by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left Tel Aviv for Rome on March 9, he was flown to Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv by a helicopter because anti-government protesters blocked all the roads around it. Netanyahu’s visit was not met with much enthusiasm in Italy, either. A sit-in was organized by pro-Palestine activists[Read More…]
The new Australian Labor Government was elected in May 2022 with the help of Greens preferences in the Australian compulsory and preferential voting system. However despite pro-Palestinian moves by the Labor Party membership, the US- and Zionist-beholden Labor Government has grossly betrayed Palestinian human rights, Australian voters, Australia, and indeed Humanity in 85 ways that make Labor utterly unfit to[Read More…]
The Oversight Board has opened public comment on Meta’s approach to moderating the Arabic word “shaheed” (martyr), but what we need is an accurate and global definition of “terror” A funeral for four Palestinians killed by Israeli troops in Jenin on Sept. 28. Credit: Abbas Momani/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Meta’s Oversight Board has just accepted a request for a policy advisory[Read More…]
The following text tells the whole story of what pro-Palestinian communities around the world are fighting for, and what pro-Israelis are fighting against: “We are delighted to report that Chelsea and Westminster Hospital has removed a display of artwork designed by children from Gaza.” That was the summary of a news report published on the homepage of the pro-Israel group,[Read More…]
Some might think that state genocide is a new phenomenon in Israeli occupied Palestine. I can assure you that this is the very essence of Zionism. The point was, and still is, to occupy the land, get rid of the people by any and every means, and change the topography and the demography of Palestine to favour Jewish supremacy. The[Read More…]
Rarely does the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations make an official remark expressing happiness over any UN proceeding concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Indeed, the Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour is “very happy that there was a very strong united message from the Security Council against the illegal, unilateral measure” undertaken by the Israeli government. The ‘measure’ is a[Read More…]
On February 20, the United Nations Security Council approved a statement, described in the media as a ‘watered-down’ version of an earlier draft resolution which would have demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The intrigues that led to the scrapping of what was meant to be a binding resolution will be the subject of a[Read More…]
Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians, including a boy and at least two men over the age of 60, during a daytime raid in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Wednesday. More than 100 others were injured, several of them critically, the vast majority by live ammunition, suggesting a further loosening of Israel’s already permissive open fire regulations. Events in #Nablus[Read More…]
In May of this year, I will reach the ripe old age of 80. Through all the decades that I have been on this earth this question has been on my mind. When will it ever end? So far, a logical and fair answer eludes me. It’s not for lack of trying, it’s because every time we Palestinians, despite all[Read More…]
The leadership of the Marxist-Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) launched an impressive rally in besieged Gaza resiliently protesting the Criminal “Caesar Law”. The Caesar Law refers to the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (HR/31), which commands a hermetic siege on Syria disguising to protect the Syrian people and defending human rights in the war-striven country. Following[Read More…]
In a recent commentary from Washington Post, there is description and analysis on the flood of illegal arms into Palestinian communities, including East Jerusalem, where local arms traffickers say “business has never been better”. This is also true of circumstances in Palestinian Israeli towns, where “a political and security vacuum has allowed criminal gangs to flourish, and spurred ordinary people[Read More…]
Though Israel’s past wars on Gaza have often been justified by Tel Aviv as a response to Palestinian rockets or, generally, as acts of self-defense, the truth is different. Historically, Israel’s relationship with Gaza has been defined by Tel Aviv’s need to create distractions from its own fractious politics, to flex its muscles against its regional enemies and to test[Read More…]
After the blood bath in occupied Palestine in 2022, more than 230 Palestinians were killed. The Israeli Occupation Forces and the heavily armed Jewish illegal settlers in the West Bank continued their feral killing spree into 2023 unabated. In the first month of this year, Israel murdered 36 Palestinians. Ten of those murders took place in Jenin, my birthplace. This[Read More…]
The latest Arab Opinion Index 2022 is yet more proof that Arab societies are diverse in every possible way, from their assessment of their economic situation and living conditions to their take on immigration, state institutions and democracy. With one single exception: Palestine. 76 percent of all respondents to the poll, which is carried out annually by the Arab Center[Read More…]
by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo On January 19, during one of its raids in the Occupied West Bank, the Israeli military arrested a Palestinian journalist, Abdul Muhsen Shalaldeh, near the town of Al-Khalil (Hebron). This is just the latest of a staggering number of violations against Palestinian journalists, and against freedom of expression. A few days earlier, the head[Read More…]
After the raid in Jenin, there was a reaction from Gaza. Immediately, Israel sent in the airforce with its normal venom and brute force. More Palestinians were killed, more destruction of property, and more disruption of life. That was followed yesterday by an attack on a synagogue outside Jerusalem which resulted in eight Israelis killed. Netanyahu said that he will[Read More…]
“For how long will I be in captivity? After so many years, where are the state and the people of Israel?” These were the words, uttered in Hebrew, of a person believed to be Avera Mengistu, an Israeli soldier of Ethiopian origin who was captured and held in Gaza in 2014. Footage of Mengistu, looking nervous but also somewhat defiant,[Read More…]
Israel’s pogrom to obliterate the Palestinians from the land is ongoing with a vigor and revenge that is picking political momentum. Whether that will work in its intent is another question. Domination, suppression and control are the strategies that Israel is employing. In a new position paper, Adalah, an Israeli human rights organization, lays out how the guiding principles and[Read More…]
There is much consternation about Israel’s move sharply rightward under Netanyahu’s new government, but it is really just a move to more overt fascism, by which is meant rule by force without any pretense of democracy or respect for human rights. The change is really minimal as Israel has created a society of inequality, racial and gender discrimination and has[Read More…]
In a self-congratulatory article published in the Atlantic in 2017, Yossi Klein Halevi describes Israeli behavior at the just-conquered holy Muslim shrines in Occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 as “an astonishing moment of religious restraint”. “The Jewish people had just returned to its holiest site, from which it had been denied access for centuries, only to effectively yield sovereignty at[Read More…]
Once more, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will offer a legal opinion on the consequences of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine. A historic United Nations vote on December 31 called on the ICJ to look at the Israeli Occupation in terms of legal consequences, the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the responsibility of all UN Member[Read More…]
Israel’s worst ever possible choice of government has expectedly started on the wrong foot. The mandate was less extreme than the way things have things turned out to be. Racist genocide has become the political fashion for Netanyahu and his political cohorts. The New Year began with two murders and, if that is the tone they are setting, one can[Read More…]
Three days into the New Year. Three murders in Palestine. Don’t let us allow these martyrs to become just the opening numbers in the Israeli score of dead Palestinians, 2023. Three young men, filled with hope and with anger had families, loved ones. They had dreams and ambitions, so let us name them, respect them and mourn their short lives.[Read More…]
Another critical year for Palestine has folded. While 2022 has wrought much of the same in terms of Israeli military occupation and increasing violence, it also introduced new variables to the Palestinian struggle – nationally, regionally and internationally. Palestine, the War and the Arabs The Russia-Ukraine war starting in February pressured many political entities, including Palestinians, to take sides or,[Read More…]
A strategy for Palestinian supporters to gain control of the narrative and successfully counter charges of anti-Semitism will enable the moral and legal systems to bring the oppressors’ supporters to justice. In community devastation, destruction of the Palestinian people ranks with the most severe. A group of foreign people invaded a land, seized property and resources from native people, expelled[Read More…]
The world awaits in keen anticipation to see how the several combinations of resistance will end the beastly apartheid-colonial system that Israel has chosen as their apparatus of misrule. Militant youth confronting the occupation are high on the agenda of resistance. This is assuming forms of courage rarely witnessed before. The holy rage that young Palestinians feel at the humiliation[Read More…]
It is New Year’s Eve, 2022, by all accounts the year that has been the hardest for Palestinians living under the yolk of Apartheid Israel. At least 207 people killed, 47 of whom were children. That Israel is an Apartheid state is not just an off-the-cuff remark, or yet another adjective to throw at Israel, it is what Amnesty International[Read More…]
Two years ago, Morocco and Israel signed the US-brokered “Joint Declaration”, thus officially recognizing Israel and instating diplomatic ties. Though other Arab countries had already done the same, the Moroccan official recognition of Apartheid Israel was particularly devastating for Palestinians. Years ago, a close Moroccan friend told me that the ‘first time’ he was arrested was during a solidarity protest[Read More…]
Just when Israel, and even some Palestinians, began talking about the Lions’ Den phenomenon in the past tense, a large number of fighters belonging to the newly-formed Palestinian group marched in the city of Nablus. Unlike the group’s first appearance on September 2, the number of fighters who took part in the rally in the Old City of Nablus on[Read More…]
On December 11th the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine commemorated its 55th anniversary. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine celebrated the 55th anniversary of it’s founding with a large parade in the streets of the besieged Gaza Strip. The PFLP is a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist organization founded in 1967 by Dr. George Habash. Its creation is a[Read More…]
The next Nakba Day will be officially commemorated by the United Nations General Assembly on May 15, 2023. The decision by the world’s largest democratic institution is significant, if not a game changer. For nearly 75 years, the Palestinian Nakba, the ‘Catastrophe’ wrought by the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias in 1947-48, has served as the epicenter of[Read More…]
We were mistaken to think that Palestine represents the central issue for all Arabs. Such language suggests that Palestine is an external subject, to be compared to other collective struggles that consume most Arabs, everywhere. The ongoing celebration of Palestine and the Palestinian flag at the Qatar World Cup 2022 by millions of Arab fans compels us to rethink our[Read More…]
I am Eilert Rostrup, an ordained pastor of the Church of Norway, and for many years, since 1991, a warm friend and supporter of the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice. I’ve been able to serve as a solidarity comrade through my work as International Director for the Norwegian YWCA and YMCA, and for the last 16 years as Director[Read More…]
Caption–Left: Gheith Najjar (white t-shirt) at Qatar 2022 World Cup. Right: A screen shot of an Israeli’s mobile captured as he was sharing Najjar’s image at Qatar 2022 World Cup Marco Balich, the creative director of the opening ceremony of the Qatar 2022 World Cup, probably has no idea that “bridging distances” when it comes to Palestinians and Israelis is a[Read More…]
The recent decision by the United States Department of Justice to open an investigation into the killing, last May, of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh is not a game-changer, but important and worthy of reflection, nonetheless. Based on the long trajectory of US military and political support of Israel, and Washington’s constant shielding of Tel Aviv from any accountability for[Read More…]
At a recent Istanbul conference that brought many Palestinian scholars and activists together to discuss the search for a common narrative on Palestine, a Palestinian member of the audience declared at the end of a brief, but fiery intervention, ‘we are not red Indians’. The reference was a relatively old one. It was attributed to former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat[Read More…]
Caption: Image shown during the Zoom broadcast of the Palestinian National Conference — Fourteen Million, 5 Nov 2022, while a recorded statement by Palestinian prisoners in support of the Conference was being aired. At the heart of the idea of rebuilding the PLO is to honor the sacrifices of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs. A paradigm shift in and outside occupied Palestine from the[Read More…]
Daily reports highlight what is being done to the Palestinians, riveting narratives of the repressions and violence committed against them. More attention is required to ascertain what can be done for them, preparation of a strategic plan that leads to their liberation. Chilling to think the Palestinians may be doomed, but active and passive resistance, international protests, UN Declarations, boycotts, divestments, silent sanctions, myriad[Read More…]
by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo On Monday, October 31, Palestinians in the town of Al-Eizariya, east of Occupied East Jerusalem, observed a general strike. The strike was declared to be part of the community’s mourning of 49-year-old Barakat Moussa Odeh, who was killed by Israeli forces in Jericho a day earlier. This is not an isolated case. General strikes[Read More…]
Caption: On Al Mayadeen pan-Arabist satellite news channel being interviewed about the march in Brussels (Left to right): Mohammed Khatib, Europe coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network; Jaldia Abubakra, a member of the Follow-Up Committee of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masar Badil); Khaled Barakat, one of the founders of Al Masar I had the privilege to be[Read More…]
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine staged a memorable rally in Gaza on October 25th, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem. It is a testimony of the determination of the organisation to battle Israel against all odds. A member of the Political Bureau of the PFLP in the Gaza Strip, Saleh[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’ was meant to represent a finality of sorts, an event reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama’s premature declaration of the ‘End of History’ and the uncontested supremacy of western capitalism. In effect, it was a declaration that ‘we’ – the US, Israel and a few allies – have won, and ‘you’, isolated and[Read More…]
In what has turned out to be one of the deadliest years for residents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 2015, over 100 Palestinians and four Israel servicemen and police officers have been killed thus far this year. The Israeli army has been conducting operations with incursions into the West Bank on a nearly daily basis in what[Read More…]
This headline in the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, only tells part of the story: “The Lions’ Den, Other Palestinian Groups are Endless Headache for Israel, PA.” It is true that both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority are equally worried about the prospect of a widespread armed revolt in the Occupied West Bank, and that the newly formed[Read More…]
Caption: The logo on my t-shirt on the left says, “Anti-Zionist Vibes Only”; on the right, the Arabic on top of the map of Palestine says, “Inch by Inch” In preparing for a trip to Dubai with my brothers earlier this month, I was full of apprehension. As Palestinians, we are furious about the now-open complicity of the government of Dubai[Read More…]
Reversing the deadlly contributions of American society to the destruction of the Palestinian people is more than a moral imperative; it is the principle means for guaranteeing survival of the Palestine community. The Short Letter Dear President Barack Obama, You entered office with a call “for a new start to relations between the Muslim world and the West based on[Read More…]
Children of my Gaza refugee camp were rarely afraid of monsters but of Israeli soldiers. This is all that we talked about before going to bed. Unlike imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed, Israeli soldiers are real, and they could show up any minute – at the door, on the roof or, as was often the case,[Read More…]
