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jerusalem
‘Incompetence Everywhere’: Fury as US Embassy Says Americans Stuck in Israel Are On Their Own
"The strike itself is illegal and disastrous but their lack of readiness for what comes next is unforgivable as well," said Sen. Chris Murphy.
Mar 03, 2026
The US Embassy in Jerusalem sparked outrage on Tuesday when it said it was unable to help Americans stuck in Israel leave the country amid an escalating regional conflict with Iran.
In a message posted on social media, the embassy said it "is not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel," and recommended seeking help from Israeli tourism officials.
"The Israeli Ministry of Tourism has begun operating shuttles to the Taba Border Crossing as of March 2," the embassy stated. "To be added to the passenger list for a shuttle, you must register via the Ministry’s evacuation form. The US Embassy cannot make any recommendation (for or against) the Ministry of Tourism's shuttle. If you choose to avail yourself of this option to depart, the US government cannot guarantee your safety."
The embassy's message came three days after the US and Israel launched an unprovoked attack on Iran, which has retaliated by launching drone strikes on US allies throughout the Middle East.
Many critics slammed the US embassy for being so unprepared to help its own citizens despite having advance knowledge that a large-scale attack on Iran was a real possibility.
"Mike Huckabee’s embassy is always ready to defend Israel," wrote Zeteo News editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan, "but not to help American citizens, it seems."
US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said that the Jerusalem embassy's helplessness in the face of an emergency was evidence of "incompetence everywhere."
"So the State Department is forcing everyone to immediately leave the region but is also refusing to help people leave the region," he wrote. "The strike itself is illegal and disastrous but their lack of readiness for what comes next is unforgivable as well."
Murphy's criticism was echoed by former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a one-time ally of President Donald Trump who in recent months has become a staunch critic of the president's decisions.
"American tax payers are forced to give Israel $3.8 BILLION every single year," she wrote, "and here is our own US Embassy in Jerusalem telling Americans good luck getting out, you are on your own. The betrayal is unbelievable."
Tommy Vietor, former National Security Council staffer under President Barack Obama, expressed outrage at the Trump White House for leaving Americans out to dry.
"All those years demagoguing Benghazi and pretending to give a shit about Americans overseas," wrote Vietor, "and now the White House starts a reckless war with Iran and tells everyone trying to escape the chaos that you're on your own."
Sam Stein, a reporter at The Bulwark, observed that the US Department of State only put out an alert encouraging Americans to leave Israel and 13 other countries in the region on Monday, two days after the strikes against Iran began.
"This morning, the Embassy in Jerusalem says it can't help with that," Stein marveled.
Anti-gun violence activist Fred Guttenberg unleashed an angry tirade at the Trump administration upon seeing the US embassy's message.
"THEY HAD NO FUCKING PLAN!!!" he wrote. "Americans are at risk now because they had no FUCKING plan."
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Israel Plans 1,000 New Settlement Homes as West Bank Raids Intensify
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said one group.
Feb 17, 2025
Israeli authorities are planning to expand a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank by nearly 1,000 homes, a Tel Aviv-based peace group said Sunday as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians in the illegally occupied territory.
Peace Now said Israel's Civil Administration has issued a new tender for the construction of 974 new housing units in Efrat, a Jewish-only colony located about 7.5 miles south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron. The planned expansion will increase Efrat's population of approximately 11,800 residents by 40% and geographically isolate Palestinian communities in the southern West Bank.
Emboldened by U.S. President Donald Trump's return to power, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet have vowed to annex the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967 in violation of international law.
On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that "the goal for 2025 is to demolish more than the Palestinians build in the West Bank," according to Al Jazeera. This, following the largest Israeli seizure of Palestinian land in the West Bank in decades last year.
"The Netanyahu government is operating on steroids to establish facts on the ground that will destroy the chance for peace and compromise," said Peace Now, referring to the longtime Israeli practice of violating international law by colonizing and annexing Palestinian land to establish what one legal scholar has described as "de facto possession with the aim of attaining de jure possession."
Peace Now continued: "It is now clear that military action alone will not bring a solution to the conflict or security to Israel, and that ultimately we will have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians. The Netanyahu government is harming Israeli interests and torpedoing the only solution that can bring us security and peace."
In the United States, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said in a statement Monday that "the ongoing de facto annexation of the illegally occupied West Bank through the expansion of racially segregated illegal settlements is just one aspect of the far-right Israeli government's ethnic cleansing of the entirety of historic Palestine and of its relentless efforts to block justice for the Palestinian people."
Aviv Tatarsky, a researcher at the Israel-based peace group Ir Amim, told Al Jazeera that "since the start of 2025, Israeli authorities have demolished 27 structures in East Jerusalem, including 18 residential units, in what appears to be a systematic effort to remove Palestinians from their homes while simultaneously expanding Israeli settlements."
The Israeli settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to more than 500,000 today. Last July, the International Court of Justice, which is also weighing a genocide case concerning Israel's annihilation of the Gaza Strip, said that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."
