vjp-global

http://mondoweiss.net/2017/07/shockwaves-progressive-community/?mc_cid=16bd88bf98&mc_eid=c9acac3cf3   [There is] new legislation in the Congress that would criminalize support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)...The bill is such a crude example of overreach by the Israel lobby that it is sure to backfire on its supporters as Greenwald and Grim's report ricochets around the Democratic Party:   But now, a group of 43 senators — 29 Republicans and 14 Democrats — wants to implement a law that would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel, which was launched in protest of that country's decades-old occupation of Palestine…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://t-j.org.il/LatestDevelopments/tabid/1370/articleID/842/currentpage/1/Default.aspx ...Netanyahu's decision to leave the metal detectors in place demonstrates that he is in defiant mode. This is nothing new, but it is getting worse (e.g., Netanyahu's fight with Germany over Breaking the Silence; his effort to return focus to Iran; his bullying of UNESCO; this week's hot mic incident ). In recent years, Netanyahu's policies towards the Palestinians in East Jerusalem has consistently been to try to break their will (often by means of frequent collective punishment), while at no time reaching out to them or engaging them on the issues that concern them. In this current crisis, he has doubled down on these policies even in defiance of the advice of his own security establishment. In addition there are those who speculate that this phenomenon is related to Netanyahu's increasing political vulnerability and legal difficulties. Whatever the case, all s

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/07/20/jerusalem-is-especially-volatile-right-now-this-is-why/?utm_term=.011d1bb0519b   … In a 2016 poll , more than half of Palestinians expressed fear that Israel intends to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. Another 2016 poll shows that Jerusalemite Palestinians are deeply concerned with Jewish ascension to the Noble Sanctuary and archaeological excavations in the area…On Friday, Israel will make a seemingly banal security decision — to keep or remove the metal detectors at the gates of the Temple Mount. The significance of that decision cannot be overstated. In the immediate term, it will determine whether the week of civil disobedience erupts into something much larger across the region. But it might also signal whether the Temple Mount's delicate status quo has finally unraveled. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.  On Jul 17, 2017 11:49 PM, "Judith Ferster" < jferster@ncsu.edu > wrote: https://972mag.com/gaza-will- be-unlivable-next-year-not- 2020-as-the-un-says/128598/ +972 Magazine talks to Khalil Shaheen, a Gaza resident and expert on the impact of Israeli, Palestinian Authority, and Hamas policies in the besieged coastal strip, to get a picture of what life is like in Gaza, and why it's probably going to get unfathomably worse. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/gaza-will-be-unlivable-next-year-not-2020-as-the-un-says/128598/ +972 Magazine talks to Khalil Shaheen, a Gaza resident and expert on the impact of Israeli, Palestinian Authority, and Hamas policies in the besieged coastal strip, to get a picture of what life is like in Gaza, and why it's probably going to get unfathomably worse. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/anc-decides-south-africa-should-downgrade-ties-israel   South Africa's ruling party wants to sharply downgrade ties with Israel.   At its national policy conference on Tuesday, the African National Congress adopted a recommendation "to downgrade the South African embassy in Israel to a liaison office in a bid to reduce diplomatic ties," the Mail & Guardian newspaper reported …South Africa has gone further than many countries by explicitly discouraging its citizens from traveling to present-day Israel because of the mistreatment of Palestinians… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/video-break-silence-gaza-people-power After 10 years of Israeli siege, the United Nations says Gaza is effectively unlivable.   Israel has consigned the people of Gaza to "living in abject poverty under practically inhuman conditions unparalleled in the modern world," the human rights group B'Tselem said last month. In recent weeks the situation has deteriorated even further, as Israel has sharply cut the electricity supply, bringing available energy in Gaza to the lowest level ever .   Health, water and sewage treatment systems are breaking down, making life unbearable…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/1.801075   Gaza's last functioning turbine has been closed, leaving the strip without almost any power… The Gaza Strip, with more than two million people, has been suffering from an energy crisis since mid-April due to a dispute over taxes between the Islamist Hamas movement, which rules the enclave, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.801154   With the help of tens of thousands of dollars raised from American Jewish donors, the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel launched a huge billboard campaign on Thursday. The campaign's goal is to pressure the Israeli government into fulfilling its promises to build a new and permanent egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City.   