Category: News

This article inspired by conversations in the UNESCO office in Ramallah.

By Ali Qleibo| This Week in Palestine| Mar 2020

The homes we live in, the neighborhoods, the services rendered, the consumer lifestyle, the values and norms, and the way people interact is a world view in which tangible and intangible cultural expressions interweave to impart Jerusalem its unique character.

The ever-shifting, elusive “character” of Jerusalem is a reflection of the dynamic needs, desires, and wishes of its inhabitants. Intangible culture is not merely the listing of professions and trades; it is the sung parodies that advertise the new seasonal cucumber (asabe’ el bubbu ya khyar), and the variety of recipes that Jerusalamites swap about the best way to prepare artichokes and ‘akkube (a wild form of artichoke) or preserve bitter oranges both as marmalade and sharab, or even how to construct a kite using dough instead of glue, bamboo, and newspaper sheets. It also includes visiting the cemetery to pray for one’s deceased close relatives after the early morning ‘Eid prayers and reciting the fatihah each time one passes by a cemetery, mausoleum, or maqam. It is the marking of the Muslim New Year with green olive twigs on house doors, the special sweets, and the family visits. The homes we live in, the neighborhoods, the services rendered, the consumer lifestyle, the values and norms, and the way people interact is a world view in which tangible and intangible cultural expressions interweave to impart Jerusalem its unique character. It is the human art of making life livable.

Continue reading “Jerusalem’s intangible culture”

A petition for US leadership to provide humanitarian aid during this critical time.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Mar 27, 2020

‘If there was ever a moment to realize that we are in this fight together, it is now.’
— IfNotNow press release

A group of Senators has sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging the administration to supply Gaza and the West Bank with much-needed humanitarian aid. There are already are at least 50 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the West Bank and multiple individuals have tested positive for the virus in Gaza. Gaza has been under siege for years and the densely populated area is bracing for a potentially catastrophic situation. Trump has frozen nearly all aid to Palestine since January 2018.

“Given the spread of the coronavirus in the West Bank and Gaza, the extreme vulnerability of the health system in Gaza, and the continued withholding of U.S. aid to the Palestinian people, we are concerned that the Administration is failing to take every reasonable step to help combat this public health emergency in the Palestinian Territories,” reads the letter. It was lead by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), but was also signed by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

Continue reading “Warren, Van Hollen lead Senators in demanding Trump admin send aid to Palestine amid COVID-19 crisis”

Israel has for decades intentionally weakened the economy and health of the world’s largest open-air prison.

By Neve Gordon |The Nation | Mar 25, 2020

…while our governments emphasize the significance of washing hands many times a day, Gazans are worried about having enough water to drink.

When people began posting the following note on their Facebook wall, I immediately felt an intense sense of unease.

Continue reading “The Gaza strip has been under siege for years. Covid-19 could Be catastrophic.”

Lifting sanctions on Gaza and Iran would be a step towards global public health efforts.

By Dr. Alice Rothchild | Mondoweiss | Mar 26, 2020

Clearly, this is a time of grave urgency and the need for forward, global thinking. To survive as a planet, we need to take care of each other, it’s as basic as that.

The announcement that nine cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Gaza filled me with a new level of anxiety and despair. Gaza is at the beginning of the pandemic curve. With two million people crowded together in area six by twenty-five miles, 70 percent are refugees, 97 percent of the water contaminated and unfit for consumption, basic measures to prevent the spread of the virus will prove challenging. With above a 50 percent unemployment rate and a lack of supplies due to restrictions on the import of goods, it is impossible for families to stock up on essential items and shelter in place, let alone practice social distancing.

Continue reading “Forward global thinking on COVID-19”

Cutting off funds to Palestine during a global pandemic would have devastating consequences.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss |  Mar 24, 2020

‘If we do not receive additional pledges or those who have pledged do not make good on existing pledges, then we will run out of money at the end of next month,’
— UNRWA’s acting- Commissioner General Christian Saunders

In 2018, the Trump administration cut all funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Over five million people in the region rely on the organization for social services, but now their work has become even more crucial in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.

Mondoweiss’s Yumna Patel produced this video in September 2018 outlining the potentially devestating impacts of the cuts:

Continue reading “UNRWA urges Trump admin to restore funding as it stands at the frontline of Palestine’s COVID-19 crisis”

The prospect of a Netanyahu-led unity government looms. How did we get here?

By Richard Silverstein | Middle East Eye | Mar 23, 2020

Best-selling author and historian Yuval Noah Harari has called these maneuvers ‘the first coronavirus dictatorship’.

