Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s capital, has been subject to raids allegedly in search of the perpetrator of a drive-by shooting of Israeli settlers yesterday. Now some settlers are calling for the PA president’s assassination – and Israeli soldiers are staying silent.
Marc Lamont Hill, in Nazareth 2014. screenshot from Vimeo video. As is often the case with proponents of justice for Palestinians, Marc Lamont Hill was watched closely by Israel partisans as he spoke before the UN last week. They took a phrase – one phrase – from the speech and threw the rest aside, hoping…
Israel’s takeover of Arab East Jerusalem has continued unabated since the 1967 war, but has grown more brazen since US President Trump’s decision to move the embassy. Evictions of Palestinians and appropriation of their homes by Israeli settlers is more frequent; Israeli police presence has grown more pervasive; Israel’s parliament is devising more new policies – and its supreme court is upholding them – to dispossess Palestinians. Meanwhile the PA is powerless to respond. It all adds up to ethnic cleansing.
The lawsuit against Airbnb’s de-listing of Israeli settlement properties sounds pretty flimsy: religious discrimination (illegal settlements are by definition all-Jewish); failure to provide equal access (Palestinians are barred completely – and it’s their land); Airbnb is siding with Palestinians against the occupation (everything about the occupation and settlements is illegal, so, yeah).
Booking.com needs to take a stand against occupation by de-listing properties located on stolen land in Israeli settlements The popular global tourism company Airbnb recently announced its decision to de-list properties in illegal Israeli settlements, a move which Human Rights Watch (HRW) praised as “a stand against discrimination, displacement, and land theft.” Now it’s time for Booking.com to…
Palestinians who rely on olive harvests for their livelihood have been terrorized by Israeli settlers since the beginning of the occupation in 1967. Settlers – often guarded or assisted by Israeli military – destroy trees and equipment, steal large quantities of olives, kill livestock, and attack Palestinian farmers.
In the ongoing travesty of justice, some olive groves are only accessible to their Palestinian owners for a few days a year; swaths of farmland has been appropriated by Israel for settlement expansion or military use.
Airbnb is doing the right thing by de-listing properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The Anti-Defamation League is pushing back – but its arguments fail to hold up to even the mildest scrutiny.
Recently released Israeli documents show that Israel secretly funded an insurance company for settlers, in addition to planning for 20,000 new units in Ma’ale Adumim worth 3 billion shekels (over $800 million), an East Jerusalem settlement built on confiscated Palestinian land.
In addition, settlement activity in Hebron continues, and Israel is trying to have international human rights observers removed.
Other troubling new governmental actions and policies have also been adopted.
Palestinians have always had just 3 wishes: a capital someday in Jerusalem, a return to the 1967 borders, and the Right of Return. Between Trump and Israel, there’s nothing left to even dream of: the barest minimum is disappearing – food, medicine, the title of “refugee.”
Palestinian rights groups and local governments have challenged an Israeli law that seeks to the annex of parts of the West Bank. The Israeli government responded to the petition, stating that “the Knesset [is permitted] to legislate laws everywhere in the world” and that it is authorized “to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries via legislation that would be applied to events occurring in their territories.”