Israel launches “Operation Face History”.
(Jerusalem — June 2021) — In a historic about-face, and while Palestinian bodies are still being pulled from the rubble in Gaza, the Middle East woke up this morning to its future. Late into the night, hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, better known as Bibi, surprised even the most radical Palestinians and ordered the Israeli Defense Forces to end 54 years of military occupation of Palestinian lands. It was reported that Netanyahu made this historic move after seeing the cover story of the New York Times, which photographed all of the Palestinian children he just killed in Gaza.
Israel…
Israel has reached apartheid, the antithesis of Judaism’s long tradition of social justice.
Events in Israel and Palestine are disturbing, to say the least, but far from surprising to anyone who has been awake.
In an opinion piece last August that was published in Haaretz, Pushing Palestinians back to armed struggle, I wrote: “If the US and Israel do not make an about-face soon, Palestinians will care less who blames them when the bullets and missiles start flying in both directions.”
My focus in these words was on how Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation would act if nothing changed. Regretfully, I was spot on.
Allow me to also repeat something else I…
A new book dives into the myriad laws that protect Palestinian refugees and their right of return. Its proposed solution, though, may be hard to swallow.
“Palestinian Refugees in International Law” by Francesca P. Albanese and Lex Takkenberg, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2020, 608 pages.
I was recently on a video call with a longtime Jewish Israeli friend from Jerusalem. He is a highly educated, deeply cultured, politically liberal, and progressive academic who is outspoken and well-written on the need for Israel to end its military occupation of Palestinians and to stop its discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.
But our political conversation hit an odd silence when, during the course of our conversation, I told him that peace can only be realized once Israel…
A new report by Human Rights Watch slams Israel as an apartheid state. What now?
One of the world’s leading independent organisations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, Human Rights Watch (HRW), today issued a 213-page report entitled ‘ A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution ‘. The report examines Israel’s treatment of all Palestinians, regardless of where they may reside between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and beyond.
For such a mainstream organisation, it minces no words. The report starts by noting that ‘Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.’ In a press release announcing the report, HRW said, ‘The finding…
Moving from a state of internal chaos to structural reform.
The Palestinian political system is in a self-inflicted free fall. The results may be catastrophic for the just Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence. Most of the Palestinian people are looking on with utter despair, not only those living under Israeli military occupation in Palestine (West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip), but also those living in Israel, refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and amongst the diaspora worldwide. If corrective action is not immediately taken, Chairman Abbas and all the members of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian’s political agency, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), will be to blame.
…
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” ― attributed to Abraham Lincoln
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is the political agency of the Palestinians’ national liberation movement; it represents Palestinians wherever they reside. The PLO last defined its goals as freedom and independence — freedom from Israeli military occupation and oppression and for the right of Palestinian refugees to return home, and independence in a free and sovereign state of Palestine. This sole, internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people is currently under serious threat by none other than its own leadership.
PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and his predecessor Yasser Arafat, both systematically led this once-vibrant organization toward a situation of total…
Politicians and experts should not doubt a two-state solution. But they should finally consider a plausible version of it.
Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour
Mr. Avishai, an American-Israeli professor and writer for magazines, lives in Jerusalem. Mr. Bahour is an American-Palestinian who lives in Ramallah in the West Bank and is a management consultant. They have proposed a confederation to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years.
Donald Trump has left the Biden administration myriad international crises, and nowhere more obviously than in Israel and the Palestine Authority.
Mr. Trump dismantled relations with the Palestinian side and greenlighted an extremist Israeli…
AN APPEAL FOR FINANCIAL SUPPORT
For there is always light,
if only we’re brave enough to see it
If only we’re brave enough to be it
~Amanda Gorman, youngest poet ever to perform at a presidential inauguration (2021)
Gaza is hell. Gaza for youth is a living hell! Gaza’s youth are in their greatest time of need.
We are all at a loss on how to resolve the overall situation in Gaza but that does not mean we are paralyzed to help individuals in need. …
Book Review of Decolonizing Israel, Liberating Palestine: Zionism, Settler Colonialism, and the Case for One Democratic State
Imagine, God forbid, that you and a friend are being rushed into a hospital emergency room by a life-support ambulance team. One of you is still living; the other died at the scene.
The horrific event that brought you both to this point was perpetrated in broad daylight, creating a public and angry outcry. The public has gathered in the parking lot of the hospital, its anger growing by the second. Inside, the health professionals do their job in a cold, systematic manner, as trained. The first decision is to take the still-living victim to triage and prepare them for…
Stop loving Israel to death.
If you are Jewish and living outside of Israel, what are you waiting for? Israel awaits you. What’s taking you so long? Uncle Bibi wants YOU!
As a Palestinian living in Palestine, I anxiously await your arrival. I have spoken directly to thousands of you over decades about Israel and its actions. Most recently, I had a conversation with over 100 of you on Zoom. The conversation and audience questions were all too familiar, like the hundreds of past encounters — cordial, frank, and informative to us both. However, this last one ended on a note that stuck with me…
Sam Bahour
Writer, businessperson, activist.
