Category: News

In Israel, incitement has become an increasingly common charge since 2016.

By Sophia Goodfriend | Jewish Currents | Sept 15, 2021

Israeli police have wielded the law against users who retweet or like posts that security forces define as incendiary…

ON JUNE 11th, Mohammad Kana’neh joined a few hundred protesters at a weekly demonstration against settlement expansion in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem that has become a flashpoint for protests against Palestinian displacement. Kana’neh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and prominent leader of the secular Arab nationalist Abnaa el-Balad movement, stood under the hot sun and addressed the crowd in Hebrew, calling for an end to Israel’s occupation “from Silwan to Sheikh Jarrah, from Acco to Gaza.” He then turned to the line of border police that faced the crowd, shouting at them to “get out of the army.” Shortly after the protest dispersed, Kana’neh shared a video of his speech that another attendee had uploaded to Facebook; within hours, his post had been reshared by hundreds of users.

Continue reading “When Palestinian political speech Is “Incitement””

The Zionist narrative is arguably responsible for the welcoming and forgiving attitude the entire world has towards the horrendous, unforgivable crimes committed by Israel since its founding in 1948.

By Miko Peled | MintPress News | Sept 20, 2021

One of the great tragedies of Palestine is that almost every day there is a commemoration of one massacre or another, the death of a child or destruction of a home or village, leading one to think that the Palestinian narrative is one of death and destruction, which is what Israel wants people to think.

PALESTINE — As these words were being written, the final two Palestinian freedom prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison were caught by the Israeli authorities. Palestine is still reacting to this courageous escape and the consequent re-capture of the six political prisoners who escaped and defied the entire Israeli security apparatus. However, even though they managed to free themselves from this high-security prison, they found a world that doesn’t care. The rest of the world did not step up to save these brave men and did not provide them with sanctuary, and so they were caught.

Continue reading “From glorious millennia to death and destruction: Zionists rewrite Palestine’s story”

No country has been in a better position to impose pressure on Israel than the United States, but most presidents never tried—including the current one.

By Henry Siegman | The Nation | Sept 20, 2021

No one in the international community was in a better position to impose such pressure on Israel without harming its security than the United States, but, with the exception of Dwight Eisenhower, no American president ever tried.

Before leaving Israel for his meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington in late August, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett of Israel repeated his firm opposition to Palestinian statehood, thus confirming the permanence of the de facto apartheid that he and his government—like the preceding ones headed by Benjamin Netanyahu—intend to maintain in the Jewish State. Like Netanyahu and most Israelis, he considers the apartheid charge anti-Semitic slander—not because the alleged facts are untrue, but because if Israel does it, you cannot call it apartheid. Why? Because anything done in Israel in the name of its self-interest and for its Jewish citizens is permissible, no matter how clearly deemed illegal by international law.

Continue reading “When Biden Met Bennett—and gave his blessing to impunity”

This multi-generational family peace project, beloved and celebrated around the world, is in danger of confiscation and destruction.

By United Methodist Kairos Response | Sept 2021

Twenty years ago, in 2001, the Nassar family named their farm Tent of Nations, receiving visitors from around the world to foster a connection between the land and people.

The Tent of Nations peace project is located on the Nassar family’s 100-acre farm, six miles from Bethlehem. It is in Area C of the West Bank, occupied Palestinian territory; Area C is under full Israeli military control.

This wonderful farm is being slowly strangled by the never-ending Israeli military occupation, surrounded by expanding Israeli settlements that are illegally colonizing the West Bank.

Continue reading “Help to save Tent of Nations”

Overcoming distance and fragmentation, a new generation of diaspora Palestinians is dismantling Israel’s monopoly over the U.S. conversation.

By Tariq Kenney-Shawa | +972 Magazine | Sept 16, 2021

…the widespread mobilization of Palestinians and our supporters this past summer has reminded the diaspora of our integral function in the increasingly diverse, global movement for Palestinian liberation.

The omnipresent restlessness and dread that consumed Palestinian-Americans in May, as we watched Israel’s onslaught on Gaza from afar, could not come close to the pain felt by family and friends with nowhere to hide from the carnage. Still, watching an endless stream of live reports of casualties, videos of children being pulled from mounds of rubble, and fell towers that once housed dozens of families — all interspersed between bouts of radio silence due to Gaza’s daily power outages — was maddening.

For many in the Palestinian diaspora, this enraging feeling is always compounded by a sense of paralyzing helplessness that stems from our physical distance, as we are forced to sit by and watch as Israeli forces pummel what could and should be “home.” The sense that we play only a peripheral role in the Palestinian struggle for liberation perpetually hovers over our heads, mingling with the fierce loyalty we have to a place we cannot return to. And like others, I have often internalized the fragmentation forced upon our people — a divide and conquer tactic that Israel has perfected over the course of decades. Or so we thought.

Continue reading “Palestinian-Americans are turning the tide of US policy”

Increasing settler violence violate the laws of Shabbat.

By Maya Rosen | Jewish Currents  | Sept 9, 2021

Amid a broad escalation of violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Shabbat has become the most violent day of the week in the South Hebron Hills.

