Palestine

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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Jun 03, 2018 2:14 pm

Health ministry in Gaza warns of severe shortage in medicines, medical supplies

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(File Photo) Female Palestinian medic Razan Al-Najar works at the scene of clashes at Israel-Gaza border, in the southern Gaza Strip April 1, 2018. (REUTERS)

GAZA, June 3 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Health in Gaza warned on Sunday of the deteriorating health situation caused by the significant decrease in medicines and medical supplies in the Gaza Strip.

"The ministry suffers from 50 percent shortage in medicines and medical supplies," director of hospitals at the Ministry of Health in Gaza, Abdul Latif al-Haj, told reporters in Gaza.

He urged the international community, mainly Arab countries, to swiftly send medical convey to Gaza to save the situation that is caused by ongoing anti-Israel protests that left dozens dead and thousands injured in Gaza.

Up to 120 Palestinian protesters have been killed by Israeli fire since the rallies known as the "Great March of Return" started on March 30.

The rallies also caused the injury of some 14,000, of whom 300 suffer from serious wounds.

The protests, which peak every Friday, demand the return of Palestinians refugees, who were forced to leave their cities during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, as well as lifting the blockade Israel has been imposing on Gaza since 2007.

Al-Haj added that the majority of the wounds were in the lower limbs, stressing that the Israeli forces used explosive bullets.

In May, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees called on Tuesday the international community to save the deteriorating health sector in Gaza.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East chief Pierre Krahenbuhl told reporters in Gaza that the territory is facing a major human and health care disaster due to the high numbers of injured Palestinians by Israeli fire during the border rallies.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced on Thursday that it will send two surgical teams and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip to assist residents affected by the recent violence.

ICRC said the teams, which stay in Gaza for six months, will help Gaza's health system respond to longer-term needs after thousands of residents were recently wounded in violence.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-0 ... 227563.htm

I never seen this on the 6 o'clock news so it can't be true....
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:02 pm

Why is the West Bank silent?

May 29, 2018 at 5:33 pm | Published in: Article, Israel, Middle East, Opinion, Palestine

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Israeli security forces fire at Palestinians who are protesting to mark the 70th anniversary of the Nakba in Bethlehem, West Bank on 14 May 2018 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu Agency]

Abdul Sattar Qassem May 29, 2018 at 5:33 pm

I received a phone call from a highly educated and cultured woman who asked me about the secret behind the West Bank’s silence regarding the Right of Return and the marches taking place in the Gaza Strip. She said that Gaza is suffering from difficult living conditions imposed by the siege, while the West Bank is suffering in a different way, despite the better living conditions compared to Gaza. So why, she asked, is Gaza taking action with firmness, determination and commitment, while the West Bank barely takes action? Her argument is that there are enough reasons to prompt the people in the West Bank to take action in defence of the rights of the Palestinian people, and she wanted a concise and focused answer.

The answer is that many parties, beginning with the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel and the US, have worked since the establishment of the PA to demolish and destroy the Palestinian nationalist culture and the moral value system of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It has succeeded in the West Bank, but the fact that the PA lost its grip on the Gaza Strip has largely spared the area from sabotage.

Nationalistic culture is still very much felt in Gaza, along with a sense of national responsibility and commitment, but this culture has been seriously lost in the West Bank. There have been three successive wars against Gaza, accompanied by mass killings and immense destruction, but the interaction of other peoples with Gaza has been more than that of the West Bank. Gaza has been besieged for years, and its people endure great hardship, but the West Bank is an accomplice to the blockade.

The various aforementioned forces have worked, by various means, to destroy the national psyche of the people, especially in the West Bank, and push them away from national concerns. One of these mechanisms is the policy of corruption adopted by the PA, which has been the subject of constant criticism since the establishment of the PA. Anyone wanting to destroy a society only needs to hit its fabric, namely the social and moral fabrics.

