2/ More from @btselem: fighting for a future based on human rights, liberty and justice is especially crucial now.
There are various political paths to a just future here, between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, but all of us must first choose to say no to apartheid.
3/ A fantastic piece by @NathanThrall also lays out this delusion of two regimes that is often propped up by governments, liberal Zionist groups and others who don't want to recognize the reality on the ground for what it is: Apartheid.
4/ The framework of Apartheid doesn't negate Oslo or Israel's military occupation, but is a product of their systematic & institutional design & implementation. Those who hold onto the Oslo paradigm do so to remove an imperative to act and hold Israel accountable.
5/ That is the purgatory of this two regime delusion and why we need to move beyond it. Without recognizing the reality for what it is, we gas light an entire people that are yearning for freedom, justice and equality & hold them captive to a system designed to oppress them.
6/ Apartheid is becoming the established norm. We must reckon with how to dismantle it and build a new social contract between the river and the sea.
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Israel segregates Palestinians across different legal statuses to divide & rule:
- Citz. of Israel
- Res. of Jerusalem
- West Bank / Gaza
- Refugee/diaspora (+ foreign passports)
The category you belong to impacts who you can be with.
2/ Israel does this to geographically separate Palestinians from one another, break social, cultural & political cohesion & undermine a collective Palestinian identity.
Localizing each community or "status" is meant to undermine a connected NATIONAL movement for liberation.
3/ The other reason is to limit the number of Palestinians in Palestine.
Israel doesn't allow Palestinian refugees/diaspora to visit their homeland, let alone live in Palestine with a partner.
But any Jewish person anywhere in the world can return and live as they please.
A German art school stops funding the project “School for Unlearning Zionism” by Jewish Israelis because a right-wing journalist complained that it's anti-Semitic. It is terrifying and ironic that white Germans dictate what is anti-Semitic & which Jew qualifies as “good"/ "bad”.
This is a project in the spirit and tradition of anti-racism and intersectionality, seeking to promote a brighter future for all built on progressive values. Why did the journalist complain? Because some of the Jewish Israeli speakers promoted BDS.
This happens often in Europe and US and is built on normative and legislative precedents that equate advocacy for Palestinian freedom and rights/criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. In Germany, the parliament passed a anti-BDS resolution recently that paved the way for this.
I was 11 when I first watched the footage. Mohamed Dura shielded by his dad from Israeli bullets. One moment they were pleading for their lives, the next they were dead. He was 12, we belonged to the same generation. The horror in his eyes still shakes me to my core 20 yrs later.
Those were the first day’s of the Second Intifada. TV channels aired the footage over and over again, and reported on other deaths ever hour. Israeli tanks patrolled our streets and helicopters were bombing our cities. Gunfire became our lullabies and lockdowns were our reality.
We tried going to Jerusalem for school but the main road out of Jericho had two zigzaged dirt mounds fitted with machine gun pits and the largest guns I’d ever seen. Negotiating that checkpoint became our daily routine. Would they or won’t they let us go to school today we asked?
“You can BDS...but I will condemn and demonise you for it.” Because how dare us want to hold a country accountable for its oppression of an entire people? It’s oppression of us.
I can see how legally this might be a step forward but the phenomenon of shrinking space to advocate for Palestinian freedom and rights is a normative one as well. The fear of being smeared, attacked or have hate weaponised against you is a very powerful way to silence.
See the shit @RashidaTlaib, @IlhanMN and so many of us have to deal with because of just and moral positions. This environment of making Palestine radioactive is leading to self-censorship and a chilling effect that has a wider impact than any one law.
Israel put us into fragmented territorial enclaves that serve as prisons. They control every aspect of our lives & land. When we demand freedom and right to movement, they say well we can’t visit Ramallah. The jailer is telling the prisoner they can’t visit the jail cell.
That’s the twisted logic of this apartheid system - it promotes the illusion that the oppressed and the oppressor are equal. Settlers live and roam our lands with more rights than we do and the Israeli military is in our cities every day arresting people. Yet we are being unfair.
We are not two equal countries. There is a one state reality where one people rules another through an unjust system. Now as we call for equal freedom and rights and the dismantling of that system we are treated to that logic by those who want to keep it.
1/ Let me start by saying, welcome @PeterBeinart, it's great to have you. I appreciate the overall message of the piece - although I disagree with some of the points used to get there - among them the role of violence in Palestinian politics and society.
2/ I understand the target audience, the nuance in framing the argument and the importance of moving the conversation forward, which this piece does. But we need to be very careful from feeding ugly preconceived notions regardless of whether the end is desired and noble.
3/ As many have pointed out and @PeterBeinart graciously referenced: these ideas are not new and part of a long Palestinian intellectual tradition. I'm glad we are having these conversations more widely but it seems that the world is just catching up.