David Clennon was invited to audition for a new Netflix television series that he learned was being produced by the creators of the Israeli series “Fauda.” As much as he needed the work he passed due to their connection to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s “Brand Israel” campaign: “I haven’t been employed for a year and a half. So, with considerable reluctance, but inspired by the example of so many others, I chose not to participate in the whitewashing of Israel’s image.”
Albert Lee is looking to unseat longtime Democratic incumbent Earl Blumenauer in Oregon’s 3rd congressional district and spoke with Mondoweiss about BDS, the occupation of Palestine, and whether his campaign is pushing Blumenauer to the left on these issues.
Pro-Israel groups and Republicans have been lying about Ilhan Omar’s boycott bill and it seemingly just paid off. The State Department has updated its working definition of antisemitism to include comparisons between current Israeli policies and those of the Nazis.
In 2016, Fordham University tried to block a Palestinian advocacy group from being formed. After a two year legal battle, students at the school have won a landmark victory which legal advocates are calling “the first major legal victory for free speech for advocates of Palestine on college campuses,” and a Students for Justice in Palestine club can now be established on their campus.
Tulsi Gabbard voted to condemn BDS, but she now supports Ilhan Omar’s bill affirming that Americans’ right to boycott foreign countries to advance the cause of human rights.
Eric Alterman dismisses BDS in the NYT, saying it is a youthful fad that only obscures the underlying issues. Alice Rothchild responds that it is important because of those issues — Israeli racism, Jewish privilege, and Palestinian dispossession.
Recent events have shone a spotlight not only on how Israel is intensifying its abuse of Palestinians under its rule, but the utterly depraved complicity of western governments in its actions.
Nada Elia on Ayanna Pressley’s dangerous talking points on Palestine: “One cannot speak of the pain on ‘both sides’ of Israel’s war on the Palestinian people without being a normalizer of violent settler-colonialism that hinges on racism. It is tantamount to Trump’s claim that ‘there are fine people on both sides’ of rallies promoting white supremacy, and the protests against these displays of hatred.”
The New York Times would never run an article asking a very legitimate question, “Is Zionism racist?” But it ran a full-page to answer whether BDS is anti-Semitic. The article was surprisingly fair to BDS, including the explanation that Israel supporters feel threatened by BDS because the call for “full equality” for Palestinian citizens would undermine the basis of the “Jewish state.”
On Saturday, organizers of the Berlin Radical Queer March instructed police to block and ban the participation of the Queers for Palestine contingent, a group of 500 Arab and Jewish-led marchers. Queers for Palestine write: “The very fact that we need to defend ourselves against physical and police violence at a ‘radical queer march’ is infuriating and deeply shameful.”