Led by Jews of color and their allies, and by the organization Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, nearly 300 marchers calling for greater police accountability wound their way through downtown New York on Thursday night, ending in the arrest of seven activists for civil disobedience.
Google blames a malfunction for removing the terms “West Bank” and “Gaza Strip” from its map of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. “The move is also designed to falsify history, and geography as well as the Palestinian people’s right to their homeland, and a failed attempt to tamper with the memory of Palestinians and Arabs as well as the world,” the Palestinian Journalists Forum said in a statement. But other commentators pointed out the new map inadvertently reflected the one-state reality in Israel/Palestine. “If only it was one state with equal rights for all, as Google’s maps suggest,” AJ+ correspondent Dena Takruri wrote on social media.
For many people with strong opinions about Israel/Palestine, the 2016 Democratic and Republican presidential candidates don’t offer much in the way of new ideas. With that in mind, a voter might wonder what the Libertarian Party has to offer concerning Israel/Palestine. The Libertarians argue, as they do across the board, for disentangling the U.S. from onerous aid arrangements, but their reasons have less to do with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and more to do with its promise to make government smaller in general. There isn’t a plank for Israel in the Libertarian platform, but in speaking with a Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate, Alex Merced, it appears that the party is the most open to new ideas, for better or worse, of all the parties running this year.
The Black Lives Matter movement’s advocacy for Palestinians has caused a rift to open over Israel between younger and older American Jews, and there’s no sign of it mending any time soon. In its platform, Black Lives Matter characterized Israeli policies towards Palestinians as “genocide” and endorsed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).
The Muslim community is like a lot of other Americans, in the view of the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby: “they simply are very afraid of Donald Trump, and they’re not overly enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton.”
Bernie Sanders delegates to the DNC tell Wilson Dizard how Hillary Clinton supporters orchestrated the systematic suppression of any posters and signs considered critical of the candidate, and even ones dedicated to Palestinian human rights. Sitina Gutierrez, 38, a Bernie delegate from Texas tells him, “Somebody, a Clinton supporter, told me to take my sign down because it’s offensive. I asked her why are Palestinian rights offensive to her and she said ‘because I am for American rights.'”
Wilson Dizard talks to Mark, a Democratic Party consultant in Philadelphia for the DNC, about U.S. responsibility to the Palestinian people given decades of support for the Israeli occupation. “I feel for them. Palestinian Americans, great. They’re Americans. But Palestinians not my problem. We have things to deal with here,” Mark explains.
Wilson Dizard reports from Philadelphia on day three of the Democratic National Convention: “The Academy Awards of Democratic Party politics continued into its fourth day on Thursday after Hillary Clinton clinched the nomination from the party of the people on Tuesday. Protests outside the Wells Fargo Center continue, and sometimes include dissident Bernie Sanders’ delegates who have come to feel the Democratic party doesn’t want them around, and that security confiscates their signs. ‘The DNC has its reps ripping up signs that support Palestinian rights so ppl can’t take them out of the trash,’ tweeted journalist Rania Khalek.”
Wilson Dizard reports from the protests outside the Democratic National Convention where he meets Sameera Khan, 25, former Ms. New Jersey 2015 and a Muslim American opposed to Clinton: “I’ve been involved in the political community for a very long time and studied international relations. I’ve been involved with Democracy Spring ever since I read about the Israel lobby and corporate influence, that’s what awakened me and made me realize that I have to fight. We are only as powerful as what we know. Knowledge is power, and once we realize how much power we hold together then we can start a political revolution.”
Wilson Dizard wraps up his time in Cleveland and says the 2016 Republican National Convention was a watershed moment for American politics. He says the city’s Public Square felt a bit like Tahrir Square in 2013 during the counter-revolution and shares a conversation between a white nationalist Trump supporter who chatted with the children of immigrants, one of whom asked whether he would want to be saved by them in a hurricane. “Perhaps,” he said. But we’re in that hurricane, and people need to show compassion.