Israel’s contribution to UN accessibility is a façade for its violations

Ramona Wadi

Disabled Palestinian football players, who lost their legs during Israel's assaults, in action during a friendly match, organized by Supreme National Commission of the Return March regarding to 2018 FIFA World Cup, in Gaza City, Gaza on 15 June, 2018 [Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency]

Israel marked the International Day of Persons with Disabilities by donating three paediatric wheelchairs to the UN Human Rights Council. The aim, according to Israel’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, was “to make the UN truly accessible, so that persons with physical disabilities can actively take part and influence world issues discussed in Geneva.”

The occasional visits by children to the UN are not influential in the grand scheme of the organisation’s manipulation of human rights. Israel, however, is being allowed to influence the UN in terms of its contributions, which by default demand deliberately looking the other way as it continues to obstruct accessibility for Palestinians in Palestine, especially for Palestinians with disabilities. This latest episode in Israel’s manipulation of the international arena and its agenda begs the question – why do UN institutions allow the existence of Israel’s façade to flourish, at the expense of the settler colonial state’s ongoing violations against Palestinians?

In addition, Israel’s seemingly altruistic motive hides a darker reality highlighted by the UNHRC itself – Israel’s deliberate maiming of Palestinian civilians. In 2018, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) noted that Israel killed Palestinians with disabilities who were participating in the Great Return March protests. Israeli snipers also targeted the lower limbs of Palestinians demonstrating at the Gaza border, thus adding to the statistical toll of permanent disabilities.

Meanwhile, the latest statistics show that 92,710 Palestinians with disabilities, 52 per cent of who are living in the Gaza Strip, face increasing hardships in Palestine. The colonial occupation of Palestine and its restrictions upon Palestinians reflect even more strongly when it comes to persons with disability. This year, PCHR’s press release expounds upon such ramifications, noting the link between everyday Israeli violations of Palestinian rights and how this impacts the rights of Palestinians with disabilities, in particular when it comes to freedom of movement.

The press release states, “Israeli targeting of PWD is not limited to attacks on their physical integrity, IOF also restricts their freedom of movement and denies them travel to seek medical treatment abroad, raising the number of victims with permanent disabilities who could have been treated were it not for Israeli restrictions.”

Israel’s endeavours abroad, especially in humanitarian initiatives, continue to provide a veneer for its violations against the rights of Palestinians. The more it promotes its illusory concept of freedom to the international community, the more Palestinians are marginalised and left to face the increasing oppression in isolation. Providing three wheelchairs to make UN premises more available constitutes a propaganda effort along the same lines as promoting its expertise to niches of need, especially in African countries, for example, in terms of technology and agriculture.

Israeli media have framed the wheelchairs donation as Israel’s contribution to the UN Sustainable Development Goals which stipulate that no one should be left behind. Yet in Palestine, an entire population has been forced to stay behind without the possibility of ever attaining a semblance of sustainability. What Israel has achieved is a mockery of sustainability and the international community has played along with the charade.

Recognition of a Palestinian state without liberation is an illusion

Ramona Wadi

During the Berlin European Council summit in 1999, the European Union declared “its readiness to consider the recognition of a Palestinian state in due course” and conditionally dependent upon the Oslo framework, as well as “Israel’s security and Israel’s acceptance as an equal partner in the region.” Two decades later, the EU is still being prompted to recognise a Palestinian state.

The latest recommendation came from Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister, Jean Asselborn, as a reaction to the US reversing its official position over the legality of Israeli settlements. However, Asselborn himself emphasised the limitations of such a move, describing it as “a mere recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to [their] own state.” Speaking to Reuters, Asselborn insisted that any such recognition “would not be meant against Israel,” but rather a step towards implementing the two-state paradigm.

