Amazon pulled a book by the Israeli “publicist, editor and creative specialist” Assaf A. Voll, which reduces three thousand years of Palestinian history and achievement to 132 bank pages — blank, except for a printed watermark of a Palestinian flag superimposed over Palestinian/Roman pillars. It is aimed at dehumanizing Palestinians, and erasing a proud history.
“When I go home to Palestine, the Israelis don’t see me as LGBTQ; they see me as a Palestinian–and they’re really racist about it,” says Izzadine Mustafa in an interview with Susie Day.
Recent days have dashed any thought that Donald Trump would be neutral or an honest broker. Negotiator Jason Greenblatt spent all his time echoing the Israeli message about the conflict, while envoy Jared Kushner reportedly angered Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas by carrying Netanyahu’s talking points to Ramallah.
A loud and festive protest against the Israeli occupation of al-Quds, also known as Jerusalem, convened in Times Square on Friday, June 23, 2017.
Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council issues this urgent statement to raise awareness and concern about the life-threatening and dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza. This catastrophic situation is largely the result of long and short term Israeli policies exacerbated by the cynical power struggle between the leadership of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli musicians write an open letter to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke asking him to honor the Palestinian BDS call and cancel the band’s upcoming concert in Israel: “Israel is increasingly notorious for being a place that forward-thinking artists who care about equality and freedom want little to do with. We are confident that this reality will contribute to moving the Israeli government to change its unjust policies, and help convince companies to divest from Israel, just as they did in apartheid South Africa. Canceling your show will disrupt the ‘business as usual’ facade that international performances in Israel perpetuate. Please reconsider violating the Palestinian call for boycott.”
If Peace Now is so opposed to the Israeli occupation, why does it help pay the salary of a man who promotes it nonstop: Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents. Young Jews who are resisting the occupation would never do such a thing.
In yet another sign that the Democratic left is determined to stand up for Palestinian human rights, 34 congresspeople have signed letters supportive of Issa Amro, the courageous and non-violent leader of protest actions in occupied Hebron who has been accused by Israel of a series of absurd charges going back to 2010, including “insulting a soldier,” “assault” and demonstrating without a permit.
In a speech to visiting young Jews, Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel’s “hand is outstretched to peace,” but he twice makes a fist as he says it.
Two babies born with life-threatening conditions died in Gaza this week after they didn’t receive permission from the Palestinian Authority to get medical treatment in Israel, the Health Ministry in Gaza said, according to Haaretz. Both babies had heart defects. One died Monday, the second Tuesday.
Photojournalist Hamde Abu Rahme writes, “Palestinian journalists defy the continuous harassment and abuse, and thanks to the internet and outlets like Mondoweiss, we are succeeding. Using the web’s broad and rapid global reach, we are exercising our fundamental right to freedom of expression and challenging Israel’s constant portrayal of Palestinians as violent terrorists. If you are among those around the world who believe in what I do—in the value of journalism in exposing Israel’s crimes—please decide how you will give material impact to that belief. You can buy my book. And you can donate to Mondoweiss, which supports the work of me and others seeking to spread the truth.”
Jonathan Cooks writes that Israeli efforts to erase Palestinians and their history with gimmicks like a selling a $10 book on Amazon with 130 blank pages are failing to win over American Jews who are increasing their presence in activism that supports Palestinians.
The U.S. is fighting ISIS, Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and the Taliban around the Middle East while continuing to water their roots.
The 1967 war was not an existential crisis, Israeli scholar Guy Laron tells Wilson Center. “The Israeli general staff quietly knew that they’re going to win the war big.” And the CIA told LBJ the same thing: “If Israel is attacked, it will win in a week.”
Yakov Rabkin’s book “What Is Modern Israel?” is one of the most important critiques of Zionism ever published. Zionism is opposed to Jewish tradition and to liberalism, and it has fostered a deep sense of insecurity in Israeli Jews and made American Jewish leaders into “vassals” of Israel. Critics must overcome the “climate of intellectual terror” to condemn the Zionist ideology.
Ahmad Kabariti reports from Gaza on how the unfolding crisis in the Gulf around Qatar could move Hamas closer to Iran, or cripple the group in its power struggle with the Palestinian Authority.
Over 2,000 Israeli Yemenite Jews and supporting activists gathered in Jerusalem last Wednesday to mark an annual day of awareness for what families say was a state-sponsored program to abduct Yemenite Jewish infants and other Israeli children born to parents who were recent immigrants from Arab countries.
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“[Palestinians] have been living here for ages. Like, forty, fifty, some of them one hundred years here,” says activist Guy Hircefeld in the Jordan Valley. “And suddenly, fucking Jewish settlers are coming and saying ‘That’s mine, you don’t allowed to come here anymore. And the army protects them.”
Israeli authorities have denied Khaled Gamri, a Palestinian teenager, an exit permit to travel from the besieged Gaza Strip to Jerusalem for medical treatment after the boy was shot and critically injured by Israeli forces at a protest last month, according to rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP).
In an interview with the “burning Zionist” Jonathan Møller Sousa on Danish media, non-Zionist Jonathan Ofir shows that the two-state solution has been made impossible by Israeli colonization of occupied territories, and that occupation is actually manageable. All because the international community does nothing to enforce its demands.
In October 2000, Thom Yorke of Radiohead was moved to dedicate his song Karma Police to the memory of Muhammad al-Durra, killed in Gaza. That performance changed the life of Jack Gain, who now appeals to the band to cancel a gig in Tel Aviv in July out of solidarity with the Palestinian boycott campaign.
On 50th anniversary of its occupation, Gaza is a community on edge of a health crisis. Drinking water in Gaza has become largely unavailable. Children have shown signs of water related diseases and permanent organ damage due to high levels of ingested chemicals from what little water is available. Recently, UNRWA indicated that 87 percent of residents live below the poverty line.
Among the general US population, the number of those “unreachable” by Israel is 9 percent, but among Jewish college students the number is much higher 13 percent. And that is a “national security issue” for Israel’s future, says Fern Oppenheim of the Brand Israel Group.
Al Quds TV reporter Linda Shalash has been targeted many times by the Israeli military while wearing the identifiable blue flak jacket with “PRESS” in large print. Still, she writes, “I believe from the bottom of my heart that sharing news stories from Palestine with people around the world is the most powerful way to mobilize resistance and cripple the oppressive, ethnocratic regime. I appreciate all that Mondoweiss does to multiply the impact of reporters like me. If you agree that we must increase the numbers and passion of people worldwide who challenge injustice in Palestine, join me in supporting Mondoweiss.”