A Jewish-Israeli actor and Muslim-Arab-Israeli TV host get married, and Israel is on fire about it. “The pain of assimilation worldwide is consuming the Jewish people,” Minister of Interior Arye Deri said. “It’s their own private affair. But, as a Jew, I have to tell you that I’m against such things because we must preserve the Jewish people.”
Tensions heightened Monday morning in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, as Israeli police forces entered the village with bulldozers, sparking confrontations with residents and local and foreign activists who attempted to prevent authorities from entering the village.
Three years after it was founded, the Amwaj Children’s Choir of Palestine has taken a European tour. And Norwegian, British, and French children’s choirs have come to Palestine to perform with Amwaj in Bethlehem and Hebron.
“Go ahead sons, run closer to the wire. Seventy years being refugees are enough.. Do not waste your youth life living in siege” — Suliman Abu Arar, 80, urged on protesters at the Gaza fence Friday on the 29th week of the march of return. Seven Palestinian youths were killed by live fire.
On October 10, Israeli anti-Zionist and international activists were invited to the Gaza fence across from an encampment of the Great March of Return. The two groups met and were able to see and speak to each other with only a few dozen meters and the siege fence between them. Armed soldiers arrived and attempted to disperse the meeting. The demonstrators left from both sides without incident, promising to meet each other again.
Thank god for NYT columnist Tom Friedman for blurting out the elites’ real view of the Middle East: the likely murder of his Saudi friend Jamal Khashoggi was worse than the Saudi-perpetrated Yemen genocide. And PS, his newspaper was sponsoring a conference in Saudi Arabia.
A NYT report that an Israeli intelligence firm with government connections reached out to the Trump campaign in 2016 to manipulate the election process is more evidence of rightwing Israeli interference in the 2016 campaign, supported by Sheldon Adelson’s millions. And Israel has reaped huge rewards: the killing of the Iran deal and move of the embassy to Jerusalem.
Lara Alqasem’s lawyer, Yotam Ben-Hillel, tells Mondoweiss that the 22-year-old student’s detention is part of a broader Israeli policy. “It really looks like they [Israel] are putting a lot of effort and money and resources in order to prevent entry,” he said. “This is all motivated by Jewish supremacy and wanting to keep the land — even if it’s the occupied territory — with as little amount of Palestinians as possible and to completely control who is entering, and the number of every Arab between the Jordan river and the sea.”
Haider Eid writes after returning from a protest at the Gaza fence as part of the Great March of Return: “The final judgment is approaching. Either exist, or be wiped out from history. Therefore, it is the moment of truth, either be steadfast during this certainly delusional settlement, the settlement of a state, a Bantustan, with partial authority over the Palestinian people, or the delusion of a settlement under Israeli citizenship, regardless of the right of return. We, marchers at the Eastern fence of the Gaza Ghetto beg to differ! We want the full menu of rights, or nothing!”
The case of Lara Alqasem, the American citizen fighting deportation from Israel, is shining a bright light on Israel’s racial profiling of American students, the growing witch hunt against BDS activists, and the very real impact of smear websites. It is also catapulting into prominence the rationale behind the academic boycott of Israel.