PALESTINE STOLEN

THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: How far right can you get?  Netanyahu needed help.

Triumph of Idiocy

By

Czar Donic

I thought we had outgrown this crap. Now comes Adolf Trump and Bormann Netanyahu to present what he calls a “peace plan”.  It is actually no more than a smoke screen to cover up, or even worse endorse, the actual wet dreams of Zionists for the last century, the so-called climax of their dream.  They are trying to eliminate the very concept of not only a Palestinian State, but a Palestinian human being. 

Can anyone actually take seriously the lie that this is a “peace plan”?  Can Adolf Trump actually bring off this con job of the century, this apex of the past 100 years?  Discourse in this country limits the discussion here in the United States, but the United Nations is free to speak the truth until the matter gets to the so-called “Security Council” where it is vetoed by the United States.  Perhaps soon we will be able to discuss this further soon, but right now less irritated discourse may suffice.

As far as the impeachment hearings go, he is impeached and now is the time for delay, obfuscation, and pardon.

PALESTINE STOLEN

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to annex about 30% of the occupied West Bank, after Israel was given the green light to do so by the United States. On Tuesday, President Trump — with Netanyahu by his side — unveiled a so-called Middle East peace plan that was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians. Under the plan, Israel will gain sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem would be under total Israeli control, and all Jewish settlers in the occupied territory will be allowed to remain in their homes. The plan also calls for a four-year settlement freeze and the possible creation of a truncated Palestinian state, but only if a number of conditions are met. Palestinians responded to the U.S. plan with protests in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal. Only hours before the plan was announced, Netanyahu was indicted for corruption, marking the first time in Israel’s history that a sitting prime minister will face criminal charges. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi’s latest book is titled “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to move ahead with annexing about 30% of the occupied West Bank, after Israel was given the green light to do so by the United States. On Tuesday, President Trump stood by Netanyahu to unveil the Middle East “peace” plan that was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinian leaders. The plan was introduced just hours after Netanyahu was indicted for corruption and in the middle of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

Under the plan, Israel will gain sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem would be under total Israeli control, and all Jewish settlers in the occupied territory would be allowed to remain in their homes. The plan also calls for a four-year settlement freeze and the possible creation of a truncated Palestinian state, but only if a number of conditions are met.

This is President Trump.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security. Today, Israel has taken a giant step toward peace. Yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu informed me that he is willing to endorse the vision as the basis for direct negotiations — and, I will say, the general also endorsed, and very strongly — with the Palestinians. A historic breakthrough.

AMY GOODMAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the U.S. deal.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: For too long, far too long, the very heart of the land of Israel, where our patriarchs prayed, our prophets preached and our kings ruled, has been outrageously branded as illegally occupied territory. Well, today, Mr. President, you are puncturing this big lie. You are recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, large and small alike.

AMY GOODMAN: Palestinians responded to the U.S. plan with protests in the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the deal.

PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS: [translated] I say to the partners Trump and Netanyahu: Jerusalem is not for sale. All our rights are not for sale and are not for bargain. And your deal, the conspiracy, will not pass.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in New York by Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, the author of several books. His latest is just out. It’s called The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Khalidi. Can you start off by responding to this plan? The scene yesterday at the White House: President Trump, in the midst of the Senate impeachment trial nearby in the Capitol, standing next to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just been indicted yesterday for corruption.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. Well, what these two miscreants have done, one of them impeached and the other indicted, is to roll out an Israeli peace plan, a peace plan that was dictated to young Jared Kushner by his Israeli mentors, and who have fulfilled the wish list of the extreme Israeli right ever since they conquered the West Bank in 1967 — and I would even say going back even further. This is meant to end the Palestine question. This is meant to expand “Greater Israel” from the river to the sea. There’s no state in this for the Palestinians. Sovereignty will reside solely in Israel. Control will reside solely in Israel. And in fact what it means is not just annexation and so on and so forth; it means that the United States and Israel are going to dictate the terms, or try to dictate the terms, of a settlement.