Displaying relentless courage Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners at an Israeli jail in the occupied West Bank are refusing their meals since Thursday in a show of solidarity with 30 fellow inmates who are waging a hunger strike. One of the most telling protests opposing the bloodthirsty fascist state of Israel. igniting spark of resistance. Some 900 Palestinians are undertaking a[Read More…]
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid threw a wrench into the works when he declared from the United Nations General Assembly podium: “An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy and for the future of our children.” The statement took many by surprise, including the Palestinian leadership.[Read More…]
Caption: Masked youth cadets from the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, march in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis (Getty) Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, is being bombarded by urgent appeals, the most strongly-worded of which comes from the National and Islamic Forces in Gaza[Read More…]
Thirty Palestinians held in Israeli custody embarked on a hunger strike from last Sunday to protest their indefinite detention. “The strike aims to fulfil the demands of the detainees” for ending their administrative detention in Ofer prison west of Ramallah, Qadura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Prisoner Society NGO, told a press conference. All the detainees are cadres of[Read More…]
In his anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected to, once more, make a passionate plea for the recognition of Palestine as a full member. Abbas’ ‘landmark speech’ would not be the first time that the President of the Palestinian Authority has lobbied for such a status. In September 2011,[Read More…]
As Lebanon plunges into political chaos – banking corruption, power cuts and exploding prices, the Palestinian refugees, already marginalised without rights and unable to climb out of poverty, have fallen deeper into despair. Walking through the camps one sees tangles of bare electric cable, dripped on by corroded air conditioning units, hanging dangerously low in the narrow, dark passages that[Read More…]
Caption: At a joint in California where customers leave notes in the cracks of a brick wall. Note says: “الله اكبر –Free Palestine, assholes.” It’s not wishful thinking; it’s really happening! To use Bob Dylan’s words, the Israeli order is “rapidly fadin’ and the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a-changin’.” You’ve probably heard[Read More…]
September 16 marks the 40th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the killing of around 3,000 Palestinians at the hands of Lebanon’s Phalangist militias operating under the command of the Israeli army. Four decades have passed, yet no measure of justice has been received by the survivors of the massacre. Many of them have died, and others are aging[Read More…]
Zionism as frankly espoused by its most prominent advocates for 130 years is genocidal racism, and Nazism without gas chambers but now with 90 nuclear weapons and 6 German-supplied submarines to carry nuclear missiles for scores of nuclear holocausts. Yet defenceless Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been falsely and hysterically vilified by the Zionist-subverted West for describing the ongoing Palestinian[Read More…]
“As soon as I left prison, I went to Nael’s grave. It is adorned with the colors of the Palestinian flag and verses from the Holy Quran. I told my little brother how much I loved and appreciated him, and that, one day, we would meet again in paradise.” The above is part of a testimony given to me by[Read More…]
Khaled Barakat and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network international coordinator Charlotte Kates attending the conference of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle Toronto, Canada 2013 (courtesy: Khaled Barakat) Palestinian writer and researcher Khaled Barakat, whose activism and writing aims to expand the pro-Palestinian movement at a mass level by educating young Palestinians outside Palestine, is being subjected to a smear[Read More…]
Rima Najjar I have just filled out the form of appeal to the Facebook and Instagram Oversight Board, which describes itself as “Ensuring respect for free expression, through independent judgment.” The form provides space just for 2000 characters, so I was not able to present my case fully. And the fact that the drop-down menu that asks which countries are[Read More…]
Those who struggle to bring Israel to task for its crimes must reveal the nefarious use of the holocaust and spurious charges of anti-Semitism that attempt (and succeed) to shield Israel from criticism. Before the exposure is accomplished, nothing else will succeed in liberating the Palestinians from Israel’s genocidal actions. Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, demonstrated political naiveté when replying to[Read More…]
“There was no Massacre in Jenin” was the title of a Haaretz editorial on April 19, 2002, one week after Israel ended its deadly onslaught on the besieged Palestinian refugee camp in the northern West Bank. The unwarranted conclusion by Haaretz, other Israeli media and, ultimately, numerous western outlets was not the outcome of a thorough investigation carried out by[Read More…]
What a humiliating failure for the group of diplomatic missions in Palestine that are now supporting the six Palestinian human rights NGOs that Israel has dubbed “terrorist organizations” and closed down! The irony is that most of these missions are active accomplices of Israel’s apartheid and occupation of Palestine. When South Africa lived under an apartheid regime, there was a[Read More…]
Let me ask you a question. If you identify as Jewish, what is your reaction when you see a news item such as: ‘Israel settles 50 Ukrainian Jewish families in West Bank settlements’? Do you think, hey, wait a minute? Why is Israel accepting only Jewish war refugees? Or, in another leap, why is Israel “settling” refugees on internationally recognized[Read More…]
![Smoke rises following Israeli airstrikes on a building in Gaza City's Shijaiyah neighborhood, Sunday, August. 7, 2022. [Photo: Hatem Moussa/WSWS]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Gaza-1-200x150.jpg "Fake Neutrality: How Western Media Language Misrepresents Palestinians, Shields Israel 140")
While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case. Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, “Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day” is[Read More…]
Israel and Germany are prolonging their fuss over Mahmoud Abbas’ comment on the ‘holocausts’ committed by Israel on the Palestinian people. Abbas cannot reverse facts even if he pulls back his statement. Abbas is no political saint. But he has on this occasion spoken out with courage and truthfully. Germany cannot stomach it because the term sticks on them because[Read More…]
Many people were surprised and outraged when US President Biden recently fist bumped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After all, as a candidate, Biden pledged to make the Saudi kingdom a pariah since the Crown Prince had been directly linked to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In contrast, consider the relative lack of outrage to Biden’s statement after[Read More…]
In Apartheid Israel’s latest unprovoked Gaza Massacre 49 Palestinians were killed and 460 wounded. However the racist West has merely reiterated the routine Orwellian excuse of Israel’s right to defend itself, while condemning bloodless Chinese military exercises near US-protected Taiwan that is recognized by all nations as part of China. The West rightly condemns the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but[Read More…]
For years, Palestinians, as well as Israelis, have labored to redraw the battle lines. The three-day Israeli war on Gaza, starting on August 5, clearly manifested this reality. Throughout its military operation, Israel has repeatedly underscored the point that the war was targeting the Islamic Jihad Movement only, not Hamas or anyone else. A somewhat similar scenario had transpired in[Read More…]
It is cynical to use war as a way of beefing up chances of winning an election. This is exactly what Israel’s leader Lapid did in Israel’s latest aggression on the besieged Gaza strip. Two hard facts define what this war sought to achieve. First, it wanted to tug at the unity of the Palestinian resistance. Second, and equally disparaging,[Read More…]
It seemed all but a done deal: Israel is finally managing to bend the Arabs to its will, and Palestine is becoming a marginal issue that no longer defines Israel’s relations with Arab countries. Indeed, normalization with Israel is afoot, and the Arabs, so it seems, have been finally tamed. Not so fast. Many events continue to demonstrate the opposite.[Read More…]
A vigil was held this evening at the Museum of the Palestinian People to honor the 16 children killed in the Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip. The attack on 140 sites in the crowded strip killed 44 people and wounded hundreds of others including children ranging in age from four to sixteen. Museum Curator and Direct Ahmed Mansour[Read More…]
On Sunday, August 7th –the day that Jews around the world celebrated Tisha bAv, the traditional day of mourning for the disasters that have occurred throughout Jewish history—the state of Israel brutally slaughtered at least 44 people, including 15 children in the besieged Gaza Strip. Beyond the horrible irony of this massacre, it is difficult for me not to see[Read More…]
For three days, Israel has bombarded the densely and impoverished coastal enclave of Gaza, targeting leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), civilians and their property in the worst flare up since May 2021. As of Sunday evening, Israel’s “surgical” air strikes have killed at least 43 Palestinians, including Taysir al-Jabari and Khalid Mansour, senior PIJ military leaders in northern and[Read More…]
Israel’s bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip entered its second day on Saturday with no sign of de-escalation as the United States, European Union and other Western countries gave Tel Aviv a green light to continue its campaign of killing and destruction. By late evening on Saturday, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza had killed at least five more people. The health ministry in[Read More…]
Until recently, Israeli politics did not matter to Palestinians. Though the Palestinian people maintained their political agency under the most demoralizing conditions, their collective action rarely influenced outcomes in Israel, partly due to the massive discrepancy of power between the two sides. Now that Israelis are embarking on their fifth election in less than four years, it is important to[Read More…]
(This is part of my memoir I published successively on the pages of Countercurrents on the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp and the jail experience in the Zionist jails.) They took us to a detention camp in the Megiddo area, not far from where we were. There we found the prison[Read More…]
To me, the purest and strongest expression of Palestinian resistance comes from Al Masar Al Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), a movement organized by activists who never accepted the path that led us to the disastrous and debilitating Oslo decades. With Oslo’s duplicity and perversion now obvious to all except the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian elite who benefit[Read More…]
To judge US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a ‘failure’ in terms of activating the dormant ‘peace process’ is simply a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership. Political and diplomatic platitudes aside,[Read More…]
“We regret we failed to protect you.” This was part of a statement issued by United Nations human rights experts on July 14, urging the Israeli government to release Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Manasra. Only 14 years old at the time of his arrest and torture by Israeli forces, Manasra is now 20 years old. His case is a representation of[Read More…]
15 years have passed since Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, subjecting nearly two million Palestinians to one of the longest and most cruel politically-motivated blockades in history. The Israeli government had then justified its siege as the only way to protect Israel from Palestinian “terrorism and rocket attacks”. This remains the official Israeli line until this[Read More…]
(Dedicated to the memory of Ghassan Kanafani, an iconic Palestinian leader and engaged intellectual who was assassinated by the Israeli Mossad on July 8, 1972) This is, according to the Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci, the ‘interregnum’- the rare and seismic moment in history when great transitions occur, when empires collapse and others rise, and when new conflicts and struggles ensue.[Read More…]
“We affirm our support for the Mapping Project out of Boston, and condemn attempts to censor this useful educational tool.” The above expression of solidarity with an independent anonymous collective based in Boston that takes an innovative, well-researched approach to highlighting the connections between Zionist organizations and institutions is unremarkable — until you discover who is attempting to disassociate itself from it[Read More…]
The Palestine National Football Team has, once more, done the seemingly impossible by qualifying for the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. By any standards, this is a great achievement, especially as the Palestinians have done it with style and convincing victories over Mongolia, Yemen and the Philippines, without conceding a single goal. However, for Palestinians, this is hardly about sports. This[Read More…]
A report commissioned by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council states that Israel’s “perpetual occupation” of Palestinian areas and its refusal to end it underpin the tensions between Palestinians and Israelis. The authors insist that ending of the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since their capture by Israel in the 1967 Arab Israeli war in full[Read More…]
What took place between May 2021 and May 2022 is nothing less than a paradigm shift in Palestinian resistance. Thanks to the popular and inclusive nature of Palestinian mobilization against the Israeli occupation, resistance in Palestine is no longer an ideological, political or regional preference. In the period between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and only a[Read More…]
Only 23 days after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, they have once again killed another journalist. As reported by the National Press Club Journalism Institute in Washington, 31-year-old journalist Ghufran Harun Warasneh was shot by IDF soldiers on June 1 while being questioned at an Israeli checkpoint in Area[Read More…]
In the film archive of The Associated Press there are 2.47 minutes of shaky footage dated 10th July 1972. The colour of the stock is crude, the quality grainy. The clip is disorientating, the camera continually moving as if searching for meaning. It’s an eerily silent piece of newsreel. With the absence of a long shot there’s little sense of[Read More…]
The Israeli Supreme Court has decided that the Palestinian region of Masafer Yatta, located in the southern hills of Hebron, is to be entirely appropriated by the Israeli military and that a population of over 1,000 Palestinians is to be expelled. The Israeli Court decision, on May 4, was hardly shocking. Israel’s military occupation does not only consist of soldiers with guns,[Read More…]
(This is part of my memoir I published successively on the pages of Countercurrents on the Zionist invasion of Lebanon 1982 ) We were handcuffed, and a bandage was placed over our eyes so we could not see anything. Then the buses moved towards Palestine. Next to me was sitting an Egyptian named Gamal. He had nothing on his eyes,[Read More…]
We, the participants of the conference on “Embracing Solidarities through Sharing Stories of Struggles to Resist Empires”, a four day consultation organized by Global Kairos for Asia Pacific Palestine Solidarity (GKAPPS) in collaboration with the Academy for Contextual Theologies in Taiwan (ACTT), from April 27 to 30, 2022, seek to express our radical solidarity with the people in Palestine in[Read More…]
The Nakba is back on the Palestinian agenda. For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba – or Catastrophe – is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any ‘pragmatic’ political discourse. They were[Read More…]
(This is part of my memoir I published successively on the pages of Countercurrents on the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp.) When the Zionist arrested us, we were put aside, and the rest of the people of the camp left. Before my father left, he looked at me sadly, which made[Read More…]
Israeli police attack mourners at funeral for slain journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. Image is a capture from a video clip circulating on social media (https://fb.watch/c_28BmgFX9/). Of the hundreds of thousands of images flowing in quick succession on social media in the aftermath of Shireen Abu Akleh’s extrajudicial execution undertaken by a State actor, namely Israel, three in particular will never[Read More…]
WASHINGTON (05-15) – It has been 74 years since 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes and land by Zionist forces on May 15, 1948, during the creation of the state of Israel. The global commemoration of the “Day of Palestinian Struggle” acknowledged each year is always mired in conflict. As such the scheduled Nakba (catastrophe) events in Berlin this[Read More…]
