Fiona Ben Chekroun, European co-coordinator of the BDS National Committee, discusses the expanding movement for Palestine solidarity in Europe with Ana Vračar.
She refers to an “exponential growth” to activity, an increase in the number of groups and activities people are involved in and an increase in the sheer number of people taking part.
She stresses, too, the growing intersectional nature of the…
Charles Lenchner grew up in Israel in more innocent times. He reflects here on Nicholas Kristof’s recent article “The Silence That Meets the Rape of Palestinians” in the New York Times and the outraged responses to it.
And more generally on Israeli denialism…
By Leah Levane
Israel treats the thousands of Palestinians it incarcerates appallingly, kept in terrible conditions and often tortured. At least a third of the prisoners are there without charge or any sort of due process, not even the loaded one where military courts have a conviction rate of at least 96%. Yet Israel denies the Red Cross access to the prisoners as required in the Geneva Conventions to which Israel is a signatory
By Leah Levane
Palestinians in Britain welcome and value the support they have from the overwhelming majority of the people in the UK but the politicians, and many institutions, seem to prefer they keep quiet. Saturday 16th May is the nearest Saturday to the commeoration of the Nakba; London saw a huge march to acknowledge the 78th anniversary; the same day will have seen a march led by far right Stephen Yaxley Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), marches that in the past have explicitly called for the closure of all Mosques and blaming Muslims and Islams for a range of ills. One march seeks peace for all people between the river and the sea, the other seeks to foster and further exploit division, blaming muslims for the problems in British society but it is the former that is called a hate march. This is also a way of marginalising and trying to silence Palestinian voices. They will not succeed.
By Leah Levane
Protesting in support outside a synagogue seems difficult; here Maura Finkelstein argues that when that synagogue is hosting an event to encourage people to buy property and move to settlements in the occupied territories (here the West Bank and Easrt Jerusalem) then such protest is required. All settlements are illegal and there is no way there can be peace while settlements remain, continue to expand and even those designated as illegal under Israeli law, are increasingly being retroactively authorised.
Des Freeman does well in his short piece “Hate Marches” in the London Review of Books to contrast the bizarre way mainstream media treat far-right marches generally – such as Tommy Robinson’s call to “‘unite the West’ against Islam and immigration” – with pro-Palestine marches.
The Double Down News video below reminds us of the hate-fulled poison which is peddled at these far right rallies and contasts it with the messages of peace and solidarity of the pro-Palestine marches.
By Leah Levane
The Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council were right to call a rally in opposition to rising antisemitism but we are horrified at how they did this and who they invited as co-sponsors and as speakers. Here a Rabbi from the Movement for Progressive Judaism (MPJ) addresses his words to that movement but it makes important reading for us all. He is disappointed that the MPJ continued to support the rally even as its nature became clearer and even as the New Israel Fund withdrew its support and participation. As he says: “Antisemitism is real and scary, but our fears cannot be allowed to conquer our values.”
More praise for Molly Crabapple’s recently published “inspirational history” the Jewish Bund Here Where We Live Is Our Country.
“The vital service Molly’s book provides is to show today’s many thousands of Jews who oppose Zionism, apartheid and genocide, that they have a proud history.”
Media Lens has done a terrific job in exploring the weaponisation of antisemitism in the attempt by Starmer’s Labour – and the establishment more generally – to cut the Greens down.
There is a broad coalition of interests at work…
“Two and a half years after 7 October 2023,” Eyal Weizman remind us, “most of the Gaza Strip – cities, refugee camps, schools, universities, mosques, the health infrastructure, agriculture, wells and the soil itself – has been destroyed and made toxic by bombs, artillery, tank shells and sappers.”
In other words, everything Raphael Lemkin identified as essential to biological existence and the social and cultural continuity of a community, has been destroyed in Gaza.
Destruction has gone hand in hand with reconstruction, changing the topography of the Strip forever…