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…]
Introduction This paper concerns torture and medical complicity in its practice. In 2015, Amnesty International noted that 157 states had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), but 141 states surveyed in the previous 5 years had used torture. Torture is a form of terrorism. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998 defined torture as a crime[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…]
On June 13, 2021, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put out a statement welcoming the new Israeli government and outlining Canada’s support for all things Israeli. The full statement is available on the government website [https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/statements/2021/06/13/statement-prime-minister-formation-new-government-israel] and contains many simplistic platitudes that conceal too many ugly realities. Without deconstructing all of it there are some salient points that do stand[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…]
We are led to believe that history is being made in Israel following the formation of an ideologically diverse government coalition which, for the first time, includes an Arab party, Ra’am, or the United Arab List. If we are to accept this logic, the leader of Ra’am, Mansour Abbas, is a mover and shaker of history, the same way that[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…]
At some point before the summer of 2018, an arms deal from the US to Saudi Arabia was sealed and delivered. A 227kg laser-guided bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of many thousands, was part of that sale. On August 9th, 2018 one of those Lockheed Martin bombs was dropped on a school bus full of Yemeni children. They were[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…]
Orwellian domination by Zionists and the Zionist-beholden US means that the Mainstream media of the so-called “Free World” of Western US Alliance countries (the Anglosphere and the EU NATO countries) are not so free when it comes to reportage on Apartheid Israel. By way of example, the Zionist-subverted Australian ABC (the Australian equivalent of the UK BBC) has recently officially[Read More…]
The political discourse of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, is similar to that of an ineffectual king who has been isolated in his palace for far too long. The king speaks of prosperity and peace, and tirelessly counts his innumerable achievements, while his people are dying of starvation outside and pointlessly begging for[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 72")
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 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies The world is reeling in horror at the latest Israeli massacre of hundreds of men, women and children in Gaza. Much of the world is also shocked by the role of the United States in this crisis, as it keeps providing Israel with weapons to kill Palestinian civilians, in violation of[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…]
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…]
Letter to President Biden and his cabinet about Israel and Palestine conflict Letter to President Joseph Biden Vice-President Kamala Harris Secretary of State Tony Blinken Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer Senator Minority leader Mitch McConnel Congressional Majority leader Nancy Pelosi Congressional Minority leader Kevin McCarthy It is time we work for the security of Israel and Justice to the Palestinians.[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 137")
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…]
The rapid escalation of violence, including Israeli air attack, resulting in civil war type conditions in parts of Israel and Palestine territories is deeply distressing and coming as it does in pandemic times threatens to move towards serious humanitarian crisis. The crisis can also widen, leading to violence and tensions in other parts of the volatile region. The rapid escalation[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…]
US Condemns China’s Uighur Policy, while Providing Billions in Foreign Aid to Israel Condemned for Apartheid Policies The US has a long-standing double standard when it comes to condemning nations for human rights violations, including state-terrorist acts, if it considers them enemies. At the same time, the US strongly supports and in some cases provides billions in foreign aid, guaranteed[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…]
What do the neo-fascist elements of South African apartheidism of the past and Israeli apartheidism of the present have in common: Afrikaner Nationalism and Jewish Orthodox Nationalism? Black phobia and Palestinian phobia? White Supremacy and Jewish Supremacy? White Separatism and Jewish Separatism? Afrikaner Storm Troopers and Likud Storm Troopers? All of the above or none of the above? THUMBNAIL HISTORICAL[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…]
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…]
After neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, North Carolina, and then President Donald Trump responded by saying there were “good people on both sides,” people who abhor white supremacism stood up, took notice, and condemned the marchers. Anti-racists would be wise to do the same about the far-right march that took place last week in Jerusalem. The situation in Jerusalem began with[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…]
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…]
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…]
Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial. Somdeep Sen. Cornell University Press, New York. 2020. A book that has a very narrowly defined title often fails to look at the larger context, either regional or global. In “Decolonizing Palestine – Hamas Between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial” Somdeep Sen succeeds surprisingly well in placing the struggles of[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…]
This writer has been a student of the Holocaust since childhood, with my Poem/Plaque ” Never Again” in the Wiesenthal Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. I recently found out, through Ancestry, that I am 8% Jewish, but that should not matter at all. Basically, one’s sensitivity is either there or not. Another case in point regarding Israel and its treatment[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…]
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…]
Many are noting happily that Joe Biden’s flurry of executive orders are “surprisingly” progressive … and decent. In an essay in Jacobin titled ‘If Joe Biden Moves Left, You Can Thank the Left’, Lisa Featherstone acknowledges that, though “deeply implicated in much of what is wrong with America and the world today,” Biden nevertheless appears to be doing the right[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…]
Mendacious, Zionist-subverted, Western Mainstream media (MSM) have recently carried major stories about Trumpist rioters soiling US democracy, the roll-out of Covid vaccines, new Apartheid Israeli elections, extradition from Apartheid Israel to Australia of an alleged serial child abuser, and uranium enrichment by US-sanctioned Iran. Yet there is scant or zero mention by Mainstream presstitutes of the egregiously impacted Palestinians in[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…]
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has actively supported and succeeded with implementing its definition of anti-semitism in various countries, regions, and cities around the world. The definition itself is open enough that it can be and has been used to block all criticism of Israeli actions against the people of Palestine. “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may[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…]
The changing geopolitical dynamics in the Middle East have re-opened an old debate in Pakistan as well; should Pakistan re-examine its policy towards Israel? This is not the first time that Pakistanis are discussing this issue pertaining to the recognition of Israel, but it has been done before, during the Benazir and Musharraf modernization eras. The Prime Minister of Pakistan[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…]
The United Arab Emirates may have the upper hand in its competition with Turkey in efforts to shape Palestinian politics. Similarly, the UAE’s recognition of the Jewish state gives it a leg up in ensuring that its voice is heard in Israel and Washington irrespective of who wins the November US election. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan didn’t miss a[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…]
On 6 August, 2020, Juan Guaidó, the US-backed puppet attempting to destabilize the legitimate administration of President Nicolas Maduro, announced the opening of a “virtual embassy” in Jerusalem. This action is one of the first measures initiated by the anti-Chavista opposition to restore diplomatic ties with Israel, severed by former President Hugo Chavez a decade ago. Guaidó is a pro-Israel ideologue who[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…]
I am one of those who did not obtain help to fix the house. I am living in it because I am not the owner of the house I’ve been living in for six years, and without documents I could not obtain help to repair it. Staying here in these conditions is not easy. But since I have my daughter[Read More…]
In some ways, the U.S.-brokered plan for mutual recognition between Israel and the United Arab Emirates is big news. For more than a quarter of a century, only two Middle Eastern countries—Egypt and Jordan—had officially recognized Israel. None of the Gulf monarchies did. So, it was a pretty big deal when the announcement was made. Except, actually, not so much.[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…]
Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold “HUGE breakthrough today,” crowed Donald Trump on twitter as he announced the new peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The deal makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state and the third Arab nation, after Egypt and Jordan, to have diplomatic ties with Israel. But the new Israel-UAE partnership[Read More…]
A drama series telecast on the Saudi-controlled MBC during the holy month of Ramadan is being seen as a clear signal from Saudi Arabia about its growing ties with Israel, the Brussels Times said Tuesday. The TV series, ‘Umm Haroun’ (mother of Aaron), begins with a long monologue in Hebrew, in which a Jewish character says “we are the Gulf[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…]
The ‘annexation deal’ which is referred as ‘deal of the century’ under which Israel is to annex West Bank of Palestine and for which Donald Trump is being heavily coerced to make ‘it possible’ in exchange of Jewish and Christian Zionists votes in America does now surely stands debunked as China, for the first time has so openly come[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…]
There hasn’t been any news in the world media as to what Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad Al Makli said on June 16, 2020, about how the purported annexation of Jordan Valley, Northern Dead Sea and parts of Judea and Samaria, by Israel, is actually a ploy to demolish Al Aqsa 1 mosque and raise the Third-Temple of Jews on[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…]
