The Armenian Quarter in occupied East Jerusalem, where attacks by Jewish extremists have occurred / credit: Jessica Buxbaum
EAST JERUSALEM—Last month, a Jewish tourist toppled a wooden statue of Jesus in a church in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem. This was the fifth attack against Christians in five weeks.
Following the act of vandalism at the Church of Flagellation, Father Nikodemus Schnabel of the Dormition Abbey, just outside the walls of the Old City in Jerusalem, tweeted, “Welcome to the new Christian-hating Israel, encouraged and supported by the current government!”
Violence against Christians isn’t a new phenomenon in Jerusalem. But since Israel’s most far-right government in its history has taken over, the problem has significantly swelled.
Dr. Amnon Ramon, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research and an expert on Christians in Jerusalem, explained how Jewish extremists attacking Christians run in the same circles as members of the Israeli government’s coalition. That’s the case with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who’s a disciple of Meir Kahane, a Jewish supremacist rabbi who was assassinated in 1990.
“[The perpetrators] feel quite safe because they think that, in a way, the state is with them,” Ramon told Toward Freedom.
According to Protecting Holy Land Christians, a campaign Christian leaders in Jerusalem have organized to raise awareness about the plight of the religious community, hate crimes against Christians vary. They include spitting on clergy and on religious items, as well as verbal abuse, seizure of properties and vandalism of holy sites.
In December, the campaign emphasized that 2022 was “one of the worst years for Christians in Jerusalem to date.”
Attacks Against ‘Non-Jews’
Miran Krikorian experienced this anti-Christian violence first-hand in January when his restaurant, Taboon & Wine, located in the Old City’s Christian Quarter, was attacked by people wearing clothes indicating Jewish identity. The group of about 30 ransacked the bar, breaking chairs, tables and glasses, as well as pepper-spraying employees and terrifying customers.
“There’s a systematic rise against non-Jewish institutions, people and places,” Krikorian said, noting the harassment isn’t directed toward Christians specifically, but rather against all non-Jews.
Krikorian said he wasn’t surprised by the attack, having grown up in the Armenian Quarter, where violence against Christians is a common occurrence.
“After that we saw these kinds of incidents started [to happen] twice a day, even in the Armenian Quarter,” said Father Aghan Gogchyan, chancellor of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.
Gogchyan said he didn’t want to blame Israel’s new government for the stark rise in violence against Christians, but rather suggested the culture of impunity is responsible.
“We are complaining about anarchy,” Gogchyan said. “That everybody can and does whatever [they] want and nobody will be punished.
Lack of Protection from Police
Krikorian called the police during the assault on his business, but said law enforcement didn’t arrive immediately.
“Once the police came, they didn’t do anything,” Krikorian said. “They just pushed back the settlers and that’s it.”
After the attack, Krikorian filed an official report at the police station. He added that three suspects were arrested, but no charges have been filed. Israel Police would not comment to Toward Freedom, citing the pending investigation.
The police station is located next to the Armenian Quarter, yet Christians in Jerusalem have often accused law enforcement of inaction when dealing with anti-Christian violence.
“The biggest problem is no one is feeling safe by the police or by the authorities,” Krikorian said.
From Gogchyan’s perspective, the police are easily deceived by Jewish assailants.
“These extremists know how to behave during the attacks in order to make the police back them and support them,” Gogchyan said. “And the police, without realizing, are tricked.”
Gogchyan described how, in one example, after Jewish radicals spat on the Armenian convent and tried to tear down the Armenian flag there, they ran to the nearby police station and began shouting “violence.
By doing so, the police thought the Armenians were attacking the perpetrators.
The Armenian Patriarchate met with police in February to address heightened tensions, especially considering the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jewish feast of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter will occur in April.
Gogchyan said police told the patriarchate that law enforcement will try to prevent atrocities from happening. But Gogchyan remains concerned, as police have implied they don’t have full control.
