#Arabs living freely in Israel

[the-library-alcove]

In the midst of the current Hamas/Israel conflict, the Antizionist movement has gone from being generally ineffectual to a state of being actively harmful in regards to their stated cause of Palestinian liberation.

And from what I've seen there are three primary issues with the Antizionist movement, as it currently stands, that contribute to that harmfulness and also actively inhibit their ability to achieve any of their stated goals regarding Palestinian liberation.

1. Maximalist Stance Focused on Ideological Purity

To the apparent mainstream of the Antizionist movement, there is no other acceptable position than the destruction or dissolution of Israel, possibly featuring a replay/do-over of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and anyone who disagrees is treated as a heretic. Diplomacy? Mutual peace processes? Two state solutions? All of these are not only Wrong, but a cause for shunning the disbeliever.

And, as part of this, people who are actually affected by the issue are spoken over and ignored, if not actively ostracized and attacked. This goes for both Israelis and Palestinians; in particular, Palestinians who are not onboard with this stance are treated as sellouts and traitors deserving of punishment and death, which goes to show how little concern there is in the movement for actual Palestinians, as opposed to the idealized concept of "Free Palestine".

Also affected are Jews living in the Diaspora, who are harm indirectly by the threats to their fellow Jews in Israel, but also directly from the rampant antisemitism in a movement that demands complete ideological conformity in order not to be shunned and demonized. Since 90%+ of them do not conform with that ideological stance, they are essentially freely targeted by the movement.

2. Cargo Cult Activism

This is a problem across the board of the antizionist movement. On one end we have BDS, which is predicated on using the same tactics as worked on Apartheid South Africa against a target, Israel, which has a completely different economy, history, and ethnic structure. And on the other end, we have random protestors trying to "raise awareness" by engaging in truly random acts of protest, sabotage, and arguably terrorism. As part of that, there is a noted tendency of such activists inserting the I/P issue into every other activism issue out there and treating those other issues as subservient and secondary to the I/P issue, if not outright "distractions".

The problem is that these movements and individuals are imitating the feel of effective activism without first identifying why those pieces of activism were effective in the first place. As part of this, there is also an intense willingness to ignore reality that doesn't conform with the narrative they've adopted as part of their activism, because they tell themselves that they are right, and if they try hard enough, reality will conform with what they want it to be... and the planes with cargo will arrive.

3. Rampant Conspiratorial Antisemitism

For a variety of reasons, including the above two, the Antizionist movement is rapidly turning into a Leftist version of QAnon, full of recycled Jew-hating conspiracy theories from the last two thousand years. Blood libel, "Jewish control of the government/economy/media", "Jews killed Jesus" deicide, and more, are not only commonplace, but egregiously popular in ways that make it actively hostile for any but the most compliant or ignorant Jew to be a part of the movement.

This accomplishes nothing in terms of gaining sympathy (as per point 1), but feels good (point 2) and just makes the general Jewish population fearful, and shows that the movement is full of hypocrisy when it comes to anti-bigotry principles, and is thus untrustworthy to the vast majority of Jews in regards to their safety.

#antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #judenhass #the anti imperialism of idiots #I'm not expecting this to convince anyone #but I'm posting it partially to offer my thoughts in the hope that they help other Jews formulate good arguments #and partially just to express these thoughts and get them out of my head #I got the 'cargo cult activism' from another Jumblr member #and my brain went 'hey that's it' #so trying to pass it along

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

Today, the IDF is beginning its internal investigation into the failure to prevent the Hamas massacre on Oct 7. The investigation will check the way the army handled all relevant aspects, covering the period of 2018 until Oct 10, 2023. The investigation is operative in nature, it's not meant to single out and punish the guilty (there will likely be a separate investigation for that later, after the war), it'll be more focused on understanding mistakes that were made, in order to prevent them from occurring again.

It's kind of ironic, how quick westerners are to accuse Israel of genociding Arabs, meanwhile Arab countries (even ones that say similar things) are still looking to collaborate with Israel. In its peace treaty with Jordan, Israel agreed to supply its eastern Arab neighbor with an annual amount of water, but has in reality implemented a deal, where it supplies Jordan with twice the amount it's obligated to. Now, Jordan is asking Israel to extend this water deal by at least another year. Jordan has been one of the more hostile Arab countries when it comes to Israel since the start of the war in Gaza (which is no surprise, since it's the Arab country with the most substantial Palestinian population). Jordan has even gone so far as to back up South Africa in its ICJ case blaming Israel of committing genocide. If Jordan really believed that Israel seeks to genocide Arabs, would this Arab kingdom really be asking the Jewish state to supply it with water? Would it allow itself to depend on Israel for its water supply? Would it be able to say, "please extend this water deal," showing it has in the past trusted Israel with its water supply, and has gotten exactly what it was asking for? Israel is asking Jordan in return to tone down its anti-Israel rhetoric.

There are reports coming out of Russia, that today, an ISIS cell was stopped before committing a terrorist attack against a local synagogue in Moscow.

In the Netherlands, anti-Israel activists have demanded the arrest of the Israeli president when he arrives in the country for a state visit. I have to point out two things. First, the president's role in Israel is mainly a ceremonial one, he has almost no executive power (the most meaningful action he can take, is in pardoning, or refusing to pardon, prisoners). Second, there are Hamas seniors living in and traveling to Europe freely. People who are leading the genocidal, antisemitic Islamist terrorist organization which committed the Oct 7 atrocities are free to come and go as they please, while Israeli officials, even ceremonial ones, have to be worried about their freedoms. This is a twisted reality we are living in.

This:

vs this:

Remember how many countries froze their UNRWA funding, after info started coming out that its employees had participated in the Hamas massacre, and how many of them have ties to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations? Turns out that this only froze about half of UNRWA's annual budget, that quietly some of these countries have begun trickling money back to UNRWA, and that Canada is about to unfreeze its funding for this UN agency. Ask Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau where is the body of Yonatan Samerano, kidnapped by an UNRWA member. Ask him where are our hostages, and how many of them are still held captive because of UNRWA's complicity. Ask him how many Canadian citizens murdered or otherwise harmed on Oct 7 or since, were targeted by an UNRWA member, or because of the pro-terrorist education UNRWA supplies. Ask him how will he say "Never again" on the next Holocaust Remembrance Day with a straight face.

This is 19 years old Naama Levi.

