1 june 2019
Canadian Law Professor, Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Council on the situation in the Palestinian territories, along with the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada, Alex Neve, whose article was featured on Australian News site, The Conversation.
The authors begin by stating that “While Israel rejects that it’s the occupying power, there is a virtual wall-to-wall consensus among the international community — including the United Nations, the European Union, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada — that the laws of occupation, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, apply in full to the Palestinian territory.”
On May 9, the Canadian Senate passed Bill C-85 — the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, which amends and updates the original 1997 free-trade agreement, and on May 27, it received royal assent.
Two fundamental provisions, Lynk says are missing in the updated agreement, a human rights provision, requiring both parties to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law.
The agreement allows goods and services produced in the illegal Israeli settlements to enter Canada on the same tariff-free terms as those originating in Israel. No distinction is made between Israel and its illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories encourages the economic growth of settlements.
This, the pair state, is not only contrary to Canada’s general duty to uphold international law, it expressly violates both international and Canadian law, as well as the direction of the UN Security Council.
Treating the Israeli settlements as part of Israel, and extending the benefits of our open market to settlements’ goods and services, ensnares Canada in the serious violations of both international human rights and humanitarian law that are part and parcel of the Israeli occupation.
The authors cite the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49(6), which states that, the occupying power is prohibited against transferring its civilian population onto the occupied territory.
In direct violation of this, during its 52-year occupation of the Palestinian territory, Israel has built 240 Jewish only settlements in the West Bank, housing 630,000 illegal settlers.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, declared the Israeli settlements are “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of a two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
Lynk and Neve affirm that at the heart of the illegal settlement enterprise, is a “discriminatory two-tier system of laws governing political rights, zoning laws, roads, water and natural resources, property, public services and access to courts — all based entirely on ethnicity.”
The report concludes “the Canadian government is knowingly extending economic benefits and political cover to an illegal enterprise at a time when these settlements are undermining the chances for peace and generating systematic human rights violations.”
The authors begin by stating that “While Israel rejects that it’s the occupying power, there is a virtual wall-to-wall consensus among the international community — including the United Nations, the European Union, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Canada — that the laws of occupation, including the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, apply in full to the Palestinian territory.”
On May 9, the Canadian Senate passed Bill C-85 — the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, which amends and updates the original 1997 free-trade agreement, and on May 27, it received royal assent.
Two fundamental provisions, Lynk says are missing in the updated agreement, a human rights provision, requiring both parties to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law.
The agreement allows goods and services produced in the illegal Israeli settlements to enter Canada on the same tariff-free terms as those originating in Israel. No distinction is made between Israel and its illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories encourages the economic growth of settlements.
This, the pair state, is not only contrary to Canada’s general duty to uphold international law, it expressly violates both international and Canadian law, as well as the direction of the UN Security Council.
Treating the Israeli settlements as part of Israel, and extending the benefits of our open market to settlements’ goods and services, ensnares Canada in the serious violations of both international human rights and humanitarian law that are part and parcel of the Israeli occupation.
The authors cite the Fourth Geneva Convention, Article 49(6), which states that, the occupying power is prohibited against transferring its civilian population onto the occupied territory.
In direct violation of this, during its 52-year occupation of the Palestinian territory, Israel has built 240 Jewish only settlements in the West Bank, housing 630,000 illegal settlers.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, declared the Israeli settlements are “a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of a two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.”
Lynk and Neve affirm that at the heart of the illegal settlement enterprise, is a “discriminatory two-tier system of laws governing political rights, zoning laws, roads, water and natural resources, property, public services and access to courts — all based entirely on ethnicity.”
The report concludes “the Canadian government is knowingly extending economic benefits and political cover to an illegal enterprise at a time when these settlements are undermining the chances for peace and generating systematic human rights violations.”
31 may 2019
Sparking an uproar in 2015, Netanyahu argued prominent Palestinian leader 'played an important role' in Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews, but Prof. Mustafa Abbasi says Palestinians were 'not at all' looking to aid the Nazis
In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an uproar when he claimed that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was the one who’d urged Hitler to annihilate the Jews. In the wake of the criticism this elicited, Netanyahu said his intention was not to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust, but to note that “the Mufti played an important role in the Final Solution.”
