Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

Miriam Lottner, Opinion contributor Published 6:00 a.m. ET May 22, 2021

In 2021, even Jews and Israelis should have the right to live without persecution. Hamas proudly chants their genocidal viewsfrom the rooftops.

Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system intercepts rockets fired by Hamas on May 16, 2012, in Gaza.(Photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)

Our puppy ran in circles, barking and shaking, my teenagers woke suddenly, calling us in frantic voices to the shelter, my husband ensured we're all inside, bolting and sealing our heavy bomb-proof door. Hamas was back on the rampage, indiscriminately blastingrockets and missiles aimed at Israeli civilians in the middle of the night.

Thankfully,Israel and Hamas agreed on a cease fire Thursday. But its scary, and heartbreaking to see my kids going through these last several daysas if its normal. But its also heartbreaking for me to watch misinformationspread on social media, and entertainers promoting anti-Semitism.

I'm not ashamed to say how proud I am of Israel, which is about 21% Arab, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. The diverse Jewish state has mosques, churches, temples, shrines and other safe religious places of worship. The Israel citizenry I know and love is a colorful mosaic of Druze, Bedouin, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and many other religions. Neither race, religion, sexuality, gender, nor skin color disqualifies you from being a Knesset member, prime minister, Supreme Court justice, Olympic athlete, tech founder, or anything else.

USA TODAY Our View: Israel-Gaza violence again shows Middle East conflict not just a real-estate dispute

In 135 A.D.,after crushing the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt,the Romanssought to punish the Jewsand strip us of our heritage and revived the name "Palaestina"to describe Judea.Theft of this name is a grave cultural appropriation and historical manipulation that we continue to see today as the terrorist groupin charge in Gaza attempts to erase and bury the indigenous Jewish connection to the land of Israel, and our rich and ancient history here.

Today, many people are not only afraid to openly support Israel, but also to admit they are Jewish. Physical attacks and anti-Semitic acts by pro-Palestine supporters on Jews across Europeand the United Statesthis past week are ignored.

Miriam Lottner with her puppy Caramel in the family bomb shelter in the south of Israel in May 2021.(Photo: Family handout)

In 2021, even Jews and Israelisshould have the right to live withoutpersecution. This persecution is clearly stated in Hamas's charter, which calls explicitly for the eradication of the state of Israel and the murder of all Jews. Hamas proudly chants their genocidal viewsfrom the rooftops.

It may seem innocuous when Palestine supporters chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, if you dont understand Israels geography. In fact,"from the river to the sea" encompasses the entire geographical area of modern Israel and would wipe the country from the map.

Let me be clear, there is suffering in Gaza, especially under the brutaldictatorship of Hamas. No doubt, there is suffering from Israeli retaliation, too. For this, no Israeli rejoices.

But faced with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip with an iron fist, killing political opponents, persecuting and torturing gay men and women, repressing womens rights, enslaving children with forced labor, and stealing humanitarian aid, Israel is blackmailed into self-defense. Annihilated if we don't defend ourselves, and damned by the world when we do.

Israel takes extraordinary efforts to minimize civilian casualtiesincluding by warning targets. But there will be casualties whenever Hamas attacksand forces their own people to serve as human shields.

Sitting in the shelter, I wait for the explosions that follow the firing of each missile directed at our homes. I look at my girls and know that for their sake, I'll remain an ally and advocate for freedom, women's rights, gay rights, religious freedoms, and cultural, and racial understanding for everyone no matter what religion and where they dwell.

Torah and cheesecake: Why Israelis can still celebrate even as missiles rain down

But mostly for my girls, Ill speak up for the truth, for their right to live as Jews. When others plan and promote our annihilation, refusing our rights to self-defense, denying our culture, stealing our heritage, and our history, we cant be silent. Please, find another solution where the annihilation of Israel isn't the only way to help people in Gaza get out from under the terrorism inflicted by Hamas.

Miriam Lottner's puppy, Caramel, inside the family bomb shelter in the south of Israel in May 2021.(Photo: Family handout)

That steady booms and drum of war tells me the Iron Dome has miraculously worked again. Each night we trudge back to our beds from the bomb shelter, hopeful that when we wake up tomorrow, the world will awaken with the conviction that Jews not only have a right to exist, but to defend ourselves, and continue to thrive and innovate on this tiny slice of land we've alwayscalled home.

Miriam Lottnergrew up in Southern California and is a 25 year veteran of the Israeli technology scene. She lives in the south of Israel.

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Israel is the Jewish people's ancient home. We will always defend ourselves from Hamas. - USA TODAY

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

Geneva (26 May 2021) The Committee on the Rights of the Child joins the declaration of the Secretary General of the United Nations that Israeli & Palestinian leaders have a responsibility beyond the restoration of calm to start a serious dialogue to address the root causes of the conflict.

Beyond the unacceptable and tragic loss of more than 60 childrens lives, the recent hostilities have had long-lasting material and mentally traumatic consequences on many children and their families. More than 600 children have been injured. The Committee considers that the first priority, beyond the consolidation of the ceasefire, is to provide children with protection, mental health support and meet their basic and urgent needs.

