Enclosure: Palestinian Landscapes in a Historical Mirror
In this moment of nuclear proliferation, police brutality, resurgent Nazism, and stunning inequality, the real enemy: is a children’s book. The offending title, P is for Palestine, was recently published by Golbarg Bashi and Golrokh Nafisi after a long crowdfunding campaign. Supporters of Israeli settlements and Zionist organizations have reacted as if it’s the Hamas charter.
All people around the world and across time crave similar things. They want the chance to raise their families within a peaceful and fair environment. Also, one that affords a decent quality of life without fear of one’s fellow man. This was the main take away from our voyage into another world: Middle Eastern, Muslim, working class, rural and “occupied.” (If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when?" ~ Hillel)
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.
The Chicago Dyke March, the annual gay rights march without corporate sponsorship has anti-racist core values. In the march's Jewish contingent were Jews who were Zionists, and anti-Zionists, but who supported gay and Palestinian rights. There was an incident involving a few who did not support Palestinian rights, and a massive debate and controversy has evolved. Here are statements from Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, supporting the position of CDMC.
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.
Can Trump's administration include rabid Zionists and rabid anti-Semites at the same time? Of course it can.
The passage of UNSC 2334 marks the first occasion since 1980 that the Security Council has censured Israel's settler-colonialist practices, primarily because the United States had consistently threatened to use or exercised its veto power against similar initiatives for the past thirty-six years. On this occasion, Washington once again refused to support the resolution-but on account of its abstention, the Security Council was able to unanimously adopt the draft text.
Outrage? AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents can summon it on behalf of Israel's government, on BDS, on the Iran Deal - but not for the American minorities targeted by Trump. Not even its Jews. Add your name to the Joint Petition from American Jews and Muslims on Stephen Bannon (see below).
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