APARTHEID AND ISRAEL

 

THE ABSURD TIMES

 

 

 

Illustration: A friend put this up for me. It originally had swastikas instead of skulls, but I foolishly suggested that skulls would be more polite, and I am very polite. Everyone I know says so – at least when I get them alone in an empty room and up against the wall. They say "Yes, I agree! You are polite!" So, I'm just too polite, I guess.

 

Apartheid

By Tsar X

 

It is time to take a break from the idiocy that the GQP is still managing under the threats by Donald Tramp. [I’m told that, in Arabic, just the omission of a single accent above the letter turns the name into Tramp instead of Trump.] The manipulation here is to keep everyone’s attention away from what is going on around the world, leaving corporate powers dictate policy freely.

 

Still, today, Representatives and a few Senators are starting to look at Israel and are seeing it more clearly. Some of the cooperation started as far back as the incident in Ferguson, MO., wherein Palestinians helped the demonstrators deal with the effects of police violence since they had experience with that sort of thing back “home".

 

The motivation is about the same as well: our ex-President was protected by the Justice Department for his many offenses. Well, Netanyahu faces a similar situation in Israel as he was unable to form a ruling commission. So, there are now chances of a fifth straight election, two far-right wing parties running against each other.

 

Israel, emboldened by Donald Tramp, has now moved to appropriate East Jerusalem, traditionally recognized as Palestinian homeland, and most of the world community has agreed – even Canada being attacked as anti-Semitic. Perhaps they are thinking of attacking with those hockey sticks? Frankly, this entire thing is a definition of absurd.

 

It is time to stop allowing billions of our dollars to go to Israel, make it possible for a business to obtain government contracts even if it makes some mention of Boycott, Divestment, and sanctions. That is what we did with South Africa and now we revere Mandela. I can think of several Palestinian leaders who deserve the same reverence, but why bother at this stage?

 

Here are couples of Interviews, 24 hours apart, that pretty much define the current situation:

 

 

 

From DEMORCARY NOW:

Hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded after Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque for the second time in four days, with reports showing police fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and tear gas at Palestinian worshipers. Palestinians have been staging weeks of protests to block Israel from evicting dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem to give their homes to Jewish settlers, which the United Nations has described as a possible war crime. Mohammed El-Kurd, a writer and poet who is organizing to save his family’s home in Sheikh Jarrah, says the world is seeing colonialism in action in Palestine. “What’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah today is nothing short of ethnic cleansing,” El-Kurd says in an interview from Jerusalem. “We are seeing the Israeli government literally doing everything it can to terrorize Palestinians, whereas Israeli settlers can just walk around our neighborhoods, steal our homes and wield their guns, no questions asked whatsoever.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: Hundreds of Palestinians have been wounded after Israeli forces raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque this morning for the second time in four days. Al Jazeera reports Israelis fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas and sound bombs at Palestinian worshipers. Video posted online shows explosives, possibly stun grenades, being fired inside the mosque, which is the third-holiest site in Islam.

A warning to our audience: This segment contains disturbing video.

Al Jazeera reports medical personnel were initially barred from reaching the injured Palestinians. Eyewitnesses described a scene of terror when Israeli forces began opening fire while people prayed.

EYEWITNESS: We were praying in the mosque. Suddenly, the soldiers vacated the mosque without any alert. They started to shoot their bombs. And there are many, dozens of injured, dozens of people who were injured from the bombs here and bullets. It’s amazing. This is a praying place, not for a fight.

AMY GOODMAN: Al Jazeera reports 305 Palestinians were wounded, 228 have been hospitalized, with seven in critical condition. Israeli forces also attacked the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday, on a night when at least 205 Palestinians were injured.

Today’s raid came hours before Israeli nationalists were scheduled to begin an annual march through occupied East Jerusalem to mark Israel’s 1967 capture of the area along with the West Bank and Gaza. Tension has been escalating in Jerusalem for weeks. On April 22nd, a group of right-wing Israelis marched through the Old City chanting “Death to Arabs” and “May your village burn.” Video from the night shows Israeli mobs attacking and harassing Palestinian families and throwing rocks at Palestinian buses and homes.

