In the five days since Ahed Tamimi’s arrest, Israeli authorities have attempted to coerce confession from her without access to a lawyer or a parent; moved her from the occupied West Bank in contravention of international law; and transferred the sleep-deprived teenager between at least three different detention centers and prisons, including West Jerusalem’s infamous Moscobiyeh detention center. All of this and Tamimi has not yet been charged with a crime.
In an apparent escalation of Israel’s anti-BDS policy, an American Jew disclosed to Mondoweiss that in order to receive a valid visa they were forced to sign a loyalty oath to the state of Israel. The individual, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, was summoned to the Interior Ministry’s office and forced to write and sign a letter declaring allegiance to the state in order to receive a tourist visa. Handwritten on official Ministry of Interior Population Immigration and Border Authority stationery, the letter, as dictated to the individual by an agent of the ministry reads: “I declare that I will not do any activities against Israel, the army, and its institutions.”
Nearly 100 activists with the New York City chapter of grassroots organization Jewish Voice for…
Kenneth Marcus heads a lawfare organization that targets the Boycott Israel movement on campus as allegedly anti-Semitic and thereby violating federal laws against racial discrimination. Last week he was named to the top civil rights job at the Dep’t of Education, stirring fears that he will attempt to silence advocates for Palestinians.
Following media uproar, Dickinson, Texas, decided today it will no longer require private citizens affected by Hurricane Harvey to sign a pledge guaranteeing they will not boycott Israel as a condition to receiving help. But businesses seeking aid must reject Israel boycott.
Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed an executive order Monday barring state business with those who support BDS. Saqib Ali, co-founder of Freedom2Boycott and a former Maryland state legislator, said Monday’s executive order shows the hubris of staunchly pro-Israel voices and their disregard for democratic institutions. “You don’t have to be somebody who pays close attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be outraged by this,” Ali told Mondoweiss.
In the aftermath of one of the most devastating hurricanes to hit the Texas coast in years, one city is requiring all applicants for relief money to provide in writing a guarantee they do not and will not support the boycott of Israel.
Taking on the Jenin Freedom Theatre’s staging in New York of a dramatized episode in the Second Intifada, the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, NYU’s Taub Center for Israel Studies screened a PBS documentary featuring Israeli colonel Lior Lotan, the chief Israeli negotiator during the siege. And Lotan followed the screening with an hour-long elaboration of events that often felt hackneyed and stale.
Organizers began the D.C. Palestinian Film and Arts Festival with the goal of creating an environment for Palestinian artists in the diaspora to express themselves outside the political frame that has become synonymous with Palestine. One example of this in the recently concluded 7th annual festival was a unique and memorable space for Palestinian storytelling.
Palestinian artists from the Washington D.C. metro area and beyond convened at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts on Monday, October 2nd for opening night of the seventh annual D.C. Palestinian Film and Arts Festival. Festival co-founder Noura Erakat tells Mondoweiss, “When we discuss Palestine, we’re discussing a lot of the pain and intensity. There are so few places to celebrate what it is to be Palestinian and what it is to be Palestinian in our global diaspora as we exist. [This festival and its artists] are the iterations of being Palestinian-American.”