On Oct 7, the second vid that Twitter pushed at me, was the one in which she was seen, being dragged by her hair out of the back of a Jeep, her hands cuffed, and her sweatpants soaked with blood. Not the last pair of bloodied pants or skirt or dress I've seen from that day, but the first, and the biggest shock. Naama is still in Hamas captivity. This is her mother, speaking about this ordeal:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

#israel #antisemitism #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #terrorism #anti terrorism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish #israelunderattack #unrwa #un

[thatdebaterguy]

All of Jewish history, Jewish culture, the beginnings of so many kingdoms, inventions, revelations, history changing events, all derive from this one small piece of land, inhabited by Jews, founded by Jews, lived in for thousands of years by Jews, built from the ground up and turned into a beautiful revitalised landscape by the Jews, fought for and protected by the Jews, and now finally officially held by a government to represent the Jewish and Israeli people. But this land they've owned for millennia, these buildings they've built, cities they've sprung up that began as small villages at the beginning of modern human history thousands of years ago, they now happily share this land with people who's ancestors invaded it in the 600s from the Arabian peninsula, intermixed with the local Canaanite population, drove out the Jews the same way the Romans did, and settled and colonised that land and converted the local population to Islam, only for it to be held by Caliphates and Islamic empires for centuries, the Jews living there in the tens and hundreds of thousands, they thrived, and now welcome so many Arab-Israelis, 20% of Israel's entire population, to freely live in Israel with equal opportunities.

Despite struggle after struggle, massacres, assaults, anti-Semitic acts, the worst genocide in human history, their culture lives on and can be openly celebrated while allowing so many others to come to their land and openly celebrate their own beliefs and cultures. The story of the founding of the Israeli state is one that stems from the first Kingdom of David up until the first wars to remove the modern state of Israel from the face of the Earth. It's one of perseverance, overcoming hardships, resilience and hope. And while not all the people of Israel are innocent, as it is with any country anywhere on Earth throughout history, the people of Israel should never be shunned into hiding their pride for the resilience of their people in history and the amazing things they've achieved, and learning from any past mistakes made. The Jews deserve a home, and the land of Israel has been an unofficial home for them since the dawn of human civilisations. Why is it suddenly such a crime to believe so?

To those in Israel and those who are Jewish who are good people, who live their lives peacefully, just wanting to get through another hardship without being judged for your beliefs, whether you support the Israeli government or not, I hope you can be proud of your culture, your history, without being forced to be ashamed.

#israel #politics #palestine #current events #history #jumblr #jewish

[studiodaydream]

genuinely, genuinely, in the most neutral way possible: zionism in no way claims that jews control the world. idk where you got that from. all zionism is is the belief that jews should be able to live in their ancestral homeland freely. it's not white supremacy, because not all jews are white. please stop spreading hate ❤️

There is no hate for Jews here, only for White Supremacist ideologylies like Zionism.

I have proof that Israel mutilates, and guns down African Jews, who are not the so called "Evil Muslims" that Zionist love to kill and murder for their land and resources.

Most of this is about Ethiopian Jews but the treatment of Refugees from African Countries is even more so appalling.

You cannot tell me to do my research and all I've found is Racism, Islamophobia, Genocide, Mutilation and Murder.

Talks about a Chosen Race, and Superior Bloodlines and not see the White Supremacy that has plagued America and Europe for hundreds of years.

You can not tell me to do my research about Zionism and tell me I don't know anything only to see that your so called "Jewish Nationalist Independence" came from an Antisemitic British man

So no im not spreading hate, I'm spreading facts about the White Supremacist ideology of Zionism. That believes that it shouldn't be criticized because it's Jewish White Nationalism and it's different from regular White Nationalism and if you compare the two and criticize Israel you're antisemitic and you hate Jews.

Judaism is a non violent religion. Jewish Culture is non violent. What is Violent is Zionism and its settler colonialist aggression towards its neighbors, relentlessly bombing them out of "self defense" well the world is watching what youre so called "self defense" looks like.

It looks like dead babies left in hospitals that have been bombed

Isreal's "self defense" looks like a father asking for help with his child, as his dead child's REMAINS are stuffed in bags and yet he begs for help

Israel's self defense looks like White Phosphorus being dropped on innocent civilians

https://youtu.be/geqdxdNEToU?si=js5ZGZC4eajY7uO2

These links show that Israel is not only a White Supremacist Nation like its parents The US and UK but also that Zionism is a White Supremacist Ideology.

I am not spreading hate Anon, I am spreading facts. To deny these facts is to spread hate. To deny that Israel is not a criminal empire and is simply "defending its right to exist" is to spread hate.

Antisemitism is on the rise and it's not because of people like me Anon is it because of Israel and Zionist Settler Colonialist Aggression towards the Palestinians and towards its Arab Neighbors. Israel denies the Nakba and that it stole land at all claiming that "no one lived here before we came" a "empty land with no people". Well there were people and those people had neighbors who saw what Zionist did to their defenseless neighbor with the backing of terrorist countries like the US and the UK. Terrorist Nations that destabilized and murdered millions in 3 separate nations in their "War on Terror".

White Supremacy has no ally on this blog, including Zionism.

If you want to unfollow me go ahead. I will not be swayed by Zionist Propaganda that this is all in "defense" of Jewish Nationhood, and how the only way to "defend" Jewish Nationhood is to invade other countries and murder other people who look different from them because they are the "Chosen People".

We've heard it all before, when the Europeans said they were bringing "civilization" to Africa and the Americas by enslaving our people and stealing our land and resources. When America had its "Manifest Destiny" which led to the genocide of countless Native Americans and the stealing of their land and resources. To Nazi Germany and the "Superior Ayan Race" which killed millions and invaded other nations killing millions of more.

You might be familiar with that last one, the Holocaust. Where millions of Jews were brutally and systematically murdered. But not only Jews but Black Europeans, Romanian Immigrants and LGBTQ Europeans.

But it seems like Israel has forgotten history because it does not treat African Jews equally to its European Jews and is actively Hostile to Refugees from African countries. While committing Genocide against the Palestinians as I type this out.

So if you're reading this I implore you to donate if you can or spread awareness of what's happening in Gaza

https://buildpalestine.com/2021/05/15/trusted-organizations-to-donate-to-palestine/

And your daily clicks

https://arab.org/click-to-help/

Do not allow Zionist to call you antisemitic for calling them out on their lies.

Palestine will be Free, From the River to the Sea

#from the river to the sea #palestine will be free #free palestine #free free palestine #free gaza #jews for palestine #palestinian genocide #support palestine #never again #means never again for everyone

[majachee]

Trying to moralize what's happening in Palestine really shows one's own lack of, well, morals.

