Kenneth Marcus, an Israel supporter, refused to share a stage at a Bard College conference on free speech with Dima Khalidi, president of Palestine Legal, and likened the organization’s positions to Holocaust denial and the stereotype of Jews that their breath stinks. He was apparently referring to the group’s protection of speech in favor of BDS.
Killings of a Palestinian boy of 15 and woman of 19 in the occupied West Bank bring killings by Israeli soldiers in last year to 235. The boy had allegedly thrown a stone, the woman had allegedly attempted to stab border police.
Before she launched her run in 2015, Clinton’s braintrust resolved to keep Israel out of her speeches at public events with “dem activists” but “drop in Israel when she’s with donors.” A smoking gun about the distance between the people and the donors on Middle East policy.
Tablet has published an attack on Phil Weiss’s piece about Jeffrey Goldberg’s ascension to the editorship of the Atlantic, in which he pointed out that the Atlantic announcement cleanses Goldberg’s resume, leaving out his moving to Israel to escape American anti-Semitism and serving in their army, his publication of a memoir about serving as an Israeli prison guard, his disastrous support for the Iraq war, his failed promotion of an Iran war, and his Jewishness. Tablet says Weiss’s assertion that the Atlantic is leaving out Goldberg’s Jewishness is a proof of his anti-Semitism. The attack is absurd because Weiss mentioned Goldberg’s Jewishness in the very context that Goldberg himself has mentioned it again and again: We Jews support Israel.
The Palestinian Authority’s high court has delayed elections, once set for Oct. 9, because of concerns that it was impossible to ensure free and fair voting in the Gaza. The decision comes as two rival Palestinian parties, Hamas in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank, continue to struggle for power. Gaza-based analyst Ibrahim el-Madhoun tells Mondoweiss, “It is shameful and totally unacceptable that the Palestinian judiciary system serves particular political interests and does not abide with the Palestinian people’s aspirations.”
Al Jazeera reports: “Israeli border police carried out stun grenade training in the Palestinian neighborhood of al-‘Issawiya in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, a new video purports to show. In the recording, the neighbourhood, home to around 16,000 people, is quiet, raising questions as to why border police decided to practise there with the risk of provoking tensions. One officer is seen teaching another how to operate the grenade. “Throw lower,” he tells him. The trainee officer detonates the grenade between the homes and is praised for a “good job” before he walks away with the rest of the officers.”
Fans of disturbing discussion of nuclear warfare must’ve enjoyed the third and final presidential debate, because there was an alarming discussion of how the apocalypse would go down.
On October 10, 2016, the Jerusalem Post published an article by anti-Palestinian propagandist Benjamin Weinthal under the screaming headline, “‘Antisemitic’ German teacher posed as a Jew to push anti-Israel agenda.” The designated target is Christoph Glanz, German activist, teacher, lifelong anti-fascist, and self-described former liberal Zionist. This is at least the seventh time in 2016 that Weinthal has falsely accused Glanz of anti-Semitism, and reflects a pattern of such smears by Weinthal against numerous other Palestinian rights advocates.
Yasser Shamallakh, 58, stopped growing fruit during the first Intifada, but two years ago he started again and has found success growing the crop, as have many other farmers in Gaza according to official figures. Although having been under a severe Israeli siege between 2007 and 2014, a combination of good weather and a lifting of Israeli restrictions has helped Palestinian agriculture bloom in recent years.
Last month, Human Rights Watch released a damning report emphasizing that soccer’s governing body, Federation International du Football (FIFA), should render a decision on Israel Football Association (IFA) teams that are being played on occupied Palestinian land. FIFA was expected to render a decision whether to suspend or expel six Israeli teams at at an executive meeting earlier this week, but in true FIFA form, the executive committee fouled and postponed their decision despite suggestions from special committee members, open letters from UN officials, and from academics and activists, an Avaaz.org petition that garnered over 150,000 signatures, the HRW report, and an on-going digital campaign that calls for justice in sport. The oppression of Palestinian football by Israel is a hot-button issue for FIFA- which makes a profit from the matches and sponsorships of the IFA teams. While Israeli teams flourish, Palestinian football is hardly thriving due to a lack of resources, crumbling infrastructure, and unjust mobility restrictions on teams.