More and more, members of Israel’s ruling parties are matching their public statements to the reality they are implementing every minute on the ground: Israel’s opposition to the establishment of a viable Palestinian state and a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict. 

Economy Minister and Jewish Home Chairman Naftali Bennett is the latest MK to join a robust list of Israeli government coalition members who have publicly stated that the two-state solution is dead and that the notion of a Palestinian state is a thing of the past. Although it’s no new position for him, Bennett is making it clear that no matter what Prime Minister Netanyahu says or what polls show, the Israel of 2013 is squarely against a two-state solution.

Bennett stated that ”the idea of forming a Palestinian state in Israel has reached a dead end,” speaking at a settler council meeting Monday morning, comparing the “Palestinian problem” to a “piece of shrapnel” lodged in someone’s rear end; that one needs to learn to live with a pain in the ass rather than surgically remove it and risk becoming disabled.

Bennett also asserted there is no occupation, since Israeli Jews cannot be occupiers in their own home (echoing the Netanyahu-commissioned Levy Report from nearly a year ago that concluded there is no occupation) and called on Israel to annex Area C of the West Bank. This is similar to what Likud MK and former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin said last year: “Today, almost 20 years since Oslo, one could clearly argue that the idea of separating between the nations has failed … Between the Jordan River and the sea, there can only be one state, Jewish and democratic, with a solid Jewish majority.”

There are plenty of other coalition members who have publicly come out against the two-state solution and the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, as a Knesset committee meeting on the subject exposed last month. It’s not just fundamentalist Hebron settler Orit Struck from Jewish Home, who said two states are ”not part of the government’s guiding principles, and for good reason.”

MK Yoni Chetboun, also from Jewish Home, said at that meeting that, “the government has...

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Imagine that the ‘New York Times’ published an op-ed defending the segregation of white and black schoolchildren at an American amusement park. That’s more or less what happened in Israel recently.

By Mairav Zonszein and Lisa Goldman

This article was originally published on the Daily Beast’s Open Zion blog on June 14, 2013.

Imagine that Six Flags Great Adventure, a New Jersey adventure park, quietly instituted separate days for black and white schoolchildren. Exposed by the media, the management claimed they had acted in response to complaints from some white parents about the behavior of the black children, saying they behaved badly and cursed at the white children. Senior government ministers, including President Obama, said they were outraged and suggested the incident merited an official investigation. And then a white person wrote an op-ed defending the Six Flags management’s decision. In an article saturated with links and references to right-wing media outlets like Fox News, the Washington Free Beacon and the Drudge Report, the white author claimed that Six Flags’ policy was not racist. And the New York Times published the piece.

A variation of this scenario happened in Israel recently, when local media exposed the Superland amusement park’s policy of segregating Arab and Jewish schoolchildren. The mainstream media and the government, including right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, were outraged. But Shmuel Rosner, a journalist who lives in Tel Aviv, defended the management’s policy in an op-ed for the New York Times, on the International Herald Tribune‘s Latitudes Blog. According to Rosner, the policy is not an expression of racism, but rather pragmatism that reflects a regrettable reality.

Rosner explains that Superland’s management is just trying to “prevent trouble” between Jewish and Arab kids who behave badly toward one another. This is the same argument that elite American universities like Harvard made for imposing quotas on Jewish students as recently as 50 years ago. The deans justified their policy by explaining that letting a department fill up with Jews would exacerbate anti-semitism, so by limiting the number of Jewish students they were actually protecting them.

Rosner cites statistics showing that a majority of Israel’s Palestinian-Arab citizens see the country as a “foreign imprint in the Middle...

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Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Ofir Akunis took Netanyahu’s position that settlement construction is not an impediment to a negotiated solution with the Palestinians to a whole new level. According to a report in Haaretz Tuesday:

Akunis, the same Likud lawmaker who in the last Knesset proposed a bill to limit all foreign funding for “political organizations” and who said on TV in 2011 that Senator Joe McCarthy was right, essentially stated – as I can only deduce from his backwards statement – that the more Israel builds settlements the better it is for reaching a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians. After all, stopping settlement construction would only push them away.

Meanwhile, former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman came out with what is probably the most moderate and diplomatically pragmatic statement he has probably ever made, confirming that there has been a de facto building freeze in East Jerusalem since no new tenders are being put through the pipeline. He explained that this “temporary hiatus” is meant to give U.S. Secretary of State Kerry a chance to succeed in his peacemaking efforts.

As, Noam Sheizaf reported Monday, construction of new housing in the West Bank – as opposed to East Jerusalem –  is at a seven-year high.

This post is dedicated to former IDF soldier and whistleblower Anat Kamm, a brave woman currently doing time in Israeli jail.

