An explosive new report at The Intercept reveals that the FBI launched multiple terrorism investigations into the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led movement that supports the rights of Palestinians through non-violent direct action.
Hatim Kanaaneh reviews Rashid Khalidi’s latest work ‘The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine’: “Though I have read a good number of histories of Palestine, I hardly turned a page in Rashid Khalidi’s new book that didn’t surprise me with new and well-documented information about my own history.”
Liberal Zionists who now call on Democrats to stop Israeli annexation should have applied sanctions pressure years ago. But they feared the left’s call for democracy and sided with rightwing Israel supporters on lavishing aid to the Israeli occupation. No wonder Israeli leaders have always ignored liberal Zionists.
Israeli media reported on Monday that Netanyahu and Gantz agreed on a plan to begin formally annexing parts of the West Bank, as early as this summer. “The coronavirus pandemic has been the biggest gift to Netanyahu,” Palestinian political analyst Dianna Buttu told Mondoweiss. “If there’s any time to go forward with annexation, it’s now, when everyone is focused on something else.”
Declassified cables from Israeli diplomats in Brazil in the 1980s show that the Israeli government supported the continuation of military rule over democracy because it feared the Workers Party would give support to Palestinians, Eitay Mack reports.
Israel is expected to ramp up its efforts to test for the coronavirus inside its Palestinian communities, after widespread outcry from rights groups condemning the government for ignoring the country’s Arab population amid the global pandemic.
Axios reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared a video with members of his cabinet, which he believed to be proof of an Iranian coronavirus cover-up. It turns out that it was actually a clip from the 2007 Hallmark Channel mini-series Pandemic.
Due to the Israeli occupation, the inability for Palestinians to deploy medical resources as needed; to properly organize the population per the requirements of social distancing and rational quarantine; and to properly track and test people, will predictably result in excess serious illness and death, above and beyond what might occur in a less obstructed scenario.
In the midst of a global pandemic, when much of the world is sheltering in homes, Israeli forces have continued to raid Palestinian cities and towns, arrest and imprison Palestinians, demolish homes and tear down structures, and facilitate attacks carried out by settlers.
In addition to the rally, JVP also released a petition that has already been signed by over 15,000 people. It calls on Israel to lift its embargo on Gaza in response to the COVID-19 crisis. “This crisis has been building since Israel’s life-threatening blockade began 13 years ago, and the U.S. is complicit,” it reads.
The entire experience of the coronavirus in the West Bank serves as a perfect example of how Israel rules over Palestinians. While the coronavirus doesn’t differentiate between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel sure does. Everything in this country is politicized and affected by the colonial structure. The epidemic is just another perspective to understand it from.
Microsoft has announced that its divesting its shareholding in the Israeli facial recognition company AnyVision. The move follows an audit which was forced by a BDS campaign targeting the company. “Microsoft’s decision to heed the calls of the campaign to drop the Israeli surveillance company AnyVision is a huge and timely BDS victory,” announced the the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
“Given the spread of the coronavirus in the West Bank and Gaza, the extreme vulnerability of the health system in Gaza, and the continued withholding of U.S. aid to the Palestinian people, we are concerned that the Administration is failing to take every reasonable step to help combat this public health emergency in the Palestinian Territories,” reads the letter. It was lead by Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), but was also signed by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Carper (D-DE), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
The number of coronavirus cases in Palestine jumped from 62 to 91 in just two days. The main cause is that thousands of Palestinian laborers have been ordered to return to the West Bank from Israel. Thousands of workers are now expected to flood back into the West Bank, raising concerns over how well the PA will be able to deal with the influx of potential virus carriers.
Mondoweiss community, we have some bittersweet organizational news to share — Tova Perlmutter, our wonderful Executive Director, will be moving on later this spring. Tova has been central in our development over the past five years, helping to move Mondoweiss from a fledgling news operation of four staff people into a mature, stable organization with a core staff of ten. As we prepare for her exit at the end of June we are launching a search for a Director of Development to continue our impressive growth.
Dr. Alice Rothchild writes, “The announcement that nine cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Gaza filled me with a new level of anxiety and despair. Gaza is at the beginning of the pandemic curve.”
Israel’s year-long political stalemate appears to be over. Netanyahu was saved by coronavirus and racism. The virus made him popular. Racism stymied Benny Gantz’s efforts to form a government with Palestinian support.
The first Palestinian has died from the novel coronavirus in the occupied West Bank, officials announced on Wednesday. The victim was identified as a woman in her 60’s from the Biddu village, north of Jerusalem in the central West Bank.
The tail end of March and beginning of April is often regarded as the most beautiful season in Palestine. But this year, residents of Bethlehem mourn the passing of spring in quarantine, as the city-wide lockdown enters into its fourth week.
Trump cut U.S. funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2018. That move’s impact could become even more devastating for Palestinian refugees amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Gaza reported it’s first two cases of COVID-19 on Saturday. While the spread of the respiratory disease is relatively contained in Gaza, there is widespread fear the health infrastructure is woefully underprepared to handle an outbreak
Last week, over 25 groups called on the Trump administration to end its sanctions on Iran amid the COVID-19 crisis. The virus has been particularly calamitous for Iran: at the time this piece was written the country had 21,638 confirmed cases and 1,685 people had been killed by it. U.S. sanctions have no doubt worsened the situation, as they’ve weakened Iran’s economy and thus made it more difficult to secure goods.
As Netanyahu likens himself to the captain of the Titanic amid the coronavirus pandemic, Israeli political protests of his powergrab have gone forward despite lockdown, with people in cars with black flags.
On Sunday, the first two cases of the novel coronavirus were confirmed in the besieged Gaza Strip, home to over 2 million Palestinians. According to the health officials in Gaza, the two patients had recently traveled back to Gaza from Pakistan through the Rafah crossing, and were immediately put into quarantine upon their arrival.
Mondoweiss correspondent Yumna Patel lives in Bethlehem, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Palestine. As the crisis continues to develop, Yumna paints a picture of what daily life looks like in the city, the emotions of the people, and her own personal thoughts and fears.