“In a way, they said ‘such crimes will happen, and we cannot prevent them because we don’t know if [Jewish fanatics] are going to do it or not. But when something happens, we will try to protect you,’” Gogchyan said.
Christian Presence in Decline
Palestine, the birthplace of Christianity, is rapidly seeing the population’s erasure from its land.
According to Protecting Holy Land Christians, Christians are estimated as making up less than 1 percent of Jerusalem’s population.
Not only does the community feel it doesn’t have police protection, but Christians have also lost representation in the government, as well.
“There is no address in the high level of the Israeli establishment for the Christian factions of Jerusalem,” said researcher Ramon, explaining how the Christian affairs department in Israel’s now-defunct Religious Affairs Ministry was once a powerful unit.
But, in 2003, when the Religious Affairs Ministry was dissolved and its duties absorbed by the Interior Ministry, Christian representation dwindled. Today, the department is run by one person.
Amid a loss of power against intensifying Jewish hegemony, Christians—and other minorities—see the state as working for only one people.
Krikorian feels this discrimination—and hatred of non-Jews—is legitimized through Israel’s current leadership.
“The extremists got the backing of the government and now they’re attacking all the time.”
Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based freelance journalist reporting on Palestine and the Israeli occupation. You can follow her on Twitter at @jess_buxbaum.
Latif Karim Ismael, 75, in his once-vibrant agricultural field in Chaqlawa in Iraqi Kurdistan / credit: Alessandra Bajec
SULAYMANIYAH, Iraqi Kurdistan—Standing outside his home in Chaqlawa village, a half-hour drive from the city of Sulaymaniyah, Latif Karim Ismael, wearing black baggy trousers and a light-blue shirt, greeted us and hinted we sit in his backyard.
Accustomed to working a thriving land, the 75-year-old farm worker has to face up to a completely different reality today, with his production having dramatically dropped because of a drought.
“Ten years ago, our land produced 12 tons of wheat—now it’s six,” Karim Ismael began recounting to Toward Freedom. “Barley is half or less than what we used to harvest. Until five years ago, I was growing plenty of vegetables, like chickpeas, beans, lentils. Now, it’s just wheat and barley.”
Karim Ismael added that, besides low rainfall, the poor state of water has caused heavy losses to his yield. Untreated wastewater originating from Sulaymaniyah, the capital of the province of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region (KRI), has contaminated water and soil around Tanjaro River since the early 2000s.
“Back in time, I used to sell my own produce and make an income from that,” the 75-year-old sighed. “Today, the little we grow barely covers our needs.”
Living with three family members, none of whom work, he has relied on his small pension from working for 16 years as a handyman in a public school to provide for the household.
The main source of water supply for his family is groundwater from a well, collected for both agriculture and domestic use (drinking, washing, cooking and cleaning). Having witnessed harsh water shortages in the past few years, he said he would turn to the water well for irrigating his crops.
Map of the Sulaymaniyah Governorate highlighted in red. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) is highlighted in red and beige / credit: TUBS / Wikipedia
The agricultural season in KRI usually starts in early November with the first rainfall. The harvest begins in mid-May and lasts until June, extending into July in some areas.
Most Kurdish farmers have normally relied on winter rains to fill reservoirs that sustain their fields through the dry season. However, rainfall across the region has drastically dropped over the last two years.
In April, the director of Dukan dam predicted a drought in the region this year as only 300 millimeters—half of the needed precipitation—had fallen.
Fifty percent of Iraq’s farmland faces desertification. The main rivers—the Euphrates and Tigris—are expected to dry up by 2040, according to the Iraqi federal government. Meanwhile, the World Bank has predicted a 20-percent drop in drinking water by 2050. NGOs say long-standing dams in neighboring countries exacerbate the conditions. Meanwhile, the regional government recently approved four dams in Iraqi Kurdistan to combat the lack of water. All this comes as Iraq is among the five countries most vulnerable to water and food insecurity due to climate change.
Since the start of the 2000s, local farmers have not received compensation or other types of support from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for losses suffered.
