5 things Netanyahu won’t tell congress– Dena Tarkruri skewers the premier in a new video from Al Jazeera
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It’s not about nukes, it’s about the US shifting the power balance — Parsi
Monthly Archives: February 2015
Hillel’s segregated lunch counter
“And I am a supporter of BDS.” Dorothy Zellner said those magic words at Harvard Hillel Wednesday night. But she and other Jewish veterans of the civil rights movement have been barred from speaking at UMass and MIT Hillels because of support for the boycott movement against Israel.
Thanks to Netanyahu, Israel support turns into a political football
Israel is politicized in the U.S.! Bill Kristol’s neocon group runs an ad painting Obama as a madman and Netanyahu as a statesman, while the New York Times runs a cartoon saying that Netanyahu wants to build a settlement on Pennsylvania Avenue
Oxfam says Gaza reconstruction will take a century to complete due to Israeli blockade
IMEMC reports: “The British rights organization Oxfam stated that the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip may take more than 100 years, at the current rate, to complete essential building of homes, schools and health facilities in Gaza unless the Israeli blockade is lifted.”
The Emperor’s Nuke Clothes
Katie Miranda imagines the scene at Netanyahu’s speech to Congress tomorrow.
What we talk about when we talk about ISIS
As the U.S. prepares to re-engage more deeply in the Iraq War, including the likely deployment of ground troops to help retake Mosul from Islamic State, there has been a push from mainstream commentators to recommit to an ideological view of our military campaigns in the Muslim world. A splashy cover story in The Atlantic, “What ISIS Really Wants”, offers an intellectual foundation for the reenergized War on Terror, presenting full recognition of ISIS’s “very Islamic” nature as a matter of urgent strategic significance. Eamon Murphy writes the obsession with naming Islam as the enemy of the West is in fact a defense of our own side’s troubled ideology. He says the guiding principle of post-World War II foreign policy — that the course of world events should be influenced, wherever possible, by force — is imperiled by the spectacular failure of the War on Terror, which actually succeeded in creating a transnational army of Islamic terrorists. That Islamic State rose in Iraq, then spread to Syria and Libya, threatens to give war a very bad name.
White House says Netanyahu offers no alternative but military action (and Liz Warren won’t say if she’s attending speech)
Marcia Fudge of Ohio is the latest congressperson to say she won’t attend the Netanyahu speech, even as Elliott Abrams predicts that the Democratic Party will abandon Israel and Barack Obama will become a Jimmy Carter figure on this issue when he leaves office
From Brooklyn to Palestine: A thank you note to Palestinian and Middle Eastern sisters who re-educated me on my world view
Kamau Franklin thanks the women who educated him about the politics of Palestine and the Middle East, including Suheir Hammad, Suzanne Adely, Rama Ali Kasad and Lamis Deek.
AIPAC and Bill Kristol turn up the pressure
Bill Kristol of the Emergency Committee for Israel urges AIPAC attendees to boycott speeches from the Obama administration officials as AIPAC urges congressmen to attend Netanyahu’s speech next week
New DC bus ad takes on the special relationship on eve of Netanyahu’s address to Congress
The American Muslims for Palestine unveiled its latest ad campaign that uses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s breach of protocol to focus on the detrimental impact our ‘friendship’ with Israel has on the United States.
Banksy goes to Gaza
On Wednesday, Banksy published a video and photos from a recent trip to Gaza and set the internet ablaze.
FAQ: Palestinians and the Israeli elections
Will the Arab List with its assumed new clout back a Zionist-left government in order to keep incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing bloc out of government? Or will Palestinians be politically marginalized, as they traditionally are? Some Frequently Asked Questions about Palestinians and the election.
About me: The olive tree
To understand her background in Palestine, Amal AlHazred had to learn about olive trees. “I remember how my father in Jordan held a seed and said ‘These will be Palestinian olives’ and how inspired he was.”
Leading NY institutions discuss the Nakba — and there is not a Palestinian in sight
When the Nakba comes up, in the New York Times, or the 92d Street Y, non-Palestinians are granted authority to comment on a central Palestinian experience. And Palestinians are excluded. This is a sick situation.
Right-wing bomb thrower David Horowitz behind anti-SJP posters
Right-wing activist David Horowitz is the man behind the posters on college campuses that called Students for Justice in Palestine anti-Semitic and akin to Hamas. The posters are the first salvo in a Horowitz-run campaign against Palestine solidarity activism on campus. The campaign, called “Jew Hatred on Campus Awareness Week,” represents the latest pro-Israel tactic to try to squelch Palestine solidarity activism. But it is perhaps the most extreme campaign, suggesting things like staging mock hangings on campus to highlight Israel’s “stellar record on human rights.”