While the US administration of President Donald Trump remains adamant in its support for Israel, the traditional democratic leadership continues to employ underhanded language, the kind of ‘strategic ambiguity’ that offers full support to Israel and nothing but lip service to Palestine and peace. Trump’s policies on Israel and Palestine have been damaging, culminating in the outrageously unfair ‘Deal of[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…]
Land seizures, annexations, and conquest. These are words axiomatic to the state of Israel. In the main, the state has maintained an uncomfortable position based on patience and attrition. We have waited this long; you will wait longer. Be it dispossessed Palestinians and their aspirations for state recognition or what are loosely described as the objections of the “international community”,[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…]
“The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein How to Mirror the Racial Injustice and Insanity against Mankind? There is much evil and less goodness in the 21st century global affairs – amassed collection of unthinkable junk history. Flamboyant[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…]
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…]
![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! 381")
“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…]
Nazareth: In the near-two decades since the International Criminal Court was set up to try the worst violations of international human rights law, it has faced harsh criticism for its highly selective approach to the question of who should be put on trial. Created in 2002, the court, it was imagined, would act as a deterrent against the erosion of[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…]
Israeli media and Zionist apologists everywhere are busy whitewashing Israel’s globally-tattered image using the rare indictment of an Israeli terrorist, Amiram Ben Uliel, who was recently convicted for murdering the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old toddler in the town of Duma, south of Nablus. The conviction of Ben Uliel by an Israeli three-judge court on May 18, is expectedly[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…]
As part of an effort to be balanced in the final stages of a Phd on counter-terrorism,I recently spent six weeks in Palestine ‘to see things for myself’. I can’t think of another ‘place nor issue’ in world affairs that is more emotive, misrepresented, ‘linked to terrorism’, and further sits at the heart of grievance in the Muslim world. I[Read More…]
The postponing of an Israeli Knesset Bill that would have annexed major illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank to the Jerusalem municipality is the result of behind-the-scenes US and, possibly, European pressure. But the story of the so-called ‘Greater Jerusalem law’ does not end there. Israel wants to maintain an absolute demographic Jewish majority in Jerusalem, including in[Read More…]
Part 1* “The problem with Israel thus is not a policy here or there, but its overall strategy that has not changed since 1948 and is as cruel, and far more effective, than some of the ethnic cleansers now in action elsewhere in the Middle East and in the world as a whole.” Ilan Pappé and Samer Jaber The nature[Read More…]
Early October 2016, Misbah Abu Sbeih left his wife and five children at home and then drove to an Israeli police station in Occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. The 39-year-old Jerusalemite was scheduled to hand himself over to serve a term of 4 months in jail for, allegedly, trumped up charges of ‘trying to hit an Israeli soldier’. Misbah is familiar with[Read More…]
Israel, a rogue state if ever there was one, pursues its “security” as a Jewish Zionist entity on all of Mandate Palestine through demonizing Palestinian Arabs, whom it has long subjected to a racist campaign that defines their resistance, both violent and non-violent, as anti-Semitism on the one hand and as terrorism on the other. Thankfully, Israel’s cover for its[Read More…]
The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, seems to be championing a single cause: Israel. When Haley speaks about Israel, her language is not merely emotive nor tailored to fit the need of a specific occasion. Rather, her words are resolute, consistent and are matched by a clear plan of action. Along with Haley, the rightwing[Read More…]
For some time now, the discourse on Israel has been shifting from a place where Israeli “hasbara” disinformation had the upper hand no matter where one turned, to a place where Israeli criminal policies are more frankly discussed and the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which is now championed by some academic associations, church groups and labor unions[Read More…]
Once more, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is taking center stage. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas insisted during his speech before the recently-concluded Arab League Summit in Jordan, that the Initiative is the only solution on the table; asserting that it will not be changed or even tweaked. But why is this Initiative, which was put forward by Saudi Arabia 15 years[Read More…]
Since 1948 the state of Israel has celebrated annually its independence as a nation, though it is not clear from what or whom it has declared independence. The UN had portioned Palestine in November of 1947 and the British Mandate had made clear that its last day in Palestine would be May 15, of 1948. The Zionists determined that[Read More…]
“To them that walk in power; to exceed is madness, and not wisdom” Antigone The creation and slow demise of the two state solution in the Palestinian tragedy of the 20th and 21st centuries has been brought about by the hubris of the main antagonist, Israel. “Hubris, Ate, and Nemesis are three minor Greek deities, mostly remembered today for their[Read More…]
