A pro-Israel lobby group held packed briefings in the European Parliament last summer during the Gaza onslaught, to describe “inspiring stuff” Israel was doing in technology and to say that Israelis were experiencing “the worst” of a conflict that killed 2300 Palestinians, including nearly 500 children.
USA Today mentions Palestine in a story on Martin Luther King Jr’s living inspiration, and a 1964 speech on South Africa, lately rediscovered, suggests that King would be supporting Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
Orwah Hammad, 14, was killed last October by Israeli forces in a West Bank village. Shukri Abu Baker offers a poem inspired by his death
A truck-mounted billboard in LA in which Mandela calls for Palestinian freedom has been removed from the streets because of intimidation tactics and graffiti, in a blow to free debate of the conflict
Radical Islamists gain traction in the west by saying that the US and Europe are enabling Israel’s harassment and murder of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank through unquestioning support of Israel despite its human rights violations. We need to end that hypocrisy
Sweden recognizes Palestine? Israel won’t provide security to Foreign Minister’s visit, so she cancels. And another Palestinian was killed in Negev, during funeral for Palestinian killed by Israelis
Taman Abusalama grew up in Gaza and is currently studying in Turkey. She writes, “Whenever I talk to Mama via skype, she asks me “When are you coming to Gaza? I’m missing you”. My Dad replies “We do miss you Baba, but don’t come. We don’t want you to live the same tensive experience you had in Rafah border last time”. I can’t hold my tears in such moments.”
In calling for Jews to flee after the Paris attacks, Netanyahu is bolstering the dangerous arguments of Europe’s far-right. One Israeli commentator noted pointedly that Israeli politicians like Netanyahu were helping to “finish the job started by the Nazis and their Vichy collaborators: making France Judenrein.”
Many Israel supporters say that the French attacks show Jewish insecurity in Europe. The flip side of this argument is that the attacks demonstrate that Israeli discrimination is an anachronism in today’s world, and this widespread understanding is turning the country into a pariah.
Avraham Burg has a hopeful view that Israel will evolve beyond Zionism in the next 20 years and Palestine and Israel will be one state with Arab ministers in the government and a true defense force. But he has a French passport. And things could get worse before they get better.