On June 21, Jon Lansman, chair of Momentum (UK) and senior member of the UK Labour Party, will deliver a lecture in Tel Aviv on ‘Corbyn, Labour and Israel-Palestine’. Ofer Neiman writes: “Jon Lansman works hard to police the debate on Palestine, for the privileged few rather than the many. The policy which Lansman wants to impose on the UK Labour Party is the epitome of ‘Progressive Except Palestine’. Supporters of the Palestinian cause – a struggle for justice and full equality – would do well to challenge Lansman and his partners instead of viewing them as allies.”

AFP reports “The United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday, condemning the ‘hypocrisy’ of its members and its alleged ‘unrelenting bias’ against Israel.”

Progressive Mal Hyman, in a South Carolina runoff for a Congressional nomination, has been outspoken about Israeli human rights violations. He blames the U.S. for supporting colonialism and sees U.S. failure in the Middle East as giving progressives an opening to bring in humane ideas. AIPAC has asked for a meeting and Hyman says, “Wonderful,” but we’ll disagree. His boldness on these issues is a sign of things to come in Democratic races.

The slaughter on the Gaza border has given Palestinian writers an opening in the mainstream media they have not had before. And this could lead to a public opinion shift. It shouldn’t take the deaths of 128 Palestinians to open the world’s ears. Haneen Abo Saud and Rana Shubair of We Are Not Numbers are two Gazans writing about freedom who deserve global support.

A Palestinian Boyhood, the new autobiography by Palestinian writer Reja-e Busailah, relates a remarkable story about overcoming the challenges of growing up blind in Palestine in the years up to and including the 1948 Nakba, which uprooted his family. Georgia Beeston: “Simply written, the book takes the reader through the author’s daily life, underlining the everyday challenges of the visually impaired.”

The Gaza Strip has become a free fire zone where any Palestinian can be shot and killed with impunity. Israeli soldiers are allowed to target “main inciters” who “inflame” other demonstrators; and that can mean anyone at all.

Great March of Return organizer Ahmad Abu Rtemah says the protests need to go on, but calls for a shift from confrontations with soldiers at the fence to educational and cultural projects: “The Great March of Return must go on. There is simply no alternative to peaceful popular resistance. But we also need to take a step back and think about how we can reduce its cost in lives and injuries to our people, so that we may be able to nurture and grow this new form of resistance.”

Liberal Zionist scholar Shaul Magid served in the Israeli army but he has had enough of Israel. Ben-Gurion miscalculated the nature of Jewish relations to the world, and that’s why Israelis are now flocking to Berlin and L.A. Magid left for Indiana and says if he had to live in Israel now, “It would actually drive me insane.”

Israel is involved in an ideological war against incendiary kites and balloons from Gaza. Israelis at Kibbutz Nir Am launched ‘candy balloons’ in order to counter this supposed ‘hate’ with supposed ‘love’. The gesture is a form of hasbara, aimed at denying the cause of the fire kites: Palestinian expulsion and the recent massacres by Israel in the Gaza strip.

Fifty years after she first went to Israel with other teenagers on a Ramah religious trip, Menucha Sara professes her anti-Zionism at a reunion. “I believe my fellow Ramah-niks oppose racism and injustice in our country. If they do, why won’t they see the racism of Israeli society?”