Robert Cohen, British anti-Zionist, is accused of being a “champagne boycotter,” because he urges boycott of Israel while using computer products from companies heavily invested in Israel. But BDS doesn’t target Intel, because it has a virtual global monopoly and thus a boycott would not succeed. The real hypocrisy is talking up human rights and opposition to nukes while enforcing an apartheid system and secretly holding nukes.
“Disney BDS’d me,” Roseanne Barr said on a tour of Israel, where she repeatedly attacked the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at Israel as the second coming of Nazis. She also said ABC tried to kill her when they canceled her show, and she’d make a good prime minister.
The urgency of the global climate crisis makes it imperative for any social justice movement to come to grips with, and confront it in some way. Nowhere is the impact to the environment more connected to injustice and oppression than in Palestine.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has officially ceased all assistance to Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Since he took office, President Trump has slashed some $500 million in US aid to Palestinians, leaving many organizations and aid programs strapped for cash.
The ‘NY Times’ runs an important article on rising Jewish “settler” violence in occupied West Bank Palestine, but the report is still biased toward Israel. It characterizes Israeli violence against occupied Palestinians as “clash” and “melee” when in fact one side is delivering violence to the other.
The Judaization of the Negev and Galilee have long been central for the Zionist venture. Israel steps up its plans for Judaization of the Negev. The young American Jewish group IfNotNow noticed, and are radicalizing, calling it ethnic cleansing, and part of the “occupation” within Israel’s 1948 borders.
On January 30, Israeli soldiers shot and killed, a Palestinian girl, 16, at the Zaim military roadblock, east of occupied Jerusalem, reportedly after she “attempted to stab them.” The Israeli Police claimed that the child, Samah Zoheir Mubarak, 16, was carrying her schoolbag when she “pulled a knife and attempted to stab the soldiers,” when the officers fired several live rounds at her.
The Israeli campaign trail is heating up as the April 9 elections draw closer. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a fast-growing opposition, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said he plans to decide whether to indict the PM before the election, and Palestinian lawmakers are scrambling to finalize their slates ahead of their primaries.
NYT columnist Michelle Goldberg says progressives are afraid to speak up on Israel. They feel “I can’t speak out without suffering professional consequences… That taboo is real… I feel like it’s very difficult to speak kind of rationally and forthrightly about real human rights abuses in the West Bank.”
Marc Lamont Hill delivered an inspiring keynote address to a standing-room only celebration of radical organizing for Palestine as the organization Existence is Resistance celebrated its 10-year anniversary in New York City.