We extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Pittsburgh native, Jim Rogers, an unarmed Black man who was brutally murdered on October 13, 2021 by Pittsburgh police officer Keith Edmonds and other unnamed officers. The increased militarization of U.S. law enforcement agencies are a direct result of the deadly exchange programs between the U.S. and Israeli military forces, including exchanges with the City of Pittsburgh.
The NSO developments and the terrorist designations were two separate stories involving Israel, or so most people thought. However, just days ago we found out that they are very much connected.
I work for one of the leading Palestinian human rights organizations, Al-Haq, which was recently declared a “terrorist organization” by the Israeli regime along with five prominent civil society organizations in Palestine. Friends and acquaintances keep asking me how it feels to be a member of a “terrorist organization”. I always respond by saying: it seems like we’re doing something right.
Right after Israel’s foreign minister derided social media portrayal of Israel at an ADL conference, two New York Times staffers came on to criticize social media for spreading antisemitism and conspiracy theories. Their appearance was an implicit endorsement of the Israel lobby group, with the imprimatur of the New York Times.
Ainsworth United Church of Christ of Portland, Oregon just pledged to be a Pillsbury-Free-Church in support of Palestinian human rights. Join us!
The olive harvest in Gaza was down by 65% this year, leaving many farmers without enough crop to sell. Experts say this dip was due to rising temperatures from climate change.
Israel’s designation of 6 Palestinian civil society organizations as terrorist was an “act of tyranny” aimed at the “backbone” of Palestinian society, but the designation is “completely shattered at the moment, completely in shatters” due to widespread repudiation of the so-called evidence against the groups, says Israeli human rights attorney Michael Sfard. And the U.S. has the power to make Israel back down. But the State Department has said it’s studying the evidence.
The Israeli government is lobbying the Biden administration to get sanctions on the NSO Group removed. The push comes amid calls for a deeper investigation into how the company’s hacking technology ended up on the phones of Palestinian activists.
Zionists are working hard to decouple the struggle for racial justice in the United States from Palestinian liberation, but the movements are intertwined through shared experiences of state violence and a legacy of joint struggle.
Neta Golan recounts the day in 2002 when Colin Powell visited a besieged Yasser Arafat in his presidential compound in Ramallah during the Second Intifada, as international solidarity activists tried to protect the Palestinian leader from Israeli attack.