UN envoy: ‘We are always no more than two to three days away from another war in Gaza’ — Middle East Monitor (12/13)

Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, has told FRANCE 24 that the situation in the Gaza Strip remains extremely tense, warning that “we are always no more than two to three days away from another war in Gaza”. “This is the situation which we’ve lived in for the past year and a half to two years now”, he said. According to Mladenov, the first reason for the unstable status quo “is the fact that the situation in Gaza over the last decade has deteriorated dramatically”. “People live in terrible conditions, unemployment is skyrocketing. A year and a half ago, people lived with three hours of electricity per day. So, there are very strong social tensions that exist in Gaza”, Mladenov told FRANCE 24.

Gaza 2020: How easy it is for the world to delete Palestinian pain — Middle East Eye (12/13)

Trump executive order marks culmination of deliberate strategy to stifle campus organizing for Palestinian rights — Mondoweiss (12/12)

President Trump signed yesterday an Executive Order empowering the federal government to crack down on campus organizing for Palestinian rights under the guise of combating antisemitism. “This is our message to universities: If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject antisemitism,” Trump stated during a White House Hanukkah reception which doubled as a signing ceremony. But Trump’s Executive Order has nothing to do with combating the scourge of antisemitism, the revival of which he is greatly responsible for by stoking white supremacy. Instead, it is primarily designed to pressure universities to disallow students to boycott for Palestinian rights.  

Boris Johnson funder JCB aiding Israel’s crimes — Electronic Intifada (12/12)

Rashida Tlaib's momentous 'separate and unequal speech' makes her an icon of our times — The New Arab (12/10)

How to answer the question, ‘Do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?’ — Mondoweiss (12/10)

“Do you recognize Israel’s right to exist?” pretends to honor the downtrodden, but it is an altogether different proposition, transforming sophisticated ideas of liberation into a crude test of political respectability.  Prioritizing the state as worthy of relief, as something to which we automatically owe deference, subsumes life to the imperatives of capital. The fundamental goal of the question is to attribute a sinister position to dissidents.  It accomplishes that goal even when the dissidents haven’t promoted destruction.  Mere defense of Palestinian life is enough to evoke the settler’s existential fear.  For people socialized into orthodoxy, Israel is synonymous with progress, technology, and production.  Affirming its existence is an endorsement of the status quo; no matter how ludicrous as a moral premise, in capitalist spaces it is a perfectly sensible demand.