An Israeli court formally indicted this week the six recaptured Palestinian prisoners, who last month achieved a historic escape from a maximum security Israeli prison last month that shocked the world. On Monday, the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said that one of the prisoners, Mohammed Ardah, had began a hunger strike in protest of the “punitive measures against him and the harsh conditions of his solitary confinement.”
Britain’s pro-Israel lobby gained another victory last week after a prolonged campaign of intimidation finally pushed a major UK university into firing one of its lecturers. Bristol University dismissed David Miller, a political sociology professor, even though an official investigation had concluded that accusations of antisemitism against him were unfounded. Research by Miller, a leading scholar on propaganda, had charted networks of influence in the UK in relation to Islamophobia that included the very pro-Israel lobby groups that worked to get him fired.
Leading Israeli human rights attorney Michael Sfard responds to South Africa’s Chief Rabbi Zeev Warren Goldstein, who recently argued that the term “apartheid” should only apply to South Africa.
Mike Pompeo is issuing alarmist claims about Iran as he considers a run for the presidency. His views are not very different from those of Yossi Alpher, who says the U.S. should have killed Khomeini in 1979 and Israel should be propping up dictatorship thru the Middle East by spying on dissidents. And a liberal Zionist organization, Americans for Peace Now, gives a platform to Alpher’s amorality.
Palestinian human rights organizations are demanding that PayPal end its “discriminatory” policy that prevents Palestinians from the occupied territory from using its platform. In a letter to PayPal’s President and CEO, a coalition of Palestinian human rights groups and international partners, including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, called out the company for “contributing to human rights violations and discriminatory practices against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
Campaigns to censor medical journals’ reports on the consequences of Israeli persecution of Palestinians have been sadly successful over the years, but there are signs, even at the Lancet, which has caved to censors before, that the truth is breaking through. A recent Lancet conference included a broad range of topics from environmental degradation to mental health in Palestine. The existence of these presentations is both normative in the medical world and somewhat revolutionary, given the frequent suppression of health information from occupied Palestine.
Last month Rep. Jamaal Bowman voted for an additional $1 billion in Iron Dome funding. The congressman explained his decision in a recent MSNBC appearance.
Following a pogrom in Southern Hebron that injured a 3-year-old Palestinian child, Israeli human rights organizations started an ad campaign calling on the Defense Minister and Internal Security Minister to end settler violence. Israeli bus companies removed the ad within a day after pressure from rightwing activists.
During its attack on Gaza in May, Israel destroyed the offices of APA Images, the photo agency that Mondoweiss relies on to give you the news from Palestine. Today, we are proud to announce that we are joining with our friends at The Electronic Intifada and the Middle East Children’s Alliance to raise funds to replace APA’s destroyed equipment, and promote journalism in Gaza.
As more and more young Jews say that Israel practices “apartheid” or “genocide” against Palestinians, Israeli President Isaac Herzog calls on the U.S. Jewish community to push back against these Jews. But he never mentions Palestinian conditions that alienate American Jews.