PM Netanyahu with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (photo: GPO / Amos Ben Gershom)
Microsoft provides a bold and sometimes overlooked example of how corporations benefit from, and contribute to, Israeli militarism and violence
By Yarden Katz | Mondoweiss | Mar 15, 2021
Microsoft provides a bold and sometimes overlooked example of corporations feeding on Israel’s violence.
PM Netanyahu with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (photo: GPO / Amos Ben Gershom)
When millions took to the streets last year to protest for Black lives, corporations saw trouble. The abolitionist call within the uprising – defund the police and invest in a better world – challenges state violence and its profiteers. So, companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, which enable state surveillance and violence, boosted their public relations. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, for example, declared “solidarity” with Black Lives Matter, and the company donated $250,000 to social justice groups (including the Minnesota Bail Fund).
Thanks to such image-building campaigns, Microsoft doesn’t get scrutinized as much as its peers. The company sponsors think tanks that bolster its progressive credentials and mask the industry’s violent and imperialist agenda. Microsoft also benefits from the aura of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation. The New York Times still turns to Gates for advice on how to fix the world’s problems, and runs chummy interviews with Microsoft President Brad Smith to get his insights on the problem of “money in politics.”
Since turning to film in 2015, Nabulsi has created an advocacy platform and produced four short films, each with a different human rights focus on Palestine. (photo: Abdel Hadi Ramahi / Reuters)
British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi’s short film, set in occupied West Bank, has been shortlisted for the Oscars.
By William Parry | Al-Jazeera | Mar 9, 2021
“As children, we would go to Palestine, and I think that laid certain seeds – politically, no – but it laid certain attachments, certain connections to the people, the land, to friends we made, to our ancestral home, quite literally.” — Farah Nabulsi, film director
A short film set in occupied Palestine – Farah Nabulsi’s The Present - has been shortlisted for the Oscars. Given the increased political isolation and setbacks Palestinians have faced throughout the Trump years in the Middle East and in the West, the international kudos and exposure The Present has enjoyed to date must be an upbeat and unexpected change for many.
It is a simple, relatable story of a labourer named Yusuf (played by Saleh Bakri), who sets out one day with his young daughter, Yasmine (played by Mariam Kanj), to get an anniversary gift for his wife.
Joint List MK Aida Touma-Suleiman campaigns in Tel Aviv ahead of the Israeli elections, February 24, 2021. (photo: Oren Ziv)
The growing visibility of queer Palestinians poses a challenge to Arab political parties that are exploiting homophobia ahead of the Israeli election.
By Edo Konrad | +972 Magazine | Mar 17, 2021
“LGBTQ rights have become a kind of litmus test in Palestinian society,” —Fady Khoury, a queer Palestinian human rights attorney and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.
The Palestinian LGBTQ community isn’t used to being at the heart of their society’s most heated political debates. Yet in the months leading up to Israel’s fourth election in two years, queer Palestinians are now being pushed to center stage.
In an interview earlier this month that went viral on Arabic and Hebrew social media, Ahmad Tibi, one of the most prominent Palestinian members of Knesset, stated that he was against the promotion of what he called “the LGBTQ phenomenon.” His party Ta’al, he said, rejects any legislation that promotes LGBTQ rights, opposes pride marches, and believes LGBTQ individuals should not be allowed into classrooms to meet with schoolchildren as part of the curriculum.
Rachel Corrie was killed 18 yrs ago while participating in nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition. This October 2020 post is a reminder of the impact of a short life devoted to justice.
By Philip Weiss | Mondoweiss | Oct 20, 2020
‘[Rachel Corrie’s] passion for social activism, and willingness to put her own life on the line for it, is what is inspiring to me…’ — Director Christine Bokhour
Two Saturdays ago, a theater company near me presented a reading of the play, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” with four young women speaking Rachel’s words on a simple stage 50 feet from commuter rails.
About 60 people were in the audience, and there was none of the political drama that accompanied the play’s New York premiere in 2006. Israel’s friends did not succeed in shutting down a progressive theater company‘s production of the show… When the show did get staged, no one handed out flyers outside the theater with pictures of Israeli girls killed in suicide bombings.
A B’Tselem photographer records in the city of Hebron, Jan. 28, 2019. (photo: Esty Dziubov / TPS)
Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, interrogated a field researcher for rights group B’Tselem who they said was always around during Palestinian activity.
By Amira Hass | Israel-Palestine News / reposted from Ha’aretz | Mar 15, 2021
His job is to document operations by official Israeli forces like the army, the Civil Administration and the police, as well as actions taken by settlers, against Palestinians.
A field researcher for Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem was investigated and warned by the Shin Bet Security service last week.
The security service coordinator, who identified himself as Captain Eid, told the researcher, Nasser Nawaj’ah, that he was “making trouble and threatening the army.” Captain Eid mentioned in this regard the incident involving Harun Abu Aram of the village al-Rakiz, who is lying paralyzed in hospital after a solider shot him in the neck because he tried to stop the army from seizing a neighbor’s generator.
Nawaj’ah is a resident of Sussia, in the southern West Bank. His job is to document operations by official Israeli forces like the army, the Civil Administration and the police, as well as actions taken by settlers, against Palestinians. He photographed, for example, the arrest of five boys from the village of Umm Lasafa by soldiers last Wednesday.