In the longer term, the Committee strongly urges Israel and Palestine, and the entire international community, to work with determination to seek a negotiated, balanced and sustainable peace. Both Israel and Palestine are States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and have an obligation to uphold their commitments to the human rights of children. As such, Ms. Mikiko Otani, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child emphasizes that they must respect rules of international humanitarian law applicable to children in armed conflict and take all feasible measures to ensure protection and care of children who are affected by an armed conflict.

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UN Child Rights Committee urges Israel and Palestine and the entire international Community to bring immediate support to the children in Gaza and...

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

More than 500 Amazon employees have signed an internal letter to Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy calling for the company to acknowledge the plight of the Palestinian people. The move comes after Israeli airstrikes devastated Palestinians in Gaza, leaving 248 people dead. Hamas and Israel have since agreed to a ceasefire.

We ask Amazon leadership to acknowledge the continued assault upon Palestinians basic human rights under an illegal occupation... without using language that implies a power symmetry or situational equivalency, which minimizes and misrepresents the disruption, destruction, and death that has disproportionately been inflicted upon the Palestinians in recent days and over several decades, employees wrote. Amazon employs Palestinians in Tel Aviv and Haifa offices and around the world. Ignoring the suffering faced by Palestinians and their families at home erases our Palestinian coworkers.

Employees want the company to terminate business contracts with organizations that are complicit in human rights violations, like the Israeli Defense Forces. In April, Amazon and Google signed a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

The note echoes similar petitions from workers at Apple and Google. On May 18th, Jewish employees at Google penned a letter to Sundar Pichai calling for the company to reject any definition of antisemitism that holds that criticism of Israel or Zionism is antisemitic. Two days later, The Verge published a note from Muslim employees at Apple.

Muslim tech workers say executives have been slow to voice support for Palestinians, or condemn the violence in Gaza. Many feel their CEOs are choosing to ignore Israeli human rights abuses because the situation is fraught. The result, according to multiple sources, is that Muslims in tech feel undervalued and ignored.

Read the entire letter from Amazon employees below:

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge.

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Hundreds of Amazon employees call for Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy to support Palestine - The Verge

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

The recent Middle East conflict has prompted a wave of pro-Palestine protests in British schools and controversy over the staff response, with pupils being accused of antisemitism and one headteacher describing the Palestinian flag as a call to arms.

Mike Roper, the headteacher of Allerton Grange high school in Leeds, was forced to apologise after he claimed in an assembly that some people saw the flag as a symbol of antisemitism.

Video of the speech was posted online, going viral and prompting a backlash and protests, with extra police having to be posted outside the school.

The assembly was intended, the school said, to address tensions within its multiracial student community caused by the situation in Israel. But instead the speech brought accusations of blatant Islamophobia and staff being instructed to help students into and out of school safely following the furious response.

Similar disputes have occurred in schools across the UK since the latest deadly violence in Israel and Gaza, with questions raised over why children expressing support for Palestine are being accused of antisemitism and in some cases subjected to disciplinary action.

During a protest at Clapton girls academy in east London, students sat down and chanted free Palestine, refusing to return to lessons. One student, Mina, said the children had decided to protest after teachers removed posters about the Palestinian struggle from the walls of the schools.

In Manchester, senior leaders at Loreto college decided to close the institution after hearing about a planned protest. About 200 students went on to assemble near the gates waving flags, with members of the public joining the march.

At Allerton Grange it is understood tensions had been bubbling for a number of days before Ropers controversial assembly, with some pupils claiming they had lanyards bearing the Palestinian flag confiscated.

In the two-minute video the headteacher describes speaking to 20 students urging them not to use symbols and flags as some people may see the flag and feel threatened and unsafe. He went on to add: That flag is seen as a call to arms and seen as a message of support for antisemitism.

A statement was later issued in which Roper said he was deeply sorry that a particular example I used in that assembly, referring to the Palestinian flag, has caused such upset and promised to engage with local councillors and community representatives about the issues raised.

The Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer said: Imagine being a Palestinian kid at this guys school, being told your national flag is inherently hateful. Absolutely outrageous.

The author and Cambridge University academic Priyamvada Gopal also reacted with dismay to the video.She said: Young people can be taught about the evils of antisemitism, and they can learn about the Palestinian flag and its importance to a peoples struggle for self-determination. We are all capable of holding more than one thought in our head at the same time, and students should not be patronised by pretending otherwise.

Ilyas Nagdee, a former NUS black students officer who works on race equality in education, said he had received reports of close to 100 cases of young people facing consequences for speaking up about Palestine. These included being accused of antisemitism, punished, excluded from school, threatened with a report to Prevent anti-radicalisation programme and even being visited by police.

He said: At a time when young people are getting politicised and exercising civil action we are seeing some school leaders do their utmost to stymie them and prevent them developing themselves politically.

Daniel Kebede, a senior vice-president of the National Education Union, said schools should be a safe space that allowed young people to explore difficult subjects. What is happening in Israel/Palestine should be a topic that is explored in schools with sensitivity so that young people can generate their own understanding, he said.

One teacher, who wanted to remain anonymous, said at her school students had been explicitly banned from distributing material bearing the Palestinian flag and students who had been passing round free Palestine stickers were humiliated in front of their peers, with the headteacher calling them cowards and racists.

These blanket bans on any mention of the word Palestine at school seem to be commonplace, and are even being encouraged by some local councils. Evidently, these are deeply racist policies, she said.