(This is part of my memoir I published successively on the pages of Countercurrents on the Zionist invasion of Lebanon 1982 and the destruction of the Palestinian refugee camp.) At that time, most of my dreams at night were constant nightmares, something I didn’t know before. Perhaps this is a natural matter because dreams reflect the reality that a person[Read More…]
Today is Nakba day—- the day that Palestinians throughout the world remember as the great catastrophe. For it was on the 14th of May 1948 that the illegitimate entity called Israel was formally established on Palestinian land. It was the beginning of the dispossession of the Palestinian people. It has continued for the last 74 years. Palestinians continue to be[Read More…]
We had the feeling that the Zionist arrest campaigns did not end after the first campaign and the individual arrests here and there. The question is political and moral, which I was asking myself. Does a person stay in the place if he thinks he will get arrested? I remember discussing this question with a friend who said that[Read More…]
Like typical analyses offered by western intelligences when trying to assess risks or understand major political phenomena in the Middle East, Israeli intelligence is equally short-sighted. It insists on analyzing the attitudes and body language of individuals instead of focusing on the behavior of collectives. This is the case today as Israel is desperately trying to understand the changing political[Read More…]
One of the difficult things during the first period of the Zionist occupation was that I could no longer move at night after seven in the evening, especially since we were in semi-destroyed houses with no water or electricity. By evening, the camp was completely silent. And darkness hover over the camp. But when the dogs howled, we knew there[Read More…]
I spoke yesterday with a friend who also lived through the horror period in the aftermath of the camp’s destruction after the Zionist invasion of Lebanon. He told me that he felt he was living in times of terror again when reading this memoir, and indeed these were days of horror par excellence. The white Mercedes cars of the Zionist[Read More…]
Palestinians are justifiably worried that the mandate granted to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, might be coming to an end. UNRWA’s mission, which has been in effect since 1949, has done more than provide urgent aid and support to millions of refugees. It was also a political platform that protected and preserved the rights of several generations[Read More…]
I received several reactions to the memoirs that I published successively on the pages of the countercurrents. Some blame me for waiting a long time to write about that period, and they are right. But let us remember the proverb that says it is better to be late than Never. However, I must admit that I tried to write about[Read More…]
It was summer 1982 in the aftermath of the Zionist invasion and the total destruction of the camp by the Zionist planes. For this reason, the camp residents could live in semi-destroyed houses without doors or windows without suffering from severe cold. Therefore, the main concern was that winter would come before reconstructing their homes. I used to hear these[Read More…]
Those who pass between fleeting words Take your names with you and go Rid our time of your hours, and go Mahmoud Darwish, Palestinian poet The occupation has become a fait accompli, and we had to face a new, bitter reality. Our situation has become like the situation in occupied Palestine. The priority for us is restoring everyday life despite[Read More…]
(Continuing my testimony about the massacre Zionists committed in the Palestinian Burj shimali camp during the Israeli invasion to Lebanon in 1982) One day someone came from the camp and told us that the Israelis did not enter the camp. We were tired of being in the Lebanese village, and we were in a horrible situation, although the Lebanese owner[Read More…]
We were in a Lebanese village where all of us who came from the Burj shimali camp gathered in one room. The Zionist army treated the Lebanese in that period well, intending to win the sympathy of the Lebanese people. But this changed after some time when the Lebanese realized that Israel’s goals were far beyond eliminating the PLO. Indeed[Read More…]
I continue writing about the massacres that took place in the Burj Shimali camp due to the savage bombing of the Israeli planes in June 1982. I think of all those who lost their lives at the hands of the criminal Zionists. They are not numbers, but people I knew, lived with and knew their hopes and aspirations. Most of[Read More…]
A friend, a young journalist in Gaza, Mohammed Rafik Mhawesh, told me that food prices in the besieged Strip have skyrocketed in recent weeks and that many already impoverished families are struggling to put food on the table. “Food prices are dramatically surging,” he said, “particularly since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war.” Essential food prices, like wheat and meat,[Read More…]
In the first testimony about the Israeli massacres that took places in the Palestinian refugee camp Burj el Shimali in south Lebanon , I Said earlier that the Palestinian refugee camp was in ruins in every sense of the word due to the indiscriminating Israeli air raids. But despite all that, the young men of the camp rushed to the[Read More…]
In 1982 I was working as a secondary teacher, and I had just graduated from the University. I was happy with my life, and I bought a car and rented an apartment in the Lebanese city of Tyr. On Friday, I went from southern Lebanon to Beirut to attend a conference to discuss social issues in the Palestinian camps in[Read More…]
Yesterday, I saw a caricature with many connotations. The caricature is about Ukrainian man carrying the flag in front of a Russian tank and the writing beside him that he is resisting. The other caricature is about a Palestinian carrying the Palestinian flag facing an Israeli tank and the writing that he is a terrorist. Having in mind the unlimited[Read More…]
There is a reason why Israel is insistent on linking the series of attacks carried out by Palestinians recently to a specific location, namely the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. By doing so, the embattled Naftali Bennett’s government can simply order another deadly military operation in Jenin to reassure its citizens that the situation is under control.[Read More…]
Let me say first that Ahmed Manasra story is not unique. Since the 1967 occupation, the Zionist occupation forces have arrested 50000 Palestinian children, according to the Palestinian Prisoner commission. In addition, (the international movement to defend Palestinian children) mentioned that the Israeli occupation forces had killed 2,070 Palestinian children since 2000 as part of a series of continuous crimes[Read More…]
Yesterday, the 9th of April, the Israeli forces killed the Palestinian freedom fighter Ahmed Al-Saadi in a military campaign in Jenin camp. It also wounded 19 people with various wounds. Then measured the house of the young Palestinian Raad, who earlier this week attacked the Zionists in Tel Aviv to blow up the house. The law for demolishing the home[Read More…]
The first who invented the idea of manipulating history in the modern era were the Zionist Jews—their occupation of Palestine and the expulsion of most of its people based on two grounds. The first is that the Jews have been in Palestine for two thousand years, which is ridiculous logic, and the second is that the Jews are hated in[Read More…]
Michael Lynk is the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied after the 1967 nakba. He is Associate Professor of Law at Western University in London, Ontario, where he teaches labour law, constitutional law and human rights law. [1] His report, “Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights[Read More…]
“The water is back,” one family member would announce in a mix of excitement and panic, often very late at night. The moment such an announcement was made, my whole family would start running in all directions to fill every tank, container or bottle that could possibly be filled. Quite often, the water would last for a few minutes, leaving[Read More…]
In moving from Nazareth back to the UK, I have stepped out of the frying pan and into the fire [This is a transcript of a talk I gave to Bath Friends of Palestine on 25 February 2022.] Since I arrived with my family in the UK last summer, I have been repeatedly asked: “Why choose Bristol as your[Read More…]
“We are anonymous because we fear retaliation.” This sentence was part of a letter signed by 500 Google employees last October, in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military. In their letter, the signatories protested a $1.2 billion contract between Google, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Israeli government which provides cloud services for[Read More…]
A new global geopolitical game is in formation, and the Middle East, as is often the case, will be directly impacted by it in terms of possible new alliances and resulting power paradigms. While it is too early to fully appreciate the impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war on the region, it is obvious that some countries are placed in[Read More…]
Israel’s war on Palestinian sports is as old as the Israeli state itself. For Palestinians, sports is a critical aspect of their popular culture, and since Palestinian culture itself is a target for the ongoing Israeli attack on Palestinian life in all of its manifestations, sports and athletes have been purposely targeted as well. Yet, the world’s main football governing[Read More…]
Can Israel be pressured? Or is Tel Aviv the only exception to the global political order in which every country, big or small, is subjected to pressures and subsequent change in attitude and behavior? Several events, in recent days, bring the question of Israel’s legal and moral accountability to the fore. On February 21, Israel’s Nature and Park Authority decided[Read More…]
The following is an email I wrote on February 20 to a group of progressive political activists from Syracuse, NY, a city less than one hour’s drive west from where I live. For the last three years the Jewish Federation of Central New York (JFCNY) has sent a series of letters to the Syracuse Peace Council (SPC), a local progressive[Read More…]
The state terrorist Australian Coalition Government has joined the US, UK, Apartheid Israel and other anti-Arab anti-Semitic US Alliance countries in declaring the leading Palestinian political party, Hamas, to be a terrorist group in its entirety. This false and racist decision seriously threatens anti-racist Jewish, non-Jewish, Palestinian, Arab and Muslim Australians supporting the lives and human rights of the sorely[Read More…]
When Nelson Mandela was freed from his Robben Island prison on February 11, 1991, my family, friends and neighbors followed the event with keen interest as they gathered in the living room of my old home in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. This emotional event took place years before Mandela uttered his famous quote “our freedom is[Read More…]
People across the world who seek justice do what they can and must to respond to the plight of Palestinians who remain trapped in a deepening cycle of violence, humiliation and despair. Palestinians have called out to their brothers and sisters in around the world as their suffering proliferates. They shed tears as they shout in anguish: “Enough is enough.[Read More…]
The world took little notice last month when over 100 Bedouin, a third of them minors, were arrested in the Negev/Naqab desert in Southern Israel. They were protesting the Jewish National Fund’s planting trees on 300 dunams as part of a 5,000 dunam (1,236 acre) afforestation project on land where 300,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel live and farm. Because the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish[Read More…]
As awareness of the Palestinian crisis grows and empathy for the Palestinian people increases, organizations search frantically for a solution to Israel’s continuous theft of Palestinian lands and oppression of the native peoples. Justice looks to establishing a single state, where Israelis and Palestinians live as equals and in harmony. The single state solution arrived with improved understanding of the[Read More…]
The current split in the African Union (AU) over Israel’s Observer membership status is emblematic of a larger conflict that could potentially split the African continent’s largest political institutions. Africa is currently facing one of its most crucial decisions regarding Palestine and Israel. The repercussions of this decision could be as significant as the 1975 Resolution 77 (XII) by the[Read More…]
A succession of events in recent weeks all point to the inescapable fact that nearly 75 years of Israel’s painstaking efforts aimed at hiding the truth about its origins and its current racially-driven apartheid regime are failing miserably. The world is finally waking up, and Israel is losing ground quicker than its ability to gain new supporters, or to whitewash[Read More…]
On February 1st, 2022 Amnesty International released a report titled, “Apartheid Against Palestinians is a Cruel System of Domination and a Crime Against Humanity”. Amnesty’s report declares, says Agnes Callamard, Amnesty Intl’s Secretary General, “Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an inferior racial group and[Read More…]
Amnesty International’s 2022 report exposing and condemning Israeli apartheid has provoked false allegations of lying and anti-Semitism from the mendacious and genocidally racist Zionists and their US Alliance supporters. In actuality, denial of Israeli apartheid is a lie, and the Zionists and their supporters are manifestly mendacious, and both anti-Arab anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish anti-Semitic by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish, Arab,[Read More…]
This month’s publication of Amnesty International UK’s report on Israel and the occupied territories represents the latest declaration of Israel as an apartheid state by an established NGO. It can be read in the context of other such declarations made both in Israel and abroad. The question of where the country lies on a continuum from ‘democracy’ to ‘apartheid state’[Read More…]
Amnesty International’s declaration of Israel as an apartheid state was a resounding announcement that resonated worldwide. The importance of this announcement is that it came from an organization with a respected reputation globally. Amnesty international has human rights lawyers who study every word before publishing the report. It is an organization known with a reliable reference, and its information is[Read More…]
Israel is greatly concerned about the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) effort that seeks: 1) to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians; and 2) to pressure Israel to comply with international law. Israel claims that this campaign is a threat to its legitimacy. Unsurprisingly, Israel doesn’t want to acknowledge that it is its own repeated flouting of[Read More…]
A scheme is underway to withhold or to reduce payments made by the Palestinian Authority to the families of Palestinian prisoners. According to Israeli media, the Biden Administration has requested that the PA entirely overhauls its support system of Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian leadership had already expressed willingness to engage the US in a ‘discussion’. According to Israel’s Channel 12,[Read More…]
On January 27, 2022, the Hebrew-language news site Walla published part of the text from a telegram sent by Amir Weissbrod—who is part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry—to Israeli embassies around the world. The telegram warned the Israeli diplomats that in the upcoming 49th regular session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which is expected to begin on February 28, a report[Read More…]
Image: Nadia Mansour/Facebook Sivan Tal has proposed on Twitter a UN resolution on Nakba denial similar to the Israeli-sponsored resolution approved by the UN General Assembly in January of this year condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging all nations and social media companies “to take active measures to combat antisemitism and Holocaust denial or distortion.” The resolution would[Read More…]
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, is leading his country’s anti-Palestinian propaganda, this time engaging in pre-emptive hasbara in anticipation of a Palestinian response to the ongoing evictions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. “Would you consider it a terror attack if a rock like this was thrown at your car while driving with your children?”[Read More…]
Haaretz, the liberal Zionist Israeli newspaper, along with much of the world, has come a long way since the advent of the BDS movement on the international political scene, and since it ridiculed historian Ilan Pappe in a 2005 story titled “Alone on the Barricades.” At the time, Pappe (who is no longer alone on the barricades) was experiencing a[Read More…]
A recent seminar from the group “Visualizing Palestine” served to present four graphic representations of environmental problems within Israel/Palestine [https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/between-rising-tide-and-apartheid?v=large] The graphics are self-explanatory and need no review here – they are after all graphic, and speak well for themselves. The discussion talked around the graphics, what they emphasized and how they are necessary for a clear understanding of environmental[Read More…]
It is ironic that even former right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had rejected a Knesset (Israeli Parliament) bill which proposed to give the government greater power to control and suppress online content. This was in 2016, and the bill was introduced by Netanyahu’s Likud party rival, Gideon Sa’ar. Some analysts argued that Netanyahu had feared that a law aimed[Read More…]
Given all the attention focused on the covid-19 pandemic, the Build Back Better bill, the January 6th attack on the Capitol and the media-hyped crises over Ukraine and Taiwan this past year, many other important issues have not received much attention. One example is the Palestinian/Israeli situation. Views of Israel There have been some major breakthroughs in the perception of[Read More…]
As soon as media reports emerged regarding a deal between Palestinian prisoner, Hisham Abu Hawash and the Israeli prison authorities, Israeli extremists, led by Knesset member Itamar Ben-Gvir, angrily raided the Assaf Harofeh Hospital where Abu Hawash was being held. A Palestinian political activist, Abu Hawash, 41, is a father of five. He was arrested by the Israeli army from[Read More…]
With Syria still embroiled in its own war, Israel has been actively rewriting the rule book regarding its conduct in this Arab country. Gone are the days of a potential return of the illegally occupied Golan Heights to Syrian sovereignty in exchange for peace, per the language of yesteryears. Now, Israel is set to double its illegal Jewish settler population[Read More…]
At the outset, the Israeli military decision to revise its open-fire policies in the occupied West Bank seems puzzling. What would be the logic of giving Israeli soldiers the space to shoot more Palestinians when existing army manuals had already granted them near-total immunity and little legal accountability? The military’s new rules now allow Isreali soldiers to shoot, even kill,[Read More…]
Haaretz’s investigative report – ‘Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in ’48 – and What Israeli Leaders Knew’ – is a must-read. It should be particularly read by any person who considers himself a ‘Zionist’ and also by people who, for whatever reason, support Israel, anywhere in the world. “In the village of Al-Dawayima (…), troops of the 8th Brigade[Read More…]
Image: From the booklet Ansar III, published by ROOTS and Friends of Palestinian prisoners Every now and then, Haaretz boosts the morale of liberal Zionists by exposing facts and new archived revelations about Zionism’s Nazi-like atrocities against the Palestinian people — but without mentioning the word “Zionism!” Such pieces give the impression that Israel’s atrocities have nothing to do with Zionism but[Read More…]
For whatever reason, some mistakenly perceive the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, as liberal, progressive and even ‘pro-Palestinian’. Of course, none of this is true. This misconstrued depiction of an essentially Zionist and anti-Palestinian newspaper tells of a much bigger story of how confusing Israeli politics is, and how equally confused many of us are in understanding the Israeli political discourse. On[Read More…]
Criticizing the PA and holding it accountable is not anti-Palestinian; it is patriotic and as much a tenet of the resistance movement as criticizing apartheid Israel is. After decades of repression, the resistance movement today gives the Palestinian national struggle for liberation a new direction. But such resistance has never come from the Palestinian Authority (PA), whose reason for existing[Read More…]
The Belgian government’s decision on November 25 to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual. Belgium has historically shown solidarity with Palestine if compared to other European countries, for example, Britain, Germany and France. From the cancellation of trade missions to Israel, to the effusive support by Belgian civil society, artists,[Read More…]
At a recent New York event, the President of the Foreign Press Association Ian Williams declared, before an approving audience, that it is time “to reclaim the narrative on Palestine”. This phrase – ‘reclaiming the narrative’ – is relatively new to the Palestinian discourse. Years ago, the concept, let alone its implementation, were quite alien: the pro-Israel crowd refused, and[Read More…]
by Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo On October 21, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced the issuance of a military order designating six prominent Palestinian human rights groups as ‘terrorist organizations’. Gantz claimed that they are secretly linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a socialist political group that Israel considers, along with most Palestinian political[Read More…]
Image: Masar Badil–Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement Now that news about Masar Badil is beginning to surface, some Palestinians and their allies may be a bit confused. How does this movement differ from initiatives out there, such as the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and the One Democratic State Campaign (ODSC), that have already achieved some traction on the international[Read More…]
Image: Samidoun España activist Jaldia Abubakra — capture from video “Masar Badil on the March in Madrid” “The history of the world is always weak people fighting strong people. Of weak people who have a correct case fighting strong people who use their strength to exploit the weak.” — Ghassan Kanafani Masar Badil, Conference of the Alternative Palestinian Path: Towards a new revolutionary commitment, was[Read More…]
“There is nothing so whole as a broken heart.” Last week (2021-11-04), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV – Canada) presented a webinar (“From IDF to IJV”) telling the story of three Jewish members who were former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) participants, but over the years and through similar yet varying experiences, ended up working with IJV Canada. The host for the[Read More…]
Those who are not familiar with how Israel, particularly the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, is actively and irreversibly damaging the environment might reach the erroneous conclusion that Tel Aviv is at the forefront of the global fight against climate change. The reality is the exact opposite. In his speech at the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Israel’s[Read More…]
The international uproar in response to Israel’s approval of a massive expansion of its illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank may give the impression that such a reaction could, in theory, force Israel to abandon its plans. Alas, it will not, because the statements of ‘concern,’ ‘regrets’, ‘disappointment’ and even outright condemnation are rarely followed by meaningful[Read More…]
Image: Writer and activist Khaled Barakat and Charlotte Kates, Co-coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network at Masar Badil’s march for Palestine in Madrid, Oct 31, 2021 We have long been trained on Facebook and elsewhere to moderate our emotions and hopes for Palestine, so much so that the much-needed uncompromising clarity of Masar Badil’s political response to the current stage[Read More…]
Image; Masar Badil, Conference of the Alternative Palestinian Path: Towards a new revolutionary commitment, in Madrid, Oct. 30, 2021 October 30, 2021 marks a pivotal moment in the course of Palestinian history. It’s been clear for thirty years now that strategy, not disastrous Oslo-like compromise, is what Palestinians must do, and that is exactly the call that rang out at Masar[Read More…]
Understanding that the only recourse for Palestinians is continued revolt Image: Rima Najjar in Madrid blogging on Masar Badil, Conference of the Alternative Palestinian Path: Towards a new revolutionary commitment Stand strong, not only with Palestinian civil society, but with all forms of legitimate resistance to Israel’s domination, control and oppression in Palestine from the river to the sea. That’s[Read More…]
When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the US elections last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden Administration, compared to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump Administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, was the conventional wisdom at the time. Hence, unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, was among the first world leaders to most enthusiastically[Read More…]
We are not afraid, but clearly they are! Image: Aljazeera [2011] “The resistance movement has been growing steadily in Palestine since the Second Intifada — especially in West Bank villages affected by the Separation Wall and illegal settlements” [GALLO/GETTY] There is no escape for Israel from growing Palestinian power. If nothing else, the upcoming Conference of the Alternative Palestinian Path in Madrid[Read More…]
[Rima Najjar: Packing my bags to travel to Madrid, Spain: The Alternative Palestinian Path Conference (Towards a new revolutionary commitment) October-November 2021 Although the world has stood up for Palestine repeatedly through widespread global demonstrations against Israel’s crimes (see The Electronic Intifada’s video clip of May 2021), it still takes a lot of courage for Palestinians to stand up for[Read More…]
As Israel intensified its killing campaign in the Gaza Strip in May, people across the globe took to the streets in solidarity with Palestinians. Others used social media to document, condemn and raise awareness of Israel’s crimes. But Facebook and Instagram users soon noticed their posts being taken down, their accounts suspended and their content receiving reduced visibility. A new report by Human Rights Watch confirms that the[Read More…]
The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell … translation rights of her best-selling novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house”. Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against[Read More…]
Celebrating the path of resistance for the Palestinian people Image: Poster behind writer and activist Khaled Barakat says: “Vietnam — Palestine.” [courtesy of Khaled Barakat] In the interview below, Palestinian writer, researcher and activist Khaled Barakat, co-organizer of Masar Badil (The Alternative Palestinian Path Conference: Towards a new revolutionary commitment, Madrid, Spain, October-November 2021), says: We are confident that the decisions, actions and[Read More…]
There is an unmistakable shift in American politics regarding Palestine and Israel, a change that is inspired by the way in which many Americans, especially the youth, view the Palestinian struggle and the Israeli occupation. While this shift is yet to translate into tangibly diminishing Israel’s stronghold over the US Congress, it promises to be of great consequence in the[Read More…]
Image: Capture on the left is from a Zoom public grievance hearing at SFSU on Sept 30, 2021 over the university administration’s mishandling of Zoom’s cancellation a year ago of an open classroom webinar that included Palestinian feminist icon Leila Khaled on the guest panel. “You cannot pretend nothing has happened!” That was the rallying cry at the San Francisco State[Read More…]
The political division in Palestinian society is deep-rooted, and must not be reduced to convenient claims about the ‘Hamas-Fatah split’, elections, the Oslo accords and subsequent disagreements. The division is linked to events that preceded all of these, and not even the death or incapacitation of the octogenarian, Mahmoud Abbas, will advance Palestinian unity by an iota. Palestinian political disunity[Read More…]
The Palestinian political scene remains bleak. The status quo in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip continues to be backed by the international community at the behest of the the Zionist regime, which is comfortable with having its cake and eating it too, and why shouldn’t it be? In March 2015, then Israeli economy minister Naftali Bennett even proposed[Read More…]
Zakaria Zubeidi is one of six Palestinian prisoners who, on September 6, tunneled their way out of Gilboa, a notorious, high-security Israeli prison. Zubeidi was recaptured a few days later. The large bruises on Zubeidi’s face told a harrowing story, that of a daring escape and of a violent arrest. However, the story does not begin, nor end, there. Twenty[Read More…]
25 years before Israel was established on the ruins of historic Palestine, a Russian Jewish Zionist leader, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, argued that a Jewish state in Palestine could only survive if it exists “behind an iron wall” of defense. Jabotinsky was speaking figuratively. However, future Zionist leaders, who embraced Jabotinsky’s teachings, eventually turned the principle of the iron wall into a[Read More…]
A large Israeli army campaign is taking social media by storm. The unstated aim of what is known as the “#Untie_Our_Hands” initiative is the desire to kill, with no accountability, more Palestinian protesters at the Gaza fence. The campaign was motivated by the killing of an Israeli sniper, Barel Hadaria Shmueli, who was reportedly shot from the Palestinian side of[Read More…]
The killing of four young Palestinians by Israeli occupation soldiers in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, on August 16, is a consequential event, the repercussions of which are sure to be felt in the coming weeks and months. The four Palestinians – Saleh Mohammed Ammar, 19, Raed Ziad Abu Seif, 21, Nour Jarrar, 19, and Amjad[Read More…]
The decision by the African Union Commission, on July 22, to grant Israel observer status membership in the AU was the culmination of years of relentless Israeli efforts aimed at co-opting Africa’s largest political institution. Why is Israel so keen on penetrating Africa? What made African countries finally succumb to Israeli pressure and lobbying? To answer the above questions, one[Read More…]
The experience is a jarring one to stare for even a moment at the scene of the Jewish Nation-State & Occupied Palestinian Territories inextricably joined together; as if one were viewing through a telescope not at one of the universe’s distant galactic black holes, but rather peering back into the black void that exists here, on one of Planet Earth’s[Read More…]
A unique but critical conversation on Israel and Palestine is taking place outside the traditional discourse of Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian quest for liberation. It is an awkward and difficult – but overdue – discussion concerning American Jews’ relation to Israel and their commitment to its Zionist ideology. For many years, Israel has conveniently dubbed Jews who do[Read More…]
There is an ongoing, but hidden, Israeli war on the Palestinians which is rarely highlighted or even known. It is a water war, which has been in the making for decades. On July 26 and 27, two separate but intrinsically linked events took place in the Ein al-Hilweh area in the occupied Jordan Valley, and near the town of Beita,[Read More…]
Image: Left: Palestinians rallying in Lifta, northwest of Jerusalem (Apr 21, 2017). Right: from The Guardian article titled “‘We will return’: the battle to save an ancient Palestinian village from demolition” Much as I welcome the proliferation of articles on saving the ruins of Lifta from the Israeli development industry, I would much rather read articles that focus on saving[Read More…]
Ben & Jerry’s decision to suspend its operations in the occupied Palestinian West Bank is an event that is proving critical to Palestinian efforts, which ultimately aim at holding Israel accountable for its military occupation, apartheid and war crimes. By responding to the Palestinian call for boycotting apartheid Israel, the ice cream giant has delivered a blow to Israel’s attempts[Read More…]
Don’t Cry For Lifta: Palestinians Will Endure – There will never be a movie made titled “The Last of the Palestinians!” “The Jerusalem landscape seen through the ruins of a house at Lifta, 2017” — World Monuments Fund The last thing Palestinians need is to come to terms in sorrow with our dispossession at the hands of the apartheid, settler-colonial Jewish state.[Read More…]
After the most recent Gaza war I was asked to make a presentation to a local service club concerning events in Israel and the Middle East. The presentation started with an introduction of the current global situation, a broad brush covering the U.S. empire, its petrodollar, and the new multipolar geopolitical world. From there, it covered the history that made[Read More…]
Bruised-fist grievance politics as an old imperial ruse Right now in New York we had a couple cases where police grabbed the brother and beat him unmercifully – and then charged him with assaulting them. They used the press to make it look like he’s the criminal and they’re the victim. This is how they do it, and if you[Read More…]
When the Israeli Knesset (parliament) failed to renew what is commonly referred to as the Family Reunification Law, news reports and analyses misrepresented the story altogether. The even split of 59 MKs voting in favor of the law and 59 against it gave the erroneous impression that Israeli lawmakers are equally divided over the right of Palestinians to obtain permanent[Read More…]
“It seems that nothing the Israeli Government ever does to the Palestinians will meet with meaningful condemnation from Western governments. So long as the theft of Palestinian land is done quietly and in small slices, and so long as summary killings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers are done just a few at a time, the USA, Britain, France, Germany etc.[Read More…]
“The Palestinian Authority’s days are numbered”. This assertion has been oft repeated recently, especially after the torture to death on June 24 of a popular Palestinian activist, Nizar Banat, 42, at the hands of PA security goons in Hebron (Al-Khalil). The killing – or ‘assassination’ as some Palestinian rights groups describe it – of Banat, however, is commonplace. Torture in[Read More…]
The world needs to know the horrendous dimensions of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, and of the gross Apartheid Israeli maltreatment of 5.2 million Occupied Palestinians and in particular of the 2 million inmates of the blockaded and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp. A numbers-based summary of these ongoing atrocities will strengthen global Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the intolerable obscenity[Read More…]
Many Palestinians believe that the May 10-21 military confrontation between Israel and the Gaza Resistance, along with the simultaneous popular revolt across Palestine, was a game-changer. Israel is doing everything in its power to prove them wrong. Palestinians are justified to hold this viewpoint; after all, their minuscule military capabilities in a besieged and impoverished tiny stretch of land, the[Read More…]
When Mohammed El-Kurd said that “living in Palestine is like having a policeman in your bed,” he wasn’t employing a rhetorical device or a figure of speech. The analogy is too close to reality to be a simile or metaphor. El-Kurd would know – his family faces imminent displacement from their home so Jewish settlers can occupy their bedrooms in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood[Read More…]
FOR 11 days in May this year, the world watched in horror as Israel’s missile onslaught on the civilians of Gaza went into full swing. According to the WHO, this latest barrage on the strip resulted in the killing of 278, including 66 children, 39 women and 17 elderly people, wounding 9,000. Nearly 17,000 residential and commercial units were smashed, displacing[Read More…]
Just hours after far-right marchers chanted “Death to Arabs!” during a demonstration in the streets of Jerusalem, Israeli war planes bombarded the occupied Gaza Strip early Wednesday morning in the first series of airstrikes launched by the new government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former IDF officer who once boasted that he has “killed a lot of Arabs.” While initial reports indicated that[Read More…]
Somali-born and Muslim American Congresswoman Ilhan Omar recently caused a storm by Tweeting “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked @SecBlinken where people are supposed to go for justice”. She was variously criticized[Read More…]
Today, June 15, 2021, Israeli Jewish supremacists are marching in East Jerusalem as Palestinians call for a ‘Day of Rage’ in response. “We call on all free people everywhere to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and its just cause and end the Israeli aggression on our people and holy places,” The Committee of Islamic and National Groups stated.[Read More…]
On May 25, famous American actor, Mark Ruffalo, tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing ‘genocide’ in Gaza. “I have reflected and wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding, “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now[Read More…]
How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s legacy, now that his historic leadership is likely to end.[Read More…]
On June 6, 2021, Israeli occupation forces detained Palestinian activist and journalist Muna al-Kurd, the leader of the campaign against the ethnic cleansing of the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah. A day before, Al Jazeera Arabic journalist Givara Budeiri was arrested by Israeli police while covering a demonstration in the same area; she was later released from custody. What do[Read More…]
The murderous founding of the state of Israel at the cost of Arab and Jewish lives was brought about by the torching of Palestine into permanent civil war precipitated by an illegal and sham incendiary partition resolution forced through a incomplete incipient UN by American pressure and threats.[1] The resolution embodying a preposterous UN plan of dividing Palestine into seven[Read More…]
Unfounded or unconfirmed charges of antisemitism made by US pro-Israel organizations which are then parroted by the pro-Zionist US mainstream press, always increase when Israeli actions become so hideous they shame even some of its most dedicated supporters. With the latest Israeli shelling of Gaza, its evictions of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem, and the continuing Israeli[Read More…]
Places have left their mark in the historical narrative – Lidice, where the Nazis, in the late spring of 1942, executed 173 men from the Czech village in reprisal for the assassination of Deputy of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich; Wounded Knee, where, on December 29, 1890, a dispute between soldiers from the Seventh U.S. Cavalry Regiment and an arrested band of[Read More…]
THE HOLY DAY & SANCTITY OF THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY Memorial Day is traditionally all about recognizing and keeping alive the supreme sacrifices of all the world’s fallen men, women and children warriors who once put themselves and their lives on the line, and ended up paying the ultimate price – their very existence in this world. On that[Read More…]
The latest crisis in Palestine cannot be set aside as another passing episode in Israel’s forever war against the Palestinian people. We are now witnessing shocks within Israel behind the Green Line, something that Israel had hitherto been able to contain. In the process, it pretended, along with much of the western world, that it is the “longest-lived democracy in[Read More…]
Losses on both sides were profound — U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, May 25 press conference with Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu in Israel, AlJazeera. (All of the following li(n)es were uttered during the same press conference.) Yes. Losses were profound. But not on both sides. On one side, among Palestinians, of whom 253 were killed, including 66 children, and[Read More…]
The ceasefire on May 21 has, for now, brought the Israeli war on Gaza to an end. However, this ceasefire is not permanent and constant Israeli provocations anywhere in Palestine could reignite the bloody cycle all over again. Moreover, the Israeli siege on Gaza remains in place, as well as the Israeli military occupation and the rooted system of apartheid[Read More…]
As the smoke clouds over Gaza and Jerusalem slowly recede, the world nervously watches how long the newly brokered peace would sustain in the conflict-prone region. Though the Egypt brokered ceasefire has brought an end to the current conflict, the triumphant cries by both Hamas and Israel can hardly be heard as conciliatory notes. As their city lay in ruins,[Read More…]
Two historical things have happened recently which have been passed off as non entity because it hurt the business interest of the powerful nations. The UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to form an International inquiry commission to investigate, ‘ “grave human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” including violation of International laws and treaties,[Read More…]
The U.N. Human Right Council has passed a resolution aimed to intensify scrutiny of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, after the U.N. rights chief said Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in their war with Hamas. The 11-day conflict killed at least 248 in Gaza, including 66 children and 39 women. In Israel, 12 people also died, including two children,[Read More…]
The cycle continues. Israel initiated further repression through the expulsion of four families in Sheik Jarrah and storming the Al Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, as if nearly 75 years of the most sustained, brutal state oppression in modern history wasn’t enough. In turn, Hamas threatened retaliation for Sheik Jarrah and Israeli police storming the mosque, but Israel did not relent.[Read More…]
The ‘Palestinian Revolt of 2021’ will go down in history as one of the most influential events that irreversibly shaped collective thinking in and around Palestine. Only two other events can be compared with what has just transpired in Palestine: the revolt of 1936 and the First Intifada of 1987. The general strike and rebellion of 1936-39 were momentous because[Read More…]
The Australian ABC (the taxpayer-funded Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently aired a former US ambassador to Apartheid Israel and the UN rejecting all present Palestine-Israel peace proposals as too hard, and his foreshadowing of a total expulsion of all the Occupied Palestinians from Palestine in coming years. No dissent was offered by the ABC nor any Help[Read More…]
![The Al Jalaa Tower housing Al Jazeera and The Associated Press offices collapses after being hit by Israeli missile in Gaza City [Mohammed Salem/Reuters]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/International-Media-House-Gaza-200x150.jpg "Israel’s Colonial Savagery 432")
On May 24, 2021, Israel’s security apparatus launched a wave of mass arrests against the country’s Palestinian citizens as part of a violent attack on the anti-Zionist resistance movement. These arrests took place as part of a “law and order” campaign i.e. a mission of terrorization wherein thousands of police officers kick into doors, brutalize families and kidnap Palestinians. In[Read More…]
Written by Anandi Pandey and Sandeep Pandey Without consulting anybody from the Arab population, which outnumbered the Jews by about ten times, the British made public their intent to create a national home for Jewish people in Palestine on 2 November, 1917 through the Balfour declaration. Then on 29 November 1947 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution recommending[Read More…]
“The public opinion in the US has also been steadily becoming favourable to the Palestinians…But although Americans are warming to the Palestinians, they still favour Israel by wide margins…Western politicians obviously believe that the Palestinians should accept apartheid quietly, and should have the good grace silently to wither away… “Even if the Israeli military objective is realised, it can only[Read More…]
Here is something that can be said with great confidence. It is racist – antisemitic, if you prefer – to hold Jews, individually or collectively, accountable for Israel’s crimes. Jews are not responsible for Israel’s war crimes, even if the Israeli state presumes to implicate Jews in its crimes by falsely declaring it represents all Jews in the world. Very[Read More…]
One major outcome of the current conflict in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem will be the emergence of Hamas as the charioteer of the Palestinian resistance movement against Israel. The Hamas’ ascendance poses a predicament for a number of countries who would have a sense of involvement with the Palestinian cause. India falls in that category. A policy adjustment becomes necessary.[Read More…]
Too often, simple histories are being manipulated so that the truth is expelled from the dominant narrative. There are many cases, where the voices of the weak are silenced and falsehood is established. Truth is being ignored and frequently even criminalized. Speakers of truth are being discriminated and persecuted. Such is the situation of the Palestinians, and indeed the Arabs[Read More…]
Self-defence, blood lust, ethnic cleansing, disproportionate response, mowing the lawn, genocide, death from the sky. Whatever way you wish to describe the unparalleled violence unleashed on Gaza is up to you. I describe it as shooting or in this case bombing Palestinians in a barrel. Let’s have a brief resume of what’s happened. The district of Sheikh Jarrah is in[Read More…]
The current situation of Israeli house demolitions in Sheikh Jarrah is highlighting the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their indigenous lands in order to protect the demographic dominance of the Israeli Jewish population. The system well under way and being strengthened each year is that of apartheid. Historical moments In pre World War I Europe, the various empires were[Read More…]
The latest US stand on the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict is a mockery of reality. They want to convince the world that they have tried their best to solve the problem but have failed. Now it is up to the Palestinians and the Israelis to find out a solution. That is what Israel wants. It is actually an Israeli[Read More…]
A ceasefire ending 11 days of intense violence in Gaza was announced late Thursday, taking effect in the early hours of Friday. Israeli airstrikes and Palestinian rocket fire from Gaza continued in the hours after the ceasefire was announced and before the time it was due to take effect. But after the clock counted down to ceasefire time, celebrations erupted from Gaza[Read More…]
The Light is Beginning to Shine from Jerusalem yet again! Celebrations have broken out across Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, across all of historic Palestine. Clearly after the 11-day war, the Palestinian Resistance has emerged stronger, with more widespread & greater global support. The struggle of the Palestinian people to safeguard the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah from ethnic[Read More…]
Pain mixed with hope; defiance in the face of unimaginable odds; celebrities show solidarity with Palestine; large protests held in solidarity with Palestinians around the world; Palestinians strike across all of occupied Palestine from the river to the sea; intifada everywhere; a sea change in public perceptions of Palestine and Israel, so much so that NPR this morning called Hamas[Read More…]
In its deadly attacks in densely populated Gaza, the Israeli Defense Force is employing a technique they call “roof knocking.” First drones fire small missiles without warheads on a residential building, intended only to shake the building before armed missiles destroy it minutes later. The IDF calls these “warning shots” and they are often preceded by telephone calls to some[Read More…]
Israeli warplanes and artillery attacks killed several more Palestinians in Gaza and destroyed more than a dozen residential buildings late Tuesday and Wednesday. A journalist, child and woman were among those who died as a result of Israeli strikes, according to Al Mezan, a human rights group in Gaza. The slain journalist, Yousif Abu Hussein, may have been deliberately targeted,[Read More…]
Palestinian protests over the war criminal eviction of Palestinian families from the culturally significant Shaikh Jarrah part of Occupied East Jerusalem led to Israeli soldiers violating the Al Aqsa Mosque compound (the third most holy site in Islam) on Friday 7 May 2021, a highly significant day for Muslims in the week marking the end of Ramadan. In response to[Read More…]
Palestine is considered sacred to all three religions that trace their roots to (Prophet) Abraham; Judaism, Christianity and Islam. For the Jews, this is the place where the temple of (Prophet) Solomon stood, for the Christians this is the place where the Messiah, Jesus Christ was born, preached and was crucified. For the Muslims this is the place from where[Read More…]
Here we go again with yet another deadly and devastating Israeli military attack on Gaza that has captured the world’s attention. However, this current crisis is notably different in scope from the numerous previous major Israeli war crimes against Gaza. This time there was already ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli provocations and violence in occupied East Jerusalem including the egregious[Read More…]
Those who fear the end of democracy take no heed to a fundamental cause of the threat – Israel. President Biden has an opportunity to separate the Democratic Party from the worldwide chauvinists, who believe in their superiority and that might makes right. Followers of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer found guilty of murdering George Floyd, are chauvinists. No[Read More…]
1) Palestine was colonized and replaced by a colonial settler state called “Israel”. The ideas was simply to take a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious country and transform it to a “Jewish state.” The core of this project (Zionism) is ethnic cleansing which started under British Rule (to fulfil the illegal Balfour declaration) and continued and accelerated under more direct Zionism control[Read More…]
From 6th May 2021 while Hamas, a radical Palestinian group has launched missiles on Israelis on the issue related to Al Aqsa mosque, the Israel has launched close to a full scale attack on Palestinians. In this conflict the causalities and destruction has been more on Palestinian side, death of nearly 200 people including 60 children, while on Israeli side[Read More…]
“I said we would exact a very heavy price from Hamas and other terror groups, and we are doing so and will continue to do so with great force,” Netanyahu said in a fiery video address. Israel’s PM Netanyahu is a war criminal and should be held accountable for war crimes throughout his PM-ship of Israel, according to the 1945 /[Read More…]
From the outset, some clarification regarding the language used to depict the ongoing violence in occupied Palestine, and also throughout Israel. This is not a ‘conflict’. Neither is it a ‘dispute’ nor ‘sectarian violence’ nor even a war in the traditional sense. It is not a conflict, because Israel is an occupying power and the Palestinian people are an occupied[Read More…]
There seems no end to the Zionist carnage in Gaza. On May 16, 2021, the US blocked for the third time within a week a statement at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemning Israeli violence against Palestinians and urging a ceasefire in Gaza. The blocked statement by the US was introduced by Norway, Tunisia, and China after an emergency Security[Read More…]
Human rights groups are calling for an urgent investigation by the International Criminal Court as Israel’s merciless pounding of Gaza enters its second week. More than 200 Palestinians in the Strip have been killed since last Monday, including 60 children and 34 women, according to Al Mezan, a human rights group based in the territory. Three of the women were pregnant when[Read More…]
Israel’s Defense Minister expressed gratitude to the U.S. for blocking a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire for the third time in a row. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the western part of Gaza, according to the Jerusalem Post, while local reports suggested that an office for Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs was targeted, as well as agricultural lands. A recent[Read More…]