Meanwhile, Palestinians have been staging weeks of protests to block Israel from evicting dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem to give their homes to Jewish settlers. A court hearing on the evictions scheduled for today was postponed Sunday. The United Nations has described the planned eviction as a possible war crime. U.N. rights office spokesman Rupert Colville said last week, quote, “The occupying power cannot confiscate private property in occupied territory.”

This comes as the Biden administration is coming under increasing pressure to directly condemn Israel’s actions. Last week, the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain issued a joint call for Israel to stop all settlement expansion in the Occupied Territories.

We go now to Jerusalem, where we’re joined by Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian writer and poet who’s organizing to save his family’s home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.

First, give us the overall picture, Mohammed, of what has been happening. Describe what’s been happening at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and all around the area, and then we’ll talk about al-Jarrah — Sheikh Jarrah.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Thank you, Amy. Yeah, thank you, Amy, and it’s a pleasure to be here with you.

To sum up what’s been happening in Al-Aqsa Mosque, it’s complete state-settler collusion. It’s clearly that the Israeli occupation forces are working in service of the Israeli settlers to terrorize and assault Palestinian worshipers. In their mosque today, Palestinians have been met with rubber-coated bullets in the face and in the upper body, tear gas inside the mosque at the women and the children praying in there, in addition to many other forms of brute force.

The same thing is in Sheikh Jarrah, and this image becomes even more stark when compared by how the Israeli occupation forces are treating the settlers. Today, an Israeli settler ran over a Palestinian youth. And instead of being captured, the Israeli police raised his gun at Palestinians who were protesting this act of terrorism. So we’re seeing clear state-settler violence and clear state-settler collusion in Jerusalem, in occupied Jerusalem.

AMY GOODMAN: And we’re just about to see this next march. Can you explain what, quote, “Jerusalem Day” is and the significance of this mass march?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Definitely. It’s an infamous march that I’ve witnessed all every single year of my life whereby Israeli settlers come from all over occupied historic Palestine and chant genocidal, racist chants against Palestinians. They destroy Palestinian property. One time a few years ago, I came home from school, and I found the settlers sitting on my couch. This is the extent by which they behave, because they know they have impunity, because they know they are going to suffer zero consequences from their state, which is a fascistic state to begin with.

AMY GOODMAN: How old are you, Mohammed?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I’m 22 years old.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I want to go to a video that’s gone viral on social media. It shows your twin 22-year-old sister, Muna El-Kurd, confronting an Israeli settler who’s been living in a part of your house in Sheikh Jarrah for 12 years.

MUNA EL-KURD: Jacob, you know this is not your house.

JACOB: Yes, but if I go, you don’t go back. So what’s the problem? Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t do this. I didn’t do this.

MUNA EL-KURD: But you —

JACOB: It’s easy to yell at me, but I didn’t do this.

MUNA EL-KURD: You are stealing my house.

JACOB: And if I don’t steal it, someone else is going to steal it.

MUNA EL-KURD: No, no one is allowed to steal it.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain this scene? And talk more specifically about what’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah right now.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Absolutely. The scene that you saw, Amy, is a scene of colonialism. People often think that colonialism is this archaic concept or a concept of recent memory, but in fact it’s alive and well in Palestine. And this is a colonizer that happens to be from Brooklyn, as you can hear by the accent, who decided to find a home in my backyard.

This happens because we, as a community of refugees in Sheikh Jarrah, have been battling billionaire-backed, often U.S.-registered settler organizations that employ these people to come and live in our homes and harass us and intimidate us. These people are not employed. These people are not families. They just come to terrorize us. Yesterday, our next-door neighbor Hjaj’s family, his roof was invaded by settlers wielding stones, bags and bags of stones. What’s happening in Sheikh Jarrah today is nothing short of ethnic cleansing. To help the people understand Sheikh —

AMY GOODMAN: But just to understand, I mean, this man who is in your yard, this guy you said who’s from Brooklyn, explain how your family — your house got half-occupied in 2009? You’re living with them?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Yeah. I mean, yes, in 2009, we were coming home from school, and we found that the entire neighborhood was on lockdown. It was besieged from all areas, and there were more occupation forces and settlers than there were residents of the neighborhood. And they used tear gas and sound bombs and stun grenades to take over our home. And these settlers, these thieves, have squatted in our home since then. And obviously you cannot resist this, or otherwise you will be shot and killed. We know how the Israeli occupation forces behave around Palestinians. We know how they target Palestinians.

But I wanted to add that this is just a microcosm. You know, I know it sounds bizarre that an Israeli settler is taking over half of my home, and likely they will be taking over the entirety of the neighborhood should no international action be taken. But it’s not as absurd when you put it in the context how the state of Israel came about. It came about by destroying and burning hundreds and hundreds of Palestinian cities and villages and taking over Palestinians’ homes. Today, all over historic Palestine, there are settlers who are living in homes that were once Palestinian.

AMY GOODMAN: In response to the violent crackdown of Palestinian protesters in Jerusalem, Congressmember Rashida Tlaib, whose parents are Palestinian immigrants, tweeted this weekend, “Too many are silent or dismissive as our U.S. tax dollars continue to be used for this kind of inhumanity. I am tired of people functioning from a place of fear rather than doing what’s right because of the bullying by pro-Israel lobbyists. This is apartheid, plain and simple.”

Meanwhile, New York Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted Saturday, “We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. Israeli forces are forcing families from their homes during Ramadan and inflicting violence. It is inhumane and the US must show leadership in safeguarding the human rights of Palestinians.” She also condemned U.S. aid to Israeli forces and other repressive governments around the world, tweeting, “From the paramilitary violence in Colombia and Sheikh Jarrah, to the detention of children on our own border and the militarization of US police departments, the [United States] must seriously assess its role in state violence and condition aid.”

So, talk about this place that is your home, your family’s home. This is a flashpoint for so much of what’s happening — as you said, a microcosm. Explain what the judge’s ruling has been. Court was supposed to go into session today, but they’ve canceled the hearing because of the level of violence right now.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we think that this is a stalling on the Israeli judicial system’s part. I want to make clear to all people watching that although we go to these courts, we do not believe in their jurisdiction over us. We are simply buying time in our homes. At the end of the day, these are colonial courts. These are courts that were built by and for Israeli settlers to uphold Jewish supremacy. And the Israeli authorities are unabashed and explicit in maintaining this Jewish dominance in Jerusalem over the indigenous Palestinians. We are waiting, but we are not expecting much of a settler judge and a settler jury, to be completely honest with you.

I am glad, on congressional level, people are speaking out against this and, on a grassroots level internationally, people are speaking out against this. Every single year, Israel receives $3.8 billion in military aid. Biden has been consistent in refusing the idea of conditioning military aid to Israel. I don’t want him to condition it; I want him to end it altogether. And I want him to end any kind of military aid to any country that has a police brutality problem, like Colombia. But obviously, this necessitates the United States acknowledging that it has an imperialism problem to begin with. So we do call on the Biden administration to take action against the evictions, that are a war crime, but I also will not forget that my home — half of my home and my neighbors’ home, Ghawi and Hannoun families, were taken under the Obama administration with Biden as the vice president.

AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about what the Biden administration has said. You have the national security adviser Jake Sullivan saying the United States has “serious concerns” about the violent clashes between Palestinians and Jerusalem. He told Israeli national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat U.S. officials will “press for steps to ensure calm, deescalate tensions and denounce violence,” adding that the launching of rocket attacks from Gaza towards Israel is “unacceptable and must be condemned.” That, again, the Israeli national security adviser. If you can respond to this? So, he has expressed, quote, “serious concerns.” Last week, the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain issued a joint call for Israel to stop all settlement expansion in the Occupied Territories.

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: We welcome all of the international condemnations that we are seeing from countries, be it the United States or otherwise, but we want more than just condemnations. We want Israel to be held accountable for its crimes against Palestinians. The Biden administration and the language of a false equivalency continue to uphold this occupation. I think you can deescalate the situation and the tension and the violence in Jerusalem by ending the occupation. That is the only solution. It is insane for Palestinians to continue living under this occupation for 73 years.

What’s the situation in Jerusalem isn’t that there’s a Palestinian Authority and other Palestinian parties involved. There’s Palestinian people, grassroots individuals without any kind of leadership, who are finally saying no and continually saying no to ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and otherwise. And there’s an occupier, an occupying entity that is using brute force and fascism and apartheid to suppress any kind of peaceful protest or any kind of protest altogether.

