Portside

Reader Comments: Orlando - Attack on LGBTs; Criticism of Portside and Moderators response; Gov. Cuomo's Anti-Free Speech Move Against BDS; Alina Nurses Strike; Why White Workers Left the Democratic Party; Announcements: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - 15th Annual National Conference - October 14-17; New Edition of Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching; BROADWAY FOR ORLANDO - "WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE" - solidarity recording....more

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, signed an executive order essentially creating a blacklist of entities that boycott or divest from Israel or encourage others to do so, banning those companies from receiving taxpayer funding. The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as B.D.S., is a strategy intended to combat Israel's nearly 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza, a situation akin to apartheid if allowed to continue.

Executive orders are meant to avert imminent or existential crises that cannot await legislation. It's as if we are being asked to believe that BDS is some deplorable enemy endangering our very existence as a free society, and that only those who really care, take action on behalf of the rest of us, who have not yet awoken to the grim reality. For Cuomo, fighting this fight on behalf of Israel is all about "freedom, liberty and democracy".

Reader Comments: Defeating Trump needs both Sanders voters and Clinton supporters; Environmental Activism - This is What Insurgency Looks Like; Winning Equality, Fighting Racism; Boycott Driscoll's; Austria's Elections; A Public Tribute to Michael Ratner - June 13...and more...

Ya'ir Golan, the deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli army, made a speech on Holocaust Memorial Day. Some accuse him of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany in that speech. Nothing of the sort. He compared developments in Israel to the events that led to the disintegration of the Weimar Republic. And that is a valid comparison. Things happening in Israel, especially since the last election, bear a frightening similarity to those events.

This text describes the discourse on the Nakba - mostly the concept but also the historical event - in Israel. When did it appear? When did it decline and was repressed? What caused these changes? The attempt here is to describe historical moments, a periodization, from the founding of the state until today, in order to describe the relation to the term in each period and the changes it went through. Nakba Day - Solidarity actions across Ireland.

Reader Comments: Hillary, Bernie - A Test of Leadership; Nevada Convention - What Really Happened; Burying the White Working Class; Do We Need a Socialist Think Tank?; Israeli General who Compared the Jewish State to Nazi-era Germany; Fracking - Pennsylvania Township Legalizes Civil Disobedience; Trump, Racism and the Left; Resources; Announcement: Brown at 62: School Segregation by Race, Poverty and State; Green Olive Tours - Ethiopia Sport & Culture Tour

'It's scary to see horrifying developments that took place in Europe begin to unfold here,' Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan said during a Holocaust Remembrance speech. The lunatics who will now start to scream against him need to know: This is what morality and responsibility sound like. - Israeli opposition leader Yitzhak Herzog.

Reader Comments: Contested Convention is Needed; and "#BernieorBust" Dead End; The Left in 2016; Stopping Israel's Occupation and BDS; Israel as the Last Remaining, Active Settler-Colonialist Project; Who's Afraid of Communism - Paul Buhle comments; Teamster and Other Multi-Employer Pension Plans; Teacher Challenges Low Evaluation in Court and Wins; Baldwin; Shakespeare; James Connolly - appreciated today; Just Released - Panama Papers Database...

Sanctions and boycott are the most non-violent, legitimate means there are (Israel constantly preaches to the world to use them against its enemies) and have been proven effective. We have no choice but to recognize that boycott, divestment and sanctions is the only game in town, the last hope for change. This is the only means to stop Israel from persisting in its crimes.