But it turns out that there was another side to the story that also escaped mention by Netanyahu, the historian’s son: the forgotten role played by thousands of Palestinians who did not heed the Mufti of Jerusalem’s call to support the Axis countries, and went so far as to take up arms to fight the Nazis, often shoulder to shoulder with young Jews from Mandatory Palestine.
Professor Mustafa Abbasi, a historian at Tel Hai Academic College, has spent years tracing their story. Having recently published an academic article on the subject, this week he suggested an opposite narrative to the one that Netanyahu put forward. The prime minister had sought to paint the Palestinians as supporters of the Third Reich, but Abbasi says, “The Mufti did not find a receptive audience among the Palestinians for his call to aid the Nazis. Not at all.”
The subject of Abbasi’s research is unusual. Many studies have been published about Jewish volunteerism in the war against the Nazis, which reached a peak with the formation of the Jewish Brigade. But “the thousands of Arab volunteers are hardly mentioned and sometimes the record is often distorted,” Abbasi says.
In an article in the latest issue of the periodical Cathedra (“Palestinians Fighting the Nazis: The Story of Palestinian Volunteers in World War II”), he explains why these Palestinian fighters have been left out of the history books.
On the one hand, Zionist historians naturally placed an emphasis on the role played by Jewish volunteers in the fight against the Nazis. On the other hand, their Palestinian counterparts were focusing on the struggle against British rule and were not eager to glorify the names of those who cooperated with Britain not so many years after the British put down the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, and thereby indirectly helped the Jews establish a state.
“Neither side wished to highlight this subject,” says Professor Abbasi. “But I think it’s the historian’s job to be faithful to the sources and to try to describe history as it was, without being hostage to any national narrative that would limit him and prevent him from writing history freely.”
One has to wonder why no organization was ever established to commemorate the actions of these Palestinian volunteers. “Many of them were killed and many others are still listed as missing. But no memorial has ever been established for them,” says Abbasi. In fact, the records of the Palestinian volunteers, along with much of their personal archives and papers, have disappeared, much of it lost in the War of Independence.
Over the last few years, Abbasi was able to learn of their story in Palestinian newspapers from the Mandate era, in memoirs and personal journals, and through interviews he conducted with a few of the last remaining volunteers who are still alive. He also collected material from various British archives, from the Zionist Archive, and the archives of the Haganah and the IDF.
Abbasi estimates that about 12,000 young Palestinians enlisted in the British Army in World War II. Hundreds became POWs, many others (the exact figure is unknown) were killed. “Compared to other peoples, this is not an insignificant number,” he says, and also points out that, unlike other groups, the Palestinians volunteered for the British Army from the first stage of the war.
Initially, the Palestinian and Jewish volunteers served in mixed units. “They received training and drilled at the same bases and in many instances fought shoulder to shoulder, and were also taken prisoner together,” says Abbasi. And as reported here two years ago, the proximity of the Jewish and Palestinian fighters sometimes led to unusual outcomes, as in the case of Shehab Hadjaj, a Palestinian who enlisted in the British Army, was taken prisoner in Germany and died in 1943. To this day, he is listed at Mount Herzl as “a casualty of Israel’s wars” because someone mistakenly thought his surname indicated that he was Jewish.
“Relations among the fighters were generally good, and if there was any friction it was mainly over service conditions, like mail and food,” Abbasi says. However, there were certain key differences between the two groups, too. For example, while the Jews were united in their goal of fighting the Nazis to promote the establishment of the Jewish state, the Palestinians “had no clear national agenda,” Abbasi writes. For this reason, unlike the Jews, they did not seek to form separate Palestinian units and there was no “Palestinian Brigade” parallel to the Jewish Brigade, in which thousands of Jews from Mandatory Palestine served.
So who were the Palestinians who volunteered for the British Army to fight the Nazis? Abbasi says they mostly came from the Palestinian elite and that, contrary to what many think, represented “an important and central part of the Palestinian public.” A part of the public that believed it was necessary to stand by Britain at this time, and to temporarily put aside the Palestinian national aspirations – akin to the Jewish idea to “fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there were no Hitler.”
