Category: News

The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure.

By Gideon Levy | Haaretz | Mar 13, 2019

Simply put, the people are the problem. . . . There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world — and not because of Netanyahu. . . . There are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that . . . international law doesn’t apply to [Israel], and that no one can tell it what to do.

It’s not Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or at least not just him. One cannot blame one person, influential and powerful as he may be, for every evil, as his opponents and enemies do. The racism, extreme nationalism, divisiveness, incitement, hatred, anxiety and corruption is all because of Netanyahu, they say.

But it’s not so. His sins are innumerable and the damage he’s done immeasurable, and it would be great to have him out of our lives, but blaming everything on him is deceiving and a shirking of responsibility.

Continue reading “Netanyahu isn’t the problem — the Israeli people are”

Prominent black voices expressing solidarity with Palestinians has riled the pro-Israeli lobby.

By Hatem Bazian | Middle East Eye | Mar 26, 2019

Solidarity demands that we no longer allow politicians or political parties to remain silent on the question of Palestine.
— Marc Lamont Hill, CNN commentator fired for comments supporting boycott of Israel

In 1979, Andrew Young, the first African American ever appointed as a US ambassador to the UN, was forced to resign because of pressure mounted by pro-Israel groups on then President Carter following Young’s meeting with a representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.

The Andrew Young episode demonstrated the increasing power of America’s pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, and the centring of US-Israel relations at the expense of all other considerations including the career of an African American civil rights icon.

The recent entanglement of Ilhan Omar with AIPAC and pro-Israel organisations is not new, but the outcome points to a rapidly changing socio-political and socio-religious landscape. In 1979, Young did not advocate or speak of Palestinian rights; instead, a mere meeting with the PLO was the sufficient cause for losing his post as UN ambassador.

Indeed, AIPAC’s targeting of Omar and attempts to silence her voice on Palestine adds to a long list of African American leaders who faced a similar backlash from pro-Israel groups for daring to speak out for Palestinians’ human rights and who have expressed readiness to challenge the power of the Israel lobby.

Continue reading “Why black voices matter on Palestine”

Omar has faced a firestorm in recent weeks for making comments critical of Israel.

By Christina Marcos | The Hill | Mar 26, 2019

‘A condemnation for people that want to exercise their First Amendment rights is beneath any leader, and I hope that we find a better use of language when we are trying to speak as members of Congress that are sworn to protect the Constitution.’
— Rep Ilhan Omar

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Tuesday pushed back against Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for denouncing the global boycott and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel during an appearance before the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference.

During a speech before the conference Tuesday morning, Pelosi said, “We must also be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as policy, and that includes BDS,” referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Omar, as well as fellow freshman Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), both support the BDS movement, which seeks to pressure Israel over its policy toward Palestinians. The rookie lawmakers are the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress. . . .

Continue reading “Omar hits back at Pelosi over BDS remarks”

Pro-Israel philanthropist using his millions to get ugly with BDS supporters.

By Alex Kane | The Intercept  |  Mar 25, 2019

We should teach them that anyone that attacks us, there is a price, there is accountability.

Adam Milstein, a real estate millionaire and prolific donor to right-wing, pro-Israel causes, had a busy few days on Twitter this month. In one tweet, he accused Rep. Ilhan Omar of being a “terrorist.” In another, he questioned Omar’s and Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s loyalty to the United States. He also accused Tlaib and Omar, the first two Muslim-American women elected to Congress, of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, indulging a tired trope popular among anti-Muslim bigots.

The backlash was swift, particularly in light of Milstein’s backing of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, whose annual conference kicked off on Sunday. In response to those Twitter posts, an AIPAC spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Milstein “is not a representative of AIPAC and his views are not ours.” Meanwhile, Milstein pulled out of a panel he was scheduled to moderate at the conference, saying he did not want to be a distraction.

Milstein sits on AIPAC’s national council, and through his family foundation, has donated generously to the American Israel Education Foundation, AIPAC’s nonprofit arm. His support for AIPAC is just one part of his portfolio of pro-Israel philanthropy, which has in recent years bankrolled efforts to shut down American support for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or BDS.

Continue reading “Right-wing donor Adam Milstein has spent millions of dollars to stifle the BDS movement and attack critics of Israeli policy”

Cheering the dishonest and partisan jabs of Netanyahu and the Republicans destroys the American political consensus that has preserved the Jewish state for 70 years.

By Dana Milbank | The Washington Post | Mar 26, 2019

On Monday, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) literally read from Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ on the House floor and borrowed Hitler’s ‘big lie’ allegation against Jews to use on Democrats. ‘Unconscionable,’ said the Anti-Defamation League. But Republicans, and Netanyahu, said nothing.

The gods were toying with Benjamin Netanyahu and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

The Israeli prime minister canceled his Tuesday appearance at the pro-Israel lobbying group’s Washington conference because of violence in Israel, but he attempted a live video address.

“Mr. Prime Minister, can you hear us?”

“I can hear you. I always hear you,” Netanyahu replied.

Then, 11 seconds after the prime minister began, the satellite feed broke up and never completely recovered.

“I returned to deal with the [inaudible],” Netanyahu said.

But whoever or whatever disrupted the feed performed a mitzvah. . . .

