Yet another reporter for the New York Times has a son in the Israeli Defense Forces. Isabel Kershner, a correspondent in the newspaper’s Jerusalem bureau, says that her son is in training in the army. This is the third time in recent years that a writer who covers the conflict for America’s leading newspaper has a son serving in an army that is regularly accused of human rights abuses. On each of those occasions, an outside publication has disclosed the army service.
A California Hillel chapter has partnered with a D.C.-linked public relations firm to fight the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, according to leaked emails obtained by Mondoweiss. The PR firm 30 Point Strategies has discussed how to combat BDS at the University of California, Los Angeles campus with Hillel staffers there. 30 Point staffers have advised UCLA’s Hillel to stay largely silent in the event of a student government resolution that recommends divestment from Israeli military-linked corporations. The revelation that a Hillel chapter has turned to a professional public relations firm shows that UCLA Hillel is stepping up its work to fight BDS on campus.
Gideon Levy says Palestinians have a duty to resist occupation, and Marc Ellis says American Jews have a duty to resist the American Jewish Zionist establishment, too, in what is a historical opening.
The pro-Israel press is enraged that the US government did a “hazing” of Israeli Defense Minister Ya’alon, refusing to meet with him on recent visit. But Ya’alon just called for segregated bus lines in the West Bank. Isn’t that just the kind of person we should be snubbing?
A Palestinian teen with U.S. citizenship was killed today by the Israeli army at a demonstration in the West Bank town of Silwad, near Ramallah. Fourteen-year old Orwah Hammad was shot in the neck with a live bullet, according to Ramallah hospital staff.
Thousands gathered in the West Bank town of Silwad outside of Ramallah to bury Orwah Hammad, a 14-year old Palestinian-American from Louisiana who was killed by the Israeli army on Friday. Hammad was died after sustaining a gunshot wound to the neck and head during a demonstration against the killing of another Palestinian earlier in the week.
A new ad campaign on Portland’s TriMet buses features the slogan ISRAEL’S WAR CRIMES: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK. The same ad was blocked from Seattle buses four years ago, and a lawsuit is still pending
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called for a “speedy and transparent investigation” into the killing of Orwah Hammad, a Palestinian who has US citizenship. “The United States expresses its deepest condolences to the family of a U.S. citizen minor who was killed by the Israeli Defense Forces during clashes in Silwad on October 24.”
Like the “villa in the jungle” and the “bad neighborhood of the Middle East” before it, the theme that Israel is a “village on a volcano” of radical Islam is being used by its apologists to try and change the subject from the near-50-year-long occupation, in which Palestinians have no rights.
This weekend, Kristian Davis Bailey will be one of hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine organizers in Boston for its 2014 national conference. He writes: “Our theme this year is “Beyond Solidarity: Resisting Racism and Colonialism from the US to Palestine.” The theme reflects our understanding that the struggles of people under these systems are deeply connected, and that our everyday work to support Palestinian self-determination and full human rights should bolster local communities facing similar issues of dispossession, discrimination, and occupation. The urgency of Israel’s deadly assault on Gaza, high-profile police killings of black people, and child refugees along our southern border formed the impetus for this year’s conference.”