When alternative Memorial Day ceremonies in Israel joining both Israelis and Palestinians were assaulted by angry mobs the government stayed silent. And when Education Minister Naftali Bennett finally commented, it was no better.
The PEN World Voices festival is taking place in New York this week, without the sponsorship of the Israeli government, for once; and Patti Smith honored Rachel Corrie last night there.
The Israeli army fired inside a Ramallah hospital overnight, Ma’an News Agency reports, “Israeli forces fired bullets, stun grenades, and tear gas at a Palestinian hospital in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah at dawn on Thursday, sparking condemnation from the Palestinian Authority (PA). Eyewitnesses told Ma‘an that Israeli soldiers fired live bullets and tear gas inside the Palestinian Medical Complex grounds for more than an hour early on Thursday morning, causing many patients, including children, to suffer from tear gas inhalation.”
Jean Stein perfected the art of letting interviewees hang themselves with their words. She sought out independent, radical, and ungovernable spirits, including Edward Said and others fighting for Palestinian rights. Stein died on Sunday at the age of 83.
Some Palestinians are looking to President Mahmoud Abbas’s visit to the White House as presenting real hope for a breakthrough in the 70 year impasse on the world’s promise to give self-determination to the Palestinian people. Jibril Rajoub, a Fatah leader, writes in Newsweek: Let us not miss the Trump opportunity!
Israeli-American Yoav Litvin describes how he came to challenge his Zionist beliefs: “Zionism is based on a rather simplistic Darwinian outlook, which employs a dualistic, ‘us versus them’ racist and exclusivist philosophy. Since its inception, Israeli politicians invoke fear by perpetuating a victim narrative based on centuries of real persecution of Jewish peoples. Thus, fear enables a level of aggression and oppression that is a part of daily life in the reality of occupation. However, ‘survival of the fittest’ is not the only dominant force in human development.”
May 11, 2017 is World Keffiyeh Day, where supporters of Palestinian rights wear the traditional scarf as a visual means to raise awareness about the Palestinian cause and their right to justice and dignity.
Last week, more than 200 people crowded the offices of Verso Books to hear Omar Barghouti, a leader of the boycott movement, in discussion with Nyle Fort, an activist and religion scholar. Among the noteworthy statements Barghouti made were a personal story about his daughter and a critique of identity politics.
The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday. Back home, there is anger in the West Bank on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas’s Fatah movement triggered by the two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners. Jonathan Cook writes, “The visit to Washington and the hunger strike have brought into sharp relief the biggest fault line in the Palestinian national movement.”
Wafa reports that after multiple cancellations, Palestinian Authority elections are back on in the West Bank but Hamas will be boycotting and Gaza will not participate in the vote.