A Blog from David Crump
My friends at the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine recently interviewed the influential, internationally known Palestinian pastor-theologian, the Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb.
We had a wide-ranging discussion about the war against Gaza and the West Bank and its effects upon the Palestinian Christian community.
Please check it out:
While the doe-eyed Democratic apparatchiks begin their predictably patriotic accolades for president Biden — the self-sacrificing commander-in-chief who willingly surrendered his presidential prospects in service to America’s beleagured democracy — now is also the time to remind ourselves that president Biden has served as the chief facilitator of the most public genocide in world history.
Joe Biden had/has the power to stop Israel’s genocidal assault against the people of Gaza at any time. But he chooses not to use it.
Why? Because his commitment to a racist nation-state is greater than what could have been his conscientious concern for human lives.
Biden (together with the US Congress) has not only allowed the Gaza genocide to continue, he empowered the Netanyahu government’s criminal assault by providing 12.5 billion dollars in American financial support as well as the vast majority of the high-tech weaponry used to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children.
Joe Biden, who is always proud to wave his Zionist bone fides before a campaign crowd, is a staunch, unreflective Zionist who has hardended his heart against Palestinian suffering. This will be his, and America’s, Middle Eastern legacy.
He is another racist Zionist who refuses to acknowledge the bloody, heartless reality presented by countless Al Jazeera reports, Palestinian Tik Tok posts and personal Instagram films, all creating an overwhelming record about the truth of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
This record will stand on its own as an historical indictment of all those, like Biden, who insist that what is happening in Gaza is not a crime against humanity.
Biden has admitted that he does not believe the casualty figures documented by the Hamas Health Ministry, but he confidently accepts the grotesque, well-documented lies spread by the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) regarding the death toll on October 7.
[Nothing exemplifes the racist underbelly of Israeli/Zionist rhetoric more clearly than this example. European-looking Israeli Jews are always trustworthy, no matter how far fetched their claims. Whereas, brown-skinned, bearded Muslim Palestinians are inherently untrustworthy, prone to lies, dissimulation and violence.]
Only days after October 7, president Biden claimed to have seen the photographs of “beheaded babies” from the kibbutzim of southern Israel.
Except…such photographs never existed because there were no beheaded babies from the Hamas attack on October 7. (Biden’s administration had to retract the president’s statement and correct his lie the next day.) This Israeli claim has been thoroughly debunked by reputable news reporting. (See the reporting at The Electric Intifada, The Grayzone and Mondoweiss).
No babies were beheaded that day; 40+ babies were not killed; no infant was cooked in an oven; no baby was cut from its mother’s womb. These were all grotesque fabrications, incredible lies!, manufactured by sick Zionist minds who naturally shared in the widespread western, Orientalist assumption that European-looking Jews will always be believed because they always tell the truth (especially when under attack!).
Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, are inherently violent and conniving, constitutionally predisposed to exactly the kind of reprehensible violence described by Israeli sources. So, of course, their denials will not be believed by the majority of western listeners.
Joe Biden’s penchant for lies and exaggeration when standing behind a podium has always been a well-known character flaw. But his tendency to spew self-serving misinformation has descended to new depths of disgust whenever he talks about Israel and Gaza.
Take a few minutes to watch British, independent journalist Owen Jones as he offers an across-the-pond perspective on Biden’s legacy:
This coming Friday, July 12 at 1 pm Eastern time, 10 am Pacific, I will lead the next episode of the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine.
The following link will allow you to watch the conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYXuwuUNJ-k
Our guest will be my friend Munther Amira. Munther is a Palestinian, non-violent, peace activist who lives in the Aida refugee camp where Terry and I stay during our visits to the West Bank.
Munther was arrested by Israeli soldiers in September 2023 and released in February 2024. He will talk with us about the dire conditions for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
But he will especially describe the brutal changes implemented after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
Trust me. You won’t want to miss Munther’s first-hand account of Palestinian Life in an Israeli Prison.
