TheAltWorld What is happening in Palestine and the region?
My interview last night with Gordon Dimmack, covering events in Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian territories – the tide is turning against the Zionist entity.
A few important citations that I mentioned and others that are relevant:
Background to the Sheikh Jarrah communities, being ethnically cleansed by Israel:
“In the aftermath of the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians known as “Nakba”, around 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes to neighbouring countries. Following these events,28 families (today they are 38) families settled in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem in 1956. They reached an agreement with the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development and the UN refugee agency UNRWA to provide housing for them in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. At that time, the West Bank was under Jordanian rule (1951-1967).
The Jordanian government provided the land while UNRWA covered the cost of constructing 28 homes for these families. It was agreed that the residents pay a symbolic fee, provided that ownership was transferred to the residents more than three years from the completion of construction.”
This, however, was interrupted by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, in 1967, which prevented the registration of the houses under the names of families.
This month, Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said it had provided the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with 14 ratified agreements meant for the people of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, which support their claim of their lands and property.
In a statement, the Ministry said it handed over a certificate to the residents proving that the Jordanian Ministry of Construction and Development had agreed with UNRWA to establish 28 housing units in Sheikh Jarrah to be delegated and registered in the names of these families. The process, however, was interrupted as a result of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967. The Ministry had previously provided the Palestinian side with all the documents that could help Jerusalemites maintain their full rights, including lease contracts, lists of beneficiaries’ names, and a copy of the agreement concluded with UNRWA in 1954.
In 1972, the Sephardic Committee and the Knesset Committee of Israel claimed that they owned the land on which the houses were built in 1885, and asked the court to evict four families from their homes in the neighbourhood, accusing them of land grab.
In 1982, the Israeli settlement associations filed an eviction case against 24 families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and 17 families assigned Israeli lawyer Tosia Cohen to defend them. The lawyer in 1991 signed an agreement, without the knowledge of the families, that the ownership of the land belonged to the settlement associations. The lawyer put Palestinian families under the threat of eviction if they failed to pay the rent to the settlement associations.
In 1997, Suleiman Darwish Hijazi, a resident, filed a lawsuit with the Israeli Central Court to prove his land ownership, using title deeds issued by the Ottoman Empire, brought from Turkey. The move, however, backfired when the court rejected the claim in 2005.
The court said the papers did not prove his land ownership, and Hijazi’s appeal in the following year was rejected. In November 2008, the al-Kurd family was evicted from their home, followed by the eviction of the Hanoun and al-Ghawi families in August 2009.
So far, 12 Palestinian families in the neighbourhood have received eviction orders issued by the Israeli central and magistrates courts. Four Palestinian families filed a petition with the Supreme Court, Israel’s highest judicial body, against a decision to expel them from their homes. The Israeli Central Court in East Jerusalem approved a decision earlier this year to evict four Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in favour of right-wing Israeli settlers.
In 1948, al-Sabbagh’s family fled their home in Jaffa, which Israelis now inhabit. Al-Sabbagh, a 32-member family, including ten children, is afraid that the court verdict will make him and his family refugees again.”
Elijah Magnier
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No to the ceasefire – written by Sharmine Narwani during the 2014 Zionist aggression against Gaza:
Five days after the latest ceasefire went into effect, Israel announced its biggest land-grab in 30 years, from five Palestinian villages in the West Bank.
On the same day, Israel began its game of unraveling ceasefire “concessions” by insisting on more “process.” A key ceasefire deal term was to allow Palestinians to import building materials to help rebuild the devastation in Gaza. After 50 days of negotiations, Tel Aviv now insists a “bilateral committee” be established to oversee this process, consisting of Israel, the PA and the UN? This post-deal demand, the Israelis know, means that All Things will perpetually be tied up in “discussions.”
Ceasefire? Please.
Israel and its western/Arab allies have a goal. They plan to dismantle the Palestinian Resistance in this last Gaza battlefield. To do that, they will carefully begin to insert their PA partners into all aspects of Gaza’s administration. We will see more initiatives like this after US Secretary of State John Kerry’s upcoming visit to the region. His Saudi and Egyptian partners are on board. Israel will lead this game.
What should Gaza do? It should beef up its existing alliances and continue stockpiling its weapons arsenal. Israel must continue to endure losses, experience pain, and watch its citizens flee the “unpredictability” – take their second passports and leave. There is absolutely no other way forward – none whatsoever.
Palestinians will never have political chips worth a dime in negotiations with a right-wing Israeli administration unless they can affect the “Aliyah” of Jews to Israel.
Ceasefire? A hollow victory indeed.
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“The Resistance in Gaza is much more prepared and better equipped than you think. Wait.”
Mohammed Marandi.
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Twitter thread, Les Politiques:
1. So far, the statements and all the signs from the Biden administration is that #Israel can go it alone in this war. Within the special relationship between Israel and the #US, this means the US will not intervene, neither to openly support mil ops, nor to stop the war.
2. But make no mistake, even when #Israel is on its own, it has plenty of US support, financial aid and weapons transfer, as it happened during the Lebanon 2006 war.
3. #Israel going it alone means the Israeli leadership and the Israeli military own the decisions and own the ops, but #US support is always there…
4. In the current circumstances, providing this kind of laissez-faire support to #Israel, without having the usual channels active because the Biden-Netanyahu relationship is bad, means that the #US is out and Israel is left off the leash, militarily speaking…
5. Add to this situation the current political turmoil in #Israel where four consecutive elections failed to produce a majority to rule, and Israel’s fierce opposition to the #US–#Iran renewed talks, and you can bet on a wide array of possibilities of how this war might unfold…
6. In any way, as far as the US administration is concerned, as long as it is Palestinians who are dying in the greater numbers, they don’t give a damn… Excuse my cynicism…
7. If this war extends beyond Gaza, no one would be able to stop it. Few years back, the US was on speaking terms with Russia and China. This is no longer the case. And the Biden administration doesn’t even have good channels with Netanyahu & Israel right now…
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Laith Marouf, journalist, Palestinian:
“The Zionists and their Imperialist masters are shell-shocked in a total daze; they can’t reconcile their imagined “Israel has a right to exist”, with the reality that Apartheid is ceasing to exist right before their eyes.”
