Category: News

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Israeli ministers address pro-settler event on AIPAC sidelines

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Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the annual AIPAC conference in Washington, Mar 5, 2018. (photo: AIPAC)

Organized by Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs and a pro-settler group, the focused on fighting against calls to boycott products made in settlements.

By Amir Tibon and Jonathan Lis | Haaretz | Mar 6, 2018

“Refraining from visiting, talking, buying, and knowing each other — that’s bigotry.”
— Dani Dayan, Israel’s Consul General in New York

Supporters of Israeli settlements in the West Bank held an event on the sidelines of the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington on Monday, at the same time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump held talks at the White House.

The event, organized by Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs and the Yesha Council, an umbrella organization of the settler movement, focused on fighting against calls to boycott products made in settlements.

More than a hundred people gathered to hear Israeli ministers from the right-wing coalition — including Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi), Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Habayit Hayehudi) and Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz (Likud) — all of whom expressed their strong support for maintaining Israel’s presence in the West Bank and for rejecting any peace plan that involves the creation of a Palestinian state there.

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Guatemala will move its embassy to Jerusalem in May

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Eighty-seven countries have embassies in Israel, none of them are in Jerusalem. (photo: DeAgostini / Getty Images)

Guatemala will be the second country to move its embassy to Jerusalem.

By Jenna Lifthits | The Weekly Standard | Mar 4, 2018

“In May of this year, we will celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary, and under my instructions two days after the United States moves its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem.”
— Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales

Guatemala will relocate its embassy to Jerusalem in May, two days after the United States is slated to make the same move, the country’s president said Sunday.

“It is important to be among the first, but it is more important to do what it right,” he said.

Morales first announced the move in late December, following in the footsteps of the Trump administration. Guatemala was one of nine countries to vote against a December United Nations resolution rejecting the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

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Arizona State’s ban on Israel boycotters tests DOJ’s free speech commitment

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A sign is held by demonstrators calling for an independent Palestinian state during a protest held outside the White House in Washington, DC, on Mar 4, 2018. (photo: Alex Edelman / AFP / Getty Images)

So far, the Justice Department has focused its efforts on free speech cases involving conservatives and Christians.

By Rowaida Abdelaziz and Ryan Reilly | HuffPost | Mar 5, 2018

“Universities have been a beacon of free speech and thought — that is what they have been for all these years, but only certain students are afforded that right to free speech.”
— Imraan Siddiqi, the executive director of CAIR-Arizona

A lawsuit against one of America’s largest public universities could pose a major test for the Justice Department’s commitment to campus free speech.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) filed a lawsuit in federal court last week against Arizona State University, accusing the school of violating Muslim students’ right to free speech and rights to equal protection by enforcing a ban on speakers who call for boycotting Israel.

The suit was filed on behalf of American Muslims for Palestine and its founder, Hatem Bazian, shortly after Arizona State’s Muslim Students Association invited him to speak at what is billed as an “educational event regarding Palestinian perspectives on Middle East conflict” on April 3.

Bazian, a senior lecturer at University of California in Berkeley, said he could not agree to the school’s speaker’s contract because of a “no boycott of Israel” clause that essentially bars him and others from participating “solely because they engage in and advocate for economic boycotts of Israel as a means to promote Palestinians’ human rights,” according to the lawsuit.

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Anti-BDS bills to feature prominently at AIPAC conference

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At least 23 states have passed anti-BDS legislation. (photo: Al Jazeera)

Annual meeting to push for measures that counter BDS boycotts.

By Dalia Hatuqa | Al Jazeera | Mar 3, 2018

BDS opponents have recently been dealt a series of setbacks, most notably the declaration by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights last month that it had identified more than 200 businesses, 22 of them American, that could be held accountable for operating in settlements.

Israel supporters in the US are gearing up for AIPAC’s much-vaunted annual policy conference, with measures to counter the widening campaign to boycott Israel and its West Bank settlements expected to feature prominently in the powerful lobbying group’s agenda.

This includes legislation that several Republican and Democratic Congress members have sponsored to curb the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to pressure Israel into ending its occupation of Arab and Palestinian land.

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Prince William to make historic visit to Israel and Palestine

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Prince William addresses the Royal Foundation Forum in London. (photo: Chris Jackson / PA)

The Duke of Cambridge is due to arrive this summer, the first official visit ever by British royals to Israel or the Occupied Territories.

By Oliver Holmes | The Guardian | Mar 1, 2018

The visit [will be] an opportunity for the Duke of Cambridge to travel to areas of Jerusalem annexed by Israel, see illegally built settlements and understand the UK’s historical role in the conflict.

Prince William will become the first British royal to make an official visit to Israel and Palestine, an unexpected move given that political sensitivities in the region have stalled a formal trip for decades.

Kensington Palace said in a tweet that the Duke of Cambridge would visit later this year as part of a Middle East tour. The high-profile visit was “at the request of Her Majesty’s government and has been welcomed by the Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian authorities,” it added.

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US moving embassy to Jerusalem on the wrong day

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Celebrating Israeli Independence Day in 2012, which that year fell on Apr 26 on the Gregorian calendar. (photo: Jack Guez / AFP / Getty Images)

The US is moving its embassy on May 14, but Israel is celebrating its independence on Apr 18.

By Noga Tarnopolsky | Los Angeles Times | Feb 24, 2018

“They deliberately chose a tragic day in Palestinian history, the Nakba, as an act of gratuitous cruelty adding insult to injury.”
— Hanan Ashrawi

Israel declared independence on May 14, 1948, so why is it celebrating its 70th anniversary on April 18?