News of the Efrat expansion came as Israeli soldiers and settlers escalated attacks on Palestinians across the West Bank over the weekend. Occupation forces carried out raids in the towns of al-Issawiya and Salfit, near East Jerusalem, as well as the village of Nabi Saleh near Ramallah. Israeli troops also continued their siege and assault on Jenin and the Nur Shams refugee camp, where two young women, one of them pregnant, were shot dead last week.
Armed Israeli settlers from the Mikne Avraham colony also invaded al-Minya, south of Bethlehem, wounding 16 Palestinians including a pregnant woman who was attacked with clubs and rocks, according to Middle East Eye. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Saturday that settlers sicced dogs on al-Minya residents, wounding two people.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 876 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Since launching "Operation Iron Wall" on January 21, Israeli forces have killed at least 53 Palestinians across the West Bank. The Israeli offensive has forced around 40,000 people from their homes in what experts say is the largest displacement in the West Bank since more than 200,000 Palestinians were expelled during the 1967 conquest and occupation.
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Israeli Police Assault Palestinian Christian Worshippers in Jerusalem
Ordinarily, 10,000 worshippers would flock to the church for this festival, but the Israeli police under the new extremist, Jewish supremacist Netanyahu government have refused to allow more than a fraction of them to gather there this year.
Apr 16, 2023
The Arabic press is reporting violent assaults Saturday evening by Israeli police against Palestinian Christian worshippers in Jerusalem attempting to make their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the "Saturday of Light" commemoration. The police attacks took place at the entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in response to Christians objecting to the barriers the police had erected to keep crowds away.
On this day Eastern Orthodox priests descend to the basement where they say their candles are lit from an illumination emanating from the tomb that once held Christ before his resurrection. The lighted candles they bring back up are used to light other candles, and the light is taken by airplane to Eastern Orthodox countries like Greece, Bulgaria, and Ukraine and distributed to churches.
So not only are the Israelis refusing to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian occupation, they are limiting Ukrainian pilgrims from attending the Saturday of Light festivities.
Ordinarily, 10,000 worshippers would flock to the church for this festival, but the Israeli police under the new extremist, Jewish supremacist Netanyahu government have refused to allow more than a fraction of them to gather there this year. Some 1,800 were allowed inside the church and another 1,200 were permitted to gather in the square just outside it.
The Israeli police statement claimed that some of the Christian worshippers attempted to enter the church by force. The police arrested one man, who is charged with attacking them.
The foreign ministry of the government of Palestine issued a statement saying that it "condemns in the strongest terms the occupation forces' attack on Christians celebrating the Holy Saturday in the Old City (Jerusalem), and preventing dozens from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," adding that it considered these actions "strong evidence of the oppression practiced by the occupation forces toward Palestinian citizens, and toward the believers who came to worship in Jerusalem, regardless of their nationality."
The assaults on these worshippers, the ministry said, are "a flagrant attack on the political, historical, and legal status quo, and a brazen violation of the obligations of Israel, the occupying power, in Jerusalem."
The "status quo" is a technical term. According to agreements that go back to the Ottoman period and which were accepted by Israel in 1967 when it militarily seized Palestinian East Jerusalem, each religious community has control over its own religious edifices.
The Eastern Orthodox Church explains: "The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has absolute sovereignty, both in the Church of the Resurrection and the Holy Sepulchre, as well as in the rest of the Holy Sites within Palestine. The Church of the Resurrection, the Golgotha, the Holy Sepulchre and Adam's Chapels, the Crown of Thorns, Centurion Longinus' the Monastery of the Klapon, and the Prison of Christ fall within the spiritual, administrative, and pastoral jurisdiction of the Patriarchate, as well as part of the Praetorium, the Tomb of Panaghia in Gethsemane, the Church of 'Little Galilee' on the Mount of Olives, the site where Protomaryr Stephen was stoned to death, and the house of Theotokos."
It is open season on Christians in Jerusalem since PM Benjamin Netanyahu brought extremists such as Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben-Gvir and Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich into the Cabinet and even gave them power over the Palestinians.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is appointed by the Vatican, told AP this week that the far, far-right government has emboldened Jewish extremists to attack clergymen and commit vandalism against churches at an unprecedented rate. He said that the extremists now feel that they have government protection, adding, "The frequency of these attacks, the aggressions, has become something new."
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'Heinous Crimes': Global Outcry as Israeli Forces Attack Al-Aqsa Worshipers for Second Night
"They want to create a new reality," said one eyewitness. "They want to empty Al-Aqsa Mosque of Palestinians."
Apr 06, 2023
Israeli police assaulted Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday evening for the second consecutive night during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, just hours after being widely condemned for an earlier attack.
"Dozens of armed Israeli officers entered the courtyards of the mosque while nearly 20,000 Palestinian worshipers were still performing the Ramadan Taraweeh night prayer," Middle East Eye reported. "Israeli forces fired rubber-coated bullets, tear gas, and stun grenades at worshipers just before the prayer ended to disperse them and clear the mosque... They also chased after people, beating them with batons and wounding some."
Israeli forces injured at least six people during their latest storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society. On Thursday morning, Israeli officers prevented Palestinians from entering the mosque for the Fajr prayer while allowing Israeli settlers to enter the compound.
"They want to create a new reality," eyewitness Firas al-Dibbs told Middle East Eye. "They want to empty Al-Aqsa Mosque of Palestinians."
