SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
A Palestinian pastor throws an intellectual hand grenade into the body of knowledge on Palestine/Israel. The opening line of Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, the People, the Bible says it all: “For Palestinians, including the Palestinian Christian community, Palestine is a real land with real people.” It seems self-evident, but in a time when more people are in love with some majestic idea of Israel/Palestine rather than the Continue Reading...
Amid Israeli airstrikes and our political struggle for statehood, we are fighting an economic battle to keep Palestinians in Palestine, the ultimate act of non-violent resistance against the Netanyahu government’s state and settler violence. So why are some U.S. companies turning away?Depending on who you talk to, the Palestinian economy is either in intensive care, a victim of relentless and prolonged Israeli military aggression or it is Continue Reading...
The landslide defeat of the self-declared ‘invincible’ Bharatiya Janata Party by the Congress, that was reportedly ‘sinking’, has stunned India. The entire country seemed to have had a stake in the Karnataka Assembly election. That stake continues, as the victorious Congress is still struggling to cut the Gordian knot of choosing a Chief Minister with two contenders remaining adamant. We do not know whether either of them, or their ardent Continue Reading...
The voice of a Palestinian child in Gaza, taken from this world by Israel — “the only democracy in the Middle East”. Note: This was written in 2014, a decade after Iman Darweesh Al Hams was murdered by an Israeli soldier in Gaza and after Israeli courts cleared the solider who killed her from any wrongdoing. Today, as I watch more Gazan children killed by the Israeli killing machine, I remembered Iman and this article. Sadly, this Continue Reading...
Solar panels are like magic, turning sunshine into electricity. They are, however, relatively bulky. We own our own home and have 16 of them on our roof, but renters have often complained to me that it isn’t so easy in an apartment building. There is also a danger that they will compete for land with agriculture. So the turn of the Netherlands to solar power in a big way is instructive, since it is a small country a little larger than Continue Reading...
Monday’s massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake in south-central Turkey, in which at least 20,000 have died — and probably tens of thousands more — has shocked that country and the world. It inescapably has political implications, with Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for mid-May. President Tayyip Recep Erdogan is facing widespread criticism for the slowness and inadequacy of the government response. Stung by the criticism, Continue Reading...
Al-Hadath reports that 300 former Israeli soldiers have written a letter to their new government pleading with it not to inflict harm on the LGBTQ community. At the same time, two prominent rabbis close to the new government launched an attack on the Knesset members who voted in Amir Ohana, who is gay, as the speaker of parliament. Sama al-Akhbariyya says that the Jerusalem chief rabbi, Schlomo Amar, formerly the chief rabbi for all Continue Reading...
President Joe Biden addressed the COP27 Climate in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt on Friday. He noted the ravages of the human-caused climate emergency on the African continent, including deadly drought in the Horn of Africa, floods that displaced over a million people in Nigeria, and the increasing potential for conflict between herders and farmers as herding routes are forced to change. Biden also touted his own administration’s Continue Reading...
