The White House
The U.S. administration has asked the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “clarification” of a controversial “Jewish Nation-State” law, Israel’s Channel 10 reported on Thursday.
Approved last month by the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), the new legislation describes Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” -- a designation that has angered the country’s non-Jewish minority.
In response to the U.S. request for clarification, Netanyahu’s office reportedly told White House officials that the law would not adversely affect the rights of any citizen of Israel or lead to discrimination against any minority groups.
According to one official source cited by Channel 10, US administration officials were particularly concerned over an article of the law pertaining to “Jewish settlement”.
The official source, who was not named, said the White House -- which has not publicly criticized the law -- was satisfied with the assurances it had received from Netanyahu’s office, according to Channel 10.
The broadcaster went on to note that, in light of objections to the law raised by prominent members of the U.S. Jewish community (including pro-Israel legal expert Alan Dershowitz), the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump would like to see the legislation amended.
Netanyahu’s office confirmed that the law had come up for discussion at a recent meeting between Netanyahu’s chief-of-staff, Yoav Horowitz, and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.
The PM’s office went on to assert that there had been no criticism of the law by U.S. officials.
The legislation also states that a “united Jerusalem” is Israel’s capital and that Hebrew is its official language, stripping Arabic of its earlier designation as an official language while recognizing its “special status”.
The new law risks further alienating the country’s sizeable Arab minority, who say they already face discrimination from Israeli Jews and the government.
Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship account for approximately 21 percent of the country’s population.
An Israeli court this week sentenced Darin Tatour, a prominent Palestinian poet, to five months in jail after convicting her of “inciting terrorism” in a poem she posted on social media.Tatour, a 36-year-old resident of the northern Galilee region, was first detained by the Israeli authorities in 2015 for her poem entitled, “Resist, My People, Resist”.On Tuesday, she was sentenced to five months behind bars and six months’ probation after being convicted of “inciting violence” and “supporting a terrorist organization”.The poem that drew the Israeli authorities’ wrath reads in part:Resist them, my people, resistResist the settler’s robberyFollow the caravan of martyrsTear the constitution of shameThey burn the childrenResist them, my people, resistIt remains unclear whether Tatour plans to appeal Tuesday’s court sentence.Israeli court slaps Palestinian poet with jail termDouble standardsIn a Wednesday article, Israeli daily Haaretz appeared to criticize the double standards of the Israeli judicial system, which it accused of turning a blind eye to the incitement of violence by extremist rabbis and Jewish groups.The Israeli judicial system, Haaretz asserted, “cannot discriminate between offenders who commit similar offenses based on their ethnicity or religion”.The Israeli authorities, the newspaper goes on, appear to have “learned nothing” from their “resounding failure to mete out justice against rabbis who encourage ‘the heroes of the Jewish underground’ [i.e., extremist Jews who call for violence against non-Jews]”.The jail term received by Tatour, it added, “shows that what rabbis in Israel may do, an Arab poet may not”.“When it’s Jews [inciting violence], it’s an ‘underground’, not terrorism,” the newspaper states.Over 3,900 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa complex in JulyAccording to Haaretz, those who praised the “heroism” of Baruch Goldstein -- an extremist Jewish settler who killed 29 Muslim worshipers in the city of Hebron in 1994 -- “paved the way for the assassination the following year of [Israeli] Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin”.Haaretz also cited a case from 2012 in which Israeli Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein halted an investigation into the authors of “Torat Hamelekh”, a religious tract that discussed how Jewish religious law viewed the killing of non-Jews.Israel arrests 9 Palestinians in overnight raidsThe newspaper goes on to quote the doctrine of certain extremist rabbis -- verbatim -- who openly call for the murder of non-Jewish infants.“Even [when it comes to] babies who violate the seven Noahide commandments [that apply to non-Jews], consideration should be given to killing them due to the future danger that will be posed if they are allowed to grow up to be evil like their parents,” it reads, according to Haaretz.
