News Dispatches from West Asia: Yemen’s Historic Prisoner Exchange and Palestinian Solidarity with 5,000 Prisoners

Editor’s Note: The following is the writer’s opinion.

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan is leading his country’s anti-Palestinian propaganda, this time engaging in pre-emptive hasbara in anticipation of a Palestinian response to the ongoing evictions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

“Would you consider it a terror attack if a rock like this was thrown at your car while driving with your children?” Erdan asked the United Nations Security Council members, while holding the rock in his hands. “Would you, at the very least, condemn these brutal terror attacks carried out against Israeli civilians by Palestinians?”

This Israeli logic is quite typical, where oppressed Palestinians are depicted to be the aggressor, and oppressive Israel – a racist apartheid state by any standard – presents itself as a victim merely engaging in defending its own citizens.

But Erdan’s selective logic is, this time around, compelled by something else. His UN charade is merely aimed at creating a distraction from the ongoing horrific events transpiring in Sheikh Jarrah and throughout occupied East Jerusalem. On Wednesday, January 19, the Palestinain Salhiya family’s home was demolished by Israel, rendering 15 people, mostly children, homeless. 

A few days earlier, a heart-wrenching event took place on top of that very site, when members of the Salhiya family threatened to set themselves ablaze as they agonized over the imminent loss of their family home. 

“We have nothing left for us in Jerusalem. This is ethnic cleansing. Today me, tomorrow my neighbors. We’d rather die on our land with dignity than surrender to them,” Mahmoud Salhiya, the owner of the house said, before he was dissuaded by neighbors not to set himself on fire. 

These tragic events are being watched closely, first by Palestinians and also by people around the world. If the momentum of Israeli destruction continues, chances are we could witness another popular uprising. Erdan’s spectacle at the UN is a desperate act of propaganda to sway members of the international community from criticizing Israel. 

But Israel is failing at making a case for itself, similar to its failure to defend its horrific violence against Palestinians throughout occupied Palestine in May 2021. Even Israel’s traditional allies are speaking out against the latest round of ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah. 

The US envoy to the United Nations expressed ‘concern’ over the forced expulsion in the Palestinian neighborhood. “To make progress, both Israel and the Palestinian Authority must refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, using the usually guarded language. However,  Thomas-Greenfield went on to warn against the “annexations of territory, settlement activity, demolitions and evictions – like what we saw in Sheikh Jarrah.” 

Also on January 19, US lawmaker, Rep. Mark Pocan strongly criticized the Israeli decision to forcefully evict the Salhiya family in Sheikh Jarrah.

“Last night, in the cover of darkness & freezing cold, the homes of the Salhiyeh family in Sheikh Jarrah, Jerusalem, were destroyed by Israeli forces leaving 15 people homeless. This is unacceptable and must end,” Pocan tweeted, adding the popular hashtag #Savesheikhjarrah.

For his part, the UN Middle East special envoy, Tor Wennsland, strongly condemned the expulsion of the Palestinian family by Israeli occupation authorities. 

“I call on Israeli authorities to end the displacement and eviction of Palestinians, in line with its obligations under international law, and to approve additional plans that would enable Palestinian communities to build legally and address their development needs,” the UN website reported Wennesland as saying.

Back to Erdan’s display, where he showcased Palestinian ‘terrorism’ by presenting the supposedly damning evidence of a rock. 

It must be said that criticizing or defending Palestinian resistance, however symbolic, allows Israel to engage in a misleading and frivolous conversation that creates a moral equivalence between the occupier and the occupied, the colonialist and the colonized. 

Whether Palestinians use a stone, a gun or a clenched fist to resist and defend themselves, their resistance is morally and legally justifiable. Israel, on the other hand, like all other military occupiers and colonialists, has neither a moral nor a legal argument to justify its oppression of Palestinians, the destruction of their homes – like that of the Salhiya family – and the killing of their children. 

Judging by the growing solidarity with Palestinians everywhere, it is clear that Erdan’s pathetic display is just another exercise in political futility.

Nothing that Israel can say or do will alter the glaring reality, that a new generation of Palestinians is, once again, unifying the Palestinian discourse, namely around Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. Whether Israeli oppression is happening in Sheikh Jarrah, in Gaza, or the Naqab desert, Palestinians now collectively respond as one unified political body. Thanks to the May 2021 rebellion, gone are the days in which Palestinians are expelled from their homes in the middle of the night as if a routine event, with no consequence. 

Moreover, the political language that is being used to describe events in Palestine in the international arena is itself changing. Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’ is no longer the knee-jerk reaction that is often used to describe Israeli violence and Palestinian resistance. 

