Tlaib, Palestine and Israel by Robert Fantina

Facebook Twitter Reddit Email

I never cease to be amazed at how people with an agenda will so quickly and easily see anti-Semitism everywhere they look. It has reached the point where anyone who dares accuse Israel of violations of international law and human rights is painted with the ugly brush of anti-Semitism.

Happily, however, the paint doesn’t stick as it once did. Gone are the days when one takes seriously the bizarre concept of the ‘self-hating Jew’, the Jewish man or woman who, for example, supports the human rights struggles of the Palestinian people and dares to speak out against the apartheid regime that Israel has become.

But what horrors the Zionists imagine when a Palestinian actually criticizes anything related to Israel! And that is just what has happened with the appointment of Antony Blinken, a Jew, as secretary of state in the incoming administration of that self-proclaimed Zionist, Joe Biden. Michigan member of the House of Representatives Rashida Tlaib had this comment to make about Blinken: “So long as he doesn’t suppress my First Amendment right to speak out against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s racist and inhumane policies. The Palestinian people deserve equality and justice.”

Many Zionists were outraged, and attempted to portray Tlaib as anti-Semitic. Here are some of the pearls of wisdom from various indignant sources: 

* Dov Hikiknd, founder of Americans Agaisnt Antisemitism: “Biden names a Jew to his cabinet. What’s Rashida’s response?! ‘Welp, as long as that Judische pick doesn’t stop me from focusing my hatred on one country, Israel, then he’s a good Jew!’ It’s not your 1A right you’re trying to protect but your vile Jew-hatred! That’s ALL yours!”

* Chad Felix Greene, and author: “You are absolutely free to be as antisemitic, racist, dishonest and hateful as you like, Rashida.”

* Naom Blum, associate editor of Tablet Magazine: “Would she have said this if the nominee weren’t Jewish?”

Allow this writer, if he may, to answer that last question: Yes. The reason is simple: Blinken has reiterated Biden’s policy towards Israel:

“Some of these issues came up in our primaries. Joe Biden has spoken out strongly and stood strongly against the BDS movement, which he has criticized in no uncertain terms. He’s also been very clear that he would not tie military assistance to Israel to things like annexation or other decisions by the Israeli government with which we might disagree.”

So where is Tlaib’s anti-Semitism in any of this? Blinken opposes the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement; many states have banned their citizens from boycotting Israel (a clear violation of the Constitution). Might not Tlaib have some legitimate concerns about Blinken perhaps suppressing her

“… First Amendment right to speak out against [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s racist and inhumane policies”?

When convenient, U.S. politicians wave the constitution about as if it were delivered to them personally by God, perhaps even before he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. And like the tablet that Moses received, these elected officials only site the constitution when doing so supports some position they hold. Freedom of speech is all well and good, unless it is speech that criticizes the sacred cow of campaign contributions, with which pro-Israeli lobbies are most generous to those they think are deserving of their largess.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said that boycotts are protected by the first amendment as long as their goal is not merely to inflict economic harm, but to influence political action. The political harm that the BDS movement has inflicted and continues to inflict on Israel is not the goal: it is simply the means to the goal of forcing Israel to recognize and respect international law and the rights of the Palestinian people.

This is not unprecedented. In 1959, the Boycott Movement against apartheid South Africa began. Spokesperson Julius Nyerere stated its purpose: “We are not asking you, the British people, for anything special. We are just asking you to withdraw your support from apartheid by not buying South African goods.” This movement gained great support in the United States, with Congress even overriding a presidential veto in 1986, banning the boycott.

The Israel government sees any criticism of it as a threat to its very existence, and elected and appointed officials in the United States rush to its defense every time. These same officials, and Blinken is included in this number, ignore the fact that with each new illegal settlement, Israel is not only threatening but actually destroying the existence of Palestine. This writer has long lamented the fact that Palestine has no rich, powerful lobby. Justice, international law and human rights are unimportant to these U.S. officials; in the hallowed halls of Congress, it is money that talks.

According to them, anyone who criticizes illegal settlements; indefinite detentions with no charges filed; land theft; extra-judicial killings; destruction of olive trees; regulations preventing Palestinian farmers from farming their own land; bombing of schools, United Nations refugee centers, mosques, hospitals and residential neighborhoods; the arrest and incarceration of children; separate laws for Israelis and Palestinians; Israeli-only roads, etc. is doing so only because of hostility toward Jewish people.