"Israel has the right to defend itself!" — self defense does not include bombing hospitals with children, doctors, families, the injured, etc. inside. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include bombing and shooting evacuation routes. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include bombing churchs and cultural artifacts. That is a war crime. Self defense does not include cutting off all access to food, water, electricity, humanitarian aid, etc. That is a war crime and a crime against humanity.

Israel has been doing this shit for years, decades. They are using Hamas as a tool for propaganda. The West hates Arabic countries and its people, it's blatantly obvious here in America with depictions of the Middle East post-9/11 and even before 9/11. Israel is taking advantage of this blatant bigotry and xenophobia.

Every country has it's own unique issues regarding human rights, equality, and separation of religion and the state, unofrtunately. The Middle East is not "uniquely evil" or even UNIQUE for whatever issues the Western media decides to hyperfocus on. I assure you, you can find an equivalent in America or any European country — whether in the modern day or throughout history. This does not make the civilians any less human, this does not make anyone less human. You're not at fault for simply being born in a country the world has unfairly deemed as "evil" or "subhuman." Your purpose in life is to live freely and happy, it is your birthright to live. You do not have to justify your existentence. You don't have to moralize your life. You shouldn't have to. You are human, you were born, and you should be free to live to life you were given.

You cannot moralize killing an entire population of people. Every person on Earth has their own beliefs and values, their own stories. Their own families, histories, passions, hobbies. You can't justify killing an entire civilization of diverse people because of one singular, small ass group. And even then, Israel has lied about Hamas again and again and again. We cannot trust a word that the Israeli government says. Nothing Israel can say about the Hamas will ever justify what they've done for 75 years.

People have the right to live. It's basic human rights and yet so many zionists and self-proclaimed "liberals" in the West refuse to acknowledge that. I suppose it's easier to ignore/justify genocide when you remove the personhood and individuality of the population. They're not people to you if you justify genocide, they're just faceless, void concepts.

Trying to moralize genocide is the same shit Hitler did. It's what Nazis and Neo-Nazis did/are doing. It's what Klansmen are doing. I don't give a flying fuck what Hamas did or did not do, the Israeli government is full of lying scumbags and nothing will ever justify the 75 years of bloodshed that stains Israel's stolen borders. In a parallel universe, everything they're saying about Hamas could be true and it still won't justify shit, because they aren't acting in self-defense and they're killing civilians in the tens of thousands.

By moralizing genocide, you are actively dehumanizing the victims. You don't see them as real people with real personalities. You are justifying murder, rape, torture, cultural erasure, historical revisioning, and wiping out entire societies off the face of the planet. It's blatant eugenics and facism.

#free palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

[maddy-ferguson]

a thread by twitter user @tugunl about life in palestine i thought i would translate and share. it was posted in august, so "before october 7th". most of the pictures are screenshots of videos i couldn't include, i linked them at the start of each relevant paragraph. op was told that he shouldn't defend palestine and didn't know what he was talking about because he didn't live there. what he reported after spending over a month in palestine:

A few months ago, this person criticized me for defending Palestine without even having lived there. And it was true. So I went to live there. After spending more than a month there, here is the reality of Palestinian daily life:

First, this individual claimed that "Israelis have no right to go to Arab territories". This is completely untrue. Here is an example of an Israeli colony, established in the Palestinian Territory. There are several others. You can see Israeli settlers walking peacefully in Palestinian Territories. There are now several hundred thousand living there.

Another example of a colony: In Hebron, Israelis live in the city center, right above Palestinians. But of course, you wouldn't want them to mix and live together: they put barbed wire to separate them. Above, Israelis, below, Palestinians.

Pictured here are stones thrown by Israeli settlers at Palestinians.

What's most telling in Palestine: cemeteries. This one opened in 2021, it is already full. In just two years, the cemetery was filled, including with a lot of children.

The reality is Palestinians live in an open-air prison. They are surrounded by these walls, which lock them into territories reserved for them. More than 700 kilometers of walls. So no, Palestinians cannot "freely travel to Israel".

They cannot even go to Jerusalem, unless they have a permit, which is difficult to obtain. Because yes, if you go to Jerusalem as a Palestinian without authorization, you will be arrested at this kind of military checkpoint. God only knows what happens next.

These military checkpoints allow Israelis to control traffic in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the border between Israel and Palestine: All it takes is for one soldier to decide to close the barrier for everyone to be blocked. Thus, any Israeli soldier is superior to any Palestinian authority. All it takes is for the soldier to lower the barrier to trap the president of the Palestinian Authority behind this barrier. There are over 650 checkpoints of this kind.

Another thing you should know: Israel operates under a system of collective punishment. An attack committed against Tel Aviv? All roads in Palestine will be blocked to punish the population.

Palestinians obviously don't have the right to use roads reserved for Israelis. How can the military tell them apart? Thanks to their license plate. Israelis have a yellow plate, Palestinians have a white plate. An example of the disastrous consequences of the ban on Palestinian circulation: At a school, a young girl required medical attention. The ambulance had to wait 5 hours, the time needed to obtain Israeli authorization to travel on their roads.

Because of these restrictions, a journey that would take 15 minutes to complete if you were Israeli takes an hour if you are Palestinian.

Colonies under construction. Guess who builds them? Palestinians. Of course, because it costs a lot less to employ Palestinians.

I infiltrated a colony. Settlers live very well there. Real estate is cheap since land is free (stolen by the state). It's very green, water is used for the grass and the plants there. In Palestinian territories, I didn't have water 4 days out of 7. Because yes, Israel monopolizes 83% of water resources and leaves only 17% to Palestinians, which of course is far from being enough.

On the left, Tel Be'er Sheba, ghetto for Palestinians. Less than 1km from Omer. One of the poorest villages. On the right, Omer, 3rd best village to live in in Israel, also one of the richest villages (reserved for Israelis obviously).

By the way, this is where the waste of Israeli settlers in the North ends up: in this river, which flows to the Palestinians in the South.

This is an example of Palestinian (in this case, Bedouin) habitat destroyed by settlers. These destructions number in the thousands. Palestinians are losing their homes, which are then replaced by Israeli settlements.

Israel implements a legal regime that makes settlers superior to Palestinians. So a Palestinian is considered an adult at 14 years old while an Israeli settler is considered an adult at 18. A 14-year-old Palestinian who commits a crime will face the punishment of an adult.

Here, near Al-Khalil (Hebron), 7-year-old Ryan Sliman died of a heart attack after being frightened by Israeli settlers who chased him.

