All over the world we hear a familiar denial  of oppression and atrocities in the form of “We did not know.”  The phrase is privileged citizens’ easy way out when their governments repress minorities and deny them human rights. Examples abound in despotic regimes as well as in democracies. In all cases favored citizens who use the phrase are participants in the repression by claiming ignorance of its existence.

In democracies like the United States and Israel denials of repression by privileged citizens are the more egregious for the obvious reason of greater freedoms. read more

Even though the firm’s Charitable Gift Fund consistently gives to right-wing Israeli groups or their U.S. fronts, the Hebron aid is a standout, as the showcase city for the worst of the Israeli occupation

In 2012 the Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund granted $18,000 to one of the most violent and discriminatory communities in the West Bank – the Jewish community in Hebron. Hebron is a perpetual nightmare. About 700 Jews live in tiny fortified urban settlements at the center of a city inhabited by 180,000 Palestinians. read more

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s phone call to the father of the Hebron soldier-executioner  who killed a neutralized Palestinian in Hebron last week is indeed a terrible political low blow. His act is blatant interference by the political leadership in military affairs and meddling in the judicial process. His phone call not only disregards appropriate rules of governance, it also undermines the IDF’s ethical code and its moral standards. It is important to remember that this is a case of a soldier who arrived on the scene ten minutes after an attack, and according to witnesses, said that he was going to kill the terrorist because “he deserves to die.” On pictures taken at the time he was seen aiming at the head of the terrorist from a distance of two meters and then shooting even though the person had been on the ground and was not a threat. read more

Happy Easter Monday! Today, Easter Monday is exactly 100 years since the Easter Monday rebellion in Dublin in 1916, when a small group of Irish nationalists took over the General Post Office building and several other sites in Dublin and proclaimed an Irish republic. The rebellion only lasted six days before it was brutally suppressed by the British, with heavy loss of life. But the rebellion was the spark of a bloody war that after much bloodshed, in 1922, led to Irish independence. And about a year and a half later, on November 2, 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to “look with favor” on the establishment of a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine. Both the Easter Monday rebellion and the Balfour Declaration, are, of course, a product of the upheavals of World War I. Ireland was England’s first overseas territorial conquest; Palestine, when General Allenby swept out the Ottoman Empire, would be just about be Britain’s last. There has been speculation that part of the impetus for the Balfour Declaration was to sway American public opinion, and win back some of the support the British had lost in the United States due to its brutal war in Ireland. read more

Every year when I return to Hebron I have come to expect that I will find the Israeli Military Occupation more entrenched, the people more battered, more resigned. I expect that the Christian Peacemaker Team I have worked with since 1995 will have new challenges to meet. When I rejoined the team in early March, however, the extent of the restrictions on team’s monitoring work at checkpoints during school hours frankly shocked me. Border Police no longer permit us to exit the Old City near our apartment and make the five-minute walk to the Qitoun checkpoint to document how the soldiers treat schoolchildren and teachers passing through. Instead, we must take a fifteen-minute taxi ride over the hills and around to reach a location we can see from the roof of our house. read more

Despite Donald Trump’s unpopularity with New York State voters—71% hold unfavorable views of him, more than any other candidate—it helps to remember that he is the product of New York City and its political culture. His career tells us a lot about changes in a supposedly liberal city and state—especially when it comes to media manipulation, the politics of resentment, and the blurring of public and private interests.

Trump became prominent in New York City during the 1970s, a decade marked by a fiscal crisis, population losses, and shrinking working class and middle class incomes. He rose to power as the liberal city of New Deal New York stumbled. Then he exploited the inequalities, meanness, and celebrity journalism that have risen since its fall. read more

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross is best known for her five stages of grief on dealing with a fatal illness. The first reaction, the first stage of grief, is denial. You can’t believe this is happening. It is only temporary. It is not as bad as it seems. Then comes anger. It is not going away. It is getting stronger; you are getting weaker. It’s spreading. The next stage is bargaining. There is a way to stop this. It can be controlled. It’s just a matter of finding the right way to interact with it, to limit its ambitions. And then there is despair. It’s not going to work. You’re going to lose, and you’re going to lose everything. Finally, there is acceptance. As long as it’s going to happen, you might as well get behind it, if you can, if it lets you. You know it’s going to feel much better than the alternative, which is trying to struggle against it, and be painfully destroyed. Or admit defeat, and remove yourself, as far away as possible, to a place of safety. read more