The task of corruption is to lead people towards violating national values, laws and customs, and to develop a culture of shrewdness, which includes working towards gaining as much as possible from others unjustly, without being held legally accountable. If the head of the house is corrupt, then we must expect others to lean towards corruption. People say if the land is full of thieves, why don’t I just become a thief and relieve myself from the grief of work and productivity?

Corruption has spread widely at the official level, and the popular level began to imitate its leaders, who claimed to be patriotic. The culture of thuggery, which includes intimidating, terrorising and extorting others, has spread in various villages and cities and is ongoing till this day. Due to their repeated attacks on the people, many thugs have become wealthy and influential individuals in society and in the world of domestic economy.

The educational system was also attacked in order to eliminate the national aspect from education and teaching, and to distort history and religious ideology in order to please the Zionists and meet the conditions of the Europeans and Americans. The people of the West who established Israel and displaced our people are the ones who have dictated our educational curriculums, media programmes, and even many of our laws over the years. They worked to exclude national and patriotic ideas and national duties and affiliation from these platforms.

The most effective mechanism to take away the people’s will is to deal a blow to the peoples’ reassurance regarding their living conditions and financial situation. With encouragement from the Zionists and Americans, the PA has linked the livelihood of a large number of people to their incomes, the money for which had initially come from abroad. This forced employees to watch what they were saying and doing, so they would not partake in the opposition or activism in issues the Israelis did not approve of. Hence, every employee would watch themselves knowing that there were Palestinian and Israeli security agencies watching them as well and tracking their news and activities. Then banking facilities became available to the people, a large number of people fell in to debt and were forced to always think about how they would repay the debts and how to manage their monthly expenses in order to buy a loaf of bread. What can we expect after the people’s livelihood is linked to the will of the enemy?

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On the other hand, it was necessary for people to feel a kind of blessing and luxury compared to the Gaza Strip. European countries opened their hands to NGOs and employed thousands of people. They also funded several projects, including services and production projects. The Americans did the same through USAID.

The people in the West Bank began eating Kit Kats while the people of Gaza couldn’t get their hands on za’atar (thyme) and olives. Will the people of the West Bank return their patriotic and national responsibilities, and thus sacrifice their consumerism culture that has developed within them? A consumerist culture has developed in the West Bank, eating up the national culture, replacing national concerns in many people with personal concerns. It is true that the people in the West Bank realise the difficulty of the situation in the Gaza Strip, but the majority of them are content with expressing grief and sadness at what happened.

That is why the West Bank is silent, and I am sure that others will offer other reasons complementing those that I have mentioned. The West Bank is experiencing a national tragedy, but the culture of consumption and leniency that is currently prevalent will inevitably change. However, there is no hope of change as long as the Oslo leadership is in control of the people.

This article first appeared in Arabic in the Palestinian Information Centre on 28 May 2018

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180 ... nk-silent/
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Wed Jun 27, 2018 1:33 pm

The Women of Gaza Prepare to March and Call Upon the World to Join Them
By Robert Inlakesh - 2018-06-266

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DAMASCUS, SYRIA (10:55 A.M)-
Written by: Wafa Al-Udaini
A mass Women’s Coalition in Gaza is calling upon feminist groups around the world to help in ending Gaza’s siege by mobilizing in solidarity with Gaza’s ‘Women’s March’.
On Tuesday, July the 3rd , the High Committee of the ‘Great March of Return’ is organizing the first Women’s March in Gaza since the non-violent protests began on March 30th.
The’Great March of Return’ organizers are inviting women around the world to support the women of Palestine in ending 70 decades of occupation and more than a decade of blockade-siege.
In a press release, the demonstration organizers invited women as both individuals and groups to join the event and to help give a voice to the voiceless, shedding a light on the suffering and injustice that have befallen the Palestinian people for decades under the Israeli occupation.
The High Committee of the ‘Great March of Return’ and the ‘Break Gaza Siege’ hopes that women across the globe will join the protests.
By holding the demonstration in both Gaza itself and solidarity events in countries internationally, the march will focus on the women of Gaza who suffer under the brutal conditions imposed upon them by Israel’ illegal Siege.
The intent of the march is to demand an end to the 12-year Israeli blockade of Gaza, imposed in 2006.
The blockade has affected all aspects of life, from the economy to health, education, access to freedom of movement, farming, fishing, and the rebuilding efforts following three devastating Israeli bombings (2008-9/2012/2014).
More broadly the Committee calls for an end to the 70-year occupation of Palestine.
The Committee re-iterated that this protest is affiliated with no political party, faction or government, but independently represents all Palestinians regardless of political affiliation.
In 2012 a UN report warned that Gaza would become “unlivable” by 2020, unless current trends were reversed, the Women of Gaza will march on July the 3rd calling on the world to stop this from happening.

