21 july 2019
Prime Minster of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu greets supporters in Tel Aviv on 10 April, 2019
Media reports of an impending Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip are now a regular occurrence. The frequency of these reports fluctuates based on Israel’s own political landscape.
Empirical experience has taught us that when Israeli leaders are in trouble, they wage a war on Gaza. Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the greatest challenge in his political career, Gaza is bracing for another Israeli war.
The war rumors are no longer just that. Rightwing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post recently reported that Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, “has already approved operational combat plans and recently set up an administrative unit to handle the formation of a list of potential targets in the coastal enclave for when the next war breaks out.”
The Post’s own military correspondent, Anna Ahronheim concurs, that, indeed, war on Gaza “is not far away.” But unlike previous wars, the upcoming war must “have a clear and decisive win” by Israel so that “the other side will think twice about going to war in the future.”
The fallacy in Ahronheim’s analysis is obvious. Israel always approaches its wars in Gaza with the aim of having a “clear and decisive win”, aims that are often thwarted by strong Palestinian resistance in the besieged and impoverished Strip.
Second, Gaza never initiates wars. The Strip has no army or military strategy beyond self-defense tactics carried out by organized resistance factions, including Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and various PLO groups. However, if Israel thinks that a ‘decisive win’ would eradicate Palestinian resistance, it will be greatly disappointed. Gaza’s resistance, in all of its forms, against Israel and Israeli occupation goes back to the late 1940s. No amount of firepower will ever end this kind of determined resistance.
However, it is likely that Israel measures the decisiveness of its ‘victory’ based on the amount of destruction it is able to inflict on Palestinians.
Marvel at these numbers from the last major Israeli war on Gaza, in 2014, to understand the real target of Israeli wars on the Strip:
According to United Nations figures, more than 2,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s so-called “Operation Protective Edge”. The causalities, most of whom were civilians, included 551 children. Moreover, 11,231 were also wounded, and more than 20,000 homes were destroyed. The massive destruction was also aimed at the already ailing infrastructure of impoverished Gaza, reaching schools, hospitals, mosques and even UN shelters.
How more “decisive” must the next Israeli war be so that Israel’s warmongers may feel satisfied that their war achieved its intended objectives?
Israel wants Palestinians to accept their perpetual besiegement, embrace their fate as an occupied nation with no rights, subject to the whims of Israel and its racist, deadly policies.
However, Israeli leaders are now driven by a second objective: winning the upcoming elections.
There is much at stake for Netanyahu and his prospective coalition of rightwing ideologues and religious zealots. Israel has never held two national elections in one year, but this year is an exception.
The April 9 elections failed to achieve a decisive victory for either camp. After weeks of attempting to form a coalition government, Netanyahu accepted the inevitable: another election, which is set for September 17.
But Netanyahu is not only politically embattled. He, along with his family and close aides have been embroiled in a series of corruption charges that could potentially end his political career.
On June 6, Israel’s attorney general Avichai Mandelblit rejected Netanyahu’s bid to postpone for the second time the pre-indictment hearing in the several corruption cases concerning his misconduct while in office.
However, Netanyahu hopes to secure his position at the helm of Israeli politics a while longer, to evade corruption charges, and to eventually strike a deal to drop the charges altogether.
He is desperate to remain a prime minister. For that to happen, he will do whatever it takes to appeal to the most powerful constituency in Israel: the right wing and their religious allies.
For Israel’s right, a war is a normal state of affairs. They seem to acquire their sense of collective safety when Palestinians suffer. And, for months, Israeli rightwing voices calling for war against Gaza have massively amplified.
Even the supposedly sensible political center has joined the chorus, knowing that an anti-war stance in Israel is a losing strategy.
Head of Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, who remains Netanyahu’s strongest opponent said in an interview released last May with Channel 13: “We must strike hard, in an uncompromising manner .. We must restore the deterrence that has been eroded catastrophically for more than a year.”
Of course, there will be a next war on Gaza. It will be as “decisive” and deadly as Israeli leaders need it to be, to serve their political calculations.
But they must also be aware that wars on Gaza are no longer the cakewalks of the past. The resistance in that small, but unbreakable region, is tougher than it has ever been in the past, a natural outcome of 12 years of a relentless siege, interrupted by massively destructive and lethal military onslaughts.
A war on Gaza will also come with a price for Israel. Are Netanyahu and his government willing to endure the political fallout of another failed war? It all depends on how truly desperate corrupt Netanyahu is to remain in power and out of prison, at least for a while longer.
Media reports of an impending Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip are now a regular occurrence. The frequency of these reports fluctuates based on Israel’s own political landscape.
Empirical experience has taught us that when Israeli leaders are in trouble, they wage a war on Gaza. Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the greatest challenge in his political career, Gaza is bracing for another Israeli war.
The war rumors are no longer just that. Rightwing Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post recently reported that Israel’s military chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kochavi, “has already approved operational combat plans and recently set up an administrative unit to handle the formation of a list of potential targets in the coastal enclave for when the next war breaks out.”
The Post’s own military correspondent, Anna Ahronheim concurs, that, indeed, war on Gaza “is not far away.” But unlike previous wars, the upcoming war must “have a clear and decisive win” by Israel so that “the other side will think twice about going to war in the future.”
The fallacy in Ahronheim’s analysis is obvious. Israel always approaches its wars in Gaza with the aim of having a “clear and decisive win”, aims that are often thwarted by strong Palestinian resistance in the besieged and impoverished Strip.
Second, Gaza never initiates wars. The Strip has no army or military strategy beyond self-defense tactics carried out by organized resistance factions, including Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and various PLO groups. However, if Israel thinks that a ‘decisive win’ would eradicate Palestinian resistance, it will be greatly disappointed. Gaza’s resistance, in all of its forms, against Israel and Israeli occupation goes back to the late 1940s. No amount of firepower will ever end this kind of determined resistance.
However, it is likely that Israel measures the decisiveness of its ‘victory’ based on the amount of destruction it is able to inflict on Palestinians.
Marvel at these numbers from the last major Israeli war on Gaza, in 2014, to understand the real target of Israeli wars on the Strip:
According to United Nations figures, more than 2,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s so-called “Operation Protective Edge”. The causalities, most of whom were civilians, included 551 children. Moreover, 11,231 were also wounded, and more than 20,000 homes were destroyed. The massive destruction was also aimed at the already ailing infrastructure of impoverished Gaza, reaching schools, hospitals, mosques and even UN shelters.
How more “decisive” must the next Israeli war be so that Israel’s warmongers may feel satisfied that their war achieved its intended objectives?
Israel wants Palestinians to accept their perpetual besiegement, embrace their fate as an occupied nation with no rights, subject to the whims of Israel and its racist, deadly policies.
However, Israeli leaders are now driven by a second objective: winning the upcoming elections.
There is much at stake for Netanyahu and his prospective coalition of rightwing ideologues and religious zealots. Israel has never held two national elections in one year, but this year is an exception.
The April 9 elections failed to achieve a decisive victory for either camp. After weeks of attempting to form a coalition government, Netanyahu accepted the inevitable: another election, which is set for September 17.
But Netanyahu is not only politically embattled. He, along with his family and close aides have been embroiled in a series of corruption charges that could potentially end his political career.
On June 6, Israel’s attorney general Avichai Mandelblit rejected Netanyahu’s bid to postpone for the second time the pre-indictment hearing in the several corruption cases concerning his misconduct while in office.
However, Netanyahu hopes to secure his position at the helm of Israeli politics a while longer, to evade corruption charges, and to eventually strike a deal to drop the charges altogether.
He is desperate to remain a prime minister. For that to happen, he will do whatever it takes to appeal to the most powerful constituency in Israel: the right wing and their religious allies.
