Extremist violence is pushing the West Bank to the Brink
The fate of Israelis in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank: Palestinians are fearful. Israelis have no choice but to ask the Israelis
Israeli soldiers are failing to protect Palestinians in occupied areas because of the military operations in Gaza and the shock all Israelis felt about the atrocities committed by Hamas.
The atmosphere in Israel is blamed on the right-wing government which plans to give more weapons to settlers and expand the settlements. Deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank are also at their highest point since the 2000s, adding to the tensions and the sense that this whole territory is on edge. On Thursday, Israeli officials said that Palestinians opened fire on a car and killed the Israeli driver.
The West Bank has already been hit by uprisings before, and feels like it is ready to explode. Palestinian and Israeli security establishment worry about what will happen if it does. If the violence from the West Bank continues, it could open another front in the conflict, raising the chance of a larger conflict.
Gaza and the West Bank are two separate areas that Israel captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, effectively sealing it off and leaving its residents subject to a tight blockade that throttled its economy.
More than 130 Israeli settlements are considered illegal because they were placed on occupied land, and complicating the West Bank further.
Many settlers believe that the Jews have been living in the area since biblical times and that Israel justly won the land decades ago in a war.
In recent days threatening leaflets have been put under the hood of Palestinian cars.
“A great catastrophe will descend upon your heads soon,” read one flier. We will destroy the enemy and expel them from our Holy Land. Wherever you are, carry your loads immediately and leave to where you came from. We are here for you.
On Israel’s “Ignorable” Governing Policy: The Case of Israeli-Israeli Massacres and the “Greatest Nation on Earth”
That concept — that anti-Zionism and antisemitism are equivalent — is at the heart of a generations-long argument. Many mainstream organizations endorse and reject the position, including many progressive Jews. Critics say that tying a disavowal of Zionism to antisemitism discourages critical discourse about Israeli policy.
“My overarching critique of Noa is that she is part of an effort that is led by the Israeli government to conflate all strident criticism of Israeli governmental policy with antisemitism,” said Simone Zimmerman, a writer and activist who helped create “If Not Now,” a movement of American Jews who are critical of the Israeli government for its policies toward Palestinians.
She said that Israel was brutally attacked three weeks ago by people who wanted to destroy her. “If Mexico would have done the same thing to the United States, nobody would have told the U.S. three weeks in ‘restrain yourself.’ In an impossible situation, Israel is doing all it can.
She demurs only when she is asked if she stands behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his handling of the war. She said she didn’t want to talk about it.
In her social media videos and interviews, Ms. Tishby uses her charm to speak with ease, the self-assuredness of a politician who knows her talking points very well, and the zeal of an activist who is willing to reveal her emotions but not give in to them.
She wants to reach those on the political left that think the killing of 1,400 Israelis and the kidnapping of more than 200 others was an action of Palestinian resistance. She said that the progressive left had been played.
In Israel we find ourselves at a tipping point for the Middle East, for the world and at the center of an epic struggle over who is the greatest nation on earth. This isn’t a battle between Jews and Muslims. It’s not just between Israel and Hamas. Those who adhere to the rules of humanity and those who practice a barbarism have differing views of what barbarism should be.
The tragedy of Occupy Gaza: the story of Ms. Tishby, the friend of the terrorist hijacker, and the Palestinian civil and political rights lawyer
Ms Tishby spoke to the camera about the plane that crashed in the World Trade Center. “Imagine if within days of the Al Qaeda attack on 9/11,” she said, “a group of students on American campuses were holding rallies in support of that terror attack.” She said that’s what is happening on campuses right now.
Ms. Tishby grew up in a politically active, progressive family in Tel Aviv. She served in the Israel Defense Forces, in what might be thought of as the Israeli U.S.O. She traveled from “the Golan Heights to Hebron to the Gaza Strip,” she wrote in her book, singing cover tunes and performing sketches for her fellow soldiers.
While still in the army, she was cast in a television drama as Dafna Maor, a designer hired to bring youth and relevance to a fashion company. The show was named for an affluent suburb of Tel Aviv.
The death of Mr. Nabaheen was reminders that we should only accept a status quo where the siege is lifted and the occupation ends. A status quo of freedom.
I am completing my PhD in the United States and working as a human rights lawyer. I also handled Palestinian civil and political rights cases. I represented him in a landmark case in which he sought to have his life-changing injuries heard in the Israeli court system. The case didn’t go how we had hoped it would: It ended with the Israeli Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of a 2012 law under which residents of the Gaza Strip are effectively banned from claiming civil remedies against Israeli actions, including unlawful actions with no connection to active situations of armed conflict. The case of Mr. Nabaheen made it clear that no one in Gaza can be compensated for damages caused by Israel.
I write these lines from Jerusalem, after spending time with the families of some of the 240 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7. Foreign citizens of different ethnicities, as well as Jewish Israelis, Muslim Israelis, and other Israeli citizens are currently held in Gaza.
In all my years of public life, the meetings with these families were the most difficult and fraught I’ve ever held. I have spoken with many people who were killed that day and many more who were murdered at the music festival in the living rooms and kitchens. I had to wash the blood off my shoes after returning from one kibbutz devastated in the attack.
Just like ISIS and Al Qaeda, the Hamas terrorists who attacked Israeli homes and families had no qualms about burning babies. They tortured, raped, and destroyed people. They were so proud of their deeds that they made sure to capture them on video and even broadcast them live. These videos will forever remain a stain on those Palestinians and their supporters who celebrated that day and a testament to the depravity of the terrorists and of the ideas that inspired them.
We’ve heard certain governments fail to denounce Hamas, instead condemning Israel’s response and even seeking to offer justification for Hamas’s atrocities. It would have been unthinkable to hear such moral confusion uttered after the Sept. 11 attacks or after bombings in London, Barcelona and Baghdad. When I spoke to a joint meeting of Congress this year, I said terrorism “contradicts humanity’s most basic principles of peace.” It turns out that not everyone agrees.
In the months and years before the Hamas massacre, we began to see signs of the emergence of a better Middle East, from the Persian Gulf to North Africa — one inspired by progress and partnership, one in which Israel could finally feel at home among our neighbors. Will this be the world that emerges from this crisis? Is the world desired by the fundamentalists of Hamas?
During President Biden’s visit to Israel a few weeks ago, these are questions that will be important among the strategic issues on the agenda.
Much is at stake at this moment, not just the future of Israel. On Oct.7, we were woken up by a shocking challenge to our hopes and morals. How we meet this challenge will shape our future.
