PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi, on Monday, condemned the decision of the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Legislation to strip the High Court of jurisdiction over Palestinian cases regarding land and property confiscation, and refer them to the Jerusalem District Court, so as to entrench the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.
She said: ‘With such legislation, Israel is seeking to impose its sovereignty on all of the occupied West Bank, systematically erasing the Palestinian presence and its continuity on Palestinian land.’
She continued: ‘It is not surprising that the proposal was introduced by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked who has openly advocated the genocide of the Palestinian people and recently said: “Our policy is clear: Settlement in the entire Land of Israel and normalisation of life in Judea and Samaria” (occupied West Bank).’
This declaration of a genocidal war on the Palestinian people comes immediately after US President Trump’s declaration that the US embassy will be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in mid-May. This was in fact a signal to the Israeli ruling class to step up the war to drive the Palestinian people off of what is left of their land. The projected embassy opening will coincide with the 70th anniversary of Nakba Day (Day of Catastrophe), which marks the forcible eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 to set up the Zionist state.
The tempo of repressions against Palestinians is now being stepped up, with entire families targeted.
On Monday, Israeli forces detained at least 19 Palestinians during a pre-dawn raid, including injured teenager Muhammad Tamimi, 15, who had been shot in the face by Israeli soldiers in December. The Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said that Israeli forces detained 10 members of the Tamimi family from the central occupied West Bank villages of Deir Nitham and Nabi Saleh.
Wounded teen Muhammad and his brother Tamim Fadel al-Tamimi, 17, were detained, in addition to Suhaib Samih al-Tamimi, 14, Ahmad Sami al-Tamimi, 19, Muayyad Hamzeh al-Tamimi, 17, Muhammad Mujahed al-Tamimi, 15, Amjad Abd al-Hafith al-Tamimi, 28, Omar Saleh Tamimi, 29, Islam Saleh al-Tamimi, 21, and Wiam Iyad al-Tamimi, 17. Muhammad was released hours after his detention. He has reconstructive skull surgery scheduled for March 5th. He was shot in the face during protests in Nabi Saleh last December and, just minutes later, his cousin Ahed Tamimi, 17, was filmed kicking and slapping Israeli soldiers who were on her family’s property. Ahed is now being prosecuted behind closed doors in an Israeli military court that has a conviction rate of over 99 per cent. Entire families are being beaten, detained, shot and imprisoned.
The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah correctly says Washington’s decision to set the date for moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem is the result of ‘complicity’ among Arab ruling classes and constitutes a major decision to eradicate the Palestinian cause. However, Palestine is not the sole target. The US, Israel and the Arab feudalists have the Arab and Iranian revolutions in their sights.
The US is strengthening Israel in every way that it can and arming the Saudis, as is the UK, because the attempt to destroy the Palestinian revolution is to be accompanied by an attack on the Lebanon to smash Hezbollah, and carry out a renewed war with Syria and war with Iran. The US perspective is to use the Israeli-Saudi alliance to smash all the revolutionary movements in the Middle East from the Lebanon to Syria and then to tackle Iran. This plan must be actively opposed and defeated by the working class and the people of the world.
It has even been opposed by the UN General Assembly which voted on December 21, 2017 overwhelmingly for a resolution that called on the US to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. The only way to resolve the developing world crisis is for the working class of the world to disarm the major imperialist powers, and their Arab feudal allies, with socialist revolutions. The rapidly deepening economic and political crisis of the imperialist powers is driving forward the world socialist revolution.
UK workers must give the lead by bringing down the May government and bringing in a workers government that will ally itself with the Palestinian and Arab masses to put an end to imperialism and lead the advance to world socialism.