For Israel’s right, a war is a normal state of affairs. They seem to acquire their sense of collective safety when Palestinians suffer. And, for months, Israeli rightwing voices calling for war against Gaza have massively amplified.
Even the supposedly sensible political center has joined the chorus, knowing that an anti-war stance in Israel is a losing strategy.
Head of Blue and White party, Benny Gantz, who remains Netanyahu’s strongest opponent said in an interview released last May with Channel 13: “We must strike hard, in an uncompromising manner .. We must restore the deterrence that has been eroded catastrophically for more than a year.”
Of course, there will be a next war on Gaza. It will be as “decisive” and deadly as Israeli leaders need it to be, to serve their political calculations.
But they must also be aware that wars on Gaza are no longer the cakewalks of the past. The resistance in that small, but unbreakable region, is tougher than it has ever been in the past, a natural outcome of 12 years of a relentless siege, interrupted by massively destructive and lethal military onslaughts.
A war on Gaza will also come with a price for Israel. Are Netanyahu and his government willing to endure the political fallout of another failed war? It all depends on how truly desperate corrupt Netanyahu is to remain in power and out of prison, at least for a while longer.
Shaked sees herself as the leader of the right of Likud bloc, urging all parties to unitr under her leadership, though Rabbi Rafi Peretz has not yet agreed to step aside and allow a non-religious woman to lead his voters in the September elections
Israeli right-wing politician and former justice minister Ayelet Shaked will head the New Right party and once again run with former education minister Naftali Bennett.
Shaked made the announcement during press conference Sunday night, marking her return to politics after resigning in the wake of the last election as the New Right failed to reach the threshold to make it into parliament.
Shaked will head the New Right party this time around, with Bennett serving as joint chairman.
Ahead of the press conference Bennett wrote on Twitter, "the country is more important than a personal advancement. The country needs a unified right."
The New Right has expressed interest in teaming up with the more extreme Union of Right Wing Parties (URWP), composed of the Jewish Home and National Union parties, respectively.
Shaked announced herself in position to lead this bloc and ensure all right of Likud votes are counted and none are lost.
The URWP is led by the Jewish Home Chairman and Minister of Education Rabbi Rafi Peretz who has not agreed to take a back seat to Shaked should the parties unite.
But while the smaller right-wing parties continue to deliberate over their approach to the upcoming September elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly trying to wedge his own priorities into the negotiations.
It was also reported in Hebrew media that Netanyahu's wife Sara met with Peretz's wife on Friday and urged her to tell her husband not to cede first place of the unified parties of the right.
Sara Netanyahu denied the report, saying it is "fictional."
Amid local reports on Netanyahu's objections over Shaked taking Peretz's top spot, the Prime Minister on Sunday summoned Peretz to an urgent meeting.
Peretz responded saying he "is pleased to see that the new rightists are reaching an agreement. Now is the time for true unification on the right. Ayelet and Naftali are already invited tonight for negotiations on the right's unification."
Israeli right-wing politician and former justice minister Ayelet Shaked will head the New Right party and once again run with former education minister Naftali Bennett.
Shaked made the announcement during press conference Sunday night, marking her return to politics after resigning in the wake of the last election as the New Right failed to reach the threshold to make it into parliament.
Shaked will head the New Right party this time around, with Bennett serving as joint chairman.
Ahead of the press conference Bennett wrote on Twitter, "the country is more important than a personal advancement. The country needs a unified right."
The New Right has expressed interest in teaming up with the more extreme Union of Right Wing Parties (URWP), composed of the Jewish Home and National Union parties, respectively.
Shaked announced herself in position to lead this bloc and ensure all right of Likud votes are counted and none are lost.
The URWP is led by the Jewish Home Chairman and Minister of Education Rabbi Rafi Peretz who has not agreed to take a back seat to Shaked should the parties unite.
