Author: Kairos Puget Sound Coalition

Strategizing for solidarity and effectiveness within the universal human rights/justice movements.

By Alice Rothchild | American Friends Service Committee | Sept 13, 2019

We need a collective liberation, which also means, by the way, no POOPS (Progressive Only On Palestine).

The American Friends Service Committee conference in DC, September 7-8, Preparing for 2020: Advocating for Rights, Justice, and Freedom, was an excellent antidote to the stormy and frightening times in which we live. It is a measure of our failure to be more outraged than we already are that Netanyahu’s pledge to annex much of the West Bank to Israel (as if there was not already one apartheid state) barely caused a flutter of protest. Between Trump and Netanyahu we are all suffering from shock fatigue and a good dose of gloom about the future of the planet. I lie awake at night wondering, will it be forest fires, drought, floods, and wars over water, or maybe an old fashioned nuclear war that will finish us off. For folks with children and grandchildren, this is not a theoretical concern.

Continue reading “Preparing for 2020: Advocating for justice for Palestine and beyond”

Six trends underlined by the Knesset elections will determine the future of Israel.

By Marwan Bishara | Al Jazeera |  Sept 19, 2019

…the Israeli vote confirms some larger trends that will shape the future of Israel/Palestine more than any one particular leader.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spell may have finally worn out. He tried every trick in the book to win Tuesday’s Knesset elections but failed to secure enough seats to form a government.

For months, the incumbent premier lied to his constituency, ridiculed his competitors, flouted electoral rules, demonised the Palestinian minority in Israel, bombed several neighbouring countries, announced new illegal settlements, vowed to annex a third of the occupied West Bank, and trotted around like a superhero with US and Russian leaders.

All to no avail.

Continue reading “Israel after Netanyahu?”

The progressive American Jewish community may feel relieved if Netanyahu loses, but solutions to Palestinian human rights may be still hard to find.

By Abe Silberstein | The Forward | Sept 18, 2019

If this is indeed the end of the Netanyahu era, the resilience of progressive American Jews will be tested in the coming months and years.

Tuesday was election day in Israel. But no winner has yet been declared. As of this writing, it appears that the parties committed to supporting Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister will not win a majority in Knesset. At the same time, the opposition parties ostensibly committed to ousting him will also fall short of a majority.

It’s too early to predict exactly how this stalemate will end. But for the liberal majority of American Jews anxiously watching the election results, uncertainty was one of the better possible outcomes. Every Israeli election since 2009 ended with a more or less convincing victory for Netanyahu, victories which, in both 2015 and April 2019 immediately followed incendiary promises to upend the possibility of a two-state solution. For the American Jewish community, which is by and large committed to a just end to the conflict via two states for two peoples, this was a devastating set of affairs.

Continue reading “Who won the Israeli election? American Jews”

Educational institutions continue to use academic freedom arguments in opposition to BDS when money may be the more honest answer.

By David Klein | International Middle East Media Center | Sept 12, 2019

‘Academic boycotts subvert the academic freedoms and values necessary to the free flow of ideas, which is the lifeblood of the worldwide community of scholars.’
— Drew Faust, past president of Harvard University

Days of Palestine, September 11th, 2019

If there is one thing which unites American university presidents, it is opposition to the academic boycott of Israel.

The leaders of more than 250 universities have posted letters or made public statements denouncing the boycott. The provost and president of Johns Hopkins proclaimed, in a joint statement: “To curtail the freedom of institutions to participate in the exchange of ideas because of the policies of the government of the country where they reside is to strike at the very mission of our university.” Harvard’s president wrote, “Academic boycotts subvert the academic freedoms and values necessary to the free flow of ideas, which is the lifeblood of the worldwide community of scholars.” The president of California State University Northridge, where I teach, echoed the Chancellor of the 23 campus California State University system when she wrote, “The boycott tarnishes the gold standard of academic review and undermines academic freedom — the very heart of the academic enterprise.”

Continue reading “Boycotts, Benjamins and America’s university leaders”

Israel’s leading technology and surveillance systems are being brought to U.S. borderlands for enforcement and control that may go far beyond border security.

