A progressive Jewish group calls on congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to stand by her support for Palestinian human rights. Under intense backlash, Ocasio-Cortez has “walked back” her stand, saying she had not used “the right words” in calling out Israeli occupation, and endorsing Israel’s “right to exist.”
It’s no coincidence that the New York Times real estate section featured a $4.8 million house in Israel — “Luxury on the Mediterranean Coast of Tel-Aviv” — the same week the Israeli parliament passed a law making Israel the “nation-state of the Jewish people.”
Once again, the ‘NY Times’ distorts its reporting about Israel’s latest air attack on Gaza. The Times takes 3 paragraphs of dictation from an Israeli brigadier general, and, for good measure, adds another paragraph from a lower-level military mouthpiece. But the paper found no room to interview people like Ayman Odeh.
“You wouldn’t last a day if you were in the Gaza Strip,” a young woman in a cap and gown snarled at me several weeks ago. I told her in Gaza I was shown the utmost hospitality despite the appalling conditions in which people were forced to live—and she turned the volume up. “You would be raped and tortured by Hamas. They are all animals!” What could we achieve if someone like this would read Mondoweiss? For eleven years, Gazans have been locked in an open-air prison, and Mondoweiss has enabled their stories to reach us. Because Mondoweiss strengthens my activism, I am pleased to add my voice to those urging you to contribute and help strengthen Mondoweiss, during this summer campaign to raise $60,000.
An indirect ceasefire was reached between Hamas and Israel on Friday night, following extensive Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, and the killing of four Palestinian fighters and one soldier. Hamas spokesperson said that “through Egyptian, and international mediation, a ceasefire understanding was reached between the occupation and the resistance.”
Yesterday in Gaza Israeli forces killed Mohammed Sherif Badwan, 24, during the #GazaReturnMarch demonstration at the fence. Mohammed Zaanoun of Activestills.org documented the events, and the death.
“In my experience, nothing really changed with this law. The discrimination has always been evident since the inception of the state,” Amran Abu Houf says of the law defining Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. From lack of services in Arabic to discriminatory planning and housing policies, Israel has always favored Jews over Palestinians.
Because he wrote a blogpost justifying armed resistance to armed settlers in 2011, Yossi Gurvitz was charged with the crime of incitement by Israeli government prosecutors. Then the case was purposely left open with no action and hung around his neck, and career, for 7 years till it was finally closed. The writer reflects on the painful experience.
With its new nation-state of the Jewish people law, Israel is now officially an apartheid state, with secondary rights for non-Jews. Liberal Zionists who have said they only boycott the occupation but not Israel are now challenged by this law to take action against discrimination inside the state of Israel (which the BDS boycott program has long targeted).
“I saw conviction and hope in the Knesset this week,” Mara Lee, head of a liberal Zionist organization, said yesterday in a fundraising letter even as Israel passed the law stating that it is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and Palestinians are officially second class.