But while the smaller right-wing parties continue to deliberate over their approach to the upcoming September elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly trying to wedge his own priorities into the negotiations.
It was also reported in Hebrew media that Netanyahu's wife Sara met with Peretz's wife on Friday and urged her to tell her husband not to cede first place of the unified parties of the right.
Sara Netanyahu denied the report, saying it is "fictional."
Amid local reports on Netanyahu's objections over Shaked taking Peretz's top spot, the Prime Minister on Sunday summoned Peretz to an urgent meeting.
Peretz responded saying he "is pleased to see that the new rightists are reaching an agreement. Now is the time for true unification on the right. Ayelet and Naftali are already invited tonight for negotiations on the right's unification."
Rabbi Rafi Peretz
The Israeli public took to the streets recently calling for the resignation of Peretz from his newly assumed post after he made comments in favor of therapy to "convert" gay individuals into heterosexuals, adding that he has facilitated those undergoing the process.
He has since walked back from his comments, stating the he is “strongly opposed” to gay conversion therapy and never referred anyone for such treatment.
The Israeli public took to the streets recently calling for the resignation of Peretz from his newly assumed post after he made comments in favor of therapy to "convert" gay individuals into heterosexuals, adding that he has facilitated those undergoing the process.
He has since walked back from his comments, stating the he is “strongly opposed” to gay conversion therapy and never referred anyone for such treatment.
15 july 2019
A recent move by an Israeli mayor to ban Palestinian Arab citizens from a public park has prompted many to ask if Israel is moving towards the imposition of what used to be called “petty apartheid”.
Israel is by definition an apartheid state already and has been so since its foundation. Of that, there is no question. This is neither just an analogy nor a matter of opinion.
That Israel is an apartheid state is a well-established fact under the UN’s formal legal definition of apartheid. Although the word apartheid originated as the Afrikaans word for “separateness”, the UN’s Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid did not limit its definition to South Africa.
Among other examples, the definition stipulates “any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines.” Israel has entirely separate legal systems for Jewish citizens and for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who live under its military occupation.
This is an apartheid legal system. Jewish settlers in the West Bank are entitled to full legal rights under Israeli civilian law, but Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary and summary imprisonment, torture or even death. The legal system applied to them is a purely military one.
A landmark UN report in 2017 found “beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crimes of apartheid” as defined in international law. The report, though, was removed from the UN’s website and a senior official was forced to resign after pressure from the Trump administration and from Israel.
At the PalExpo in London earlier this month, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela said that Israel “is the worst form of apartheid we have ever witnessed.” So there’s no doubt at all about it, although those who insist on denying this reality point towards the idea that Israel does not practice what has been termed “petty apartheid”.
In other words, Israel rarely practices the more overt expressions of apartheid, such as those found in South Africa and in the United States in the Jim Crow-era south. Things like waiting rooms and bathrooms marked “Blacks only” and “Whites only”, and making black people sit at the back of the bus. In other words, enforced racial segregation at the most micro level.
This is a misleading argument. Just because Israel’s forms of apartheid are not precisely the same in all instances as they were in South Africa, it does not make the regime any less of a fit for the legal definition of apartheid.
In any case, Israel’s military occupation regime in the West Bank habitually does, in fact, enforce a segregated system of roads; the more well-maintained roads are frequently prohibited for the use of Palestinians. There are also Israeli buses that West Bank Palestinians are banned from using.
In “Israel proper” too, there has always been segregation along ethnic lines. The Israeli schools system has always been divided between Arabs schools and Jewish schools.
More recently, it was reported that several Israeli hospitals admitted to segregating new-born Jewish babies from new-born Arab babies, claiming that this is done at the mothers’ own request.
There are increasing signs that Israel could be moving towards such an overt, micro-level of petty apartheid, not least the move by the aforementioned Israeli mayor of Afula, a town in “Israel proper” between Jenin and Nazareth, who recently attempted to ban Palestinian Arabs from a public park. He established a new rule that only “local residents” were allowed entry to the park, but this was a transparent ruse.
