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Apr 29

What Zionism has meant for Palestinians

“If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land. We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin.”

Menahem Ussishkin, chair of Jewish National Fund, 1930.

There is a lot of discussion about Zionism at the moment: how to define it, what it means to be anti-Zionist and whether that equates to antisemitism, and so on. But there has been a notable, and instructive, absence in these debates: an understanding of what Zionism has meant for Palestinians. Read more

Apr 27

A Multiple Front War

In 2005, a group of activists launched the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, a global civil society campaign aimed at pressuring Israel to end human rights violations.

Over the years, BDS has gathered momentum and picked up support amongst Palestine solidarity groups, trade unions and on university campuses worldwide.

The impact reached French companies in 2015, when Orange and Veolia, as well as Irish building materials group CRH, all withdrew from the Israeli market following long-running campaigns by BDS activists which, in the case of Veolia, cost the multinational company millions in contracts. Read more

Apr 22

Shifty antisemitism wars

In 2005, a draft, working definition of antisemitism was circulated by the European Union’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). To the dismay of its critics, the document confused genuine antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and was repeatedly, and erroneously, promoted by Israel advocacy groups as the EU definition of antisemitism.

By 2013, the EUMC’s successor body, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), had abandoned the politicised definition as unfit for purpose. Just this week, in response to a motion passed at NUS conference, the FRA explicitly denied having ever adopted the definition. Yet on March 30, Eric Pickles, UK Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust issues and chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, revived the discredited definition by publishing it on the government’s website. Why? Read more

Apr 20

How home demolitions threaten Palestinian statehood

Since the beginning of the year, Israeli authorities have carried out a wave of demolitions of Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank, with numbers that are unprecedented since the United Nations began keeping records in 2009.

As of April 14, Israeli forces had demolished 591 structures in Palestinian communities in Area C, which comprises 60 percent of the West Bank – surpassing the 453 structures demolished in all of 2015. More than 800 people have been displaced; the equivalent figure for all of last year was 580. Read more

Apr 9

UK government lines up with Israeli bullying from UN to the town hall

The Conservative Party is fast cementing the British government’s reputation as one of Israel’s strongest allies, even as Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition pursues settlement expansion, land expropriation and nationalist legislation.

While there has long been a disparity between the UK government’s position on international law and action (or lack of it) taken in response to Israeli breaches, under the current government, that gap is only getting wider.

In recent times, the Tories have pursued a foreign policy that opposes modest Palestinian attempts at accountability, and at home, have sought to intimidate and suppress Palestine solidarity activism. Read more

Apr 4

Sunday Telegraph attack on anti-poverty charity a ‘complete fabrication’

Claims published over the weekend by the Sunday Telegraph that the UK government “pulled” funding for War on Want (WoW) in response to its Palestine solidarity activities have been described as a “complete fabrication” by the anti-poverty charity.

The article, ‘Charity backing anti-Israel rallies has state cash pulled’, reported that the government had “ceased funding” WoW. According to correspondent Andrew Gilligan, the charity has “sponsored events accused of promoting hatred and violence against Jews.” Read more

Mar 19

Analysis: The old-new fight over Israeli unilateralism

Speaking at a media-friendly photo opportunity in occupied East Jerusalem this month, Israeli Labor Party leader Isaac Herzog declared the need for a “disengagement” between Israelis and the Palestinians, “not by withdrawing from the territories, but by separating us physically”.

Two months earlier, Herzog had announced a new plan “to separate from as many Palestinians as possible, as fast as possible”, describing the two-state solution asimpossible under current conditions. The opposition leader’s proposal: to complete the separation wall around so-called “settlement blocs” in the West Bank, and to cut off major Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem from the rest of the city. The Labor Party has officially approved the plan. Read more

Mar 16

Israel is attacking, and killing, Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip

Six-year-old Israa Abu Khussa and her 10-year-old brother Yassin were still sleeping when the Israel Air Force launched four airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Saturday. Missile fragments tore through their home, only partly rebuilt following the 2014 offensive. Yassin and Israa were rushed to hospital, but both died of their wounds. Two other children were injured. Read more

Mar 9

Palestine: Hungry for Freedom

On February 26, Palestinian journalist Mohammad Al Qeeq ended what has widely been reported as one of the longest hunger strikes on record. Al Qeeq was detained at his home in Ramallah by Israeli forces last November and subsequently placed under administrative detention without any charges, and no trial. After 94-days of abstention, a deal was struck with the Israeli authorities. He is now set to be released in two months, on May 21.

But the journalist’s hunger-strike was notable for another reason; the case threw into sharp relief aspects of Israel’s military regime in the West Bank that it prefers to keep out of the spotlight. Read more

Mar 2

Israel and friends battle the boycott in Britain

On February 17, British Cabinet Minister Matthew Hancock stood alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, and announced the publication of “new guidance” for local authorities concerning procurement. The move was trailed – and presented by the government – as designed to ‘ban’ boycotts of Israeli goods and services by councils.

But did the procurement guidance really criminalise boycotts – and what about additional, pending moves by the British government to restrict how local authorities choose to invest pension funds? What is really going on behind this attack on local democracy, in the name of shielding the Israeli state, its institutions, and complicit corporations from a growing global boycott campaign? Read more