Antony Loewenstein

Apartheid (via Haaretz):

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet decided unanimously on Sunday to extend the Citizenship Law restricting the “family reunification” of Israeli citizens with certain foreign partners for an additional year.

The law denies entry or living permits to partners who are considered a security threat, among them Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, and citizens of enemy countries or from areas involved in long-term conflict with Israel. The law affects mainly Israeli Arab citizens and their families from the West Bank and Gaza.

The proposal brought before the cabinet on Sunday was submitted by Interior Minister Gideon Sa’ar, and was formulated based on a Shin Bet opinion regarding the volatility of partners from the Gaza Strip.

Meretz party head Zahava Gal-On slammed the decision as placing “draconian restrictions on Israeli Arab citizens’ right to marry,” calling the designation of all Palestinians as a security threat “racist” and discriminatory.

Gal-On, who petitioned the High Court against the Citizenship Law, said that “the only correct way is to individually evaluate everyone asking for family unification.” She added that the government’s approach was preventing thousands of people who live in Israel from attaining citizenship and achieving social rights.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called the law “racist” and an attempt to “distort the Palestinian social fabric and force the displacement of Palestinian families.” He called on the international community to “seriously examine the pattern of Israeli policies contributing to a situation of apartheid and to look into the wider effects and implications of the Israeli government’s precondition of being recognized as a Jewish State.”

Israel generally grants citizenship to spouses of Israelis in a gradual process. In the spirit of this process, a similar process was instituted for the naturalization of spouses of permanent residents, though the process is a little longer. A 2002 temporary order excluded Palestinian spouses from these processes and barred them from becoming Israeli citizens.

The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald writes about the latest example of Zionist “values” corrupting the concept of democracy, decency and fairness:

In order for the US to permit citizens of a foreign country to enter the US without a visa, that country must agree to certain conditions. Chief among them is reciprocity: that country must allow Americans to enter without a visa as well. There are 37 countries which have been permitted entrance into America’s “visa wavier” program, and all of them – all 37 – reciprocate by allowing American citizens to enter their country without a visa.

The American-Israeli Political Action Committee (Aipac) is now pushing legislation that would allow Israel to enter this program, so that Israelis can enter the US without a visa. But as JTA’s Ron Kampeas reports, there is one serious impediment: Israel has a practice of routinely refusing to allow Americans of Arab ethnicity or Muslim backgrounds to enter their country or the occupied territories it controls; it also bars those who are critical of Israeli actions or supportive of Palestinian rights. Israel refuses to relinquish this discriminatory practice of exclusion toward Americans, even as it seeks to enter the US’s visa-free program for the benefit of Israeli citizens.

As a result, at the behest of Aipac, Democrat Barbara Boxer, joined by Republican Roy Blunt, has introduced a bill that would provide for Israel’s membership in the programwhile vesting it with a right that no other country in this program has: namely, the right to exclude selected Americans from this visa-free right of entrance. In other words, the bill sponsored by these American senators would exempt Israel from a requirement that applies to every other nation on the planet, for no reason other than to allow the Israeli government to engage in racial, ethnic and religious discrimination against US citizens. As Lara Friedman explained when the Senate bill was first introduced, it “takes the extraordinary step of seeking to change the current US law to create a special and unique exception for Israel in US immigration law.” In sum, it is as pure and blatant an example of prioritizing the interests of the Israeli government over the rights of US citizens as one can imagine, and it’s being pushed by Aipac and a cast of bipartisan senators.

This week a victory for countless courageous activists and students at Sydney University. I know some of them and I’m proud to call them colleagues and friends. It’s a brave stand against Israeli illegality and official silence. Here’s the statement:

The Student Representative Council at the University of Sydney passed a motion endorsing Associate Professor Jake Lynch’s academic boycott of Israel this week.
 
The motion was brought forth in response to attacks against Associate Professor Jake Lynch for refusing to assist Dan Avnon – a visiting academic from Hebrew University in Israel – in December.
 
The Student Representative Council (SRC) also voted to support an end to all university ties with Technion University in Haifa, Israel.
 
Dr Lynch, who is the director of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies said: “By continuing institutional links to Israeli high education, universities here risk unwittingly becoming indirectly complicit in violations of international laws and abuses of human rights.”
 
Erima Dall, the SRC member who put the motion forward, said boycotting institutional links with Israel is a necessary action.

