I was interviewed by global broadcaster TRT World about the latest violence in Israel/Palestine and how it fits into a long history of occupation and discrimination:
What is happening in Sheikh Jarrah might also amount to a war crime, a recent EU statement suggested, seeing it as an “alarming” development. Israeli settlements across Palestine are illegal, violating international law.
“Israel is conducting an ever-increasing campaign to forcibly remove Palestinians from Jerusalem, including in Sheikh Jarrah, and replace them with far-right Jewish settlers, all supported by a largely compliant political, media and legal establishment,” says Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist, author and filmmaker, who was based in East Jerusalem from 2016 until 2020.
“What’s happening there fits the exact definition of settler-colonialism,” Loewenstein tells TRT World.
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“Mainstream Zionism has falsely believed, since the establishment of the state in 1948, that Jews have the right to settle the entire land of Palestine and Israel and either ethnically cleanse Palestinians or make their lives unbearable. Sadly, what’s happening now is a natural extension of more than 70 years of Israeli history,” says Loewenstein, the independent journalist.
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“Successive Israeli governments have pushed to Judaise Jerusalem and this plan is moving ahead with little serious international pressure. There are major parts of the city that are now controlled by far-right Jewish fanatics with Israeli state backing,” Loewenstein notes.