Richard Silverstein blogs at Tikun Olam, where he covers the the Israeli national security state. He has contributed to the essay collections, A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices on Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity and Israel and Palestine: Alternate Perspectives on Statehood.
To maintain his hold on power, Benjamin Netanyahu is pursuing a brutal forever war against Palestinians. But the costs aren’t just in human lives: Israel’s economy may not be able to sustain this war.
Israel’s naked attempt to enforce an unflagging pro-Israel consensus, as it did in stoking backlash against Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s sensible recent comments that the country is a “racist state,” may work in the short-term. But the future belongs to Palestine.
With the inauguration of Israel’s new far-right government, Zionism has finally embraced the fascist ideology that inspired major sections of the movement during its formative years a century ago.
Seattle socialist city councilor Kshama Sawant has been subject to repeated corporate-backed attempts to remove her from office. Last night, she defeated yet another. Despite attacks from some of the world’s most powerful capitalists, Sawant isn’t going anywhere.
Israel has been caught hacking the phones of six Palestinian human rights staffers. It’s the latest incident in Israel’s larger web of blatantly undemocratic mass surveillance practices.
Israel was founded on the crime of ethnic cleansing and the principles of apartheid. The country may finally be coming apart at the seams under the weight of its own contradictions.
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, has taken an extraordinary step — following many Palestinian and human rights groups around the world — in calling the state of Israel what it is: an apartheid regime and thus anything but a democracy.
Coronavirus is ravaging the globe right now. It’s a perfect time for the Israeli state to figure out how to expand its already vast surveillance powers.
Israeli tech companies aren’t just working on new apps for taxis or food delivery — they’re also hacking human rights activists’ WhatsApps and creating fake social media accounts to undermine democracy.
Israel isn’t just maintaining a brutal military occupation. It’s also supplying weapons to genocidal regimes around the world.