This weeks postings at jfjfp.com
This week, 21st-27th September 2015
Don’t forget: Rabbis speak out – IJV meeting in London on 1st October. Independent Jewish Voices has organised a meeting at which four rabbis, from the Reform, Liberal and Mazorti traditions of Judaism, are speaking out on social justice in Israel/Palestine.
Another week, another series of injustices. In Lest we forget the price of occupation we reported on the IDF instigated murder at Checkpoint 18 in Hebron. A few days later we followed up with B’tselem’s measured view that “the soldiers at the checkpoint acted disproportionately”. But their full report clearly justifies our heading the brutal murder of Hadil al-Hashlamun in Hebron.
Stealing Palestinian land discusses the latest report from Dror Etkes (who formerly ran Peace Now’s highly informative Settlement Watch). His new report, “Walled Garden – Declaration of Closed Areas in the West Bank” makes clear that the use of closure orders to acquire land in the West Bank is in general nothing less than theft.
Two pieces on Jerusalem point to the steady deterioration of the situation on the ground. Jerusalem: fanning the flames discusses the slow strangulation of Palestinian identity, symbolised in the small-minded, grubby decision of the city council’s to approve thirty Hebrew street names for roads in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods. And in Jerusalem: the sick city Amjad Iraqi argues that “the only permanent cure to Jerusalem’s sickness lies not just in ending the occupation (the foremost and most urgent step), but in ending the nationalist-religious mantras of ownership of the city in both Israeli and Palestinian social and political thought.”
Teaching hatred on the West Bank reports on a new children’s book from the Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It is called endearingly Occupation Shmuccupation and openly incites hatred, not just of “Arabs” but of Israeli “left-wing organisations” as well.
It appears that British tax payers’ money is funding the illegal settlements as Ben White reveals in an accomplished piece of investigative journalism.
In Jews, Israel and the refugee crisis Deborah Lipstadt, renowned Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, agonises over helping the Syrian refugees. In particular she “almost” agrees with Netanyahu’s decision not to accept any refugees. Lisa Goldman responds differently: “I don’t think anyone would retroactively ask for nuance in judging those who once turned away desperate Jews during the Holocaust, consigning them to genocide, because they were not Christian and might not fit in.”
About a week ago, the Guardian published a piece that unquestioningly reproduced demands from so-called leaders of the Jewish community that Jeremy Corbyn clarify claims that originated with a self-confessed Holocaust denier. Corbyn has answered these allegations numerous times but that didn’t stop them – and the Guardian – simply regurgitating them again. Jews for Jeremy sent an immediate response but, sad to say, the Guardian has chosen not to publish it. We reproduce it here in The Guardian, behaving badly…
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research is the premier opinion polling organisation in the Palestinian territories. It has just published the results of a new poll suggesting that Palestinian opinion is moving against two states.
Maybe it is something in the drinking water but we can report that mass circulation Israeli newspaper/website Yedioth Ahronoth takes BDS seriously, carrying an over 4-thousand word article devoted to a broadly sympathetic portrait of a Dutch BDS activist…
A petition for Netanyahu’s arrest for war crimes was unfortunately but unsurprisingly turned down by HM Government. In a signatories’ blog Netanyahu’s visit revisited Robert Cohen reflects wryly on aspects of the visit.
Finally, we reproduce the latest bulletin from Adam Keller, Gush Shalom activist, who reports regularly from the frontline in his blog Crazy Country.