The mayor in question, Avi Elkabetz, had run for office using an explicitly racist election campaign. He promised to stop the supposed “conquest of the park” by those Palestinian Arab citizens who often visit from nearby communities. Around 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs.
Nevertheless, Elkabetz called on the city’s Jewish residents to “proudly hoist Israeli flags throughout the park and play music in Hebrew.”
His election campaign featured a slogan calling for Afula to maintain its “Jewish character”. One of the ways he rallied support for his re-election was to take part in a blatantly racist anti-Arab protest in the town against a house being sold to a family of Palestinian citizens. In the words of one of the protestors, the demonstration insisted that “Afula must remain a Jewish city.”
Elkabetz won the election, and the municipality imposed the new ban in the park at the end of June. At the start of July, though, an attorney with the human rights group Adalah attempted to visit the park with her family. Despite the fact that it is a publicly funded space, they were barred from entry by the municipality’s security guards. A large sign in red Hebrew lettering at the entrance read: “The park is open… to Afula residents only”.
Adalah challenged the rule in court and, as of Sunday, the ban seems to have been overturned. However, it is notable that the Nazareth District Court did this on a technicality, and did not rule the ban to be the racism that it so obviously is.
“The law is clear about preventing access or charging a fee for public spaces,” the judge reportedly said. “Just like it would be illegal to shut down a street, it’s illegal to restrict entry to a public park, regardless of whether the motivations are discriminatory.”
According to Adalah, the ban on “entrance to Afula’s public park is just one symptom of a worrisome growing trend of physical segregation backed by Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law.”
This apartheid “Nation State” law, passed a year ago, changed little in the letter of the law, but it did set a marker of intent, one that clearly says to Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel that they do not really belong in their own country.
Afula’s attempted ban on Palestinians using a public park could just be the opening salvo in an escalating wave of petty apartheid as the true breadth of blatant racism that Israel can get away with, buoyed by the support of US President Donald Trump, becomes increasingly clear. It seems that Israel will care less and less about disguising its true intentions.
So will the next step see the authors of that “Open to Afula residents only” sign ever drop the pretence and write “Open to Jews only” instead? I would not bet against it.
Israel is by definition an apartheid state already and has been so since its foundation. Of that, there is no question. This is neither just an analogy nor a matter of opinion.
That Israel is an apartheid state is a well-established fact under the UN’s formal legal definition of apartheid. Although the word apartheid originated as the Afrikaans word for “separateness”, the UN’s Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid did not limit its definition to South Africa.
Among other examples, the definition stipulates “any measures including legislative measures, designed to divide the population along racial lines.” Israel has entirely separate legal systems for Jewish citizens and for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza who live under its military occupation.
This is an apartheid legal system. Jewish settlers in the West Bank are entitled to full legal rights under Israeli civilian law, but Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary and summary imprisonment, torture or even death. The legal system applied to them is a purely military one.
A landmark UN report in 2017 found “beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crimes of apartheid” as defined in international law. The report, though, was removed from the UN’s website and a senior official was forced to resign after pressure from the Trump administration and from Israel.
At the PalExpo in London earlier this month, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela said that Israel “is the worst form of apartheid we have ever witnessed.” So there’s no doubt at all about it, although those who insist on denying this reality point towards the idea that Israel does not practice what has been termed “petty apartheid”.
In other words, Israel rarely practices the more overt expressions of apartheid, such as those found in South Africa and in the United States in the Jim Crow-era south. Things like waiting rooms and bathrooms marked “Blacks only” and “Whites only”, and making black people sit at the back of the bus. In other words, enforced racial segregation at the most micro level.
This is a misleading argument. Just because Israel’s forms of apartheid are not precisely the same in all instances as they were in South Africa, it does not make the regime any less of a fit for the legal definition of apartheid.