They did this at a time when the Mufti of Jerusalem had left Palestine for exile in the Arab countries and Europe, where he met with Hitler and congratulated the Muslim volunteers of the Free Arab Legion – an Arab unit established in the army of Nazi Germany. “He left Palestine for a decade in 1937. What kind of leader abandons his people at such a time?” Abbasi wonders. “He had no influence on the public. He was detached and the public was already tired of him and his methods. They didn’t see him as a leader,” he says. “Anyone who says differently is distorting history,” he adds in a not so subtle dig at certain politicians.
In his research, he documented pro-British propaganda conferences that were held from 1940 on in Abu Dis (next to Jerusalem), in Jenin, in villages in the Nablus area, in Tul Karm and in Lod. Among the supporters of Britain’s fight against the Nazis were the mayors of Nablus and Gaza. Radio Palestine broadcast the comments of an Egyptian writer who said, “The war is between the lofty and humane values represented by England and the forces of darkness represented by the Nazis.”
Motivations for volunteering were varied. “Some did it for ideological reasons, out of opposition to the Nazi ideology and loyalty to the British and the values that they represented,” says Abbasi. This motivation was common among upper middle class and highly educated Palestinian volunteers from urban backgrounds. Rural Palestinians were motivated largely by financial reasons. “And there were also those who were seeking adventure and wanted a chance to travel abroad,” he says.
Abbasi found that some Palestinian women also volunteered to fight the Nazis. Almost 120 young women did so as part of the
Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, alongside Jewish women. A British recruiting poster in Arabic, published in the Falastin newspaper in January 1942, read: “She couldn’t stop thinking about contribution and sacrifice, she felt ongoing pride and exaltation of spirit – when she did what she saw as her sacred duty for her nation and its sons. When your country is crying out to you and asking for your service, when your country makes it plain that our Arab men need your love and support, and when your country reminds you of how cruel the enemy is – when your country is calling you, can you stand by and do nothing?”
Abbasi is one of the only researchers in Palestinian society who is studying this area, which was also the subject of a 2015 article by Dalia Karpel in Haaretz Magazine. He came to it thanks to his maternal grandfather, Sa’id Abbasi, who was one of the volunteers in the British Army during the war. “The family didn’t talk about it, until one day when I asked my grandmother why there was such a big age difference between her children,” he says. “Her answer was: ‘Don’t remind me of the time your grandfather left me for so many years.’” Abbasi decided to find out more about that time, and came to see that his family story was part of his people’s history.
In the future, he hopes, the original material he has collected will be developed into a book that, for the first time, will tell the optimistic story of a rare moment in history in which Jews and Palestinians joined forces for a lofty shared goal.
In 2015, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an uproar when he claimed that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini was the one who’d urged Hitler to annihilate the Jews. In the wake of the criticism this elicited, Netanyahu said his intention was not to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust, but to note that “the Mufti played an important role in the Final Solution.”
But it turns out that there was another side to the story that also escaped mention by Netanyahu, the historian’s son: the forgotten role played by thousands of Palestinians who did not heed the Mufti of Jerusalem’s call to support the Axis countries, and went so far as to take up arms to fight the Nazis, often shoulder to shoulder with young Jews from Mandatory Palestine.
Professor Mustafa Abbasi, a historian at Tel Hai Academic College, has spent years tracing their story. Having recently published an academic article on the subject, this week he suggested an opposite narrative to the one that Netanyahu put forward. The prime minister had sought to paint the Palestinians as supporters of the Third Reich, but Abbasi says, “The Mufti did not find a receptive audience among the Palestinians for his call to aid the Nazis. Not at all.”
The subject of Abbasi’s research is unusual. Many studies have been published about Jewish volunteerism in the war against the Nazis, which reached a peak with the formation of the Jewish Brigade. But “the thousands of Arab volunteers are hardly mentioned and sometimes the record is often distorted,” Abbasi says.
In an article in the latest issue of the periodical Cathedra (“Palestinians Fighting the Nazis: The Story of Palestinian Volunteers in World War II”), he explains why these Palestinian fighters have been left out of the history books.