"What happened, especially yesterday, was catastrophic," said al-Dibbs, referring to the preceding overnight raid. "The scale of violence was shocking."
During the first attack of the week, which began late Tuesday night and stretched into Wednesday morning, Israeli police officers injured at least a dozen peaceful worshipers and arrested more than 400.
Of the 450 Palestinian men taken into custody, 397 have been released with a one-week ban from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees' Affairs. Forty-seven of the prisoners who live in the occupied West Bank have been transferred to the Ofer military prison and six remain incarcerated in Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera reported Thursday that Israeli police have shut down access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque for Palestinian men under the age of 40. This restriction comes after Israel reportedly reduced the number of people allowed to attend the Taraweeh prayer from 80,000 on Tuesday to 20,000 on Wednesday.
Tuesday night's "barbaric" raid, which eyewitnesses say was far worse in person than what is shown in disturbing video footage, elicited denunciations from around the world, as Common Dreams reported Wednesday.
Leaders from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority described the attack as criminal and called on people to defend the mosque.
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Germany, and Canada all issued statements either condemning or expressing concerns about the assault. The United States also expressed concern even as it continues to provide $3.8 billion in annual military support to Israel, an anti-democratic regime that numerous human rights groups have characterized as an apartheid state.
Following its emergency meeting in Cairo on Wednesday, the Arab League issued a statement urging the United Nations Security Council to intervene to halt Israeli violence.
"These crimes escalated dangerously in the past days of Ramadan," the League said, "and led to hundreds of injuries and arrests of worshipers, incursions and deliberate desecration of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque by extremist Israeli officials and settlers under the protection of the occupation forces."
The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is Islam's third-holiest site "where unsolicited visits, prayers, and rituals by non-Muslims are forbidden, according to decadeslong international agreements," Middle East Eye explained. "Israeli groups, in coordination with authorities, have long violated the delicate arrangement and facilitated raids of the site and performed prayers and religious rituals."
Malaysia and neighboring Indonesia—the largest Muslim-majority country in the world—on Wednesday joined the Arab League in demanding an international response. The U.N. Security Council, said Malaysia, should "hold the Israeli regime accountable and responsible for the heinous crimes, and for them to release immediately all Palestinian detainees."
U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland, for his part, said Wednesday that "this holy period and places of worship should be for safe and peaceful religious reflection." The diplomat implored all parties to "act responsibly and refrain from steps that could escalate tensions."
However, just hours after people across the globe expressed outrage and called for restraint, Israeli forces renewed their attack on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
As Middle East Eye reported: "The raid on Wednesday started slightly earlier than the previous one on Tuesday, apparently in an attempt by Israeli forces to prevent worshipers from locking themselves inside the Qibli prayer hall. [Tuesday] night, hundreds of Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Qibli hall—the building with the silver dome—to perform the contemplative prayer of Itikaf and avoid attempts by police to remove them. Itikaf is a non-mandatory religious practice that is common during Ramadan, when worshipers stay inside mosques overnight to pray, reflect, and recite the Quran."
Following Tuesday night's intensification of anti-Palestinian brutality, protests erupted in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, and Umm al-Fahm, a Palestinian town in Israel. Demonstrations have since spread to other cities, but Israeli police have violently dispersed them and arrested several people.
Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel early Wednesday morning. In response, the Israeli military launched a series of airstrikes on the besieged enclave. More rockets were fired from Gaza on Thursday after Wednesday night's storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Also in the wake of Wednesday night's attack, several rockets were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday. The Israeli military responded to its northern neighbor with artillery fire, raising fears of a broader regional conflagration.
The final two weeks of Ramadan coincide with Passover—a weeklong Jewish holiday that started on Wednesday—prompting concerns about further violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and beyond.
The raids on Tuesday and Wednesday "come ahead of planned mass incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque by Israeli settlers set to start on Thursday and last a week," according to Middle East Eye. "Israeli forces regularly empty the mosque of Palestinians outside the five Muslim prayers, especially overnight and after dawn prayers to ensure a smooth incursion of Israeli settlers that takes place daily around 7:30 am local time. Temple Movement groups, which facilitate the settler incursions and advocate for the destruction of Al-Aqsa, have called for mass stormings throughout the weeklong Passover holiday."
"They have also called for conducting ritual animal slaughter at the site which could trigger anger from Palestinians and Muslims worldwide," the outlet noted. "Palestinian groups have urged mass presence at the site this week to prevent the planned animal slaughter and mass incursions."
Israeli attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in May 2021 preceded a deadly 11-day offensive on the Gaza Strip. Some commentators have argued that Israel is seeking to heighten anti-Arab violence now as a way to blunt internal opposition to the far-right's attempted judicial coup.
"What we see today is a very serious provocation that will definitely lead to an escalation, and maybe this is exactly what the Israeli government wants," Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told Al Jazeera. "They want to distract attention from their internal division, from the demonstrations that are taking place inside Israel against this government, and they want to drag the whole region into a total explosion."
Speaking with journalists on Wednesday, U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that the body's secretary-general, António Guterres, had been "shocked and appalled by the images" he had seen from inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
"At a time of the calendar which is holy to Jews, Christians, and Muslims, this should be a time for peace and not violence," said Dujarric. "Places of worship should only be used for peaceful religious observances."
The U.N. Security Council is set to hold a closed-door emergency session on Thursday to discuss recent Israeli assaults on peaceful Palestinian worshipers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
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Israeli Forces Draw Condemnation Over 'Barbaric' Raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque
"The army broke the upper windows of the mosque and began throwing stun grenades at us," said one Palestinian worshiper who was arrested alongside hundreds of others.
Apr 05, 2023
Israeli police brutally attacked Palestinians inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday night, injuring at least a dozen peaceful worshipers and arresting more than 400 during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
"Dozens of heavily armed officers stormed the site, used stun grenades, and fired tear gas into the Qibli prayer hall—the building with the silver dome—where hundreds of men, women, elderly people, and children were staying overnight to pray," Middle East Eye reported. "Some eyewitnesses said rubber-coated steel bullets were also fired."
"Israeli officers then beat worshipers with batons and riot guns, wounding many, before arresting them," the outlet noted. "Videos from inside the mosque showed Israeli officers repeatedly hitting people with batons while they appeared to lie on the floor. Meanwhile, the cries for help from women and children could be heard in the background."
The violent raid "continued into the morning when Israeli forces were once again seen assaulting and pushing Palestinians out of the compound and preventing them from praying–before Israelis were allowed in under police protection," Al Jazeera reported. "At least 400 Palestinians were arrested on Wednesday and remain in Israeli custody... at a police station in Atarot."
Bakr Owais, a 24-year-old student who was detained, told the outlet: "The army broke the upper windows of the mosque and began throwing stun grenades at us... They made us lay on the ground and they handcuffed us one by one and took us all out. They kept swearing at us during this time. It was very barbaric."
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees' Affairs estimates that between 400 and 500 men have been taken into custody.
According to Middle East Eye: "The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it received multiple reports of injuries at Al-Aqsa Mosque but was unable to estimate the number of casualties as Israeli forces blocked medics from reaching the wounded. One medic was attacked by an Israeli police officer and wounded outside one of the mosque's gates."
Al Jazeera reported that at least 12 Palestinians have suffered injuries—including bruises, fractures, and breathing problems caused by tear gas inhalation—at the hands of Israeli police officers. At least three of the victims have been transported to a hospital.
"As we approach Passover—a celebration of freedom—the Israeli military is beating Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Mosque... The contradiction speaks volumes."
The Israeli crackdown, which one observer described as a premeditated attack intended "to send a message to the Palestinians that Israel is the sole sovereign over Al-Aqsa that can decide who can enter the site and when," was widely condemned.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh denounced the latest assault on Islam's third holiest site as "an unprecedented crime" and urged Palestinians "to go en masse to the Al-Aqsa Mosque to defend it."
Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that "what happened in Jerusalem is a major crime against the worshipers."
"Prayer in Al-Aqsa Mosque is not with the permission of the [Israeli] occupation, but rather it is our right," said Shtayyeh. "Al-Aqsa is for the Palestinians and for all Arabs and Muslims, and the raiding of it is a spark of revolution against the occupation."
PA presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh added that "what the occupation is doing right now at holy sites such as in Al-Aqsa, and the attacking of worshipers is an example of the relentless war against Palestinian people and Arab nations, which will ignite fires across the region."
Following the raid, "local mosques around Jerusalem called on people through speaker phones to rally in support of those assaulted," Middle East Eye reported. "Confrontations between residents and police broke out in several locations across the city."
The outlet continued:
In the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to condemn the assault and confront Israeli troops at checkpoints and army posts. Rallies also took place in Gaza, Umm al-Fahm (a Palestinian town in Israel), and the Jordanian capital Amman.
Rockets were later fired from the Gaza Strip toward Israel. At least one rocket landed inside the country and caused damage to a food factory, according to Israeli media.
This was followed by air strikes from the Israeli military targeting several locations in the besieged strip. No casualties were recorded from either side.
The final two weeks of Ramadan overlap with Passover—a weeklong Jewish holiday that begins Wednesday—sparking fears of additional violence in and around the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
According to Middle East Eye: "Israeli authorities have been removing worshippers from Al-Aqsa Mosque every night since the start of Ramadan after the Taraweeh prayer ends around 9:00 pm local time, albeit without this widespread use of violence. They have also been restricting who can enter the site and when, in what Palestinians say is an infringement on their freedom of religious practice. Itikaf at Al-Aqsa Mosque is not allowed by Israeli authorities outside of the last ten days of Ramadan, a ban that Palestinians refuse to comply with."
"Israeli forces regularly empty the mosque of Palestinians outside the five Muslim prayers, especially overnight and after dawn prayer to ensure a smooth incursion of Israeli settlers which takes place daily around 7:30 am local time," the outlet noted. "Temple Movement groups, which facilitate the settler incursions and advocate for the destruction of Al-Aqsa, have called for mass stormings throughout the week... They have also called for conducting ritual animal slaughter at the site which could trigger anger from Palestinians and Muslims worldwide. Palestinian groups have urged mass presence at the site this week to prevent the planned animal slaughter and mass incursions."
"Israel has murdered over 90 Palestinians, including at least 17 children, so far this year, and it is only April."
