Here's an interesting illustration of the reasons why it is important not to rely on a single news source or medium to tell you what is going on in the world. On Monday, the United Kingdom announced that it, France, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden are imposing economic sanctions that will ban trade with Israeli "settlements" in the occupied West Bank region and will prohibit financial support of "settlement" activities and expansion. The motivation is disgusted outrage at the terrorism directed at the West Bank's Palestinian population by Israeli Jews living in unlawful "settlements" in the territory west of the Jordan River that has been under military occupation by Israel since 1967. This story has been the main feature each day this week, so far, on the BBC World Service, to which I listen on the radio every morning, On the Associated Press web site, which I scan every day, it barely registers.
Terrorism by the "settlers" has been going on for years, but it has greatly surged since the War in Gaza began and even more greatly since Trump joined Netanyahu in going to war with Iran. Netanyahu has declared himself irrevocably opposed to Palestinian aspirations for nationhood, and has been promoting "settlement" in the West Bank as a means of rendering that area unavailable as a base for a Palestinian state. Consequently, the "settler" terrorism has been committed with nearly complete impunity and even with the tacit and often open complicity of Israeli armed forces and law enforcement agencies.
I am an American, that is, a citizen of a country that seized and populated much of its territory by means so similar to those being employed by Israel in its de facto annexation process on the West Bank, namely, theft, bullying, and murder, that in this regard the U.S. might well be Israel's model. I am Jewish, which means that I am forced to recognize a historical/ethnic/religious kinship, however distant, with the people committing these abhorrent acts. So In both regards I feel it incumbent upon me to pronounce my position on the UK's sanctions regime: it's about fucking time, says I. Here's hoping the United States will follow suit some day in the not too distant future.