About 1,000 billboards have been put up around the country with the call: "Free the Kotel – Enough with ultra-Orthodox domination."… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.timesofisrael.com/canada-bans-product-of-israel-labels-for-west-bank-wines/ Canadian food inspectors have ordered liquor stores to stop selling wines made in the West Bank, saying their label identifying them as Israeli contravenes Ottawa's policy on the territory.  Settlers and at least one Canadian Jewish advocacy group reacted with anger to the ruling, which singles out the Psagot and Shiloh wineries, made in settlements outside Ramallah. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/opinion/israel-american-jews-benjamin-netanyahu.html   Netanyahu is setting himself up to be a pivotal figure in Jewish history — the leader who burned the bridges to a two-state solution and to the Jewish diaspora at the same time. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.799783   The Israeli Health Ministry believes that the shutdown of a Gaza sewage plant due to power shortages led to pollution at Zikim beach and Ashkelon National Park, which have been closed to swimmers…After the Health Ministry's swimming ban was announced, Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking him to find an immediate solution to the electricity crisis in Gaza… read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.799783   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.801174     United States President Donald Trump's Mideast envoy Jason Greenblatt announced Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinians have reached a water agreement linked to a massive planned Red Sea-Dead Sea pipeline project. Greenblatt said at a press conference in Jerusalem that the U.S.-mediated deal gives the parched Palestinian territories 32 million cubic meters (42 million cubic yards) of water per year. Israel will start to provide the West Bank and Gaza Strip with the water in the immediate future at a reduced rate…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member  

https://www.thenation.com/article/how-israels-10-year-blockade-brought-gaza-to-the-brink-of-collapse/ The crisis in Gaza is not simply a humanitarian tragedy. It's a moral outrage.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/this-palestinian-village-had-solar-power--until-israeli-soldiers-took-it-away/2017/07/05/d4b8a5fc-6036-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html?utm_term=.ff1822552d01 …Israeli officials called the construction illegal, but the builders contested the charge, saying they are providing desperately needed humanitarian aid that is required under international law…"It was a disaster. We are all in mourning," said Fadia al-Wahsh, head of the local women's committee, hours after the soldiers left, as villagers discussed how to save food and medicine from the stifling summer heat.   The confiscation was the latest round of a widening conflict between European donors [in this case Dutch] and the Israeli government over projects that benefit Palestinians in Area C, about 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli control. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://forward.com/opinion/israel/376388/the-israeli-right-is-terrified-of-peace-and-their-jerusalem-bill-proves-it/?attribution=home-top-story-1-headline   …Now Netanyahu holds the torch. He's said repeatedly that he wants peace, that nobody wants peace more than Israelis. He said that although he doesn't want Israel to rule 4 million disenfranchised Palestinians, Palestinian hostility makes peace impossible. It seems, though, that he shares Bennett's fear that a peace agreement is possible on terms Israel can live with, that a future Israeli leader will manage to reach an agreement without getting deposed, indicted or shot, and that Israelis will then be forced to decide which they want more — peace or East Jerusalem. Bennett, and perhaps Netanyahu, appear to be petrified at the prospect that Israelis actually want what they say they do — peace. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=777949   Israeli authorities released two Hamas-affiliated Palestinian parliamentarians detained four months prior, a Palestinian official said... Zboun and Tafish, who are members of the PLC's Change and Reform bloc, were detained in the southern occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem on March 6 during an overnight raid… …Israel considers the majority of Palestinian political parties to be "terrorist organizations." As a result, most Palestinians who participate in the political arena in the occupied Palestinian territory risk being imprisoned by Israeli authorities.   According to prisoners' rights group Addameer, 6,200 Palestinians were held by Israel as of May, 12 of whom PLC members.