The struggle in Sheikh Jarrah is over a decade long, and is fought on many levels – legal, political and in the media. The story of a well-organised group of Jewish Israeli colonists who wish to dispossess Palestinian families of their homes is not unique to Sheikh Jarrah. It has happened thousands of times, since the Zionist movement started the colonisation of Palestine in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Aliyah">late 19th-century</a>.
It&#8217;s not the location of Sheikh Jarrah, so close to the Old City of Jerusalem, that makes it a special case. Nor is it the timing, during the holy month of Ramadan or the brutality of the annual “Jerusalem Day” celebration of the conquest of 1967, carried out by extremists drunk on nationalism on 10 May. What makes Sheikh Jarrah stand out is that it exposes the international contradictions in the Israeli strategy of domination, and lays bare how vulnerable Israeli apartheid has become.
It started with the argument made by the colonists in the Israeli court. They contended that some of the houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood were owned by Jews before the 1948 war, so the colonists have a claim to that property. I participated in the demonstrations in <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-sheikh-jarrah-jerusalem-neighbourhood-eviction-explained">Sheikh Jarrah</a> against the evictions back in 2009 to 2010, but I felt uncomfortable there. Many of the fellow protestors, Jewish Israelis like myself, were not there out of respect for Palestinian rights to their homes, but because they were afraid that if the court recognises the colonists’ demands to regain the property from before the war (which it did), millions of Palestinian refugees would have a strong claim to their homes inside Israel, which had been taken over by the Israeli authorities after the war. The demonstrators spoke with two voices. Some called the ethnic cleansing of Sheikh Jarrah an atrocity, others called it stupidity.
The Israeli colonial system is losing its lustre and international legitimacy. Support from former US President Donald Trump made Israelis euphoric and created a sense of invulnerability. The Palestinian <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-end-of-this-road-the-decline-of-the-palestinian-national-movement">resistance movement was ridiculed</a> and the minister that was assigned to fight the boycott movement against Israel was <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/strategic-affairs-minister-says-hes-examining-shuttering-own-ministry/">fired</a>. Nevertheless, the protests at the Al-Aqsa Mosque that came in the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/08/03/jerusalem-al-aqsa-israel-palestine-protest-waqf/">summer of 2017</a> proved to Palestinians that stubborn and dedicated resistance can break the resolve of the Israeli authorities. The Israeli authorities devolved into squabbles over how best to preserve their honour and not show any weakness in the eyes of the restless natives. The secret police warned that security cameras and metal detectors installed at the entrance to the mosque would trigger protests that would spiral out of control, but the government was trapped in its own machismo, demanding repeatedly that Palestinians must be taught a lesson. Eventually, they surrendered and removed the cameras and metal detectors. Palestinians knew that it will end like this, but the Israelis acted impulsively and predictably.
This year, both the largest Israeli human rights organisation <a href="https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid">B’tselem</a>, and the international organisation <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Human Rights Watch</a>, published landmark reports about the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution">Israeli apartheid system</a>. Illusions of Israeli democracy were further shattered when the Palestinian Authority was denied the right to hold elections in East Jerusalem, in violation of the Oslo Agreements, and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kv9j9/arrests-are-happening-every-day-palestinian-elections-hang-in-the-balance">President Abbas decided to cancel the elections</a> altogether. In a country of 14 million people, only two-thirds of citizens have the right to vote and only half are Jewish with full citizen and national rights. Palestinians know, just as Black South Africans under apartheid knew, that there is no path for them to take to fight for their rights within an apartheid system. They have no choice but to shatter the existing structure and build a new democratic system to replace it.
On 11 May, Haaretz journalist <a href="https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/.premium-1.9793789">Yossi Melman</a> quoted the famous book by historian Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly. As an expert on Israeli intelligence, he lamented the irrationality and hubris which drives the Israeli authorities to self-destruction. Why provoke a religious conflict in Jerusalem during Ramadan? Why allow far-right thugs to run amok in Jerusalem shouting “death to Arabs”? Why unleash the police at the holy Haram al-Sharif?
Violence spreads quickly beyond Jerusalem. Israeli forces are spread thin to crush the resistance from Gaza, which took the Israelis by surprise. The methods are the same ones which were tried countless times before: collective punishment, indiscriminate bombing of civilian neighbourhoods and wholesale killing of defenceless people. It didn’t work in the past and it is not working now. It’s not just Jerusalem and Gaza though. Palestinians everywhere feel outrage at the ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem and the Israeli security forces are not trained or equipped to deal with a large-scale uprising. They count on Palestinians remaining cowed and afraid.
Do Israelis know how fragile their system of privileges has become? At least one Israeli does – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He receives regular reports from a network of Israeli intelligence organisations and can tell the difference between rational strategy to prolong Israeli colonialism and populist acts of vengeance. At the moment, Netanyahu tries to prevent his political opponents from forming a coalition so it’s in his interest to create a security crisis and keep his seat during the state of emergency. He knows how to create the spark that will set-off the powder keg and no one can stop him.
In 2002, Netanyahu’s wife Sarah was recorded saying that <a href="https://www.theintelligencer.com/news/article/Netanyahu-s-Wife-Israel-Can-Burn-10544384.php">Israel cannot survive</a> without her husband. But if he can’t be prime minister, she and he will leave. “The country can burn, as far as I’m concerned,” she added. Indeed, it is burning now.
&nbsp;
<pre>Photo Credit: Cms-archiv / Pixabay </pre>

jerusalem-jarrah

The Israeli colonial system is losing its lustre and legitimacy amid fresh evictions in Sheikh Jarrah, but violence spreads quickly beyond Jerusalem.