And finally, it seems that Israel is no longer the party shaping events in Palestine and controlling the discourse around these events. Palestinians, and a growing international movement of supporters, are proactively shaping global perceptions of the realities on the ground. Neither Erdan nor his bosses in Tel Aviv can reverse this Palestinian-led momentum. His UN display merely reflects the degree of desperation and intellectual bankruptcy of Israel and its representatives.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His forthcoming book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out.” Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is ramzybaroud.net.

From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. 

It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied nation. It is not a dispute, because freedom, justice and human rights cannot be treated as if a mere political disagreement. The Palestinian people’s inalienable rights are enshrined in international and humanitarian law and the illegality of Israeli violations of human rights in Palestine is recognized by the United Nations itself.

If it is a war, then it is a unilateral Israeli war, which is met with humble, but real and determined Palestinian resistance.

Actually, it is a Palestinian uprising, an Intifada unprecedented in the history of the Palestinian struggle, both in its nature and outreach. 

For the first time in many years, we see the Palestinian people united, from Jerusalem Al Quds, to Gaza, to the West Bank and, even more critically, to the Palestinian communities, towns and villages inside historic Palestine – today’s Israel. 

This unity matters the most, is far more consequential than some agreement between Palestinian factions. It eclipses Fatah and Hamas and all the rest, because without a united people there can be no meaningful resistance, no vision for liberation, no struggle for justice to be won.

Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could never have anticipated that a routine act of ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah could lead to a Palestinian uprising, uniting all sectors of Palestinian society in an unprecedented show of unity.

The Palestinian people have decided to move past all the political divisions and the factional squabbles. Instead, they are coining new terminologies, centered on resistance, liberation and international solidarity. Consequently, they are challenging factionalism, along with any attempt at making Israeli occupation and apartheid normal. Equally important, a strong Palestinian voice is now piercing through the international silence, compelling the world to hear a single chant for freedom.

The leaders of this new movement are Palestinian youth who have been denied participation in any form of democratic representation, who are constantly marginalized and oppressed by their own leadership and by the relentless Israeli military occupation. They were born into a world of exile, destitution and apartheid, led to believe that they are inferior, of a lesser race. Their right to self-determination and every other right were postponed indefinitely. They grew up helplessly watching their homes being demolished, their land being robbed and their parents being humiliated. 

Finally, they are rising. 

Without prior coordination and with no political manifesto, this new Palestinian generation is now making its voice heard, sending an unmistakable, resounding message to Israel and its right-wing chauvinistic society, that the Palestinian people are not passive victims; that the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah and the rest of occupied East Jerusalem, the protracted siege on Gaza, the ongoing military occupation, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements, the racism and the apartheid will no longer go unnoticed; though tired, poor, dispossessed, besieged and abandoned, Palestinians will continue to safeguard their own rights, their sacred places and the very sanctity of their own people.

Yes, the ongoing violence was instigated by Israeli provocations in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. However, the story was never about the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah alone. The beleaguered neighborhood is but a microcosm of the larger Palestinian struggle.

Netanyahu may have hoped to use Sheikh Jarrah as a way of mobilizing his right-wing constituency around him, intending to form an emergency government or increasing his chances of winning yet a fifth election. His rash behavior, initially compelled by entirely selfish reasons, has ignited a popular rebellion among Palestinians, exposing Israel for the violent, racist and apartheid state that it is and always has been. 

Palestinian unity and popular resistance have proven successful in other ways, too. Never before have we seen this groundswell of support for Palestinian freedom, not only from millions of ordinary individuals across the globe, but also from celebrities – movie stars, footballers, mainstream intellectuals and political activists, even models and social media influencers. The hashtags #SaveSheikhJarrah and #FreePalestine, among numerous others, are now interlinked and have been trending on all social media platforms for weeks. Israel’s constant attempts at presenting itself as a perpetual victim of some imaginary horde of Arabs and Muslims are no longer paying dividends. The world can finally see, read and hear of Palestine’s tragic reality and the need to bring this tragedy to an immediate end. 

None of this would be possible were it not for the fact that all Palestinians have legitimate reasons and are speaking in unison. In their spontaneous reaction and genuine, communal solidarity, all Palestinians are united, from Sheikh Jarrah, to all of Jerusalem, to Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah, Al-Bireh and even Palestinian towns inside Israel – Al-Lud, Umm Al-Fahm, Kufr Qana and elsewhere. In Palestine’s new popular revolution, factions, geography and any political division are irrelevant. Religion is not a source of divisiveness but of spiritual and national unity.

The ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza are continuing, with a mounting death toll. This devastation will continue for as long as the world treats the devastating siege of the impoverished, tiny Strip as if irrelevant. People in Gaza were dying long before the Israeli airstrikes began blowing up their homes and neighborhoods. They were dying from the lack of medicine, polluted water, the lack of electricity and the dilapidated infrastructure.