“We cannot normalise relations with Israeli institutions complicit in the occupation of Palestine. Students at the University of Sydney should not, and do not, want to be endorsing these crimes. A clear message needs to be sent – Israel needs to end the occupation and its colonisation of Palestinian land, end apartheid, stop building its settler-colonies, and allow the right of return to Palestinians,” she said.

Suzanne Asad, the president of Students for Justice in Palestine at USYD, echoed these sentiments and said students and citizens of conscience should stand up for justice and human rights in Palestine, and support boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

“If we don’t end Sydney University’s links with the Technion and other Israeli institutions, then we are implicated in the crimes committed against Palestine,” she said.

The statement, which the SRC voted to sign and publish, states:
“Israel is a state that systematically defies international law. It has occupied Palestinian territories in defiance of the UN Security Council for over 40 years, expanding settlements which are regarded as illegal by the international community.
 
“Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a non-violent and effective strategy to help end Israeli impunity and move towards the realisation of the Palestinians’ rights. The Hebrew University is clearly implicated in the illegal occupation as its Mount Scopus campus occupies land in East Jerusalem which is internationally recognised as being on the Palestinian side of the Green Line.”
 
Technion University is involved in manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles and the building of illegal separation wall annexing Palestinian land in the West Bank. The statement states: “Technion…is an Israeli university uniquely and directly implicated in war crimes. (Its) research history includes the development of the remote control D9 bulldozer used to demolish Palestinian homes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and it has strong links to Elbit Systems – the company that produces technology for the apartheid wall declared illegal by the International Court of Justice.”

State Labor MP, Lynda Voltz, said it is appropriate for the SRC, given its strong tradition of supporting oppressed people and injustice, to support their academic staff in calling for an end to ties with Technion.

“Israel continues to ignore the United Nations. It builds illegal settlements on the land of the Palestinian people, destroys their houses, builds a wall around their homes and blockades the Port of Gaza to punish the 1.6million men, women and children who live there,” she said.

“Israel does not listen to words or motions and continues to abuse human rights and to act in violation of international laws.  As in South Africa, it is only through the peaceful actions of campaigns such as the BDS that any change will happen,” Voltz said.

The statement has been endorsed by Mary Kostakidis, the Convener of the Peace Prize jury and co-winner of the University of Sydney Alumni Award for Community Achievement, and Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees who is the Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation.

Jennine Abdul Khalik, Australian Students for Justice in Palestine executive, said she commended the SRC for choosing to stand on the right side of history.

“Australian universities, including the University of Sydney, need to condemn Israeli apartheid and follow the example of academic institutions and student unions throughout North America, Europe, and South Africa that have endorsed BDS and boycotted and divested from Israel,” she said.

Here’s the piece in today’s Australian:

Sydney University’s student representative council has called for the academic institution to cut ties with at least one Israeli university, in a move likely to reignite fierce debate over proposed academic boycotts of the Jewish state.

At what one SRC member, Patrick Massarani, described as a sometimes ugly debate on Wednesday night, the council passed resolutions that among other things called for all academic co-operation to be cut with Technion University in Haifa.

Mr Massarani, a fellow on the university Senate who also sits on the SRC, said the meeting degenerated into name-calling and vilification, and that he had spoken against the motion. “I said it was our duty to cherish academic freedom,” Mr Massarani said.

The Sydney University SRC motion against Technion, a university established in 1912, which specialises in the sciences, medicine, engineering and technology, follows similar campaigns at universities overseas including Cornell in the US and McGill in Canada.

Campaigners claim Technion works closely with the Israeli government and military, and weapons manufacturers in Israel. They claim that drones, tanks and other military hardware have been built using research from Technion and used against Palestinians.

The SRC’s move is a boost for Jake Lynch, the director of the university’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, and his promotion of the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign against Israel.

Professor Lynch last night hailed the move by the SRC, claiming that Technion University, apart from assisting Israeli weapons production, had done work for the Israeli department of foreign affairs on public diplomacy to develop strategies to deflect attention from Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

Professor Lynch said that if Sydney University academics co-operated with Technion, “they risk condoning and in a sense internalising” such alleged anti-Palestinian practices.

Government and Coalition frontbenchers have opposed Professor Lynch’s BDS campaign, with opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop saying academic units that support BDS should not be given federal research grants.

But Professor Lynch last night said this would be a mockery of free speech, noting Tony Abbott had recently said the role of academic institutions was to “speak truth to power.”

The chief executive officer of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Vic Alhadeff, described the passing of the SRC motion as “an exercise in empty symbolism and immature spite”.

“It will do nothing to advance Palestinian statehood,” he said. “Trying to shut down collaborative research between universities in the areas of science and medicine is immoral. It can only exacerbate the conflict.”

Earlier in the year, after the ABC broke a massive story about an Australian man Ben Zygier spying for Mossad and dying in an Israeli jail, there was a great deal of media coverage that questioned the ways in which some Jews saw their relationship with the Israeli state. I was interviewed on ABC Radio AM and predictably elements within the Zionist lobby complained that I was invited and allowed to breath on the air.

The ABC has rejected the complaint and it’s posted below. The fact that the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, a supposedly serious organisation, thinks it’s appropriate to try and censor perspectives that challenge Israel and its policies indicates a profound arrogance and insecurity about its role in society and how it believes its key responsibility is dedication to the Israeli government. Media groups should be well aware of this and act accordingly:

A complaint to the ABC by The Executive Council of Australian Jewry following a radio interview with journalist Antony Loewenstein dealing with the activities of the late Ben Zygier has been dismissed by the national broadcaster.

In a statement released this week, the ECAJ said:

The ABC has dismissed a complaint made by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) about an interview on ABC Radio’s ‘Saturday AM’ program on 13 February 2013 conducted by presenter, Elizabeth Jackson, with commentator Antony Loewenstein.
The ECAJ complained that false claims were made about the supposed ‘dual loyalties’ of Jewish Australians, and that the interviewee making those claims was doing so without evidence, qualifications, expertise or representative status in any part of the Jewish community.

According to ECAJ Executive Director, Peter Wertheim, “During the interview, without evidence or substantiation of any kind, the entirely baseless suggestion was made that there is a relationship between ‘the Jewish establishment in Australia’ and ‘the Mossad, and indeed Israeli intelligence’ which facilitates and encourages Jews from a young age to join up and fight with the IDF and the Mossad.”

Wertheim was especially critical of the Saturday AM program. “It is supposed to be a fact-based news program, not a chat show with entire segments devoted merely to uncontested expressions of opinion. Where were the tough questions, or any questions, asking Loewenstein to provide evidence for his completely unfounded assertions? Isn’t that what fact based program interviewers are supposed to do? Isn’t it their role to elicit the factual basis of opinions expressed by their guests, if any exist?”

“The ABC’s answers to our complaints are either not responsive to the specific matters we raised, or evaded the issue, or were disingenuous”, Wertheim said. “The answers consist for the most part of simple denials that anything untoward was being implied, and irrelevant assertions that Loewenstein has a right to express his opinions”.
Wertheim does not believe there would be any point in the ECAJ pursuing an appeal to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, but noted that this would not be the end of the matter. “The ABC launched a baseless attack on Australian Jews, with insinuations of disloyalty, by interviewing someone who the ABC itself describes as a ‘provocateur’. The ABC has now demonstrated that the process whereby one section of the ABC investigates another does not work”, he said.

The ABC response to the complaint as reported in J-Wire…

Witness the debacle within the British Zionist establishment, via Haaretz, and the increasingly desperate ways that so-called leaders there will do anything to defend Israeli policies without for a minute actually considering what the Jewish state has become; a brutish occupier:

LONDON − It was only one private citizen suing Britain’s largest academic union, but it seemed as if all the country’s Jewish establishment was standing behind him in court. It was only a low-level proceeding at an employment tribunal, not a high court adjudicating on matters of state, but the judgment seemed to be trying to say something profound about what it means to be Jewish − that love for the State of Israel is not an intrinsic trait among all Jews in Britain, or anywhere else for that matter.

Delivered two weeks ago on the eve of Passover, the ruling in the case of one Ronnie Fraser against the University and College Union soured the holiday mood for a number of influential British Jews, and it has been slowly causing shock waves in the community’s upper echelons.

The case was to have been the culmination of 11 years of pro-Israel activism by Fraser, a mathematics lecturer who had been fighting against what he saw as a virulently anti-Israel tide, with a distinct tinge of anti-Semitism, rising in the union to which he belongs.

Alongside him was Anthony Julius, one of the most prominent Jewish lawyers in Britain and a tireless opponent of anti-Semitism. Supporting the two were a cast of witnesses including Jewish and sympathetic non-Jewish activists, academics and politicians.

