Archive

September 2016

Browsing

When Iyad Hamed, 38, a father of four, got confused near an Israeli checkpoint last month and started to run, he was shot and killed– and labeled a terrorist. But he had a mental disability and had just bought candy for his children. His killing highlights the special vulnerability of disabled Palestinians under occupation,

Gaza’s Hossam Azzum is competing in his fourth Paralympics Games in Rio on September 14, 2016. In the 2000 Sydney Games Azzum won a bronze medal becoming the first Palestinian medalist among disabled and non-disabled competitors. But six years ago Azzum took a break from competing after his wife died during childbirth. Then, in 2014, his house was destroyed by the Israeli military during the 51-day war on Gaza. Now, Azzum plans his comeback in Rio.

The world is taking a dim view of Benjamin Netanyahu’s latest effort to justify the erasure of Palestine with a false video narrative about the “ethnic cleansing” of Jews from illegal West Bank settlements.

On Sunday September 11, “Broadway Supports Black Lives Matter,” a group led by actress Tonya Pinkins, was to stage two benefit performances at Feinstein’s/54 Below, a supper club on West 54th Street in NY. Playbill reports that the events have been canceled because the club objects to the BLM platform that says Israel engages in “genocide” against the Palestinian people.

Upcoming municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza were cancelled yesterday by a Palestinian high court in Ramallah, after ruling in favor of a lawyers guild’s petition to strike down the race because East Jerusalem Palestinians were not eligible to cast ballots, or compete for seats in the government. Although the decision was said to have been made over a procedural technicality, some speculated political motives from members of the West Bank-based Fatah were at play.