At the California Democratic Party’s fall convention on November 17, activists pushed a resolution that would have recognized the Palestinian right of return. Although the amendment ultimately failed to be voted into the platform, supporters point to the fact that no vote tally was actually taken and that the results could have been too close to call.
Opportunities to visit Gaza come rarely. Harry Gunkel writes, “A place so inaccessible and so compelling deserves our full attention and our best intentions, but as we learned in our recent visit, getting lost in the tedium of the permit process and then the rush to pack the time with meetings and briefings could have caused us to miss the glory that is Gaza.”
The Trump administration’s declaration supporting Israeli settlements has elicited some progressive outrage, but not in Israel. Liberal Zionists should take note.
The shooting of a Palestinian journalist in the occupied West Bank has sparked local and international outrage against the Israeli military, which has been documented as frequently targeting journalists across the territories.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Monday that the US was revoking the notion that settlements are illegal under international law. “What Pompeo is announcing is not a rupture in US foreign policy, but a culmination of it,” explains human rights lawyer Noura Erakat.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement this afternoon that the Trump administration no longer regards West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements as illegal under international law, thereby repudiating global opinion and 50 years of U.S. policy, was widely condemned, including by presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The AP laid the decision at the feet of Sheldon Adelson, Trump’s biggest donor.
Zak Witus is a member of IfNotNow and a graduate student in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago. He told Mondoweiss that the group decided to target Schakowsky because she’s “a great moral leader on so many human rights issues, both for her district and the Chicago Jewish community in particular.” He pointed out that Schakowsky opposed the Trump administration’s embassy move, condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to block Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and co-authored an op-ed with Omar about confronting the threat of white nationalism. “Not another penny of taxpayer money should fund another Israeli home demolition or bomb that wipes out an entire family in Gaza,” said Witus, “We think that Jan agrees, and so her committing to defunding the occupation should be a no brainer.”
Earlier this month Yehya Karaja, a homeless Palestinian living in Gaza City who set himself on fire in September near a crowded public park in an apparent protest over dire living conditions, died from his wounds. He was 26.
Dan Shapiro and Michael Koplow say the U.S. made a “moral commitment” to Israel as a democracy against countless threats 71 years ago and the U.S. has a strategic interest in preserving Israel as a democracy, or the morality of the relationship will be undermined. The possibility that we should distance ourselves from Israel because it’s persecuting Palestinians is simply off the table for these liberal Zionists. Though progressive Democrats increasingly feel that way.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party understands Palestine as a moral foreign policy cause of this generation, and affixes it to their material fight against neoliberal austerity. Nick Rodrigo writes that this relationship lies in the radical street politics of the British student movement between 2008-2011.