take hold of an Ilyushin Il-62 to help with their expansion plans.

While the airline was expanding, it was not completely free of Israeli restrictions.

Under the Oslo II Accord, Israel had the right to restrict the airport’s schedule, which frequently saw the airport shuttered during the nighttime hours.

The airport’s security was also administered by the Israeli government due to fears that the Palestinians would lapse on security due to the economic instability of Gaza.

Unfortunately, the Oslo II Accord soured over time and increased tensions between the Israelis and Palestinians led to the breakout of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

Palestinian Airlines was forced to suspend operations while Israel and Palestine escalated their conflict.

Fearing that the Palestinians would use Yasser Arafat Airport for weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip, Israel made the airport a primary target, destroying both the radar and control towers in 2001 before carving up the runway using bulldozers in 2002.

In addition to its smuggling fears, Israel also claimed that the dismantling was in response to a Palestinian raid that killed four Israeli soldiers.

The destruction of Yasser Arafat International Airport did not sit well with Palestinians or the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

For Palestinians, the ruins of the airport were a symbol of a potential nation now reeling from the Second Intifada and a sign that Israel and Palestine may never trust each other.

Meanwhile, the ICAO saw Israel’s destruction of the airport as a violation of Palestine’s right to operate a commercial airport and strongly condemned the Israelis for their actions.

The ICAO called for Israel to pay for any repairs from the damages caused to the airfield, which Israel ignored.

With no home airport inside Palestine, the flag carrier fled back across the border and restarted operations at El Arish International Airport in Egypt.

However, getting Palestinians to Arish was a struggle, as Egyptian security could take up to a day processing those traveling into and out of the country.

To attempt to ease the issue, the airline still manned the ticket counters at Yasser Arafat Airport, hoping to sell tickets to passengers inside Gaza and simplify their flying experience.

With this restriction, and the flag carrier operating 30 miles from its home opposite a major international border, the consumer base for Palestinian Airlines slowly dried up. The airline removed the Boeing 727 and Ilyushin Il-62 from its fleet before suspending operations outright in 2005.

The Palestinian Authority would hold on to the two Fokker 50s and lease them to other airlines while they waited for a chance to restart operations.

That chance would finally come in 2012, when the airline announced it would restart service using its Fokker 50s and a route map that would, yet again, be based in Arish, Egypt with flights to Cairo, Amman and Jeddah.

But much like their previous experience at Arish, Palestine was at too much of a disadvantage to make use of their airline.

The airline would last less than two years before re-suspending operations.

The Palestinian Authority returned to leasing their Fokker 50s, with Niger Airlines currently being the home for the two aircraft.

Despite having no current operations, the airline is still an active member in the ICAO, IATA and Arab Air Carriers Organization.

While Palestine hopes to have the airline flying again, the prospect of coming home to Gaza grows bleaker and bleaker.

The airport sustained more damage in recent years, with the terminal and ramps areas taking heavy bombings by Israeli forces in 2014.

Given that the Egyptian rehabilitation attempts have proven too costly for the airline, Palestinian Airlines is currently a flag carrier with no home, no service and no clear future.

In last push before Trump exits, GOP tries to erase Palestinian refugees

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“The original Zionist slogan—’a land without a people for a people without a land’—disclosed its own negation when I saw the densely populated Arab towns dwelling sullenly under Jewish tutelage. You want irony? How about Jews becoming colonizers at just the moment when other Europeans had given up on the idea?”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

Republican Members of Congress are calling on the Trump administration to reclassify which Palestinians are considered refugees — a move which would constrain the Biden White House, and could fatally harm the Palestinian demand for the right of return.

The political nature of the demand is spelled out clearly by these Members of Congress.

“The issue of the so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ of 5.3 million refugees to Israel as part of any ‘peace deal’ is an unrealistic demand, and we do not believe it accurately reflects the number of actual Palestinian refugees…it is time to end the fiction of the ‘right of return’ and bring the conflict one step closer [to] conclusion,” they argued.

The Trump administration has already taken a major step toward trying to erase Palestinian refugees.

In August 2018, the State Department cut US funding to UNRWA, deeming the UN agency responsible for providing social services to Palestinian refugees an “irredeemably flawed operation.”

By starving UNRWA, the Trump administration hoped to magically make Palestinian refugees disappear.

