Category Archives: US Politics

Why Palestine is different

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Sam Bahour

Secretary of State John Kerry is making an all-out effort to restart peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine. Many well-intentioned people with hands-on experience in resolving other longstanding, global issues, like those of Ireland, South Africa, and U.S. civil rights have engaged in the Palestinian-Israeli issue. While there is always a great deal to learn from other global experiences, the case of Palestine is different and unless Secretary Kerry recognizes this all efforts will be in vain. Three issues related to this conflict that are crucial to understand are: historic guilt, colonial responsibility, and the U.S. “special relationship” with Israel.

Posted in Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | 1 Comment

Bradley Manning blows chance to have a gay wedding

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Susie Day

Today, I bring you a hard-hitting work of in-depth political analysis re: Private First Class Bradley Manning. It seems some malcontents on the Board of San Francisco’s Gay Pride Parade have suggested Private Manning for Grand Marshal.

Posted in Activism, US Politics, War on Terror | 3 Comments

AIPAC promotes Netanyahu on two states (and ignores the statements from the rest of his government)

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Philip Weiss and Adam Horowitz

AIPAC is promoting Netanyahu as supportive of the peace process, but the statements of the rest of his government paint a very different picture.

Posted in Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, Israeli Government | 2 Comments

Cornell SJP publishes ‘Notes on Palestine/Israel’ as an antidote to ‘dialogue’

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine

“Notes on Palestine/Israel” is an annual publication put out by Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine. As campus Palestine activists, we are often accused of being unwilling and unable to “dialogue” reasonably with our Zionist counterparts so we open this volume of “Notes” with our analysis of the problems of engaging in such empty and token calls to dialogue. Dialogue in our view is not just mere claim and denial but an actual critical engagement with real political questions. With that in mind, we offer this volume of “Notes” as our dialogue.

Posted in Activism, Israel/Palestine, US Politics | 1 Comment

Exile and the Prophetic: Notes from a ‘marginal Jew’

Posted on May 24, 2013 by Marc H. Ellis

My reflections on being a marginal Jew come from my pre-emptive victory shout-out for the Church of Scotland who kept the main thrust of “The Inheritance of Abraham” and then, lo and behold, yesterday it passed the General Assembly. A pre-emptive declaration of victory and a real one, too!

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel/Palestine | 8 Comments

Video: Medea Benjamin interrupts Obama speech on US drone policy

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Adam Horowitz

Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin interrupted President Obama several times during a speech at National Defense University on the ongoing “war on terror,” including U.S. drone policy and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

Posted in Activism, Middle East, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics, War on Terror | 31 Comments

Glenn Greenwald on the Woolwich attack and blowback from the ‘war on terror’

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Annie Robbins

Glenn Greenwald wrote another of his important blowback articles this morning in the Guardian; Was the London killing of a British soldier ‘terrorism’? He asks an essential question concerning the definition and use of the term “terrorism”. The media in western societies should be scrutinizing this definition and the hypocrisy with which the term is applied.

Posted in Media, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics, War on Terror | 44 Comments

Exile and the Prophetic: Does John Kerry have the keys to Kafka’s (middle east) castle?

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Marc H. Ellis

Israel is making Kafka’s castle seem easy to access and navigate. But, then, Palestinians already live in a Kafkaesque world where their appeals to democracies and dictatorships end up in the same garbage can. Since we know that democracies can be imperial and colonial powers, democracies can likewise be regressive and enablers of regressive politics on distant shores. Israel may be a democracy for Jews but it increasingly acts like the only regressive democracy in the Middle East.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, Israeli Government, Occupation, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | 8 Comments

Kerry goes for the Hail Mary, but Obama is punting

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Philip Weiss

Kerry’s trip to the Middle East is either: Groundhog day to 1991, messianic, or a laughingstock. In any case, nothing will happen, experts say, without Obama showing a willingness to take on AIPAC and the Israeli government. And he won’t. Above, Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Kerry during Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, on April 8, 2013.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | 45 Comments

Israel cracks down on American travel to West Bank by requiring tourists to obtain military permit

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Alex Kane

Israeli authorities have found another way to impede free access to the occupied territories for American travelers. Haaretz’s Amira Hass reported over the weekend that tourists from the U.S. have had to sign a declaration requiring them to obtain a military permit for travel to the occupied West Bank. It’s another example of Israeli restrictions on American travel to occupied Palestine, and it exposes a galling aspect of the “special relationship”: all the military aid and diplomatic support to Israel doesn’t shield Americans from being routinely discriminated against based on their political affiliations or ethnic background.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | Tagged | 50 Comments

Jewish philanthropies stay away from org dedicated to Yiddish culture because it doesn’t focus on Israel or the Holocaust

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Adam Horowitz

Yiddishkayt’s Executive Director, Rob Adler-Peckerar, has written an interesting blog post explaining how Jewish philanthropies have all but ignored the Helix program because it does not focus on the Holocaust or Israel.

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel/Palestine, US Politics | 37 Comments

Reporters Without Borders on the Israeli al-Dura investigation: ‘the nature and substance of this report are questionable and give the impression of a smear operation’

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Adam Horowitz

Reporters Without Borders just released a statement on recently released Israeli investigation into the death of Muhammad al-Dura.

