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Mark Braverman on Peter Beinart, Liberal Zionism and the Battle for Palestine.

By Mark Braverman | Tikkun  | Mar 18 2021

 The “separate regimes delusion” has been a key element of the almost five-decades long “peace process” to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

In January, 2021, Jerusalem-based journalist and analyst Nathan Thrall called out the Zionist left for promoting the fiction that as long as Israel refrains from annexing occupied Palestinian land, it does not cross the line into apartheid (“The Separate Regimes Delusion: Nathan Thrall on Israel’s Apartheid,” London Review of Books January 21, 2021). “The premise that Israel is a democracy,” he wrote, “rests on the belief that one can separate the pre-1967 state from the rest of the territory under its control.” The “separate regimes delusion” has been a key element of the almost five-decades long “peace process” to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. As Israel has continued to take land and impose a system of control and fragmentation that has made the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state impossible, liberal Zionists have clung desperately to the fiction of the “two-state solution” as all that stands in the way of the now undeniable reality that Israel and its occupied territories comprise a single apartheid state. Accordingly, a storm of protest erupted in response to the Knesset’s green lighting of the annexation of an additional 30% of the West Bank in early summer 2020. It was in the midst of this controversy that Peter Beinart’s “Yavne: A Jewish Case for Equality in Israel-Palestine” appeared in the July 7, 2020 edition of Jewish Currents. Cutting the Gordian knot of a Jewish and democratic Israel, Beinart endorsed the idea of a single state for Jews and Palestinians.

Continue reading “The Tormented Dance of the Colonizer:”

One man’s quest to find his son lays bare the reality of Palestinian life under Israeli rule. This piece in NY Review of Books describes the experience of one Palestinian father after a deadly road crash in the West Bank in 2012, in which a school bus carrying Salama’s son collided with a large truck on its way to an Israeli-owned quarry.  This piece explores the long history of how the West Bank came to be first occupied and then widely settled by Israel, creating the conditions that led to this particular human tragedy.  This article is free to view through April 4.

By Nathan Thrall | New York Review of Books | Mar 19, 2021

On the day before the accident, Milad Salama could hardly contain his excitement for the kindergarten class trip. “Baba,” he said, addressing his father, Abed, “I want to buy food for the picnic tomorrow.” Abed took his five-and-a-half-year-old son to a nearby convenience store, buying him a bottle of the Israeli orange drink Tapuzina, a tube of Pringles, and a chocolate Kinder Egg, his favorite dessert.

Early the next morning, Milad’s mother, Haifa, helped her fair-skinned, sandy-haired boy into his school uniform: gray pants, a white-collared shirt, and a gray sweater bearing the emblem of his private elementary school, Nour al-Houda, or “light of guidance.” Milad’s nine-year-old brother, Adam, old enough to walk to school on his own, had already left. Milad hurried to finish his breakfast, gathered his lunch and picnic treats, and rushed out to board the school bus. Abed was still in bed.

Continue reading “A Day in the Life of Abed Salama”

Microsoft provides a bold and sometimes overlooked example of how corporations benefit from, and contribute to, Israeli militarism and violence

By Yarden Katz | Mondoweiss | Mar 15, 2021

Microsoft provides a bold and sometimes overlooked example of corporations feeding on Israel’s violence.

When millions took to the streets last year to protest for Black lives, corporations saw trouble. The abolitionist call within the uprising – defund the police and invest in a better world – challenges state violence and its profiteers. So, companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, which enable state surveillance and violence, boosted their public relations. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, for example, declared “solidarity” with Black Lives Matter, and the company donated $250,000 to social justice groups (including the Minnesota Bail Fund).

Thanks to such image-building campaigns, Microsoft doesn’t get scrutinized as much as its peers. The company sponsors think tanks that bolster its progressive credentials and mask the industry’s violent and imperialist agenda. Microsoft also benefits from the aura of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation. The New York Times still turns to Gates for advice on how to fix the world’s problems, and runs chummy interviews with Microsoft President Brad Smith to get his insights on the problem of “money in politics.”

Continue reading “How Microsoft is invested in Israeli settler-colonialism”

British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi’s short film, set in occupied West Bank, has been shortlisted for the Oscars.

By William Parry | Al-Jazeera | Mar 9, 2021

“As children, we would go to Palestine, and I think that laid certain seeds – politically, no – but it laid certain attachments, certain connections to the people, the land, to friends we made, to our ancestral home, quite literally.”
— Farah Nabulsi, film director

A short film set in occupied Palestine – Farah Nabulsi’s The Present­ ­- has been shortlisted for the Oscars. Given the increased political isolation and setbacks Palestinians have faced throughout the Trump years in the Middle East and in the West, the international kudos and exposure The Present has enjoyed to date must be an upbeat and unexpected change for many.

It is a simple, relatable story of a labourer named Yusuf (played by Saleh Bakri), who sets out one day with his young daughter, Yasmine (played by Mariam Kanj), to get an anniversary gift for his wife.

Continue reading “Farah Nabulsi: Her past in The Present and the future”

The growing visibility of queer Palestinians poses a challenge to Arab political parties that are exploiting homophobia ahead of the Israeli election.

By Edo Konrad | +972 Magazine | Mar 17, 2021

“LGBTQ rights have become a kind of litmus test in Palestinian society,”
—Fady Khoury, a queer Palestinian human rights attorney and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.

The Palestinian LGBTQ community isn’t used to being at the heart of their society’s most heated political debates. Yet in the months leading up to Israel’s fourth election in two years, queer Palestinians are now being pushed to center stage.

