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Posts from the ‘Articles’ Category

May 15

The Nakba is a past and a present, a continuous and developing process of Zionist colonization

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the historic ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the Zionist movement, and the establishment of the State of Israel on the rubble of hundreds of emptied, destroyed villages.

Nakba Day continues to grow in prominence as a time for remembrance and protest, an alternative history to the narrative of Israeli ‘independence’, and a reminder that the ‘miracle’ of a Jewish state was actually realised through the historically familiar methods of expulsion and colonial erasure. But this is more than just an anniversary or commemoration. In three important ways, the Nakba is not simply confined to the history books.

First, the Nakba is a defining event. Many potted histories or summaries of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict” cover 1948 with a sentence like this: ‘The State of Israel declares independence and is immediately attacked by its Arab neighbours’. The Palestinian refugees emerge in the narrative as if by magic, or as a vague consequence of war.

Yet the ethnic cleansing of 1948 is the heart and soul of the Palestinian people’s struggle. This is how a landscape was obliterated and communities destroyed; homes, schools and mosques disappearing under rolling explosions, citrus groves and fields of crops separated from their owners. Palestinian lives are shaped by the Nakba, from refugee camps and fragmented families to destroyed livelihoods and murdered loved ones. Read more

May 10

Stephen Hawking Is Right: Israel Must Be Boycotted

What is a boycott? A boycott is about applying pressure in an effort to effect change, a nonviolent way of expressing opposition to a particular policy. As part of a wider campaign, it is a way to challenge or end complicity in a practice viewed as objectionable. Boycotts and divestments are strategies of the weak against the powerful, and, in some contexts – such as Palestine/Israel – they are also responses of solidarity with a group that asks for outside support in a struggle for justice.

That is an important place to start because of all the disingenuousness and red herrings used in the discussion by Israel’s apologists and opponents of the boycott. But why is Stephen Hawking right to boycott Israel? Indeed, why are any of the growing list of celebrities, trade unions, faith communities, and student unions right to support the BDS campaign? Read more

May 9

Five reasons why Hawking is right to boycott Israel

As announced by the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) and subsequently covered by The Guardian, Reuters and others, world-renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking has decided to heed the Palestinian call for boycott, and pull out of an Israeli conference hosted by President Shimon Peres in June. After initial confusion, this was confirmed – Hawking is staying away on political grounds.

Here are five reasons why Professor Hawking is right to boycott: Read more

May 8

Remixed: the Israeli army infographic that claimed stone-throwing is “Palestinian terror”

Yesterday, the Israeli army spokesperson published the below infographic on Twitter and Facebook.

Putting aside the absurd categorization of “rock throwing” and “firebomb incidents” as “terror,” I thought it was important to demonstrate the routine reality for Palestinians under Israeli apartheid rule in the West Bank. Read more

Apr 17

Analyses of Israeli apartheid are ever more crucial

In March 2012, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) published unprecedentedly harsh concluding observations following Israel’s periodic review. In what one expert called “the most cutting CERD recognition and condemnation of a legal system of segregation since apartheid South Africa”, Israel was called out for violating the right to equality in numerous ways with regards to both Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and those in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Israeli policies, according to CERD, include “segregation between Jewish and non-Jewish communities”, a lack of “equal access to land and property”, “forced displacement”, “de facto segregation” in the West Bank – and an overall regime necessitating a reminder of the “prohibition” of policies of “apartheid”. Read more

Apr 8

With Israel having expelled most of the Palestinians to forcibly create a Jewish majority and create the basis for an ethnocratic state, its defenders now claim that opposition to this programme is "discriminatory" [EPA]

Israel’s definition as a ‘Jewish state’

The alternative to Israel as a “Jewish state” is not a Palestinian Arab state, but a state where all have equal rights.

In recent years, there has been a growing, critical questioning of Israel’s definition as a “Jewish state”, and the system of privilege (and discrimination) that it entails. This has happened for a few different reasons, including: attention-grabbing efforts in Israel to implement cruder ethnocratic legislation, the political mobilisation of Palestinian citizens of Israel and their subsequent targeting by the state, the treatment of non-Jewish African migrants, Netanyahu’s repeated demand that Palestinians “recognise” Israel as a Jewish state, the focus of the BDS call, and increasing anti-Zionist dissent within the Jewish community in the West. Read more

Mar 27

Major defeat in case claiming union was anti-semitic

Pro-Israel pressure groups in the UK have suffered a major defeat in efforts to repress Palestine solidarity activity within the trade unions, as an Employment Tribunal dismissed a high-profile case brought against the University and College Union (UCU).

Academic Friends of Israel director Ronnie Fraser, represented by leading lawyer Anthony Julius, claimed he suffered antisemitic harassment in the UCU, complaints judged by the tribunal to be “without substance” and “devoid of any merit”. Read more

Mar 13

Why do Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip not warrant a response from the British government?

On 26 February, Palestinians fired a rocket into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, the first such projectile attack since the ceasefire that brought an end to Israel’s eight-day assault on the blockaded territory (’Operation Pillar of Defense’).

For over three months, there were precisely zero rockets. Yet during the same period, four Palestinians were killed and almost 100 wounded by Israeli forces, with over 60 shooting attacks, a dozen incursions into the Gaza Strip, and some 30 attacks on Palestinian fishermen working in Gaza’s waters. Read more

Mar 7

Don’t Ignore The Roots Of Discrimination

In his article, Robert Cherry begins with a misrepresentation. I have never used the apartheid analysis to refer only to policies inside the pre-1967 borders. “Israeli apartheid” typically refers either just to the West Bank (i.e. Jimmy Carter’s position), or, as in my case, to all of Palestine/Israel as one unit. To quote from Oren Yiftachel, it is about seeing “the colonized West Bank, the besieged Gaza Strip and Israel proper, each with its own official set of rules,” as “one regime system” which privileges Jews and divides Palestinians into different groups granted or denied certain rights. Read more

Feb 23

What a ‘period of calm’ looks like in the Occupied Territories

Three months have passed since the ceasefire that brought an end to Israel’s eight-day attack on the Gaza Strip known as Operation “Pillar of Defence”. This infographic depicts the number of attacks on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military during this three-month period, as well as the number of Palestinian attacks emanating from Gaza. Since late November, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have averaged over one a day, everyday. These include shootings by troops positioned along the border fence, attacks on fishermen working off the Gaza coast, and incursions by the Israeli army. Read more

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