Posted in Activism, Israel/Palestine, Israeli Government, Media, Occupation | 9 Comments

The etymology of anti-Semitism

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Katie Miranda

A cartoon from Katie Miranda looking at the changing meaning of the term “anti-Semitism.”

Posted in Activism, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, US Politics | Tagged | 15 Comments

Video: Paterson, NJ raises the Palestinian flag over city hall for Palestinian-American Day

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Annie Robbins

One day after the Palestinian flag reached the top of the world, a flag raising ceremony was held in Paterson, New Jersey (video 3:12) accompanied by the Palestinian national anthem and cheers of “Long Live Palestine”.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, Reports/Video, US Politics | 14 Comments

Jim from Newport Township, Illinois asks the wrong question

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Philip Weiss

When a listener asks a question about public broadcasting’s debt to Zionist funders, the Diane Rehm show cuts him off

Posted in Israel/Palestine, Media, US Politics | 11 Comments

Press Release: Isabel Kershner chosen to reveal future Israeli exonerations

Posted on May 21, 2013 by David Samel

Fresh from its triumph in exposing the Mohammed al-Dura death hoax, a secret Israeli Government Commission is nearing the completion of an even more comprehensive investigation absolving the IDF of all deaths of civilians in Lebanon in 2006, Gaza in 2008-2009, the Mavi Marmara in 2010, and Gaza in November, 2012.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, Israeli Government, Media, Occupation | 13 Comments

Both Massad, and ‘Open Zion’, ignore the experience of Middle Eastern Jews

Posted on May 21, 2013 by David Shasha

In the current media discourse the actual culture and history of the Arab Jews is completely ignored in favor of a bare-knuckles political approach that marks Jews and Arabs as separate categories. The narrative is one that has been constructed by the Zionists and leaves out the existential and cultural substance of the Sephardic community.

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel/Palestine, Media, Middle East | 49 Comments

Exile and the Prophetic: My Father’s death

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Marc H. Ellis

My father, Herbert Moore Ellis, died yesterday. There is darkness in my mind. There is also light. My father’s memory lives on.

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel/Palestine | 17 Comments

New York City Council official urges Brooklyn College to hire ‘professor from Israel’

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Alex Kane
Fidlercrop

New York City Councilman Lew Fidler is still outraged over the Brooklyn College panel that took place in February on the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. In a letter sent in late April, the Assistant Majority Leader at the council suggests the hiring of a “professor from Israel” at Brooklyn College to correct what he calls bias in the school’s Political Science Department.

Posted in Activism, American Jewish Community, BDS, Israel/Palestine, US Politics | 35 Comments

Exile and the Prophetic: Disappearing Massad, disappearing Palestine

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Marc H. Ellis
ajmassad

Al Jazeera pulled Joseph Massad’s article – “The Last of the Anti-Semites” – from their website yesterday. Massad’s article is disappearing. Like disappearing Palestine, it will reappear. Neither are going away.

Posted in American Jewish Community, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, Media, US Politics | 12 Comments

Barbara Boxer’s visa bill for Israel comes under concerted attack

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Alex Kane

In the wake of the horrific Nour Joudah case, in which an American teacher was refused entry to Palestine to resume her job this year, activists are ramping up their campaign to thwart the United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act. The legislation would “codify into law U.S. acceptance of Israel’s discrimination and allow it to continue to deny visas to U.S. citizens,” according to a letter sent by a coalition of Palestine solidarity groups.

Posted in Activism, Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | Tagged | 93 Comments

Exile and the Prophetic: Joseph Massad strikes again

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Marc H. Ellis

Joseph Massad’s contribution to the 65th anniversary of the Nakba, published on Al Jazeera’s website, is called “The Last of the Semites.” The subtitle is telling: “It is Israel’s claims that it represents and speaks for all Jews that are the most anti-Semitic claims of all.”

Posted in Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine, Nakba, US Politics | 15 Comments

Turkish PM raises Mavi Marmara at White House press conf, calls grow for Obama to investigate killing of Furkan Doğan

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Adam Horowitz

Yesterday, President Obama held a joint press conference with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Although the focus was on Syria, and the myriad scandals overtaking the White House in the past week, Israel/Palestine came up as well.

Posted in Activism, Israel/Palestine, Middle East, Turkey, US Policy in the Middle East, US Politics | 10 Comments

Coalition says investigations into campus Palestine activism chill student speech rights

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Alex Kane

A coalition of civil rights and advocacy groups have charged that prolonged federal investigations of Palestine solidarity activism on campuses are chilling students’ constitutional rights. The letters, sent to the DOE civil rights division in San Francisco and the DOE’s assistant secretary for civil rights, are a response to the spate of Title VI civil rights complaints that have been filed by Jewish students who advocate for Israel.

Posted in Activism, Israel Lobby, US Politics | 18 Comments

Anthony Bourdain heads to Israel/Palestine

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Paul Karolyi

CNN’s Anthony Bourdain is going to Israel and that is a really good thing.

Posted in Israel/Palestine, Media, US Politics | 36 Comments