Suhail Khoury, director of Palestine’s Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, and his wife, Rania Elias, director of Jerusalem’s Yabous Cultural Centre, were taken by Israeli authorities from their home in the Beit Hanina area of occupied East Jerusalem on July 22 and held and interrrogated that day. Israel is “using brute force to extinguish cultural life,” says a former colleague of Khoury’s.
100 years ago today, one British officer turned Palestine over to another British officer with a jesting receipt, “One Palestine, complete” –among the most often quoted Zionist documents. Their joke is still galling 100 years later in the history of colonialism.
British filmmaker Ken Loach is compelled to withdraw from an anti-racism charity event because pro-Israel activists target him for his support of BDS. The price for keeping Loach would be “to wreck not only the competition and Ken Loach’s reputation, but the charity’s very existence,” his supporters said.
Bret Stephens’s opinion of the Trump “peace plan” for Palestine is titled “Every Time Palestinians Say ‘No,’ They Lose”, and is premised on racist invention, beginning with its history lesson on why Palestinians “lose when they say ‘no’.”
In the wake of Boris Johnson overwhelming victory in UK elections, Lord John Mann, the government’s independent antisemitism adviser, announced “I will be instigating an investigation this January into the role of the Canary and other websites in the growth of antisemitism in the United Kingdom.”
Trump’s acceptance of the legality of Israeli settlements in the West Bank actually hastens the end of Zionism’s discriminatory ideology. What had always been the reality will be on full display for the world to see: Israel is an apartheid state. And the call for simply equality will be Israel’s ultimate defeat.
In order to play authentic religious music commemorating Bethlehem’s native son, the Amwaj Choir and Palestine Philharmonie needed a harpsichord. That search began a few years ago in Europe and culminated in Bethlehem in late October with the unveiling of a beautiful instrument.
Google Maps has turned Palestinian towns and cities into ghosts. They appear, yet according to the technology Goliath they do not exist as places one can actually get to. If you want to go between major West Bank cities such as Jericho, Bethlehem, or Hebron, Google will reply Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions… But if West Bank settlers want to visit other West Bank settlements, Google is at their service.
The British government archives has refused to declassify a file about the activities of the Nazi-sympathizing Mufti of Jerusalem in 1941 in Iraq, in the time preceding British takeover of the country. Government censors told author Tom Suarez the contents of the 78-year-old file could aid “those determined to undermine the security of the country.”
Israel’s most powerful weapon is the smearing of its critics as anti-Semites. After the Jewish Chronicle in London smeared Tom Suarez, the author filed a formal complaint against the newspaper with Britain’s main media watchdog, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), and won a partial victory.