Marc Lamont Hill, in Nazareth 2014. screenshot from Vimeo video. As is often the case with proponents of justice for Palestinians, Marc Lamont Hill was watched closely by Israel partisans as he spoke before the UN last week. They took a phrase – one phrase – from the speech and threw the rest aside, hoping…
The Israel Defense Forces said their army doesn’t launch stun grenades or tear gas into Palestinian schools, but after a video surfaced it altered its response, blaming “the wind.”
Alison Weir reports that in 1991 President George H.W. Bush held up a $10 billion loan guarantee to Israel. Bush said he was “one lonely little guy” against powerful forces. He won the battle, but eventually lost the war, a lesson that politicians have remembered ever since (contains videos)…
The pendulum begins to swing back: Rep. Rashida Tlaib plans to lead a congressional delegation on a trip to the occupied West Bank – a counterbalance to AIPAC’s standard Israel trip for new Congress members. Rights groups have regularly criticized the AIPAC-sponsored trip as propaganda, and hopes to show what is really happening to Palestinians in the region.
The events of December 4, 2018 in the occupied Palestinian territories would startle most of the world, but US mainstream US media won’t report them: a grieving father is unable to get Israel to take responsibility for just 4 of the 1,400 deaths from Operation Cast Lead; an Israeli arms testing facility is about to move in on Bedouin land; a mentally disabled man is killed; 24 Palestinians are abducted; and 5 buildings (and livelihoods of 5 families) are demolished.
Israel’s takeover of Arab East Jerusalem has continued unabated since the 1967 war, but has grown more brazen since US President Trump’s decision to move the embassy. Evictions of Palestinians and appropriation of their homes by Israeli settlers is more frequent; Israeli police presence has grown more pervasive; Israel’s parliament is devising more new policies – and its supreme court is upholding them – to dispossess Palestinians. Meanwhile the PA is powerless to respond. It all adds up to ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians in Gaza are dealing with more fallout from the blockade – and their protest against it. Now in addition to thousands of gunshot wounds from Israeli snipers, and their accompanying disabilities and amputations, many are at risk of infection. The healthcare sector is lacking in supplies thanks to import restrictions; patients can not go abroad for treatment thanks to visa restrictions.
One Israeli human rights org reports over 180 Palestinians killed (31 of them minors) and 21,000 injured.
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is increasing, and exasperated Palestinians have begun organizing neighborhood watch groups. Israeli officials worry that these groups may endanger Israeli vandals.
Congress is about to legislate the largest military aid package to a foreign country in U.S. history, but U.S. media aren’t telling the American public. Israelis know about the money, and Israel partisans are pressuring the one lone Senator opposing it, but apparently U.S. news organizations don’t think the general public need to know…
Residents of Khan al-Ahmar have been fighting for their existence since 1951, seeking nothing more than basic human rights. Israeli authorities say the village was illegally constructed; the Israeli Supreme Court in May rejected a final appeal against its demolition. Activists are concerned continued Israeli settlement construction in the area could effectively divide the northern and southern West Bank.