King Hussein of Jordan is said to have survived at least seven military coups and 12 assassination attempts. In his 1962 autobiography, Uneasy Lies the Head, he wrote: “sometimes I feel like the central character in a detective novel.” He weathered the Six Day War, the Yom Kippur War and the Persian Gulf War. … Continued
We were remiss in not reporting the celebratory relief across the Bay Area last month when shape-shifting comic book heroine, Pakistani-American teenager Kamala Khan, otherwise known as Ms. Marvel, appeared out of nowhere on San Francisco’s buses to slay the Islamophobic dragon, Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative ads besmirching our beautiful City by the Bay. … Continued
Last fall LaGuardia Community College photography students and faculty devoted two semesters to a project they fervently embraced. They wanted to illuminate the various life experiences of the American Muslim community, so they captured the “Faces of Islam,” through thought-provoking portraits. While several images were shot by students as individual projects, other works were the … Continued
The conservative Twitterverse is all riled up because at Thursday’s (Feb. 5) National Prayer Breakfast (an event founded and run by the secretive Christian organization known as The Fellowship), President Obama said that Christians, as well as Muslims, have at times committed atrocities. His words:
“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
This would seem to be Religious History 101, but it was nonetheless met with shock and awe.
“Hey, American Christians_Obama just threw you under the bus in order to defend Islam,” wrote shock jock Michael Graham. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., called the comments “dangerously irresponsible.” The Catholic League’s Bill Donohue said: “Obama’s ignorance is astounding and his comparison is pernicious. The Crusades were a defensive Christian reaction against Muslim madmen of the Middle Ages.”
More thoughtfully, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, called Obama’s comments about Christianity “an unfortunate attempt at a wrongheaded moral comparison. … The evil actions that he mentioned were clearly outside the moral parameters of Christianity itself and were met with overwhelming moral opposition from Christians.”
Really?
1. The Crusades
The Crusades lasted almost 200 years, from 1095 to 1291. The initial spark came from Pope Urban II, who urged Christians to recapture the Holy Land (and especially the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem) from Muslim rule. Like the promise of eternal life given to Muslim martyrs, Crusaders were promised absolution from sin and eternal glory.
Militarily, the Crusades were at first successful, capturing Jerusalem in 1099, but eventually a disaster; Jersualem fell in 1187. Successive Crusades set far more modest goals, but eventually failed to achieve even them. The last Crusader-ruled city in the Holy Land, Acre, fell in 1291.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
The largest Palestinian civil society coalition has condemned Canada’s escalating “disinformation campaign and repressive measures against the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights.”
“Rather than seeking to hold Israel to account for its war crimes during the recent military assault on Gaza and its intensified colonization of the occupied West Bank,” the Canadian government “is further deepening its collaboration with Israel’s occupation and launching a shameful, propagandistic attack on free speech in the process,” Rafeef Ziadah, a member of the Boycott National Commitee (BNC) secretariat, said in statement.
The BNC, the steering group for the international BDS campaign, cited a recent speech by Canadian public safety minister Steven Blaney vowing that Canada would continue to combat “anti-Semitism including attempts to delegitimize Israel such as the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”
The government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper also recently signed a series of cooperation agreements with Israel.
In one, Canada and Israel vow to “work together to oppose efforts to single out or isolate Israel by developing a coordinated public diplomacy initiative to oppose boycotts of Israel, to oppose those who call into question the Jewish state’s right to exist and to work to counter the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.”
“The Canadian government’s continued unconditional support for Israel’s colonial policies and its smear campaign against BDS highlight the deeply ideological and reactionary character of this government,” the BNC’s Ziadah continued.
“Canada is sending Israel the message that it can act with total impunity in violating human rights and international law.”
Infringing free speech
Ziadah also pointed out that Canada, “while claiming to defend free speech,” has been “among the most repressive in the west; it has gone farther than most in suppressing free speech and infringing the rights of its own civil society, including trade unions, community and faith groups, to participate in human rights campaigning, as in boycotts against Israel’s injustices.”
