B’nai Brith is suing pro-Palestinian Rabbi David Mivasair and undermining the meaning of antisemitism by using it to describe any criticism of Israel, even rabbis who challenge their extremist view of who is a good Jew.

The venom of the Israel lobby toward the Nakba is understandable. Acknowledging the Nakba doesn’t just undermine the “miracle” of Israel, but the state’s legitimacy in the eyes of idealistic Americans.

Al Franken expresses anti-Palestinian views when he dismisses their experience of Zionism and overlooks the Nakba, when 750,000 were expelled from their homes.

Five years ago today, Palestinians in Gaza launched the Great March of Return. Israel brutally suppressed the demonstrations, leaving many of its participants amputated. But those who joined the March would do it all over again.

Fida Jiriyis’s memoir is the product of her unique and multilayered experience of the different fragments of Palestinian existence — as an exile, in the diaspora, as a Palestinian citizen inside Israel, and in Occupied Palestine.

The book offers more than just a personal glimpse into each of these very distinct realities. It viscerally evokes the flavor of each modality, each moment, wedding the historical facts to the writer’s own impassioned feelings and unfettered impressions. 

The longest refugee tragedy in the world is that of the Palestinians, who were forcibly uprooted from their homes in 1948. The right of return remains the essence of the Palestinian cause.

For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told, even by their leaders, that the Nakba is a thing of the past. However, with Palestinian reality worsening under the deepening system of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, Palestinians now understand that they have no possible alternative but their unity, their resistance and the return to the fundamentals of their struggle.

There are troubling signs that UNRWA’s mandate might be coming to an end. Any attempts at canceling or redefining UNRWA’s mission will pose a serious, if not an unprecedented challenge for Palestinians.

The groundbreaking Amnesty International report on Israeli apartheid would not have been possible without Palestinian resistance, including the BDS campaign and the Great March of Return in Gaza. In attacking Amnesty, the ADL makes no attempt to substantively refute any of its arguments. Thus the Amnesty report contributes to an important shift in public mainstream discussion of Palestine that would have been unthinkable not that long ago. A line has been crossed, and moving forward, Israel’s attempt to whitewash itself as a “Jewish and democratic” state will likely be accepted by no one other than its enablers.

In November 2021, Salman Abu Sitta returned to the Gaza Strip after five decades of forced absence. What he found surprised and inspired him.