Now he’s “Boo Boo!” Netanyahu! The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin aka “Bibi” Netanyahu received a chorus of boos from the most American of audiences: New Yorkers who paid exorbitant sums to see the ever sold out smash hit “Hamilton.”
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton in New York, ahead of Monday’s first presidential debate. Trump promised to keep Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and Clinton told the Israeli leader that she would oppose any outside agitators who try to impose peace, even agitators like the United Nations, and especially the BDS movement. The meetings suggest that Netanyahu will have the full attention of whoever the American people choose to occupy the White House.
The Daniel S. Abraham Center for Peace, a prominent liberal Zionist lobbying group run by former Democratic Florida congressman Robert Wexler, purchased a full-page newspaper advertisement in Friday’s edition of the New York Times, calling for the immediate separation of Israelis and Palestinians into separate countries to keep Israel as a Jewish majority state. “It’s Time for Separation,” the advertisement explains. “Separation today means a Jewish majority, State of Israel now and for Generations ahead.” Or, as Alabama Gov. George Wallace put it: “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”
On Monday, Donald Trump and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio hailed counter-terrorism tactics that civil rights advocates found alarming, especially as Islamophobic attacks are on the rise amid rancorous campaign rhetoric. Their comments came after a Saturday night bombing in Manhattan injured 29 people. An Afghan-born suspect, Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, is now in police custody.
After an abrupt suspension last Tuesday, a college course about the decolonization of Palestine has earned a reprieve from the University of California on Monday. The campaign against the class was lead by the AMCHA Initiative, a pro-Israel advocacy group which has a long history of attempting to stifle discussion of the Israeli occupation on University of California campuses.
Pfizer supports Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidency. It also produces Prevenar 13, a pneumonia treatment that costs $10 a course, a price too high for some of the millions of children who get it each year. Clinton should email or phone her friends at Pfizer and get them to lower the price.
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton participated in a public forum with veterans on Wednesday night, describing how they’d defeat Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Although they diverged on the methods their answers were the same — more war in the middle east. Clinton is playing the role of Ego in American foreign policy, rationalizing unethical decisions, owning up to some questionable decisions (Iraq) but not others (Libya). Meanwhile, Trump is the remorseless Id, the base impulse of empire to seize land and resources through the promise of deadly force. The Id knows colonialism isn’t about bringing the blessings of civilization to conquered, it’s about exploiting them and their resources. Trump seems to understand that in a way Clinton doesn’t, or at least won’t admit.
The two sides of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement squared off in New York’s City Hall on Thursday, with BDS activists disrupting a hearing where city council members discussed a resolution condemning BDS. “New York City Council should stay out of the business of condemning non-violent human rights movements,” Radhika Sainath, staff attorney with Palestine Legal, said in a statement. “By passing this resolution, New York City Council will chill the speech of New Yorkers eager to be part of an international human rights movement.”
Activists groups are calling on President Barack Obama to launch an investigation into the death of Mahmoud Shaalan, a Palestinian-American teenager killed by the Israeli military in February.
Incumbent Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz defeated challenger Tim Canova, a law professor, in a primary election this Tuesday, disappointing some Berniecrat-boosting voters who want to see the Vermont senator’s policies on Capitol Hill. Despite Canova’s outsider status, the race showed how Israel/Palestine is sacred political territory for all Democrats.