The lawsuit was backed both financially and in terms of considerable research resources by organizations linked to the central British Jewry leadership forums, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council.

The case against UCU was complex, including 10 separate complaints, but the gist was that the officers of the union representing more than 120,000 staff members at Britain’s universities and colleges had allegedly exhibited “institutional anti-Semitism” and caused its Jewish members to feel harassed in a way considered illegal according to Britain’s anti-racism legislation.

They had done so, the complainants claimed, through their relentless campaign over the years calling for a boycott of Israel in general and of Israeli academic institutions and trade unions in particular.

UCU has long been identified as one of the main bastions of anti-Israeli activism in the British mainstream. Both as a trade union and as an organization representing academics, it is a hub for supporters of boycotts targeting Israeli universities as well as Israel’s business and social sectors.

The case assembled by Fraser and Julius was impressive. It challenged, among other things, the way supporters of Israel were treated at union conferences, the way anti-Israel and anti-Semitic remarks on the UCU members’ private Internet forum were moderated, the union’s rejection of the European Union Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia’s working definition of anti-Semitism (which includes disproportionate criticism of Israel), and an invitation extended to a known anti-Jewish trade unionist from South Africa to speak at a union conference.

UCU denied any anti-Semitism within its ranks, and responded that its officers had not conducted themselves in any way that could be construed as harassment of Jewish members.

But beyond the factual disputes in the case, the fundamental basis of the Fraser’s accusations was that Jews possess a strong feeling of affinity toward Israel that is an intrinsic part of their Jewish identity. Therefore, he claimed, when an organization to which they belong constantly attacks Israel in a manner they deem unfair, it constitutes a direct attack on their identity.

Among the long list of witnesses Fraser called were two non-Jewish members of parliament who testified about the manner in which UCU had rejected the EU definition of anti-Semitism, which they had championed.

The defendants also had their own Jewish supporters. Fifty Jewish UCU members signed an open letter praising their union and denying that there was any sort of institutional anti-Semitism within its ranks. Julius responded that it was simply a standard anti-Semitic ploy of dividing Jews into good-Jew/bad-Jew categories.

But the well-built and detailed case was shattered by the tribunal’s ruling. The panel, headed by Judge A.M. Snelson, accepted UCU’s version of all the events in question, and found that most of the claims were no longer valid in any case, due to a change in the laws.

Beyond that, it fundamentally disagreed with the central claim underpinning the complaints. The tribunal wrote in its judgment that “a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel or any similar sentiment cannot amount to a protected characteristic. It is not intrinsically a part of Jewishness.”

In the Guardian:

I support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because, especially in our instantly connected world, an injustice committed against one, or against one group of people, is an injustice against all, against every one of us; a collective injury.

My particular reason for participating in the cultural boycott of Israel is that, first of all, I can; I’m a writer, a novelist, and I produce works that are, as a rule, presented to the international market. This gives me a small extra degree of power over that which I possess as a (UK) citizen and a consumer. Secondly, where possible when trying to make a point, one ought to be precise, and hit where it hurts. The sports boycott of South Africa when it was still run by the racist apartheid regime helped to bring the country to its senses because the ruling Afrikaaner minority put so much store in their sporting prowess. Rugby and cricket in particular mattered to them profoundly, and their teams’ generally elevated position in the international league tables was a matter of considerable pride. When they were eventually isolated by the sporting boycott – as part of the wider cultural and trade boycott – they were forced that much more persuasively to confront their own outlaw status in the world.

A sporting boycott of Israel would make relatively little difference to the self-esteem of Israelis in comparison to South Africa; an intellectual and cultural one might help make all the difference, especially now that the events of the Arab spring and the continuing repercussions of the attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla peace convoy have threatened both Israel’s ability to rely on Egypt’s collusion in the containment of Gaza, and Turkey’s willingness to engage sympathetically with the Israeli regime at all. Feeling increasingly isolated, Israel is all the more vulnerable to further evidence that it, in turn, like the racist South African regime it once supported and collaborated with, is increasingly regarded as an outlaw state.

I was able to play a tiny part in South Africa’s cultural boycott, ensuring that – once it thundered through to me that I could do so – my novels weren’t sold there (while subject to an earlier contract, under whose terms the books were sold in South Africa, I did a rough calculation of royalties earned each year and sent that amount to the ANC). Since the 2010 attack on the Turkish-led convoy to Gaza in international waters, I’ve instructed my agent not to sell the rights to my novels to Israeli publishers. I don’t buy Israeli-sourced products or food, and my partner and I try to support Palestinian-sourced products wherever possible.

