Human Rights
A succession of events in recent weeks all point to the inescapable fact that nearly 75 years of Israel’s painstaking efforts aimed at hiding the truth about its origins and its current racially-driven apartheid regime are failing miserably. The world is finally waking up, and Israel is losing ground quicker than its ability to gain new supporters, or to whitewash its past or ongoing crimes.
A scheme is underway to withhold or to reduce payments made by the Palestinian Authority to the families of Palestinian prisoners. According to Israeli media, the Biden Administration has requested that the PA entirely overhauls its support system of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian leadership had already expressed willingness to engage the US in a ‘discussion’.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, is leading his country’s anti-Palestinian propaganda, this time engaging in pre-emptive hasbara in anticipation of a Palestinian response to the ongoing evictions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
“Would you consider it a terror attack if a rock like this was thrown at your car while driving with your children?” Erdan asked the United Nations Security Council members, while holding the rock in his hands. “Would you, at the very least, condemn these brutal terror attacks carried out against Israeli civilians by Palestinians?”
While many march and celebrate a fictitious King today, his family, largely ignored, call on no one to celebrate the holiday till voting rights are protected, with the current reversal of laws by the Supreme Court, some things are worse than what they were in the late 60s when King and the movement were struggling to pass those very rights. I myself will not march to hypocrisy, while we lack democracy at home, a democracy that King gave his life for. What is often overlooked or whitewashed when it comes to the American (US) mythology of King, which has turned King into a fictional character, was King’s radical revolution of values.
“The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”
Even if Mitch McConnell’s viral gaffe last week is as innocent as he claims it to be, the stench of something deep — the unexamined racist fear and shame at the core of GOP policy — is unavoidably noticeable: There’s “them” and there’s “us” and never the twain shall meet. And we’ll make sure of that. (Shhhh … don’t tell anyone.)
It is ironic that even former right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had rejected a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) bill which proposed to give the government greater power to control and suppress online content. This was in 2016, and the bill was introduced by Netanyahu’s Likud party rival, Gideon Sa’ar.
There are no statistics that can measure the pain and sorrow of their family members and friends of these victims of violence on both sides of this conflict. What follows is just a snapshot of the human rights violations in 2021, and suggestions for actions that we can take to help bring an end to the violence for the benefit of all people in the region.
Statistics from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs for 2021 (OCHA oPt)
Palestinian deaths - West Bank 82 (including 15 children); Gaza 264 (including 67 children)
Palestinian injuries - 17,895
Israeli deaths - 16 (including 2 children)
Israeli injuries - 158
Source: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties.
There were 902 demolished building in the West Bank that displaced 1,203 people. Additionally, OCHA oPt documented that demolition of buildings resulted in the loss of livelihood for another 13,258.
According to B’Telsem, for Palestinians, this was the deadliest year since 2014.
There are no statistics that can measure the pain and sorrow of their family members and friends of these victims of violence on both sides of this conflict. What follows is just a snapshot of the human rights violations in 2021, and suggestions for actions that we can take to help bring an end to the violence for the benefit of all people in the region.
Statistics from the United Nations Office of Humanitarian Affairs for 2021 (OCHA oPt)
Palestinian deaths - West Bank 82 (including 15 children); Gaza 264 (including 67 children)
Palestinian injuries - 17,895
Israeli deaths - 16 (including 2 children)
Israeli injuries - 158
Source: https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties.
Long before intersectionality became a prevailing concept which helped delineate the relationship between various marginalized and oppressed groups, late South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it all in a few words and in a most inimitable style. “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together,” he said.
Like other freedom and justice icons, Tutu did not merely coin the kind of language that helped many around the world rise in solidarity with the oppressed people of South Africa, who fought a most inspiring and costly war against colonialism, racism and apartheid. He was a leader, a fighter and a true engaged intellectual.
As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, angrily raided the Assaf Harofeh Hospital where Abu Hawash was being held.