On the one hand, Zionist historians naturally placed an emphasis on the role played by Jewish volunteers in the fight against the Nazis. On the other hand, their Palestinian counterparts were focusing on the struggle against British rule and were not eager to glorify the names of those who cooperated with Britain not so many years after the British put down the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, and thereby indirectly helped the Jews establish a state.
“Neither side wished to highlight this subject,” says Professor Abbasi. “But I think it’s the historian’s job to be faithful to the sources and to try to describe history as it was, without being hostage to any national narrative that would limit him and prevent him from writing history freely.”
One has to wonder why no organization was ever established to commemorate the actions of these Palestinian volunteers. “Many of them were killed and many others are still listed as missing. But no memorial has ever been established for them,” says Abbasi. In fact, the records of the Palestinian volunteers, along with much of their personal archives and papers, have disappeared, much of it lost in the War of Independence.
Over the last few years, Abbasi was able to learn of their story in Palestinian newspapers from the Mandate era, in memoirs and personal journals, and through interviews he conducted with a few of the last remaining volunteers who are still alive. He also collected material from various British archives, from the Zionist Archive, and the archives of the Haganah and the IDF.
Abbasi estimates that about 12,000 young Palestinians enlisted in the British Army in World War II. Hundreds became POWs, many others (the exact figure is unknown) were killed. “Compared to other peoples, this is not an insignificant number,” he says, and also points out that, unlike other groups, the Palestinians volunteered for the British Army from the first stage of the war.
Initially, the Palestinian and Jewish volunteers served in mixed units. “They received training and drilled at the same bases and in many instances fought shoulder to shoulder, and were also taken prisoner together,” says Abbasi. And as reported here two years ago, the proximity of the Jewish and Palestinian fighters sometimes led to unusual outcomes, as in the case of Shehab Hadjaj, a Palestinian who enlisted in the British Army, was taken prisoner in Germany and died in 1943. To this day, he is listed at Mount Herzl as “a casualty of Israel’s wars” because someone mistakenly thought his surname indicated that he was Jewish.
“Relations among the fighters were generally good, and if there was any friction it was mainly over service conditions, like mail and food,” Abbasi says. However, there were certain key differences between the two groups, too. For example, while the Jews were united in their goal of fighting the Nazis to promote the establishment of the Jewish state, the Palestinians “had no clear national agenda,” Abbasi writes. For this reason, unlike the Jews, they did not seek to form separate Palestinian units and there was no “Palestinian Brigade” parallel to the Jewish Brigade, in which thousands of Jews from Mandatory Palestine served.
So who were the Palestinians who volunteered for the British Army to fight the Nazis? Abbasi says they mostly came from the Palestinian elite and that, contrary to what many think, represented “an important and central part of the Palestinian public.” A part of the public that believed it was necessary to stand by Britain at this time, and to temporarily put aside the Palestinian national aspirations – akin to the Jewish idea to “fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as if there were no Hitler.”
They did this at a time when the Mufti of Jerusalem had left Palestine for exile in the Arab countries and Europe, where he met with Hitler and congratulated the Muslim volunteers of the Free Arab Legion – an Arab unit established in the army of Nazi Germany. “He left Palestine for a decade in 1937. What kind of leader abandons his people at such a time?” Abbasi wonders. “He had no influence on the public. He was detached and the public was already tired of him and his methods. They didn’t see him as a leader,” he says. “Anyone who says differently is distorting history,” he adds in a not so subtle dig at certain politicians.
In his research, he documented pro-British propaganda conferences that were held from 1940 on in Abu Dis (next to Jerusalem), in Jenin, in villages in the Nablus area, in Tul Karm and in Lod. Among the supporters of Britain’s fight against the Nazis were the mayors of Nablus and Gaza. Radio Palestine broadcast the comments of an Egyptian writer who said, “The war is between the lofty and humane values represented by England and the forces of darkness represented by the Nazis.”
Motivations for volunteering were varied. “Some did it for ideological reasons, out of opposition to the Nazi ideology and loyalty to the British and the values that they represented,” says Abbasi. This motivation was common among upper middle class and highly educated Palestinian volunteers from urban backgrounds. Rural Palestinians were motivated largely by financial reasons. “And there were also those who were seeking adventure and wanted a chance to travel abroad,” he says.
