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The issues of inequity being seen during this pandemic are also seen by Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories who suffer from high levels of structural racism and cross generational trauma.

By Alice Rothchild | Mondoweiss | Aug 8, 2020

It can be argued that race (a predominantly social construct) is not the issue– rather, that the racism within our societies where African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other people of color live and work creates the inequities and vulnerabilities that produce the racial and ethnic differences in the data that are now obvious.

Much of the analysis of COVID-19 and Palestine examines the pandemic through a political lens. Palestinians in Israel and the territories have had less access to testing and information due to their second-class citizenship and the conditions of occupation. In the West Bank and Gaza, there are significant deficits in medical resources (such as ventilators) and trained (and adequately paid) medical staff.

In general Palestinians under occupation have high rates of diseases related to stress, poverty, smoking, and poor nutrition such as diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. They tend to live in environments contaminated by the detritus of war and the toxics from unregulated industries (such as Israeli industrial zones in the West Bank) with high levels of asthma and cancer. They often work in jobs that cannot be done on Zoom and that provide no labor protections– notably the construction and homecare workers who travel daily to Israel from the West Bank, waiting for hours in crowded checkpoints.

Continue reading “The pandemic’s savage political revelations, from the U.S. to Palestine”

A look at the women on Joe Biden’s VP short list and their record on the issue of justice for Palestinians.

By Kathryn Shihadah | Israel-Palestine News | Aug 6, 2020

It appears that the only VP candidates to have publicly shown any genuine concern for Palestinians are Elizabeth Warren and, to a lesser degree, Karen Bass. The rest seem focused only on what’s expedient for Israel.

Just a year ago, IAK reported on Candidate Joe Biden and where he stands on Israel/Palestine. In those days, he was one of a slate of 24, and his odds didn’t look great. But he has weathered every storm, and stands now as the presumed Democratic nominee for president.

It would be great if Biden’s running mate – he promised he’d choose a woman – makes up what he lacks in backbone vis-a-vis justice for Palestinians – but does anyone on his short list fit the bill? Let’s take a look.

Continue reading “Where do Biden’s VP candidates stand on Palestine?”

BDS efforts to highlight investments contributing to Israel’s apartheid investments claim a victory.

By Asa Winstanley | The Electronic Intifada | Aug 3, 2020

‘University of Manchester divesting from complicit companies shows the power of the grassroots student movement to hold our institutions to account.’
— Huda Ammori, founder of BDS campaign at University of Manchester

The University of Manchester has divested more than $5 million from Caterpillar and the parent company of travel site Booking.com.

Activists on Monday said it was “a colossal win for the Palestine solidarity movement in Britain” and a “watershed moment.”

The university has been a focus for campaigners since 2016 due to its investments in firms complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Last year students crashed a board meeting to demand divestment from Caterpillar.

Continue reading “Manchester university divests from firms complicit in Israeli occupation”

International diplomacy has normalized delays to the detriment of populations concerned with accessing and implementing their legitimate political and legal rights.

By Ramona Wadi | Middle East Monitor |  Aug 4, 2020

‘While the international community is concerned with the ‘possibility’ of annexation…Israel is implementing its annexation scheme on the ground without any deterrence.’
— Hanan Ashrawi, PLO Executive Committee Member

While the Palestine Liberation Organisation has been calling upon the EU to step up from rhetoric to action regarding Israel’s forthcoming annexation of occupied West Bank territory, Europe’s Foreign Affairs Chief Josep Borrell invited Israeli Defence Minister Gabi Ashkenazi to Brussels to meet with the bloc’s foreign ministers.

“While the international community is concerned with the ‘possibility’ of annexation,” said PLO Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi, “Israel is implementing its annexation scheme on the ground without any deterrence.” Israeli plans for further construction in East Jerusalem prompted Ashrawi’s comments, as EU politicians adopt activist tactics by abandoning their power to act both morally and politically and opting instead to write a “protest letter” to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Continue reading “The Palestinians are caught between ‘waiting’ and ‘the possibility’ of annexation”

Mentors and artists from around the world have joined with youth in Gaza to create a platform for mentoring youth to tell the human stories behind the numbers in the news.

By Basman Derawi | We Are Not Numbers | July 26, 2020

I swallow my sour saliva and try to hold on to what I believe.

Hello, God.
How are you today?
I don’t know what day
of the global lockdown it is.
Here, we are always
in lockdown.
News swirls in the rumor mill
that is social media:
Young people committing suicide.
Not just one, but five.

