Truly free countries tolerate peaceful dissent. The 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories seized during the Six-Day War has gone on for too long and must eventually be brought to an end. For Israeli authorities to demonize — or exclude — those who publicly oppose it is a terrible mistake. - Los Angeles Times Editorial.
Reader Comments: Trump Lies; Voting Rights in Danger; July 4th; Georgia Special Election - Theft?; Healthcare Fightback; Readers comment on Socialism's Future; Wonder Woman; Massachusetts Legislative Attack on BDS; Free Non Violent Resistance Trainings; and more....
What I’m experiencing in this moment is a small example of how the occupation is used to take away agency from the Palestinian people on a daily basis. Each and every day, Palestinians are subjected to arbitrary checkpoints which delay their travel, restricted water which strips them of basic dignity, home demolitions which tear families apart, and constant surveillance that has seeped into every aspect of Palestinian society. I am broken but not finished.
Hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners are now approaching their critical sixth week on hunger strike, and they have made an urgent appeal for international solidarity. The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for immediate international action towards implementing a comprehensive military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past.
Campaigns to silence criticism of Israel don’t protect Jews — they endanger them. A national conversation on what antisemitism is — and what it isn’t — is long overdue. Recent reshuffling among the Trump administration may have Steve Bannon on the outs, but we are only weeks removed from a white supremacist as “the shadow president.”
A one-time defender of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, the well-regarded journalist has had an extended and systematic rethink that is part memoir and part scourging critique, concluding that the reigning Israeli consensus, abetted by the U.S. and shared by liberal Zionists, is less a victim and more a provocateur, with a long list of moral and ethical lapses and a compelling case for world censure and well-deserving of boycott, disinvestment and sanctions.
`It's exactly what the Old South was in America. Blacks knew where they could go: they could drink from that fountain, they couldn't go over there, they couldn't eat in that place,' the American actor tells an Israeli TV station during a tour of the segregated West Bank city.
Maryland lawmakers are considering a bill that would violate free speech rights in order to continue a culture of impunity for violating Palestinian human rights. Maryland’s first anti-BDS bill had enough co-sponsors that it they had all voted in favor of the bill it would have passed. Yet, thanks to popular mobilization it died in committee. This bill can be defeated as well.
2016 began with a bang: French telecommunications giant Orange announced in early January it was dumping its Israel affiliate. Meanwhile, churches, student unions and local activists continued to organize strong boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns that caused panic among Israeli leaders.
Critics of solidarity between the Movements for Black Lives and the Palestinian struggle miss how concepts like apartheid are not meant to apply only when there is perfect equivalence between two situations. They also apply when the experiences of two oppressed groups share common features.
Spread the word