Our Wednesday News Analysis | Gaza’s Children Can Only Dream of What Yair Lapid's Daughter Has

Source: Haaretz

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2022-09-25/ty-article-opinion/.premium/gazas-children-can-only-dream-of-what-yair-lapids-daughter-has/00000183-704e-d65f-a1ff-7c7e560e0000

By Gideon Levy
Published September 25, 2022

Lapid wants to evoke tears and sympathy.

That might work in a Jewish senior center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but it can no longer work with serious people who know the reality.

Prime Minister Yair Lapid has a daughter with special needs. Her name is Yaeli and she is autistic. Lapid talked about her in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in New York Thursday.

It’s always moving to hear a father speak warmly of his daughter, certainly when she is one with special needs, and it’s good that the Lapid of the past few years hasn't tried to conceal her, thus contributing to increasing autism awareness.

But there is one context in which Lapid should not do this, the context in which he made cynical and manipulative use of his Yaeli, the context that shows him lacking self-awareness at best and lacking a conscience at worst: In his speech, Lapid brandished Yaeli to show how wretched he is and how wretched a position Israelis find themselves in. Last year he had to run with her to a bomb shelter at 3 A.M.

“All those who preach about the importance of peace are welcome to try running to a bomb shelter at 3 A.M. with a girl who does not speak. To explain to her, without words, why there are those who want to kill her,” Lapid told the world, like a beggar showing off the stump of his amputated limb. They want to kill Yaeli. Lapid wants to evoke tears and sympathy. That might work in a Jewish senior center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but it can no longer work with serious people who know the reality.

Yaeli had to run to the shelter after Israel put all the children of the Gaza Strip, including those with special needs, in a terrible cage 15 years ago. It’s hard to run with an autistic child to a shelter, but in this case she is not the victim. Her fate is irrelevant, while around her are victims who are immeasurably worse off. They are not victims of fate, like Yaeli, but rather victims of the state led by her father. Her father has done nothing so far to ensure that they will suffer less or that Yaeli will not have to run to the shelter...

Read more: Opinion | Gaza’s Children Can Only Dream of What Yair Lapid's Daughter Has

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: MY BITTER RETURN TO PALESTINE

Source: The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/27/no-place-like-home-my-bitter-return-to-palestine?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

By Fida Jiryis
Published September 27, 2022

All that remained of the village of Suhmata since the Israeli bulldozers had come were olive trees and a few jutting stones … which was more painful: being totally removed and far away, or having to pass by the site of their village and see its ruins?

At 22 years old, I set foot in my country for the first time. My parents were Palestinian, but in 1970 they had gone into exile. We had been living in Cyprus after fleeing the war in Lebanon. Now, a new era of reconciliation had arrived. A year or so after the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) were signed, we were finally allowed to go back. It was exciting to return to our ancestral home after all these years. Our extended family in the Galilee, especially my grandparents, were overjoyed, and we were swamped in a tide of love. I was thrilled to finally return. I wanted a country. I wanted not to feel like a foreigner anymore. This was a dream come true. The years of statelessness were behind us. But going home was much harder than I imagined, for all of us.

My father struggled to find his bearings in Israel, which had changed so drastically in his years away. He had grown up in a rural village in Galilee, but had gone into exile due to his political work and involvement in a Palestinian resistance movement. He had also published a book, The Arabs in Israel, detailing the harsh fate of Palestinians who remained after the occupation. In Beirut, and then in Cyprus, he went to work for the PLO, and became a close associate of PLO leader Yasser Arafat. On our return, Arafat pressed him to take a post with the newly established Palestinian Authority.

But my father did not want a bureaucratic position, feeling it would hold him back after his years of independent research and writing. He remained in an advisory capacity to Arafat, meeting with him at his office, in hotels, or with friends. The PLO headquarters had been moved from Tunisia to the West Bank. Palestinians in Israel were largely free of the hassle that my father had endured before he left, when they were repeatedly harassed and arrested, their houses raided and torn apart. Now, though, they had a more generalised system of discrimination to deal with...

Read more: No place like home: my bitter return to Palestine

WILL THE UNITED NATIONS FINALLY DELIVER JUSTICE FOR PALESTINE?

Source: Ramzy Baroud, Politics for the people
http://www.ramzybaroud.net/will-the-united-nations-finally-deliver-justice-for-palestine/

By Ramzy Baroud
Published September 21, 2022

Until the power distribution at the UN reflects the true democratic wishes of the world’s population, Palestinians are deemed to remain at a disadvantage at the UNSC.

In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member.

Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the Palestinian Authority has lobbied for such a status. In September 2011, the PA’s quest for full recognition was stymied by the Barack Obama Administration, forcing Palestinians to opt for the next best option, a ‘symbolic’ victory at the General Assembly the following year. In November 2012, UNGA Resolution 67/19 granted the State of Palestine a non-member observer status.

In some ways, the Resolution proved to be, indeed, symbolic, as it altered nothing on the ground. To the contrary, the Israeli occupation has worsened since then, a convoluted system of apartheid deepened and, in the absence of any political horizon, Israel’s illegal Jewish settlements expanded like never before. Moreover, much of the occupied Palestinian West Bank is being actively annexed to Israel, a process that initiated a slow but systematic campaign of expulsion, which is felt from occupied East Jerusalem to Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron hills.

Proponents of Abbas’ diplomacy, however, cite such facts as the admission of Palestine into over 100 international treaties, organizations, and conventions. The Palestinian strategy seems to be predicated on achieving full sovereignty status at the UN, so that Israel will then be recognized as an occupier, not merely of Palestinian ‘territories’ but of an actual state. Israel and its allies in Washington and other Western capitals understand this well, thus their constant mobilization against Palestinian efforts. Considering the dozens of times Washington has used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Israel, the use of veto is also likely, should Palestinians return to the UNSC with their full-membership application...

Read more: Will the United Nations Finally Deliver Justice for Palestine?