In other words, such recognition would merely affirm the EU’s consistency with its foreign policy. By no means is EU recognition of a Palestinian state meant to advance Palestinian liberation. Furthermore, the constant political reactions to the US and Israel advancing colonial expansion in Palestine is rendering any possible significance of recognition negligible.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) highlighted reasons why the European Parliament should vote in favour of a Palestinian state, mentioning, among other things, the “significant EU financial investment in the two-state solution”. Of particular significance is how the ECFR ties recognition of a Palestinian state to Israel’s purported legitimacy as evidenced by its statement that, “Recognising a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders reaffirms the EU’s support for the two-state solution and the legitimacy of Israel.” Furthermore, the ECFR opined that such recognition would “likely have a restraining influence” on Palestinians resorting to armed resistance. The Council maintained that in the event of “no progress with Israel, at least all is not lost in the world and that their [the Palestinian] leadership can deliver a diplomatic success.”

What the ECFR fails to mention is that diplomatic successes for Palestinians, conditioned as they are by powerful institutions aligned with Israeli demands, are responses as opposed to claims for rights. The fact that the Palestinian Authority is at the helm, endorsing this labyrinth of half-truths that protects Israel at all costs, creates bleak prospects for the people of Palestine. It is one thing to advocate for the two-state paradigm, and another to impart what the PA is grovelling for at an international level, namely prioritising Israel’s presence and security narrative at the expense of Palestinian land and people, which is what the two-state compromise is all about, as the ECFR spells out.

Even if it were to issue such recognition, the EU will not step away from its commitment to maintain Palestinians as a humanitarian project. State recognition without its equivalence in terms of land, sovereignty and liberated people is as deceptive as the state-building which the EU funds the PA for, in return for its complete acquiescence to the two-state paradigm which keeps Palestinians stateless. Without changing its politics, EU rhetoric and drawn-out symbolic concessions will only serve to highlight the fact that a Palestinian state without Palestinian liberation is an illusion.

Tyrants’ Fear of Songs: Music and resistance from Gaza

RAMONA WADI

Gaza, which has become synonymous with the concept of the world’s largest open-air prison, has been subjected to various interpretations of what constitutes the enclave. The definitions imposed upon Gaza are mostly external, detached, and lacking in understanding which only the Palestinians living there should have the authority and possibility to impart. 

What would music from Palestinians in Gaza communicate? The recent release of Tyrants’ Fear of Songs by Dr Haidar Eid, an intellectual and BDS activist from Gaza, reveals the Palestinian commitment to resistance within the context of history, land and memory. It is a necessary contribution which expresses the need to be heard over the voices claiming to speak “for Palestine”, as opposed to creating the spaces for Palestinians to speak for themselves.

Speaking to The Muslim Vibe, Haidar Eid explains:

The Orientalist idea that Apartheid Israel has been spreading about the Gaza Strip describes it  as ‘backward’, ‘fundamentalist’, ‘uncivilised’, ‘anti-democratic’, ‘anti-women’, ‘anti-life’; therefore, there is no art production. The album’s tracks mostly deal with resistance in the existential sense of the word.” 

Khalil Abu Yahya, a BDS activist from Gaza and the coordinator for the production of this album, says that the music imparts various themes: resistance, consciousness, heritage, and existence. “I consider our work as a revival of our culture which Israel has stolen over the years. Our culture is part of our identity and constitutes a very important tool to counter the Zionist racist ideology.” Abu Yahya asserts:

We sing for all the oppressed, whether they are martyrs or prisoners or the wounded who dedicated their lives to our homeland.” 

Portraying the Palestinian attachment to land is both a historical and current endeavour. Yet the nostalgia for the homeland is not depicted merely as an unreachable memory. The memory fuels resistance and the songs carry an acknowledgement of past and present struggles. 

Eid’s description of the songs indicate the strength of Palestinian consciousness which maintains the equilibrium between the knowledge of what was lost to colonisation, and the dream that would see Palestinians return to historic Palestine. “The land in one of the songs titled Our beautiful Land is portrayed as a beautiful woman in a cage, surrounded by wild wolves in a green garden that has been burnt down. In the opening medley, Songs of Resistance, there are words of commitment to return and to see our land, its sky and soil again. From Zarnouqa to Gaza describes an abundant landscape with palm trees, an expanse of fields and a cool breeze. The song commences with a description of what was left behind when the village was ethnically cleansed and calls on Gazans to speak out and resist – a call to follow the footsteps of the fallen heroes Ghassan kanafani, Basel Al-Araj and Naji Al Ali.”