On Tuesday night, Jewish Voice for Peace tweeted: "As we approach Passover—a celebration of freedom—the Israeli military is beating Palestinians inside Al-Aqsa Mosque and blockading Palestinian cities across the occupied West Bank. The contradiction speaks volumes. Liberation cannot come at the cost of another people's freedom."
Alluding to recent protests against a far-right takeover of Israel's judiciary, Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal similarly argued that "there cannot be a movement for an exclusive liberal democracy for Jews, and apartheid for Palestinians."
Numerous human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel as an apartheid state and called on the United States to cease providing $3.8 billion in annual military support to the anti-democratic regime.
According to the Palestinian national committee of the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, "Israel has murdered over 90 Palestinians, including at least 17 children, so far this year, and it is only April."
"The BDS movement calls particularly on our brothers and sisters in the Arab world and on supporters in countries that reject diplomatic relations with Israel to intensify pressure against normalization of any relations with apartheid," the committee continued. "What ties with Israel normalize is unmasked Islamophobia, colonial violence, and apartheid brutality."
"Globally we call for pressure on states to impose an immediate military embargo and lawful targeted sanctions on apartheid," it added. "We call on our supporters worldwide to escalate all BDS campaigns! The time is now to end Israeli apartheid."
As Haaretz reported: "Jordan and Egypt, both involved in recent U.S.-backed efforts to de-escalate tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, issued separate statements condemning the incident. Saudi Arabia also condemned the Israeli police's actions, with its foreign ministry putting out a statement saying it undermines peace efforts."
Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit, meanwhile, said in a statement that "the extremist approaches that control the policy of the Israeli government will lead to widespread confrontations with the Palestinians if they are not put to an end."
Officials from Jordan, Egypt, and Palestine have called for an emergency meeting of the League in the wake of Israel's latest assault on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
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Israel's Ben-Gvir Postpones Visit to Al-Aqsa Amid Warnings That 'People Will Die'
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas warned it would not "sit idly by" in the face of what Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called "a deliberate provocation that will put lives in danger and cost lives."
Jan 02, 2023
Israel's far-right national security minister on Monday postponed a planned visit Islam's third-holiest site amid warnings from the country's opposition leader and Palestinian officials that such a trip would have deadly consequences.
The Times of Israel reports Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir temporarily put off a promised visit to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem—which sits on what Jews call the Temple Mount, Judaism's most sacred site since biblical times—after speaking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the right-wing Likud party.
The previous day, Ben-Gvir vowed to visit the contested site—which has been illegally occupied by Israel for over half a century—sometime this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday.
Yair Lapid, who stepped down as Israel's prime minister last week and now leads the opposition, said Monday that "Itamar Ben-Gvir must not go up to Temple Mount. It is a deliberate provocation that will put lives in danger and cost lives."
Lapid, of the liberal Yesh Atid party, added that Netanyahu must tell Ben-Gvir: "'You are not going to the Temple Mount. People will die.'"
However, Ben-Gvir, who is also the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, declared that "no one will threaten us or tell us anything."
"The Temple Mount is the holiest place for the people of Israel. We will not give up on any place in the land of Israel," he continued.
"I'm against the racist policy at the Temple Mount, as well as the racism against Jews," added Ben-Gvir—who was convicted in 2007 of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization after he advocated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which governs Gaza, warned Monday that it "won't sit idly by" if Ben-Gvir visits Al-Aqsa.
Middle East Eye reports Hamas spokesperson Abd al-Latif al-Qanua called the planned visit "another example of the arrogance of the settler government and their future plans to damage and divide Al-Aqsa mosque."
"The Palestinian resistance will not allow the neo-fascist occupation government to cross the red lines and encroach on our people and our sanctities," he added.
Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Zvika Fogel—a former Israel Defense Forces brigadier general who in 2018 advocated killing Palestinian children—said that Ben-Gvir "will visit the Temple Mount whenever he sees fit."
"We shouldn't treat his visit as something that will lead to an escalation," he added. "Why not see it as part of realizing our sovereignty?"
Under an Israeli-enforced policy, only Muslims are permitted to pray at Al-Aqsa. Jews and others are allowed to visit during assigned times and under strict restrictions.
Last year, attacks on the compound by Israeli occupation forces and settler-colonists wounded hundreds of Palestinians.
Ben-Gvir—who believes Isreal's founders "didn't finish the job" of ethnically cleansing all Arabs from Palestine—has visited Al-Aqsa several times while serving in the Knesset, Israel's parliament. He also led an October 2022 Jewish supremacist march through the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, where he brandished a pistol and threatened to "mow down" Palestinians protesting the ethnic cleansing of their neighborhood.
"We have to be concerned about next intifada."
King Abdullah of Jordan—whose Hashemite monarchy has had custodianship of Jerusalem's holy sites for nearly 99 years—told CNN last week that "I always like to believe that, let's look at the glass half full, but we have certain red lines. And if people want to push those red lines, then we will deal with that."
"We have to be concerned about next intifada," the king continued, referring to the mass Palestinian uprisings that occurred from 1987-93 and again from 2000-05. The second intifada erupted after then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon (Likud) visited Al-Aqsa.