We will never see this thing come to pass. It is so unrealistic. It is so at odds with not only international law, but everything everybody has put forth, except the extreme Israeli right and their friends in Washington, since the beginning of this conflict. It is, in my view, yet another declaration of war on the Palestinians, in this 100 years’ war that’s been going on since the beginning of the 20th century.

AMY GOODMAN: So, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called Trump’s plan a “conspiracy.” And the prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said, in advance of its release, it’s “nothing but a plan to liquidate the Palestinian issue.” If you can say more how this plan came into being? I want to turn, though, first, to the voices of some Palestinians who took to the streets on Tuesday to protest the U.S. deal.

FARID ALBERIM: [translated] Regarding the plan of the century, we say to Trump and the American administration that our people are united behind our Palestinian leadership, represented by President Abbas. We reject this plan, the plan of shame that has nothing to offer Palestinians.

MOHAMMED ALBAKRI: [translated] I think that this speech came to support Benjamin Netanyahu, to help him to pass his internal crisis. It is also part of the election campaign for Donald Trump in the coming election. It is nothing more than an election campaign for both.

JIHAD ALQAWASMEH: [translated] This plan is a gift from a big thief to a small thief.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, those are voices of Palestinians, from Gaza to Hebron. So, what exactly does it mean when the U.S. stands with Israel at the White House and puts this forward, developed by the young developer Jared Kushner?

RASHID KHALIDI: Yeah. Well, I don’t think Jared Kushner has an idea in his head about anything to do with Palestine or Israel. He knows what he’s told. And this is dictated to him by his Israeli mentors, and it is meant to be an Israeli diktat to the Palestinians, telling them, “You will not have Jerusalem. You will not have sovereignty. You will not have any of your national rights. And you will get what we choose to give you, when we choose to give it to you.”

And the United States has now endorsed that position. In so doing, the United States actually separates itself from every country in the world, except a few client states in the Arab Gulf. It puts itself in a position completely at odds not only with past American positions, but every aspect of international law. We heard Netanyahu call — the description of the Occupied Territories as “illegally occupied,” we heard him call that a lie. The liar here is Netanyahu. International law is not determined by an indicted — an impeached president and an indicted Israeli prime minister. It’s determined by others. And others have long since determined that those territories are illegally occupied, that what Israel does in Jerusalem — everything it does in Jerusalem — is illegal.

And so, this is a — I wouldn’t call it a conspiracy. This is something cooked up by two political leaders trying to escape the plight that they’re both in, in order to increase their chances at the next election. There’s one in Israel in a little more than a month and a bit, and there’s one in our country in November. And both of them think that this will help them in that regard.

It won’t see the light of day. But the things that it includes, such as annexation and so forth, will go ahead — and they were going to go ahead in any case. So, I don’t think this is a momentous plan, in any way, shape or form. It simply represents, as I said, the wish list of the extreme Israeli right, which has now been endorsed by the American president. It has actually no valence beyond that.

AMY GOODMAN: This is President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner speaking on CNN.

JARED KUSHNER: I come from a real estate background. It was very, very difficult to draw these lines and to get a map where you could have contiguity to a Palestinian state. And again, this isn’t because of something that we — that we developed. This is something that we inherited, the situation where Israel continues to grow and grow. And what the president secured today was Israel agreeing to stop, for four years, more settlements, to give the Palestinians their last chance to finally have a state.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khalidi, your response? And then, put it in the context of history.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. I mean, one actually has to look at this ludicrous plan, the 181 pages, and look at the map and see that either Jared Kushner is blind or he’s a liar. There is no contiguity for the Palestinian — so-called Palestinian state. There are five or six chunks, separated by swaths of Israeli territory, which is part of a plan that goes back to almost the beginning of the occupation: to chop up the West Bank so there can be no Palestinian state, so there can be no contiguity. If he can’t see that, or is lying to the people on CNN, that’s his problem. We should not be taken in. I suggest everybody have a quick look at that plan, because what is clear is that this is something that — I mean, you can talk about it in terms of Bantustans, you can talk about it in terms of any other kind of humiliating imposition on the rights of the indigenous population by a settler colonial regime, which is what we are seeing here. And Mr. Kushner is aiding and abetting this in his ignorance and in his passion for the extreme Israeli right’s positions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, your book, which talks about the hundred years’ war on Palestine, this is yet just another moment in history.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Put this into context of that century.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, and one of the things that I point out is that this is not a war waged just by Israel or by the Zionist movement on the Palestinians. This is a war that was aided, abetted, endorsed and made possible at every stage by the greatest power of the age, whether that was Great Britain at one stage or the United States and the Soviet Union in 1947 or, today, President Trump. Israel could not do this without external support. The Zionist movement could not have established itself as it did without Great Britain.