Australian PM Turnbull has trashed Australia’s international reputation and isolated a pariah Australia from Humanity by making Australia second only to the US as a supporter of nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, grossly human rights-abusing, ultra-violently anti-Semitic, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel. Turnbull has embraced Apartheid Israel with praise, falsehood and racist exceptionalism on the occasion of the visit to[Read More…]
The President of the United States can hardly be taken seriously, saying much but doing little. His words, often offensive, carry no substance, and it is impossible to summarize his complex political outlook about important issues. This is precisely the type of American presidency that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, prefers. However, Donald Trump is not just a raving[Read More…]
That the New York Times demonstrates a systematic editorial bias in favor of Israeli state power and against Palestinian rights is old news. Whether it is reporting on the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, the deadly Gaza flotilla raid, cease fire violations between the IDF and Hamas, or any other aspect of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,[Read More…]
The doctor studied the test results, raised her head and smiled. “Pregnant,” she said. “Congratulations, you are pregnant!” All I could muster in response was: “Why?” Joy, excitement and fear knotted inside me. My husband and I would soon have a baby, filling our life with love and noise. But a storm of questions raged in my head. I immediately[Read More…]
Empirical historical evidence combined with little common-sense are enough to tell us the type of future options that Israel has in store for the Palestinian people: perpetual Apartheid or ethnic cleansing, or a mix of both. The passing of the ‘Regularization Bill‘ on February 6 is all we need to imagine the Israeli-envisaged future. The new law allows the[Read More…]
US President Donald Trump promises to be pro-Israel in every aspect. ‘I’m the best thing that could ever happen to Israel,’ he boasted at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Presidential Forum in Washington DC, in December, 2015. For a brief moment, Trump appeared as if rethinking his unconditional support for Israel, when in February 2016, the Republican presidential nominee pledged[Read More…]
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has launched a series of provocative moves against the Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel itself. His aim is to distract public attention from the corruption probe that could force his resignation and bring down his government. In doing so, he has been emboldened by strong support from the incoming Trump administration.[Read More…]
Israel is dizzy. January 20th has been like another Christmas Day and Donald Trump is jolly old Santa Claus bearing gifts. The writing is already on the wall as President-elect Trump has appointed an extremist, David Friedman, as the next US Ambassador to Israel who intends to relocate the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and who supports[Read More…]
Flatly defying last week’s United Nations Security Council resolution, the Israeli government has announced that it will move ahead with thousands of new homes in East Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank territories seized by force nearly 50 years ago in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Jerusalem’s municipal government was expected to approve more than 600 housing units[Read More…]
The Christmas season is when people in the Christian world are encouraged to think of those less fortunate, including of course people oppressed for no other reason than being a particular ethnic or national group by birth. And iconic in such misery are Palestinians. Palestinians are both Christian and Muslim. Few in the West know, for example, that the late[Read More…]
The British government of Theresa May officially adopted on December 12 a new definition of anti-Semitism that includes legitimate criticism of Israel. The definition was adopted earlier in the year by a pro-Israeli group IHRA, although it was considered but abandoned by the European anti-racism agency in 2005. It is also a rather dangerous move which will most likely lead[Read More…]
Poor Palestine – the major Palestinian players, Fatah and Hamas have degraded and set back the liberation movement by crawling with begging bowls to self-interested, absolutely not Palestine-interested, Arab states, and furthermore both are fickle beggars switching loyalties to conform to the US volatile currents in the Middle East. Arab regimes quarter-hearted support for Palestine goes back to the Nakba,[Read More…]
Nazareth: At first glance, it looked like a generous promotional stunt by Israel to aid the Palestinians’ struggling tourism industry. Israeli military authorities published this month a video on social media publicising Palestinian attractions in the West Bank. Most are Christian, including Jesus’s birthplace in Bethlehem – now the Church of the Nativity – and more obscure locations such as[Read More…]
In July 2003, the then Palestinian Authority Chairman, Yasser Arafat, described Mahmoud Abbas as a ‘traitor’ who “betrayed the interests of the Palestinian People.” Arafat loathed Abbas to the very end. This particular outburst was made during a meeting with the United Nations envoy, Terje Larsen. The meeting took place a few months after Arafat was coerced, by the US,[Read More…]
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign has designated the week, November 25 to December 3, as the ‘biggest-ever campaign’ aimed at boycotting Israeli products and those of companies that contribute to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. In a recently issued press release, the civil society-led group highlighted “99 actions that will take place across the world to highlight what they described[Read More…]
