Author: KPSC

This poem was written in response to the pressure being put on organizations to accept the IHRA definition and working examples of Antisemitism.

By Timothy McCord | Palestine Chronicle |  Feb 17, 2021

“Yet if you care to listen, you can still hear the calls, behind barriers, check-points and prison walls…”

There’s come a time
when it becomes a crime
to speak truth of another’s.
When false claims damage good names
and cause an outcry:
the baying for blood and broken bones
so others are shown, beyond doubt,
how fast the axe can fall.

Continue reading “Breaking the Silence – A Poem”

By making ‘Zionists’ a de facto protected category, Facebook would shield the Israeli government from accountability and harm efforts to dismantle antisemitism.

By Rabbi Alissa Wise | The Guardian  | Feb 11, 2021

…Facebook is weighing whether “Zionist” should be considered a proxy for “Jew” or “Israeli”.

Scrolling through images of the white nationalists who overran the US Capitol last month, I was horrified, if not entirely surprised, to see so much flagrant Nazi paraphenelia. One man wore a sweatshirt reading “Camp Auschwitz”; another wore a T-shirt printed with the slogan 6MWE, which stands for “6 million wasn’t enough”, referring to the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. There’s no denying Trump’s presidency stoked a profound resurgence of antisemitism in this country. Even with a new administration in Washington, antisemitism remains a real and growing threat in America, and the world.

A broad coalition of progressive organizations, activists, and faith communities are working to dismantle antisemitism along with all other forms of racism and oppression. I was incredibly moved by the Muslim communities that lovingly guarded synagogues in a circle of protection and raised money to repair vandalized Jewish cemeteries. I’m heartened by those who do the work of rejecting racist politicians who rely on division and fear for their political power. Over and over, it’s been made clear: we are not alone in this struggle.

Continue reading “Facebook might censor criticism of Zionists. That’s dangerous”

Politicians and experts should not doubt a two-state solution. But they should finally consider a plausible version of it.

By Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour  |  The New York Times |  Feb 12, 2021

To live and thrive, Israel and Palestine must rather arrive at both independence and interdependence — two states sharing what must be shared, and separating only where they can.

Donald Trump has left the Biden administration myriad international crises, and nowhere more obviously than in Israel and the Palestine Authority.

Mr. Trump dismantled relations with the Palestinian side and greenlighted an extremist Israeli government to act as it pleased, ratifying Israel’s exclusive claim to Jerusalem and its continuing settlement project. The normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, whatever their other features, were presented as a way to pre-empt legal recognition of Israeli annexation of territory where Palestinians live outside Jerusalem.

Continue reading “Want Israeli-Palestinian peace? Try confederation”

Israel has been exporting arms to the world’s most repressive governments. A new project aims to hold it accountable by tracking these confidential sales.

By Sahar Vardi |  +972 Magazine |  Feb 10, 2021

…headlines about Israel selling a new missile or spyware system often mention an “Asian-Pacific country” or “a country in Europe,” in order to maintain the client’s confidentiality.

Over the last decades, Israel has reportedly sold weapons to approximately 130 countries. And yet, when one digs a little, it is impossible to find a full list of those countries. Apart from its reports to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms, Israel releases no official information about its arms exports.

There are good reasons Israel wants to hide these sales, since its clientele has involved some of the world’s most tyrannical dictatorships and human rights abusers. This list includes apartheid South Africa, the military Junta in Argentina, the Serbian army during the Bosnian genocide, and Rwanda in the years leading up to the genocide in the country.

Continue reading “This database is exposing decades of Israel’s shady arms deals”

In an unpublished lecture from 2008, Rob Malley, the new Iran envoy, wrestles with his father’s legacy of Arabist anti-imperialism.  An introduction by Peter Beinart provides additional commentary.

By Robert Malley |  Jewish Currents  |  Feb 4, 2021

My father was, dare I say, an awakened Arab or one who, at a minimum, awoke in me an interest in his part of the world.

THE ONE THING we know for sure is that he was born in Cairo. He left us with few other certainties. His parents appear to have originally hailed from Aleppo, moving to Egypt at the turn of the last century. There is good reason to believe he was born in the 1920s, though as for the precise year or day, one could trust either one’s imagination or his word—the former often proving more reliable than the latter. His old Egyptian passport indicates a birth date of May 25th, 1923, but he had more than one—passports as well as birthdays.

