Zionism and white nationalism are birds of a feather. Their exclusive concerns for survival have the religious zeal of people who believe themselves to be chosen, wrapped tidily in the “scientific” racism of social Darwinism. It is no surprise then that Zionism could be used to justify and reinforce the ideologies of the far right and white supremacy as they re-emerge in the West in the early 21st century.
Jaclynn Ashley reports for Al Jazeera on the Barghouti marriage: “Fadwa and Marwan grew up together in the village of Kobar, outside of Ramallah city. Fadwa’s family was one of few in the village where their daughter continued her education in the city past the sixth grade, and she was the first woman in her village to obtain a driver’s license. At the age of 18, she became the youngest founding member of the Women’s Union for Social Work, which she now heads. The group works to increase the participation of women in the Palestinian resistance movement. Marwan, meanwhile, began a five-year sentence in Israeli prison when he was 18. Fadwa was just 14 at the time. A few years into his jail term, he sent a message to Fadwa through a recently released prisoner: ‘He told me that Marwan loves me and that he wants me to wait for him.’ When Marwan was finally released, his marriage proposal was anything but typical.
Musicians Roger Waters, Thurston Moore and Tunde Adebimpe, poet Michael Rosen, philosopher Judith Butler and political activist Angela Davis are among many high profile figures who have called on Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to cancel their concerts in Tel Aviv on November 19 and 20 this year.
The Jenin Freedom Theatre production of The Siege, which featured Palestinian resistance fighters, was an unmitigated triumph in October in New York. It brought in an audience of 3500 over 10 performances; it drew scarcely any of the attacks/demonstrations/official smears that were anticipated, thereby completely vindicating NYU’s brave decision to go forward in spite of inside pressure; and it gave the Palestinian production company the thrilling realization that they were welcome at last in the American cultural scene.
Sixty-seven words. That is the full extent of the Balfour Declaration, and yet few documents have had as devastating an impact as this historical document. Still, Nada Elia writes that the cursory nature of its wording indicates a twentieth-century awareness that the dispossession of the Palestinian people was already considered anachronistic when the declaration was written 100 years ago.
Kenneth Marcus heads a lawfare organization that targets the Boycott Israel movement on campus as allegedly anti-Semitic and thereby violating federal laws against racial discrimination. Last week he was named to the top civil rights job at the Dep’t of Education, stirring fears that he will attempt to silence advocates for Palestinians.
Writer Mark Oppenheimer’s effort to portray Harvey Weinstein’s victims as “shiksas” failed because the cultural divide, and prejudice, that term reflects was over a generation ago. Privileged Jews and Christians get along fine today. The country has moved on to definitions of Otherness that are far more meaningful.
Paul Singer, the megadonor hedge fund manager, funded the group that uncovered dirt on Trump in Russia, then turned around to help pay for Trump’s inauguration and visit the White House regularly. Why would Singer flipflop? His main issue is Israel, and he wants to influence the White House. And he already has, on the Iran Deal.
Leon Wieseltier’s justification for Israel as a Jewish state is very similar to that of Richard Spencer, the White Nationalist who claims to be “a white Zionist” and wants “to have a secure homeland that’s for us and ourselves just like you want a secure homeland in Israel.” Roland Nikles says Wieseltier’s argument “provides inadvertent cover for these demons of the White European radical right which are trying to make a come-back in our politics today.”
Israeli cabinet members on Sunday will vote on a bill seeking to annex large swaths of land into the Jerusalem municipality. The bill, coined the “Greater Jerusalem Bill,” will go to Knesset vote after what is expected to be an approval by the cabinet, however moving through the Knesset could prove difficult, as religious hardliners fear a change in the Jewish Israeli demographics of the city. The controversial Likud-backed bill would bring at least 19 illegal Israeli settlements and outposts under Jerusalem jurisdiction and sever three Palestinian communities from the municipality.