A few years ago it felt like Roger Waters might be blacklisted by Israel supporters over his support for Palestine. But this summer he is filling stadiums around the country talking about Palestinian liberation.
Ben & Jerry’s acceded to activist pressure to stop selling in the occupied territories because the Movement for Black Lives insisted that Palestine was in its agenda for racial justice and when Israel committed its May massacre in Gaza, there were 300 protesters outside the Ben & Jerry’s store in Burlington chanting “Shame, Shame, Shame.” An organizer says, “It shook up the Ben & Jerry’s people.”
The Israel lobby is under huge pressure these days as the Democratic Party base becomes more sympathetic to Palestinians in the wake of the latest Israeli onslaught. A pro-Israel group, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, held an event on the Gaza conflict last week, and there were two surprising responses to the progressive shift.
When Israeli soldiers killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy for protesting Jewish settlers taking his land, it ought to have been a George Floyd moment for liberal Jews. But Americans for Peace Now chatters about John Lennon not Ali Abu Alia, and dreams about a two-state solution that will never happen. It is time for Zionism to experience a crisis, and Jews must support the only hope for change in Palestine, BDS.
With calls to defund the police growing and the BDS movement on the rise, it’s time to challenge the annual $3.8 billion in U.S. aid to Israel. It’s time to defund the IDF.
An Israeli soldier’s knee to the neck of protester Khairy Hanoun, 65, as he tried to stop Israel from seizing Palestinian lands in West Bank Tuesday, surrounded by photographers, is being compared to the choking of George Floyd in int’l media.
The confluence of George Floyd’s murder with the coronavirus pandemic has made it possible for Black Lives Matter’s abolitionist message to be adopted by millions. This message is increasingly including Palestine.
George Floyd’s death and the violence that Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation face both reflect the oppression of racist, unjust societies.
“We must remember that George Floyd didn’t die due to a lack of oxygen. He died because of a lack of justice,” Palestinian artist Taqi Spateen tells Mondoweiss.
A hasbarist argues there’s nothing wrong in the killing of Eyad al-Halaq. Palestinians may “ask to become Israel’s ‘blacks’,” Nave Dromi says, but we won’t let them be equal citizens. In fact the history of nationalism is the history of racist distinctions, and persecution, that the world has been seeking to outlaw since WW II.