The Israel lobby group AIPAC kicked off its annual policy conference in Washington on the weekend, and speaker after speaker expressed fears that progressive Democrats are abandoning Israel. The speakers urged progressives to stay in the bipartisan fold of support for the Jewish state; they insisted that Israel is a progressive cause. But many also embraced Donald Trump and Nikki Haley– evidence of the rightwing character of Israel support, which is driving the partisan divide in our country.
There was no political opposition to Avraham Burg’s message of equal rights in Israel and Palestine at Temple Israel in Brookline, and that’s bad news. The political winds are blowing in such an opposite direction in the U.S. and Israel right now that those who object to his message don’t believe he is even worth pushing back at.
IMEMC reports: On Friday, March 2 dozens of Palestinians, accompanied by Israeli and international peace activists, marched in Bil’in village marking the 13th anniversary of ongoing popular nonviolent resistance against the illegal Israeli Annexation Wall.
Dr. Vacy Vlazna reviews Ramzy Baroud’s new book ‘The Last Earth: A People’s Story of Palestine’ – “This is a dangerous book because by inviting us into an intimacy with the people of Palestine, it predicates compelling moral action to end the monstrous injustice; for this reason Baroud’s The Last Earth must be read and shared.”
The press is reporting that Jared Kushner’s days as a White House power may come to an end, due to a flurry of reports about his meetings as a Trump adviser with foreign officials and corporate execs who are in a position to help out his family’s troubled real estate company — as well as Kushner’s considerable innocence when it comes to foreign policy. The knives are out, and the latest reports are that Donald Trump himself wants his son-in-law to disappear.
It is “shameful” and “unacceptable,” that on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a book store, Book Culture, was coerced into signing a political statement opposing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) targeting Israel in order to participate in a bookfair at a leading synagogue. More than 40 Jews, including Peter Beinart, Dorothy Zellner and Letty Cottin Pogrebin, write that “a cloud hangs over our neighborhood.”
On the sunny and warm afternoon of February 25th a crew of fishermen set out from Gaza City to change shifts with their younger team who had the task of preparing their boat for a night of fishing. However as the crew approached the damaged boat, the young men were nowhere to be found. Instead, the fishermen found a pool of blood, bullets and a first aid bag with Hebrew letters printed on it. 18-year-old Ismail Saleh Abu Riyala had been shot dead with a live bullet to the head earlier that day by Israeli forces, while his crew mates were forced to jump into the water and swim towards an Israeli gunboat where they were detained and interrogated.
Haaretz reports: “Israel says the migrants have 60 days to accept the offer to leave the country for an unnamed African destination in exchange for $3,500 and a plane ticket. Those who don’t by April 1 will be incarcerated indefinitely.”
A new organization called The One State Foundation is working to broaden debate over equitable outcomes in Israel/Palestine and build support for a one state solution. Hamada Jaber, co-founder and board member says, “We should stop wasting our time and the time of future generations and immediately start investing all our efforts in the only solution; the one state solution.”
B’Tselem reports on video from occupied Jericho showing the killing of Yasin a-Saradih, 35, on Feb. 22: “This is a particularly grave incident: The soldiers forcefully kicked a severely wounded man lying on the ground and beat him with their rifles in the head, upper body and groin. Then they dragged him along an alleyway as though he were not a human being and did not offer him crucial medical aid for more than thirty minutes.”