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Jewish Voice for Liberation

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Illegal Dispossession through archaeology

By Leah Levane

Right now, surrounded by settlements, the military and overseen by a brutal military occupation, the people of Sebastia are facing expulsion and dispossession in the name of creating “a “national park” for Israeli settlers on one of the most significant Palestinian historical sites in the West Bank…”  The archaeological site, currently belonging to the village is “being considered for UNESCO World Heritage status…” and “Palestinian residents of Sebastia say that the ruins bear witness to Palestine’s centuries of interactions with conquering empires, while revealing Palestine’s impact on those empires in return.”

The reduction in UK “freedoms” to hide complicity?

By Leah Levane

This US Academic journal has focused on the British proscription of Palestine Action to raise concerns about the shrinking space for public protest: Whilst political policing, criminalization of public dissent, and the shrinking of space in which to engage in protest are charges that have long been levied against successive UK governments, Palestine solidarity work over the past two years has been met with unprecedented levels of surveillance and criminalization, all whilst the government chose to maintain its historical support of the Israeli state and strengthen its partnerships through enhanced military aid packages and extensive intelligence sharing.

Ethnic cleansing in the West Bank; redrawing the map

By Leah Levane

Seizing privately owned Palestinian land in the name of “security” in the Jordan Valley, the  most fertile part of the West Bank.  A bureaucratic paper filled procedure that means eviction for Palestinians to make way for a new barrier and these notices issues earlier this month are just the beginning. 

Can there be hope in the West Bank?

By Leah Levane

This is a poignant but necessary read.  Palestinians in the West Bank are struggling; their plight may not be as urgent as for people in Gaza but many are feeling hopeless and unable to resist as they are “caught between a Palestinian Authority that cannot protect them and Israel, with its military clampdown and its out-of-control settlers”.  Things are worse than during the second intifada, according to Budour Hassan, a legal researcher at Amnesty International, because, he says “Now the people seem completely desperate. They feel completely abandoned.”

Democracy and Justice on Trial

By Leah Levane

The court hearings against six Palestine Action members arrested while trying to damage an Elbit Systems factory is underway, at the same time as the Judicial Review into the proscription of that organisation.  Here Jonathan Cook, using some of the observations of Craig Mrray, attests that much of the procedure is a travesty of justice. 

Creating a new – and antizionist – form of Judaism

By Leah Levane

Burley writes here with optimism about the growing response to education, worship and activism initiatives that reject zionism and are working to create new institutions, new prayer books and more. This is about turning our backs on those institutions that have completely conflated zionism with Judaism to create a Judaism rooted in equality,

Is there a future for progressive Jews in Israel?

By Leah Levane

We may wonder why someone would move to Israel if their views were so supportive of Palestinians’ rights.  However many genuinely progressive and even antizionist Israeli Jews were born there and perhaps it is worth considering what the future could look like in a world where this area was not dominated by Zionism, fierce, religious, Jewish nationalism,  She offers no answers here, just lament.  She does relate it to experience in the rest of the world, usually referred to as the diaspora but that assumes there was a central place that people left and so could be argued fits into a zionist framework too.  We have published before and do so again today on serious work being done in many countries, but especially the USA, to create new institutions, including antizionist places of worship. Tsedek Chicago stands as the exemplar as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.  It is not easy but it is an opportunity to build something completely different, nurturing and relevant for today’s world. In Israel there are  Jewish led organisations inside Israel fighting for the rights of Palestinians and for peace based on rejecting Jewish supremacy and seeking equality. 

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