Israel/Palestine

lostincalifornia

(4,244 posts) Thu Aug 28, 2025, 07:36 AM 12 hrs ago

West Bank Palestinians Wait in Dread For Israel's New Settlement

"Abdallah Arara has raised 11 children and worked 400 head of sheep on the same plot of land five miles east of Jerusalem for most of the past 45 years. His parents arrived in the early 1950s after Israeli troops forced them out of the Negev, a desert further south.

Now, his family may be forced to move again.

“At any minute, the Israelis will come and evict us,” said Arara, 60, one of several thousand members of the Jahalin Bedouin tribe, who live among the rocky hills and dunes on the road to Jericho from Jerusalem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

His fears stem from the Israeli government’s decision last week to approve the building of 3,400 housing units in the empty area known as E-1 between Jerusalem and the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim. That’s where Arara and the rest of the Bedouin live.

The move came after three decades of delays caused by concern for the rights of the Bedouin and because E-1 — which abuts Jerusalem and connects the northern and southern parts of the West Bank — is considered critical for the viability of a Palestinian state. In the event of an Israeli takeover, it would split the Palestinian-held parts of the territory in two.

That’s the point, according to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who said the decision to build there “practically erases the two-state delusion and consolidates the Jewish people’s hold on the heart of the Land of Israel.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-28/israel-s-new-settlement-leaves-west-bank-palestinians-waiting-in-dread?srnd=homepage-americas

Those who refused to vote for VP Harris in 2024 own this. Some like to talk about complicity. Those who didn't vote for VP Harris over trump are complicit in EVERYTHING that is going on today.

5 replies

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Highlight:

West Bank Palestinians Wait in Dread For Israel's New Settlement (Original Post) lostincalifornia 12 hrs ago OP

They shouldn't worry about it Orrex 12 hrs ago #1

It's more than a land-grab. no_hypocrisy 11 hrs ago #2

I basically agree with this jfz9580m 9 hrs ago #3

Nice projection and mental gymnastics going on there. AloeVera 9 hrs ago #4

... jfz9580m 9 hrs ago #5

Orrex

(65,853 posts)

1. They shouldn't worry about it

Reply to lostincalifornia (Original post)

Thu Aug 28, 2025, 07:41 AM

12 hrs ago

We’ve been assured many times that Netanyahu’s years-long campaign of deliberate civilian murder isn’t about expanding Israel’s land-grab.

no_hypocrisy

(52,788 posts)

2. It's more than a land-grab.

Reply to lostincalifornia (Original post)

Thu Aug 28, 2025, 08:38 AM

11 hrs ago

It’s also grab at the acquirer under the West Bank. Israel is running out of water.

jfz9580m

(15,841 posts)

3. I basically agree with this

Reply to lostincalifornia (Original post)

Thu Aug 28, 2025, 10:24 AM

9 hrs ago

Mark Cuban did some damage..I was face palming seeing him on the trail. I am not American, but Trump is like Covid so he’s bad for the planet.
Trump has however helped clear my head about stuff since it is outright fascism now. I used to feel it was too histrionic till Trump 2.0 to call out as corrupt and creepy the totally corrupt invasion of emerging technologies here in the Global South.

But after trump got reelected I don’t feel like a lame wannabe tech critic. Like these technology companies backed trump 2.0 fully as was clear from all of them being at the inauguration.

The US is basically a one party country but politics aside everywhere today the average person is also at odds with the corrupt billionaire class, leaders who fawn on them and a corrupt and unprincipled tech industry whose fake left of centre pretensions I didn’t buy in 2016 when everyone else pretended Google and Facebook are full of liberal techies.

Not being outright anti choice or homophobic or transphobic are not the same as liberal.
Those techies tend to be in denial.

https://newrepublic.com/article/187156/mark-cuban-harris-working-class

Would Mark Cuban Please Shut Up?
Kamala Harris’s worst campaign surrogate has worn out his welcome.
To whatever extent the 2024 election was a contest over who could raise the most money, it’s over. Kamala Harris won.

Through August, the Democratic presidential ticket raised $678 million and the Republican ticket raised $309 million, according to the most recent reports from the Federal Election Commission. Harris herself raised more money after she entered the race this past July than Donald Trump raised going all the way back to 2023. Throw in funds raised for Harris’s campaign by affiliated party committees, and Harris raised a reported $1 billion in just three months, which is more than Trump and his affiliated party committees raised all year. Trump still has a fundraising edge with billionaire-funded Super PACs, but even that may not last. No political candidate in America—possibly no political candidate anywhere—ever raised so much cash so quickly as Harris. Trump is visibly panicking about this (though not enough to dig into his own pocket, something the billionaire candidate hasn’t done since 2016).

Granted, winning the money race will get you only so far. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party, and various Super PACs raised twice as much as Trump in 2016, yet Trump won. Still, out-raising your opponent does confer one undeniable benefit. It frees you from having to worry what rich donors will think as you hone your campaign message during the home stretch.

Which brings us to the billionaire investor and Shark Tank cast member Mark Cuban. Cuban, according to Forbes, is worth $5.7 billion. He holds no formal position in Harris’s campaign, but he’s become Harris’s go-to surrogate on economic issues. In that capacity, Cuban tries to reassure his fellow plutocrats that Harris isn’t serious about addressing economic inequality. He is performing that service altogether too well.

“The feedback I’m getting,” Cuban told Politico even before Harris formally became a presidential candidate, “but certainly not confirmed by the VP, is she will be far more open to business, [artificial intelligence], crypto and government as a service. Changing the policies changes the message and lets everyone know she is in charge and open, literally, for business.”

AloeVera

(3,639 posts)

4. Nice projection and mental gymnastics going on there.

Reply to lostincalifornia (Original post)

Thu Aug 28, 2025, 10:39 AM

9 hrs ago

The voters who opposed funding a genocide are the ones complicit?? Not the people who made excuses for Israel, advocated for funding and arming the genocide and turned a blind eye to the violence and land-grabs in the West Bank going on for decades?

Complicity, as you know, refers to being involved in or knowing about a crime or wrongdoing. As in planning a crime or looking the other way as it's being committed.

No amount of mental gymnastics is going to help Israel's supporters project their guilt onto the voters who opposed the genocide.

jfz9580m

(15,841 posts)

5. ...

Reply to AloeVera (Reply #4)

Thu Aug 28, 2025, 11:05 AM

9 hrs ago

I kinda hesitate to weigh in here but while I am with you 75% of the way, the last 25% of the way I feel that in a one-party still-democracy-but-barely like the US, I would hold my nose and pull the lever for the dem were I American.
And then make any case later.

I think effective altruism and utilitarianism etc are bullshit of course. But the reality is that the GOP is crazy (the odd republican here and there aside) -I mean the party not the voters.
And irl “voting your conscience” or staying at home etc just seems to mean hell for so many people

I usually try to see most people with politics I disapprove of as misguided rather than evil up to a point because humans can be a very stupid species.

So I don’t blame people without vested interests who have crazy views up to a point because I figure if you follow the rubbish that passes for the media how would you not be completely misinformed?

Abdul Al Sayed gently chided Nathan Robinson for taking an overly critical view of even Bernie over this issue.
I kinda get that. This is a dire situation overall and while I suppose trump 2.0 has the effect of waking everyone up wrt the emergency democratically this will be a hard learning process and there is no predicting how things will go.
I would have preferred a slower wake up call but well it’s a crisis. No point ignoring that.

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