In any case, Israel’s military occupation regime in the West Bank habitually does, in fact, enforce a segregated system of roads; the more well-maintained roads are frequently prohibited for the use of Palestinians. There are also Israeli buses that West Bank Palestinians are banned from using.
In “Israel proper” too, there has always been segregation along ethnic lines. The Israeli schools system has always been divided between Arabs schools and Jewish schools.
More recently, it was reported that several Israeli hospitals admitted to segregating new-born Jewish babies from new-born Arab babies, claiming that this is done at the mothers’ own request.
There are increasing signs that Israel could be moving towards such an overt, micro-level of petty apartheid, not least the move by the aforementioned Israeli mayor of Afula, a town in “Israel proper” between Jenin and Nazareth, who recently attempted to ban Palestinian Arabs from a public park. He established a new rule that only “local residents” were allowed entry to the park, but this was a transparent ruse.
The mayor in question, Avi Elkabetz, had run for office using an explicitly racist election campaign. He promised to stop the supposed “conquest of the park” by those Palestinian Arab citizens who often visit from nearby communities. Around 20 per cent of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Arabs.
Nevertheless, Elkabetz called on the city’s Jewish residents to “proudly hoist Israeli flags throughout the park and play music in Hebrew.”
His election campaign featured a slogan calling for Afula to maintain its “Jewish character”. One of the ways he rallied support for his re-election was to take part in a blatantly racist anti-Arab protest in the town against a house being sold to a family of Palestinian citizens. In the words of one of the protestors, the demonstration insisted that “Afula must remain a Jewish city.”
Elkabetz won the election, and the municipality imposed the new ban in the park at the end of June. At the start of July, though, an attorney with the human rights group Adalah attempted to visit the park with her family. Despite the fact that it is a publicly funded space, they were barred from entry by the municipality’s security guards. A large sign in red Hebrew lettering at the entrance read: “The park is open… to Afula residents only”.
Adalah challenged the rule in court and, as of Sunday, the ban seems to have been overturned. However, it is notable that the Nazareth District Court did this on a technicality, and did not rule the ban to be the racism that it so obviously is.
“The law is clear about preventing access or charging a fee for public spaces,” the judge reportedly said. “Just like it would be illegal to shut down a street, it’s illegal to restrict entry to a public park, regardless of whether the motivations are discriminatory.”
According to Adalah, the ban on “entrance to Afula’s public park is just one symptom of a worrisome growing trend of physical segregation backed by Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law.”
This apartheid “Nation State” law, passed a year ago, changed little in the letter of the law, but it did set a marker of intent, one that clearly says to Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel that they do not really belong in their own country.
Afula’s attempted ban on Palestinians using a public park could just be the opening salvo in an escalating wave of petty apartheid as the true breadth of blatant racism that Israel can get away with, buoyed by the support of US President Donald Trump, becomes increasingly clear. It seems that Israel will care less and less about disguising its true intentions.
So will the next step see the authors of that “Open to Afula residents only” sign ever drop the pretence and write “Open to Jews only” instead? I would not bet against it.
Avigdor Lieberman, the former Israeli Defence Minister, renewed his incitement against Palestinian citizens on Monday, according to Israeli sources.
Speaking at a campaign trail meeting in Kiryat Ono, the Yisrael Beiteinu chair described the “conflict” as “three-dimensional”, “with the Arab countries, with the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs”, and that “the third conflict, with Israeli Arabs, is the most difficult”.
He added, “we do not have a separate conflict with the Palestinians, and anyone who claims so, does not understand what he is talking about or is being deliberately misleading.”
“Our conflict is with the entire Muslim world, with the entire Arab world,” Lieberman declared.
The comments were published on Zman Yisrael, the Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, “and approved for publication by Lieberman though the event was billed as closed to press”.