She noted that as “a matter of principle, the BDS movement has consistently and categorically opposed all forms of racism, including anti-semitism and Islamophobia.”
French leaders too have recently threatened harsher repression of Palestine solidarity activism under the guise of combating anti-Semitism.
Retaliation against MIFTAH
On Wednesday, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), accused Canada of “indulging in political blackmail at the expense of our civil society institutions.”
According to a PLO statement, Ashrawi’s remarks were issued in response to a Canadian government “decision to terminate a contribution agreement it had between MIFTAH and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs.”
MIFTAH is a nongovernmental organization chaired by Ashrawi that runs projects related to “reform,” women and youth. According to its 2013 financial statement, much of MIFTAH’s funding comes from the governments of Norway, US, UK and other European foundations.
“The project was terminated shortly following Dr. Ashrawi’s response to Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird’s insistence that the Palestinians are making a ‘huge mistake’” by going to the International Criminal Court, the statement says.
Ashrawi had said “the huge mistake is allowing Israel to persist in its violations and war crimes … Israel is enabled by apologists like John Baird to persist with the support of self-appointed advocates who become complicit in these war crimes.”
According to the PLO statement, the Representative Office of Canada in Israeli-occupied Ramallah “had requested that Dr. Ashrawi accompany the Canadian Representative on a visit to the project, and later, she was asked to write a letter expressing gratitude for this specific Canadian project.”
She apparently refused on the grounds that as “head of the Board of Directors, Dr. Ashrawi has no executive authority nor has she ever issued such statements or carried out such visits in relation to MIFTAH’s projects.”
The breakdown in Canada’s relations even with Ashrawi, a figure close to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas, is one measure of how extreme Canada’s anti-Palestinian policies have become.
Source: electronicintifada.net
After Jordanian warplanes carried out airstrikes Thursday against the Islamic State in Syria, the fighter jets returned to perform a teeth-rattling “victory lap” above this farm town that has been cloaked in grief.
Soon after Jordan’s King Abdullah II arrived here to offer his condolences to the family of Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a pilot slain by the Islamic State, the jet fighters streaked overhead. Their arrival was good theater or good timing, or both.
The message was delivered. Abdullah pointed to the sky, touched his heart and leaned in to speak privately to the father of the airman, who was shown being burned alive in a cage in video released Tuesday.
As the roar subsided, the mourners cheered, “Long live his majesty the king!” Local youths stood and told Abdullah that they wanted to join his army and die as martyrs, too.
That was the mood here less than 48 hours after Jordan was shocked by the macabre video, which showed the captured Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot writhing in mortal agony after Islamic State militants doused him with a liquid and set him on fire.
Source: www.washingtonpost.com
For the last several years, artist-filmmaker Alexandra Handal has spent much of her time researching the 1948 displacement of Palestinians from West Jerusalem. She gathered oral histories, photos, and documents from a generation whose numbers are now dwindling, and the result was her interactive web documentary art, titled “Dream Homes Property Consultants (DHPC).”
At first, DHPC appears to be an ordinary real estate agency website where “Arab-style” houses are advertised. Clicking through the site, however, leads visitors on a journey through the vanishing Palestinian social and cultural history of West Jerusalem. Each refugee house is linked to biographical information of the family that once lived there. Short films, animations, sound, and hand-drawn maps are combined to tell moving stories of the homes and neighborhoods these Palestinians had fled.
DHPC is the first independently produced interactive web documentary by an artist-filmmaker from the MENA region, and since it went live in 2013, it’s been featured in several international documentary film festivals and won the Lumen People’s Choice Gold Award. It’s also among the top 15 most viewed documentaries on MIT Open Documentary Lab, a “database of the people, projects, and technologies transforming documentary in the digital age.”
The IMEU spoke with Handal, who is originally from Bethlehem but now splits her time between Europe and the Middle East, about her innovative form for preserving these memories, and how she brought them to life.
Q – Can you tell me how you were inspired to create “Dream Homes Property Consultants (DHPC)”?
