Israeli authorities on Friday evening released the body of Abd al-Fattah al-Sharif, the Palestinian whose brutal killing by an Israeli soldier in March was caught on film, sparking international outrage. Al-Sharif’s family told Ma‘an his funeral will be held on Saturday afternoon.
J.M. Coetzee, the South African novelist, said at the Palestine Festival of Literature that it was rarely “productive” to use the word apartheid. But he implied that Israel was enforcing such a system in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The New York Times on Thursday described Israel’s military occupation in dismissive quotations (i.e “occupation”) in a story concerning Israelis and Palestinians and the Democratic National Convention. In another breathtaking example of digital illiteracy and editorial discombobulation, the Times removed the insensitive quotation marks a few hours afterwards with no editorial explanation. Maybe it was all some kind of innocent misunderstanding. But there’s plenty of reason not to believe that.
The Israeli Army has initiated a crisis of demolitions in the West Bank’s Area C, displacing more Palestinian families this year than in all of 2015. A stated program of forced relocation is underway. The Rebuilding Alliance urges Americans to call Congress to oppose US support for the project.
Welcome to occupied Hebron. “What’s your religion?” an Israeli border policeman asked me– a question I would grow accustomed to. “Jewish,” I told him. “Why?” He said, “It’s dangerous. You could be killed.”
The soccer club Beitar Jerusalem should be barred from European competition because the club has fostered racist outbursts by its rightwing fanbase and by a player too. It’s no wonder new Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman is a fan.
In the occupied West Bank student government elections are the only democratic bellweather of popular opinion, and are taken seriously both by the local population and political analysts. Although the vast majority of student body presidents have been men, Dana Rwaidy, Nawras Abd Addayem and Bahader Rezqallah were all recently elected president at universities in Bethlehem, Salfit and Tulkarem, the latter two cities considered more conservative parts of the West Bank. Rwaidy said she was happy to see that women have started to be more represented in higher education, but stressed that Palestine has a history of female leaders, both in the political sphere and in its resistance. “I don’t feel like my winning presidency is something I should focus on for too long, of course it is a great achievement, but it is just one step in where I am going in life, and there will be much bigger achievements to gain later because there is no restricting how far women can go in this country,” Rwaidy said.
A pro-Israel “gathering of influencers” known as the Beyond Conference took place in The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College last Friday on a beautiful New York afternoon. The purpose of the conference – which promoted itself with the tagline “Inspiration. Innovation. Israel.”– was to promote Israel, particularly its booming high-tech sector, which raised a record $4.4 billion in 2015. But as Rob Bryan writes, beneath the rote platitudes of the presentations lied a more sinister motive – whitewashing Israeli apartheid with a tech-friendly veneer.
A consortium of pro-Israel groups hold a conference at SUNY Purchase to explore “anti-semitism on campus,” but smearing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and saying there has never been a Palestine is not the way to win the hearts of young Jews.
Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, 91, died at her home in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, on May 26, 2016. An internationally renowned, respected and admired advocate for human and civil rights, Hedy was encircled by friends who lovingly cared for her at home. Born August 15, 1924, in the Bavarian region of Germany, her lifelong commitment to human rights was formed by the horrific experiences she and her family endured under the repressive Nazi regime. As part of her lifetime of working for social justice, Epstein had been devoted to working for peace and justice in Israel and Palestine since the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatila.