Millions of Israelis head to the polls today to elect a new Knesset, which will determine who the next prime minister is. Nobody knows which party will gain the most seats, or which party will have the strength to form a coalition. It is a toss-up.
Many in the Palestinian solidarity community want Netanyahu to stay in office so that Israel is further discredited. That seems nihilist to me; I want the monster gone. So there can be a battle between liberal Zionists and anti-Zionists.
On March 13th, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) kicked off its national membership meeting in Baltimore. What followed over the next three days showcased JVP’s transformation from scrappy California-based group to national force in the American Jewish community and the Palestine solidarity movement.
Claire Paddock pens her impressions from the second day of the Jewish Voice for Peace national membership meeting. She writes that scholar Andrea Smith implored the crowd to think about creating a completely new system in Israel/Palestine, one that has nothing to do with colonialism, and relates Liat Rosenberg’s message that the international community needs to apply pressure to compel the Israelis to assume responsibility for Palestinian refugees.
Israeli soldiers shot and injured a 22-year-old Palestinian at an army checkpoint in Hebron. Meanwhile, Israeli forces detained a Palestinian from the Hebron area and summoned four more for interrogation.
On March 12, Maccabi Tel Aviv played against FC Barcelona at a Euroleague Basketball match. After four days of tension between Barcelona supporters and FC Barcelona authorities due to the prohibition by the Catalan club on exhibiting Palestine solidarity, Maccabi Tel Aviv was received by waving Palestinian flags at the Palau Blaugrana (FC Barcelona Stadium).
Months ago questions were raised if, at all, there would be any Arab representatives in the next Knesset. Then the groups unified under a single banner headed by Ayman Odeh, 41, a first time Knesset candidate from Haifa who started his career in public office at the age of 23 on Haifa’s city council. Now the long road is coming to and end and the Joint Arab List is the third largest party in the country with the potential, for the first time, to influence the outcome of elections.
Running like an angry outsider, Netanyahu declared Sunday night at a nationalist Jewish rally that he was the only one who could stand up to Washington’s pressures, that he would keep building in occupied Jerusalem, and he had never evacuated settlers. So why did Obama meet with this man more than a dozen times?
In two separate incidents, groups of Israeli Jews celebrating Purim assaulted Palestinians, +972 Magazine reports.
Likely election-winner Isaac Herzog of Labour won’t end the occupation and won’t put political energy into bringing about a Palestinian state because the Israeli people don’t care about peace right now, Daniel Levy and Tal Schneider explain