Israel’s cynical new strategy: Reframe Palestine debate as a religious battle, when it is really about civil rights
With the focus on Syria, in part due to ISIS and in part to the massive refugee crisis, the threats to world peace because of the Israeli occupation of Palestine have been put on the back burner. Indeed, the U.S. administration has seemingly washed its hands of its efforts to broker peace, despite U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Palestine-Israel last month to discuss confidence-building measures, once again.
Yet there is a dire need to end the Israeli occupation, because Israel’s actions could rapidly and suddenly escalate the situation beyond the occupied territory to encompass Israel itself. Within days of the ISIS terror attacks on Paris, Israel moved to ban the northern branch of the Islamic Movement — despite the objections of its own intelligence chief Yoram Cohen, who had said there was no evidence to link it to terror, and Shin Bet reservations about the ban.