In the past two weeks, our neighbors’ homes and our own homes have been sprayed with skunk water that I can smell them from a few blocks. We’ve had so much stun grenades and tear gas. My own brother — not that he’s different from other people, but my own brother has been arrested. Many, many people have been arrested. A person lost his eyes in Al-Aqsa Mosque. We are seeing the Israeli government terrorizing Palestinians. We are seeing the Israeli government literally doing everything it can to terrorize Palestinians, whereas Israeli sellers can just walk around our neighborhoods, steal our homes and wield their guns, no questions asked whatsoever. They can invade our homes and be told, “All is good,” by a police officer. And they can just go back, no consequences. There’s clear asymmetry here. I think apartheid is an understatement, but it’s a good starting point. This settler colonialism in Palestine must stop, because it’s killing all of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Human Rights Watch using that term, “apartheid,” to describe what’s happening in the Occupied Territories for the first time last month. I want to turn to a Palestinian man named Mahmoud al-Marbua, who witnessed the Israeli assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque Saturday.

MAHMOUD AL-MARBUA: [translated] They don’t want us to pray. There’s a fight every day. Every day, there are clashes. Every day, there are troubles. They’ve been stopping us from entering inside the Old City for a whole week. Why? They did not allow us in yesterday. Why? Why are they doing this to us? They’re making us crazy. They’re making us explode. Look at how they’re firing at us. How can we live? Is this a normal life? What is this? Look at the problems. Look at how they’re standing around. They are throwing bombs at us, and they can’t see anyone.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Mohammed, as we begin to wrap up now, you live between here and Sheikh Jarrah, where you went back to with all that is happening there and to protect your family home. Can you talk about what you see happening? I mean, is it conceivable, by the end of the week, the Israeli prime minister, who himself has been indicted for corruption, Benjamin Netanyahu, might not even be the prime minister anymore? And does that even make a difference with who is the leadership in the Israeli government?

MOHAMMED EL-KURD: I think as long the leadership is spearheaded by settlers, then settlements will prevail in our countries. I do not want to be living under Israeli rule, to begin with, and I don’t rely on the Israeli authorities, on the Israeli occupation forces to protect me, although they are mandated to do so under international law. I think it’s pointless for us to expect a person who is beating us up, assaulting us, terrorizing us to be told to stop and then have them stop. There must be international intervention. There must be sanctions against the Israeli government. That is the only way. The occupation must end.

And it’s also important to note that what’s been happening in Sheikh Jarrah is not new, and it’s not unique, and it hasn’t started or ended with an Israeli prime minister. It’s happening in Silwan, where a hundred homes are being demolished and 1,000 people will be homeless. It’s happening in the South Hebron Hills, where people’s villages are being declared as military zones and green zones. It’s happening all across historic Palestine. It’s the Israeli colonialism that started in 1948, and it continues to do so. The only difference is it replaced weapons and artillery with a judicial system that is inherently colonial. So I call on the international community, but also I call on people, free people in the world, to take action against this, to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine altogether. It’s not just about Sheikh Jarrah. It’s about the entirety of Palestine, that is being devoured by the beast of Israeli colonialism.

AMY GOODMAN: Mohammed El-Kurd, I want to thank you so much for being with us, writer and poet from Jerusalem in occupied Palestine, organizing to save his family’s home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. His debut book Rifqa will be released by Haymarket Books later this year.

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have killed at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, as tension in the region has escalated sharply. Hundreds were also injured by Israeli forces Monday when they stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam. Hamas responded by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, which reportedly caused dozens of injuries but no deaths. The tension in Jerusalem has been mounting for weeks as Palestinians have been organizing to block Israel from forcibly evicting dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to give their homes to Jewish settlers. The United Nations has described the planned eviction as a possible war crime. Raji Sourani, award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, says Israel’s latest assault is compounding the suffering of people in the besieged territory. “We have the occupation. We have the blockade for the last 14 years, which paralyzed our entire lives. We have the pandemic, and now we have this fourth war against Gaza,” he says. We also speak with Orly Noy, an Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, who says the latest outbreak of fighting is likely to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cling to power. “Israeli politics is now in a very strange phase,” Noy says. “Extreme right-wingers are controlling both sides of the Israeli map.”

