Israel: Colonising East Jerusalem, Deporting Palestinians (Cole)

Parallelling the assessment of EA's Ali Yenidunya, Juan Cole considers the latest steps by the Israeli Government:

The new Israeli policy of deporting Palestinians from the West Bank on arbitrary grounds has kicked in with Ahmad Sabah, who has just been deported to Gaza and separated from his family in the West Bank. The measure contravenes the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations, and it also goes contrary to the undertakings Israel made toward the Palestine Authority in the course of the Oslo peace negotiations.

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The episode underlines the ways in which their forced statelessness leaves Palestinians (almost uniquely among major world nationalities) completely vulnerable to loss of the most basic human rights. That he was forcibly moved to Gaza by the Israelis suggests that many of those singled out for potential deportation from the West Bank may be moved to the small slum along the Mediterranean, which the Israelis have cut off from its traditional markets and which they keep under a blockade of the civilian population (a war crime). The Israeli establishment has decided not to try to colonize Gaza, and its isolation and hopelessness make it an attractive place for them to begin exiling West Bank residents, thus making more room for Israeli colonists.


The new policy, which is illegal six ways to Sunday in international law, is the brainchild of the government of far rightwing Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, an Israeli hawk and expansionist, slapped President Barack Obama in the face again Thursday when he confirmed that he refused to halt construction of new homes in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is militarily occupied by Israel.

Netanyahu’s announcement is probably the nail in the coffin of any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (in which the Israelis have thrown most Palestinians now living beyond the Green Line off their land and deprived them of citizenship in a state and all the rights that go with such citizenship). Palestinians are so despairing that only 57 percent even believe in having an independent Palestinian state any more. The rest are resigned to becoming Israelis in the distant future, when demographic realities and perhaps world-wide boycotts of Israel for its Apartheid-style policies toward the occupied Palestinian will force Israel to accept them.

At the same time, Netanyahu tried to throw sand in peoples’ eyes by talking about recognizing an ‘interim’ Palestinian state with “temporary” borders.

Palestinian leaders reject this formulation, which is intended to allow the Israelis to continue aggressively to colonize Palestinian territory while pretending that they are engaged in a ‘peace process.’ The Palestine Authority, established in the 1990s, was already a sort of interim state then, and Palestine’s borders were then ‘temporary.’ So temporary that Israel has made deep inroads into them through massive colonies and building a wall on the Palestinian side of the border, cutting residents off from their own farms and sequestering entire towns and cities.

Netanyahu’s various moves this week, from illegally expelling a Palestinian from the West Bank to Gaza to blowing off the president of the United States and hitching his wagon to massive increased colonization of Palestinian land: all of these steps are guaranteed to mire Israel in violent disputes for years and perhaps decades. And the US, which has already suffered tremendously in Iraq and elsewhere from its knee-jerk support of illegal and inhumane Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, will suffer further.

Meanwhile, in the wake of a vicious attack on Barack Obama by New York senator Chuck Schumer, Steve Clemons of the Washington Note frankly wonders whether Schumer understands he is in the US Senate or whether he is under the impression he is serving in the Israeli Knesset.

Human Rights Watch: Both Israel and Hamas Failed in War Enquiries

On Sunday, Human Rights Watch published its latest report on the 2008/9 conflict between Israel and Hamas, "Turning a Blind Eye: Impunity for Laws-of-War Violations during the Gaza War".

The New York-based human rights group criticized both sides and urged the international community to pressure both sides to launch independent investigations before a July deadline set by the United Nations:

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More than one year after the conflict, neither side has taken adequate measures to investigate serious violations or to punish the perpetrators of war crimes, leaving civilian victims without redress. Israel’s investigations have fallen far short of international standards for investigations, while Hamas has conducted no credible investigations at all.



All Israeli debriefings and investigations have been conducted by the military, and the government has rejected calls for an independent review.

In Gaza, Hamas has punished no one for ordering or carrying out hundreds of deliberate or indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israeli population centers, which killed three Israeli civilians and wounded dozens more. Despite evidence to the contrary, Hamas claims it launched rockets only at military targets, and that civilian casualties were unintended. Cases of killings and torture by Hamas security forces against suspected collaborators and political rivals in Gaza have also gone unpunished.

This report recommends that influential governments and international bodies increase their pressure on both parties to conduct domestic investigations that are prompt, thorough and impartial.

A failure by governments to demand accountability for serious violations during the Gaza war will also reveal a double-standard in international concern for justice. Governments that tolerate impunity in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict weaken their calls for accountability in places such as Sri Lanka, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Palestine: Israeli Military Order Threatens Mass Deportation

A new military order aiming at "preventing infiltration" through deportation and/or punishment of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank will come into force this week. Those whose ID cards bear home addresses in the Gaza Strip --- not only people born in Gaza but any of their children born in the West Bank --- those born in the West Bank or abroad who have lost their residency status, and foreign-born spouses of Palestinians are "infiltrators". They are subject to deportation, a fine of NIS 7500, and/or a jail sentence of up to seven years.

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Despite this violation of the Oslo Accords, Palestinians with Gaza addresses have been defined since 2000 as illegal sojourners, as if they were citizens of a foreign state. Many of them, including those born in the West Bank, have been "deported" to Gaza.



Since 2007, Palestinians with Gaza addresses have had the right to request a permit to stay in the West Bank. Indeed, since 2009, residents of East Jerusalem have no need for permission to enter Area A, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. This new order not only supersedes these regulations but, broadening the definition of "infiltration", and brings more Palestinians into the category of potential criminals. The term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with whom Israel has friendly ties (such as the US), and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish.

Who is to judge whether someone is an "infiltrator"? Israel Defense Forces commanders in the field. So who can determine who can reside in Jericho, Ramallah, Nablus, or Hebron? Israeli commanders or the Palestinian Authority?

With this measure, Israel is provoking the "other", violating its agreements and doing its best to delegitimize the Palestinian leadership, in the eyes of both Palestinians and Israelis. It is a contradiction of Israel's official expectation that the West Bank authorities will come to the table as a "partner state"; curtailed and publicly belittled, this is a half-partner lacking the basic functions of a Government.

And so West Jerusalem, at the level of the practical rather than Washington's invocation of the rhetorical, blocks the peace process itself.