❶ Opinion/Analysis: Netanyahu’s new plan: Getting rid of Israel’s Palestinians

• Background: “The Arab-Palestinian Community in Israel: A Test Case for Collective Rights under International Law.” George Washington International Law Review.

❷ Israeli police demolish Bedouin Naqab village for 116th time
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) Israeli settler family to move into Hebron home, days after expelling Palestinian owners
❸ Hundreds of Israelis enter Al-Aqsa compound for Jewish holiday
❹ POETRY by Samah Sabawi
` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` ` `
❶ OPINION/ANALYSIS: NETANYAHU’S  NEW  PLAN:  GETTING  RID  OF  ISRAEL’S  PALESTINIANS
+972 Blog
Marzuq Al-Halabi
July 31, 2017.   The idea of territorial or population swaps as part of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians is not new . . . . A new proposal put forth by Prime Minister Netanyahu would transfer the Arab villages of Wadi Ara — adjacent to the northern West Bank — to the Palestinian Authority, in exchange for annexing the settlements to Israel . . . .
[. . . .] It is possible that Netanyahu, as opposed to his minister Tzahi Hanegbi, did not want to threaten the Palestinians — even those in Israel — with a third Nakba, and thus decided on the more sophisticated route of territorial swaps . . . .
___Netanyahu’s idea needs to be viewed as part of his search for an outlet for the current tensions, and as part of the public discussions on a final-status arrangement and a range of “creative” ideas that will pave the way out of the current strategic tie-game between Israel and the Palestinians.
[. . .] . . . one can safely establish that the right-wing elites in Israel do not want any further Palestinian participation in Israeli politics.
[. . . .] The Right views every act . . .  that hints at fully recognizing Palestinians’ citizenship or their potentially pivotal role in the political sphere, civic identity, peace, and war, as a call for intervention to change direction toward exclusion.   MORE . . .

Abareen, Yousef T.
“THE  ARAB-PALESTINIAN  COMMUNITY  IN  ISRAEL:  A  TEST  CASE  FOR  COLLECTIVE  RIGHTS  UNDER  INTERNATIONAL  LAW.”
George Washington International Law Review, vol. 47, no. 3, Aug. 2015, pp. 449-480.
[. . . .] Legally, Israel defines itself as a “Jewish and democratic” state. However, nearly one-fifth of Israel’s citizens belong to the Palestinian national group, with their own ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic characteristics. While they have been granted Israeli citizenship . . .  the Jewish majority views its Palestinian minority as part of the Arab world and often as enemies of the state. Not surprisingly, this atmosphere has forced the Arab-Palestinian minority to regularly confront its status and role within Israeli politics and in the region at large.    ___ Similar to other minorities globally, Arab-Palestinians face a great deal of discrimination . . .    They are excluded from positions of influence and leadership and are severely underrepresented in government institutions as well as in the general public sphere . . .
[. . . .] The right to equality and nondiscrimination is a well-established principle in international law. Articles 2 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 4 of the U. N. 1992 Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious, and Linguistic Minorities . . . [establish] the legal concept of the collective for minorities within international law and imposes an onus upon states to actively work to protect the rights of such collectives. Article 27 of the ICCPR is key and reads as follows:

In those States in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities
exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied
the right, in community with the other members of their group,
to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own
religion, or to use their own language.

[. . . .]  Indeed, the claim for granting comprehensive collective rights is based on the Arab-Palestinian community’s special historical, emotional, national, religious, and cultural relationship with its native land. This is not an immigrant population; Arab-Palestinians have lived on the land long prior to the founding of the Israeli state, and this “nativity” is critical to formulating the status and rights of the Arab-Palestinian minority in Israel, from both a moral and international legal perspective . . . .
[. . . .]  The Arab-Palestinian community in Israel . . .  has adopted this discourse of rights. This indigenous minority suffers from ongoing discrimination by successive Israeli governments . . .  the Arab-Palestinian community’s views reflect international discourse and are regarded as being essential for improving their situation on an individual and collective basis. The passage of the 2007 Indigenous Peoples Declaration, in particular, strengthens the Arab-Palestinian case in international law by giving the demands of the community the moral and legal legitimacy and support they require.     FULL ARTICLE . . .