“We haven’t seen any assistance, whether financial aid, equipment or fertilizers,” Karim Ismael said. He added the KRG said its priority was first the fight against ISIS, then the budget dispute with the Iraqi federal government, and later the COVID pandemic.
The old peasant lives on his invalidity pension, having carried a war injury disability since the time he fought during the 1960s for autonomy within Iraq. Like everyone in the village, he depends on groundwater for his family’s consumption and to water the little he can produce. They have their own well and share it with four households.
Chaqlawa, which counts 50 houses and some 330 residents, is not connected to the main water pipeline from Sulaymaniyah, as is usually the case in rural areas. People help one another by sharing water wells. They strive to ensure wells do not dry up, or at least that the groundwater is sustained until the next rainy season.
Adding pressure on water resource management, villagers have not adapted to the water crisis.
“People don’t use water properly,” Shad Azad Rahim, an environmental activist from Sulaymaniyah told Toward Freedom. “There’s still no awareness of water conservation, and many farmers have not converted to modern, efficient irrigation systems.” Only two farmers use the drip irrigation method.
Rahim, who coordinates projects at Humat Dijlah and Waterkeepers Iraq-Kurdistan, two local organizations striving to protect water sources, denounced that shopkeepers and others use drinking water for routine cleaning. “Such conduct goes completely unpunished.”
The project coordinator also pointed to the lack of wastewater treatment plants in Iraq, implying sewage and industrial garbage are commonly dumped into fresh water courses. That has polluted the KRI’s two main sources for drinking water, the Dukan and Darbandikhan lakes.
“People have been demanding treatment facilities for years and years,” he said. “Yet, no action has been seen from the government’s side.”
A map highlighting Iraq’s Kurdistan region and the Euphrates and Tigris rivers / credit: researchgate.net
‘Tar Oil Killed My Crops’
A few hundred meters away from Karim Ismael’s house, three villagers who had gathered on a rural road made their way into a patio while inviting this reporter to follow them.
“Years back, I was planting a large amount of crops. Until the day I found them all black and dead!” Mohamed Mahmoud Ismael uttered to Toward Freedom. Donning a black-and-white turban scarf on his head, the 75-year-old pointed to an oil factory in the vicinity of farmlands. “Tar oil poured straight into Tanjaro River at night reached my arable land and killed the crops.”
Seventy percent of Iraq’s industrial waste is dumped into rivers or the sea, based on data provided by the UN and academics. The Tanjaro River, located south of Sulaymaniyah city, has been polluted by untreated wastewater for decades. It joins the Sirwan River to form the Diyala River, which is a tributary of the Tigris, the great river of Mesopotamia that together with the Euphrates gives life to all of Iraq. The direct impact on residents is twofold because they use water for drinking and farming. In partnership with Humat Dijlah, and in coordination with the Sulaymaniyah governorate’s Department of Environment, Waterkeepers Iraq-Kurdistan has organized the “Tanjaro River Threat Assessment and Outreach Project” to raise awareness about environmental threats surrounding this small river. The advocacy NGO organizes regular cleaning campaigns at lakes and rivers in the Kurdistan region.
Meanwhile, Neighboring Turkey and Iran’s dam projects have reduced water flow into Iraq. While Iraq and Syria have signed up to the UN Watercourses Convention of 1997—under which nations are obligated to equitably share their neighbors’ water resources—Turkey and Iran have not.
The spokesperson for Iraq’s water ministry said that since last year, water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers had dropped by more than half.
Water activists have reported severe water scarcity in areas from Diyala governorate all the way south to Basra, complaining dams reduce the proportion of water quotas, especially in southern Iraq.
“Up until 1998, we were two big families here cultivating a large output of vegetables and living entirely on our food products. We would always have extra yield to give to other families,” Bakr Sdeeq Hussein, 54, recounted, speaking to Toward Freedom in Chaqlawa. “As water pollution and scarcity gradually hit most of my agricultural production, I decided to cultivate only wheat and few fruits (pomegranates, peaches, apples). I had planted 30 small trees last year. Sadly, all of them died.”
