In a Huffington Post interview published on June 5, U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker announced that he now supports a federal anti-BDS bill, which would allow states to punish contractors for boycotting Israel.
Waheed Fakhoury, 74, sits behind a pottery wheel, eyes glued to a television above as his hands instinctively shape a silky mass of brown earth dug up from the West Bank city of Hebron. Within a few minutes he has modeled a large bowl. Fakhoury means “potter in Arabic.” When asked how long his family has been doing this craft, Waheed chuckles, “As long as my name has been Fakhoury.”
Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer says that Israel will be the most important ally to the U.S. in the 21st century because of security threats from the Middle East and because Israel is in the “elite” of technology innovating countries, surpassing Britain.
Sara Roy challenges the German parliament over its resolution equating boycott of Israel and anti-Semitism: “I lost a large extended family to fascism and racism. By endorsing the motion that alleges that BDS is anti-Semitic, you are criminalizing the right to free speech and dissent and those who choose to exercise it, which is exactly how fascism takes root.”
Two NY teens are running the presidential campaign of former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel and under a url, “netanyahu-sucks,” they offer a serious critique of policy on Israel. Both parties have been passive as Israel has “enacted racist apartheid-style policies designed to disenfranchise Palestinians.” Gravel seeks an end to military aid to Israel, an end of the Israel lobby’s “undue influence,” and openness to a “plural state” in Israel and Palestin.
Alice Rothchild is inspired by a visit to the Alrowwad Cultural and Arts Society in Aida refugee camp in occupied Bethlehem. Abdelfattah Abusrour founded Alrowwad 21 years ago in a mission to serve the needs of the community, and give children and young people every possibility to live rather than to die for their country.
Palestinian cyclist Alaa al-Dali, who was maimed by an Israeli sniper in the Gaza protests last year, has vowed to continue his competitive career as a para-cyclist, Al Jazeera reports. Israeli onslaughts in the last ten years have produced 130,000 disabled people in the Gaza Strip.
After protests from a American Jewish organizations, the California Democratic Party leadership undertook to water down resolutions that were critical of Israel and supportive of Palestinian refugees, put forward by progressive activists. But as Jack O’Dell, the civil rights activist, advised James Zogby long ago: Never be devastated by setbacks and never become overly confident due to progress.
On Wednesday, six members of Congress introduced a bipartisan bill to create a $50 million annual fund to “facilitate and finance joint economic ventures and people-to-people exchanges between Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans.” While the bill could be seen by well-intentioned members of Congress as a last-ditch attempt to revive the moribund prospects for a two-state resolution, Josh Ruebner says it should more accurately be seen as consistent with the Trump administration’s “deal of the century,” which appears in all likelihood to preclude the possibility of Palestinian statehood.
Dismissing the idea of a two-state solution, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, says that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is like the U.S. occupation of Japan and Germany after World War II. The occupation was imposed at first, but the people came to understand that occupation was “good for them.” He doesn’t note that Americans did not seize lands in those countries and build exclusive roads and cities and move our population into colonies, as Israel has done.