Alexandra Handal: The idea for the work grew from an encounter I made in the early 1990s. During a trip to NYC, I met a Palestinian refugee and he showed me a real estate advertisement that featured upscale residential properties in West Jerusalem. At first glance, there was nothing particularly special about this ad, but the absurd political reality around it became evident after he explained to me that this was in fact his family’s expropriated home that was now on sale for an Israeli Jewish international clientele. I was a teenager at the time and the story had an enduring impact on me – beneath the glossy surface of the ad was a cruel reality.
Roughly ten years later, remembering that encounter, I began browsing Israeli real estate agency websites wondering whether I might come across an advertisement like that one again. I could not have anticipated what followed in terms of the amount of material I would find, what it revealed, and how it made me feel.
Q – What did you find on the websites?
AH: Well, this led me to compile a collection of advertisements, which I used to carefully study how confiscated Palestinian homes were being imagined in an Israeli Jewish context. I learned that expropriated Palestinian houses in West Jerusalem are ironically repackaged by Israeli real estate agencies as “Arab-style.” The use of the word “Arab” in “Arab-style” is emptied of its Palestinian memory and reduced to architectural terminology.
The other component of my investigation was the emotional impact that sifting through estate agency photos of West Jerusalem would evoke in me. The images that are commonly featured on such commercial websites are informal domestic snapshots, where images of quotidian life are on display in order to imagine oneself in that space. For those looking for a place to buy, the space is a commodity, but for me, the images became a way to access a suppressed history. I got a glimpse of what became of the homes of Palestinian refugees from West Jerusalem. The presence of the current Israeli Jewish occupant emphasized the Palestinian absence.
It was not until I began meeting Palestinian refugees from West Jerusalem that I realized the stories they were telling me needed to be set in an imaginary real estate agency, as it provided the context necessary to empathize with such monumental loss.
Q – How did you find the participants for your project?
AH: It happened organically. I met the initial participants of “Dream Homes Property Consultants (DHPC)” by way of a short film I was working on titled “From the Bed & Breakfast Notebooks.” I discovered that disguised as a tourist I could spend time at confiscated Palestinian homes, because some of them have been converted into Israeli bed & breakfasts. This specific B&B was located in the western part of the al-Musrara neighborhood, which was divided by a no man’s land in 1948.
During my stay as a “tourist,” I did a number of walks in order to experience the city from that perspective. It was a summer afternoon in 2007 that I met Louis Safieh, a retired Palestinian tour guide. When I told him about the short film I was working on, he responded that in fact he had lived in al-Musrara prior to 1948. By moving a mere 100 meters to seek refuge in the Old City, he and his family had become refugees. This chance encounter set in motion the oral history component of DHPC, and I met the remaining participants through word of mouth.
Q – It really speaks to the nature of Palestinian culture that you found participants just through word of mouth.
AH: Without that kind of network, I could not have done it because Palestinian refugees from West Jerusalem are scattered around the world and difficult to trace. Being predominantly from the middle class, with some from the working class and others from the upper class, they did not end up in camps in 1948 like the majority of Palestinian refugees. However, they still had to rebuild their lives from scratch. I started the oral history component of the project with the refugees who currently reside in East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, rather than those who are dispersed throughout the world. Given their close proximity to West Jerusalem, I was able to witness first-hand what had become of the places that they described to me from memory.
Q – In part of your project, you had the participants draw a map of their former home from memory. How did you get this idea?
AH: The idea to have the participants draw mental maps evolved from a conversation I had at the inception of the project with the late Issa Giacaman. Unable to go from Bethlehem to Jerusalem without a permit issued by Israel, he drew on a piece of paper how I could locate his confiscated family house in West Jerusalem. He did not let the difficulty of obtaining a travel document impede his desire to tell his story, and creative acts of defiance like this are a huge part of DHPC. This visual document was not only useful in helping me identify his house, but it also gave me a sense of the neighborhood.
Q – So you would take their maps and go look for their houses in West Jerusalem. How did you know if you had found the right place?
