Is this responsible journalism, or is it exploiting the words of a grieving person, words that fuel a jingoistic bonfire?

An NPR reporter reiterated the opinion, “Israelis and Palestinians live intertwined in Jerusalem,” and then proceeded to interview a Jewish Israeli woman who says, in halting English, “Why we don't live together like a family?" on the Morning Edition broadcast of January 30, 2023. (1)

Were both interviewer and interviewee not aware of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem and its environs such as Sheikh Jarrah? Dispossessions. Evictions. Home demolitions. Separation walls. (2) Were they conveniently forgetting the riot by an Israeli fascist mob on April 22, 2021? The smashed shop windows. Palestinians in Jerusalem reeled "from a night of racist, anti-Arab violence that left over a hundred Palestinians wounded and dozens detained, following an ultra-right-wing Israeli demonstration in the city during which Jewish mobs chanted ‘death to Arabs.’" (3)

My sincere condolences to the interviewee, an Israeli woman who is grieving. Both her brother and sister-in-law were among “seven people that had just been just killed outside a synagogue in Jerusalem” by a Palestinian man. Her concluding wish was, "We suffer, they should suffer." The man who killed her brother had the very same wish: revenge. This might have been a good moment for the interviewer to quote Gandhi: "An eye for and eye, and soon the whole world is blind." 

The NPR reporter, Daniel Estrin, mentions “a wave of violence,” and quotes a Palestinian man briefly. In the introduction to this news report, some background was provided about recent Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) attacks against Palestinians: on January 26th, “several” (it was ten) Palestinians were killed during an Israeli undercover, large-scale raid on the Jenin refugee camp, including an elderly woman. (4) If they’d been interviewed for this news story, Palestinian journalists and human rights advocates living in Israel-Palestine could have provided essential facts. For example, the month was not over and yet, in daily assaults, the IDF had killed at least 35 Palestinians in January. (5)

Will we hear an NPR report, in the near future, as 42 family members are evicted and their homes destroyed, by the IDF, in revenge for the killing of the seven Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem? (6) There is no evidence that anyone knew of the vengeful man’s plans. The IDF’s actions will be collective punishment, which is a crime under international law. This is not on the path to peace and justice. 

Between the year 2000 and September 2018, Israel killed 43 journalists in the West Bank and Gaza. (7) Last year, an IDF sniper killed Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al Jazeera journalist and an American citizen. Will NPR place, at the top of today’s news, the next IDF killing of a journalist, child, or elderly person; the next home demolition; the next IDF home invasion; and the next seizing of a Palestinian child in the middle of the night? (8)

We’ve certainly given air time to people filled with fear and hatred. Will NPR now interview the many Palestinians living in the occupied lands, in Israel itself, and all over the world, who are hard at work to end the violence by uplifting human rights for everyone in the Holy Land? That’s getting harder to do, since Israel outlawed six human rights organizations last year (9). Let's hear voices from Palestinian civil society in these NPR news reports. Please find these people and, consistently, let us know what they say. (10)

NOTES

1) The reporter repeats what the interviewee’s sister said to him (“Israelis and Palestinians live intertwined in Jerusalem.”), apparently during his interview of the family members of some of the seven Israeli victims,

https://www.npr.org/2023/01/30/1152448807/blinkens-israel-visit-comes-during-heightened-israeli-palestinian-tensions. 

2) https://electronicintifada.net/tags/sheikh-jarrah

3) https://mondoweiss.net/2021/04/israeli-mobs-chant-death-to-arabs-in-night-of-violence-in-jerusalem/

4) James Zogby, “Our Message to Secretary Blinken” (Feb. 6, 2023), https://www.aaiusa.org/library/our-message-to-secretary-blinken.  Excerpt: “On January 26th, 10 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli undercover raid into Jenin. Nightly Israeli invasions of heavily populated Palestinian communities have taken almost three dozen lives so far this year. These raids and killings coupled with a new round of mass expulsions and intensified settler violence have left Palestinians both seething in anger and despairing of any improvement in their lives.  The next day a lone Palestinian gunman murdered eight Israelis as they walked home from their synagogue in a settlement to the east of Jerusalem.  Both mass killings were deplorable and yet tragically predictable. …” See also Zogby, “Real Journalism Asks Tough Questions,” (Feb. 20, 2023), https://www.aaiusa.org/library/real-journalism-asks-tough-questions?emci=413e8198-3bb1-ed11-994d-00224832eb73&emdi=0fba22ea-1eb2-ed11-994d-00224832e1ba&ceid=2341773

5) https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/30/israel_palestine_violence_tony_blinken; 

