Posts
THE ABSURD TIMES
Illustration by Latuff
Obviously, the information here is not very sharp and focused and there are obvious reasons for that. American mass media avoids the topic as best they can and the few who know what is really going on are kept pretty silent or short. I'd name them, but then we would not even have them. Democracy Now has covered it pretty well and you can go to you tube and get al-Jazzeera or RT and there is some pretty good coverage there. If you choose RT, don't bother with the channel for America but use the standard one. BBC hides the truth as well.
More Death in the Mideast. Evictions. Attacks on house of worship, timed for religious celebration (Eid)
Here is the transcript:
The death toll in Gaza has reached at least 83, including 17 children, and hundreds of people have been injured, as Israel's aerial bombardment of the besieged territory continues. Israel is now sending troops to the Gaza border for a possible ground invasion as many Palestinians are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The Biden administration on Wednesday gave Israel a green light to continue its assault, and Israel has reportedly rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire, despite growing international condemnation. Issam Adwan, Gaza project manager for We Are Not Numbers, a youth-led initiative to share Palestinian stories with the wider world, says many international observers make the mistake of viewing the latest violence in isolation. "They think this war is the only violation of human rights Israel is doing to the people of Gaza. Over the past 15 years, we have witnessed three brutal wars, and this is a fourth one," says Adwan.
This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.
Related Story
AMY GOODMAN: The death toll in Gaza has reached at least 83 as Israel's aerial bombardment of the besieged territory enters a fourth day. The dead include at least 17 children. Over 480 Palestinians have also been injured. Israel is now amassing troops near Gaza for a possible ground invasion.
This comes as many Palestinians are celebrating Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. On Wednesday, Israel leveled one of the tallest buildings in Gaza City, a 14-story high-rise that housed several local media outlets as well as residential units. It was the third Gaza high-rise destroyed this week by Israel. Israel has also killed several top Hamas commanders.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Israel has reached seven as Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups continue to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel. Israel is reportedly rejecting calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the assault will continue until there's, quote, "complete quiet in Gaza."
The deadly Israeli attacks come after hundreds of Palestinians were injured in Jerusalem and the West Bank by Israeli security forces Monday and over the weekend, including during crackdowns at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and over ongoing protests to stop the expulsion of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden reasserted Israel's right to defend itself.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Israel has a right to defend itself, when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory. But I had a conversation for a while with the prime minister of Israel, and I think that — my hope is that we'll see this coming to conclusion sooner than later.
AMY GOODMAN: On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin expressed his, quote, "ironclad support for Israel" in a call with his Israeli counterpart. Meanwhile, at the United Nations, the United States has blocked another Security Council resolution about the crisis.
Violence is also spreading across Israel with Jewish mobs attacking Palestinians in mixed Jewish and Arab communities. In the Israeli city of Haifa, a video was posted online showing an Israeli mob trying to break into the home of an Arab family.
In the Israeli city of Bat Yam, an Israeli mob was shown on live TV attacking a driver who they suspected of being an Arab. The man was dragged from his car and attacked. He was left bleeding on the ground after what the Israeli media described as an "attempted lynching." The Financial Times reports the man was Jewish but was mistaken as an Arab. In other parts of Bat Yam, large groups of Israelis were seen vandalizing Arab-owned businesses.
In the city of Acre, Israelis were filmed marching in the streets chanting "Death to Arabs." In the Israeli city of Lod, hundreds of border patrol officers have been deployed in a curfew following sustained protests by the city's Palestinian residents. On Wednesday, groups of Israelis attacked the Great Omari Mosque of Lod. Earlier in the week, a Palestinian man was shot dead there. At least one synagogue has also been set on fire.
We begin today's show in Gaza, where we're joined by Issam Adwan. He's the Gaza project manager for We Are Not Numbers.
Can you describe, Issam, what's happening on the ground in Gaza right now?
ISSAM ADWAN: Thank you, Amy, for having me here.