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show in Gaza, where Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 26 Palestinians, including nine children, as tension in the region escalated sharply over the past day. In one attack, seven members of a single family in Gaza died, including three children. Meanwhile, over 700 Palestinians were hurt in Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israeli security forces Monday. Hundreds were injured when Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third-holiest site in Islam.

Hamas responded by firing hundreds of rockets into Israel. No deaths were reported, but police said over two dozen people were injured. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh warned rocket attacks will continue until Israel stops, quote, “all scenes of terrorism and aggression in Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque,” unquote.

The tension in Jerusalem has been mounting for weeks as Palestinians have been protesting Israel’s plans to forcibly evict dozens of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem to give their homes to Jewish settlers. A court hearing on the evictions scheduled for Monday was postponed. The United Nations has described the planned eviction as a possible war crime.

In Gaza, families have started to bury the dead after Monday’s airstrikes. Survivors described the airstrikes killing young children.

REFAT AL MASRI: [translated] What happened here is we were sitting outside the house waiting for iftar, the breaking of the fast. An 8-month-old child was killed. Mohammad, who was getting married in five days after Eid, was killed. How is this the children’s fault? Girls between the ages of 7 and 9 have been killed. How is this their fault? We were just sitting outside the house waiting for the call to prayer.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Knesset member Ahmad Tibi blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the violent escalation, which comes as Netanyahu is fighting for his political life.

AHMAD TIBI: There is escalation. Somebody is responsible for this escalation. His name is Benjamin Netanyahu and Amir Ohana, minister of interior security affairs. They are interested in this escalation by the Israeli police. And we are here, as members of the Joint List, to stand with the Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, in Sheikh Jarrah and in Al-Aqsa Mosque. East Jerusalem is an occupied city. And the march today is celebrating the occupation.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by two guests. Orly Noy is in Jerusalem, an Israeli political activist and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, a member of B’Tselem’s executive board. And joining us from Gaza City, Raji Sourani, award-winning human rights lawyer, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He’s the 2013 Right Livelihood Award laureate. He’s on the executive board of the International Federation for Human Rights, received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award in 1991. He was also twice named an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience.

Raji Sourani, let’s go to you first in Gaza. The latest numbers we have, 26 people, Palestinians, have been killed, among them a number of children. Can you describe the scene on the ground?

RAJI SOURANI: Thank you, Amy.

It’s very hard. It’s very tough. It’s bloody. It’s bleak, a black situation. In less than 24 hours, I mean, this harvest of lives and injuries and destruction, it’s unprecedented. And this remind us just in what had happened 2014, 2012 and 2008. But this time, I mean, it seems it’s much more tougher than it has been before. Israel, I mean, dominate entirely Gaza, and they are bombing. They didn’t stop since yesterday ’til this moment. And every moment, I mean, this situation deteriorates more, escalate more. And we are having more killings, more injuries, more civilian targets bombed.

And the eye of the storm, unfortunately, as usual, are the civilians and the civilian targets. And that’s very worries, as if Gaza just need that. We have the occupation. We have the blockade for the last 14 years, which paralyzed our entire life. We have the pandemic. And now, I mean, we have this fourth war against Gaza on civilians, civilian targets in the eye of the storm.

Once and again, Israel do flagrantly violate international law, international humanitarian law, which is there to protect civilians at a time of war. They didn’t respect that, neither in Gaza nor in Jerusalem or in Sheikh Jarrah or in any Palestinian territories. This is real, a new brand of apartheid, unprecedented, much, much worse than South Africa used to do.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Raji Sourani, I wanted to ask you: What, from your perspective, prompted this latest round of attacks? Clearly, over the last four years during the Trump administration, there was an effort by the United States to sort of further marginalize the Palestinian question and the Palestinian — the Israeli occupation. What, in your perspective, led to this new round of attacks by Israel?

RAJI SOURANI: Well, I mean, this is a very right-wing government, and Prime Minister Netanyahu competing how he can beat the most right extremist, I mean, in Israel. And that’s why he’s investing and trying his best to suppress, oppress more and more Palestinians and to do what he is doing right now.

