Between Dome of the Rock and a Hard Place
By now most readers will have heard that Noam Chomsky, renowned linguist and political commentator, was denied entry to the West Bank because some Israeli commander was aware of his “political opinions”. Israel quickly backpeddled from their authoritarian decision in the wake of more international condemnation and concern than for, say, the hundreds of Gazan [...]
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Hybrid States has been on something of a hiatus recently. The reasons for this are several. First, the blog found itself bombarded with a seemingly infinite stream of mind-boggling and truly outrageous news items, due not in small part to the seemingly infinite lunacy coming out of Israel’s government. But keeping on top of the [...]
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Ha’aretz runs today a stunning and thoughtful article about how Israel must learn the language of human rights. Written by a media consultant and former adviser to the Interior Ministry, Gilad Heimann, the article manages to cut through Israeli social psychology and government hasbara efforts with admirable efficiency. The core argument is this: Israel doesn’t [...]
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Its a news day full of tension and contradictions. First, the good—and most important—news. The Israeli army is preparing to move the route of the segregation wall in Bil’in village, where it had annexed Palestinian land and sparked weekly, mostly nonviolent protests against the land grab, according to an IDF officer’s pledge disclosed to the [...]
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Ehud Barak is one the last Labor people standing. He sold out what were the purported values of Israel’s center-left Labor party in order to gain a seat (defense minister) in the most right-wing government Israel has ever had (the current one). By doing so, he helped facilitate the unprecedented collapse of one of the [...]
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You can argue for the merits of Israeli democracy, of which there are a few, but you cannot do so without taking account of the fact of the institutionalized system of segregation, the differentiated structure of civil and political rights, including state-sponsored discrimination against non-Orthodox Jews, and the fact that Israel has ruled over millions [...]
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Apartheid is finally get the attention is deserves. Joining the longstanding arguments posed by Palestinians, prominent Jews (e.g. retired Judge Boaz Okon) and Israeli politicians (e.g. former PM Olmert) have begun to use the term to describe the system of institutionalized discrimination that exists in Israel/Palestine. This is a welcome development in the battle for [...]
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Israel has been arresting systematically the nonviolent leadership of the West Bank. One of these nonviolent activists is Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher from Bi’lin village, who was arrested by Israel and charged with arms possession… for collecting the spent tear gas canisters that Israel had fired at his village and putting them [...]
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You may not have heard about the new bill running through the halls of the US Congress because it hasn’t been covered by the media. But a progressive US senator has decided to challenge a longstanding law that prevents nonwhites from leasing any US government land or owning it should it come to market. As [...]
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Another nonviolent Palestinian activist has joined Mohammed Othman in an Israeli jail for the sole crime of organizing demonstrations against the separation wall. A couple months ago, Abdallah Abu Rahmah of Bi’lin was providing a tour of his village for Jimmy Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN human rights chief Mary Robinson, and several other [...]
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