Fear and trepidation are slowly building up, as US President-elect, Donald Trump, is fortifying his transitional team with people capable of bringing about a nightmare scenario, not only for Americans but for the rest of the world, as well. For Palestinians, however, the signs are even more ominous. From former New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, to Republican leader Newt[Read More…]
Don’t get too close, Omar Abu Khater warned. We were picking our way cautiously through the rubble of demolished farms and buildings on a recent afternoon in the al-Faraheen neighborhood of the town of Abasan al-Kabira in the southern Gaza Strip, east of Khan Younis. His caution was warranted. Just 100 meters away loomed a concrete wall, part of the[Read More…]
As I was growing up, I was always reassured by the sound of the ‘Muadhin’ making the call for prayer in our refugee camp’s main mosque in Gaza. Whenever I heard the call very early in the morning, announcing in a melodic voice that the time for the ‘Fajr’ (dawn) prayer was upon us, I knew it was safe to[Read More…]
Nazareth: While the United States presidential election bitterly divided the American public, most Israelis were sanguine about the race. Both candidates – Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton – were keen to end eight years of icy mistrust between Barack Obama, the outgoing president, and Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister should – at least on paper – be happier with[Read More…]
On a day that most people expected not to see, we can say few things with certainty. One of them is that Hillary Clinton would have been a disastrous president for those supporting the Palestinian struggle for their rights. Her failed campaign pitched her as the natural successor to President Barack Obama, the Democrat who just unconditionally handed Israel the[Read More…]
In response to UNESCO resolutions adopted in October that were highly critical of Israel’s protection of sacred and cultural Islamic heritage sites in Jerusalem, there is again a fiery confrontation between Israel and this UN organ whose actions have so often touched the raw nerves of Western political sensibilities. The main UNESCO resolution ‘deeply deplores’ Israel’s failure to stop a[Read More…]
Last July, the Palestinian Authority took the unexpected, although belated step of seeking Arab backing in suing Britain over the Balfour Declaration. That ‘declaration’ was the first ever explicit commitment made by Britain, and the West in general, to establish a Jewish homeland atop an existing Palestinian homeland. It is too early to tell whether the Arab League would[Read More…]
Nazareth: Israel has just emerged from its extended, three-week high holidays, a period that in recent years has been marked by extremist religious Jews making provocative visits to the al-Aqsa mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem. Many go to pray, in violation of Israel’s international obligations. Most belong to groups that seek the mosque’s destruction and replacement with a[Read More…]
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi While Australia slept, John Salisbury, a true gentleman activist from Melbourne, rose daily to the moral occasion of walking the tough 300 kilometres from the Sydney Opera House to Canberra, the seat of the Australian parliament. There, on 11 October, he presented to Maria Vamakinou MP, head of[Read More…]
In its latest act of piracy, Apartheid Israel has seized a Gaza-bound ship Zaytouna-Oliva in international waters and kidnapped, robbed and imprisoned 13 humane, anti-racist women including the Australian captain, Madeleine Habib (from my hometown Hobart, Tasmania), Northern Ireland Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire and New Zealand Greens MP Marama Davidson. Apartheid Israel has repeatedly kidnapped Australian women[Read More…]
The Palestine human rights movement and its advocates in the U. S. are under a growing pressure because of their criticism of Israel’s oppressive and deadly policy against the People of Palestine.[1] The BDS campaign was the last straw that led to a coalition, which uses all available means to suppress freedom of speech. Since the BDS movement gained momentum,[Read More…]
Genocidally racist Zionist, war criminal and nuclear terrorist Shimon Peres (1923-2016) has been buried in Apartheid Israel with leading pro-Zionists, war criminals and nuclear terrorists in attendance. Known as the Butcher of Qana for green-lighting a 2001 Israeli atrocity against the UN and civilians in Southern Lebanon, Shimon Peres was a stalwart in the ongoing racist Zionist Palestinian Genocide. Peres’[Read More…]
The obituaries for Shimon Peres have already appeared, no doubt prepared in advance as the news of his hospitalization reached the media. The verdict on his life is very clear and was already pronounced by US President Barack Obama: Peres was a man who changed the course of human history in his relentless search for peace in the Middle East.[Read More…]
“De mortuis nil nisi bene” is commonly translated in English with “Speak no ill of the dead”. The headlines of German obituaries on Shimon Peres outbid themselves in adulation. President Obama, however, outbid even the Germans. He praised Peres without irony as “a champion of peace. […] As Americans, we are indebted to him”, he said. He even got metaphysical:[Read More…]
“If somebody falls overboard, all you see is their head. It’s about the size of a coconut.” With those words, Captain Madeleine Habib ensured the attention of her passengers, all now digesting the image of the vastness of the sea enveloping a human body. Habib, a Tasmanian-Egyptian and an experienced captain with Greenpeace and Doctors Without Borders, was delivering the[Read More…]
Ban Ki-Moon’s second term as the Secretary General of the United Nations is ending this December. He was the most ideal man for the job as far as the United States and its allies are concerned. Of course, there will always be other Ban Ki-Moons. In fact, the man himself was a modified version of his predecessor, Kofi Annan. The[Read More…]
