This week’s postings@JfJfP.com


June 25, 2017
Sarah Benton

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The dire state – and status – of Gaza begins and ends our website postings this week, June 19th-25th, 2017. It’s hardly made it into our media but for over two months, from April 16th, Gaza’s only power plant was closed because of lack of fuel.  It sputtered back to life a few days ago with a supply shipped in by Egypt.

This deprivation was enforced by the PA. The Israeli government enjoyed the spectacle blaming it on internal Palestinian feuding while, as the creator and enforcer of the blockade, it was clearly in its power to remedy the situation.
Palestinian split does Israel’s job for it

The tragedy for Palestinians in Gaza is that, as the MEMO article points out, all the actors in this drama are primarily concerned with their own status, not the welfare of Palestinian people in the enclave.

Many like to attribute this suffering to childish infighting. In his wonderfully sardonic monologue Amos Harel asks what you would do if you lived in Gaza – and runs through some non-options:
And what would YOU do if you lived in Gaza?

The suffering in Gaza prompted many protests and condemnations of those responsible for the loss of power:
Those who speak up for power-less Gaza

Perhaps not increase the aid  from foreign governments and institutions. In a fascinating analysis of how foreign aid to Palestine is used the NGO ‘The Reality of Aid  – an independent review of poverty reduction and development assistance’  – argues that Israeli agencies – and those of the PNA, its Palestinian sub-contractor – are so militarised it is impossible to circumvent military practices and actually give direct support to those living in deprivation:
Overseas Aid prolongs the Occupation

It is often said, by different people in different ways, that Israel has no incentive to end its occupation of Palestinian land and control over Palestinian people. None of its allies has made trade with Israel conditional on, for instance, the allies’ mantra of the two-state solution. So what’s in it for Israel? David Shulman reviews the arguments:
It makes no sense for Israel to make peace

And for that reason an entire industry of make-peace professionals is kept going with a small cast of the same-old same-old. The only winning formula would be hard sanctions against Israel for its actions that defy international humanitarian law. But western countries are too embedded in Israel’s military-industrial complex to uphold the law:
Peace process professionals keep pointless talks on track

Of course, what Israel has lost – and might want to restore – is its reputation as a civilised and cultured country. Israeli citizen Daniel Barenboim, in Ramallah nurturing the child musicians of the Said-Barenboim ‘young orchestra’, lashed out against the harm recent Israeli governments have done not just to Palestinians (though mainly them) but also to Jews like him who value their moral heritage:
Israelis losing all sense of decency – Barenboim

An Israeli who is laying down standards of decency for Israelis is Prof. Asa Kasher who provided a code of ethics for the IDF (efficacy of which revealed in recent wars) and has now been appointed by education minister Naftali Bennett to provide the same for academics. The first draft of his ethical position is that academics should never engage in politics, especially of the BDS sort:
Academics must have same ethics as IDF

Like many right-wing Israelis the Prof. is very insulated from critical views of Israeli policy. He thus would not comprehend that Israel no longer represents a shining city in the desert to young American Jews. Schooled in the paradigm of racist oppressor and victim, of course they regard Israel as the racist oppressor:
‘Devastating’ turn against Israel by Jewish students in US

The common Israeli defence against foreign critics is to denigrate them, pace Netanyahu, as “self-hating Jews, anti-Semites, traitors, outsiders, foreigners, unsophisticated, stupid, naïve”. That’s a quote from the editors, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, of “Kingdom of Olives and Ash, Writers Confront the Occupation”. They have been touring Israel with the new Hebrew translation of the book and encountered the barrage of insults:
Why Israelis insult foreign critics

It has long been central to the BDS movement and political Palestinians that expelled Palestinians and their descendants have a right of return to their place of origin.  At this year’s Herzliya conference, which bills itself as the centre for discussion of the key national issues, defence minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that no Palestinian refugee would ever be allowed to return to family land and property in territory a controlled by Israel. His assertion got much coverage, but no explanation:
No refugee return – ever

A peculiarly unnerving encounter with a religious-Zionist settler, Daniella Weiss, has Yossi Klein struggling against an overwhelming syrup of newspeak. Ms Weiss wants to be seen as (see herself as) a good and motherly person. What she argues for is the disappearance of all Palestinians from Israel, something which could only be accomplished by the most brutal acts:
Religious-Zionist Vision for Israel

There have been several sharp criticisms this week about ‘over-reach’ by Israel or by those defending Israel. Communities minister Sajid Javid put out a dictat about what local authorities and pension fund managers may not do – they may not take ethical considerations, such as the treatment of Palestinians into account. As we point out, this was a decision taken shortly after Mr. Javid met Israel’s anti-BDS minister, Gilat Erdan. The PSC organised and crowd-funded an appeal – and the judge ruled in their favour. Mr Javid “has acted for an unauthorised purpose and therefore unlawfully“. Over-reach:
Judge upholds right of pension funds to be ethical

Over-reach is also identified by writers from the Palestinian policy network, Al Shabaka. Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani write that Palestine appears to have lost ground from its peak position in 1974 (Arafat’s speech to the UN). But in fact the Palestinian cause is far more popular than it was then and the Israeli government has extended state power beyond the realm of what it can actually manage:
Weakened Palestine and Israeli overreach

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