Author: Kairos Puget Sound Coalition

Dr. Rothchild highlights the need to acknowledge the Palestinian right to health in its broadest definition.

By Alice Rothchild | The Palestine Chronicle  | July 26, 2022

This right to health is endangered when the dominant power is able to weaponize unsubstantiated security risks and labels of terrorism to shut down civil society organizations…

There is a growing consensus that the behaviors of the Israeli government fulfill the definition of an apartheid regime. There is also a growing consensus that Palestinians who are Israeli citizens or stateless in the occupied Palestinian territories or refugee camps lack civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights as a manifestation of the settler colonialism that characterizes the Israeli state.  These structural issues, grounded in the colonialism and racism of the early 20^th century British Empire and Zionist ideology, are distinctly threatening to Palestinian human rights and their right to health.

This right to health is endangered when the dominant power is able to weaponize unsubstantiated security risks and labels of terrorism to shut down civil society organizations, especially when this framing is accepted and unchallenged by external actors. The false October 2021 designation of six prominent Palestinian human rights and civil society groups as “terrorist” organizations with militant links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, using “secret evidence” collected by the Israeli Ministry of Defense, is a manifestation of that settler colonial violence on a national scale.

Continue reading “Constricting Palestinian human rights and the right to health: Israeli apartheid policies”

 Targeting the financial resources of the settler-colonial movement.

By Sami Huraini | The Electronic Intifada | Jul 26, 2022

As Palestinians confront a matrix of Israeli violence – bullets, batons and prison – we are calling on solidarity activists to connect awareness-raising efforts with activities that can cut off the financial resources of the Israeli settler movement.

The pending erasure of the Indigenous people of Masafer Yatta isn’t solely about the “occupation,” as liberal Zionists would lead you to believe.

Palestinians are fighting much more than an “occupation.” We are fighting Israel’s program of settler-colonialism.

We are fighting against efforts to eliminate us.

Deep down, every Palestinian knows it’s not solely about the “occupation.”

Continue reading “Taking on the “charities” that fund Israel’s settlers”

The president of the Ben & Jerry’s Foundation speaks about the impact of visits to the occupied territories.

By Alex Kane | Jewish Currents | Jul 26, 2022

“We believe it is inconsistent with our values for our product to be present within an internationally recognized illegal occupation.”
— Jeff Furman, Ben & Jerry’s 

About four decades ago, Ben & Jerry’s board member Jeff Furman, who helped draft the initial business plan for the ice cream company, assisted in expanding operations into Israel. But in 2012, Furman went on his first trip to occupied Palestine, which opened his eyes to Israel’s human rights abuses. In subsequent years, Furman brought Ben & Jerry’s employees and board members to the region to educate them on the human rights situation in Israel/Palestine. Last year, the company decided to end its agreement with its Israeli licensee in order to halt the sales of its ice cream to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. “We’re a values-led company with a long history of advocating for human rights, and economic and social justice,” the company said in an FAQ explaining its boycott of Israeli settlements. “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for our product to be present within an internationally recognized illegal occupation.”

Continue reading “Ben & Jerry’s path to boycotting Israeli settlements”

By Alice Speri | The Intercept | Jul 13, 2022

…while the U.S. government rejected the results of the Israeli investigation, it did nothing to ensure that such a killing would not happen again. So it did.

Nearly two decades before Israeli forces killed Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, shooting a single bullet into her head while she was reporting from the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, an Israeli soldier drove a bulldozer over American peace activist Rachel Corrie, crushing her to death.

Both killings left little real doubt about the dynamics at play. Abu Akleh was standing with a group of colleagues, wearing a vest clearly marked “PRESS,” nowhere near the fighting that had taken place earlier that morning. Corrie was nonviolently protesting the demolition of a Palestinian family’s home in Gaza. She was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket with reflective stripes and had been on the scene for several hours, at times speaking into a megaphone.

Continue reading “No path to justice”

Biden’s promises are coming up short.

By Marjorie Cohn | TruthOut | July 16, 2022

Pledging to “stand with the Jewish and democratic State of Israel,” Biden ignored the exclusion of the Palestinian people from Israel’s “democracy,” which extends only to Jewish people.

President Joe Biden’s much-heralded visit to Jerusalem has confirmed that the United States remains Israel’s enabler-in-chief. Biden promised to continue providing Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid (more than the U.S. gives any other country) to maintain the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.

