Poll: Israelis Support Ethnic Cleansing, Annexation and Apartheid State

[Steven Gaal]

Poll: Israelis Support Ethnic Cleansing, Annexation and Apartheid State

Israeli Poll Commissioned by New Israel Fund

By Richard Silverstein

Global Research, October 25, 2012

richardsilverstein.com 22 October 2012

A new poll of Israeli Jews by Camil Fuchs and commissioned by the New Israel Fund has alarming findings concerning the deterioration of democratic values in Israel

.

Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz that Israelis (Jews) have largely shed their previous veneer of democratic values and now hold views that can only be described as authoritarian-racist, if not fascist.

The majority of the Jewish public, 59 percent, wants preference

for Jews over Arabs in…job [appointments] in government ministries. Almost half the Jews, 49 percent, want the state to treat Jewish citizens better than Arab ones; 42 percent don’t want to live in the same building with Arabs and 42 percent don’t want their children in the same class with Arab children.

A third of the Jewish public wants a law barring Israeli Arabs from voting for the Knesset and a large majority of 69 percent objects to giving 2.5 million Palestinians the right to vote if Israel annexes the West Bank.

A sweeping 74 percent majority is in favor of separate roads for Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. A quarter – 24 percent – believe separate roads are “a good situation” and 50 percent believe they are “a necessary situation.”

Almost half – 47 percent – want part of Israel’s Arab population to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority and 36 percent support transferring some of the Arab towns from Israel to the PA, in exchange for keeping some of the West Bank settlements.

Although the territories have not been annexed, most of the Jewish public (58 percent ) already believes Israel practices apartheid against Arabs. Only 31 percent think such a system is not in force here. Over a third (38 percent ) of the Jewish public wants Israel to annex the territories with settlements on them, while 48 percent object.

…The survey indicates that a third to half of Jewish Israelis want to live in a state that practices formal, open discrimination against its Arab citizens. An even larger majority wants to live in an apartheid state if Israel annexes the territories.

…The interviewees did not object strongly to describing Israel’s character as “apartheid” already today, without annexing the territories. Only 31 percent objected to calling Israel an “apartheid state” and said “there’s no apartheid at all.”

In contrast, 39 percent believe apartheid is practiced “in a few fields”; 19 percent believe “there’s apartheid in many fields” and 11 percent do not know.

The clarion call for liberal Zionists (including the New Israel Fund, which sponsored this poll) has always been that Israel is a “Jewish democratic state.” No one was allowed to separate those two words and say Israel was only a Jewish state or only a democracy. It had to be both. We can no longer say this is true. The majority of Israeli Jews hold views that are clearly antithetical to democracy. In fact, they’ve largely embraced the agenda of Meir Kahane, who held that democracy was a type of illness imported from the west and alien to the Middle East. Kahane favored a Jewish state that offered no democratic rights to non-Jews. This poll shows that Israeli Jews are rapidly flocking to this point of view.

Jews favor superior rights for themselves over non-Jewish citizens. They favor denying Palestinian citizens the right to vote. They favor preferences to Jews over non-Jews in awarding government jobs. They favor an apartheid transportation system. They support the ethnic cleansing of non-Jewish citizens from the State.

In an accompanying op-ed, Levy adds:

Israelis have never appeared so pleased with themselves, even when they admit their racism. Most of them think Israel is a good place to live in and most of them think this is a racist state. It’s good to live in this country, most Israelis say, not despite its racism, but…because of it.

I’ve written here before about the similarities between far-right Israeli attitudes and the Nuremberg Laws. The most extreme of Israel’s ultranationalists harbor such views explicitly. This poll indicates that vast numbers of Israeli Jews share such views, though perhaps they wouldn’t articulate them as virulently.

I find it astonishing that a majority of Jews explicitly accept the term “apartheid” to describe what Israel is. Also interesting is the finding that while 40% favor annexing the Territories, 48% oppose this. That does not mean, of course, that this group is willing to return the Territories. More likely it means they want to retain the status quo in which the West Bank is neither a Palestinian state nor annexed to Israel.

I do not believe Israel is a country that can save itself. Once it has stopped being a democracy, the solution to its problems cannot come from within. I’m afraid that we must wait for a dysfunctional country to perpetrate an act so heinous that the rest of the world cannot help but intervene to prevent something much worse. Serbia brought such a fate upon itself through the massacre of Srebenica and subsequent genocide in Kosovo. Syria is coming to such a crossroads with its recent likely assassination of Lebanon’s security chief. Israel will follow in Assad’s footsteps. It’s only a question of when. And how much bloodshed can the world absorb before it calls Israel out for its behavior.

The poll comes on the heels of an Israeli government report that finds that for the first time there are more Palestinians than Jews in the territory that encompasses Israel and the Occupied Territories. This means that if Israel refused to accept a Palestinian state and annexed the West Bank to Israel, there would still be a Palestinian majority. That in turn means that Israelis will have further reason to jettison the notion that they live in a democracy. In such a predicament, they will have to create an apartheid state in order to guarantee Jewish political dominion. The poll results indicate that this is beginning to sink in. Which means that we must deny supporters of the Occupation regime called Israel the right to call iself a democracy. Its own citizens, as indicated in this poll, explicitly recognize that it is not:

The “Jewish” gave “democracy” a knockout, smashing it to the canvas. Israelis want more and more Jewish and less and less democracy. From now on don’t say Jewish democracy. There’s no such thing, of course. There cannot be. From now on say Jewish state, only Jewish, for Jews alone. Democracy – sure, why not. But for Jews only.

Edited October 26, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

Quite disturbing but is based on the premise of what Israel should do if it annexes the West Bank, something unlikely to ever happen.

[Steven Gaal]

Palestinians accuse Israel of annexing the West Bank

Hugh Naylor

Oct 18, 2012

JERUSALEM // Palestinians yesterday accused Benjamin Netanyahu of planning to annex the West Bank.

The Israeli prime minister will accept parts of the controversial Levy Report, which recommends legalising dozens of unauthorised settler outposts, Israel Radio said.

The 89-page legal document also rejects international recognition of Israel as a military occupying power of the West Bank, which the Palestinians want to form an independent state along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.

Mr Netanyahu's agreement with the report is further confirmation that Israel is imposing a "de facto apartheid reality" in the West Bank, Xavier Abu Eid, senior adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation's negotiations affairs department, which handles peace talks with Israel, said yesterday.

"What they're doing on the ground is turning occupation into annexation," he said.

The Levy Report - named after Edmund Levy, a former Israeli Supreme Court justice and head of the committee that issued it - was published in July, and shelved by Mr Netanyahu after it received withering criticism from both Palestinians and liberal Jews in Israel and the United States.

Its sudden embrace by the Israeli leader may be an attempt to placate allies in his pro-settler government before general elections in January.

The report suggests legalising more than 100 Jewish outposts in the West Bank that settlers built without formal government approval between 1991 and 2005. It also rejects international legal consensus over Israel's status in the West Bank, arguing that it was not an occupying power and therefore international law did not apply to construction and expansion of settlements in the territory.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits countries from transferring citizens on to land captured during war, the international community considers all Israeli settlements illegal. Israel, the only country to dispute this, captured the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem during the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 and began settling the areas with Jews.

Yesterday's Israel Radio report did not specify which elements of the Levy Report Mr Netanyahu would accept.

But the Israeli Haaretz newspaper quoted an unnamed cabinet official as saying only "practical parts" would be taken into consideration, specifically issues pertaining to building procedures and facilitating settler purchases of land.

Those that dealt directly with whether Israel should be considered an occupying power would not be adopted by Mr Netanyahu's cabinet, the newspaper reported, adding that the Israeli leader had come under mounting pressure by allies in his right-wing Likud party to adopt the Levy Report.

A growing number of prominent voices on either side of the Israel-Palestinian divide have been warning that an independent Palestinian state may no longer be feasible because of the extent of settlers, who now number over half a million between the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move also not recognised by the international community.

Since Mr Netanyahu was elected more than three years ago, the population of Jewish settlers in the West Bank grew by 18 per cent, an increase of tens of thousands.

Israel's transport minister and Likud party member Yisrael Katz welcomed the decision as "a clear message affirming the right of Jews to settle in Judaea and Samaria".

He rejected, however, claims that Israel intended to annex the entire area, and said there was no "intention of annexing the Palestinian population".

Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, criticised the decision, and warned that it could isolate Israel internationally and therefore "must be avoided".

"Adoption of the report would not strengthen settlement in Judaea and Samaria but would cause political damage to Israel and a deepening of its isolation within the world," he said.

hnaylor@thenational.ae

Edited October 28, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Len Colby]

There's a difference between de facto annexation and formal annexation, there is speculation Israel is attempting the former but no evidence it is pursuing the latter.

[Steven Gaal]

THRIST SHALL SET YOU FREE (free of your land that is),Gaal

Gross violations: Israel’s water theft

By As’ad Abdul Rahman | Special to Gulf News

Making sure that Palestinians do not have enough to quench their thirst, is just another ploy to force them out of their homeland

October 27, 2012

According to many international organisations, water is being used by Israel as a war weapon, threatening the life of the Palestinian people. Since the creation of the Zionist entity in Palestine, Israel has been working relentlessly on annexing Palestinian land and water sources lying beneath. Such a strategic design was confirmed in a document prepared, in 1941, by David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister). In this document (which was released by the British Public Record Office) Ben-Gurion stated: "We have to remember that for the Jewish state’s ability to survive, it must have within its borders, the waters of [rivers] Jordan and Litani."

To make things worse, Israel’s erection of the racist/apartheid Wall in the occupied Palestinian territories, as from 2002, further added to the adversities of Palestinians. Under the pretext of security, the Wall has actually enabled Israel to seize 37 Palestinian water wells, reach major aquifers in the West Bank and make 30 other wells very hard to reach and use by Palestinians. In this respect, a Palestinian research project confirmed that "the geographical line of the Wall exactly coincides 100 per cent with the line of the aquifers in the occupied West Bank". A recent BirZeit University symposium also concluded that "the Wall will be extending 670km to surround the cities and villages of the West Bank, thus eventually annexing 40 per cent of the total land of the West Bank. The design of the Wall was made with the intention of imposing direct and full control over the water resources of the West Bank". This may well explain why Israel has always insisted on postponing the issue of water resources to the final stage of negotiations with the Palestinians, while continuing its expansion of colonies as well as keeping control of Palestinian water resources. Israel has been deliberately planting its colonies in the Palestinian occupied territories above the Palestinian aquifers to deny them whatever little water is left. As for the Palestinian water that could not be stolen, the Israeli colonies undertook the task of polluting it with their industrial waste. Besides, the Israeli occupation is preventing the Palestinians from building and developing an efficient sewage system to protect their resources of drinking water in the occupied territories. This strategy is obviously part of a determined attempt to increase the agonies of Palestinians so that they find themselves forced to leave.

In 2011, the Census Bureau in Ramallah (Palestine) issued a report pertaining to Jewish colonies and water resources in the Palestinian land, which stated that "in spite of the rarity of water in comparison with human growth and expansion, the water crisis has taken an extreme and dangerous path after 1967. Water crisis has affected many Arab countries, especially after Israel gained control over water resources of the rivers – Jordan, Hasbani, Banias and Mount Hermon — in addition to all the Palestinian aquifers. This made 81 per cent of all Palestinian water resources under the full Israeli control over the period 1967-2011, which left the Palestinians with only 850 cubic metres of water per year to use". This situation has even deteriorated further because solving the water crisis has become impossible due to the continuous, aggressive Israeli measures of stealing Palestinian water. Dr Shaddad Al Oteily, Chief of Water Resources in the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), recently stated that "International studies, along with Israeli official studies, show clearly that every Israeli colonist in the occupied Palestinian territories consumes water 70 times more than the Palestinian individual". His remarks were confirmed by the Israeli human rights group B’tselem and an unprecedented French parliament report authored by socialist MP Jean Glavani — once a minister of agriculture — accusing Israel of implementing "apartheid" policies in its allocation of water resources in the West Bank. Al Oteily also revealed that "water available to the Palestinians in the West Bank amounts to 105 million cubic metres from springs and aquifers, which is much less than what was available in 1995 according to the Oslo Agreement, which designated 118 million cubic metres to them. According to international standards, the Palestinians should have 400 million cubic metres. Yet, they are getting only 25 per cent of their need, which is being augmented with 56 million cubic metres that the PNA buys from Israel, four million cubic metres of which are being allocated for Gaza". Furthermore, according to a UN report, "there are currently 56 springs in the West Bank near Israeli colonies, 30 of them were annexed by the Israelis who are denying the Palestinians access to them, while the rest of the 26 springs are under strict Israeli supervision as a prelude to annexation". The international report conceded that "the Palestinians were terrorised by acts of violence meant to prevent them from reaching the annexed springs which are being used as tourist attraction areas to support the infrastructure of the Israeli colonies, while decreasing the Palestinian presence in the areas". The report concluded that "the annexation of the springs and the aquifers of the Palestinians is only a part of the colonial Israeli expansion in the West Bank".

Under such conditions, it might be right to presume that the failure of Palestinians to control their water resources — among several other resources — makes the establishment of an independent Palestinian state almost impossible. The ultimate intent of the Israeli occupation is to make the lives of Palestinians unbearable. The lack of water to quench their thirst, as such, is meant to force them out of their homeland, in order to fulfil the Israeli project aiming to evict Palestinians from their historic land, in the context of the so-called Judaisation of Palestine.

Professor As’ad Abdul Rahman is the chairman of the Palestinian Encyclopaedia

[Steven Gaal]

• Desertpeace
  THE UNSETTLING TRUTHS ABOUT PALESTINE
  November 5, 2012 at 07:26
  
  *
  Professor Falk was appointed in 2008 to a six year term in his present position. That means he has been telling the unsettling truth about Israeli behaviour for four years now, with another two to go. Repeatedly, he has documented Israeli violations of international law and its relentless disregard for Palestinian human rights. For instance:
  
  • In 2008 he documented the “desperate plight of civilians in Gaza”;
    
  • In 2009 he described Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a “war crime of the greatest magnitude”;
    
  • In 2010 he documented Israel’s array of apartheid policies;
    
  • In 2011 he documented Israeli policies in Jerusalem and labelled them “ethnic cleansing”; and
    
  • In this latest report for the year 2012, he has concentrated on two subjects: (See report below)
    

  In defence of UN Palestine rapporteur Richard Falk

  By Lawrence Davidson

  Richard Falk is the present United Nations special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories. His job is to monitor the human rights situation in the territories, with particular reference to international law, and report back to both the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council. He is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and well qualified for his UN post.

  Telling unsettling truths

  Professor Falk was appointed in 2008 to a six year term in his present position. That means he has been telling the unsettling truth about Israeli behaviour for four years now, with another two to go. Repeatedly, he has documented Israeli violations of international law and its relentless disregard for Palestinian human rights. For instance:

  • In 2008 he documented the “desperate plight of civilians in Gaza”;
    
  • In 2009 he described Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip as a “war crime of the greatest magnitude”;
    
  • In 2010 he documented Israel’s array of apartheid policies;
    
  • In 2011 he documented Israeli policies in Jerusalem and labelled them “ethnic cleansing”; and
    
  • In this latest report for the year 2012, he has concentrated on two subjects:
    

  – Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners which, he concludes, is so bad as to warrant investigation by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It should be noted that Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICJ. However, condemnation by this organization would, within the context of growing awareness of Zionist crimes, help further educate public opinion.

  – Falk documents the assistance given to Israel’s expansion of colonies on the Palestinian West Bank by a number of multinational corporations, including Motorola, Hewlett-Packard and Caterpillar Inc. This assistance may be profitable, but it is also manifestly illegal. The chief executives and board members of these companies stand in violation of international laws, including provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Since no nation, nor the UN itself, seems ready to prosecute them, Professor Falk has recommended a boycott of the guilty firms “in an effort to take infractions of international law seriously”.

  Reactions

  In a sane world this work would make Richard Falk a universally acclaimed defender of justice. But ours is not a sane world. And so you get the following sort of responses from both Israel and its supporters:

  Karaen Peretz, the spokeswomen for the Israeli Mission at the United Nations, found Professor Falk’s latest report “grossly biased”. This is a sort of response used by someone who cannot dispute the evidence and so must resort to attacking the character of the one presenting the evidence. Peretz also asserted that “Israel is deeply committed to advancing human rights and firmly believes that this cause will be better served without Falk and his distasteful sideshow. While he spends pages attacking Israel, Falk fails to mention even once the horrific human rights violations and ongoing terrorist attacks by Hamas.”