By declassifying the State Department report on Palestinian refugees, Republican Members of Congress hope to publicly redefine in US policy who is and is not a Palestinian refugee for this same purpose.

Operation Dani: Lydda and Ramle Remembered in light of recent atrocities in Gaza

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The massacres of Lydda and Ramle must be remembered not as remnants of the past, but as an act of aggression that has continued with varying regularity throughout the life of the Israeli state.

Jews stole Palestine Lydda Airport

Some of the soldiers threw hand grenades into Arab houses. One fired an anti-tank shell into the small mosque. In thirty minutes, two hundred and fifty Palestinians were killed. Zionism had carried out a massacre in the city of Lydda.

The occupation

“israel” was founded on the ruins of Palestinian society.  Along the way in that Zionist quest, many massacres occurred, many lives were lost, dispossessed, and many villages were destroyed. 

Some 90 percent of the Palestinians living in historic Palestine were driven out, many by psychological warfare and/or military pressure. 

Well-known and widely documented examples of outright expulsion include the Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramle, located roughly halfway between Jaffa and Jerusalem.

Operation “Dani” was the codename given for Zionist aggression against Lydda and Ramle from July 11-14. 

The massacres of Lydda and Ramle account for approximately 10 percent of the entire Palestinian exodus from 1947-1949, the period commencing from the incompetent, naïve, and non-consensual UN partition of historic Palestine on November 29 1947 and ended more or less after the Armistice agreements between Israel and the neighboring Arab states in 1949. 

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine has continued every since.  It is significant to note that Lydda and Ramle were clearly within the designated Arab State per the UN Partition plan of 1947.

Ben-Gurion and three senior army officers, Yigal Allon, Moshe Dayan, and Lieutenant-Colonel Yitzhak Rabin were directly involved in the massacres. 

Yitzhak Rabin, Operation Dani head of Operations and the face of the so-called Israel-Palestine “peace process” nearly 50 years later, issued the following order: “The inhabitants of Lydda must be expelled quickly without attention to age.”

(Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return, Edited by Naseer Aruri). A similar order was issues at the same time to the Kiryati Brigade concerning the Palestinian inhabitants of the neighboring town of Ramle.

According to Israeli historian Yoav Gelber,

“Deir Yassin (another massacre) was not the worst of the war’s atrocities . . . the massacre of approximately 250 Arabs in Lydda … took place following capitulation and not in the midst of combat”

Palestinians being expelled from Lydda in 1948 during Operation Dani. (Palmach archive).
Palestinians being expelled from Lydda in 1948 during Operation Dani. (Palmach archive).

(Nur Masalha, The Palestine Nakba: Decolonising History, Narrating the Subaltern, Reclaiming memory). 

One official Israeli source put the casualty figures at 250 dead, with an estimated 350 more in the subsequent expulsion and forced march of the townspeople.  On May 6 1992, new revelations were published concerning the terrorist atrocities committed by the Palmah forces at Lydda. 

After Lydda gave up the fight, a group of stubborn Arab fighters barricaded themselves in the Dahmash Mosque; the Israeli army gave an order to fire a number of shells at the mosque. 

The soldiers who forced their way into the mosque were surprised to find no resistance.  Under the destroyed walls of the mosque they found the remains of the Arab fighters. 

A group of between twenty and fifty Arab civilians was brought to clean up the mosque and bury the remains.  After they had finished their work, they were shot in the graves they had dug.

Just like their Nazi brethren

Make no mistake about it, the innocent sounding Operation Dani was nothing short of a brutal terrorist attack on a defenseless civilian population, reminiscent of the most recent Zionist aggression against the defenseless civilian population of the besieged Gaza, otherwise known as the most densely populated ghetto in the world per square mile, or the world’s “open air prison.” 

Initiated under the guise of Operation Protective Edge, this is merely another attempt at humiliating and dehumanizing the Palestinian residents of Gaza, most of whom are refugees of 1948.  The major distinction being that today Israel is a much stronger military power backed by the one and only superpower (i.e. The United States of America). 

Israel’s weaponry is much more sophisticated and destructive than in the past, whereas Palestinians have only grown weaker as the power disparity continues to widen in Israel’s favor, but yet Israel is the victim.  What is most shocking is that Israel’s claim of self-defense is presented in US mainstream media as logical and warranted.

The only problem with that presentation is that it is not based on reality, but Zionist fantasy, the same fantasy that claimed Palestine was “uninhabited,” “virgin,” “uncharted,” “undiscovered,” a “wasteland,” “wilderness,” “untamed,” “unoccupied,” etc… despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. 

What is occurring in Gaza at this present moment is nothing short of a massacre.  But so long as the Orwellian characterization of Palestinians as “savages,” “heathens,” “barbarians,” “uncivilized,” “primitives,” or my favorite, “terrorists,” persists, the massacre will continue as a justifiable action by the “only democracy in the Middle East,” the civilized side of the conflict. 

However, the only side in this conflict that can rightly claim self-defense is the defenseless.  If you do not know which side that is, watch and read what is happening in Gaza right now.  How about a simple scoreboard:  Palestinians deaths 90+, Israeli deaths 0.

The massacres of Lydda and Ramle must be remembered not as remnants of the past, but as an act of aggression that has continued with varying regularity throughout the life of the Israeli state. 

Yitzhak Rabin has been heralded as a man of peace, the man who provided formal recognition to the Palestine Liberation Organization.  A lot of hope and inspiration was placed in Yitzhak Rabin as if he was not the same crusher of the first Intifada and dispossessor of thousands of Palestinians from Lydda and Ramle. 

Just as in Lydda and Ramle, Rabin found no resistance in formulating a “peace process” that he knew himself would not produce peace, but an extension of Israel’s occupation. 

Rabin recalled how Ben-Gurion had first called him in to his office to discuss the fate of both Lydda and Ramle: “Yigal Alon asked: what is to be done with the population? 

Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture that said: Drive them out!”  The man of peace did exactly that.

In the “Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” Israeli historian Ilan Pappe writes: “as recently as 1987, as minister of defence, he had ordered his troops to break the bones of Palestinians who confronted his tanks with stones in the first Intifada; he had deported hundreds of Palestinians as prime minister prior to the Oslo Agreement, and he had pushed for the 1994 Oslo B agreement that effectively caged the Palestinians in the West Bank into several Bantustans.”

Moreover, the illegal wall built by Israel to separate the West Bank from itself is not a post-Rabin era phenomenon. 

Rabin himself closed off the West Bank and Gaza from Israel proper in late March 1993.  His vision was effectuated less than a decade later.

Our media has reversed cause and effect, victim and perpetrator, occupier and occupied and have humanized one side while purposely dehumanizing the other. 

Such misrepresentations parallel that of the reporting on Lydda and Ramle. 

Two foreign journalists, Keith Wheeler of The Chicago Sun Times and Kenneth Bilby of The New York Herald Tribune, observed the sights of Lydda and Ramle. 

Apparently these Americans were invited by the Israeli forces to accompany them in the attack, what today we would call “embedded” correspondents.  Wheeler wrote: “practically everything in their [Israeli forces] way died. 

Riddled corpses lay by the roadside.”  Bilby reported seeing “the corpses of Arab men, women and even children strewn about in the wake of the ruthlessly brilliant charge.” 

Wheeler neglected to report the number of Palestinians killed and Bilby’s description alone evinces his view of the massacres (i.e. ruthlessly brilliant). 

The reporting was absolutely one-sided.  Sound familiar?  The reporting on the recent atrocities in Gaza is scarce to begin with, but blatant misreporting highlights the opacity with which our media operates. 

ABC’s Diane Sawyer illustrated the point quite emphatically by misleading the public into thinking Israeli society is on the verge of infrastructural and human collapse, when it is Palestinian society undergoing that experience.  Where is the outcry?

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

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Israel has a long history of actions against its Christian minority. Israeli forces have desecrated churches, rabbis have endorsed killing non-Jewish civilians (including children), New Testaments have been burned. While there are many Israelis who have opposed these actions and respect Christians, the fact is that discrimination against Christians is endemic in the Israeli system. Like Muslims, Christians have been persecuted by Israel ever since it was established in 1948…

‘It is permitted to kill non-Jews, rape women, burn down churches’

The Holy Land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea contains some of the most sacred spaces for Muslims, Jews, and Christians alike. Jerusalem is the holiest site in Judaism, the home of Jewish patriarchs and prophets since the 10th century BCE.

On the same land, Muhammad both received revelation and ascended into heaven at the Dome of the Rock. For Christians, it is the birthplace of Jesus and the site of his crucifixion and ascension into heaven.

The Christian population in this area has long thrived among its Jewish and Muslim neighbors. However, the increasingly destructive Israeli occupation, endorsed by the current U.S. administration, has made the area essentially uninhabitable.

The result is a noticeable exodus of Christians from this territory. Before 1948, Palestinian Christians made up about 18 percent of the region’s population. Today they make up less than one percent.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

If the current trend persists, pilgrims and tourists will likely be the only Christian representatives in the region in years to come.

Causes of Exodus

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

A dhimmi kneels before Muslim leaders 

Christian Zionist media, including the Christian Friends of Israel, presents the Palestinian Christian population as a recently-formed community of Arab migrants.

In reality, Palestinian Christians are some of the most deeply-connected members of the faith, tracing their ancestry in the region back to Biblical times.

Pro-Israel sources report that the exodus of Palestinian Christians is caused by two factors.

Firstly, they suggest that many Christians convert and intermarry with Muslims as a result of declining Christian birthrates. Secondly, they argue that Palestinian migration is part of a larger, historical exodus of Christians from the Holy Land.

They believe that migration dates back to the Ottoman Empire when Christians sought jobs in North and Latin America. This exodus is largely blamed on Islamic Fundamentalism and the discord between Islam and Christianity. After the 2003 Iraq War, one theory posits, destabilization allowed extremist groups to gain power. The violence of ISIS in the region is frequently cited as evidence of this religious discord.

Some reference the ancient dhimmi system as evidence of discrimination within the Muslim faith.

This historical distinction, meaning “protection” or “protected person,” was used to distinguish and ensure the legal rights of non-Muslims living in an Islamic state. Its use today, however, is an outdated scapegoat for the real cause of the exodus.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

While the claims of the religious-discord argument are not entirely false, the larger flaw of this position is its problematic revisionist narrative that erases the struggles of Palestinian people.

The exodus of Christians actually betrays the oppressive ethnic cleansing inflicted upon the people of Palestine by the Israeli government.

As the U.S. continues to extend a hand to the Israeli regime, Palestinians are increasingly more opposed to the U.S. than to their Muslim neighbors.

Arab America interviewed with Rateb Rabie, founder, and president of the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF), he revealed the real reasons of the exodus, as well as his own predictions for future peace in the region.

While some point to the religious tension between Muslims and Christians, most Palestinian Christians report that it is Israeli oppression that pushes them from their native land. Rabie cites discrimination against Palestinians as the primary cause of the exodus.

A 2017 study by the Dar al-Kalima University in the West Bank has found that “the pressure of Israeli occupation, ongoing constraints, discriminatory policies, arbitrary arrests, confiscation of lands” has contributed to “the general sense of hopelessness among Palestinian Christians.” Only a two percent minority of Palestinian Christians cite Muslim violence and extremism as the reason for their departure.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

While it is true that Christians face persecution and are not guaranteed the same rights as their Muslim counterparts, at its heart the conflict is political, not religious. It is a “landed conflict,” Rabie says, stemming from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. “We are Palestinian first before we are Christian,” Rabie states.

The conflict (and subsequent exodus) is a question of identity and ownership above religious belief.

Aside from their minority status, the relative ease with which the Christian population is able to assimilate into the culture of Western host countries also accounts for their particular population decrease.

Rabie suggests that “Muslims would leave if possible,” or if the process of cultural assimilation was less draining and demeaning.

The discrimination and Islamophobia that many Muslims face is a major deterrent to immigration. Because of their shared faith, Western societies are more accepting of Palestinian Christians than Palestinian Muslims.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

While the population of historical Palestinian (including Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel) today has increased to six million, Christians make up less than 1.7 percent. The majority of Palestinian Christians are Greek Orthodox.

Christianity itself began in Jerusalem, and the Palestinians living there were the original followers of Jesus. As Rateb Rabie says, Palestinians have been “saving the face” of the Christain faith for over 2,000 years. In spite of oppression and discrimination, they have nobly upheld their practice and traditions.

Today, the plight of Palestinians is intertwined with Islamophobia. Western Christian organizations are eager to offer charitable support, especially when their donation is inspired by a deep-seated Islamophobia that encourages them to selectively help Christian populations in Muslim-majority countries.

Other Christians in countries like Syria, Rabie points out, avoid getting directly involved to distance themselves from the Islamophobia of Western Christian donors.

Restrictions on Faith and Livelihood

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

On a fundamental level, the Israeli occupation has made it very difficult for Palestinian Christians to practice their faith.

Restrictions imposed by the Israeli government prevent Christians from accessing their holy sites, as described in the 2011 State Department “Report on International Religious Freedom:”

“Strict closures and curfews imposed by the Israeli government negatively affected residents’ ability to practice their religion at holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.”

“The separation barrier significantly impeded Bethlehem-area Christians from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and made visits to Christian sites in Bethany and Bethlehem difficult for Palestinian Christians who live on the Jerusalem side of the barrier.”

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

Physical barriers and other limitations prevent a complete celebration of faith. In addition, non-Christian settlers in Israel take out their anger toward the Israeli government on the Palestinian population. These attacks often involve the desecration and vandalism of Christian and Muslim holy sites and the targeting of religious leaders.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem has even admitted to this brand of ethnic cleansing, stating that:

“The government has been taking actions to increase the number of Jews, and reduce the number of Palestinians, living in the city”

Denied access to ancient holy sites, Palestinian Christians struggle to prove that their “center of life” rests in Jerusalem.

Without this confirmation, they are liable to have their residency rights and social benefits revoked. While the illegally-housed Jewish population has the right to move freely throughout the region, native Christian Palestinians are bombarded by arbitrary borders and restrictive permits.

It is very difficult for Palestinians to find jobs under the occupation. There is currently a 22 percent unemployment rate in the region, and many families struggle to support themselves financially.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

Furthermore, the Israeli government protects Jewish extremists in their brutal, physically violent attacks on Palestinian Christians.

In March of this year, Israeli forces carried out attacks on Christian worshippers during a Palm Sunday procession in Jerusalem.

Bombs, guns, and knives have all been used against Palestinians, who may also be subject to arbitrary arrests.

Extremists burn farmland and destroy crops, making livelihood and sustenance impossible.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

These attacks on Christian territory, as on the entire Palestinian population, are justified using religion. Zionists claim that the Jewish people have an inherent religious connection to the land.

This is a complete oversight of the religious ties of both Christians and Muslims. The brutality of the attacks contrast the sanctity and divinity of a religious appeal, and many wonder how faith can be used to so blatantly defend massacre.

False Narratives in Tourism

Even in tourism, an economic staple in the region, the narrative and perception of Palestinians, and Palestinian Christians is highly distortedby Israeli tour guides.

This false, damaging narrative reached nearly 3.5 million tourists in 2013. Christians taken to the Holy Land on educational tours are given a skewed version of the region’s history, one in which the role of Christianity is highly downplayed, if not entirely neglected.

 Palestinians are painted in a very negative light, and their persecution is glossed over entirely.

Israeli tour guides often completely avoid Christian holy sites on their tours, largely to prevent showcasing the abuses and destruction these areas have endured under the occupation.

Tourists have reported on the crude insensitivities of Isreali tour guides, describing how they were made to participate in role-playing simulations of Israeli soldiers attacking Palestinian “terrorists.”

U.S. Involvement: “Trump Handed Israel Policy to Evangelicals”

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

Vice President Mike Pence has been at the center of the controversy since Trump’s Jerusalem declaration last December. Pence’s Evangelical Christian faith aligns him with the Jewish Zionists. In his speech at the beginning of this year to the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, Pence stated:

“We stand with Israel because your cause is our cause, your values are our values, and your fight is our fight…we stand with Israel because we believe in right over wrong, in good over evil, and in liberty over tyranny.”

In an interview with Vox, American politics professor Elizabeth Oldmixon explains the American Christian Evangelical support of Israel. Evangelicals see the “gathering of Jews in exile” in the Holy Land as an indication of the highly awaited “end of times,” or Christ’s reign on Earth.

As strict followers of the Bible, Christian Zionists strictly abide by the passage in which God grants the Holy Land to the Jewish people.