Kerry says Netanyahu was wrong the last time he pushed war for the U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry took the US-ISrael disagreement to a new level yesterday, saying that Netanyahu had pushed the disastrous Iraq war. “A very tough shot” at the war party, Chris Matthews said, while the New York Times, covering for neocons, dismissed the line as a needling.
Forensic expert says Israeli forces killing of 19-year-old Palestinian ‘similar to an execution’
Ma’an reports: On Tuesday February 24 Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during a predawn arrest raid in Bethlehem’s Duheisha refugee camp, locals and medics said. Jihad Shehada al-Jaafari, 19, was shot under his left shoulder while standing on the roof of his family home near the main road by the camp.
Hillel accuses BDS activists of ‘colonizing’ student groups
Hillel at UCLA recently sent an email to the thousands of people on its listserve strongly condemning recent divestment measures voted on by the University of California Student Association. In its message, Hillel accuses the UCSA of “attacking their own country,” and claims that BDS measures have passed due to “the radical ideology of the zealots who somehow have managed to take over various organizations.” Jacob Manheim, president of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA responds. “It’s shocking that Hillel at UCLA leadership has decided that the best way to fight divestment is to attack the integrity of student of color organizations that support Palestinian rights.”
Israel gives out ‘security Oscars’ at the UN to Iran, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia and PA
Addressing the Security Council in New York on Monday Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor gave a bizarre satirical presentation of “Oscar” awards for “peace and security.” The victors were Iran, Hezbollah, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu speech is ‘destructive’ of ‘bipartisan, immutable relationship’ between US and Israel, Rice says
National security adviser Susan Rice claims that the American people want a strong bipartisan ‘immutable’ relationship between Israel and the US, but she and the Obama administration are using the Netanyahu speech to do all their power to politicize that question
Israel turns off power to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the dead of winter
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are cashed strapped this winter because Israel is withholding $240 million in tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority as punishment for joining the ICC. This is radical, though it’s not unusual and something we’ve come to expect. But turning off the electricity in the middle of winter as blizzards sweep across the Middle East is nothing short of sadistic. The Los Angeles Times reports Israel cut the power to more than 700,000 Palestinians in two of Palestine’s largest urban areas, Nablus and Jenin, for more than 45 minutes “and warned that more outages are coming if Palestinian officials don’t pay millions of dollars in outstanding debt.”
Israel has granted refugee status to 0.07% of African asylum seekers
Israel has not granted a single Sudanese asylum seeker refugee status, in spite of a wave of migrants fleeing violence, according to official state statistics, submitted to the High Court of Justice on February 16. In all, the government has granted refugee status to only 0.07% of the 5,573 Sudanese and Eritreans who have applied for asylum in the country—a mere four individuals.
Al Jazeera publishes leaked intelligence files showing Netanyahu lied about Iranian nuclear threat
A little over one month before a deadline to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, three weeks before Israelis head to the polls, and 8 days before Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu is set to address both houses of Congress, Aljazeera’s investigative unit has begun publishing a cache of leaked intelligence files exposing the Mossad, MI6, and the CIA. Dubbed “The Spy Cables”, the initial reporting leads to one conclusion: Benjamin Netanyahu is a liar. The timing couldn’t be better.
Israel’s new Asian allies
As Israel’s relations in the US and Europe falter, Benjamin Netanyahu has begun looking elsewhere for economic – and ultimately political – patrons. Netanyahu announced last month that he was courting trade with China, India and Japan and last year Israel did more trade with these Asian countries than with the US — much of it focused on the burgeoning arms market. Israel hopes to convert Chinese and Indian dependency on Israeli armaments into diplomatic cover. One day Israel may be relying on a Chinese veto at the UN, not a US one.
No matter who wins the Israeli elections, Palestinians lose
Mainstream Israeli political parties are united in rejecting the international consensus for resolving the conflict, but they are divided over “the Kerry Plan” which would see Israel annex its major illegal settlement blocs on critical chunks of Palestinian territory, redraw its border roughly along the route of the illegal Wall and nullify the refugees’ right of return. Whereas Netanyahu is content to maintain the status quo of occupation and settlement expansion, the pro-Kerry camp seeks its legal consecration through a US-brokered deal. If Netanyahu forms Israel’s next government, Palestine’s foreseeable future will resemble its unbearable present. But if Netanyahu loses, the decisive obstacle to securing formal Palestinian capitulation to US-Israeli terms may be removed with him.