Shatila Palestinian Refugee camp, Beirut: The intense summer heat was gone and the evening was breezy and cool that fateful Thursday evening, September 15, 1982, according to survivors of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre who, 34 years later, still remember and recount many details of the slaughter that was soon to follow. It was following the 9/14/1982 assassination of President-elect BachirGemayel, leader[Read More…]
Nazareth: The announcement last week by the United States of the largest military aid package in its history – to Israel – was a win for both sides. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast that his lobbying had boosted aid from $3.1 billion to $3.8bn a year – a 22 per cent increase – for a decade starting[Read More…]
The Obama administration has signed a $38 billion military aid pact with Israel in what the State Department boasts is the “single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in US history.” The record agreement will provide Israel with $3.8 billion annually over 10 years beginning in 2019, up from $3.1 billion under the current deal. At a time when the US[Read More…]
Nazareth: Is Israel on the verge of civil war, as a growing number of Israeli commentators suggest, with its Jewish population deeply riven over the future of the occupation? On one side is a new peace movement, Decision at 50, stuffed with former political and security leaders. Ehud Barak, a previous prime minister who appears to be seeking a political comeback,[Read More…]
Just a few weeks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he cares about the rights and lives of Palestinians in Gaza more than the Palestinian leadership does, he posted a new video message on his Facebook wall, arguing that any future dismantlement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would amount to “ethnic cleansing.” He went on to intimate that insofar as the U.S. and other western countries support the uprooting of Israeli settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians, they were, in effect, supporting the cleansing of Jews
Division within Palestinian society has reached unprecedented levels, becoming a major hurdle on the path of any unified strategy to end Israel’s violent occupation or to rally Palestinians behind a single objective. Newly-appointed Israeli ultra-nationalist, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, understands this too well. His tactic since his ascension to office last May is centered on investing more in these divisions as[Read More…]
“You deserve to see your loved ones suffer and die. But, maybe, you would be hurt before them,” was part of a threatening message received by a staff member at ‘Al-Mezan’, a Gaza-based human rights group. The photo attached to the email was of the exterior of the activist’s home. The gist of the message: ‘we are coming for you.’[Read More…]
Reading Inside the Middle East is quite an adventure. I learned that I probably am a fairly quixotic fanatic tilting at windmills; that I need to learn how to be a critical thinker “demanding that concepts and narratives be replaced with facts and reality;” that I “need to fine tune [my] critical thinking and analytical capacities; all that so I[Read More…]
As Palestinians in the Occupied Territories begin preparations for local elections which are scheduled for next October, division and factionalism are rearing their ugly head. Palestinian political platforms and social media are abuzz with self-defeating propaganda: Fatah supporters attacking Hamas’ alleged failures, and Hamas’ supporters doing the same. What is conveniently overlooked by all sides is that the performance of[Read More…]
Norma Hashim’s engagement with the issue of Palestinian prisoners has previously produced one book — The Prisoners’ Diaries: Palestinian Voices from the Israeli Gulag — which has been described by former hunger-striker Hana al-Shalabi as “A humane, beautiful, valuable but painful book.” Hashim’s Dreaming of Freedom is worthy of a similar description. In this collection children recount their experiences of solitary confinement, beatings, torture and humiliation[Read More…]
The crackpot Israeli Hasbara* Circus featuring the four clowns of the truth apocalypse, Shin Bet, the Israel government, Shurat HaDin and the mainstream media fools, has, yet again, hit the world stage with the usual lame show of fact contortions, tight rope slander and smoke and mirrors fantasies. Taking a leaf from the Bush-Blair weapons of mass destruction hoax, Israel[Read More…]
Nazareth: Was it meant as an epic parody or an insult to his audience’s intelligence? It was hard to tell. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu took to social media to apologise for last year’s notorious election-day comment, when he warned that “the Arabs are coming out to vote in droves” – a reference to the fifth of Israel’s population who[Read More…]
On this hot Italian late afternoon, after over a week inside the literary work entitled Gate of the Sun, I am still wandering in the gossamer framework of the novel constructed by a great writer and storyteller, Elias Khoury, a 531-page “story” consisting of the stories, incidents, histories, lives and deaths narrated by the author’s canvas of countless characters. I[Read More…]
Water shortages are not new for Palestinians. Whether in the occupied Gaza Strip or the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the supply of water flowing into Palestinian homes is strictly capped or obstructed by Israel. As temperatures climb during the summer, taps run dry. Clemens Messerschmid, a German hydrologist who has worked with Palestinians on their water supply for two[Read More…]
