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April 15th, 2021 
Awake Goy In January the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem declared that Palestinians face an “apartheid… regime of Jewish supremacy” in all the lands under Israel’s control, including the state of Israel, but the declaration has gotten very little attention in the U.S. The media, politicians and liberal Zionist organizations have all sidestepped it because it contradicts the idea that Israel is a Jewish “democracy” — and the occupation is something bad going on in a different land.
B’Tselem’s finding is the latest in the “mounting recognition” of a reality: Israel and Palestine are one entity, with more than 680,000 Jewish settlers living in what was supposed to be a Palestinian state, and almost all Israel’s political leaders are fine with the arrangement. So we are past the era of a two-state outcome and seeing an active struggle for equal rights.
We all know how important videos have been to a reckoning about racial issues in the United States. Here are six recent videos, most of them from B’Tselem, that deserve a wide audience in the United States. They show the brutal face of apartheid for Palestinians, and the role Israeli soldiers play in allowing the violence to go on. No discussion of Israel’s “Jewish democracy” is complete without Americans seeing these videos.
The first one is short and very disturbing. On December 18, a settler on occupied land threatened Palestinians and the press with a gun. And then other settlers arrived with attack dogs. And guess who’s side the soldiers are on in this video?
Bear in mind that this incident took place in the Ramallah district, about a mile from the village where 15-year-old Palestinian Ali Abu Aliya was killed protesting the same encroachment on village lands — two weeks earlier, on December 5. Israeli soldiers shot at the demonstrators, killing this child.
The next video actually got some attention. On New Year’s day this year, Harun abu Aran, a 24-year-old laborer, was shot by an Israeli soldier and left paralyzed as he tried to hold on to a generator used in building. The video is extremely upsetting to watch. The soldiers were trying to stop Palestinians from building in an area Israel has declared a closed military zone.
The next video is from January 11 outside Nablus. A Jewish settler starts plowing Palestinian lands as enraged and helpless Palestinians cry out that soldiers must stop the plowing. The soldiers don’t. The soldiers arrest a Palestinian.
Two days later, dozens of villagers from two villages gathered on the land to protest the seizure. The settlers attacked two Palestinians, beating their heads with sticks, B’Tselem said.
Settlers attacked Muhammad Zein a-Din (70) and his son ‘Iz a-Din Zein a-Din (46), residents of Majdal Bani Fadel, who were on their way to their land, beating them severely. Soldiers and police officers who arrived in the area did not offer the two first aid or tried to stop the settlers.
Why is all this happening? Here is a sickening video from six months ago in which a group of settlers– escorted by soldiers — confront Palestinians in the village of Susiya in the Hebron Hills. The settlers lecture the Palestinians about why they don’t belong there. Some of their comments:
“King David walked around here two thousand years ago, herding his sheep. When you were where — in Saudi Arabia? Where were you 2000 years ago? Where was Muhammed? Muhammed had epilepsy. He had no prophecies and no nothing…
“This is my land. Abraham lived here. [sic] In Saudi Arabia, that’s where you belong. Where Muhammad roamed…. Muhammad killed people. Raped. You’re a rapist people.”
A Palestinian says he can’t talk to these people because they’re racist. Yes– but whom are the soldiers escorting?
Next, look at this violent nighttime arrest in East Jerusalem on March 1. Soldiers break down a Palestinian family’s door, and then the whole neighborhood is trashed by “skunk” gas indiscriminately sprayed over houses. One man says his house was destroyed by the chemical. This is collective punishment of Palestinians, a war crime.
Finally, the International Solidarity Movement published this video from early this month of a hideous attack by settlers from the outpost of Esh Khodesh on a Palestinian villager in the northern West Bank. Notice the attack with a stick, followed by many large stones hurled at the man with the aim of serious injury. The soldiers at hand acted to separate the groups by firing stun grenades towards Palestinians. But they did not evidently make any arrests for the brutal assault on him.
That outrageous attack got a lot of attention from Al Jazeera, but not in the United States.
Indeed, you have to wonder why the viewer numbers are so low when they are so revealing. One obvious reason is that leading American media and Zionist organizations have no interest in you seeing this stuff.
Some of those same outfits encourage a discussion of the Israeli “occupation.” J Street will have its conference next week, and occupation will be an important topic. Americans for Peace Now says US Jewish funding for settlements is entrenching the “occupation,” a red line it must not cross.
These videos address a more profound reality than occupation. Israel is never leaving the territories, the occupation extends a long Zionist tradition of redeeming the land for Jews, and Zionism has many racist adherents. These videos make the apartheid and BDS discussions necessary and urgent.
There are a lot more videos on B’Tselem’s youtube page.
n/t Dave Reed, Ofer Neiman.
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