By Ali Abunimah Electronic Intifada Pharrell Williams, a ten-time Grammy Award winner, has canceled his 21 July performance in Tel Aviv amid conflicting explanations. Over the last year, the “Happy” pop star has faced sustained pressure from the Palestine solidarity movement. Last year, amid rumors that he would be scheduling a Tel Aviv performance, campaigners … Continued
Israel’s apologists would call the BDS campaign “immoral”, but the slander is laughably false. A pro-Palestinian protester supporting the BDS campaign against Israel takes part in a demonstration in Cape Town, South Africa [Getty] by Stanley L Cohen Al Jazeera Stanley L Cohen is an attorney and human rights activist who has done extensive work in … Continued
By Amelia Smith
Middle East Monitor
Over recent days several disturbing facts about race relations in the US have emerged: a black man is 13 times more likely to be murdered than a white man; African Americans are shot at 2.5 times the rate that white men are; American police have shot dead 556 people this year, a disproportionate number of whom are African American or Native American.
The chain of events that brought these statistics to the fore began in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, last week when 37-year-old Alton Sterling was shot at close range by police officers whilst they restrained him outside a convenience store. It was captured in a graphic video and posted online. One day later, in Falcon Heights, Minneapolis, Diamond Reynolds and her boyfriend Philando Castile were pulled over for a broken tail light; he was shot four times in the arm and pronounced dead at the scene. Reynolds, whose four-year-old daughter was sitting on the back seat, live-streamed the attack.
These latest killings coincide with the two-year anniversary of the war on Gaza, which killed over 2,000 Palestinians – including some 500 children – and left thousands more in need of a home, food and psychological support. In 2014, four weeks into the war, American police shot, at close range, the teenager Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, then left his body in the street for four hours before it was taken away. At the mass protests that ensued, demonstrators raised signs in solidarity with the Palestinians; simultaneously, Palestinians posted advice on Twitter for protesters in America, including how to counter the effects of tear gas inhalation.
Back then parallels were drawn between the two communities. Both suffer state-sanctioned violence and discrimination, whilst those responsible for carrying it out are rarely held to account. There are other similarities – both have been subject to racial segregation, for example. Two years on since the killing of Darren Wilson and the Israeli bombardment on Gaza, the events of the last week have reminded us that neither community is better off in securing equal rights or justice.
In the West, when we hear of crimes carried out by security forces in the Middle East, our first reaction is to blame the leader. We are (quite rightly) happy to hold up Sisi, Assad and Netanyahu as responsible for the killing and torture that take place under their rule. When it comes to the US, however, the narrative changes – rarely is President Obama held so directly responsible for the actions of American law enforcement. Part of the reason is that we associate police brutality and state violence with something that only happens in “corrupt” Middle Eastern countries, rather than in the “free world” – when it take place in the US it is a one-off, when it is in the Middle East it is expected.
What began as shock and horror at the shooting of two black men was soon eclipsed by the story of Micah Johnson, the sniper who killed five police officers and injured eight others at the peaceful rally organised in memory of Sterling and Castile. In the UK at least, the news lead with coverage and analysis of the “extreme” behaviour and “terror” caused by the sniper and efforts were made to uncover which groups he had ties with and whether they were planning further attacks. Many news outlets described it as the deadliest attack on law enforcement since 9/11. As the story unfolded around Johnson’s life, it simultaneously relieved the pressure on Obama and the police force to confront the ongoing issue at the heart of last week’s events: institutional racism in the American police force.
Muslims in Britain will be familiar with such tactics since discriminatory laws, the stigmatisation of their communities and Islamophobic attacks are often heavily underreported, whilst terror attacks and extremist cells receive wall-to-wall coverage, feeding the narrative that all Muslims are terrorists.
