Browsed by
Category: Politics

In Israel’s mixed Jewish-Palestinian towns, old frustrations boil into violence

In Israel’s mixed Jewish-Palestinian towns, old frustrations boil into violence

Aida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of Israel’s Knesset, writes: Several mixed towns in Israel looked like war zones over the past two weeks. In these communities, such as my hometown, Akka, Jewish Israelis and Palestinians like me live near each other. Recently, small numbers of young Palestinians, enraged by Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and plans to evict Palestinian families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes, clashed with police and attacked local businesses. Hundreds of other Palestinians, myself included, attempted to…

Read More Read More

Sen. Bernie Sanders to introduce resolution of disapproval on $735 million U.S. arms sale to Israel

Sen. Bernie Sanders to introduce resolution of disapproval on $735 million U.S. arms sale to Israel

The Washington Post reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is preparing to introduce a resolution on Thursday disapproving of the U.S. sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post. The resolution aims to halt the planned sale to Israel by the Biden administration of JDAMs, or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, and Small Diameter Bombs, as the worst hostilities in years continue between Israel and Hamas. The resolution needs only a simple…

Read More Read More

Arizona’s absurd election ‘audit’ could be just the beginning for Trump dead-enders

Arizona’s absurd election ‘audit’ could be just the beginning for Trump dead-enders

Eric Lutz writes: Back in November, on the same day Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Alabama Republican Mo Brooks announced that he would fight the results of the vote—and urged his colleagues to do the same. “There’s no way I’ll vote in the House to ratify the Electoral College votes of states where illegal votes distorted the will of the people in those states who voted legally,” the congressman wrote November 7. “This election was stolen…

Read More Read More

This moment is different

This moment is different

Yousef Munayyer writes: For those who periodically tune in and tune out of the Israel-Palestine situation, the events of recent days and weeks might seem like a replay of a movie they have seen before: Palestinians are being forced from their homes; Israel drops bombs on Gaza; Palestinians fire rockets from Gaza; Israel destroys most of the rockets with an air defense system that is largely paid for by American taxpayers. All familiar. But the truth is, this moment is…

Read More Read More

Gaza war deepens a long-running humanitarian crisis

Gaza war deepens a long-running humanitarian crisis

The New York Times reports: The nine-day battle between Hamas militants and the Israeli military has damaged 17 hospitals and clinics in Gaza, wrecked its only coronavirus test laboratory, sent fetid wastewater into its streets and broke water pipes serving at least 800,000 people, setting off a humanitarian crisis that is touching nearly every civilian in the crowded enclave of about two million people. Sewage systems inside Gaza have been destroyed. A desalination plant that helped provide fresh water to…

Read More Read More

In show of unity, Palestinians strike across West Bank, Gaza and Israel

In show of unity, Palestinians strike across West Bank, Gaza and Israel

The New York Times reports: Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel stopped work for the day on Tuesday, as did other Palestinians across the occupied West Bank and in Gaza, protesting violence against Arab Israelis, the unfolding Israeli military campaign targeting Hamas militants in Gaza and the looming eviction of several families from their homes in East Jerusalem. Streets were deserted in Arab areas across both Israel and the occupied territories, as shopkeepers shuttered stores along the waterfront…

Read More Read More

Mob violence against Palestinians in Israel is fueled by groups on WhatsApp

Mob violence against Palestinians in Israel is fueled by groups on WhatsApp

The New York Times reports: Last Wednesday, a message appeared in a new WhatsApp channel called “Death to the Arabs.” The message urged Israelis to join a mass street brawl against Palestinian citizens of Israel. Within hours, dozens of other new WhatsApp groups popped up with variations of the same name and message. The groups soon organized a 6 p.m. start time for a clash in Bat Yam, a town on Israel’s coast. “Together we organize and together we act,”…

Read More Read More

How the storming of the Capitol became a ‘normal tourist visit’

How the storming of the Capitol became a ‘normal tourist visit’

Thomas B. Edsall writes: It is no wonder that Republican leaders in the House do not want to convene a truth and reconciliation commission to scrutinize the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The more attention drawn to the events of that day, the more their party has to lose. Immediately after the riot, support for President Donald Trump fell sharply among Republicans, according to surveys conducted by Kevin Arceneaux of Sciences Po Paris and Rory Truex of Princeton. The…

Read More Read More

CDC chief Walensky keeps changing her story — and confusing everyone

CDC chief Walensky keeps changing her story — and confusing everyone

The Daily Beast reports: The most remarkable moment of national frustration over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s coronavirus guidelines began two days before the agency’s controversial new mask guidance was even announced. “Dr. Walensky, I used to have the utmost respect for the guidance from the CDC,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) told Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the agency’s director, last week, in detailing her belief that the CDC has been slow to keep up with the science. “I always…

Read More Read More

Biden’s response on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has badly damaged his credibility

Biden’s response on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has badly damaged his credibility

Shibley Telhami writes: The United States is not a bystander in Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it is part and parcel of the overwhelming asymmetry of power favoring Israel. When the United States does nothing, it is further implicated in what Israel does, which is directly enabled by decades of American support. When thinking about US clout with Israel, most analysts, and an increasing number of critics within the halls of Congress, focus on the quantity of financial aid to Israel, now amounting…

Read More Read More

Biden’s global democracy agenda needs to include the rights of Palestinians

Biden’s global democracy agenda needs to include the rights of Palestinians

Zaha Hassan and Daniel Levy write: The human rights community—including Palestinians, Israelis, and global groups—is documenting Israeli practices that they argue constitute the crime of apartheid at a moment when Democrats are increasingly rallying under the banner of racial justice. That will make the notion that justice is desirable—except for Palestinians—much harder to sustain. This rhetorical acrobatic act will also be hard to pull off in the international arena. The “America is back” message has been all about a law-abiding,…

Read More Read More

Palestinian protests in Israel showcase ‘unprecedented’ unity

Palestinian protests in Israel showcase ‘unprecedented’ unity

Al Jazeera reports: During the past week, Israeli incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and raids on the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood Sheikh Jarrah continued, while a brutal Israeli military offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip has left many Palestinians dead. But an extraordinary phenomenon has also taken root inside Israel, where thousands of Palestinian citizens in towns, villages and so-called “mixed” cities have taken to the streets to assert their identity while living in a self-defined Jewish state. “What…

Read More Read More

The new ‘Arab street’: online, global and growing

The new ‘Arab street’: online, global and growing

The New York Times reports: The video traveled at 4G speed, leapfrogging across international borders, social media platforms and social justice movements: a young Palestinian woman in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, shouting in furious English at a Jewish man, “You are stealing my house!” “If I don’t steal it, someone else will steal it,” he retorts. This doesn't describe the Israeli occupier's logic only; it also describes the rudeness of those who support the Israeli colonial policies…

Read More Read More

Covid is bringing a global divergence between the wealthiest and poorest nations

Covid is bringing a global divergence between the wealthiest and poorest nations

The Wall Street Journal reports: Covid-19 is reopening a rift between economies in the world’s richest and poorest nations, driven by growth rates that are moving firmly in opposite directions. In the U.S., economists are forecasting a return to boomtime growth levels of the “roaring 20s”; China’s economy expanded at a record 18.3% in the first quarter; and the U.K. is growing faster than at any time since the end of World War II. Yet across the developing world, where…

Read More Read More

Ford and Biden hope to catch lightning with electric pickup

Ford and Biden hope to catch lightning with electric pickup

Politico reports: When Ford Motor Co. surveyed American truck owners last year, the automaker received a clear message: “Keep your hands off my truck.” Only 40 percent said they’d be “excited” about an electric pickup. That truck, like it or not, is here. Now the question is whether consumers — and Congress — will join Ford and other automakers for the ride. The Ford F-150, an iconic American brand with a seven-decade history, will go electric in 2022. President Joe…

Read More Read More

Cheney, unbound, settles into the ‘bull’s-eye of controversy’

Cheney, unbound, settles into the ‘bull’s-eye of controversy’

Politico reports: At her last conference meeting as a House Republican leader, Liz Cheney delivered the morning prayer for the first time. She chose a Bible verse with a pointed message: “The truth shall set you free.” “I thought a lot about the prayer,” an oft-quoted line from the New Testament’s Book of John, Cheney told POLITICO. “Normally I yield to another member to do that, but I thought that was very important that day.” Fifteen minutes after she prayed,…

Read More Read More