The legendary human rights lawyer Michael Ratner’s life is exemplary for Americans seeking to undo an outmoded view of Israel. “I thought of [Israel] as the home of my people. I had my bedroom ceiling painted with the seven wonders of the world and a huge map of Israel. I had no idea how my view of Israel would change later in life,” Ratner relates in his posthumous memoir, Moving the Bar.
In early May, a group of Israeli settlers arrived with caravans and set up an illegal outpost on the top of Jabal Sabih on the outskirts of Beita, in the northern occupied West Bank. Every single day since then, protests in the village have been nonstop. “Nothing will appease us until this settlement is returned to how it was, as olive groves,” a school teacher from Beita tells Mondoweiss.
Adalah Justice Project’s Sumaya Awad talks with Jehad Abusalim about Gaza, the Palestinian Authority, and the US movement for Palestine in the wake of the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza. “It is crucial to understand Gaza and its experience in the context of the Nakba and its unfolding and continuation since 1948. This has to be the starting point if people want to be serious and invested in understanding the current situation in Gaza,” Abusalim explains.
Ghadanfar Abu Atwan has been on a hunger strike for 62 days in protest of his administrative detention by Israel, and recently began refusing water. “His health situation is dire,” Warda Abu Atwan tells Mondoweiss. “We are scared that he could die at any moment.”
Despite the ongoing crackdown and the harassment campaign targeting activists on social media, protests against the PA and the killing of Nizar Banat are ongoing. On Saturday, Ramallah saw what was perhaps the largest protest against the PA since demonstrations began two weeks ago. People continued to call for the end of the PA, and the immediate fall of Abbas and his regime.
Three Republican House members are calling on the FBI to investigate dubious connections between the BDS movement and terrorism.
The Democratic Party Establishment has all hands on deck trying to stop Nina Turner as her race with Shontel Brown is a microcosm of wider battles going on in the party. And to no surprise Israel is a factor.
Testimonies from Palestinians detained at the Nazareth police station during the May uprising reveal graphic reports of extreme psychological and physical abuse at the hands of Israeli special forces. “It was a madhouse, there is no other way to describe it,” detainee Carlo Roushroush tells Mondoweiss.
Mondoweiss is proud to announce our new series Gaza Diaries, which shares firsthand accounts from Palestinians who lived through the 11-day Israeli attack on Gaza in May 2021, and are now dealing with its aftermath. In this entry Zahra Shaikha amends her diary of life during the Israeli attack with her feelings since the fighting. The result reflects her fragmented reality.
Sixteen year old Palestinian teenager Ahmed Shamsa succumbed to his wounds on Thursday morning, a day after he was shot in the head by Israeli forces in the northern occupied West Bank village of Beita in the Nablus district. According to locals Shamsa is the fifth Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in Beita since protests against the establishment of a new Israeli settler outpost in the area began in early May. Shamsa is the ninth Palestinian youth to be killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year.