Israel’s governing Likud party did not win the latest election, but it continues to cling to power, exploiting every dirty trick in the book. Now, it looks like it may well stay there.

The centre-right bloc dominated by the Blue and White alliance had edged past the 60-seat threshold to form a government, and on 15 March President Reuven Rivlin tasked party leader Benny Gantz with doing so.

Flash forward to 20 March and Gantz is saying, for the first time, that he would be willing to sit in a national unity government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Continue reading “Israel’s Likud is using coronavirus to orchestrate a coup”

 

Amid concerns about Rabbi Lehmann’s ‘Islamophobic statements and anti-Palestinian views,’ the GTU board accepted his resignation.

By If Americans Knew staff | If Americans Knew Blog | Mar 21, 2020

Upon being named GTU president in 2018, Lehmann’s statements to news media suggested that he had expected to change what he called GTU’s ‘progressive Christian’ orientation.

Rabbi Daniel Lehmann has resigned as president of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) after concerns surfaced about his ‘Islamophobic statements and anti-Palestinian views’. GTU is reportedly “the most comprehensive center for the graduate study of religion in North America.”

Based in Berkeley, California, GTU has long been known for its commitment to justice, peace, and interfaith cooperation. It consists of eight Christian schools and nine academic centers and affiliates. It includes diverse faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Judaism.

Upon being named GTU president in 2018, Lehmann’s statements to news media suggested that he had expected to change what he called GTU’s “progressive Christian” orientation.

Continue reading “Zionist head of major theological consortium has been pushed out”

 

Who could have imagined just a few days ago that Europeans would be confined to their homes and become persona non grata all over the world?

By Ahmed Abbes | Mondoweiss | Mar 18, 2020

How can I not think of the residents of Gaza who are prisoners of an inhuman blockade that has lasted for more than 13 years when I find myself confined to my home, forbidden to leave my house except for 5 reasons set by the government and provided that I have a certificate?

I should have been in Tunis Saturday March 14 to participate in the closing ceremony of Israeli Apartheid Week. I had invited the Palestinian researcher and documentalist Tarek Barki to give a lecture entitled “We Were and Still Are.. Here” which tells the past and the present of the ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages refuting the Zionist formula “a land without people… ” But by the end of the previous week, disturbing news about the spread of the Coronavirus in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa was starting to accumulate. Death in my soul, I resolved, Monday, March 9, with my friends, to postpone this long-awaited lecture to a later date. Since then, bad news has continued to pour in at an infernal rate.

Continue reading “Coronavirus — How can I not think of Gaza?”

The risks continue to grow for detained Palestinian children.

By Michael Arria | Mondoweiss | Mar 20, 2020

‘There is no way Israeli prison authorities can ensure the health and well-being of Palestinian child detainees as long as they continue to be in a custodial detention setting.’
— Ayed Abu Eqtaish, DCIP Accountability Program director

Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP) is calling on the Israeli government to release all Palestinian child detainees amid the COVID-19 crisis. According to Ha’aretz, Israel has confirmed over 700 cases of COVID-19 and four Palestinian prisoners, being held at Megiddo prison, have been in contact with an Israeli officer who tested positive for the virus.

“Israeli authorities must take immediate action to release all Palestinian child detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centers due to the increasing vulnerability created due to the rapid global spread of the COVID-19 virus and to safeguard their right to life, survival, development, and health in accordance with international law,” reads the group’s press release.

Continue reading “Human rights org calls on Israel to release all Palestinian child detainees in response to COVID-19 crisis”

Ongoing effort by faith groups for humanitarian efforts.

By Palestine Israel Network  | Global Ministries |  Mar 18, 2020

In mid-February, Rep. Pocan (D-Wisc.) and Rep. Dingell (D-Mich.) sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, urging the Trump administration to alleviate the ongoing crisis by restoring all humanitarian assistance and working to end the Gaza blockade.

The Gaza Strip faces a chronic humanitarian crisis, impacting the livelihoods and access to essential services by its two million residents. The United Nations predicted in 2012 that conditions in Gaza would be unlivable by the year 2020 as a result of the Israeli blockade for more than 12 years. This crisis has been driven also by an unsolved internal Palestinian divide. Since March 2018, the crisis has been exacerbated by the massive increase in Palestinian casualties in the context of demonstrations taking place near Israel’s perimeter fence, as well as limited escalations in hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups.

Continue reading “3rd Thursday Action Alert: Tell Congress to restore funding to UNRWA and bilateral assistance to Gaza and the West Bank”