“My understanding of the Jewish ethical tradition comes primarily from my knowledge of the Jewish historical experience… I feel they are the principal determining factors: our ethical tradition, our struggles for justice, going back to the 19th-century shtetl, where my great-grandmother was hunted by the Cossacks, in pogroms.”
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The Israeli Defense Forces held a large drill Wednesday in preparation of the flotilla that intends to set sail to the Gaza Strip later this month. The drill focused on different scenarios that might occur at sea and methods to deal with them.
Bassem Tamimi of Nabi Saleh delivered a court statement at the start of his trial last Sunday saying ‘I reject [these laws] and cannot recognize their validity.’
“Israel is occupying the Palestinian people in my name, in the name of world Jewry,” Lucas, clutching his American passport, tells the camera. “And I myself, an American Jew, is here to say that is completely unjustified and ethically reprehensible.”
IOA Editor: This news story finally made it to Haaretz, and got distorted along the way. The group of Israelis marching through East Jerusalem chanting “death to the Arabs” was not “small,” as several video reports have clearly shown.
Muna and Muhammed are 12-year-old twins living in Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem. Settlers have taken over the front of their home, but the family continue to live in the rest of the house.
Unarmed Naksa Day demonstration meets brutal Israeli repression.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of thousands of Israeli youth marched along the Green Line to celebrate Jerusalem Day, an annual commemoration of the Israeli occupation of the city in the 1967 war. The organization of the march was done under a Zionist banner. Three days later, thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv in support of the Two State Solution. While many organizations participated, the overall slogan was “Netanyahu says no, Israel says yes to a Palestinian state”.
RELATED Jerusalem Day 2011 by Just Jerusalem
For the first time in decades, Palestinian activists in Ras al-Amud, a neighborhood of Jerusalem south east of the Old City, invited Jewish Israeli activists to join them in their protest against a fortress settlement in their area. The neighborhood is the site of nearly daily confrontations between Palestinian youth and Israeli forces, and is sometimes referred to as the “daily intifada”.
Rae Abileah, a Jewish-American activist of Israeli descent with the peace group CodePink, disrupted Netanyahu’s speech. Standing in the congressional gallery, she yelled, “No more occupation! Stop Israel war crimes! Equal rights for Palestinians! Occupation is indefensible!” As she screamed, members in the audience tackled her to the ground, and undercover security forces later dragged her outside. She was taken to George Washington University Hospital where she was treated for neck and shoulder injuries. At the hospital, police arrested Abileah and charged her with disorderly conduct for disrupting Congress.
An interview with Alternate Focus: an analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, covering several of the most central issues.
Move Over AIPAC / CodePink flashmob event at Union Station, Washington DC on 20 May 2011, during the annual AIPAC convention and the Move Over AIPAC convention and series of protest in Washington DC.
On the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba Palestinians coordinate a wave of historic demonstrations. Protests at the Lebanese, Syrian, West Bank, and Gazan borders and inside Egypt took place. Many died as a result of live fire, and hundreds were injured both from Israeli forces and others such as the Egyptian and Lebanese armies.
IDF soldier describes the distress of a young woman who tearfully pleaded to be allowed to pass through a Jenin checkpoint in order to sit an important exam. He gradually came to understand, he says, that the Israeli army’s intention was “to enforce tyranny on people who you know are regular civilians” and to “make it clear who’s in control here”.
A dramatic video published by the website baladee.net shows the moment when hundreds of Palestinian refugees and Syrians break through the border fence from Syria into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (part of Syria occupied by Israel in 1967 and illegally annexed in 1981).
Rapper Mic Righteous’s improvised set on BBC 1Xtra met with complaints after corporation masks the words ‘free Palestine’.
IOA Editor: What a sorry bunch running that ‘venerable institution’ called BBC.
On May 2, 2011, the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University held a program on “Gaza: Israel’s War and the Goldstone Report.” The speakers included Norman Finkelstein, Peter Weiss, and Rashid Khalidi. The program was moderated by Bashir Abu-Manneh.
On April 28th, formerly rivaling Palestinian parties announced their intention to begin reconciliation and hold an election within one year. Hamas is in power in the Gaza strip and Fateh is the leading party in the Palestinian Authority, ruling the West Bank. Since 2006 the parties have fought each other, leading to hundreds of casualties and many failed attempts to reach reconciliation.
Noam Chomsky in a telephone interview held on 1 March 2011 with Gadi Algazi of Israel Social TV. The interview covers the democracy uprising in the Middle East, US and the Occupation, democracy in Israel, Chomsky’s vision for Israel and Palestine, Iran and Israel’s nuclear policy, and Israel’s mainstream media.
On April 15, 2011, Italian journalist and activist Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped and killed in the Gaza strip. According to a video released by his kidnappers, they belonged to a Salafi group, which Hamas identified as including a former Hamas policeman. While the mainstream media portrayed the killing as an act of an extremist group identifying with Al Qaeda, many are saying the group, as other Salafi groups operating in Gaza represents a growing force from inside Hamas itself.
Suad Amiry’s inspiring, and hilarious, closing speech at the TEDx, Ramallah meeting on 16 April 2011. A Must-Watch video!