It doesn’t feel like much, and I’m not completely happy doing even this; it can sometimes feel like taking part in collective punishment (although BDS is, by definition, aimed directly at the state and not the people), and that’s one of the most damning charges that can be levelled at Israel itself: that it engages in the collective punishment of the Palestinian people within Israel, and the occupied territories, that is, the West Bank and – especially – the vast prison camp that is Gaza. The problem is that constructive engagement and reasoned argument demonstrably have not worked, and the relatively crude weapon of boycott is pretty much all that’s left. (To the question, “What about boycotting Saudi Arabia?” – all I can claim is that cutting back on my consumption of its most lucrative export was a peripheral reason for giving up the powerful cars I used to drive, and for stopping flying, some years ago. I certainly wouldn’t let a book of mine be published there either, although – unsurprisingly, given some of the things I’ve said about that barbaric excuse for a country, not to mention the contents of the books themselves – the issue has never arisen, and never will with anything remotely resembling the current regime in power.)

More here on this incredible 19-year-old Israeli man. If only there were many more like him.

Life in occupied Palestine can be tough for students just trying to live daily life. I regularly publish the writings of Brother Peter Bray, the Vice Chancellor of Bethlehem University (see here) and the following is his latest missive:

Easter Sunday 31 March 2013

I greet you again from this holy city of Jerusalem where we proclaim “He is Risen!” I am here with four other Brothers from our community at Bethlehem University staying in the Brothers community in the Old City. This provides us with the chance to gather with others to reflect on the Easter mystery. I find it hard to believe at times that I have such an opportunity.On Thursday evening after the mass in the Ecce Homo community we walked across to the Garden of Olives and then down the Kedron Valley to the church of Saint Peter in Gallicantu, which is the place where Caiaphas met with Jesus. The steps leading up from the Kedron Valley to the church are reputed to be the ones that Jesus would have walked up. Just sitting on those steps in the darkness and reflecting on Jesus actually walking up them is a moving experience.

It is a privilege and inspiration to be here.It pains me, however, to remember speaking to some Christian students at Bethlehem University two weeks ago and telling them my plans for Easter and seeing the look on their faces as many of them told me they had not been able to get permission to go through the Wall to do the same. In the same context it was revealing two weeks ago when we had a man from a think tank in Washington DC visit us prior to President Obama’s visit. He wanted to get a sense of what was happening to Palestinians. We gathered a group of about thirty students to speak with him and in the course of the conversation it became apparent that about a quarter of them had never been through the Wall. Several mentioned they had not been able to get to the Holy Sepulcher or the Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray. Others mentioned they had never set eyes on the sea. It was rather a jolt for our visitor to be confronted with the raw implications of the occupation on our students.

I am continually amazed at the resilience of our students and the way they get on with their lives in the midst of all the restrictions they face. I think it is part of the role of Bethlehem University to provide a place where our students can experience something of a normal life. We make demands on them for their study and provide a clear context in which they can learn, but we work in such a way so as to create an oasis of peace on the campus. I want students to know when they step through the gate onto campus that they are safe and that there are people there who really care about them. I think this is a very important aspect of what we do, because we need to work to keep hope alive. As I have reflected on the experience of our students I have realized that none of these students are responsible for the situation they have inherited, yet they have to endure it and somehow find a way to live a fruitful life.

When I look back over the experience of the Palestinians during the past sixty years here there is nothing there that leads them to be optimistic that the future is going to be better. In listening to older people speak about their experience it becomes obvious that the net is tightening around them. The restrictions are becoming more onerous; the abuse at checkpoints and from the settlersis become more extreme.This leads me to wonder how to keep hope alive. The more I have reflected on that the more I have come to realize that hope is quite different to optimism. In speaking with graduates and many of our present students I have asked them what it is that leads them to hold onto hope. The answer has consistently been the knowledge that they are not alone, that there are people who are prepared to be here on campus walking with them and working for them, and people outside Palestine who are standing in solidarity with them – people who believe in them. Because we are providing a context in which they know people care about them, because we bring pilgrims to visit and help them engage with our students, because we are providing opportunities for students to be educated, we are indeed a beacon of hope to these students.

