Anti-BDS bills fast-tracked in NY State Senate

Palestine Legal: Three anti-BDS bills were fast-tracked out of committee and passed today (March 8, 2017) without debate by the New York State Senate. These bills are blatantly unconstitutional attacks on First Amendment rights to protest and dissent. They resurrect widely-condemned tactics used to undermine democracy: creating blacklists, punishing dissent, attacking academic freedom, and cracking down on student organizing…

Gideon Levy: Israel Loves Wars

Writing in Ha’aretz, Levy writes: Israel loves wars. Needs them. Does nothing to prevent them, and sometimes instigates them. Since the 1948 war, all its wars were wars of choice. It’s reasonable to assume that the next war will break out in Gaza. The alibi is already prepared…

Israeli who killed Palestinian gets less jail time than Palestinian kids who threw stones; Israeli children dress up as the killer

An Israeli soldier who shot a Palestinian rebel dead after he was already incapacitated on the ground has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The killing took place in the Palestinian city of Hebron in Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Independent reports: [The dead Palestinian’s] father Yusri told reporters … “The sentence he received is less than…

The new order is the same in nature as the old one. It prevents admission for nationals from six countries, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Further, the order puts a complete ban on refugees entering the U.S. The new ban does have slight changes. Iraq has been removed from the list; there will be a phase-in period, with the ban taking full effect on March 16, 2017. the ban does not apply to lawful permanent residents (LPRs), and current visa holders….