The villager’s subsistence today depends on his taxi business.
Save the Tigris, a civil society advocacy campaign that promotes water justice in the Mesopotamian basin, recently issued a report raising the alarm on the rising volumes of water lost due to evaporation from Iraq’s dam reservoirs.
Rahim argued food production in the Kurdish region is facing a crisis as a result of low precipitation and declining river levels from upstream countries. “Desertification is threatening 70 percent of the country’s agricultural lands,” he said, citing an Iraqi health and environment ministry report. Rahim added that would soon make it “impossible to grow anything.”
Taha Ali Karim on his plot of land in Chaqlawa in Iraqi Kurdistan / credit: Alessandra Bajec
‘Never Sure When We Have Water’
Back in the day, 65-year-old Taha Ali Karim used to grow and market several products, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes and aubergines. From the beginning of 2000, he saw his yield decreasing until it stopped bearing its fruit. “Before then, we were mainly relying on rainwater, and especially on Tanjaro River which once had clean water to irrigate the land,” said the 65-year-old, dressed in a white shirt and light-gray baggy pants. “We also had two or three springs.” Now, the river is polluted and the springs have dried up.
Today, he shares his well with two more families, carefully monitoring water volumes and making sure there’s enough for all of them.
“We can’t sell what we produce any more,” he said. “We’ve lost our passion to do farming since we’re not seeing an outcome.”
Karim, who also acts as a village representative, reported contamination of Tanjaro River, water scarcity and economic backlash against reduced food production are some of the residents’ major concerns. His formal written complaints have been met with little to no cooperation. Karim warned 80 percent of water wells in Chaqlawa will run dry in the future. The only solution he sees is for one large reservoir, around 200 meters deep. He requested several times that governorate authorities look into it, but hasn’t received any answer.
“We feel abandoned in many ways, starting with the fact that we can’t access clean water,” he reiterated, estimating the daily water supply at two-and-a-half hours for each well. “Because we depend on our water wells, we can never be sure when we have water and when we don’t.”
At about 15 minutes away from the hamlet, in Naw Grdan—a village made up of 370 houses totaling some 1,800 inhabitants—Mohamed Tofiq, 54, in an all-black outfit with a waist band wrapped around the top of his pants, waved a hand from afar welcoming this reporter to enter his home.
“It’s been really damaging,” the cattle breeder told Toward Freedom. “There’s very little rain, we have no springs, our wells are drying up fast.”
Although he has three water wells, they are located on his farmland. That is far from where he lives, making collecting water a tedious task.
The majority of residents either draw clean water from wells or buy potable water. For non-drinking purposes, some may even purchase trucks of water from Tanjaro River despite it being unsafe.
The effect of water scarcity on stockbreeding has been drastic, given how much water they consume.
“Since we’ve been having less and less rainfall, I sometimes have to take my farm animals 3 to 4 kilometers outside the village to find greener pastures for grazing,” the 54-year-old noted.
“Before I had 120 cows, I was selling 10 every month and buying another five right away because I could easily re-sell beef cattle to butcher shops,” Tofiq said. “Now, I have 60 baby cows, and sell five or six in a month.”
He explained that, with the increased expenses involved in animal feeding, it is not worth investing into the production of dairies. That is especially because of recent greater reliance on imports. He just keeps a cow to produce milk, cheese and yogurt for his family.
The cow breeder also indicated that cultivation of wheat and barley—the only crops grown in the village—has dropped in the last couple of years. Now, less than a quarter of the population grow them.
Tofiq, whom Naw Grdan community members tapped as an unofficial representative, pointed out the main problem villagers encounter is the government’s lack of planning for the agriculture sector. That includes ensuring efficient water management and a fair provision of water resources, as well as supporting farmers by different means, such as with machinery, tools, fertilizers and financial incentives.
One proposal he put forward to the governorate was to create a big water reservoir to sustain the villagers, after a team of geologists found last year large groundwater reserves in Naw Grdan. Alternatively, he suggested, the water supply network that serves greater Sulaymaniyah should be linked to the village.