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/th ... join-them/

I expect the 'Fail" from Western liberal feminists will be gargantuan.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:47 pm

Nasrallah: Israel does NOT control America! Agreed! Enough With The Excuses! It's Just So Convenient To Always Blame Everything on Israel while Pretending To Be the Victim! America is Not a Victim! It's a Criminal, Warmonger Genocidal Nation & Israel is Their Partner in Crime!

[youtube]http://twitter.com/i/status/1010088193511682048[/youtube]

courtesy Anonymous For Safety @anonymousafety

Nasrallah kicks ass.

Video didn't 'take'. Please see link.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:07 pm

Israel exchanges intense fire with Hamas militants in Gaza
By: ARON HELLER, Associated Press
Posted: Jul 14, 2018 07:02 PM CDT

Updated: Jul 14, 2018 07:02 PM CDT

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JERUSALEM (AP) - The Israeli military carried out its largest airstrike campaign in Gaza since the 2014 war Saturday as Hamas militants fired dozens of rockets into Israel throughout the day, threatening to trigger an all-out war after weeks of growing tensions along the volatile border.

Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in an airstrike in Gaza City, while three Israelis were wounded from a rocket that landed on a residential home.

Israel said it was focused on hitting militant targets and was warning Gaza civilians to keep their distance from certain sites. But even before the report of casualties the intense tit-for-tat airstrikes and rocket barrages still marked a significant flare-up after a long period of a generally low-level, simmering conflict.

"The Israeli army delivered its most painful strike against Hamas since the 2014 war and we will increase the strength of our attacks as much as necessary," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Late Saturday, Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza announced that they had agreed to a cease-fire brokered by Egypt, but sirens warning of incoming rockets still wailed in southern Israel early Sunday and it was unclear if the cease-fire was holding.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said the latest Israeli sortie, the third of the day, struck some 40 Hamas targets including tunnels, logistical centers and a Hamas battalion headquarters. He said the escalation was the result of the sustained Hamas rocket attacks, its fomenting of violence along the border and its campaign of launching incendiary kites and balloons that have devastated Israeli farmlands and nature reserves.

"Our message to Hamas is that we can and will enhance the intensity of our effort if needed," he said. "What Hamas is doing is pushing them ever closer to the edge of the abyss ... Hamas will have to understand that there is a price to be paid."

Later, witnesses reported that Israeli warplanes dropped four bombs on an unfinished building near a Hamas police and security compound in Gaza City, reducing the old structure to rubble. The four-story building is adjacent to a public park. Gaza's Health ministry said two teenagers were killed in the strike and ten others injured.

It marked the first casualties of the day. Striking in the heart of Gaza City is typically only seen during full-blown conflicts like the 2014 war and could signal that a further escalation may be in store.

The Israeli military had no immediate reaction to that strike but said it had targeted a separate high-rise building in the northern Gaza Strip that was used as a Hamas urban warfare training facility. It said a tunnel was dug under the building.

Shortly after, Israeli medical officials said three Israelis were wounded from a rocket that landed on a house in southern Israel. It said paramedics in the southern city of Sderot were treating a 52-year-old man with a chest wound, a 17-year-old girl with a face wound and a 20-year-old woman with injuries to her limbs.

