Category: Columns

Columns

More Than 65 Palestinian Filmmakers, Including Hany Abu Assad, Elia Suleiman and Farah Nabulsi, Sign Letter Accusing Hollywood of ‘Dehumanizing’ Palestinians

Posted on | Variety

A group of almost 70 Palestinian filmmakers — including two-time Oscar nominee Hany Abu Assad, acclaimed director Elia Suleiman and recent BAFTA winner Farah Nabulsi — have signed a strongly-worded letter in which they accuse Hollywood of “dehumanising” Palestinians on screen over decades, a factor they assert has helped enable the ongoing devastation in Gaza. 

Columns

UN Human Rights Office calls on Israel and on Member States, particularly those with influence, to stop attacks by the Israeli Security Forces, settler violence and forcible transfer of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank

Posted on | UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

The UN Human Rights Office condemns the Israel Security Force’s (ISF) increasingly military response in the Occupied West Bank in a manner which violates international law and risks further enflaming an already explosive situation. At about 22:30 on 26 August, the Israeli air force launched at least four airstrikes in the Nur Shams Refugee Camp in Tulkarem and killed three Palestinian men and two boys aged 13 and 15. There were no clashes or confrontations taking place at the time, but ISF claimed that the airstrikes they had targeted an “operations room,”. According to information gathered from multiple sources, three of the fatalities, including the two boys, were killed while they were passing by the targeted house, which was located in one of the small and crammed alleyways in the camp.

Columns

Science in ruins: Gaza’s scientists call for global support

Posted on | Riley Sparks | The International Science Council (ISC)

The International Science Council (ISC) continues to be deeply troubled by the ongoing destruction of lives, livelihoods, the environment and the essential infrastructure for research and learning in Gaza. In this blog, journalist Riley Sparks discusses with scientists from Gaza the challenges of conducting research and teaching under siege and bombardment.

Columns

16 August: Ceasefire?

Posted on | Mouin Rabbani

By Mouin Rabbani : I’ve been making the argument that the ongoing negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire are a diversionary US-Israeli charade and shouldn’t be taken particularly seriously. Initially, their primary purpose was to serve as a fig leaf for Israel to continue with its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip. In other words, their purpose is process, and their objective has therefore been to avoid reaching a ceasefire agreement rather than concluding one.

Columns

AAUP Condemns Wave of Administrative Policies Intended to Crack Down on Peaceful Campus Protest

Posted on | American Association of University Professors (AAUP)

The recent proliferation of these new restrictive policies seems to be an attempt to appease politicians who are calling for university administrators to use a heavy hand against faculty and student protestors. We must reiterate, as we said in our November 2023 statement Polarizing Times Demand Robust Academic Freedom, “By acceding to external political pressures and demands for political censorship instead of encouraging the utmost freedom of discussion, college and university administrations abandon their own responsibility for protecting the academic community’s central mission of education, research, and service to the broader society and to the public good.”