vjp-global

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/community/chapel-hill-news/chn-opinion/article152490804.html   …Dear Zionists: A state that is a homeland for the Jews exists. With one of the world's most powerful armies including nuclear weapons, it is secure. It is time to admit that its creation and maintenance involve injustice. The peoples on that land need some truth in order to reconcile and live together on that much-storied and much-contested land. Jews and others in the diaspora, too.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/the-israeli-left-must-show-up-to-protest-50-years-of-occupation/127585/ After 50 years of a racist military regime, it's time for the Israeli Left to go out and protest en masse — and, in the face of such an urgent task, to overlook our differences.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/watch-palestinians-mark-nakba-on-both-sides-of-green-line/127555/ Both the March of Return in al-Kabri and a Nakba Day demonstration in Ramallah were held to mark 69 years since the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/05/groundbreaking-resolution-california/?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=22e67e6bda-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-22e67e6bda-398536701&mc_cid=22e67e6bda&mc_eid=b77d41e89a At the California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento over the weekend Palestinian rights supporters steered to passage a groundbreaking resolution that puts California Democrats far ahead of the national and other state parties. Time will tell whether the new resolution can become a model for other Democratic Party institutions, and more importantly, whether it will help accelerate a shift in the party's stance on Israel/Palestine.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/05/israel-us-palestinians-jerusalem-day-netanyahu-donald-trump.html#ixzz4iBZ3XBSZ   … Another encouraging gesture is that while thousands demonstrated in support of claims of Jewish ownership of the city, an unusual event took place in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Zehava Gal-On, leader of the left-wing Zionist Meretz, joined fellow lawmaker Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List, and Mahmoud al-Habash, religious and Islamic affairs minister for the Palestinian Authority, at Jerusalem's American Colony Hotel. The three signed a joint declaration calling on the Israeli government to reach an agreement with the Palestinians on ending the occupation based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state and the western part of town accorded international status as the capital of Israel…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777183   Palestinian factions in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah have called upon the Palestinian people to partake in a "Day of Rage" on Tuesday, during the planned visit by US President Donald Trump to the occupied Palestinian territory…While the Israeli government is believed to have strategically stalled legislation that further entrenched Israel's illegal settlement expansion until after Trump's inauguration, owing to the belief among Israeli leaders that right-wing policies would be more easily implemented under a Trump presidency, Trump's unpredictable nature has left Israeli authorities and Palestinian leaders alike unsure of his actual stance on the conflict.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/40477-campus-activists-fight-fordham-university-s-ban-on-students-for-justice-in-palestine     Fordham University has recently been awarded the dubious distinction of being named one of  the 10 worst campuses in the United States  when it comes to free speech and academic freedom. Its sin? To have, in an unprecedented move, overturned its own process for approving student groups and unilaterally denied recognition to one student organization alone --  Students for Justice in Palestine …   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-prisoners-revolt-the-real-reasons-behind-the-palestinian-hunger-strike/ …I t is under this backdrop [the occupation] that the hunger strike becomes far more urgent than the need to improve the conditions of incarcerated Palestinians.   It is a revolt within Fatah against their disengaged leadership, and a frantic attempt by all Palestinians to demonstrate their ability to destabilize the Israeli-American-PA matrix of control that has extended for many years.   "Rights are not bestowed by an oppressor," wrote Marwan Barghouti from his jail on the first day of the hunger strike.   In truth, his message was directed at Abbas and his cronies, as much as it was directed at Israel. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member  

https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/05/what-hamass-new-document-does-and-doenst-say/525006/ …"One of the more important things in this document is what's not in it, and that's any mention of the Muslim Brotherhood," Rumley said. "Hamas released this now out of realization that Sisi is here to stay and that his war on the [Muslim] Brothers has hit them hard—not only at Rafah, but in the tunnels and in access to Egypt and the ability to get out of the Gaza Strip. It's really hamstrung the organization."   Rumley said the move could also be seen as an attempt to undercut support for Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority from which Hamas broke ranks after it assumed control of the Strip in 2007.   The new document was dismissed by Israeli and Palestinian Authority leaders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a "smoke screen," with David Keyes, a Netanyahu spokesman, adding : "Hamas is att

  http://mondoweiss.net/2017/05/prisoners-hunger-strike/   The Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is due to meet Donald Trump in the White House on Wednesday to discuss reviving the long-cold corpse of the peace process.   Back home, things are heating up. There is anger in the West Bank, both on the streets and within the ranks of Abbas's Fatah movement. The trigger is a two-week-old hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners… ries to Gaza's civil servants.…A popular struggle of non-violence – blocking settlement roads, marching to Jerusalem, tearing down walls – would be hard to characterise as terrorism, even for Trump. It is the Israeli army's nightmare scenario, because it is the only confrontation for which it has no suitable response.   Such a campaign of civil disobedience, however, stands no chance of success so long as Abbas is there to undermine it – and insists on obediently chasing after illusions in Washington.   Posted by Judith

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/05/independence-accountability-aggressor/   …I went on to study biological psychology in the United States specializing in the behavioral neuroscience of fear, stress, social behaviors, aggression and trauma... Since its inception, Israeli politicians invoke fear by perpetuating a victim narrative based on centuries of real persecution of Jewish peoples. In effect, they reinforce a form of collective Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), whereby annihilation is eternally around the corner. Thus, fear enables a level of aggression and oppression that is a part of daily life in the reality of occupation.   Today is a perfect day of reckoning for Israelis: the anniversary of the  Palestinian Nakba  ("catastrophe" in Arabic), when Zionist forces ethnically cleansed Palestine of its native peoples in order to fulfill their goal of Judaizing the land.   To heal, we as Israelis must abandon exclusivism and choose the evolutionary path

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/world/middleeast/hamas-fatah-palestinians-document.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news   Hamas , the militant group that has long engaged in violent resistance against Israel , sought on Monday to present a more moderate public face as it struggles for control among Palestinians with its main rival, the Palestinian Authority .   A new document of principles — released by Hamas just days before the Palestinian Authority's leader, Mahmoud Abbas , was scheduled to meet President Trump — calls for closer ties to Egypt , waters down the anti-Semitic language that is prominent in its charter and accepts at least a provisional Palestinian state…"We are a pragmatic and civilized movement. We do not hate the Jews. We only fight who occupies our lands and kills our people…." Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member