6) Jewish Vice for Peace Rabbinical Council’s statement, January 31, 2023,
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/01/statement-from-the-jewish-voice-for-peace-rabbinical-council/ Excerpt: “In the last few weeks, there has been a spike in the extra-judicial killings of Palestinians by the Israeli military. Ten people were killed by Israeli forces in Jenin (West Bank) on Thursday alone.
On Friday night, in Jerusalem, seven Jews were murdered by a lone Palestinian. The community of Neve Yaakov, an illegal East Jerusalem settlement populated by many poor, Mizrahi Jews (Jews of Color) is grieving. We share the concerns of our fellow Jews in Israel. Nothing can justify Friday’s mass murder.
The Israeli military has shown no evidence or made any claims that the Palestinian killer received any support from anybody else. He appears to have been reacting to the senseless death of a friend, killed recently by Israeli forces. The backdrop of ever present Israeli violence in his life goes back to a time before he was born. His grandfather for whom he is named was murdered by an Israeli Jew, apparently by an associate of the hoodlum who is today Israel’s Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. The Israeli authorities do not allege that anybody else knew of the killer’s plan or aided him in any way. Nevertheless, the Israeli security services arrested his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alqam along with 40 other members of their extended family and evicted them from the family home. This is cruel, collective punishment. This is illegal under Israeli law and international law that Israel is a signatory to. …”

7) See also https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/shireen-abu-aklehs-family-rejects-latest-israeli-cover 

8) https://mondoweiss.net/2022/12/2022-in-review-palestines-moment-of-truth/

9) https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2022/08/jewish-voice-for-peace-condemns-the-israeli-governments-latest-attack-on-human-rights-organizations/

10) Palestinian civil society (in the diaspora, the occupied lands, in Israel) includes a multitude of men and women who could be interviewed.   One could begin with the staff of the six Palestinian human rights organizations in Israel that Israel has outlawed. Contact the staff of any prominent Palestinian Human Rights organization in the United States, Israel-Palestine, or around the world. 

Steven Sellers Lapham is chair of the Legislative Working Group of the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East.

Virginia: Resisting Two Attacks on Free Speech

Check to see whether anti-boycott legislation is impacting your state or local government at palestinelegal.org/resources. Scroll down and click on the map of the United States, then find your state.

As Palestinian people continue resisting Israel’s intensifying repression, our local work in the various United States grows more urgent. Two dangerous bills passed the Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates the week of February 6th. Virginians have until the session ends on February 25, 2023, to defeat both bills. 

HB 1606, falsely conflates criticism of Israeli human rights abuses with antisemitism, and HB 1898 is an outrageous bill trying “to coerce ordinary Virginians to give up their solidarity with the Palestinian people. It would force people who have business or work contracts with the Virginia government to commit to not participate in boycotts for justice for Palestine. These bills can, for instance, coerce Palestinian Americans into choosing between funding the Israeli oppression of their families, or losing their jobs.” (excerpt from an alert on 2/14 by Leah Muskin-Pierret, Manager of Congressional & Grassroots Advocacy, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights)

UUJME supporters are part of a Virginia coalition to oppose the legislation, and are asking UUs to take action to help defeat the bills.

The ACLU has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case with enormous implications for American’s right to boycott -- a right that the Supreme Court has previously ruled as a form of free speech. This past summer, in an alarming break from precedent, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that boycotts are not protected by the First Amendment. The focus now is on the right to boycott Israel for its abuse of Palestinian human rights, but there are now copycat bills, using nearly identical language targeting boycotts of fossil fuels, firearms and other industries. What is at stake is the very right of people in America to wield boycotts as a form of political expression.

An invitation to greater engagement of the UU community in the international struggle for peace, the rule of law, and respect for the human rights of all people.

Curtis Bell 

As I write this in late May of 2022, the news continues to be all about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The costs of the invasion are already high – thousands of Ukrainian and Russian casualties, more than seven million refugees, and rapidly rising prices for energy and food across the world.  The costs are sure to grow higher.  Thus, many countries have already announced an increase in military spending, meaning that less money will be available for social goods. The war has also taken away the equally critical resource of the world’s attention from the crises of climate change, pandemics, and poverty.  The war could have even worse consequences - a war throughout Europe, world-wide deprivation of food and energy, destabilization of the world economic system, and even nuclear war. 

At the UUA's 2022 General Assembly, UUJME presented the program, "The Palestinian Experience: Five Short Films and Discussion."

The five short films, linked below, were shown and then discussed by Zainab Ramahi and Jehad Abusalim. Zainab is a Palestinian-Kashmiri lawyer and an expert on settler colonialism. Jehad is from Gaza and is an Education and Policy Associate with the Palestine Activism Program of the American Friends Service Committee. Zainab and Jehad provided the audience not only with facts and ideas but also with emotion and motivation. A recording of the June 26, 2022 program and discussion may be viewed here.

View the five short films at the links below: