We knew this was coming. It’s part of the Netanyahu administration’s plan to ethnically cleanse east Jerusalem of Palestinians – the kind of deportation that violate the moral law and as such are condemned vigorously by Gaudium Et Spes. Add that to war crimes in Gaza and see what you get. Here’s Juan Cole:
“The new Israeli policy of deporting Palestinians from the West Bank on arbitrary grounds has kicked in with Ahmad Sabah, who has just been deported to Gaza and separated from his family in the West Bank. The measure contravenes the Geneva Convention of 1949 on the treatment of occupied populations, and it also goes contrary to the undertakings Israel made toward the Palestine Authority in the course of the Oslo peace negotiations.
The episode underlines the ways in which their forced statelessness leaves Palestinians (almost uniquely among major world nationalities) completely vulnerable to loss of the most basic human rights. That he was forcibly moved to Gaza by the Israelis suggests that many of those singled out for potential deportation from the West Bank may be moved to the small slum along the Mediterranean, which the Israelis have cut off from its traditional markets and which they keep under a blockade of the civilian population (a war crime). The Israeli establishment has decided not to try to colonize Gaza, and its isolation and hopelessness make it an attractive place for them to begin exiling West Bank residents, thus making more room for Israeli colonists.”
And while the Obama administration challenges this policy rather tepidly (with no hint that the massive military subsidies will be withdrawn), the US Congress still leans toward Israel. For such a strongly nationalist country, this “special position” is bizarre. It is not even a partisan issue. One of the most obnoxiously outspoken defenders of all-things-Israel is Chuck Schumer. Will America ever wake up to the enormity of the human rights abuses being committed by Israel? (And please spare the consequentialist responses). Can the inpregnable alliance of the Jewish lobby and the apocalyptic evangelicals ever be sundered? For when Sarah Palin and Chuck Schumer are on the same page, it’s time to despair…
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