ARAB Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi, said that the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent comparison of Palestinian citizens of Israel with its illegal settlers in Occupied Palestine is not only immoral, but a total departure from rationality, history and Israel’s obligations under international law, said an opinion piece published by the Israeli daily, Haartez.
‘He (Netanyahu) should realise that no matter Israel’s institutionalised system of discrimination, this is our homeland and we are here to stay.’ The Knesset member stressed that Palestinian citizens of Israel are not foreign immigrants that came to Israel and applied for visas or citizenship, rather Israel went to them. They are the indigenous population of the country.
‘They lived there way long before the Zionist movement was created. They are those who later survived the Nakba of 1948, where 85% of the Palestinians living in what is now Israel were ethnically cleansed only because they were not Jews. Yes, they can tell Mr Netanyahu about the meaning of ethnic cleansing on this land.’
Tibi rejected ‘the comparisons stated by Netanyahu between our existence and the presence of settlers in Occupied Palestine. ‘We are not Israeli settlers, Mr Netanyahu. Comparing us with the illegality of a foreign occupation only reflects your belief that nobody else other than Jews could call this place homeland,’ he said.
He addressed Netanyahu as saying that: ‘Over 1.5 million Palestinians in Israel will continue to challenge your racist attitude and systematic denial of human rights, including dozens of laws that only target non-Jews in Israel. We will continue with our demands for equal rights in the place that we have inhabited for generations, rather than taking over the land of another people living under a foreign military occupation.’
He added that the colonisation of an occupied territory is a war crime under international law. Illegal Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine are not “ancient communities that have been living there for 3,000 years” but illegal colonial structures aimed at systematically denying the Palestinian right to self-determination.’
He said, settlements ‘are illegal not because they are Jews but simply because they colonise an occupied territory, period.’ He said that Israel has only used Israeli settlements as an excuse to annex more occupied Palestinian land.
‘It is time for Mr Netanyahu and his extremist government to understand reality: No matter how many tweets or videos they issue, no matter his strong support for colonising the Occupied State of Palestine or his constant racism against his own non-Jewish, Palestinian citizens, he won’t be able to make us feel as strangers in our own homeland.”
Tibi added: ‘Mr Netanyahu should memorise the words of the Palestinian poet from Al Birwa, Mahmoud Darwish “And here I am. I am I. And here is here. I am I. And I am here. Here.” This is the message of over 1.5 million of Palestinian citizens to him and his racist newspeak.’ Tibi is the deputy speaker of Israel’s Knesset, representing the Arab Joint List. He is the leader of the Ta’al (the Arab Movement for Change) party.
• Israeli armed forces on Sunday opened heavy machine gunfire toward Palestinian homes along the borderline area to the east of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, said sources. Israeli forces stationed at military watchtowers along the borders with Israel opened indiscriminate fire at Palestinian homes to the east of the town of Khaza’a, however, no injuries were reported.
Israeli army and navy routinely open fire at Palestinian fishermen and farmlands along the Gaza border, in a blatant violation of a ceasefire deal reached between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza on August 26th 2014 following 51 days of bloody aggression on the Strip in the summer of 2014.
In its weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian Territories, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said the illegal closure, which has been steadily tightened since June 2007 has had a disastrous impact on the humanitarian and economic situation in the Gaza Strip.
‘For nine consecutive years, Israel has tightened the land and naval closure to isolate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and other countries around the world,’ said PCHR. This resulted in grave violations of the economic, social and cultural rights and a deterioration of living conditions for 1.8 million people,’ it added.
• Israeli forces allowed the Palestinian residents of several Nablus area villages to reopen the main entrances to their villages in the northern occupied West Bank on Sunday morning, according to locals and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials.
Sources in the PA’s liaison office told Ma’an that after ‘exerting pressure on the Israeli side,’ Israeli authorities agreed to reopen the roads, which Israeli forces had sealed off for a week under security pretexts, claiming rocks had been thrown by Palestinians at settlers vehicles on the main road of the Huwwara village, which leads directly to the city of Nablus.
