And in the 60th year of Israel’s occupation.
JVL Introduction
We have entered the 60th year of Israeli’s brutal occupation and, writes Michael Sfard, “We have now entered the last year of the worst decade in the history of the occupation. A decade of pogroms and Jewish terror, enjoying political backing, public funding and various degrees of official cooperation by security forces. A decade of rampaging apartheid, official and unmasked, implemented by tens of thousands of Israelis, all of whom are accomplices to a crime against humanity.”
There is a racism endemic in most of Israeli society and not just the Kahanists but those who consider themselves to be “liberal” still too often do not see Palestinians as equal human beings to themselves. This enables ethnic cleansing to continue apace, alomg with the genocide with over 900 Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israel since the “ceasefire”. Within Israel there is also a turning inwards, attacking leftists and even those who simply want to lift the boot from Palestinians’ necks. Something has to change; voting out this far right government will be an important start but much more will be needed.
This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Wed 10 Jun 2026. Read the original here.
Welcome to the 60th Year of Israel's Occupation of the West Bank
After 59 years of occupation, apartheid and Jewish terror, it’s obvious that, as with mold – plastering or a government of change will not uproot the blight without treating the root cause: racism
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Michael Sfard is a brave writer of powerful words and Haaretz is equal to the task of publishing those words. I hope to keep reading those words as they begin the journey to a resolution when
— We see those who are not Jewish as our equals. We consider a community from a wadi on the desert’s edge, with their belongings and strange clothes, as human beings equal to us. As people who deserve happiness no less than we do.—
Michael Sfard’s ongoing, lonely fight in Israel to uphold justice and humanity against near overwhelming odds puts him high amongst the heroes of humankind, in my view.
We MIGHT be closer to a “new Dawn” than now seems possible. Alistair Crooke, the retired UK diplomat, said in a recent Chris Hedges Report top-level Israelis were considering the abandonment of “expansionism” because they feared it was putting Israel’s survival (economic, military, political and demographic) at risk.
An Israel driven by self-interest to end its war mongering and its abuses of human rights will need to CONVINCE an angry, sceptical world it’s changed.