"If that happens, that's a complete breakdown of law and order and one that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians will benefit from," Abdullah added. "I think there is a lot of concern from all of us in the region, including those in Israel that are on our side on this issue, to make sure that doesn't happen."
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A Second Nakba in the Making
If it occurs, the responsibility for this tragedy will fall not only on the Israelis who carry it out and the US that aided and abetted them, it will also fall on the nations of the world who failed to act in time to stop this tragedy from occurring.
Dec 09, 2019
Two years ago Friday, President Donald Trump formally recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital. We knew then that this was an irresponsible and cruelly insensitive act that would do grave harm to the rights and well-being of Palestinians and put an end to any pretense that the United States could help negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What we didn't know was that this dangerous move was only the beginning of the damage Trump would do to Palestinian rights and the prospects for peace.
In the short span of only two years, President Trump and his administration have attempted to undo all of the gains Palestinians have won during the past seven decades.
During the past two years, the Trump Administration has: closed the US Consulate in East Jerusalem; closed the Palestinian consular office in Washington, DC; suspended aid to the Palestinians and to American non-governmental organizations working in the West Bank and Gaza; denied funding to UNWRA, the United Nations agency that provides essential services to Palestinian refugees; removed the designation "occupied" from all official publications and statements referring to the Occupied Territories; declared that in its view Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not "illegal;" and even gone so far as to deny that Palestinians should qualify as refugees. While each of these acts presents problems on their own, added together the toll they may take on the Palestinian people can ultimately be as devastating as a second Nakba.
In the short span of only two years, President Trump and his administration have attempted to undo all of the gains Palestinians have won during the past seven decades. Because the US has shuttered the PLO office and denied that Palestinian refugees are, in fact, refugees and therefore part of the Palestinian community, the US is saying that it no longer sees Palestinians as a national community deserving of recognition and the right to self-determination. Because the US has repeatedly given carte blanche to every Israeli whim, regarding Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements, they have left Palestinians particularly vulnerable to more extreme Israeli measures - annexation, massive land seizures, and even expulsion. And because the US has flaunted its contempt for the rule of law and international norms of behavior, they have created a far more dangerous and precarious world in which any regional power backed by the US can act with impunity and suffer little or no repercussions for their behavior.
I sometimes wonder if this is what the "the Deal of the Century" is supposed to look like. Maybe, all along, it was intended to be nothing more than what they have been doing for the last two years - creating a nihilistic order in which the Israelis are free to act out their most extreme fantasies while vulnerable Palestinians are forced to inhabit a dystopian world in which they have no rights and no recourse open to them. It is for this reason I suggest that the cumulative impact of what Trump has done has created the conditions for a second Nakba.
There are, of course, avenues open before us that provide ways to avoid such a disaster. While the US has created this mess on its own, each and every one of its moves have been rejected by the Arab States and the overwhelming majority of the nations of the world. For example, only a smattering of minor US dependencies have considered joining the US in moving their embassies to Jerusalem; last month, by a vote of 170 to 2, the United Nations reaffirmed its support for UNWRA; and then there were the denunciations issue by the Arab States and the Europeans to the new US position on Israeli settlements.
The problem is that while the Trump Administration has become increasingly politically isolated by its reckless behavior, they have not been effectively challenged. To change the current downward spiral dynamic that is unfolding in the Israel-Palestinian arena is a bold confrontation of both the US and Israel. Statements or resolutions will not suffice - since they are routinely dismissed and ignored. What is required is that other nations say "enough is enough" and tell the US that its days of hegemonic control over the "peace process" have come to an end. Israel too must be confronted and made to pay a price for its lawless behavior and gross systematic violations of Palestinian human rights.
Of course, a unified Palestinian response utilizing a campaign of non-violent resistance would also be important, but I hesitate to place emphasis on this factor for two reasons. First, the burden of doing the heavy lifting shouldn't rest on the most vulnerable party to the conflict. And even if the Palestinians were to rise up, as they have before, unless the nations of the world were ready to challenge both the US and Israel, their resistance would come to a bloody end.
We are running out of time. If action isn't taken soon, we may well see a second, and potentially more devastating, Nakba. If it occurs, the responsibility for this tragedy will fall not only on the Israelis who carry it out and the US that aided and abetted them, it will also fall on the nations of the world who failed to act in time to stop this tragedy from occurring.
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Israel Denounced for Plans to Name Train Station After Trump Following Jerusalem Decision
Critics say the move is "yet another indicator of the broad collusion between the U.S. and Israel," and illustrates "the inability of the U.S. to be a broker of any kind of just peace between Israel and Palestinians."
Dec 27, 2017
Critics are denouncing Israel for its decision to name a future train station located near to the holiest site where Jews can pray after U.S. President Donald Trump, following his recent decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and relocate the American Embassy.
Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, called the government's decision "yet another indicator of the broad collusion between the U.S. and Israel," and told Common Dreams it illustrates "the inability of the U.S. to be a broker of any kind of just peace between Israel and Palestinians."
Other critics turned to Twitter, with several highlighting Trump's comments following a violent white supremacist demonstration in Charlottesville, Virginia earlier this year, at which a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was killed. Trump was widely condemned for blaming the violence on "many sides" and saying that some of those who rallied in support of white supremacy were "very fine people."