Bethlehem University is then a place where Jesus’ message is being lived out. I am conscious that Bethlehem University is a Catholic University serving a predominantly Muslim population. To emphasise this I say in the Video “Beacon of Hope” we are unashamedly a Catholic University to which Muslims feel comfortable to come. At the heart of what Jesus came to do was captured in his claim; “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full!” In speaking to faculty, staff and students I keep coming back to this task of Jesus and argue that what Bethlehem University is seeking to do is carry on Jesus’ message by seeking to bring life in all its fullness to the young people entrusted to us. This is our challenge. In the midst of their daily life with all the hassles and restrictions, we are seeking to help students live life as fully as they possibly can. I elaborated on this point in an interview I did with John Cleary when I was in Australia last year. If you are interested you can access that interview here.There are many challenges in helping students live life to the full. One is providing the best possible programmes with the best teachers available. We recently opened our Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning where teachers are being helped to find ever better ways to engage with students in their subject areas. We are in the process of purchasing a nearby property to provide better facilities for our students. This latter project is the biggest thing that has happened at Bethlehem University since it began in 1973. I have engaged Chris Faisandier, a long-time friend from New Zealand, to work with us on developing a comprehensive facilities master plan in conjunction with our strategic plan. He is living in Bethlehem for the next two months and has a challenging task ahead of him as he prepares us for the Board of Regents meeting in Rome in June where the options for the use of our properties will be discussed. Please keep us in your prayers as we move this along.

Responding to the needs of our students in this complex and restricted situation is challenging, but at the same time incredibly inspiring. I find myself humbled so many times when I engage with students and see the way they are coping and I am in admiration of them. Often I have wondered that if I was in their position whether I would respond so well!

It is with gratitude that I often have the chance to welcome pilgrims to Bethlehem University. They play a significant role in helping to keep hope alive because our students, faculty and staff see people from outside Palestine coming to engage with our students and find out what life is like for them. I am deeply grateful to those people who make the effort to come. Ironically, so many of them find engaging with our students the highlight of their visit to the Holy Land. There are only so many churches, holy sites, and ruins you can take in, but to engage with the young people who are living here presents a whole different picture.

On 1 October 2013 Bethlehem University begins the celebration of forty years of existence. On 1 October 1973 some 112 students walked through the gate to begin the first registered university in Palestine. Now with some 14,000 graduates and currently over 3000 students, Bethlehem University has established itself as an institution of quality higher education. We are proud of the contribution of so many of our graduates and look forward to continuing to serve the Palestinian people in new and ever better ways. Please pray for us as we reflect on our history and prepare for our future. Tomorrow, on Easter Monday, again I have the opportunity to walk to Emmaus with a group from Jerusalem. I find it a chance to reflect on the extraordinary mystery we celebrate at this time, that the God who made this amazing universe became a tiny baby in Bethlehem, grew to be an adult in this region and then was murdered here in this city. I find we have domesticated this story so much and the words describing this slip off my tongue so easily that I need space to really reflect on what I am saying – something virtually incredible! On the journey to Emmaus I get the chance to do what those first disciples did in wondering about what had happened and trying to see the practical implications for the tiny contribution I am making to bring Jesus’ words to life with the wonderful Palestinian students with whom I work. I am so conscious, however, that He is risen and, therefore, I can step out in faith into the unknown to deal with the everyday aspects of life here knowing that this is God’s work I am about. I will remember you as I wander and become even more aware of Jesus being with me on my journey.

I pray God’s blessing on you and a deep peace as you take in the meaning of this Easter season. Please keep us in your prayers as we seek to respond to God’s call. Thank you for your interest in and support for Bethlehem University.
Best wishes as the year continues to unfold for you.
Brother Peter Bray

On 18th March, Chomsky spoke on, “Violence and Dignity – Reflections on the Middle East”:

Last year I co-edited a book with Ahmed Moor called After Zionism (re-issued this week with an updated introduction). It’s about the one-state solution and the reasons this outcome is the most just for both Israelis and Palestinians.

This piece in Salon discusses, after Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and Palestine last week, the illusion of the two-state equation and the growing voices for a more equitable future:

While the “one-state solution,” however conceived, remains a semi-forbidden zone in mainstream international policy discourse, it keeps cropping up all over the place on both the right and the left. Within a few weeks last summer, leading Israeli settler activist Dani Dayan published an Op-Ed in the New York Times urging the international community to give up “its vain attempts to attain the unattainable two-state solution,” while radical journalists Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor published an anthology of writing by academics and activists entitled “After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine.”

The following protest took place outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv on March 22: