Israel kills Palestinian kids, then kills funeral attendee, then ransacks Defense of Children office

On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed Mohammad, the 11th Palestinian child victim of Israel in the West Bank in 2021. A few days before they had killed a 17-year-old.  Today, they shot dead a 20-year-old participating in Mohammad’s funeral march. Also today, Israeli soldiers broke into and ransacked the local Defense for Children International office. Tuesday, Israeli forces killed a 41-year-old Palestinian man. In the middle of all this, the House advanced a bill to give Israel billions of Americans’ tax dollars.

United Church of Christ (UCC) labels Israel an Apartheid state

“We reject Israel’s apartheid system of laws and legal procedures,” the United Church of Christ (UCC) stated at its general synod, in a resolution approved by 83 percent of members despite an appeal by the American Jewish Committee. (The term ‘apartheid’ for the Israeli system has been used by numerous experts, including South African apartheid leader Bishop Desmond Tutu, a South African report on Israel, and scholars on the region.)

The Olympics: Do Only Israeli Victims Matter?

The Olympics opening ceremony featured a moving commemoration for Israeli athletes who tragically and needlessly died half a century ago (when the Israeli prime minister refused a prisoner exchange), but failed to highlight a tragedy going on now that the world could stop: the desperate plight of Palestinian athletes who have been shot, maimed, & sometimes killed by Israeli forces… The ceremony also ignored the hundreds of men, women, and children killed by Israeli forces in the lead up to the tragic 1972 event, and the hundreds more killed by Israeli forces the following day…

A Jewish Reflection on Israel’s Crimes and Israeli Hubris

Jewish author Michael Lesher – who blogs for the Times of Israel, among other outlets – muses on many Jewish leaders’ responses to the recent attack on Gaza: “trust in God and believe in Jewish infallibility.” Lesher suggests that instead, they should “devote their efforts toward restraining the Israeli war machine,” and consider the consequences of “[building a] future on a foundation of stolen property and murdered children.”