Basically, we have been seeing an ongoing aggression on Gaza. And this is ongoing, has been happening since 2008, 2012, 2014. And nowadays we are witnessing fourth brutal war of Gaza. The scene is horrific, and it's terrifying on our children and ourselves
that we find a lot of stories of the children, a lot of stories of women, and this is creating a lot of scary moments for our people to handle. As you said, the minister of health has reported the death toll, until so far, 83 people, including 17 children and seven females, including a female who was pregnant. And all this coming news out of Gaza, they are not something new. Luckily, that the social media and the international community paid enough attention to the Israeli aggression that is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, as we have been witnessing in the past week as it happens, in Sheikh Jarrah, the land grabbing, the detention of children and — including children and women, and the theft of Palestinian homes and continuous ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and in different cities and different villages of Palestine.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Issam, even before the present assault on Gaza, conditions in Gaza were more or less unlivable. The U.N. warned in 2012 that by 2020, if prevailing conditions at the time continued, the area would be entirely uninhabitable. Could you talk about what conditions, living conditions, in Gaza have been like?
ISSAM ADWAN: That is what — that is exactly what the international community fails to understand, that they think this war is the only violation of human rights Israel is doing to the people of Gaza. Over the past 15 years, we have witnessed three brutal wars, and this is a fourth one, including the situation is deteriorating from different levels. We are seeing medical insufficiency of expertise, of equipment. We are seeing the economy is collapsing day by day, and the unemployment rate is crazily increasing. And the water is undrinkable. People could barely find food and water to feed their children. And so many other levels of dehumanization. Gaza has been sieged 15 years with an absolute policy to suffocate every norms of a human being's existence. And whatever people are expecting, what methods of Gaza can express to defend the existence of people in Gaza, as much as people in the West Bank and in the Palestinian territories?
What Israel has been enforcing — has been enforcing to Gazans is a bargaining plate, that "If you remain silent, we will grant you crumbs of rights. We will grant you a little bit of water, natural resources to use. We will grant you eight hours a day of electricity. We will grant you other services of import and import — of export and import coming in and out of Gaza." And this is the forms of dehumanization that the international community and the media stream are failing to understand.
That is why they are calling and they are entitling our suffering as a matter of a conflict, as a matter of tension, as a matter of escalation, which is so untrue. This is not a conflict. When we are talking about conflict and tension, we're talking about symmetrical powers that are, I would say, having the same military equipment, the same funding. And to talk about the funding itself, which the U.S. is granting impunity on the political level as much as funding Israel with 3.8 billions of dollars per year, mainly to fund the military occupation.
Those facts, they are not new to the people who are following the news coming out of Gaza. But you don't hear our stories. You only hear our stories whenever there are numbers of people dying, whenever there are hundreds of people injured, and whenever there are tens and hundreds of bombing happening in the areas of Gaza. That is why we are trying to amplify those stories. We don't want you to see us as means of numbers. We don't want you to see us as means of people suffering. But we are people trying to live in peace and dignity. And Israel is not allowing this, and Israel has been violating all norms and all accords of humanity, with full impunity by the U.S. government, as well as the supreme countries all over the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Issam, as far as the telling of Palestinian stories is concerned, could you also talk about the coverage in the Israeli media? I mean, some have said that media that are routinely critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu's government and his policies, in this instance, in covering this assault in Gaza, those same media outlets have called for the military, the Israeli military, to be as forceful as possible, etc. Talk about how this is being reported in the Israeli media.
ISSAM ADWAN: Of course, the Israeli media, with the support of the international media, as well, they are reporting Gaza as terrorist, because they are only focusing on the reaction — on the self-defense reaction of the Palestinians in Gaza shooting rockets. But why? Why to discuss the shooting of rockets and ignoring the fact that Israel has been ethnically cleansing Palestine since 1948, land grabbing Palestinians, forcibly expelling Palestinians in the West Bank, in the Occupied Territories, and even not allowing people of the diaspora to return, as stipulated by the United Nations Resolution number 194? We are talking about many human rights violations that are — that should be worthy to be discussed and should be worthy to be asked for. But when it comes to Gaza, they only see Gaza as means of reaction.
And when it comes to shooting rockets and comparing to what happened, for instance, during the Great March of Return, we can clearly see and we can clearly state that Israel does not really need any reason to violate human rights. Israel has been violating human rights. Israel has been established on the forcibly expelling of Palestinians, on the killing, on the imprisonment, including children and women. We have been seeing this aggression on Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014 and nowadays. Taking an example of this aggression, in 2008, when Israel launched a vast-scale bombing in Gaza, in three minutes, death toll raised to 400 people died. During the Great March of Return, people protested peacefully, which is supposedly the international laws protecting. What we have encountered with? Live ammunition, explosive bullets, sniper rifles, tear gas, and so many other means that are considered internationally prohibited to be used against peaceful protesters. So, why to discuss the reaction, the angry reaction, of the Palestinians, considering the existence — Hamas would have never been existed without the existence of the occupation itself.
So, I believe, after 73 years of this occupation, and my age, 27 years, lived under this direct occupation, and for the past 15 years, imprisoned, denied 99% of my rights, I believe those sufferings are worthy to be discussed. Those sufferings are worthy to be put in the discussion table with Israel to impose sanctions, to take those cases to the ICC. And we have been witnessing, over the long decades, that Israel has never been punished, has never been sanctioned by the ICC, of course, because of the protection and because of the funding that the U.S. administration has been providing for so long.
AMY GOODMAN: Issam Adwan, we want to thank you for being with us, Gaza project manager for We Are Not Numbers, speaking to us from Gaza City.
When we come back, we go to Jerusalem to speak with Mohammed El-Kurd about how Israeli forces forcibly removed him from Sheikh Jarrah yesterday, but he did return. Stay with us.
On Monday, we spoke to writer and poet Mohammed El-Kurd, whose family is facing forceful eviction from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. He also spoke on CNN and MSNBC. After these interviews, Israeli forces arrested him and forcibly removed him from Sheikh Jarrah. It was captured in a dramatic video shared widely on social media. "They just threw me in the street and told me that I couldn't come back into the neighborhood," El-Kurd says. "They've done this many times to us, many of my family members, many of my neighbors. They do this routinely." El-Kurd has been one of the most prominent Palestinian voices in recent weeks describing what is happening in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where Israeli authorities' planned evictions of several Palestinian families to give their homes to Jewish settlers has been widely described as "ethnic cleansing."
This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.
Related Story
STORYMay 14, 2021Hanan Ashrawi & Rashid Khalidi: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim Palestinians
TOPICS
GUESTS
Palestinian writer and poet who is organizing to save his family's home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.
LINKS
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.
On Monday, we spoke to Mohammed El-Kurd, whose family is facing forceful eviction from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. He then spoke on CNN and MSNBC. After these interviews, Israeli forces arrested him and forcibly removed Mohammed from Sheikh Jarrah. It was captured in a dramatic video shared widely on social media.
For more, we go to Jerusalem to speak with Mohammed El-Kurd, writer and poet in occupied Palestine, who is organizing to save his family's home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Mohammed, we spoke to you Monday. Describe what happened next.
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Hi, Amy. Good to be back.
Yeah, I was standing in my neighborhood at night, and Israeli forces, while they were dispersing, violently dispersing, and suppressing the protesters and assaulting them and beating them, landed on me. And although they know that I live in the neighborhood, although they know my face, they forcibly took me out of the neighborhood. I would want to mention also that this has happened to me before, on the same day, in the morning, but there was no cameras to capture it.
I am unsure if this was targeted or not, or if this is because of what I said on national television. What I do know is that Palestinians are targeted constantly by Israeli violence, be they outspoken or not. So, for my Palestinian siblings, our silence will not protect us. We should all be speaking out against Israeli atrocities and [inaudible] —
AMY GOODMAN: But where were they taking you? They were taking you out of your home. I mean, there's this other viral video of your twin sister who is telling a Jewish settler to leave your home. Where were these Israeli soldiers that we are showing now taking you?
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: They just threw me in the street and told me that I couldn't come back into the neighborhood. And they've done this many times to us, many of my family members, many of my neighbors. They do this routinely.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you talk also, Mohammed, about the reports of quite blatant collusion between settlers and Israeli security forces?