Palestinians are losing their lives in this fight for freedom and dignity. This Palestinian marked his flag with his blood before giving it his life.

Bonus: if you're foreign and transiting through Israel, be aware that this country uses racial profiling to determine wether or not you're a threat to them. If you have a foreign-sounding first name, especially from Middle-Eastern and North African countries, or if you have a beard that makes you look too Muslim for them, you will undergo very thorough checks at the airport and a very long interrogation with sometimes personal questions, as well as a search of your electronic devices and of your luggage. I personally underwent an hour-long interrogation, with numerous questions, including:

Are you Muslim?

Why do you have a beard?

Where do you come from? What are your parents' first names?

Why do you have a visa from Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates?

...

Also note that the cost of living in Palestine is quite expensive, due in part to taxation. The products are doubly taxed: first by the settler state, Israel, but also by the Palestinian Authority.

You should also know that I have met Israelis who are formally anti-Zionist but who only have Israeli nationality and therefore cannot move to another country even though they wish to emigrate. I am not at all saying that this is the opinion of the majority of Israeli people, but I mean that not everyone is Zionist. Hence the importance of distinguishing them.

Last tweet added to the thread on October 18th:

Note: Currently, new large-scale clashes are occurring in the Gaza Strip, causing the deaths of many Palestinian civilians. This thread was written two months ago, well before these events. If the media today try to manipulate information, particularly in favor of an Israeli state that supposedly has “the right to defend itself”, what you see in the tweets above is the reality on the ground. Palestinians experience this all year round, from birth to death. The current context only reinforces all the horrors they are experiencing.

#comme ça qu'on les réveille #free palestine #palestine #west bank #this took me a while and not for the reasons you would expect #idk if you guys have seen that article about the last of us and especially part 2 having pro-israel politics but they said the fence/wall #around seattle or whatever was inspired by the walls around the west bank with the watch towers and everything it makes me so sick #i don't play and i haven't watched the show but #the article actually doesn't say pro-israel it just says israeli politics. but anyway #and like i say: brf slt

[eretzyisrael]

President Sisi, how can you say Jews were not persecuted in Egypt?

Once numbering 80 – 100,000, there are fewer than a handful of Jews left in Egypt. Yet ‘Jews were never persecuted in Egypt,’ President Sisi of Egypt declared to US secretary of state Anthony Blinken. Here is Edmond Haddad’s response in JNS News: 

Carefree days on Abu Kir beach in Egypt in 1938 (History of Egyptian Jews Facebook page)

Let me tell you about oppression and persecution: In 1947, my uncle went to prison for 15 months for purchasing a train ticket to Tel Aviv. In 1948, my father broke his arm trying to prevent the burning of his factory. He was beaten in 1950 because of his religion.

In May of 1956, Jews employed by Egyptian public institutions were sent on vacation, then dismissed. When he announced the blockade of Akaba, then-Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser dared the “Jews” to come—not Zionists or Israelis, but Jews. On Nov. 23, 1956, Egypt’s Minister of Religious Affairs declared, “All Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state.” Imams read this statement in mosques across Egypt.

In 1962, I went to the bank with my mother to open a savings account. After the teller saw on my identification card that I was Jewish, he threw the money I gave him back at me and told me that Jews could not have savings accounts in Egypt. Muslim teachers in my school often told us that Jews were not wanted in Egypt, so we’d better not talk in class.

In 1967, all Jewish homes and property were confiscated. All male Jews were put in detention camps for anywhere from six months to three years. Just before Nasser died, all the prisoners were deported and their families expelled.

I summarize two eyewitness accounts from my cousin Gamliel and Ibrahim Farhi, who were both imprisoned in Egyptian detention centers: The police arrested all Jewish males over the age of 18. Their businesses, cars, furniture and possessions were confiscated or auctioned off. The prisoners were taken to Abu Zaabal prison. “No one was called by their name there,” I was told. There were no watches, no shoes and only women’s names for the prisoners. The prisoners were forced to undress and run around the yard while the guards beat them. Their heads were shaved. Most were raped. They were fed white cheese full of worms and bread full of bugs. For six months, their families didn’t know if their loved ones were dead or alive. This torture continued day and night. Nasser released them only in June 1970.

At the time, Egyptian Jews were of mixed education, wealth, religious observance and political beliefs. The wealthier members of the community founded banks, owned department stores and traveled freely abroad because they could afford the bribes required. Most Jews were stateless, because their applications for Egyptian citizenship were almost always denied.

Many Jews converted to Christianity or Islam and tried to assimilate. Jews spoke several languages, but not Hebrew. They were often ambivalent about the State of Israel. Some spoke against Israel even after they were expelled from Egypt. Most of the middle-class and wealthy Jews immigrated to the U.S., Brazil, Argentina and France. Most of the poor Jews immigrated to Israel.

In Egypt, Jews were continually harassed, insulted and mocked. The secret police would knock on their doors in the middle of the night and ask them when they were leaving Egypt. Had they bought their tickets? They had better leave within a week or else. Over 35,000 Jews left or were expelled after the 1956 war. By 1967, there were about 2,000 Jews left in Egypt. Today, there are only two Jews in the entire country.

President Sisi, although you and some of leaders of the Egyptian military have close relations with Israel, most Egyptians continue to hate Israel and Jews. In 2016, a member of the Egyptian group Tawfik Okasha was physically attacked and expelled because he invited an Israeli diplomat to his home for dinner. A 2023 survey of Arabs living in countries that have signed peace agreements with Israel found that 84% don’t support the agreements.

President Sisi, how can you honestly say that Jews were not targeted in Egypt or other Arab and Muslim countries? While living in Egypt, I was ashamed of being Jewish. I was a slave in Egypt and did not realize I was free after we left. I missed my home, school and “comfortable” life. It took years for me to realize that my life changed for the better because I could now live as a Jew and be proud of my heritage.

Read article in full

#Arab-Jewish relations/ Six-Day War #Jews of Egypt

[naazaif327]

It’s so strange to me seeing people bend over backwards to try claiming that there’s absolutely no connection between TLOU2’s setting and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Like, I absolutely love The Last Of Us from the bottom of my heart, those games and characters will stay with me for the rest of my life, but also it’s just like so clear from any angle that Seattle’s war between the Seraphites and the WLF is just Druckmann’s “progressive liberal” zionist view of the irl occupation.