Sirens wailed overnight and throughout most of the day Saturday in southern Israel as waves of rockets and mortars were launched from Gaza amid the airstrikes. The military said it identified about 60 launches of rockets and mortars from Gaza toward Israeli territory, of which about 10 were intercepted by the Iron Dome aerial defense system. As a precaution, the military shut down a popular beach in southern Israel and placed limitations on gatherings of large crowds. Israeli police says four of the projectiles caused damage.

Israel has been warning Hamas in recent weeks that while it has no interest in engaging in the kind of conflict that led to the sides fighting three wars over the past decade, it will not tolerate Gaza militants' continued efforts to breach the border and its campaign to devastate Israeli border communities with incendiary attacks.

With Israel focused on rising tension along its northern border in its efforts to prevent Iran from establishing a permanent military foothold in post-civil war Syria, it has been wary of escalating hostilities in Gaza. But Netanyahu has also come under pressure to act from southern Israeli communities, who have once again found themselves under rocket fire from Gaza in addition to contending with the daily field fires.

"We are ready to operate simultaneously in different theaters," Conricus said, referring to the dual threats from Syria and Gaza. "It will be challenging to fight on more than one border but it is something we can do and are prepared to do."

Israel's military chief visited the border area for briefings and the Security Cabinet, Israel's top decision-making body, is expected to convene Sunday to discuss further actions.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians gathered near the Gaza border for their near-weekly protest. A 15-year-old Palestinian who tried to climb over the fence into Israel was shot dead. Later the military said an Israeli officer was moderately wounded by a grenade thrown at him.

Gaza's health ministry said Saturday that a 20-year-old struck by gunfire Friday during the protests in the southern Gaza Strip had also died of his wounds.

The Islamic militant group Hamas that rules Gaza has led border protests aimed in part at drawing attention to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007. The demonstrations have been fueled in large part by pervasive despair caused by the blockade, which has caused widespread economic hardship.

Over 130, mostly unarmed, Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since protests began on March 30.

Israel says it is defending its sovereign border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover for attempts to breach the border fence and attack civilians and soldiers. Most recently, it has been struggling to cope with the widespread fires caused by the incendiary kites and balloons floating over the border.

In a statement, the military said Hamas' activities "violate Israeli sovereignty, endanger Israeli civilians and sabotage Israel's humanitarian efforts that aim to help Gazan civilians."

In a relatively rare admission, Hamas said it fired the rockets to deter Israel from further action. Most of the recent rockets from Gaza have been fired by smaller factions but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said it was an "immediate response" that was meant to "deliver the message."

The military said its jets targeted two Hamas tunnels as well as other military compounds, including those involved in the production of the kites and balloons. It said the Hamas battalion headquarters in northern Gaza was completely destroyed and footage it released showed a series of large explosions that left a gaping hole in the ground.

https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/wor ... 1301776760

The false equivalency displayed by the AP is nauseating, whereby 'arms' on the part of Palestinians are slingshots and kites but the apartheid butchers have every weapon known to humanity.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Jul 19, 2018 12:30 pm

Israel Declares Itself Apartheid State
Today Israel declared itself to be an apartheid state:

The Knesset passed early Thursday a controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people and asserts that "the realization of the right to national self-determination in Israel is unique to the Jewish people," with 62 lawmakers voting in favor of the legislation and 55 opposing it.
...
The nation-state law also includes clauses stating that a "united Jerusalem" is the capital of Israel and that Hebrew is the country's official language. Another says that "the state sees the development of Jewish settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation."
The new law has constitutional status:

The bill, which has the status of a basic law (approximately the same as a constitutional law in countries with a written constitution), was passed overnight to Thursday with 62 votes in favor and 55 against after hours of fierce argument and debate. It will now come into force as soon as it's published in the Knesset's Official Gazette.
...
In a clause that set Arab lawmakers off, the bill explicitly states that "the right to exercises national determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people."
The law stipulates segregation:

part of the law [is] aimed at promoting the "establishment and consolidation" of Jewish settlements
Israel has never defined its borders. It has illegally taken ownership of all public land in the occupied West Bank. This land is then exclusively granted to Zionist settlers:

Over five decades in control of the West Bank, Israel has marked out hundreds of thousands of acres as public land, and it has allocated almost half of them for use.
But only 400 of those acres — 0.24 percent of the total allocated so far — have been earmarked for the use of Palestinians, according to official data obtained recently by an anti-settlement group after a freedom of information request. Palestinians make up about 88 percent of the West Bank’s population.

