Local activists in Gaza announced that they had moved tents set up along the border with Israel as part of the "Great March of Return," relocating them 50 meters closer to the border fence. The committee in charge of the Great March said they had moved the "tents of return" closer to the border "as a message of persistence from our people to the world that we are moving forwards towards our rightful goals." The announcement came on the 20th day of protests since the Great March of Return began in the besieged Gaza Strip, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians demanded their collective right of return to their homelands in present-day Israel.
Human rights organizations have come out in condemnation of Israel's violent response to massive unarmed civilian protests in Gaza, which left 16 Palestinians—one farmer and 15 protesters —dead along the Strip's border. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights, released a statement condemning Israel's use of military snipers against the civilian protesters. "The Israeli military's use of 100 snipers against unarmed Palestinian civilian protesters in the Gaza Strip is illegal."
A Jewish school on the Tunisian island of Djerba, home to one of North Africa's ancient Jewish communities, was attacked as anti-government protests raged around the country. Days earlier, synagogues in the Iranian city of Shiraz were similarly vandalized amid nationwide protests over austerity measures. Are indigenous Jews of the Middle East and North Africa being scapegoated amid the renewed protests over economic agony?
Palestinians erupted in anger over President Trump naming the Hamas movement—Gaza's de facto ruling party—in a list of terrorist organizations during his speech in Riyadh.
A Ukrainian general closely linked to the intelligence services called for "destruction" of the country's Jews—providing fodder for the portrayal of Russian aggression as "anti-fascism."
Israeli forces demolished the "unrecognized" Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the Negev for the 113th time since 2010 and for the fifth time this year—as residents persist in rebuilding.
Israel's cabinet approved the controversial "Jewish State" bill, which would revoke Arabic's status as an official language, clearing the way for a vote on the measure in the Knesset.
Protesters for both the besieged Gaza Strip and the besieged Syrian enclave of Ghouta gathered in New York's Union Square on Friday night, April 6. Those standing for Gaza and Ghouta should be natural allies, but there was little interaction between the two protests. And some (by no means all) among the Gaza protesters were followers of Stalinist factions that support the dictatorship of Bashar Assad—who is raining death down on Ghouta just as Israel has serially rained death down on Gaza. What will it take to provoke the conversation that needs to be had on the American left, and build the unified but multi-issue movement so desperately needed at this dangerous moment, with fascist forces on the advance worldwide?
From anonymous radical-right xenophobes in Britain came the call to make April 3 "Punish a Muslim Day." Letters were sent to addresses across England, calling for violent attacks on Muslims. Police were on alert, and women who wear the hijab were advised to stay home. There were also reports that some of the letters had arrived at New York addresses, causing the city's Muslim community to mobilize and the NYPD to beef up security. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams joined multi-faith leaders to condemn the threats. His comments were laudable in intent, but revealing in their wording: "Our message must be just as loud. Not punish a Muslim, let’s embrace a Muslim, let’s embrace a Christian, let’s embrace a person of Jewish faith..." Why has the word "Jew" become taboo, and especially in progressive circles?
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued a pressingly important report, "The multipolar spin: how fascists operationalize left-wing resentment." It refreshingly called out "red-brown populist collaboration"—documenting the growing convergence between figures on the supposed "left" and the radical, even fascist right, both in the US and in Europe. But, depressingly, at the first howls of protest from this very Red-Brown alliance, SPLC folded like punks, removing the report from their website and issuing a weak apology.
Even back in the bad old days of Reefer Madness in the 1930s, when marijuana's association with Mexican immigrants and African American musicians was used as propaganda for the first federal laws banning the weed, it never came to this. But the canard that cannabis is a tool in a sinister Jewish conspiracy to subvert wholesome white American youth has now entered (almost) mainstream discourse.
American Conservative finally gave far-right ex-spook Philip Giraldi the sack over rank anti-Semitism after one of his evil screeds was tweeted by Valerie Plame. Would that some of our supposed allies in the Palestine struggle were as principled as our conservative enemies. Counterpunch, ANSWER, Al-Awda and MondoWeiss continue to promote Giraldi and/or his equally vile sidekick Alison Weir.
Are the "false flag" theories about the anti-Semitic threats vindicated by the bust of a confused Israeli youth? Or is a Jew exploiting anti-Semitism still anti-Semitic?
Are the "false flag" theories about the anti-Semitic threats vindicated by the bust of a left-wing ex-journo? No, because exploiting anti-Semitism to score points is still anti-Semitic.
Bill Weinberg speaks at the NYC Anarchist Forum on "Neither NATO Nor Qaddafi, Thank You: Anarchist Perspectives on Libya and the Arab Spring," April 27, 2011
A panel on the global economic crisis and recent world social movements, held at the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York's main auditorium (in Astoria, Queens) on February 26, 2011
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