Since it is likely that most of these officials, elected or appointed, are not incredibly stupid, one can only draw the reasonable conclusion that they have no interest in seeing the truth if it is blocked from view by campaign contributions and luxurious ‘fact-finding’ junkets to Israeli resorts.

Hopefully, Tlaib will not be silenced. Her voice, and that of any other officials who respect human rights and international law over political expediency, must continue to be heard. The Palestinian people live in a perpetual nightmare, thanks largely to the United States which supports and finances their oppression. Conditions worsened greatly under the administration of Donald Trump, and will hardly improve much in the Biden administration; Blinken has been clear on the fact that the U.S. will continue to give Israel nearly $4 billion annually, despite its flagrant, ongoing human rights abuses. The more Tlaib and others like her stand up to this atrocity, the sooner it will end.

Robert Fantina’s latest book is Empire, Racism and Genocide: a History of US Foreign Policy (Red Pill Press).

 

Expansion and Mass Eviction: Israel ‘Takes Advantage’ of Trump’s Remaining Days in Office

by Ramzy Baroud

Facebook Twitter Reddit Email

In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel.

“These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be able to take advantage,” Miki Zohar, a member of the Likud Party was quoted in the Christian Science Monitor.

By “these days”, Zohar was referring to the remaining few weeks of Trump’s term in office. The US President was trounced by his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in the presidential elections held on November 3.

Trump’s defeat ignited fears in Tel Aviv, and heated debates in the Israeli Knesset that the new US administration might challenge Israel’s unhindered settlement expansion policies.

Indeed, not only was Israel allowed to expand old settlements and build new ones throughout Trump’s term, but was actually encouraged by US officials to do so with a great sense of urgency.

US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an ardent supporter of rapid expansion and was handpicked for his role, not because of his diplomatic experience – he has none – but to help facilitate US support for Israel’s colonial expansion. In doing so, the US violated international consensus on the issue, and reversed earlier US positions that perceived Israel’s illegal settlements as “obstacles to peace”.

Friedman was entrusted with communicating the ominous new American agenda regarding Israel’s illegal action in the occupied Palestinian territories and also in the Syrian Golan Heights. In June 2019, Friedman, rather clumsily, articulated a new American position on the illegal Jewish settlements when he said in an interview with the New York Times that “Israel has the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.”

The green light to Netanyahu was translated, in January 2020, into an announcement by Israel that it intended to formally annex nearly a third of the West Bank within a few months.

The illegal annexation was set to take place on July 1. Just prior to that date, Friedman resurfaced, this time with a less coded message, that Netanyahu’s annexation had the full backing of the US government. He told the Israeli newspaper, Israel Hayom, that Washington was preparing to acknowledge the Israeli move to apply sovereignty in ‘Judea and Samaria’, using the biblical reference to the West Bank.

Annexation did not materialize as grandly as expected. Instead, the Netanyahu government opted to cement its de facto annexation of Palestinian land by announcing plans to build more settlements, barring Palestinian farmers from reaching their land and accelerating the policy of home demolition.

Months before Biden became the US president-elect, Israel seemed to be preparing for the possibility that the Trump administration might not be re-elected. Certainly, while a Biden presidency is bound to remain unconditionally supportive of Israel, the new administration is likely to return to old policies pertaining to the ‘peace process’ and the two-State solution. Netanyahu has long been averse to such rhetoric as, in his view, such unnecessary delays will cost Israel precious time that could be invested in building yet more settlements. Politically, the mere discussion of a return to negotiations could, potentially, splinter Israel’s powerful, yet fractious, pro-settlement right-wing alliance.

Immediately it was clear that Trump had lost the race, Netanyahu begrudgingly congratulated Biden. Even the Israeli leader’s belated acknowledgement of Trump’s defeat did not spare him the political ambush that awaited him. Many Knesset members attacked Netanyahu for losing Israel’s bipartisan support in Washington by allying himself with the Republican Party and the Trump administration.

Leading the charge was Israel’s opposition leader from Yesh Atid-Telem, Yair Lapid, who had already criticized the Prime Minister’s “Republican First” approach to US politics. His views were shared by many Israelis in the Knesset and media.

