Portside

Reader Comments: Congress Plots to Undermine Retiree Pensions; Is It Bad Enough Yet?; Angela Davis: the unbroken line of police violence; James Baldwin on Racism; LAWCHA's Teacher/Public Sector Initiative; #BlackLivesMatter Takes the Field; They Fear and The Kill; Thousands March to Protest Police Brutality; Torture - Senate Report, Lessons from Latin America; Trade; Chanukah 2014; CELEBRATING CHARLIE HADEN memorial and celebration of his life - New York - Jan. 13

Reader Comments - CIA Lied About Torture; A New Civil Rights Movement?; Grand Jury Injustice - Justice Demanded; Members of Congress (and staffers) join protest; Illegal Cop Murders; Police Reform? - Bolder Steps Needed; Low Wage Workers: 'We Can't Breathe'; Slavery, Founding Fathers and Torture; Congress Plots against Pensions; Pardon Snowden, Manning and Leonard Peltier; Israel Lobby and Ukraine; War on Terror; Israel, U.S. and space weapons; New Republic; Correction

Reader Comments- Race inequality...by the Numbers; Darren Wilson Acquittal; Workers and Students Leave Jobs, Classes in Nationwide Walkout for Ferguson; Thanksgiving; Univ of Virginia Finally Confronts Its Rape Problem; Madison Teachers Recertify Union; Walmart Black Friday Protests; Price of 13-Year War on Terror; Chile; Israel's Jewish State Bill; 2014 and Future Elections; ALEC Blueprint for 2015; Wanted: A Challenge to Clinton; Chicago's Mayoral Race (correction)

Last Sunday, Israel passed the Jewish State Bill, which according to human rights activists “upgrades discrimination.” Arabic, spoken by Palestinians, a fifth of the population, will no longer be an official language, and “Jewish tradition” and “the prophets of Israel,” will be the primary source of legal and judicial authority. It defines Israel as belonging to Jews around the world rather than to its citizens, which includes 1.5 million Palestinians.

Reader Comments - Darren Wilson Acquittal - Reader Responses; Black Friday Protests; Election Lessons for the Left; Immigration Reform; Ursula K. Le Guin, Pension Reform(?); Water Grab; Facebook Drivers Vote Union; Berlin Wall's Fall - Reflections from the GDR; Israel Lobby and Ukrainian Fascists; Mexico - 43 students murdered; Israel, Palestine and Rasmeah Odeh; The Selfless Gene; Announcement - New Politics Forum on the Environmental Crisis - New York - Dec. 9

'The danger of oppression is not just being oppressed, it’s becoming an oppressor.'

Following the murder attempt on right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, leader of the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, the claim is being made that he and his colleagues have been leading a civil rights movement for Jews. The Temple Mount movement has never been a movement for religious equality or peaceful coexistence. And continued efforts to change the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque could lead to catastrophe.

Reader Comments- 2014 Elections; Jim Crow Returns; Toni Morrison, Angela Davis; U.S. Used 1,000 Nazis; Syrian Labyrinth; Draft Could Be Next; Responses to Joel Klein; Nobel Peace Laureates Call Full Torture Disclosure; Activists Block an Israeli Shipping Ship; Women of Afghanistan; Saudi Arabia and ISIS; Fukushima; Announcements-Miners Shot Down-Film Screening-Nov 10; Elections-Who Won? Who Lost?-Nov 14; Folk music greats honor David Amram-Nov 20; PM Press Book Sale

The Israeli Defense Ministry stated Sunday it has closed its Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings to Gaza in response to a single rocket fire from Gaza, which resulted in no injuries, deaths, or damages. Palestinian rights campaigners warn that the closures are especially dangerous as traumatized and displaced Gaza residents struggle to rebuild from Israel’s recent seven-week military assault in which 2,000 Palestinians—at least 75 percent of them civilians—were killed.

In what appears to be the largest-ever joint protest by senior Israeli security personnel, a group of 106 retired generals, Mossad directors and national police commissioners has signed a letter to PM Netanyahu urging him to “initiate a diplomatic process” based on a regional framework. Retired generals have occasionally made joint statements in the past, but never in such numbers and rarely on political matters that aren’t directly related to army business.