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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Kushner-as-a-Colonial-Administrator-Lets-Talk-About-The-Israeli-Model-20190613-0009.html">http://www.palestinechronicle.com/kushner-as-a-colonial-administrator-lets-talk-about-the-israeli-model/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Kushner as a Colonial Administrator:
Let’s Talk About The ‘Israeli Model’</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Ramzy Baroud - June 12, 2019<br>
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<p>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.</p>
<div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>RELATED:<br>
<a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/What-Lies-Beneath-The-US-Israeli-Plot-to-Save-Gaza-20180905-0026.html"
target="_blank">What Lies Beneath: The US-Israeli
Plot to 'Save' Gaza</a></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Indeed, this is what transpired at the<a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/led-middle-east-summit-warsaw-190212230343271.html"
target="_blank"> Warsaw conference</a> on ‘peace and
security’ in the Middle East. The same charade, also led
by Kushner, is expected to be rebooted in <a
href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/5/20/bahrain-convenes-summit-to-sell-deal-of-the-century"
target="_blank">Bahrain</a> on June 25.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This is not an exaggeration. In fact, according to <a
href="https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/655631"
target="_blank">leaked information</a> 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.”</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>RELATED:</strong></p>
<p><a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Delusional-Deal-of-The-Century-Leaked-Palestinians-Lay-Down-Arms-US-Intervention-in-Gaza-20190508-0011.html"
target="_blank"><strong>Delusional 'Deal of The
Century' Leaked: Palestinians Lay Down Arms, US
Intervention in Gaza</strong></a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”?</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>RELATED:<br>
<a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Trumps-Deal-of-the-Century-Will-Officially-Make-Israel-an-Apartheid-State-French-Envoy-to-US-20190421-0011.html"
target="_blank">Trump’s Deal of the Century Will
'Officially Make Israel an Apartheid State':
French Envoy to US</a></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Israel does not have a single judicial system, but two.
<a href="https://www.pij.org/articles/1680"
target="_blank">This duality</a> 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.</p>
<p>“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, <a
href="https://www.pij.org/app.php/articles/1682"
target="_blank">explained</a> in her essay ‘Separate
and Unequal’.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>This unfairness is constituent of a massively unjust
judicial apparatus that has defined the Israeli legal
system from the onset. Take the measure of <a
href="https://www.btselem.org/administrative_detention"
target="_blank">administrative detention</a> 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. </p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181203-report-israel-committed-811-violations-against-palestinian-journalists-in-2018/"
target="_blank">811 violations</a> against Palestinian
journalists since the start of the ‘March of Return’ in
Gaza in March 2018. Two journalists - Yaser Murtaja and
Ahmed Abu Hussein -<a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190330-israel-killed-267-palestinians-in-gaza-during-great-march-of-return/"
target="_blank"> were killed</a> and 155 were <a
href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-great-march-of-return/"
target="_blank">wounded</a> by Israeli snipers.</p>
<p>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, <a
href="https://english.palinfo.com/news/2019/5/1/Israel-killed-102-Palestinian-journalists-since-1972"
target="_blank">Israel has killed</a> 102 Palestinian
journalists since 1972.</p>
<p>The fact that Palestinian intellectuals, poets and
activists have been imprisoned for <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/07/dareen-tatour-sentenced-months-prison-poem-180731084215893.html"
target="_blank">Facebook</a> and other social media
posts should tell us volumes about the limits of
Israel’s freedom of press and expression.</p>
<p>It is also worth mentioning that in June 2018, the <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Knesset-advances-bill-limiting-filming-IDF-soldiers-560496"
target="_blank">Israeli Knesset voted</a> 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.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>RELATED:<br>
<a
href="https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-Israel-Feels-Threatened-by-Popular-Resistance-in-Palestine-20180409-0012.html"
target="_blank">Why Israel Feels Threatened by
Popular Resistance in Palestine</a></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>As for freedom of religion, despite its many
shortcomings, the Palestinian Authority hardly
discriminates against religious minorities. The same
cannot be said about Israel.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy"
target="_blank">superiority of the Jews</a> and
inferior status of everyone else.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><em>- 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.</em></p>
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