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Thank God for social media, because not only in Sheikh Jarrah, in Haifa, in Lod, in Jaffa, in the Gaza Strip, we are seeing the Israeli settlers emboldened by the Israeli state. And there are many videos that have surfaced of Israeli police officers assaulting Palestinians, and doing it with brute force, and doing it with aggression, doing it like they have a personal vendetta against them, which they do. It's nothing short of terrorism. But again, like I said, thank God for social media, because it appears to me that the world is finally waking up to the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and it treats Palestinians with such dehumanization. It treats Palestinians the way colonizers treat the colonized.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And also, as you point out, the role of social media, as a result, the whole world knows what's going on. And there have been protests held in many cities around the world. What is the significance of solidarity from activists and others in these different cities, including many in Europe, as well as some in the U.S.?
MOHAMMED EL-KURD: Absolutely. I think those protests, that are in hundreds of cities, actually, are also spearheaded by Palestinians in the diaspora, much like the protests that are happening all across historic Palestine.
The first significance of these protests is that they've indicated to us that these colonial fragmentations that Israel has worked tirelessly, explicitly and implicitly, to implement within Palestinians, these tactics of intimidation, are not working, that we are all the Palestinian people, regardless of geography and regardless of, you know, legal status. We are all the Palestinian people, and we are rising up against this.
I also think grassroots people on the ground all over the world are realizing that they have the tools to end Israeli aggression towards Palestinians, to end the Israeli occupation once and for all, to end Israeli settler colonialism in 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.
Televised images of Israeli mobs attacking Palestinians have been widely denounced by Israeli media and public figures, but Palestinian writer Budour Hassan says the selective outrage ignores decades of occupation that have led to this point. "There is some mention of these lynch mobs that are attacking Palestinians in mixed cities. What is not mentioned is who emboldened these lynch mobs. We're talking about state-sponsored, decades-long discrimination, isolation and erasure that emboldened these groups," says Hassan, legal researcher for the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights, who joins us from Nazareth.
This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.
Related Story
STORYMay 14, 2021Hanan Ashrawi & Rashid Khalidi: U.S. Backing Has Given Israel License to Kill & Maim Palestinians
TOPICS
GUESTS
Palestinian writer and legal researcher for the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As we've reported, at least 83 Palestinians, including 17 children, are dead in Gaza, as Israel continues its assault on the besieged territory as Palestinians mark the end of Ramadan. Israel is now amassing ground troops near Gaza. And inside Israel, Palestinians are fearing for their lives as Israeli mobs attack Arab homes and businesses. This comes as President Biden is giving Israel a green light to continue its assault on Gaza, speaking publicly on it for the first time yesterday.
For more, we're joined by Budour Hassan, a Palestinian writer and legal researcher for the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights, who has been out in the streets in Jerusalem.
Can you describe, Budour, the scene on the ground in Jerusalem? We just listened to Mohammed describe Sheikh Jarrah, and we've just listened to Issam in Gaza.
BUDOUR HASSAN: Well, since the start of Ramadan, there have been protests all over Jerusalem. They were sparked by Israel's decision to close off Damascus Gate, steps where Palestinian youth usually gather every night, especially on the nights of Ramadan, because this is a public space that Palestinians have reclaimed over the past decade. And then these protests extended after they forcefully managed to force the Israelis to remove the barriers and the barricades. They extended to reach Sheikh Jarrah. All over Jerusalem, there are protests in different neighborhoods, both in support of Sheikh Jarrah and in support of the people in Gaza.
But in response to these protests, Israel, especially for the last two weeks, has ramped up its mass arrests campaign. They don't only target Palestinians who have been protesting in the streets; they are also targeting well-known Palestinian activists in an attempt by Israel to deter and to stop, quell this popular movement, that we probably haven't seen anything like it before. It's even greater than the movement we've seen in 2017 against Israel's decision to install metal detectors outside Al-Aqsa Mosque, and it's definitely even greater than the movement we saw in 2014 against the — after the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a teenager from Shuafat.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Budour, could you talk about the Israeli leadership that's spearheading this assault? I mean, Netanyahu was on the cusp of being ousted. He's known as "Mr. Security." Also, Israel's new military chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, outlined last year a, quote, "victory doctrine." What was his role in determining the scale of this assault — and as you say, even more violent than what we've seen in the past?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Yeah, Nermeen, it's not just Netanyahu and Kochavi. It's also Benny Gantz. Remember last year everyone was hailing Benny Gantz as some sort of a hope for the so-called center-left. And now we hear his rhetoric. Obviously, we know that he was the chief of staff during the war in 2014. So, Aviv Kochavi is just an extension to the doctrine of Israeli occupation forces against Gaza.
