The Knesset Parliamentary Group for Ending the Occupation, led by MKs @AidaTuma and @mossi_raz, is holding its first meeting today - marking 55 years of military rule over the oPt.
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@AidaTuma@mossi_raz MK @AidaTuma starts off:
Once, the occupation was considered to be temporary. Today it appears that many around the world have gotten used to the horrors of occupation and siege. In order to perpetuate it and turn it into a done deal, Israel is operating an Apartheid regime.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz > Even the horrific pictures from Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral a few weeks ago didn't make people think about what's going on here. It immediately turned into a debate about who went into the hospital when. Why is it so difficult to say that there's a moral problem here?
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz MK @mossi_raz: occupation is a situation in which a foreign military rules over a civilian population. This situation leads to human rights abuses, resistance, violence and counter-violence.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz Occupation is the child who can't fall asleep for fear that soldiers will burst in to make an arrest. Occupation is the restriction of individual rights, of the right to movement and so on. And that's why we have to bring this situation to an end.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz Our own @origivati speaks about 'Blue Wolf', the facial recognition technology used by soldiers to take pictures of random Palestinians to enter them into a database. The units serving in the oPt are made to compete for prizes to take as many pictures as possible.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati Ori says that his commander told him, when he was serving as a tank commander in the oPt, that the point of their presence their was to make sure the Palestinians "wouldn't be able to lift their heads." By making the Palestinians constantly feel the IDF's presence, the logic is >
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati that they will be afraid to do anything at all that could raise the IDF's suspicion. That's how Palestinians have been living their lives for 55 years now. And it's all in order to further entrench the occupation. That's why we work to expose this reality and bring it to an end.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati Next up: Yahel Gazit, an Israeli volunteer with #SaveMasaferYatta who lives w/ the Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta as part of a solidarity project. She wrote her speech together with @Ali_awad1998, a local activist who's fighting to save his community from mass eviction. >
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998 She says: The Supreme Court of Israel ruled to evict 1,300+ residents from the area. I sit here today and wonder if there's anyone at all who believes that this move is really about creating a military training zone, when right next door settlements are built without any problems
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998 Yahel continues: we're about to turn 1300 people into refugees. Why doesn't this bother anyone? Why can't we let these simple people just tend to their sheep? To live with some self-respect? Let's not repeat the Nakba in 2022.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998@lizzadwoskin@washingtonpost@YeshDin These outposts are normally inhabited by a single couple or family, are not given permits by the State to be there, yet the State supports their existence de facto by letting them stay there and giving them access to funding, infrastructure and military protection.
@AidaTuma@mossi_raz@origivati@Ali_awad1998@lizzadwoskin@washingtonpost@YeshDin E.g. Shabtai from Havat Avraham in the S Hebron Hills states openly that he controls 9000 dunams, 6x more than he was given. "Wherever we set foot w/ our sheep is ours." Yesh Din documented several violent attacks by settlers from this outpost. This model exists all over the oPt.
For 2 days, hundreds of settlers rampaged through the West Bank, burning, destroying, and shooting live fire, resulting in the death of at least one Palestinian and injuring tens. But it isn’t just on them. It’s on the entire Israeli security establishment, and especially the IDF
The attacks were organized openly in Whatsapp and Telegram groups, and began hours before the murdered body of 14 year old Binyamin Ahimeir was found. What stopped security forces from preventing these mass acts of violence? Probably the will to do so.
"Some were in IDF uniforms yielding guns. 20-30 people beat me, and I shouted 'help' hoping that soldiers would hear me, but they are the soldiers" said Shaul Golan, a seventy-year-old news photographer who the settlers beat yesterday while he covered the unfolding events.
The heated discussion surrounding director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Oscars last night is mostly missing the point. His main message was simple and yet vital: empathy is not a zero-sum game.
Glazer did not "deny his Jewishness", as some seemingly purposely misunderstood. He took an unequivocal stance against the cynical utilization of Judaism and the Holocaust in the name of justifying the occupation. These "misunderstandings" aren't new.
It’s possible to oppose the killing of innocent civilians in Gaza and still care for the safety of Israeli hostages. One can worry about Israelis who were evacuated from their homes after Oct 7 and still be horrified by the conditions in which so many are currently living in Gaza
"Everyone knows that people are taking things."
Soldiers are publishing videos of things they've looted from Gaza and giving interviews about it. This is how looting is normalized in Israel @972mag @OrenZiv_
🧵 972mag.com/israeli-soldie…
But there's nothing new about looting.
"The bribing thing was acceptable, they pay you with their masbahas (prayer beads), packs of cigarettes, chocolate, whatever you want—they give you," one former soldier told us after serving in the West Bank in 2002. breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…
"It’s part of the reality you enter. You enter a bubble wherein anything that shouldn’t be in the hands of a Palestinian in Hebron – should be in your hands," another soldier who served in Hebron in 2016 said. breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/da…
Finance Minister Smotrich has already explained that the US sanctions on violent settlers stem from a "false and anti-Semitic BDS campaign". So in the face of the shameless denials, here are some things you need to know about the settlers on the US and British sanction lists 🧵
Ely Federman - a settler from the "Meitarim Farm" outpost. Was documented as being involved in repeated violence against Palestinians and HR activists including: home invasions, threats, destruction of property and setting his dog on local Palestinians.
Moshe Sharvit - from the "Emek Tirzah" outpost. Has attacked many Pal communities, and since Oct has worked to forcibly transfer families in Ein Shibli (Jordan Valley). One family told Haaretz that he came to their home armed and gave them 5 hours to leave
"But we left Gaza” is a commonly heard statement in Israel, referring to the situation since 2005’s “disengagement”, during which Israel withdrew its military forces and settlements from the Strip. “We dismantled settlements, took our forces out, and let Gaza become Singapore.”🧵
But in reality, Israel figured out it could control the Gaza Strip even without forces on the ground. We left Gaza, but continued to control the entrance and exit of goods and people, the air and maritime space, the electromagnetic space, and even the population registry.
Any time these truths about the last 18 years of Israeli policy are uttered, someone says “but there’s a border crossing with Egypt.” But it’s not Egypt that denied Gazans access to the sea or an airport. And yes, movement through the Rafah crossing is coordinated with Israel too
Following the tragic erroneous shooting of 3 Israeli hostages by IDF soldiers, the IDF's immediate response was that the soldiers had deviated from the rules of engagement.
But those deviations aren't the main problem. The rules themselves are. 🧵
The hostages were shot despite doing everything they possibly could to show they weren’t a threat: they removed their shirts, shouted in Hebrew and waved a white flag. They were shot from tens of meters away, so it's hard to argue the soldiers' would have been in direct danger.
The “deviation from the rules” claim is weak at best. The IDF’s own internal investigation found that the force in question was instructed to shoot at any “fighting age male". No soldier who fought in Gaza in past campaigns would be surprised to learn this.