(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Israel's Deadly Nablus Raid: Stark Reminder that Palestinians have ZERO Sovereignty [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-27 Israeli military vehicles in downtown Nablus, Wednesday Feb. 22. Visible: rocks, produce, and random objects hurled at the military by Palestinian civilians. Missing from this and from every picture/video of the raid: any presence of Palestinian Defense Forces. Because such forces do not exist, just like any meaningful Palestinian sovereignty. Even as centrist and left-of-center Israelis take to the streets en masse attempting to stop the new far-right government’s rapid initiative to neuter the Judiciary, the government still counts on most of that very same opposition, to continue providing automatic support to its Occupation policies over Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. This includes continuation and acceleration of the military escalation in the West Bank. Under Israel’s previous short lived, supposedly “hope and change” right-center-left-ish government, 2022 was the bloodiest year for Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the Second Intifada petered out in 2005. Over 150 Palestinians were killed by Israelis in 2022. This included the Jenin raid in which an Israeli sniper murdered iconic Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh with complete impunity, sprinkled with the usual disinformation cover-up gaslighting, and with the Israeli police actually assaulting the funeral itself and causing Shireen’s coffin to fall to the ground, in order to pre-empt “a political spectacle”. To reiterate, all that 2022 bloodshed, gaslighting, and other exemplary behavior was under the previous so-called “Government of Change”TM heralded by the Israeli liberal press and by many in the West and as the Second Coming. The new government being the most right-wing in Israeli history, it treats last year’s escalation as a sweet launching pad for this year’s actions. We’re not even 2 months out, and already at least 63 Palestinians were killed in violent action by Israeli forces and by Israeli non-state actors. But this diary is written not only to note the bloodshed and escalation. I am well aware that lots of bloodshed goes on around the world, on any given day. This diary wants to use last week’s Israeli raid into downtown Nablus as a teachable moment. To use it as a reminder (in case you knew but have forgotten), or a demonstration (in case you’re unaware or in denial), that Palestinians have zero meaningful sovereignty. Map makes you dizzy? Just imagine being an Occupied Palestinian person trying to navigate this apartheid terrain. Nablus is the dark brown blob just north of dead center. The map shows a 2014 snapshot of the northern West Bank, issued by Israeli human-rights NGO Btselem. It is the last static snapshot; now Btselem offers an interactive map. Not a ton has changed on the map since 2014, but any change has surely been for the worse. On paper, West Bank reality is “governed” by the 1993-1994 Oslo accords. In practice , after the Oslo process collapsed in late 2000, Israel has quickly and unilaterally hollowed out any meaningful Palestinian sovereignty, leaving “intact” only those empty shells of “Oslo reality” which it has found useful. , after the Oslo process collapsed in late 2000, Israel has quickly and unilaterally hollowed out any meaningful Palestinian sovereignty, leaving “intact” only those empty shells of “Oslo reality” which it has found useful. On paper, the notorious division of West Bank and Gaza into “Area A/B/C” was temporary , to be replaced in 1999 by a fully sovereign Palestinian state over nearly the entire region , (and likely land-exchange beyond the region) with exact borders to be negotiated. (and likely land-exchange beyond the region) with exact borders to be negotiated. In practice, Israel has treated the largest land mass (“Area C” showing in both yellow and blue, which includes the dark-blue settlements that are illegal by International Law) as part and parcel of its own territory in all but name — an approach which became quasi-permanent after 2000. This leaves “Area B” (light brown) with partial autonomy, and “Area A” (middle brown) with nominally full autonomy except during a security emergency, as the only islets of the West Bank where some semblance of Palestinian sovereignty might be found (the dark-brown is actual built-up Palestinian cities and villages, regardless of A/B/C). Might. Might be found. Both Jenin with its incessant Israeli raids, and Nablus with last week’s relatively rare raid, are supposedly inside “Area A” bloblets. While venturing south inside the West Bank towards Ramallah or — Heavens — to the part of the West Bank south of Jerusalem (not shown in the image above) — involves lengthy detours, multiple Israeli checkpoints, hours of delays, and a good chance you won’t make it at all (an Israeli settler cruises the same distance in under an hour), within those “Area A” cities in the tiny Palestinian heartland, some type of sovereignty is supposed to be expected. Supposed. But on Wednesday, Israeli commandos disguised as Palestinian civilians — a favorite ruse (turned into global pop-culture entertainment by a despicable Israeli soft-propaganda, terror-porn TV series whose name I won’t write here) — strolled into downtown Nablus, a city of >150,000 souls, the West Bank’s commercial and cultural capital, in order to assassinate three militants who were supposedly planning something. Three. Three militants. Mayhem ensued and Israeli military vehicles streamed into the city. As should be expected, civilians flooded the streets in outrage. When the dust settled, 11 Palestinians were killed, including at least 3 elderly and one child, and over 100 were wounded. Israeli forces were unscathed, or very nearly so. Missing from the picture of a daylong “battle” in the middle of the West Bank’s economic capital: Palestinian defense forces. ”The Palestinian Authority” (PA) is a great boogeyman for Israeli propaganda to blame for anything it feels like, and a great disinformation device for Western press (particularly corporate US media) when it tries to “Both-Sides” the Occupation and its apartheid regime. But whatever “security forces” and arms the PA might possess, their main goal and function in life is twofold (in increasing order of importance): Generally policing the Palestinian population like any police force. The main goal: police and intelligence work to keep Israelis safe. A goal they’ve been serving with impressive effectiveness, and which their overlords the Israeli security services routinely grab all the credit for . Definitely Not among the PA’s “security services” goals: confronting Israeli forces when they attack Palestinians, in order to defend said Palestinians, whether in areas A, B, or C (they are actually not allowed to set foot in C, barely so even in B). My well-educated guess is that the moment any PA security commander orders their squad to return fire in defense of Palestinian civilians — the entire force will be disbanded and disarmed, with the Western press framing the story as the PA “going rogue” and paying the justified price for it. As I said, zero actual sovereignty. No wonder Palestinians and in particular young men are so easily lured towards more radical solutions. No wonder the Hamas, despite being generally worse than useless, retains enduring popularity by comparison to the PA — at least into downtown Gaza, no Israeli forces are going to stroll so easily. (They did occupy outlying neighborhoods of Gaza in the various invasions and incursions.) Add to this lack of defense sovereignty, a (very partial) list of other critical gaps: The Palestinian currency is… Israel’s currency the New Shekel. Palestinian banks actually pay a hefty fee to use it. Palestinians cannot leave or enter the West Bank (and hardly even Gaza), including crossing the Jordan River between the West Bank and Jordan (not setting foot in Israel), without Israeli permission. And surely, travel between the West Bank and Gaza requires Israeli permission. The PA functions only as an intermediary passing requests to Israel and Israel’s response back. Likewise for telecom access. The “country code” is Israel’s. The West Bank was only recently allowed to get 4G wireless, while Gaza is throttled to 2G only. And Palestinian telecom network are routinely surveilled by Israel’s octopus-like “intelligence services”. Speaking of octopi: Israeli secret police is deeply embedded into all corners of Palestinian society via multitudes of informants, easily recruited due to the secret police’s control over access to basic necessities such as freedom of movement, work permits in Israel, advanced medical care, etc. Likewise, Palestinian exports/imports from/to both territories are throttled and strangled by Israel , keeping most Palestinians in a now generations-long status of cheap disposable daily labor devoid of any labor rights. Or: subsistence farmers over shrinking land that continues to be robbed and diced up. , keeping most Palestinians in a now generations-long status of cheap disposable daily labor devoid of any labor rights. Or: subsistence farmers over shrinking land that continues to be robbed and diced up. Israel controls the official population registry of both the West Bank and Gaza. Whatever paperwork the PA maintains on the matter is toothless. Yes, it is Israel who determines whether an individual Palestinian is an official resident of (supposedly Hamas-controlled) Gaza. Let alone the West Bank, and surely East Jerusalem. And so forth. Just keep this in mind, the next time you hear in the lazy media about “clashes”, or “a diplomatic impasse”, yada yada. What do we actually have in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem? The attempted perpetuation of pre-WWI style colonialism using 21st-Century technology in Israel’s back yard, with the stateless, disenfranchised local residents squeezed by Israel and by a fully-complicit West into choosing between hopeless servility, and equally-hopeless violent radicalism. As I write, on Sunday two young adult brothers from an Israeli settlement that was plopped right above Nablus 40 years ago were murdered in the town of Huwara a few km south of the city, in apparent revenge to Wednesday’s raid. Then, Israeli settlers spent 6 hours (6PM — midnight) pogroming Huwara, and murdering at least one person, in revenge-for-the-revenge. Israeli “defense” forces ( legally tasked with protecting Occupied population ) mostly stood idly by, watching the pogrom. Palestinian defense forces do not exist. Oh, and also on Sunday some diplomats signed something in Aqaba about security and settlements. Something whose main practical use, just like all “diplomacy” since Oslo collapsed, will be to provide the new far-right, explicitly Jewish-Supremacist Israeli government with diplomatic cover for a few months, as it continues to tyrannize, escalate, and shed blood on Occupied soil. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/27/2155161/-Israel-s-Deadly-Nablus-Raid-Stark-Reminder-that-Palestinians-have-ZERO-Sovereignty Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/