It was a scandal of the highest caliber. On November 23, the Senate of the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa was practically bullied to reverse an earlier decision that called for the academic boycott of Israel. While the story may only seem relevant in South Africa’s political and academic contexts, in reality,…
In November 2019, following a long legal battle, Israel revoked the work visa and deported Human Rights Watch (HRW) director Omar Shakir. According to HRW, Israel argued that the state, “revoked the work visa of Shakir, a United States citizen, in May 2018 on the assertion that his advocacy violated a 2017 law that bars…
Even though the charges against him were just dropped, the thuggish arrest of investigative journalist Max Blumenthal by the DC police in late October on months-old charges of allegedly “assaulting” a counter-protester who forcibly prevented him and others from delivering food to anti-coup activists occupying the Venezuelan Embassy earlier in the year proved that not…
In August of this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India suspended Article 370 of the constitution, the provision that granted some level of autonomy to Kashmir. Already heavily policed by Indian soldiers, nearly 40,000 additional troops were deployed to ‘calm’ (read: further oppress) the population following Modi’s repressive and illegal decision. Travel in and…
On 23 November, India’s consul general in New York, Sandeep Chakravorty celebrated the achievements of the state of Israel in establishing political and cultural hegemony in historic Palestine, and called for a replication of the “Israel model” in Kashmir. It is outrageous that an Indian political representative would endorse an illegal settler-colonial project in Kashmir and look…
Israel’s inability to assemble a government is not easy to understand. America has been in deadlock since the 1970s, but that’s hardly surprising since (a) it’s not a democracy but a dysfunctional eighteenth-century republic lingering on well past its sell-by date; and (b) power is fragmented among a handful of political institutions that must align…
