Dan Rabinowitz to Nadia Abu El-Haj: I never claimed that had Said been alive he would have been opposed to BDS. I know that Noam Chomsky, who shared many of Edward’s views, recently spoke against BDS. But I cannot tell what Edward’s position would have been, so I did not.
Today’s a day to grieve for Paris, not score political points. Besides, if we were able to end the Israel Palestine conflict tomorrow and create a global regime of human rights, it wouldn’t end radicalization of some Muslims in France.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians on Friday, and wounded at least 154 others, in clashes in the occupied West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The dead were Mahmoud Issa Shalalda, 22, from Sa‘ir, Hasan Jihad al-Baw, 22, from Halhoul, and Lafi Yousef Awad, 22, in Budrus.
Michael Marder says the thuggish undercover raid of the al-Ahli hospital in Hebron by the Israeli army matches very closely the criminal behavior of the country’s political authorities.
A controversial video leaked to Palestinian media on November 8th depicts an Israeli interrogator verbally abusing and shouting curses at 13-year old Ahmad Manasra, who was indicted on October 30th by Israel’s Jerusalem District Court for attempting to murder two Israelis near the Pisgat Zeev settlement in East Jerusalem. Brad Parker, attorney and international advocacy officer at Defence for Children – Palestine, tells Mondoweiss: “The circumstances depicted in the video present a situation that may amount to torture. When determining if certain acts constitute torture, the child’s age must be taken into account. Israeli interrogators are seen relying on verbal abuse, intimidation and threats to apparently inflict mental suffering for the purpose of obtaining a confession.”
Yesterday a settlement was announced in Professor Steven Salaita’s lawsuit against the University of Illinois for violating his academic freedom and right to free speech. Over 80 academics have responded by signing onto a letter saying: We are pleased that the University of Illinois trustees, through the payment of a substantial monetary settlement to Professor Salaita, have acknowledged how Professor Salaita’s termination amounted to a serious violation of both his constitutional right to free speech on matters of public concern, and principles of academic freedom. We recognize that UIUC’s unlawful treatment of Professor Salaita has had implications well beyond Professor Salaita individually. We feel strongly that the monetary settlement of Professor Salaita’s legal claim does not address the underlying breaches of academic freedom and widely accepted standards for the conduct of academic governance.
ThinkProgress irresponsibly blames the settlements on the religious right, thereby exonerating the Democratic Party, which has been a strong and vocal a supporter of the settlements going back to Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu share taste: they both wear fancy Panerai watches
Forty years ago the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3379 which declared “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.” At the UN on November 11, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry forcefully condemned the resolution on its anniversary. In his 2,500-word statement, Kerry mentioned Palestinians just once, Power did not mention Palestinians at all.
What happened in Washington DC this week has changed the course of activism in the nation’s capital on the issue of Palestine. Josh Ruebner, policy director for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, says, “We made it quite clear that it is unacceptable to be ‘progressive except for Palestine’ [PEP] any longer. It is imperative that organizations continue to deny legitimacy to Israeli policies in progressive circles.”