New data: 435,708 Israeli settlers live in occupied West Bank

New Israeli statistics have shown that the number of Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank reached 435,708 living in 150 illegal settlements at the start of 2018, Israeli media reported on Sunday. This number did not include the settlers living in occupied East Jerusalem, the Israeli Interior Ministry’s Population Immigration and Border Authority (PIBA) said.

Major ad firm Outfront Media censors “free Ahed Tamimi” billboard

A major US ad firm is refusing to put up a billboard calling for the release of Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian girl who is in indefinite military custody for challenging Israeli occupation forces on her family’s property. Ahed, 16, was detained in a night raid in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh a month ago, after video circulated showing her and a cousin slapping and shoving two heavily armed Israeli soldiers following an incident in which a soldier had shot in the head and seriously injured their 15-year-old cousin.

2017 Edward Said Memorial Lecture: “Literature, Empathy, and Rights”

Professor David Palumbo-Liu discusses how our commitments to empathy and ethics can only be met if we acknowledge the ways the realities of Palestine have been obscured and distorted. He examines three key concerns related to human rights that Said addressed via his study of literature and suggests a vision of comparative literature that might conjoin with the model of literary studies Edward Said embodied, at the center of which was the issue of rights.

Short Films from The Freedom Theatre: Stories of Life and Resistance Under Occupation

A screening of three short films from The Freedom Theater is presented by Felice Gelman and followed by the Skyped in presence of Mohamed Haj Ibrahim. Journey of a Freedom Fighter is the story of one armed fighter who chose resistance through art. Maybe presents a young woman film student who fights for her right to pursue her dream and finds her inspiration in another who breaks with convention in a different field. The Racer tells the story of a Palestinian stock car racer who wins against the odds of occupation.

2016 Palestine Center Annual Conference: Keynote Address by Ambassador Riyad H. Mansour

Ambassador Riyad H. Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, delivers the Keynote Address of the Palestine Center Annual Conference.  He discusses the work that lies ahead despite the outcome of the U.S. elections.

Against Israel’s Colonial Tide: Palestinian Initiatives to Shape Their Future

This panel examines the intersection of Israeli policies of occupation and containment which prevent Palestinian self-determination, with a focus on the experience for Palestinians of living under occupation in Jerusalem and Gaza and the ways Palestinians and their supporters are organizing politically, economically and culturally to protect their human rights and work towards a different future.

 

Progressive Jewish groups make New York Times parody issue to protest newspaper’s ‘biased Israel-Palestine coverage’

Activists from progressive Jewish human rights groups created a very convincing-looking fake edition of The New York Times to protest the leading newspaper’s coverage of Israel. The parody publication is written from a left-wing, anti-racist, anti-Islamophobic perspective that criticizes Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights, along with what the groups say is the Times’ failure to adequately address these crimes.

Palestinian poet and artist Ashraf Fayadh sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia

By Zeina Azzam

The Palestinian artist, curator, and poet Ashraf Fayadh, 35, has been sentenced to death by beheading. Saudi Arabian authorities have declared his crime as “apostasy,” or abandoning one’s religion—in this case, renouncing Islam. Several other charges were also leveled against Fayadh, including allegedly photographing women and storing their pictures on his phone, a violation of the country’s Anti-Cyber Crime Law.