  Actually, this is not true. Back in 2008 Falk requested that his mandate from the UN Human Rights Council be extended to cover infringements of human rights by Palestinian governments just so he would not be seen as partisan. Subsequently, Mahmoud Abbas’s pseudo Palestinian Authority called for Falk’s resignation. In this job, you just can’t win.

  In any case, Falk’s documenting of Israel’s crimes puts the lie to Peretz’s claim that Israel is “deeply committed to advancing human rights” and that documentation cannot be dismissed as a “sideshow”. Relative to 64 years of ethnic cleansing, it is the militarily insignificant missiles out of Gaza that are the “sideshow”. And, can we honestly assume that Ms Peretz’s attitude towards Professor Falk would turn for the better if in this report he had mentioned Hamas “even once”?

  Then there is United States Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice. She echoed Peretz by describing Falk as being “highly biased”. Well, what sort of attitude is one suppose to have toward overwhelming evidence persisting over many years? Isn’t one supposed to be “biased” in favour of such evidence? To ignore it doesn’t make you balanced or fair. It makes you either corrupt or in a deep state of denial.

  Ms Rice goes on to say that “Mr Falk’s recommendations do nothing to further a peaceful settlement … and indeed poison the environment for peace”. These are pretty strong words, but if considered critically they make little sense.

  First of all, Falk’s mandate requires him to reveal the facts about human rights violations in the Palestinian territories. It makes no reference to “furthering a peaceful settlement”. That is what the US government claims to be doing. And its record in this regard is pitiful.

  Second, just why should conclusively documenting practices that may well be standing in the way of a settlement, be equated with “poisoning the environment for peace”? That doesn’t add up at all.

  There are many other spokespeople who have reacted negatively to Falk’s latest report, ranging from the Canada’s foreign affairs minister to representatives of the companies caught on the wrong side of the law. And, remarkably, they all sing the same song: Falk is biased, ad nauseum. They can do no better because they cannot refute the professor”s evidence. Thus, all of these well positioned, well paid representatives of nations and multinational businesses are reduced to sounding like lawyers defending the mafia.

  Conclusion

  Professor Falk’s experience should serve as a warning to both those who would, on the one hand, make a career out of being a spokespersons for governments or companies, and on the other, those who would dedicate themselves to “speaking truth to power”. Taking on the role of the former is the equivalent of selling your soul to leadership whose sense of right and wrong goes no further than their own local interests. Taking on the role of the latter is to face seemingly endless frustration for, as Noam Chomsky once noted, power already knows the truth and doesn’t care one jot for it.

  Yet, for those who would travel down this latter road, Richard Falk is as good a role model as can be found. Having dedicated himself to the role of truth teller he is to be commended for his devotion to justice and sheer durability. He is a hero who, hopefully, will have his praises sung long after Ms Peretz and Ms Rice are deservedly forgotten.

Edited November 5, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

^{http://www.rawstory....n-in-west-bank/}

^{Israel plans ‘dramatic’ settlement expansion in West Bank}

Edited November 13, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

ISRAEL: A VIEW FROM THE 10%

November 20, 2012 at 06:47

90 percent of Israeli Jews support Gaza attack

As the bombs fall on Gaza, incitement to violence and racism has been common by prominent Israeli public figures. An opinion poll by Haaretz showed that more than 90 percent of Jewish Israelis support the attack on Gaza.

*

Dancing Israeli students chant “Death to the Arabs” at rally backing Gaza slaughter

Submitted by Ali Abunimah

Israeli students at Haifa University danced and chanted “Death to the Arabs” at a rally on Sunday to support Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Now in its sixth day, the assault which began when Israel violated a tenuous ceasefire, has killed more than 90 Palestinians among them two dozen children, including members of the al-Dalu family which lost four young children and six adults when their home was flattened by an Israeli bomb.

The video clip shows hundreds of students singing “Hatikva,” the Jewish supremacist national anthem of Israel. At the end of the clip multiple voices can be heard chanting “mavet la’aravim,” Hebrew for “Death to the Arabs.”

Hate leaders welcomed on campus

According to the Israeli publication Magazine Hamoshavot student leaders said some 1,300 people participated in the rally which was called to “support the State of Israel” and the army.

