Author: Kairos Puget Sound Coalition

By Nihan Duran | Politics Today | July 5, 2021

The idea that as a victim, I can do anything to survive, even if that means victimizing others, is morally and politically problematic. Until the Jewish community overcomes this particular way of dealing with the traumas of the Holocaust, we will never get out of this cultural psychopathology.
— Alice Rothchild

As the echoes of the global reaction to the recent human rights violations in Sheikh Jarrah and Gaza continue worldwide, Nihan Duran of Politics Today interviewed the renowned Jewish American author, physician, and human rights activist, Alice Rothchild, on how to interpret the transition from the oppressed to the oppressor and the challenges of defining, discussing and reporting the settler-colonialism in Palestine as well as the ways forward for meaningful peace advocacy and solidarity.

Q. As a Jewish American author, a human rights activist, and a physician, you have numerous works in which you critically reflect on physical realities in Israel and Palestine. Can we hear the story of who you are and how your engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian predicament has started in your own words?

My grandparents were Orthodox Jews and immigrants to the U.S. I grew up in a very traditional Jewish family, which was fairly secular. I went to a Hebrew school, I had a bat mitzvah,¹ and went to Israel when I was 14. I still have my 14-year-old diary, so I know how I felt about my trip to this magical place.

Continue reading “We cannot use victimhood to justify victimizing others”

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”

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”