On May 10th, Breaking the Silence –  an organization of veteran IDF soldiers who collect testimonies from soldiers about their past service in the occupied Palestinian territories – released a series of new video testimonies by former female soldiers who testify on camera to the harsh reality of the occupation they participated in and witnessed.

This campaign is of special significance to me because it gives voice to the women who comprise Israel’s army and its mechanism for continued occupation and oppression, happening within a society (local and global) in which, as women, they already exist in a gender power dynamic of systematic discrimination and violence.

They are the ones who can spend two years of their lives serving coffee in uniform, the ones subject almost exclusively to orders from male superiors – from the officers, to the generals, to the chief of staff and defense minister; the ones who are automatically considered less suitable to serve the country because they cannot serve in all the combat units; the ones who need to be much more creative and determined if they want to succeed in Israeli society without following its social norms.

Here is the BTS press release on the campaign, followed by several videos:

Related:
Israeli occupation: You have to see it to believe it

By comparing the deteriorating security situation along Israel’s northern border with security arrangements in any future Palestinian peace deal, was Netanyahu making declarations to thwart the success of Kerry’s planned peace talks?

Prime Minister Netanyahu said a few interesting (and politically genius) things at the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday. Various media outlets construed his statement in different ways, which was apparent in the different headlines with which they led.

Many English-language news sites chose some variation of the headline: “Israel won’t intervene in Syria unless fired upon.” The Times of Israel, however, led with, “Netanyahu alludes to military action at Syrian border,” which is almost the reverse meaning but remains logical nonetheless, since Netanyahu  was referring to the vaccum left by waning UN forces on the Golan.

Other local Jewish Israeli sites — in Hebrew and English — led with variations of: “Netanyahu says Israel can’t depend on international forces for its security” Haaretz added to its headline the clause: in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians.  Of course all these headlines are connected and related. Most important is the connection Netanyahu makes between the tensions on the Syrian border and a negotiated solution with the Palestinians.

Let’s look at what Netanyahu actually said. (from the PMO’s website):

Netanyahu managed to transition smoothly from saying Israel will not intervene in Syria unless attacked, to stating (read: deducing) that any deal with the Palestinians...

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Since Israel occupied the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem in 1967, it has continued to engage in legal acrobatics to confiscate Palestinian homes and land. In doing so, the state is actively erasing its internationally recognized border – the Green Line.

One thing has become abundantly clear about Israeli policy when it comes to land: first it acts, only later giving its legal stamp of approval. This is essentially how the state was first established and built itself up, and is the story of how all settlements are born to this day in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Make your presence known on a piece of land for long enough, get a trailer, set up a makeshift synagogue, wait until the state provides electricity and water and it is only a matter of time before it is recognized, de facto or officially. The chances that a court will order that an outpost-turned-settlement be removed are very slim (and even slimmer that the state will enforce such a legal decision), as is evident from the half-a-million settlers who live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem today, and the 100 or so outposts that are considered illegal even under Israeli law.

Does it really matter, therefore, what the courts, the attorney general or the High Court of Justice have to say about it, one way or another. For on the one hand, they are committed to the ethics of law, but on the other hand, are bodies that serve a state which prioritizes Jewish rights in every aspect of life.

Israel’s High Court recently asked Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to explain his stance on the state’s confiscation of Palestinian land in East Jerusalem. His answer was that it is a-okay.  The 1950 Absentee Property Law was designed to give the state the legal tools to confiscate Palestinian refugees’ property. The refugees, from the 1948 war, were literally “absent” from their homes at the time – a very fitting criteria considering it was a time of war, during...

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An Israeli amusement park found itself in hot water after being caught segregating Jewish and Arab school groups. But instead of being an aberration, the incident is reflective of the dominant culture of segregation and discrimination that permeates Israeli society from the bottom up.

“Superland” – the Israeli amusement park exposed for segregating Arab and Jewish citizens this week – is the most fittingly tragic and ironic title for how I see the current Israeli zeitgeist. No screenwriter or playwright could have come up with a better concept for a tragic comedy about this place.

It captures the two most dominant concepts of politics and life here: that land is the most precious, contested and painful commodity around which the conflict revolves, and that there is nothing “amusing” about the situation we find ourselves in. It’s not all that “super,” despite the most earnest attempts to sell it as such by Israeli government and PR professionals.

While the Israeli government continues to try and “super-size” the land of Greater Israel beyond the pre-1967 borders, the story of segregation at Superland is a perfect indicator that no matter what your politics are, no matter your position on settlements, your notion of security, how you judge Palestinian resistance or any other issue, the political reality remains undeniably the same. Everyone living on this tiny piece of land — Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis — is in a perennial situation of state-sponsored division, segregation and separation that trickles down — not just in Hebron’s Shuhada Street, or in East Jerusalem, but everywhere.