The disproportionate media coverage offered to the sniper gives the impression that all protests attended by or organised by African Americans are violent – from here it’s not much of a jump to say that they in turn deserve a violent response. In reality, the thousands that protest peacefully for their rights get nowhere near the same kind of attention thanks to a media, and their consumers, who are only interested in stories that involve terror and clandestine groups who are proud of their commitment to violence. Demonstrations, including the rally last Thursday, are often organised by the Black Lives Matter movement in response to state-sanctioned violence and in favour of justice, transparency and accountability. But this hasn’t stopped these activists being smeared as violent hooligans.
Likewise, ask an observer about Palestinians and they will more readily recall rockets and suicide bombers, rather than the weekly peaceful protests in occupied West Bank village of Bil’in, or the boycott movement. Despite the existence of a solid, non-violent movement, this hasn’t stopped their opponents smearing their efforts in every way they can, including labelling them as anti-Semitic.
The people of Palestine, and other countries in the Middle East, are all too familiar with a media that oscillates between completely ignoring them, and demonising them. Small windows of attention, like that which followed the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling and the 2014 War on Gaza, do help open a debate on crucial issues, but the debate never remains open or focused on the real issues for long enough. Like the people of Palestine, African Americans in the US will continue to be subject to discrimination and violence long after the cameras withdraw.
Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com
Naomi Dann
The Huffington Post
On June 24, as the Democratic Party platform drafting committee meeting in St. Louis, Missouri debated late into the night over whether to call Israel’s nearly half-century-old military rule over the Palestinians an ‘occupation,’ the Presbyterian Church USA’s General Assembly meeting in Portland, Oregon voted to adopt some of the most progressive policies on Palestine of any major U.S. institution. Sitting in the back of that convention center surrounded by an interfaith, intergenerational group of human rights advocates, including Jews, Palestinian Christians and Muslims, Presbyterians, and Quakers, I caught a glimpse of what might be possible if leaders and policymakers admitted the truth.
The message of the Church was clear: in the absence of a just peace, what is needed are concrete steps to end the egregious injustices and human rights abuses taking place in Israel/Palestine and lay the groundwork for a future with equality and justice for all.
Yet, as I sat in the back of that hall, my phone lit up with tweets about the #DNCPlatform debate over Israel/Palestine, reminding me once again of just how far many U.S. political leaders are from taking the necessary action to make that future possible.
If you can’t even name the problem, how can you expect to solve it? As the Arab American Institute’s James Zogby told his fellow members of the platform drafting committee: “We have to be able to call it what it is. It is an occupation that humiliates people; that breeds contempt; that breeds anger, and despair and hopelessness that leads to violence.” That reality has certainly been on display in the region in recent months, as Israel’s repressive policies, including expansion of illegal settlements on Palestinian land, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary imprisonment, and collective punishment in the form of restrictions on movement and home demolitions have escalated in response to attacks by frustrated individuals.
The debate over the Democratic Party’s approach to Israel/Palestine during the platform committee process is a clear illustration of just how out of touch many US politicians, including leaders of the Democratic party, are with both the situation on the ground and changing public opinion on Israel/Palestine. Recognition that Israeli policies, including occupation, dispossession, and siege, are underlying causes that drive the conflict, along with support for efforts to protect Palestinian human rights, has been growing among Democratic voters over the last several years, particularly among liberals, young people, and people of color. A recent Pew Poll found that liberal Democrats sympathize more with Palestinians than Israelis, while a poll released by the Brookings Institution in December 2015 revealed that 49% of Democrats would support sanctions or stronger action against Israel over settlement construction.
The draft of the Democratic Party platform being debated in Orlando this weekend fails to represent these growing constituencies that care about Palestinian human rights. As it currently reads, the platform omits any reference to the occupation regime that has dominated the lives of millions of Palestinians for nearly 50 years, or the daily violence Israel inflicts on Palestinians to enforce that occupation.
Naming the reality of the occupation is the bare minimum necessary for taking any realistic steps towards ending it.