And so, as you suggest, this is yet another stage in a very long process whereby not just Israel and the Zionist movement, but a whole range of collaborators or people in collusion with Israel have enabled Israel to do what it has managed to do. And it is a war on Palestine. This is not a struggle between two equals. This is not simply a struggle between two national movements. There are two peoples involved, but one of them has enormous support from the outside, and the other, the Palestinians, are an indigenous people faced with this Moloch-like colonial settler movement, which is grinding up their country, taking as much of it as it can, and only able to do this because of support from great powers like the United States under President Trump.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to break, and we’re going to continue with professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His new book is just out, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. And Mehdi Hasan will also join us, of Al Jazeera and The Intercept. We’ll continue to talk about the — what President Trump calls the Middle East “peace” plan, but Palestinians call everything from a conspiracy to simply reject this plan about what will happen in the Middle East. Then we’ll talk about the impeachment trial, with Mehdi Hasan, that’s going on now in the Senate. And finally, what’s happening in South Dakota targeting trans youth? Stay with us.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

We continue our discussion of President Trump’s long-awaited Middle East plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he has described as the “deal of the century.” The plan was drafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner without any input from Palestinians and would give Israel sovereignty over large areas of the occupied West Bank, control over all of Jerusalem, and keep all illegal settlements built in the occupied West Bank. We speak with Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept, and Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. Khalidi’s latest book is titled “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.”

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren responded to President Trump’s so-called Middle East peace plan.

Sanders issued a statement saying, quote, “Any acceptable peace deal must be consistent with international law and multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It must end the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and enable Palestinian self-determination in an independent, democratic, economically viable state of their own alongside a secure and democratic state of Israel. Trump’s so-called 'peace deal' doesn’t come close, and will only perpetuate the conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians. It is unacceptable,” Sanders tweeted.

Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Trump’s 'peace plan' is a rubber stamp for annexation and offers no chance for a real Palestinian state. Releasing a plan without negotiating with Palestinians isn’t diplomacy, it’s a sham. I will oppose unilateral annexation in any form—and reverse any policy that supports it,” Senator Warren said.

Well, we go now to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Mehdi Hasan, senior columnist at The Intercept and host of the Deconstructed podcast. He’s also host of UpFront at Al Jazeera English. And still with us in New York, professor Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His new book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

Mehdi Hasan, if you can respond to the presidential candidates responding to the Middle East plan, and then how the media has covered it?

MEHDI HASAN: I’m glad that some of the presidential candidates, Amy, have come out strongly. Elizabeth Warren came out very quick, Bernie Sanders referring to it as “annexation.” Obviously, I would like them to go further, but I know the limits of U.S. political discourse when it comes to Israel-Palestine. It’s good at least that in this election cycle you have two candidates, Warren and Sanders, talking very explicitly about Netanyahu’s racism, about annexation, about this “peace plan,” quote-unquote “peace plan,” being a sham. In fact, I think anyone who describes this as a, quote-unquote, “peace plan” — and, there you go, I just fell into the trap, because we keep hearing this phrase all the time — it’s malpractice. This is not a peace plan. When you hear any political candidate for office, any journalist referring to it as a “peace plan,” you really need to stop and think twice about that, because this is a plan for apartheid, this is a plan for settler colonialism, as Professor Khalidi mentioned earlier, before the break. And I think we need to be clear about our terms.

And, of course, you know, The New York Times put out a tweet yesterday when the plan came out, a breaking news tweet, where they talked about the Palestinians being asked to make more concessions. Just that language that we have here in the U.S. about Israel-Palestine, the idea that an occupied people, who have had their land stolen from them, are expected to concede that land to the people who have occupied them and stolen their land, it’s madness. It’s not language we would use in any other walk of life or in any other conflict. We don’t use it in the context of Crimea, Ukraine and Russia. But we do use it, and we have used it for years, in the Middle East in relation to the Occupied Territories.

What’s so interesting about the current moment, of course, is that Donald Trump — there’s always a silver lining to Donald Trump’s awfulness. And that is that he takes any issue, and he’s so extreme on it — he’s so extreme even by American presidential standards — that he forces people off whatever fence they were sitting on. And I think what he’s done in the last 24 hours, with the help of his son-in-law, with the help of Netanyahu and MBS of Saudi Arabia, who has also endorsed this plan, is the he’s forced people to basically take off the blinkers and recognize this for what it is. The conflict now is no longer Israel versus Palestine, as it’s often set up — as Professor Khalidi pointed out, it’s not; it’s a one-sided war — but it’s apartheid. And Americans now have to decide: Do they support apartheid, or do they not support apartheid? There’s no more nonsense about two-state solutions and all of that rubbish. That’s gone. That’s finished, finally over. No one pretends it’s still there on the table. It’s: Do you support apartheid, or do you not support apartheid? That is what we should be asking Democratic presidential candidates, and that is what journalists should be discussing in the media, in their op-eds, in their cable news discussion panels.

AMY GOODMAN: And, Mehdi, talk about American opinion polls. They’re very interesting on the issue of Israel-Palestine.

MEHDI HASAN: Yes. So, we are often told by supporters of the Israeli occupation in Washington, D.C., especially Republicans, that the reason the United States backs Israel so blindly, gives it billions of dollars, turns a blind eye when it massacres children in Gaza, is because American public opinion is behind Israel, because Americans want to support the, quote, “only democracy in the Middle East,” as it’s often sold, which is not actually true. Going back many, many years, if you look at the polling on this subject, most Americans, the majority or plurality of Americans, say they don’t want the United States to take the side of Israel or the Palestinians. They want the United States to be what it claims to be, but of course is not, and that is an honest broker, an impartial outside force, which it’s never been, of course.

And what’s so interesting is, about — I think it was about a year ago, at the University of Maryland, Shibley Telhami, who’s a great academic and pollster, carried out some polling of Americans on the Middle East, which found that there was almost an even split between Americans on whether they support a two-state solution, as is framed by the establishment, 36%, I think, of Americans, versus a one-state solution, a democratic, binational, secular state in which Palestinians and Jews all have, you know, one vote — one person, one vote — equal rights, and that was around 35%. It was almost even. It was a third of Americans were two-state, a third of Americans were one-state. And here’s what’s so interesting, Amy. When you tell Americans that there is no two-state solution, that option is gone, the vast majority, two out of three Americans, say, “We support a one-state solution with equal rights for everyone,” because Americans — shock, horror — like the idea of one person, one vote. That’s what this country is supposed to be built on. And they don’t like the idea of saying, “You know what? We’re going to take a people and put them under occupation and disenfranchise them in perpetuity.”

And that’s what this Kushner plan does. It basically says, “You’re never getting anything else. This is what you get.” Israel gets to annex what it likes, takes over whatever part of the West Bank it likes. And the Palestinians know they don’t get any rights. What’s so astonishing about this plan — and, you know, Americans, I would argue, the average American, would not support this idea — that a Palestinian refugee not only loses their status as a refugee under this plan forever, but Israel gets to veto Palestinian refugees from returning even to a Palestinian state, not just to Israel. Forget the right of return to Israel. Under this plan, if you look at the small print, they can’t even return to a Palestinian state without an Israeli veto.

