Two Palestinians were shot and killed by Israeli forces in separate events in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli forces shot and killed 20-year-old Aref Lahlouh was shot and killed near the city of Qalqilya in the West Bank, claiming that he attempted to stab soldiers. 17-year-old Mohammad Ali was killed during confrontations in the Shu’fat refugee camp.
The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli military outfit housed at Tel Aviv University, just delivered its strategic assessment report, and the main takeaway is that Israel’s “special relationship” with the US is in danger.
The change is attributed to a generational shift in American politics due to “the influence that the progressive young generation has had in denying the legitimacy of Israel and Zionism, which they see as expressions of white-colonialist supremacy.”
The broad effort to silence Palestinians and to protect Israel from criticism has been underway for some time. American values are on the line, and American institutions are the battlefield. Yet, the fight over Ken Roth at Harvard shows that these efforts to suppress free speech will only enhance the cause of Palestinian human rights.
The martyrs of Palestine speak to one another in their final acts, emulating the examples of those that came before them, and turning into icons for those that will come after them.
Ken Roth insisted on bearing witness to Palestinian human rights abuses, and his rejection and reinstatement at Harvard represent a watershed moment in the politics of Israel in the United States.
Adel Manna’s new history of what happened to the Palestinians who remained in what would become the Israeli state after the 1948 helps us understand how the Nakba was made of many personal Nakbas.
The Mariyamiya songs aim to collect folkloric Palestinian songs and document the Palestinian desire to be free from the ravages of occupation, apartheid, and settler-colonialism. They are part and parcel of the collective memory of the people of Palestine.
Ken Roth was attacked by Israel supporters because he said that Israel’s conduct fosters antisemitism in the west. But he joins a long list of distinguished writers who have said the same, including Hannah Arendt, Nathan Glazer, and Eric Alterman. Glazer warned long ago that Israel’s political dependence on American Jews for immunity over violations of international law could make other Americans “hostile” to American Jews.
Israel’s new far-right government is pushing more and more to criticize the country, but the Palestine solidarity movement cannot sacrifice core values for political expediency.
The Israeli slide to religious fundamentalism and ultranationalism has made more people realize that many Jews oppose Zionism not out of “self-hate,” but because we believe in the equality of all human beings.