Like, on the one hand you’ve got the WLF (IDF/Israel), who are clearly criticized as being overly militarized and doing a bit too much torture and dehumanization, but they’re also super diverse and queer-friendly, and they’re very accepting of various different faiths and religions while still being overall pretty secular (this isn’t just me speculating btw, as you pass by you’ll listen to various WLF npcs openly talking about their faith and sexuality). They’ve got a fucked up leadership/governance under their angry ruler Isaac, but they’re good people as individuals, they’re just caught up in a cycle of revenge/violence. They’re mostly made up of people who were oppressed (by FEDRA) before staging an uprising and revolting to take back their land, which they lovingly cultivate and make use of innovative modern technology to make their world better. It’s a perfect metaphor for Israel to a Zionist who truly thinks that he has a nuanced view of a country he loves.

And then you’ve got the Seraphites (Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims), an angry backwards religious cult that hates progress and queerness and religious freedom, it’s members all brainwashed and worshipping a powerful prophet who proved her worth by performing miracles to win military victories for the cause. All of their children either become child soldiers or child brides for the elders. They hate using technology or anything from the modern world, their backwards culture holds them back and makes them socially/militarily weak. They enact violent lynchings against any poor WLF soldier that crosses their path. Besides Lev and Yara, they are a monolith, a people who exist as violent enemies to slaughter or as brainwashed masses to be pitied as they are massacred. Again, a perfect metaphor for both Islam and Palestinians to a man who has only ever seen both groups through the eyes of Israeli propaganda.

Notably, there is of course no apartheid, no checkpoints, no forced migration by one group or another in the history of the conflict (which we slowly learn through notes and diaries and letters scattered throughout the game). The WLF did not slaughter Seraphites in order to steal their homes, did not take their land and murder their families, nor did they force the Seraphites into concentration camps. The WLF has not been policing the Seraphites’ crops, has not been seizing their funds or resources, or poisoning their wells. The Seraphites aren’t trying to reclaim their stolen land or get the boot of the WLF off their neck. There is no actual ongoing reason for the war, the only reason the Seraphites are still fighting is to “get vengeance” and “kill the degenerate Wolves” rather than to live freely, because Druckmann sees this as the root of the Palestinian cause. To him, Palestinians are not fighting because they’re oppressed by Israel but because they hate Israeli culture and Judaism, and because they can’t just let bygones be bygones (the “bygones” in this case being ethnic cleansing). To him, Israel isn’t oppressing Palestinians and profiting off their suffering, Israel is just fighting back against antisemitism and maybe going too far to protect itself.

In the game, both sides were hurt by FEDRA, and then after the WLF defeated FEDRA, the Seraphites randomly pushed into the suburbs to terrorize the citizens there, causing them to rush to join the WLF. From then on both sides in tandem kept attacking and thus escalating conflicts into more and more violence. There is no oppression, no power differential, one side is not living in the forcibly abandoned houses of the other. There is no reason for conflict, only the meaningless violence that would immediately end if we could all just get along and stop trading completely equal blows.

The conflict ends on an uncertain note that nauseatingly mirrors the current reality. After escalating conflicts, the WLF launches a violent all-out attack on the largest Seraphite base, their island, wiping out most of the Seraphites, razing their fields and crops, slaughtering their children, and burning down almost everything the Seraphites spent decades building. The WLF in turn have lost much of their military force, but their homes and their children seem blissfully unharmed at the end of this. The future is uncertain, but it seems that the WLF/IOF is the “winner”. And it’s all very tragic to Druckmann of course, the dead Scars/Arabs are a very sad thing that could have been avoided if everyone just listened and relaxed. Material oppression doesn’t matter, and this could all just be solved by having integrated schools or whatever.

#the last of us #tlou #neil druckmann

[kithj]

i'm a little over halfway through minor detail. i got this book for free from the publisher recently, when the frankfurt book fair cancelled the author's award ceremony "due to the war in Israel." Adania Shibli had won the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, "a German literature prize awarded annually to an author from Africa, Asia, Latin America or the Arab world and presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair, one of the global publishing industry’s largest gatherings."

the statement from the fair declared that they were prioritizing and "making space" for Israeli voices at the fair; apparently the only way to do that was by taking it from Palestinians and suppressing their voices instead.

this book is a very hard read. it's quite short but it's taking me a while because i have to take breaks.

while reading, i can't stop thinking about "the cycle of violence" - something that is constantly argued by Zionists and is an idea that has continued to prevail even in a genocide, with people requiring a condemnation (and blaming) of Hamas, despite the 9,000+ dead & continuing bombing of Gaza and violence in the West Bank carried out by the Israeli government and supported by the US. the book itself is very cyclical, with the date, the nameless Bedouin teenager, the nameless narrator, her birthday, the occupation, and the violence - all of it still the same from the start of the novel to the end despite the span of time.

i also keep thinking about this article that discusses the Israeli politics of the last of us; that game totes itself as "exploring the cycle of violence and revenge," specifically, the last of us 2. but when we really look at it, this "cycle of violence" is not some symmetrical force, but rather a cycle that is perpetuated by the occupation.

It's certainly true that individual lives get wrapped up in larger conflicts in horrible ways. Cycles of violence exist in practice as escalations and retributions. A defining feature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the macabre bargaining over which violence is worse. Images of exploded public buses are presented next to collapsed buildings and children being pulled from the rubble. Armed factions swear to deliver retaliation over specific incidents, and do.

But "cycles of violence" are a poor way to understand a conflict in a meaningful way, especially if one is interested in finding a solution. [...]

The difference is that when flashes of violence abate and the smoke clears, one side continues to live freely and prosper, while the other goes back to a life of occupation and humiliation. One side continues to expand while the other continues to lose the land it needs to live. Imagining this process as some kind of symmetric cycle benefits one side more than the other, and allows it to continue. [...]

...it perpetuates the very cycles of violence it's supposedly so troubled by.

there's definitely a reason why this book won the awards it did and there's definitely a reason why Adania Shibli's ceremony was cancelled. but i am glad that it indirectly caused this rippled effect of people reading and talking about this book; over 1500 people downloaded the free ebook on the first day alone. it was only free for the duration of the book fair, and i haven't seen any final figures from the publisher yet. but i highly recommend it; the fitzcarraldo physical edition seems to be out of stock/out of print, but it's available elsewhere or as an ebook.

#personal #books #my reviews

[keshetchai]

About #4 and your further justification of why Israeli people are scared of retaliation… you’re entire post centered the Jewish view point which I imagine you are so that makes sense but it feels “self-centered”? (For lack of a better word) What were the Palestinian’s doing during this besides attacking? Are you saying they did all that and you did maybe two things back?

