Our Wednesday News Analysis | The Israeli right’s most dangerous anti-Palestinian smear

Far-right Israeli activists from Im Tirzu at Tel Aviv University hold book showing Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini with a swastika, during a protest against the annual Nakba ceremony,11 May 2014

… in casting Palestinians as the inheritors of annihilative antisemitism, Netanyahu, Chikli, and the rest of their hasbarist chorus are sowing the seeds of eternal war; true evil, after all, can never be fully destroyed.

They are also framing any opposition to that war (e.g. calling for national, human, or civil rights for Palestinians) as an attack on Jews — at best a sign of reckless ignorance, and at worst evidence of inveterate “Jew-hatred.”

If you are seeking justice and liberation for Nazis, so the reasoning goes, then there can be no explanation other than that you, too, are an antisemite, whether or not you know it or want to admit to it.

Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a solemn occasion in Israel and across the Jewish diaspora. Memorial ceremonies are held, often attended by survivors; testimonies about the horrors of the Nazi regime are disseminated across social media and in the press; and, in Israel, a two-minute air-raid siren blares, bringing much of the country to a halt.

The occasion is also, however, an opportunity for hasbarists to share one of their favorite, and most repugnant, smears: that the Palestinian people are, in fact, Nazis.

The Palestinian-as-national-socialists canard does not only pop up around Holocaust Remembrance Day, though it is probably the most corrupt occasion on which to deploy it. It’s a take that has been elevated to the status of a hasbara trope — one that attempts the moral legwork of preemptively justifying any brutality Israel visits on Palestinians, by implying they essentially brought it upon themselves...

Read more: The Israeli right’s most dangerous anti-Palestinian smear

QUEST FOR RELIGIOUS WAR: HOW ISRAEL IS UNIFYING ARABS AND MUSLIMS AROUND PALESTINE

Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir storms Al-Aqsa mosque. (Photo: Ben-Gvir TW Page)

Source: Palestine Chronicle
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/quest-for-religious-war-how-israel-is-unifying-arabs-and-muslims-around-palestine/

By Ramzy Baroud
Published April 12, 2023

By ordering a brutal attack against Palestinian worshipers inside Al-Aqsa Mosque on the 14th day of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knew very well that the Palestinians would retaliate.

"Israel’s targeting of the Arab and Muslim identity of Palestine is now being accelerated under Netanyahu’s leadership.
But this strategy is a double-edged sword as witnessed in recent days.

'… it is the duty of every Muslim to deter Israeli escalations against Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.' When this happens, instead of isolating and browbeating Palestinians, it is Israel that will find itself even more isolated."

Netanyahu’s motive should be clear. He wanted to generate a distraction from the mass protests that have rocked Israel, starting in January, and divided Israeli society around ideological and political lines, in ways never witnessed before.

Unwilling to relinquish his hard-earned achievement of finally winning a decisive election and forming an entirely rightwing coalition, while fearing that major concessions to his political rivals could eventually dissolve his government, Netanyahu set his sights on the Al-Aqsa Mosque...

Read more: Quest for Religious War: How Israel is Unifying Arabs and Muslims around Palestine

PALESTINIAN PRISONER'S DAY: HOW I SURVIVED A DECADE IN ISRAELI PRISON

Palestinian children take part in a protest to solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails on 12 April, 2023 (Reuters)

Source: Middle East Eye
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/how-eid-christmas-helped-me-survive-decade-israeli-prison

By Ameer Makhoul
Published April 16, 2023

A Palestinian activist and former political prisoner recounts his time in an Israeli prison where he formed a community among his fellow prisoners

Like thousands of Palestinians who experienced arbitrary arrest and detention by occupation forces, I was incarcerated in an Israeli prison for nearly a decade. As Palestinians mark Palestinian Prisoner's Day on 17 April, I look back on my ordeal which began on 6 May 2010.

"… 'You are not Muslim, so you are not allowed to have the Quran.' Accordingly, I requested the Bible. The guard did his routine walk to the investigators, returning maybe half an hour later (as I lost all sense of time). He said:

"There are no copies of the Bible. We don't have Christian customers."

I was arrested in a pre-dawn raid by armed police who stormed my house after jumping over my fence and practically breaking down the front door. As soon as they entered, they separated me from my wife and two daughters. I was surrounded by several security agents, some of whom exposed their faces while others hid behind masks. At that moment, I became a prisoner in my own home.

A Shin Bet (Israeli Security) agent from Haifa named Barak (nicknamed "Birko") gave me a menacing smile and said: "I told you months ago when I summoned you for questioning that I would soon come and snatch you from your bed and lock you in prison for a long time. And that I would do it with a smile on my face."

And so it happened. The three judges of the District Court of Haifa fulfilled a promise they made to the Shin Bet. And when one of the judges was promoted to the Supreme Court, the Israeli media highlighted his "achievements" - which included my case, over which the chief judge presided and handed me a nine-year sentence...

Read more: Palestinian Prisoner's Day: How I survived a decade in Israeli prison