In an interview earlier this month that went viral on Arabic and Hebrew social media, Ahmad Tibi, one of the most prominent Palestinian members of Knesset, stated that he was against the promotion of what he called “the LGBTQ phenomenon.” His party Ta’al, he said, rejects any legislation that promotes LGBTQ rights, opposes pride marches, and believes LGBTQ individuals should not be allowed into classrooms to meet with schoolchildren as part of the curriculum.

Continue reading “‘LGBTQ rights have become a litmus test in Palestinian society’”

Rachel Corrie was killed 18 yrs ago while participating in nonviolent direct action to protect the home of a Palestinian family from demolition. This October 2020 post is a reminder of the impact of a short life devoted to justice.

By Philip Weiss | Mondoweiss | Oct 20, 2020

‘[Rachel Corrie’s] passion for social activism, and willingness to put her own life on the line for it, is what is inspiring to me…’
— Director Christine Bokhour

Two Saturdays ago, a theater company near me presented a reading of the play, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” with four young women speaking Rachel’s words on a simple stage 50 feet from commuter rails.

About 60 people were in the audience, and there was none of the political drama that accompanied the play’s New York premiere in 2006. Israel’s friends did not succeed in shutting down a progressive theater company‘s production of the show… When the show did get staged, no one handed out flyers outside the theater with pictures of Israeli girls killed in suicide bombings.

Continue reading “The enduring power of Rachel Corrie”

Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, interrogated a field researcher for rights group B’Tselem who they said was always around during Palestinian activity.

By Amira Hass | Israel-Palestine News / reposted from Ha’aretz | Mar 15, 2021

His job is to document operations by official Israeli forces like the army, the Civil Administration and the police, as well as actions taken by settlers, against Palestinians.

A field researcher for Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem was investigated and warned by the Shin Bet Security service last week.

The security service coordinator, who identified himself as Captain Eid, told the researcher, Nasser Nawaj’ah, that he was “making trouble and threatening the army.” Captain Eid mentioned in this regard the incident involving Harun Abu Aram of the village al-Rakiz, who is lying paralyzed in hospital after a solider shot him in the neck because he tried to stop the army from seizing a neighbor’s generator.

Nawaj’ah is a resident of Sussia, in the southern West Bank. His job is to document operations by official Israeli forces like the army, the Civil Administration and the police, as well as actions taken by settlers, against Palestinians. He photographed, for example, the arrest of five boys from the village of Umm Lasafa by soldiers last Wednesday.

Continue reading “Israel’s FBI gives human rights researcher a “warning””

A dozen House members slam range of Israeli policies, and five senators call on Israel to vaccinate Palestinians in separate letter

By Ali Harb | Middle East Eye | Mar 12, 2021

“We are greatly heartened that the Biden Administration is opposed to Israeli annexation; however, Israel’s ongoing colonization of the Palestinian West Bank, including East Jerusalem, alongside its demolition of Palestinian homes, is a form of ongoing, de facto annexation which needs to be unequivocally opposed by the United States,”
— US House members in letter 

US lawmakers from both chambers of Congress have sent letters to the Biden administration criticising the Israeli government and urging it to vaccinate Palestinians living under its control.

In two separate letters sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, progressive senators and members of the House of Representatives called on the US administration to resume funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and push to ensure the rights of Palestinians.

The documents signal the growing willingness to criticize Israel amongst Democrats in Congress, a branch of the US government where unquestioning support for Israel is the norm.

Continue reading “‘Winds are shifting’: US lawmakers criticize Israel in two rare letters”

The Palestinian legislative elections face disputes and hurdles that could prevent the vote from being held.

By Ahmad Melhem | Al-Monitor | Feb 28, 2021

“I believe that the odds of holding the elections do not exceed 50% due to the many obstacles.”
— Ghassan al-Khatib, former Palestinian planning minister

RAMALLAH, West Bank — It remains unclear whether or not the Palestinian legislative elections, scheduled for May 22, will be held in the Palestinian territories in line with the decree President Mahmoud Abbas issued Jan. 15. Doubts about the success of the elections persist within large population segments.

At the operational level, the Central Elections Commission — an independent commission tasked with organizing and monitoring the elections that was set up by a decree issued by President Yasser Arafat in 2002 — is carrying on with the preparation phases for the electoral process. Phase 1, which consisted of the voter registration process, ended Feb. 17. The commission indicated in a press statement that the total number of voters registered reached nearly 2.622 million, or 93% of the 2.809 million eligible voters, according to the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics. The three-day Phase 2, which includes claims and objections, begins March 1.

Continue reading “Despite international support, obstacles threaten Palestinian elections”

A political alignment between Likud Zionism and far-right Religious Zionism could have significant ramifications.

By Jonathan Cook | The Electronic Intifada | Mar 12, 2021

 …Netanyahu’s dependence on Religious Zionism maximizing its seat count means he will be committed to doing everything possible to push the “ticket over the threshold” in the final stages of the campaign.
— Israeli analyst

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brokered an electoral alliance that is almost certain to bring Israel’s version of the Ku Klux Klan into the Israeli parliament when elections are held later this month.

Netanyahu’s primary aim is to make sure he wins a decisive majority by shoring up the far-right bloc so that he can pass an immunity law to neutralize his current corruption trial.

Enter Otzma Yehudit, or the Jewish Power party.

Otzma Yehudit is strongly influenced by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose virulently anti-Palestinian Kach party was barred from Israeli elections more than 30 years ago.

Continue reading “Israel’s KKK on way to government?”