So, I think this is all a reminder once again that — you know, Edward Said said it best back in 1978. He said, here in the United States and in the West, amongst establishment types, the Palestinian person politically does not exist. They have been completely obliterated. And I think we saw that in the last 24 hours, where you have a White House press conference, at which no Palestinian spoke, a White House meeting with the Israeli leadership but not with any members of the Palestinian leadership, and a plan put forward by the White House which had no Palestinian input whatsoever. It’s the complete and utter erasure of the Palestinians by the U.S. political establishment, by the U.S. administration.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Mehdi Hasan, before we move on to the issue of the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump that’s taking place at the same time — it seems to have motivated a great deal in President Trump, from January 3rd, the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, to his setting precedent last Friday speaking at a “right to life” march in Washington, D.C., the first sitting president ever to do this, and then suddenly announcing he’s releasing a Middle East “peace” plan — I wanted to turn back to Rashid Khalidi. You had talked about some Gulf states perhaps supporting the president. If you can talk about the significance of Saudi Arabia, perhaps one of the most closest allies with the United States, along with Israel?

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I think this brings up something that people don’t think about very often. The only reason that Israel is able to maintain its regional superiority is because most Arab states are not democratic. The only countries that could or would buy into this are countries which can suppress their domestic public opinion. So, the absolute monarchies of the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain, whose ambassadors were at this shameful ceremony yesterday in Washington, are countries, like a few others in the Arab world, Egypt and so forth, ruled in different ways, but in ways that completely exclude representation, democracy, parliaments, public opinion, a free press, and so on and so forth. In those Arab countries where those things do exist, countries like Lebanon or Kuwait or Tunisia, you have popular outrage at what is being done in Washington. The absence of democracy in the Arab world is a precondition for this kind of thing happening. Only regimes which completely — which are capable of completely suppressing their public opinion would support such an outrageous derogation of international law, Arab rights, Arab dignity, as, unfortunately, a few of these governments have and, I’m afraid, will.

But it’s vital to represent, and it’s vital to understand, these are not the Arabs. These are a group of kleptocrats who control their countries absolutely, against the will of their people, and who are able to get away with this partly because they’re protected by the United States. So, you have had a few Arab governments that have either squeaked their approval or failed to indicate their disapproval or shamefully sent their ambassadors to this sham ceremony. But it is vital to understand what they are and who they are and what they represent. They don’t represent anybody except the elites which dominate those countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, we want to thank you for being with us, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His latest book, just out, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

NAKBA, KHALADI

THE ABSURD TIMES

Latuff's take on the Nakba.  May his country recover from the fascist coup in motion now.

THE NAKBA

BY

LEITH

The Nakba, or catastrophe, is the Palestinian word given to the invasion of their lands by Zionists and the systematic expulsion of many Palestinians (many of whom still have their original deeds and door keys).  An Israeli sympathizer call this "Independence," but from what is too gloomy to contemplate right now.

We have an interview with Rashid Khaladi, current Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University and who holds the Edward Said chair.  It helps to learn a bit about Edward Said.  He was a nearly concert-level pianist and a close friend of Daniel Barenboim and together they attempted to bring Palestinians and Israelis together through music.  His book, Orientalism,  should be read even today for a great background to western biases against the Arab Culture. 

Kaladi was a good friend of Obama in Chicago until Obama ran for national office at which time they were forced to separate.  One of Obama's failures was in not inviting him to his inauguration. 

Today, there is a great fear that peace might break out at any time.  Arms manufacturers and politicians in Israel dread this idea and the current demonstrations along the Gaza border are seen as a great threat as they are non-violent.  So far, dozens have been killed and thousands wounded by Israelis, snipers especially.  A sniper can kill from isolation several hundreds of meters away without detection so he is nice and safe. 

Still, the non-violence continues remorselessly, despite the efforts to the Trump, Kushner, Netenyahu troika and will continue for another month until the date of the Nakba.  Here is the interview:

Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation are continuing this week as Israel begins to mark the country's 70th anniversary of its founding in 1948. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed 33 Palestinian protesters over the past three weeks since the "Great March of Return" protests began to commemorate the mass expulsion of Palestinians during Israel's establishment. Palestinian authorities estimate nearly 4,300 Palestinians have been injured in the peaceful protests—many were shot with live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets. Gaza authorities have also accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and medics. Since the protests began, one journalist—Yaser Murtaja—was killed, and 66 journalists were injured. In addition, 44 medics have been wounded, and 19 ambulances were reportedly targeted. The protest marches are set to last to until May 15, recognized as the official Israeli Independence Day. Palestinians mark the date as Nakba Day, or "Day of the Catastrophe." For more we're joined by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. He's the author of several books, his most recent is titled "Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East."

---

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And I'm Nermeen Shaikh. Welcome to our listeners and viewers around the country and around the world. Palestinian protests against the Israeli occupation are continuing this week as Israel begins to mark the country's 70th anniversary of its founding in 1948. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed 33 Palestinian protesters over the past three weeks since the Great March of Return protests began, to commemorate the mass expulsion of Palestinians during Israel's establishment.

Palestinian authorities estimate nearly 4,300 Palestinians have been injured in the peaceful protests. Many were shot with live ammunition or rubber-coated steel bullets. Gaza authorities have also accused Israel of deliberately targeting journalists and medics. Since the protests began, one journalist, Yaser Murtaja, was killed and 66 journalists were injured. In addition, 44 medics have been wounded and 19 ambulances were reportedly targeted.

AMY GOODMAN: The protest marches are set to last until May 15th, recognized as the official Israeli Independence Day. Palestinians mark the date as Nakba Day or "Day of the Catastrophe" when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, their expulsion began. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began celebrations of Israel's 70th Independence Day at a ceremony in Jerusalem with a nod to U.S. plans to move its embassy there from Tel Aviv.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: We all praise the historic decision by President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as our capital and to move the embassy there of the world's biggest power. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, America.

AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, "Best wishes to Prime Minister @Netanyahu and all of the people of Israel on the 70th Anniversary of your Great Independence. We have no better friends anywhere. Looking forward to moving our Embassy to Jerusalem next month!"

For more, we're joined by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. The author of a number of books, his most recent Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Talk about what is happening right now in Gaza. It is almost getting no attention in the United States. But this period of time leading up to March 15th.

RASHID KHALIDI: May 15th.

AMY GOODMAN: May 15th.

RASHID KHALIDI: It is remarkable that it has gotten as little attention as it has in this country, because this is a new phase. It is almost entirely nonviolent. The Israelis try and focus on other issues, claiming that it is violent or people are throwing things or whatever, but you have literally tens of thousands of people walking to the fence, camping along the fence, carrying out protest activities, which are then met with a hail of hundreds of thousands of bullets. The numbers speak for themselves—the hundreds of people who have been—the thousands of people who have been wounded, the dozens who have been killed.

What it shows is I think the Israeli security establishment is terrified of Palestinian nonviolence. Any narrative in which the Palestinians use violence is easy for them to master. But a narrative in which the Palestinians walk towards the fence and ask for their rights is one that they are very uncomfortable with.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: This isn't the first protest of its kind in Israel-Palestine, but is it the first one in which the Israelis have responded so disproportionately?

RASHID KHALIDI: It is not the first of its kind. The most underreported story in Palestine is the non-violent nature of an enormous amount of protests. We pay a lot of attention to violent actions. But the first intifada was largely nonviolent. For three or four years, Palestinians were engaged in massive nonviolent protests, which were met with systematic repression. Rabin said "Break their bones." That was his order to his soldiers when he was defense minister. So it's not the first time that the Israelis have used this kind of violence. I don't think that they've ever gotten to the point of shooting down literally thousands of people in this way, so maybe that is unprecedented.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you think accounts for that?

RASHID KHALIDI: They are very, very worried about two things. They're worried about the fact that the Palestinians might actually finally realize that nonviolent action is smarter and might be more effective. And secondly, they don't like one of the demands of this protest movement, which is the issue of return. Because it brings up the issues that the Israelis hoped had been buried from 1948 onwards, which is to say their expulsion of three quarters of a million Palestinians back in April, May and so forth, of 1948, their confiscation of their property and their refusal to allow them to return. And that's what this March of Return is about.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Are there additional demands?