Oh I forgot to add it sounds like white fears at the end of slavery they were based on the violent slave riots so they were justified /s

It sounds like you didn't understand what I said.

Preface: I'm not Israeli, and I don't live in Israel so my examination of the psychology of Israel as a nation-state is as an outsider. While I converted to Judaism as an adult, I don't have any family who died in the Holocaust or Israel for that matter, and my ancestry is mexican-american so any cultural or generational trauma there is more related to anti-indigenous and anti-latinx history in the United States.

First: My addition was explicitly to identify that the psychological fear of being attacked violently hasn't been solely about displacement (ie Israelis fear violence from Europeans, and thus displace this fear and paranoia onto Palestinians in the form of violence), but rather there has also been antisemitic violence committed by Arab Palestinians prior to the forming of Israel, in addition to a history of many having experienced European antisemitic violence.

My entire post centered around the Jewish-Israeli viewpoint because I was explaining how Jewish Israeli experiences have influenced Israeli Nationalism. It's relevant to understanding how Israeli Nationalism and right-wing ideology gets radicalized and perpetuates, and how it gets justified.

Most people don't just do things for no reason. Understanding their reasons, fears, or psychological motivations, even hypocritical, morally repugnant, or radicalized ones helps you understand lots of things like: how they got there, why they feel their actions or ideologies are sensible, how they can choose differently, what they would want in alternative solutions, and how to counter certain arguments.

Second:

the Shaw Commission Report compiled afterwards by the british is freely available online.

verbatim quotes from the report:

The outbreak in Jerusalem on 23 August was from the beginning an attack by Arabs on Jews for which no excuse in the form of earlier murders by Jews has been established.

[The disturbances] took the form, in the most part, of a vicious attack by Arabs on Jews accompanied by wanton destruction of Jewish property. A general massacre of the Jewish community at Hebron was narrowly averted. In a few instances, Jews attacked Arabs and destroyed Arab property. These attacks, though inexcusable, were in most cases in retaliation for wrongs already committed by Arabs in the neighbourhood in which the Jewish attacks occurred. The outbreak neither was nor was intended to be a revolt against British authority in Palestine.

It also includes a historical overview leading to the 1929 riots including two previous attacks against Jewish neighborhoods in Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1920.

The desecration and murder of people at a mosque is one of the events noted in the report as "the worst instance of a Jewish attack on Arabs," so yes, it was something I noted as a major event, along with the initial violent retaliation when the Jewish teenager was stabbed. Those one are two things are notable and violent as standout cases, but I also noted general spates of mutual violence. Complicating it further is that the report notes many of the Arab deaths were due to British police force, but they weren't able to further break down the numbers as sometimes they were shooting into crowds.

interesting second comment. Here's Mahmoud Abbas's 2007 recounting of his family fleeing Safed when he was 13:

"...we left on foot at night to the Jordan River... Eventually we settled in Damascus... My father had money, and he spent his money methodically. After a year, when the money ran out, we began to work. "People were motivated to run away... They feared retribution from Zionist terrorist organizations - particularly from the Safed ones. Those of us from Safed especially feared that the Jews harbored old desires to avenge what happened during the 1929 uprising. This was in the memory of our families and parents... They realized the balance of forces was shifting and therefore the whole town was abandoned on the basis of this rationale - saving our lives and our belongings."

Palestinians abandoned Safed in fear of retribution for the 1929 pogrom against the Jews, per Abbas's account. Does that also sound like white fears to you? If not, why not?

What if none of these fears justified any of the violence?

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

Jews are now afraid to walk about freely in London. This isn't just an effect of the miltant, pro-terrorist Palestinian cause; it's an effect of dramatic immigration into the capital city.

We allowed millions in, without checking whether the numbers were reasonable, and more importantly, without checking whether these people would be able to live within British societal norms.

The long-term result of this madness has been the nurturing of anti-British factions who feel totally empowered to abuse our civilisation and democracy in order to intimidate, coerce, and threaten other British people into supporting a jihadist agenda.

These pro-Palestinian protesters aren't interested in human rights, else they would have called for Hamas to be added to the international terrorist list and demanded the prosecution of its terrorists for October 7 before criticising anything Israel did in response.

Their call for a ceasefire is inane, seeing as Hamas had a ceasefire in operation from around April 2023 to October 2023. Hamas chose to violate this ceasefire not with its customary rocket attacks, but with the most savage attack on Jews since Hitler's Holocaust.

Therefore, these pontificating mobs have zero evidence that Hamas would adhere to any further ceasefire. They're also deliberately ignoring Hamas' open theft of the humanitarian aid that they so foolishly believe is going directly to Palestinian civilians.

More importantly, pro-Palestinian protesters are deliberately ignoring the fact that a substantial number of Palestinian civilians are on video participating in the October 7 terrorist attack, celebrating it, supporting Hamas even more since the attack, and therefore being incited enough to commit further terror attacks should they be given the opportunity.

This destroys their narrative of Israel heartlessly killing innocent civilians, which is nothing more than a blood libel copied and pasted from the Middle Ages.

These inconvenient realities expose the fact that the Palestinian cause is part of the wider Islamist jihadist agenda, which has always prioritised extermination of the Jews to win victory for the Muslims, followed by conquering and destroying Western civilisation. This is why Palestinian clerics repeat the same calls to terrorism and genocide heard by Islamic terrorists in al-Qaeda, Islamic State, the Taliban, the Ayatollah's regime, and others.

In fact, Hamas didn't even use a Palestinian state as the official justification for their attack (contrary to the false claims made by venal terror apologists like Francesca Albanese), but the al-Aqsa mosque.

The few people in Britain who are familiar with Middle Eastern history will understand the significance of this claim, for it was in 1929 that the Arabs launched an especially murderous riot against the Jews, based on whipping up hysteria over Jews 'attacking' the al-Aqsa mosque.

Israel hadn't been rebuilt then, so how do pro-Palestinian terror apologists like Francesca Albanese explain the exact same rationale being used to motivate anti-Jewish attacks in the 20s and 30s, and now?

Islamic terrorism, built on its concept of jihad, is the issue here. Not the lack of a Palestinian state. If the Palestinians were so concerned about obtaining statehood, they 1)-would have accepted the many propositions for one during the last 70 years, and 2)- wouldn't have committed a terror attack so heinous that almost all Israelis now permanently oppose a Palestinian state, including Israelis who openly supported one beforehand.

It is through wild, reckless immigration policies that Britain has imported teeming masses of people who hate this country and want it subverted through aggressive and even terrorist means.

