Author: KPSC

Overcoming distance and fragmentation, a new generation of diaspora Palestinians is dismantling Israel’s monopoly over the U.S. conversation.

By Tariq Kenney-Shawa | +972 Magazine | Sept 16, 2021

…the widespread mobilization of Palestinians and our supporters this past summer has reminded the diaspora of our integral function in the increasingly diverse, global movement for Palestinian liberation.

The omnipresent restlessness and dread that consumed Palestinian-Americans in May, as we watched Israel’s onslaught on Gaza from afar, could not come close to the pain felt by family and friends with nowhere to hide from the carnage. Still, watching an endless stream of live reports of casualties, videos of children being pulled from mounds of rubble, and fell towers that once housed dozens of families — all interspersed between bouts of radio silence due to Gaza’s daily power outages — was maddening.

For many in the Palestinian diaspora, this enraging feeling is always compounded by a sense of paralyzing helplessness that stems from our physical distance, as we are forced to sit by and watch as Israeli forces pummel what could and should be “home.” The sense that we play only a peripheral role in the Palestinian struggle for liberation perpetually hovers over our heads, mingling with the fierce loyalty we have to a place we cannot return to. And like others, I have often internalized the fragmentation forced upon our people — a divide and conquer tactic that Israel has perfected over the course of decades. Or so we thought.

Continue reading “Palestinian-Americans are turning the tide of US policy”

An obscure Pentagon document from 1992 provided a blueprint for the ‘war on terror.’

By Jim Lobe | Responsible Statecraft | Sept 11, 2021

The “dominant consideration,” it said, “…requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. …In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region…”
— Draft, Defense Planning Guidance

Today in our series 9/11 at 20: A week of reflection, we hear from Jim Lobe, Senior Advisor and contributing editor at Responsible Statecraft.

When excerpts of the document first appeared in the New York Times in March 1992, it created quite a stir. One influential Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was appalled by its ambition, denouncing it as “literally a ‘Pax Americana.’ A global security system where threats to stability are suppressed or destroyed by U.S. military power.”

Indeed, the draft Defense Planning Guidance, or DPG, which set forth the underlying elements of U.S. grand strategy through the end of the century, was stunning in its vision for permanent U.S. military dominance of virtually all of Eurasia — to be achieved by “deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role” and by preempting, using whatever means necessary, states believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction.

Continue reading “How 9/11 enabled a preconceived vision of an imperial US foreign policy”

The rule of law is definitely a worthy value to strive for, achieving it in Palestine requires some fundamental changes.

By Jonathan Kuttab | This Week in Palestine | Sept 2021

There is no rule of law when the laws are military orders, issued by the occupying forces to serve their own interests and those of the Jewish settlers

Law plays an important role in the running of any society. It provides the framework for regulating the behavior of individuals, the distribution of resources, the expected norms, and the sanctions for violating them.

In many developing countries, particularly totalitarian regimes, law becomes a useful tool for the preservation of privilege and the oppression of masses. It is sometimes given divine authority or at least sanction and becomes part of the reality that the poor and the oppressed have to deal with. In such societies, law is rarely, if ever, used against the rich and the powerful who are somehow always exempt from its application, but its provisions are ruthlessly applied to the weak, the poor, and those without proper connections.

Continue reading “Obstacles to Rule of Law in Palestine”

Israel’s latest assault on Gaza has prompted US labor unions to mobilize at unprecedented levels, further establishing Palestinian rights as a core component of progressive politics.

By Alex Kane | +972 Magazine | Aug 31, 2021

“Labor power has always been about international solidarity and all exploited people rising up against all forms of oppression,”
— Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center

As Israeli airstrikes dropped U.S.-made bombs on Gaza in May, damaging schools and hospitals, displacing thousands of Palestinians, and killing 260 people, many Americans looked on in horror. Then, some decided to take action.

On May 19, the United Educators of San Francisco, the union representing 6,200 public school teachers and aides in the California city, passed a resolution endorsing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a movement promoting pressure on Israel until it stops violating Palestinian human rights. The union also called for the United States to end military aid to Israel, which it said was committing the crime of “apartheid.” (The United States sends $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel.)

Continue reading “How Palestinian resistance inspired a new generation of labor activism”

A coalition of Florida organizations are calling for a boycott of Duty Free Americas over its financial support for racist, ultra-nationalist Israeli settler groups in the West Bank.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Sept 3, 2021

“The call for boycott of Duty Free Americas is especially important for us Floridians to answer because the owners of this company are our neighbors — with most of the stores located in this state — and we must hold them responsible and accountable for the millions of dollars they have donated to the ongoing Nakba,”
—  Lara Abu Ghannam CAIR-Florida’s Central Florida Regional Coordinator 

The South Florida Coalition for Palestine is calling for a boycott of Duty Free Americas over the Miami-based company’s connection to illegal Israeli settlements and the forced expulsion of Palestinians.