Moreover, the platform now contains a clause attacking the grassroots Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights. The condemnation of BDS is part of a broader campaign to suppress BDS in the US, which has escalated in recent months. Eleven states have passed bills intended to suppress BDS, and just last month New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order requiring the state to create a blacklist of institutions that abide by BDS campaigns. These various measures threaten the civil liberties of all Americans to engage in boycotts and other economic acts of conscience in support of human rights and social justice struggles, as noted by the American Civil Liberties Union, Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, and others.
Growing constituencies of Americans recognize that a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians will require the U.S. to give equal weight to concerns for Palestinian security and freedom as it does to Israeli security. There can be no real security for anyone in the region while Israeli policies continue to incite pain, anger and frustration.
In truth, the platform itself is primarily symbolic, and the final language matters less than the policies actually implemented by policymakers and leaders once in power. However, the much-publicized fight over Israel/Palestine in the platform has made it clear that, even as the public conversation on Palestinian rights has advanced significantly in recent years, many politicians from both parties are still standing in the way of ending the unjust status quo. In the absence of a just peace, the very least the Democratic Party can do is admit that there is an occupation, and that it has to end.
Naomi Dann is a writer focusing on Israel/Palestine and U.S. foreign policy, and the media coordinator at Jewish Voice for Peace. She is writing in her personal capacity, Jewish Voice for Peace is a non-partisan 501 (c) 3 organization and does not support or endorse candidates or parties.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
By Hatem Abudayyeh Chicago Monitor I saw a contemporary of my father, Adnan Askar, at a funeral a few weeks before the passing of one of the most important people of the 20th century, Muhammad Ali. Askar is a good man, a retired worker whom I’ve always liked and respected. He is from my … Continued
The AMERICAN MIDDLE EAST VOTERS ALLIANCE is the first Arab-American Political Action Committee in the history of Illinois, certified in 2014. We are requesting that all Americans get involved by signing our Petition Renouncing Religious, Racial, and Ethnic profiling. The impact of profiling on individuals, families, and communities is beyond measure. Profiling creates fear and mistrust … Continued
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer America witnessed two more fatal shootings of black men by police officers this week – Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana. Cities across America, big and small, demonstrated on the streets Thursday night, demanding an end to the unnecessary deaths of black men by white cops. The level … Continued
Alex Kane The Intercept ON THE MORNING of August 28, 2014, two days after the end of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Sohaib Zahda hopped into a shared taxi in Hebron that was going to Ramallah, where he had a job interview. Thirty-three-year-old Zahda, who owns a paintball company, is an unlikely terrorist. An avid … Continued
BY RAMON ANTONIO VARGAS
The New Orleans Advocate
Two days after he stepped outside of his Baton Rouge convenience store to record video of police fatally shooting Alton Sterling, Abdullah Muflahi was cornered in the back of his business by the fallen man’s aunt.
Sandra Sterling’s message to the thin, bespectacled man who helped sear her nephew’s name and fate into the national conscience was simple: “You’re going to speak at the funeral. Yeah, you’re going to be on the program. You know that.”
The exchange was brief, but it was typical of the respect those affected by Sterling’s death have shown Muflahi, who turned over his cellphone video of the shooting to federal investigators as well as reporters asking questions about whether the use of force by police was justified.
Muflahi, 28, who was born in Yemen, may seem an unlikely ally of those who hope to see charges filed against the two white police officers who tussled with Sterling — an African-American — before one of them shot him in the chest early Tuesday.
But Muflahi, who spent most of his youth in Michigan before opening the Triple S Food Mart at 2112 N. Foster Drive in Baton Rouge almost six years ago, said those who understand how he was brought up would easily understand.
Though he and his family are from Yemen, they were in Detroit for many of Muflahi’s childhood years. The demographics of Muflahi’s largely African-American neighborhood there left him with little choice but to grow comfortable with — and respectful of — people who were neither Yemeni nor Muslim like him and his relatives, he said.
“There were maybe three others who were Arab or Muslim,” said Muflahi, who didn’t know English when he moved to Michigan but now speaks the language with a virtually perfect American accent. “So my parents told me to get along with everybody — don’t judge on color, race or religion.”
