Everywhere you look there is destruction: mosques, factories, schools, hospitals, universities and thousands of houses, many shattered into piles of bricks, glass and metal. The death toll - more than 1,900 killed, including at least 450 children. But a longer-term trauma may be the large number of wounded - more than 9,800, mostly civilians, including at least 3,000 children.
Increasingly Jews in the United States, in Israel and around the world are finding their voice - speaking out and demonstrating against the siege of Gaza. Many Jews are also questioning what hard-line politics and policies have done to Israel - increasing racism, discrimination and inequality. Sally Gottesman wrote the following letter to her family and friends, after living in Israel the past seven months. She has been in Israel more than 50 times.
I spent 24 hours in jail this week. As an American Jew, and as a person of conscience, I am angry and heart-sick at the death and destruction being wrought by Israel against Palestinian civilians and their homes, schools and hospitals.
Steven Salaita was fired from his position as associate professor in the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) apparently over views critical of Israel, especially its current massacre in Gaza.
Reader Comments - Gaza War - Israel, Palestine, the Jewish community and Zionism; Why Is Washington Risking War With Russia?; Labor - Kellogg Lockout and Coal Miners Anger; The Whitewashing of James Brown; Criminal Prosecution for Environmental Crimes; Bill Gates and the testing industry; Teacher Tenure (video);
Celebrate the Life of Vito Marcantonio - Aug 9; 9th annual Dissident Arts Festival - Aug 16 - both in New York
Today in History
Nugent Gets Dumped; Disney Investment Gets Cancelled; Celebrities Get Deleted; NY Times Gets Called Out; Koch Brothers Get Rejected; Waltons Get Ecumenical
Here are the five top ways the US is actively helping Israel in its war on Gaza, and despite the US State Department's latest protest over the Israeli shelling of a school in Gaza.
For Palestinians living in Gaza today, spending time in schools, mosques, hospitals or even their own homes has become deadly. The question "when does it become a legitimate military target?" is merely rhetorical. Its real meaning is: "All houses in Gaza are legitimate targets" since all houses are potentially non-homes.
When Israelis and Palestinians appear fated to fight more frequently and with ever-bloodier consequences, and when peace initiatives seem to be utopian pipe-dreams doomed to fail, the liberal Zionist faces something like an existential crisis. They will have to decide which of their political identities matters more, whether they are first a liberal or first a Zionist. And that is a choice they don’t want to make.
Israel is not my birthright writes a U.S. Jewish author, raised to think the country was ours by divine right. But this horror in Gaza has challenged even my deepest beliefs. The Haaretz' Gaza reporter, daughter of Holocaust survivors, writes, 'If victory is measured by the success at causing lifelong trauma to 1.8 million people (and not for the first time) waiting to be executed any moment - then the victory is yours.'
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