The US media coverage of what many have dubbed the Third Intifada has, to this point, been so overwhelmingly pro-Israel biased, it’s as if CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News are operating as the media arm of both the Israeli Defense Force, and the Netanyahu government.
Netanyahu’s claim that Hitler got the idea for the Holocaust from a Palestinian leader was mildly criticized by Jewish groups even as the State Dep’t condemned it as “inflammatory” and “factually incorrect”
Katie Miranda presents the perfect illustration of the P.E.P. syndrome: Progressive Except for Palestine.
The current unrest may recede, but more waves of protest of ever greater intensity are surely not far behind. Jafar Farah, a Palestinian leader in Israel, has warned of it heading slowly from a national conflict into a civil war, one defined by the kind of debased one-state solution Israel is imposing. The chaotic violence of the past weeks looks like a warning from the future – a future Israel is hurtling towards.
In London for the opening of a new biopic, Palestinian singer Mohammed Assaf and his fiancee Lina Qishawi both condemned Israeli occupation of Palestine. Assaf deplored efforts to “Judaise” the Old City and deny Palestinian access to Al Aqsa mosque.
The criticism of Netanyahu as a Holocaust trivializer for his claim that Hitler didn’t want to kill the Jews till a Palestinian leader convinced him of the plan is so universal today that the remarks look to be a landmark in Netanyahu’s cynicism; they draw back the curtain for the world on his refusal to sincerely address Palestinians aspirations for freedom today.
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network: “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism; it is opposition to Zionism and the racist, apartheid policies of the Israeli state. Because Zionism is racist, we must challenge it if we believe in racial justice. Anti-Zionism is Anti-Racist.”
Whether the clashes in Jerusalem and the West Bank are the long-awaited “Third Intifada” is the question being asked by virtually every journalist covering the Middle East. Even among Palestinians, the answer to that question varies. Pam Bailey talks with Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon and finds there is one common truth among the people on the “street”: The uprising is once again bringing them together (at least in spirit) across borders—from East Jerusalem, to Gaza City, to Beirut.
On October 15, representatives of the Iqrit Community Association Shadia Sbait and Ameer Toume spoke to Congressional representatives in room 221 of the Cannon House Office Building on Capitol Hill. Sbait and Toume, both Palestinian citizens of Israel, have been making the case for Palestinian right of return on a month-long tour of the United States. The fact that members of the audience included Congressional staffers suggests an interest by some members of Congress on changing the discourse on Palestine.
Israeli Jews live happily with the occupation because they believe they are the chosen people, the world’s eternal victims, and Palestinians are not fully human, Gideon Levy says in Greenburgh, NY, and only international pressure will change the Israeli calculus to bring about one state with equal rights