WHEN I TURN MY PHONE BACK ON after Shabbat ends, I can measure the violence of the day by the number of unread messages that appear on my screen. Sitting in my home in Jerusalem, I scroll through dispatches from friends in the South Hebron Hills, a rural area in the southern West Bank, describing the day’s mob attack by Israeli settlers against Palestinians. If I have just a few dozen texts, then the encounter probably consisted of masked settlers throwing rocks at Palestinians or invading villages to physically assault residents. But if I find a few hundred messages waiting, I know settlers have likely set fire to Palestinian homes or even fired live rounds of ammunition at Palestinians or activists supporting them.

Amid a broad escalation of violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Shabbat has become the most violent day of the week in the South Hebron Hills. Unprovoked attacks on Palestinians have become something of a Shabbat afternoon pastime for the religious Zionist settlers in the region. Palestinians who live there even report seeing Israelis from elsewhere who have traveled to the area to spend the weekend beating up residents. Much like Sunday lynchings in the Jim Crow South—where white mobs murdered Black people on the Christian Sabbath, when they had time to participate in violence at their leisure—Saturdays have become an excuse for violence in the South Hebron Hills, transforming the Jewish day of rest into a social soiree of brutality.

Continue reading “Shabbat terror in the West Bank”

An obscure Pentagon document from 1992 provided a blueprint for the ‘war on terror.’

By Jim Lobe | Responsible Statecraft | Sept 11, 2021

The “dominant consideration,” it said, “…requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. …In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region…”
— Draft, Defense Planning Guidance

Today in our series 9/11 at 20: A week of reflection, we hear from Jim Lobe, Senior Advisor and contributing editor at Responsible Statecraft.

When excerpts of the document first appeared in the New York Times in March 1992, it created quite a stir. One influential Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was appalled by its ambition, denouncing it as “literally a ‘Pax Americana.’ A global security system where threats to stability are suppressed or destroyed by U.S. military power.”

Indeed, the draft Defense Planning Guidance, or DPG, which set forth the underlying elements of U.S. grand strategy through the end of the century, was stunning in its vision for permanent U.S. military dominance of virtually all of Eurasia — to be achieved by “deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role” and by preempting, using whatever means necessary, states believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction.

Continue reading “How 9/11 enabled a preconceived vision of an imperial US foreign policy”

The rule of law is definitely a worthy value to strive for, achieving it in Palestine requires some fundamental changes.

By Jonathan Kuttab | This Week in Palestine | Sept 2021

There is no rule of law when the laws are military orders, issued by the occupying forces to serve their own interests and those of the Jewish settlers

Law plays an important role in the running of any society. It provides the framework for regulating the behavior of individuals, the distribution of resources, the expected norms, and the sanctions for violating them.

In many developing countries, particularly totalitarian regimes, law becomes a useful tool for the preservation of privilege and the oppression of masses. It is sometimes given divine authority or at least sanction and becomes part of the reality that the poor and the oppressed have to deal with. In such societies, law is rarely, if ever, used against the rich and the powerful who are somehow always exempt from its application, but its provisions are ruthlessly applied to the weak, the poor, and those without proper connections.

Continue reading “Obstacles to Rule of Law in Palestine”

Unilever the focus of pressure from the American Jewish community to reverse Ben & Jerry’s decision to withdraw sales in the occupied territories.

By Philip Weiss |  Mondoweiss | Sept 7, 2021

Daroff spoke six weeks ago to the Jewish Broadcasting Service, but no media have quoted him; and he is such a powerful figure in the Jewish community that his remarks deserve notice.

In late July, Ben & Jerry’s announced that it would stop selling ice cream in the occupied Palestinian territories next year, and since then its parent company, Unilever, has come under a pressure campaign from Israel and its American mouthpieces to reverse the decision.

The Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations, which comprises dozens of groups and calls itself the “voice of organized American Jewry,” has said the decision was “antisemitic” and warned Unilever that 33 states have laws aimed at penalizing the BDS campaign against Israel. The Conference said these states’ pension funds can divest from Unilever if it does not override the independent Ben & Jerry’s board.

Continue reading “CEO of leading Jewish org denies there’s an occupation and calls Ben & Jerry’s chair ‘apologist for Hamas’”

Israel’s latest assault on Gaza has prompted US labor unions to mobilize at unprecedented levels, further establishing Palestinian rights as a core component of progressive politics.

By Alex Kane | +972 Magazine | Aug 31, 2021

“Labor power has always been about international solidarity and all exploited people rising up against all forms of oppression,”
— Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center

As Israeli airstrikes dropped U.S.-made bombs on Gaza in May, damaging schools and hospitals, displacing thousands of Palestinians, and killing 260 people, many Americans looked on in horror. Then, some decided to take action.

On May 19, the United Educators of San Francisco, the union representing 6,200 public school teachers and aides in the California city, passed a resolution endorsing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a movement promoting pressure on Israel until it stops violating Palestinian human rights. The union also called for the United States to end military aid to Israel, which it said was committing the crime of “apartheid.” (The United States sends $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel.)

Continue reading “How Palestinian resistance inspired a new generation of labor activism”