JosephA – In the above article, it was not reported that at the time that Netanyahu made his suggestion, residents of Umm el-Fahm (citizens of the State of Israel within the Green Line) had been demonstrating and crying out that Umm el-Fahm is occupied territory. Mondoweiss is committed to honest reporting, but apparently that part of the story slipped between their fingers. Anyway, it’s an interesting situation: “Occupation is bad, and it should be rectified. But if the occupation ends by placing the town under Palestinian rule, that is criminal (nakba, racism, illegal)”. It’s quite strange. You can’t win for losing.
Well, it’s all just bla-bla-bla, of course. Umm el-Fahm is not occupied territory, and there is absolutely no intention to place the town under Palestinian rule. However, there is a message behind the contradiction: “Umm el-Fahm is occupied” / “We don’t agree to be placed under Palestinian sovereignty”. The message is: “Nothing is acceptable. No matter what you do, we reject it.” If, on the other hand, the whole country would become the Palestinian state (and Umm el-Fahm residents, obviously, would no longer be citizens of the State of Israel), I would imagine that in such a case the headline of a balanced Mondoweiss article wouldn’t use the term “transfer”. Being placed under Palestinian sovereignty without the presence of a neighboring Israel would probably be acceptable, and the loss of Israeli citizenship would be somehow tolerable.
Since you used the term “genocide” (and in our last exchange you spoke of “concentration-like conditions in Gaza”), you reminded me of one of the Juha stories (that are so popular in the Arab world). Here’s a short English rendition of the story:
Juha was resting in the shade of a wonderful tree on a very hot day. He felt that he’d like to fall asleep, but a nearby group of children was making too much noise. So Juha called out to them: “Ya awlad (hey, boys). They’re passing out goodies in the mosque. You should go there!” However, Juha still couldn’t fall asleep, because he suddenly felt so silly: “Why am I trying to fall asleep under a leafy tree when they’re passing out goodies in the mosque….”
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July 29th, 2017 
Awake Goy 
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