| Highlights from yesterday |
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Former Israeli diplomat says Israel’s ‘total victory’ unattainable without full occupation of Gaza
Former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas has told Al Jazeera that Israel’s objective in Gaza is “total victory” but that it is not “attainable”.
“The only way Israel could do this is if it occupies the entire Gaza Strip,” Pinkas stated. “Which means that it is responsible for everything that goes on.”
Pinkas said that the efforts of the so-called Board of Peace are void, and that it “may exist on paper, but it doesn’t really exist” and that Israel has still not withdrawn.
He described the “moral depravity” of depopulating Gaza as “just not practical,” adding that there are roughly two million people in Gaza who are homeless and lack basic resources or food.
“They don’t have agriculture to sustain them because everything has been reduced to rubble. Israel may talk about ethnic cleansing; it’s just not practical.”
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Israeli election unlikely to bring significant change for Palestinians
Former diplomat Alon Pinkas says he doubts Israel’s upcoming election results will improve the lives of Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza or the occupied West Bank.
“None of the opposition parties who may take over have come up with an innovative idea on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian process,” said Pinkas. “None of them pledged anything. They all compete with each other to explain why a Palestinian state is not viable.”
He said that a new government will have to deal with “Israel’s increased isolation in the world”, and it will have to “indulge” President Trump’s “rhetorical commitment” to his own peace plan for the Gaza Strip.
“I can see minor improvement in Palestinian lives – certainly not what the Palestinians may deserve and not what the world wants Israel to do. But it’s going to be somewhat different than the Netanyahu government. But don’t expect anything dramatic,” Pinkas said.
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Israel’s supreme court holds hearing over decision to disqualify Arab parties from election
A hearing in the Israeli Supreme Court is considering the decision to disqualify the country’s main Arab-majority political lists from the upcoming October 27 elections.
On September 26, the Central Elections Committee voted to bar two groups: the Joint List, an alliance of Hadash, Balad and Ta’al; and Ra’am, also called the United Arab List.
They also disqualified Ofer Cassif, a Jewish politician from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party, and Sami Abu Shehadeh, the leader of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party.
The far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose Yehudit party petitioned to disqualify Abu Shehadeh, arrived at the court to represent the party in the hearing.
The move would leave Palestinian citizens in Israel without their main representatives in the Israeli parliament.
The Supreme Court has previously overturned attempts to exclude Arab parties and candidates.
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Palestinian-led parties face ‘institutional discrimination’ under Israel’s Basic Laws
Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Dahleh says moves to exclude Palestinian-led parties and candidates from Israel’s elections amount to “institutional discrimination,” arguing that the disparity is rooted in Israeli law.
His comments come as a hearing in the Israeli Supreme Court is under way on Thursday to consider the decision to disqualify the country’s main Arab-majority political lists from the upcoming October 27 elections.
“Basically, it’s institutional discrimination, but it goes back to the legislation itself,” Dahleh said in occupied East Jerusalem.
He said Israel’s Basic Laws bar parties that deny the country’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, as well as parties or candidates deemed to support armed struggle by a hostile state, or an organization designated by Israel as a “terrorist organization”.
“That’s what they are using now against the Arab or the Palestinian parties inside Israel,” Dahleh said.
He contrasted their exclusion with the treatment of Israeli politicians accused of making inflammatory statements against Palestinians.
“This discrimination, as I said, it’s institutionalized. It’s set in the law itself,” Dahleh said.
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‘Conservative’ bloc in Israeli Supreme Court creates uncertainty for Palestinian-led parties
Lawyer Muhammad Dahleh says the outcome of challenges to the disqualification of Palestinian-led parties in the Knesset is less certain this election because of changes to Israel’s Supreme Court.
“In the last 20 years, there were many attempts to disqualify other parties or candidates,” Dahleh told Al Jazeera, noting Israel’s Central Elections Committee accepted disqualification motions in the past, only for the Supreme Court to later overturn them.
“But now we have a different Supreme Court because the entire atmosphere – political and legal – in Israel has changed since October 7, 2023.”
Dahleh said recent right-wing governments have influenced the process of appointing Supreme Court justices. “Today, out of nine justices who are hearing those cases, five of them are clearly considered to be part of the so-called conservative bloc,” he said.
“Some of them actually are settlers. They are living in the occupied West Bank and illegal settlements.”
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Senior UN official says he lost his job for speaking out against Israel’s policies in Gaza
A senior figure at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has said he lost his job for criticizing Israel’s policies in Gaza.
Ben Davis, who served as the director of the Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division (ESP), told AFP that he was informed his contract would not be renewed in July after 26 years.
Davis said he was accused of breaching impartiality rules.
“They accused me of organizing these moments of silence on the situation of starvation and famine in Gaza,” he said, referring to weekly silent protests by some employees at the Rome-based organization.
He said he was also criticised for a report he wrote on food availability in Gaza and the consequences under international humanitarian law.
“We were told to take it down,” he added. “We weren’t allowed to make any references to humanitarian law.”
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US envoy Jared Kushner holds the largest stake in Israeli firm supporting Israel’s military, CNN reports
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a top US peace negotiator for the Middle East, has been found to hold a significant stake in an Israeli firm investing in companies supporting Israel’s military, according to a CNN report.
Kushner’s investment group, Affinity Partners, doubled its stake last year in the Tel Aviv-based firm Phoenix Financial.
Records disclosed by CNN – obtained using Israeli financial transparency laws – found that Phoenix invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer.
Kushner and fellow US special envoy Steve Witkoff brokered the “ceasefire” deal between Israel and Hamas last October.
Israel continues to attack the Gaza Strip on a near-daily basis, despite the “ceasefire”.
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