Abbasi found that some Palestinian women also volunteered to fight the Nazis. Almost 120 young women did so as part of the
Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British Army, alongside Jewish women. A British recruiting poster in Arabic, published in the Falastin newspaper in January 1942, read: “She couldn’t stop thinking about contribution and sacrifice, she felt ongoing pride and exaltation of spirit – when she did what she saw as her sacred duty for her nation and its sons. When your country is crying out to you and asking for your service, when your country makes it plain that our Arab men need your love and support, and when your country reminds you of how cruel the enemy is – when your country is calling you, can you stand by and do nothing?”
Abbasi is one of the only researchers in Palestinian society who is studying this area, which was also the subject of a 2015 article by Dalia Karpel in Haaretz Magazine. He came to it thanks to his maternal grandfather, Sa’id Abbasi, who was one of the volunteers in the British Army during the war. “The family didn’t talk about it, until one day when I asked my grandmother why there was such a big age difference between her children,” he says. “Her answer was: ‘Don’t remind me of the time your grandfather left me for so many years.’” Abbasi decided to find out more about that time, and came to see that his family story was part of his people’s history.
In the future, he hopes, the original material he has collected will be developed into a book that, for the first time, will tell the optimistic story of a rare moment in history in which Jews and Palestinians joined forces for a lofty shared goal.
30 may 2019
With a prospect of an unprecedented second election campaign in the same year looming, the prime minister attempts to play down the political turmoil by turning the public's attention to foreign policy; Trump says he feels 'very badly' Netanyahu failed to form government
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says U.S. President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has gifted him an official State Department map, updated to incorporate the long-disputed Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, Netanyahu addressed a nation rattled by the prospect of an unprecedented second election campaign in the same year, after the newly re-elected Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition.
In a bid to play down the political chaos and focus public attention on his foreign policy prowess - in particular his close friendship with Trump - Netanyahu whipped out Kushner's map, on which President Trump had scribbled, "Nice."
"This map had not been updated since the Six Day War," said Netanyahu, referring to the 1967 Middle East war, after which Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria. "Well, it has been updated, it just got an update. ... That is to say, there are very important developments here."
He pointed to a note scribbled on the map, which he called President Trump's personal handiwork. "Here is the signature of Trump, and he writes 'nice.' I say, 'very nice!'"
Kushner met with Netanyahu earlier on Thursday to push the Trump administration's long-awaited plan for Mideast peace, just as Israel was thrust into the political tumult. Kushner and U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt stopped in Israel as part of a Middle East tour to rally support for the administration's upcoming economic conference in Bahrain, which the White House bills as the first portion of its peace plan.
The U.S. is hoping to draw Arab states with deep pockets to participate in the workshop, which envisions large-scale infrastructure work and investment in the Palestinian territories.
In brief joint remarks, Kushner touted American-Israeli cooperation, saying, "it's never been stronger and we're very excited about all the potential that lies ahead for Israel ... and for the whole region."
Netanyahu attempted to play down concerns that the Israeli parliament's dramatic dissolution would further postpone the U.S. peace plan rollout. "You know, we had a little event last night," he said. "That's not going to stop us."
At the White House, President Trump, a close ally of Netanyahu, weighed in expressing dismay at the prime minister's failure to form a governing coalition. Calling Netanyahu a "great guy," Trump said he feels "very badly" that the country has to face another election because there is "enough turmoil" in the region.
Trump signs 'nice' on fake map of Israel gifted to Netanyahu
US President Donald Trump has autographed a map of the occupied territories which falsely recognizes Syria's Golan Heights as part of Israel, and gifted it to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who had received the State Department map from Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner as a gift, showed it off in a televised interview on Thursday night.
During the show-off, he told the viewers that the new map marked the occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel, and that Trump had written the word "nice" on it.
"Jared Kushner brought me the updated map that includes the Golan Heights within Israeli sovereignty -- here is the signature of President Trump and he writes here 'Nice,'" Netanyahu said.
On the map, a hand-drawn arrow in black ink points from the word "Nice" to the Golan. Running along the side of the map in the same black ink is the US president's spiky signature.
