Hundreds of Palestinians gathered in the city center of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in protest of the Palestinian Authority’s killing of popular activist and dissident Nizar Banat earlier this summer. The demonstration came on the heels of mass arrests by the PA of prominent Palestinian critics of Abbas’ regime. These arrests have caught the eyes of the international community, including some members of Congress.
As Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett launches a charm offensive in Washington to show he is not Netanyahu– but will do nothing about Palestinian human rights–Joe Biden should go along with the charade so as to overcome his loss of international standing from Afghanistan and to keep Israel a bipartisan issue, leading Israel lobbyists urge the White House.
Mohammed el-Halabi is accused of diverting World Vision aid money in Gaza to Hamas, yet as his trial closes no evidence has emerged that any funds ever went missing. In his first interview since his arrest in 2016, el-Halabi tells Mondoweiss, “the claims that the Israeli prosecutor has issued against me are fabricated and aimed at stopping the humanitarian work I and others are doing for the people of Gaza.”
The United Church of Christ resolution abandoning the two-state solution and calling Israel’s continued “oppression” of Palestinians a “sin” that demands action by people of faith has alarmed the American Jewish Committee and for good reason: Other Protestant churches are sure to follow, with measures that pose a real threat to apartheid.
Israeli forces shot and killed 15-year-old Imad Khaled Saleh Hashash during a raid Tuesday morning in the Balata refugee camp. Hashash was watching the raid from the roof of his house when he was shot in the head.
Why is the “open secret” of Israel’s nuclear weapons kept secret? Because if the US government revealed what it knows it would immediately raise uncomfortable questions about the legality of foreign aid to Israel.
The mainstream media have largely adopted a pro-war narrative: the U.S. should have stayed longer, Biden’s withdrawal is precipitous, the president has failed to secure all the good things that America brought to the people of Afghanistan/Kabul. Biden has gotten surprising support from the left, which has long opposed the Afghanistan occupation, and from some independent voices who have said that the 20-year war was catastrophic and violent and the chaotic scenes at the airport are merely the last chapter in a misbegotten policy.
Protests have continued in the Palestinian village of Beita against the establishment of a settler outpost on the village’s land. Israeli forces have continued to violently suppress protests, killing two more Palestinians over the past month. “For more than 100 days we have been resisting against the occupation and the settlers,” Abed al-Fattah Hamayel, a local activist in Beita, told Mondoweiss. “And everyday the situation is becoming even more volatile. The soldiers are just waiting for any excuse, or just the right moment to kill anyone.”
Palestinians plan to continue protests at the fence separating Gaza and Israel this week, following clashes over the weekend where 24 protesters were wounded. “We can’t stand doing nothing while our people are suffering death due to Israeli siege,” Talal Abu Zarifa explained.
Birzeit student Layan Nasir is currently being imprisoned at Israel’s Damon Military Prison with seven other female students. Rev. Fadi Diab says the story of her baptism as an infant to her detention as a university student reveals the arbitrariness of the Israeli occupation.