Reporter Tareq Hajjaj reflects back on the harrowing last few weeks in Gaza where he twice fled his home to escape Israeli attacks, and reveals the trauma of reporters who cover wars that they are also trying to survive.
The reconstruction of Gaza will not meet the needs and aspirations of Palestinians without ending the Israeli blockade.
The US Jewish crisis over Israel mounts: Liberal Zionist Rabbi Shira Stutman of Sixth and I Synagogue in DC gives a sermon expressing love for an Israel “terrorized” by rockets, and refuses to judge its response, but also says Israel “categorically dismisses, discriminates, ethnically cleanses and …cares little for the basic human rights of millions of people that live under its administration.” And which statement do you think she had to apologize for?
Jews are in danger. From what, is the question. Are we as a people (if we exist as a people) a Light unto the Nations, or is our narrative a self-intoxication that every ethnic group indulges in? Abba Solomon asks of Jewish identity in the aftermath of the latest Gaza slaughter.
On May 27th the UN Human Rights Council voted to establish an ongoing commission of inquiry to report on rights violations in Israel, the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. While this is very similar to the many commissions that have failed to hold Israel accountable in the past, Lori Allen says this one may be different due to the political context in which it is emerging.
The U.N. must act to demand the end of the Gaza blockade and the collective punishment of 2 million, to insure the respect for holy sites in Jerusalem, and to push for a multilateral effort to grant equal rights to all members of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
“This is our state — the Jewish state. This is our nation, language, and flag,” Netanyahu has said; and the Palestinian oppression is a Jewish shonda, overwhelmingly supported by world Jewry with cultural, political and financial backing. So Jews who object to Israeli crimes must come forward.
Israel just wiped out entire families in Gaza in the name of apartheid. So this is not the time to tone down the “rhetoric” about Israel in the west. This is precisely the time to articulate these grave matters. These are not petty matters – these are crimes against humanity.
The 11-day Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip fundamentally altered Israel’s relationship to the Palestinian Resistance, in all of its manifestations.
To the world the aggression in Gaza ended once there was a ceasefire. But what the people outside Gaza may not know is that we are living a daily war now, an inner war, as we fight the guilt of surviving and are lost in our attempts to return to normal.