“As the album’s coordinator,” Abu Yahya ruminates, “I believe in the power of culture in confronting the culture of power’, as Edward Said would have put it”. 

Israel has persisted in manipulating Gaza’s image to the world, to depict violence in place of a resistance that encompasses all forms, including culture and art. Yahya explains:

I know that Israel would not like an activist like me to be aware of the role art can play, when it has been monopolising art to whitewash itself. We in Gaza are ready to use every possible way to prove that we do exist and we do have voices. Nothing can stop the will of the oppressed.” 

Producing the album, Abu Yahya says, was not easy “under a medieval siege, military occupation, and an institutionalised and legalised apartheid.” 

It is the music that communicates the ugliness of apartheid, he says, which is “so ugly that words alone cannot describe it. Our songs do that through emotions and the ideas streamed through out voices.  No one can express what the oppressed feel except the oppressed themselves.”  

Palestinians, Abu Yahya affirms, will continue to resist.

“We are resisting. We are up to the task. We are paving the way for the next generations and we are sending our message to reach out and be etched in history. Palestinians have resisted with the aim of obtaining their full rights. We will not surrender.” 

Ramona Wadi

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger specializing in the struggle for memory in Chile and Palestine.

The international community is complicit in Israel’s torture of Palestinians

Ramona Wadi

The torture suffered by Palestinian prisoner Samer Arabeed at the hands of Israel’s Shin Bet interrogators has proved, once again, that the prohibition of such treatment as enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Rome Statute and the UN Convention Against Torture is little more than a series of reference points used by human rights groups as reminders to the torturers.

Arabeed was transferred to Hadassah Hospital following intensive torture after being arrested for his alleged involvement in a bombing attack in August. A statement by the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer, mentioned that Israel admitted to having used “extreme and exceptional techniques in interrogations that actually amount to torture.”

Israel’s Justice Ministry has announced an investigation to decide whether criminal proceedings should be instigated against the Shin Bet officials. Arabeed’s torture resulted in broken ribs and loss of consciousness. His situation is now life-threatening and he is on a life-support machine. His family and lawyer were notified belatedly of his transfer from prison to hospital.

Last July, Palestinian prisoner Nasser Taqatqa died following torture and interrogation at the hands of Shin Bet. Testimonies from former Palestinian prisoners testify to the fact that torture is used systematically by Israeli interrogators. In 2013, Arafat Jaradat died under torture while detained in Megiddo Prison.

In November 2018, Israel’s High Court ruled in favour of torture if the Palestinian detainee is a member of “a designated terrorist organisation”, involved in armed resistance or if there are no other means to obtaining information. If Israel has self-established such immunity, how is it expected that the constant referencing of international laws and conventions will be enough to halt the torture of Palestinian prisoners?

In laying down the specifics on the prohibition of torture, the international community absconded from accountability in order to make human rights profitable for the perpetrators and a labyrinth of dead ends for the victims. Between these polarities, human rights organisations have tasked themselves with upholding principles in place of governments, yet their limited potential or, in some cases, partial agendas, have failed to implement any viable system of  justice.

Israel is well aware of this dissonance and it exploits the absence of accountability to manipulate what constitute acceptable means of interrogation tactics. The international community’s complete marginalisation of Palestinians when it comes to their rights has facilitated Israel’s constant normalisation of torture, in full breach of international law, without as much as a collective condemnation.

The result is a permanent severing between information dissemination and the kind of legal recourse which would provide Palestinian prisoners with the chance of justice. Human rights organisations like Addameer are forced into an unwitting collaboration with diplomacy, navigating endless and repetitive cycles to raise awareness, which is what the international community intended in the first place when it failed to uphold accountability.

Calling for Arabeed’s release will not be the end of Israel’s predatory violence. It is a preventive step against further torture, yet behind this story there are several others which have escaped the meagre media attention that catapults the victims’ names, albeit briefly, into the headlines. Addameer alone cannot accomplish justice for Palestinian prisoners. At the very least, there must be a collective global approach to expose the international community’s complicity in torture and its fraudulent human rights agenda.

