The National Coalition of Christian Organizations in Palestine pleads for Western churches to take a stand: “As we meet this month in Bethlehem in occupied Palestine, we are still suffering from 100 years of injustice and oppression…we need you and we need you now more than ever. We need your costly solidarity…This is no time for shallow diplomacy Christians. We urge you to hear our call.”
Ha’aretz’s Gideon Levy writes: Isn’t it time to do away with the artificial distinction between the Israelis who view themselves as nice and just and the brutal occupation they are responsible for? Hasn’t the time come to punish them in a nonviolent manner for the crimes that each and every one of them is party to?
JTA reports that Michael Steinhardt, billionaire founder of Birthright Israel (a free, ten-day trip to Israel that is enjoyed by a large percentage of Jewish young adults) considers the state of Israel “the Jewish miracle of the 20th century.” Now he is creating public schools that teach about Israel…
Israeli chief Sephardic rabbi Yitzhak Yosef preaches that non-Jews should be expelled from Israel, or serve essentially as slaves and servants. He also exhorted his followers that any Palestinian armed with any weapon is worth killing without hesitation. Rabbi Yosef is also a spiritual leader of one of Israel’s major political parties, Shas…
Fifty years ago, Israel fought a war of choice: the Six Day War. Israel’s own leaders indicate that the “existential threat” in 1967 was a myth.
Israel advocates have created a website and app to defend Israel online and attack critics. App users have already brought the rating of an Australian business critical of Israel down from 4.6 to 1.4. The app leverages the efforts of pro-Israel students who “speak 35 languages, hail from 86 countries and have connections to the pro-Israel community all over the world…”
Author Jeremy Hammond addresses in detail the inaccurate rendition by Bret Stephens that was published by the New York Times, in which Israel is the alleged victim of aggression…
As promised in our previous post, here are more of the messages composing our tribute to Alison Weir in honor of her birthday. We were waiting to post some of the birthday messages until we could deliver them the old-fashioned way, in person. We’d like to share these now, along with her heartfelt thanks for all the messages and support of peace and justice!
A full page ad turned reality on its head, suggesting academic boycott of Israel endangers children–when in fact BDS opposes an occupation and apartheid structure under which indigenous children are being shot, imprisoned, tortured, traumatized, deprived of basic necessities and denied medical care.
Israeli historian Ilan Pappe documents in detail what Palestinian writers have previously described – even from its earliest days Israel was not a democracy. Even the socialist kibbutzim coveted Palestinian land…