The rubble of the Salhiya family home in Sheikh Jarrah, occupied East Jerualem. (credit: Twitter / Mohammed El-Kurd)
At around 3:00 am Wednesday morning Israeli forces raided the Salhiya family home in Sheikh Jarrah and forcibly displaced the 15 family members living inside the house before demolishing the family’s home.
By Yumna Patel | Mondoweiss | Jan 19, 2022
The Salhiya family, like the other Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah under threat of forced expulsion, were displaced from their homes during the Nakba in 1948, and were settled into Sheikh Jarrah as refugees.
After a standoff that captured global attention, Israel forcibly displaced a Palestinian family from their home and demolished it in the middle of the night on Wednesday, in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
At around 3:00 am Wednesday morning Israeli forces raided the Salhiya family home in Sheikh Jarrah and forcibly removed the 15 family members living inside the house.
Aseel Aslih (seated far right) and Roy Cohen (seated third from right) at a Seeds of Peace camp in the 1990s. (credit: Bobbie Gottschalk)
At a summer camp for kids from conflict zones, I met my brave, funny friend Aseel. He was Palestinian. I was Israeli. When he was killed by police, my hope for our future died with him.
By Roy Cohen | The Guardian | Jan 13, 2022
That year, I got a glimpse of the connections that were possible between Palestinians and Israelis. Our relationships would always be complicated, but we had discovered we had a lot in common, and we had a lot to say.
On 11 May 2021, I was sitting with a small group in a cafe in southern Tel Aviv, studying Arabic. Our teacher, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, had been telling us that he and his pregnant Jewish wife kept getting turned down by landlords who would not rent their property to a “mixed” couple. We were almost at the end of the three-hour class when air raid sirens sounded. A few days earlier, missiles had been launched from Gaza into Israel, but this was the first time they had hit Tel Aviv. Beyond the fear of an airstrike, I had a sad, heavy feeling. I had recently returned to live in Israel after 15 years studying and working abroad. I remembered a time, in the mid-1990s, when I had believed that Israel was going to be different, more just and less violent. That belief now felt like a distant memory.
A closed Palestinian shop in the Israeli settlement in Hebron. Note door welded shut. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Five foundational criteria that could shape a viable and principled strategy by the international community to end the Israeli occupation and enable Palestinian self-determination.
By Michael Lynk | JustSecurity | Jan 7, 2022
Beyond tut-tutting about settlement expansion and ensuring that the Palestinian Authority’s head is kept above water, the international community has no coherent strategy to actually end the 54-year-old Israeli occupation.
On Nov. 17, 2021, the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) gathered in Oslo for its semi-annual meeting. Created in 1993 shortly after the famous handshake on the White House lawn, the AHLC is the semi-formal organization of international donors to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It promotes a two-State solution through the development of the Palestinian economy and civil institutions. Its membership of 15 leading States and institutions includes the United States, the European Union, Russia, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, and four Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and Tunisia). Norway acts as the chair.
At the Oslo meeting, the AHLC reviewed the progress towards a Palestinian State, assessed the debilitated Palestinian economy, and encouraged donors to provide a new round of funding pledges for the Palestinian Authority. It also received reports from the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO) and the World Bank on the current economic and political landscape of the 54 year-old Israeli occupation.
A man wearing a Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) t-shirt harvest an olive tree in a Palestinian village occupied West Bank, October 2020 (credit: Facebook)
Fallout continues for non-profit groups that Israel has outlawed.
By Mustafa Abu Sneineh | Middle East Eye | Jan 6, 2022
“From the onset, this investigation was politically motivated and responded to pressure of the Israeli government and malign organizations affiliated with it,” — Union of Agricultural Work Committees
The Dutch government has ended its funding for Palestine’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), one of six non-profit groups recently outlawed by Israel.
In October, Israel designated the Palestinian human rights groups “terrorist organizations,” saying that they acted as “part of a network of organisations operating under cover in the international arena” on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
On Wednesday, UAWC said it was “shocked and saddened” by the Netherlands’ decision to stop its funding.
President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in the East Room of the White House to unveil details of the Trump administration’s Middle East Peace Plan. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
A revealing new interview peels back yet another layer.
By David Remnick | The New Yorker | Dec 21, 2021
It’s no surprise that Trump is willing to trash foreign leaders in the most vivid terms. What seems to have shocked some American readers is that he trafficked so fluently in traditional tropes about Jewish power, conspiracy, and disloyalty.
When hundreds of hours of tapes from the Nixon White House became public, two decades ago, the full extent of Nixon’s prejudices, including his contempt for Jews, came into sharp focus. “The Jews are all over the government,” he told his chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, at an Oval Office meeting, in 1971. What’s more, “most Jews are disloyal.” Nixon made allowances for some of his useful advisers, including Henry Kissinger and William Safire, but, he said, “generally speaking, you can’t trust the bastards.”
This year marked significant wins for the right to boycott Israel. (credit: Alain Pitton / ZUMA Press)
A listing of the many efforts that the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) Movement managed to score victories on this past year.
By Nora Barrows-Friedman | The Electronic Intifada | Dec 30, 2021
“We’re going to continue to take direct action in order to shut down and undermine Israel’s arms trade,” —Huda Ammori, Palestine Action co-founder
Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 was a year of accelerated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigning, successful grassroots actions and significant legal victories for Palestinian rights.
Pension funds dumped Israeli firms, cultural figures refused to cross the picket line and a major ice cream maker pulled its products from illegal Israeli settlements.
Sustained direct actions in Oakland, California successfully exacted a price on Israel after it carried out a lethal 11-day attack on Gaza during May.
In early June, as part of an international wave of protests under the banner of #BlockTheBoat, activists and longshore workers prevented an Israeli cargo ship from docking at the city’s port for more than two weeks after its scheduled arrival date.
Noor Agha and her aunt in Jerusalem. (credit: Mondoweiss)
Noor Agha was forced to leave Gaza for life saving surgery on a brain tumor. But before Israel let her leave the besieged territory they made her throw out her toothpaste at the Erez checkpoint.
By Noor Agha | Mondoweiss | Jan 5, 2022
I didn’t want to die on my own. — Noor Agha
We were aware of the “security” issues the Israelis impose on Palestinians crossing Erez. No food. No water. Lipstick? No. Eyeliner? No. Sunblock? No. And no luggage with wheels. We didn’t want to be sent back after all.
In 2019 doctors had finally figured out the cause behind my migraines, and decided I should immediately undergo an operation which Gaza’s hospitals couldn’t handle. Little did anyone know this “immediately” would take forever. Five whole months!
My mother and I applied for the Israeli permits to travel to the West Bank to seek medication. A few months later, a message was received. Noor, me, yes. Ibtisam, my mom, no.
South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, reacts to Israel blocking his UN mission to Beit Hanun, during a press conference at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, December 11th, 2006. (credit: Salvatore Di Nolfi / Keystone via AP)
South Africa’s moral leader frequently clashed with Israel and the American Jewish establishment.
By Alex Kane | Jewish Currents | Dec 29, 2021
…Tutu’s repeated denunciations of Israel’s rule over Palestinians and his comparisons between the South African and Israeli versions of apartheid earned him the ire of Jewish leaders in both countries, as well as the United States.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who crusaded against apartheid and helped lead South Africa into a new democratic era, died at the age of 90. Leaders around the world, from the Dalai Lama to the mayor of New York, issued tributes to Tutu after news of his death broke.
By contrast, Israeli officials and the American Jewish establishment generally stayed silent. But they weren’t so quiet over the past two decades, as Tutu’s repeated denunciations of Israel’s rule over Palestinians and his comparisons between the South African and Israeli versions of apartheid earned him the ire of Jewish leaders in both countries, as well as the United States. Tutu’s pronouncements sparked a particularly intense reaction; criticism hurts more when it comes from someone widely lionized as a moral beacon.
Peter Beinart speaking at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, Seattle, Washington, May 23, 2019 at an event sponsored by J Street (CC by Joe Mabel via Wikimedia)
Shifting media developments are giving Palestinian voices more access to shape the Israel-Palestine conversation.
By Peter Beinart | The Beinart Notebook | Jan 3, 2022
In recent years, the gulf between traditional and social media has narrowed… And so for Palestinian commentators, social media has become a backdoor into the establishment media from which they were long barred.
For my entire adult lifetime, the mainstream American conversation about Israel-Palestine—the one you watch on cable television and read on the opinion pages—has been a conversation among political Zionists. Its participants have argued over how the Jewish state should behave, not whether it should exist. Last year that began to change. Palestinians entered America’s public discussion in an unprecedented way, and with their entrance, anti-Zionism entered too. In 2021, the terms of US discourse began to shift. The ramifications of that shift will likely be with us for decades to come.
Palestinians take part in a protest against the Israeli decision to declare six Palestinian human rights groups as “terror organizations”, in Gaza City on November 10, 2021. (credit: Mahmoud Nasser / APA Images)
2021 was a watershed year for Palestinians. The struggle for Palestinian freedom and liberation saw unprecedented levels of global solidarity and unity amongst Palestinians despite their forced fragmentation
By Yumna Patel | Mondoweiss | Dec 28, 2021
From the streets to the digital sphere, Palestinians were suppressed and censored at every turn. And yet still, their voices were heard around the world more than ever before.
2021 was a watershed year for Palestinians. The struggle for Palestinian freedom and liberation saw unprecedented levels of global solidarity. From Jerusalem, to the West Bank, Gaza, and Palestinian communities inside Israel, Palestinians rose up together in defiance of the Israeli occupation, and demanded a better future. The fight against forcible expulsion of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan reached the global stage, and more human rights groups joined the calls to end Israeli Apartheid.
Despite the strides made towards justice and equality this year, 2021 was not without its challenges for Palestinians. Palestinians entered the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, and like much of the global south, struggled to get their hands on the life saving vaccines being hoarded by the world’s richest countries.
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