Then U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro, delivering a speech to an Israeli thinktank in 2016. Shapiro now works at that thinktank. (Photo: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images)
Liberal supporters of Israel warn of Jews being overwhelmed by Palestinian births.
By Philip Weiss | Mondoweiss | Apr 28, 2020
… it is ‘important’ to consider whether Palestinians are becoming a majority in the land between the river and the sea, and in Israel itself…
The “demographic” argument for a two-state solution is the expressed fear that Jews will become a minority in Israel, and so the “Jewish people” will lose a claim to sovereignty.
It is explicitly a racial argument about Jews being overwhelmed by Palestinian births, or voters, and it is one that ought to be very hard to advance in mainstream U.S. forums. The scholar Ian Lustick lately confessed his shame at making the demographic argument for a two-state solution. It was a “deal with the devil,” Lustick said. “My mother would not approve.”
Well– here are two leading American Zionist organizations that consider themselves enlightened but that have recently advanced that unseemly argument.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump posters are seen ahead of the General elections in Jerusalem on 16 September 2019. (photo: Faiz Abu Rmeleh – Anadolu Agency)
The new Israeli government arrangement means Israel is now ready to move ahead soon with annexation.
By Middle East Monitor | April 26, 2020
Netanyahu described a US peace proposal announced by President Donald Trump in January as a promise to recognize Israel’s authority over West Bank settlement land.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced confidence on Sunday that Washington would give Israel the nod within two months to move ahead with de facto annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, Reuters reports.
Palestinians have expressed outrage at Israel’s plans to cement its hold further on land it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, territory they are seeking for a state.
World Peace text printed on wall. (photo: Humphrey Muleba / Unsplash)
Please join our brothers and sisters at Nonviolence International for an interactive webinar hosted by two of the organizations founders, Mubarak Awad and Jonathan Kuttab. Additionally, there will be feature presentations from some partners and new friends including: Alex McDonald of US Boats to Gaza, Raed Schakshak of We Are Not Numbers, and Naeem Jeenah, Executive Director of the Afro-Middle East Centre.
This is a rare opportunity for our organization along with some of our partners and friends to address the situation in Palestine in light of the COVID-19 outbreak. We will discuss important campaigns that promote nonviolence during the pandemic.
Panelists will include:
Raed Shakshak Raed writes, “In a world full of noise, I sit quietly and let the clicks of my keyboard speak for me. My name is Raed. I graduated from university with a degree in English language and literature from Al-Azhar University in Gaza. Thanks to a semester as an exchange student at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania (USA), I have developed a better understanding of our world. My current mission is to tell new, different stories from Gaza in my role as outreach coordinator for We Are Not Numbers. It’s time I step up and be the voice of the voiceless ones, including myself. I started writing. I’ll be the noise now. No one can stop me.
Zahid Rajan Zahid is a graphic designer by profession. He has combined these skills with social activism and publishing in the realms of justice, human rights and democracy. He is the executive editor of AwaaZ magazine, director of the SAMOSA Festival, chair of the Kenya Palestine Solidarity Movement and an active participant in Kenya’s civil rights movement.
Kit Kittredge Kit is a peace activist from Washington State involved with Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign, Rachel Corrie Foundation, CodePink, Veterans for Peace and other peace and justice organizations. She is on the Steering Committee for the Women’s Boat to Gaza. She has been to Gaza Palestine six times and was a passenger on the Audacity of Hope, 2011, and the Tahrir, 2011 where passengers were kidnapped and imprisoned.
Through these timely webinars, Nonviolence International will educate, inspire, and build a strong community as we work for a better world.
Over the coming months, we will be hosting an impressive range of nonviolent activists, thinkers, and leaders. We hope that you will make our new webinar series a regular part of your week. Each week you will hear a powerful story of how people are using creative nonviolence in these difficult days.
A health worker and armed Palestinians gather under the portrait of their late leader Yasser Arafat at the Wavel Palestinian refugee camp (also known as the Jalil camp) in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, on April 24, 2020, after cases of infection by the novel coronavirus were detected there. (photo: AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinians in camps have resorted to be the frontline as community-based health workers and demonstrate the ingenuity and steadfastness that has kept Palestinian dreams for a better future alive.
By Bram Wispelwey & Amaya Al-Orzza | London Review of Books | Apr 18, 2020
The Israeli government and Palestinian security services announced that they would co-operate for the pandemic, but the actions on the ground tell a different story.
At nearly 18 per cent officially, and probably higher, the prevalence of diabetes among Palestinian refugees in the West Bank is one of the highest in the world. The official rate in Gaza is 16 per cent. Among adult citizens of Israel, it’s 7.2 per cent. The disease suppresses the immune system, among other complications, and can spiral dangerously out of control when combined with an infection, such as the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. Diabetic patients with Covid-19 in China had a 1 in 14 chance of dying, more than triple that of the general population.
A Palestinian man wearing a mask as a means of protection against the coronavirus COVID-19, sits on the seashore in Gaza City on March 13, 2020. (photo: AFP)
Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’, a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.
By Ramzy Baroud | Al-Bushra | Apr 13, 2020
Call it a ‘quarantine,’ a ‘shelter-in-place,’ a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew,’ we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.
Now that nearly half of the population of planet Earth are experiencing some form of ‘curfew’ or another, I would like to share a few suggestions on how to survive the prolonged confinement, the Palestinian way.
