Israel has long labored to convince its allies that the BDS movement is anti-Semitic, but Nada Elia says the new entry ban reveals Israel’s true concern: “Ultimately, the oddly selective blacklist is not about protecting Israel from anti-Semitic attacks, it is about defending it from the one strategy, BDS, that seems to be working. Shunning the charade of ‘talks’ and ‘process,’ BDS has exposed the racist ideology at the very heart of Zionism, allowed the Palestine solidarity movement to build global alliances and enabled individuals to enact their solidarity in concrete ways that have secured many victories, big and small. No blacklist banning entry into Israel can stop this.”

Those of us denouncing the decade-long siege on the Gaza Strip can help alleviate its impact, even as we continue to organize to bring an end to it.  One way we can do this is by supporting the Edward Said Public Library, an oasis of escape, creativity, and cheerfulness in an otherwise gloomy environment.

Nada Elia says that when the singer Lorde decided to cancel her concert in Tel Aviv she was not caving to BDS pressure, she was rising to the occasion.

English language teacher Mosab Abu Toha founded the “Edward Said Public Library” in Gaza, a small, modest library he hopes will provide the residents of the Strip with a window to the world through literature, mostly in English. But now the project is in danger as a shipment of books is being held up due to the Israeli siege on Gaza.

Nada Elia: It is likely President Trump had no clue what his “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel” declaration heralded. He may have been aspiring for “the deal of the century,” when all he has done is unwittingly announce the end of a farce.  With the cumbersome “peace process” out of the way, we can focus on the real solution:  grassroots activism and global solidarity.  

Nada Elia writes, “Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel did not kill the two-state solution.  That ‘solution’ never had a chance. Palestine, like justice, is indivisible. Trump’s declaration merely pushed aside any pretense at objectivity, neutrality, fairness, or ‘process.'”

Kenneth Marcus, Trump’s nominee to head the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, actively works to pass and enforce legislation that suppresses civil and human rights and criminalizes constitutionally protected free speech. His nomination points to the increasing convergences of white supremacy, fascism, and Zionism.

Sixty-seven words. That is the full extent of the Balfour Declaration, and yet few documents have had as devastating an impact as this historical document. Still, Nada Elia writes that the cursory nature of its wording indicates a twentieth-century awareness that the dispossession of the Palestinian people was already considered anachronistic when the declaration was written 100 years ago.

Last month, the case of Palestinian artist Malak Mattar made international news, as the young painter’s well-deserved scholarship to study in Turkey was slipping through her fingers. While Mattar herself is exceptional in myriad ways, her situation is far from the exception. Nada Elia says that Mattar’s challenges are exemplary of the decades-long violation of the Palestinian Right to Education, where increasingly it seems the Palestinian Authority is serving as an accomplice to limit Palestinian educational opportunities.

Malak Mattar’s paintings hang on the walls in the homes of her many fans around the world and express, beautifully, the utter misery of life and death in the besieged Gaza Strip. Mattar’s dream was to leave Gaza and attend art school in the U.S. But just when this dream was about to come true it was shattered, this time not by Israel, but by the Palestinian Authority.