Israeli forces used lethal force against hundreds of thousands of Palestinian protesters marking a year since the beginning of the Gaza Great Return March and commemorating Land Day. Among the wounded are 86 children and 29 women. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza reports that Israeli soldiers have killed 266 Palestinians and injured 30398 others since the Return March processions started on March 30, 2018.
Support for Palestine independence climbs to 50% for first time since 2012; 62% of Democrats favor an independent state, 33% of Republicans; 34% view Israeli-Palestine conflict as a critical threat to the U.S. (Additional polls show that Americans are far less biased toward Israel than many people think. Most don’t want the US to take sides – which would mean stopping our $10 mill per day to Israel)
The U.S. State Department is offering to fund two projects “that counter the rise of anti-Semitism” in Europe and Central Asia. The State Department uses a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes criticisms of Israel. Among the alleged anti-Semitism will be “hateful or inflammatory speech in public discourse, traditional media and online…”
It’s in Israeli media, but not in the US: three of Israel’s largest banks have been actively laundering money for thousands of wealthy Americans in massive tax-evasion schemes. The US State Department lists Israel as a “major money laundering country.”
A Palestinian committed to peace was supposed to speak at synagogues, churches, & universities across the U.S. about the power of nonviolence and bringing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He had a valid visa and had visited the U.S. before. Instead he was denied entry & sent back to Palestine without explanation.
The U.S.-Israel Directed Energy Cooperation Act would deepen Israel’s access to grotesque weapons of war that have been developed by the U.S. military but have also been banned for use by American troops.
The latest United Nations report on Israeli violence at the Gaza border was allegedly rebutted by the American Jewish Committee; however the AJC defense came up very short on facts.
Gideon Levy writes in Ha’aretz: “The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won’t even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister’s racism.”
Netanyahu: “Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the nation-state law we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people — and not anyone else.”
Israel “destroyed 244 villages and built-up areas in the Golan and expelled their population, sparing only five villages (Majdal Shams, Buq’ata, Ain Qunya, Mas’ada and al-Ghajar). Not even places of worship, schools and health centres escaped destruction. The underlying aim of the occupation authorities was to eliminate Arab landmarks and obliterate the Arab identity of the Golan, as a result of which anyone who visits the Golan today is able to identify the locations of the former Arab villages only from their ruins…”