The Duty Free Americas chain is owned by the Falic family, who operate more 180 stores at airports and border crossings in the United States and Latin America. According to a 2019 AP investigation the Falics have donated $5.6 million to settler groups over a ten-year period. They’ve also lent financial support to racist, ultra-nationalist Jewish groups in Hebron.

Continue reading “Activists launch campaign to boycott Duty Free Americas over support for Israeli settler organizations”

The story of Layan Nasir’s baptism as an infant to her detention as a university student reveals the arbitrariness of the Israeli occupation.

By Fadi Diab | Mondoweiss  | Aug 23, 2021

Layan and other students are accused of belonging to an “unlawful association” at Birzeit University. The “unlawful association” is a union of students acting per the rules of their university and the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education.

Layan Nasir, a parishioner at St. Peter’s Anglican/Episcopal Church in Birzeit, Palestine, is a 21-year-old Nutrition and Dietetics student at Birzeit University. A remarkable young woman with a calm demeanor, tender spirit, and incredible potential, Layan was raised in a devout Anglican family to live her faith in the midst of the whatever challenges may come in life.

The story of Layan’s baptism as an infant embodies the Palestinian experience of faith under colonial domination. On the day of her baptism, Israeli forces blocked the road between Ramallah and Birzeit, a short 12 kilometers away. The Anglican priest in Ramallah, Fr. Samir Esaid, serving the community in Birzeit, was stopped at the checkpoint and denied passage. He explained the situation to the soldiers to no avail. So, Fr. Esaid called the Catholic priest in Birzeit, Fr. Eyad Twal. Layan and her brother were baptized in an Anglican church by a Catholic priest.

Continue reading “West Bank church stands with unjustly incarcerated parishioner Layan Nasir”

A retired pediatrician speaks out about the wounds of the Israeli occupation that are bloodless and invisible, but which will eventually find their way to pierce the heart.

By Harry Gunkel  | Mondoweiss  | Aug 19, 2021

But how will we calculate and honor the misery of despair, the emptiness of careers lost because of forbidden opportunities, the sadness of unrealized dreams, the ruin of relationships?

Between July 26 and 30, three Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli forces. During the same week, a fourth died of gunshot wounds suffered some weeks before. These four children were among the many killed in the West Bank so far in 2021, along with 66 children killed by Israel’s attacks on Gaza in May. Within hours, punctuating that week of unabashed violation of international law, human rights and morality, Israeli forces raided the Ramallah offices of Defense for Children International – Palestine in the dark early morning hours of July 29, forcing entry and confiscating computers and confidential client files. On August 16, four Palestinian young men, two of them teenagers, were murdered by Israel forces in Jenin.

More killings of Palestinians without reason, without remorse, without punishment or responsibility. No chance for families to grieve or mourn properly while scrambling to protect other children and waiting for the next assault on their neighborhood or village or city.

Continue reading “The wounds of occupation”

A new, “improved” definition of antisemitism still fails to acknowledge the history of Palestinian dispossession.

By Kathryn Shihadah |  If Americans Knew/ Israel-Palestine News | Aug 14, 2021

Proponents of justice and racial equality would do well to remember that while anti-Semitism has its victims, Zionism in the last half century arguably has had more…

The Jerusalem Declaration on Anti-Semitism (JDA) was released in March as a progressive variant of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) “working definition” of anti-Semitism – a definition that, despite its wide acceptance, is deeply problematic.

Progressives agree that JDA is a huge improvement over IHRA. JDA acknowledges that support for the Palestinian cause is “not on the face of it” antisemitic; it also leaves room for opposition to Zionism, criticism of Israel (including use of the word “apartheid,” or a “double standard” framing), and even the BDS (boycott, divest, and sanction) movement.

Continue reading “Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism ignores Palestinian rights, narrative”

The ongoing protests in the West Bank village of Beita are for land rights, water rights and basic human rights.

By Ramzy Baroud | Mondoweiss | Aug 11, 2021

“Israel even controls the collection of rainwater throughout most of the West Bank and rainwater harvesting cisterns owned by Palestinian communities are often destroyed by the Israeli army,”
— Amnesty International Report, 2017

There is an ongoing, but hidden, Israeli war on the Palestinians which is rarely highlighted or even known. It is a water war, which has been in the making for decades.

On July 26 and 27, two separate but intrinsically linked events took place in the Ein al-Hilweh area in the occupied Jordan Valley, and near the town of Beita, south of Nablus.

In the first incident, Jewish settlers from the illegal settlement of Maskiyot began construction in the Ein al-Hilweh Spring, which has been a source of freshwater for villages and hundreds of Palestinian families in that area. The seizure of the spring has been developing for months, all under the watchful eye of the Israeli occupation army.

Continue reading “Water wars in the West Bank”