Category: News

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South Africa must stand up to Israeli apartheid

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The separation wall in the West Bank. (photo: Reuters)

A generation after South Africans won their freedom, Palestinians remain in bondage.

By Ali Abunimah | Mail & Guardian | Mar 14, 2018

Inspired by South Africa’s freedom struggle, BDS aims to mobilize people all over the world to do what governments won’t — apply pressure on Israel until it respects all the rights of the Palestinian people.

A year ago, the UN published a landmark report on Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people. It found “beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crimes of apartheid.”

This was no rash conclusion, but one the authors reached after meticulous analysis of the evidence and law — especially the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.

Palestinians hailed the report as a milestone in their struggle to see Israel held accountable for its brutal, decades long denial of their rights. But Israel’s powerful patrons had other plans. Immediately, the US government, Israel’s biggest arms supplier, began to threaten the United Nations.

Continue reading “South Africa must stand up to Israeli apartheid”

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Knesset bars Israeli lawmaker from overseas trip sponsored by JVP

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Israeli Lawmaker Youseff Jabareen (right) in the Knesset, 2016. (photo: Olivier Fitoussi / Haaretz)

Yousef Jabareen of the Arab Joint List requested to fly abroad for a series of lectures funded by Jewish Voice for Peace, but was refused.

By Jonathan Lis | Haaretz | Mar 14, 2018

“The committee’s decision constitutes a harsh blow to my freedom of political activity as an elected official. Without funding from the group extending the invitation, I will of course not be able to travel, due to the large travel expense and the round of lectures that is planned. This is activity that is a fundamental and integral part of my role as an opposition Knesset member.”
— Yousef Jabareen, Israeli Knesset member

For the first time, the Knesset Ethics Committee has decided to bar an MK [Member of the Knesset] from traveling abroad on a trip subsidized by an organization that supports a boycott of Israel.

Knesset member Yousef Jabareen of the predominantly Arab Joint List party was informed on Tuesday by committee chairman Yitzhak Vaknin (Shas) that the committee had decided to refuse his request to fly abroad for a series of lectures in April to be funded by Jewish Voice for Peace. The group appears on a Strategic Affairs Ministry list of groups supporting BDS, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

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How Stephen Hawking supported the Palestinian cause

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Stephen Hawking. (photo: Getty Images / CNBC)

The late renowned scientist will be remembered not only for his work, but his support for Palestine.

By Al Jazeera | Mar 14, 2018

“I accepted the invitation to the Presidential Conference with the intention that this would not only allow me to express my opinion on the prospects for a peace settlement but also because it would allow me to lecture on the West Bank. However, I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this, I must withdraw from the conference. Had I attended, I would have stated my opinion that the policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”
— Stephen Hawking, May 3, 2013

Stephen Hawking, the world-renowned scientist who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 76, was known not only for his groundbreaking work but also for his support for Palestine.

Hawking, who had motor-neuron disease, made headlines in May 2013 when he decided to boycott a high-profile conference in Israel where he was scheduled to speak. The physicist was working at the Cambridge University in the UK at the time.

The Presidential Conference, an academic event held in Jerusalem, was being hosted by the late Israeli President Shimon Peres. In a letter Hawking sent to the organizers on May 3, he said the “policy of the present Israeli government is likely to lead to disaster.”

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New program sends Palestinian students to Ivy League schools

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Nora Marzouqa, 17, chose to attend Harvard University for its research opportunities in medicine. (photo: Taawon)

The initiative, called Bridge Palestine, is the first of its kind in the country, providing after-school classes designed to train high-potential students to compete for education abroad.

By Zena Tahhan | Al Jazeera | Mar 14, 2018

“We teach them how to write good essays, how to succeed in interviews, how to be good citizens, the basic skills of dialogue, how to be rationally and not emotionally driven, what types of questions they should ask, how to have an open mind and be open to diversity.”
— Tafeeda Jarbawi, director-general of Taawon

Nora Marzouqa, a 17-year-old Palestinian from Bethlehem, has wanted to study at Harvard University for as long as she can remember. But the aspiring doctor and skilled debater grew up believing her dream was out of reach.

