Open Letter from NY Jews to Mayor de Blasio: `AIPAC does not speak for us'

Adam Horowitz Mondoweiss
Open letter to Mayor de Blasio from prominent New York City Jewish leaders" "the needs and concerns of many of your constituents - U.S. Jews like us among them - are not aligned with those of AIPAC, and that no, your job is not to do AIPAC's bidding when they call you to do so. AIPAC speaks for Israel's hard-line government and its right-wing supporters, and for them alone; it does not speak for us." (The following letter was shared with Mondoweiss)

Tidbits - January 30, 2014

Portside
Reader Comments - Pete Seeger; Harry Belafonte Tribute to Seeger; Seeger before HUAC; Seeger - a life-long socialist; Costs of Privatization; Adjunct Professors; Scarlett Johansson and Israeli Occupation; Fracking; Net Neutrality; Radical Art in History; Arlo Guthrie; Solidarity with Russian airline pilots; Today in History

Israel's Captains of Industry Fear Boycott

Telem Yahav Ynetnews
Leaders from Israel's tech and banking industries will fly to Davos economic forum to support Kerry's peace effort, urge Israel and Palestinians to reach deal to save Israel's economy from looming boycott

Documentary: 'Dancing In Jaffa'

Dancing in Jaffa is set in the city of filmmaker Pierre Dulaine's birth, and documents a 10-week dance program that aimed to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israeli children to dance and compete together. The film demonstrates the powerful role that the arts, and dance in particular, can play in enabling children to overcome prejudice and build strong personal ties with one another. The program is currently used in schools across the United States as well as in Jaffa, Belfast, Canada, Switzerland and Jordan to help spread the message of respect and compassion through dance. 

Scarlett Johansson, SodaStream & the Superbowl

Nancy Kricorian; Interfaith Boycott Coalition; Assoc Press
Actress Scarlett Johansson is an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador and the new Global Brand Ambassador for SodaStream - the Israeli manufacturer. Their main production facility is in the industrial zone of Mishor Edomin, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. An international boycott is being waged by The Interfaith Boycott Coalition - a group of individuals from faith-based organizations and institutions who share a common goal of bringing justice to the Palestinians.

Netanyahu vs. the Spooks

Carl Bloice Foreign Policy in Focus
Right-wing Israeli politicians like to boast about their country’s famed intelligence service, but they've gotten good at ignoring it when it tells them things they don't want to hear.

The Imperator

Uri Avnery Gush Shalom
Sharon died last week, eulogized by the very people he despised and turned into a shallow folk hero. The Ministry of Education compared him to Moses. In real life he was a very complex person, as complex as Israel. His personal history is interwoven with the history of Israel. His main legacy was catastrophic: scores of settlements which he implanted all over the West Bank – each of them a landmine which will have to be removed at great risk when the time comes.

An Apartheid Legal System Just Got Worse

Haaretz Editorial Haaretz
Prohibition on Palestinian appeals to military court decisions confiscating their property embodies the essence of occupation. Returning the legal situation to the narrow province of military law harms the rights of the Palestinian residents, and the removal of judicial oversight for the proceedings against them allows these rights to be harmed arbitrarily, in violation of international law and the basic rules of justice.
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