Israel approves bill to Jail supporters of Palestine after killing 4.800 Children

The Israeli Knesset yesterday approved, in the second and third readings, a draft bill stipulating one-year imprisonment for anyone who publishes material praising, showing sympathy for or encouraging the Palestinian resistance.

Under the new law, which applies to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and Israel, any individual who publishes material in the media or on social media platforms expressing support for Hamas and Palestinian resistance movements could face up to one-year imprisonment.

The bill exempts random posts or publications for legal purposes, however, according to the committee, systematic and continuous reading of such material indicates belonging to the resistance organization.

The occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, and Palestinians in Israel have witnessed an extreme state of tension in light of the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip which led to the killing of over 10,000 Palestinians, including 4,800 children.

Whenever politicians appear to distance themselves temporarily from the mainstream narrative on Israel, one would do well to be prudent before deciding where their loyalties truly lie, and let the alignment with Zionism reveal itself in due course.

What is humanitarian about the humanitarian pause that Sanders claims to want, when the underlying message is a green light for Israel to destroy Gaza under the pretext of destroying Hamas?

Considering the aftermath of the bombing, which Israel is already hinting at, what is Sanders’s stance over Netanyahu’s plans for Israel’s possible physical re-occupation of Gaza for an indefinite period under the pretext of the colonial security narrative?

Besides the fact that Sanders’s statement was too little, too late, it would benefit Palestinians if fewer people jumped on the adulation bandwagon for statements that look at the colonized through a colonial humanitarian lens.

Middle East Monitor / ABC Flash Point News 2023.