Month: June 2021

Amid an uptick in popular support for Hamas following recent confrontations in East Jerusalem and the Israel-Hamas war, Fatah and the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah are looking for ways to stay relevant.

By Daoud Kuttab | Al- Monitor | June 21, 2021

“The opportunity is there for the new Israeli government to show they are ready for peace and the end of occupation and not for the continuation of the settlement policies, land confiscations, death and destruction,”
— Mohammad Shtayyeh, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority

While the new Israeli government headed by right-wing, pro-settler Naftali Bennett starts to settle in, the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah is hoping to engage with them and with the Biden administration.

Reports that the Palestinian government has established a negotiating team has been denied to Al-Monitor by senior officials in Ramallah, but the fact that a story to that effect was published tends to indicate that certain elements within the entourage of President Mahmoud Abbas are looking for ways to be relevant.

Continue reading “Palestinian leadership looks to engage Israel, US as Hamas’ popularity climbs”

Democratic Perspective welcomes Alice Rothchild back to the show to discuss the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

Democratic Perspective | June 21, 2021

 “I believe language is really important and calling it a battle implies there were two armies involved. It was more assault than battle.”
— Alice Rothchild

Democratic Perspective welcomes Alice Rothchild back to the show to discuss the recent conflict between Israel and Palestinians. Rothchild is a physician, author, activist and filmmaker who has long served as a volunteer in Gaza and the West Bank. She provides an in-depth look at the plight of Palestinians and the lead-up to the most recent conflict.

Rothchild begins by stating, “I believe language is really important and calling it a battle implies there were two armies involved. It was more assault than battle.” She notes that Israel airstrikes targeted homes, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, a media center, even Gaza’s only Covid-19 testing center.

Continue reading “Interview with Alice Rothchild: Examining the founding mythology of Israel”

Seattle teachers union takes a strong stance supporting Palestinians under occupation.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss |  June 18, 2021

“Our Representative Assembly took a bold, vocal stand against injustice from Seattle to Palestine and called attention to the inexcusable relationship between Seattle Police and Israeli military and police.”
— Emma Klein, Seattle educator and union member

The Seattle Education Association (SEA) has passed a resolution expressing solidarity with Palestine and endorsing the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement (BDS). The resolution also demands an end to collaboration between the Seattle Police Department and Israeli military.

“The SEA leadership will use all the existing means of communication (email, Facebook, texts, and any other social media the union uses) to encourage all SEA members and community allies to learn about these issues and to encourage people in their communities to stand in solidarity with unions and oppressed people in Palestine,” declares the resolution.

Continue reading “Seattle teachers union endorses BDS, demands end to police partnership with Israel”

Demonstrators gathered near the Port of Seattle Thursday afternoon to block the unloading of a cargo ship owned by the shipping company ZIM, which was founded in Israel. Demonstrators are using the ship’s arrival as a way to protest Israeli actions in Gaza last month.

By Joshua McNichols | KUOW | June 17, 2021

“This is how we liberated South Africa from apartheid and we’re just trying to tell our ports, stop taking anything from Israel.”
— Aisha Mansour, Falastiniyat collective

Aisha Mansour is with Falastiniyat, a feminist grassroots collective which organized the protest. “We’re hoping to have a non-violent protest today where we just basically have some civic disobedience and we tell people, ‘Hey, don’t benefit from Israeli apartheid,'” she said. “This is how we liberated South Africa from apartheid and we’re just trying to tell our ports, stop taking anything from Israel.”

The union representing dockworkers supports the demonstrators’ first amendment rights, it said in a statement.

Protesters said they hoped to create a barrier that union workers would refuse to cross.

Continue reading “‘Stop taking anything from Israel’: Block the Boat movement aims to halt cargo ship at Seattle Port”

Books about Palestinians and the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

By Hala Alyan & Talal Alyan | Electric Literature | June 11, 2021

…what follows is a list of works that we believe capture, each in their own way, some small piece of our enduring collective memory.

What can memory endure? A story, we know, can be told and retold for generations, find its way centuries later in the mouth of a descendant. What then of a memory expunged—so thoroughly and violently that it splinters and disperses across the world? The question often posed to Palestinians is who has the right to a memory? If the efforts to ethnically cleanse neighborhoods in Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, and so many others are successful, will the families still be allowed to remember them as their homes? Will their children? Will their children’s children?

