Progressives reject Klobuchar’s salute to Israel as ‘beacon of democracy’ — Mondoweiss (10/16/19)

There have been four Democratic debates. In the last three, amazingly, Israel and Palestine never came up (see postscript). Then in last night’s debate in Ohio, a candidate finally brought up this important subject. Senator Amy Klobuchar called Israel a “beacon of democracy” in the context of Trump’s Syria pullout. [...] Klobuchar’s salute was glancing, but it is a measure of how negative Israel’s reputation is on the left that she was soon hit emphatically on social media by a large number of progressive voices citing the country’s human rights violations. We often say that the Israel brand is tanking on the left, and Nancy Pelosi and J Street and new Israel lobby organizations (and the Forward and Bari Weiss, too) are determined to fight that shift. But the response to Klobuchar suggests that for progressives, the die is cast.

Jewish settlers attack Palestinian farmers in West Bank — Anadolu Agency (10/16/19)

How Israel uses Bollywood to whitewash the occupation — Middle East Eye (10/16/19)

Between Tuesday and Thursday this week, Bollywood actors are travelling to Israel for the Indo Fest TLV, a "cultural showcase" touted as the biggest event in the history of India-Israel cultural relations. The festival - featuring Anil Kapoor, Amisha Patel and at least eight other stars of Indian cinema - promises to be a cultural extravaganza designed to draw Israel and India closer to one another, with some 30,000 Indians expected to attend a slew of activities in Tel Aviv. But the event has been mired in controversy and confusion even before it began. Last week, activists from the Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) campaign urged its supporters to apply pressure on the stars to abandon the visit and honour the cultural boycott of Israel. 

Vital medicines run out in Gaza — Electronic Intifada (10/16/19)

Ungar-Sargon’s Bard College fiction is widely repudiated — Mondoweiss (10/15/19)

From Palestine to the US, festival highlights a common struggle — Middle East Eye (10/14/19)

“One of its charming miracles is that through its form, poetry can resist the content of authoritarian discourse,” writes Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti.  “By resorting to understatement, concrete and physical language, a poet contends against abstraction, generalisation, hyperbole and the heroic language of hot headed generals and bogus lovers alike. Poetry remains one of the astonishing forms in our hands to resist obscurantism and silence.” It seems perfectly appropriate, then, that the first major North American festival of Palestinian literature, Palestine Writes - set to take place in New York University next March - will open with a lineup of Palestinian poets from the homeland and the global diaspora, asserting our right to express our own realities and experiences, away from the obscurantism, generalisations, and the hyperbole of authoritarian discourse.