Continue reading “An anti-imperialist father and his American diplomat son”

“No country has done what we are able to do,” said Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu. He is so right – but not in the way he thinks he is.

By Kathryn Shihadah |  Israel-Palestine News  |  Jan 31, 2021

…most Palestinians under Israeli rule, regardless of age or risk, don’t qualify.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (who is up for re-election this spring) boasts, “We are vaccinating at 10 times the pace of the United States. No country has done what we are able to do.” He’s right.

Israel is so far ahead in the Covid vaccine game that the Israeli Health Ministry is making it available to all Israelis over 35 years of age – not just essential workers, healthcare providers, and high-risk individuals.

But most Palestinians under Israeli rule, regardless of age or risk, don’t qualify.

Continue reading “Israel’s obscene mismanagement of the Covid-19 vaccine”

Read all three perspectives with insight for President Biden.

By Rev Alex Awad, Rami G Khouri, Matthew Hoh  |  Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |  January/February 2021

Mr. Biden, please avoid the temptation of designing yet another peace plan that merely pays lip service to peace while ignoring the realities that are creating conflict and violence.
— Alex Awad

Some Advice on How to Succeed Where Others Have Failed
By Rev. Alex Awad

ADDING TO THE CHORUS of millions of peace and justice-loving people in the U.S. and around the world, I sincerely offer my heartfelt congratulations to you, President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President- elect Kamala Harris. You passed through the election fray graciously, and you won.

It will soon be time for the passing of the leadership “baton.” And it will be your cabinet’s turn, Mr. President-elect, to tackle tremendous tasks such as the pandemic, the economy, racism and global warming among many others. Most likely, sooner rather than later after you move to the White House, like all U.S. presidents for the past half century, you will be called upon to address the challenge of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I imagine you will have many advisers ready to help you develop your policy toward what seems to be an intractable conflict.

Continue reading “On-the-ground realities for Biden in The Middle East”

Israelis live in the illusion that another hero will show up, another general with the dust of a recent war still in his hair, and who will see the folly of war and the wisdom of making peace.

By Miko Peled | Politics Today | Jan 25, 2021

…the most liberal Zionist will never concede on the issue of land and will always blame the Palestinians for any failure to reach an agreement.

he upcoming Israeli elections – the fourth in two years – bring little promise of change. These elections bring to mind the famous saying that trying to do something over and over again while expecting different results is a sign of madness. Anyone who expects that the existing Zionist political spectrum will give rise to a progressive or even a slightly liberal coalition lives in a fantasy world. Even Israelis realize that the possibility of change does not exist. The only purpose for calling for elections at this point is to allow Benyamin Netanyahu to remain in office.

When Netanyahu signed the current coalition agreement, which allowed him to remain prime minister, it was obvious that he had no intentions of keeping his word and that at the first opportunity he would break the coalition agreements and dissolve the coalition. New elections mean his coalition partner, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief General Benny Gatnz, will never take his place as prime minister.

Continue reading “Gantz, Netanyahu, Bennett and Israeli politics in a stalemate”

The use of incendiary balloons and kites from Gaza are used as a response to Israel’s use of massive and deadly force against unarmed protesters.

By Hamza Abu Eltarabesh |  The Electronic Intifada |  Jan 15, 2021

Militarily at an enormous disadvantage, people – unaffiliated individuals or members of the main resistance groups operating in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – have thus turned to other means to show their anger, to inflict some damage back or simply to call attention to their plight.

It was a quiet night in early August.

At a signal, five men emerged silently from the cover of some trees to an agreed meeting point.

I was there, all dry mouth and notebook, observing. I’d been specially invited. Above us, only the sound of Israeli drones could be heard, patrolling the skies, electronic eyes on the ground, watching for prey.

Prey like us.

Focused and silent the men worked for an hour under the instructions of Abu Karam, the leader of this small group who is identified only by his nom de guerre. Filling condoms with helium gas, they took until just after five in the morning before they were ready.

Continue reading “A rudimentary weapon of desperation”