Our Wednesday News Analysis

Source: Al-Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/12/22/i-am-living-my-own-nakba

By Asem Al Jerjawi
Published December 22, 2024

"The pain is not just physical. It is also psychological. Witnessing the unthinkable – the constant fear, the loss of loved ones, the struggle for basic survival – has taken an enormous toll. During sleepless nights, the deafening roar of rockets and the memories of dismembered bodies and ruined homes haunt us.

I look at the members of my family, and I see how much their faces have changed; their hollow eyes and silent tears speak volumes.

Walking in the street, I see communities
known for their generosity and solidarity
shattered by loss and destruction.

It’s clear that Israel’s goal is to force Palestinians out of historical Palestine
by any means."

My grandfather, Hamdi, was just eight when his family fled Bir al-Sabaa, a town in southern Palestine once known for its fertile land and agricultural life. His father, Abdelraouf, was a farmer who owned nearly 1,000 dunams of land and cultivated wheat, selling the harvest to merchants in Gaza. The family had a happy and comfortable life.

In October 1948, several months after European-Zionist forces had proclaimed the creation of Israel, Israeli troops attacked Bir al-Sabaa, forcing thousands of Palestinians, including my grandfather’s family, to flee under the threat of being massacred.

“We fled Bir al-Sabaa when the militias arrived,” my grandfather often told me. “My father thought it would only be temporary. We left our home, land and animals behind, thinking we’d return. But that never happened.”

Hamdi’s family fled on foot and by horse-drawn cart. What they thought would be a few weeks of displacement turned into permanent exile. Just like 700,000 other Palestinians, they were survivors of what we now call the Nakba...

Read more: I am living my own Nakba

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INSIDE ‘GREATER ISRAEL’: MYTHS AND TRUTHS BEHIND THE LONG-TIME ZIONIST FANTASY

Source: Mondoweiss
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/12/inside-greater-israel-myths-and-truths-behind-the-long-time-zionist-fantasy/

By Qassam Muaddi
Published December 17, 2024

The expansive territorial ambitions of creating a "Greater Israel" once seemed only to be a right-wing Zionist fantasy. Today, current events in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria show it might be closer than many ever thought possible.

A photo that has gone viral on social media allegedly shows Israeli forces occupying the peak of Syria’s Mount Hermon on December 8, 2024. (Photo: Social Media)

As Israel pushed its forces deep into sovereign Syrian territory following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime the term ‘Greater Israel’ has resurfaced in media coverage. The term has been used in recent days to describe Israel’s military expansion beyond its currently recognized borders, an ever-expanding definition of what the Israeli state can come to encompass. The maps used to describe the vision often echo biblical stories that many Zionists consider as history. But what is the ‘Greater Israel’ idea in actuality? Is there really such an Israeli project? And how realistic is it that it will be realized?

"... the expansionist supremacist ideology fueled by religious fanaticism,
currently making its way over dead bodies and the rubble of entire cities,
is not only a bad memory of the colonial past."

While the territorial dreams of the right-wing Zionists once appeared to be nothing more than colonial fantasies, current events in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria show the hopes for the ascendant Israeli far right might be closer to fruition than many ever thought possible.

What is ‘Greater Israel‘?

The term “Greater Israel” refers to the idea of a Jewish state expanding across large parts of the Middle East as a supposed reincarnation of what the Bible describes as the territory of the ancient Israelite tribes, the Israelite kingdom, or the land promised by God to Abraham and his descendants. There are at least three versions of ‘Greater Israel’ in the Bible.

In the book of Genesis, God promises Abraham the land “from the brook of Egypt to the Euphrates,” for him and his descendants. In the book of Deuteronomy, God tells Moses to lead the Hebrew people in the taking over of the land that includes all of Palestine, all of Lebanon, and parts of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. And in the book of Samuel describes the ‘united monarchy’ established by the bible’s King Saul, then expanded by the bible’s King David to include Palestine without the Negev desert, parts of Jordan, all of Lebanon, and parts of Syria.

In the early 20th century, the debate over the limits of the yet-to-be Jewish state was the main reason for the emergence of the revisionist current within the Zionist movement. In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised to establish “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” The name “Palestine” had described essentially the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean for 4,000 years, with varying limits, often as a sub-part of Syria or its own province under different empires. But since borders weren’t defined yet in the then-Ottoman Levant, the eastern bank of the Jordan River was widely seen as an extension of Palestine...

Read more: Inside ‘Greater Israel’: myths and truths behind the long-time Zionist fantasy

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'WE NEED TO PROTECT THE PALESTINIANS IN THE NAME OF A SHARED FUTURE,' SAYS ISRAELI-GERMAN PHILOSOPHER OMRI BOEHM

Source: Haaretz
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-12-14/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/israelis-need-to-protect-the-palestinians-in-the-name-of-a-shared-future/00000193-c0a8-d80a-ad9b-f6ad32780000

By Netta Ahituv
Published December 14, 2024

The Israeli left, since October 7, has shown itself no less deserving of criticism than the global left, says the Israeli-German philosopher Omri Boehm, a universalist who advocates a one-state solution as the only way to achieve full human equality here

Omri Boehm. "We need to protect the Palestinians in the name of a shared future, even if that causes a crack in the Israeli 'us.'"

"I hear you, and I hope you hear me too," to which one responded,
"We hear you, but we don't agree with you.”

To which Boehm replied:
"That's excellent.
That is exactly the attitude we should be about.”

"I've heard that there was a controversy about this talk and I have a little warning: I intend to try to disappoint everybody."

               The setting was a public square in Vienna with an overflow audience as Omri Boehm began his address last May. Boehm had been invited to deliver this year's annual "Speech to Europe" – a prestigious European platform for intellectuals.

               A year earlier, the speaker was Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

               In 2022, the noted American historian Timothy Snyder delivered the speech.

Opposition to Boehm's invitation came from members of the Jewish community of Austria, Israel supporters who viewed the Israeli-German philosopher as an "anti-Zionist" who was unworthy of the honor. They drew on comments by Boehm in the media and in earlier speeches, in which he assailed the Israeli government's actions during the past year in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and called for the establishment of a Jewish-Arab confederation between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, a single state in which Palestinians and Jews would coexist in full equality.

During the Vienna speech, delivered in English, Boehm's detractors held up protest signs with messages like, "Demonizing Israel is antisemitism." Responding to that particular sign, Boehm said that while he agrees with the sentiment and had no intention of demonizing Israel, legitimate criticism of Israel must not be silenced. Cries of "You're lying" and "Shame on you" continued to be heard from the audience. Addressing the demonstrators directly, Boehm said, "I hear you and I hope you hear me too." One of the protesters responded: "We hear you, but we don't agree with you," to which Boehm replied: "That's excellent. That is exactly the attitude we should be about."...

Read more: 'We Need to Protect the Palestinians in the Name of a Shared Future,' Says Israeli-German Philosopher Omri Boehm