Perspectives
By Allowing Israel into the Visa Waiver Program, President Biden is Endorsing Israel’s Discrimination Against Palestinian-Americans
Last week, officials in the Biden administration confirmed that Israel will be granted entry into the U.S. Visa Waiver program after years of campaigning by the Israeli government. The decision was made even though Israel continues to discriminate against Palestinian-Americans such as myself when attempting to visit our homeland, which should render it ineligible. By allowing Israel into the…
New Biopic Starring Helen Mirren Whitewashes Golda Meir’s Racism & Israel’s Apartheid
When I heard Golda — the new biopic about Israel’s fourth Prime Minister Golda Meir — would be entering theaters recently, my stomach dropped. Heralded as a feminist icon for her rule spanning from 1969–1974, I know Meir as someone else: a former occupier of my family’s stolen Jerusalem home and denier of my people’s very existence. The film, from Israeli director Guy Nattiv, traces a…
Criticizing Israel Cost Me a State Department Nomination. What Does This Mean for the US and Human Rights?
As a human rights advocate for more than three decades, I have become accustomed to the ire, as well as sanctions, from governments that I criticize for rights abuses. That’s part of the job. But I was deeply disappointed that only days after nominating me to the western hemisphere’s principal human rights body, my own government withdrew my nomination, in effect sanctioning me for doing what…
Only President Biden and Congress Have the Power to Stop a War Crime
It is rare that a person is given advanced warning that a war crime is about to be perpetrated against him. But a few months ago, the Israeli Supreme Court signed-off on the full-scale expulsion of my community in the occupied West Bank. For over 30 years, we have struggled to defend our homes, as Israel has tried to turn our land into a military training ground. But now, without immediate US…
Expert Q&A: The Latest Escalation of Violence in Palestine/Israel
Expert: Diana Buttu, political analyst, former advisor to Palestinian Authority President and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian negotiators, and Palestinian citizen of Israel. Question: In recent weeks, we’ve seen a spate of attacks in Israel that have captured international headlines. What’s going on? Diana Buttu: First of all, it’s important to keep…
Biden’s Monumental Hypocrisy on Palestine
Fiercely attacking the George W. Bush administration’s case for what he called a “Hiroshima-style” aggression on Iraq in 2003, Edward Said wrote that the U.S. position was “monumentally hypocritical” for accusing the Iraqi regime of atrocities and crimes that had been “the stock in trade of every Israeli government since 1948.” The diametrically opposite U.S. positions on Palestinian…
Rep. Khanna: We Need Accountability, not Photo ops that Whitewash Israeli Apartheid
Earlier this month, Amnesty International joined a growing consensus among Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights organizations that Israel practices apartheid toward the Palestinian people. “Israel enforces a system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people wherever it has control over their rights,” the largest grassroots human rights organization in the world…
Israel Must Release Shatha Odeh and Other Palestinian Political Prisoners
Today, seven months after her arrest on July 7, 2021, Health Work Committees (HWC) director Shatha Odeh, my mother, is still held in Israeli detention. Her imprisonment and military trial resemble yet another frustrating spectacle of an inherently discriminatory Israeli judicial system against the Palestinian people, including leading civil society actors like Shatha as part of a wider escalating…
The US and International Community Must Force Israel to Reverse its Unprecedented Attacks on Our Organizations and Palestinian Civil Society
Israel’s decision, announced on Friday, to designate our Palestinian civil society organizations and two others as “terror organizations” represents a dangerous escalation of its longstanding efforts to silence criticism of its colonization of Palestinian land and apartheid system. It is part of a larger campaign of repression and intimidation intended to suffocate Palestinian civil society…
Israel Is Imprisoning Palestinian Healthcare Workers, Including Our Mother and Sister, During a Pandemic
Imagine that in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, a nurse and human rights leader working to provide healthcare in your community is arrested and imprisoned by a hostile foreign occupying army. This we need not imagine in Palestine — under Israel’s oppressive, more than half-century-old military rule, it is our reality. Two months ago today, on July 7, Israeli soldiers barged into the home…