Sheikh Jarrah is Israel’s Self-Destruct Button

The repression of the BDS movement is a double-edged sword which threatens liberty in the west and promotes violent resolutions to problems in the Middle East 
&nbsp; 
BDS stands for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”, and is a <a href="http://bdsmovement.net/">movement</a> which was launched in 2005 by Palestinian civil society organisations. It calls on people from around the world to express their solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for freedom and for justice by applying economic pressure on Israel. Inspired by the boycott movement against apartheid in South Africa, BDS is a rights-based movement, demanding that Israel implement international law. It calls for people to boycott Israeli products, cut ties with Israeli institutions involved with Israel’s violations of international law, and stop normal relations with Israel (including cultural and academic connections) until Israel withdraws from occupied Arab land, offers equal rights for all its citizens, and allows the Palestinian refugees the right of return. 
The movement, so far, has achieved a <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-impacts-of-the-bds-campaign-on-israels-economy/5458946">tremendous</a> impact on Israeli society. Israelis are becoming well aware that a growing number of people all over the world are refusing to buy Israeli products, while Israeli corporations are being taught that their international business suffers when they profit from the <a href="http://www.projectcensored.org/11-private-corporations-profit-from-the-occupation-of-palestine/">exploitation</a> of the Palestinian economy. Many Israelis feel that international pressure will escalate with every act of repression against Palestinian resistance, until the Israeli regime itself will collapse. 
The Israeli government is mindful of the growing BDS movement, but has no means to stop it except to respect the rights of Palestinians, which it refuses to do. The Israeli parliament <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-passes-law-banning-calls-for-boycott-1.372711">passed a law</a> against Israelis supporting BDS, and the government threatened to use Israel’s military intelligence and secret services to <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/0601a79f13e041b9b5b312ec73063c98/covertly-israel-prepares-fight-boycott-activists-online">undermine</a> boycotters around the world. The Israeli government has become accustomed to using force to <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-war-dissent/8217">repress</a> dissenting voices, to <a href="http://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners">throw in jail</a> Palestinian political activists and use violence to <a href="http://972mag.com/watch-violent-dispersal-of-a-demonstration-in-palestinian-village/16403/">disperse</a> Palestinian demonstrations, but such means are completely ineffective against an international grassroots movement, and the Israeli public is losing faith that its government can stop BDS. 
When international governments take steps against BDS, such as in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/18/illinois-passes-historic-anti-bds-bill-as-congress-mulls-similar-moves/">US</a>, in <a href="https://theintercept.com/2015/10/27/criminalization-of-anti-israel-activism-escalates-this-time-in-the-land-of-the-charlie-hebdo-free-speech-march/">France</a> and most recently in the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-israel-boycott-idUKKCN0VQ16J">UK</a>, they simply cannot force their citizens to buy Israeli products, nor can they slow down BDS with repressive government action. By repressing freedom of speech of their own citizens, they aim to show support for the Israeli government; they do not protect the Israeli economy or society from BDS, but they protect the Israeli government from its own angry public, because such moves are only credited to the Israeli government’s diplomatic efforts and make it more likely that the current bunch of Israeli politicians will be re-elected. These Israeli politicians are then likely to be cooperative in international dealings with governments who repress BDS. 
Yet the reason for suppressing BDS in places like the UK is not just to win favour with the current Israeli government. It is also part of a larger policy of repressing liberties in the name of security. The countries which suppress BDS also happen to be countries that are <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9031392/Britain-US-and-France-send-warships-through-Strait-of-Hormuz.html">militarily</a> involved in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_overseas_military_bases">Middle East</a>, and whose governments <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/ssn/2015/01/27/targeting-muslim-americans/">implement</a> policies of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/01/france-attacks-uk-push-spying-powers-201511411111420135.html">surveillance</a>, restrictions and <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/02/france-state-emergency-extended-slim-evidence-160217174759408.html">control</a> on their own Muslim and Arab populations. Israel calls itself a democracy, but it serves as the <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.686229">model</a> for replacing liberty with security, which right-wing governments and political parties around the world seek to imitate. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2016/02/16/greatest-threat-to-free-speech-in-the-west-criminalizing-activism-against-israeli-occupation/">Glenn Greenwald</a> recently wrote that the repression of political activism against Israel’s occupation is the greatest threat to free speech in the west. Israel / Palestine is a symbol for countless social and political movements around the word (from the left and from the right). The liberation of Palestine is in the interest of citizens of most countries in the world who are struggling for their own civil liberties and human rights. 
BDS is a movement which was initiated by Palestinian civil society organisations. They believed that international pressure could give them the power and the protection they need in order to demand their rights from Israeli authorities, and win them over by marching, protesting and resisting in non-violent ways. It is no surprise that there are also <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/boycott-within">Israeli activists</a> who support BDS, because knowing the horrors of occupation and of apartheid up close, they understand that the alternative to peaceful protest is violent uprising. Indeed, there are Palestinian groups who dismiss BDS as ineffective, believing that only armed struggle can free Palestinians from Israeli domination. 
The attempt to repress BDS in the US, the UK and France is a boon to the Israeli government, but even more so to the Palestinian armed resistance groups, who cannot survive when a non-violent and effective alternative exists to their armed resistance. It is also a boon to anyone who prefers to see political problems in the Middle East resolved with violence, rather than with political means. Let us not forget that the US is the world’s largest <a href="http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/the-worlds-10-largest-arms-exporters.html/?a=viewall">arms exporter</a>, France is the fifth and the UK is the sixth. The weapon manufacturers in these three countries can thank their governments for fighting against BDS.
<pre>Image from: http://bdsmovement.net/files/2014/12/web-banner.jpg?1456161793582</pre>

Shir Hever