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Category: War

How Israel’s illiberal democracy became a model for the right

How Israel’s illiberal democracy became a model for the right

Suzanne Schneider writes: Amid the mass slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, it is easy to forget the political drama that gripped Israel only one year ago. After assuming power in December 2022, a new far-right government led by Benjamin Netanyahu had proposed a slate of judicial and administrative reforms that prompted a wave of anti-government protests. Concerned journalists, former U.S. and Israeli government officials, and major American Jewish organizations issued ominous warnings about democratic backsliding. Israel, it seemed,…

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NAACP asks Biden to halt weapons to Israel as he seeks to shore up Black voter support

NAACP asks Biden to halt weapons to Israel as he seeks to shore up Black voter support

Reuters reports: The NAACP urged President Joe Biden on Thursday to “indefinitely” halt all weapons deliveries to Israel and pressure the U.S. ally to end its war in the Gaza Strip, sending a reminder that his support for Israel could hurt him among Black voters in November’s election. The NAACP’s call was a rare instance of the influential civil rights organization taking a position on U.S. foreign policy towards a country without a significant Black population. It appeared likely to…

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Spain applies to join South Africa’s case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide

Spain applies to join South Africa’s case at top UN court accusing Israel of genocide

The Associated Press reports: Spain became on Thursday the first European country to ask a United Nations court for permission to join South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. South Africa filed its case with the International Court of Justice late last year. It alleged that Israel was breaching the genocide convention in its military assault that has laid waste to large swaths of Gaza. The court has ordered Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in the…

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Secret Israeli propaganda campaign targets U.S. Congress and public using fake accounts with AI content

Secret Israeli propaganda campaign targets U.S. Congress and public using fake accounts with AI content

The New York Times reports: Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation. The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials…

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‘America kills a person and then attends their funeral’

‘America kills a person and then attends their funeral’

  Sky News has followed the treatment of a Palestinian woman who was evacuated from Gaza to the US after an Israeli tank shell hit her home. Ahed Bseiso’s leg was badly injured and had to be amputated by her uncle, who is a surgeon. Video of the amputation went viral on social media. Ahed’s treatment in the US was arranged by the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, which has extracted about 100 injured children from Gaza since the conflict began.

Former Meta engineer sues company saying he was fired over handling of Gaza content

Former Meta engineer sues company saying he was fired over handling of Gaza content

Reuters reports: A former Meta engineer on Tuesday accused the company of bias in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza, claiming in a lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to help fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinian Instagram posts. Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer who had been on Meta’s machine learning team since 2021, sued the social media giant in a California state court for discrimination, wrongful termination and other wrongdoing over his February…

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Columbia Law Review editors refused to censor an article on the Nakba. Board of directors then took down the site

Columbia Law Review editors refused to censor an article on the Nakba. Board of directors then took down the site

The Intercept reports: Last November, the Harvard Law Review made the unprecedented decision to kill a fully edited essay prior to publication. The author, human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah, was to be the first Palestinian legal scholar published in the prestigious journal. As The Intercept reported at the time, Eghbariah’s essay — an argument for establishing “Nakba,” the expulsion, dispossession, and oppression of Palestinians, as a formal legal concept that widens its scope — faced extraordinary editorial scrutiny and eventual…

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The ‘hierarchy of racism’ in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party

The ‘hierarchy of racism’ in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party

Shaista Aziz writes: I spent six years serving as a councillor in my home city of Oxford, where I was born and raised. I was a council cabinet member for close to three years before I resigned from the Labour party, over what I saw as a horrifying endorsement by Keir Starmer of the collective punishment of Palestinians in Gaza, in a now infamous LBC interview. I and another British Muslim, the Oxonian councillor Dr Amar Latif, were the first…

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Zelensky: Ukraine recognizes both Israel and Palestine, seeks to end suffering of civilians

Zelensky: Ukraine recognizes both Israel and Palestine, seeks to end suffering of civilians