(Based on interviews with Palestinian refugees from Syria.) The refugee camp of Yarmouk was ever present in his being, pulling him in and out of an abyss of persistent fears that urged him to never return. But what was this refugee without Yarmouk, his first haven, his last earth? How could any other spot in this unwelcoming universe ever be[Read More…]
It has been a long time since my family has had reason to celebrate. For nine years my wife Faten and I have been intermittently separated from our school-age children as we traveled back and forth between our home in Gaza and Cairo as Faten needed brain surgery and radiotherapy treatment unavailable here. Palestinians in Gaza are not able to[Read More…]
The United Nations Human Rights Council, along with the global community and many in Lebanon, has become increasingly concerned about the massive violations of Palestinian civil rights. As noted in Part I of this discussion, Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from more than two dozen targeted violations including ambiguous legal status, absence of protection; the outlawing of their right to work[Read More…]
Nazareth: The grubby underside of US electoral politics is on show once again as the Democratic and Republican candidates prepare to fight it out for the presidency. And it doesn’t get seamier than the battle to prove how loyal each candidate is to Israel. New depths are likely to be plumbed this week at the Republican convention in Cleveland, as[Read More…]
Inas Abu Muhadi cannot understand that she will never see her dad again. She remembers that her dad had a scooter. And each time she hears one, she expects to see her dad arriving home. The young girl’s father passed away from natural causes in July 2013. “Our life turned upside down after that day,” said her mother, Rajaa Abu[Read More…]
Yarmouk Palestinian camp, Damascus: In Lebanon today, Palestinians are beingthreatened by the governmentthat ISIS (Daesh) and Al Nursa are plotting to take over Ain el-Helweh and the other 11 camps in Lebanon. Palestinian factions and the residents of the Ain el HilwehPalestinianrefugee camp in Saida Lebanon know verywellthat militant jihadist groups including ISIS (Daesh) and Al-Nusra are nowdeeplyimplanted in theirmidst[Read More…]
A few days ago, I was driving through Qalandiya checkpoint for the first time since I came back to Jerusalem. My dad, sitting next to me, had to yell “stop here!” at me as I was queuing behind a car at the checkpoint. “You’re too close,” he said, “stop and wait for them to call you, otherwise they’ll shoot[Read More…]
Taybeh is the last all-Christian and self-sufficient community in the occupied state of Palestine. “Taybeh” means delicious when referring to food or drink. “Taybeh” means “kind” and “good” when referring to people or places. Following the signing of the Oslo Peace Agreement [1993] and inspired by their late father, Canaan David Khoury, David and Nadim returned to their home village[Read More…]
Last year, I wrote an article that made many readers unhappy. As soon as it was published, I began receiving messages of abuse and angry, threatening calls. I hesitated about reporting the threats to the local police in Washington State and, in the end, I resolved to file the unpleasant experience under a burgeoning folder of ‘controversies’ caused by my[Read More…]
Hyped emotions, and political opportunism aside, the Israel-Turkey normalization deal, signed on June 27 is unfavorable for Palestinians – and for Gazans, in particular. There is much that is being said to blame Turkey or placate the damage of seeing Turkey – which has for years been one of the most visible backers of Palestinian Resistance – reaching out to Israel. Yet, no amount of[Read More…]
Following the stabbing of a 13-year-old Israeli girl in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba by a young Palestinian on Thursday, Benyamin Netanyahu’s coalition government moved swiftly to implement their now standard measures of collective punishment, in flagrant violation of international law. At the same time, the government is using the attack to expand the settlements and incorporate Area[Read More…]
It was a warm night in Jabaliya, northeast of Gaza City. Abu Zein and his wife were fast asleep when what the couple first thought was an earthquake shook their bed so hard, its legs buckled. They immediately jumped up and ran out of the home they had only recently moved into after getting married. But outside was quiet. No[Read More…]
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expressed anger and dismay on Monday about the deal normalizing relations between Israel and Turkey that leaves them under a suffocating siege. An Israeli human rights group that monitors the decade-old Israeli blockade of Gaza has also confirmed that the deal does not end Israel’s tight control over the territory that has greatly exacerbated the[Read More…]
A group of Gaza fishermen were working an early morning shift when the Israeli navy opened fire. Rajab Abu Riyala and his brother Khaled were shot during that 31 May incident. A bullet had to be removed from Rajab’s knee as a result. They were among five fishermen arrested on two vessels by Israel. All were brought to Ashdod, a[Read More…]
Entire communities in the West Bank either have no access to water or have had their water supply reduced almost by half. This alarming development has been taking place for weeks, since Israel’s national water company, “Mekorot”, decided to cut off – or significantly reduce – its water supply to Jenin, Salfit and many villages around Nablus, among other[Read More…]
Ashkenazim feared that one day the Arab Jews might make a political alliance with the native population, the Palestinians. Then the Ashkenazim would be outnumbered. The Mizrahim, who came from countries as diverse as Morocco and Iraq, had a lot more in common with Palestinians than they did with the recently arrived Europeans.