Lieberman told the attendees that “the arrangement must be three-dimensional and simultaneous with the Arab League, with Israeli Arabs and with the Palestinians”, and “any attempt to reach a separate agreement with the Palestinians or the Arabs of Israel will fail.”
As noted by the report, Lieberman has long called for a permanent settlement to include redrawing Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries so as to remove major population centers of Palestinian citizens.
Speaking at a campaign trail meeting in Kiryat Ono, the Yisrael Beiteinu chair described the “conflict” as “three-dimensional”, “with the Arab countries, with the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs”, and that “the third conflict, with Israeli Arabs, is the most difficult”.
He added, “we do not have a separate conflict with the Palestinians, and anyone who claims so, does not understand what he is talking about or is being deliberately misleading.”
“Our conflict is with the entire Muslim world, with the entire Arab world,” Lieberman declared.
The comments were published on Zman Yisrael, the Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, “and approved for publication by Lieberman though the event was billed as closed to press”.
Lieberman told the attendees that “the arrangement must be three-dimensional and simultaneous with the Arab League, with Israeli Arabs and with the Palestinians”, and “any attempt to reach a separate agreement with the Palestinians or the Arabs of Israel will fail.”
As noted by the report, Lieberman has long called for a permanent settlement to include redrawing Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries so as to remove major population centers of Palestinian citizens.
14 july 2019
Rafi Peretz
Educators from the LGBTQ community send a letter to Rafi Peretz, who voiced his support controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, saying they will fight his 'dangerous and offensive statements'
Israeli teachers from the LGBTQ community on Sunday sent a letter to the education minister, voicing their strong disapproval of his support for so-called gay “conversion therapy" and were to hold a demonstration calling for him to be fired.
Rafi Peretz on Saturday voiced support on Saturday for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals a home and backers abroad.
"We will use all legal means at our disposal to protest the education minister’s dangerous and offensive statements," said the teachers, who are expected to hold a protest on Sunday evening, urging the government to dismiss Peretz from his position.
“Support for conversion therapy endangers students from all sectors of Israeli society,” the teachers said in the letter. “We call on the education minister to retract his statement, to apologize and to prove that he is indeed worthy of being entrusted with educating our children.”
We - teachers from all over the country, from every political spectrum, from all sectors that make up the colorful mosaic of Israeli society - can’t back an education minister who expresses such opinions,” the teachers added.
Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful.
Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the ultranationalist United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work.
“I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.
Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: “First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, ‘Let’s think. Let’s study. And let’s contemplate.’ The objective is first of all for him to know himself well ... and then he will decide.”
The remarks sparked furor in Israel’s center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country whose majority Jews mostly identify as secular or of less stringent religious observance.
Israel’s LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were “benighted”.
Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for “clarification”.
“The education minister’s remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head,” the premier said in a statement.
It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week, after Israeli media reported that he had told fellow Cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora amounted to a “second Holocaust”.
The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.
Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader.
“I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally - I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades,” he said.
Educators from the LGBTQ community send a letter to Rafi Peretz, who voiced his support controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, saying they will fight his 'dangerous and offensive statements'
Israeli teachers from the LGBTQ community on Sunday sent a letter to the education minister, voicing their strong disapproval of his support for so-called gay “conversion therapy" and were to hold a demonstration calling for him to be fired.
Rafi Peretz on Saturday voiced support on Saturday for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals a home and backers abroad.
"We will use all legal means at our disposal to protest the education minister’s dangerous and offensive statements," said the teachers, who are expected to hold a protest on Sunday evening, urging the government to dismiss Peretz from his position.
“Support for conversion therapy endangers students from all sectors of Israeli society,” the teachers said in the letter. “We call on the education minister to retract his statement, to apologize and to prove that he is indeed worthy of being entrusted with educating our children.”
We - teachers from all over the country, from every political spectrum, from all sectors that make up the colorful mosaic of Israeli society - can’t back an education minister who expresses such opinions,” the teachers added.
Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful.
Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the ultranationalist United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work.