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://electronicintifada.net/tags/uc-irvine … University of California, Irvine is once again investigating the school's Students for Justice in Palestine group after a protest of an event featuring Israeli soldiers last month.   But members of Students for Justice in Palestine say they are the ones who endured days of harassment and intimidation by Israeli soldiers invited to campus to give a panel discussion about the Israeli army.   The SJP students say they were subjected to days of racial and sexual slurs in what they believe was an attempt to provoke a reaction.   UC Irvine has been a focal point for Israel advocacy groups seeking to categorize support for Palestinian rights as anti-Semitic…The investigation is taking place after a year of heavy pressure from Israel advocacy groups, including the Amcha Initiative , the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights , Hillel , StandWithUs and the Israeli consulate, to crack down on Palestine activism on campus…

https://972mag.com/beyond-protesting-occupation-sumud-is-protecting-life/128554/ This movement has triggered in my soul something bigger than Sarura, more sacred than my political rights as a Palestinian, and more profound than reaching a political settlement to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/the-trump-effect-hits-gaza/128489/ No, Trump did not create the rift between the PA and Hamas. But he has bought into the Israeli narrative, thus creating an environment that encourages more aggressive steps by stronger parties. The most dangerous part? Trump surely has no idea he did any of this… Will the Saudi offensive work? If it does, it will re-entrench the Arab dictatorship model that thrived for so long in the region. That may or not be the model that someone like Mahmoud Abbas prefers, but it is now the only wagon to which he can hitch his hopes.   Trump has created the opportunity to see if that tactic will work. If it does, hopes for democracy will have suffered a serious defeat. If it fails, the recent revival of Iranian regime change in U.S. policy circles shows we are not learning from defeats and mistakes. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/ultra-orthodox-anger-over-western-wall-deal-isnt-about-american-jews/128562/ The Israeli government's decision to abandon a deal creating an egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall led to an unprecedented rift with Diaspora Jewry. But American Jews, and the Reform Movement in particular, are merely collateral damage — caught in the crossfire of an internal ultra-Orthodox power struggle… Interestingly, the ultra-Orthodox anger over the Western Wall deal targeted neither Reform Jews nor Prime Minister Netanyahu. Most of their ire was saved for the ultra-Orthodox political parties and rabbis who backed the compromise… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/28/israels-efforts-to-hide-palestinians-from-view-no-longer-fools-young-american-jews/ …Increasingly, American Jewry is becoming polarised, between an older generation whose ignorance allows them to advocate unthinkingly for Israel and a young generation whose greater knowledge has brought with it a sense of responsibility. In an ever-more globalised world, this trend is going to intensify.   Young American Jews will have to choose. Will they conspire, if only through their silence, in the erasure of the Palestinians carried out by Israel in their name? Or will they stand and fight, in the occupied territories, on campus, in their communities and, soon enough, in the corridors of power in Washington?   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/charlotte-silver/former-prisoners-say-payments-end-pa-comes-under-us-pressure Two days after Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas reportedly refused Israeli and American demands that he stop paying families of Palestinian prisoners, his security forces in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah raided a protest camp of former political prisoners who no longer receive their salaries.   On Monday, Ma'an News Agency reported that 277 former political prisoners abruptly stopped receiving their stipends at the beginning of June.   The development comes as Israel and the US are pressuring the PA to stop paying prisoners, calling it a form of incitement... 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… The sole power plant in electricity-starved Gaza Strip sputtered back to life Thursday after receiving fuel from Egypt — a shipment that resulted from a surprising alliance between bitter ex-rivals, including the territory's ruling Hamas and an exiled former Gaza strongman.   Egypt's shipment of 1 million liters of fuel undercut a high-stakes campaign by Western-backed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas who is trying to weaken Hamas by gradually reducing the flow of electricity to the territory he lost to the militants in 2007…   ...Dahlan helped persuade Egypt to send the badly needed fuel to Gaza, in exchange for Hamas allowing him to broaden his political presence in Gaza, according to officials involv