And the Trump administration gave him a wonderful gift. They gave him blessing for the settlements policy in the West Bank to cement this apartheid regime of Israel in Jerusalem and West Bank. They enhanced the ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem towards Palestinians. And Trump gave his executive order by recognizing Jerusalem as the eternal united capital of Israel, unlike any other American administration before.

Of course, I mean, Netanyahu felt, with that, he has absolute and a free hand towards that, especially — I mean, he is in the peak of the elections, where his position is shaking, and he tried to prove more and more that he is a real national and he is the one who believes in Eretz Yisrael from the river to the sea, Palestinians with no existence. We don’t exist for him. That’s why he wants to clean Jerusalem from Palestinians. And that’s why when Gaza stood in solidarity as part of the Palestinian people with Jerusalem, he just jumped to that, and he began this orchestrated campaign of bombing, destruction and killing once again.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the evictions that have been proposed in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, the United Nations has described the planned evictions as a possible war crime. And now we have the Israeli Supreme Court postponing at least a decision on it. Could you talk about the importance of this particular neighborhood as representative of the continuing seizure of land by the Israeli settlers?

RAJI SOURANI: Well, Israel Judaized Jerusalem, East Jerusalem. They’re ethnically cleansing, I mean, the Palestinians from there. They are taking it over, day after day, by forcing people to leave, by imposing pressure, by expansion, by building this apartheid wall, that the most important court on Earth said it’s null and void and should be abolished.

Sheikh Jarrah is a good example, I mean, for that. They want to take it over, its stones, its sands, its trees, a Palestinian genuine part of Jerusalem. And the people in it, I mean, they were refugees. I mean, they came in 1948 to this after Israel forced them to leave, after the atrocities they made against them. And they came to this part, and they settled, and they are existing there. They don’t want them to exist there. Israel — and I want to remind everybody that entire East Jerusalem and Occupied Territories, this is not by Palestinians; it’s by Palestinians, by U.N. and the whole world, including the American administration used to call it as such, ’til the Trump administration.

Now with what they are doing, they want to force people to leave, using the name of the High Court. What is the High Court in Israel? The High Court in Israel and the courts in Israel, regarding Palestinians, they are racist. They are schizophrenic. And they are there to provide full legal cover for organized, systemic crimes perpetrated against the Palestinian people. They’re just giving, I mean, this legal cover for what Israel — they don’t apply international law. They don’t apply international humanitarian law. For them, this is with nonexistence. What they recognize, one thing only: They recognize the right of the Israeli Jews, those who are considered holy blood, holy soils, holy land. Others, I mean, we are with nonexistence.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to that video that has gone viral on social media of the Sheikh Jarrah resident, Muna El-Kurd, confronting an Israeli settler who had been living in her family’s home for 12 years.

MUNA EL-KURD: Jacob, you know this is not your house.

JACOB: Yes, but if I go, you don’t go back. So what’s the problem? Why are you yelling at me? I didn’t do this. I didn’t do this.

MUNA EL-KURD: But you —

JACOB: It’s easy to yell at me, but I didn’t do this.

MUNA EL-KURD: You are stealing my house.

JACOB: And if I don’t steal it, someone else is going to steal it.

MUNA EL-KURD: No, no one is allowed to steal it.

AMY GOODMAN: We spoke to Muna El-Kurd’s twin brother, Mohammed El-Kurd, yesterday. They are resisting the forcing out of the Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah. I wanted to bring Orly Noy into the conversation, the Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, member of the B’Tselem executive board. You are in Jerusalem. Explain what is happening there and the escalation. The way the U.S. media, following the Israel government media, often refers to this is Hamas is shooting rockets into Israel. Give us the context before this happened.

ORLY NOY: Yeah, well, we should — I will get in a minute to the context of this last round of escalation, but before doing that, we need to look at the broader context of the inherent and institutionalized violence against the Palestinians, which is a constant. There is a constant war, at different levels, that Israel is embarking upon against the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem.

First, we need to remember that the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which make about 40% of the city’s population, are not citizens of Israel. And they are, as far as Israel is concerned, sort of temporary residents of the city. It means that their houses are constantly under the threat of demolition, being taken over by settlers. It means that they are basically subjected to a different set of law. And this is part of the apartheid nature of the Palestinian reality everywhere in Jerusalem. So, this is the broader context.

