Education

Young Jewish Activist to AIPAC: Stop Silencing Dissent and Supporting Settlement Expansion

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Yesterday the AIPAC Policy Conference held a panel discussion called “The Struggle to Secure Israel on Campus” that featured Wayne Firestone, CEO of Hillel, Roz Rothstein, CEO of Stand With Us, and representatives of The David Project and AIPAC. The panel also included an unexpected speaker: 22-year-old Liza Behrendt. Behrendt unfurled a banner that read, “Settlements Betray Jewish Values” and “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof,” the Jewish text from Deuteronomy meaning “Justice, Justice, You Shall Pursue.” Her statement called attention to the silencing of Palestinians—and young Jews who support them—on U.S. campuses.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Emergency Committee For Israel Misrepresents Its Mission

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The Emergency Committee For Israel (ECI) seems to more closely mirror a right wing Super PAC than an organization sincerely interested in helping Israel respond to emergencies. Or maybe my definition of “emergency” just differs from theirs. You be the judge. Back in October, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC), two of the leading Jewish-American organizations in the United States, fearing the possibility that bipartisan support for Israel could become a political wedge issue, asked that Jewish and pro-Israel groups refrain from criticizing President Obama’s overall record on Israel. Specific points of policy disagreements are fine, they said, but to engage in an attack on Obama’s Israel record could risk Israel becoming a Democratic and Republican political football.

art

Cheering & Jeering Iran/Israel at Oscars & NY Times

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… the Islamic Republic couldn’t stop itself from touting “A Separation,” Iran’s winning submission for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language category, as a victory over “Zionism” for triumphing over Israel’s “The Footnote”….

GMP

Help Tikkun Place a New York Times Ad Against Striking Iran

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Would you please help us put an ad in the New York Times, Washington Post (or maybe also Ha’aretz and Yediot in Israel, and other media, depending on how much money we can raise) to put public pressure on President Obama to NOT agree to overtly or covertly approve an Israeli preemptive strike on sites where Iran is developing its nuclear capacities? Click HERE to see the ad and hopefully make a donation. As of now, Iran does not have those capacities, and though Israeli leaders are arguing that they must strike now before it becomes impossible to block the development of nuclear weapons, U.S. intelligence sources said on Friday, Feb. 24th, that Iran had not made any decision to go forward with developing nuclear weapons. You can view a sample version of the ad below(though when it is layed out beautifully on a full page in the NY Times and Washington Post, it will not look as wordy as it looks now, and there will be room for the names of some who have signed and donated to it).

Healing Israel/Palestine

"I Want My Ball Back": A Call for Israelis and Palestinians to Bridge the Mutual Distrust

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One line of graffiti on the wall in Bethlehem simply said, “I want my ball back.” Wanting your ball back could be a metaphorical statement that, for Palestinians, simply expresses a desire for normalcy and to have a Palestinian state that is fully under Palestinian control. It is a desire, for example, to not depend on Israel to supply and control your water. That water is now delivered only at specified times and then stored by Palestinian families in their roof top water tanks, always hopeful that their limited supply lasts until the next distribution date. Water scarcity is one of the reasons why toilet paper is customarily deposited in a trash receptacle and not flushed.

Politics & Society

U.S. Rejects Visa Request for Israeli Knesset Member Due to Association with Jewish 'Terror Group'

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In a somewhat surprising move, particularly given how carefully America treads when it comes to Israel, the U.S. State Department has rejected the visa request of an Israeli parliamentarian. MK Michael Ben Ari, a member of the right-wing National Union party, recently submitted a visa request to the U.S. consulate in order to participate in two conferences this week, one of which promotes American Jews’ emigration from the United States to Israel. However, to the surprise of Israeli officials, Ben Ari was just denied entry to the U.S. due to his membership in a Jewish terror organization. As Haaretz reports:
[Ben Ari] was told that he cannot be granted the visa based on a clause that allows the U.S. State Department to prohibit the entrance of people who were involved in terror activities or were members of a terror organization in a foreign country. Ben Ari believes that the U.S. government is referring to his membership in the Kach movement, a far-right political movement that is considered a terror organization in Israel, Canada, the European Union, and the United States.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Norman Finkelstein Supports 2 State Solution

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Back in 2007, Norman Finkelstein was supposed to take part in an Oxford University Student Union debate about the future of Israel and Palestine. Incongruously to the British-Jewish organizations that vociferously objected to, and torpedoed his participation at the time, Finkelstein was scheduled to debate for a two-state solution. Widely known as a stridently anti-Israel writer-activist, the former academic supports Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) as tactics against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, but condemns the global BDS movement for being dishonest about its real agenda of displacing Israel as a Jewish-majority state. He also views a full right of return for Palestinians as unrealistic. To the outrage of the anti-Israel far-left, he denounces the BDS movement as a “cult.” Finkelstein says he’s “not going to be in a cult again,” as he admits to having been a Maoist in his youth.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Israel's Repressive System of Military Justice Is No Longer Invisible

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Israel’s system of military justice – the complex and suffocating legal framework which has governed Palestinians in the Occupied Territories for decades – has been largely invisible to the outside world, including to many Israelis. However, a confluence of events in the past month is illuminating on a grand scale this cruel and repressive legal system that has dominated the lives of Palestinians for far too long. Last month, a piercing documentary by Israeli filmmaker Ra’anan Alexandrowicz – The Law in These Parts – won the 2012 World Cinema Grand Jury Documentary Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. The film forces former IDF officials and judges to wrestle with the inherent injustices they helped create in forming Israel’s military justice system – including the practices of indefinite detention, land confiscation for settlements and the use of torture in interrogations. The Law in These Parts, and the prestigious award it garnered, helped spark conversations in Israel and abroad about the legal system which enables Israel’s occupation.

Healing Israel/Palestine

How Would a One-State Israel & Palestine Work?

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One aches for a solution to a long-standing conflict that continues to bedevil Arabs and Jews on both sides of the divide, and in which neither side seems capable of making adequate concessions or accommodations to the other. … Still, it’s up to the one-state advocates to convince the majority of Israelis and Palestinians how one state would work.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Hope for Peace from Jerusalem

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For two weeks (interspersed with two nights in the Galilee) I have been in the Holy City with a group called Living Stones. Our main intention was to show solidarity with the Christian churches during Unity Week 2012. This involved sharing in prayer in Anglican, Lutheran, Latin, Armenian, Greek Orthodox, Ethiopian, Syrian and Coptic Orthodox, and Greek Melkite communities each night, meeting members of the communities and trying to understand their concerns. Much was fruitful and hospitality was wonderful. But there was a feeling of sadness that church leaders — with one exception — did not take the opportunity of the coming together to address specific peace issues.