Censorship over Israel at an elite NYC school? First a Riverdale Country School teacher is suspended over his views on Gaza, next another teacher resigns because his Israeli-Palestinian conflict class is canceled. Now, outraged alumni are speaking out.
Ilise Benshushan Cohen writes an open letter, on behalf of The Jews of Color, Sephardi and Mizrahi Caucus, to the organization Bend the Arc on its willingness to criticize the Trump Administration but refusal to criticize Israel for very similar practices.
Palestinian organisations in Gaza are calling upon all people of conscience around the world, to make posters of the fallen heroes of the recent Great March of Return and plaster these all over your cities and towns, especially opposite Israeli and American embassies.
Palestinian Christian Advocates for Justice and the Palestinian Christian Alliance for Peace: “The Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, as well as the rest of the West Bank, Gaza, and the Syrian Golan Heights, is now in its fifty-first year, the longest military occupation since the end of the nineteenth century. Palestinian Christians and Muslims are calling on the church to use its influence to end the occupation.”
In 2014 when nine activists climbed onto the roof of the Elbit UK drone factory to protest the Israeli war on Gaza, Nick Cave’s support helped spread the news of their protest. Now, those same nine activists write Cave to ask him to support the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and to cancel his upcoming show in Israel.
Nearly 100 Israelis sign onto an open letter endorsing Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, “We, a group of conscientious Israeli-Jews, would like to express our deep respect and solidarity with you – the 1,500 or more Palestinians who embarked on a collective open ended hunger strike to demand your basic rights.”
The campus community at the University of Illinois at Chicago condemns a series of flyers that were posted on campus that exploits social justice issues to spread anti-Semitic views.
The cancellation of a lecture by journalist Rania Khalek, who was invited to speak on the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill campus by Students for Justice in Palestine on February 27, 2017, raises important issues of tactics and strategy within movements for social change. An open letter from journalists, intellectuals, and activists says in part, “when a group seeking justice in Palestine subjects speakers or members to a political litmus test related to their views on Syria, it inevitably leads to splits, silencing, confusion, and a serious erosion of trust. It runs contrary to the possibility of people learning from one another, changing their minds, and educating one another through their activism. Disagreements about political issues exist inside every movement coalition. They must not be made fodder for targeted vilification of activists in the movement.”