The Center for a New American Security, a Clintonite thinktank, has issued a new report aimed at reviving the two-state solution that emphasizes Israelis’ need for “security,” obtainable it says by collecting lots of “biometric” data on Palestinians so they can be monitored when crossing borders. Creepy.
Australian Rob Martin was enraged by the Gaza onslaught of 2014. So he went to Palestine for the first time and threw himself into opposition to the occupation, in video’d encounters with Israeli soldiers in occupied Bil’in that media back home have ignored.
“Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement,” Moshe Ya’alon remarked at a press conference following his ouster as defense minister. The focus of attention was on Netanyahu’s imminent appointment of Avigdor Lieberman to the defense ministry, overlooking Ya’alon’s replacement in Likud: US-born settler and face of the Temple Movement Yehuda Glick. While Lieberman’s appointment signifies a success for Israel’s secular right wing, Glick’s entrance to the parliament is a major step forward in the Religious Zionist takeover of Israel.
After complaints from Israel supporters, a youth speaking competition in England disqualified Leanne Mohamad, 15, as delivering “propaganda,” because she described the Nakba and continuing occupation of Palestine and asserted that 30,000 Palestinian children have been killed during the conflict.
The lawyers representing the IDF medic who is charged in the killing of a wounded Palestinian in Hebron in March called yesterday for the return to Israel of Abdel Fattah al-Sharif’s body, which was released on Friday and buried by his family in Hebron on Saturday
Haim Saban, whose only issue is Israel, is the top donor to Hillary Clinton’s superPAC in the first quarter of 2016, which shows that her hawkish stances on foreign policy, including support for regime change in Syria, is born out of dependence on Israel lobby donors.
The Dutch and Irish governments have publicly stated that calls for a boycott of Israel are legitimate, with the Dutch foreign minister saying that advocating and campaigning for Palestinian rights through the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel are “protected by the freedom of expression”.
The fact that Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, who died on May 26, was outspoken for Palestinian rights doesn’t come till the end of a long obit for the activist in the New York Times, once again demonstrating bias at the newspaper aimed at preserving Israel’s positive image.
Israel’s political crisis puts a burden on its propagandists: How to make Americans feel that Israel is fine, despite the warnings of fascism. So where is the country’s most important journalist on Israel issues? Jeffrey Goldberg has been silent. In a fluid situation, he doesn’t know what to say to stay at the center of the discussion.
Cliff Wolf of the American Jewish Committee says BDS is propelled not by anti-semitism but by Palestinian conditions: checkpoints, house demolitions that would “outrage” Americans, and innocent people being killed.
Israeli authorities on Friday evening released the body of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif, the Palestinian whose brutal killing by an Israeli soldier in March was caught on film, sparking international outrage. Al-Sharif’s family told Ma‘an his funeral will be held on Saturday afternoon.
J.M. Coetzee, the South African novelist, said at the Palestine Festival of Literature that it was rarely “productive” to use the word apartheid. But he implied that Israel was enforcing such a system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The New York Times on Thursday described Israel’s military occupation in dismissive quotations (i.e “occupation”) in a story concerning Israelis and Palestinians and the Democratic National Convention. In another breathtaking example of digital illiteracy and editorial discombobulation, the Times removed the insensitive quotation marks a few hours afterwards with no editorial explanation. Maybe it was all some kind of innocent misunderstanding. But there’s plenty of reason not to believe that.
The Israeli Army has initiated a crisis of demolitions in the West Bank’s Area C, displacing more Palestinian families this year than in all of 2015. A stated program of forced relocation is underway. The Rebuilding Alliance urges Americans to call Congress to oppose US support for the project.
Welcome to occupied Hebron. “What’s your religion?” an Israeli border policeman asked me– a question I would grow accustomed to. “Jewish,” I told him. “Why?” He said, “It’s dangerous. You could be killed.”
The soccer club Beitar Jerusalem should be barred from European competition because the club has fostered racist outbursts by its rightwing fanbase and by a player too. It’s no wonder new Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman is a fan.
In the occupied West Bank student government elections are the only democratic bellweather of popular opinion, and are taken seriously both by the local population and political analysts. Although the vast majority of student body presidents have been men, Dana Rwaidy, Nawras Abd Addayem and Bahader Rezqallah were recently elected president at universities in Bethlehem, Salfit and Tulkarem, the latter two cities considered more conservative parts of the West Bank. Rwaidy said she was happy to see that women have started to be more represented in higher education, but stressed that Palestine has a history of female leaders, both in the political sphere and in its resistance. “I don’t feel like my winning presidency is something I should focus on for too long, of course it is a great achievement, but it is just one step in where I am going in life, and there will be much bigger achievements to gain later because there is no restricting how far women can go in this country,” Rwaidy said.
A pro-Israel “gathering of influencers” known as the Beyond Conference took place in The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College last Friday on a beautiful New York afternoon. The purpose of the conference – which promoted itself with the tagline “Inspiration. Innovation. Israel.”– was to promote Israel, particularly its booming high-tech sector, which raised a record $4.4 billion in 2015. But as Rob Bryan writes, beneath the rote platitudes of the presentations lied a more sinister motive – whitewashing Israeli apartheid with a tech-friendly veneer.
A consortium of pro-Israel groups hold a conference at SUNY Purchase to explore “anti-semitism on campus,” but smearing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and saying there has never been a Palestine is not the way to win the hearts of young Jews.
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 91, died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on May 26, 2016. An internationally renowned, respected and admired advocate for human and civil rights, Hedy was encircled by friends who lovingly cared for her at home. Born August 15, 1924, in the Bavarian region of Germany, her lifelong commitment to human rights was formed by the horrific experiences she and her family endured under the repressive Nazi regime. As part of her lifetime of working for social justice, Epstein had been devoted to working for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine since the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila.
‘NYT’ puts Dems’ battle over Israel platform on the front page. The exposure signifies that the Democratic Party is lost to Israel forever, as the progressive grassroots assert themselves, through the Sanders campaign, against a reactionary corrupt establishment that depends on pro-Israel money.
Israeli forces killed a teenage girl at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem after she allegedly attempted to attack a soldier. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinians in similar fashion since last October, and lately returned the bodies of two Palestinians seven months after they were killed.
For a New York Times column saying that Israel’s future as a Jewish state is in peril, Thomas Friedman had to rely on reporting by the Israeli press, since his own publication has flubbed the story of the country’s deepening political crisis.
The decision by Listowel Writers’ Week Festival, an internationally acclaimed literary festival in the Irish heritage town of Listowel County Kerry, to refuse funding from the Israeli Embassy in Ireland has been welcomed by artists, human rights campaigners and Palestine solidarity activists in Ireland, and is being hailed as victory for the growing Palestinian-led global Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement.
After 25 years of bringing cases to Israel’s military court and supporting investigations into the killings of Palestinians, a foremost Israeli human rights group has said “there is no longer any point” to submitting complaints. Following stalled and faulty investigations in more than 700 cases since 2000, which resulted in a 3% conviction rate, the rights group B’tselem has given up on cooperating with the military justice system. The organization now believes filing cases in army courts can cause further harm to Palestinian victims. The group said it will cease “lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” in report published today that outlines what it described as major deficits in the prosecuting process.