The context behind Israeli government minister Matan Kahana’s shocking statement that he would like to send all Palestinians “to Switzerland” deserves close scrutiny, because it proves it was not a mere slip of the tongue and actually reflects an Israeli consensus.
For the last month I have not been able to stop thinking about Shireen Abu Akleh, or the Israeli soldier who killed her. Here are the questions I would like to ask the person who pulled the trigger.
Even liberal Zionists maintain a red line against Americans calling Israel an apartheid state. Jeremy Ben-Ami says the apartheid “label” will “distract” Israelis and keep them from doing the right thing. But Haaretz writers, desperate about the racism that prevails in their society, refer to apartheid in article after article.
Activists in Gaza rework a classic Palestinian resistance song from the first intifada to fit the BDS movement today.
This is a story not of statistics and numbers and economics, this is a story about the generational transfer of skill. Munir Al-Kafarne passes his family’s bee keeping traditions to his sons as his small farming family attempts to subsist off the land only 1,000 feet from the highly-militarized separation wall in Gaza.
The Washington Post publishes a lengthy investigation bearing out what eyewitnesses said on May 11, an Israeli soldier killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in occupied territories. The Post openly disputes the shifting Israeli “claims” about who killed Abu Akleh, and all but accuses the Israeli army of withholding evidence from the public. The investigation will add pressure on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to actually demand an independent investigation and accountability for the Israelis.
The Palestinian towns of Iqrit and Birim in the Galilee were destroyed by the Israeli army in the 1950s so as to prevent Palestinian villagers from returning under a court order. The case haunts Israeli government to this day, as Rinawie Zoabi, a Palestinian lawmaker in Meretz, demands the return of the residents as a condition of her staying in the coalition. But Foreign Minister Yair Lapid is having none of it.
If you ever need a simple explanation for your friends about conditions in Palestine, please…
The new Legal Centre for Palestine (LCP) will counter the harassment and intimidation of Canada’s Palestinian community and its allies by pro-Israel organizations. “We defend the right of Palestinians to exist,” co-founder Emilio Dabed says. “Law, on its own, cannot liberate Palestinians or Palestine. Law is a complementary tool for a struggle that needs to combine grassroots organization and mobilization.”
Last year activists called on Ed Markey stand up for Palestine, but they have yet to see any action.