“The Zionist cowards are loosing their mind as they see their end in our eyes. Pogroms in Palestinian towns inside 1948 Palestine, Carpet Bombing Mass Genocide in the Gaza Concentration Camp, Trails of Tears in Jerusalem, and shrinking Reserves/Bantustans in the West Bank.”
1. A #thread about what to expect will happen in the next few hours and days in #Palestine/#ApartheidIsrael. The Zionists have deployed the Boarder Guards, actual Army units, and West Bank Colonist militias to suppress the Indigenous uprising inside 1948 cities #alLydd etc.
2. It is expected that the Zionists will attempt to exact a pogrom on these civilians, for daring last night to expel the police & for the first time since 1948 Liberate themselves from Colonial rule. Already thugs attacked a mosque in alLydd and Palestinian stores in Yafa.
3. The pogrom tonight will be followed by Eid alFitr prayers tomorrow; where all Palestinian factions and religious leaders called on all Palestinians to gather at alAqsa Mosque for a unified prayer. Hundreds of thousands of people marching towards Jerusalem.
4. …will be attacked before they reach the city; prompting even more people to join the march. As they reach the alAqsa Mosque, they will be faced by an army trying to stop them from entering the mosque; leading to repression and resistance at unprecedented scale.
5. The scenes of the pogroms in 1948 cities the night before, and Jerusalem on the Eid, will force the resistance in Gaza to intensify its targeting of Apartheid Israel, and the arrogance of the Zionists will blind them to the consequences and they will commit a massacre in Gaza.
6. The next day is the 73 year anniversary of the Nakbah, the catastrophe of the genocide of the Palestinian people in 1948, and the creation of the Apartheid Beachhead Colony. Thousands will confront the security forces of the Zionist regime across the West Bank and 1948 lands.
7. Having withdrawn all of the Border Guard Units from the WB, along with many army units to suppress the Indigenous population in 48 the night before, the Zionists forces will be stretched thin in the WB, and resistance factions may start an armed uprising to take advantage.
8. Again, because the Zionists have lost the ability to judge the situation under their nose, they will not be able to separate their imaginary self image from reality; and they will commit massacres across the WB and Jerusalem in their attempt to suppress the intifada.
9. Needless to say, during these 2 days, resistance in Gaza would destroy most of essential infrastructure of the Apartheid state and the Zionists would be asking to end the war. The resistance will agree to a cease fire under the minimum condition of complete withdrawal from WB.
10. At this point it will be impossible to predict the situation. Either Apartheid Israel would agree, withdraw from the WB, and sign a cease fire; or decide to carpet bomb Gaza, parts of the WB, and even 48 cities that are still out of control.
11. If the Zionists take the second choice; this would be the moment Palestinian resistance factions would activate the defence pack with the Resistance Axis, and request direct military support. Ballistic/Cruse missiles and drones would start raining on Apartheid Syria at first.
12. …followed by Iraq, Yemen & if need be from Lebanon & Iran. They would be offered again a cease fire x liberation of the WB; whatever they decide then will either lead to the end of Apartheid Israel, or the prolongment of its life without the WB for a few more years.
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Whitney Webb – Al Aqsa Mosque
“In a troubling trend that continues to be overlooked by international media, the Temple Activist movement that seeks to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and replace it with a Third Temple continues to advance its agenda. The movement’s forward progress is largely thanks to its successful efforts in recent years to rebrand as a “civil rights” movement — securing support from secular and religious Zionists alike — as well as to growing levels of support in Israel’s executive and legislative branches of government.
As was detailed in Part I of this series, the Temple Activist movement is now more mainstream than ever before and its effort to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, has advanced with great rapidity since the year began and has picked up precipitously in recent weeks. Yet this new face of the Temple Activist movement — one that claims that its quest is to wrest control of the holy site from Jordanian and Palestinian custody in the name of “equal rights” for Israeli Jews — obfuscates the troubling origins of this once-fringe yet now normalized campaign.”
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“Palestinian resistance movement Hamas military wing, Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Ubaida stressed that operation “al-Quds’ Sword” being fought today is the continuation “of our people’s uprising in al-Quds and al-Aqsa Mosque and in support of the Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood, adding that “al-Quds is the center of the struggle, the icon of the battles and the origin of uprisings.” Abu Ubaida emphasized that every price paid is for al-Quds as there is no sense for existence without defending al-Quds and the Aqsa Mosque.”
“Abu Ubaida told the Zionist enemy: “The world has witnessed your defeat, while you were bombing civilians and residential towers to exhibit your fire power,” underscoring that “there is neither redlines nor rules of engagement when it comes to defending al-Aqsa and our people.”
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Marwa Osman, journalist:
“This Israel that possesses nuclear weapons and the most powerful air force in the region, by God, is weaker than a spider’s web”
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“Now he is crushing Netanyahu” – Mohammed Marandi
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“Violent resistance to colonization isn’t merely a tactical issue. It’s also about becoming whole. It’s also about claiming a future. It’s also about the dignity of fighting back.”
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What is happening in Palestine and the region? – Vanessa Beeley interview with Gordon Dimmack
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