Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar has been incarcerated in an Israeli jail without a trial for 20 months. Another period of ‘administrative detention’ will soon expire. One of the Israeli accusations is that she attended a book fair…
Intellectual honesty is about confronting those things that make us uncomfortable, not ignoring them. Israel arrests Palestinian children; see 7 of the many videos of these actions. The US gives Israel over $10 million per day and Congress is currently considering legislation to give Israel even more. That makes it obligatory for Americans to learn the facts, and act on them.
As Israel considers adopting the death sentence for Palestinians, it is worth recalling that under occupation, Palestinians already face harsh injustice and that such a law would be illegal according to international law. The examples of Elor Azaria’s 9-month prison term for killing an unarmed, injured Palestinian at point-blank range, and Ahed Tamimi’s 8-month sentence for slapping an IDF soldier, indicate that the Israeli “justice” system is already severely lopsided.
While my country has long been free from racist minority rule, the world is not yet free of the crime of apartheid. I see the eerie similarities between Israel’s racial laws and policies towards Palestinians, and the architecture of apartheid in South Africa. We South Africans know apartheid when we see it. In fact, many recognise that, in some respects, Israel’s regime of oppression is even worse.
Palestinian artist Malak Mattar has had exhibitions around the world, but has never attended one of them outside Gaza. She has been denied visas recently to the UK and France.
Israel has detained Mohammad Tamimi, a minor who Israeli forces shot in the face last December, for the 2nd time since the shooting.
Mohammed Ayyash is just like any other boy – only cooler. And braver.
Jake Tapper’s piece on Israeli psychologists working with children after HS shooting in Parkland FL highlights Israel’s “vast experience with terrorism and war.” As usual, Israel is the innocent victim of Palestinian terrorism.
Palestinians survive such whitewashing by developing a unique coping mechanism, “Sumud.”
Elor Azaria took the life of a man who was no threat and received a lenient sentence. His sentence has been reduced to 9 months, though he shows no remorse. (Contrast Ahed Tamimi, who slapped an IDF soldier in full armor, and has just reached a plea bargain that will give her a total prison time of 10 months.)
Israel’s army has reached a level at which it can do no wrong. The “most moral army in the world,” worshiped and exceptional, is in a place in which anti-Arab racism is so normal that it has become invisible (at least to itself), and this has put the IDF in a very precarious position indeed.