Back in April, Netanyahu announced he planned to name "a new community on the Golan Heights" after Trump in gratitude for his recognition of Israel's claim of "sovereignty" over the strategic plateau.
In a highly provocative move on March 25, the US president signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's "sovereignty" over the Syrian territory on the direction of a number of his advisers, most notably his adviser Kushner.
Damascus strongly condemned the move and called it a "blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Syria.
The Arab League also denounced the decision, saying, "Trump's recognition does not change the area's status."
Many countries, including Iran, Russia and Turkey, along with the United Nations Security Council, have lambasted Trump's provocative move.
In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war on Arab territories, during which it occupied a large swathe of Golan and annexed it in 1981, a move never recognized by the international community.
Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.
Israel has also said that it plans to name a proposed train station near the Western Wall of Jerusalem al-Quds after Trump in appreciation of his support for Tel Aviv.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says U.S. President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has gifted him an official State Department map, updated to incorporate the long-disputed Golan Heights as part of Israel.
Speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, Netanyahu addressed a nation rattled by the prospect of an unprecedented second election campaign in the same year, after the newly re-elected Netanyahu failed to form a governing coalition.
In a bid to play down the political chaos and focus public attention on his foreign policy prowess - in particular his close friendship with Trump - Netanyahu whipped out Kushner's map, on which President Trump had scribbled, "Nice."
"This map had not been updated since the Six Day War," said Netanyahu, referring to the 1967 Middle East war, after which Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria. "Well, it has been updated, it just got an update. ... That is to say, there are very important developments here."
He pointed to a note scribbled on the map, which he called President Trump's personal handiwork. "Here is the signature of Trump, and he writes 'nice.' I say, 'very nice!'"
Kushner met with Netanyahu earlier on Thursday to push the Trump administration's long-awaited plan for Mideast peace, just as Israel was thrust into the political tumult. Kushner and U.S. special envoy Jason Greenblatt stopped in Israel as part of a Middle East tour to rally support for the administration's upcoming economic conference in Bahrain, which the White House bills as the first portion of its peace plan.
The U.S. is hoping to draw Arab states with deep pockets to participate in the workshop, which envisions large-scale infrastructure work and investment in the Palestinian territories.
In brief joint remarks, Kushner touted American-Israeli cooperation, saying, "it's never been stronger and we're very excited about all the potential that lies ahead for Israel ... and for the whole region."
Netanyahu attempted to play down concerns that the Israeli parliament's dramatic dissolution would further postpone the U.S. peace plan rollout. "You know, we had a little event last night," he said. "That's not going to stop us."
At the White House, President Trump, a close ally of Netanyahu, weighed in expressing dismay at the prime minister's failure to form a governing coalition. Calling Netanyahu a "great guy," Trump said he feels "very badly" that the country has to face another election because there is "enough turmoil" in the region.
Trump signs 'nice' on fake map of Israel gifted to Netanyahu
US President Donald Trump has autographed a map of the occupied territories which falsely recognizes Syria's Golan Heights as part of Israel, and gifted it to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who had received the State Department map from Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner as a gift, showed it off in a televised interview on Thursday night.
During the show-off, he told the viewers that the new map marked the occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel, and that Trump had written the word "nice" on it.
"Jared Kushner brought me the updated map that includes the Golan Heights within Israeli sovereignty -- here is the signature of President Trump and he writes here 'Nice,'" Netanyahu said.
On the map, a hand-drawn arrow in black ink points from the word "Nice" to the Golan. Running along the side of the map in the same black ink is the US president's spiky signature.
Back in April, Netanyahu announced he planned to name "a new community on the Golan Heights" after Trump in gratitude for his recognition of Israel's claim of "sovereignty" over the strategic plateau.
In a highly provocative move on March 25, the US president signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's "sovereignty" over the Syrian territory on the direction of a number of his advisers, most notably his adviser Kushner.
Damascus strongly condemned the move and called it a "blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Syria.
The Arab League also denounced the decision, saying, "Trump's recognition does not change the area's status."
Many countries, including Iran, Russia and Turkey, along with the United Nations Security Council, have lambasted Trump's provocative move.