Reversing course in Trump’s last weeks in office is not an easy choice, especially as the Trump administration remains committed to help Israel achieve its objectives to the very end.

On November 19, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, became the first top US official to visit an illegal Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. During his visit to a winery in the Psagot settlement, Pompeo gave Netanyahu yet more good news. He announced that products from illegal Jewish settlements could now be labeled “Made in Israel”, and that the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement would be declared ‘anti-Semitic’ by the US State Department.

The latter announcement will give Israel the legal capital required to prosecute and silence any US civil society opposition to Israel’s illegal occupation. Israel is counting on the fact that Biden is unlikely to dare contest or reverse such policies due to the sensitivity of the subject of anti-Semitism – real or alleged – in US politics.

The same rationale applies to the settlement building frenzy throughout occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

On November 20, Israeli authorities announced that 80 Palestinian families would be evicted from their homes in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. These homes would, in turn, be handed over to illegal Israeli Jewish settlers.

The news of the mass eviction came only a few days after the government’s announcements that the illegal settlements of Givat Hamatos and Ramat Shlomo, both located in East Jerusalem, are set for major expansion.

The massive development in Givat Hamatos, according to the Israeli group ‘Peace Now’, “will severely hamper the prospect of a two-State solution because it will ultimately block the possibility of territorial contiguity between East Jerusalem” and major urban centers in the West Bank.

The announcements are strategically timed, as they carry an unmistakable political message that Israel does not intend to reverse its settlement policies, regardless of who resides in the White House.

The coming weeks are likely to witness even more coordinated Israeli-US moves, where the Trump administration will seek to fulfill Netanyahu’s political wish list, leaving Biden with little political margin to maneuver, thus denying his government the self-proclaimed, undeserved title of the ‘honest peace broker’.

Sudan’s former PM Sadiq al-Mahdi dies of virus

(CNN)Sadiq al-Mahdi, Sudan's last democratically elected prime minister, who was toppled in 1989 by former dictator Omar al-Bashir, died Thursday from coronavirus.

Al-Mahdi, who was 84, died in the United Arab Emirates, where he had traveled for treatment after contracting the virus, his family said in a statement. 

He led Sudan as prime minister twice, first in the 1960s and again from 1986 until the 1989 coup.

As the head of the opposition National Umma Party, Al-Mahdi became one of Bashir's fiercest critics and lived long enough to witness Bashir's overthrow by the army last year amid mass protests.

Descended from the 19th century religious leader "The Mahdi of Khartoum" who fought British and Ottoman rule, Al-Mahdi also led the Ansar Sufi order, one of the largest religious groupings in Sudan.

The US Embassy in Khartoum offered its "deepest condolence. 

Descended from the 19th century religious leader "The Mahdi of Khartoum" who fought British and Ottoman rule, Al-Mahdi also led the Ansar Sufi order, one of the largest religious groupings in Sudan.

The US Embassy in Khartoum offered its "deepest condolences to the people of Sudan" and to the "family and friends" of Al-Mahdi in a tweet on Thursday.

As recently as October, Al-Mahdi criticized US President Donald Trump and his announcement that Sudan and Israel had agreed to normalize relations.

Sudan has so far reported 16,649 cases of coronavirus and 1,210 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Warning from Jordan

Jordan said it opposes any effort to change the status quo at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Saudi Arabia this week.

In a statement Wednesday, the Jordanian foreign ministry said it rejects “attempts to alter the historical and legal status quo” at the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif or Al-Aqsa Mosque. “The kingdom will continue its efforts to protect and care for the mosque, and preserve the rights of all Muslims to it in compliance with the Hashemite custodianship of Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites,” spokesman Daifallah al-Fayez said, according to the Guardian. 

The comments came after Netanyahu held talks Sunday with Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Saudi Red Sea city of Neom, along with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, reportedly including discussions on Iran and normalization.

The warming ties between Jerusalem and Riyadh are raising concerns in Amman that Israel could seek to shift custodianship over the Temple Mount from the Jordanians to the Saudis. Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy has been custodian of the site since 1924.

The Waqf, a Jordanian-appointed council, oversees Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem. It claims exclusive authority over the Temple Mount compound and says it is not subject to Israeli jurisdiction. Tensions often escalate at the site.