RASHID KHALIDI: That is the main focus of it. That is the main focus of it. Almost the entire population of Gaza, with a very few exceptions, are refugees. And so they are living in this cooped-up enormous prison camp, right across the border from the lands that they once owned and cultivated.

AMY GOODMAN: So explain the organizing that went into this mass nonviolent protest that is happening particularly on Fridays after prayer.

RASHID KHALIDI: Right. This started off as a civil society initiative, which was then of course picked up, cynically, picked up by Hamas, which has realized the bankruptcy of its own approach and its unpopularity with Palestinians. But it started off as a movement by young activists who wanted to do something. They are living in this pressure cooker of Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe it.

RASHID KHALIDI: They can't get out. They can't go anywhere. It is the highest population concentration on earth. To get a permit to go to get medical care or to study abroad or to visit your family in the West Bank or Jordan is almost impossible for the overwhelming majority of Gazans. So they are in prison in Gaza. They're suffering without enough electricity. There is sewage. I mean, one could go on and on.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me go back to just some of the incidents that have taken place. Earlier this month, a Palestinian stepped forward to say he was the unknown man who was shot by Israeli sniper in a gun sight video recorded last December that went viral. The video captures the sound of a gunshot, the Palestinian man falling to the ground, then a voice celebrating in Hebrew and cursing the sniper's victim. Tamer Abu Daka says he was shot in the leg without warning as he stood about 200 meters from Israel's fortified border. He told Al Jazeera he posed no threat to Israeli troops.

TAMER ABU DAKA: Some young people near the border were lying on the ground. They couldn't get out. So I came to protect them and ask them to go back. Then the Israelis shot me. How am I a danger to the Israelis? We were on our land. We didn't cross. I was in the buffer zone. I had no weapons in my hands. I had nothing.

AMY GOODMAN: Israel's military has criticized the soldiers who shot Abu Daka for cheering, but has defended the shooting itself, with Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying the sniper deserves a medal. And he not only said it for the sniper who shot him last December, but he's saying that no Gazan is innocent. Explain the significance of Avigdor Lieberman's statements and who he is.

RASHID KHALIDI: Well, this is part of a systematic defamation of the entire Palestinian people. What Lieberman and the security establishment is essentially saying is the Palestinians are a terrorist people, and whatever they do is beyond the pale. And I think the thing to focus on here is the use of snipers to gun down people at a sufficient distance from this—you can see in the video we just saw—at a sufficient distance from the fence that it is impossible that they could cause any harm to the Israelis themselves.

So heavily armored Israeli soldiers with sniper rifles at hundreds of meters are picking off systematically Palestinian protestors or people who try to approach the fence or whatever. And that this is a policy that the government is proud of, that Lieberman is praising the snipers who have shot down literally thousands of people? I think it tells us a lot about Israel's attitude toward Palestinians, that they are subhuman.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I think one of the perceptions that is quite common—you said earlier that Palestinians are now increasingly disenchanted with Hamas, and Hamas is not very popular in Palestine and with the residents of Gaza. Can you explain why people still have the sense, in fact, that the majority of Palestinians are sympathetic with or support Hamas, and how that sense kind of emboldens Israel to carry out the kinds of—the disproportionate violence of which we have been speaking?

RASHID KHALIDI: If you go back and look at the way in which Israel has dealt with the whole issue of Palestine and the Palestinian national movement, they always demonize whatever appears to be the leading movement. When it was the PLO or Fatah, whatever, they were terrorists, they were beyond the pale, you couldn't talk to them. And the same is now true of Hamas. I think the interesting thing is not just Hamas—all of the political parties are discredited in the eyes of most Palestinians. They seem to have failed. Hamas with its policy of—so-called policy of—resistance, which in fact is a sham. Hamas prevents people from firing rockets from the Gaza Strip. It is carrying out without a security agreement the same kind of role of protecting Israel that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is carrying out with a security agreement. Palestinians see that.

