Palestinian journalist Yousef Alhelou’s vivid description of the situation at the Gaza-Israel border brings us up close, where we can see the images and understand the motivations on both sides.
As Israel celebrates its 70th anniversary, a child and grandchild of exiled Palestinian refugees describes his remarkable family history – family members harbored Jewish neighbors in 1929, helped Count Folke Bernadotte, after Israel confiscated the family home, Golda Meir lived there… and discusses the continuing injustices endured as Palestinians resist Israel’s violent colonization.
Killing of Palestinians is not new. It has been going on for decades, unabated, uncriticized, and bankrolled by the US. The Leahy Laws enable us to withhold aid to countries that commit human such rights abuses, but in spite of overwhelming proof of abuse by Israel, our politicians refuse to cut off military support.
Pro-Israel curriculum provider Institute for Curriculum Services (ICS) is working with local Jewish groups and the Virginia Department of Education to whitewash Virginia textbooks by removing words like “occupied” and “settlements” and replacing them with more favorable terms like “captured” and “communities.”
Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times can’t seem to say “Palestinians protest nonviolently; Israeli soldiers kill them.” Headlines from the region consistently misrepresent the situation as two equal sides – or worse, as Palestinian aggressors inciting Israel to return fire. Words matter.
In the past 10 years, Israel has launched three massive genocidal wars of aggression on occupied Gaza… this came after years of a deadly medieval Israeli siege of Gaza… this followed Israel’s ethnic cleansing of multitudes Palestinians… It is time for the world to stand up to the only remaining apartheid regime in the world
Mohammed Ayyash is just like any other boy – only cooler. And braver.
JTA reports that a bill about to be introduced in Congress “will fund Holocaust education in schools.” We wonder if this will fund education about all the holocausts, both past and present, that the world has seen… including the current violence against Palestinians in Gaza…. [UPDATE – bill has been introduced]
Imagine if Russian or Syrian troops had shot dead almost 30 civilians, and injured thousands, during peaceful protests. Mainstream media headlines and airwaves would be filled with condemnations from senior UK and US politicians and prominent commentators. But not so when it is Israel doing the killing, and the BBC & Guardian provide Israel spin…
World Health Organization reports on casualties in the second weekend of the Great March of Return, in which 8 Palestinians were killed and over 1,300 were injured by Israeli forces. WHO is in desperate need of cash donations, medical supplies, and blood.