vjp-global

http://jstreet.org/survey-majority-israelis-accept-comprehensive-regional-peace-agreement/#.WVLYdIW_5Oh …This survey presented Israeli adults with a detailed explanation of the outlines of a regional agreement. It found that 50 percent would support such an agreement, while another 34 percent would be willing to accept it.    The Israeli Regional Initiative (IRI) is an organization sponsored by the Yitzhak Rabin Foundation that works to promote a comprehensive peace to the Israeli-Arab conflict. This is one of several studies that they have commissioned on Israeli public opinion and attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a regional peace process. .   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/06/israeli-ethics-academia/   Last December, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett appointed Tel Aviv university philosophy professor Asa Kasher, to author an 'ethical code', to define rules in the area of "overlap between academic and political activity". Last month, Kasher submitted the document to Bennett, and it was recently published. (The original document in Hebrew and including English translation are here ).   Heads of Israeli universities blasted the document, pointing out that the code is expected to bar professors from voicing their political opinions in classrooms…Thus professor Asa Kasher has provided Israeli academia an 'ethical code'. But its whole essence is whitewashing the curtailment of academic and personal freedom of expression – which is extremely unethical, really...Professor Asa Kasher is telling us what is kosher. Don't mix politics and academia, as it were. But most impor...

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/06/burning-zionist-settlements/   In an interview with the "burning Zionist" Jonathan Møller Sousa on Danish media, non-Zionist Jonathan Ofir shows that the two-state solution has been made impossible by Israeli colonization of occupied territories, and that occupation is actually manageable. All because the international community does nothing to enforce its demands.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israel-boycott-restrictions-thrown-out-uks-high-court   The High Court in London ruled on Thursday that the Conservative government acted unlawfully in trying to prevent local councils in the United Kingdom from divesting from firms involved in Israel's military occupation.   The successful legal challenge for the right to boycott was brought by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in March , and was supported by War on Want, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade and the Quakers… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-power-plant-back-on-with-help-of-alliance-of-old-foes/   Egypt, Hamas and Abbas's former ally Mohammad Dahlan reportedly join forces against the Palestinian Authority to restore electricity to Gaza… Abbas has not commented publicly on the Egyptian shipment, but aides have said he is upset with the Arab nation for undercutting his pressure campaign…     Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME membe

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-lebanon-warning-idUSKBN19C108 Israel would use all its strength from the start in any new war with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the chief of the Israeli air force said on Wednesday, sending a firm warning a decade after their last conflict.   At the annual Herzliya security conference near Tel Aviv, Major-General Amir Eshel said qualitative and quantitative improvements in the air force since the 2006 Lebanon war meant it could carry out in just two or three days the same number of bombings it mounted in those 34 days of fighting… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.jta.org/2017/06/21/news-opinion/united-states/jewish-group-co-sponsors-a-rally-for-refugees-outside-the-white-house   Dozens of refugees, faith leaders and others marked World Refugee Day at a rally outside the White House sponsored in part by the Jewish nonprofit HIAS…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://forward.com/opinion/375214/why-is-one-pro-israel-group-desperate-to-keep-you-from-watching-this-video/ When it comes to Palestinians, the American Jewish establishment is in the ignorance business. The average American synagogue has never hosted a Palestinian speaker. The average "pro-Israel" activist has never read a book by a Palestinian author. The American Jewish philanthropists who fund Birthright send thousands of young American Jews to Israel each year, on a program that systematically excludes the voices of 50% of the people who live under Israeli control…But..the worst part is that for major American Jewish organizations, ignorance is an export. It is not enough that American Jewish leaders never hear from Palestinians themselves — they do their best to ensure that American politicians don't, either... Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member  

6-21-17 'Devastating' survey shows huge loss of Israel support among Jewish college students - Amanda Borschel-Dan The Times of Israel   http://www.timesofisrael.com/devastating-survey-shows-huge-loss-of-israel-support-among-jewish-college-students/ Brand Israel Group raises the alarm on a widening gap in the US between older supporters and the increasingly pro-Palestinian next generation… In sum, the gap between Israel-supporters and detractors is widening. The current Israel advocacy programs are not working, and Jewish college students are the leading defectors from Israel support…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/06/states-must-ban-israeli-settlement-products-to-help-end-half-a-century-of-violations-against-palestinians/   The international community must ban the import of all goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements and put an end to the multimillion dollar profits that have fuelled mass human rights violations against Palestinians, said Amnesty International today.   To mark the 50 th anniversary of Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip , the organization is launching a new campaign calling on states across the world to prohibit settlement goods from their markets and to prevent their companies from operating in settlements or trading in settlement goods.   "For decades, the world has stood by as Israel has destroyed Palestinians' homes and plundered their land and natural resources for profit. While the Palestinian economy has been stunted by 50 years of abusive polic...

