© n/aIsraeli soldiers detain Palestinian children
One of the claims being made to justify Israel's demand for a blank cheque to attack Iran is that the Islamic Republic poses an ''existential threat'' to the Jewish state in view of its statements about wanting to wipe Israel off the map.
This lie has been repeated so often that it has become the truth. The real truth, as always, is quite different: It is Israel which is wiping Palestine off the map, day by day, slowly but surely, one settlement at a time.
Here are the real facts:
On Feb 22 this year, Israeli authorities legalised the unauthorised settler outpost of Shvut Rachel in the northern West Bank and approved a plan for 500 new homes there. The plan was approved by the higher planning council of the Israeli civil administration, the military body that manages civilian affairs for most of the West Bank.
According to one report, the committee agreed to retroactively legalise approximately 100 homes already built there, as well as 95 homes without permits in the nearby settlement of Shilo, which has 2,000 residents, some 30km south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
The news agency Agence France Presse quoted Mr Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the settlement watchdog group Peace Now, as describing the move as ''one of the biggest projects in the territories''. The decision proved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ''doing everything he could to prevent the creation of two states for two peoples'', Mr Oppenheimer said.
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