On 8th May, Israeli occupation forces attacked the Palestinian protestors outside the old city, a day after they stormed Al-Aqsa Mosque and injured about 200 Palestinians. According to the reports, 90 people have been grievously injured so far. Israeli police used bullet and stun grenades to inflict violence on the protestors, made several arrests and destroyed solidarity tents. The[Read More…]
Palestinian casualties of Israeli bombs that according to Mr. Netanyahu, targeted the “terrorists” in Gaza Like most Israeli/Palestinian clashes of the past, recent clash was also triggered and fomented by the Israelis. Al Jazeera reports that “Anger has been growing over the forced expulsion of Palestinian families [by the Israelis] from the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, who[Read More…]
Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But[Read More…]
Israel in the early hours of Sunday night obliterated multiple generations of families when it bombed their homes in Gaza. Around 1 am, Israeli warplanes launched a savage bombing campaign lasting at least an hour, firing 50 missiles at the area surrounding al-Wihda street in Gaza City. Without warning, the bombs hit residential buildings, bringing them down on top of[Read More…]
Written by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud On April 1, a mural appeared in the Southern Italian city of Naples, depicting Palestinian workers lining at an Israeli military checkpoint near the occupied city of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. It is called ‘Welcome to Bethlehem’. The mural, which quickly became popular in the town and on social media, was the[Read More…]
After the darkest night, there is always a dawn We are all absolutely distraught and destroyed (as I am sure you and all people with hearts must be) with what is happening in Gaza/Palestine, which started with the attack on Al Aqsa during the night prayer on the 27th night of Ramadan, one of our holiest nights and has now[Read More…]
More than 17,000 Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing yet another episode of displacement as Israel escalated its attack on civilian infrastructure on Saturday, the 73rd annual commemoration of Nakba Day. At least 145 Palestinians in Gaza, including 41 children, have been killed since Israel began bombing it on Monday. Around 1,000 more have been injured. We have now documented 41 Palestinian[Read More…]
Israel has bombed the building that houses media offices including AP, Al Jazeera , AJEnglish and other international news organisations. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties in Saturday’s attack. Live Al Jazeera video showed the 11-storey Al-Jalaa building, which also houses a number of residences and other offices, crashing to the ground after being bombed as dust[Read More…]
Israel is not exercising “the right to defend itself” in the occupied Palestinian territories. It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime. Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014[Read More…]
May 15, 2021, marks the 73rd anniversary of Nakba (catastrophe). 1948, the year Israel was created, was also the year of the dispossession and expulsion of three-quarters of a million Palestinians and the destruction of more than 500 hundred villages and localities. Israel’s founding violently fragmented the Palestinian people and pushed them into multiple zones of space and classification: those[Read More…]
Women and children account for nearly half of the more than 120 Palestinians killed in Gaza since Monday, according to Al-Mezan, a human rights group in the territory. This contradicts Israel’s claims that it is targeting Hamas infrastructure and making great efforts to avoid harming civilians. The death toll will likely climb higher as bodies are recovered from the rubble of the[Read More…]
Leaders in whose hands great trust is placed by their people must have an equally great sense of responsibility of not misusing this trust and of using their position and accompanying power very carefully. Israel is obviously a very important country which has elected Benjamin Netanyahu five times to the post of its Prime Minister. Well, he wasn’t always elected[Read More…]
![Double photo of the wall in Abu Dis:
Two photos joined, taken from the identical spot on either side of the Israeli wall as it severs Abu Dis in two (left=east, right=west; note the same minaret in both photos). The wall orphans Abu Dis on the right side into East Jerusalem. This both enlarges Israel’s claimed annexation of East Jerusalem, and facilitates the ethnic cleansing of the area’s people, since they now have the “wrong” ID cards (West Bank instead of East Jerusalem) in Israel’s bantustan system for non-Jews. Palestinians on the left side cannot go to the right side without special permission; for foreigners, it is perhaps a half-hour drive. Although Palestinians on the right side are free to go to the left side, they will likely never be able to return to the right side if they do. [photos: T Suárez]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/West-Ban-Apartheid-Separation-Wall-200x150.jpg "Palestine: Five pivotal media fudges that empower Israel's ongoing crimes 495")
The western mass media’s coverage of the so-called “conflict” in Israel-Palestine is so flawed as to turn upside-down the public’s understanding of what is happening. Following are five specific points that are particularly relevant to the current violence. East Jerusalem is not in Israel. News analyses of Israeli actions at Sheikh Jarrah and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are invariably premised as[Read More…]
Dr. Akram Kewidar, an assistant professor at the Israa University, Gaza, has sent me videos of the Zionist carnage occurring in the Palestinian enclave. Israeli bombs are reducing entire residential buildings to dust and rubble; bodies lie mangled in pulverized cars; corpses are strewn on the streets like the remains of flattened houses. As I write these words, nearly 83[Read More…]
Israel pounded the Gaza Strip for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday, with the health ministry in the territory reporting more than 100 killed in the most severe military offensive there since 2014. Palestinian armed groups in Gaza continued to retaliate by firing projectiles towards Israel. Seven people, including a soldier and two children, have been killed in rocket strikes in Israel[Read More…]
UN head Antonio Guterres implored the warring parties in Israel and Gaza to halt the bloodshed, amid reports that Israeli officials rejected a ceasefire plan floated by Egypt. “Out of respect for the spirit of Eid, I appeal for an immediate de-escalation and cessation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel,” the UN secretary-general said in a tweet on Thursday night.[Read More…]
Where is Peace, and Where Are the Forces of Justice and Peace? While the overwhelming concern just now should of course be for steps which can check violence immediately, troubling questions remain as to what exactly have the efforts of over seven decades achieved for bringing justice to the people of Palestine and peace to the wider troubled region. While[Read More…]
More than 130 prominent Indians condemn the attacks on the Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque & the residents of Sheikh Jarrah, by the Israeli apartheid regime. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, as they valiantly resist the Israeli attempts to target & ethnically cleance the residents of Sheikh Jarrah & Silwan, both suburbs of East Jerusalem. We[Read More…]
The Biden administration is reportedly blocking the release of a United Nations Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire as Israel continues its devastating assault on the occupied Gaza Strip, killing dozens of Palestinians and injuring hundreds more. According to Reuters, which cited anonymous diplomats and sources familiar with the Biden administration’s strategy, the United States is “delaying” the U.N.[Read More…]
Israel deliberately destroyed a residential tower in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday despite warnings from Palestinian resistance groups not to target civilian infrastructure. Videos circulated on social media show the al-Hanadi apartment building collapsing after it was struck by an Israeli missile. #فيديو الاحتلال يدمر برج هنادي غرب مدينة #غزة الذي يضم 13 طابقا وأكثر من 40 شقة#غزة_تحت_القصف pic.twitter.com/3K9crPGgRt —[Read More…]
There are two separate Sheikh Jarrah stories – one read and watched in the news and another that receives little media coverage or due analysis. The obvious story is that of the nightly raids and violence meted out by Israeli police and Jewish extremists against Palestinians in the devastated East Jerusalem neighborhood. For weeks, thousands of Jewish extremists have targeted[Read More…]
Written by Ali Abunimah, Maureen Clare Murphy and Tamara Nassar Twenty Palestinians, nine of them children, were killed in Israeli bombing attacks in the Gaza Strip on Monday night. This came at the end of a day of violence that began in occupied East Jerusalem, where Israeli forces assaulted worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque compound, injuring hundreds. Scenes of brutality[Read More…]
American Muslim civil advocacy groups have denounced what they called Israeli aggression on unarmed Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque. The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the largest coalition of major national, regional, and local Muslim organizations and Islamic institutions, strongly condemned the ongoing Israeli violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan that Friday night (7 May / 25 Ramadan) alone seriously[Read More…]
The decision on April 30 by Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to ‘postpone’ Palestinian elections, which would have been the first in 15 years, will deepen Palestinian division and could, potentially, signal the collapse of the Fatah Movement, at least in its current form. Unlike the last Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the big story, this time, was not the[Read More…]
Criticism of Israel’s policies towards Palestinians has always induced a defensive rage from its defenders and advocates. A Threshold Crossed, a report by Human Rights Watch, lit several fires of rage and disapproval. Israel, according to the authors, is responsible for apartheid policies. The word, and the application of its meaning, is immemorially nasty. This deeply though through policy of[Read More…]
Professor Heike Schotten — Still captured from We Will Not Be Silenced webinar at the University of Massachusetts Boston After Heike Schotten, Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB), co-organized and moderated a webinar at the University of Massachusetts Boston entitled We Will not Be Silenced: The Repression of Academic Freedom and Resistance, from Leila Khaled to UMass Boston, UMB’s[Read More…]
At a recent virtual J Street Conference, US Senators, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren broke yet another political taboo when they expressed willingness to leverage US military aid as a way to pressure Israel to respect Palestinian human rights. Sanders believes that the US “must be willing to bring real pressure to bear, including restricting US aid, in response to[Read More…]
Left inset, JVP’s Executive Director Stefanie Fox/ Right: Professor Rabab Abdelhadi of AMED Studies, SFSU Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has come a long way since its liberal Zionist days, finally declaring its anti-Zionist position, and has since been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause. But apparently there are still limits. These limits surfaced in a recent meeting between JVP’s[Read More…]
It was that time of the year last month, that Israelis rushed to the ballot lines to express their democratic right to vote for the Israeli parliament – the Knesset, for the third spring in a row. Israel takes pride in its “Jewish democracy” and claims that it does not discriminate non-Jews, while in fact it uses its engineered Jewish[Read More…]
COVID-19 cases in Palestine, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic services like clean water, electricity, or minimally-equipped hospitals. Therefore,[Read More…]
At a 2018 rally in Washington DC [Rima Najjar] In Israel, they are all about entrenching the Zionist regime in Palestine from the river to the sea; in the occupied territories, they are all about liberation and de-Zionization. Chances are, you are unaware that Palestinian elections are in the offing. But if you are following them, there is a lot to[Read More…]
Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal (still from “Weaponizing anti-Semitism: IHRA and Ending the Palestine Exception.” For Palestinians, it takes a lot of courage to say, “Let’s talk about what Zionism means to Palestinians… We are not allowed to question the concept of Jewish self-determination in historic Palestine,” as Dima Khalidi, founder and director of Palestine Legal expresses[Read More…]
Australia’s Labor Party’s recognition of Palestine as a State on March 30 is a welcomed position, though it comes with many caveats. Pro-Palestinian activists are justified to question the sincerity of the ALP’s stance and whether Australia’s Labor is genuinely prepared to fully adopt this position should they form a government following the 2022 elections. The language of the amendment[Read More…]
The Israeli government’s position regarding an impending investigation by the International Criminal Court of alleged war crimes committed in occupied Palestine has been finally declared by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “It will be made clear that Israel is a country with rule of law that knows how to investigate itself,” Netanyahu said in a statement on April 8. Subsequently,[Read More…]
If imprisoned Palestinian leader, Marwan Barghouti, becomes the President of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the status quo will change substantially. For Israel, as well as for the current PA President, Mahmoud Abbas, such a scenario is more dangerous than another strong Hamas showing in the upcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections. The long-delayed elections, now scheduled for May 22 and July 31[Read More…]
A Palestinian man, Atef Yousef Hanaysha, was killed by Israeli occupation forces on March 19 during a weekly protest against illegal Israeli settlement expansion in Beit Dajan, near Nablus, in the northern West Bank. Although tragic, the above news reads like a routine item from occupied Palestine, where shooting and killing unarmed protesters is part of the daily reality. However,[Read More…]
Left: Dr. Nasser al-Qidwa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Yasser Arafat Foundation; Right: Hani Almasri, General Manager of Masarat Center — مركز مسارات At long last, there is a credible challenge from within to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA), an increasingly autocratic and unpopular body that has a limited administrative function over enclaves in the Israeli occupied territories. This challenge[Read More…]
Many Palestinian intellectuals and political analysts find themselves in the unenviable position of having to declare a stance on whether they support or reject upcoming Palestinian elections which are scheduled for May 22 and July 30. But there are no easy answers. The long-awaited decree by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last January to hold legislative and presidential elections in[Read More…]
Lee Camp (left) and Sivan Tal — captured from Moment of Clarity There is a “crack in the veneer that Israel can just oppress and destroy Palestinian lives forever” is how Lee Camp sums up after interviewing Sivan Tal in Moment of Clarity about the latter’s decision (along with his wife Dori) to refuse to allow his son to be conscripted in the[Read More…]
To dismantle a system of oppression, intensely radical politics are required. That is why any resolution to the Palestinian Nakba in the form of a unitary state cannot possibly retain the fiction that Jews world-wide are a monolith “people” who need to be in-gathered in one place, that place being a geographic territory colonized and violently seized by atheist East[Read More…]
Written by Romana Rubeo and Ramzy Baroud On February 4, representatives from the Palestinian Movement, Hamas, visited Moscow to inform the Russian government of the latest development on the unity talks between the Islamic Movement and its Palestinian counterparts, especially Fatah. This was not the first time that Hamas’s officials traveled to Moscow on similar missions. In fact, Moscow continues[Read More…]
It’s time for a fresh start for Palestine, as Prince Hassan says, but a truly fresh start, not a variant mutation of the toxic past It’s déjà vu time for Palestine; we have lived through the same fiasco before only to get bogged down in the Oslo poisoned swamp. Déjà vu washed over me as I read a letter by[Read More…]
For Palestinians, exile is not simply the physical act of being removed from their homes and their inability to return. It is not a casual topic pertaining to politics and international law, either. Nor is it an ethereal notion, a sentiment, a poetic verse. It is all of this, combined. The death in Amman of Palestinian poet, Mourid Barghouti, an[Read More…]
I think it is. The tide of international dissent against Israel’s impunity is becoming a torrent since the introduction by the IHRA, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance of what they have defined as ‘Antisemitism’. This new definition has been interpreted and used as a weapon to bash, intimidate and silence any voices of criticism against the government of Israel. Even the[Read More…]
