Month: September 2022

A confluence of factors over the past decade seems to be driving this shift.

By Zoha Qamar | FiveThirtyEight | Sept 22, 2022

…the Palestinian-Israeli question has become a topic that embodies an intra-party identity issue for Democrats, one that has increasingly pushed liberals to reconsider what constitutes progressive politics.

Twenty years ago, Tallie Ben Daniel was a college student wandering the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, when she came across a bumper sticker that read “Free Palestine.” Born to an Israeli family in Los Angeles, Ben Daniel had never heard the phrase before. “I had zero context for what that meant. And I didn’t understand,” she recalled. “Free Palestine from what?”

Today, Ben Daniel is an advocate for Palestinian human rights. She’s currently the managing director of Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that challenges the way the Israeli government treats Palestinians. But her past confusion makes sense against the backdrop of the early 2000s.

Continue reading “More Democrats than ever support the Palestinian cause, and that’s dividing the party”

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Sept 21, 2022

“…we will continue to push back and not accept this idea that you are ‘Progressive except for Palestine’,”
— Rep. Rashida Tlaib

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) finds herself under fire from members of her own party yet again. This time it’s over virtual remarks she made during an annual seminar organized by the group Americans for Justice in Palestine Action (AJP Action).

“It has become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values yet back Israel’s apartheid government and we will continue to push back and not accept this idea that you are ‘Progressive except for Palestine’,” Tlaib told attendees.

Fellow Democrats immediately attacked Tlaib on social media, with multiple lawmakers implying that the House’s only Palestinian member is antisemitic.

Continue reading “Rashida Tlaib attacked by fellow Democrats for saying progressives shouldn’t back Israeli apartheid”

Many questions raised about a military operation against a civil society organization.

By Miriam Berger | Washington Post  | Sept 16, 2022

“…there is something about crossing the line for targeting the organizations that are responsible for criticizing centers of power. It’s the height of subjugation and domination.”
— Michael Sfard, an Israeli lawyer

The soldiers can be seen busting down doors and rummaging through documents. They casually take selfies and mockingly distribute business cards.

CCTV footage from an Israeli raid last month on the leading Palestinian human rights group sheds new light on the operation and challenges the official narrative about why the organization was targeted.

The Aug. 18 early morning raid on the Ramallah office of Al Haq, as well as six other rights groups, drew diplomatic backlash and international condemnation of Israel’s tightening restrictions on Palestinian civil society.

Continue reading “How an Israeli raid on a Palestinian rights group unfolded”

An Israeli delegation recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to pressure the Biden administration into accepting its terror designation for six Palestinian human rights groups.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Sept 14, 2022

“The Biden administration has repeatedly failed to take action and stand up for Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations increasingly under attack by the Israeli government. We have no reason to believe this meeting between Israeli and U.S. officials will result in a different outcome.”
—Brad Parker, Defense for Children International – Palestine

Last week an Israeli delegation was in Washington, D.C. trying to pressure the Biden administration into accepting its terror designation for six Palestinian human rights groups. “Israeli officials told me the delegation that went to Washington last week included officials from the Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defense financial intelligence unit that was spearheading the designation of the NGOs,” reported Axios’ Barak Ravid.

According to Ravid, Israeli officials met with the State Department, CIA and the office of the Director of National Intelligence to present them with updated intelligence about the six groups.

Continue reading “Israel pressuring Biden to accept terrorist designation for Palestinian NGOs”

By Wesam Abu Shamaleh | Middle East Monitor | Sept 15, 2022

The Palestinian resistance leadership is a unique example of sacrifice; dozens of military and political leaders have been martyred, as have many family members.

This week marked the 17th anniversary of the Israel army’s unilateral evacuation from Gaza in 2005, after a physical occupation lasting 38 years. Gaza was always a thorn in the side of the occupation state, prompting former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to say, “I wish I could wake up one day and find that Gaza has sunk into the sea.”

It also forced Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister in 2005, to retreat from his categorical refusal to withdraw from Gaza and his commitment to Jewish settlements in the enclave. He withdrew his soldiers, evacuated thousands of settlers and destroyed all of their settlements in Gaza, unconditionally. Twenty-one settlements covering around 35 per cent of the Gaza Strip were destroyed as the troops and settlers pulled out.

Continue reading “Why does Israel regard Gaza as a constant threat?”