And why are Palestinians infuriated by the Trump administration’s decision to move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14?

The answer lies in two calendars.

Israel marks its public holidays using the Hebrew calendar. May 14, 1948, corresponds to the fifth day of the Jewish month of Iyar in the year 5708.

This spring the fifth day of Iyar — in the year 5778 — lines up with April 18. Israel will celebrate with parties, barbecues, fireworks over the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and an air force flyover along Tel Aviv’s shore.

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Honda moves motorcycle race out of illegal settlement after international pressure

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Motorcycle racing at the Petza’el XRC Circuit in an illegal settlement north of Jericho. (photo: Julianne Novikov)

The racing event was moved from a race track near the Petza’el settlement to Arad, an Israeli city in southern Naqab.

By Telesur | Feb 22, 2018

“The announcement from Honda that the motor race it sponsors will no longer take place in an illegal Israeli settlement shows the BDS movement’s growing impact on international corporations that are complicit in Israel’s regime of occupation, colonization, and apartheid.”
— Jamal Juma, a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee

After international pressure from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, Honda has decided to move a motorcycle racing show from an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

Honda’s distributor in Israel had launched plans to hold the MotoGP event on a race track partially built inside of a “live firing zone” near the Petza’el Israeli settlement.

The BDS movement and other Japanese human rights organizations wrote an open letter to Honda asking to them reconsider the Israeli chapter’s decision to carry out the event at such a controversial site where the violation of the human rights continues to take place and warned them that they could face an international boycott.

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Israel builds checkpoint tower at Damascus Gate

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Newly constructed watch tower at the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem. (photo: Ma’an New Agency)

In June 2017, Israeli officials approved a new security strategy at the Damascus Gate after Netanyahu suggested it be turned into a “sterile area” [an area without Palestinians].

By Ma’an News Agency | Feb 17, 2018

Certain routes will be specified for entering the Old City at the Damascus Gate, and more technological devices will be installed and used at the area to maintain Israeli police’s control and surveillance over the area. . . . Palestinians will only be allowed to enter the Old City through Damascus Gate via specific routes, where they will undergo “thorough searches.”

Israeli authorities have completed the construction of a watchtower checkpoint at the entrance of Damascus Gate, the main gate into the Muslim Quarter of occupied East Jerusalem’s Old City.

The watchtower checkpoint is one of three that Israel began to install last month, drawing criticism from Palestinian residents of the Old City, who say the construction watchtower is aimed at further restricting Palestinian access to the area and solidifying an already constant presence of Israeli forces in the area.

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Church of the Holy Sepulchre closed to protest Jerusalem taxes

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Jesus’s tomb inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem. (photo: Lior Mizrahi / Getty Images)

Reversing centuries of precedent, Jerusalem municipal authorities are placing liens on churches to collect $186 million in taxes.

By Griffin Paul Jackson | Christianity Today | Feb 25, 2018

“These actions breach existing agreements and international obligations which guarantee the rights and the privileges of the churches, in what seems as an attempt to weaken the Christian presence in Jerusalem.”
— The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem

“All of our assets are frozen. We can’t pay for food, salaries, administration, nothing.”
— Anonymous official of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate

In an action not seen in more than a century, the leaders of Jerusalem’s churches closed the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday in a show of united protest. The dramatic decision comes in response to moves by Jerusalem authorities to begin collecting tens of millions of dollars in taxes from churches, as well as proposed legislation to confiscate church-owned land.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre — considered by many Christians to be the site of Jesus’ crucifixion, tomb and resurrection — is jointly managed by a cadre of Orthodox and Catholic churches. It is one of the most-visited sites in Israel, and its closure came as a sudden shock, especially with Easter celebrations approaching.

In a defiant statement released at the time of the closure, church leaders called the municipality’s new policy a “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land,” according to The Jerusalem Post.  Continue reading “Church of the Holy Sepulchre closed to protest Jerusalem taxes”

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When a play about Palestine goes to American college campuses

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Gassan Abbas in Mosaic Theater Company’s “I Shall Not Hate.” (photo: Stan Barouh)

The play “I Shall Not Hate” is travelling across the country, performing at colleges, and creating conversations that otherwise are unlike to occur.

By Peter Marks | The Washington Post | Feb 23, 2018

“You’re going to the middle of a cornfield in Iowa and bringing the concerns of Gaza, and a part of the world that touches people — wholeheartedly.”
— Artistic Director Ari Roth

For Lindsay Acker and Austin J. Sachs, students at Eastern Mennonite University who spent 3½ months last year in the Middle East, the one-man play that came to their campus compelled them to grapple with all sorts of wrenching memories.

“I was in tears when the show ended, and my stomach was in knots the rest of the night,” reported Acker, a sophomore from Buffalo. “A lot that I had chosen to set aside — because dealing with it daily is emotionally, physically and spiritually challenging — just came back to the surface,” explained Sachs, a junior from Harrisburg, Pa.

And for Gassan Abbas, the Palestinian actor from Israel who has been performing “I Shall Not Hate” in one college town after another, the experience has broadened his understanding of the compassion in this country — as well as a sense of its myopia about the world. “It’s important for me to emphasize that the American people are very naïve,” the plain-spoken performer said in Hebrew, in an interview conducted with the help of an Israeli interpreter, Sivan Atzmon. About his region of the world, he added: “They know nothing.”

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