Four New Dams
A combination of a semi-arid climate, drought conditions, decline in rainfall, and decreasing water levels in the Euphrates and Tigris rivers arriving from upstream neighbors have compromised farmers’ ability to grow food in Iraq and in the Kurdish region.
According to a report published by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in August of last year, wheat production in the Kurdistan region is expected to decrease by half because of the drought. Further research the NRC released last December found more than one-third of wheat farmers in drought-affected regions of Iraq faced crop failure in 2021. This impacted average monthly income, which dropped below survival rates in six governorates, leaving one in five families without enough food.
The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture announced at the beginning of July that desertification threatens more than 50 percent of Iraq’s available farmland. Water shortages and dry climate had already forced the Iraqi government last October to order farmers to cultivate only half of the arable land during the winter.
The Iraqi water resources ministry warned in April that the country’s water reserves had decreased by half since 2021. The same ministry anticipated in a report released towards the end of last year that, unless urgent action is taken to fight against declining water volumes, Iraq’s two main rivers will be entirely dry by 2040
Moreover, the World Bank forecast in November that Iraq could suffer a 20-percent drop in drinking water by 2050.
Rahim echoed some of the calls by Humat Dijlah and Waterkeepers Iraq-Kurdistan for the protection of waterways that include “efficient water use” through advocacy to government officials and public awareness, prevention and removal of dams, and “serious steps from the government” to negotiate with Iran and Turkey and demand Iraq’s share of water. He maintained that the Iraqi central government and the KRG need to cooperate on water security issues.
The water campaigner slammed the KRG’s plan to build another four large dams as well as Turkey’s discussed building of the Cizre. “We already have two big dams in Kurdistan, they are not even half full,” he underlined. “We don’t need to see more dams built.”
Instead, he proposed, small reservoirs could be created in farmlands to manage water resources suitably around farming communities.
A staff person in charge of media relations at the KRG’s Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources didn’t respond to written questions, despite initially welcoming them.
The Kurdish region is in the midst of a water crisis, some of which has been blamed on poor water management and lack of funds. Diar Gharib Latif, head of the Sulaymaniyah governorate’s Directorate of Environment, acknowledged that, stressing the need for a “serious management system” to protect water resources and to mobilize “necessary capital” for it.
He also emphasized wastewater treatment should be introduced to stop waterways from being contaminated, with high pollution loads advancing through the KRI down to Iraq’s southern governorate of Basra, one of the most polluted cities in Iraq. With water reserves dwindling, water quality deterioration additionally reduces available supplies.
“We have faced drought for two years now. At our directorate, we are pushing for a decree law in the Kurdistan parliament that aims to protect water resources qualitatively and quantitatively,” Latif told Toward Freedom. He added that the agriculture and irrigation committee within parliament would be tasked with further discussing finding solutions to water shortages and budgeting for a plan.
“We wish to receive the needed funds so that we can respond to the drought and other water-related issues in a scientific way and with good strategy planning,” he alluded to the ongoing budget disputes between the federal government in Baghdad and the semi-autonomous KRG.
Expressing concern for the suffering of the agricultural sector in the KRI, the local official anticipated that, if the drought drags on for another year, not only it will be a devastating blow to agriculture and food security overall, but the environmental impact will be severe, too.
He insisted that Iraq should have effective water negotiations with its neighbors and finalize an agreement. To date, there is no international treaty for the Euphrates-Tigris basin, leaving Iraq exposed to unilateral alterations of water flows by Turkey and Iran.
KRG’s authorities allocated 21 billion Iraqi dinars (roughly $14 million) to maintain the water distribution network in the Kurdish regional capital of Erbil ahead of the summer season. Regional officials said they were digging more than 130 new wells to stem water scarcity, though that could also negatively impact the performance of pre-existing wells.
In an attempt to diminish the effects of the drought, the KRG ministry signed in March a memorandum of understanding with Power China to build four dams in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and Duhok.
At the Second International Water Conference in Baghdad held last March, Iraq’s ministries of water resources and of the environment signed new cooperation agreements to support a joint approach to tackling the water problem. International and Iraqi NGOs demanded that these and other relevant agreements and policies be effectively funded and implemented, including the 2009 Law on Protection and Improvement of the Environment and the 2001 Law on Conservation of Water Resources, both of which prohibit the dumping of waste and discharge of pollutants in public waters.
In the meantime, the situation remains dire for Iraq’s farmers.
“We expect the harvest to be really bad,” Hussein said. “Most crops will die since we have far from enough water to survive the summer heat.”
Alessandra Bajec is a freelance journalist specializing in West Asia and North Africa. Between 2010 and 2011, she lived in Palestine. Then she was based in Cairo from 2013 to 2017. Since 2018, Bajec has lived in Tunis.
Israeli Knesset / credit: Former U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo met former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu / credit: Rafael Nir on Unsplash
How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s legacy, now that his historic leadership is likely to end.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first meeting with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at the Erez crossing, September 4, 1996 / credit: Israel Government Press Office
Netanyahu’s ‘achievements’ for Israel cannot be judged according to the same criteria as that of Ben Gurion. Both were staunch Zionist ideologues and savvy politicians. Unlike Ben Gurion, though, Netanyahu did not lead a so-called ‘war of independence’, merging militias into an army and carefully constructing a ‘national narrative’ that helped Israel justify its numerous crimes against the indigenous Palestinians, at least in the eyes of Israel and its supporters.
The cliched explanation of Netanyahu’s success in politics is that he is a ‘survivor’, a hustler, a fox or, at best, a political genius. However, there is more to Netanyahu than mere soundbites. Unlike other right-wing politicians around the world, Netanyahu did not simply exploit or ride the wave of an existing populist movement. Instead, he was the main architect of the current version of Israel’s right-wing politics. If Ben Gurion was the founding father of Israel in 1948, Netanyahu is the founding father of the new Israel in 1996. While Ben Gurion and his disciples used ethnic cleansing, colonization and illegal settlement construction for strategic and military reasons, Netanyahu, while carrying on with the same practices, changed the narrative altogether.
For Netanyahu, the biblical version of Israel was far more convincing than secular Zionist ideology of yesteryears. By changing the narrative, Netanyahu managed to redefine the support for Israel around the world, bringing together right-wing religious zealots, chauvinistic, Islamophobic, far-right and ultra-nationalist parties in the United States and elsewhere.
Netanyahu’s success in rebranding the centrality of the idea of Israel in the minds of its traditional supporters was not a mere political strategy. He also shifted the balance of power in Israel by making Jewish extremists and illegal settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories his core constituency. Subsequently, he reinvented Israeli conservative politics altogether.
He also trained an entire generation of Israeli right-wing, far-right and ultra-nationalist politicians, giving rise to such unruly characters such as former Defense Minister and the leader of Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman, former Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, and former Defense Minister, and Netanyahu’s likely replacement, Naftali Bennett.
Indeed, a whole new generation of Israelis grew up watching Netanyahu take the right-wing camp from one success to another. For them, he is the savior. His hate-filled rallies and anti-peace rhetoric in the mid-1990s galvanized Jewish extremists, one of whom killed Yitzhak Rabin, Israel’s former Prime Minister who engaged the Palestinian leadership through the ‘peace process’ and, ultimately, signed the Oslo Accords.
On Rabin’s death in November 1995, Israel’s political ‘left’ was devastated by right-wing populism championed by its new charismatic leader, Netanyahu, who, merely a few months later, became Israel’s youngest Prime Minister.
Despite the fact that, historically, Israeli politics is defined by its ever-changing dynamics, Netanyahu has helped the right prolong its dominance, completely eclipsing the once-hegemonic Labor Party. This is why the right loves Netanyahu. Under his reign, illegal Jewish colonies expanded unprecedentedly, and any possibility, however meager, of a two-state solution has been forever buried.
Additionally, Netanyahu changed the relationship between the US and Israel, where the latter was no longer a ‘client regime’ – not that it ever was in the strict definition of the term – but one that holds much sway over the U.S. Congress and the White House.
Every attempt by Israel’s political elites to dislodge Netanyahu from power has failed. No coalition was powerful enough; no election outcome was decisive enough and no one was successful enough in convincing Israeli society that he could do more for them than Netanyahu has. Even when Gideon Sa’ar from Netanyahu’s own Likud party tried to stage his own coup against Netanyahu, he lost the vote and the support of the Likudists, later to be ostracized altogether.
Sa’ar later founded his own party, New Hope, continuing with the desperate attempt to oust the seemingly unconquerable Netanyahu. Four general elections within only two years still failed to push Netanyahu out. Every possible mathematical equation to unify various coalitions, all united by the single aim of defeating Netanyahu, has also failed. Each time, Netanyahu came back, with greater resolve to hang on to his seat, challenging contenders within his own party as well as his enemies from without. Even Israel’s court system, which is currently trying Netanyahu for corruption, was not powerful enough to compel disgraced Netanyahu to resign.
Until May of this year, Palestinians seemed to be marginal, if at all relevant to this conversation. Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation looked as if they were mollified, thanks to Israeli violence and Palestinian Authority acquiescence. Palestinians in Gaza, despite occasional displays of defiance, were battling a 15-year-long Israeli siege. Palestinian communities inside Israel seemed alien to any political conversation pertaining to the struggle and aspirations of the Palestinian people.
All of these illusions were dispelled when Gaza rose in solidarity with a small Palestinian community in Sheikh Jarrah in occupied East Jerusalem. Their resistance ignited a torrent of events that, within days, unified all Palestinians, everywhere. Consequently, the popular Palestinian revolt has shifted the discourse in favor of Palestinians and against the Israeli occupation.
Perfectly depicting the significance of that moment, the Financial Times newspaper wrote, “The ferocity of the Palestinian anger caught Israel by surprise.” Netanyahu, whose extremist goons were unleashed against Palestinians everywhere, similar to his army being unleashed against besieged Gaza, found himself at an unprecedented disadvantage. It took only 11 days of war to shatter Israel’s sense of ‘security’, expose its sham democracy and spoil its image around the world.
The once untouchable Netanyahu became the mockery of Israeli politics. His conduct in Gaza was described by leading Israeli politicians as “embarrassing”, a defeat and a “surrender”.
Netanyahu struggled to redeem his image. It was too late. As strange as this may sound, it was not Bennett or Lieberman who finally dethroned the “King of Israel’, but the Palestinians themselves.
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
The rapper, Lowkey, speaking at a rally in support of persecuted journalist Julian Assange / credit: Justin Ng / Avalon
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Electronic Intifada. An “own goal” is a term from soccer (football) describing a goal inadvertently scored when the ball is struck into the goal by a player on the defensive team.
For more than a decade, Lowkey has been regarded as an enemy by Israel’s lobbying network.
Back in 2011, the right-wing Jewish Chronicledescribed the London-based rapper’s ability to reach a young audience as a “potential nightmare.”
Judging by more recent attacks against Lowkey, it would seem that his determination to raise awareness about how Palestinians live under an apartheid system has indeed kept Israel’s supporters awake at night.
Unable to find flaws in his arguments, the lobby has told lies about him.
An example of how he has been deliberately misquoted came after he made a live appearance on BBC radio in 2017.
He performed “Letter to the 1%,” a track pledging solidarity with “victims of the globalized cosa nostra.” Despite obviously referencing the Sicilian mafia, The Jewish Chroniclefalsely charged that he had uttered the anti-Semitic phrase “kosher nostra.”
Due to a threatened lawsuit, the newspaper published a retraction.
Smears Step Up a Gear
The smear campaign against Lowkey has stepped up a gear over the past six months.
