AMMAN: A firebrand Israeli minister claimed there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people as Israel’s new coalition government, its most hard-line ever, plowed ahead on Monday with a part of its plan to overhaul the judiciary.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition said it was pushing a key part of the overhaul — which would give the coalition control over who becomes a justice or a judge — before the parliament takes a monthlong holiday break next week.
The development came a day after an Israeli and Palestinian delegation at a meeting in Egypt, mediated by Egyptian, Jordanian and US officials, pledged to take steps to lower tensions roiling the region ahead of a sensitive holiday season.
It reflected the limited influence the Biden administration appears to have over Israel’s new far-right government and raised questions about attempts to lower tensions, both inside Israel and with the Palestinians, ahead of a sensitive holiday season.
As the negotiators were issuing a joint communique, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich delivered a speech in Paris saying the notion of a Palestinian people was artificial.
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language,” he said in France late Sunday. He spoke at a memorial event for a French-Israeli right-wing activist who denied the existence of a Palestinian nation and advocated annexation of the West Bank. The lectern was adorned with what appeared to be an image showing the map of Israel that included the occupied West Bank, Gaza and Jordan.
Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said that Smotrich’s appearance with the icon was a “reckless inflammatory act and a violation of international norms and the peace treaty” between the two countries.
It later summoned Israel’s ambassador over Smotrich’s remarks.
Ahmed Abu Zaid, a spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, said the Israeli minister’s remarks “deny the facts of history and geography … (and) undermine the efforts aimed at achieving calm between the Palestinian and Israeli sides.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday evening released a statement affirming that it is committed to the countries’ 1994 peace agreement.
“There has been no change in the position of the State of Israel, which recognizes the territorial integrity of the Hashemite Kingdom,” the statement said.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said Smotrich’s remarks were “conclusive evidence of the extremist, racist Zionist ideology that governs the parties of the current Israeli government.”
In Brussels, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that the minister’s remarks “certainly cannot be tolerated.”
“I have to deplore this unacceptable comment. It is wrong, it is disrespectful, it is dangerous, it is counter-productive to say these kinds of things in a situation that is already very tense,” Borrell told reporters after chairing a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers. “Could you imagine if a Palestinian leader would have said the state of Israel does not exist. What would have been the reaction?”
Borrell called on the Israeli government “to disavow those comments and to start working with all parties to defuse tensions.”
A far-right settler leader who opposes Palestinian statehood, Smotrich has a history of offensive statements against the Palestinians. Last month, he called for the Palestinian town of Hawara in the West Bank to be “erased” after radical Jewish settlers rampaged through the town in response to a shooting attack that killed two Israelis. Smotrich later apologized after an international uproar.
His remarks on Palestinians were reminiscent of those made by late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir that caused an uproar in 1969. She later told The New York Times that she meant there had never been a Palestinian nation. But critics say the comments continue to tarnish her legacy.
During Sunday’s talks in Egypt, a Palestinian gunman carried out another shooting attack in Hawara, seriously wounding an Israeli man.
The new violence, along with Smotrich’s comments, illustrated the tough challenges that lie ahead in soothing tensions after a year of deadly violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and more than 40 Israelis or foreigners have been killed in Palestinian attacks during that time.
Sunday’s summit was held ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this week. The Jewish festival of Passover is set to take place in April, coinciding with Ramadan.
The upcoming period is sensitive because large numbers of Jewish and Muslim faithful pour into Jerusalem’s Old City, the emotional heart of the conflict and a flashpoint for violence, increasing friction points.
Large numbers of Jews are also expected to visit a key Jerusalem holy site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount — an act the Palestinians view as a provocation.
Clashes at the site in 2021 helped trigger an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
On Monday, Israeli police closed the offices of a Palestinian radio station in east Jerusalem, saying it worked for official Palestinian Authority media in violation of the 1994 interim agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. The PA condemned the closure.
The heightened tensions with the Palestinians coincide with mass demonstrations inside Israel against Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul the judicial system. Opponents of the measure have carried out disruptive protests, and the debate has embroiled the country’s military, where some reservists are refusing to show up for service. Netanyahu has rejected a compromise by Israel’s figurehead president.
During a call with Netanyahu, President Joe Biden appealed for caution, the White House said, “as a friend of Israel in the hopes that there can be a compromise formula found.”
The president “underscored his belief that democratic values have always been, and must remain, a hallmark of the US-Israel relationship,” the White House said, and added that “fundamental changes should be pursued with the broadest possible base of popular support.”
Netanyahu’s government says the plan is meant to correct an imbalance that has given the courts too much power over the legislative process. Critics say the overhaul would upend the country’s delicate system of checks and balances and push Israel toward authoritarianism. They also say Netanyahu could find an escape route from his corruption trial through the overhaul.
The protests, along with the rising violence with the Palestinians, have posed a major challenge for the new government. So far this year, 85 Palestinians have been killed, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
The number of Israelis killed during the same period rose to 15 on Monday after Or Eshkar, 33, died. He was shot in the head at point-blank range by a Palestinian in Tel Aviv on March 9.
Israel says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.
Jordan summons Israeli envoy to protest over flag of expanded Israel
https://arab.news/8n6ne
Jordan summons Israeli envoy to protest over flag of expanded Israel
- Minister also claimed there’s “no such thing” as a Palestinian people
EU’s Borrell urges pressure on Israel, Hezbollah to accept US ceasefire proposal
BEIRUT: The European Union’s foreign policy chief called on Sunday during a visit to Beirut for pressure to be exerted on both the Israeli government and on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to accept a US ceasefire proposal.
Speaking at a news conference in Beirut, Josep Borell also urged Lebanese leaders to pick a president to end a two-year power vacuum in the country, and he pledged 200 million euros in support for Lebanon’s armed forces.
Israeli army orders Gaza City suburb evacuated, spurring new displacement wave
- Israeli military blames Hamas rocket fire for renewed evacuation directive
- Palestinians say hospitals in north Gaza barely functioning
CAIRO: The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents in areas of an eastern Gaza City suburb, setting off a new wave of displacement on Sunday, and a Gaza hospital director was injured in an Israeli drone attack, Palestinian medics said.
The new orders for the Shejaia suburb posted by the Israeli army spokesperson on X on Saturday night were blamed on Palestinian militants firing rockets from that heavily built-up district in the north of the Gaza Strip.
“For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the south,” the military’s post said. The rocket volley on Saturday was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which said it had targeted an Israeli army base over the border.
Footage circulated on social and Palestinian media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed residents leaving Shejaia on donkey carts and rickshaws, with others, including children carrying backpacks, walking.
Families living in the targeted areas began fleeing their homes after nightfall on Saturday and into Sunday’s early hours, residents and Palestinian media said — the latest in multiple waves of displacement since the war began 13 months ago.
In central Gaza, health officials said at least 10 Palestinians were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the urban camps of Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij since Saturday night.
Hospital director wounded by gunfire
In north Gaza, where Israeli forces have been operating against regrouping Hamas militants since early last month, health officials said an Israeli drone dropped bombs on Kamal Adwan Hospital, injuring its director Hussam Abu Safiya.
“This will not stop us from completing our humanitarian mission and we will continue to do this job at any cost,” Abu Safiya said in a video statement circulated by the health ministry on Sunday.
“We are being targeted daily. They targeted me a while ago but this will not deter us...,” he said from his hospital bed.
Israeli forces say armed militants use civilian buildings including housing blocks, hospitals and schools for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminately targeting populated areas.
Kamal Adwan is one of three hospitals in north Gaza that are barely operational as the health ministry said the Israeli forces have detained and expelled medical staff and prevented emergency medical, food and fuel supplies from reaching them.
In the past few weeks, Israel said it had facilitated the delivery of medical and fuel supplies and the transfer of patients from north Gaza hospitals in collaboration with international agencies such as the World Health Organization.
Residents in three embattled north Gaza towns — Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun — said Israeli forces had blown up hundreds of houses since renewing operations in an area that Israel said months ago had been cleared of militants.
Palestinians say Israel appears determined to depopulate the area permanently to create a buffer zone along the northern edge of Gaza, an accusation Israel denies.
Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 44,000 people, uprooted nearly all the enclave’s 2.3 million population at least once, according to Gaza officials, while reducing wide swathes of the narrow coastal territory to rubble.
The war erupted in response to a cross-border attack by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Iran to hold nuclear talks with three European powers in Geneva on Friday, Kyodo reports
- A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday
DUBAI: Iran plans to hold talks about its disputed nuclear program with three European powers on Nov. 29 in Geneva, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported on Sunday, days after the UN atomic watchdog passed a resolution against Tehran.
Iran reacted to the resolution, which was proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States, with what government officials called various measures such as activating numerous new and advanced centrifuges, machines that enrich uranium.
Kyodo said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government was seeking a solution to the nuclear impasse ahead of the inauguration in January of US President-elect Donald Trump.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that the meeting would go ahead next Friday, adding that “Tehran has always believed that the nuclear issue should be resolved through diplomacy. Iran has never left the talks.”
In 2018, the then-Trump administration exited Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six major powers and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran, prompting Tehran to violate the pact’s nuclear limits, with moves such as rebuilding stockpiles of enriched uranium, refining it to higher fissile purity and installing advanced centrifuges to speed up output.
Indirect talks between President Joe Biden’s administration and Tehran to try to revive the pact have failed, but Trump said in his election campaign in September that “We have to make a deal, because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal.”
Lebanon military says one soldier killed, 18 hurt in Israeli strike on army center
- The attack caused severe damage to the facility, the army added in a post on X
At least one soldier was killed and 18 others injured, some seriously, after an Israeli attack targeted an army center in the town of Al-Amiriya on the Al-Qalila-Tyre road in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Sunday.
The attack caused severe damage to the facility, the army added in a post on X.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.
Israel cracks down on Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza
- Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined
UMM AL-FAHM, Israel: Israel’s yearlong crackdown against Palestinian citizens who speak out against the war in Gaza is prompting many to self-censor out of fear of being jailed and further marginalized in society, while some still find ways to dissent — carefully.
Ahmed Khalefa’s life turned upside down after he was charged with inciting terrorism for chanting in solidarity with Gaza at an anti-war protest in October 2023.
The lawyer and city counselor from central Israel says he spent three difficult months in jail followed by six months detained in an apartment. It’s unclear when he’ll get a final verdict on his guilt or innocence. Until then, he’s forbidden from leaving his home from dusk to dawn.
Khalefa is one of more than 400 Palestinian citizens of Israel who, since the start of the war in Gaza, have been investigated by police for “incitement to terrorism” or “incitement to violence,” according to Adalah, a legal rights group for minorities. More than half of those investigated were also criminally charged or detained, Adalah said.
“Israel made it clear they see us more as enemies than as citizens,” Khalefa said in an interview at a cafe in his hometown of Umm Al-Fahm, Israel’s second-largest Palestinian city.
Israel has roughly 2 million Palestinian citizens, whose families remained within the borders of what became Israel in 1948. Among them are Muslims and Christians, and they maintain family and cultural ties to Gaza and the West Bank, which Israel captured in 1967.
Israel says its Palestinian citizens enjoy equal rights, including the right to vote, and they are well-represented in many professions. However, Palestinians are widely discriminated against in areas like housing and the job market.
Israeli authorities have opened more incitement cases against Palestinian citizens during the war in Gaza than in the previous five years combined, Adalah’s records show. Israeli authorities have not said how many cases ended in convictions and imprisonment. The Justice Ministry said it did not have statistics on those convictions.
Just being charged with incitement to terrorism or identifying with a terrorist group can land a suspect in detention until they’re sentenced, under the terms of a 2016 law.
In addition to being charged as criminals, Palestinians citizens of Israel — who make up around 20 percent of the country’s population — have lost jobs, been suspended from schools and faced police interrogations posting online or demonstrating, activists and rights watchdogs say.
It’s had a chilling effect.
“Anyone who tries to speak out about the war will be imprisoned and harassed in his work and education,” said Oumaya Jabareen, whose son was jailed for eight months after an anti-war protest. “People here are all afraid, afraid to say no to this war.”
Jabareen was among hundreds of Palestinians who filled the streets of Umm Al-Fahm earlier this month carrying signs and chanting political slogans. It appeared to be the largest anti-war demonstration in Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. But turnout was low, and Palestinian flags and other national symbols were conspicuously absent. In the years before the war, some protests could draw tens of thousands of Palestinians in Israel.
Authorities tolerated the recent protest march, keeping it under heavily armed supervision. Helicopters flew overhead as police with rifles and tear gas jogged alongside the crowd, which dispersed without incident after two hours. Khalefa said he chose not to attend.
Shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, Israel’s far-right government moved quickly to invigorate a task force that has charged Palestinian citizens of Israel with “supporting terrorism” for posts online or protesting against the war. At around the same time, lawmakers amended a security bill to increase surveillance of online activity by Palestinians in Israel, said Nadim Nashif, director of the digital rights group 7amleh. These moves gave authorities more power to restrict freedom of expression and intensify their arrest campaigns, Nashif said.
The task force is led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, a hard-line national security minister who oversees the police. His office said the task force has monitored thousands of posts allegedly expressing support for terror organizations and that police arrested “hundreds of terror supporters,” including public opinion leaders, social media influencers, religious figures, teachers and others.
“Freedom of speech is not the freedom to incite ... which harms public safety and our security,” his office said in a statement.
But activists and rights groups say the government has expanded its definition of incitement much too far, targeting legitimate opinions that are at the core of freedom of expression.
Myssana Morany, a human rights attorney at Adalah, said Palestinian citizens have been charged for seemingly innocuous things like sending a meme of a captured Israeli tank in Gaza in a private WhatsApp group chat. Another person was charged for posting a collage of children’s photos, captioned in Arabic and English: “Where were the people calling for humanity when we were killed?” The feminist activist group Kayan said over 600 women called its hotline because of blowback in the workplace for speaking out against the war or just mentioning it unfavorably.
Over the summer, around two dozen anti-war protesters in the port city of Haifa were only allowed to finish three chants before police forcefully scattered the gathering into the night. Yet Jewish Israelis demanding a hostage release deal protest regularly — and the largest drew hundreds of thousands to the streets of Tel Aviv.
Khalefa, the city counselor, is not convinced the crackdown on speech will end, even if the war eventually does. He said Israeli prosecutors took issue with slogans that broadly praised resistance and urged Gaza to be strong, but which didn’t mention violence or any militant groups. For that, he said, the government is trying to disbar him, and he faces up to eight years in prison.
“They wanted to show us the price of speaking out,” Khalefa said.