Nobody dares to point this out in public. But the truth is staring everyone in the face, and it won't go away.

#london #antisemitism #mass immigration #stop mass immigration #jew #jewish #britain #islamic terrorists #jihad #stop jihad #palestinian #palestinian state #two-state solution #hamas #hamas is isis #israel #israeli #holocaust

[thebookworm0001]

everyone is wildly primed to have their anger and fear used against them right now, so while you are advocating and protesting, make sure you’re not falling into shit that is going to cause more harm

The genocide in Gaza is horrific. And it is a genocide. The words coming directly from the mouths of those in charge of Israel’s government are those that demonstrate an intent to utterly erase any Palestinian from Gaza, whether through displacement or death.

Do not let people convince you that this is the fault of Jews. Do not let yourself be swayed into conspiracies that Jews control Hollywood, or the government, or are otherwise collectively conspiring to do harm. It’s bullshit. It causes real, measurable harm and fear. It continues to make rising antisemitism worse. And not only does that antisemitism lead to death, it rightfully increases the fear of more horrors happening.

The attack on Oct 7 was also horrific. As is the rising antisemitism around the world. And the fact that there has been almost no space to honor those dead is a tragedy.

Do not be convinced that the only way to protect the Jewish people is to build a State where only one religious or ethnic group is allowed to live freely. Do not be convinced that safety is dependent upon protecting that State at all costs. When one State is allowed to defend itself by any means necessary, any means will be used and any action will be excused. And do not be convinced that all Arabs or Muslims are responsible for those atrocities. Islamophobia is also on the rise and is also causing real, measurable harm and fear.

Your anger and fear will be used to excuse horrors if you let it.

Don’t let it.

#Palestine #Israel #I find little value in talking on the internet to people who already have the same information and beliefs I do #but what I can speak to #is seeing a lot of people not want actual justice #but would rather put their chosen group or themselves at the top of the oppressive power structures #all the discussion about rising fascism #and it’s like we’ve forgotten that a huge part of it is capitalizing on normal people’s fears and anxieties #I can also speak to how western Christians are down for the destruction of Gaza and full control of Israel #but that’s a fun combo of xenophobia Islamophobia racism antisemitism and Desire for the Apocalypse #basically a hell of a lot more people than would ever admit #don’t consider any nonwhite non American non evangelical christians to be christians #and so they along with anyone who doesn’t fall into that group already don’t deserve to live #and they’re really pumped for god to destroy the world - including and especially the Jews - for not being that specific group

[1americanconservative]

@shadikhalloul

I am Native Christian living in Israel who speaks the language of Jesus Christ.

Most of us 180k Christian Israelis prefer to live under Israel freely rather than under a Palestinian Islamic Authority regime controlling Bethlehem. Israel gives us freedom while living under Arabs has been genocidal for Christians all across the Middle East.

Tucker, I invite you to visit our Aramaic Christian Galilee center. Don't be deceived by collaborators of the Satan.

[phantasm-masquerade]

I have a genuine question. I don't understand the statement "anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism" because to me, they seem very similar. How is the idea that the only Jewish state in the world should not exist not anti-Jewish? The idea that the only Jewish state should be eradicated seems like anti-Semitism from my perspective. I've not yet heard an explanation that makes any sense.

Anti-Zionism, after 1947-8, can broadly be defined as the idea that the creation of the State of Israel was a mistake, and/or that it should not exist. While I am an anti-Zionist, because I don't believe that the state of Israel should exist and that its creation was a mistake, I don't typically use that label because it is associated, for many people, with a vicious kind of antisemitic and racist belief system hidden behind progressive and anti-racist rhetoric.

First of all, yes, there are many Anti-Zionist Jews. Both before and after the creation of Israel, many prominent Jewish thinkers (including my personal hero, L.L. Zamenhof,) argued against the creation of Israel as they correctly viewed it as inherently colonial and imperialist. And do note, when I say it is inherently imperialist and colonial, I don't mean "Jews living there". Any anti-Zionist who takes that view is, indeed, an antisemite. The imperialist part is the state itself, that is created and can only be maintained by the killing, relocation, oppression, and economic marginalization of Arab Palestinians and other groups of people who live in the region.

It shouldn't be up for debate that Jews - all Jews including the ones who can pass for white - are indigenous to the Levant. It unfortunately is, as history deniers both on the left and on the right love to selectively remember history in order to believe whatever would be necessary to believe in order to hate Jews. (See: the Nazi Party chanting "Go Back to Palestine" at German Jews, and then a subset of reactionary anti-Zionists chanting at Israeli Jews to "go back to Europe", even though the majority of Israeli Jews' ancestry never passed through Europe.)

However, the fundamental problem with Zionism is that Jewish people need an ethnostate in order to have safety in their native homeland. And Israel is an ethnostate, as its stated purpose is to be a Jewish State. That state can only be maintained through violence against Palestinians, anti-Zionist Jews, and other groups who inhabit the area. Unlike some Anti-Zionists, I will freely admit that Israel is not an especial evil among states that exist today. It isn't, as the UN General Assembly seems to think, two-thirds of the world's problems. But it is evil, inherently and horrifically so. It is not remotely unique in committing genocides, prioritizing one ethnic group's welfare at the expense of others, and implementing discriminatory laws. But this is not a defense of Israel: it is an indictment of the rest of the world.

Many, I would even say most Anti-Zionists are indeed antisemitic. But that is not inherent to the ideology. It is simply true because most people are antisemitic, and will adapt antisemitism into their belief system.

All states are evil. No state has a right to exist. And that includes Israel.

#hibiki//discourse #israel palestine conflict #israel #zionism #antizionism #free palestine #free gaza #israel hamas war #anarchism

[aronarchy]

https://archive.md/fVseb

Uri Misgav May 30, 2014

… It’s Judeo-Nazis. Scions of a unique group which Yeshayahu Leibowitz prophesized so well immediately after the great victory of 1967. Racism, murderousness and profound hatred originating in a religious-messianic worldview that is fueled by the occupation and settlement enterprise.