The latest round of escalation actually started with the very arbitrary and outrageous decision by the Jerusalem police to ban the Palestinians from gathering at the end of the fast during Ramadan on the wide steps outside Damascus Gate, which is one of the main gathering centers of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, certainly in the month of Ramadan, which, you know, should be those festive evenings after the breaking of the fast, which always happened in Damascus Gate. And I think that the police knew very well that this will not go unprotested, without protest. And surely enough, the Palestinians did protest, which only gave the Jerusalem police an excuse to treat them with extreme brutality. And I was there night after night. The amount — I cannot even begin to describe what war zone, an actual war zone, the police created because of Palestinians protesting against this arbitrary, senseless, provocative decision.

And, of course, when you add to that the threat of the evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, which, by the way, are not for the first time — Palestinians have been constantly being evicted from not only Sheikh Jarrah, but also from Silwan and from other sensitive areas in the historic Holy Basin of the Old City and from the Muslim Quarter of the Old City itself. So, all of that sort of, as was very much expected from the first moment, exploded into the situation that we are witnessing right now.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Orly Noy, could you talk about how Netanyahu is hoping to benefit from this instability, and his own problems that he is facing in terms of being able to form a new government and the repeated elections in Israel, how this plays into his political interests?

ORLY NOY: Yes. After Netanyahu exhausted the time that was given to him to try and establish a government and failed to do so, his main goal became to prevent his political rivals from succeeding in forming a new government. Now, the Israeli politics is now in a very strange phase, in which extreme right-wingers are controlling both sides of the Israeli map, which is the pro-Netanyahu camp and the anti-Netanyahu camp. But the situation in the anti-Netanyahu camp, which now has the mandate to try and form a government, is such that it needs for extreme right-wingers, like Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa’ar, to collaborate in some way with left, central-left parties, such as Labor Party, Meretz, and with the silent collaboration or cooperation of the Joint List.

The sure way for Netanyahu to prevent that cooperation between both political sides in the anti-Netanyahu camp is to provoke them, the situation, the reality, into a war, which — in which case it would be much more difficult, because the Bennett people, the right-wing people, Sa’ar, Bennett, etc., they need to be accountable to their bases of voters. They want to escalate the situation. They want stronger attacks on Gaza, more violence against Palestinians, both inside and outside 48 territories, which is something, of course, that would make the cooperation with the left, central-left side of the political map almost impossible to achieve.

AMY GOODMAN: And at the same time, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is on trial for corruption. As we wrap up, Raji Sourani, we just got word from Haaretz that it looks like two Israelis were just killed in Ashkelon. That’s where the Hamas rockets are falling. And you have the 26 Palestinians, a number of them children, in Gaza, as a result of the Israeli attacks. And finally, the response of the United States: Secretary of State Tony Blinken said Hamas needs to end the rocket attacks immediately, and added “all sides need to deescalate.” What do you think has to happen now? And specifically, what are you demanding of the U.S. government?

RAJI SOURANI: To have an end for this bloody, prolonged military occupation. That’s the issue. I mean, we cannot live with that. We cannot allow this to happen. I mean, I cannot understand or digest how international community, seeing these war crimes, the crimes against humanity, happening once and again, once and again — all international human rights organizations know and realize what’s going on. This is a new brand of apartheid. There is need to have an end for this conflict. It’s a time — sorry — to have something simple apply in this part of the world: rule of law. Make accountability. All what we need, peace. No one on Earth in need for peace more than the suppressed and the oppressed. We suffered a lot as the Palestinian people, but we’re still having strong feeling toward justice. We want peace based on international law, international humanitarian law. What we need, simple thing, end of the occupation. What we need, end of this aggression.

Israel should be held accountable, and U.S. can deliver. It’s enough, what the American administration did for Israel, providing them full political immunity against the crimes they are doing once and again against Palestinians. ICC, as well, will be one of the places where these Israeli war criminals will be held against all the crimes they committed against the Palestinian civilians in the Occupied Territories, against the ethnic cleansing, against the settlements policy, against the atrocities, I mean, they are making, day and night.

AMY GOODMAN: Raji Sourani, I want to thank you very much for being with us, a human rights lawyer, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. Please be safe. And Orly Noy, Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call, also a member of the human rights group B’Tselem’s executive board.