An elderly Palestinian protests against the demolition of a temporary health clinic by Israeli forces in the West Bank village of al-Mufagara, 27 January. (photo: AFP / File photo)
A dozen House members slam range of Israeli policies, and five senators call on Israel to vaccinate Palestinians in separate letter
By Ali Harb | Middle East Eye | Mar 12, 2021
“We are greatly heartened that the Biden Administration is opposed to Israeli annexation; however, Israel’s ongoing colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside its demolition of Palestinian homes, is a form of ongoing, de facto annexation which needs to be unequivocally opposed by the United States,” — US House members in letter
US lawmakers from both chambers of Congress have sent letters to the Biden administration criticising the Israeli government and urging it to vaccinate Palestinians living under its control.
In two separate letters sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, progressive senators and members of the House of Representatives called on the US administration to resume funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and push to ensure the rights of Palestinians.
The documents signal the growing willingness to criticize Israel amongst Democrats in Congress, a branch of the US government where unquestioning support for Israel is the norm.
Palestinian members of Central Elections Commission register voters for the upcoming elections, on Feb. 10, 2021 in Gaza City. (photo: Mahmud Hams / AFP via Getty Images)
The Palestinian legislative elections face disputes and hurdles that could prevent the vote from being held.
By Ahmad Melhem | Al-Monitor | Feb 28, 2021
“I believe that the odds of holding the elections do not exceed 50% due to the many obstacles.” — Ghassan al-Khatib, former Palestinian planning minister
RAMALLAH, West Bank — It remains unclear whether or not the Palestinian legislative elections, scheduled for May 22, will be held in the Palestinian territories in line with the decree President Mahmoud Abbas issued Jan. 15. Doubts about the success of the elections persist within large population segments.
At the operational level, the Central Elections Commission — an independent commission tasked with organizing and monitoring the elections that was set up by a decree issued by President Yasser Arafat in 2002 — is carrying on with the preparation phases for the electoral process. Phase 1, which consisted of the voter registration process, ended Feb. 17. The commission indicated in a press statement that the total number of voters registered reached nearly 2.622 million, or 93% of the 2.809 million eligible voters, according to the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics. The three-day Phase 2, which includes claims and objections, begins March 1.
An election poster featuring Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben Gvir adorns a concrete Israeli military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. (photo: Heidi Levine / Sipa Press)
A political alignment between Likud Zionism and far-right Religious Zionism could have significant ramifications.
By Jonathan Cook | The Electronic Intifada | Mar 12, 2021
…Netanyahu’s dependence on Religious Zionism maximizing its seat count means he will be committed to doing everything possible to push the “ticket over the threshold” in the final stages of the campaign. — Israeli analyst
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brokered an electoral alliance that is almost certain to bring Israel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan into the Israeli parliament when elections are held later this month.
Netanyahu’s primary aim is to make sure he wins a decisive majority by shoring up the far-right bloc so that he can pass an immunity law to neutralize his current corruption trial.
Enter Otzma Yehudit, or the Jewish Power party.
Otzma Yehudit is strongly influenced by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose virulently anti-Palestinian Kach party was barred from Israeli elections more than 30 years ago.
Protestors are seen on the UCLA campus ahead of the the National Students for Justice in Palestine conference in in Los Angeles, Calif., on November 6, 2018. (photo: Ronen Tivony / NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Right-wing lawyer David Abrams’s lawsuit against UCLA could unleash harassment on attendees of a Students for Justice in Palestine event.
By Alex Kane | The Intercept | Mar 6, 2021
“Canary Mission is well resourced and good at what it’s trying to do, which is ruin the lives of people who speak about Palestine,” — Kanwalroop Singh, speaker at Students for Justice in Palestine conference
Kanwalroop Singh had just finished presenting at the 2018 Students for Justice in Palestine conference at the University of California, Los Angeles when a student journalist asked her for an interview.
Singh, a Sikh American who at the time was a law student at UCLA, agreed. She spoke to a student-run feminist magazine about her workshop on the Palestinian and Kashmiri struggles for justice at the conference, which brought together students from across the country to strategize on how to advance the campus movement for Palestinian human rights.
“I didn’t think about the consequences. I thought, ‘It shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a small feminist magazine,’” said Singh.
Leading technology companies have said NSO Group is ‘powerful and dangerous’ and should be held liable to US anti-hacking laws. (photo: Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Israeli spyware company is facing increased scrutiny which may be part of larger Biden shift emphasizing human rights.
By Daniel Sonnenfeld | The Media Line | Mar 3, 2021
“NSO have simply been caught a few times’ in the surveilling of activists and journalists…” — Prof. Orr Dunkelman, director of The Center for Cyber Law and Policy
The US Department of Justice is showing renewed interest in an Israeli cyber company previously tied to the surveilling of journalists and rights activists around the world, after an FBI investigation began in 2017 was reportedly “stalled” in 2020. Israeli spyware company NSO Group is facing a lawsuit in the US filed by the messaging platform WhatsApp. The renewed efforts are part of the Biden administration agenda to increase its emphasis on human rights and crack down on the Saudis, experts say.
The Guardian reported on Monday that the Justice Department is reviving its examination of NSO Group. The report said that Justice Department lawyers had recently contacted WhatsApp for information regarding NSO Group’s alleged 2019 targeting of 1,400 users of the messaging app, which is at the heart of a lawsuit filed by WhatsApp against the Israeli company.
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