vjp-global

https://www.972mag.com/settlers-battir-illegal-outpost/ Palestinians in the West Bank agricultural village of Battir are encountering armed Israeli settlers trying to push them off their land ….   "In 1982, Israel declared his property, along with a substantial portion of the land in the area, "state land," using the Ottoman Land Code — a 19th century legal mechanism adopted by Israel that gives it the authority to turn uncultivated agricultural land into state land….People are crammed into cities where space is running out … Palestinian cities are turning into ghettoes, concrete refugee camps. It is impossible to grow food on concrete. From a rich agricultural society, we are growing dependent on Israeli companies to feed us." There is nothing coincidental about the settlers' decision to build their tent on Alyan's land.   Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/7/30/noam_chomsky_israel_west_bank_annexation   Noam Chomsky says Israel's planned annexation of the occupied West Bank "basically formalizes" what has already been official policy over the last half-century, from both left-wing and right-wing parties in Israel. He compares Israel's treatment of Palestinians to anti-immigrant policies in the United States, and says the main goal of annexation is to take over as much territory while excluding its Palestinian inhabitants. "Israel does not want to bring Palestinian populations into the greater Israel they're constructing."     Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfmI7DeamCM "Black Power and Palestine" uncovers why so many African Americans—notably Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali, among others—came to support the Palestinians or felt the need to respond to those who did. This is the first book to explore how conflict in the Middle East shaped the American civil rights movement.   Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://electronicintifada.net/content/annexation-was-always-israels-agenda/30686   ...Formal annexation may very well end up being a gradual process starting with some of the main settlements – perhaps along with some gesture to the Palestinians to smooth European concerns. .. it won't proceed without a green light from Washington.   But...there has been an ongoing half-century de facto annexation that has received direct US support and whose designs not only predate occupation, but also the creation of Israel. In 1938, David Ben-Gurion anticipated that "after we become a strong force, as a result of the creation of a state, we shall abolish partition and expand into the whole of Palestine…Netanyahu is only pursuing Israel's historical aspirations for territorial expansion. Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jerusalem-israeli-tunnels-archaeology-history-palestinians-silwan Israel claims the excavations below Silwan and the Old City of Jerusalem are aimed at unearthing traces of the three-millennia-old First and Second Jewish Temples, which Jews believe to have been built where the Al-Aqsa Mosque now stands. To date, Israel has invested at least 40 million shekels ($11.7m) in the initiative. …The archaelogical project, however, has become a subject of global controversy and yet another source of suffering for Palestinians. .. Since the start of excavations, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) has called on Israel to halt its digging, stressing the illegality of such actions in occupied territory…Israeli excavations were halted only for several months in 1974, after Unesco  suspended all aid to Israel. Later that year, the historic Jawahiriya school west of the Al-Aqsa mosque compound collapsed. …

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-president-joe-biden-will-have-the-palestinians-back-and-israel-s-too-1.9022761 Bernie Sanders' Jewish outreach director: From opposing settlements to protecting the right to criticize Israeli policies without fear, the Democratic party platform..For example, the platform makes opposition to Israeli settlements central to its language – the first time ever for any party platform. It condemns unilateral actions by both sides, including annexation -- meaning that for the first time, a party platform explicitly tells Israel to not take such unilateral steps…t also clearly calls for the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state, where Palestinians "should be free to govern themselves." That has not been referenced in a Democratic platform since 2008, and the 2008 platform merely called for a Palestinian state, and only as a result of final-status negotiations. No such caveat

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/07/17/liberal-zionism-begins-make-journey-towards-one-state-solution   

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/beinarts-earthquake-why-so-powerful-why-now/ When Peter Beinart came out for the goal of one democratic state two weeks ago, saying he had given up on Israel as a Jewish state and on the two-state solution, I underestimated the effect. Beinart's apostasy has been a bombshell. The AP wrote a long story saying Beinart's articles in Jewish Currents and The New York Times had caused an "earthquake" in the Jewish-American world. A "shaken" Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street told the AP that Congress members have called him to ask what this means for the two state solution. That's real influence.   J Street tried to downplay the piece at first but now Ben-Ami will be discussing Beinart's vision of in one web event. While David Myers, another leading liberal Zionist at the New Israel Fund, is also having a discussion with Beinart. Meantime the ADL has linked Beinart with anti-semites, Dershowitz has smeared him

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/using-trumps-vision-to-break-free-of-past-frameworks/ There are many ways in which the impending disaster of further Israeli annexation and dispossession can be countered and transformed into opportunities. Here are just three. …Pushing third parties [to a rights-based approach] will require concentrated and strategic efforts by Palestinian civil society and the Palestine solidarity movement to educate and hold third parties accountable, particularly in Europe, given their past willingness to let the US lead the so called 'peace-process' …Enthusiasts of international law should take note: It is imperative that Palestinians consider international law as only one tool in a wider strategy of resistance and redistribute energy to other tools, such as boycotts, rebuilding community networks, and strengthening solidarity with other struggles. … Palestinians

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/on-black-lives-matters-abolitionist-grammar-palestine-and-the-general-strike/   …The general abolitionist strike will continue to find ways to put pressure on institutions not to make an exception of Palestine… With millions on the streets undistracted by the categorical command to produce and consume, those who usually produce photos or ideas – which also exist as commodities – hold the power to refrain from or refuse to deliver certain goods. And they should, whenever doing so would mean crossing the picket line of All Black Lives Matter grammar. There are many different ways for people to join the strike and render legible the complicity between the white institutions charged with the production of knowledge and culture and the law enforcement regime that has been shaped to protect private property. After all, these institutions are built on the foundations of centuries of primitive accumulation of Black and indigenous land, wealth a

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israels-west-bank-annexation-stalls-for-now-amid-pandemic-and-political-distractions/2020/07/16/31b7c2c8-c764-11ea-a825-8722004e4150_story.html …Elhayani, the Yesha chairman [a West Bank settler group], traveled to Washington with Netanyahu for the January rollout of the Trump plan but strongly rejects its call for annexation to be accompanied by steps toward the creation of a Palestinian state on remaining West Bank land.   He cited reports that the White House was divided on the issue, with U.S. Ambassador David Friedman pushing for annexation and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, holding out for more Israeli commitments to a Palestinian state… Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/watch-ali-abunimah-nada-elia-and-phil-weiss-discuss-the-end-of-zionism/   Zionism — the assertion that Jews have a right to violently establish and maintain an ethno-religious state in the homeland and at the expense of the Palestinian people — was, at least in the United States, a mainstream belief with support across the political spectrum.   In recent years, that consensus has crumbled. Palestinians have led the global BDS movement that highlights how Zionism violates the rights of all Palestinians, and younger generations of Americans, including Jews , are turning away from an ideology that is more and more openly aligned with the most reactionary, right-wing and white supremacist forces. Similar changes are happening all over the world. Though Zionism is on the retreat ideologically , Israel retains immense power and impunity.   What will it take to change this apparent stalemate, and shift the balance towards liberation for Pale

https://www.972mag.com/settlement-outpost-dirt-mound-israel-army/ Israeli forces build three-meter dirt mound to cut off Palestinian farmers from their land while violently dispersing protests against new West Bank outpost.The IDF Spokesperson told +972 that the army had made a "tactical" decision to block off the area with the dirt mound following "ongoing clashes and repeated disturbances in the Mount Ebal area" — the word "clashes" referring to the weekly Palestinian protests. The army further claimed that the mound would be removed soon…   Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member  

https://momentmag.com/biden-faces-two-dueling-approaches-on-israel/   J Street—along with a group of rabbis and former Obama administration officials— is leading the drive to include a clear rejection of Israeli annexation of all or parts of the West Bank and a recognition of Palestinian rights […] Will Joe Biden, if elected, launch a maximum pressure campaign to stop Israeli annexation, or will he stick to a non-committal approach of condemning both sides if they take unilateral steps? Will a Biden administration use America's $3.8 billion annual aid package to convince Israel not to annex, or will it accept the Obama-era notion that conditioning aid (or even restricting its use) is off the table?   Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/another-liberal-zionist-group-faces-insurgency-a-call-to-cut-ties-to-israel/ A couple weeks ago we reported that more than 1000 alumni of J Street's youth branch, J Street U, signed a letter to the liberal Zionist group saying its approach of urging Israel to end the occupation had failed and J Street should call for reductions in U.S. aid if Israel goes through with annexation.   J Street rejected the advice . "We believe that Israel should continue to receive from the United States the full amount of security assistance outlined in the MOU: $3.8 billion per year." Though J Street calls for restricting that aid to certain purposes. Well, here's another group of liberal Zionist alums in an uprising. More than 500 members and alumni of a Labor Zionist group famous for socialist kibbutzim — the Habonim Dror movement — have signed a  letter  that is in

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/07/biden-was-willing-to-compromise-with-sanders-on-climate-change-and-immigration- not-israel/ The Democratic Party leadership was willing to compromise with Bernie Sanders on climate change, the green new deal, medicare for all, immigration, criminal justice. But not on Israel. Mark Mellman, president of the Israel lobby group Democratic Majority for Israel [connected to AIPAC] and a longtime Democratic Party insider, indicated that the Biden forces refused to set up a joint task force with Sanders on foreign policy/Israel this spring, even as they were willing to negotiate other policy differences, because the leadership won't budge on that question.

On Sunday 7/12, the News and Observer reported that "Biden forges brand of liberal populism to use against Trump" (Barrow and Weisert, via the Associated Press), including a list of issues on which Biden is trying to take a progressive lead like health care, criminal justice, and the environment.   If he stops before he figures out that he should stop criticizing Israel for endangering the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conundrum, he will have stopped too soon.   The progressive community, including progressive Jews, have moved past the two-state solution to envisioning how Palestinians and Israelis, Jewish and Arab, can occupy together the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.   The United States must stop sheltering Israel with its massive military aid and protecting it in international judicial organizations and help Palestinians gain equal rights i

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/biggest-dutch-pension-fund-dumps-israeli-banks   Dutch pension fund ABP announced last month that it has stopped investing in two Israeli banks involved in Israel's violent colonization of the occupied West Bank. ABP is the biggest pension fund in the Netherlands, and one of the world's largest, with about $500 billion in assets. It says it wants its investments to "contribute to a sustainable world."In areas where there is an increased risk of human rights violations, like the West Bank, ABP requires companies it invests in to have in place a human rights policy. Not only do Israel's Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi have no such policy, but both are heavily involved in building settlements on occupied Palestinian land… Posted by Judith Ferster, Voices for Justice in Palestine member

https://jewishinsider.com/2020/07/house-advances-legislation-pushing-for-israeli-palestinian-parternships/ The Middle East Partnership for Peace Act of 2020 is co-sponsored by Reps. Nita Lowey and Jeff Fortenberry: A House panel chaired by retiring Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) advanced bipartisan legislation on Monday that would establish an international fund to facilitate joint economic ventures and promote people-to-people dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians… Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Cory Gardner (R-CO) introduced companion legislation in the Senate. It is supported by AIPAC, J Street, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League and Americans for Peace Now, among other Jewish and pro-peace groups…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member