The Kyiv Independent reports: Ukraine recognizes both Israel and Palestine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in Singapore on June 2, calling for an end to the conflict in Gaza. Kyiv voiced support for Israel after it came under a deadly attack by the Hamas militant organization in October 2023. Tel Aviv’s subsequent shelling and ground invasion of Gaza attracted harsh criticism from much of the international community, with the U.N. estimating the Gaza death toll at over 35,000. When asked by…

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Gideon Levy: Israel has achieved nothing with war on Gaza

Gideon Levy: Israel has achieved nothing with war on Gaza

  Given a choice between war and getting all its hostages back, Israel has opted for more war, argues Israeli journalist Gideon Levy. Levy tells host Steve Clemons that Israeli politicians may abandon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but even if he was replaced, Israel would continue its war on Gaza and occupation of the Palestinian people as a whole. “Radical change” in Israeli attitude and U.S. support is needed for any improvement in the situation, says Levy. After Oct. 7,…

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Bernie Sanders says will boycott ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu’s Congress speech

Bernie Sanders says will boycott ‘war criminal’ Netanyahu’s Congress speech

The New Arab reports: US Senator Bernie Sanders has said he will not attend a congressional speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sent an official invite by the body on Friday. In a statement published to X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, Sanders said that the congressional invitation was “a sad day for our country”. Sanders’ statement also included a list of things that Israel has no right to do in its war on Gaza following Hamas‘ 7…

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Talking about Zionism

Talking about Zionism

  In the coverage of Israel-Palestine in the Western media, an ideology that is central to the story – Zionism – rarely gets discussed. Instead, we hear a debate about whether opposition to it – anti-Zionism – is anti-Semitic. The Listening Post’s Daniel Turi reports on Zionism, the confusion that surrounds it, and what it tells us about the world’s longest-running occupation. Contributors: Bernard Avishai – Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Sherene Seikaly – Associate Professor of History, University…

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Gaza: The war on hospitals

Gaza: The war on hospitals

  Israel is attacking Gaza’s hospitals in violation of international law, but is it part of a pattern going back to 1948? Hospitals are supposed to be immune from attack in times of war but Israel has repeatedly bombed and shelled them since October 7, 2023. This film looks at Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals in the context of its historical expansion at the expense of the Palestinian population, going back to 1948. The Israeli army cut off water, power,…

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Would Biden deal ‘stop the war,’ or (as Netanyahu’s office says) ‘enable Israel to continue the war’?

Would Biden deal ‘stop the war,’ or (as Netanyahu’s office says) ‘enable Israel to continue the war’?

Politico reports: “The deal does stop the war,” said a senior administration official, who briefed reporters on the situation on condition of anonymity. The official added: “What’s on the table now is very close to the deal Hamas said they would take” in earlier negotiations. Hamas rejected previous cease-fire deals, as they didn’t offer a pathway to end the war for good. The first phase of the three-phase deal would last six weeks and include a “complete” cease-fire, a withdrawal…

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Can Palestinians imagine a future with Israelis after this war?

Can Palestinians imagine a future with Israelis after this war?

Mahmoud Mushtaha writes: “We were free. It was the most beautiful life. We had everything — our heritage, our trade, and our sea.” My grandfather, who is now 85, still remembers life in Palestine before 1948. There were no restrictions on travel, no checkpoints, no sieges, and no curfews. He grew up in a small village in Jaffa, where life was bustling with activity during the day, and filled with social gatherings at night. His was a community rich in…

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Ghent University severs ties with Israeli universities; calls on EU to expel Israel from academic cooperation treaty

Ghent University severs ties with Israeli universities; calls on EU to expel Israel from academic cooperation treaty

VRT News reports: Ghent University (UGent) has said that it is to halt all cooperation and joint projects that it currently has with Israeli research institutes and universities. However, the pro-Palestinian activists that have been occupying a building at the university for over 3 weeks are not satisfied. They are demanding that the university also cease cooperation with Israeli companies. Under pressure from the pro-Palestinian activists and following fresh advice issued by the university’s Human Rights Committee, UGent has decided…

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