The old Hamas charter that Israel found so objectionable has long been defunct. Hamas’s new charter merely states what Hamas leaders have done for more than 10 years: a two-state solution on the ’67 lines, with the right of return of refugees. The updated charter is merely catching up to the party’s current politics, rather than it ushering in a change of policy.
In an appearance at Columbia University, former Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan characterized Donald Trump as “a person who does not look at America’s role in the world as having a special positive-sum nature.” But what’s so great about America’s role in the world!
Dozens of Palestinians including two journalists were injured as Israeli forces suppressed a march in solidarity with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem on Thursday. Some protesters dressed up as prisoners.
Jewish students from Williams College are condemning Hillel for ousting an LGBTQ student group that signed up to co-sponsor an event on LGBTQ refugees, along with Jewish Voice for Peace in March. Open Hillel, a campaign that seeks to reform Hillel’s policy against working with organization’s that mention Israel’s occupation, posted in an action alert, “When OSU Hillel expelled B’nai Keshet, they pulled staff advising, funding, and access to the Hillel building and student list-serve from the group. They also pulled a paid Hillel internship from one of their student leaders.”
A poem by Aida Qasim inspired by the electricity crisis in Gaza which leaves some residents without power up to 17 hours at a time.
Roger Waters on BDS: “Palestinians… should have equal rights. And that is my only beef. Just as all the people living in the US should have equal rights, all of them, regardless of their color, creed, race or religion– that is what I want for the Palestinians. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m not trying to destroy Israel.”
Is it really ‘even-handedness’ that the 100 Senators are seeking, or merely a shielding of Israel from critique? Under the guise of supposed insidious bias against Israel, those who are biased for Israel are running a campaign to tarnish the UN for supposedly promoting BDS and the “destruction of Israel”.
Thousands of Palestinians gathered in Mandela Square in Ramallah on Wednesday to support the more than 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners who have been on hunger strike for 17 days in Israeli jails. Demonstrators took to the street while Mahmoud Abbas was meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump. According to Haaretz, the Trump administration has asked Abbas to end government payments to the families of prisoners in Israeli jails. Palestinians will strongly disapprove if Mahmoud Abbas concedes to Trump’s request. Ahmad Al Akra, a demonstrator in Ramallah, said, “[Abbas] has been compromising more of our freedom and so far nothing has been accomplished. And I think this might be the final straw.”
Throughout the month of May, members of the Modern Language Association will be voting on a resolution which seeks to ban the association from endorsing of the Palestinian call for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. During the 1980s, to its undying disgrace, the MLA rejected a resolution that would have supported the divestment and boycott movement against South African apartheid. In this essay, formerly South African scholar and MLA member Derek Attridge affirms the value of academic boycott in that struggle and points to the connections between the South African divestment campaign and the current BDS campaign.
Sedq: A Global Jewish Network for Justice stands in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom and an end to political imprisonment: “There are clear links between the ways that Israel treats Palestinian prisoners, and the ways that other racialised peoples around the world have their lives and freedoms controlled and curtailed. As a global network, we affirm that just as the practices of criminalization, incarceration, detention and deportation are global, so too must be our resistance. All of us must work in solidarity with others in ways that cross borders, recognising the interconnectedness of our global, regional, and local, struggles.”