Apartheid

It is hard to ignore the striking parallels between the recent scenes of police brutality in cities across the United States and decades of violence from Israel’s security forces against Palestinians.
A video that went viral late last month of a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, killing a black man, George Floyd, by pressing a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes has triggered a fortnight of mass protests across the US – and beyond.

C’est la CEDH qui l’affirme : oui, il est permis de critiquer Israël, et d’appeler au boycott de ses produits afin que cet état cesse sa politique raciste d’apartheid et de colonisation envers les palestiniens. Le texte qui suit nous a été envoyé par Olivia Zémor, de l’association CAPJPO-EuroPalestine. Pour rappel, la campagne BDS est âprement combattu par l’état d’Israël […]

• To read this essay on the Americans for Middle East Understanding website, click here
• For a PDF version, click here
It was inevitable that when the coronavirus pandemic reached the occupied Palestinian territories, as it did in early March, it would find its first purchase in Bethlehem, a few miles south-east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

An attack on a prominent British-Palestinian doctor and academic, Ghada Karmi, by a self-styled “antisemitism watchdog” looks suspiciously like a new trend in anti-Palestinian bigotry and bullying dressed up as victimhood.

As the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, the coronavirus outbreak in Israel and the Palestinian territories is proving how inevitably intertwined the two populations’ lives are, while also underlining the extreme differentials of power between them.

Triple Jeopardy: Refugees/Migrants/Palestinian Prisoners
 
[Prefatory Note: This post was published in a somewhat altered form in Transcend MediaService on April 20, 2020 under the title “Triple Jeopardy and the Plight of Palestinian Prisoners.]
 
Double Jeopardy for Refugees/Migrants

Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White party, abandoned the central plank of his platform at the weekend – that he would never sit in a coalition with Benjamin Netanyahu, who has led Israel continuously for the past 11 years.
A former military general, Gantz justified his dramatic change of course under cover of claims that Israel needed an “emergency” unity government to deal with the coronavirus epidemic.

Tunisia is the Middle East’s greatest success story, according to the findings of the V-Dem Annual Democracy Report 2019.
One of the world’s most regarded annual reports on democracy and good governance, the V-Dem Report is produced by the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Jerusalem, Palestine — Once again, Benjamin Netanyahu wins big in Israeli politics. Even as his main opponent, former Israeli army chief Benny Gantz was given a mandate to form and head a coalition government, Netanyahu, indicted and presumed to be on his way out, managed to pull in Gantz, break up the Blue and White opposition party, stop the coalition from forming, and remain on top. 
 

It was only a matter of time before the anti-Muslim sentiment in India turned violent.
A country that has historically prided itself on  its diversity and tolerance, and for being ‘the largest democracy in the world’ has, in recent years, exhibited the exact opposite qualities – chauvinism, racism, religious intolerance, and, at times, extreme violence.