Category: News

Israel’s unethical vaccination strategy risks failure at multiple levels.

By Alice Rothchild | Truthout | Feb 28, 2021

…when health care is treated as a privilege rather than a human right, individual and societal health suffer.

There is growing concern regarding the inequitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccine, nationally and internationally. As the rollout continues, some U.S. states are allocating more vaccines to health centers, local health providers and tribal programs, focusing on vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations, and paying attention to outreach to communities of color.

There is also serious discussion of a global approach, lifting patents for vaccines that were largely developed using governmental funding. The pandemic has revealed the glaring contradictions when both public health and medical care are allocated along racial, economic and geographic lines. Addressing these issues alerts us to the fact that when health care is treated as a privilege rather than a human right, individual and societal health suffer.

Continue reading “Under Israeli apartheid, there are two different pandemics”

A conversation between Peter Beinart and Ben Rhodes discussing the realities of lobbying efforts by Israeli and Palestinian groups.

By Foundation for Middle East Peace | Feb 10, 2021

Peter Beinart speaks to Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor from 2009-2017, about working on Israel, Palestine, and Iran in the Obama Administration. Rhodes draws insights from interactions with different lobby groups, presidential travel to Israel and a memorable meeting with young Palestinians in Ramallah, and talks about navigating the assumption by Israel advocates that Blackness translates into sympathy for Palestinians living under oppression. Beinart and Rhodes end the conversation with a discussion of the Biden administration and Democratic foreign policy advisors’ approaches to the IHRA definition of antisemitism and Democrats’ longstanding commitment to the concept of the two state solution. Ben Rhodes’s new book, After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made, will be out in June 2021.

Continue reading “Occupied Thoughts: Former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes with Peter Beinart”

The Philos Project is the latest Christian Zionist organization seeking to drive a wedge between Muslim and Christian Arabs.

By Rev. Alex Awad & Haher Massis | Mondoweiss | Feb 19, 2021

As Arab Christians, we say to the Philos Project that we refuse to be swayed by an ideology that seeks to separate us from our Muslim brothers and sisters.

The Philos Project is a well-financed outfit that is repackaging a worn-out colonial missionary ideology in a revamped format. With the financial backing of well known pro-Israel donors, the organization purports to “equip a new generation of Western Christians to support … liberty and justice” in the “Near East.” It does this by organizing highly subsidized tours of Israel and some Arab countries; pamphlets, podcasts, and video documentaries; and “networking and advocacy opportunities.”

It seems targeted to younger people and minorities who are less likely to swallow a straight-up Christian Zionist ideology that is totally oblivious to any kind of “worldly” rights. Similar to some of the more sophisticated figures on the right wing of the American political spectrum, it borrows from civil rights language to advance its agenda. For example, its Facebook page features a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr, attacking antisemitism, next to another quotation from Danny Danon, Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations. Danon’s political views are well to the right of Benjamin Netanyahu’s, so much so that an Op-Ed in the Times of Israel said: “It is hard to conceive of a more short-sighted, shameful and damaging appointment than that of [Danny Danon as] UN envoy.”

Continue reading “The Philos Project: a modern version of a colonial missionary project for the Arab world”

Coexistence in Jerusalem isn’t equal, but could there be some benefit to improving enhanced cooperation and integration between the different local authorities.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Building the Bridge | Feb 22, 2021

That reality is Jerusalem as a shared city. And the very limited decisions of the Biden administration offer a key to engaging with that.

We can all breathe. Four weeks after his inauguration as President of the United States, Joe Biden finally gave Benjamin Netanyahu a call, and all is fine with the extra-special relationship.

And now that the long wait is over, we can finally get down to more relevant question of what plans, if any, does the new U.S. administration have for us.

One thing seems pretty clear by now. Biden’s team are on a collision course with the Netanyahu government over their intention to rejoin the nuclear agreement with Iran, pretty much on the same lines as the original deal signed by the Obama administration.

What’s less clear is their plans on the other potential minefield: the Israel-Palestine conflict.

For now at least, it looks like the administration doesn’t have any plan. For now, they seem content to stick with Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the U.S. embassy there, while balancing that somewhat by reopening the separate consulate in Jerusalem that dealt directly with the Palestinians.

Read the full article here →

The JVP Health Advisory Council calls on Israel to assume its responsibility to distribute vaccines to Palestinians in the occupied territory: “As health workers, it would be a violation of our professional ethics to stand by in silence as this form of discrimination occurs.”

By Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council  | Mondoweiss | Feb 22, 2021

As health workers and American taxpayers, we are extremely distressed that our nation fails to hold Israel to any level of accountability for a health system that systemically discriminates against Palestinians.
— Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council

The Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council (JVP HAC) issues this statement of urgent concern for the health of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza during the COVID-19 pandemic. Israel holds a legal and moral obligation to assure full and equitable COVID vaccine distribution to the Palestinian health authorities in the West Bank and Gaza to enable vaccine administration to begin immediately.

As health workers we understand that there must be equitable vaccine distribution to all nations and people of the world in order to stop this lethal pandemic, which recognizes no borders. However, as Israel has rolled out a robust vaccination campaign for citizens of Israel, so far they have only made about 5000 doses of vaccine available in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. There is no justification for politics to create obstacles to vaccine availability.

Continue reading “Israel must provide COVID vaccines to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza”

The change in US administration may not produce significant shift in foreign policy relationship with Israel.

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle  |  Feb 17, 2021

…while Republicans increasingly ignore the rights and, sometimes, the very existence of the Palestinians, Democrats, who continue to support Israel with equal passion, use more moderate – although inconsequential – language.

Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals have failed.

There are obvious differences in the Democrats’ approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but only in semantics and political jingoism, not policy. This assertion can be justified if the Democratic administration’s official language on Palestine and Israel is examined, and such language considered within the context of practical policies on the ground.

Continue reading “‘Leaving Aside’ International Law: Why Democrats are as dangerous as Republicans to a just peace in Palestine”

Palestinian evangelicals call on all evangelicals to reexamine the claims of Christian Zionism.

By Rev. Alex Awad | Washington Report on Middle East Affairs |  Mar/Apr 2021

Arabs and the Palestinians have not only lost the balance of power militarily, but they have lost the hearts of evangelical Christians…

A FEW MILESTONES in my personal life have led to my confrontation with Zionist Christianity. I was born in Jerusalem and grew up in the embrace of conservative evangelical missionary churches. I’ve always been active in my evangelical church, where I learned about God’s love and salvation for me and the whole world, and the principles of love for neighbor and enemy as well as the command to seek peace, justice and goodness for all.

When I graduated from high school, I decided to attend a Bible College in Switzerland to prepare for service in the church in Palestine. During my theological studies in Europe, I noticed that my fellow students and teachers believed that the land of Palestine was promised by God to the Jewish people. I also learned that my colleagues and their teachers were convinced that believers in Christ should contribute to the realization of these biblical prophecies, which relate to the second coming of Christ, by supporting the State of Israel.

Continue reading “Palestinian evangelicals in confrontation with Christian Zionism”

This poem was written in response to the pressure being put on organizations to accept the IHRA definition and working examples of Antisemitism.

By Timothy McCord | Palestine Chronicle |  Feb 17, 2021

“Yet if you care to listen, you can still hear the calls, behind barriers, check-points and prison walls…”

There’s come a time
when it becomes a crime
to speak truth of another’s.
When false claims damage good names
and cause an outcry:
the baying for blood and broken bones
so others are shown, beyond doubt,
how fast the axe can fall.

Continue reading “Breaking the Silence – A Poem”