Again, use the following link to watch this important conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYXuwuUNJ-k
Last June I posted the story about my visit to the West Bank region known as Masafer Yatter.
Terry and I had helped to plant new trees and grape vines for a Palestinian farmer by the name of Hafez Hureini. Mr. Hureini’s hands had been broken by Jewish settlers who were in the process of stealing his land.
The young people from Aida Refugee camp (where we lived) were helping him to catch up on his backlogged farm maintenance. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, we were attacked by both Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers as we worked.
That’s right. In Israel it’s apparently illegal to help a Palestinian farmer work his own farmland.
A few days ago I happened across an Al Jazeera documenatary focusing on Mr. Hureini’s continuing struggle against Israeli land theft! Here you can meet this man and hear his story for yourselves.
Yes, the settlers are still stealing. The soldiers are still oppressing the innocent and defending the thieves. And Mr. Hureini continues to stand his ground peacefully.
All the while, our God sees it all and promises to one day restore justice to his world. And I’ll give you a hint: justice ain’t on the side of Zionist land theft.
These videos speak for themselves.
These are only two little girls who are, fortunately, rescued. The United Nations estimates that some 10,000 Palestinian bodies have never been rescued. They remain in the rubble.
To watch the above video use the URL address inbetween the brackets: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6pfJ3gCrcxs]
I am happy to announce the next episode of the Christian Forum on Israel-Palestine. It will be broadcast on June 8th, 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific.
We will be speaking with Ilan Pappe, one of the world’s premier historians of modern Israel, but especially of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
When the time comes you can watch this conversation by clicking on the following link or paste it in your computer’s URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Azgev9Rc8
Professor Pappe has written many important books. Perhaps his best known
publication is The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. His most recent work, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic (available in September), deals with the power and influence of Israeli/pro-Zionist lobbying efforts around the world.
Please join us for what I know will be a fascinating conversation with one of Israel’s foremost historians.
I am deeply disappointed to say that I will not be participating in this particular conversation. I will be flying home from Israel on June 8. But trust me, I will NOT miss any more of our upcoming conversations.
Mark you calendars now, not only for Ilan Pappe, but for what I know will be another fascinating conversation with Ali Abunimah, the founder and chief editor of The Electronic Intifada, on June 18.
I will provide more information once I return from my trip to Israel-Palestine.
This is the 7th mass grave discovered on the grounds of two different hospitals in Gaza. The bodies include those of men, women and children. Many of them were apparently patients.
“The narrative of protesters endangering Jewish students has been used to justify police repression. But at the Columbia encampment, I saw a commitment to confronting antisemitism.”
Journalist Hadas Thier has written a good article for The Nation magazine giving an insider’s look at the anti-genocide demonstrations happening on American campuses.
The article is titled “Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is.”
Here is a brief excerpt:
. . . Since then, the story of protesters endangering and threatening Jewish
students has been used to justify the brutal repression that they’ve been met with. But I spent the last week speaking to students across many campus encampments, and last Wednesday I made my way to Columbia’s encampment to get a picture of it for myself. My experience was decidedly different from the story we’ve been fed.
In the middle of the lawn, surrounded by a low buzz of students sitting in study circles, making art, pointing out a hawk that flew nearby, working on laptops, I met Atesh, a Columbia student who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of reprisal. He told me how meaningful it was for him to participate in his first Passover seder with about 100 other students and professors on the lawn. There, Jewish students had led their peers in songs and rituals. The Passover seder is a Jewish tradition that celebrates liberation and is rooted in community, inquiry, and questioning. It was a fitting celebration for the encampment.
As Atesh was talking to me, another student approached us, looking for a Jewish member of the encampment to connect with. Atesh shrugged and said, “We’re all Jewish. We’re all Palestinian.”
