Meet Mohammed al-Sabbagh, a sprightly Palestinian plumber in his early 70s who has lived in Sheikh Jarrah since 1956. Today he has become an unofficial spokesperson for one of the most contentious flashpoints in Palestine.
An update from Palestine as Israeli attacks continue and Norman Finkelstein talks about Human Rights Watch’s new apartheid report.
The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the Middle East.
If Israel were to annex 30 percent of the West Bank, as envisaged in the US administration’s “deal of the century”, and the international community were to accept this step, it would indeed be the biggest breach of international law since World War II. It would set a precedent that would shake the international legal order. Palestinians in annexed enclaves would have the status of illegal aliens, Michael Sfard says.
American liberal Zionists are panicked over the possibility of annexation of the West Bank under a governing agreement between Benny Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu. Please Nancy Pelosi call Benny Gantz on the phone, Tal Shalev urges the Blue White leader on a J Street phone call.
Israel needs to change its economic doctrine which sees water as nothing more than a commodity to be sold or traded, and a political ideology that is fixated on holding on to as much water as possible.
Laura Comstock shares her experience trying to enter the West Bank from Jordan to attend a wedding in Ramallah: “[The Israeli border agents’] attitudes changed completely when I informed them I would be staying with my university professor in Ramallah that night and became extremely hostile. I was then interrogated and screamed at by three border agents with a large line of other American tourists who were behind me. I was immediately detained without explanation and my passport was taken from me.”
“The night is filled with the anxiety that any interaction with Israeli security triggers. We leave all of our suspicious material on Palestine, human rights, and any evidence of an interest in justice in an extra bag in Amman to retrieve on our return, and arrive at Allenby Bridge at 7:30 am.” — Alice Rothchild on entering Palestine from Jordan.
The 30,000 “ex-Gaza” Palestinians in Jerash, the poorest refugee camp in Jordan, face services stripped by Trump– though they are stateless, half are below the poverty line, and 88 percent lack health insurance. Now wonder the children drop the F-bomb when they see American visitors.
Rev. Nour Sahawneh aids thousands of refugees at his church in Mafraq, Jordan, near sprawling city-like camps. “Their lives are a disaster,” he tells Alice Rothchild. “They are a tool of war. They became a subject in a war, not a people to help… War is business.”