The group, Peace Now, said the other 99.76 percent of the land went to help Israeli settlements.

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The Arab population of Israel and the occupied territories is as big as the Jewish population. The allocation of "public" land stolen from the indigenous Arab population solely to Jewish immigrants was already one of many clearly discriminating apartheid issues. It was in contradiction even to Israeli law. Now the creation of solely Jewish settlements is required by constitutional mandate. The blatantly illegal creation and expansion of solely Jewish settlements on stolen Palestinian land is now rationalized as requirement of basic law. Muslim and Christian Palestinians now have to pay taxes for their own expropriation.

Is there a Buddhist people, a Catholic people? Do they deserve their own nation and land? No. Even the though of such is weird. Are Jews originating from Ethiopia, India, Lithuania, Iran and Poland a common race? Why then is there supposed to be a 'Jewish people' as the new law stipulates?

It is historically crazy that a number of humans, living in dozens of mostly east-European countries, would suddenly define themselves as a unique 'race' by virtue of believing in the same religious fairy tales. The concept mirrored and enabled the racism of the fascists. The self declared ethnicity then laid claim on far away land in west-Asia based on old stories of temples for which there is little to no archeologic evidences.

Primarily Great Britain, France and the United States, furthered and support this ethnocratic, colonialist, undemocratic, imperialist, and genocidal scheme to their own advantage.

It is high time to end this illegal and immoral aberration.

Posted by b on July 19, 2018 at 07:56 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/is ... state.html
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 07, 2018 12:54 pm

The Future of Palestine, by Tim Anderson

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Abstract:
The claim that Israel has a ‘right to exist’ is a contrived myth. In fact, apartheid states are crimes
against humanity and must be dismantled. The pertinent question, addressed by this paper, is
what are the future prospects for a democratic Palestine? The paper begins by reviewing the
foundations of the Israeli state, including its racial ideology, the character of the Palestinian
resistance, the ‘moral equivalence’ and false reformist arguments of ‘left Zionism’; and then the
prospects for a democratic Palestine. The analysis identifies the key challenges of zionist military
occupation, powerful western allies, a fanatical zionist mission and disunity amongst Palestinian
factions and their allies. On the other hand the strengths are ongoing Palestinian resistance, the
growing legitimacy of Palestine, the commitment of regional allies and the vulnerability of
Israel’s allies to exposure of zionist crimes. In sum the future of Palestine is clouded with
divisions, paid and sacrifice but remains far from hopeless.

https://counter-hegemonic-studies.net/w ... ture-6.pdf

20 page pdf, go to link.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 28, 2018 1:47 pm

US will no longer accept Palestinian refugees' right to return to occupied territories
Sun Aug 26, 2018 12:41AM

Washington is set to announce that it will no longer recognize millions of Palestinian refugees' "right of return" to the Israel occupied territories, Israeli media reports.

According to Israel's Hadashot News on Saturday, the administration of US President Donald Trump will make the announcement over the next few days, in which it will claim that only around one million Palestinians are eligible for refugee status.

The claim will contradict UN statistics which classify over five million Palestinians as refugees.

Earlier this month, the American magazine Foreign Policy obtained emails written by Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, to senior US officials in which he pressured Jordan to remove the refugee status of millions of Palestinians in a bid to disrupt UNRWA's work.

Washington has on multiple occasions voiced opposition over treating the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees themselves.

In January, the US government announced that it would withhold $65 million of a $125 million aid installment to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

On Friday, the United States also canceled over $200 million in funds for the Palestinian Authority.

