Saoussen Ben Cheikh: Middle East Governments are using Covid-19 as a Pretext to Crush Human Rights // Palestinians to be “subjects,” not Citizens in Israeli Annexation

Globalvoices.org: In response to COVID-19, governments around the world have declared states of emergency, allowing them to take exceptional measures to contain the pandemic. 
Liberal democracies from the United StatesCanada to European countriesMalaysia 
and South Africa imposed emergency measures that restricted mobility under lockdowns. Likewise, in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), authorities declared states of emergency and imposed exceptional measures such as curfews and home confinement.


In a region plagued by decades of instability and conflict, authorities have long used exceptional and temporary emergency orders to justify repression and curb human rights. Based on this precedent, a number of governments are now using the coronavirus crisis to further crackdown on human rights - particularly freedom of expression.
What is a state of emergency? When faced with an imminent threat such as disease or natural disaster, states can legally declare a state of emergency that allows authorities to temporarily exercise exceptional powers. This may include the suspension of basic human rights and freedoms such as restriction of movement or banning public gatherings. 
However, “governments must inform the population of its exact substantive, territorial and temporal scope and the related measures,” when activating these measures, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR)...
https://www.juancole.com/2020/05/middle-governments-pretext.html

Palestinians to be “subjects,” not Citizens in Israeli Annexation

In an interview with corrupt casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s free newspaper, Israel ha-YomIsraeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the quiet parts out loud. Although he did not use the word, he described an Apartheid regime in the Israeli-controlled Palestinian West Bank. He openly referred to the stateless Palestinians as “subjects.”

Netanyahu will annex the Jordan Valley formally to Israel, where 60,000 Palestinians live and which is one of the areas Israel had pledged to relinquish to the Palestine Authority in the 1993 Oslo  Accords. He will also annex the land on which Israeli squatters established settlements in Palestinian territory. Israel ha-Yom asked, “Q: Nevertheless, several thousand Palestinians live in the Jordan  Valley. Does that mean they will receive Israeli citizenship?”

Netanyahu replied: “No. They will remain a Palestinian enclave. You’re not annexing Jericho. There’s a cluster or two. You don’t need to apply sovereignty over them, they will remain Palestinian subjects if you will. But security control also applies to these places.” How about if we won’t? I have long argued that the crux of the Israeli conflict with the Palestinians is the denial to Palestinians of citizenship in a state. In calling the Palestinians “subjects,” Netanyahu is acknowledging that they are not citizens. In Hannah Arendt’s phrase, citizenship is the right to have rights. Palestinians have no citizenship in a state. They do not have a right to have rights....

see also
Juan Cole - Are Israelis and Zionists really talking about a Final Solution



Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime