[News] Kushner as a Colonial Administrator: Let’s Talk About The ‘Israeli Model’
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Jun 13 12:32:59 EDT 2019
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/kushner-as-a-colonial-administrator-lets-talk-about-the-israeli-model/
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Kushner-as-a-Colonial-Administrator-Lets-Talk-About-The-Israeli-Model-20190613-0009.html>
Kushner as a Colonial Administrator: Let’s Talk About The ‘Israeli Model’
Ramzy Baroud - June 12, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palestinians do not need to be lectured on how to meet Israeli and
American expectations, nor should they ever aspire to imitate the
undemocratic Israeli model.
In a TV interview on June 2, on the news docuseries “Axios” on the HBO
channel, Jared Kushner opened up regarding many issues, in which his
‘Deal of the Century’ was a prime focus.
The major revelation made by Kushner, President Donald Trump’s adviser
and son-in-law, was least surprising. Kushner believes that Palestinians
are not capable of governing themselves.
*RELATED:
What Lies Beneath: The US-Israeli Plot to 'Save' Gaza
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/What-Lies-Beneath-The-US-Israeli-Plot-to-Save-Gaza-20180905-0026.html>*
Not surprising, because Kushner thinks he is capable of arranging the
future of the Palestinian people without the inclusion of the
Palestinian leadership. He has been pushing his so-called ‘Deal of the
Century’ relentlessly while including in his various meets and
conferences countries such as Poland, Brazil and Croatia, but not Palestine.
Indeed, this is what transpired at theWarsaw conference
<https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/led-middle-east-summit-warsaw-190212230343271.html>
on ‘peace and security’ in the Middle East. The same charade, also led
by Kushner, is expected to be rebooted in Bahrain
<https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/5/20/bahrain-convenes-summit-to-sell-deal-of-the-century>
on June 25.
Much has been said about the subtle racism in Kushner’s words, reeking
with the stench of old colonial discourses where the natives were seen
as lesser, incapable of rational thinking beings who needed the
civilized ‘whites’ of the western hemisphere to help them cope with
their backwardness and inherent incompetence.
Kushner, whose credentials are merely based on his familial connections
to Trump and family friendship with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, is now poised to be the colonial administrator of old, making
and enforcing the law while the hapless natives have no other option but
to either accommodate or receive their due punishment.
This is not an exaggeration. In fact, according to leaked information
<https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/655631> concerning Kushner’s
‘Deal of the Century,’ and published in the Israeli daily newspaper,
‘Israel Hayom’, if Palestinian groups refuse to accept the US-Israeli
diktats, “the US will cancel all financial support to the Palestinians
and ensure that no country transfers funds to them.”
*RELATED:*
*Delusional 'Deal of The Century' Leaked: Palestinians Lay Down
Arms, US Intervention in Gaza*
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Delusional-Deal-of-The-Century-Leaked-Palestinians-Lay-Down-Arms-US-Intervention-in-Gaza-20190508-0011.html>
In the HBO interview, Kushner offered the Palestinians a lifeline. They
could be considered capable of governing themselves should they manage
to achieve the following: “a fair judicial system ... freedom of the
press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions."
The fact that Palestine is an occupied country, subject in every
possible way to Israel’s military law, and that Israel has never been
held accountable for its 52-year occupation seems to be of no relevance
whatsoever, as far as Kushner is concerned.
On the contrary, the subtext in all of what Kushner has said in the
interview is that Israel is the antithesis to the unquestionable
Palestinian failure. Unlike Palestine, Israel needs to do little to
demonstrate its ability to be a worthy peace partner.
While the term ‘US bias towards Israel’ is as old as the state of Israel
itself, what is hardly discussed is the specific of that bias, the
decidedly condescending, patronizing and, often, racist view that US
political classes have of Palestinians - and all Arabs and Muslims, for
that matter; and the utter infatuation with Israel, which is often cited
as a model for democracy, judicial transparency and successful
‘anti-terror’ tactics.
