Norman Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. He is one of the world’s leading experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the political legacy of the Nazi Holocaust. Apart from his parents, every member of Finkelstein’s family, on both sides, was exterminated in the Nazi Holocaust.
His 2000 book, The Holocaust Industry became an international bestseller and touched off a firestorm of debate. But Finkelstein’s most recent political intervention came about by accident…
On 26 February, the Israel authorities agreed to release Palestinian journalist Mohammad Al-Qiq on 21 May, a month early, in return for him agreeing to give up his hunger strike and not renew it. Al-Qiq, who works for a Saudi Arabian TV network, was arrested in November at his Ramallah home.
He was placed in administrative detention – without charge, evidence or trial – on suspicion of involvement in terrorism.
Some 700 Palestinians are currently in administrative…
This analysis of Palestinian popular – civil – resistance to the creation and expansion of Israel and its nearly 50-year occupation of Palestinian territory, is essential reading for anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of civil resistance in an occupied country, and the factors making for its success or failure.
“The First Intifada encompassed a range of nonviolent tactics with the strategic aim of regenerating the resistance, increasing the cost to Israel of…
Khader Adnan, a 37-year-old baker and father of six, was released from an Israeli prison on 12 July, after a 55-day hunger strike that left him near death.
Khader launched his hunger strike on 7 May to protest at the renewal of his ‘administrative detention’ (indefinite detention without charge) after six years in and out of administrative detention.
Khader was re-arrested on 13 July. The Israeli political police, the Shin Beit, said he had been arrested for trying to…
At 2am on 29 June, Marianne, one of four boats bound for Gaza in the latest attempt to break the Israeli siege, was surrounded by three Israeli navy boats while in international waters 85 miles from the Gaza coast, according to Freedom Flotilla organisers.
The Swedish ship was boarded and searched by Israeli soldiers who detained all 18 people on board. Organisers described this an ‘act…
As one member of a popular committee in Silwan [on the outskirts of Jerusalem] observed: ‘A major challenge is the coordination of nonviolent activities. Some focus on the [Israeli Separation] Wall, others on checkpoints and others on settlements. There is no coordination like there was in the first intifada.’
Underpinning the different challenges organisers identified as obstacles was what many observed to be a pervasive lack of trust in leadership at any level, including…
On 17 December, 100 Palestinian political prisoners ended a solidarity hunger strike after the Israeli prison authorities agreed to stop holding Nahar al-Saadi in solitary confinement and to allow him contact with his family (he had been held in solitary for over 570 days).
The authorities also agreed to end the use of solitary confinement ‘without cause’ – a promise they made previously after the mass hunger strike of mid-2012 (PN 2547-2548).
In other news, after…
On 19 January, Israeli police Monday arrested pregnant journalist Joman Abu Arafeh as she was leaving the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, according to the Palestine News & Information Agency (WAFA).
Earlier, on 14 January, the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) launched ‘The Media in Gaza: Caught in the Crossfire’, a report on Israeli media violations during the July-August 2014 attack on Gaza.
MADA’s director general, Mousa Rimawi said: ‘We…
In October, there were several victories in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Kuwait announced it will not deal with 50 European companies because of their involvement in illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. Israeli-owned soft drink company SodaStream moved one of its factories out of the Occupied Territories.
Israeli shipping line Zim apparently cancelled all future shipments to the port of Oakland, after nonviolent blockades.…
What next for supporters of Palestinians’ human rights? I don’t believe we are shocked by the ‘US campaign to rob a future Palestinian state of viability and genuine independence’ (editorial, PN 2567): it’s just a continuation of their consistent support for Israel in its ongoing onslaught on that possibility.
Economic blockade, illegal settlements, dislocation of the physical infrastructure and invasion by another supporting those settlements, draining the Palestinian…
In his 2012 book Knowing Too Much, Norman Finkelstein argued that ‘a growing section of the disproportionately liberal US Jewish public... now knows too much about the realities of the Israeli-Palestine conflict to continue to lend Israel its blind support.’
Here he decisively skewers Israeli journalist Ari Shavit’s much-praised attempt ‘to repackage the old product... [so] that it sells despite its disquieting contents’, concluding that it ‘recycles too many shattered…
On 9 August, during an overwhelming Israeli attack on Gaza, an estimated 150,000 people marched from the BBC’s Broadcasting House HQ in central London to a Hyde Park rally in Britain’s biggest-ever demonstration for Gaza. This followed a demonstration on 15 July, when 5,000 protested at the BBC’s one-sided coverage of the Israeli assault, bringing the roads around the Broadcasting House to a standstill.
Some 2,100 inhabitants of Gaza, including over 400 children, were killed by…
Machynlleth Gaza vigil. Photo: Marian Delyth
The heart-breaking news from Gaza spurned solidarity actions across Wales: vigils, marches and fundraising. Phil Steele of Bangor & Ynys Môn Peace & Justice group said that the ‘group normally take a break in August but, as so often happens, events allowed little respite’. He reported: ‘August was dominated by the terrible news from Gaza. This coincided with the group showing the ‘Silent Lives’ exhibition of children’s photographs of life…
UAV factory, Shenstone, 5 August. Photo: London Palestine Action
On 5 September, on the second day of the NATO summit in Newport, Wales, about 40 people entered Barclays High Street branch in the town shouting ‘Stop arming Israel’ and ‘Barclays divest from the arms trade’. Barclays have almost 60,000 shares in Elbit. Four people were arrested and charged with aggravated trespass after glueing-on inside the office.