Disgusting! #Netanyahu will name #Jerusalem train station to the #kotel after a despised serial sexual predator, pussy grabbing Russian puppet who mocks the handicapped and called the #Charlottesville #WhiteSupremacist #Nazis that killed #HeatherHeyer very fine people. #Israel
-- Julie Silver (@JulieAnnSilver) December 27, 2017
Yisrael Katz, Israel's transportation minister--as well as a senior Cabinet official, Israel's intelligence minister, and, as the Associated Press notes, "a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [who] is seen by many as his likely eventual successor as head of the Likud party"--announced plans for the "Donald John Trump" station on Tuesday.
Katz called the extension of the high-speed rail from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem Israel's most important national project, and said, "The Kotel [Western Wall] is the holiest place to the Jewish people, and I have decided to name the train station leading to it after U.S. President Donald Trump, in recognition of his brave and historic decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital."
Trump's move to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital has provoked international outrage, including a United Nations General Assembly resolution declaring the decision "null and void." Last week, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, said the United States had "disqualified" itself as "an honest mediator" in efforts to resolve the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, stating, "we will not accept any plan from the United States of America because of its bias and violation of the international law."
The Western Wall--also called the Wailing Wall, Al-Buraq Wall, and Kotel--is located in the Old City of Jerusalem and is the western support wall for a holy site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
"Israel captured East Jerusalem, which includes the Old City, in 1967, and annexed it in a move not recognized internationally," the AP notes. "The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and a longstanding international consensus holds that the fate of the city should be decided through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations."
During a Middle East trip in May, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Western Wall, though he declined to comment on whether he recognized the wall as Israeli territory. However, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have both recognized the Western Wall as part of Israel.
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Implications for ICC? SCOTUS Jerusalem Decision Shows Limits of Israel Lobbies
Jun 09, 2015
It has been the position of the US presidents for decades that the status of Jerusalem in international law is unsettled. That is why the US embassy is in Tel Aviv, and why US passports showing the place of birth as Jerusalem just list the name of the city without indicating a country. The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the president's right to make this determination, in a 6-3 decision. Justice Kennedy, writing for the majority, found that Congress was not given by the constitution any role in recognizing other countries (or parts of other countries), and that in contrast the constitution gives the president this prerogative.
The issue began with a 2002 law passed by Congress instructing the executive to let Americans born in Jerusalem list Israel as their birthplace. The State Department refused to comply, denying Menachem Zivotofsky a passport that listed his birthplace as Jerusalem, Israel. His family sued under the 2002 law. The Supreme Court just struck down that law as unconstitutional.
No one is bringing up that a lot of Palestinian-Americans born in Jerusalem would like their passports to read "Jerusalem, Palestine".
The law was pushed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful umbrella group for thousands of pro-Israel lobbies. These lobbies in turn play a major role in funding political campaigns, so that AIPAC has gained outsized influence on Congress. Jewish-Americans are less than two percent of the population, but those who strenuously support Israel on a "my country right or wrong" basis can usually get their way on congressional votes. They are aided, often, by evangelical Christians and also by old-time liberals who grew up before Israel entered its current Apartheid phase. Prominent right-Zionist congressional representatives have attempted to use Congress to push the US to recognize Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
The Israel lobbies have never been as strong with regard to the presidency or the courts as they are with regard to Congress, however. The Supreme Court decision showed the limits of their power. The reason this point is important is that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is increasingly being litigated not in national legislatures, where a lobby can sway votes, but in courtrooms. If the occupation and its Apartheid policies ever go to the International Criminal Court, the ICC will certainly rule against Israel. It already has, in a 2004 advisory opinion. Since the ICC is respected by signatories of the 2002 Rome Statue, in turn, that bodies ruling would be widely influential, including in Europe.
SCOTUS just showed what happens to such political campaigns for support of colonialism when they go to a court in a country with a rule of law.
The United Nations General Assembly in 1947 put forward a partition plan for the British Mandate of Palestine, giving the one-third of the population that was Jewish far more of the territory than the 6% it actually owned. The UN Security Council never signed off on the plan, so its status in international law is unclear. It was in any case overtaken by the 1948 war in which Israel took even more territory and consolidated borders far beyond what the General Assembly stipulated. But the UNGA envisaged that Jerusalem would be an international city not dominated by either Israelis or Palestinians.
In 1967 Israel unilaterally overturned the UN partition plan entirely, grabbing the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem and thereafter settling them and integrating them into Israel, while keeping millions of subject Palestinians stateless and without rights.
