David Green responds to Cary Nelson’s talk in Israel which attacked the BDS movement at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. In short, “The picture Nelson paints regarding pro-Palestinian activism on the UIUC campus is false.”
Dennis Ross used to lead Middle East policy for Obama. Now his Jerusalem-based Zionist thinktank calls for 120,000 French Jews to leave France for Israel in the next four years.
Ma’an reports: “Israeli forces on Sunday detained a young Palestinian boy and his uncle in the al-Tur neighborhood of East Jerusalem, leading to clashes in the area, witnesses said. Locals told Ma‘an that Israeli special forces assaulted 10-year-old Muhammad Afeef Khweis as he was sitting in a park in the neighborhood, causing him to panic. Israeli forces also assaulted Khweis’ family members, who tried to stop the arrest.”
The case of Palestinian refugees is a prevailing topic when discussing Palestine and liberation, but when Palestinian refugees are being besieged and slaughtered in Syria there is a piercing silence towards them. Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus has been under siege for nearly 550 days and counting. Over 1,020 Palestinians have died in the camp by torture in regime jails, execution, and bombing.
If it was outrageous and inappropriate and unprecedented for the Republicans to ask Netanyahu to speak to Congress, thereby undermining Obama’s Iran policy, those who oppose war should take action, and give Netanyahu the cold shoulder when he comes to Congress
70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, Jews must recognize that they live after that era of Jewish history and after the Nakba too. Jewish identity must reflect both, Marc Ellis says
Occupation at work: A Palestinian family fights religious settlers who try and build a synagogue on their land. Now the settlers send the family a bill for $22,000 in property taxes, more than they earn in years. From Jonathan Cook.
Israeli forces have twice violently raided a Palestinian home in occupied Beit Ummar, once tying up a mother whose husband is in jail, and demanding of her son, Where are your brothers?
Samah Assad was detained in Ben Gurion airport as she visited her family home in Palestine for the first time in 13 years. Upset and angry, she asked her father how he can deal with the discrimination and abuse year and year when he visits. His answer: “When we return every year, that is how we fight. If we keep returning, we show them that this is our home. And we’re not giving it up.”
Israel supporters call on Congress to delay Netanyahu’s speech lest it divide the Israel lobby publicly. But the real fear is that it could lead the US to war. Chris Matthews says the US will have no choice but to “blow up” Iran if it acquires a nuclear weapon.