They see the cynicism of that and they see that both sides, that is to say the PA in Ramallah and Hamas in Gaza in fact are bankrupt—

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So why is Hamas doing that? And why are they…?

RASHID KHALIDI: Why are they doing it?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Yeah, why…?

RASHID KHALIDI: Out of fear of Israeli retaliation.

AMY GOODMAN: Is the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas fracturing?

RASHID KHALIDI: It doesn't seem to be going anywhere, sadly. I mean, this is the overwhelming demand of the Palestinian people, that these useless politicians get together and end this meaningless split, so that the weaker party, the Palestinians, can at least present a unified front.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about the journalists who have been killed. Let's talk about the Palestinian journalist, Yaser Murtaja, who was fatally shot by the Israeli army while covering the protests along the Israel-Gaza border. Photos show the 30-year-old journalist wearing a flak jacket clearly marked "press" at the time of the shooting. This is Murtaja's mother and brother speaking after his killing.

MOTAZEM MURTAJA: I was next to him at the protest. Targeting the journalists was very clear, to the point that they targeted the two of us directly using snipers and gas bombs.

YUSRA MURTAJA: We thought it was just an injury and he will be injured for a while and then God will heal him and he will come out of it like the rest of the injured people. I didn't expect him to die.

AMY GOODMAN: That is what happened in Gaza. And then you have today's headline in the West Bank: press freedom groups are expressing alarm over the arrest of a journalist early Wednesday by Palestinian security forces. Relatives say the officers presented a search warrant, arrested Hazem Naser without mention of what he's being charged with. He works for Najah Broadcasting Channel, which frequently covers Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes, arrest of Palestinians. He's arrested in the middle of the night. Murtaja was killed.

RASHID KHALIDI: I think the thing to say about the murder of this journalist and the murder of many of these people is that there is a policy of targeted assassination. It is not just snipers just randomly shooting people. It is an intelligent system in which collects information on everybody who is in activist, and these people are then being targeted. They are murdering specific people. They're not just shooting at random. They're doing that as well, but some of these, many of these killings—there's a wonderful book by a man named Ronen Bergman on the history of Israel's targeted assassinations. This is a policy of killing Palestinian leadership. They have been doing it for decades and decades.

And now they realize that some of the most dangerous people are not people who are firing rockets, but rather people who are organizing popular demonstrations and nonviolent action.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Do you see any transformation or intensification of that policy on Israel's part as a consequence of Trump's election and his—one of the many steps that he says he going to take is to move the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So what kind of message is that giving to Netanyahu and those who support him?

RASHID KHALIDI: Frankly, they've always had coverage from Washington for whatever they did. But I agree—I think your question points to a reality, which is they have even greater impunity with a president like Trump who will give them complete carte blanche for whatever they want to do.

AMY GOODMAN: And is moving the U.S. embassy.

RASHID KHALIDI: Precisely.

AMY GOODMAN: The significance of that, now following—the U.S. saying it is doing that right around the 70th anniversary? Guatemala says it will follow suit.

RASHID KHALIDI: This is really very important. Jerusalem is the most important of all of the issues in the Palestine-Israel conflict. The Trump Administration's decision that it recognizes, apparently from what they've said, the entirety of Jerusalem as sovereign Israeli territory, has implications for the entire conflict. It has implications for the rest of the occupied territories. It has implications for Israeli annexations, not just of Jerusalem—of Golan Heights, of other areas that they may choose to annex. So they are giving them a, basically, open season in terms of further annexations, further expansions and so on and so forth, by this Jerusalem thing. It is not just recognizing Israel's capital as Jerusalem or moving the embassy. It has all kinds of other implications.

AMY GOODMAN: What will happen on May 15th?

RASHID KHALIDI: The consulate in West Jerusalem will be turned into an embassy.

AMY GOODMAN: And what will happen at the wall, the Gaza-Israel wall?

RASHID KHALIDI: I have no idea. But at the rate at which things are going, unfortunately, we're probably likely to see even more savage, vicious, brutal murderous repression.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Rashid Khalidi, we want to ask you to stay with us as we move on to Syria. Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.

His latest book Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.