We have seen the video documentation of police brutality across the United States as police officers took the lives of Eric Garner and a countless number of Black lives. Such documentation is widely used across Palestine as well, for Palestinians use their phones and cameras to record the various forms of colonial and state violence that they experience on a daily basis. Why do Palestinians feel the need to document such forms of brutality and what does it tell us?
“The improper use of crowd control weapons against children must end immediately,” said Ayed Abu Eqtaish, Accountability Program director at Defense for Children International-Palestine. “Israeli soldiers who aim crowd control weapons at children’s heads and upper bodies at close range must be held accountable for their actions.”
Mohammed Alhammami writes a letter to Cindy and Craig Corrie on the anniversary of their daughter Rachel’s death, “Thank you, Mr. and Ms. Corrie, for sharing Rachel with us. I know for a fact she has changed many people’s lives, in Palestine and elsewhere. I know she changed mine. May her memory be forever engraved in our hearts.”
Isabel Kershner’s New York Times report on the Pew Research Center’s poll of Israeli public opinion was a transparent effort to combine straight reporting with tortured apologia. Kershner’s handling of one of the poll’s more disturbing findings, that “nearly half of Israeli Jews said that Arabs should be expelled of transferred from Israel,” shows how the Times sows doubt or confusion among readers so as to soften the blow of facts that are damaging to Israel.
Writers in the We Are Not Numbers program talk about Rachel Corrie on the thirteenth anniversary of her death.
The killing of Israeli civilians and the young age of the Palestinian attackers, along with their almost inevitable deaths at the hands of police, are raising tough questions for Palestinians.
In a totally Israel-centric column in the New York Times, Shmuel Rosner says that neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump have Israel’s best interests at heart in the coming election. Such Israel-narcissism, in the leading US newspaper!
The Reform Movement’s response to AIPAC’s invitation of Donald Trump a few days ago is a bellwether of how the Jewish establishment views Trump’s candidacy and perhaps, as importantly, how it views itself.Instead of trumpeting its close relationship with AIPAC as an American and Jewish badge of honor, the Reform Movement should have engaged in a process of critical self-reflection. Instead of condemning Trump, it should have paused and drawn the parallels between Trump, the Jewish establishment and Israel’s rhetoric and policies toward Palestinians.
Neoconservatives were the big losers in Marco Rubio’s defeat. Chris Matthews speaks openly of them as Jewish supporters of Israel, because their power has been eclipsed. Hillary Clinton is sure to make a play for their support. She already has Robert Kagan.
Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua says that he was a “hostage” living in “fear” in Israel even as he created hugely successful TV show in Hebrew, the language of his “oppressor.” And that his work is worth nothing.