Last week, both Missouri and Oklahoma’s state legislatures passed bills prohibiting the state from entering into contracts with businesses that boycott Israel. “Year after year, activists in these states successfully fought back against anti-boycott bills. This year, while legislative sessions were truncated due to COVID-19, and people sheltering in place were unable to fight back, lawmakers made the time to pass bills aiming to silence constitutionally protected speech in support of Palestinian rights,” Palestine Legal’s Meera Shah tells Mondoweiss.
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s challenger, Antone Melton-Meaux, repeats talking points of pro-Israel lobbyists. And his willingness to do so has earned him a sizeable warchest, nearly $500,000.
Palestinians must recognize the “right and reality of Jewish state,” and US left is “equally wrong” to Trump in not criticizing Palestinians for their failure to do so, says Biden aide Tony Blinken, signaling that Biden will be far more supportive of Israel than Obama was.
May 15 marked the 72nd anniversary of the Nakba, or the mass displacement of Palestinians from their homelands in 1948. This year demonstrations were smaller due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with Palestinians opting for smaller scale and online commemorations of the occasion.
As we mark Nakba Day amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Nada Elia implores us to make radical demands that secure a life of dignity for all.
Pompeo’s lightning visit to Israel shows that Republicans have a lot to gain by making Israel a political football, possibly gaining Jewish votes in Florida.
Hamza Abu Al-Tarabeesh’s fear of the coronavirus is based on his late grandfather’s death during a Tuberculosis epidemic in Gaza’s refugee camps during the mid-1960s. “I have no idea what the future holds for the refugee camps in Gaza,” Abu Al-Tarabeesh writes, “but I do know when it comes to infectious diseases and viruses, the past has been alarming.”
Rashid Khalidi’s great great great uncle tried to tell Herzl not to colonize Palestine in 1899 but Herzl assured him that Zionists would bring Jewish acumen to the country and improve everyone’s lives. Yet after 100 years of settler colonialism, aided by superpowers, Palestinians remain undefeated. An interview with Khalidi about his new book.