By blurring the line between combatants and civilians, Israel justifies its repression of Palestinians — and decries all resistance to it as “terrorism.”

By Orly Noy | +972 Magazine | Sept 6, 2022

When it comes to the Palestinian struggle, Israel chooses to have its cake and eat it too: to kill Palestinians as combatants, while jailing them as civilians, not as prisoners of war, as is required by international law.

The shooting at a soldiers’ bus on Sunday in the Jordan Valley, in the occupied West Bank, sent Israel’s military reporters and security commentators rushing to the news studios in familiar fashion. Accordingly, everyone used the same vocabulary to describe what happened: the Palestinian shooters were defined in all of the reports as “terrorists,” while the event itself was a “terrorist attack.”

And yet, none of the reports I saw on the various channels mentioned the basic fact that the shooting happened in occupied territory. The Israeli media avoids making the crucial distinction between an action directed against soldiers and an action directed against civilians; just like the regime it serves, in the eyes of the vast majority of the Israeli media there is no Palestinian struggle that is not inherently defined as terrorism, be it armed or unarmed.

Continue reading “A soldier is not a civilian”

Statement of the World Council of Churches 11th Assembly in Karlsruhe, Germany.

By World Council of Churches | Sept 8, 2022

The expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially those encircling East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law and threaten fundamental demographic and political changes to the region.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) looks to the Middle East region as the place of the historical origins of our faith where Jesus Christ was born, crucified and resurrected. The worldwide ecumenical fellowship has always sought to be in active solidarity with the Christians of the Middle East, who are living in continuation of an unbroken line of faithful Christian witness in the multi-religious contexts of their countries, making vital contributions to the vibrant diversity and development of their societies.

Continue reading “Seeking Justice and Peace for All in the Middle East”

A new report from Emek Shaveh shows how Israeli settlers and the government use archeological projects to advance the annexation of Palestinian land.

By Jeff Wright |  Mondoweiss | Sept 4, 2022

“the ruins of the past have become a political tool in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… [we] work to challenge those who use archaeological sites to dispossess disenfranchised communities.”
— Emek Shaveh, Israeli NGO website

In its 18-page biannual report released last week, Emek Shaveh documents the plans of Israeli government bodies and settler organizations it says are “designed to change the demographic and historic character of East Jerusalem.” The report also details “a widespread effort [in the West Bank] to crack down on Palestinian construction, agricultural activity and the development of heritage sites.

”Settlers and government bodies seize land or assume control, the report charges, “under the pretext of archeological research or the development of historic sites for the public benefit.” Continue reading “How Israeli settlers use archeology to displace Palestinians from their land “

For liberal Jewish readers abroad, the front-row seat that Haaretz English provides to a less rose-tinted reality of Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is discomfiting – and compelling.

By Dov Waxman | Haaretz | Sept 8, 2022

Committed to journalistic independence…Haaretz English has consistently delivered unvarnished reporting and unrestrained opinion, in stark contrast to the rose-colored hasbara (public diplomacy/propaganda) of the Israeli government, which is all too often echoed in much of the Israeli and Jewish press.

When the English edition of Haaretz was first published in September 1997, Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel, for the first time. A quarter-century later, he looks likely to become prime minister again, for the seventh time.

But while Netanyahu continues to dominate Israeli politics, in many other respects – both positive and negative – Israel has significantly changed since Haaretz English first appeared.

Continue reading “Opinion: Haaretz English at 25: Diaspora Jews Meet Israel’s Gritty Reality”

By Peter Beinart | The New York Times | Aug 26, 2022

Defenders of repressive governments often try to discredit the human rights groups that criticize them.

Over the past 18 months, America’s most prominent Jewish organizations have done something extraordinary. They have accused the world’s leading human rights organizations of promoting hatred of Jews.

Last April, after Human Rights Watch issued a report accusing Israel of “the crimes of apartheid and persecution,” the American Jewish Committee claimed that the report’s arguments “sometimes border on antisemitism.” In January, after Amnesty International issued its own study alleging that Israel practiced apartheid, the Anti-Defamation League predicted that it “likely will lead to intensified antisemitism.” The A.J.C. and A.D.L. also published a statement with four other well-known American Jewish groups that didn’t just accuse the report of being biased and inaccurate, but also claimed that Amnesty’s report “fuels those antisemites around the world who seek to undermine the only Jewish country on Earth.”

Continue reading “Has the fight against Antisemitism lost its way?”