'Double standards of the Israeli judicial system'
A second Druze officer on Tuesday quit the Israeli military in protest of a recently passed law that recognizes Israel as the “nation-state of the Jewish people”.“I have been serving in the IDF (army) for almost five years,” Zidan Shadi wrote on his Facebook page. “Today, I’m a deputy commander in a combat battalion and I have served in all over the country.”Israeli Arab MP resigns to protest Jewish state law“Until this day, I have given the state my soul, I have risked my life. Until this day I stood by the state’s flag,” he said. “But today, I refused for the first time in my service to salute the flag; I refused for the first time to sing the national anthem.”The army officer said he felt he was a second-class citizen in Israel after the approval of the “Nation-State” law.“I have decided to stop serving this country. Thank you State of Israel!" he said.On Sunday, Druze officer Capt. Amir Jmall announced his resignation from the Israeli army in protest of the controversial law. The legislation, approved last week by the Knesset (Israel's parliament), has angered Israel’s sizeable Druze community, members of which have long served in Israel’s military.Video: Palestinian deputies rip copy of Israeli Nation-State lawAn Arabic-speaking ethnic group which adheres to its own monotheistic faith, Israel’s Druze -- estimated at some 120,000 people -- are concentrated largely in the country’s northern regions.Unlike Israel’s Arab Muslim and Christian minorities, Druze men typically serve in the Israeli military and generally consider themselves loyal citizens of the state.
2nd Druze officer quits over Israel’s Nation-State law
The U.S. is the leading supporter of Israel, which was established on purloined Palestinian land and is often regarded as something akin to a “spoiled child”.In addition to providing copious financial and military aid, the U.S. also acts as a shield for Israel at the UN, preventing the adoption of a viable solution to the longstanding “question of Palestine” -- one of the region’s most enduring problems.Although the occupant of the White House has changed numerous times over the years, there has been little change in Washington's policy vis-à-vis Israel.This is due mainly to the power of the Jewish lobby in the U.S.On the issues of Palestinian dispossession, Israel’s ongoing occupation, and illegal Jewish settlement construction, the U.S. -- directly or indirectly -- invariably provides cover for Tel Aviv.According to many informed observers, Washington’s unconditional support for Israel not only aggravates the problem of Palestine, but it also makes finding a peaceful solution to the conflict more difficult.Twenty Palestinians arrested in West Bank raidsUS recognitionThe document known as the “Balfour Declaration”, sent by British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild in 1917, was a milestone in the Zionist march towards Israel’s establishment.“His Majesty's Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object…,” the document reads.The Holocaust in Europe during World War II, meanwhile, only served to enhance British support for the Zionist project in Palestine.On Nov. 29, 1947, through the lobbying efforts of U.S. President Harry S. Truman, the UN Security Council adopted a plan -- the “partition plan” -- to divide historical Palestine into two halves, one Arab and one Jewish.When the British Mandate for Palestine ended in 1948, Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, along with 25 others, declared the new state of Israel’s “independence”.Truman was quick to recognize the new state -- established on stolen Palestinian land -- on behalf of the U.S., becoming the first head of state to officially do so.Thus began the perennial “Middle East Conflict”, which continues to rage to the present day.Following the announcement of Israel’s establishment, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon all declared war on the nascent state.Israel’s subsequent victory in that war left it in possession of even more Palestinian land.Almost two decades later, Israel attacked Egypt in June of 1967. Syria and Jordan also participated in the conflict, which has since become known as the “Six-Day War”.As the Arab countries were largely caught off guard, they suffered an overwhelming defeat.That war left Israel in possession of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem (in addition to West Jerusalem) and the West Bank, essentially destroying any prospect for a “two-state solution”.Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, meanwhile, ensured a de facto state of war between Israel and Syria for decades to come.Israel did, however, withdraw from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula following the 1979 Camp David peace treaty.Hamas delegation leaves Gaza for Egypt talksUS sponsorshipSince Israel’s establishment, the U.S. is believed to have sent more than $120 billion worth of financial and military aid to its closest Middle East “ally”.This aid completely destroyed the power balance between Israel and the Palestinians, with the former becoming one of the region’s most powerful countries while some six million Palestinians were forced -- over time -- to leave their historical homeland.As a result of this lopsided balance of power due to unwavering U.S. support, Israel has maintained its policy of occupation without making any concessions to the beleaguered Palestinians.Besides the enormous financial and military assistance, the U.S. has also protected Israel by wielding its veto right in the UN Security Council in the interests of the self-proclaimed Jewish state.To date, Washington has used this veto power more than 80 times -- more than half of which were used to shield Israel from criticism.This attitude by the U.S. has encouraged Israel to maintain its illegal occupation and deflate international pressure on Tel Aviv to accept a fair solution to the conflict.Recent steps by U.S. President Donald Trump on Palestine, meanwhile, have only further encouraged Israel to maintain its unjust policies.In December of last year, Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and ordered Washington’s Israel embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem (a process that began in May of this year).This was the first indicator of the Trump administration’s policies as they pertained to the Middle East conflict.On May 14, as U.S. and Israeli officials were inaugurating the new embassy, 60 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip -- who had been demonstrating against the U.S. decision -- were gunned down by Israeli troops.Instead of criticizing Israel’s use of deadly force against peaceful protesters, the Trump administration chose to blame Hamas, which had played a role in organizing the demonstrations.The Palestinian leadership in Ramallah, for its part, responded to the embassy move by rejecting any future U.S. role in the peace process.Not long afterward on June 1, the U.S. vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council that had called for international protection for the Palestinian people.Jordan calls on Israel to halt 'violations' at Al-AqsaIsraeli forces storm J'lem's Aqsa, injuring worshipers‘The Deal of the Century’It is a widely known fact that the U.S. administration is currently working on a backchannel peace plan ostensibly aimed at resolving the Palestine-Israel issue.Touted by some as the “Deal of the Century”, certain details of the plan have been leaked to the public.According to media reports, the plan includes several major concessions to Israel, including the recognition of Jerusalem -- in its entirety -- as Israel’s capital and the annexation of large West Bank settlement blocs by Israel.Millions of Palestinian refugees, meanwhile, would not be allowed to return to their ancestral homes under Trump’s reported peace initiative.In fact, the only thing Palestinians would get from the plan, according to reports, would be promises of stepped-up financial aid.The so-called “Deal of the Century”, therefore, is likely to only further destabilize the region rather than offer a viable solution to the conflict.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has derisively described the U.S. president’s plan as the “Slap of the Century”.Trump’s (Jewish) Mideast teamIt’s also worth noting that most of those forging Trump's Palestine policy are Jewish -- especially Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior Mideast advisor.It is widely believed that Kushner, who attended the May 14 inauguration of the new embassy in Jerusalem, played a major role in the decision to relocate the embassy.Despite the fact that Kushner has had no previous diplomatic experience, Trump nevertheless believes his son-in-law can solve the region’s longest-running dispute."He [Kushner]… can secure an agreement with Israel that no one else could pull off. If he can’t produce peace in the Middle East, nobody can,” Trump declared in a speech.Another figure involved in forging Trump’s Palestine policy is David Friedman, Washington’s current ambassador to Israel.In the past, Friedman, who is Jewish, has said that Israel’s West Bank settlement blocs -- built illegally on Palestinian land -- do not constitute “an obstacle to peace”.Another figure guiding Trump's Middle East policy is Jason Greenblatt, Trump's special representative for international negotiations.Having previously worked for Trump as a lawyer in New York, Greenblatt hails from a Haredi Jewish family.Like Kushner, Greenblatt -- who reportedly oversees daily communications between Washington and Tel Aviv -- boasts little prior diplomatic experience.
US support for Israel hurts Middle East peace prospects