We must save Sheikh Jarrah, but we must also save Gaza; we must demand an end to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine and, with it, the system of racial discrimination and apartheid. International human rights groups are now precise and decisive in their depiction of this racist regime, with Human Rights Watch – and Israel’s own rights group, B’tselem, joining the call for the dismantlement of apartheid in all of Palestine.

Speak up. Speak out. The Palestinians have risen. It is time to rally behind them.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is ramzybaroud.net

WADI RABAH, Palestine—On August 11, the Israel Civil Administration (ICA) is expected to discuss construction of the Nahal Rabah cemetery in the occupied West Bank. Experts and activists claim the cemetery, which was approved without an environmental survey, will disrupt the region’s biodiversity in addition to harming Palestinian land.

Last week, activists from the Israeli climate justice movement, One Climate, barricaded themselves to the head office of Chevra Kadisha, the Tel Aviv burial society promoting the cemetery’s construction in Nahal Rabah (or Wadi Rabah in Arabic). Chevra Kadisha is working in conjunction with the Israeli settlements of Elkana, Oranit, and the Samaria Regional Council, the governmental body overseeing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, to build the burial site.

Led by an activist dressed as a gazelle—one of the main species at risk of losing their habitat in Wadi Rabah if development occurs—the One Climate group stormed the Chevra Kadisha office on July 26, demanding to meet with the company’s CEO, Rabbi Avraham Menela.

“We will not leave until the CEO will provide us with an explanation as to why they are promoting a plan that seems purely geared to make profit off of field-burial plots,” said One Climate activist Tamar, who declined to give her last name. “While field burials are being phased out inside Israel, this cemetery might turn Israelis into settlers after their deaths.”

During the demonstration, activists emphasized the cemetery’s construction is part of a political agenda to create Jewish territorial contiguity between the city of Rosh Ha’ayin—in proximity to Wadi Rabah inside Historic Palestine (or modern-day Israel)—and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They said that would deepen the de-facto annexation of Area C, a region of the West Bank under full Israeli military control.

Chevra Kadisha, said the activists, is participating in the theft of Palestinian land in order to bury Jewish bodies—creating irreversible destruction in the name of Jewish supremacy.

One Climate was not able to meet with Menela on July 26, but Chevra Kadisha suggested activists call the firm to set up a meeting. One Climate contacted Chevra Kadisha to schedule a meeting, but the date hasn’t been established yet. Chevra Kadisha did not respond to Toward Freedom’s requests for comment on the cemetery’s construction as well as on the opposition.

A Sensitive Ecological Habitat Under Threat

Wadi Rabah is part of the central ecological corridor between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. It is considered a sensitive ecological habitat, filled with diverse animals and plants. It is also located on occupied Palestinian land, expropriated in the 1980s.

Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian scientist and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability at Bethlehem University, explained the area is a Mediterranean hotspot of particular environmental concern because the region’s biodiversity has become rare and endangered due to a changing climate.

Qumsiyeh emphasized the area must be protected, given it is a passageway for millions of migratory birds.

Quarry Splits Palestine

The cemetery isn’t the only construction in development in Wadi Rabah. Israel’s Ministry of Defense is promoting a settlement industrial zone and the expansion of the Hanson Israel quarry, a subsidiary of German company HeidelbergCementAG. The ICA, which oversees all civilian matters in the West Bank and operates under the Defense Ministry, did not respond to press inquiries regarding these building proposals.

The existing quarry in Wadi Rabah was built on about 148 acres of Palestinian land, including private land belonging to al-Zawiya, a Palestinian village home to over 6,000 people in the West Bank. In February 2019, Israeli authorities seized an additional 24 acres of private Palestinian land belonging to the village of Rafat, which is now the site of the proposed quarry expansion. While located in Area C, the quarry was built on the Israeli side of the apartheid wall, the barrier dividing the West Bank and historic Palestine. The strategic placement of the quarry encloses it inside historic Palestine, cutting off al-Zawiya and Rafat residents from their agricultural lands.

Christoph Beumelburg, communication director at HeidelbergCementAG, told Toward Freedom that the quarry expansion is ongoing and nothing is finalized yet.

“We are confident that all regulations and processes are in coherence with applicable law within this license extension application process, including all environmental studies,” Beumelburg said.

‘Way to Control Land’

Yet, according to Moshe Perlmuter of the Society for Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), it isn’t possible to sustainably develop Wadi Rabah.

“You can’t build something that won’t cause damage in this place,” Perlmuter said. “If you build inside [Wadi Rabah], you make the natural area smaller and gazelles, especially, need a very wide area to live.”

For Qumsiyeh, the building plans in Wadi Rabah—especially the cemetery—are just another Israeli colonization attempt.

“These grave settlements are a way to control land and territory.”

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.