Image above: The ruins of the Palestinian village of Najed in the western Negev of Israel. The Palestinian villagers of Najd were expelled and herded to the Gaza Strip by soldiers from the Jewish Negev Brigade on 12–13 May, 1948 . The Israeli city of Sderot was founded in 1951 on village land, a few miles to the south of the village site, while Or HaNer was founded in 1957 also on village land, to the northeast.
Gaza isn’t the only open air prison; Lebanon has 12 of its own. And the people there are denied the most elementary right to apply for a job in more than 50 professions. Worth noting also is that the US Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 could mandate a cut-off of all American aid to Lebanon due to ongoing violations of their human rights. Solidarity—credible, genuine solidarity—is within our grasp; let us reach for it.
The antics of BICOM and its subsidiary Fathom look suspiciously like a clumsy attempt to rejig the Israeli occupation narrative by putting words into the mouth of the ambassador and driving a wedge between him and his boss, President Abbas.
Lia Tarachansky presents the Nakba from the unusual viewpoint of its perpetrators and the ‘inheritors’ of its stolen booty- the land of Palestine. The protagonists are Tarachansky, who, herself, is an ex-settler from Israel’s largest illegal colony, Ariel, Eitan Bronstein founder of Zochrot and Palmach veterans, Tivka Honig-Parnass and Amnon Noiman. Amnon’s struggle to come out of the torture chamber of silent guilt is vivid and (grudgingly) brave.
The EU policy of maintaining close relations with Israel as a supposed means of persuading it to end its violations of human rights and international law, and negotiate in good faith, has clearly failed.
In the run-up to the EU elections the UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) emailed supporters urging them to use a specially worded form for MEP candidates to fill in. It included these two questions…
Free Our Kids to Take Their Baccalaureate Exams …….Hopefully Lebanon will relent and allow Palestinian and Syrian students to take next month’s vital Baccalaureate exams.
“However, our neighbors could not stop the Israeli militants as they started to burn down one house after another in the village. I don’t remember what happened after that but I remember my mother, my two sisters and I, together with other families, stayed put in the village’s square for two days until the European militants came again and forced us to leave.
“Israeli society now acknowledges the Nakba. But there is much more to be done,” Jeries said. “Israeli Jews don’t yet want to take responsibility for it: to fix historical injustices and take back the refugees. It is going to be a long process.”
An International Criminal Court ruling against Israel would give a huge boost to the increasingly effective Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign
