Human Rights

 Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel, and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for its illegal occupation of Palestine, one can confidently conclude that there will not be any actual investigation. 

At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’.

On Monday, October 31, Palestinians in the town of Al-Eizariya, east of Occupied East Jerusalem, observed a general strike. The strike was declared to be part of the community's mourning of 49-year-old Barakat Moussa Odeh, who was killed by Israeli forces in Jericho a day earlier.

 This is not an isolated case. General strikes were observed throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories in recent weeks as a form of civil disobedience, and protest of the Israeli attacks on the cities of Nablus, Jerusalem, Jenin, and Hebron, as well as to mourn Palestinian fighters who were killed, following shooting operations against Israeli soldiers of illegal Jewish settlers.

 Historically, general strikes have been declared and observed by working-class Palestinians. This form of protest often represents the backbone of popular, grassroots resistance in Palestine, starting many years before the establishment of Israel on the ruins of the historic Palestinian homeland.

October was a deadly month for Palestinians, and the brutality is continuing with the months-long military campaign to violently stamp out Palestinian resistance in the West Bank, called “Operation Break the Wave.” The Israeli military has killed at least 29 Palestinians, almost half of them children. Palestinians continue to engage in mass civil disobedience, strikes, and demonstrations. The siege of Nablus and other communities across the West Bank continues to cause economic hardship and prevents Palestinians from accessing hospitals and even healthcare. Palestine is under attack, and the mainstream media has been silent or merely echoes the talking points of Israeli military that censors all news. 

Children of my Gaza refugee camp were rarely afraid of monsters but of Israeli soldiers. This is all that we talked about before going to bed. Unlike imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed, Israeli soldiers are real, and they could show up any minute - at the door, on the roof or, as was often the case, right in the middle of the house.  

The arrest of a prominent Palestinian activist, Musab Shtayyeh, and another Palestinian activist, by Palestinian Authority police on September 20 was not the first time that the notorious PA’s Preventive Security Service (PSS) has arrested a Palestinian who is wanted by Israel.

 PSS is largely linked to the routine arrests and torture of anti-Israeli occupation activists. Several Palestinians have died in the past as a result of PSS violence, the latest being Nizar Banat who was tortured to death on June 24, 2021. The killing of Banat ignited a popular revolt against the PA throughout Palestine.

109 Palestinians killed – 0 Israelis killed – definitely a large increase in lethality in the West Bank, but the recent incursion in Gaza killed 35 Palestinians compared to 263 in 2021.

6,972 Palestinians injured – I Israeli injured

650 Palestinian structures demolished displacing 645 people.

483 Attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers were so far this year, almost as many as in all of 2021.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Protection of Civilians report.

When you compare these statistics for killing/injury of Palestinians and Israelis, it becomes clear that despite the constant reporting of 1,000s of missiles from Gaza, these are not warranted for the defense of Israel.

In the last three months Israeli forces have killed approximately 70 Palestinians –13 of them minors, including two five-year-old children.

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, "Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day" is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous Peoples.”

So said Pope Francis last week, at a powwow in Alberta, at the start of his “apology tour” across Canada — for the participation of the Catholic Church in the multi-century horror of Native American “residential schools” on this continent, which more accurately might be called concentration camps for 6-year-olds.

This papal mega-apology, while cheered by some, has been widely criticized as little more than a wimpy shoulder-shrug — sorry about that — for a governmental, church-complicit policy, lasting well into the 20th century, of snatching indigenous children from their families and squeezing their culture, if not their life, out of them.

To describe US President Joe Biden's recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a "failure" in terms of activating the dormant "peace process" is to use a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate that it had even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership.

Political and diplomatic platitudes aside, the current US administration has done the exact opposite, as indicated by Biden's words and actions. Alleging that the US commitment to a two-state solution "has not changed", Biden dismissed his administration's interest in trying to achieve such a goal by declaring that the "ground is not ripe" for negotiations.