AH: I relied on more than one resource. Photos alone were not always sufficient and at times they could even be misleading. For instance, I was able to locate Omar Qunnais’s home in ‘Ayn Karim by relying to his mental map, but what confirmed that it was indeed the correct house were the two small lions carved on the stone wall. For those who live in East Jerusalem, like Abla Dajani, the mental map had a different function, as she was able to take me to her neighbourhood of al-Ba’qa. But even before we went there together, she drew me a map that left me completely stunned by the amount of detail it included.
Q – Did you find that most people’s memories of their West Jerusalem neighbourhoods were as accurate as Abla’s?
AH: Incredibly accurate! I believe it shows just how deeply connected they are to Jerusalem, as the intimacy with which they remember places was astounding. It is important to mention that the core of this project is not just about one aspect of memory, but rather the whole gamut, including what remains forgotten. Everything matters, even the incomplete recollections and the gaps. My desire is not to make things whole, but rather to address the rupture in such a way that the scars are not hidden but are left visible so that the story is told more truthfully.
Q – How do you think people felt being asked about their old homes and that time in their lives?
AH: They gave me their attention and I gave them mine. There was a genuine commitment on both sides, as the work required mutual trust from the onset. This was a long-term project and it involved a real engagement with each one’s unique personal story, which is part of our collective history. My feeling throughout has been that they felt their stories were considered with respect and that they were part of something that had a much larger meaning.
Source: imeu.org
US President Barack Obama told a high-profile Washington breakfast on Thursday that violence rooted in religion wasn’t exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well.
Obama said that even though religion was a source for good around the world, there will always be people willing to “hijack religion for their own murderous ends.”
“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ,” Obama told the National Prayer Breakfast, a traditional gathering of political and religious leaders.
“In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”
Obama also denounced Islamic State terrorists for professing to stand up for Islam when they were actually “betraying it.” “We see ISIL, a brutal vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism,” he said criticising them for “claiming the mantle of religious authority for such actions.” “We are summoned to push back against those who would distort our religion for their nihilistic ends,” Obama said.
He singled out the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, calling the militants a “death cult,” as well as those responsible for last month’s terror attacks in Paris and deadly assault on a school in Pakistan.
Suggesting he disagreed with a satirical French newspaper that provoked deadly terrorist attacks by poking fun at Islam, President Obama said that the people of faith are obligated “to condemn such insults.”
“If in fact we defend the legal right of a person to insult another’s religion, we’re equally obligated to use our free speech to condemn such insults and stand shoulder to shoulder with religious communities, particularly religious minorities who are targets of such attacks,” Obama said.
The President said, “Just because you have the right to state something doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t question those who would insult others in the name of free speech.”
Obama never directly mentioned the newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, that was the scene of a terrorist attack in Paris last month that left 12 dead.
The Islamist militants who carried out the attack said they were seeking revenge for the newspaper’s blasphemous caricatures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) that offended many Muslims.
After the attacks, the President was roundly criticised for failing to attend a unity march in Paris with other world leaders in support of free speech.
“We will constantly reaffirm that fundamental freedom, freedom of religion, the right to practice our faith how we choose, to change our faith if we choose, to practice no faith at all if we choose, and to do so free of persecution and fear and discrimination,” he said. Referring to the global fight against terrorism, Obama criticised those who pervert Islam to carry out violent attacks.
“From a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris, we have seen violence and terror perpetrated by those who profess to stand up for their faith; profess to stand up for Islam but in fact are betraying it,” Obama said.
“We see [the Islamic State], a brutal, vicious death cult that in the name of religion carries out unspeakable acts of barbarism, terrorising religious minorities.” The President added, “No God condones terror. As people of faith, we are summoned to push back against those who try to distort our religion, any religion for their own nihilistic ends.”
But Obama said Christians shouldn’t claim any historical high ground about religious-inspired violence, and said that the US has not been immune from such examples.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, President Obama met Muslim leaders and discussed a range of issues with them including the efforts required to combat the dreaded IS and its “horrific” acts of terrorism.
Source: nation.com.pk
With estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraq’s and Syria’s ancient Christian communities taking refuge in the Hashemite Kingdom, they joined together with the Kingdom’s own 2,000 year-old indigenous Christian tradition in honoring the murdered Air Force pilot slain by Islamic Jihadists. As reported by the Catholic-centered Asia News service (of Rome, Italy) and also the Aleteia news aggregate, both on Feb. 4, 2015, Christians across the Middle Eastern nation will peal Church bells in honor of the horrifically murdered Jordanian pilot, as well as in a display of patriotism and unity with their nation against the ISIS terrorists.
With anger in Jordan against ISIS running at a fever pitch since the burning alive of 26-year-old Lieutenant Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, the Amman-based Catholic Center for Studies and Media has called for all of the nation’s Catholic parishes to sound the ringing of the bells to signify mourning and also to offer up prayers and Masses during the week “for the loss of the martyr of the homeland.”
The Center’s director, Father Rifat Bader, also sent his condolences to the murdered aviator’s family and to all those who suffer “from extremism, bigotry and terrorism.” Not alone, His Excellency Archbishop Laroun Lahham, Patriarchal Vicar for Jordan of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem ordered that precisely at 6 PM local time, all Jordanian parishes will celebrate Masses and recite prayers for the fallen soldier. The Archbishop also stated to the press, “Then an official delegation of the Catholic Church will travel to present their condolences to the family and the tribe to which Mu’ath belonged.”
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Excellency Archbishop Fouad Twal released a prepared statement to the press, “The Bishops, clergy and faithful of the Latin Patriarchate join in this anguish and share in the sorrow.” The Archbishop said the incident “reminds us how the fight against any fundamentalist force is necessary and urgent.”
Meanwhile, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Sunni Islam’s most respected seat of learning, Egypt’s Al-Azhar mosque and university, expressed his “deep anger over the lowly terrorist act.” Not quite done yet, the Grand Imam also stated that the ISIS killers rate nothing less than the Koranic punishment of “death, crucifixion or the chopping off of their arms for being enemies of God and the Prophet Muhammad.”
Source: www.examiner.com
2014 was a harrowing and devastating year for many people living in Israel and Palestine. Violations of human rights, racism, and hatred did not stop after the 2014 Gaza war and today are commonplace. Presently, there is imminent concern for the increasing numbers of wrongfully detained Palestinian children from East Jerusalem and the West Bank who are subject to ongoing state violence, severe psychological trauma, and denied the basic human right to education.
Throughout 2014, increasing numbers of Palestinian youth were targets of Israeli authorities’ systematic raids, arrests, and violence. According to DCI-Palestine, an average of 192.8 Palestinian children per month were placed in Israeli military detention facilities from January through November 2014. However, there are likely several hundred more Palestinian minors (under age 18) from East Jerusalem under house arrest or in detention. Many of these children have been arrested during night raids by armed Israeli forces that remove them from their homes in a terrifying and often violent manner. They are frequently handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten, and heavily disoriented when transferred to interrogation. In most cases, the children’s parents have no knowledge of their whereabouts, and the detainees receive no legal counsel. Minor detainees are often coerced into submitting a confession for a crime they did not commit. Some children are placed into solitary confinement, which is not only a breach of international law, but also considered a form of torture for minors.
A 2013 UNICEF report identified the maltreatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military detention as “widespread, systematic, and institutionalized.” Sadly few reforms have been made since then. Laws continue to be violated and more children suffer. The Israeli Military Order 1651 defines a child as a person under age 12. Palestinian detainees ages 12 and above can be sentenced in Israeli military courts, which violate international law and Israeli juvenile law. The sentence for stone throwing and other offenses committed by Palestinian minors can result in a maximum of 20 years. These sentencing periods do not include jail time or house arrest prior to the trial. Furthermore, detainees are not permitted to attend school during pre-trial detention.
