Today, the extreme right is a wholly acceptable idea in the Israeli mainstream. Supporting illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory has shifted to being a centrist policy.
Denmark’s Prime Minister was in Israel for a Holocaust commemoration, and she has announced the intention to apply the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which conflates critique of Israel with hatred of Jews. She is also using this idea to incite against immigrants, equating them with neo-Nazis.
Benny Gantz support for annexing the Jordan Valley shows that the left is completely feckless in Israeli politics, and the only liberal hope is in Palestinian politicians. American liberal Zionists should accept that the two state solution is dead, and they should abandon the ideology that created apartheid: Zionism.
Benny Gantz, the leader of the “centrist” Blue & White party and main challenger to the premiership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed on Tuesday to annex the Jordan Valley if he wins the Israeli elections on March 2.
Elizabeth Warren’s very-carefully modulated position on Israel/Palestine– praising Israel as a great ally and liberal democracy but also saying she might condition aid over annexation of the West Bank — reflects official liberal thinking, and the J Street line.
Voting for the 38th World Zionist Congress begins today, and progressive Zionist organizations in the US are encouraging American Jews to vote for their slate. Donna Nevel says the elections themselves illustrate the racism and inequity of Zionism: “Participating in the World Zionist Congress elections under the banner of progressive values effectively whitewashes Zionism’s impact on Palestinians. These elections don’t begin to tackle Israel’s unjust, apartheid system and its underlying Zionist ideology, but, rather, feeds that system and ideology and gives them more roots.”
Here are eight ways in which the toxic policies of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba have contaminated American institutions, as well as our laws and customs, in the 20 years since the first detainees arrived there.
The Arab Bank appears to be closing accounts of Palestinian community-based organizations and former prisoners due to a suit by Israelis alleging that the bank played a role in terrorist actions. “I never thought that being arrested by the occupation, simply for fighting for my rights as a Palestinian, would affect something so simple as trying to open a bank account,” Ahmad Salah says.
The ADL has smeared lefties Max Blumenthal, Jefferson Morley and Phil Weiss as serving rightwing antisemites because they said that Trump killed Qasem Soleimani out of concern for Israel’s interest, Weiss writes. “To do so it lies about what I wrote about the number of Zionist Jews in the Trump administration.”
Hubert Murray reports from Cambridge, Massachusetts where Scientists for Palestine held their third international conference, this year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Another conclusion from witnessing this sophisticated and productive exchange of ideas is that despite the politically-imposed privations endured by Palestinian scientists (and of course the population as a whole) there is a corresponding ingenuity at prevailing against the odds,” Murray writes.
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett pretends to be a liberal by refusing to run with the “Jewish Power” party despite pressure from Netanyahu to do so. But the collection of rightwingers Bennett is aligned with have made many racist comments of their own.
Last week, Jewish and Palestinian student activists with the group Jewish Voice for Peace were in Iowa to demand that Democratic candidates stop funding Israel’s occupation and embrace Palestinian rights.
The Israeli Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that it had approved the creation of seven new Israeli nature reserves in Area C of the occupied West Bank. This follows Naftali Bennett telling a forum of right-wing activists and academics in Jerusalem last week that Area C “belongs to Israel.”
Since 9/11, the treatment of Muslims has exposed a rot at the core of American democracy, and that rot has been disturbingly bipartisan.
The exclusion by Labor/Meretz of a Palestinian lawmaker in the next election list is a reminder of the racism in Israeli politics. The main reason Israeli politics are stalemated and the country is going to its third election in a year is Palestinians don’t really count in election totals; and the leading Jewish party is happy to cut a deal with other Jewish parties but refuses to deal seriously with the third largest party, the Joint List of Palestinian parties.
In its recklessness and brutality, Trump’s escalating drone war shows just how dangerous it is when a president claims the legal authority to kill in secret and no one can stop him. We can thank the Obama administration for that.
Reports have emerged that Israel provided key intelligence to the the US in the lead up to the Soleimani assassination. Now there are questions whether Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah could be the next US target
Twice in the last two years, a Jewish history teacher has been forced out of a private NY high school due to anti-Zionist statements. Now: J.B. Brager at Fieldston. In Brager’s case and Joel Doerfler’s before, outraged Jewish donors to the schools are said to have pushed the school administrations to take a stand against anti-Zionism.
The Department of Education is investigating another university over pro-Palestine events. The move comes just one month after President Trump signed an executive order that effectively allows the government to crack down on pro-Palestine campus organizing.
On January 9, Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced H. Res. 782. The legislation, which is cosponsored by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) and David Kustoff (R-TN), would encourage “public schools to design and teach a curriculum about the history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and the vital and historic importance of the Jewish State of Israel.” The bill also cites the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which it claims is spreading “rampant anti-Semitism” across college campuses.
“Grey Rock,” a play by Amir Nizar Zuabi about a Palestinian television repairman who is secretly building a rocket in his shed to reach the moon, is about the right of Palestinians to escape their oppression and dream of great achievements. It is at the Public Theater in NY then at the Guthrie, and you should see it if you can.
A new University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll gives us further insight into what Americans think about the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. One obvious conclusion is the high-profile BDS battles of 2019 have raised awareness for the movement, and that awareness has come with increased support.
Yumna Patel reports that while the situation in the occupied territory has remained relatively quiet in response to the US assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the tension being felt across the globe can most certainly be felt there.
Rob Lipton looks at how the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani is playing out in the mainstream media, and the lack of coverage of Israel and other actors who pushed for this blatant act of war.
At daybreak Kefah Adra set out to fill a plastic container of water from a nearby spring, a morning errand she has not done in 15 years. Like many Palestinian towns in this southern region of the West Bank, a-Tuwani is hemmed in by Israeli settlements, which a decade and a half ago cut off access to her water source.