But I'd like to highlight the role that Gantz has been playing on escalating the war on Gaza, on threatening that the war will continue until Gaza is leveled. The celebration on Israeli TV whenever a high tower is destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, blatant celebration, as if there are no civilians living there, is just — you see it in every national television channel. Not a single word is said about the children who are killed. Not a single word is said about the infrastructure that is being destroyed. So, it's just provoked, and there is outright incitement on Israeli national TV.
I'd just like also to highlight the role that Ohana is also playing, who is the internal affairs security minister, in inciting against Palestinians who live in Palestine '48, which is present-day Israel, especially in inciting against them and labeling all of them as "terrorists," describing any unarmed protest that has started as a "riot," and just inciting really every single mayor of mixed cities where Palestinians are a minority in Jewish-dominated cities. These cities obviously were ethnically cleansed in 1948, and Palestinians who live in these mixed cities have, for decades, suffered unbelievable discrimination, state-sponsored discrimination, and erasure of their Palestinian identity.
So, we have been seeing incitement against Palestinians who live in Palestine '48, who are being demonized and being treated as internal enemy. And the whole rhetoric is just beat them with force, deploy the border police, deploy the — even calls to deploy the army by Netanyahu in mixed cities. So, there is this violent, intimidating and inciting rhetoric all over the Israeli leadership, and especially on the Israeli national media.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the violence that's spreading across Israel with Jewish mobs attacking Palestinians in mixed Jewish and Arab communities. In the Israeli city of Haifa, a video was posted online showing an Israeli mob trying to break into the home of an Arab family. And then you had what happened in another community, as well, in a Tel Aviv suburb, and this was caught live on Israeli television, a Palestinian — a Jewish mob taking people, Israeli extremist settlers breaking shops in the suburb, another harrowing video showing ultranationalist Israelis dragging a man they believed to be an Arab from his car and beating him mercilessly. It turned out he was Jewish. On the one hand, you have the Israeli media, some that have been critical of Israel, joining in supporting Israel in bombing Gaza, but on the other hand, you have the Israeli media talking about lynch mobs, because they're showing this live on TV as settlers are caught on television chanting "Death to Arabs" and dragging Arabs out of their cars, or people they perceive to be that.
BUDOUR HASSAN: To add to what you said, Amy — although I just would like to correct one thing: Haifa is a Palestinian city. And this is the identity that Israel has been trying to erase since 1948.
But, yes, and to add to what you said, there has been buses bringing settlers from the occupied West Bank to the territories occupied in 1948 to aid these Jewish mobs in attacking Palestinians. Just to remind you, last week, when Palestinian worshipers tried to reach Al-Aqsa Mosque, their buses were blocked from reaching Al-Aqsa Mosque, so they had to walk to Jerusalem by foot. And people in Jerusalem had to bring their cars in order to help these people who were blocked and were prevented from reaching Jerusalem. On the other hand, we see how these settler groups are organizing on Facebook and on social media. And the Israeli police knows all about them and has allowed them to run riots in these cities, and especially in these mixed cities.
And even though, yes, indeed, there is some mention of these lynch mobs that are attacking Palestinians in mixed cities, what is not mentioned is who emboldened these lynch mobs. We're talking about state-sponsored, decades-long discrimination, isolation and erasure that emboldened these groups. We're talking about a myth that we've always had about so-called coexistence in these mixed cities. Now, what we're seeing right now is toppling this myth, because it proves that whenever something really — an explosion happens of violence, we see the true face of the Israeli state, which is supporting or being complicit with these attacks against Palestinians. This happened, to remind you, in 2000, when the Israeli police killed 13 unarmed Palestinian protesters who were protesting in solidarity with Jerusalem and with the Palestinian Second Intifada. So these attacks are not new.