Of course at this stage, they’re on the margins. But history has proven that the question is how the center responds to the margins. In the wake of the most recent outbreaks of Kristallnacht-inspired rioting, the settler right hastened to label the rioters disdainfully as “graffiti-scribbling youth.” In the buses, more and more stickers are cropping up in Hebrew and Arabic with the warning: “Don’t even dare think about a Jewish woman!” Posters and articles warn not only against “assimilation” but also against Arab employment and housing. Behind this perception there are people, arbiters of halakha or Jewish religious law, organizations, and political movements. Is anyone bothering to investigate, to arrest, to judge? …

Nazism began as a marginal and disturbed ideology that at a certain stage suited the interests of Prussian militarism, the political right and wealthy businessmen, who were horrified at the blossoming of socialism. At first they snickered in secret at the Nazis, afterwards they aspired to exploit them for their own purposes, in the end it was too late.

In the state of the Jewish people it’s already too late. There is no place where we can take the shame and the terror. The center is apathetic. The left is defeated and afraid, in despair, emigrating, fighting among itself, just as in Germany of the early 1930s. Meanwhile generations of Israelis, incited and consumed with hatred, are flooding the public space, and there is nobody to confront them.

Salvation won’t come from the Tzavta theater. They don’t give a damn about Amos Oz. They’re on YouTube with David the Nahal soldier and on Facebook, where one Israeli, a retired Israel Defense Forces employee, suggested collecting Oz’s books and using them as fuel for the Lag Ba’omer bonfire.

The big story is the atmosphere. Thirty years ago the entire country was in an uproar when Shin Bet security service agents killed two terrorists who were captured during a bus hijacking. Today anything goes. When there’s no border there are no limits. That is the price of the occupation and the rite of victimization.

A boy emerges from a known opening in the separation barrier in order to pick herbs, and is shot to death. Little girls return from school walking through a settlers’ orchard, and are detained for hours by Judea and Samaria District police after the owner of the estate complained that a few cherries were picked. A security guard at a border crossing kills a judge as a result of an angry exchange, and suddenly it turns out that the cameras weren’t working. When the cameras work from the Palestinian side, we [question the] quality of the film instead of asking how two boys were killed at a demonstration.

Only the accursed poetics works overtime. For example, when it turns out that a soldier from the well-oiled IDF “communications division” decided to join the firing at demonstrators for the fun of it. Or when an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, one of the “living witnesses” that the government is so eager to have accompany trips to the extermination camps, slips and is seriously injured at the end of a visit to the Majdanek camp. The Education Ministry rejects all responsibility, responding to a lawsuit by saying she “freely chose to join the trip to Poland… and if the supposed accident really did take place, it happened due to the negligence of the plaintiff, who didn’t pay attention to where she was going.” Here you have it, bloodcurdling bureaucracy and the banality of evil, here in the land of milk and honey.

.

#repost of someone else’s content #article #Israel #fascism #racism #violence against children #end the occupation #Holocaust mention #antisemitism

[eretzyisrael]

In early 2018, President Donald Trump froze a large portion of the funding that the United States provides annually for UNRWA (the United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees a in the Near East). Prior to imposing the $125 million freeze, Trump tweeted: "[W]e pay the Palestinians HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS a year and get no appreciation or respect."

The president's move came in response to the fact that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his henchmen yet again were rejectingAmerican and Israeli peace overtures. Yet it was both welcome and necessary for reasons well beyond Palestinian intransigence. UNRWA not only has an abominable record of ties to terrorism, which makes a mockery of its mandate to " provide relief, human development and protection services;" but its entire existence is based on a false premise -- a special UN definition of "refugee" for Palestinians that sets them apart from other people in the world categorized as such. It thus has been able for decades to keep cash flowing freely into its coffers, providing "humanitarian services" for millions of Palestinians who are not refugees by any measure. As the ZOA's Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel recently wrote:

"All this stands in stark contrast to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the international body that deals with all refugee problems other than the Palestinian Arabs. UNHRC observes a universal definition of refugee status, one that applies solely to those who actually fled their country during hostilities, civil war, natural disaster, or other disturbances. UNHCR works to resettle refugees quickly and dismantle the temporary refugee camps housing them. Nor does it count descendants as refugees. "This has immense practical ramifications: in literally all other cases other than the Palestinian Arabs, the number of refugees shrinks over time — chiefly through successful resettlement. In contrast, in the Palestinian Arab case, their numbers continue to expand ceaselessly. "Thus, instead of the living original refugees officially numbering 30,000, UNRWA now services some 5.3 million Palestinian Arabs."

The actual number of Palestinian refugees is likely even lower than that cited by the authors: a classified State Department report, delivered to Congress in 2015, reveals it to be closer to 20,000. The report showed that billions of taxpayer dollars have been funneled over the years into an organization that seems to have been perpetuating a fraud. It is no wonder, then, that the Obama administration kept the report's contents a secret from the American public. More surprising is the fact that, since the report was first submitted to Congress in 2015 -- and subsequently exposed by the Washington Free Beacon in January, 2018 -- it has yet to be made public. To rectify this situation, fifty-one members of the House of Representatives signed a letter on April 18 -- spurred by the Middle East Forum -- calling on Trump to declassify the report.

The letter reads, in part:

"We commend your leadership in guiding the U.S.-Israel relationship to its best years in recent history, and also for finally recognizing that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel...an important step in reaching a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. We have tremendous confidence that you will continue taking such steps to resolve the conflict, and encourage you to next address the so-called 'Palestinian refugee' population "America has provided $1 billion to ...UNRWA over the last four fiscal years, and nearly $6 billion since UNRWA's inception in 1950. We are concerned that American taxpayer dollars are not being used properly. Your withholding of funds from UNRWA in January on the condition that they reform was a tremendous first step. American taxpayers deserve to know how they tax dollars are spent on Palestinian refugees and their descendants. "In order to investigate the matter, the Senate Report 112-172 to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, And Related Programs Appropriations bill in 2012 directed the Department of State to issue a report to Congress detailing 'the approximate number of people who, in the past year, have received UNRWA services: (1) whose place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948 and who were displaces as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict; and (2) who are [their] descendants... "...Finally, in 2015, the Obama State Department delivered the mandated report to Congress in classified form despite no apparent national security threat or known historical precedent...We believe this classification was inappropriate and a deliberate attempt to conceal information from American taxpayers... "We respectfully request that you instruct the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration to declassify this report. The issue of the so-called Palestinian 'right of return' of 5.3 million refugees to Israel as part of any 'peace deal' is an unrealistic demand, and we do not believe it accurately reflects the number of actual Palestinian refugees..."

Pictured: Ann Dismorr (right), the Director of UNRWA in Lebanon, poses with a map that erases the State of Israel and presents all of it as "Palestine." (Image source: Palestinian Authority TV via Palestinian Media Watch)

Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"

#unrwa #donald trump #mahmoud abbas #unhcr #palestinian refugees