Israeli forces had closed the main entrances to the villages of Beita, Einabus, Urif and Huwwara, significantly affecting the mobility of residents and the businesses of merchants in the area. General commander of the Palestinian liaison office in the occupied West Bank Jihad al-Jayousi told Ma’an that his office considered the road closures to be ‘collective punishment,’ adding that they would continue to exert pressure on Israeli authorities to reopen other side roads in the villages of Beita and Madama that remained closed.
An Israeli army spokesperson did not comment on the reports, saying that since the Palestinian residents physically opened the roads themselves, and not Israeli forces, it was not within the army’s purview to comment on the matter. An Israeli Civil Administration spokesperson said they were looking into reports, and could possibly provide further comment.
Israeli forces claimed that the closures were implemented as a result of rocks being thrown in the area at Israeli settlers’ cars, though Hashem Abu Zaitoun, a bus driver working along the Beita-Nablus road, told Ma’an that witnesses and surveillance cameras had caught an Israeli settler stepping out of his car and smashing his own window several days ago near Huwwara road, reportedly in an attempt to frame Palestinians for throwing rocks.
Israeli forces have been searching for Palestinian stone-throwers for more than a month, but have yet to detain anyone despite deploying dozens of soldiers and erecting checkpoints and cameras around communities, Zaitoun said.
Prior to Sunday’s reopening of the roads, and the PA’s claim that it came as a result of their pressure on Israeli authorities, several residents of Beita and the nearby villages told Ma’an the PA had not stepped up and taken responsibility for the closures, expressing concern that the restrictions on movement would severely restrict the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins on Monday.
A Palestinian military liaison told Ma’an at the time that the Awarta checkpoint had been closed with an iron gate, while the Einabus-Huwwara, Beita-Awarta, Beita-Udala, Beita-Huwwara, and Beita-Zaatara roads, in addition to the main Beita road and the road connecting Madama to Einabus were all closed by Israeli forces.
The occupied West Bank has seen an increase in arbitrary military road closures since October when a wave of unrest first erupted across the West Bank and Israel, leading to periodic blockade of Palestinian villages, towns, checkpoints, and entire districts. Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently unveiled a ‘carrot stick’ policy toward Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, whereby harsher punishment would be imposed upon families and villages from which ‘terrorists’ originate, while economic benefits would be granted to areas that ‘have not produced terrorists.’
‘We will implement a differential policy in Judea and Samaria,’ Lieberman said last month, using an Israeli term for the West Bank. “Its purpose is to continue to give benefits to those who desire co-existence with us and make life difficult for those who seek to harm Jews. Anyone who is prepared for co-existence will prosper, while those who opt for terrorism will lose.’
During a raid into the town of Sair in the southern occupied West Bank last week, when Israeli forces reportedly threatened to detain a 10-month-old girl after breaking into and ransacking her family’s home, soldiers hung a written warning on the front door that read: ‘In the wake of destructive attacks coming from your area against civilians, the Israeli defence forces and the Israeli security forces will operate with increased effort against terrorists and against anyone involved in such activity,’ in what seemed to be among the first reported implementations of Lieberman’s new policy.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers routinely throw stones at Palestinians, burn Palestinian agricultural lands, threaten, and harass Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, however they are rarely held accountable for their actions. Palestinian stone-throwers, in stark contrast, face harsh penalties by Israeli authorities, including up to 20 years in prison if charged with throwing stones at vehicles and a minimum prison sentence of three years for throwing a stone at an Israeli.
Israel detains hundreds of Palestinians for alleged stone-throwing every year, and Israeli rights group B’Tselem reported that from 2005 to 2010, ‘93 percent of the minors convicted of stone throwing were given a prison sentence, its length ranging from a few days to 20 months.’
Settler attacks on Palestinians seldom result in any actions being taken by Israeli authorities. According to UN documentation, there were a total of 221 reported settler attacks on Palestinians in 2015, with 77 attacks reported since the start of 2016.