Pledging to “stand with the Jewish and democratic State of Israel,” Biden ignored the exclusion of the Palestinian people from Israel’s “democracy,” which extends only to Jewish people. Palestinians do not enjoy the same democratic rights as Jews. As Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem recently affirmed, Israel is an apartheid state.

Continue reading “Palestinians face forced expulsions as Biden pledges allegiance to Israel”

Some thoughts on the diverse opinions and legitimate differences among Christians.

By Jonathan Kuttab | Friends of Sabeel North American (FOSNA) | July 6, 2022

As the country is seemingly ripped apart by so-called “culture wars,” Christians do not appear to be shining examples of peace, virtue, love, or tolerance, much less of caring for the poor, the needy, and the marginalized.

When I was growing up, politics was deemed a dirty word. Christians, I was taught, should stay out of politics. After all, it was Jesus who said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” As Christians, we should concentrate on spiritual matters, on the saving of souls, and steer clear of such worldly matters.

Yet, I quickly learnt that inaction was not an option and that failure to participate in the political process was merely to support the status quo, however unjust it might be. I came to discover that politics always impacts our lives, even if we try to avoid it. For instance, our very presence as Christian Palestinians in the Holy Land was a contested political fact with serious, existential consequences, and it remained so even if we were not politically active.

Continue reading “Christians in Politics”

Time to rethink positions that have led to a stalemate that’s going nowhere.

By Jonathan Kuttab | Mondoweiss | June 29, 2022

Hamas has become a convenient excuse for indefinite occupation.

Many of us are concerned about the failure of the world to address the siege of Gaza, which has gone on for 15 years and kept two million Palestinians trapped in an unlivable open-air prison. The real elephant in the room, however, and the justification used for failing to lift that siege is the fact that the Gaza Strip is currently ruled by Hamas—considered an illegitimate terrorist organization, hell-bent on the destruction of Israel and, as such, not a potential candidate for negotiations or peace.

The existence of Hamas is also the lame excuse given for the paralysis of peace talks. Since the Palestinians are divided and Mahmoud Abbas cannot (and is not allowed to) talk either with or for Hamas, it is said that there exists “no one to talk to” on the Palestinian side. Hamas has become a convenient excuse for indefinite occupation.

Continue reading “Is it time to talk to Hamas?”

Jonathan Cook on the utter absurdity, tribalism and outright hypocrisy prevalent in media coverage of Palestine and Ukraine.

By Jonathan Cook | MintPress News | June 10, 2022

When tribalism relates to more trivial matters, such as supporting a sports team, it mostly manifests in less dangerous forms, such as boorish or aggressive behavior. But if it relates to an ethnic or national group, it encourages a host of more dangerous behaviors: jingoism, racism, discrimination, segregation and warmongering.

Nothing should better qualify me to write about world affairs at the moment – and Western meddling in Ukraine – than the fact that I have intimately followed the twists and turns of Israeli politics for two decades.

We will turn to the wider picture in a moment. But before that, let us consider developments in Israel, as its “historic,” year-old government – which included for the very first time a party representing a section of Israel’s minority of Palestinian citizens – teeters on the brink of collapse.

Crisis struck, as everyone knew it would sooner or later, because the Israeli parliament had to vote on a major issue relating to the occupation: renewing a temporary law that for decades has regularly extended Israel’s legal system outside its territory, applying it to Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Continue reading “Forget liberating Ukraine – We first need to liberate our minds”

A settler smashed an activist’s car and returned safely to his outpost, after soldiers violently dispersed a protest against Palestinian expulsion.

By Oren Ziv | +972 Magazine | June 13, 2022

“I refuse to believe in the idea of Jewish safety depending on the ongoing displacement and dispossession of Palestinians,”
— Rabbi Salem Pearce, member of Center For Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV) 

On Friday, I saw with my own eyes how settler violence works and how the army and police stand aside, do nothing to prevent it, and do not arrest the violent settlers.

I saw a settler throw stones and smash the window of a car with left-wing activists inside while his friends blocked the activists from driving away; I saw soldiers watch the incident play out without doing anything; I saw the military’s brigade commander of the area arrive at the scene a few seconds after the attack and start chatting amicably with the driver who blocked the activists from leaving, while the attacker slowly retreated back toward the nearby outpost without anyone attempting to stop him; and I read how the Israeli army’s spokesperson described the violent event which took place before my eyes as “friction between settlers, activists, and Palestinians.”

Continue reading “Army stands by as settlers attack activists in Masafer Yatta”