https://972mag.com/palestinians-are-the-glue-that-holds-ashkenazim-and-mizrahim-together/128061/ Sixty-nine years after the founding of the state, the hatred between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim is the greatest threat to Israeli society. Instead of properly dealing with it, all our energy is spent on sowing a collective hatred toward Palestinians… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

  https://972mag.com/author/972blog/ The Palestinian man killed in Kafr Qasim this week was just the latest casualty of a colonial system whose masters feel forever threatened by the natives they rule over. .. Fifty-two young Arab citizens have been shot dead by Israeli security forces since October 2000 . They are classified in legal terms as separate cases, each assessed on its own merits, but they're not. These killings are part of an ongoing phenomenon — a creeping process that has resulted not from the conduct of native Palestinian Arabs, but from the structural relations between them and Jewish society, which adopted a colonialist approach toward the native Arab population in the region.they had no choice but to kill them. ...   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/author/972blog/ The Palestinian man killed in Kafr Qasim this week was just the latest casualty of a colonial system whose masters feel forever threatened by the natives they rule over.   Mahmoud Mahmoud Salim Taha, who was shot and killed by a security guard in Kafr Qasem, June 5, 2017.   Fifty-two young Arab citizens have been shot dead by Israeli security forces since October 2000 . They are classified in legal terms as separate cases, each assessed on its own merits, but they're not. These killings are part of an ongoing phenomenon — a creeping process that has resulted not from the conduct of native Palestinian Arabs, but from the structural relations between them and Jewish society, which adopted a colonialist approach toward the native Arab population in the region. Official spokespersons in Israel tell us that the killings of Muhammad Taha in Kfar Qasim, of Yaqoub Abu al-Qi'an in Umm al-Hiran , and of many others besides, resulted ...

http://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777573   Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi applauded the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Saturday for adopting the draft resolution " Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women ..."   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777593 …While UNRWA has been the target of Palestinian criticism on a number of occasions, Palestinian refugees, notably in the occupied Palestinian territory, see the preservation of their status as refugees as maintaining their claim to their right of return to the villages in historic Palestine from which their ancestors fled during the creation of the state of Israel. Israel has long criticized the UN, claiming that it has been unfairly targeted by the international body over its repeated breaches of international law, particularly its illegal settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

  http://www.gazettenet.com/Columnist-Joseph-Levine-reflects-on-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-Six-Day-War-10528910   With this week's 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, and celebrations of the "reunification" of Jerusalem occurring both in Israel and in many Jewish communities in the United States, it's important to take a sober look back on the events that led to the war and the subsequent 50-year occupation it set in place…And in the end, could any alleged threat justify 50 years of occupation, during which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned at one time or another, a huge percentage of their land confiscated for settlements, thousands of homes demolished, and constant fear of attack both from the settlers and the military is the norm?   Cause for celebration?...Let us instead use this anniversary to rededicate ourselves to ending the occupation and bringing real peace to the region.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME ...

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/22/israels-irrational-rationality/   …By far the most cogent of the [five] new books [on the fiftieth anniversary of the six-Day War] is Nathan Thrall's The Only Language They Understand [Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine] , which surveys the last five decades and comes to a remarkable conclusion: the only way to produce some kind of movement toward resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is to apply significant coercive force to the parties involved, and in particular to Israel…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777425 Though the international community has hailed the two-state solution since the early 1990s, it has become clear that Israel's fragmentation of Palestinian people and territory over the past 50 years aims to make a sovereign Palestinian state impossible. While politicians explain this as a result of misunderstandings or missed opportunities between the two parties, the accurate explanation is that Israel does not, in fact, desire two states. This outcome would undermine its goal of conserving preferential rights for Israeli Jews in the territory under its control. Numerous progressives now argue that one state with equal rights for all is the logical alternative. While such a binational state may be just, it is highly unlikely, especially in the short to medium term. A number of more cynical alternatives are more probable… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member