The politics of remembering the massacres of Sabra and Shatila

RAMONA WADI

Palestinian collective memory carries with it the burden of international complicity. It is unfortunate that this complicity with Israel has been relegated to anniversary commemorations, as opposed to an increasing awareness that the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, as well as the massacres of Palestinian refugees being an intrinsic component of Israel’s colonial project which is approved by the international community.

This month marked the 37th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres, when the Phalange militias, guided by Israel, stormed the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and slaughtered over 3,000 Palestinian civilians. Survivors’ testimonies speak of rape, mutilation of bodies, and militias using a range of weapons upon defenceless civilians in the camps. 

The UN General Assembly Resolution 37/123 “resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide”. Yet Israel, for whom the massacre was perpetrated to facilitate its invasion in Lebanon, faced no repercussion for the slaughter. Canada and the US staunchly defended Israel at the UN, refuting the term “genocide” to describe the massacre. Israel’s Kahan Commission, meanwhile, declared itself “indirectly responsible” for the Sabra and Shatila massacres. In addition, Ariel Sharon, who was held responsible for the massacres, became Israel’s prime minister from 2001 to 2006. 

In terms of magnitude, the Sabra and Shatila massacres take their place at the forefront of Palestinian memory when it comes to Zionist atrocities, alongside Deir Yassin, Kafr Qasem, Tantoura and Jenin, to name a few.  

The disservice towards Palestinian memory lies in how remembrance is employed and the international community plays a major role in disrupting memory frameworks.

Primarily, Palestinian memory has been subjected to interpretations at the highest international echelons. Disputing the definition of genocide when it comes to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians is an omission that marginalises Palestinian remembrance to the point of oblivion. 

It also tethers Palestinian remembrance to specific anniversaries when memory transcends the concepts of chronology and specific dates. The colonisation of Palestinian territory and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians must be combated by perpetual remembrance, regardless of how the international community has decided to interpret Palestine’s history and memory.

With each dissociation between Palestinian memory and the ongoing Zionist colonisation, Palestinians are being forced to relive their memories in seclusion; an aberration when considering the crimes were committed with full impunity awarded to Israel by the international community. 

The Sabra and Shatila massacres are just one example of how Palestinian memory is manipulated according to the publicity given to the atrocity. Like all the other atrocities, it is a remembrance that has escaped justice. Palestinian memory has also suffered in terms of how Israel has leveraged its influence to manipulate the stipulations of international law; a tactic that has only been refined through the decades as it persists with displacing Palestinians and encroaching further upon Palestinian territory.  

Israel has been able to escape accountability for its violence also due to its narrative being given prominence over Palestinian memory, which needs the creation of spaces to survive. For Palestinians, this is crucial. Remembering Sabra and Shatila, or any other Israeli atrocity, must depart from the Palestinian memory framework. It must also be part of a continuous effort to remember. Isolated anniversaries, without the entire context of Israel’s colonial violence, will always fall short of imparting the prominence which Palestinian memory deserves, particularly as justice has been thwarted by international collusion. 

Ramona Wadi

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger specializing in the struggle for memory in Chile and Palestine.

Annexation, the two-state illusion and forgetting the Palestinians

Ramona Wadi

If elected again, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, and the international community is scrambling to issue statements pointing out that such a move would have no legal effect. For Israel, of course, such warnings are not disconcerting. Neither are the warnings that annexation “undermine the viability of the two-state solution and the prospects for a lasting peace,” as the EU dutifully echoed without as much as a warning on accountability.

Meanwhile, in a meeting in Ramallah with Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said he would end all agreements with Israel if Netanyahu followed through on annexation. Needless to say, Abbas commended the EU for warning that such a move would “destroy the foundations of the political process.”

Israel is, of course, in contempt of such warnings. Far from any concern for Palestinians, the international community is preoccupied with how to salvage the remnants of its diplomacy and influence in the colonisation of Palestine, while maintaining a purported support for Palestinians and the state-building illusion. It is no secret that the PA has provided undeterred assistance in the latter – maintaining the illusion of a state safeguards its precarious existence after all.

