On the latest episode of The +972 Podcast, Human Right Watch's Omar Shakir talks about Israel's case against him, which he believes is a watershed moment for democracy and free speech in Israel. Listen here: iTunes/Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify   For more than a year now, Israel has been trying to deport the Israel and Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir. The ongoing litigation began in May 2018, when Israel decided to revoke Shakir’s work authorization in Israel, largely based on an intelligence dossier that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs compiled of Shakir’s political activity and statements before joining Human Rights…

According to the state, it is enough that Lara Alqasem clicked 'attending' on pro-Palestinian Facebook events to prove she is pro-BDS. By Edo Konrad and Oren Ziv A Tel Aviv District Court ordered Lara Alqasem, the 22-year-old Palestinian American who was denied entry into Israel due to her political views and has been held by Israeli authorities for the past nine days, to remain in detention on Thursday. [tmwinpost] Alqasem's case has gripped both the Israeli and international media since she landed in Ben Gurion Airport, where she was promptly taken in for interrogation by the Israeli authorities. Despite having been issued a student…

Over the past few years, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has been gradually making it easier for average Israelis to obtain gun licenses. But instead of increasing security, it will only put more people, especially women, at risk. By Rela Mazali Israel’s newspapers have recently reported that tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of previously ineligible Israeli citizens will now be eligible to apply for gun licenses. This may sound familiar. Haven’t we already heard about Gilad Erdan’s “gun for every person” plan? Why is it, once again, making headlines? [tmwinpost] Erdan has been promoting his plan to hand out guns…

Israel's government is outsourcing 'mass consciousness activities' to private organizations, unaccountable to the public. A legal challenge in the High Court aims to stop it.  By Itamar Benzaquen Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs is carrying out a global propaganda campaign on behalf of the Israeli government that violates human rights and is acting without authority to do so, according to a lawsuit filed in the High Court of Justice Monday. Attorney Schachar Ben Meir’s petition demands that the High Court of Justice order a halt to the activities carried out by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan. The Ministry of Strategic…

State attorney rules the police who shot and killed Yacob al-Qi'an in January 2017 did not commit a crime, says no conclusive evidence incident was a terror attack. By +972 Magazine Staff Israel’s State Attorney Shai Nitzan ruled Tuesday that the police officers who shot to death Yaqub Musa Abu al-Qi’an in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran will not face criminal investigation. Nitzan also ruled that it was not possible to determine whether al-Qi’an had committed an act of terrorism when his car struck and killed 34-year-old policeman Erez Levi. Al-Qi’an and Levi were killed and several others…

Israeli leaders are relentlessly hammering home the idea that the kind of political dissent displayed by Natalie Portman is foreign. And dissenters, by definition, are not real Israelis. When Natalie Portman announced that she would not attend the lucrative Genesis Prize ceremony because she opposes Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who was to present the prize to her, reactions in Israel were smoke-out-the-ears hysterical. [tmwinpost] Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan wrote her an impassioned open letter with gimmicky Star Wars references, to help Portman, who starred in the film, understand her mistakes. Jews in Israel and abroad bemoaned her fall into the…

For the past four years, asylum seekers and their supporters have demanded that the Holot detention center be shut down. Now it’s finally happening, but not at all how they envisioned. The Israeli government shut down the Holot detention facility, the open-air, desert detention facility built for African asylum seekers, on Wednesday after four years of operation. More than 13,000 asylum seekers were imprisoned in Holot without trial over the course of its operation, as part of the Israeli government’s efforts to force African asylum seekers out of the country. [tmwinpost] The hundreds of asylum seekers who remained in Holot…

MK Yousef Jabareen was supposed to travel across the United States for a series of lectures on the political reality in Israel. The Knesset decided to put the kibosh on the trip — because it is sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace. The Knesset has forbidden an Arab member of Knesset from traveling to the United States for a series of lectures. The reason? The trip was to be subsidized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a left-wing American organization that supports pressuring Israel to end the occupation with boycotts, and appears on a government blacklist of groups that support the BDS movement.…

At the Palestine Digital Activism Forum, representatives from both Google and Facebook faced a crowd that demanded to know why the two companies cooperate with Israel's attempts at silencing Palestinians. Not long after the Arab Spring began, social media companies rushed to embrace the popular narrative that their platforms had the potential to change societies and reform institutions. If the revolts across the Middle East and North Africa were any indication, the revolutions of the 21st century would not be televised but livestreamed, tweeted, shared, and liked. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to potential investors the week the…

As part of Israel's anti-BDS campaign, officials say members of Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the fastest growing Jewish organizations in the U.S., will not be able to enter Israel. An Israeli government ministry confirmed on Saturday that the American Jewish organization, Jewish Voice for Peace*, is among 20 organizations from around the world that have been placed on a BDS blacklist, which means its members will be barred from entering Israel. JVP is the only major Jewish organization in the U.S. that openly advocates for and identifies with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As part of its war on BDS, Israel's Strategic…

The Israeli ministry tasked with fighting the BDS Movement is spending millions of shekels to place propaganda that looks like news in Israel's most prominent media outlets. By Itamar Benzaquen The Israeli government paid the Yedioth Group, publisher of Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper, hundreds of thousands of shekels to publish articles and interviews meant to influence readers to support a campaign Israel is waging against its critics. The Strategic Affairs Ministry, headed by Minister Gilad Erdan, purchased positive coverage and the distribution of that content on the Internet. [tmwinpost] According to information provided to “The Seventh Eye” and “Hatzlacha,” as part of…

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has a unique response to the deal ending a decade of political, geographic and societal Palestinian divisions. The Israeli government's response to the deal was among the tamest it has ever directed toward anything including the word Hamas, namely that Israel won't conduct "diplomatic relations" with a Palestinian government including Hamas unless it fulfills half a dozen conditions. [tmwinpost] Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, however, took the cake with his prescription for how to cope with the reconciliation deal ending a decade of political and geographic Palestinian divisions: encouraging Israeli civilians to carry more guns. According…

Israeli human rights activists file an appeal to force the Israeli government to come clean on its so-called blacklists of foreign nationals who support the boycott movement. By Yael Marom A group of Israeli human rights activists filed an appeal to the Jerusalem District Court Thursday morning to try and force the Israeli government to reveal the so-called "blacklists" of foreign nationals, who are prevented entry into Israel due to their support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. The Israeli activists, represented by Attorney Eitay Mack, filed the petition after the Population and Immigration Authority refused to provide them with the…