New Jersey became the 11th state to pass legislation against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The law to prohibit pension fund investment in pro-boycott companies now goes to Governor Chris Christie, who is expected to sign the bill. The move by the State Assembly is a defeat for for opponents of the bill who say the measure is an attack on the First Amendment right to boycott Israel.
Hillary Clinton is gaining the support of the neoconservative establishment. Alan Dershowitz is for her “muscular foreign policy.” Robert Kagan is holding a fundraiser for her. And even possible veep-nominee Sen. Elizabeth Warren emerges as a “surprising Israel hawk,” says the Forward.
Michael Gordon piped neoconservative and Israeli objections to the Iran deal in the New York Times a year ago and also helped foment the Iraq war with the bogus aluminum-tubes story. Now he lands at a neoconservative thinktank that opposed the Iran deal as a writer-in-residence for the summer.
Read an excerpt from Ambassador Chas W. Freeman’s new book “America’s Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East,” which features a large section on U.S. foreign policy in Israel and Palestine, and the bungling thereof.
Israel and Turkey have reached an agreement to normalize ties six years after an Israeli naval attack that killed 10 Turkish activists and 9 years after the imposition of a deadly siege that has left Gaza unlivable. Gaza-based academic and activist Haidar Eid writes, “A quick reading of the deal proves that it is a stab in the back of Gaza. Improving the conditions of oppression, or rather slowing down the genocide, is a form of complicity because Gaza for the Turkish government is just a humanitarian case. In a nutshell, the Turkish government has sold us out and wants us to be grateful!”
Brace yourself for the news from the Democratic Platform Committee. The platform this year will be even worse than previous platforms on Palestine. That’s how things look, despite the insurgent anti-Benjamin-Netanyahu campaign of Bernie Sanders: there is no occupation, and no settlements either. Jerusalem forever, and death to BDS. The party belongs to Hillary Clinton.
The Public Institution for Social Security (PIFSS) in Kuwait has decided, as reported in the Kuwaiti media, to divest its funds from G4S, a company that is profiting from the Israeli occupation and has a notorious record of human rights abuses. Guman Mussa, BDS Campaigns Coordinator in the Arab World, welcomed the new victory against G4S saying: “The decision of PIFSS in Kuwait to respond to a call made by Palestinian civil society and BDS Kuwait affirms that the Palestinian cause is part and parcel of the consciousness of the Kuwaiti people. Kuwait shines a glimmer of hope against normalization with Israel’s regime of occupation and settler-colonialism”.
Netanyahu’s only goal is to control the news cycle and the New York Times gave him two solid victories last week by playing up a misstatement by Palestinian president Abbas in Brussels. And the construction of Abbas’s line as anti-Semitic reflects the power in our discourse of a tribal Jewish fantasy: non-Jews are always thinking anti-Jewish thoughts.
Israel and Turkey announced an end to the six-year diplomatic rift that began in 2009 after Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish nationals during the seizure of a passenger ship, which departed from Turkey as part of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla.” As a term of the agreement, Turkey will pass a law to make illegal any “criminal and civil claims” against Israel or it’s military forces for the death of the activists, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Rome. Netanyahu added the blockade over the Gaza Strip, which was an area of dispute between the two countries, will remain in full.
Israel and Turkey reached agreement to normalize ties, ending a rift over the Israeli navy’s killing of 10 Turkish pro-Palestinian activists who tried to sail to the blockaded Gaza Strip in 2010. The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, which organized the flotilla to Gaza, rejects the agreement between Turkey and Israel stating, “The blockade of Gaza is unlawful and a crime against the humanity. The blockade has to be lifted”