Continue reading “Netanyahu’s AIPAC speech is a knife in the heart of the US-Israel alliance”

In 2016, longtime Trump advisor and current US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said Trump would recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the entire West Bank if Israel “deemed it necessary.”

By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | Mar 25, 2019

‘After years of creeping Israeli de facto annexation of the large swathes of the West Bank through settlement expansion, the creation of closed military zones and other measures, Israel appears to be getting closer to enacting legislation that will formally annex parts of the West Bank.’
— Michael Lynk, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

After US President Donald Trump announced that he planned to unilaterally recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights — which is internationally recognized as Syrian territory — some powerful Israeli politicians are now petitioning Trump to also recognize Israeli sovereignty over Palestine’s occupied West Bank.

Though Trump casually announced that it was “time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty [sic] over the Golan Heights” last Thursday, he made the US’s recognition of Israel’s claim to the territory official on Monday, at a signing ceremony that was attended by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s willingness to use his executive power to grant Israeli land grabs “official recognition” — such as in Jerusalem and now the Golan — has emboldened far-right Israeli politicians who have long been eager to annex other territories.

Continue reading “After Trump’s Golan Heights announcement, Israeli politicians now pushing for US recognition of the West Bank as “Israeli””

Students at 31 US colleges have passed resolutions in support of BDS, although no school administration has taken action to divest.

By Aiden Pink | Forward | Mar 22, 2019

‘Today is a historic day for Brown as we take an emboldened and clear stand against the university’s complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine and in similar systems of oppression around the world.’
— Brown Divest, a student organization in support of BDS

Students at Brown University voted Thursday to call on the school to divest from companies that allegedly violate human rights through their work in Israel.

Some 69% voted for the measure in a campus referendum, with 31% opposed. Students were asked whether the university should “divest all stocks, funds, endowment and other monetary instruments from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine.” Around 44% of the student body participated in the vote, which also included student government elections.

Continue reading “Brown University students vote to support BDS — the first among Ivy League schools”

Trump is opening a Pandora’s box where states are allowed to change international borders by force. He is making not just Netanyahu but also Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping very happy.

By Max Boot | The Washington Post | Mar 22, 2019

No previous president promised to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and indeed President Ronald Reagan supported a 1981 UN Security Council resolution calling the annexation ‘null and void,’ because all previous presidents had adhered to the principle of territorial integrity.

President Trump’s announcement that “it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights” — which stops just short of actually doing so — is being received as yet another example of, as the New York Times wrote, his “willingness to flout diplomatic orthodoxy and shake up a debate over the Middle East that has changed little since the 1970s.” That’s true, but it greatly understates the significance of his action. Trump is subverting one of the most fundamental pillars of the post-1945 world order: the principle that no nation can change international boundaries by force.

Territorial integrity was listed as both the first and second war aims agreed to by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the 1941 Atlantic Charter: “First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other; second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.” It was then enshrined in Article 2 of the 1945 United Nations Charter: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”
Continue reading “Trump just made a huge mistake in the Middle East”

Israeli voters may be about to rush headlong into quicksand that they don’t even realize exists.

By Michael Koplow | The New York Times | Mar 22, 2019

[Annexing the West Bank] would cost billions of dollars annually, would create virtually indefensible borders . . . provide ammunition to the anti-Israeli Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and destroy Israel’s foreign relations with a host of countries. . . .
Israel would then have to grant citizenship to the 2.5 million Palestinians living there, giving itself the choice of no longer functioning as a Jewish state, or destroy its democracy by denying the Palestinians political equality. If anything can truly threaten Israel, the region’s pre-eminent military and economic powerhouse, it is that.

On April 9, Israelis will go to the polls to choose their next government. The campaign has largely been a referendum on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should remain Israel’s leader in light of his expected indictment in three corruption cases for bribery and breach of trust. With those scandals front and center, policy disagreements have largely been ignored, leaving Israeli voters at risk of unwittingly bringing an avoidable disaster on themselves by annexing territory in the West Bank.

President Trump just raised that risk.

Continue reading “Israel is on the brink of disaster — Trump just made things worse”

Please join our brothers and sisters at the Mideast Focus Ministry for their First Friday Film series.

	Date:	Friday, Apr 5, 2019
	Time:	7:00 – 8:30 pm
	Location:	St. Mark’s Cathedral Bloedel Hall 1245 10th Ave E Seattle, WA 98102
	Information:	Event information here →
	Tickets:	Free Admission

Event Details

This is Home is an intimate portrait of four Syrian refugee families arriving in America and struggling to find their footing. Displaced from their homes and separated from loved ones, they are given eight months of assistance from the International Rescue Committee to become self-sufficient. As they learn to adapt to challenges, including the newly imposed travel ban, their strength and resilience are tested. It is a universal story, highlighted by humor and heartbreak, about what it’s like to start over, no matter the obstacles.

After surviving the traumas of war, the families arrive in Baltimore, Maryland and are met with a new set of trials. They attend cultural orientation classes and job training sessions where they must “learn America” — everything from how to take public transportation to negotiating new gender roles — all in an ever-changing and increasingly hostile political environment. Their goals are completely relatable: find a job, pay the bills, and make a better life for the next generation. Continue reading “Film: This is Home — A Refugee Story (Apr 5)”