In December 2021, the rapper was booked for a gig in London’s Jazz Cafe. The venue came under pressure to call off the show, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of his album, Soundtrack to the Struggle.
And in March this year, Lowkey was scheduled to speak at a conference organized by Britain’s National Union of Students (NUS), marking its centenary.
As soon as the lineup for the event was announced, the journalist Theo Usherwood wrote a series of tweets.
Usherwood, political editor with the radio station LBC, highlighted comments made by Lowkey about how the mainstream media was “weaponizing the Jewish heritage” of Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, in order to “stave off” questions about far-right groups in Ukraine.
Although Lowkey’s analysis was based on demonstrable facts, Usherwood described it as “theorizing.”
New: Rapper Lowkey to appear at the NUS’s annual conference at end of month.
Also appearing at the conference is Labour MP Zarah Sultana.
Earlier, Lowkey said MSM has “weaponised the Jewish heritage” of Zelenskyy to “stave off” inquiries about far right groups in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/xMwjmooipU
Usherwood is considered an ally by the pro-Israel lobby, as the blogger David Collier has made clear.
Vilified
Following Usherwood’s tweets, The Daily Mail, one of Britain’s most widely read newspapers, published an article on the event to which Lowkey had been invited.
The article featured comments from Nina Freedman, who heads the Union of Jewish Students. She claimed that Lowkey had “spread conspiracies about Jewish students, 9/11 and the war in Ukraine.”
Although Freedman was quoted at length, the article did not elaborate on the “conspiracies” she had in mind.
It also did not mention that the Union of Jewish Students is financed by the Israeli embassy in London, as an investigation by Al Jazeera has revealed.
The NUS was vilified by the Campaign Against Antisemitism – another Israel lobby group – over how it responded to complaints about the invitation to Lowkey.
The NUS recommended that people who took umbrage at Lowkey’s views could avoid listening to him and even offered a “safe space” where they could go during his appearance. Yet the Campaign Against Antisemitism distorted that offer as a suggestion that “the Jewish students literally segregate themselves.”
Some elected politicians even got involved in efforts to bully the NUS.
Andrew Percy, a member of the British Parliament, described the offer of a “safe space” to offended students as “sinister.” He called on Larissa Kennedy, president of the NUS, to resign.
Another MP Robert Halfon contended that Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission should investigate the NUS for what he alleged was “institutional anti-Semitism.”
Both Percy and Halfon have held senior positions with Conservative Friends of Israel, a pressure group inside Britain’s ruling party.
‘Own Goal’
The NUS capitulated to the pressure.
Lowkey was dropped from the conference to which he was invited. Instead, it was proposed that he could have a role in a fringe event marking the NUS centenary.
When Lowkey refused to accept that proposal, the NUS claimed– dishonestly – that he had simply pulled out of the conference.
The bullying did not go unchallenged.
The group Palestine Action – best known for smashing up Israeli weapons factories – protested against how Lowkey had been canceled by scaling the roof of the venue where the NUS celebrated its 100th birthday.
According to Palestine Action, a number of students active in the NUS took part in that protest.
Tonight, Students & NUS delegates scaled the roof & gate crashed the NUS' 100th birthday party venue. They acted in solidarity with @Lowkey0nline, who was cancelled from the event. Try to silence or set security on ANY of us & we'll come back louder, stronger and bolder… pic.twitter.com/BFThUwLKV9
Lowkey is also the target of a campaign aimed at removing his music from the major streaming website Spotify. That campaign has been launched by Luke Akehurst from the lobby group We Believe in Israel.
Speaking to The Electronic Intifada, Lowkey pointed out that Akehurst’s group is known to work with Israel’s government.
The calls for censorship—which have been opposed by the actor Mark Ruffalo, the rapper Wretch 32 and the rock star Roger Waters among many others—are “ultimately an own goal,” Lowkey added.
“Artists and musicians should never have to fear threats to their livelihood or person for the music they make,” he added. “We will not be silenced on Palestine. Not now, not ever.”
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. Twitter: @KitKlarenberg
