A diverse group of Arizona State University students joined together to protest IDF Sargent Nadav Weinberg’s lecture on the “Ethics of the IDF.” We organized a silent protest to give a voice to the Palestinian civilians who have been silenced by IDF policy. Read more »
“A number of Knesset members and ministers from Yisrael Beitenu and Likud and other right-wing figures are calling for cutting off funding to artists that this week called for a boycott of the cultural center in Ariel… Threats of this type … do not scare us… As Israeli citizens, the refusal of these theater actors to perform in Ariel, which is not within the borders of Israeli sovereignty, is a democratic right.” Read more »
When I envision Israel ending settlement expansion and living in equality with the Palestinians – while Netanyahu’s government confiscates more Palestinian land and builds more settlements every single day – I wonder who is misguided? Read more »
Matan Cohen, Israeli who disrupted PM’s speech: We were raised on human rights. Youngster who heckled Netanyahu during GA address in New Orleans says US Jews distancing themselves from community due to “expectation of blind loyalty to Israel.”
IOA Editor: “Raised on human rights” is well intentioned, and an understandable comment when facing the likes of Netanyahu and Lieberman, but it is misleading. Although plenty of individual Israeli (Jewish) families raised their children “on human rights,” Labor Zionism was racist from the very start but, unlike today, mostly below the surface: instituting land laws designed to deprive Arab citizens of most natural and national resources; putting activists under administrative detention without trial, and much more.
Now things are far more out in the open: raiding people’s homes in the middle of the night and putting them away — via trials without the standard rules of evidence that would be required in the West (e.g., most recently, Ameer Makhoul); the ability to legally exclude any Arab citizen from living in much of Israel that is, in effect, designated as Jewish-only; and an “informal,” but well organized and sanctioned by “Higher Authority,” terror campaign against renting to Palestinians when they venture into Jewish towns (even when those had been mostly-Arab towns before 1948), lest their sort mix with our precious daughters (see Jonathan Cook’s Rabbis’ edict bars renting to Arabs). Today’s conditions are far more blatant, and outright scary, but they evolved over a long period of time, starting from the political foundation put in place by Labor Zionism. Read more »
Prof. Gilbert Achcar is in the US on a speaking tour for his latest book, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. Tour schedule includes stops in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Read more »
New York event: A discussion with Gilbert Achcar and Amira Hass, moderated by Rashid Khalidi, at the International Affairs building, Columbia University – Tuesday, 9 Nov, 6:00 – 8:00pm. Read more »
Africa Israel, the flagship company of Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev, announced this week that it is no longer involved in Israeli settlement projects and that it has no plans for future settlement activities. Africa Israel subsequently denied that this was a political decision. Read more »
A new joint report exposes routine ill-treatment of Palestinians in interrogations: The treatment of detainees … is consistent with an interrogation doctrine that seeks to break the spirit of the detainee by inducing anxiety and shock, completely removing him from his normal life, and subjecting him to extreme deprivation of sensory stimuli, movement, and human contact. Added to these is the induced enfeebling of the detainee by means of sleep deprivation, food reduction, exposure to cold and heat, and causing pain, mainly through forced stiff postures. This doctrine appeared in the CIA interrogation manuals of the 1960s and 1980s, used … as guides to interrogators operating in Latin American dictatorships. Read more »
Haneen Zoabi: “We are struggling for a normal state, which is a state for all of its citizens, [in] which the Palestinians and the Israeli Jews can have full equality. I recognize religious, cultural and national group rights for the Israelis, but inside a democratic and neutral state.” Read more »
“Many Jews come to Umm al-Fahm every day and we have no problem, but Marzel and his gang come as enemies and we want to tell them that they are not welcome to …” Before he could finish his sentence police fired a volley of stun grenades, provoking a stampede.
IOA Editor: MPs Haneen Zoabi and Afou Agbaria injured in violent Israeli police actions against demonstrators.
Guardian photos of the clashes: www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2010/oct/27/israel-protest#/?picture=368107548&index=0 Read more »
