Author: KPSC

Coexistence in Jerusalem isn’t equal, but could there be some benefit to improving enhanced cooperation and integration between the different local authorities.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Building the Bridge | Feb 22, 2021

That reality is Jerusalem as a shared city. And the very limited decisions of the Biden administration offer a key to engaging with that.

We can all breathe. Four weeks after his inauguration as President of the United States, Joe Biden finally gave Benjamin Netanyahu a call, and all is fine with the extra-special relationship.

And now that the long wait is over, we can finally get down to more relevant question of what plans, if any, does the new U.S. administration have for us.

One thing seems pretty clear by now. Biden’s team are on a collision course with the Netanyahu government over their intention to rejoin the nuclear agreement with Iran, pretty much on the same lines as the original deal signed by the Obama administration.

What’s less clear is their plans on the other potential minefield: the Israel-Palestine conflict.

For now at least, it looks like the administration doesn’t have any plan. For now, they seem content to stick with Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there, while balancing that somewhat by reopening the separate consulate in Jerusalem that dealt directly with the Palestinians.

Read the full article here →

The change in US administration may not produce significant shift in foreign policy relationship with Israel.

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle  |  Feb 17, 2021

…while Republicans increasingly ignore the rights and, sometimes, the very existence of the Palestinians, Democrats, who continue to support Israel with equal passion, use more moderate – although inconsequential – language.

Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed.

There are obvious differences in the Democrats’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but only in semantics and political jingoism, not policy. This assertion can be justified if the Democratic administration’s official language on Palestine and Israel is examined, and such language considered within the context of practical policies on the ground.

Continue reading “‘Leaving Aside’ International Law: Why Democrats are as dangerous as Republicans to a just peace in Palestine”

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”