Category: News

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”

The Episcopal Church has completed three days of meetings yielding 4 resolutions  denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as unjust and a matter of moral and political urgency.

By Episcopal Peace Fellowship | July 13, 2022

“the President of the United States, the U.S. Congress, Governors, and State Legislatures to oppose legislation that penalizes or criminalizes support for all nonviolent boycotts, divestment and/or sanctions, especially on behalf of Palestinian human rights, as an infringement of First Amendment rights.”
— Resolution C013

The year-long delayed, and recently streamlined 80th General Convention of The Episcopal Church has completed three days of concentrated action and worship in Baltimore, yielding four reasons to be excited. During that time the Bishops and Deputies adopted an amended version of Resolution C013 on Freedom of Speech and the Right to Boycott. It also adopted an amended version of Resolution C039 entitled Justice and Peace in the Holy Land – Our Call to Action. And, it adopted Resolution D024, Conditioning U.S. Military Assistance on Human Rights.  And the House of Bishops also adopted the enigmatically titled Resolution A216, The Patriarchs and Heads of Local Churches of the Holy Land.

Continue reading “Recapping the 80th General Convention of the Episcopal Church”

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”

Resolutions passed by the International Committee of the Presbyterian General Assembly 2022 bring a call to end Israeli apartheid.

By Scott O’Neill | Presbyterian Church USA | June 28, 2022

“Recognize that the government of Israel’s laws, policies, and practices regarding the Palestinian people fulfill the international legal definition of apartheid.”
— Resolution passed unanimously by the General Assembly

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”

Right-wing Israel lobby interests seek to foment dissent among democratic constituencies.

By Michael F. Brown | The Electronic Intifada  | June 9, 2022

What it actually appears to be is a right-wing Israel lobby effort to promote Black supporters of Israel within the Democratic Party at a time when the party’s base is decisively shifting its support to the Palestinian struggle.

CNN commentator Bakari Sellers is aiming to remove from Congress its one Palestinian American representative.

The longtime Israel supporter is backing a new political action committee that is pouring money into a primary challenge against Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.

Urban Empowerment Action PAC says it will spend “upwards of $1,000,000 on TV, digital, mail, radio and print advertising to support Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey.”

Continue reading “Israel lobby’s Black allies aim to unseat Rashida Tlaib”

38 of the most vulnerable Palestinian communities at increased risk of forced displacement.

By Henriette Chacar| Reuters | June 11, 2022

“They want to take this land from us to build settlements,”
— Wadha Ayoub Abu Sabha, a resident of al-Fakheit, one of a group of hamlets where Palestinian shepherds and farmers claim a historic connection to the land

MASAFER YATTA, West Bank, June 12 (Reuters) – Some 1,200 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank region of Masafer Yatta face the risk of forced removal to make way for an army firing zone after a decades-long legal battle that ended last month in Israel’s highest court.

The ruling opened the way for one of the largest displacements since Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Middle East war. But residents are refusing to leave, hoping their resilience and international pressure will keep Israel from carrying out the evictions.

Continue reading “Largest Palestinian displacement in decades looms after Israeli court ruling”

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”