On Wednesday afternoon Israeli authorities from the Jerusalem Municipality, accompanied by police, entered into the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem and demolished Palestinian storefronts, 18 structures in all. The move is an effort by the Israeli government to lessen the authority of the UN refugee agency and strip Palestinian refugees of their status.
Echoing the Israeli government talking points, the ADL said that the Airbnb decision to end listings in the occupied West Bank was a capitulation to the anti-Semitic BDS campaign. Peter Beinart challenges the ADL to do its job and bear witness to the 51-year-old occupation that denies millions of Palestinians any freedom.
This year’s DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival was a reminder of the worsening conditions for migrants and refugees as a result of the Trump administration’s policies. Syrian Palestinian filmmaker Samer Salameh was denied a visa to the U.S., a victim of the so-called Muslim ban preventing travel to the U.S. for Syrian nationals.
Abba Solomon reviews “Rest in My Shade: A Poem About Roots,” writing, “The beauty of the works in this 8 by 8 inch hardbound book, of 18 artists, promote thoughts of a peaceful Palestine that could be, when exile and anger and walls of concrete and razor wire are gone, when the roles of alien and native — enforced with battle rifles carried by conscripts — are forgotten.”
Jonathan Cook writes Netanyahu has an incentive to bolster Hamas with a ceasefire, “so it can keep a lid on the protests than face an international backlash and demands that he negotiate with the Palestinians.”
US writers in intellectual journals bash Zionism. “It is anathema to say so,” Nathan Goldman writes in the Baffler, but Zionism is ethnonationalism, which is the opposite of liberal democracy; while Molly Crabapple writes in the New York Review of Books, “Jewish ethno-nationalism is a poison like all ethno-nationalisms.”
Airbnb’s pulling of listings in Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank is highly selective. But Israeli leaders are viewing it as a total attack on Israel, and have plans to punish Airbnb. They are making the case for a comprehensive boycott of Israel as a whole, per the BDS campaign; for the government is utterly dedicated to the settlement enterprise.
Ben White’s consistently engrossing new book, “Cracks in the Wall: Beyond Apartheid in Palestine/Israel,” argues that “The end of Israel as a bipartisan issue of concern in US politics, along with the wider left’s alienation from and the far right’s embrace of Israel” will undermine Israel’s ability to maintain the status quo. But is he right? Joel Doerfler wonders if Israel can get along without its traditional allies.
The Palestinian writer Raja Shehadeh does not support a two-state or one-state solution. “We should focus on calling for the end of the occupation, and then we can find ways that we can live together,” he tells Jaclynn Ashly.
Airbnb will no longer host rentals for stays in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The company said it will “evaluate whether the existence of listings is contributing to existing human suffering.” The announcement came one day before Human Rights Watch is schedule to release a lengthy report on vacation rentals in the occupied Palestinian territory.