I swallow my sour saliva
and try to hold on to what I believe.
I want to die, but I want to live first:
out of prison, in a place where
I can move freely,
light is not a privilege
and hope is realistic.

Continue reading “A letter to God, from lockdown”

Hellbent on crafting an umbilical cord between itself and a biblical, mythical 2000-year old past, Israel has erased the ancient history of Palestinians.

By Sam Bahour | Mondoweiss | July 31, 2020

‘The Invention of Ancient Israel’ is not an easy read. It is one of those books that when you finish reading the last lines and look up you feel like you just emerged from a washing machine.

THE INVENTION OF ANCIENT ISRAEL
The Silencing of Palestinian History
By Keith W. Whitelam
296 pp. Routledge. £24.79

What do you get when you mix ten decades of biblical studies, an Old Testament, the ideology of Zionism, and a tablespoon of politically motivated archaeology, all mixed in a bowl of historical evidence? Author Keith W. Whitelam undertook this recipe and reports on the results in “The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History” (of 1997). The short answer to the question is that one is left with a toxic modern state, hell-bent on crafting an umbilical cord between itself and a mythical 2000-year old past. In other words, the State of Israel.

If no one were hurt during this process, one could just turn a blind eye and be content that, To each his own. But when the results of the recipe never produce a stable product, and an entire people are continuously being battered into oblivion, we each have a responsibility to step in and say enough is enough.

Continue reading “Man-made Israel (and the obsessive erasure of Palestinian history)”

The global, peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has grown in prominence worldwide.

By Ali Abunimah | The Electronic Intifada | July 30, 2020

‘Mahmoud is a leading Palestinian human rights defender who is highly regarded in Palestine and around the world for his tireless and passionate advocacy of Palestinian rights,’ Barghouti said.
— Omar Barghouti, a co-founder of the BDS movement

Israeli occupation forces detained the general coordinator of the BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – movement in a night raid early Thursday.

Continue reading “Israel arrests BDS coordinator in night raid”

Book review of Rashid Khalidi’s latest book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017.

By Kaleem Hawa | The Nation | July 27, 2020

For as long as I have been alive, the barriers in the West to advocating for Palestinian rights have deterred all but the most committed people.

Here’s the script: Criminalize the boycotts, deport the human rights advocates, rebrand anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism, smear the leftist Jews, infiltrate the leftist organizations, defund the aid programs, torpedo the political campaigns, fire the high school teachers and speech pathologists and network commentators, and pinkwash the occupation. The tactics vary today, but the intent remains the same. For as long as I have been alive, the barriers in the West to advocating for Palestinian rights have deterred all but the most committed people.

Often, as a result, the responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of Palestinians. Rashid Khalidi, a professor at Columbia and a codirector of its Center for Palestine Studies, is one of the best known to have taken up this responsibility. An acclaimed historian and former adviser to the Palestine delegation during the Madrid talks in 1991, he has written about the origins of Arab nationalism, American Cold War policy in the Middle East, the construction of Palestinian identity, and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He has also played an important role in representing Palestinians in Western media and in mentoring a growing generation of Palestinian writers and academics, including Noura Erakat and Lana Tatour.

Continue reading “Present absences”

A non-profit organization that supports IDF soldiers received a $2.5 million PPP loan under the guise of a “religious organization,” but adds up to a mere pittance of the continued bonanza of American tax-payer dollars flowing to the apartheid state.

By Raul Diego | MintPress News | July 24, 2020

From aiding the wholesale dispossession of Palestinian lands by Israeli settlers to killing children with targeted headshots, the Israeli Defense Forces are anything but a boon for humanity.

A non-profit organization that “that provides for wellbeing of the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)” was awarded a $2.5 million forgivable PPP loan by the (Small Business Administration) SBA. The Friends of Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF) is the only organization “authorized to represent the IDF across the United States and Panama” where they claim to operate 20 regional offices, with a P.O. Box in New York.

The FIDF’s loan was filed under the category of “religious organization” in the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan data, despite the NPO being listed as a Y12 organization under the IRS’ NTEE classification system for non-profits: a “Mutual/Membership Benefit Organization,” which (in the case of FIDF) raises funds for issues relating to “foreign affairs and national security,” according to the tax-exempt organizations database published by ProPublica.

Continue reading “Friends of the IDF lobby group secures forgivable US COVID loans for Israeli soldiers”