Not so long ago we might have been seeing public-service announcements like this:
For the duration of the pandemic, please use the internet and your cell phone for essential purposes only. It is imperative that we keep the bandwidth open for emergency use. Thank you for your cooperation.
From Haaretz
Netanyahu and Gantz have agreed on a plan to annex the West Bank. All that’s left is to negotiate the details and pass the plan in the Knesset.
“Once approved by the cabinet, a proposal to apply Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank would also require approval by the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and then the full Knesset.”
Right-wing settler parties have expressed concern that language in the proposal requires American approval first:
“Gantz and Netanyahu, until recently political rivals who faced off in Israel’s March 2 election, agreed that Netanyahu would be able to bring a proposal for annexing parts of the West Bank to a cabinet vote this summer, but only if the United States backs the move and if it is done in coordination with other international players.”
“Yamina also alleged that the wording in the proposed coalition agreement on applying sovereignty to parts of the West Bank is “vague” and “doesn’t say anything, and even worse, it postpones sovereignty until too close to the U.S. elections, which casts a heavy shadow over the possibility of getting American consent for the move.”
I doubt Netanyahu is too concerned about the Trump administration. Trump needs his base of Evangelical Christians and the AIPAC crowd to turn out in big numbers for the election; he is not going to stand in the way of this. Israel will annex the West Bank and the Palestinians living in the west Bank will not be given Israeli citizenship. They will be treated as a conquered people – subjugated to the nation of Israel with no voice.
As Professor Yuval Shaney at Lawfare blog writes:
“the annexation plans will perpetuate Israel’s control over large parts of the West Bank, effectively subjecting the Palestinian residents living next to the annexed areas to its authority on a day-to-day and permanent basis. These residents will be dependent on Israel regarding their movement and in connection to their basic rights to health, work, family life and more. Involuntarily subjecting a large local population to the power and authority of a foreign state—without providing that population with the right to naturalize and to partake in the design of government policies that affect daily life—raises significant questions of democratic legitimacy.”
And he’s not going to find them again anytime soon.
As was obvious then, his last chance to run for president was in 2016.
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1246990082990538753
Positive stories from doctors continue to roll in. The NYT even runs stories about it when they’re not attacking the idea.
“We presented a nationally representative sample of 3,000 U.S. residents with eight possible policy responses to the outbreak, all of which may be unconstitutional, including forced quarantine in a government facility, criminal penalties for spreading misinformation, bans against certain people entering the country, and conscription of health-care workers. …
“A majority of respondents supported all eight of these policies, most by considerable margins. The proposals with the lowest support were seizing businesses and banning all citizens and noncitizens outside the country from entering, but these policies still had 58 and 63 percent support, respectively. The proposals with the highest levels of support were banning noncitizens from entering the country (85 percent) and conscripting health-care professionals[!!!!!!! -ed] to work despite risks to their own health (78 percent). Both policies burden a defined minority of the population, so it’s not surprising that large majorities support them. But criminalizing speech based on its content, an idea antithetical to modern American constitutionalism, was also very popular: About 70 percent of respondents supported restricting people’s ability to say things that may qualify as misinformation. Likewise, 77 percent of respondents support suspending all religious services and gatherings, thereby restricting religious freedom. And even when we explicitly told half of our sample that the policies may violate the Constitution, the majority supported all eight of them—even the speech restrictions.”
Well, that’s not good.