Motivated by their justifiable aversion to former US President Donald Trump, many analysts have rashly painted a rosy picture of how Democrats could quickly erase the bleak trajectory of the previous Republican administration. This naivety is particularly pronounced in the current spin on the Palestinian-Israeli discourse, which is promoting, again, the illusion that Democrats will succeed where their political rivals[Read More…]
Soapbox (described on Facebook as Russia state-controlled media) is circulating a video of veteran Israeli journalist Gideon Levy lecturing against the Zionist occupation of the West Bank. In the first few frames Levy says: “Palestine must be demilitarized.” Sorry, why should Palestine be demilitarized? Don’t they [Palestinians] have their right to self-defense? Levy is here defending Palestinians’ right to armed[Read More…]
Israeli anxiety was palpable when it was reported that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was not contacted by the new American President, Joe Biden, for days after the latter’s inauguration. While much is being read into Biden’s decision, including Washington’s lack of enthusiasm to return to the ‘peace process’, Moscow is generating much attention as a possible alternative to the[Read More…]
Claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral candidate, Andrew Yang, in a recent op-ed in the Jewish weekly, ‘The Forward’, point to the prevailing ignorance that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel. Yang, a former Democratic Presidential candidate, is vying for the Jewish vote in New York City. According to the reductionist assumption that[Read More…]
The Pakistani government should never, under any circumstances and no matter the pressure, normalize with Israel. Doing so is not only dangerous – as it will embolden an already vile, racist, violent apartheid Israel – but it would also be considered a betrayal of a historic legacy of mutual solidarity, collective affinity and brotherhood that have bonded Palestinians and Pakistanis[Read More…]
Facebook is “independently engaging with experts and stakeholders” to discuss the usage of the term “Zionist.” According to The Verge, Facebook allows the term “in political discourse,” but not “when it’s used as a proxy for Jews or Israelis in a dehumanizing or violent way.” I am not an expert on Zionism though I have a book-shelf of information about[Read More…]
I have been trying to normalize anti-Zionist, anti-Israel speech through my writing and social-media activism for many years now. It hasn’t been easy (see my account of suing Quora for muzzling anti-Zionist speech here). In today’s climate of right-wing vigilantism, it has just gotten worse. I am now the target of a campaign to cancel my Medium blog, where I[Read More…]
As I watch the unfolding political drama of the impeachment trial in the US Senate, the glimmer of hope for change I had following the incredible scenes at the Capitol on Jan 6 is being dimmed. The question in my mind now is whether it is even possible, with the tools being used by Joe Biden, to turn the tide[Read More…]
In the wake of the January 6 insurrection, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have us believe that the United States and Israel have a common enemy. Pelosi implies that the American insurrectionists whose ideologies are rooted in racism, xenophobia and supremacy represent a threat to both the US and Israel — i.e., she believes antisemitism threatens the well-being and sanctity of the[Read More…]
On January 11, the Israeli Lod District Court ruled against a Palestinian film-maker, Mahmoud Bakri, ordering him to pay hefty compensation to an Israeli soldier who was accused, along with the Israeli military, of carrying out war crimes in April 2002, in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp located in the northern occupied West Bank. The case, as presented by Israeli[Read More…]
Israel’s decision to exclude Palestinians from its COVID-19 vaccination campaign may have surprised many. Even by Israel’s poor humanitarian standards, denying Palestinians access to life-saving medication seems extremely callous. Amnesty International, among many organizations, condemned the Israeli government’s decision to bar Palestinians from receiving the vaccine. The rights group described the Israeli action as evidence of the “institutionalized discrimination[Read More…]
Written by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo As the US ruling elites have fully succumbed to Israel’s political discourse on Palestine, the Israeli government of right-wing Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, may feel that it, alone, is capable of determining the future of the Palestinian people. This conclusion is, perhaps, gleaned from Israel’s behavior in recent years and months. The expansion[Read More…]
2020 will go down in history as the year that terminated the American-sponsored ‘peace process’. While 2021 will not reverse the monumental change in the US attitude and objectives in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East, the new year presents Palestinians with the opportunity to think outside the American box. The previous year began with an unmistakable American push to[Read More…]
On 25 December, 2020, Israel bombed Gaza for six continuous hours as much of the world celebrated Christmas. A children’s hospital, a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, a mosque, as well as private residences, were damaged. A six-year-old girl and a young man were injured, and much of the targeted region lost water and electricity. A fire broke out at the location of the[Read More…]
Politically, there is a clear difference between Biden and Trump, but for the Palestinians, they both favor Israel over us — Palestinian taxi driver Ahmed Zayed, former member of Fatah, The Christian Science Monitor, December 2 Two days after that article was published in the Christian Science Monitor, Israeli Occupation Forces killed a teenage Palestinian boy named Ali Ayman Saleh[Read More…]
Without a doubt, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one of the most irresolvable conflicts of our time. It has been the subject of the world’s top conflict resolution convoys, committees and UN-backed peace talks. As yet, it seems to only get worse with time. And the reason why this is the case is because this conflict is not only a dispute over territorial land. It is first and foremost a conflict of ideologies and narratives. As any conflict of ideologies, power dynamics intervene to champion only the most dominant narrative. Therefore, the recent rise of the Palestinian literary narrative could[Read More…]
December 8 came and went as if it was an ordinary day. For Palestinian political groups, it was another anniversary to be commemorated, however hastily. It was on this day, thirty-three years ago, that the First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) broke out, and there was nothing ordinary about this historic event. Today, the uprising is merely viewed from a historic point[Read More…]
I am revising a previous article, Palestine’s Achilles Heel: The Begging Bowl, to expose that the normalisation of the recent UAE and Moroccan ties with the Jewish ‘state’ of Israel brokered by Trump is a piddly PR show. Spoiler alert! The Arab normalisation occurred 72 years ago and has never let up. This explains why Trump was not awarded the[Read More…]
No one seemed as excited about the election of Joe Biden being the next President of the United States as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived like a conquering knight on a white horse and swept the Palestinian leader away to safety. Abbas was[Read More…]
Once again, Europe’s top diplomats expressed their ‘deep concern’ regarding Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement expansion, again evoking the maxim that Israeli actions “threaten the viability of the two-state solution”. This position was communicated by EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Josep Borrell, on November 19, during a video-conference with Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki. All Israeli settlements are illegal under international[Read More…]
An Archetypical Anglo-American Colonial Crime Against Humanity! In order to militarily penetrate the oil rich Middle East, a courageous and noble socialist Zionism and despised Holocaust survivors, denied refugee status, were used by an Anglo-American colonial business elite that was anti-Semitic in outlook, coldly indifferent and even complicit, during the Holocaust its investments in rearming Germany made possible. An Archetypical[Read More…]
In recent months, Israel made diplomatic deals with two Middle East countries such as the UAE and Bahrain. These formal diplomatic ties, brokered by the USA which earlier revealed a Middle East peace plan, have immediately caused heavy criticisms among many Muslim countries in the Arab region and beyond. Of course, mounting criticisms are not surprising at all since Muslims[Read More…]
In a few words, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, summed up the logic behind the ongoing frenzy to expand illegal Jewish settlements in Israel. “These days are an irreplaceable opportunity to establish our hold on the Land of Israel, and I’m sure that our friend, President (Donald) Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu will be able to[Read More…]
The United Nations has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for Palestinian self-determination and end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967. The resolution was approved on Thursday by the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee — the committee that deals with human rights and humanitarian affairs. It was passed 163 to 5, with 10 abstentions. Those who voted against were:[Read More…]
Belgium is furious. On November 6, the Belgian government condemned Israel’s destruction of Belgian-funded homes in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Understandably, Brussels wants the Israeli government to pay compensation for the unwarranted destruction. The Israeli response was swift: a resounding ‘no’. The diplomatic row is likely to fizzle out soon; neither will Israel cease its illegal demolitions of Palestinian[Read More…]
Weakened by Joe Biden’s electoral defeat of US President Donald J. Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu risks being caught between a rock and a hard place as Jordan, the Palestine Authority and the United Arab Emirates manoeuvre for control of what is to Jews the Temple Mount and to Muslims the Haram ash-Sharif, the third most holy site in[Read More…]
“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world.” These were the words of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, during a virtual meeting with European legislators on November 3. While some may agree with Shtayyeh’s assessment, such utterances by a top Palestinian official are[Read More…]
An UN document, Why teach about the Holocaust asserts, “Never before had civilians been targeted by military planners with such disregard for human life. Never before had a state pursued, as a matter of national policy, the complete and total destruction of groups identified as unworthy of living.” For the people of Palestine suffering the savage and sadistic 72-year Zionist[Read More…]
The discussion on institutional Israeli racism against its own Palestinian Arab population has all but ceased following the final approval of the discriminatory Nation-State Law in July 2018. Indeed, the latest addition to Israel’s Basic Law is a mere start of a new government-espoused agenda that is designed to further marginalize over a fifth of Israel’s population. On Wednesday, October[Read More…]
Co-Written by Mohammad al-Deirawi and Ramzy Baroud Mohammad Ibrahim Ali al-Deirawi was born on January 30, 1978 in Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. His family is originally from Bir Al-Saba’, an ethnically cleansed Palestinian town located in the southern Naqab desert. Mohammad was arrested by the Israeli army at a military checkpoint in central Gaza on March 1,[Read More…]
Why does Israel hate Palestinian singer, Mohammed Assaf? On October 16, Avi Dichter, Israeli Member of Parliament from the right-wing Likud Party, announced that Assaf’s special permit to enter the occupied Palestinian West Bank would be revoked. Assaf, originally from Gaza, now lives with his family in the United Arab Emirates. He achieved stardom in 2013, when he won the[Read More…]
In theory, Europe and the United States stand on completely opposite sides when it comes to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. While the US government has fully embraced the tragic status quo created by 53 years of Israeli military occupation, the EU continues to advocate a negotiated settlement that is predicated on respect for international law. In practice, however, despite[Read More…]
Co-Written by Romana Rubeo & Ramzy Baroud A Zionist-led war on a Palestinian cultural festival in Rome has exposed the fragility of the Italian political system when it comes to the conversation on Palestine and Israel. The sad truth is that, although Italy is not often associated with a ‘powerful’ pro-Israel lobby as is the case in Washington, the pro-Israel[Read More…]
The Abraham Accord signed recently between Israel on the one hand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain on the other, is touted as a peace deal. They were not at war. There was peace between them and much behind the scenes cooperation, reportedly for the last decade. Reports have it that the Accord promises Israel millions of dollars[Read More…]
Over the past year several articles penned by this writer have questioned how well-suited Joe Biden is to lead the Democratic Party’s Progressive Movement in 2020 to make the kind of dramatic changes so sorely needed in every aspect of the American government, society, culture, foreign policy, universal health care and welfare of the American people. Specific questions have been[Read More…]
“No one cares about the prisoners.” Over the past few years, I have heard this phrase – or some variation of it – uttered many times by freed Palestinian prisoners and their families. Whenever I conduct an interview regarding this crucial and highly sensitive topic, I am told, repeatedly, that ‘no one cares.’ But is this really the case? Are[Read More…]
Palestine under siege for 72 years. A UK-prompted UN decision in 1947 allowed David Ben-Gurion, then the head of the Jewish Agency, to proclaim on May 14, 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, a UN proposal, recommended a partition of “Mandatory Palestine” at the end of the British Mandate. “Mandatory Palestine” (picture to the left[Read More…]
‘International law’ remains one of the most discussed terms in the context of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It is almost always present, whether the discussion pertains to the Israeli wars and siege on Gaza, the expansion of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank or the encroaching apartheid throughout Israel and the Occupied Territories. Despite the importance and relevance[Read More…]
Let me share a true story about the abuse of innocence. Mohammad Al Halabi, World Vision-Australia’s respected Gaza/WB coordinator, has been been illegally held without charge and tortured by Israel since 2016 and is forced to futilely attend court – now 151 times! He is due in court again on 18-11-2020. Mohammad is a man of peace and love. On[Read More…]
It is abundantly clear that Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, has underestimated the seriousness of the challenges facing Palestine and the Palestinians. The rushed agreement between his party, Fatah and Hamas in Istanbul on September 24, and the Palestinian leader’s speech at the 75th session of the UN General Assembly the following day, indicate that the Palestinian leadership insists on[Read More…]
by Wafaa Aludaini and Ramzy Baroud The inevitable has finally happened, and the coronavirus pandemic is now ravaging the besieged Gaza Strip. On August 24, a total lockdown was imposed by the Gaza authorities following the discovery of several COVID-19 cases outside designated quarantine areas. Since then, over 1,000 cases have been identified and ten people have died. Experts estimate[Read More…]
Palestine can never be truly understood through numbers, because numbers are dehumanizing, impersonal, and, when necessary, can also be contrived to mean something else entirely. Numbers are not meant to tell the story of the human condition, nor should they ever serve as a substitute for emotions. Indeed, the stories of life, death – and everything in-between – cannot be[Read More…]
The accepted definition of Apartheid by the United Nations and the International criminal court is as follows: ‘Apartheid refers to the implementation and maintenance of a system of legalized racial segregation in which one racial group is deprived of political and civil rights. Apartheid is a crime against humanity punishable under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It[Read More…]
The polarized nature of American politics often makes it difficult to address fundamental differences between the country’s two main political rivals, Republicans and Democrats. As each side is intent on discrediting the other at every opportunity, unbiased information regarding the two parties’ actual stances on internal and external issues can be difficult to decipher. Regarding Palestine and Israel, however, both[Read More…]
The bombings have begun. Sharp splinters of smooth, shiny bombs Penetrate into the rugged dreams of Palestinian emancipation Blinding, bruising, and burying it under the soot of crushing colonialism. Amid the bombardment, shaky screams of subjugated children Rend the sky into flakes of agony, Each flake swirling in a vortex of indescribable pain, Clenching in its fist the veined heart[Read More…]
On September 2, the Israeli government approved a proposal that allows the military to indefinitely withhold the bodies of Palestinians who have been killed by the Israeli army. The proposal was made by the country’s Defense Minister, Benny Gantz. Gantz is the main political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also serves the role of the ‘alternate Prime Minister.’[Read More…]