By Will Parrish |  The Intercept |  Aug 25, 2019

‘…technologies that are sold for one purpose, such as protecting the border or stopping terrorists…often get repurposed for other reasons, such as targeting protesters.’
— Jay Stanley, ACLU

ON THE SOUTHWESTERN END of the Tohono O’odham Nation’s reservation, roughly 1 mile from a barbed-wire barricade marking Arizona’s border with the Mexican state of Sonora, Ofelia Rivas leads me to the base of a hill overlooking her home. A U.S. Border Patrol truck is parked roughly 200 yards upslope. A small black mast mounted with cameras and sensors is positioned on a trailer hitched to the truck. For Rivas, the Border Patrol’s monitoring of the reservation has been a grim aspect of everyday life. And that surveillance is about to become far more intrusive.

The vehicle is parked where U.S. Customs and Border Protection will soon construct a 160-foot surveillance tower capable of continuously monitoring every person and vehicle within a radius of up to 7.5 miles. The tower will be outfitted with high-definition cameras with night vision, thermal sensors, and ground-sweeping radar, all of which will feed real-time data to Border Patrol agents at a central operating station in Ajo, Arizona. The system will store an archive with the ability to rewind and track individuals’ movements across time — an ability known as “wide-area persistent surveillance.”

Continue reading “The U.S. Border Patrol and an Israeli military contractor are putting a Native American reservation under ‘persistent surveillance’”

Is there a double standard?  Rep. Mo Brooks has received virtually no national media attention for saying Muslims increasingly control the Democratic Party.

By Mehdi Hasan |  The Intercept  |  Aug 28, 2019

‘Keep in mind: Muslims more so than most people have great animosity toward Israel and the Jewish faith.’
— Rep. Mo Brooks

“IT’S ALL ABOUT the Benjamins, baby.”

That is, of course, what Rep. Ilhan Omar famously tweeted on February 10, in response to a tweet from my colleague Glenn Greenwald decrying “how much time U.S. political leaders spend defending a foreign nation” — namely, the state of Israel. Then, when a journalist followed up by asking Omar who she believed was “paying American politicians to be pro-Israel,” the congresswoman tweeted: “AIPAC!”

The freshman Democrat from Minnesota “unequivocally” apologized the very next day, saying that she was grateful to Jewish allies and colleagues who were educating her “on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes” and insisting that she never intended to “offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.”

Continue reading “When Ilhan Omar is accused of Anti-Semitism, it’s news. When a Republican smears Muslims, there’s silence.”

International students facing increased scrutiny creating fear and distrust as they arrive in the U.S. for college.

By Michael Arria |  Mondoweiss | Aug 27, 2019

Ajjawi claims that he’s never made political posts on social media, but was questioned about the political posts of his friends.

A 17-year old Palestinian set to begin classes at Harvard University was denied entry into the United States, had his visa revoked, and was deported after he was allegedly questioned by immigration officers for hours.

Ismail B. Ajjawi, a resident of Lebanon, arrived at Boston’s Logan International Airport on August 23. According to a written statement he released, Ajjawi was interrogated at the airport for hours. Other international students were also questioned, but they were allowed to leave after a certain period of time while Ajjawi was repeatedly questioned about his religion. He was also forced to hand over his laptop and phone so they could be searched. Ajjawi claims that he’s never made political posts on social media, but was questioned about the political posts of his friends.

Continue reading “Palestinian set to begin classes at Harvard is questioned about his religion and friends’ political posts, then deported”

A look into links between criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, a growing hatred of Jews and the public explosion of white supremacy.

By Alice Rothchild  |  Mondoweiss  | Aug 25, 2019

The underlying racism that allowed European Jewish trauma, aspirations, and history to be privileged at the expense of the indigenous population in Palestine was rarely acknowledged, or else justified in the name of Jewish survival.

The epithet of anti-Semitism is being hurled fairly loosely these days whether it be Trump’s characterization of Congresswomen Omar and Tlaib’s policies or the State Department’s expansive definition of anti-Semitism as criticism of Israel or comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany (a comparison that has been made by a number of Israeli thinkers), or the local and national efforts to label the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement of Israel inherently anti-Semitic.

So how can we calmly and thoughtfully think about this swirling controversy? Most people recognize classic anti-Semitism, the Christianity’s Jews-killed-Christ, Shakespeare’s Shylock, Nazi-graffiti-scrawled-on-a- synagogue types. Most people, (except those in the growing white supremacist, neo-Nazi movements), agree that these acts and beliefs are horrific and dangerous to a democratic society that aspires to tolerance and respect for minorities, whether it be the 7 million Jews, 3 ½ million Muslims, or 11 million Mexican immigrants among us, for starters.

Continue reading “Anti-Semitism and white supremacy”