Israel steadfastly starves Gaza; horror in Beit Hanoun; Israeli settlers displace entire communities of Palestinians; Executing Palestinian detainees best way to combat prison overcrowding – Israeli minister; Biden op-ed begs for more money for Israel…
The news cycle never ends in Israel and Palestine, but coverage by mainstream can be extremely spotty. Here are a few recent stories from the region.
Parroting the Israel “history” fantasy that Netanyahu has been peddling, extremist Israeli lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich told an audience, “Palestinian people are an invention…This is the biblical truth.”
Plenty of Israel partisans deny or explain away the Nakba – the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians c.1948 – but Israeli political leader Bezalel Smotrich openly admits it, and wishes it had gone further.
In Israel, religious extremism has gone unchecked in the educational establishment, in top levels of government, and among prominent religious leaders – radicalizing a growing number of Israeli youth and endangering Palestinians.
Deputy Knesset Speaker Bezalel Smotrich tweeted that Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi “should have gotten a bullet at least in the kneecap,” drawing an angry response from feminist Jewish MK Michel Rozin. Tamimi is serving 8 months for slapping a soldier, after soldiers had shot her cousin in the face.
JJ Goldberg writes in The Forward that a plan endorsing a form of ethnic cleansing was published by “one of the most distinguished philanthropies in Diaspora Jewry,” which includes neocons Elliott Abrams & Bill Kristol on its board of directors…