Public Comment

Here we go again. Determined to scuttle US efforts to broker a peace accord with the Palestinians and just ahead of John Kerry’s visit, Israel announced plans to build another 1,800 homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem. This is in addition to its plans to expel 80,000 Bedouins living in the Negev desert who are Israeli citizens, who serve in the Israeli army but are denied electricity, access to water and public services because they are not Jewish. Max Blumenthal exposes current Israeli policies of aggressively expropriating Palestinian land in his new book, ‘Goliath Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.’ 

Blumenthal devotes much of his book highlighting the transformation of Israeli society into a growing intolerance towards the Palestinians and encouraging racist attitudes in its education system. Palestinian homes have been firebombed by groups of religious fanatics who are able to do so with complete impunity. According to one of the most reputable pollsters in Israel, Camille Fuchs, a majority of Israeli youth expressed their refusal to have an Arab neighbor and supported a total expulsion of African migrants from Tel Aviv. Even more disturbing is a recent Ynet poll which showed that a majority of Israelis supported settler terrorism. A rising star in the Likud, Miri Regev, stated that ‘Africans are a cancer in Israel’s body’.