Social workers providing services to detained Palestinian minors and their families following release from prison have identified widespread and pervasive trauma. The children often suffer from separation from their families and are subject to physical and psychological violence while detained. Children and parents alike often believe that the parents failed to protect their children. The imprisonment of these children has harmful psychological effects which severely impair a child’s functioning after returning home as well as that of the family unit. Parents and children alike are subject to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Source: mondoweiss.net
John Lewis, the longtime Georgia congressman who is portrayed as a hero in the new film “Selma” and known as the “conscience of the U.S. Congress,” said last night that he won’t attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled speech to Congress in March, according to Medea Benjamin. From the twitter feed of the Code Pink leader:
Exciting! @repjohnlewis announced he will join @repblumenauer in refusing to attend #Netanyahu’s March 3 speech at Congress #freepalestine
At event tonite at @busboysandpoets @RepJohnLewis pledged that he would not attend #Netanyahu speech at Congress!!! #ICC4Israel
Lewis spoke about his book at the D.C. restaurant Busboys and Poets last night. Benjamin says she asked Lewis if he would attend the Netanyahu speech. “I have no plans to attend the speech,” he said, to applause. Today, Benjamin says, Lewis’s office confirmed to Code Pink that he will not attend the speech. We’ve contacted Lewis’s office and will update if we hear more.
Blumenauer is Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, said to be the only congressperson on record to say he won’t attend the speech. But the Washington Post reports the resistance is now widespread. “High-ranking Democrats are weighing a boycott of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress next month.” And the Post identifies two other congresspeople who don’t plan to hear Netanyahu:
Some House Democrats have decided they won’t attend, saying that the event was meant to create an image for Netanyahu back home as he faces a potentially difficult reelection bid. “It’s a campaign stunt, and I’m not working for his campaign. I’m not a standing stooge,” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) said Tuesday.
“What will be remembered here is the slight against our president and the partisan political nature of it, and I don’t know who’s served by that,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Tuesday.
Politico says, “Dozens of Democrats are privately threatening to boycott Netanyahu’s March 3 address.”
CNN chimes in: “Several influential senior Democratic senators said on Wednesday they and other senators are considering boycotting an upcoming speech to Congress.” Dick Durbin of Illinois declined to name names.
Asked about a boycott, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who is Jewish and the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said “there are people discussing that.”
The drama has rocked D.C. for two weeks now. Netanyahu announced a day after President Obama’s State of the Union speech that he had accepted Speaker of the House John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session of Congress in February, later moved to March 3. Netanyahu wants to rebut Obama’s call to Congress to allow negotiations with Iran to go forward. The speech is turning into a neverending embarrassment/scandal. When will it hit bottom?
Source: mondoweiss.net
Many Americans who support Palestinians’ human rights were dismayed a few weeks ago when a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee announced it would hold a hearing on cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority. The panel was announced in response to the PA’s application to join the International Criminal Court—arguably, among Palestinians, the only popular initiative that Mahmoud Abbas has taken in recent memory. The panel was made all the more offensive when subcommittee chairperson Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) revealed that the witness table would be staffed exclusively by neoconservatives—three out of four of whom have written about Palestinian children as constituting a “demographic threat” to the Jewish state.
When the panel assembled yesterday in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill, citizens concerned about human rights in Israel/Palestine packed the hearing–to represent the growing-but-still-marginalized contingent of Americans who object to the US government’s one-sided diplomatic and military support for Israel. The chairperson would not be amused.
From the start, it was clear the hearing was anything but mundane, despite its lack of real significance. It was neither an oversight nor a mark-up hearing, but was well-attended by lawmakers when Ros-Lehtinen gavelled the room to order. Capitol Police officers, too, attended in abnormally large numbers, keeping a watchful eyes on attendees organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation who gathered to carry out “a silent and dignified protest in support of Israel being held accountable at the ICC.” They held up signs bearing photographs of Israeli atrocities committed in Gaza last summer, adorned with the slogan “#ICC4Israel.” Or they did until the hearing kicked off.
Source: mondoweiss.net
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