In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war on Arab territories, during which it occupied a large swathe of Golan and annexed it in 1981, a move never recognized by the international community.
Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over the Golan Heights, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.
Israel has also said that it plans to name a proposed train station near the Western Wall of Jerusalem al-Quds after Trump in appreciation of his support for Tel Aviv.
Israeli lawmakers have voted to dissolve the parliament and hold new general elections after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu missed a deadline to form a ruling coalition.
The Knesset on Wednesday voted by 74 to 45 to dissolve itself, setting Israel on the path to a snap election which is expected to take place in September.
A special Knesset committee, which has been set up to prepare the potential Israeli elections, had earlier said the polls would take place on September 17.
Netanyahu won a fifth term in office in the April elections after his right-wing Likud Party won 35 of the Knesset's 120 seats. He had until 21:00 GMT on Wednesday to form a cabinet that controlled at least 61 seats in the 120-member parliament.
But despite weeks of negotiations, he failed to bridge the gap between secular and religious allies.
Netanyahu, whose fifth term in office has been jinxed, vowed on Thursday that his conservative party would win the new vote.
The coalition talks reached a stalemate over disagreements between ultra-Orthodox parties and Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular right-wing party led by former minister of military affairs Avigdor Lieberman, on a military conscription bill.
Following the Knesset decision, Lieberman wrote on his Facebook page that Likud holds responsibility for the repeat election because of its refusal to vote on bill to draft the ultra-Orthodox.
Netanyahu, however, said Lieberman misled his voters and is dragging the entire Israel into a new election "after he was the cause of the previous one too, just because he wants a few more votes, which he won’t get. It’s just unbelievable."
Netanyahu also said Lieberman is a man of the left, he brings down right-wing cabinets.
The Knesset on Wednesday voted by 74 to 45 to dissolve itself, setting Israel on the path to a snap election which is expected to take place in September.
A special Knesset committee, which has been set up to prepare the potential Israeli elections, had earlier said the polls would take place on September 17.
Netanyahu won a fifth term in office in the April elections after his right-wing Likud Party won 35 of the Knesset's 120 seats. He had until 21:00 GMT on Wednesday to form a cabinet that controlled at least 61 seats in the 120-member parliament.
But despite weeks of negotiations, he failed to bridge the gap between secular and religious allies.
Netanyahu, whose fifth term in office has been jinxed, vowed on Thursday that his conservative party would win the new vote.
The coalition talks reached a stalemate over disagreements between ultra-Orthodox parties and Yisrael Beiteinu, a secular right-wing party led by former minister of military affairs Avigdor Lieberman, on a military conscription bill.
Following the Knesset decision, Lieberman wrote on his Facebook page that Likud holds responsibility for the repeat election because of its refusal to vote on bill to draft the ultra-Orthodox.
Netanyahu, however, said Lieberman misled his voters and is dragging the entire Israel into a new election "after he was the cause of the previous one too, just because he wants a few more votes, which he won’t get. It’s just unbelievable."
Netanyahu also said Lieberman is a man of the left, he brings down right-wing cabinets.
27 may 2019
The imposition of Israeli law on West Bank settlements became the winning card for a forming Israeli government, after the recent Knesset elections between Likud and other right-wing parties, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and National Bureau for Defending Land reported.
The office explained, in a statement on Saturday, that settler leaders in the occupied West Bank are demanding the Israeli law to include all Jewish settlements in these territories, including them in agreements to form the next government.
The report pointed out,according to Al Ray, that pressures are excreted in this direction, and that these tendencies arise following estimates that Donald Trump’s management plan known as the “Deal of the Century” calls for keeping the settlements under Israeli rule, in any permanent peace agreement, and that the US administration will not oppose the expansion of Israeli law to include settlements in the West Bank.
It explained that the illegal settlers believe that the opportunity is now ripe for such a move, after the transfer of US Embassy to Jerusalem and the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Netanyahu had pledged several times, in the run-up to the elections, last April, to expand the scope of Israeli law to include all settlements, and that he would be able to do so with US support.
The report pointed out that, days before the election, Netanyahu pledged to expand the scope of Israeli sovereignty to include all settlements, both the large settlement blocs or small settlement outposts, ruling out the establishment of a Palestinian state, which he said “poses a threat to the existence of Israel.”
