Year: 2018

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Between Poland’s Holocaust revisionism and Israel’s Nakba denial

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The Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland. (photo: Isaac Harari / Flash90)

Poland’s attempt to scrub clean its role in the murder of European Jewry is, at its core, no different from Israel’s attempt to erase the catastrophe that befell the Palestinians in 1948.

By Haneen Zoabi | +972 Blog | Jan 28, 2018

The new [Polish] law, which criminalizes any researcher who dares publish the truth [about Polish involvement in the Holocaust], is an attempt at historical revisionism. . . . So how is this law any different from the [Israeli] Nakba Law, which would withhold state funds from cultural and educational institutions that commemorate the horrors that befell the Palestinians in 1948?

The responses coming from Israel to the new Polish law, which forbids discussing war crimes committed by the Polish people during the holocaust, are nothing if not paradoxical. While the Israeli establishment, from the Right to the Left, denies the identity, history, and catastrophe of the Palestinian people, it reprimands those who deny responsibility for the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust.

 The Holocaust, a monstrous, well-planned genocide, was possible not only because of the Nazis’ nightmarishly meticulous implementation, but also because those who stood aside as it was happening. The Germans had willing accomplices, including many Poles, who took an active part in the persecution and murder. The history books talk about the “hunt for the Jews,” which led to the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews, both directly and indirectly, during the Second World War.

Continue reading “Between Poland’s Holocaust revisionism and Israel’s Nakba denial”

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You don’t need Jewish values to denounce Israel’s treatment of asylum seekers

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African asylum seekers protest outside Rwandan embassy in Herzliya. (photo: AFP)

When it comes to both asylum seekers and West Bank Palestinians, we don’t need a higher, Jewish standard. Simply asking Israel to abide by International Law is radical enough.

By Peter Beinart | Forward | Feb 7, 2018

In 2015 . . . less than two percent of Sudanese asylum requests had even received a government response. Not a single one had been approved. Of the more than 2,400 Eritreans who requested asylum, the Israeli government granted it to four.

Last week, Isabel Kershner, The New York Times’ estimable Israel correspondent, wrote an article about the Netanyahu government’s decision to either expel Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers to third countries or indefinitely lock them up. The article ran under the headline, “Israel Moves to Expel Africans. Critics Say That’s Not Jewish.”

“Like much of the Western world, Israel is grappling with how to balance its right to protect its borders and prevent illegal immigration with showing compassion and humanity,” writes Kershner. “But the government’s decision has struck a particular chord here and among Jews abroad since the modern state of Israel has served as a safe haven for Jews fleeing persecution.”

Kershner goes on to say that many Jews believe the government’s decision violates “Jewish values.” She suggests that “Even secular Israelis have taken to citing biblical verses like Leviticus 19:34: ‘The stranger who resides among you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.’”

There’s a danger here. Continue reading “You don’t need Jewish values to denounce Israel’s treatment of asylum seekers”

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Israel holds international anti-BDS conference

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BDS rally at McGill University, Toronto, in 2016 (photo: Sonia Ionescu / Creative Commons)

Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs leading anti-BDS efforts.

By Middle East Monitor | Feb 6, 2018

Participants were briefed about “effective methods used to pass legislation in 24 states across the US, France, Germany and elsewhere” and “gained tools and best-practices, while streamlining their tactics against efforts to ostracize the Jewish state.”

The Israeli government yesterday held an international legal conference against the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Quds Press reported.

The news site reported Israeli media saying that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs organised the conference in cooperation with the Israeli Bar Association and the International Judicial Institute.

Israeli media said that 200 legal experts from 24 countries were invited to the conference to develop strategies “to contain the growing influence of the movement.”

According to Quds Press, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and head of the opposition Isaac Herzog were in attendance.