And the new dimension is the ease with which these settlers are allowed to run riot, is the justification that we hear on Israeli TV, although it's criticizing the lynch mob. But on the other hand, it's using previous attacks by — unspontaneous, to say — by other Palestinians, in order to justify these responses and this retaliation and reprisals. These reprisals by Israeli Jewish mobs against Palestinians are not at all spontaneous. They're absolutely organized. These settler groups are directly and strongly supported by the Israeli state, and they have representation in the Knesset. And they are represented by far-right parties, Jewish parties, in the Knesset, as well.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Budour, could you also talk about the significance of so many Israeli Arabs joining these protests?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Again, to correct the terminology, I'm sorry, we are Palestinians, not Israeli Arabs. And again, this was one of Israel's efforts, since 1948, to assimilate us, to erase our identity and to tell us that we are not Palestinians, as an attempt to silence us and to separate us and isolate us from the Palestinian people.
And what we are seeing right now — and Mohammed has mentioned it always very eloquently — is that we're challenging decades-long colonial fragmentation. We are redefining the geography of Palestine, and we're redefining the cause. I mean, when I see Palestinians in Nazareth chant for Jerusalem in one voice, in unison, I see the same in Haifa, I hear the same in Jaffa. I hear how Palestinian youth, who had probably never come to Jerusalem before, go on their own to Jerusalem in order to join the protests in Sheikh Jarrah. Not only is it heartwarming, it says that for so long Israel has tried to fragment us and to isolate us and to erase our identity, and despite all the budgets that have been spent for that, despite all the efforts, including intimidation, revenge and arrests and so on, especially after 2000 and the Second Intifada in 2000, when Israel has tried to divide the Palestinian community from within by letting free and letting loose gangs, by spreading weapons and by convincing people that our social and economic cause is somehow separate from the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, and to see that despite all this, for so many years, that the Palestinian people, whenever something happens in Gaza and Jerusalem, they take to the streets.
But what's happening this time, in particular, I think, in a sense, it's unprecedented. Sometimes we tend to be — to exaggerate, to be taken away and taken aback, obviously, because we are so emotionally involved in what's going on. But really it's something unprecedented, because despite all the repression that these protesters have faced, they're continuing. And now they know that their cause, as the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is inseparable from the Palestinian cause, from the cause of the right of return.
And now, just in two days, on Saturday, we will mark the anniversary of the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. And what we are seeing now, and one of the most popular chants, actually, in these marches, in these protests in support of Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah and Gaza, is "I'm returning." And to see that this young generation, this third generation or even fourth generation to the Nakba, is still insisting, "I will return. I have not relinquished my right of return," it says so much about their resilience. It's not just a cliché. It's truly we're seeing being implemented this incredible resilience and steadfastness by the Palestinians, that no matter how much we've been forced to forget and been forced to be isolated from our people, we continue to act as though this had never happened, and we continue to insist on our right to be called Palestinians and to support our sisters and brothers all over the Palestinian diaspora and all over Palestine.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Budour, how do you even protect yourself when you go outside?
BUDOUR HASSAN: Well, I mean, obviously, I have — I'm very fortunate to have the most amazing comrades and friends in the world, so I know, whenever you're in the streets, you're never alone. So, I have the most amazing women and men in the world, young women and men, supporting me. Obviously, it's always a danger for anyone, by the way, because the Israeli police doesn't discriminate. But I know that it's my right and my duty as Palestinian to take to the streets and to participate. Like so many Palestinians, I've been — and all Palestinian protesters, whether they're women, whether they're men, whether they're elderly, whether they're children, have had to suffer the oppression and the violence of the Israeli police. But, you know, when you are in the street, when you're chanting and raising your voice, there is something — and that's the most amazing thing, and it always gives me goosebumps. Whenever you are in the street and you're raising your voice against injustice and for freedom and liberation, really, the last thing you think about is fear.
AMY GOODMAN: Budour Hassan, I want to thank you for being with us, Palestinian writer, legal researcher for the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid and Human Rights.
When we come back, we stay in Jerusalem to speak with Nathan Thrall, author of The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel an Palestine. And he'll tell us about this New York Review of Books piece he wrote, that was passed around Congress even before this latest Israeli assault, called "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: One man's quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule." Stay with us.