“I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.
Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: “First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, ‘Let’s think. Let’s study. And let’s contemplate.’ The objective is first of all for him to know himself well ... and then he will decide.”
The remarks sparked furor in Israel’s center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country whose majority Jews mostly identify as secular or of less stringent religious observance.
Israel’s LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were “benighted”.
Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for “clarification”.
“The education minister’s remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head,” the premier said in a statement.
It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week, after Israeli media reported that he had told fellow Cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora amounted to a “second Holocaust”.
The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.
Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader.
“I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally - I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades,” he said.
11 july 2019
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Dear friends,
On Sunday, 14 July 2019, Adalah's attorneys will argue before the Nazareth District Court that the municipality of Afula in northern Israel must cancel a ban on non-residents from entering a public park in the city. We know that this policy is aimed at blocking residents of nearby Arab communities from using the facility – because the municipality told us so. Earlier this month, Adalah Attorney Nareman Shehadeh-Zoabi and her infant son arrived at the park and found a new large sign at the entrance reading: "The park is open … to Afula residents only". Upon learning that they are from the nearby Arab city of Nazareth, a security guard at the park entrance forbade them from entering. "I felt deeply humiliated by the situation," said Attorney Shehadeh-Zoabi. "Jewish residents freely walked past me into the very park that I so often enjoyed with my son while I was prevented from entering and forced to leave – simply because I am from the Arab city of Nazareth". The ban was issued following an explicit election promise by Afula Mayor Avi Elkabetz to act against what he deigned the "conquest of the park" by residents of surrounding Arab towns. He called on the city's Jewish residents to "proudly hoist Israeli flags throughout the park and play music in Hebrew". |
The ban was also made public just days after Mayor Elkabetz took part in a protest against the sale of a home in the city to Palestinian citizens of Israel, and after newly-elected city council members were sworn into office pledging to act to preserve the city's Jewish character.
Afula is not the only city endorsing such racial discrimination. In March 2018, the northern town of Kfar Vradim canceled the sale of land for new housing construction after it became clear that more than 50 percent of those purchasing the plots were Palestinian citizens.
Meanwhile, hundreds of small communities in Israel are operating "admissions committees", which are authorized by law – in towns no larger than 400 households – to reject applicants based on the criteria of "social suitability" and the towns' "social and cultural fabric", and work in practice to keep Palestinian citizens out. Dozens of them, in towns that have now grown larger than 400 households, are operating these committees illegally.
Such discriminatory practices have been spurred further by the Jewish Nation-State Law, enacted by the Knesset one year ago, which commits in Article 7 to promoting Jewish settlement as a "national value" – thus giving constitutional backing to decades of racist Israeli land and housing policies.
Adalah has launched new legal challenges against all of the above laws and policies, and is continuing to fight against all forms of discrimination, displacement and segregation in Israel to secure just land and housing rights for Palestinian citizens of the state.
Afula is not the only city endorsing such racial discrimination. In March 2018, the northern town of Kfar Vradim canceled the sale of land for new housing construction after it became clear that more than 50 percent of those purchasing the plots were Palestinian citizens.
Meanwhile, hundreds of small communities in Israel are operating "admissions committees", which are authorized by law – in towns no larger than 400 households – to reject applicants based on the criteria of "social suitability" and the towns' "social and cultural fabric", and work in practice to keep Palestinian citizens out. Dozens of them, in towns that have now grown larger than 400 households, are operating these committees illegally.
Such discriminatory practices have been spurred further by the Jewish Nation-State Law, enacted by the Knesset one year ago, which commits in Article 7 to promoting Jewish settlement as a "national value" – thus giving constitutional backing to decades of racist Israeli land and housing policies.
Adalah has launched new legal challenges against all of the above laws and policies, and is continuing to fight against all forms of discrimination, displacement and segregation in Israel to secure just land and housing rights for Palestinian citizens of the state.