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A wall and a war: Two things every fascist regime needs

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President Donald Trump stands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, May 22, 2017, for his first official visit to Israel as president. (photo: Hadas Parush / Flash90)

Both Trump and Netanyahu want to secure their rule by attacking liberal, democratic forces. But in order to do so, they need two things: a wall and the promise of eternal war.

By Alon Mizrahi | +972 Blog | Feb 5, 2018

Physical segregation, which creates psychological separation, allows for the existence of a project of scaremongering and the enlistment of nationalists that feed the second project necessary for any fascist regime: eternal war.

“George Soros is funding the campaign against deporting infiltrators. . . . Obama deported two million infiltrators and they didn’t say anything.”

These remarks were made by Prime Minister Netanyahu during the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, according to a report by Channel 10. The prime minister’s choice of words is confusing, perhaps deliberately: is he referring to deporting foreigners in Israel or the U.S.? If it is the former, why bother mentioning Obama? And if he’s speaking about America, why is he calling Dreamers, as they are known there, “infiltrators?”

The confusion is deliberate. The actions and goals of the Trump administration are identical to those of Netanyahu. Both leaders try to sell the idea that the world is a jungle, the notion of a dichotomous division between the good guys and the bad guys, and the image of “us” as “good” — as god-like. In both camps, the Bible, money, and advanced technology are viewed as both proof of and ethno-cultural justification for moral, genetic, eternal supremacy.

Continue reading “A wall and a war: Two things every fascist regime needs”

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I was publicly blacklisted by a shadowy website for my views on Israel

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Noa Kattler-Kupetz was publicly blacklisted by the Canary Mission, a shadowy website. (image: Forward)

Canary Mission puts people on a literal blacklist, making it tricky to get jobs or get through customs at Ben Gurion Airport.

By Noa Kattler Kupetz | Forward | Jan 30, 2018

What shocks me about finding myself on Canary Mission is that I am far from being an outspoken activist or organizer on my campus. I am a Jew whose political beliefs differ from the community she grew up in. And because of this, I’ve ended up on a blacklist. . . . I’m not a young Jew with opinions of her own, but a young “radical,” brainwashed Jew.

Earlier this week, I discovered I’d been added to Canary Mission’s database. Canary Mission is a McCarthy-esque blacklist, a website that collects and publishes information about activists who support Palestinian rights. The site claims to document “people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” with the header, “if you’re racist, the world should know.” When the site launched in 2015, it’s goal was even more explicit: “It is your duty to ensure that today’s radicals are not tomorrow’s employees.”

Apparently, I, a senior at Barnard College, am one of those dangerous radicals.

Continue reading “I was publicly blacklisted by a shadowy website for my views on Israel”

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How the internet “punishes” Palestinians

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(photo: Mauritz Antin / EPA)

PayPal, Google, and Airbnb have all been accused of limiting services to Palestinians in the occupied territories.

By Ylenia Gostoli | Al Jazeera | Feb 2, 2018

PayPal, which operates in 202 countries including war-torn Yemen, doesn’t offer its services to Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank — while making them available to Israeli settlers living in the same territory and using the same currency.

Google Maps brings [Palestinians] to settler roads, even putting them in danger by taking them to the entrance of a settlement. It’s an apartheid reality that you have streets for settlers only, and Google Maps functions to serve the Israelis and Israeli needs.

As governments across the globe increasingly use the internet to crack down on dissent, manipulate information and control access, the idea of the web as a space of democracy and freedom has all but withered.

In the past two years, Palestinians launched several campaigns accusing tech companies of discrimination and bias, with hashtags such as #FBCensorsPalestine and #PayPalForPalestine going viral.

Multinational tech companies such as Google, Facebook and PayPal have also been accused of complicity in rights violations for controlling how knowledge and services are provided, and who can access them.

Continue reading “How the internet “punishes” Palestinians”

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Israel issuing deportation notices to asylum seekers

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An asylum seeker holding up a deportation notice on Feb 4, 2018. (photo: Meged Gozani / Haaretz)

The first round of notices to about 20,000 people asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan.

By Ilan Lior | Haaretz | Feb 4, 2018

“I don’t want to go to Rwanda. I’m from Eritrea, and I don’t want to return to Eritrea. I’m going to jail, without fear.”
— Dabsai, a 47-year-old Eritrean resident of Netanya

The Population, Immigration and Border Authority will begin issuing deportation notices on Sunday to asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan who are not held in the Holot detention facility.

In the first stage the notices will be issued to men without children who come to renew their residence visa. Citizens of Eritrea and Sudan are required to renew their visas every two months at the authority’s office in Bnei Brak. They will receive their last two-month visa, along with a letter stating that during this period they are expected to leave the country, otherwise they will be forbidden to work and can expect to be incarcerated indefinitely. Authority personnel will suggest that they leave for either Rwanda or their native countries. . . .

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Jewish leaders: You fought for the right to boycott — now let people use it

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Ultra-orthodox Jews of the Naturei Kartra movement during a protest outside the Capitol Hill where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress in Washington, DC, on Mar 3, 2015. (photo: Getty Images)

Have your feelings about BDS, but respect the constitutional right to boycott that you so proudly fought for during the Civil Rights Movement.

By Elias Newman | Forward | Feb 5, 2018

[The] right to boycott went all the way to the Supreme Court during the Civil Rights Era, when a judge in Mississippi ordered an NAACP chapter to pay damages to white shop-owners after the chapter ran a successful boycott campaign. The NAACP appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, asking how their actions were any different from the the American colonists who refused to buy English-made goods during the American Revolution. A unanimous court overturned the Mississippi ruling, solidifying non-violent boycotts as “speech, assembly, association, and petition” protected by the First Amendment.

If you’ve ever been to a synagogue around MLK Day, you probably heard about the role Jews played in the Civil Rights Movement. Don’t get me wrong; I’m proud that white Jews joined Freedom Rides and marched with MLK, and I have deep respect for Rabbis in the South who risked their jobs to support bus boycotters.

The hypocrisy in all of this current celebration, however, is that Jewish leaders are taking credit for Civil Rights work while simultaneously mounting an assault on the American right to boycott — a constitutional freedom fought for during the Civil Rights movement by Blacks and their Jewish allies. Boycotts are protected under the First Amendment and were vital to ending segregation, forcing politicians and shop owners to integrate or go bankrupt. Yet today, when boycotts in the U.S. increasingly target Israeli human rights abuses, Jewish leaders have no problem unraveling Civil Rights protections by leading the political movement to boycott all boycotts.

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A Webinar for Lent

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Please join our brothers and sisters at Friends of Sabeel North America for this important webinar.

Date: Thursday, Feb 8, 2018
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 am PST
Registration: Sign up here

Event Details

Join Rev. Dr. Naim Ateek, Dr. Monica Burnett and FOSNA Executive Director Tarek Abuata, for this Lenten webinar. Speakers will address issues on the ground in Palestine, introduce a new educational Biblical resource for congregations, and provide ideas for advocacy stemming from Palestinian Liberation Theology.

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BDS nominated for 2018 Nobel Peace Prize

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The human rights movement is currently the subject of anti-boycott laws in Israel, the US, and elsewhere.

By Middle East Monitor | Feb 5, 2018

“We are well aware that the current right-wing government of Israel tends to try to criminalize any attempt to convince Israel to abide by international law and end the occupation and oppression of Palestine and the Palestinians.”
— Bjørnar Moxness, Norwegian Member of Parliament

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights has been nominated for the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize. Formal nomination for the prestigious award was made last week by the Norwegian MP and leader of the Red Party, Bjørnar Moxness.

In a statement announcing the nomination, the Parliamentary Group, which includes a number of left-wing parties, said that the selection of BDS for a Nobel Peace Prize reflected “the growing international solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice, dignity and freedom from the Israeli occupation.”

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