“I’ve seen my family members try to study abroad but they couldn’t for financial reasons, and also because we have to do the Tawjihi [Palestinian matriculation exam] and most universities abroad don’t recognize these test scores,” she tells Al Jazeera.

“It just seemed impossible for me — I didn’t know what the process was or how to go about doing it.”

Continue reading “New program sends Palestinian students to Ivy League schools”

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The Last Temptation

 

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How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory.

By Michael Gerson | The Atlantic | April 2018

[Evangelicals have] become one interest group among many, scrambling for benefits at the expense of others rather than seeking the welfare of the whole. Christianity is love of neighbor, or it has lost its way. And this sets an urgent task for evangelicals: to rescue their faith from its worst leaders.

Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and leadership. Trump’s past political stances (he once supported the right to partial-birth abortion), his character (he has bragged about sexually assaulting women), and even his language (he introduced the words “pussy” and “shithole” into presidential discourse) would more naturally lead religious conservatives toward exorcism than alliance. This is a man who has cruelly publicized his infidelities, made disturbing sexual comments about his elder daughter, and boasted about the size of his penis on the debate stage. His lawyer reportedly arranged a $130,000 payment to a porn star to dissuade her from disclosing an alleged affair. Yet religious conservatives who once blanched at PG-13 public standards now yawn at such NC-17 maneuvers. We are a long way from The Book of Virtues.

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Israel urges Irish bank to close account of NGO supporting BDS

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A London branch of the Allied Irish Bank (photo: International Business Times)

The move is part of a growing effort by Israel to force closure of bank accounts of organizations supporting BDS.

By Benjamin Weinthal | The Jerusalem Post | Mar 9, 2018

“I call on Allied Irish Banks to join the many institutions, leaders and citizens who are uniting to reject the discriminatory and antisemitic boycott movement against Israel, including by disassociating itself from any BDS-linked accounts.”
— Gilad Erdan, Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister

The Israeli government is pushing for the closure of scores of accounts provided by the Dublin-based Allied Irish Banks that fund the promotion of anti-Israel boycotts.

AIB, one of the Big Four commercial banks in Ireland, hosts Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign accounts, an organization based in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland that wages an aggressive BDS campaign targeting the Jewish state.

In January, the Israeli government included the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in a list of 20 BDS organizations whose representatives are not permitted to enter the Jewish state.

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Even in peace, the occupation will never end

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Mar 7, 2018. (photo: Jose Luis Magana / AP)

Netanyahu envisions a future of permanent military occupation of the West Bank.

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man | +972 Magazine | Mar 8, 2018

“I don’t want the Palestinians as citizens of Israel and I don’t want them as subjects of Israel. So I want a solution where they have all the powers they need to govern themselves but none of the powers that would threaten us. What that means is that whatever the solution is, the area west of the Jordan — that includes the Palestinian areas — would be militarily under Israel.”
— Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

He’s said it countless times before in myriad ways. But he usually only says it in Hebrew. This week, however, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said in English, and on camera, that under his leadership Israel will never end the occupation of Palestine.

Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington earlier this week, Netanyahu dodged a question about whether he supports a one- or two-state solution, and outlined a vision that sounds a lot like an entrenched and enhanced version of the occupation as it exists today.

Continue reading “Even in peace, the occupation will never end”

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Washington court dismisses lawsuit over boycott of Israeli products

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(photo: Olympia Food Co-op)

The 7-year lawsuit is part of a growing effort to suppress the BDS movement.

By Press Release | Center for Constitutional Rights | Mar 9, 2018

“Taking a stand for economic and social justice is at the heart of the co-op’s mission. Given Israel’s ongoing violations of Palestinian human rights, we would have failed in this mission had we not approved a boycott.”
— Grace Cox, former Olympic Food Co-op board member and defendant in the lawsuit

Today, a Washington State court ended a seven-year litigation battle against former volunteer board members of the Olympia Food Co-op over their decision to boycott Israeli goods. The lawsuit was first filed in 2011 by five co-op members seeking to block the co-op’s boycott and to collect monetary damages against the board members. Two of the five members pulled out of the case, and none of the defendants originally named in the case remains a board member of the co-op. The court granted the motion for summary judgment from the former board members, who were represented by Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel, finding the plaintiffs had no standing to bring a case because they failed to show the co-op was injured.