The rest of the world sees the status of Jerusalem as unsettled and as something that will be determined by final status peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. In the meantime, Israel has illegally annexed all of Jerusalem, surrounded it with squatter settlements built on stolen Palestinian land, and found pretexts for expelling large numbers of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem. The UN Security Council passed several resolutions on Jerusalem roundly condemning Israeli annexation. It should be remembered that one of the justifications given by the Neocons for attacking Iraq was that it had ignored UNSC resolutions. UNSC on Jerusalem:
" ' Adopted by the Security Council at its 2245th meeting, on 20 August 1980 (14-0, US abstention)
The Security Council,
Recalling its resolution 476 (1980),
Reaffirming again that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible,
Deeply concerned over the enactment of a "basic law" in the Israeli Knesset proclaiming a change in the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, with its implications for peace and security,
Noting that Israel has not complied with resolution 476 (1980),
Reaffirming its determination to examine practical ways and means, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, to secure the full implementation of its resolution 476 (1980), in the event of non-compliance by Israel,
1. Censures in the strongest terms the enactment by Israel of the "basic law" on Jerusalem and the refusal to comply with relevant Security Council resolutions;
2. Affirms that the enactment of the "basic law" by Israel constitutes a violation of international law and does not affect the continued application of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since June 1967, including Jerusalem;
3. Determines that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the recent "basic law" on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith;
4. Affirms also that this action constitutes a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;
5. Decides not to recognize the "basic law" and such other actions by Israel that, as a result of this law, seek to alter the character and status of Jerusalem and calls upon:
(a) All Member States to accept this decision;
(b) Those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City;
6. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the implementation of the present resolution before 15 November 1980;
7. Decides to remain seized of this serious situation.' "
---
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US 'Troubled' by Video of Israel Forces Beating American Teen
Video footage appears to show American teen, whose Palestinian cousin was murdered last week, being severely beaten by Israeli police forces
Jul 06, 2014
Israel detained six individuals on Sunday who may have ties to the murder of a Palestinian teenager, Mohammad Abu Khdair, who was abducted near his home in East Jerusalem earlier this week and later found burned to death in a wooded area outside the city.
According to Al-Jazeera:
Police declined to officially comment or to identify the suspects. A gag order largely bars local media from reporting on the case, but Ha'aretz newspaper described their motive as "nationalistic," implying that they are Jewish Israelis.
A police source told Al Jazeera that at least two of those arrested are well-known right-wing activists.
Also on Sunday, an Israeli court ordered a cousin of the recent murder victim, a 15-year-old American named Tariq Khdair, who was filmed being beaten while handcuffed by two Israeli Border Police officers, to remain under house arrest while an "investigation" is conducted into the incident which occurred head of Mohammad's funeral on Thursday.
In comments to reporters after his release on Sunday, Tariq said that he was not participating in protests--only "watching" when he was grabbed by what he believes were Israeli police officers who grabbed him from the side. "And they hit me," Tariq said, "and they kept hitting me and then I fell asleep and then I woke up in the hospital."
Watch:
Palestinian child Tarek speaks about his brutal beating at the hands of Israeli undercover policeTarek Abu Khdeir, a 15 year old Palestinian American child, was brutally beaten by Israeli undercover police in Shofat on 3 July ...
The treatment of Tariq prompted a response by the U.S. government which released a statement cautiously objecting to possible 'excessive force' by Israeli police.
Photographs posted online Saturday showed Tariq's badly swollen face:
As Euronews reports:
US calls on Israel for investigation over teen allegedly beaten by police in JerusalemThe US State Department has called on Israeli authorities for a transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for ...
Israel's Border Police units and the IDF have a long and well-documented history of excessive force and brutality against Palestinians from which children receive little immunity.
As Palestinian journalist and activist Ali Abunimah noted on his widely-read Electronic Intifada website, "Tariq's experience is far from rare. As of the end of April 2014, a total of 196 Palestinian children were in Israeli prisons, according to Defence for Children International Palestine Section."
The case, continued Abunimah, has "garnered massive international media attention both because the brutal beating was caught on video and because he is a US citizen," but typically "Israeli forces who attack Palestinians are almost never held accountable due to a pervasive culture of impunity."
In response to Tariq's arrest and the evidence of his treatment, the U.S. State Department said in a statement it was "profoundly troubled by reports that he was severely beaten while in police custody and strongly condemn any excessive use of force. We are calling for a speedy, transparent and credible investigation and full accountability for any excessive use of force."
The related stories of the Khdair family now frame heightened tensions in the occupied territories and the Gaza Strip as Palestinians react angrily to what has largely been seen as the Israeli government's policy of "collective punishment" that followed the recent murder of three Israeli teenagers.
On Saturday, the results of an autopsy performed on Mohammad Abu Khdair's body showed that the Palestinian teenager was likely burned alive by those who abducted him on Wednesday.
As the Washington Post reports, the news of the autopsy results arrived amid continued protests that centered in the Khdair family's East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shuafat:
After days of clashes between young Palestinians and Israeli security forces, Shuafat has taken on the look of a war zone, with rocks and empty pipe bombs littering the street. Sections of the light-rail track -- which normally ferries workers from their homes in Shuafat to their jobs in West Jerusalem -- were smoldering Saturday after being set on fire Friday night.
Israeli police reported that 20 people had been arrested during clashes Friday in Shuafat. Palestinians asserted that several of those detained were badly beaten by police. One local hospital reported treating more than 100 people, mostly for minor injuries. Thirteen Israeli policemen were lightly wounded.
Fresh clashes erupted late Saturday after residents were set on edge by reports that 16-year-old Khieder had been burned alive.
Street protests and clashes continued throughout the weekend in the West Bank while Israeli military forces have amassed on the Gaza border amid new airstrikes.
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