When Muflahi was in middle school, he learned that not everyone in his adopted country had been brought up with the same values. Some time after the 9/11 terror attacks, the windows at Muflahi’s house were shattered, and someone unsuccessfully tried to break into the home, Muflahi recalled.
Muflahi said his parents reported the incident to the police. Officers never figured out who did it, so Muflahi’s family moved to the nearby community of Dearborn, home to one of the country’s biggest Arab-American and Muslim populations.
The switch suited Muflahi until he finished high school. But he yearned to move away to a place that was maybe a little more like where he had spent much of his childhood.
He settled in late 2009 on Baton Rouge, where a close friend worked, and signed up to take classes at Baton Rouge Community College.
The neighborhood around BRCC popped up after World War II on what was then the outskirts of the capital city, offering landowners spacious lots and plenty of shade from oak and pecan trees, just five miles from downtown.
As the city has sprawled around the neighborhood over the decades, the big yards and tree cover remain. However, in and around the neighborhood’s western edge, North Foster Drive, a handful of yards are littered with telltale signs of a community in distress: cans in brown paper bags; shells of cars, missing tires, doors and engine covers; and mattresses with large tears.
Some lots are overrun by grass and weeds several feet high. The paint on some ranch homes is faded, and some houses have balky roofs or missing shingles.
Muflahi, though, said the people he has met since his arrival have accepted him as he was, despite their various surface differences. So, when the chance to buy the Triple S on North Foster and move in by August 2010 presented itself, he didn’t think twice about it.
Evidence of unrest over Sterling’s death was everywhere midday Thursday outside the store.
In the parking lot, a few feet away from a spray-painted sign that read “F*** BRPD” and “Fly High Alton,” a man in a T-shirt decorated with Black Power imagery had a rifle with a long-range scope slung over his shoulder and a pistol holstered on his hip, as other protesters and members of the media from all over the country came and went.
Intermingled with such extraordinary scenes were more mundane interactions that hinted at the rapport Muflahi had developed with his customers in more normal times at the store.
Dressed in a white dress shirt and dark business slacks, Muflahi was unbothered by the sight of a group of men who were loitering a few feet away from his entrance, drinking and chatting loudly. He exchanged waves with one man, flashing a smile at him and quipping: “Excuse me. If you don’t quiet down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Others who went inside shook his hand, embraced him and asked how he and his family were doing.
Only after that did those customers — addressed as “sir” or “brother” — walk down one of the store’s six aisles; pick out anything from cold drinks and cigarettes to brightly colored bandannas and fried chicken; and take it to the register.
Regular customer Tanisha Johnson said that in her experience, not every business owner is patient with his local clientele. But Muflahi was, evidenced by his willingness to allow Sterling and at least one other man to try to earn a few bucks selling CDs outside his convenience store, asking for nothing in return.
Tuesday morning was something else entirely, Johnson said, showing Muflahi cared enough about a regular to secure and distribute a recording that could be instrumental in helping authorities determine whether or not officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II are criminally liable in Sterling’s death.
“It makes you feel safe, that he cares, because some people don’t,” said Johnson, who was helping Muflahi at the store on Thursday.
Muflahi said he never imagined himself acting differently.
“They’ve allowed me to become a part of this community, … and I wanted to stand for Alton,” Muflahi said. “We just need to stick together — no matter what race we are, no matter where we are from.”
Source: www.theneworleansadvocate.com
The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board
The Los Angeles Times
In recent months, a number of states have passed laws or taken other official actions to punish companies that participate in boycotts against Israel. California soon may do the same. But if it does, it will be making a mistake.
You don’t have to support the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to be troubled when state governments in this country penalize American citizens for their political speech. As the Supreme Court has recognized, boycotts are a form of speech, protected under the Constitution.
The BDS movement has been the subject of much heated debate in recent years. It calls on people and companies to boycott Israel until that country ends its occupation of “all Arab lands,” ensures equal legal rights for its Arab citizens and accepts the right of Palestinian refugees to return to the former homes of their families in Israel. Some supporters of BDS accept the “two-state solution” in which Israel and an independent Palestine would exist side by side; others don’t.
Although BDS hasn’t inflicted significant economic damage on Israel, the movement’s increasing visibility — especially on some American college campuses — has alarmed Israelis and their supporters in the United States. Many supporters of Israel have sought to portray the BDS movement as anti-Semitic.
One result has been a flurry of actions in state capitals, from a law in Illinois divesting state pension funds from companies refusing to do business in Israel or the Palestinian territories to an executive order by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo providing for the disinvestment by state agencies under his control from companies engaged in “boycott, divestment, or sanctions activity targeting Israel.” Most recently, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill barring the investment of state pension and annuity funds in companies that boycott Israel or Israeli businesses.
Do such laws violate the 1st Amendment? Although the Supreme Court has held that government may engage in its own “speech” and express its own opinions, it also has held that government may not deny a benefit to a person (or a company) because he holds the “wrong” opinion. In our view, denying state business to an otherwise qualified contractor simply based on its views about Israel — and its participation in a legal boycott — goes beyond “government speech” and raises serious constitutional concerns.
In California, the situation has grown even more complicated. Opponents of BDS in the Legislature previously proposed a bill that would have forbidden state contracts with companies engaged in a boycott of Israel. But after legal objections, the legislation was radically reconfigured.
The latest version, approved by a state Senate committee last week, no longer seeks to penalize boycotts directly. Rather, it targets violations of existing anti-discrimination laws that take place under the pretext of a boycott or other “policy” aimed at “any sovereign nation or people recognized by the government of the United States, including, but not limited to, the nation and people of Israel.” The bill would require any person who seeks to contract with the state to certify, under penalty of perjury, that it hasn’t engaged in discrimination as part of such a policy.
This shift to an emphasis on individual rights may solve some of the 1st Amendment problems in earlier versions, but it also raises the question of why this proposed law is necessary at all. The state’s Public Contract Code already says that contractors may not discriminate “on the basis of age, sex, pregnancy, maternity leave status, marital status, race, nationality, country of origin, ethnic origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, or political opinion.” Why is it necessary to reiterate what already is the law — and to throw in a specific mention of boycotts and Israel?
Also, it’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which a company boycott aimed at a “sovereign nation” would result in discrimination against an individual employee or customer. And if it were to happen, there already are laws on the books to address racial and religious harassment. One theory is that the law, if passed, might lead to a lawsuit claiming that a boycott created a “hostile workplace environment” for a Jewish employee. But that strikes us as a far-fetched claim.
The proponents of this bill are desperately eager to single out and punish companies that engage in boycotts against Israel. Realizing that their initial proposal ran contrary to the free speech protections guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, they have now come back with a convoluted, redundant and most likely ineffectual bill that allows them to say they’ve passed an anti-BDS bill.
In California, as elsewhere in this country, support for Israel is strong — which is why laws aimed at boycotts of the Jewish state are a solution in search of a problem.
Politicians are free to denounce BDS if they choose. But they must do so without infringing on the rights of their constituents.
Source: www.latimes.com
By Activestills +972 Magazine Palestinian and Israeli performers set up shop in a central Tel Aviv pedestrian promenade to demand the release of Mohammed Abu Sakha, a Palestinian clown Israel is imprisoning without charge or trial. Circus performers from the West Bank city of Nablus and jugglers from Israeli staged a protest performance in central Tel … Continued
By Chanda Neely cleveland.com CLEVELAND, Ohio — A national wave of Islamophobia stoked by Donald Trump and Republican leaders came to a head last week when armed Avon police wrestled an Emirati businessman to the ground after a hotel clerk thought he was a terrorist, local Muslim leaders said. The incident happened less than two weeks … Continued
433 Results (Page 34 of 37)
Notifications
Loading ...