Category Archives: Viva!

Why One Small SoCal College Is At The Center Of The Israel Boycott Debate

Faculty at Pitzer College in Claremont want to suspend an Israel study abroad program, citing a concern over Palestinian rights.

Think Riyadh’s Netflix ban was bad? Imagine if Hasan Minhaj was a Saudi citizen | Safa Al Ahmad

If the US comic lived in the kingdom, he would have been spied on, arrested, tortured and possibly worse

The government of Saudi Arabia makes it very clear that resistance to its regime is futile. It will not tolerate dissent; it is untouchable.

Related: Outrage after Netflix pulls comedy show criticising Saudi Arabia

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US halts cooperation with UN on potential human rights violations

Lady Liberty walks off job!

Exclusive: State department has ceased to respond to complaints from special rapporteurs in move that sends ‘dangerous message’ to other countries

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The Trump administration has stopped cooperating with UN investigators over potential human rights violations occurring inside America, in a move that delivers a major blow to vulnerable US communities and sends a dangerous signal to authoritarian regimes around the world.

Related: UN special rapporteur demands inquiry into death of Guatemalan girl held in US

Related: UN condemns Trump administration for exacerbating US poverty levels

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China thinks it can arbitrarily detain anyone. It is time for change | Michael Caster

True… and so does the USA, Great Britain, Germany, Russia, France, Italy, it is a long list. I think perhaps Costa Rica and Canada may be the only ones not on this list.

The lack of global outcry over the detention of two Canadians virtually guarantees the next such case

Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has called China’s detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor a “worrying precedent” but for many China watchers it is all too familiar.

It reminds us of the detentions of other foreign citizens, such as Canadian Kevin Garratt, Briton Peter Humphrey, Sweden’s Gui Minhai, or Taiwanese Lee Ming-che, and that over the years China has institutionalised arbitrary and secret detention affecting innumerable Chinese citizens, and with little international consequence.

Related: China detains second Canadian citizen as Huawei row intensifies

Michael Caster is a human rights advocate and researcher, author of The People’s Republic of the Disappeared, and co-founder of the human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders.

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Latinos Ascend Into Congress

By Marielena Castellanos

Forty three Latino members of Congress were officially sworn in this week with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holding its swearing in ceremony this weekend as the 116th congressional session begins.

In light of those numbers, a report from NBC News in November said that to match the actual share of the Latinx population, about 77 members would need to be elected. In the Senate, there would need to be about 18 Latino senators. According to the Congressional Research Service, in the last Congressional session there were 46 Hispanic or Latinx members serving in the nation’s capital.

Latinos are the nation’s second largest minority with 57.5 million Latinx, about 17.8 percent of the U.S. population.

The Pew Research Center recently said Latinos made up an estimated 11 percent of all voters nationwide on Election Day, nearly matching their share of the U.S. eligible voter population.

In San Diego, four of the five members of Congress are Democrats, including incumbent Congressman Juan Vargas and newly elected Congressman Mike Levin. Incumbent Congressman Duncan Hunter, the only Republican locally, was also reelected. Hunter was also recently indicted over misusing more than $250,000 in campaign funds and attempting to hide the spending in federal records.

Congressman Vargas is already on the go and recently, along with Congresswoman Norma Torres, called for an investigation into Customs and Border Patrol agents’ use of tear gas on migrants at the border this past November.

Also headed to Congress is Democrat Mike Levin, who won in a district long held by retiring Congressman Republican Darrell Issa, which covers parts of Orange County and San Diego. Levin was raised in Orange County, and his maternal grandparents migrated as children from Mexico to Los Angeles, according to the newspaper Hawaii News Now. Levin has a number of priorities including treating immigrants with dignity. He told the newspaper he thinks there are some on the Republican side of the aisle who want to see “common-sense” immigration reform.

Another new member in Congress is 47-year-old Democrat Gil Cisneros, a first time candidate and former U.S. naval officer, who won in the 39th District in Orange County in a seat also long held by Republicans. Cisneros, who once won a $266 million lottery jackpot, said he plans to fight for more affordable health care for all. He also supports DACA and comprehensive immigration reform.

Republican Anthony Gonzalez, who is of Cuban descent, is also headed to Congress, and he is the first Latino elected to Congress from Ohio.

Texas Democrat Congressman Joaquin Castro was recently elected to serve as the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In an interview on CBS’s The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Castro said his brother Julián Castro, the former U.S. housing secretary and San Antonio mayor, would most likely run for president. Early in December, Julián Castro announced that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee and would make an announcement in mid-January.

Nanette Diaz Barragán, who was elected to Congress in 2016 and will serve as a new member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership in the position as second vice chair.

In Texas, two Latina Democrats were elected to serve on the House of Representatives for the first time, Veronica Escobar and Silvia Garcia, who both will represent the state in Congress.

Twenty-nine year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto Rican New Yorker, is the youngest woman ever elected to serve on Capitol Hill. In a recent Congressional vote for funding for President Trump’s border wall, Ocasio-Cortez criticized the passage of the bill and via Twitter explained other ways the money could be used.

The newcomer’s Twitter post said, “And just like that, GOP discovers $5.7 billion for a wall,” Ocasio-Cortez posted.

