Apartheid

Palestinian citizens of Israel prepare to march through the centre of Tel Aviv on Saturday night (AFP)
Middle East Eye reports…

Dr Swee Ang
Al-Awda
Events from 29 July when the Israeli Navy stormed the Freedom Flotilla al-Awda, hijacked and diverted it from its intended course to Gaza, to Israel – By Dr Swee Ang, medical doctor on board the al-Awda, 4 August 2018

The head of the Arab Joint List Alliance at the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), Aymen Odeh, described the passing of the racist Jewish Nation-state Law as “the death of our democracy.”

Pro-Palestinian groups and other civil society organisations demonstrate, in Durban on June 2, 2018 to protest against the killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in Gaza. (Photo: AFP)
Dr Haidar Eid
Middle East Eye

JERUSALEM — After several days of rushing and intense debates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his wish come true. He urgently wanted to get the Nation State bill passed into law before the Knesset goes into summer recess on July 22, and for several days now the Knesset committee charged with ironing out the bill was delaying the process with long discussions.  Now the law passed 62 to 55 and 2 abstentions.

‘Jewish nation state’ bill is only the latest attempt to legislate discrimination against Palestinians. (MEE) This week, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets his way, the Israeli government will formally pass into law the “Jewish nation state” bill. The precise final text remained unclear at the time of writing, with compromises and amendments still being discussed among […]

For most of the seven decades after its establishment, Israel went to extraordinary lengths to craft an image of itself as a “light unto the nations”.
It claimed to have “made the desert bloom” by planting forests over the razed houses of 750,000 Palestinians it exiled in 1948. Soldiers in the “most moral army in the world” reputedly cried as they were compelled to shoot Palestinian “infiltrators” trying to return home. And all this occurred in what Israelis claimed was the Middle East’s “only democracy”.

GAZA — Gaza is in urgent need of opening spaces on many levels. The geophysical space — incarcerated by Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza and its construction of barriers to “protect Israel’s citizens with power and sophistication,” according to Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, which are fast becoming normalized and barely worthy of mention in diplomatic circles.

After 70 years, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is still unresolved. The conflict simmers for a few years, then erupts again with new massacres and violence. This article describes recent events, the failure of the “two state solution” and need for a different approach.
In the past couple months, Israeli Defence Force (IDF) soldiers have killed 118 Palestinian protesters and seriously wounded many thousands more. The protesters were unarmed and no threat to the soldiers. Gaza hospitals overflow with victims.

The Palestinian national movement, which has led the decades-long struggle against Israel’s takeover of the Palestinians’ homeland, has reached the lowest ebb in its history, according to analysts.
But as Palestinians mark this week the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, the “Catastrophe” that followed the dispossession of their homeland and the creation of Israel in its place, there are signs of possible change.