Later that day, I sat on the lawn with nearly 200 students to listen to Jewish students lead a teach-in about antisemitism. Some discussed their experiences growing up in predominantly Christian towns where pennies were thrown at them and conspiracy theories about Jews were ubiquitous. Others shared their impressions of why so many American Jewish communities feel connected to their Israeli counterparts and why conversations about Palestine are difficult to have. A few recounted why their opposition to the current war is rooted in their traditions and observance of Judaism. All of them expressed discomfort at having to take center stage. But they felt an obligation to do so because of the ways in which the “safety of Jewish students” has become a disingenuous rallying cry of everyone from liberal college presidents to MAGA-aligned politicians.
I am an Israeli-born Jew who has been involved in Palestine activism for over 20 years, and I have never experienced the level of solidarity and the depth of understanding about antisemitism that I am seeing across college campuses right now. In the past, I had seen antisemitism only on the fringe of the movement, turning up through an occasional odd and unsettling poster at a protest, summarily dismissed and removed by organizers. At the center of the movement, I always felt welcome and comfortable as an Israeli-born Jew. But, still, until the recent phase of the new movement for Palestine emerged on American campuses last fall, I had never before witnessed such a deliberate commitment to learning about and confronting antisemitism head on. . .
. . . “It is not that they care about Jewish students,” JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace] member Maya, told me. “They actually care about Zionist students.” Among those arrested and suspended were many Jewish students, she said. “They do not care about the safety of the Jewish students that are in the camp or that are part of this movement. And they’ve shown that by arresting and by attempting to erase the fact that we even exist.” Anti-Zionist Jews, she explained, “are not part of [the administration’s] fight against antisemitism.” . . .
You can read the entire article here.
Helen Benedict has posted a good story at Counterpunch magazine investigating the student protests launched against the Gaza genocide.
The article is titled “The Distortion of Campus Protests Over Gaza.” I include a brief excerpt below:
. . . Even as the now-notorious student tent encampment there stretches through its second week, all is calm. Inside the camp, students sleep, eat, and sit on bedspreads studying together and making signs saying, “Nerds for Palestine,” “Passover is for Liberation,” and “Stop the Genocide.” The Jewish students there held a seder on Passover. The protesters even asked faculty to come into the encampment and teach because they miss their classes. Indeed, it’s so quiet on campus that you can hear birds singing in the background. The camp, if anything, is hushed.
Those protesters who have been so demonized, for whom the riot police are waiting outside — the same kinds of students Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, invited the police to arrest, zip-tie, and cart away on April 18th — are mostly undergraduate women, along with a smaller number of undergraduate men, 18 to 20 years old, standing up for what they have a right to stand up for: their beliefs. Furthermore, for those who don’t know the Columbia campus, the encampment is blocking nobody’s way and presents a danger to no one. It is on a patch of lawn inside a little fence buffered by hedges. As I write, those students are not preventing anyone from walking anywhere, nor occupying any buildings, perpetrating any violence, or even making much noise. (In the early hours of April 30th, however, student protesters did occupy Hamilton Hall in reaction to a sweep of suspensions the day before.)
As a tenured professor at Columbia’s Journalism School, I’ve been watching the student protests ever since the brutal Hamas attack of October 7th, and I’ve been struck by the decorum of the protesting students, as angry and upset as they are on both sides. This has particularly impressed me knowing that several students are directly affected by the ongoing war. I have a Jewish student who has lost family and friends to the attack by Hamas, and a Palestinian student who learned of the deaths of her family and friends in Gaza while she was sitting in my class.
Given how horrific this war is, it’s not surprising that there have been a few protesters who lose control and shout hideous things, but for the most part, such people have been quietly walked away by other students or campus security guards. All along, the main messages from the students have been “Bring back our hostages” on the Israeli side and “Stop slaughtering Gazan civilians” on the antiwar and pro-Palestinian-rights side. Curiously enough, those messages are not so far apart, for almost everyone wants the hostages safe and almost everyone is calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take a different direction and protect the innocent. . .
You can read the entire article here.
