Israeli Apartheid Week 2010

For all events, world wide, check the Israeli Apartheid Week 2010 website: http://apartheidweek.org/ Read more »

Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up

But now I feel that it has become more possible, more urgent to reconsider the politics of the BDS. It is not that the principles of the BDS have changed: they have not. But there are now ways to think about implementing the BDS that keep in mind the central focus: any event, practice, or institution that seeks to normalize the occupation, or presupposes that “ordinary” cultural life can continue without an explicit opposition to the occupation is itself complicit with the occupation. Read more »

John Pilger: Listen to the heroes of Israel

John Pilger reminds us of the struggle by an extraordinary few in Israel against the repression and lawlessness of the occupation of Palestine. They are the inspiration to break the loud silence in the Jewish diaspora. Read more »

EU court strikes blow against Israeli settlers

The EU court in Luxembourg has ruled that Israel cannot pass off products made by its settlers on occupied Palestinian land as its own in order to get customs perks… It is unlikely to have a big financial impact… But the judgment has political weight in the context of long-standing EU complaints that Israeli support for settlers is damaging the Middle East peace process. Read more »

Nadia Hijab: Scattered in death as in life

[T]he battle over Jerusalem’s Mamilla Cemetery, a Muslim cemetery known in Arabic as Maman Allah, where the US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center intends to build a Museum of Tolerance, … encapsulates many aspects of Israel’s approach to Palestinian rights since the conflict began. Read more »

Jerusalem families come out against museum built on ancestors’ graves

Members of prominent Palestinian families from Jerusalem came out last week in protest against plans by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of part of the ancient Mamilla Cemetery where their ancestors are buried.

IOA Editor: For more on this Israeli desecration of Muslim cemetery, read:
1. The Center for Constitutional Rights’ Mamila Cemetery Fact Sheet
2. Nadia Hijab: Scattered in death as in life
3. Mamilla Cemetery Chutzpah and the Museum of Tolerance by Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center/Museum of Tolerance. Read more »

Jonathan Cook: Ethan Bronner and Conflicts of Interest

“The degree to which Bronner’s personal life… is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with.” Read more »

Gideon Levy: Dispersing white phosphorous clouds over Gaza

Ask any tea grower in Sri Lanka or banana farmer in Cameroon and they’ll tell you that Israel is seen as a global weapons provider, a political and economic power, an occupying and oppressing state. Read more »

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Palestinians clash in Sheikh Jarrah

Clashes erupted Wednesday between Palestinian residents and ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem. A Palestinian woman and child were hurt in the incident and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Read more »

Vanunu: Take me off list of Nobel peace prize nominees

“The reason he gave was that Shimon Peres had received the Nobel Peace Prize, and Peres he alleged was the father of the Israeli atomic bomb and he did not want to be associated with Peres in any way.” Read more »