Religious faith translates directly into political belief. Fifty-three percent of Trump’s evangelical demographic supported the Jerusalem move.

Palestinian Christian is not evangelical, so they do not possess the same religious vision.

Israeli control, coupled with Mike Pence’s faith-based declaration of American support, has wreaked havoc on the Palestinian population and ostracized their faith.

Understandably, Palestinians are broadly opposed to the current administration.

With America’s damaging influence exacted through the Israeli government, many have chosen to flee their native land altogether, escaping oppression both locally and from the West.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

Pence had originally planned a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands, including meetings with many regional Christian leaders, but travel plans were canceled following uproar and protest about the Jerusalem move. Many church leaders felt the move would increase hatred and violence in the region. Although the protests were more muted than expected, the oppression continues for the Palestinian population.

The Exodus of Palestinian Christians from the Holy Land

“To declare Jerusalem as the capital based on some biblical argument is a dangerous thing,” said Father Jamal Khader, the Catholic parish priest of Ramallah.

 “He’s wanting to separate Christians from the rest of the community. But we are part of the community.”

This sentiment resonates in the hearts of many Christians in the region for whom removal from their native land is an absolute last resort.

Iskander El Hinn, a Christian Palestinian who fled to Ramallah with his family in 1948, is emboldened by his Palestinian identity and connection to the land:

“As a Palestinian, I am living where I belong, everywhere I go here is Palestine to me and Jerusalem is its capital…we have been living here for thousands of years; no one can take us away from here.”

Future Hopes

In spite of the exodus and the immense suffering of the Palestinian people, Rabie is encouraged by the dramatic increase in media coverage of the conflict in the past 30 years. He sees the increased exposure of the human rights violations as indicative of the “beginning of the end of Zionist Israel.”

The public has come a long way in terms of its perception of Israel and support for Palestine, thanks to organizations like Rabie’s.

He says that Palestinians at home and abroad are hopeful for peace, but he emphasizes the need for continued education of American Christians on the severity of the conflict.

He recognizes that, even within Israel, much of the Jewish population and social media influencers are pro-peace. These incentives for peace, he argues, must be implemented.

Above all, Palestinians need justice. American Christians must commit themselves to this cause. Rabie discourages them from picking a side-Palestinian or Israeli.

Instead, he encourages Christians, Americans, and global activists to focus their energies and intentions on delivering justice where it is most needed to the long-suffering people of Palestine.

Perhaps then their land will become a home once more.

“israel” is an illusion

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The uncomfortable truth is that Israel is an artificial country. It was created by decree by some very powerful imperial interests. When “isreal” becomes a liability the powers will step back and leave the “israeli” people on their own against the Arab world. THAT’S an uncomfortable prospect!

Israel is a disputatious political entity which is violently occupying land in violation of all naturalistic moral and humanistic values.

They have defended their occupation with the requisite violence that emanates from their very presence on forcefully expropriated land.

Both their actual presence and their understandable survivalist violent behavior used to secure their physical safety presents an existentially paradoxical condition that defines Israel as an undesirable pariah.

“israeli” police break into Palestinian house, steal children’s piggy banks

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“After vandalizing my house and terrorizing my children, who were asleep at the time, they started stealing every single shekel and the Eidiyyahs that my children were saving.”

June 3, 2020

Occupied Jerusalem (QNN)– Israeli forces on Wednesday broke into the house of the former prisoner Majed Jo’beh in occupied Jerusalem and stole every single Shekel from the house, even his children’s piggy banks.

Jo’beh posted on his Facebook account that Israeli Shin Bet and border police officers broke into his house in the occupied city.

“They showed me a discriminatory order by the Israeli minister of war, Naftali Bennett, to confiscate all the money in my house under the pretext that I get money from the Palestinian Authority”, he wrote.

Occupation terrorists night raids

He noted that he is not getting any money from the PA although he had spent over six years in Israeli jails.

“After vandalizing my house and terrorizing my children, who were asleep at the time, they started stealing every single shekel and the Eidiyyahs that my children were saving.”

He added that they also stole his family’s household expenses, stealing a total of 8400 NIS (nearly $2500).

The Mavi Marmara Gaza flotilla massacre: laptops, cameras and memory cards belonging to passengers or the İHH were missing. Passengers in June also complained that Israeli officers had used their seized credit cards.