Author: Kairos Puget Sound Coalition

President Trump’s hawkish support of Israel has led many Democrats to question the United States’ relationship with one of its closest allies.

By Giovanni Russonello  |  New York Times | Nov 1, 2019

… a Pew survey conducted in April found that Jewish Americans were far more likely than Christians to say that Mr. Trump was ‘favoring the Israelis too much.’

Free tuition to public colleges? Just a few years ago it seemed unthinkable, but now it’s a popular proposal embraced by some leading Democratic presidential candidates.

Medicare for all? Same thing.

But what about foreign policy? Are Democratic voters moving to the left on world affairs, too?

There is at least one area in which the answer seems to be yes: the United States’ once-unquestionable loyalty to Israel.

Continue reading “Criticize Israel? For Democratic voters, it’s now fair game”

Israel’s approach to international law can be summed up as ‘If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it’.

By Ben White  |  Middle East Eye  |  Nov 5, 2019

…Israel has been working hard to develop, and promote, interpretations of international law that provide cover for its policies and tactics in the Gaza Strip.

Since removing settlers and redeploying its armed forces to the perimeter fence in 2005, Israel has subjected Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to numerous devastating assaults, a blockade, and routine attacks on the likes of farmers and fishermen.

Many of these policies have been the subject of substantial condemnation – from Palestinians, of course, as well as Israeli and international human rights groups, and even world leaders and politicians – albeit, critically, with little concrete action at the state level.

Israel, however, has sought to thwart even the possibility of meaningful accountability. Its approach has been very simple: in the face of criticism for breaking the law, change the law.

Continue reading “How Israel redefines international law as a cover for its Gaza crimes”

 

A look at the role of the Israeli military in collective punishment of a group of people.

By  Jonathan Ofir |  Mondoweiss  | Nov 12, 2019

Terrorization has been a consistent means of the Israeli state and army vis-à-vis Palestinians.

After the 2008-9 Israeli onslaught on Gaza that took 1500 lives, a UN fact-finding mission concluded that the three-week campaign was “a deliberately disproportionate attack, designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population.” Note the word “terrorize.”

But was this an isolated incident? Not at all. Israel has a long and sordid history of state-terrorist activity. There was the pre-state terror, which eventually served as a means of ethnic cleansing, known as the Nakba of 1948. Those Palestinians who tried to return were shot by the thousands, most of them unarmed.

Continue reading “When a whole society supports a terrorist organization”

Painting BDS as anti-Semitic is primarily a tactic to legitimize the occupation.

By Barry Trachtenberg  |  The Electronic Intifada |  Oct 30, 2019

In the United States, anxiety over BDS is just as palpable and extends to any perceived slight against the Jewish people.

The Czech parliament’s decision to pass a resolution condemning the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement as anti-Semitic last week is only the most recent example of how the panic over BDS has reached a fever pitch.

This latest round of attempts to stop public criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians began in Britain in May. Jeremy Hunt, at the time foreign secretary and running for the leadership of the Conservative Party, attacked supporters of BDS by declaring that “boycotting Israel – the world’s only Jewish state – is anti-Semitic.”

Continue reading “Panic over BDS reaches fever pitch”

Responding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s intent to extend Israeli sovereignty over large parts of the West Bank, the Progressive Israel Network released their opposition to annexation.

International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) | Nov 11, 2019

‘It’s vital for Israeli leaders to recognize that whatever the dangerous and deluded policies of the Trump administration, the vast majority of Americans and American Jews are strongly opposed to annexation,’
— Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of Progressive Israel Network

A coalition of American Jewish groups has sent a letter to leaders of Israel’s political parties, warning them against full or even partial annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The letter, written by the Progressive Israel Network, asks Israeli politicians to oppose the annexation plan being pursued by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even if US President Donald Trump gives it a green light.

Continue reading “US Jewish organizations warn against West Bank annexation”

The conditions in Gaza are leaving a trail and legacy of trauma and mental health issues for those able to leave.

By Salsabeel H. Hamdan |  +972  |  Nov 5, 2019

‘I have developed a strange belief that things might go wrong. I am afraid that I will be questioned or stopped. I am seriously unable to believe that I have the right to move.’
— Ahmed Almassri, 25, studying in Australia

For a Palestinian, Gaza is a place from which escape is nearly impossible. Israel has, for the past 13 years, denied all but a tiny number of applicants the right to travel outside the congested, blockaded strip of land that is often described as the world’s largest open-air prison. For those fortunate few who manage to attain a permit to depart, the extreme shock of life outside Gaza is almost unbearable. Freedom is painful: it triggers the release of long-suppressed emotions, and the realization that a lifetime of unending psychological trauma has rendered them unable to normalize the understanding that their lives can be free of fear, scarcity, and helplessness.

Continue reading “The unbearable heaviness of finding freedom outside Gaza”