Wait,
Netanyahu said what?
Posted
by Editor
on October 24, 2015 in News &
Analysis, Palestine,
United States, World | | Leave a response
Benjamin
Netanyahu needs an intervention. And his own people need to undertake it.
Hating Palestinians is one thing. Giving Hitler a pass is quite another.
by
Amer Zahr
There
were warning signs. We all knew he was a little off, but I never thought it
would get this bad. I
have heard him call Palestinians a “demographic threat.” Of course, labeling indigenous people
a “demographic threat” to a colonizing enterprise is pure nonsense. So, I knew
he was a little bizarre, but even I never thought it would get this bad.
I
have heard him call Israel
the “one and only” Jewish state. Of course, as far as I know,
no other person or entity, not even the Upper East Side of Manhattan, has made
a claim. So, I knew he was a little out of touch, but even I never thought it
would get this bad.
I
have heard him speak in front of the United Nations many times. This is where
his delusion has made special appearances. Just this year, he spent 44 seconds staring at the audience. It was
awkward. In 2013, while talking about Iran at the United Nations, I heard
him say, “The
last century has taught us that when a radical regime with global ambitions
gets awesome power, sooner or later its appetite for aggression knows no bounds.”
Tell me about it. In fact, in that 2013 speech, he spent 2535 of his 3015 words
talking about Iran.
I counted. That’s 84%. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani didn’t even spend 84%
of his time talking about Iran.
In
2012, I even saw him stand up in front of all of the distinguished delegations
of the world and say, “I brought a diagram.” Then, as we all warmly recall, he
pointed to a circle with a wavy line coming out of it and said, “This is a
bomb. This is a fuse.” Now, we all know that’s not what a bomb looks like. As Ahmed Mohamed showed us in Texas, a bomb looks like an
alarm clock being carried by a 14-year-old Muslim kid.
So,
I knew he was a little deviant, but even I, a Palestinian who has been
repeatedly racially profiled upon entry to my homeland, who has observed
Israeli checkpoints that utterly dehumanize us, who has even witnessed the
audacious theft of hummus, even I never thought it would get this bad.
A
couple days ago, at the 37th World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem,
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to Haj Amin El-Husseini,
the once-grand mufti of Jerusalem, said: He
flew to Berlin.
Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time. He wanted to expel the
Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, “If you expel them,
they’ll all come here.” “So what should I do with them?” he asked. He said,
“Burn them.”
When
I woke up this morning, I saw this quote all over my newsfeed. At first, I giggled.
“Netanyahu blaming us for the Holocaust is really funny,” I thought. As a
comedian, I always welcome lighthearted satire in times of distress. It can
lift spirits. Actually, I was even a little threatened. “That’s really a
creative story. I wish I would have thought of it first.”
But
then, the story appeared on Haaretz.
Then the Guardian. Then CNN.NBC. Reuters. BBC.
As it turns out, it wasn’t “creative” at all. It wasn’t a comedian lampooning
Netanyahu. It was Netanyahu lampooning the Holocaust.
It
should be noted here that no audio recordings, video evidence, or transcripts
detailing anything close to the conversation Netanyahu recounted exist.
Al-Husseini may not have been a peace-loving saint, but he was no inspiration
for Hitler. Hitler was the inspiration for Hitler. Unsurprisingly, the prime
minister got some basic facts wrong. He declared that El-Husseini was the grand
mufti of Jerusalem
during this alleged conversation with Hitler. El-Husseini’s tenure in that
position ended in 1937. He didn’t meet Hitler until 1941. Netanyahu also
claimed that El-Husseini died in Cairo.
He died in Beirut.
But then again, how important are a couple tiny inaccuracies when you’re
telling really big lie?
Incidentally,
Netanyahu is the son of an academic historian. So, while rabbis will tell you
that being Jewish is genetic, being a historian is obviously not.
So,
basically, it seems that Bibi made the whole thing up. And while making
outrageous claims is something we have come to expect from him, this brings it
all to a whole new (low) level. It’s evidence of a borderline psychotic
disorder. Maybe not so borderline.
Luckily,
his ridiculousness did not go unchecked. Chancellor Angela Merkel immediately clarified that Germany was responsible for the
Holocaust. Israeli Labor opposition leader Isaac Herzog commented that Netanyahu “trivialized” the
Holocaust and called on him to “correct himself immediately.” They weren’t the
only ones to comment. Upon hearing of the fiasco, other voices emerged:Bernie
Madoff: “I have never heard a lie like that. I’m jealous.”, Dick Cheney: “When I was co-president, I could have used that type of talent.”,
George W Bush: “I’m gonna have him help me write my autobiography. And read it
to me.”, Bill Clinton: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”
It’s
living in an alternate universe. It’s seeing the world in a way no one else
sees it. And not in a good Einstein-like way, but in a terrible, destructive,
Hitler-like way.
