The Only Democracy? » Archive
Urgent need for support to release 17 year old Ahmad Abed Al-Fatah from jail
From the Friends of Freedom and Justice Bil’in and the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee On July 19, 2010 Bil’in was subjected to yet another Israeli Occupation Forces night raid when an unusually heavy number of Israeli soldiers entered the outskirts of the village to arrest a local youth; 17 year old Ahmad Abed Al-Fatah Burnat – who unfortunately was arrested. At 1:30 in the morning on July 19th armed Israeli soldiers drove into … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Alert: Thousands of police evacuating and demolishing the village of El-Araqib in the Israeli Negev
by Yeela Raanan. Tuesday, 5:30am Thousands of police are in the village of el-Araqib right now – beginning a mass evacuation, demolition, and erasure of this historical Bedouin village. if you have access to the media, please send them to this village as soon as possible! the village of el-Araqib is between Rahat and Beersheva, and in a location that the Goldberg commission deemed outside of the areas allowed for the Negev Arabs… … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured, On The Ground Reports
Another Well and Another Goat
(crossposted on the Villages Group Blog) ——————- Al-Tawamin, July 24, 2010 Here is the unlikely battlefield. You have a mountain slope, baked dry, thousands of sun-bleached rocks, millions of thorns. It issues into an even drier wadi, on the other side of which another slope of rocks and thorns rises up only to descend into the next wadi, and so it goes from ridge to ridge and wadi to wadi until pure desert takes over and rolls on as far as the horizon. On the slope in question, there is a functional well, its mouth encased in stone. The well belongs to the Palestinian shepherds of south Hebron, specifically to the Al-Murgh family, which has been chased off its lands here, in the tiny point called Al-Tawamin, by Israeli settlers and soldiers. … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Israeli Knesset completes step 1 of 3 in criminalizing nonviolent economic pressure against the Occupation
by Cecilie Surasky, crossposted from our sisterblog Muzzlewatch.com Real News Network, a professional online alternative to US corporate media, has this comprehensive report about a Knesset bill to criminalize Palestinian, international and Israeli efforts to promote and enact boycotts against Israel. Last week, it passed its “preliminary reading” in the Knesset, with two more rounds to go to become law. If passed, this stunning bill will mark the most severe and … Read entire article »
Filed under: Discrimination
Criminalization of Popular Struggle Continued; Abdallah Abu Rahmah Sentenced
From the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee. Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s first trial from 2005 had reached conclusion yesterday, with his sentencing to two months of imprisonment and a six months suspended sentence for participating and organizing demonstrations and for walking the streets of his village during a curfew designed to prevent a demonstration. A verdict in Abu Rahmah’s main case for which he is already in jail since December is expected soon. Bil’in Protest … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
May you have good grief: Tisha B’ Av on the Only Democracy?
by Jesse Bacon I just got done observing Tisha B’ Av, the 9th of Av a relatively new Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of the Temples. Having attended liberal Tisha B’ Av observances for several years, I must have noticed the part about how the messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av, or to take it out of religious person, there will be redepmtion grown from the seeds of cataclysm. Until this year, I was fortunate that TIAA-CREF, the focus of Jewish Voice for Peace’s first divestment campaign chose Tisha B’ Av to hold their annual meeting. For the first time, I got to act out hope and grief, activism and religious observance simultaneously as I helped organize a delegation of members of TIAA-CREF’s retirement fund to speak out about the effects … Read entire article »
Filed under: Featured
3 problems of “benevolent soul” Nicholas Kristof
By Ofer Neiman Nicholas Kristof of the NYT seems to be a benevolent soul (no small feat, considering colleagues like Thomas “suck.on.this” Friedman’s war mongering and smug neo-liberal lecturing). However, there is a disturbing pattern of apology for Israel, and perhaps some ignorance of fundamental facts about the occupation, in Kristof’s writing. At the request of Mondoweiss’ Phil and Adam, I wrote a short piece about a previous blog entry of Kristof’s. A … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Sheikh Jarrah, July 9, 2010
By David Shulman I’ve been thinking about truth. About what the word means, and how we know what it means. This comes in the wake of yesterday’s demonstration, with its by now habitual rituals unfolding in their remorseless, bitter order—the hopeful beginning, the drumming and slogans, the dispossessed Palestinians standing beside us as we chant, the rapid, volatile crescendo, the eventual police attack, and the arrests. Sarah, a young woman of astonishing courage and clarity, was … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Note to Kristof: Palestinians don’t need Israeli tutelage with nonviolent protest
by Ofer Neiman A popular colloquial expression in Hebrew regards the futility of “selling ice to an Eskimo”. Perhaps the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof should take note. In a recent blog entry, Kristof wrote that “Israeli civil society promotes democratic values in Palestinian communities”, and that “…the weekly Sheikh Jarrah protests in East Jerusalem, in which Israeli Jews play a major role, offer a useful model of peaceful protest”. Unfortunately, … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Guarnieri: “Israel’s ‘Street Apartheid'”
By Jesse Bacon The excellent journalist Mya Guarnieri has a piece for Al Jazeera in which she focuses on the everyday inequality of street conditions in East Jerusalem. The difference can be as simple as a street light. Al Jazeera found that stoplights that lead to Jewish settlements and neighborhoods stay green for an average of a minute and a half. In Palestinian areas, it’s 20 seconds. One light in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem is … Read entire article »
Filed under: On The Ground Reports
Interactive Video
“You have a choice! Israeli Anti-Militarists Speak”
Four Israelis—Dorothy Naor, Sergeiy Sander and Eli Fabrikant, and Ofer Golani—talking about their personal histories, political views and activism in 132 short films.