Al-Shabaka’s Inès Abdel Razek has been asked the same questions about her homeland so many times that she decided to write a simple document to answer them. She writes, “During these conversations, I wish I had a simple leaflet I could hand to my interlocutors that would lay out the answers I end up diligently repeating. This is where the idea of this FAQ emerged.”
The American Jewish Historical Society in New York was set to host a discussion later this month of the Balfour Declaration by civil rights lawyer Robert Herbst, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, and Palestinian lawyer Jonathan Kuttab. Then the event came under attack from far-right pro-Israel supporters and the history organization folded, canceling the discussion as well as a play reading on the US relationship to Israel.
A viral video at Haaretz in Hebrew shows Israeli celebrities decrying kosher slaughter practices and declaring that they are vegans. Israelis can watch any number of videos documenting the killing and abuse of Palestinians but they haven’t become anti-Zionists or even vocal anti-Occupation activists. Veganism is a way for Israelis to sacrifice something while avoiding the Palestinian issue.
Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel revealed on Sunday that Israel’s Supreme Court has overturned a lower court’s decision ordering police to publish regulations on open-fire policy. The ruling will be a major obstacle in bringing Israeli officers involved in shooting incidents to justice.
Palestinian artists from the Washington D.C. metro area and beyond convened at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts on Monday, October 2nd for opening night of the seventh annual D.C. Palestinian Film and Arts Festival. Festival co-founder Noura Erakat tells Mondoweiss, “When we discuss Palestine, we’re discussing a lot of the pain and intensity. There are so few places to celebrate what it is to be Palestinian and what it is to be Palestinian in our global diaspora as we exist. [This festival and its artists] are the iterations of being Palestinian-American.”
Israel has deep support among US cultural institutions, witness director Greta Gerwig removing her name from a letter critical of Israel lest it hurt her Oscar hopes, and NYU staging Israeli government propaganda to counter a Palestinian play about resistance to occupation, The Siege.
In Hebron, Palestinians are prevented from entering the Ibrahimi Mosque for two days over the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
The Siege is a dramatization by the Jenin Freedom Theatre of a 39-day siege of the Nativity Church in 2002 during the Second Intifada, when Palestinian militants holed up in the Bethlehem church. Sheren Khalel saw the “thrilling” 90-minute production in Palestine; but it comes to NYU Oct. 12-22, in a run that is already garnering criticism from the pro-Israel community.
The nefarious gun lobby is open for criticism. In the New York Times, Bret Stephens says the Second Amendment is an anachronism and should be repealed. Well that is true of Zionism, too, but Stephens is in the tank for that ideology. And David Brooks describes the ingrained political culture of gun-rights but he can never turn that lens on American Jewish cultural/political support for an ethnocratic state in historical Palestine.