Brutal occupation

The immediate effects of US President Donald Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel are now being felt as the Israeli parliament passed a bill on Tuesday that would apply Israeli law to settlements in the West Bank. This would essentially act as an annexation of Palestinian land. The law also shows how Israel has no intention of returning any part of Jerusalem back to the Palestinians as it now requires a supermajority in the Knesset to transfer sovereign control of land in Jerusalem to a foreign entity while requiring only a simple majority for Israel to unilaterally change the boundaries of Jerusalem so long as any neighbourhoods removed from the city are still under Israeli control. This last law explicitly formalises the system of apartheid now in place in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied territories as it can continue to rule over Palestinian land while removing any protections it is given. Such brazen defiance of international law is in keeping with past Israeli practice although now they are acting with even more impunity than before with Trump having signalled he is not even going to maintain a pretence of even-handedness.

It is surely no coincidence that the same day this new land-grabbing law was passed Trump threatened to cut off all aid to Palestine in a tweet. The little US aid that does go to Palestine is the form of propping up the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, as a way of undermining Hamas. The US has shown no interest in ending the brutal Israeli occupation. How that occupation has immiserated generations of Palestinian refugees can be seen in the imprisonment and trial of 16-year Ahed Tamimi and the fact that the first person Israeli forces killed in the new year was a 17-year-old boy. Tamimi has been charged with assault and incitement after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. The teenager has become a symbol not only of Palestinian resistance, where such small attempts at fighting back are the only option left to an oppressed people. The daily humiliation suffered by those living under a brutal occupation demand resistance and Tamimi was resisting the only way she could. With Israel now unashamedly formalising and expanding its occupation, it will take the efforts of millions of people like Tamimi to beat back this US-Israel nexus.