Jesse Rubin reports from a standing-room-only event in Brooklyn on free speech and Palestine solidarity in support of Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian poet under house arrest whose case has come to symbolize the absurdity of Israel’s selectively guaranteed right to free speech.
An unidentified group has launched a shadowy website identifying New Yorkers believed to support the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights—placing their photos, social media links and email addresses on a “blacklist” located at OutlawBDS.com. The list features ninety-seven individuals divided into the categories Campuses, Public & NPOs and Private Sector Activists. Project OutlawBDS claims it was established by a group who “consider themselves to be analytical in their approach to the BDS movement,” whose stated intention is to “provide support for New York State Senate Bill S2492,” the latest attempt to pass anti-BDS legislation in the state.
Jesse Rubin reports on the latest break in virtual pro-Israel advocacy, an online hasbara app that Israel’s strategic affairs minister calls the “Iron Dome of Truth”: “Combining military-language with an advanced technology sector—two things which Israel prides itself on—users can choose from a long list of ‘missions’ and receive points upon completion. The tasks can be as simple as liking a Facebook page called ‘Uncovering Bias and Real Human Rights Abuses at the UN’ or sharing a tweeted photo of Mariah Carey landing in Israel.”
“I grew up imagining that all the children in the world grew up having a similar type of life.” A Palestinian student recounts painful stories of growing up in the West Bank to a packed Congressional briefing in Washington, D.C.
Fifth Avenue in Manhattan was awash in blue and white flags on Sunday, June 4 as the Celebrate Israel parade kicked off for its 52nd year. This year’s theme according to organizers was “Celebrate Israel All Together,” though the 50th year of Jerusalem’s “reunification” took center stage. But for Palestinians, the so-called reunification of Jerusalem marks the beginning of Israel’s 50-year military occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem. With this in mind, multiple anti-occupation protests halted the parade along its route, resulting in 7 arrests by the NYPD.
On Wednesday morning, two leaders of the Palestine solidarity movement in the US awoke to find they had been brazenly targeted by anonymous pro-Israel operatives who sought to paint American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as supporters of terrorism. Hundreds of color-print flyers with the headline “A Sketchy Alliance—America at Stake” were found littered outside the California home of Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman and UC Berkeley professor as well as outside the New York home of JVP executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson. “I felt that I was being targeted and violated,” said Bazian, likening the tactic to that used by the Ku Klux Klan. “My home and my family [were] subject to intimidation.”
In an appearance at Columbia University, former Clinton foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan characterized Donald Trump as “a person who does not look at America’s role in the world as having a special positive-sum nature.” But what’s so great about America’s role in the world!
After overcoming multiple legal and administrative hurdles, including an Israeli-imposed travel ban, Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, appeared on a panel at Columbia University last night entitled “The Road to Freedom: The BDS Movement for Palestinian Rights and the Struggle Against Apartheid.” Barghouti listed BDS’ many accomplishments since its launch in 2005 by Palestinian civil society and his commentary was sharp and at times funny. “BDS cannot claim full responsibility for Israel’s growing academic, cultural and increasingly economic isolation” Barghouti said. “For Israel itself deserves a big share of the credit.”
Students disrupted a Brand Israel conference at New York University, holding a silent protest while former Israeli ambassador Ido Aharoni closed the daylong forum last Friday with a summary of branding techniques applicable to the Jewish state.
Outside Columbia University’s Lerner Hall on Monday evening, around 50 Palestine solidarity activists protested a speech from the Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon. Meanwhile, inside the lecture hall, contingent after contingent of Palestine activists holding Palestinian flags and keffiyehs interrupted Danon’s speech. Columbia University Apartheid Divest member Jeff Jacobs said “We stood up, one by one and said our piece; that we’re not going to accept this hate purveyor coming to campus and spreading his ideas.”