The original content of this program is l
We look at the crisis unfolding in Israel-Palestine with Nathan Thrall, former director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group and writer now based in Jerusalem, who says despite a buildup of Israeli troops on the Gaza border, Israel wants to avoid a ground invasion of the besieged territory and return to the status quo that existed before the latest round of violence. "Israel's preference and its policy is to have Hamas remain in control of its little island of Gaza after this is finished," Thrall says.
This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.
More from this Interview
TOPICS
GUESTS
writer based in Jerusalem.
LINKS
· "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama"
· "The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine"
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. You can get our Daily Digest mailed to you by sending the word "democracynow," texting that, to 66866. That's texting the word "democracynow" — no space — to 66866.
The death toll in Gaza has reached at least 83 as Israel's aerial bombardment of the besieged territory enters a fourth day. The dead include 17 children. Over 480 Palestinians have been injured. The death toll in Israel has reached seven as Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups continue to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel.
We're joined now by Nathan Thrall, former director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group. He's now a writer, based in Jerusalem, author of the book The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine. His latest piece for The New York Review of Books is headlined "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: One man's quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule."
Nathan, if you can comment on the latest escalation and what this means, including the U.S. response? And then tell us the story of Abed and his little 5-year-old son, Milad, and what happened to him.
NATHAN THRALL: Thanks for having me, Amy.
What we're seeing right now in the land under Israel's control, from the river to the sea, is an uprising that's taking place in cities in the West Bank, where it is being suppressed by Palestinian security forces. It's taking place in Palestinian cities inside of Green Line Israel, pre-1967 Israel. And, of course, it's taking place in annexed East Jerusalem and in Gaza. And I have to say that, having lived here for quite some time, this feels unlike any other time that I've been here. To have lynch mobs roaming through the streets and attacking people purely based on their ethnicity is really quite frightening and disturbing to all the people around here. And it's really a unique moment.
I think the most significant thing that's happening now is actually the attacks within Green Line Israel and, as some of your previous guests were saying, the unity that you are seeing among Palestinians that Israel had attempted to fragment for decades. And this has been a key part of Israel's strategy and Israel's success in maintaining an occupation for over half a century. And actually, for the entirety of Israel's existence, save for six months, it kept the majority of the Palestinian native population under its control, under some kind of a military regime, while having a separate regime for the Jews living here.
And what we're seeing now is really an attempt by Palestinians to connect what had been very separate struggles of Palestinian citizens of Israel for equality. Palestinian citizens of Israel are prevented from even living in hundreds of Jewish-only communities within Israel. What we're seeing is a unity of Palestinians in Jerusalem who are demanding that Israel cease to implement a racist law which allows Jews to obtain properties held before 1948, while not allowing Palestinian residents, taxpaying residents of the city, to do the same thing. And, of course, in Gaza, we have a brutal siege that shows no sign of ending, and utter desperation among the people there to find some way to end it.
Within the West Bank, you have Palestinians living in — most of them, living in 165 little islands of supposed Palestinian autonomy, that is in fact under total Israeli control. Israel enters these islands of autonomy at will. They're disconnected from one another. They need Israeli permission to go between them. And the Palestinian security forces now, in these disconnected islands, are suppressing the protests that are taking place.
If we look at the whole territory altogether, these Palestinian islands of autonomy, 165 of them in the West Bank, plus Gaza, they amount to about 10% of the territory of mandatory Palestine, the territory under Israel's control, not including the Golan Heights. So what we have is Israel directly administering and controlling 90% of this territory, and we have 10% of it that is in this pseudo-autonomy, which is not a real autonomy.
And the international community describes this situation as something totally other than what it is. The international community describes this as a situation of the so-called Palestinian-controlled West Bank or the Fatah-dominated West Bank. Well, actually, Israel not just controls all of the West Bank, but it actually directly administers the majority of the territory in the West Bank. The entire discourse of the international community about this conflict is one of wishful thinking, that we have a Palestinian state in the making and an Israeli state, and it's really a kind of a border conflict between them, rather than the reality of the situation, which is one sovereign state controlling all the territory, and 165 tiny little islands, that make up less than 10% of the territory, that don't have real autonomy, don't have real sovereignty and don't have any prospect of freedom or independence anywhere on the horizon.
