Our Wednesday News Analysis | Opinion | This Is the Unnamed Palestinian Casualty of Israel's Assault on Jenin

Smoke rises during a large-scale Israeli military operation in the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday.Credit: MOHAMAD TOROKMAN/ REUTERS

"Even if the situation is not classified as a military occupation, as Israel declares,
common sense would call for Israel to allow Palestinians under its control
to economically develop so as not to instigate even more poverty, and loss of hope,
which can lead some, especially the young, turn to the path of violence."

Depending on who you talk to, the Palestinian economy is either in intensive care, a victim of relentless and prolonged Israeli military aggression or it is thriving, exhibiting remarkable resilience in the face of all the challenges it faces.

In May, The World Bank reported that the Palestinian economy had a “bleak” outlook, citing Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and more restrictions on the West Bank.

In June, Firas Melhem, governor of The Palestine Monetary Authority, told a group of business people in Nablus the good news that the Palestinian banking sector was growing and amounted to some $21 billion dollars of capital...

Read more: Opinion | This Is the Unnamed Palestinian Casualty of Israel's Assault on Jenin

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THE WORLD ZIONIST ORGANIZATION (WZO) AND ZIONISM

Source: The Times of Israel

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-wzo-and-zionism/

By Judy Halper
Published June 30, 2023

Image credit: Yudkey, via Wikimedia commons

“… its definition of periphery is based on the 'GREATER ISRAEL PLAN.'
The northern region under its aegis, for example, include both the Golan and the Galilee.
It lists ... the northern Shomron and Jordan Valley, both in the West Bank."

I had thought of the WZO as an insipid, “parve” organization – one like the JNF or even the Jewish Agency. One that had ceased to have any real purpose once the State of Israel was declared and the right of Jews to return to the land was ensconced in law. The organization’s website cites a hodge-podge of vague aims and departments, most of them educational or meant to maintain ties between diaspora and Israeli Jews. Aliyah – the immigration of Jews to Israel — has its own department within the WZO, but even in the Aliyah corner, the offerings seem pale: a webinar here, a Hebrew ulpan there.

The truth of the matter is, living in Israel as I do, I rarely give any thought at all to the WZO. Once I’d moved here (with no help from the WZO), I was undoubtedly living the Zionist dream. But that dream was subsumed in the not-so-very-picturesque day-to-day work of cleaning up after cows, with a couple of weekly hours hoeing rows of cotton for fun after the milking was done. Ideology was replaced by learning to fix milking machines and treat mastitis.

Maybe because the WZO is so tangential to my life in Israel, I was taken aback on Thursday when the WZO called for annexation of the Jordan Valley...

Read more: The World Zionist Organization (WZO) and Zionism

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THE ARMED REVOLT: WHY ISRAEL CANNOT CRUSH THE RESISTANCE IN PALESTINE

Source: Palestine Chronicle
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-armed-revolt-why-israel-cannot-crush-the-resistance-in-palestine/

By Ramzy Baroud
Published July 1, 2023

Palestinian residents confront Israeli occupation forces in the Shuafat refugee camp. (Photo: via Activestills.org)

Numbers can be dehumanizing.

However, when placed in their proper context, they help to illuminate wider issues and answer urgent questions, such as why is Occupied Palestine at the threshold of a major revolt.

And why Israel cannot crush Palestinian resistance no matter how hard, or violently, it tries.

That’s when numbers become relevant. Since the start of this year, nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza. Among them are 27 children.

"The next Intifada in Palestine will be armed, non-factional, and popular,
with consequences that are too difficult to gauge."

If one is to imagine a heat map correlating the towns, villages, and refugee camps of the Palestinian victims to the ongoing armed rebellion, one will immediately spot direct connections. Gaza, Jenin, and Nablus, for example, paid the heaviest price for Israeli violence, making them the regions that resist the most...

Read more: The Armed Revolt: Why Israel Cannot Crush the Resistance in Palestine