‘NYT’ puts Dems’ battle over Israel platform on the front page. The exposure signifies that the Democratic Party is lost to Israel forever, as the progressive grassroots assert themselves, through the Sanders campaign, against a reactionary corrupt establishment that depends on pro-Israel money.
Israeli forces killed a teenage girl at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem after she allegedly attempted to attack a soldier. Israel has killed more than 200 Palestinians in similar fashion since last October, and lately returned the bodies of two Palestinians seven months after they were killed.
For a New York Times column saying that Israel’s future as a Jewish state is in peril, Thomas Friedman had to rely on reporting by the Israeli press, since his own publication has flubbed the story of the country’s deepening political crisis.
The decision by Listowel Writers’ Week Festival, an internationally acclaimed literary festival in the Irish heritage town of Listowel County Kerry, to refuse funding from the Israeli Embassy in Ireland has been welcomed by artists, human rights campaigners and Palestine solidarity activists in Ireland, and is being hailed as victory for the growing Palestinian-led global Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement.
After 25 years of bringing cases to Israel’s military court and supporting investigations into the killings of Palestinians, a foremost Israeli human rights group has said “there is no longer any point” to submitting complaints. Following stalled and faulty investigations in more than 700 cases since 2000, which resulted in a 3% conviction rate, the rights group B’tselem has given up on cooperating with the military justice system. The organization now believes filing cases in army courts can cause further harm to Palestinian victims. The group said it will cease “lending legitimacy to the occupation regime and aiding to whitewash it,” in report published today that outlines what it described as major deficits in the prosecuting process.
Young American Jews are turning away from Israel, so a pro-Israel propaganda shop has come up with the solution. Jerusalem U will pay young people $100 to watch its movies.
Israeli leadership is in crisis over the nature of the Jewish state, with leaders saying the political culture is reminiscent of Nazi Germany; and a NY Times editorial that treats the events as a political reshuffling is an embarrassing and obfuscating contribution to the discourse. What will it take for the Times to stop making the most preposterously generous interpretations of Israeli actions?
Mohammed Alhammami recalls stories he heard growing up of Jews, Muslims and Christians living alongside each other in historic Palestine as one people, not divided factions. But he wonders what about now? Can Jews and Palestinians (Christians and Muslims alike) really coexist in the Holy Land, after 68 years of Nakba?
Advocates for the rights of Palestinians will join Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia this July for the Democratic National convention, part of his five selections for the fifteen member Executive Committee drafting the Democrats’ 2016 platform. Three of the five selected have expressed skepticism about Israel. According to The Washington Post, they are James Zogby, the head of the Arab American Institute; Cornel West, a social justice activist and author critical of Israel, and Minn. Rep. Keith Ellison, one of only two Muslims in congress. “Our lives depend on the outcome of this election. The stakes are much higher for us,” said Linda Sarsour, co-founder of the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, a Palestinian-American born in Brooklyn who has been a vocal surrogate for Sanders during his campaign.
Two irresponsible charges of anti-Semitism are leveled against Israel critics. French premier Manuel Valls says BDS is based on anti-semitism, while the Asheville Citzen-Times runs a letter defaming human rights activist Jeff Halper as an anti-Semite.