Imagine a military watchtower built in Grand Central Terminal or the Piazza San Marco without the agreement of the locals. Occupier Israel has erected a steel wen of a watchtower in Damascus Gate, disfiguring the historic site, and all to police Palestinians more vigilantly. Though no one in the west says a word against it.
Abdulhadi Hantash’s report on crimes of occupation in the Hebron district in 2017 includes: 15 cases of soldiers’ taunting citizens, with loud parties and lewd dancing, and 10 cases of mixing of food supplies, in which soldiers raid homes and mix oil, rice, sugar, and wheat together so the family has nothing to eat.
Mahmoud Abbas’s former adviser Diana Buttu said his address to the U.N. Security Council would not achieve anything. It is “yet another iteration of speeches long ago, in which he once again implored the world to convene an international conference to address Palestinian rights.”
Mersiha Gadzo reports from Gaza,”Three-year old Ahmad Abu Amra from Deir al-Balah, Gaza died on January 27, 2018 while waiting for an exit permit to be approved as he suffered from internal bleeding in the head. Despite submitting an urgent transfer application, his family waited three weeks and received the approved permit a day after he died. All permits to leave Gaza for treatment in Israel must first be approved by the Palestinian Authority. Leaders in Gaza accused Ramallah of delaying and out-right refusing to turn over the requests to Israel.”
New York Times columnists Bret Stephens and Roger Cohen repeatedly bashed the left for not tolerating dissent at a JCC panel about Israel in New York last week. Cohen called for “unsafe” speech and “open discussions, fierce debate” so as to fend off a “monolithic” McCarthyist “mob” on campuses. But the panel itself embodied Jewish intolerance of dissent: All three speakers on stage were ardent Zionists, introduced by a JCC official as people who could reinforce “our commitment to Israel.”
Following on the heels of the Israeli police recommendation to indict Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges a new book on David Ben-Gurion shares new discoveries on the first Israeli prime minister’s marital unfaithfulness. Jonathan Ofir says that regardless of the personal failings of Israel’s leaders, the state building project they are carrying out has always been corrupt to the core: “The deceit that Zionism applies in order to cover up for its colonialist designs to erase Palestine is a constant factor, and the goal is always corrupt.”
After comedian Sarah Silverman called last week for people “to stand up” for imprisoned Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi, she quickly encountered a barrage of feedback that lasted through the weekend. She was labelled a supporter of terrorism, but she stood her ground.
The military judge closed the doors on 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi’s initial trial hearing for slapping a soldier in occupied Nabi Saleh December 19. He said he was acting in the best interest of a juvenile defendant. But it is in Ahed Tamimi and all Palestinians’ interest for the trial to be open so that the occupation can be revealed to the world.
Israeli Apartheid Week events will challenge young Jews to abandon the racism that Zionism entails. It may be upsetting to young Jews who grew up with Zionist ideals, Robert Cohen says, but they have an obligation to face these perceptions and ask, Why have we made support for Zionism and Israel the touchstone of Jewish fidelity, while calling for human rights for all has become a Jewish heresy?
Wasan Abu-Baker pens a reflection on growing up in Palestine as a “child of the stone” dedicated to Ahed Tamimi. She recalls when her father first came home to live with the family after years in prison. Wasan was already seven: “I still remember those days when we came home from school and then going out to the field to pick the olives, then coming back home to finish our homework. After the harvest was completed we would take the olives to our family factory where the olives were pressed to make olive oil. I remember standing next to my dad to have a taste of the freshest olive oil along with my pita bread. He used to say that once you drink olive oil it becomes part of your soul. I will never forget and miss always miss the smell of olives on those days.”