Category: News

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”

The Episcopal Church recently passed four resolutions that will empower the church to act on behalf of Palestinians.

By Ruth McCree | Mondoweiss | July 20, 2022

In calling for human and equal civil rights for Palestinians, the Episcopal Church joins many other denominations in denouncing Israel’s continuing dispossession and discrimination against the Palestinian people.

After 20 years advocating for Palestinian human rights within our denomination, I am encouraged and happy to see that our General Convention in Baltimore earlier this month my church, the Episcopal Church in the US, passed four resolutions that will empower the church to act on behalf of Palestinians.

Briefly, these call for the following:

Continue reading “Inching toward the tipping point in the Episcopal Church”

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”

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”