Israelis have set fire to nine Palestinian homes in the last three years, and no one has ever been charged. So why does the U.S. government have “faith in the system” when it comes to the murder last night of Ali Saed Dabwasha?
This Thursday was a day of terror in Israel. Almost immediately after an ultra-Orthodox fanatic Yishai Schlisser stabbed six people at the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, Jewish extremists perpetrated an arson attack in the village of Douma, near Nablus, killing a one-and-a-half year-old Palestinian toddler. Both crimes were explicitly condemned by the Israeli Prime-Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who even expressed his “shock and horror” at the events. Yet, both would not have been possible without the climate of hatred incited by Netanyahu’s own extreme right-wing government.
Ben Norton remembers attending the 2014 Christians United for Israel summit held last summer at the height of the Israeli attack on Gaza. He writes, “a CUFI summit is a place where there is no distinction between church and state, between religion and nation, between faith and ideology. It is a place where the world is perpetually on the brink of absolute destruction, where Israel’s leaders—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Ambassador Ron Dermer—warn “Islamists” are mere moments from setting the globe ablaze, and yet all their steadfast Christian supporters can do is celebrate, dance, ululate under the ecclesiastical influence, that hallowed intoxication only the Holy Spirit can induce.”
Israeli officials condemned the murder of a Palestinian child in a pricetag attack in the West Bank, but commenters on twitter point out that government support for a violent occupation where there is no accountability for settlers made the murder inevitable
On July 19th, the American Friends Service Committee held a symbolic morning commemoration on Montrose Beach in Chicago to remember the children killed by the Israeli military in the summer of 2014. AFSC’s morning remembrance on Montrose Beach consisted of placing black pinwheels in the sand. Each pinwheel symbolizes a child killed, and is labeled with their name and age. AFSC chose the location of a beach to symbolize the loss of the four Baker boys who were killed by the Israeli military while they were playing soccer on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea on July 16, 2014.
Democratic Party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz won’t say if she supports the Iran Deal. She is clearly worried about alienating big campaign donors and the wrath of the Israel lobby, a minority faction inside the Jewish community, but the most engaged part
Howard Davidson writes: “If Palestinians’ academic freedom is to be valued as it is for Israelis, then a boycott of Israel state sponsored research and teaching is justified until the forces that deny academic freedom for Palestinians no longer exist. It is admirable to treasure academic freedom and to bristle at any suggestion of boycotts. It is hypocrisy to admonish the BDS call for academic boycott of Israeli institutions with no protest against a colonial regime that is denying Palestinian the same freedom.”
A Palestinian toddler was killed in the central West Bank village of Duma in an overnight settler arson attack that targeted two homes. Eighteen-month old Ali Saad Dawabsha died in the gasoline fire-bombings, and his mother and brother were seriously injured. The wounded were transferred by helicopter to a Israeli hospital in Jerusalem for treatment. A funeral was held in Duma this morning for Dawabsha.
Susan Abulhawa, the renowned Palestinian American novelist and political commentator, was denied entry to Palestine at the Allenby Bridge yesterday. Her wrath is on full display: “Denied entry to my homeland by a bunch of fucking Zionist colonizers who didn’t think I was sufficiently deferential. Livid.”
American Jewish organizations are not standing up for Israel out of fear of alienating Obama on the Iran deal, Nancy Pelosi says the deal will pass, and so neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz calls for Israel to attack Iran
Asked at the Council on Foreign Relations what the Iran deal has done for us, Sec’y of State John Kerry reels off everything he’s done for Israel. James Traub’s criticism that this shows the dangerous degree of power enjoyed by Israel supporters in the U.S. is a sign that the lobby is under attack in the mainstream at last.
A Ronen Bergman piece on Jonathan Pollard’s release in the NYT, and the Times’ and Washington Post’s news coverage all dodge an issue at the heart of the case: the belief that Israel traded secrets he gave them to the Soviets in exchange for emigres
Ted Cruz says Iranian deal means Iran will put a nuke on a rocket, fire it into atmosphere over east coast, and create “electro magnetic pulse” to take out our electrical grid and kill 10s of millions of Americans
Israeli-born Sacramento Kings forward Omri Casspi and pro-Israel mega-donor Sheldon Adelson recently teamed up to recruit NBA stars for an anti-BDS promotional jaunt to Israel and Sports Illustrated is all over it, without mentioning the anti-BDS angle.
Consensus is that Congress won’t reject Iran Deal, even Chuck Schumer will go along in the end. And it appears that rightwing Israel supporters have overreached in opposition, and are opening up room for Israel’s critics in the mainstream
Mairav Zonszein writes, “If it had been Palestinians who killed three Israelis, we would be having a very different conversation about a ‘worrying escalation’ or ‘wave of violence.’”
“What we saw was not just war,” Rafah resident Iyad Ghaboun said of Israel’s summer 2014 attack on Gaza. “It was like a meat machine making mincemeat from people without mercy.” Israel carried out war crimes and “possible crimes against humanity” in its attack on Rafah, Gaza from 1-4 August, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
Morgan Freeman, Natasha Lyonne, Farshad Farahat and Jack Black appear on a video arguing that the Iran deal will prevent another war in the Middle East.
George Khoury tells a harrowing story of being detained and deported from Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. Khoury, an American citizen, was attempting to visit his homeland for the first time in 21 years. Even though he was traveling with an American passport an airport security agent told him, “You belong with the Palestinian people. This is our Israel, this is for the Jews. No Palestinian should come to Israel.”
Since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, France has seen an explosion of Islamophobic incidents, which are up 28%, along with the rise of the far-right and the official repression of Palestine solidarity activism– Max Blumenthal and James Kleinfeld show in new documentary, Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie
What’s the difference between Huckabee saying the Iran deal will “take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven” and Netanyahu saying, “It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany”?
Gary Ginsberg, a top executive at Time Warner, is a speechwriter for Benjamin Netanyahu in his free time. Ginsberg says Time Warner is fully aware of his service but has not disclosed it because he does so in his personal capacity as a friend of Netanyahu’s.
At the first anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, we are facing a crisis of memory; Israel’s massive ground, air and sea assault killed nearly 2200 Palestinians, including over 500 children, but it pales in the media discourse next to the portrayal of the Palestinians as the sole aggressors
Rand Paul has shocked his libertarian supporters by opposing Obama’s breakthrough Iran deal. He may have alienated the army he has counted on to mount a field organization in his campaign
Young people studying the Middle East are almost all sympathetic to the Palestinian point of view. Many are conversant on the history of the region and root causes. They understand BDS as a moral imperative. Once we were embattled; today we are insurgent.