Search Results for: settlers

WATCH: Yes, Israel does arrest children

Intellectual honesty is about confronting those things that make us uncomfortable, not ignoring them. Israel arrests Palestinian children; see 7 of the many videos of these actions. The US gives Israel over $10 million per day and Congress is currently considering legislation to give Israel even more. That makes it obligatory for Americans to learn the facts, and act on them.

The Pro-Israel Push to Purge US Campus Critics

Katherine Franke writes in the New York Review of Books that while Palestinian rights are getting more attention than ever, advocates of justice still face accusations of “anti-Semitism,” harassment, and most of all, censorship on college campuses….

Crimes against Humanity: Israeli Snipers have shot down 45 Child Gaza Protesters

45 children were killed in the Gaza Strip since March 30; in the overwhelming majority of cases, DCIP was able to confirm children did not present any imminent, mortal threat or threat of serious injury when killed by Israeli forces.

The report concludes Israeli forces and officials are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other serious violations of international law for the killing of Palestinian child protesters in Gaza.

Opinion: As an American-Israeli, I Am Thrilled for the Palestinians and for Rashida Tlaib

Every day that Netanyahu chooses Trump and fundamentalism over the pro-democracy, pro-equality, pro-pluralism views of diaspora Jews, is a great day for the Palestinian cause.

No Israeli prime minister, no Israeli government and no consortium of allies has done nearly as much – inadvertently, to be sure – to bring the cause and the grievances of the Palestinians front and center.

Merry Christmas, Israel is building 2,191 new settlement housing units on Palestinian land

In 2018, the government advanced thousands of housing units, including most which can be found in isolated settlements deep inside the West Bank, outside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. These are settlements that, in any two-state solution, Israel will have to evacuate. According to Peace Now, those who build these places have no intention of achieving peace and a two-state solution.

The latest announcement, which as an aside was cynically passed on Christmas while most Western governments are on holiday, shows that Netanyahu is willing to sacrifice Israeli interests in favor of an election gift to the settlers in an attempt to attract a few more votes from his right-wing flank.

Christmas headlines from the Occupied Palestinian territories

The International Middle East Media Center reports on the ongoing acts of Israeli injustice and violence that most other media don’t bother with. Not a day goes by – including holidays – without abductions, settler brutality, shootings, and often even deaths. 

Ha’aretz: Why Some Jews Don’t Study Torah on Christmas Eve

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. 

Israeli settler violence: 6 incidents in 2 days

As Israel criticizes Palestinians for their legal resistance against an illegal occupation, illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinians on a daily basis – often with protection from the Israeli military – and go unpunished. Sometimes they destroy crops, sometimes vehicles; sometimes it’s graffiti; this week a member of the Israeli parliament called for open violence, and settlers obeyed.

A history lesson on the legitimacy of resistance

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.