Showing all posts tagged human rights
Jewish women are clearly inferior to the men
What kind of state would even consider implementing gender apartheid? Will Tiberias be the next city to offer segregated buses for the haredi population? On Sunday, Haaretz reported that haredi representatives in the city sent a letter to Veolia Transportation asking the company to operate a special line for the haredi population. The legality of…
Australians’ Gaza protest
The following appeared in the Melbourne Age on 1 January: By Andra Jackson A delegation of Australians including Jewish journalist Antony Loewenstein are among hundreds of people from around the world who will hold mass protests in Cairo and Gaza today over Israel’s continuing blockade of the Palestinian enclave. Today marks the first anniversary of…
Israel is either a democracy or Zionist; it can’t be both
The gradual push by Zionist extremists in Israel continues apace. This is not the sign of a democracy: The Knesset ministerial legislative committee was set to vote Sunday on a bill requiring MKs to take a “loyalty oath” to the Jewish state before taking office. The bill, proposed by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu…
How about Israeli Jews can imagine working with Arabs in partnership?
Noam Sheizaf, the wonderful Israel blogger at Promised Land, issues a challenge to whatever still exists of the useful Left in the Jewish state (what, two or three people these days?) and tells in the US Forward that it’s time to ship up or face even greater irrelevance: The future of the Israeli left does…
Israeli asks whether his country wants to regain its lost morality
Michael Sfard is the legal adviser of Yesh Din, a leading Israeli human rights organisation. He gave the following speech, via Combatants for Peace on 26 December, in Jaffa. His words are translated by the Middle East News Service editor Sol Salbe: It has been a year, just one year since, but we can already…
Australian eyewitness report from Gaza
Some of the Gaza Freedom Marchers entered Gaza a few days ago (this was a painful and politically fraught decision and here’s why). Australian Donna Mulhearn was one of them and here’s her moving report of life in Gaza: The boy in the rubble and Gaza’s Tour of Horror He wasn’t like the other boys…
How the Red Cross was barred by Israel in Gaza to do its job
Iyad Nasr of the International Committee of the Red Cross describing what was happening during the three-week military assault by Israel on Gaza a year ago: ICRC was not allowed to reach the victims. No place in Gaza was safe. Ambulances, ICRC, we could not move without a green light from the Israeli authorities. And…
Stuck in Cairo, but Gaza Freedom March soldiers on
The following report by Mondoweiss – I’ve spent much of the day with its founder Phil Weiss, reflecting on the significance of this massive global action for Palestine – explains the contradictory feelings many of us feel being here in Cairo and speaking out on the Middle East. These are moving times and many tears…
Gaza, one year on noticed by (a few) Israelis
The one-year anniversary of the Gaza onslaught is being noticed by some of Israel’s leading human rights groups. B’Tselem: One year after Operation Cast Lead, B’Tselem is today (27 December) launching a public campaign demanding that Israel lift its siege on the Gaza Strip. This is necessary in order to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip from…