Alexandra Wright,a senior rabbi at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Johns Wood, London, said freedom of expression was very important and young people should be allowed to express their views in an educated and nuanced way, adding that it was of supreme importance that young people in schools and universities were educated about the history and the current situation in the Middle East.

She said: All forms of antisemitism and Islamophobia should be condemned and young people should be educated to understand the difference between their criticism of policies that belong to particular leadership and governments, on the one hand, and targeting Jews or Muslims who are not citizens of those countries about whom they are protesting, on the other.

A spokesperson for Naamod, a Jewish anti-occupation campaign group, said no student should be disciplined or accused of antisemitism simply for supporting Palestinian freedom or waving a Palestinian flag.

All the schools named were contacted for comment. A spokesperson for Clapton girls academy said: There was a respectful protest at the school where students raised issues related to Palestine. A small number of posters were taken down because students did not request permission to put them up beforehand.

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Anger over British teachers response to pro-Palestine protests - The Guardian

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

ORLAND PARK, IL Hundreds rallied in the parking lot of the Orland Park Prayer Center on Sunday, before heading off on a solidarity run for Palestinian refugees. Although the event was planned months ago, over the past few weeks, air strikes and rocket fire between Israel and the Gaza Strip some of the worst violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in years changed the tenor of the event almost completely.

The solidarity run comes as thousands have taken to the streets of Chicago and the world, holding rallies, sit-ins and protests over the expulsion of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Running Refugees, an organization that regularly fundraises to provide basic needs for millions of refugees all over the world, spent months planning its 30 days 30 homes campaign to support the repairs and rebuilding of homes previously demolished in the Gaza Strip. After launching the campaign during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, weather pushed back the planned fundraising run by several weeks.

Then the fighting broke out in Gaza.

Dozens of Palestinians were killed by multiple Israeli airstrikes over 11 days. Israel fired the bombs at Gaza in retaliation for rockets fired at Israel from the Strip. Before the rocket fire, some Palestinians groups had warned that continued Israeli violations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem would lead to a harsh response.

A cease-fire has held since Friday morning. According to CBS, more than 240 Palestinians were killed, including nearly 70 were children. CBS reported 12 Israelis were killed amid the rocket fire.

About 450 people took part in the run through Orland Park Sunday to raise awareness for the those displaced in Gaza, according to Running Refugees chairman Rush Darwish. Walkers and runners lined up near the entrance of 167th Street. Participants crossed the street to enter the Orland Grassland trails, circling back to the start. Runners ran a five-mile trail, while walkers walked two-miles.

Darwish said it was important to the organization to hold the event because of the recent news surrounding Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The chairman was impressed with the amount of people who attended.

"It's inspiring that people are rising up. That people are not only aware of what's happening in Palestine, but they understand the action of what it takes in order to raise awareness and have people see what is happening," Darwish said. "The people that came here today are part of that movement to show everyone the what's happening in Palestine, and it's really beautiful to see."

Orland Park resident Samah Jaber was one of the first to complete the run, with her friend Jalilah Ahmad, of Bridgeview. The two said they regularly attend events showing solidarity for the people of Palestine, as they are both Palestinian themselves.

"We are long time supporters of Palestine," Ahmad said. "What's happening over there is inhumane. They're keeping the Palestinian people from the rights, and it's happening throughout the country. So we are here to make our voices heard. We are the voices, and we are the media."

Tinley Park's Frosted Donuts donated over 300 freshly baked donuts to runners after completing the track. Owner Feda Ibrahim said she wants to help her community in any way she can.

"I am Palestinian," Ibrahim said. "I want to show support as much as I can for the community, and keep us strong. If everybody works together, we could find a solution to this, and help raise awareness to find a solution for all involved."

As of Monday afternoon, the Running Refugees organization has raised $86,533.42 of its $100,000 goal. Learn more about the organization and the campaign on the organization's website, here.

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Cars Flood Streets Over Forced Expulsions, Attacks In Jerusalem | Palos, IL Patch

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Hundreds Sprint Through Orland Park In Solidarity With Palestine - Patch.com

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

President Joe Biden. (Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images)

Heba Mohammad poured her energy and her considerable skills into electing Joe Biden president in 2020. As the digital organizing director for the Democrats campaign in the critical swing state of Wisconsin, she was one of the great mass of young people who powered the Biden campaign to victory. But as the Biden administration has failed to take a firm stand in defense of Palestinian rights in recent weeks, Mohammad has grown increasingly frustrated with the man she did so much to elect. She says she felt deep dismay watching the presidents limited response to what was happening in Gaza.

Mohammad isnt alone. After images of the death and devastation following Israeli air strikes on Gaza filled screens across the United States in mid-May, activists who worked to elect Biden began to communicate among themselves on how to get a message to the president and other senior Democrats about the need for a shift in US policy that focuses on achieving justice for the Palestinian people.

On Monday, more than 500 of these 2020 campaign staffers signed a letter demanding that the Biden administration abandon a status-quo approach to Israel and Palestine that deprives Palestinians of peace, security, and self-determination. Addressed to the president, the letter explains, The very same values that motivated us to work countless hours to elect you demand that we speak out in the aftermath of the recent explosive violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, which is inextricable from the ongoing history of occupation, blockade, and settlement expansion. MORE FROM John Nichols

The letter comes at a point when Biden and his aides have faced criticism from Democratic members of Congress such as Michigans Rashida Tlaib, Minnesotas Ilhan Omar, and Wisconsins Mark Pocan for failing to focus sufficiently on the dislocation of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank, as well as Israeli air strikes that have left hundreds dead in Gaza. As in the 1960s, when many of the Democratic Partys savviest officials and ablest activists broke with President Lyndon Johnson over the war in Vietnam, this is shaping up as a moment when dynamic young activistsand more than a few of their eldersare warning that the president and party leaders must wake up to that fact that, as Mohammad says, from here on out, we will not allow our Democratic officials and candidates to be silent on Palestine.

The signatures on the letter to Biden include those of 10 members of his 2020 campaigns national headquarters staff and eight members of the Democratic National Committee staff during the race. But most of the signers worked at the states where Biden won the presidencyincluding the five battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona, which flipped from the Republican column in 2016 to the Democratic side in 2020. Drafted by a coalition of Palestinian American, Israeli American, Jewish, and allied former staffers, the letter offers a knowing and nuanced take on the violence in the Middle East, explaining:

We remain horrified by the images of Palestinian civilians in Gaza killed or made homeless by Israeli airstrikes. We are outraged by Israels efforts to forcibly and illegally expel Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah. We are shocked by Israels destruction of a building housing international news organizations. We remain horrified by reports of Hamas rockets killing Israeli civilians.

While Israelis had to spend nights hiding in bomb shelters, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip had nowhere to hide. It is critical to acknowledge this power imbalancethat Israels highly-advanced military occupies the West Bank and East Jerusalem and blockades the Gaza Strip, creating an uninhabitable open-air prison. While we should never reduce the loss of human life to numbers, Palestinians have suffered hundreds of casualties, demonstrative of Israels power over Palestinians and its penchant for disproportionate responses. Israels protracted refusal to consider a ceasefire also put Israelis in harms way, prolonging the violence of Hamass barrage of rockets and Israels air strikesa cycle that is bound to repeat itself as long as we allow the status quo to stand, where Palestinians have no freedom and Israel controls their lives in perpetuity.Current Issue

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Matan Arad-Neeman, an Israeli American co-author of the letter who worked as a campaign organizer in Arizona, said, As an Israeli American proud to have helped elect Biden in Arizona, I am horrified by the daily nightmare of occupation and apartheid. American inaction on human rights violations by the Israeli government, all while the administration continues to sell weapons to Israel, does not help my family in Israel or keep them safe.

Mohammad, a Palestinian American who worked for the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 as well as directing digital organizing in Wisconsin last year for Biden, echoed that view, and added, President Biden must do better. A cease-fire in this latest bombing campaign is welcomed, but Palestinian suffering continues because there has not been a cessation in Israels blockade of Gaza, land annexation in the West Bank, mass arrests and raids, ethnic cleansing, illegal occupation, and the 73-year cycle of dispossession.

In order to do better, the letter urges the Biden administration to acknowledge that a temporary peace is not a suitable long-term resolution and to take concrete steps to end the occupation in pursuit of justice, peace, and self-determination for Palestinians. Those steps include demanding that the Israeli government allow a humanitarian corridor in Gaza to allow for the evacuation of the injured, as well as for the supply of life-saving medicines; take action to protect Palestinians in Israel subject to ongoing violent attacks by Israeli mobs that operate with the protection of Israeli police; lift the blockade of Gaza, which has made it an uninhabitable open-air prison; end the forced expulsions of Palestinians in [the Jerusalem neighborhood of] Sheikh Jarrah and from all Palestinian homes across the territories; end settlement expansion in the West Bank.Related Article

In addition, the former staffers are urging US leaders to join our international allies in calling for an end to Israeli violations of international law, or at minimum, stop obstructing efforts by the United Nations to do so and ensure U.S. aid no longer funds the imprisonment and torture of Palestinian children, theft and demolition of Palestinian homes and property, and annexation of Palestinian land.

The Biden administration could take these tangible steps today, says Juliana Amin, a co-author of the letter who helped lead the coordinated campaign in Iowa. Democratic voters are waiting for their leaders to catch up to an increasingly popular moral conscience on this crisis, which demands accountability for the Israeli governments actions and supports Palestinian self-determination.

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More Than 500 of the Staffers Who Got Biden Elected Demand That He Defend Palestinian Rights - The Nation

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

In addition to the outbreak of Jewish versus Arab communal violence inside Israel for the first time since the 1940s, one of the few novel features of an otherwise grimly familiar scenario during the Israel-Hamas fighting are the apparent new patterns in American attitudes.

The changes are striking and complex. Many were long in the making. And not all of them are positive.

US President Joe Biden stuck to the well-established, pre-Donald Trump, playbook by insisting in public on Israel's right to defend itself, while applying increasing pressure behind the scenes for a ceasefire.

In this case, it proved effective politically and diplomatically. It is unlikely any other politically plausible approach could have produced an earlier halt to the violence.

Mr Biden may well have even saved lives by denying Israel a completely free hand, through quiet pressure but by also not giving the Israelis any reason to try to demonstrate their independence even to themselves by continuing the fighting despite public pressure from Washington.

But beyond the White House, developments in Congress, especially among Democrats, were wildly off script.

First, there is a new and vocal faction on the progressive left, led by Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the House.

It is critical of Israeli policies in the occupied territories to a degree seldom seen before in Congress, and does not hesitate to champion Palestinian human rights.

This faction includes Rashida Tlaib, the first female and Muslim Palestinian-American in Congress. She has been passionately outspoken and very effective in putting a human and American face on the Palestinian experience.

When Mr Biden visited her home state, Michigan, last week to view a car factory, she was seen in animated conversation with him and he praised her determination.

He was also greeted by a large demonstration of Arab Americans protesting against Israels attacks in Gaza.

Crucially, the change is not limited to a left-wing faction.

Centrists and even stalwartly pro-Israel Democrats, such as senators Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez, and Congressman Jerry Nadler, maintained strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, but also signed on to statements deeply critical of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, which would have been completely unthinkable until now.

But the breakdown of the old pro-Israel and, at least in theory, pro-two-state solution consensus in Washington is hardly unqualified good news for the Palestinians.

Despite the sympathy in some Washington quarters for Palestinians, the deck is still heavily stacked towards Israel

Attitudes have shifted dramatically on the right as well, as Mr Trump's pro-annexation and highly anti-Palestinian policies demonstrated.

With the ascendancy of a huge evangelical Christian, and a small Jewish religious right, many Republicans now openly support the creation of a greater Israel and, in effect, oppose any genuinely independent Palestinian state.

Many factors have contributed to this new polarisation on Israel.

More than a decade of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's relentless siding with Republicans has been crucial in turning Israel, and therefore Palestine, into a partisan issue.

So has the growing influence of narratives on the left, of casting Palestinians as oppressed victims of Israeli racism and colonialism.

Among younger Democrats, Palestinians are now routinely compared to African Americans under Jim Crow segregation in the US south or blacks in the former apartheid South Africa.

That is not anything younger liberal Americans are willing to tolerate. Palestinian lives matter, they insist.

The mythology of both Israel and the US being settler pioneer states that were battling the wilderness in the name of civilisation used to inspire identification with Israel among many Americans. Now it serves as an indictment, especially among the young.

And everyone knows that Israel has decisively turned away from the Oslo formula and a two-state solution, with Mr Netanyahu insisting that all Palestinians can aspire to is a "state minus".

Right-wing Republicans welcome this, but it profoundly alienates liberal Democrats.

Still, it is easy to overstate the policy impact to date of these cultural and attitudinal shifts.

Mr Biden was still strongly supportive of Israel's campaign in Gaza, especially in the early stages. Congress is not considering reducing US military aid to Israel, or even reversing legislation that makes it practically impossible for the Palestinians to reopen the Palestine Liberation Organisation mission in Washington.

Despite the newfound sympathy in some Washington quarters for Palestinians, the deck is still heavily stacked towards Israel and the "special relationship" remains robust for now.

Moreover, Palestinians and their allies should be alarmed at a number of violent anti-Semitic street attacks evidently started by the Gaza conflict.

One obvious parallel to these ugly anti-Jewish incidents in New York and Los Angeles is the post-9/11 anger and hatred against those perceived to be Arabs and Muslims.

These appalling incidents could not be more toxic to the Palestinian cause and the prospects for improving its standing in the US.

The shift in American discourse on Palestinian rights is also partly the product of decades of dedicated, tireless effort of countless pro-Palestinian and human rights activists who successfully challenged deeply entrenched anti-Palestinian narratives in US culture.

Even within the Biden administration a subtle but key change is evident.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Mr Biden all spoke of Palestinians and Israelis deserving "equal measures" of freedom and other rights.

The phrase is so consistent it has evidently been carefully crafted and used with a full appreciation of its significance.

As a principle, the new language points US policy towards a purposive rights-based Palestinian agenda that focuses less on the form of an outcome than on its content.

It suggests the US would agree that a long-term Palestinian-Israeli arrangement must provide first-class citizenship and human and civil rights to all individuals and allow both people to effectively exercise self-determination.

That would align Washington squarely with Palestinian aspirations for freedom and equality, rather than Israeli territorial ambitions, ethnic domination and the exclusivity of Jewish national rights most explicitly defined in the 2018 nation-state law.

"Equal" is a word and a value that powerfully serves Palestinian interests.

Its repeated use by the Biden administration subtly but clearly shows that the tectonic cultural plates underlying US attitudes are shifting in a positive direction.

Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a US affairs columnist for The National

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America's attitude to Palestine and Israel has subtly shifted - The National

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

Two weeks ago, when the current Israel-Palestine crisis began unfolding in the Gaza Strip, I noticed that a lot more peopleespecially non-activistswere talking about it in public. But in my part of the woods, the food world, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories hasnt really been a topic of conversation, though diners have long-embraced the regions cuisines at Israeli restaurants like Philadelphias Zahav and Orens Hummus in San Francisco. If there was any conversation about Palestine, it was largely driven by Arab American women like chef-activists Amanny Ahmad and Reem Assil.

More commonly, we in food whisper about the issue similarly to how London chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi bring it up in their popular cookbook, Jerusalem: While they allude to the ugliness of the long-running military occupation in their introduction, the text tends toward a laissez-faire attitude toward it. Conflicts over the ownership of land, culture and food are futile, they write, because it doesnt really matter, and worrying about it would spoil the pleasurable act of eating. Its a very political answer, seemingly designed to not piss anybody off. But then again, why are we asking restaurant folks to say anything about this?

People listen to chefs, said Preeti Mistry, a local chef and podcast host who is also known for speaking up about issues as broad as whiteness in fine dining culture and prejudice in food media. Recently, they began sounding the alarm on COVIDs brutal impact on India, using a fundraiser at Windsor restaurant PizzaLeah to raise money and awareness. Whether you admit it or not, Mistry said, youre a leader and people look to you.

From left: Habibi Bar owners Andrew Paul Nelson, Essam Kardosh and Bahman Safari, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2020, in San Francisco, Calif. The pop-up is located at Bacchus Wine Bar.

I asked the same question of Essam Kardosh, Bahman Safari and Andrew Paul Nelson, the founders of Habibi, a Russian Hill wine bar. On May 12, the team published an Instagram post that encouraged their followers to donate money for Palestinian refugee aid and learn more about the human rights atrocities committed by the apartheid state of Israel. At that point, Habibi was one of a tiny handful of local establishments that had said anything publicly about Palestine.

For Habibis founders, two of whom are of Middle Eastern descent, speaking out is a clear way to signal that their bar is about more than just selling wine: Its about being a community space for people who usually feel excluded from the wine world.

Muddled political messaging is not an option for them, having experienced it firsthand. Kardosh said that during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, he and his colleagues saw how the businesses they worked for struggled with maintaining neutrality out of fear of alienating customers and generating backlash. It was an attitude that they pledged not to replicate at Habibi, a place where they would be the ones calling the shots. We didn't want to perpetuate that cycle of silence, he said. And to that point, their May 12 Instagram point specifically included the sentiment that silence is violence.

Safari, a gay Iranian American who says he has often felt like an outsider at predominantly white queer-owned establishments in the Bay Area, emphasized that inclusivity should be more than just ambience: It also means speaking up when there are injustices being enacted.

According to Nelson, many non-Black-owned businesses felt pressured to make statements about racial injustice last year, sometimes by employees and customers alike. That pressure was good for this country and was good for the worldto finally begin to have a conversation about racial injustice and police brutality.

And if you think talking about the Black Lives Matter movement in mixed company is tough, bringing up Palestine is practically impossible. Palestinian Americans are prolific in the Bay Area food scene, but several have said that talking about these issues in public forums historically sparked massive amounts of backlash and harassment, including accusations of anti-Semitism. Its hard for members of the Jewish diaspora to talk about too, as writer Marisa Kabas articulated in a recent piece for Rolling Stone. She wrote, because the conflict has so often been boiled down to a binaryyou either support Israel or you support its destructionfor many of us it felt like a betrayal to even consider the other side. Yet Kabas has also observed more young American Jews being vocal about their opposition to the occupation.

So far, few Bay Area establishments have said anything at all, but not because the people behind them havent been thinking about this.

Ive been quiet because its so complicated, said Mike Raskin of Oakland pop-up Ediths Pie. Raskin, like Kabas, has struggled with how to talk about these issues among others of the Jewish diaspora. Judaism and Zionism are not the same thing, he wrote to me. As a Jew for the liberation of Palestine its important to recognize that when people advocate for a Jewish ethno-state, it unavoidably implies ethnic cleansing. We cannot rest on the laurels of historic harms done to Jews to justify causing harms. Hell likely say something on his public social media channels about this, but hes still mulling on it.

Even making a seemingly neutral statement about how both sides are suffering equally during this recent crisiswhich has killed hundreds of Palestinians and 12 people in Israel and displaced 74,000 Gaza residentscould upset people, as Yotam Ottolenghi recently learned. Discussing the issue in-depth takes more of a commitment than simply posting a black square on Instagram.

Despite the political risks of declaring unequivocable support for a free Palestine, Nelson said, it's more worth it to us to let those people know that we love them, that we care about them, that we're thinking about them. According to Habibis founders, many customers and colleagues in the wine world reached out to thank them for saying something.

Reem Assil of Oakland speaks to the crowd during a protest against President Trump's new travel ban in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco, CA, on Thursday March 16, 2017.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Bay Areas food scene is that the idea of hospitality folks taking activist turns isnt so strange, with a legacy that includes the thrilling early days of California cuisine in the 1970s and the essential present-day work of Ohlone chefs who preserve their culture through food. There is plenty of space for political allyship here, and plenty of people willing to listen to what hospitality workerscommunity leaders, as Preeti Mistry called themhave to say.

Susanna Zaraysky's father, Isaac Zaraysky, 86, lives in a nursing home. Preparing meal kits for him been has been critical to feeling connected to him during the pandemic.

This weeks episode of Extra Spicy is all about the things weve cooked during the pandemic, with tender tales of feeding loved ones and culinary catastrophes alike. We catch up with writer Danny Lavery and Chronicle reporter Annie Vainshtein to ask them what theyve learned about their eating habits, as well as their ovens. And we talk to San Jose author Susanna Zaraysky about the experience of cooking for her father who lives in a nursing home. Listen and subscribe here.

Chicken Dog Bagels, a pop-up at Mission pizza spot PizzaHacker, makes the best bagels Ive had in San Francisco. The sourdough everything bagel ($2.50) is chewy and robust, speckled generously with poppyseeds, toasted garlic and all the rest. Try it with the horseradish shallot cream cheese ($7) or as a sandwich.

At the Tailors Son, a new Northern Italian restaurant in Pacific Heights, I tried the phenomenal rotolo pasta ($21), a sort of roulade of fresh pasta wrapped around a filling of tender braised rabbit, spinach and fontina cheese. Its nestled in a savory demiglace and rich bechamel sauce that youll absolutely be mopping up with bits of pasta. The roulade is gently broiled to finish, and the resulting caramelized cheese makes the dish reminiscent of a Tijuana quesotaco.

I bought an electric tabletop grill from H Mart, hoping to do a giant Korean barbecue grill-out once the weather stopped being such a bummer in San Francisco. So on one of the sunnier days last week, I gathered up lots of vegetables and meats from Chinatown markets and Korean grocery stores Queens and First Korean Market and set up a massive spread of bulgogi, spicy chicken, chile-marinated eggplants and seafood mushrooms and garlicky spot prawns on my balcony. For your information: First Korean Market sells those big, flavorful perilla leaves that are essential to making barbecue wraps.

In case you missed it, I wrote a little ditty on my return to eating inside of restaurants.

Janelle Bitker and Esther Mobley delve into craft beers #MeToo moment, which sparked resignations, firings and promises for change at several Bay Area beer businesses. They include many accounts from craft beer professionals who earnestly want their industry to be better, and as I finished reading, I was left with a sense of hope.

Im really excited to watch High on the Hog, a new Netflix docuseries about Black American food, and this powerful essay about the series by Osayi Endolyn made me even more excited. As Endolyn writes, the shows truth-telling about the history of American cuisine has been long overdue.

Over at KQED, new food editor Luke Tsai has launched an ambitious project on Taiwanese food in the Bay Area. You might ask, What Taiwanese food? Tsai and his collaboratorsa whos who list of local Taiwanese American writerswill reveal where you can uncover the sprouts of the under-represented cuisine here.

Bite Curious is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicles restaurant critic, Soleil Ho, delivered to inboxes on Monday mornings. Follow along on Twitter: @Hooleil

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Few in the food world want to touch the Palestine issue. Here's why one SF bar is speaking up - San Francisco Chronicle

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

M. Reza Behnam| Register-Guard

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

James Baldwin

No system of power maintains itself forever and the fight for freedom knows no borders. Such ideas are uniting Black Americans and Palestinians. Admittedly, their experiences are distinct, but the similarities are unmistakable.

African American solidarity with Palestinians is rooted in the realization that the state violence they experience is directly tied to the violence Palestinians face daily in Palestine/Israel.

The struggle for control of already inhabited lands is glaring in the histories of the United States and Israel.

European Zionists poured into already well populated Palestine, as did British colonists onto indigenous lands in America. The ideology of domination produced a sense of entitlement and superiority among the Jewish population and among whites in America.

Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has been trying to fulfill the 1969 claim of its fourth prime minister, Ukrainian-born Golda Meir, that There was no such thing as a Palestinian; they never existed.

In America, the objective was to profit from the free labor of African Americans, while dominating every aspect of their lives. Racist stereotypes and caricatures were contrived to render Black Americans invisible and to deprive them of their humanity.

While Americans are beginning to awaken to the legacy of the countrys settler-colonial and racist past; in Israel, violence against Palestinians and theft of their land continues unabated.

In 2021, Human Rights Watch and BTselem, an Israeli human rights organization, concluded that Israels laws and practices meant to cement the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians is apartheid.

Unlike Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Gaza, Black Americans have citizenship and the vote. Institutionalized racism, however, is explicit in the criminalization of Black Americans. Unequal treatment based on race persists at all levels of the criminal justice system from misdemeanors to executions.

African Americans have been imprisoned and equal numbers have been disenfranchised because they have been denied due process under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Israeli governments widespread, arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black Americans. BTselem reports that Palestinians have languished in Israeli prisons without charges; and that each year, more than 500 Palestinian children are detained and prosecuted in Israeli military courts. The most common charge is stone throwing, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years.

Decades of U.S.-Israeli policies have trapped Black Americans and Palestinians in segregated, poorly resourced and tightly policed communities, with little hope of escaping poverty.

To dominate all of Palestine, Israel has forced Palestinians onto two small parcels the West Bank and Gaza 22% of historic Palestine, over which they have no real authority.

From 1967 to 2020, Israel demolished an estimated 5,350 Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem. Recent attempts in 2021 to evict Palestinians from their homes in the Al-Bustan and Sheik Jarrah neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers and to build a biblical theme park ignited the current catastrophe.

In the 1960s, many Black communities nationwide were demolished to build highways and other urban renewal projects that largely benefitted the cities white citizens. Linnentown in Georgia is a case in point. The city of Athens and the University of Georgia, under the guise of urban renewal, forced 50 Black families from Linnentown to build three campus dormitories.

The police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown during the summer of 2014, and Israels seven-week bombing assault on Gaza, further forged a bond of solidarity between Black and Palestinian activists. During the Ferguson protests after Browns death, demonstrators held up signs declaring solidarity with the people of Palestine, with one Black marcher waving a flag that said, this is our Intifada.

African American-Palestinian solidarity has historic roots. In his 1964 essay, Zionist Logic, Malcolm X called for the liberation of Palestine, writing, The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world.

In 1966, Black Panther Party founders stated the partys opposition to all forms of racism, Zionism, colonialism and imperialism and called for the decolonization of Palestine.

The Black lives movement has articulated a vision of liberation in solidarity with communities across the globe who are facing state oppression and violence. It comes with recognition that the fight for racial justice is universal and cannot be fought in isolation.

M. Reza Behnam, Ph.D., is a political scientist specializing in the history, politics and governments of the Middle East. He lives in Eugene.

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What Black Americans and Palestinians share - The Register-Guard

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Posted By admin on May 27, 2021

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer recently urged Israel to prioritise maintaining the support of American evangelical Christians over that of American Jews. People have to understand that the backbone of Israels support in the United States is the evangelical Christians, he said, pointing to the fact that evangelicals comprise about a quarter of Americans while Jews make up less than two percent of the population. He also noted that its very rare for evangelicals to criticise Israel, while American Jews are disproportionately among [Israels] critics.

Indeed, white evangelicals were a significant portion of Donald Trumps base, with 81 percent voting for him in 2016, and he catered to them through such Israel-friendly moves as the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and support for settlements and Israeli annexation of the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Though President Biden may use less crude rhetoric and have reinstated humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, his position does not constitute any real shift from that of Trump and thus similarly gratifies the desires of evangelicals.

Evangelical devotion to Israel was on full display in a recent sermon by John Hagee, senior pastor at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas. Hagee is also the founder and national chairman of Christians United for Israel, the main US Christian Zionist organisation that boasts 10 million members. About 80 percent of evangelicals espouse Christian Zionism, the belief that the modern state of Israel is the result of Biblical prophecy, namely the notion that 4,000 years ago God promised the land to the Jews, who will rule it until Jesus return to Jerusalem and the rapture at which time Jews must convert to Christianity or be sent to hell.

Though Hagee had originally planned to speak on marriage and commitment on Sunday, May 16, he shifted to a sermon titled The Battle for Jerusalem given recent events in Palestine: attempted expulsions of Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah to make way for Israeli settlers; raids by Israeli security forces of Al-Aqsa Mosque; and Israels assault on the Gaza Strip, which killed at least 248 Palestinians, including 66 children. Israel has reported 12 dead, including two children, from Hamas rocket fire.

Numerous analysts including Noura Erakat, Mariam Barghouti, Yara Hawari, and Rashid Khalidi have pointed to recent events as the latest in Israels expansionist, Zionist settler-colonial project that aims to dispossess Palestinians and Judaise the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea a project in contravention of international law.

Of course, Christian Zionists see the situation very differently.

In his sermon, Hagee hit the main Christian Zionist talking points, hammering home the idea that God gave the land to the Jewish people, that Jews are the apple of Gods eye, and that when Jesus returns he will rule the earth from Jerusalem. I long for that day, intoned Hagee.

Hagee also shared his theory about the latest violence, placing sole blame on Hamas and arguing that Russia and Iran put Hamas up to it, ultimately stressing that Russia and China are working to push Americas presence out of the Middle East. This is a direct challenge of Americas ability to defend Israel, he said, warning that if the United States does not support Israel, God will not support the United States. This Israel-related prosperity gospel purports that good things in terms of financial as well as physical wellbeing are Gods will for those who bless Israel.

Hagee criticised Biden and his administration during the sermon, insinuating that Biden is always ineffectively dawdling in the basement an insult of Biden favoured by Trump and that the current leadership is trying to get us to forget God. In contrast, he praised former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a Christian Zionist, as a dedicated Christian and a wonderful man of God. Pompeo is the kind of man we need in national leadership, Hagee said in comments before the sermon, not someone that hides in the basement all the time.

Yet Hagee did not criticise Bidens response to events in Palestine-Israel and no wonder, as the Biden administrations response does not fundamentally deviate from the support Trump or, indeed, past US administrations have shown Israel.

The Biden administrations statements framed the violence in terms of Israels right to defend itself from Hamas, rather than acknowledge the reality of an Israeli colonial project and ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians. It also blocked a statement by the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and criticising Israels expulsion of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. In addition, the Biden administration approved $735 million in arms sales to Israel.

Despite Bidens stance, there are solid signs of a Democratic shift in the US in favour of Palestinian rights. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a House resolution to block those arms sales, and Senator Bernie Sanders did the same in the Senate. Representative Betty McCollum has also put forward legislation that prohibits US taxpayer dollars from funding Israeli human rights violations. Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar sharply criticised Bidens response to recent events.

Effective, sustained organising by groups like Students for Justice in Palestine, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as intersectional work between Palestine advocates and movements like Black Lives Matter, have helped to push for this change and will ensure that it continues. But in the meantime, whether Hagee realises or acknowledges it, he and Christian Zionism have, while perhaps not a straightforward ally in the Biden administration, a leadership whose failure to stand up for what is just mimics their own support of Israel just minus the rapture part.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Biden, Palestine, and the buttressing of Christian Zionism - Al Jazeera English

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