Collective memory, for Palestinians, continues to be an anchor. The precise and beautiful understanding shared by so many of us that, even after so many decades, with enough patience, the memory returns faithfully and belongs to us all. There is no substitute for addressing the continued subjugation of Palestinians living under Israeli apartheid laws and open-air imprisonment, but what follows is a list of works that we believe capture, each in their own way, some small piece of our enduring collective memory.

Read the full article here →

Former South African ambassadors to Israel call for the world to take decisive diplomatic action.

By Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel | GroundUp | June 8, 2021

It is time for the world to recognize that what we saw in South Africa decades ago is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories too.

During our careers in the foreign service, we both served as Israel’s ambassador to South Africa. In this position, we learned firsthand about the reality of apartheid and the horrors it inflicted. But more than that – the experience and understanding we gained in South Africa helped us to understand the reality at home.

Continue reading “It’s apartheid, say former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa”

Data released by the U.N. this week shows that it could take years for Gaza to rebuild after the Israeli bombings in May.

By Dylan Moriarty and Ruby Mellen  |The Washington Post | June 11, 2021

“It completely blocked the transportation of the patients to the clinics…It really hindered the access to care. They had to walk.”
— Ely Sok, Doctors Without Borders

The destruction to Gaza during the 11-day conflict between Hamas and Israel in May was heavy and widespread, with damage afflicting hundreds of buildings and dozens of roads, an initial United Nations analysis shows.

The data, based on preliminary analysis of satellite imagery taken on May 28, and released by the U.N. Institute for Training and Research this week, underscores warnings from human rights groups and nongovernment organizations that Israeli bombings that the military said targeted Hamas militants severely impaired the territory’s infrastructure, and that it could take years to rebuild.

Continue reading “The toll of Israeli strikes on Gaza: Mapping the destruction left behind”

Journalists and reporters sign letter calling on media to stop obscuring oppression of Palestinians.

By Sheren Khalel | Middle East Eye | June 9, 2021

“As journalists, with varying contracts, editorial protections, environments & job securities, the work to push against the media complicity in apartheid is constant,”
— Sana Saeed, a host at AJ+

An open letter “written by and for journalists” is calling on the news industry to stop “obscuring Israeli occupation and the systemic oppression of Palestinians” in the media.

Signed by 250 journalists working for some of the world’s top media outlets, the letter, published on Wednesday, accuses the mainstream media of “failing” its audience with a “decades-long journalistic malpractice” that has misinformed the public on the reality of Israel’s occupation.

“Finding truth and holding the powerful to account are core principles of journalism,” the letter reads.

Continue reading “‘We have failed’: Journalists unite and demand truthful coverage of Israeli occupation”

Efforts to force Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah set the stage for the recent Gaza war. A similar dynamic looms in a nearby district.

By Patrick Kingsley | The New York Times | June 7, 2021

About 3,000 Palestinians in 200 East Jerusalem properties are living under threat of eviction…

JERUSALEM — Few places in East Jerusalem show the struggle over the city more intimately than a four-story house on a narrow alley in the Silwan district.

Nasser Rajabi, a Palestinian, and his family live in the basement, third floor and part of the second.Boaz Tanami, an Israeli settler, and his family live on the first floor and the rest of the second.

Each claims the right to live there. Each wants the other out. An Israeli court has ruled that a Jewish trust owns the building and ordered the eviction of Mr. Rajabi, but the ruling is under appeal.
Continue reading “A house divided: A Palestinian, a settler and the struggle for East Jerusalem”

The report reflects the power of decades of work in defense of Palestinian rights.

By Phyllis Bennis | Common Dreams | May 5, 2021

Human Rights Watch now acknowledges that Israel’s policies are designed to maintain Jewish domination over Palestinians across all the territory it controls, from the river to the sea.

Human Rights Watch is the best-known and arguably the most influential among Washington elites of any of the many human rights organizations in the United States. So when HRW issues an unsparing, 200-plus page legal and factual report concluding that Israeli government authorities are guilty of the crime of apartheid, it is a very big deal.

The key findings are that it is Israel’s “intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians across Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In the OPT, including East Jerusalem, that intent has been coupled with systematic oppression of Palestinians and inhumane acts committed against them. When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid.”

Continue reading “Why Human Rights Watch designating Israel’s crimes as apartheid is a very big deal”