Author: Kairos Puget Sound Coalition

Interviews with activists involved in challenging the complicity of corporations in the war industry.

By Nora Barrows-Friedman |  The Electronic Intifada Podcast  | Sept 30, 2020

On Episode 24 of The Electronic Intifada Podcast, we speak with several boycott campaigners taking direct action against corporations involved in Israel’s military occupation and settlement industry.

Huda Ammori of Palestine Action tells us about their strategy to end the presence of Israeli arms dealers in the UK.

“The weapons that are being made to use against [Palestinians] are being made in front of you, and we have an ability to stop it,” she says.

And we speak to Dalit Baum and Noam Perry of the American Friends Service Committee in the US about the new No Dough for the Occupation campaign targeting baked goods company Pillsbury and its parent corporation General Mills.

Continue reading “Podcast: Stopping Israel’s arms industry”

Israel’s detention and prosecution of children in military courts is a human rights issue and the stakes are even higher during a pandemic.

By No Way to Treat a Child  |  Oct 2, 2020

‘Israeli authorities have exhibited near-complete disregard for Palestinian child detainees’ health and well-being amidst the COVID-19 pandemic,’
— Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at DCIP

Ramallah, September 30, 2020—A 14-year-old Palestinian boy detained by Israeli forces from the occupied West Bank in mid-September tested positive for COVID-19 after spending two days in Israeli custody.

Israeli forces detained the 14-year old Palestinian boy* around noon on September 15 in the Bab al-Zawya area of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron. He was transferred to an Israeli police station in Kiryat Arba, an illegal settlement in the southernmost West Bank governorate of Hebron. After he was interrogated and accused of stone-throwing, Israeli authorities transferred him to Etzion detention center around 8 p.m.

Continue reading “Second Palestinian child in Israeli custody tests positive for COVID-19”

Experts warn that Israel’s failure to conduct Arabic outreach and include Arab professionals has made it harder to stem the spread of the virus in Palestinian towns:

By Makbula Nassar | +972 Magazine |  Sept 21, 2020

‘Not only is there no spokesperson for Arab communities [during the second wave], but Palestinian experts are excluded from decision-making around stemming the spread of the virus, and there is no serious consultation with Arab medics,’
— Faten Ghattas, public health expert

Israel entered a weeks-long lockdown on Friday to stem a second wave of the coronavirus. As is in other parts of the world, statistics are showing that minority communities, in this case Palestinians, are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

It is a cliche, and an inaccurate one, to say that the coronavirus does not distinguish between Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Even the struggle shared by Jewish and Palestinian medical workers in hospitals and clinics is not proof that we are all in the same boat. If anything, the Arab community is on a boat that is floating to a particularly dark place.

In mere weeks of the second wave gripping the country, Palestinian citizens went from constituting 10 percent of patients who tested positive to the virus, to 30 percent — and the curve is rising sharply. The English Hospital in Nazareth, which has traditionally treated mostly Palestinian citizens, has had to open another coronavirus clinic.

Continue reading “‘A glimpse into the chaos’: How Israel’s COVID-19 policy neglects Palestinian citizens”

Instead of putting anti-racist education in the hands of the pro-Israel lobby, the California Department of Education should recommit to a true ethnic studies curriculum.

By Jody Sokolower |  Mondoweiss  |  Sept 29, 2020

There’s only one problem. Education to End Hate rests on the false premise that any criticism of Israel or Zionism, any effort to examine Palestinian history or current realities in the region is inherently antisemitic

Last week, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced a new initiative, “Education to End Hate.” “Our country is facing two pandemics: coronavirus and hate,” he said. “It’s time to double down on our efforts to combat all forms of hate, bias and bigotry.” He contrasted his new initiative with President Trump’s attacks on the 1619 Project Curriculum, classroom materials developed by the New York Times that investigate how slavery has shaped America. As a result, Thurmond got great press for standing up for anti-racist, anti-bias education.

Continue reading “Promoting Zionism is not ‘education to end hate’”

Friends at a Gaza City funeral in 2006 comfort a father whose 10-year-old son was killed by an Israeli missile in “Operation Summer Rains.” (photo: courtesy Gary Fields)

Should there be an exception to international humanitarian law made for the perpetual violation of their human rights as Palestinians are experiencing?

By Gregory DeSylva  | Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  |  October 2020

IHL [international humanitarian law] puts Gaza in a cruel catch-22 predicament. If it uses its projectiles in violation of IHL it can expect continued condemnation and the negative impacts it has on the Palestinian cause. If it forgoes them, it is likely to remain interminably under Israel’s knee.

The rockets and mortars that Hamas and other Gaza militant groups fire into Israel are almost universally condemned. Most U.S. politicians blame these projectiles for the Israel-Gaza conflicts, and the U.N. and EU have condemned them. In 2014, President Barack Obama legitimized Israel’s “Protective Edge” assault on Gaza, stating, “As I’ve said repeatedly, Israel has a right to defend itself from rocket attacks that terrorize the Israeli people.” In November 2019, presidential candidate Joe Biden followed suit: ”Israel has a right to defend itself against terrorist threats. It is intolerable that Israeli citizens live their lives under the constant fear of rocket attacks.”

Rockets are a significant reason for Gaza’s continuing split with the West Bank: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has denounced them as “counterproductive,” accomplishing little and provoking Israeli retaliation endangering Gaza civilians.

Continue reading “Gaza’s Rockets: Weapons of Terror or Liberation?”

(photo: Travel 2 Palestine – CC BY 2.0)

A Palestinian youth project aims to liberate the Palestinian discourse from just numbers to stories and legacies that are not being told.

By Ramzy Baroud | CounterPunch  | Sept 25, 2020

‘There’s really no such thing as the ‘voiceless’. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.’
— Arundhati Roy quote

Palestine can never be truly understood through numbers, because numbers are dehumanizing, impersonal, and, when necessary, can also be contrived to mean something else entirely. Numbers are not meant to tell the story of the human condition, nor should they ever serve as a substitute for emotions.

Indeed, the stories of life, death – and everything in-between – cannot be truly and fully appreciated through charts, figures and numbers. The latter, although useful for many purposes, is a mere numerical depository of data. Anguish, joy, aspirations, defiance, courage, loss, collective struggle, and so on, however, can only be genuinely expressed through the people who lived through these experiences.

Continue reading “Palestinians are not numbers: On the future of the Palestinian discourse”

A BBC News Arabic investigation follows the money.

Link to the video here →

Produced by Rosie Garthwaite, Uri Blau and Simon Cox | BBC |  Sept 21, 2020

An investigation by BBC News Arabic has found that Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, controls companies that have donated $100m to an Israeli settler organisation.

Elad operates in occupied East Jerusalem. By allowing settlement activity in the area Israel is considered to be in breach of international law. Israel disputes this view.

Analysis of bank documents has revealed that Chelsea football club’s owner, Abramovich, is the biggest single donor to the organisation. The bank documents – known the FinCEN Files – were leaked to BuzzFeed News, then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the BBC.

Continue reading “Israeli settlers’ Chelsea boss backer”