It considered Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights encouraged Netanyahu to annex the settlements. The timing of this move would follow with Trump’s offer of peace plan. If the Palestinian leadership, as expected, rejected the plan and Netanyahu agreed with certain reservations, the latter believed Trump would give him legitimacy to annex and expand Israeli law to include all West Bank settlements or at least some blocs.
In an additional step aimed at imposing Israeli sovereignty on the West Bank without formally announcing it, the Israeli “right-wing coalition” demanded that Netanyahu and the Likud party reduce the powers of the “civil administration” in the West Bank, and prevent them completely from interfering in settler affairs.
Some 200 former Israeli security officials signed a petition, addressed to Netanyahu, demanding a referendum before deciding to impose Israeli law on areas of the West Bank.
The office explained, in a statement on Saturday, that settler leaders in the occupied West Bank are demanding the Israeli law to include all Jewish settlements in these territories, including them in agreements to form the next government.
The report pointed out,according to Al Ray, that pressures are excreted in this direction, and that these tendencies arise following estimates that Donald Trump’s management plan known as the “Deal of the Century” calls for keeping the settlements under Israeli rule, in any permanent peace agreement, and that the US administration will not oppose the expansion of Israeli law to include settlements in the West Bank.
It explained that the illegal settlers believe that the opportunity is now ripe for such a move, after the transfer of US Embassy to Jerusalem and the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Netanyahu had pledged several times, in the run-up to the elections, last April, to expand the scope of Israeli law to include all settlements, and that he would be able to do so with US support.
The report pointed out that, days before the election, Netanyahu pledged to expand the scope of Israeli sovereignty to include all settlements, both the large settlement blocs or small settlement outposts, ruling out the establishment of a Palestinian state, which he said “poses a threat to the existence of Israel.”
It considered Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights encouraged Netanyahu to annex the settlements. The timing of this move would follow with Trump’s offer of peace plan. If the Palestinian leadership, as expected, rejected the plan and Netanyahu agreed with certain reservations, the latter believed Trump would give him legitimacy to annex and expand Israeli law to include all West Bank settlements or at least some blocs.
In an additional step aimed at imposing Israeli sovereignty on the West Bank without formally announcing it, the Israeli “right-wing coalition” demanded that Netanyahu and the Likud party reduce the powers of the “civil administration” in the West Bank, and prevent them completely from interfering in settler affairs.
Some 200 former Israeli security officials signed a petition, addressed to Netanyahu, demanding a referendum before deciding to impose Israeli law on areas of the West Bank.
23 may 2019
Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamed said that the achievement of peace in the world relies mainly on resolving the Palestinian cause.
Mahathir made his remarks during the ninth annual Ramadan Iftar which was held on Wednesday by the Palestinian Cultural Organization in Malaysia in the presence of a high-level delegation from the Hamas Movement led by former political chief Khaled Mishaal.
The Malaysian premier reiterated his country’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just national cause and its rejection of Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
He hailed his country for participating in many anti-Israel activities around the world and many rallies and convoys that were aimed at breaking the siege on the Gaza Strip.
The premier affirmed that “Israel’s aggression against Palestine is the main cause of terrorism in the Middle East,” accusing Israel of “practicing state terrorism.”
He also highlighted the importance of the Palestinian question and its humanitarian dimension, stressing the need for the international community to assume its responsibilities in this regard and pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Mahathir made his remarks during the ninth annual Ramadan Iftar which was held on Wednesday by the Palestinian Cultural Organization in Malaysia in the presence of a high-level delegation from the Hamas Movement led by former political chief Khaled Mishaal.
The Malaysian premier reiterated his country’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their just national cause and its rejection of Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
He hailed his country for participating in many anti-Israel activities around the world and many rallies and convoys that were aimed at breaking the siege on the Gaza Strip.
The premier affirmed that “Israel’s aggression against Palestine is the main cause of terrorism in the Middle East,” accusing Israel of “practicing state terrorism.”
He also highlighted the importance of the Palestinian question and its humanitarian dimension, stressing the need for the international community to assume its responsibilities in this regard and pressure Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories.
