Tag: Middle East

During the latest outbreak of violence in Gaza, Israeli security forces, using high-powered rifles and live ammunition, have killed forty Palestinians (and counting), and wounded more than five thousand. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders have all accused Israel’s government and its

Since the Great March of Return began on March 30th, 2018, 111 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and more than 10,000 have been injured. These Palestinians were courageously demanding their right to live in freedom and to return to land they were forced from. The Movement for Black

Palestine Nakba Day demonstration in Berlin • Photo by Libertinus Israel has been crafting a dishonest counter-narrative ever since the Nakba, one that historians scouring the archives have exploded. On Tuesday, Palestinians will commemorate the anniversary of the Nakba, or catastrophe, their mass expulsion and dispossession 70 years ago as

Illustration by The Forward Not long after the eruption of the Second Intifada in September 2000, I became active in a Jewish-Palestinian political movement called Ta’ayush, which conducts non-violent direct action against Israel’s military siege of the West Bank and Gaza. Its objective isn’t merely to protest against Israel’s violation

Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP Starting on Thursday, December 28, spontaneous demonstrations broke out in different towns and cities across Iran. The protests broke out over economic issues such as high inflation and high youth unemployment, with the trigger being the sudden hike in the price of eggs and chicken. The

Photo by gnuckx Part I – The Inevitable Apartheid Nation We know where Zionism has taken Israel. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 led the way. In that imperial and colonial document, the British promised the World Zionist Organization a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. They did so, as Edward Said

Photo by Jonny White Imagine a natural disaster in Israel, after which city officials demand that victims sign a form swearing never to boycott Iceland before they can receive aid. In their distress, people who never dreamed of boycotting Iceland will sign anything. Now you have them hating that Nordic island nation.

The coming months mark the centennial of Palestine’s forcible incorporation into the British Empire. In November 1917, British foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour declared his government’s support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”; in December, Jerusalem fell to British troops. One hundred years

Photo from thenation.com.pk Egypt’s enthusiasm to arbitrate between feuding Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, is not the outcome of a sudden awakening of conscience. Cairo has, in fact, played a destructive role in manipulating Palestinian division to its favor, while keeping the Rafah border crossing under lock and key. However,

Photo by zeevveez As the Jewish High Holiday season moves in, Israel is getting set to welcome a throng of religious visitors – evangelical Christians. Thousands will pour in from more than 80 countries to the streets of Jerusalem in early October for an annual march celebrating the Feast of

The June 5 decision by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Egypt to suspend diplomatic ties with Qatar has sent shockwaves through the Middle East. The ensuing blockade shut down much of the Gulf’s maritime and land trade with Qatar, provoking fears that the tiny state would

Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the man who exposed the Mai Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and the US military’s abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib in 2004, is probably the most influential journalist of the modern era, with the possible exception of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein,

Up to June 1967, a border separated Jews living in Israel and Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza. The Six Day War, which occurred exactly fifty years ago, erased that line. Israel has been occupying these territories ever since. This has been the source of an endless conflict

Photo by Guido van Nispen This article aims to challenge the rather widely accepted claim that the nature of Zionist settler colonization is exceptional and even “defies appeal to any precedent that can usefully be invoked as to its evolution and eventual revolution. My challenge will focus on Moshé Machover’s

Cui bono – “who benefits” – is the first question an experienced detective asks when investigating a crime. Since I was a detective myself for a short time in my youth, I know the meaning. Often, the first and obvious suspicion is false. You ask yourself “cui bono”, and another

Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is offering two workshops that may benefit Winnipeggers interested in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and seeking more effective methods to discuss it with family and friends. Called Beyond Polarized Kvetching: Speaking Effectively on Israel/Palestine, the sessions will be held at the drop-in room at Winnipeg’s WestEnd Commons