The UN Human Rights office for Palestine has warned that Israel is rapidly accelerating its campaign to annex the occupied West Bank, with settlers adding outposts at a pace 10 times higher than the previous average rate just in the past year. Recent settler attacks on the olive harvest have underscored the danger faced by Palestinian communities, the office noted, with this season alone seeing 150 settler attacks so far.
Last Monday, when the US president, Donald Trump, addressed the Knesset alongside the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, my compatriot lawmaker Ayman Odeh and I raised a banner calling them to Recognise Palestine. We were brutally expelled by force from the parliament's plenum, revealing the fragile state of the supposed only democracy in the Middle East. How can Trump and Netanyahu speak of peace in the Middle East without recognition of the people deprived for decades of their basic liberties and rights under vicious occupation?