I believe that for us Arabs to survive and progress we must have in common more than religion, language and rhetoric. We need unity, transparency and honesty. We Palestinians are teetering on the edge of a precipice. Until very recently, every Arab leader, politician, cleric and pundit, given half a chance, would mount the platform and raise the Palestinian flag[Read More…]
On August 31, 2020, Hamas announced that it had reached a ceasefire with Israel that would end the recent hostilities in Gaza. Since 6 August, the besieged Palestinian enclave was being bombed daily by the Israeli forces. In order to bomb Gaza, the “terror balloon” narrative has been used by the Zionist state. These so-called “terror balloons” are contraptions made from everyday materials, gas-soaked[Read More…]
Missing from thoughtful decision is that the Emirates bewildering moment and the shattered Palestinian moment are due to a misrepresentation of what is called the Middle East conflict. The misrepresentation has led to a fallacious approach for rectification, and an impasse for obtaining peace with justice. Even the terminology seems incorrect. Is this a conflict between Palestinians and Zionists or has it[Read More…]
Israeli settlements or Jewish communities in Occupied Palestine Territories, especially in the East Jerusalem and West Bank, are a major historical cause of concern, not only for Palestine and Israel but also for the entire Arab region and beyond. In fact, every Israeli effort to build expansionary settlements and outposts has, of course, created chaos between Palestine and Israeli and[Read More…]
The decision by the UAE to establish diplomatic relations with Israel keeps a negotiated solution with Palestine on life support. There is no indication that forging relations with Israel will be more successful in nudging the Jewish state towards peace with Palestine on mutually acceptable terms than the failed formula of offering Arab recognition in exchange for peace was. Like[Read More…]
On August 16, the Israeli navy declared the Gaza sea a closed military zone. A few days later, a group of Gaza fishermen decided to take their chances by fishing within a mere two or three nautical miles off the Gaza shore. No sooner had they cast their nets, Israeli navy bullets began whizzing all around them. Soon after the[Read More…]
Only recently, the Palestinian group, Hamas, and Israel seemed close to reaching a prisoner exchange agreement, where Hamas would release several Israeli soldiers held in Gaza while Israel would set free an unspecified number of Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons. Instead of the much-anticipated announcement of some kind of a deal, on August 10, Israeli bombs began falling on[Read More…]
Palestinians are not going anywhere. This is the gist of seven decades of Palestinian struggle against Zionist colonialism. The proof? The story of Ahmed Amarneh. Amarneh, a 30-year-old civil engineer from the northern West Bank village of Farasin, lives with his family in a cave. For many years, the Amarneh family has attempted to build a proper home, but their[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo The notion that ‘Canada is better’, especially when compared with US foreign policy, has persisted for many years. Recent events at the United Nations have, however, exposed the true nature of Canada’s global position, particularly in the matter of its blind and unconditional support for Israel. On June 17, Canada lost its second[Read More…]
Nazareth: When the Palestinian actor Mohammed Bakri made a documentary about Jenin in 2002 – filming immediately after the Israeli army had completed rampaging through the West Bank city, leaving death and destruction in its wake – he chose an unusual narrator for the opening scene: a mute Palestinian youth. Jenin had been sealed off from the world for nearly[Read More…]
What will it take for the idea of a two-state solution, which was hardly practical to begin with, to be completely abandoned? Every realistic assessment of the situation on the ground indicates, with palpable clarity, that there can never be a viable Palestinian state in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. Politically, the idea is also untenable. Those who[Read More…]
As illegal Jewish settlers increase their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied city of Al Khalil (Hebron), the people of the Palestinian city continue to mount a campaign of popular resistance. One of the channels of resistance is Human Rights Defenders, “a grass-roots, non-partisan Palestinian organization, working to support nonviolent popular resistance through popular direct action and documentation of[Read More…]
When International Court of Justice (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, confirmed last December that the Court has ample evidence to pursue a war crimes investigation in occupied Palestine, the Israeli government responded with the usual rhetoric, accusing the international community of bias and insisting on Israel’s ‘right to defend itself.’ Beneath the platitudes and typical Israeli discourse, the Israeli government knew[Read More…]
The one-state cannot be achieved without changing Israel’s legal and administrative structures, difficult tasks whose possibilities are remote. Deposing the characteristics of the Zionist mission that defines Israel is more plausible. Deposition precedes imposition; destroying the framework that supports Israel allows a new foundation for constructing a new state ─ a one-state, the natural state. Now that the two state[Read More…]
For the first time since the Israeli war on Gaza in 2014, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is signaling its willingness to engage in negotiations regarding the release of the bodies of two Israeli soldiers believed to be held by resistance groups in Gaza. But will another prisoner exchange similar to that of October 2011 follow anytime[Read More…]
In a recent TV discussion, a respected pro-Palestine journalist declared that if any positive change or transformation ever occurs in the tragic Palestinian saga, it would not happen now, but that it would take a whole new generation to bring about such a paradigm shift. As innocuous as the declaration may have seemed, it troubled me greatly. I have heard[Read More…]
In all the years that I have been involved in the desperate story of my country and my people I have never felt more despair than at this moment. My despair does not stem from the loss of faith in my people’s ability to fight, resist and sacrifice. No, not at all. We Palestinians have been resisting and fighting our[Read More…]
The only traceable copy of the document, though not the one commonly quoted. (The Klau Library, Hebrew Union College) Jaffa, June 20, 1920, Herbert Samuel’s arrival in Palestine, ten days before the end of military rule and the beginning of his tenure as High Commissioner. (Library of Congress) Original hand-written title: Sir Herbert Samuel reading his Proclamation to the notables[Read More…]
Wednesday, July 1, was meant to be the day on which the Israeli government officially annexed 30% of the occupied Palestinian West Bank and the Jordan Valley. This date, however, came and went and annexation was never actualized. “I don’t know if there will be a declaration of sovereignty today,” said Israeli Foreign Minister, Gabi Ashkenazi, with reference to the[Read More…]
US lackey, Coalition-ruled Australia is second only to Trump America as a fervent supporter of Apartheid Israel, with similarly pro-Apartheid Israel and hence pro-Apartheid and US lackey Canada coming a close third in this Anglosphere race to the bottom of the Palestinian Genocide barrel. Evangelicals-beholden Trump has not yet committed to supporting further illegal Apartheid Israeli annexation in the West[Read More…]
Image: Capture from a Facebook Middle East Monitor video clip titled “Jewish settlers protest West Bank annexation plan” https://www.facebook.com/middleeastmonitor/videos/2683394251938434/ The other night I watched PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff. The report on the annexation (do I need to qualify or explain “annexation”? What other country has or is likely ever to declare its impending annexation of someone else’s land to[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo In the past, there have been many attempts at holding accused Israeli war criminals accountable. Particularly memorable is the case of the late Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, (known, among other nicknames, as the ‘Butcher of Sabra and Shatila’) whose victims attempted to try him in a Belgian Court in 2002. Like all[Read More…]
Jewish supremacy is a characteristic of the Zionist Jewish state of Israel. Some Israeli human rights activists deny this fact. Some know it but avoid discussing it for fear of being attacked as anti-Jewish. It is safer for critics of Israel to address the other characteristics of the Zionist state — its settler-colonial origins, its apartheid as enshrined in law, or the[Read More…]
On reading the enduring horrific daily news coming out of Palestine/Israel relating to the ongoing Jewish-state Nakba, I invariably feel a strong desire to discuss what is often the elephant in the room. It’s an issue constantly on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians alike, while at the same time being difficult to discuss frankly and directly in polite society.[Read More…]
The painful truth is that the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas has already ceased to exist as a political body that holds much sway or relevance, either to the Palestinian people or to Abbas’ former benefactors, namely the Israeli and the American governments. So, when the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, announced on June 9, that the Palestinian[Read More…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold Joe Biden wants you to believe that he is opposed to Israel’s likely annexation of parts of the West Bank that Netanyahu plans to carry out in July. “I do not support annexation,” he said during a call with American Jewish donors on June 16. But only a month ago, Biden senior foreign[Read More…]
An Israeli flag flies over the illegally annexed city of Jerusalem from a Jewish settlement. Establishing settlements has been the method through which Israel has Judaized Jerusalem and parts of the West Bank. (DAVID SILVERMAN/Getty Images) Today we are experiencing in the American public space an electric historic occurrence. We are, as a society, finally passing vocal moral judgment on[Read More…]
Statue of the founder of Zionism Theodor Herzl, unveiled in 2012 at the Mikveh Israel synagogue in Tel Aviv. It is called “Herzl meets Emperor Wilhelm II” Medium has just introduced Momentum, a Medium blog about the fight against anti-Black racism. Medium’s announcement says, Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant[Read More…]
Israeli soldier executing the kidnapping of several Nahalin villagers southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank, including Mohammad Afif Fannoun, on June 12, 2020 When you visualize it, as I try to, what does Israel’s forthcoming annexation of parts of the West Bank look like to you? I mean, what images do you expect to see when Israel makes its declaration,[Read More…]
A 32-year-old man with the mental age of an 8-year-old child was executed by Israeli soldiers on May 30, while crouching behind his teacher near his special needs school in the Old City of Jerusalem. The cold-blooded murder of Iyad al-Hallaq might not have received much attention if it were not for the fact that it took place five days[Read More…]
![The ruins of a mosque in the forcibly depopulated Palestinain village of Hittin, located a few kilometers west of Tiberias [Photo credit: Jehad Abu Rayya]](https://cdn.countercurrents.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/palestine-mosque-200x150.jpg "Don’t call me Ishmael; don’t call me Israel — call me one democratic state! 710")
“Who excavates Muslim Palestinian graves and mosques in [Palestine’s] depopulated towns and why?”, asks Haifa-based Palestinian advocate Jehad Abu-Rayya. “Recently,” he goes on, “these desecrations have been on the increase — In the village of Beit Jibreen, in the village of Al-Lajjun, in the village of Amwas, in the village of Al-Ghabisiya, village of Hittin — and these are only a few of such[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo Wafaa Aludaini is a witness to many of Gaza’s recent tragedies and also never-ending resistance. She experienced the violent Israeli occupation, the subsequent blockade on the impoverished Strip, and several wars that resulted in the death and wounding of tens of thousands of Palestinians. But none of Israel’s wars impacted Aludaini’s life as[Read More…]
To reach the hearts and minds of Americans, the Zionist Israeli Left is manipulating the Black Lives Matter movement. The slogans and images of protestors coming out of Tel Aviv continue to hoodwink the world with a sudden and self-serving concern for Palestinian lives. Two slogans are circulating among the Zionist Israeli Left: ‘Jewish and democratic’ and ‘Palestine Lives Matter’.[Read More…]
Lately, a particular memory/image of my grandmother Sitti Fattoum has been coming back to me vividly. She’d be sitting in a chair, maybe watching TV, or at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, when suddenly, without provocation, she would clap her hands. the palm of one striking the back of the other, and say, to no one in[Read More…]
As global affairs intensify, I often find myself in that category of those discouraged and disillusioned, fully cynical, wondering if anything I can do is worthwhile in the long run. A global pandemic, an economic collapse preceding the pandemic and severely worsened by it (and different reactions to it); an infrastructure continually pumping more and more carbon and other chemicals[Read More…]
Some Palestinian friends in wonderful, peaceful but presently Covid-19 lockdown Melbourne, were considering celebrating International Falafel Day (12 June). The falafel is a delicious Palestinian and Middle Eastern delicacy that is a spicy, deep fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans. Apartheid Israel having stolen the whole country of Palestine has also appropriated the falafel as[Read More…]
We have a saying in Arabic that literally translates into “An unprotected property will encourage a thief.” In this case the thief needs no encouragement. This is a particular thief, well-practiced, seasoned and used to getting away with ill-gotten gains. We are speaking of course of Israel. And most particularly about the current longest serving Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.[Read More…]
A Jewish family looks out over Haram al-Sharif compound, March 2013. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) Netanyahu’s impending annexation of the Judaized parts of the West Bank (he says July 1st) is a transformative event for Palestinian politics, and the Palestinian people, who have long been reined in by impositions that accept Zionist myths and outright falsehoods and pay only lip-service[Read More…]
This time, we are told, it is different and that President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is absolutely serious about his decision to absolve his leadership from all previous agreements signed with Israel and the United States. But this time is not different, and Abbas is not serious. “The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the state of Palestine are[Read More…]
On May 15, thousands of Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and throughout the ‘shatat’, or diaspora, participated in the commemoration of Nakba Day, the one event that unites all Palestinians, regardless of their political differences or backgrounds. For years, social media has added a whole new stratum to this process of commemoration. #Nakba72, along with #NakbaDay and #Nakba, have all trended[Read More…]
There, I said it. One Democratic state in Palestine from the river to the sea. Yes, that means no Jewish state, but rather a dismantling of the structures and ideologies of the colonial apartheid Jewish state of Israel and its occupied Palestinian lands (including those parts of the West Bank about to be annexed by Netanyahu) and replacing them with[Read More…]
Co-Written by Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo Fatou Bensouda, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has, once and for all, settled the doubts on the Court’s jurisdiction to investigate war crimes committed in occupied Palestine. On April 30, Bensouda released a 60-page document diligently laying down the legal bases for that decision, concluding that “the Prosecution has carefully[Read More…]
An encounter between a Jewish couple in Ijzim, Israel (south of Haifa) the the displaced Palestinians in whose house that couple resides, who are denied return to their village and property. “On the anniversary of the Nakba … a tour through depopulated Palestinian villages within Israel … and rare meetings between the owners of the original Palestinian homes and their[Read More…]
It is time for the United States to end its bipartisan blanket support for Israeli policies that violate the human rights of Palestinians. At this critical moment, where Israel has announced its intention to annex Israeli settlements on the West Bank with the support of the Trump administration, we must speak out and resist this blatant violation of international law[Read More…]
Dr. Ghada Ageel and Dr. Ramzy Baroud have more in common than their scholarly research on Palestinian history and politics. They are both refugees, and the direct descendants of Palestinian refugees who have been expelled from their historic village of Beit Daras at gunpoint during the catastrophic events that led to the Palestinian Nakba of May 15, 1948. Starting on[Read More…]