❷ ISRAELI  POLICE  DEMOLISH  BEDOUIN  NAQAB  VILLAGE  FOR  116TH  TIME
Palestine News and Information Agency – WAFA
August 1, 2017.   Israeli police backed by heavy machinery Tuesday demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Naqab region, in southern Israel, for the 116th time since 2010.
___Witnesses said staff from the so-called Israel Land Authority accompanied by Israeli police and bulldozers broke into the village and demolished the homes, mainly made of tin, which residents build every time their village is demolished.   MORE . . .
. . . . . ❷ ― (ᴀ) ISRAELI  SETTLER  FAMILY  TO  MOVE  INTO  HEBRON  HOME,  DAYS  AFTER  EXPELLING  PALESTINIAN  OWNERS  
Ma’an News Agency
July 31, 2017.   Almost one week after dozens of extremist Israeli settlers raided and occupied a Palestinian home in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli settler declared on Monday that he and his family will be officially moving into the home, despite an ongoing legal battle between the Palestinian homeowners and Israelis.
___The Israeli settler who made the declaration, according to Hebrew media, was Yossi Dagan, a leader of the Homesh First organization — an umbrella organization of right-wing settler groups whose goal is to rebuild the illegal Homesh settlement, which was destroyed and evacuated by the Israeli government in 2005.
___Hebrew media reported on Monday that Dagan had accused the Israeli government of “stalling” on legal procedures, and called on Israeli leaders to “stop this injustice” and to move the ownership of the home — which belongs to the Palestinian Abu Rajab family — to Dagan and the settlers of Hebron.   MORE . . .
❸ HUNDREDS  OF  ISRAELIS  ENTER  AL-AQSA  COMPOUND  FOR  JEWISH  HOLIDAY    
Ma’an News Agency
Aug. 1, 2017.  Hundreds of far-right religious Israelis entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem on Tuesday morning on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’av.
___Tisha B’Av notably commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temple, which Jews believe were located where the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam, now stands.
___Islamic Endowment (Waqf) spokesman Firas al-Dibs told Ma’an that 870 Israeli Jews had entered the compound in large groups under heavy military protection between 7 and 11 a.m., adding that several Israelis had performed Jewish religious rites in the compound.   MORE . . .

“THE  LIBERATION  ANTHEM”  BY  SAMAH  SABAWI
(June 27, 2011)

To the people of Israel who fear our freedom:  Don’t be afraid,
we will liberate you too.
This is my rendition of an anthem to be sung
That day you and I will stand side by side
Shoulder to shoulder
Watching a new dawn wipe away decades of hate and savagery
The day I rise from the ashes of your oppression
I promise you I will not rise alone
You too will rise with me
You will be liberated from your own tyranny
And my freedom will bring your salvation

This is my rendition of an anthem to be sung
I’ll craft new words of expression
Outside of this suffocating language that has occupied me
Your words are like your walls
They encroach on my humanity
I am more than demography
I’m neither your collaborator
Nor your enemy
I am not your moderate
Not your terrorist
Not your Islamist
Funammentalist
Extremist
Militant
Radical
I am more than adjectives letters and syllables
I will construct my own language
And replace your words of power
With the power of my words

This is my rendition of an anthem to be sung
I don’t want to obliterate nor humiliate you
I refuse to hate you
Don’t care to demonize or proselytize or theorize your intentions
Every breath you draw reminds me you are human
The sound of your beating heart is a rhythm familiar to my ears
You and I are no different
We are made of blood and tears

This is my rendition of an anthem to be be sung
I will resist and soar above your matrix of control
With the power of my will your wall will fall
And the concrete that once segregated us will be used to rebuild homes
Your bulldozers and your tanks will dissolve into the earth
The sap will return to the olive trees
The gates will open wide for the refugees
We will be free
I will be your equal
And only then you will be mine
My other self
My fellow human being

About Samah Sabawi.
From: I  REMEMBER  MY  NAME:  POETRY  BY  SAMAH  SABAWI,  RAMZY  BAROUD,  JEHAN  BSEISO.  Vacy Vlazna, editor. London: Novum Publishing, 2016. Available from publisher.