The documentary “The Occupation of the American Mind” describes the successful effort by Israel to sell its brutal military policies as self-defense against Palestinian terrorism. A panel featuring Sut Jhally and Diana Buttu will discuss the film on Sunday.

Canadian law makes it illegal to recruit soldiers for a foreign state. but the line between enticing impressionable young people to oppress Palestinians and formal recruitment is unclear. Now, activists are calling on the government to investigate the Israeli consulate for recruiting Canadians into the Israel’s military, and possible military recruitment inside of Toronto schools.

Roger Waters on the importance of international solidarity with Palestinians: “The aim … is to focus world attention on the plight of the Palestinian people in Gaza in the hope that the scales will fall from the eyes of all, ordinary, decent people round the world, that they may see the enormity of the crimes that have been committed, and demand that their governments bring all possible pressure to bear on Israel to lift the siege.”

NBA champions have refused to go to the White House for the last two years, and the Toronto Raptors should reject part-owner Larry Tanenbaum’s notion that the team will visit Israel. There has been silence about the plan for 3 weeks. But activists have been rallying opposition to the trip, and Marion Kawas hopes it is in the dustbin of history.

UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy has urged organizers of a campus forum about efforts to shut down pro-Palestinian voices, featuring Roger Waters and Linda Sarsour, to include “differing points of view” in the panel so that there will be “dialogue” between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian advocates.

The “vast majority of world Jewry” perceive Roger Waters, Marc Lamont Hill, and Linda Sarsour to be anti-Semites because they have called for democracy in Israel and Palestine, say 80 groups trying to end UMass’s sponsorship of a May 4 forum on– the quashing of speech on Palestinian human rights. The letter is classic McCarthyism, says organizer Jeremy Earp.

Once Israel used the Star of David symbol on the Israeli Air Force’s coat of arms and in the “kanfey tayis” (aviation wings), the coveted pin worn by IDF pilots, it lost the ability to claim that critics of Israel who use the traditional symbol of Judaism are anti-Semitic.