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PressTV-Palestinians blast 'blackmail' as US cuts $200 million

The United States has canceled over $200 million in funds for the Palestinian Authority, leading Palestinian officials to denounce the move as “blackmail.”
Also on Friday, the UNRWA head suggested that the US had slashed the agency's budget to punish the Palestinians for their criticism of Washington's recognition of Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s "capital."

“I can say with a great degree of confidence that the decision was not related to UNRWA’s performance because in November I had received very constructive and openly positive feedback on those issues,” Pierre Kraehenbuehl told the Associated Press.

“A few weeks later, tensions increased around the question of Jerusalem [al-Quds],” he added. “It appears that the humanitarian funding to UNRWA got caught up in the deep polarization around that question.”

US-Palestine ties deteriorated last December, when Trump declared Jerusalem al-Quds as the “capital” of Israel and announced plans to transfer the embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied city.

https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/08/ ... l-refugees
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Aug 30, 2018 9:58 pm

Ahem;

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And that's my TED Talk about Zionism.Thank you.
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Re: Palestine

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 13, 2018 3:22 pm

The problem with Oslo? It's still alive
#Oslo
Israel's continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians does not show the failure of the process started by the Oslo Accords a quarter-century ago, but rather the intended consequences of the agreement

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Thursday 13 September 2018 11:02 UTC
An Israeli court has sentenced the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, located east of Jerusalem, to destruction.

Expelled from their homes decades ago during the Nakba - the mass ethnic cleansing on which the state of Israel was built - the Bedouins of Khan al-Ahmar are now being displaced again. This is just one of 20 communities in the area that Israel plans to erase.

This continued ethnic cleansing does not show the failure of the process started with the signing of the Oslo Accords a quarter-century ago, but rather the intended consequences of the agreement itself.

Stratagem of oppression
The Oslo Accords represent a cunning stratagem of oppression, dispossession and fragmentation of our people. After the First Intifada, Israel knew that its crucial tasks were to colonise the land and tighten its control over the occupied people.

As Khan al-Ahmar prepares to face the bulldozers, it is a critical time to revisit these two main modes of domination, hidden behind the historic 1993 handshake on the White House lawn.

The Oslo Agreements were the blueprint for a “Bantustan solution” to the Palestinian issue. Israel saw the agreement's classification of West Bank land into Areas A, B and C as a tool for annexation

In essence, the Oslo Agreements were the blueprint for a “Bantustan solution” to the Palestinian issue. Israel saw the agreement's classification of West Bank land into Areas A, B and C as a tool for gradual annexation. Areas B and C, which comprise the majority of the West Bank, were to be filled with colonies and eventually annexed.

In 1993, fewer than 300,000 Israeli settlers lived in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Today, more than double that number populate dozens of settlements, and the total continues to rise. Housing units for more than 27,000 settlers were approved in the occupied Palestinian territories in the first six months of 2018.

Since Oslo, Israel has heavily incentivised the construction of settlement infrastructure, including industrial areas, hospitals, universities, agro-businesses and more. The aim is to make the geopolitical map of the West Bank look like all other territory under Israeli control: Israeli industrial and highly developed residential areas surrounded by dispossessed Palestinian communities deprived of basic services.

Policy of expulsion
In 2002, Israel started building its apartheid wall, which surrounds Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank, isolating them from their land and water reserves and from Jerusalem. Since 1994, Gaza has also been surrounded by a fence, which has as its logical result today’s brutal siege.

The Israeli project of Oslo is completed by a systematic policy of expulsion of Palestinian citizens into restricted residential areas of Israel inside the Green Line and the annexation of the West Bank, starting with the gradual application of Israel’s civil law to settlers, while military rule is restricted to the walled-in ghettos.

The second dimension of the Oslo trap transformed the Palestinian leadership into ghetto administrators. First, the Oslo Accords established the Palestinian Authority (PA), a body meant to oversee the transition towards a Palestinian state, ensuring it would depend in many ways on the occupying forces.