Conquest and tyranny, at some earlier period, dispossessed man of his rights, and he is now recovering them. And as the tide of all human affairs has its ebb and flow in directions contrary to each other, so also is it in this. Government founded on a moral theory, on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights[Read More…]
Nazareth: In a familiar muddying of the waters, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past week talking up peace while fiercely criticising Friday’s summit in France – the only diplomatic initiative on the horizon. As foreign ministers from 29 nations arrived for a one-day meeting in Paris, Netanyahu dusted off the tired argument that any sign of diplomatic[Read More…]
Israeli society is constantly swerving to the Right and, by doing so, the country’s entire political paradigm is redefined regularly. Israel is now ‘ruled by the most extreme rightwing government in its history’ has grown from being an informed assessment to a dull cliché over the course of only a few years. In fact, that exact line was used in[Read More…]
“Under the cover of darkness, there is no limit to the expansion of Big Brother.” Ilan Gilon, Meretz Party (Israel), Times of Israel, Feb 4, 2016 While Israel’s central justification for its often reactionary policies is couched in hyper-exceptionalist rhetoric, nourished by the ashes of Holocaust remembrance, current interest in censoring the Internet is far from exceptional. Like a machine[Read More…]
As Progressives Call for End to Blockade, Biden Announces More Sanctions Against Cuba 
How to manage urbanization 
A Missed Opportunity: Rights of Nature Removed From New Draft of Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework 
Review: “Cruelty Or Humanity” By Stuart Rees – For Humanity, Banish Cruelty 
The Crofting System 
Witness to Turbulent American Democracy: The Paradox for Soul Searching of American Acclaimed Values 
A bouquet of novel compounds: New treatment options for HIV 
Blinken’s Single-Point Agenda In Delhi – China 
Blinken comes riding the Pegasus 
Return to Lifta Is Not A Wish; It’s A Promise, Israel! 
“The Clash of Two Americas, the Unfinished Symphony”, a book by Matthew Ehret 
In rural Rajasthan, Dalit and Adivasi girls fight child marriages 
Forest Food — Important Source of Nutrition, Income and Joy for the Poor 
From Systems Theory to Action 
On Degrowth 
Impact and Challenges on Lawyers during Covid-19 
Sherni and the ‘Hunting Tale’ 
John Woodcock One Of The Greatest Cricket Writers Passes On 
The Crisis in Tunisia 
‘New Form’ of Ice Cream ‘Terrorism’: How Ben & Jerry’s has Exposed Israel’s anti-BDS Strategy 
Julian Assange’s Ecuadorian citizenship revoked 
Planet’s Vital Signs Are Reaching Dangerous ‘Tipping Points’ Amid Climate Crisis, Scientists Warn 
Pivoting to America 
How Himalayan Highways Are Bringing More Risks Than Benefits to People 
In Nobody’s Backyard: Rejecting Geo-Political and Historical Fatalism 
The Political in ‘Political Prisoner’ 
Pandemic pushes transgender community in rural Bengal to brink of starvation 
UK scripts new Afghan plot for US 
Remove unconstitutional sections from statute 
Appointment of R K Asthana as Delhi Police Commissioner- Does it comply with the norms set by the apex court? 
Gary Sobers: Immortal Cricketer 
Pegasus: On the Trail of a Flying Horse 
The Past Reveals the Climate Breakdown We Are Headed Towards 
Need for a Change of the dominant Narrative in An Asian Century 
COVID-19 Pandemic Of The Unvaccinated, Vaccine Hesitancy, Manufactured Dissent & Lying By Omission 
Papers Instead of Human Lives: The Sentencing of Daniel Hale 
Record-smashing heat extremes may become much more likely with climate change, finds study 
Clouds May Speed Up Global Warming 
Modi government’s economic policies pose an existential threat to backward communities that must be resisted 
Nationhood Undefined 
Dear Authors and Readers of Countercurrents, You may all know Sheshu Babu an author for CC for long time. Most of our old authors may have received at least one thoughtful comment from him. In the early days, he used to read all CC articles and post a thoughtful comment for each article. Then one day, another CC author Emily[Read More…]