After the Jaffa school teacher was unable to make a reservation for a class trip to Superland because they are Arab, management explained that many schools – both Arab and Jewish – request to visit the park on days when only other schools of the same ethnic group will be there. According to a statement by the park’s management, this makes sense for them considering they are interested in ensuring the safety of all visitors:

This is the same argument that was made in pre-civil rights America about the utility of separating blacks and whites. It is the same argument that Ivy League university deans...

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Israeli police’s failure to stop the murder of two young Bedouin sisters highlights the arbitrariness of citizenship and discrimination for Palestinians under occupation – regardless of whether they are citizens.

Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls found dead in an unrecognized Bedouin village in southern Israel last Tuesday, is not an Israeli citizen. In a more perfect world, her citizenship status wouldn’t matter, considering she is in an abusive relationship and her daughters’ lives were in imminent danger.

But the Israel Police were well aware of her citizenship status when she went to alert them of her concerns for her daughters’ safety and begged them for help, just one day before the two girls were killed. As Dandis told the press, Israeli police ignored her repeated complaints in both the Arad and Ma’ale Adumim stations, because she is Palestinian. This is likely why they didn’t feel responsible for acting on her complaints, and instead referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee.

Dandis is from Al-Azaria, a town east of Jerusalem in Area B of the West Bank. Area B is under Palestinian civil authority and Israeli security authority, so the Israel Police are in fact responsible for acting there. Furthermore, the girls’ father, who is the prime suspect in their murder, is an Israeli citizen. On top of that, the crime itself took place inside Israel, so any way you look at it, the Israel Police appears to be responsible – and this is likely why the senior officers involved were almost immediately dismissed. Unfortunately, the fact that police are now assuming responsibility cannot bring the girls back.

This horrible murder is a prime example of how efforts to seek refuge from domestic violence can become entangled and entirely dependent on the fuzzy and Kafkaesque guidelines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Under any reasonable norms, anyone living under Israeli rule should be able to seek protection from the police regardless of their citizenship or residency status. But as Amira Hass points out today in Haaretz, Dandis found herself in the “legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.” It is a system in which Palestinian police are barred from taking action against Israeli civilians and Israeli police...

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For the first time in 24 years, Israel Police protected nearly 500 Women of the Wall members Friday morning as they gathered at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem for their monthly prayer service. The women were confronted by thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters, both young girls who watched from the side and men of all ages, who acted violently towards the group of women.

Protesters reportedly threw stones, water bottlers, garbage and whatever else they could in their direction, and a few were reportedly arrested. The police managed to enable a small group of 20-30 women to actually reach the women’s section at the Wall. According to Haaretz, the women planned to bring a Torah scroll, but decided not to at the last minute due to Naftali Bennett’s request. Haredi community leaders, including Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef urged young women to go out in mass to pray Friday to push Women of the Wall members aside.

According to the Haredi community, women are not allowed to wear prayer shawls or phylacteries, or read from the Torah at the site. However on April 25 the Jerusalem District Court ruled that a 2003 Supreme Court decision that such practices disturb the Orthodox character of the site did not warrant arrests by police. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided not to appeal the decision, making Friday’s prayer service the first time in 24 years that Women of the Wall were offered legal protection and some form of official legitimacy.

According to a Women of the Wall representative, the group is greatly appreciative of the Israel Police’s protection, and calls on ultra-Orthodox leadership to denounce all forms of violence against women. Here is a video the group released:

For nearly 25 years, Women of the Wall members have gone every Rosh Hodesh (first of the Hebrew month) to pray on the women’s side of the barricade at the Kotel plaza– but are often harassed and prevented from doing so – and have on several occasions been arrested. The group’s mission is to achieve the social and legal recognition of the right of...

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On Sunday, three Palestinian boys were detained by the IDF in Hebron, along with a Swedish activist who seems to have tried to calmly prevent their arrests. (Footage of the arrest is below, and highly disturbing to watch). According to the International Solidarity Movement, who put out a report on Sunday and has since been updating, the children were released a few hours later, but the Swede is still being held and attempts are being made to deport him.

According to sources from Youth Against Settlements and B’Tselem with whom I spoke, the children were detained because settlers from the extremist Beit Hadassah settlement inside Hebron complained to the IDF that they had thrown stones. One of the children is only 10, the others 11 and 12 (the age of criminal responsibility is 12).

Issa Amro, a Palestinian activist with Youth Against Settlements who has been arrested countless times for organizing and engaging in peaceful protests in Hebron’s Tul Rumeida area where he lives, told me that the arrest of children by the IDF has become a regular “phenomenon” in Hebron. He says the IDF is “pro-settler,” often arresting Palestinian residents, whether children or adults, simply because settlers tell them to – regardless of whether there is any evidence against them. He also points out that settlers are almost never detained after they throw stones, even when the soldiers are standing right there. Issa added: “These arrests do not stop violence, on the contrary, they feed violence more and more in the long term.”