And this entire system is funded by the United States, paid for by the United States. And you hear liberals in the United States now calling for the U.S. to play a greater role — progressives even, well-meaning progressives, calling for the U.S. to play a greater role. But this is a totally contradictory position. If you understand that the U.S. is part of the problem, that the U.S. is funding the slow takeover of this entire territory, the constriction of Palestinians into even smaller spaces, then, of course, anybody in favor of Palestinian freedom and independence should not want a greater role for the United States.
That's a very long answer, and I haven't gotten to the piece. So, I'd be glad to discuss that now.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, before we do that, Nathan, could you talk — now there is a real threat of an Israeli ground assault on Gaza. What do you think the prospects of that are, and what will the implications of that be?
NATHAN THRALL: It's anybody's guess whether it will actually happen. Israel is trying to signal that it is very possible, and it's put its forces close to the border, and it may happen. Israel is very frightened of doing a ground operation, because it expects that there will be a large number of casualties, and it fears that Israeli soldiers will be kidnapped. And it's not a decision that will be taken lightly in Israel.
And I think that most people would prefer — most in the security establishment would prefer to do this without a ground invasion, because at the end of the day Israel's preference and its policy is to have Hamas remain in control of its little island of Gaza after this is finished. After this round of fighting or this war, whatever it turns out to be, after it is over, Israel wants to return to the situation as it was one week ago, which is the people of Gaza choked, Hamas ostensibly administering Gaza, while Israel controls everything that happens from the outside. And there's really not much purpose in a ground invasion unless you actually intend to change that situation, stay there for a long time, attempt to replace the leadership in Gaza. And even that, it's not clear that that's feasible. I mean, what Palestinian leader is going to come in on an Israeli tank and actually succeed in ruling? So, Israel doesn't really have any good options. And all of the bloodshed that we're seeing right now is rather pointless, because it's clear now that Israel's intention is simply to return to the situation that it had one week ago.
And by the way, this is a huge problem with Israel-Palestine in general. All the good, well-meaning liberals and progressives in the world, they see — they ignore Israel-Palestine. They pay attention to it when there's violence. Once there's violence, what do progressives call for? They call for the Biden administration to make sure that the escalation stops. So that what? So that we return to the status quo, the status quo of slow Israeli takeover of this territory and Palestinians living under apartheid. So, a ground invasion really — it may happen, but nothing good will come of it for Israel.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nathan, we have a couple of minutes left. You described the situation through one day in the life of Abed Salama, in your New York Review of Books piece. Talk about the piece.
NATHAN THRALL: Sure. It's the story of one man on one day searching to find his son when a tragic accident occurs. And to understand the story of this man searching through the labyrinth of Israeli rule to find his son, and all of the obstacles he faces, which are historical obstacles — they're obstacles that go back to the beginning of Zionism, which I address in the piece — you need to understand where this man lives.
And he lives — Abed Salama, he lives in a community that has been separated from the rest of the Jerusalem by the 26-foot-high separation barrier. And half of this community — it's surrounded on three sides by a wall, by this gray concrete separation wall, and, on the fourth side, by what's known as the apartheid road, because it has separate lanes for Palestinian and Israeli traffic. And that road itself has a large wall running through the middle of it, so the two sides don't see one another. So, this community is an enclave. It's a ghetto, completely surrounded by walls. Half of it is within annexed East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in 1967. And the residents in that half have blue ID cards. And they have the ability to go through a checkpoint in order to enter the rest of the city. So they're passing by —
AMY GOODMAN: Nathan, we have 30 seconds.
NATHAN THRALL: OK. The story is really about life inside a ghetto, a walled ghetto that Israel has created. Half of the people in that ghetto are residents of the city of Jerusalem. And one man searches, throughout a horrible day, to find his son and to find out even what happened to his son on that day.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to continue with you after the broadcast, because we have to hear this story in full. It has had an enormous impact. It is called "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama." And we will bring you Part 2 at democracynow.org. "One man's quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule." I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining 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.
