In the 1950s Israel used a savage treatment for ringworm on immigrant Mizrahi children: approximately 100,000 Jewish immigrant children from Arab countries were taken from their parents and without parental consent, their heads were shaved, their hair was plucked, they were placed on a table, sometimes in restraints, and given radiation doses. The case is reminiscent of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
Alice Rothchild is invited to give a talk about Israel/Palestine to a New England private school, then disinvited after the administrators view her PowerPoint presentation. A dismayed Rothchild writes, “The tragedy for me is that first there is this framing that there are ‘two sides’ when there are actually many sides, this being a complicated historical time, and that anyone who says, let’s step back and look at the forces of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, explore the narrative of Palestinians, question the framing and dominant paradigms of the Israeli government, AIPAC, Christian Zionism, this person (who is often me) is immediately perceived as causing conflict or needing to be balanced by the ‘other side’.”
What the mainstream press leaves out: January 8 killings of four soldiers in Jerusalem were likely result of a young Palestinian man losing all hope as well as the ability to cope in an increasingly oppressive situation, targeting the people who have made his life a misery, writes Alice Rothchild.
The Stop the Wall movement in Palestine began a dozen years ago and has transformed the international struggle: bringing people together based on human rights to end the occupation, end racial discrimination towards Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and to support the right of return for refugees.
Listen up. Racist nationalism feeding on fear and economic discontent directed by an obviously-corrupted leadership with a creative approach to truth is really dangerous. This is not the time to be patient or to normalize the fact of the Trump presidency.
The sickening police killings of young black men in the U.S. reflect American problems, from the school to prison pipeline, our failed educational systems, and lack of opportunity for the have nots. But the Israeli model of lynching desperate young Palestinians under occupation, which has been sold to our police departments, is also part of the problem.
Alice Rothchild is portrayed as an extremist for supporting BDS on Israeli television, and her Facebook page lights up with rage. She responds: Israelis, you must wake up from your stupor and see how the world sees you.
Alice Rothchild finds resistance to speaking openly about the Israeli occupation at a retirement community in Seattle.
When Alice Rothchild met Hashem al-‘Azza five years ago, he was living in hell, holding out in his Hebron home against settler atrocities. Last week he was killed by Israeli tear gas.
At the first anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, we are facing a crisis of memory; Israel’s massive ground, air and sea assault killed nearly 2200 Palestinians, including over 500 children, but it pales in the media discourse next to the portrayal of the Palestinians as the sole aggressors