John Whitbeck writes: “It appears that Bolton, who owes his position to billionaire Israel advocate Sheldon Adelson, has overruled – or is seeking to overrule – Donald Trump and to put him back in his subservient place…”
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.
Today we remember the 2008-9 Israeli incursion into Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, which was launched exactly 10 years ago. 1400 Palestinians – including 344 minors – and 9 Israelis were killed in the hostilities.
A UN report found that Israel’s military operation “destroyed a substantial part of the Gaza Strip’s economic infrastructure and its capacity to support decent livelihoods for families.” A decade later, little progress has been made in rebuilding, thanks in part to Israel’s 2 subsequent attacks on Gaza.
Why do many Hasidic Jews abstain from studying the Torah at Christmas? The mythology is that back in the day, Christians liked to persecute Jews during the holiday But according to an authority on the subject, the practice was originally based on a superstition that on Christmas, Jesus had to spend the day “wander[ing] in all pits of excrement or latrines throughout the world” – and studying Torah gave him respite from this torture.
Before the birth of modern Israel, Zionist groups – newly arrived in Palestine – engaged in armed struggle against the British military, whom they labelled as “occupiers.” But now that the tables have turned (and the UN has enshrined the right of armed struggle as a vehicle of indigenous liberation) the Israeli occupation refuses to recognize the Palestinian resistance as legitimate.
Israeli military lives lost, while tragic, are sacrifices made willingly by the occupier who is fully aware that the resistance is ongoing.
Palestinians’ struggle for self-determination is a difficult, costly march; yet history teaches there is simply no other choice. Silence is surrender. To be silent is to betray all those who have come before and all those yet to follow.
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…
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)…
CNN has fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill for a speech that he gave at the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at the UN on Wednesday. Pro-Israel groups and individuals immediately criticized Hill, and CNN quickly fired him. See the speech…
Israeli security agency Shin Bet admitted to the use of torture on Palestinian prisoner Fares Tbeish, but claimed the actions were necessary; Israel’s Supreme Court ruled that the “enhanced interrogation” methods were acceptable. This is the second such ruling in the last 12 months. A number of human rights groups have documented “routine use of torture” by Israeli forces, although the practice is against international law.
Troves of looted Palestinian books, documents, photographs and films from as early as the 1930s are sealed in Israel’s archives and libraries. Palestinians see the censorship as part of a wider trend of physical and cultural erasure continues to this day. Concealing the archival record denies Palestinians the tools to communicate their own history.