Philip Weiss says the key people behind bills that would punish boycotters with a minimum fine of $250,000 and a maximum penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison are Jewish Zionists in the Democratic party… but others are opposing AIPAC and he predicts that side will ultimately win.
The National Association of Jewish Legislators and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are demanding that President Donald Trump appoint a special envoy in the State Department “to monitor and combat” antisemitism that actually often focuses on activism supportive of Palestinian human rights.
AIPAC helped craft a bill making BDS a felony, subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250K and a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison; many of its cosponsors have no idea what the bill contains.
An office in Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs is waging a ‘war’ against the Palestinian rights movement, placing agents in embassies around the world and working to advance anti-boycott legislation, close bank accounts, torpedo events, thwart donations, organize counter-protests. The Director says: ‘In order to win, we must use tricks and craftiness.’
Americans need to know important facts that they aren’t learning in the very filtered reporting we get. We need to know what’s happening in Palestine, and what’s enabling this in the U.S. The latter stories are even more covered up. Some personal anecdotes by Alison Weir, including recent censorship by Truthout management
A former Antisemitism Envoy adopted a new, Israel-centric definition for antisemitism, and then used it to train U.S. diplomats. The envoy position has proved a revolving door to Israel lobbying organizations (see video). Now groups from the ADL to the Southern Poverty Law Center are disturbed that Trump isn’t filling the position.
An Israeli art historian discovered “war booty films” hidden by the IDF for decades. After a protracted legal struggle, she’s made a documentary that depicts a very different history than Israel claims, and shows the work of Palestinian filmmakers forgotten by history…
UC Irvine’s Students for Justice in Palestine group were harassed and intimidated during their anti-Zionism week events by Israel supporters. The campus has been a focal point for Israel advocacy groups seeking to conflate Palestinian rights with anti-Semitism.
Electronic Intifada reports: Labour Friends of Israel chair Joan Ryan demanded that Corbyn cut ties with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Ryan threatened to revive the anti-Semitism witch hunt that engulfed Labour last year; Ryan herself had been caught personally engaging in concocting false anti-Semitism charges against a member of her own party…
Thomas Suarez’s “State of Terror” is a meticulously documented history of Zionism. Israel owes its existence to its wholesale theft of Palestinians’ worldly possessions. It is painful to read through Suarez’s listing of atrocities: rape, torture, murder, robbery. Arab villages, Christian and Muslim, friendly and not, were destroyed…