Travel restrictions are among the most incapacitating consequences of Israel’s military occupation — so extreme that the very idea of travelling has become a phobia for many. And if you’ve spent days in lockdown trying to get in and out of Gaza, as Emad Moussa has, you know how these fears prey on all Gazans.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Columbia University have both passed historic resolutions calling for divestment from Israel. “These campus BDS victories are indicative of the rapidly changing tide we’re seeing across the United States,” the BDS Movement’s North America coordinator Olivia Katbi Smith told Mondoweiss. “Despite the escalating campaigns of repression on campuses and in the halls of government, it is becoming impossible to be ‘progressive except Palestine’, because it is becoming impossible to silence our movement.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s withdrawal last Friday from an October memorial to Yitzhak Rabin is an act of irreverence for an Israeli leader we’ve not seen before at her political level; and the drama has roiled the pro-Israel community. Even the Biden campaign spoke up, an aide saying that AOC’s decision was “problematic” for the Democratic Party.
An award-winning breathless New York Times podcast about Islamic Jihadism that was downloaded millions of times in 2018 turns out to have been based on a fraudulent liar — but so far the paper and its reporter, Rukmini Callimachi, have declined to fully acknowledge their error.
A landmark event in the politics of Palestine has just taken place: Congressional star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York withdrew from a scheduled memorial to Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister who was slain in 1995 by a rightwing extremist, after critics pointed out Rabin’s human rights record. Americans for Peace Now is sponsoring the Oct. event, with host Mandy Patinkin saying, “We would have peace today had he been with us all this time, I am absolutely certain of that.”
Today – on Capitol Hill, on U.S. campuses, and among the public at large – candidates, movement leaders and everyday people are questioning blind support for Israel’s apartheid policies. Mondoweiss brings you news about Palestine/Israel that other media ignore – news that helps shape attitudes among influencers, politicians and the public at large. We’re looking for 50 new monthly donors ready to support Mondoweiss’s journalism for justice.
Forget the normalization efforts of Gulf state oligarchies. As the South African struggle against apartheid showed it is the power of ordinary people that matters.
Three tech giants censored an online class featuring Palestinian, Black, Jewish and South African activists at San Francisco State University, after pro-Israel advocacy groups complained. “This is a dangerous attack on free speech and academic freedom from Big Tech: Zoom cannot claim veto power over the content of our nation’s classrooms and public events,” said Dima Khalidi, director of Palestine Legal. “The threat to democracy is elevated by the fact that Zoom’s decision to stamp out discussion of Palestinian freedom comes in response to a systematic repression campaign driven by the Israeli government and its allies.”
Donald Trump is pushing Israel as a wedge issue with Democrats, and it seems to be working slightly, with Trump’s Jewish support up to 30 percent. But Haim Saban is all-in for Biden, and some Democratic congresspeople in swing districts are running to Trump’s right on Israel.
‘We Are Many’ tells the story of the protests of February 15th 2003, when 30 million people across the world said no to the Iraq War. It’s an inspiring story of resistance, but it also demonstrates how that historic day has shaped our current world.