Category: Politics

The Pro-Israel Push to Purge US Campus Critics

Katherine Franke writes in the New York Review of Books that while Palestinian rights are getting more attention than ever, advocates of justice still face accusations of “anti-Semitism,” harassment, and most of all, censorship on college campuses….

Activist and scholar Angela Davis is articulate and compelling as she speaks with Amy Goodman about injustice in Palestine and the injustice of those groups trying to shut down dialogue. She is gratified that the outcome of her controversial loss of the Shuttlesworth Award includes a robust conversation about justice for Palestinians; she also notes the fact that many groups, including some Jewish groups, support her.  

Opinion: Americans Need a Congress that Represents Americans

Paul Craig Roberts: US Senator Marco Rubio poses as a representative of Florida Republicans, but in truth he represents the interests of Israel. He is sponsor of legislation that punishes Americans who boycott Israel as their way of protesting Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. That Rubio is doing his best to dismantle what little is left of the First Amendment doesn’t seem to bother the media, who are no longer protective of the First Amendment.

Ten years after the first war on Gaza, Israel still plans endless brute force

Operation Cast Lead (winter 2008-9) is emblematic of everything that is wrong with Israel’s approach to Gaza. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a political conflict to which there is no military solution. Yet Israel persists in shunning diplomacy and relying on brute military force – and not as a last resort but as a first resort.

Operation Cast Lead, the first of several incursions by Israel, killed 1,417 Palestinians and just 13 Israelis. Chillingly, the generals call their repeated bombardments ‘mowing the lawn’

Opinion: As an American-Israeli, I Am Thrilled for the Palestinians and for Rashida Tlaib

Every day that Netanyahu chooses Trump and fundamentalism over the pro-democracy, pro-equality, pro-pluralism views of diaspora Jews, is a great day for the Palestinian cause.

No Israeli prime minister, no Israeli government and no consortium of allies has done nearly as much – inadvertently, to be sure – to bring the cause and the grievances of the Palestinians front and center.

Angela Davis on the retraction of her civil rights award: “An attack against the spirit of the indivisibility of justice”

Angela Davis, activist and scholar, was set to receive the prestigious Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award next month from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. After the event was abruptly cancelled and the award rescinded, it came to light that the “Jewish community” had been the primary impetus for the change, pressuring the BCRI board to reverse their decision because of Davis’ advocacy for Palestine and Palestinians. 

Davis remains firmly on the side of justice in spite of her disappointment, and calls for an honest, robust dialogue instead of this shutdown.

Israel’s Nation-State Law also discriminates against Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi academics and activists demand Israel’s High Court strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law, saying it erases their cultural legacy and perpetuates injustices against both them and Palestinian citizens of Israel. As of 2005, 61% of Israeli Jews were of full or partial Mizrahi ancestry.

Merry Christmas, Israel is building 2,191 new settlement housing units on Palestinian land

In 2018, the government advanced thousands of housing units, including most which can be found in isolated settlements deep inside the West Bank, outside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. These are settlements that, in any two-state solution, Israel will have to evacuate. According to Peace Now, those who build these places have no intention of achieving peace and a two-state solution.

The latest announcement, which as an aside was cynically passed on Christmas while most Western governments are on holiday, shows that Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice Israeli interests in favor of an election gift to the settlers in an attempt to attract a few more votes from his right-wing flank.