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Israeli police stand guard as bulldozers demolish homes in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev desert on 18 January 2017 (AFP)

Then, late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat transferred many powers, such as international relations and oversight for the Palestinian National Fund, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)’s treasury that finances political parties, to the PA. This made Palestinian political parties and governing institutions captive to the goals of hostile forces.

To make matters worse, a decade ago, the PA ensured that five international structures, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, would control and monitor Palestinian expenses and policies. This effectively ended independent decision-making and imposed neoliberalism as state policy.

Hostage to debt repayment
While the state spends money mainly on security forces, trained by the US and Israel, and phony development projects that create a small but wealthy elite ready to co-exist with the occupation, the large majority of the population is being drowned in growing poverty.

PA support for Palestinian farmers, who are the real protagonists of our resistance and steadfastness, is almost non-existent. Instead, banks are encouraged to give easy loans to people who have lost their livelihoods to the Israeli occupation, making them hostage to debt repayment and less able to confront the occupation.

The ongoing split between Hamas and Fatah is further fragmenting the Palestinian people, changing the question from how to build an effective leadership for liberation to who will administer the Bantustans.

We have reached one of the most critical points in the history of our struggle for justice. Israel’s racist ideology - based on the principle of one ethno-religious group dominating a state built on somebody else’s land and defended by infinite wars and walls - has ardent supporters across the globe, from US President Donald Trump, to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to the rising right in Europe.

Collective duty
This emboldens Israel and the Trump administration to go beyond Oslo and unilaterally brush off core questions related to the Palestinian struggle. Ignoring international law and consensus, the White House recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and may arbitrarily reduce the number of Palestinian refugees it recognises by nine-tenths. It has already defunded the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

Our leadership is clearly not in a condition to respond to this offensive, nor to the needs of its people and our struggle. Hence, it is up to all of us to shoulder the collective responsibility of ensuring the survival of the Palestinian people.

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Palestinian protesters flee from incoming tear gas canisters fired by Israeli forces west of Ramallah on 4 September 2018 (AFP)

We have to bury the nefarious legacies of the Oslo process to make space for new alternatives. We need accountable, democratic leadership, and decision-making structures that can translate our people's readiness for sacrifice and collective action into a common programme and vision - one that rejects “state building” under occupation.

Ours is a liberation struggle. Instead of praising “security cooperation” with the occupying power and haggling over borders, we have to get back to radically challenging the Zionist project of ethnic exclusivity and supremacy. The demands of social justice must take priority on a platform of equality and democracy, away from the disputes and bickering of political parties.

Moving beyond Oslo
We need to continue disentangling our international relations from the Oslo Accords. After 1993, many countries ended their boycott of Israel without first demanding an end to Israeli violations of Palestinian rights. Today, we need to demand that accountability and justice precede engagement.

The global, Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is a step in the right direction. “Constructive engagement” with an apartheid state and those companies and agencies that support it means rewarding them for human rights violations.

We are ready to build on the ruins of yet another destroyed village a new, a post-Oslo generation of struggle that has learned the lessons of the past

While Israel prepares its bulldozers to wreck the lives and homes of the residents of Khan al-Ahmar, we call on our own people and the international community to sanction and boycott Israel and the corporations that provide the bulldozers it uses for our ethnic cleansing.

We are ready to build on the ruins of yet another destroyed village a new, a post-Oslo generation of struggle that has learned the lessons of the past. It will not be easy, but Israel leaves us no other option. Our people have shown that steadfastness - sumud - is born again every day in Palestine.

- Jamal Juma was born in Jerusalem and attended Birzeit University, where he became politically active. Since the First Intifada, he has focused on grassroots activism. Juma has been since 2002 the coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign and since 2012 the coordinator of the Land Defence Coalition, a network of Palestinian grassroots movements.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.

Photo: Buildings in the Palestinian Shuafat refugee camp are surrounded by the Israeli separation wall on 30 January 2018 (AFP)

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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