… from Press TV, Tehran
Likud leadership has taken control but with just a razor thin margin[ Editor’s Note: Israel, more specifically, its Likud leadership, continues to lash out at anyone who spotlights its moral depravity as being such themselves. This of course is viewed as an argument of someone without an argument, a childish schoolyard response.
In fact Israeli leaders use these occasions to show rank and file Zionists that only they can protect them from the coiled spring of world anti-semites getting ready to pounce on them. The Neo-holocaust card is played at any and all opportunities.
I would think the Israelis themselves would get tired of the same old line, and some are. As I mentioned in the lead in to Uri Avnery’s last article, the editor of Haaretz and some past public figures are starting to call for a worldwide boycott, not just on the settlements but Israel proper.
This is definitely a change in the air, and we will be watching what the reaction is, as in will this fizzle out domestically, and will international groups step forward to align with the Israeli peace forces to put some wind in their sales… Jim W. Dean ]
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Israel pretended to negotiate for peace, while expanding permanent control over the West Bank– First published … February 01, 2016 –
United Nations (UN)’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has once again censured the Israeli regime for its decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories and illegal settlement construction on the occupied lands.
“History proves that people will always resist occupation,” Ban said in an opinion piece published on the website of The New York Times onSunday and in the paper itself on Monday.
The UN chief denounced Tel Aviv’s plans to build over 150 new settlements and to confiscate 370 acres of agricultural land in the occupied West Bank.
“Israeli settlements keep expanding,” he wrote, adding, “At the same time, thousands of Palestinian homes in the West Bank risk demolition… Palestinian frustration and grievances are growing under the weight of nearly a half-century of occupation. Ignoring this won’t make it disappear.”
He said that keeping the Palestinians “under indefinite occupation undermines the security and the future of both Israelis and Palestinians.”
The South Korean diplomat also expressed concern about the continuation of tensions in Palestinian territories, which he said may jeopardize the so-called two-state solution. “I am so concerned that we are reaching a point of no return for the two-state solution.”
The UN secretary general has voiced strong criticism of Israel’s policies in recent days.
On January 26, he said in an address to the UN Security Council that Israel’s settlement activities should be stopped for “progress towards peace” to be achieved. The following day, Ban told a UN committee on Palestinian rights that the Palestinians, especially the youth, “are losing hope. They are angered by the stifling policies of the occupation.”
The remarks prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accuse Ban of giving a “tailwind to terror.” Netanyahu also claimed that the UN had lost its neutrality “a long time ago.”
In an apparent reaction to such rhetoric from Netanyahu, Ban titled his Times piece “Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Israel.”
More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The UN and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because they are built on lands captured by Israel in a 1967 war, and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine have created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of its future independent state, with East al-Quds as its capital.
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Jim W. Dean is VT Editor Emeritus. He was an active editor on VT from 2010-2022. He was involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. He now writes and posts periodically for VT.
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