Israelis have set fire to nine Palestinian homes in the last three years, and no one has ever been charged. So why does the U.S. government have “faith in the system” when it comes to the murder last night of Ali Saed Dabwasha?
This Thursday was a day of terror in Israel. Almost immediately after an ultra-Orthodox fanatic Yishai Schlisser stabbed six people at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, Jewish extremists perpetrated an arson attack in the village of Douma, near Nablus, killing a one-and-a-half year-old Palestinian toddler. Both crimes were explicitly condemned by the Israeli Prime-Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who even expressed his “shock and horror” at the events. Yet, both would not have been possible without the climate of hatred incited by Netanyahu’s own extreme right-wing government.
Ben Norton remembers attending the 2014 Christians United for Israel summit held last summer at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza. He writes, “a CUFI summit is a place where there is no distinction between church and state, between religion and nation, between faith and ideology. It is a place where the world is perpetually on the brink of absolute destruction, where Israel’s leaders—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Ron Dermer—warn “Islamists” are mere moments from setting the globe ablaze, and yet all their steadfast Christian supporters can do is celebrate, dance, ululate under the ecclesiastical influence, that hallowed intoxication only the Holy Spirit can induce.”
Israeli officials condemned the murder of a Palestinian child in a pricetag attack in the West Bank, but commenters on twitter point out that government support for a violent occupation where there is no accountability for settlers made the murder inevitable
On July 19th, the American Friends Service Committee held a symbolic morning commemoration on Montrose Beach in Chicago to remember the children killed by the Israeli military in the summer of 2014. AFSC’s morning remembrance on Montrose Beach consisted of placing black pinwheels in the sand. Each pinwheel symbolizes a child killed, and is labeled with their name and age. AFSC chose the location of a beach to symbolize the loss of the four Baker boys who were killed by the Israeli military while they were playing soccer on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea on July 16, 2014.
Democratic Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz won’t say if she supports the Iran Deal. She is clearly worried about alienating big campaign donors and the wrath of the Israel lobby, a minority faction inside the Jewish community, but the most engaged part
Howard Davidson writes: “If Palestinians’ academic freedom is to be valued as it is for Israelis, then a boycott of Israel state sponsored research and teaching is justified until the forces that deny academic freedom for Palestinians no longer exist. It is admirable to treasure academic freedom and to bristle at any suggestion of boycotts. It is hypocrisy to admonish the BDS call for academic boycott of Israeli institutions with no protest against a colonial regime that is denying Palestinian the same freedom.”
A Palestinian toddler was killed in the central West Bank village of Duma in an overnight settler arson attack that targeted two homes. Eighteen-month old Ali Saad Dawabsha died in the gasoline fire-bombings, and his mother and brother were seriously injured. The wounded were transferred by helicopter to a Israeli hospital in Jerusalem for treatment. A funeral was held in Duma this morning for Dawabsha.
Susan Abulhawa, the renowned Palestinian American novelist and political commentator, was denied entry to Palestine at the Allenby Bridge yesterday. Her wrath is on full display: “Denied entry to my homeland by a bunch of fucking Zionist colonizers who didn’t think I was sufficiently deferential. Livid.”
American Jewish organizations are not standing up for Israel out of fear of alienating Obama on the Iran deal, Nancy Pelosi says the deal will pass, and so neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz calls for Israel to attack Iran