“$5.7 billion. What if we instead added $5.7B in teacher pay? Or replacing water pipes? Or college tuition/prescription refill subsidies? Or green jobs? But notice how no one’s asking the GOP how they’re paying for it,” Ocasio-Cortez also wrote.

Israel’s Nation-State Law also discriminates against Mizrahi Jews

Mizrahi academics and activists demand Israel’s High Court strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law, saying it erases their cultural legacy and perpetuates injustices against both them and Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The Kadoori, Hamias, and Ashram families sit near an improvised Shabat dinner table set near their demolished houses in Givat Amal neighbourhood, Tel Aviv, Israel, September 19, 2014. Two days passed since the third eviction of families in the neighbourhood which left 20 residents homeless without proper compensation or alternative housing solution. By: Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org

The Kadoori, Hamias, and Ashram families sit near an improvised Shabbat dinner table set near their demolished houses in Givat Amal neighborhood, Tel Aviv, Israel, September 19, 2014. (Shiraz Grinbaum/Activestills.org)

Over 50 prominent Israeli Jews of Mizrahi origin filed a petition to the High Court of Justice on Tuesday demanding it strike down the Jewish Nation-State Law, saying it discriminates against both Palestinian citizens and Jewish Mizrahi citizens of Israel.

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According to the petition, the law, which demotes Arabic from an official language to one with “special status,” is “anti-Jewish” for excluding the history and culture of Jews from Arab and Muslim countries, “while strengthening the impression that Jewish-Arab culture is inferior…and anchoring the identity of the State of Israel as anti-Arab.”

The petition also refers to a clause in the law that establishes Jewish settlement “as a national value.” According to the petitioners, every time Israel takes it upon itself to demographically “re-engineer” the land, it harms Mizrahim by pushing them into the country’s underserved geographical periphery. This process hinders their access to highly-valued land through admissions committees, which allow communities across the country to reject housing applicants based on their “social suitability.”

Among the signatories are renowned author Sami Michael, Professor Yehuda Shenhav, Professor Henriette Dahan-Kalev, Israeli Black Panther and social justice activist Reuven Abergil, among others. (Full disclosure: the writer is one of the signatories of the petition). According to the petitioners, Mizrahim were largely excluded from the law’s formulation, despite the fact that it would affect their community’s right to preserve its heritage, and that its blatant anti-Arab bias would adversely affect Jews from Arab countries.

Following Israel’s establishment, authorities did everything they could to suppress Arab identity and culture among immigrants from Arab and Muslim countries through a forced “melting pot” doctrine, leaving them both materially and culturally disenfranchised. More than six decades ago, Israeli diplomat and Arabic scholar Abba Eban said: “The goal must be to instill in them a Western spirit, and not let them drag us into an unnatural Orient. One of the biggest fears… is the danger that the large number of immigrants of Mizrahi origin will force Israel to compare how cultured we are to our neighbors.”

Mizrahim walk around the Mamila neighborhood in West Jerusalem, 1957. Mamila, like countless other neighborhoods and communities, was empied of its Palestinian residents in the 1948 war. (GPO)

Mizrahim walk around the Mamila neighborhood in West Jerusalem, 1957. (GPO)

For 70 years, this worldview formed the basis for how Israel viewed Mizrahim. The political establishment demanded Mizrahi Jews renounce their Arab identity, while driving a wedge between them and their cultural histories. And yet, despite the establishment’s attempts at cultural erasure, expert opinions and affidavits attached to the petition show that many Mizrahim — including younger generations — continue to view Arabic as both culturally and linguistically relevant to their personal lives.

The expert opinions also seek to lay out the complex histories of Jews from Arab countries, in order to explain why the law, akin to a constitutional amendment, would be both harmful to the cultural legacy of Mizrahim and would continue to negatively affect them. According to Professor Elitzur Bar-Asher, a linguist and expert on the Hebrew language, the goal of the law is not to “strengthen Hebrew [at the expense of Arabic], but to lower its Arabic counterpart.”

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In his expert opinion, Professor Moshe Behar demonstrated how Arabic was an inseparable part the Jewish intellectual world in the Middle East during the Ottoman and British Mandate periods, respectively. According to Bahar, Jewish intellectuals considered knowledge of Arabic as a necessity for all Jews in the region.

Cultural researcher Shira Ohayon described the influence of the Arabic language and its connection to the revival of the Hebrew language, poetry and Jewish liturgy, while cultural scholar and film director Eyal Sagui Bizawe noted how Jews living in Arab countries took an active part in the creation of Arab culture, and how that very culture became part of their own heritage.

The petition is an important, and perhaps revolutionary milestone in the Mizrahi struggle in Israel. Among the signatories are women and men, religious, secular and traditional, those who define themselves as Zionists and others who do not. The petitioners seek to anchor Mizrahi identity in its deepest sense by demanding our cultural and historical rights, while using all legal, academic, and moral tools to reject any attempt to isolate Mizrahi Jews from our natural environment — all for the benefit of Israel’s “melting pot” ideology.

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

The post Israel’s Nation-State Law also discriminates against Mizrahi Jews appeared first on +972 Magazine.