Israel has wasted no time accelerating Palestinian displacement during the first 10 days of 2017.
On Tuesday, Israel’s justice minister Ayelet Shaked invoked biblical mythology to advocate for expanded Israeli Jewish colonization in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
“This place was bought by patriarch Abraham for its full price, the first deed of sale of its type in the world, so we have both historical and legal right to this place,” she said in a short videotaped speech during a visit to the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.
She dismissed recent “legal arguments” that have been raised concerning settlement construction and expansion, especially from the UN.
Shaked also declared in Hebron that “the excuses” for freezing settlement construction are over as soon as US President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in, according to the Jerusalem Post.
We “need to build and build,” she proclaimed, adding that Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem as well as the rest of the West Bank “is our right,” the Post reports.
Shaked, who has advocated for the genocide of Palestinians, denies that Israel is an occupier and has suggested that millions of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank be pushed under Jordanian jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, about 80 miles north, a fleet of bulldozers destroyed 10 homes belonging to Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The demolitions led the mayor of Qalansawe, a city in present-day Israel, to announce his resignation in protest that he doesn’t “have the power to change anything,” according to Ma’an News Agency.
For decades, Israeli authorities “refused … to approve the city’s master plan,” Ma’an adds. Its Palestinian residents attempted to stop the demolitions but were met with force by Israeli police.
A resident described the home demolitions as part of Israel’s policies of “oppression, injustices, and displacement,” Ma’an reports.
Also on Tuesday in the West Bank, Israeli forces raided the town of al-Zawiya and delivered stop-construction and demolition notices to three Palestinian households and a printing company, Ma’an reports.
Demolition orders were also given to residents in the nearby village of Burqin on Sunday. Israeli settlements are rapidly expanding in the area.
In the first week of 2017, Israeli occupation authorities in Jerusalem demolished two homes belonging to Palestinians, part of a surge in demolitions that left more than 150 Palestinians homeless across the West Bank in a few days.
Source: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/justice-minis…