“We are pleased that the court has dismissed this meritless lawsuit. It is a relief and a vindication for our clients, and a victory for everyone who supports the right to boycott,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Deputy Legal Director Maria LaHood, who argued today.

Lawyers say the lawsuit is part of a broad and growing pattern of suppressing activism in support of Palestinian rights, a phenomenon that CCR and Palestine Legal have documented and called the “Palestine Exception” to free speech. CCR and Palestine Legal report the widespread use of administrative disciplinary actions, harassment, firings, legislative attacks, false accusations of terrorism and antisemitism, and baseless legal complaints. Between 2014 and 2016, Palestine Legal responded to 650 such incidents of suppression targeting speech supportive of Palestinian rights.

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Chuck Schumer needs a history lesson on Israel — and on a changing America

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Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaking at the AIPAC Strategy Conference in Washington, DC. (photo: Getty Images)

Young Americans, including young American Jews, are more critical of Israel than their elders. But it’s not because they’re ignorant of history — it’s because they’re less enthralled by myth.

By Peter Beinhart | Forward | Mar 7, 2018

The real problem confronting Schumer isn’t that young Americans are ignorant. It’s that more and more of them are knowledgeable enough to realize that Israeli policy in both the West Bank and Gaza massively violates Palestinian human rights. And to wonder why a Democrat like Chuck Schumer is supporting policies so antithetical to the progressive principles he claims to hold dear.

Chuck Schumer is worried about young people. In his speech on Monday at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, he warned that “too many of the younger Americans don’t know the history” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “and as a result they tend to say, well, both sides are to blame.” And so — after a joke about a Mrs. Goldfarb who is sentenced to one night in jail for each of the four peaches she stole, and whose husband yells to the judge, “She stole a can of peas, too” (relevance: unclear) — the Senate Minority leader offered a history lesson to America’s youth.

He began with the settlements. “There are some who argue, the settlements are the reason there’s not peace,” Schumer declared. “But we all know what happened in Gaza. Israel voluntarily got rid of the settlements there. The soldiers, Israeli soldiers dragged the settlers out of Netzarim and three weeks later the Palestinians threw rockets into Sderot. It’s sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.” Take that Israel-queasy millennials.

The implication of Schumer’s tale is that because Palestinians kept fighting Israel even after Israel withdrew its settlements from Gaza, Palestinians don’t really care about settlements. Their real beef is with Israel’s very existence.

But there are problems with this logic. Continue reading “Chuck Schumer needs a history lesson on Israel — and on a changing America”

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Cambridge University apologizes for censoring BDS event

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Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University. (photo: David Iliff)

University officials had threatened to cancel event on BDS unless Palestinian academic was replaced as chair.

By Shafik Mandhai | Al Jazeera | Mar 6, 2018

“[The University’s decision] portrayed Dr. Salih in a manner that does not befit a respected academic with more than 15 years’ experience of chairing meetings in a balanced and scholarly way. We therefore would like to apologize to Dr. Salih for removing her as a chair, and we recognize that there was no evidence to support the view that she would not ensure a democratic debate, allowing all views to be expressed.”
— Cambridge University statement

The University of Cambridge has apologized to a Palestinian academic, whom it prevented from chairing a talk on the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement in November last year.

Ruba Salih from the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) in London was stopped from moderating the event organized by pro-Palestinian activists and replaced by the university’s own choice, apparently over concerns about her neutrality.

The decision sparked anger among activists, who saw it as yet another example of a university attempting to shut down or disrupt debate on Israel and the BDS movement.

Hundreds of academics and students also signed an open letter condemning the university’s conduct.

Continue reading “Cambridge University apologizes for censoring BDS event”