In attendance were extremist leaders such as Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari, who has been at the forefront of inciting violence and racial and religious hatred, extremist Knesset member Arye Eldad, and violent settler activist Baruch Marzel. Marzel was prevented by security from coming on campus, according to Magazine Hamoshavot.

Flags were distributed to students by members of the far-right anti-Palestinian campus group Im Tirzu.

Call for expulsion of Arab students

A specific goal of the rally appears to have been not just to “support” the state and the army as they slaughter people in Gaza, but specifically to incite against Palestinian students at the university, who had held an anti-war rally last week.

Anti-Palestinian activists and websites spread rumors and false accusations that the Palestinian students had held a minute of silence for Ahmad al-Jabari, the Hamas military commander whose extrajudicial execution by Israel set off the current escalation.

These accusations provided an opportunity for anti-Arab incitement and calls for expulsion:

“We came here to say that Haifa University is not a branch of

Balad

,” [Knesset member] Ben-Ari told

Magazine Hamoshavot.

“

Haifa University is a Jewish and Zionist university.

” And [Knesset member] Eldad said: “if the State of Israel finances the university, it cannot finance its enemies, or people who identify with its enemies at a ceremony at the university. This is intolerable.” He added: “they come here to express their identification with a mega-killer, a man who was executed by Israel.” He proposed “that

the university arrange buses for them to Gaza

, so they can sit in the mourning tabernacle and participate personally in the family’s grief.” He then added that “

no return transportation needed to be organized.

”

Balad is the party of Palestinian Knesset member Haneen Zoabi, who unlike extremists Ben-Ari and Eldad, was banned from speaking on the Haifa University campus two years ago when Palestinians wanted to commemorate the Nakba.

Hostile atmosphere

Aamer Ibrahim, a student at Haifa University, noted the hostile atmosphere for Arab students in several tweets.

Aamer Ibraheem@

Aamerib

Students association of the uni should represent all the students, they enter the class hall with Israeli flags

#

Gaza

pic.twitter.com/kIqpH9gM

18 Nov 12

Because of the tensions on campus, Amos Shapira, the president of the university has ordered the suspension of political activity on campus for two weeks, Magazine Hamoshavot reported.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Steven Gaal

[Steven Gaal]

1. 
   
   • TO GIVE NON-ARAB SOURCE TO POST # 5
     

Dehydrating the Palestinian People

John Glaser, December 10, 2012

An editorial from Haaretz explains how Israel is destroying the water reserves of Palestinians in the West Bank as part of an intentional policy to ethnically cleanse the occupied territories “and thus make it easier to annex these areas to Israel.”

Since the beginning of the year, Israel has destroyed 35 rainwater cisterns used by Palestinian communities, 20 of them in the area of Hebron and the southern Hebron Hills. In 2011, Israel destroyed 15 cisterns, and in the preceding 18 months, 29…Usually, the communities whose cisterns were destroyed are a short distance from settlements and unauthorized outposts that enjoy a regular water supply. At the same opportunity the Civil Administration almost always destroys Palestinian tents, animal pens and food storage facilities.

…Leaving Palestinian communities disconnected from infrastructure, declaring large areas as firing zones and destroying cisterns are part of an intentional policy since the early 1970s. Its goal is to leave as few Palestinians as possible in the majority of the West Bank (today’s Area C, under Israeli civil and military control), to expedite Jewish settlement and thus make it easier to annex these areas to Israel.

The European Union opposes Israel’s policies in Area C, which the EU believes sabotages the two-state solution. It also bases its position on international law, which prohibits the demolition of structures that would leave a protected population without food and water and result in their forced dislocation. Basic moral principles, as well as avoiding another head-on collision with our friends, requires that Israel cease and desist from destroying cisterns that are essential for the existence of dozens of Palestinian communities.

Deliberately depriving the civilian population of food and water is only one part of the Israeli strategy to smoke out the Palestinian people: the rate at which Israel is demolishing Palestinian homes and building up Israeli settlements in their place is greater now than ever before. This is the type of cruel policy that has been unilaterally supported by the United States for decades, and is currently being abetted by unprecedented rates of US economic, military and diplomatic aid.