Our Wednesday News Analysis | Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: No Solutions, No Illusions

Source: Tikun Olam
https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2022/08/10/israeli-palestinian-conflict-no-solutions-no-illusions/

By Richard Silverstein
Published August 10, 2022

Today, there is no solution. Only illusion.

"We have waited 70 years.  Russian Communism lasted for 75 years.  Rome fell after centuries. But eventually a house, the house of Israel-Palestine, divided against itself, cannot stand."

Is there a solution to the conflict? I would argue, no. Forever? No. But for now, there is no reasonable chance to reach such a solution. Has there been a chance over the past 70 years? No. For the next 70 years? Maybe.

This is a tough thing to admit for someone who’s been devoted to the idea that there is a solution, and has been working for decades toward it. But you have to look reality dead in the face without flinching, and say what you really see. Not what you want to see. The truth is very plain. It’s staring us in the face. We just hate what we see so much we don’t want to admit it.

There are many who still harbor illusions about what’s possible. They still believe in fairy tales of love, peace and understanding. Co-existence. Dialogue, Liberal democracy, Two states., etc. etc. I admit I was once one of them. Back in the day, I thought I was a visionary.  I believed in two states when it was still anathema to do so (New Jewish Agenda circa 1981), I believed in negotiations with the PLO and was stoned for it at a Jerusalem protest (1979). As far back as 1969 (age 18) I wrote a paper at Camp Ramah’s American Seminar, comparing Israel’s conquest of the West Bank in the 1967 War to apartheid South Africa...

Read more: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: No Solutions, No Illusions

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'We killed a little boy, but it was within the rules’

Source: +972 Magazine
https://www.972mag.com/gaza-soldiers-civilians-intelligence/

By Yuval Abraham
Published August 11, 2022

Former IDF soldiers reveal how the army authorizes strikes in Gaza knowing civilians will be killed, so long as the number is deemed low enough.
 

Israel’s latest attack on Gaza ended with 48 Palestinians killed, including 16 children. Israel claimed that 15 of those Palestinians were killed by errant rockets fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which landed inside the strip, and that Israeli airstrikes killed 24 PIJ militants and 11 “non-combatants.”

The Israeli news site Ynet quoted army officials boasting that the ratio between “non-combatants” and combatants killed was “the best of all the operations.” And yet, Israel admits that it killed at least 11 people who had nothing to do with militant activities, including a five-year-old girl.

The army also admitted that it shoots unarmed people, according to a female officer who gave an interview to Ynet after the latest onslaught. “The [PIJ] operative came down from the position as he was unarmed, and I opened fire,” she said. “When he fell, I fired more.”

The majority of Israelis believe that any children or families killed in Gaza during Israel’s military operations — the sole goal of which, of course, is security — are killed unintentionally. Unlike the terrorist organizations, the thinking goes, Israeli forces do not knowingly kill innocents. This mechanism allows Israeli society to forget scenes of blood and horror, and push out of our consciousness the hundreds of children that the army has killed in Gaza over the years...

Read more: 'We killed a little boy, but it was within the rules’

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In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed ‘holocausts’ against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks

Source: The Times of Israel
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/in-berlin-abbas-skirts-apology-for-munich-attack-says-israel-committed-holocausts/?utm_source=Breaking+News&utm_campaign=breaking-news-2022-08-16-2819696&utm_medium=email

By TOI STAFF and AGENCIES
Published August 16, 2022
 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has caused shock in Germany when, standing beside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin. Abbas accused Israel of committing, over the years “holocausts” against Palestinians.

At that moment, Scholz did not react verbally to Abbas’s comment in the moment, though he grimaced at the use of the word, which Abbas uttered in English. Scholz later said the use of the term in such a context was “unbearable.”

Abbas made his remarks when the two spoke to the media after holding a meeting on Middle East issues.

Abbas was responding to a reporter’s question about the upcoming anniversary of the Munich massacre half a century ago. Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer died after members of the Palestinian militant group Black September took hostages at the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972. At the time of the attack, the group was linked to Abbas’s Fatah party.

Asked whether as the leader of the Palestinians he planned to apologize to Israel and Germany for the attack ahead of the 50th anniversary next month, Abbas responded instead by citing allegations of atrocities committed by Israel since 1947.

“If we want to go over the past, go ahead,” Abbas, who was speaking Arabic, said with Scholz at his side...

Read more: In Berlin, Abbas says Israel committed ‘holocausts’ against the Palestinians; Scholz grimaces silently, later condemns remarks