A presentation by Palestinian parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar took place at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels, VUB) on the evening of March 4 after student organizers defeated an attempt by Israel’s ambassador to Belgium to cancel Israeli Apartheid Week at the Dutch-speaking university in the Belgian capital.
Middle East Monitor reports: “The Israeli army on Saturday reduced fishing space off the coast of the Gaza Strip to four nautical miles from the six miles agreed on as part of last summer’s cease-fire agreement, Gaza’s fishermen’s union has said.”
The president of a progressive Parisian school, University Paris 8, decided at the last minute to ban a conference, titled Israel apartheid is real, featuring Max Blumenthal and Bilal Afandi, set for March 9. Even as the school features We Are Charlie posters in solidarity with Islamophobic magazine victimized by terror attack.
Two Jewish Tufts students who went on the Israel lobby trip “Birthright” in recent years say that the trip led them to join the Palestinian solidarity movement. On Julia Wedgle’s trip, she was told a checkpoint in the West Bank was a “tollbooth”
Frank Bruni fails to mention all the Democratic politicians who fawned to Netanyahu on Capitol Hill in a column on Republican support for the prime minister. And oh, no mention of Palestinian human rights either.
Deaths of Palestinian infants due to cold have occurred not just recently in Gaza but for years in the Galilee. The answer from the Israeli Health Ministry was to blame the victim by saying the problem could only be addressed by community development, Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh reports
Palestinian leaders decided Thursday night they will “end all forms of security coordination with Israel,” a much-criticized practice of shared policing across the West Bank and a staple of Israeli-Palestinian relations over the last two decades. Still the announcement included one loophole where Israel could salvage the security arrangement, signaling the Palestinian leaders could be seeking to leverage Israel’s security concerns as a tactic for the release Palestinian VAT-taxes frozen during the winter after the Palestinians acceded to the Rome Statute, joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) where they can charge Israel with war crimes.
Weeks after Sen. Robert Menendez said that President Obama was taking “talking points from Tehran” on Iran policy, reports are that the Justice Dep’t will charge him with corruption. It’s been a bad week for the Israel lobby on other fronts too
Israeli naval boats opened gunfire Saturday on Palestinian fishermen offshore al-Sudaniya to the northwest of Gaza, killing one and detaining two others. Tawfiq Abu Rayyala, 25, was shot with a bullet in the abdomen and was transferred to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds.
Air Canada recently signed a maintenance agreement for its B787 jets with Israel Aerospace Industries IAI, a military defense company wholly owned by the government of Israel. IAI is the subject of boycotts across Europe and is well-known for its drone technology and production.