From 1992 to 2014, writers Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon were hesitant to get involved in the question of Israel/Palestine.  “We didn’t want to write or even think, in any kind of sustained way, about Israel and Palestine, about the nature and meaning of occupation,” they write in the introduction to their 2017 collection of essays, “Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.”  Everything changed for them in 2014.  Waldman, who was born in Jerusalem, visited Israel in 2014 for the first time in 22 years.  She went to Hebron on that trip, and her experience made her feel that she bore some responsibility for what Israel was doing in her name.  After the 2014 visit, she and Chabon did think about it; they wrote about it, too, and invited others to, as well.  “Storytelling itself–bearing witness, in vivid and clear language, to things personally seen and incidents encountered,” they write, “has the power to engage the attention of people who, like us, have long since given up paying attention.”

The New Arab reports, “Reem, considered the first full-time music therapist working in Gaza, is busy with therapy programs and training courses – some she runs herself, others run by non-governmental organisations – across the densely packed coastal territory under siege by Israel.”

“In the age of the internet, this article just ricocheted all over the world very very quickly. Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University told me that the morning after the piece had hit the internet, 14 different people had sent him a link for the piece” — John Mearsheimer reflects on the article The Israel Lobby, 10 years after its publication as a book.

In January, Manwa al-Qanbar’s 28-year-old son was shot dead after ramming his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in the illegal Jewish settlement of East Talpiot, killing four. Two days later, al-Qanbar received a notice from the Israeli Ministry of Interior informing her of their intent to revoke her permanent residency status. Ten other members of al-Qanbar’s extended family also received notices that their permits will be revoked, including two minors aged 8 and 10. By punitively revoking residencies, civil society organizations say Israel is illegally engaging in a “silent transfer and colonization” of Palestinians with the aim of maintaining a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.

Four Palestinian human rights organizations submitted their fourth “substantive communication” to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. The 700-page evidence file submitted alleges that high-level Israeli civilian and military officials have committed “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Tahseer Alayyan, a spokesperson for the Ramallah-based independent Palestinian human rights NGO, al-Haq, told Mondoweiss that the NGOs believe the ICC is the “only remaining window” for Palestinians to “bring justice for the victims” of Israeli violations.

Palestinian refugees from the refugee camps of Lebanon met with members of the Ramapough Lenape tribe on Friday, September 15 for a communal dialogue about joint indigenous struggle, tactics, and future collaboration. The stop was at the inaugural event of the 2017 North America Nakba Tour, which brings Palestinian refugees Khawla Hammad and Amena El-Ashkar to visit communities in North America.

During the high holidays, Jews must consider the nature of the state that claims to speak in their name: Political Zionism in practice in Israel has produced a settler colonial state founded on the basis of establishing an Arab free state, where Jewish trauma, aspirations, and history are privileged at the expense of everyone else and this continues to this moment.

On the high holidays, Phil Weiss notices that few of his Jewish friends are observant. One went camping. Another made a comment about their Buddhist spouse. A third made a blasphemous joke with pleasure: It took 2000 years for the Jews to get Chinese food. Many are intermarried. So everything that Alan Dershowitz (The Vanishing American Jew) warned us about is happening– “and still I shrug.”

For 50 years the Democratic Party establishment has been able to stifle pro-Palestinian efforts as too radical for US politics. That red line is breaking down today though, as the permanent occupation marked its 50th anniversary, BDS gains adherents among young Dems, and the Jewish monolith supporting Israel fractures. It’s about time.

Young people in Gaza are at the end of their rope spiritually after three wars and 10 years of blockade. They want to find a sliver of hope in the news that the Hamas government is in talks with the Fatah faction in the West Bank, possibly ending Hamas’s isolation in global affairs.