A new documentary called WitchHunt points out the narrow room for debate over alleged antisemitism in the British Labour Party. Anti-Zionist Jews are excluded as unrepresentative of British Jews. And why is it okay to talk about antisemitism and Zionism in Britain without asking a Palestinian what their direct experience of Zionism has looked and felt like?
The underground excavations carried out by Israeli settlers beneath Palestinian buildings in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan have caused landslides following the last winter storm. One slide has undermined a wall on a playground, and could be life-threatening.
Three months after Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa was denied entry to her homeland to participate in the Kalimat Literature Festival, organizers have launched a public campaign to help fundraise the legal fees incurred around her case.
Prominent Jews, including Molly Crabapple, Dave Zirin, Tzvia Thier, Naomi Klein, Ilan Pappe, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Shir Hever, and Moshe Machover sign a statement standing by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar for her criticism of AIPAC. As long as the US gov’t stands behind Israeli crimes, the 229 signatories and counting will point to the outsize role of the Israel lobby.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases, pending a hearing. While it is too early to tell the extent to which Netanyahu will be affected by the announcement, nearly all of his rivals have called on him to step down, and political analysts have said it could spell disaster for him come April 9th.
It is quite typical for Israeli politicians to carry out confrontational measures against Palestinians shortly before general elections are due. Ramzy Baroud argues Netanyahu’s closure of a gate that leads to Al-Aqsa mosque was a move to appease extremists at the expense of Palestinians.
The United Nations Human Rights Council just issued a damning report that said Israel may have committed crimes against humanity during the Great March of Return in Gaza last year. Although U.N. investigators charged Israel with far worse crimes than anything that the government of Venezuela has been accused of, the New York Times coverage of the South American nation has been considerably more extensive.
Ilhan Omar is accused of antisemitism in fostering a “hoary myth of dual loyalty” to Israel. But Jews from Joe Klein to Eric Alterman to Melissa Weintraub to MJ Rosenberg say that allegiance to Israel is actually an important factor in the support for Israel in the United States, to the point that some support Israel’s interests over America’s.
Many Israelis would like us to believe that the Palestinian struggle to achieve self-determination has been defeated, and that it is time to admit that Israel is the victor and Palestine the loser. But Richard Falk says recent events paint a different picture than this premature Israel triumphalism.
The United States’ much ballyhooed conference in Warsaw, the purpose of which was to gather support for more pressure on Iran, is now over. This exercise in futility did not gain the so-called ‘benefits’ that President Donald Trump and his racist, jingoistic cohorts had hoped. Rather, it exposed disagreements between the U.S. and many of its allies, and worsened some of them.