According to Ynet, the Swedish activist was arrested because he tried to steal a soldier’s weapon and resisted arrest – however the first video below makes both those accusations appear false, although he clearly made an effort to stop the soldiers from taking the children. (It is also well known that the IDF tries to deport foreign citizens living and documenting life in the West Bank). I contacted the IDF Spokesperson several times in recent days to hear its side of the story, but have yet to receive a response.

According to B’Tselem, the children were investigated at the Kiryat Arba police station with an adult present, and released 3-4 hours later. The Swedish activist is reportedly still in Israeli custody and trying to avoid deportation.

The first video below, published by Youth Against Settlement, shows one of the children and the Swede being...

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When murder and violence flash in the West Bank, Israelis should remember that on the other days they don’t hear about terror, lots of violence is taking place. Those who choose to live in an illusion of calm and stability should consider themselves both privileged and lucky. And neither of those things can last forever. 

Days like today, ones that start out with a Palestinian stabbing an Israeli to death and end with Israeli settlers rampaging around, starting fires and hurling stones at innocent Palestinian bystanders – many of them children: days like today are a cruel expression of the dire situation we all live in here – but more specifically, illuminate the illusion of stability that Israelis live with.

A few months ago, the IDF was proud to announce that there were no fatal terror attacks in the West Bank at all in 2012, and it really is a feat. In fact, Evyatar Burovsky was the first Israeli victim of a fatal attack committed by a Palestinian in the West Bank since September 2011.

During this “calm” period, most Israelis continue going about their lives. They aren’t affected by the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a daily basis. But days like today, when the phrase “terror attack” is back in the news, Israelis suddenly remember that we are in a violent conflict. The government, of course, does a good job of reminding us we are the victims.

But on all those days when there is no violence against Israelis in the news, on all those days when Israelis can go about their business, the situation is actually not at all stable or calm. It’s definitely not calm for the Palestinian population, specifically in the West Bank where life under occupation is anything but free of violence.

Slavoj Zizek said it poignantly in an essay in the book The Case for Sanctions Against Israel:

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Israeli Ta’ayush activists who were accompanying Palestinian shepherds in the southern West Bank village Umm al Amad on Saturday were confronted by a soldier who lost his cool, to say the least.

According to Guy, the Israeli activist who filmed the video below, this is private Palestinian land (the Otniel settlement is nearby) that the IDF and settlers routinely try and keep the Palestinian residents out of.  In the video below, the soldier can be seen first approaching the Palestinian shepherd, screaming in his face in Arabic: “You better watch it!”  Then Guy tells the soldier not to scream at him and to leave him alone, to which the soldier turns to Guy, screaming: “Get out of here you Israel haters, I’ll kick the crap out of you. You are worse than the Arabs.”

He then turned to one of the female Israeli activists and said: “Shut up, Israel hater who goes to bed with Arabs.”

In a statement responding to the incident in Hebrew media, the IDF Spokesperson said the matter would be investigated as this is not the “kind of behavior that security forces should be engaging in.”

A Facebook post expressing shock and dismay about the occupation by new MK Adi Koll of the ‘centrist’ Yesh Atid party went viral over the weekend. Has segregation between Israelis and Palestinians become so entrenched in Israeli society that expressing empathy for Palestinians is a shocking aberration?

After reading MK Adi Koll’s Facebook status that Noam Sheizaf translated and posted, which has gone viral in both Hebrew and English since it came out Sunday, I paused and thought to myself: Why is this getting so much attention? What’s the big deal? Okay, a Knesset member posted a comment about how awful the situation is for a Palestinian friend of hers whom she visited in Ramallah, and how no photograph she posted could relay the dismal reality. But what’s so special about that? After all, isn’t it obvious there is an occupation here?

Obviously, the fact that Adi Koll is a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, which, despite being considered centrist, is essentially a pro-settlement, anti-two-state solution party, is significant. When MK Dov Khenin from the left-wing Arab-Jewish party Hadash points out the occupation, no one really cares.  When Amira Hass repeatedly reports on atrocities against Palestinians, she, along with Haaretz, is written off as spewing pro-Palestinian propaganda.

So my first instinct was that this MK is young and naive (she is 37), exposing on her official Facebook page that only now, after nearly a century of occupation and 65 years of institutionalized colonialism, is she realizing what the Israeli government is capable of. That she sounds like someone who just read David Grossman’s Yellow Wind for the first time (His 1988 Israeli best seller chronicling his travels in the West Bank every day for 40 days during the First Intifada). But I don’t know Adi Koll, have no idea what her experiences are, how long she has known her friend Amjad from Ramallah, or really anything about beyond this one Facebook status. And besides, the fact that her Facebook status got so much attention reflects less on her than the current atmosphere in Israeli society.

Many people, including several lefty friends on...

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