But annexation and Israel’s expansion should not be overshadowed by international diplomacy or Abbas’ blundering statements. Neither should Netanyahu’s announcement be restricted to the electoral campaign. In his belligerence, US President Donald Trump has exposed the hypocrisy of the international community, as well as that of the US. Without consensus on how to stop Israel from violating international law, Netanyahu is availing himself of the opportunities to colonise additional Palestinian territory. Predictably, the international community is more concerned with pointing out how the parameters of international law are being transgressed, rather than protecting the Palestinian people’s political rights.

Netanyahu has announced the legalisation of a settlement outpost in the Jordan Valley, declaring it “a step towards the application of sovereignty.”

How does the international community think it can maintain the relevance of international law, and its own institutions, when it persists in maintaining the discrepancy between human rights rhetoric and a tangible application of legislation? If international law remains tethered to referencing, the international community is allowing Israel to experiment with its interpretation, while expecting the Palestinian people to adhere to an interpretation of international law that reprimands Israel while offering no protection for the colonised.

International leniency towards Israel is an asset which Netanyahu recognises – the decision to annex parts of the occupied West Bank was described as “a gradual process”.

Conversely, the PA has acquiesced to a gradual process which dispossessed Palestinians. While Netanyahu violated international law to colonise Palestine with increasing impunity, the PA waited to respond to violations, thus weakening even its own standing in the international community and, even worse, throttling Palestinian options for legitimate resistance.

For Abbas, the two-state illusion takes priority over Palestinian lives and land. This is not the first land theft by Israel; Palestinians have become synonymous with forced displacement and the imposed refugee status. Out of concern for their agenda, the international community has performed its perfunctory duty. For Abbas and the PA, Netanyahu’s annexation announcement provided another brief publicity stint in pretending to uphold the Palestinian right to liberation.

Away from this cruel charade, has any political puppet remembered the Palestinians?

Trump’s deal of the century and the last stages of normalising Israel

The fragmentation of Palestinian land and people is at such an advanced stage that the international community is merely letting the last phases of colonialism unfold.

RAMONA WADI

US President Donald Trump is taking credit for an alternative means of stripping Palestinians of their rights. Yet the so-called “deal of the century” is merely an accelerated step in normalising Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, built upon precedents that garnered regional and international consensus. 

The details will not be revealed until after the upcoming Israeli elections in September. White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner has given a clear indication of what Palestinians should expect. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Kushner commented that any deal “will be somewhere between the Arab Peace Initiative and somewhere between the Israeli position.” 

What Trump is making clear is the elimination of the two-state compromise. This is hardly an innovation, given that the concept of two states has been declared obsolete and remains relevant only to sustain international diplomacy. 

Israel has been clear it does not envisage a Palestinian state. The Oslo Accords only stipulated Palestinian autonomy and the Arab Peace Initiative (2002) speaks of normalising relations with Israel in return for the two-state paradigm’s implementation. 

Arab states, however, are not waiting to normalise relations with Israel. The Warsaw Summit last February, which was a propaganda exercise for Israel to disseminate, and seek collusion about its security narrative, showed Arab leaders pay mere lip service to Palestinian concerns. The summit was about normalising ties with Israel under the pretext of common concerns about the purported Iranian threat. Behind this veneer, Israel furthered its aim of alienating attention away from Palestinians’ political rights. 

Given this collusion, it stands to reason that Kushner views the Arab Peace Initiative as an important foundation upon which the US can develop its agenda to support Israel’s ongoing colonial project. Palestinians’ political isolation has been compounded throughout the decades by initiatives which pretend to prioritise their demands, while looking towards Israel for diplomatic and economic gain. That the Palestinian leadership continues to laud the two-state compromise and the Arab Peace Initiative as acceptable parameters has, of course, strengthened the normalisation of Israel’s colonialism. 

Following the Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain, which was attended by representatives of Arab states, a poll revealed that 80 per cent of Palestinians believe they have been abandoned. This statistic ties in to Netanyahu’s earlier boastful truth that Arab states no longer require Israel to adhere to their demands regarding Palestine. 

Needless to say, the Palestinian Authority’s politics have also normalised Israel’s colonisation. It has repeatedly refused to turn to the people, preferring instead the charade of international diplomacy that paved the way for an overt expression of Israeli bias and political support. The EU, for example, has already stated that it would work with the US if the deal incorporates the two-state compromise. 

However, given that there is no possibility of its implementation, what stops the EU from embarking on yet another duplicitous role that allows it to maintain the two-state façade while working to coerce Palestinians into a situation where the choice is between Trump’s deal and a hypothetical scenario? Between Trump’s deal and the Arab Peace initiative, the stage is set for Israel to dictate and act with unprecedented impunity. 

Lest it is forgotten, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and US Envoy David Greenblatt have stated that international law does not apply to what they term “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Unsurprisingly, international silence prevails. The fragmentation of Palestinian land and people is at such an advanced stage that the international community is merely letting the last phases of colonialism unfold. Perhaps it has no other option, given that the international community itself facilitated and continues to maintain this web of normalised human rights violations. 

Ramona Wadi

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger specializing in the struggle for memory in Chile and Palestine.

Netanyahu and Bolsonaro find common ground in oppressing indigenous populations

Ramona Wadi

Fire raging on in the Amazon rain forest [Twitter]

While the Amazon forest burns and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro continues to trade insults and blame, indigenous communities face displacement and annihilation. These communities pose the biggest obstacle to Bolsonaro’s intent to allow access to local and international exploitation of the country’s natural resources.

In a message to counter the purported “disinformation campaign built against our nation’s sovereignty”, Bolsonaro said his country remains “open to dialogue, based on respect, truth and awareness of our sovereignty.” To put it briefly, let there be no voices raised regarding the fact that Brazil’s right-wing president has no qualms about exploiting the Amazon fires to further deforestation for agribusiness and, in turn, marginalise the importance of indigenous communities and their ties to their land.

Israel’s propaganda offer to fight the forest fires does not seem to have elicited the international attention usually garnered by its so-called humanitarian endeavours, even as it continues to displace Palestinians and ravage their land. Israeli media has portrayed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer as joining “a chorus of international concern.” That purported concern, however, does not extend to clamouring for the protection of communities threatened by both the fires and Bolsonaro’s politics.

The bottom line of Israel’s cooperation with Brazil is that of two right-wing governments whose intent is to displace indigenous communities from their land.  Although no updates have been forthcoming following the initial offer, Israel National News declared, “Israel has become Brazil’s closest ally in battling fires currently raging in the Amazon rainforest.”

If Israel is indeed Brazil’s closest ally, putting out the Amazon fires has nothing to do with the diplomatic relationship that sustains the continuation of human rights violations and dispossession which Netanyahu and Bolsonaro have championed without encountering any collective, political opposition.

At face value, Brazil and Israel can feign concern for the Amazon and environmental destruction. Their politics, however, speaks otherwise.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on 1 April 2019 [MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images]

In January this year, Bolsonaro stripped National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) of its responsibility for indigenous territories and handed that over to the agricultural ministry, which has ties to the ruralists.

Continuing on what the Jewish National Fund achieved in terms of Palestinian dispossession since before the 1948 Nakba, Israel’s expansion and targeting of Palestinian infrastructure has wrought environmental damage to the detriment of Palestinians. Yet this destruction has not prevented Israel from branding itself, also with the help of the UN, as capable of assisting African countries whose land has been over-exploited.

Neither has Israel been held accountable for the damages it inflicted upon Palestinians as it encroaches upon their land. There are different parameters when it comes to measuring Israel’s contributions to environmental destruction and its assistance to developing countries. The latter is classified as an achievement, while depriving Palestinians of their right to land is not a matter of concern to the international community.

Likewise, international concern for the Amazon does not extend to saving the indigenous communities, threatened by Bolsonaro since his first day in office. Away from their alleged environmental preoccupations, as evidenced by both governments’ belated responses to the unfolding disaster, Netanyahu and Bolsonaro are merely bolstering their trajectories in wiping out the indigenous communities who claim the land.