Israel has left its physical and political mark within the historic walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. To consolidate its grip, it has demolished Palestinian homes, expelled residents, empowered Jewish settlers, damaged local traders, and imposed sweeping restrictions making it virtually impossible for most Palestinians to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.
At least 60 pieces of legislation were drafted by right-wing members of the Knesset during the last parliament to move Israel from a state of de facto to de jure annexation, according to a database by Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.
A new interactive map shows not only that Israel aimed to annex the West Bank from the outset but that the trajectory of its policies means it will not rest until all Palestinians under occupation are driven off their lands.
As Trump prepares to bring his ‘deal of the century’ out of the shadows, he knows he can rely on bipartisan support for his plan to eradicate the Palestinian cause.
In recent weeks, a political “resistance” movement has emerged in Israel against Netanyahu, echoing the one against Donald Trump in the US. With Gantz as its figurehead, it has mobilised over the threat Netanyahu poses to Israel’s system of checks and balances. The chief concern has been the far-right’s intensifying assault on the supreme court, the last relatively liberal institution.
Israel is close to building a $55 million cable car through occupied East Jerusalem, despite opposition from archaeologists, architects, Palestinians, and a tiny community of Jews. Critics say the project is intended to hide the local Palestinian population from some 3 million tourists who visit Jerusalem each year, turning the city into a ‘Disneyland’ focused on promoting Israeli interests.
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, which is widely seen as a mouthpiece for Benjamin Netanyahu, has leaked a document purporting to be Trump’s ‘deal of the century’ peace plan. If genuine, it offers a catastrophic vision of the future for the Palestinians.
With Israel and the Palestinian Authority at an impasse over tax transfers, the PA is facing imminent collapse. So, more in desperation than with any realistic prospect of achieving peace, attention is turning to Trump’s long-promised “deal of the century”. Reports suggest it is due for release next month.
If the debate about the pro-Israel lobby in the US is for the first time making a nod to truth, the conversation about the pro-Israel lobby in the UK is becoming more and more divorced from reality. Part of the reason is the way the Israel lobby has recently emerged in the UK – hurriedly, and in a mix of panic and damage limitation mode.
With the election in the bag, Benjamin Netanyahu’s only problem is that he faces imminent indictment for corruption. But he has a plan: extract an ‘immunity from prosecution’ law from his far-right coalition partners in return for annexing much of the West Bank
Benjamin Netanyahu now enjoys the luxury of choosing between a narrow government of far-right parties, and a right-wing national unity government embracing his rival Benny Gantz. Either way, this election demonstrates that opposition to Netanyahu and the right has been well and truly crushed.
Whether Netanyahu or Gantz wins Israel’s election this week, more legislation will be drafted to advance institutional discrimination against the country’s Palestinian minority, and the abusive treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories will intensify.
Armed with Donald Trump’s blessing after he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem nearly a year ago, experts say Israel is now working more quickly, more confidently and more intensively to expel Palestinians from the city of their birth.
US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights will prove a boon for Israel’s right, which has been clamouring to annex vast areas of the West Bank and thereby drive a final nail into the coffin of the two-state solution.
Were he alive today, Meir Kahane, whose party was outlawed in Israel as a Jewish terror group, would be delighted at his influence over the subsequent 30 years – not only on popular discourse, but on the strategic aims of Netanyahu’s government
As long as Israel and the US prevent publication of the UN blacklist of firms profiting from Israel’s settlements, the settlers will be free to sink their roots even deeper into the West Bank. Israel’s occupation will become ever more irreversible, and the prospect of a Palestinian state ever more distant.
A civil war is raging in the UK Labour party over Israel as the party is dragged, kicking and screaming, into the modern era – and finally forced to confront its long-running indulgence of anti-Palestinian racism.
In France, the US and Britain, centrists are seeking to reassert their authority by smearing opponents as anti-semites. The smear industry isn’t really interested in safeguards on antisemitism, it wants a return to a political culture in which its power is left unchallenged and unscrutinised.
There was something richly ironic about Mr Netanyahu penalising the Palestinian Authority for rewarding Palestinian “terrorists” in the same week he negotiated a deal to assist bringing into the Israeli parliament the Jewish Power party, a reinvention of the outlawed Kach that was led by Meir Kahane.
Anti-semitism provided the cover story as eight MPs broke away from the Labour party this week. They, and those waiting to follow them, hope smearing Jeremy Corbyn will obscure the fact that they are the dying remnants of the old political order.
