DAILY TRIFECTA: When God Is A Real Estate Agent
As Bible says, it's "location, location, location"
TITLE: Israeli pressure on Palestinian economy pushes West Bank to the brink
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/03/11/israel-gaza-west-bank-economy/
EXCERPT: While Israel besieges and pummels Gaza, Palestinians here say it is also waging an economic war in the West Bank. Since the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, Israel has imposed sweeping restrictions on the Palestinian economy, revoking work permits, hindering free movement and even withholding for months the tax revenue it collects for the Palestinian Authority.
The measures, which Israel says were taken for security reasons, have led to massive job losses, unpaid salaries and a steep drop in local production, according to the World Bank. They have also stoked fears of widespread unrest and worries that more young men, especially in the impoverished refugee camps, will join militant groups to take up arms against Israel.
“They are killing us economically,” said Jamal Tirawi, a local Fatah party leader in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. Officials there say thousands of the camp’s roughly 33,000 residents were employed in Israel before the attack, mostly as construction workers.
Now, about 70 percent of workers there aren’t receiving a salary, compared with 35 percent who were unemployed five months ago, said Ahmed Thoukan, co-president of the camp’s popular services committee. Across the West Bank, unemployment reached 29 percent by the end of 2023, causing a sharp decline in the gross domestic product, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Israel has long exercised significant control over the lives and movement of Palestinians here. It captured the West Bank from Jordan in 1967, ruling for decades through military occupation and constructing sprawling settlements for Israeli citizens.
In the 1990s, after the first Palestinian uprising, the Oslo accords granted the Palestinian Authority limited autonomy over civil affairs, including the economy, as a step toward peace. But that peace never materialized and Palestinians still rely heavily on Israel for jobs, market access, tax collection, and imports of raw materials and essential goods.
Over the years, Palestinian workers formed the backbone of Israel’s construction industry and became a reliable source of cheap labor for its booming agriculture and tourism sectors. Workers from Gaza and the West Bank could earn in Israel triple the amount they could make in the Palestinian territories, according to the World Bank.
But after Oct. 7, when Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, authorities imposed a near-total ban on Palestinians working in Israel or its settlements in the West Bank. The government canceled the work permits of more than 170,000 Palestinian laborers, the World Bank said. Tens of thousands more who worked in Israel illegally are now also out of jobs, according to Shaher Sa’ed, general secretary of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions.
“The issue of work permits for Palestinians is based on ongoing and comprehensive security considerations,” Ophir Falk, foreign policy adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement. “Israel is vigilant on this issue in order to prevent additional Palestinian terror.”
For Abdullah Khezaran, 29, the money he earned as a maintenance worker in Tel Aviv allowed him to get married and start a family. Now he’s unemployed and spends his days sleeping or playing cards, plagued by fears he won’t be able to support his wife and children.
At a Nablus roundabout, 53-year-old Taysir Dabeek sells parsley and lettuce. He used to make between $85 and $110 each day painting houses in Tel Aviv. Now he earns $15 a day to buy essentials for his family of six.
“God help us,” said Khezaran, who was standing on a nearby street corner.
TITLE: The West Bank Comes to New Jersey
https://reason.com/2024/03/11/the-west-bank-comes-to-new-jersey/
EXCERPT: Teaneck, New Jersey, looked a little like the West Bank on Sunday. Whose fault that is depends on who you ask. But one thing is clear: It began with a real estate fair.
A few weeks ago, a group called My Home in Israel Real Estate announced plans to hold a series of real estate fairs encouraging Americans to buy property in Israel and the West Bank, where the Israeli government has confiscated land from Palestinians. Rich Siegel, a Jewish activist for Palestinian rights, vowed at a Teaneck Township Council meeting to organize a protest against My Home in Israel when it came to town.
My Home in Israel had rented out the local Keter Torah synagogue for its Teaneck exhibition. Fearing the worst, Teaneck's government called in police from around Bergen County and closed the roads around the synagogue. On the day of the event, a heavy police presence separated protesters with Palestinian flags from counterprotesters with Israeli flags.
Teaneck, a suburb of New York City, is a famously diverse town. (It was the first in New Jersey to desegregate its schools.) And owing to its many immigrant communities, Teaneck has often dipped into foreign policy issues. In 2022, the town had a heated debate after its local Democratic Party chapter voted to condemn Hindu nationalism.
But the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been the most contentious issue in Teaneck politics, and every round of controversy seems to be an escalation over the previous one. In 2021, an Israeli flag-raising ceremony provoked a low-key counterprotest that barely made the local news. It was a far cry from Sunday's loud clashes.
Earlier this year, the federal government got involved in Teaneck's Israeli-Palestinian debate. After local high schoolers held a pro-Palestinian rally, township council members pushed Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D–N.J.) to condemn the "antisemitic, anti-Israel protest during school hours." (I covered the controversy for The Intercept.) At Gottheimer's urging, the Department of Education opened a Title VI investigation into the teens.
These disputes have allegedly descended into shit flinging, both metaphorical and literal. Unknown vandals have "repeatedly" thrown bags of feces onto the lawns of pro-Palestinian activists, claimed protest organizer Adam Weissman, who is Jewish and supports the Palestinian cause. Last year, after a school board member was accused of censoring pro-Israeli voices, she called one of her critics "pencil dick" on camera.
Siegel brought the real estate fair to protesters' attention at a February 27 town council meeting. He pointed out that My Home in Israel was advertising properties in the West Bank. Siegel argued that, because Israel took the land through military conquest, selling such property would violate international law.
The website for My Home in Israel says the tour is "focusing on" several Israeli cities and three West Bank settlements: Neve Daniel, Efrat, and Ma'ale Adumim. Event organizer Gidon Katz told NorthJersey.com that to call any of the locations "stolen land is to deny the existence of the State of Israel."
All three of those West Bank settlements were built at least partially on land that the Israeli government seized from Palestinian farmers or shepherds after conquering the West Bank in 1967. Last month, the U.S. State Department reiterated its position that the settlements are an illegal land grab. Last week, the Israeli army declared an additional four square kilometers outside of Ma'ale Adumim to be "state land."
Siegel argued that the war in Gaza, which has left Teaneck residents "in deep mourning," has made it an especially bad time to hold the exhibition.
"What this real estate event is going to do is it's going to fan the flames," he said. "If it goes forward, there will be a demonstration. I know there's going to be a demonstration because I'm going to organize it. It will be very well attended."
A video of Siegel's speech, reposted by the Instagram page Teaneck for Palestine, quickly went viral. Amazon Labor Union leader Chris Smalls shared a video of Siegel, and the news channel AJ+ ran its own interview with Siegel. It would be a well-attended protest indeed.
On the day of the real estate fair, security politely turned me away at the door, stating that news media would not be allowed inside. So instead, I spoke to pro-Israeli counterprotesters who had gathered along the protesters' planned route.
Though they were eager to share their general feelings on the conflict—that Israel wanted peace and the Palestinian cause was violent—they were far more shy about defending the real estate sale on the merits. When I pressed them on the question, several pro-Israeli demonstrators argued that governments had the right to take land by force.
"There was a war, and they [Palestinians] lost," said a man named Jacob, who did not provide his last name. "I'm sorry, but that's the entire world."
A woman named Julie, who also did not give her last name, said she supported a two-state solution, which meant that Palestinians could have an independent nation-state alongside Israel. But she insisted that Palestinian land in the West Bank was "disputed property. It's not property that belongs to them."
When I asked her about specific land confiscations, Julie called over her friend Dave, who told me that the West Bank is "ours. It's biblical land. Go and read the Bible." A third woman who was with him added that "wars happen everywhere. Borders have changed all the time." Then she insisted that she has many "Arab friends."
TITLE: Trump associates in Samaria: A two-state solution is against the will of God
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/386621
EXCERPTS: A group of senior Evangelical Christians who are close associates of former President Donald Trump toured Samaria along with the governor of Samaria, Yossi Dagan, and MK Ohad Tal (Religious Zionist Party).
The delegation included Tony Perkins, one of the most influential figures in the USA’s Evangelical community, Ellie Cohanim, the former Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, and Mario Bramnick, a Latin-American community leader and Israel advocate.
The tour took place as a part of the foreign relations unit of Samaria’s operations against the delegitimization of settlement in Judea and Samaria in Europe and the USA, as well as opposing the American idea of a two-state solution.
Dagan showed the delegation how narrow the state was from east to west from Israel's Lookout Park in Peduel, the location of Joseph's tomb, and brought them to a wine tasting at Har Bracha.
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Perkins stated after the visit: “I am indebted to Yossi Dagan and his leadership for protecting this place. I thank the governor for the efforts he makes to protect this piece of land. I want you to know that we are with you.”
Perkins also gave a statement from Mitzpe Yosef: “We are standing on Har Bracha. The fact that, on this historic spot, the Children of Israel made their first covenant to God, is their proof that this is their land. Expelling the Jewish people from this land and establishing two states would be against the word of God. We stand with Israel and their right to determine their future, and oppose any attempts to divide the land.”
Bramnick added “It is an honor to meet the Governor of Samaria and visit Samaria for the first time. We felt obligated to visit this place after October 7th, due to the US administration's policy, but we are worried more than anything else about the push for a two-state solution. Judea and Samaria are the heart of Israel, and God gave the land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for eternity. No man or government has the right to oppose the will of God. We call for churches in the United States of America to oppose this.”