Israel is already a big loser in the fallout from the Khashoggi murder, which has set back the effort to work with Saudi Arabia to confront Iran and impose a peace deal on the Palestinians. Trump negotiator Jared Kushner has been hurt by his association with the Saudis, and even rightwingers are supporting sanctions against Israel’s new ally.
Alice Rothchild is told never to travel to Vienna, for she will not be welcomed by the Jewish community there. Why? Because she supports the BDS movement, and “Boycott is a form of violence.”
The Israeli government has postponed the evacuation of Khan al-Ahmar, following weeks of international attention on the Bedouin village. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that the village would be “evacuated” soon. His comments followed a meeting with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday.
The Saudis have finally changed their story – they do not deny that Kashoggi was killed at the Consulate in Turkey, but say that it was merely an accident, due to a fist fight. And Donald Trump finds the story “credible,” in his capacity as apologist for Mohammad Bin Salman.
Sarah Schulman writes, “Jill Soloway’s new book, She Wants It, opens the doors to the backstory of how a BDS campaign influenced Transparent, ie US corporate television, for the first time. And while Jill and I have completely different lenses and focuses and details, we agree on the key facts: Transparent was profoundly affected by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement due to Jill’s willingness to talk, listen, and rethink.”
The Times’s Max Fisher writes a long article rationalizing the indifference of Western elites to the Yemeni slaughter by Saudi Arabia by saying that it’s much easier to relate to the death of one person, Jamal Khashoggi. Yes except that the Times had no problem relating to faceless victims when it’s Putin and Assad. Thus is propaganda justified.
Israel lobbyists Josh Block and EJ Kimball smear missing Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a terrorist. That’s because Israel and Saudi Arabia are now allied against Iran, evidently seeking an American-led war against the country, and all the attention to the writer’s rubout is throwing a wrench in the works.
The defense of Lara Alqasem who was barred entry by Israel for her studies, was based on the notion that she does not currently practice BDS. Thus, her victory at Supreme Court is also a blow to BDS and a victory for liberal Zionists. She has become a pawn in an internal Israeli-Zionist political game, where the right and left compete against each other about who is a “better Zionist”.
Lara Alqasem, the graduate student detained at Ben Gurion airport for 16 days, was released at 9 PM last night after the Israeli High Court ruled to overturn the state’s decision to deny entry to her as a supposed BDS activist. Alqasem thanked her lawyers and other supporters and said she needs time “to process” before she says anything more.
Israel’s Supreme Court said Lara Alqasem, the 22-year-old Palestinian-American student detained for 15 days at Ben Gurion airport, is free to enter the country and pursue studies. Though championed by J Street and Americans for Peace Now, Alqasem got no public support from her representatives, Florida Senators Nelson and Rubio, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.