Call it a ‘quarantine,’ a ‘shelter-in-place,’ a ‘lockdown’ or a ‘curfew,’ we Palestinians have experienced them all, though not at all voluntarily.
Personally, the first 23 years of my life were lived in virtual ‘lockdown. ’My father’s ‘quarantine’ was experienced much earlier, as did his father’s ‘shelter-in-place’ before him. They both died and were buried in Gaza’s cemeteries without ever experiencing true freedom outside of their refugee camp in Gaza.
Blue and White alliance leader and former Israeli chief of staff, Benny Gantz on 18 February 2020. (photo: Mostafa Alkharouf / Anadolu Agency)
A call for Palestinian leadership to change course on political strategy or face a very real existential threat.
By Professor Kamel Hawwash | Middle East Monitor | Apr 22, 2020
The agreement also includes the application of Israeli Law to wide swathes of the illegally-occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank while US President Donald Trump is still in office.
When it comes to Israel, the international community has once again been exposed for the double standards and hypocrisy it reserves to support the rogue state. Many so-called western democracies have fallen over each other to offer congratulations to an Apartheid state for forming a government that will entrench occupation, oppression, racism and land theft.
Settler-colonialism on steroids has thus been praised for spawning two politicians — both of whom are suspected war criminals — who have supposedly pushed personal animosity and ambition aside to form a government that will, from 1 July, begin to annex large swathes of illegally-occupied Palestinian lands in defiance of international law and conventions, aided and abetted by the US. This in itself is outrageous.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (photo: AFP / Abbas Momani)
Aid donation to fight coronavirus given after Trump administration has cut millions of dollars of aid to Palestinians
By Reuters /Israel Hayom Staff | Apr 17, 2020
The $5 million will be international disaster assistance from the US Agency for International Development, according to the State Department’s website.
The United States is giving $5 million to the Palestinians to help them fight the coronavirus epidemic, a US envoy said on Thursday.
The donation announced by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman follows years of aid cuts by President Donald Trump’s administration to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
“I’m very pleased the USA is providing $5M for Palestinian hospitals and households to meet immediate, life-saving needs in combating COVID-19,” Friedman wrote on Twitter.
View the Zoom gathering on Palestinian Prisoners Day when people gathered virtually to show solidarity with the prisoners whose incarceration puts them at extreme risk for coronavirus infection.
By Jewish Voice for Peace | JVP Facebook | Apr 17, 2020
I am heartened by the work of so many who are making the connections between the need to free prisoners here and in Palestine. —Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, Jewish Voice for Peace
Zoom Rally to Free Prisoners from Rikers Island to Palestine. JVP’s Executive Director, Stefanie Fox hosted an incredible lineup of speakers at a Zoom Rally of more than 500:
An Easter message that violence, resilience, steadfastness and compassionate agape will have the last word over hate, racism, discrimination, violence, war and occupation.
By Zoughbi Zoughbi | HolyLandJustice | Apr 11, 2020
‘I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out’ [Luke 19:40] It is a warning. This statement still speaks loudly and is directed toward leaders and institutions. Whether leaders of an institution, or government, or state, or the world, there will be a driving force challenging all establishments and perpetuators of injustice and oppression.
Yesterday [Apr 10] we celebrated Good Friday, when Jesus was crucified, died and was buried. Let us contemplate, while on this road to resurrection… Jesus was born in a cave warmed by animals….Herod was in Jerusalem conspiring to kill him… The Angels helped the Holy Family flee to Egypt, escaping Herod and the Roman Occupation.
Palestinians gather for a demonstration to demand coronavirus protection for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, Gaza City, Gaza, March 19, 2020. (photo: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
As Palestinians commemorate Prisoners’ Day on April 17, the biggest demand appears to be how to safeguard prisoners from the threat of the coronavirus pandemic.
By Daoud Kuttab | Al-Monitor | Apr 17, 2020
‘The White House and State Department have called for the release of US citizens around the world due to the coronavirus, but the consular officials in Jerusalem have not followed up on these guidelines from Washington,’ — Hind Shraydeh, American Palestinian researcher
Hind Shraydeh is very worried about her husband. Ubai Aboudi, an American-Palestinian researcher and director of the Ramallah-based nongovernmental organization Bisan Center for Research and Development, was arrested by Israeli forces at his house in Jerusalem’s Kufr Aqab neighborhood on Nov. 13, 2019. Aboudi was initially held in administrative detention at the Ofer detention center, and Amnesty International and Nobel Prize scientists around the world circulated a petition calling for his release.
Shraydeh told Al-Monitor her husband had breathing problems before his imprisonment and expressed worry about the potential spread of the coronavirus in the overcrowded Israeli detention centers. “Ubai is held in unit 22 at the Ofer detention center near Beitunia, where eight people are kept in a small room within an unhealthy prison environment and where at least one coronavirus case has been [confirmed].”
![Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump posters are seen ahead of the General elections in Jerusalem on 16 September 2019. [Faiz Abu Rmeleh - Anadolu Agency]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/20190916_2_38241876_47634577.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
![Blue and White alliance leader and former Israeli chief of staff, Benny Gantz on 18 February 2020 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]](https://i1.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/20200218_2_40916345_52286516.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&quality=85&strip=all&ssl=1)
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