According to Kushner a ‘fair judicial system’ is a condition sine qua
non to determine a country’s ability to govern itself. But is Israeli
judicial system “fair” and “democratic”?
*RELATED:
Trump’s Deal of the Century Will 'Officially Make Israel an
Apartheid State': French Envoy to US
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Trumps-Deal-of-the-Century-Will-Officially-Make-Israel-an-Apartheid-State-French-Envoy-to-US-20190421-0011.html>*
Israel does not have a single judicial system, but two. This duality
<https://www.pij.org/articles/1680> has, in fact, defined Israeli courts
from the very inception of Israel in 1948. This de facto apartheid
system openly differentiates between Jews and Arabs, a fact that is true
in both civil and criminal law.
“Criminal law is applied separately and unequally in the West Bank,
based on nationality alone (Israeli versus Palestinian), inventively
weaving its way around the contours of international law in order to
preserve and develop its ‘(illegal Jewish) settlement enterprise’,”
Israeli scholar, Emily Omer-Man, explained
<https://www.pij.org/app.php/articles/1682> in her essay ‘Separate and
Unequal’.
In practice, Palestinians and Israelis who commit the exact same crime
will be judged according to two different systems, with two different
procedures: “The settler will be processed according to the Israeli
Penal Code (while) the Palestinian will be processed according to
military order.”
This unfairness is constituent of a massively unjust judicial apparatus
that has defined the Israeli legal system from the onset. Take the
measure of administrative detention
<https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention> as an example.
Palestinians can be held without trial and without any stated legal
justification. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been subjected to
this undemocratic ‘law’ and hundreds of them are currently held in
Israeli jails.
It is ironic that Kushner raised the issue of freedom of the press, in
particular, as Israel is being derided for its dismal record in that
regard. Israel has reportedly committed 811 violations
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181203-report-israel-committed-811-violations-against-palestinian-journalists-in-2018/>
against Palestinian journalists since the start of the ‘March of Return’
in Gaza in March 2018. Two journalists - Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu
Hussein -were killed
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190330-israel-killed-267-palestinians-in-gaza-during-great-march-of-return/>
and 155 were wounded
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-great-march-of-return/>
by Israeli snipers.
Like the imbalanced Israeli judicial system, targeting the press is also
a part of a protracted pattern. According to a press release issued by
the Palestinian Journalists Union last May, Israel has killed
<https://english.palinfo.com/news/2019/5/1/Israel-killed-102-Palestinian-journalists-since-1972>
102 Palestinian journalists since 1972.
The fact that Palestinian intellectuals, poets and activists have been
imprisoned for Facebook
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/dareen-tatour-sentenced-months-prison-poem-180731084215893.html>
and other social media posts should tell us volumes about the limits of
Israel’s freedom of press and expression.
It is also worth mentioning that in June 2018, the Israeli Knesset voted
<https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Knesset-advances-bill-limiting-filming-IDF-soldiers-560496>
for a bill that prohibits the filming of Israeli soldiers as a way to
mask their crimes and shelter them from any future legal accountability.
*RELATED:
Why Israel Feels Threatened by Popular Resistance in Palestine
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-Israel-Feels-Threatened-by-Popular-Resistance-in-Palestine-20180409-0012.html>*
As for freedom of religion, despite its many shortcomings, the
Palestinian Authority hardly discriminates against religious minorities.
The same cannot be said about Israel.
Although discrimination against non-Jews in Israel has been the raison
d’être of the very idea of Israel, the Nation-State Law of July 2018
further cemented the superiority of the Jews
<https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy>
and inferior status of everyone else.
According to the new Basic Law, Israel is “the national home of the
Jewish people” only and “the right to exercise national
self-determination is unique to the Jewish people.”
Palestinians do not need to be lectured on how to meet Israeli and
American expectations, nor should they ever aspire to imitate the
undemocratic Israeli model. What they urgently need, instead, is
international solidarity to help them win the fight against Israeli
occupation, racism and apartheid.
/- Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine
Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto
Press, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University
of Exeter, and is a former Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for
Global and International Studies, UCSB./
--
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