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Posts Tagged ‘Israeli settlements’

Bethlehem’s 5,000-year-old olive tree threatened by Israeli settlements

Posted by M. C. on February 20, 2024

Salah Abu Ali’s tree was producing fruit long before the Abrahamic religions were born, but is at risk of being destroyed in the push for land

In 2011, Abu Ali’s land was divided in two by the construction of the wall, meaning he can no longer harvest his olive trees on the Israeli side without a significant detour. He relies on the goodwill of soldiers to let him across during the harvest season, something that is not always in ready supply. “It’s a nightmare,” he said,

https://archive.is/3iptE#selection-2811.0-2815.11

George Grylls, al-Walaja

Salah Abu Ali fears he may be cut off from al-Badawi, the ancient olive tree on his grove
Salah Abu Ali fears he may be cut off from al-Badawi, the ancient olive tree on his grove

In the West Bank village of al-Walaja, on the outskirts of Bethlehem, there is a tree that is older than any of the Abrahamic religions.

When Moses led the Jews out of Egypt, the olive on Salah Abu Ali’s farm had been producing fruit for almost two millennia.

Three thousand years of rain, wind and drought had failed to kill it by the time of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And when the prophet Muhammad was said to be first visited by an angel in Arabia in AD610, the tree had long been at the centre of various beliefs held by Semitic-speaking peoplesThe tree has survived droughts, earthquakes and wars but is under threat from encroaching settlements

In 2010, Japanese and Italian scientists carbon-dated the al-Badawi tree to be between 4,000 and 5,000 years old, which would make it the second oldest olive in the world after a grove in northern Lebanon. Only its uppermost branches are visible, and the roots are thought to run up to 25m beneath the ground, fusing into a trunk somewhere below the surface.

But despite its longevity, the al-Badawi tree is at risk. For more than a decade, it has been confronted by the encroaching fence of a settlers’ road.

See the rest here

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Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank, by Philip Giraldi – The Unz Review

Posted by M. C. on November 27, 2019

The decades long building of Israeli settlements on Palestinian homelands, with nothing but silence from Washington, should have made plain to anyone more paying attention that a 2 state solution was never in the cards.

http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/pompeo-gives-away-the-palestinian-west-bank/

A story has been circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk to about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and John McCain died. And the tale even has a bit of palace intrigue built into it, with an interesting back story as Pompeo is apparently considering his move because he fears that staying in harness with Donald Trump for too long might damage his reputation. There are also reports that he has been traveling to Kansas frequently on the State Department’s dime to test the waters, a violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits most government officials from engaging in self-promotional political activities unrelated to their actual jobs.

If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one’s breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how “We lied, we cheated, we stole.”

Mike Pompeo’s latest concession to the war criminals in charge of Israel, clearly intended to boost the electoral chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, is only the most recent dose of the Secretary of State’s falsehood piled on fiction. It is generally assumed that the move to help Bibi by interfering in Israeli politics has been made in an effort to have Tel Aviv reciprocate by putting pressure on its many American fellow travelers in the media and congress to go easier on Trump in the impeachment saga…

The Trump Administration’s gifts to Israel are unprecedented, including moving the capital to Jerusalem and acknowledging the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Pompeo, driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs, has been the point man on many of those moves, ably assisted by a U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, ex-bankruptcy lawyer, who has served as a consistent advocate and apologist for Israel with little or no concern for actual American interests. One might also observe that if Pompeo is truly interested in running for the Senate a little help and cash from Israel and its many friends might be very welcome.

The Pompeo gift to Bibi was announced early last week. He said that the Trump Administration is now rejecting the 1978 State Department Hansell Memorandum legal opinion that the creation of civilian settlements in occupied territories is indeed “inconsistent with international law.” In a sense, he was giving something away to Israel that neither he nor the Israelis legally possess. He said that he was “accepting realities on the ground” and elaborated on his view that the White House believes legal questions about settlements should be dealt with in Israeli courts, meaning that the hapless Palestinians would have no voice in developments that would deprive them of their homes...

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Arab League warns against Israel’s West Bank settlements ...

 

 

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Pompeo: Israeli Settlements in West Bank Don’t Violate International Law – News From Antiwar.com

Posted by M. C. on November 19, 2019

This position further encourages the Israeli government to take steps to make the occupation permanent, secure in the knowledge that the US government is prepared to ignore international law.

The only people who believed in a two state solution were the unwashed masses duped by the presstitute media.

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/11/18/pompeo-israeli-settlements-in-west-bank-dont-violate-international-law/

Jason Ditz

In a move seen as a further blow to Palestinian hopes for statehood, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has announced that the US is repudiating the 1978 State Department legal opinion that the Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine are in violation of international law.

The Fourth Geneva Convention is very clear about settlements being illegal, as it explicitly bars an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory.

Pompeo’s position is that the US stance on West Bank settlements is based on “unique facts.” While not necessarily trying to reinterpret international law, the State Department will now argue that international law doesn’t advance the cause of peace and therefore should be ignored.

Instead, Pompeo will argue that any legal questions on Israel building settlements in occupied Palestine should be handled within Israeli courts. He added that he did not intend to prejudge the status of the Wes Bank in any peace deal.

This position further encourages the Israeli government to take steps to make the occupation permanent, secure in the knowledge that the US government is prepared to ignore international law. It also seemingly encourages them to block Palestinian statehood to allow for more settlements in the future.

In bolstering the Israeli far-right’s annexation position, the new US stance is likely intended to bolster Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a time when his survival as premier is in doubt. Trump has expressed a preference for Netanyahu.

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Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America’s Real Foreign Agent — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on April 27, 2019

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/04/25/jared-kushner-not-maria-butina-is-americas-real-foreign-agent/

Philip Giraldi

…Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow’s cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos’s ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller “ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction” that Papadopoulos “committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government.” Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington’s adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best “First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies—what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to—calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that’s just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence.”

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn’t happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it “We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel.” Indeed.

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Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation

Posted by M. C. on February 6, 2018

The US is not the only country that puts AIPAC and Israel above it’s own citizen’s welfare.

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/

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THE U.K. GOVERNMENT today announced that it is will be illegal for “local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions … to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.” Thus, any entities that support or participate in the global boycott of Israeli settlements will face “severe penalties.”

This may sound like an extreme infringement of free speech and political activism — and, of course, it is — but it is far from unusual in the West. The opposite is now true. There is a very coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters literally to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the particular fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment, or BDS — modeled after the 1980s campaign that brought down the Israel-allied apartheid regime in South Africa — is succeeding. Read the rest of this entry »

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