As
a Palestinian, I am quite accustomed to seeing Israel and its leaders invoke the
Holocaust to somehow justify terrible actions against my people. That is
strange and uncomfortable enough. But in Netanyahu’s twilight zone,
policies of extrajudicial killing, house demolitions, massacres, land
confiscations, and essentially everything Israel has done since 1948, are
recast as some sort of “revenge” for the Holocaust. That’s now how he is making
it all okay. And I have to admit, even I never thought it would get this bad.
Then
again, I guess I should have seen it coming.
Amer
Zahr is an Arab-American comedian, speaker, and writer. Drawing on his
experiences growing up as a child of Palestinian parents, he finds the humor in
society, culture, and politics.
He
has produced and headlined in 3 of his own comedy tours, “1001 Laughs Comedy
Tour,” “We’re Not White!” and “In 1948.”
He
founded and produced the first-ever “1001 Laughs Ramallah Comedy Festival,” a
production in Palestine
that featured 10 comedians and 7
shows in August 2015. The festival
entertained over 2,000 locals and was funded by the US Consulate General
in Jerusalem, a branch of the United States Department of State.
***
Posted:
24 Oct 2015 06:11 PM PDT
Hashem
al-Azzeh harvests his family’s olives directly beneath the Israeli
settlement of Tel Rumeida in the West Bank city of Hebron in October 2012. Ryan
Rodrick BeilerActiveStills
“Hashem was a simple man in his character, but he was solid,” Shweiki added. “He called
for peace all over the world. He didn’t call for any violence. But he wanted to
live in peace in his own land in his home.”
by
Ryan Rodrick Beiler
Hebron
resident and anti-occupation activist Hashem al-Azzeh died Wednesday
after inhaling tear gas fired by Israeli forces.
According
to Palestinian media reports, al-Azzeh, who suffered from a heart condition,
began feeling chest pains while in his home in the Israeli-controlled Tel
Rumeida neighborhood of the occupied West Bank
city.
“There
was no chance to get an ambulance there,” Hisham Sharabati, coordinator of the
Hebron Defense Committee and a field worker for the Palestinian human rights
organization Al-Haq, told The Electronic Intifada. Israeli forces do not
allow Palestinian vehicles to drive on the streets near his home, which are
reserved for Jewish motorists.Neighbors
had to carry al-Azzeh down the hill to the nearest military checkpoint, where
there were clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian youth.“There
was tear gas there and the army kept them [al-Azzeh and his neighbors] for 10
minutes,” said Sharabati. “He had heart problems from before, but his situation
deteriorated because the tear gas made it worse and then the checkpoint delay.”
When
al-Azzeh was eventually brought to a hospital, he was pronounced dead upon
arrival. He leaves behind his wife Nisreen and four children, the oldest of
whom is 16.
Pregnant
wife assaulted
Al-Azzeh
lived in a part of Hebron
that was frequently attacked by Israeli
settlers.“Hashem
lived in a hilly area where the settlers’ homes are higher than his,” said
Sharabati.
Like
all Israeli settlements in the occupied West
Bank, the Tel Rumeida settlement is illegal under international
law. But this particular enclave, comprised of stacks of trailers flanked by
Israeli army checkpoints, houses some of the most fanatical and violent
settlers in the West Bank.
Al-Azzeh
and his family endured sustained harassment from these extremists, including an
attack in which settlers assaulted his nephew, then aged 9. The settlers forced
a rock into the boy’s mouth to crush his teeth, al-Azzeh had said in a video recording.
In
another incident, al-Azzeh’s own teeth were smashed when settlers attacked his
home, ransacking it and destroying the furniture. Al-Azzeh’s wife was assaulted
by settlers twice while she was pregnant in her first and second trimesters.
She miscarried both times.
Fanatic
settlers
“Hashem
had a big role in showing the world, showing the press, showing solidarity
groups, showing any visitor the details of the harassment by the Israeli
colonizers in the city of Hebron,”
said Sharabati. “The settlers practice all these crimes in the presence of the
Israeli army who do not do anything to stop them.”
“Everybody
who knew him loved him for his method of giving the point of view of the
Palestinian residents of Tel Rumeida and Hebron
who are suffering from the settlements,” said journalist and Hebron Defense
Committee member Bassam Shweiki.
“The
settlers of Hebron are the most fanatic settlers
in the West Bank,” he added.
One
of the Tel Rumeida settlement’s founding residents is the US-born Baruch
Marzel, who has been arrested dozens of times by the Israeli authorities
and whose criminal record includes acts of violence against Palestinians and
Israeli police. Marzel has told The Times of Israel, “We need to remove from here all
our enemies.”
Graffiti
spray-painted on the side of a Palestinian school near the al-Azzeh home reads
“Gas the Arabs/JDL.”
“Gas the Arabs! JDL” spray-painted on an exterior wall of the Cordoba School near Shuhada Street in Hebron, October 2012. Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills
“Gas the Arabs! JDL” spray-painted on an exterior wall of the Cordoba School near Shuhada Street in Hebron, October 2012. Ryan Rodrick BeilerActiveStills
JDL
is the acronym for the Jewish
Defense League, which was founded by the right-wing settler Meir
Kahane. Kahane founded Kach — an organization so racist and extreme that even in Israel it was
outlawed and classified as a terrorist group.
Baruch
Marzel, who joined the JDL during his teenage years, is a vociferous supporter
of Kahane.
Another
infamous JDL member was Brooklyn, New
York–born settler Baruch
Goldstein. In 1994, Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians and injured 125 inside
Hebron’s Ibrahimi
mosque before he was beaten to death by survivors.
Following
the massacre, the Israeli authorities divided the mosque into Muslim and Jewish
sections. The killings also precipitated the closure of Shuhada
Street and other areas of Hebron’s Old City
— collectively punishing Palestinian residents for the actions of an extremist
settler.
Harassed
during harvest
For
al-Azzeh, simply remaining in his home was an act of resistance. While many of
his immediate neighbors left as closures choked off virtually all economic
activity in the area, he and his family stayed, often hosting international
visitors and sharing his stories of struggle with them.
This
reporter witnessed a typical episode of Israeli repression three years ago
during the olive harvest. It was the first time al-Azzeh had been able to
harvest his olives in five years.
Accompanied
by a handful of International Solidarity Movement volunteers, al-Azzeh made
relatively short work of his few trees as many of the olives had already been
picked by the settlers.
Israeli
settlers, among them Baruch Marzel, stand at the entrance to Tel Rumeida
neighborhood in April 2014. Keren ManorActiveStills
As
the work was finishing, settlers barged into the small grove, claiming that not
only were the olive trees theirs, but that the entire land had been given to
them by God. When soldiers arrived on the scene, they separated the two groups
and in the process arrested a volunteer and two Palestinians — one -Aalzzeh’s
next-door neighbor and the other a videographer for the Israeli human rights
group B’Tselem.
Even
though an Israeli officer eventually acknowledged al-Azzeh’s ownership of the
land, the officer ordered him and his supporters to leave the area for the rest
of the day. Baruch Marzel stood among the settlers watching the scene unfold
from above.
Pattern
of abuse
That
incident of settler belligerence facilitated by the Israeli army is typical of
the harassment and abuse endured by the al-Azzeh family and many other
Palestinians in Hebron.
More than 50 Palestinians have been killed in shootings and
clashes with Israeli forces since the beginning of October, during which time
10 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians.
“There
are many Palestinians who are involved in resisting the occupation,” said
Sharabati. “It’s true that maybe some try to stab an Israeli settler or an
Israeli soldier. But we believe that in many other cases the soldiers and the
settlers just invented these excuses after shooting.”
A
Palestinian woman passes an Israeli checkpoint off Shuhada Street in February 2015. Ahmad
Al-Bazz ActiveStills
Hashem
al-Azzeh’s form of resistance was “social struggle,” according to Shweiki:
“Struggle by words — by giving every moment of his time whenever possible to
explain what’s happening.”
“He
was a simple man in his character, but he was solid,” Shweiki added. “He called
for peace all over the world. He didn’t call for any violence. But he wanted to
live in peace in his own land in his home.”
About
the author
Ryan Rodrick Beiler
is a freelance photojournalist and member of the ActiveStills collective who
lives in Oslo, Norway.
***
Israel Is Occupation Addicted – by Gideon Levy [VIDEO]
Posted
by Editor
on October 24, 2015 in Activisim
& BDS, News &
Analysis, Palestine,
United States |
| Leave
a response
Gideon
Levy, Respected Israeli journalist, explains why Israel
is like an addict living off the financial aid from the USA to keep
feeding it’s “occupation addiction”
By
Gideon Levy
Embed:
<iframe width="640" height="360"
src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=5691f5b140e6"
frameborder="0" web: allowfullscreen></iframe>
Full
Speech By Gideon Levy – Is the Lobby Good for Israel?
About
the author
Gideon
Levy is a Haaretz columnist and a member of the newspaper’s editorial board.
Long live Palestine
Long live Palestine
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