Before we get to our feature presentation from a Forum at the Columbia University Law School, we take a minute to point out how once again, in the midst of devastating heat in Palestine, Israel is using the withholding of water as a weapon to inflict illegal collective punishment on the Palestinian population. Israel controls all the water in Israel Palestine, even the water it extracts from the West Bank aquifer and the water under Gaza. It is liberal with water allocations to Israelis to fill their pools, and bellies, and water their shrubbery, but allocates little to Palestinians to meet the basic necessities for survival. And it charges four times as much money to Palestinians than it does to Israelis to purchase water, even for water it extracts from Palestinian territory.
Adalah, The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, sent a letter to senior Israeli Government military and water officials demanding that they cease cutting water supplies to Palestinian residents of the occupied West Bank. But right now it is worse than ever. There are areas of the West Bank that have received no water at all for weeks. Livestock are dying. Fields and gardens are drying up, and factories and businesses are shutting down.
We encourage you to Google the Boston Alliance for Water Justice to follow reports on this latest brutal assault on the Palestinian people, and to join them in their organizing attempts to challenge Israelâs assault on Palestinians basic right to survival. They are calling a demonstration in front of the Massachusetts State House on Beacon Hill on Thursday, July 14 at noon to protest the water restrictions in the West Bank. Get involved. Google: Boston Alliance for Water Justice for details.
And now on to our feature presentation.
This past Spring of 2016, Columbia University Law School held an interesting forum it called "the Palestinian Exception to The First Amendment and the Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions movement." This morning we bring you presentations from that forum by Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke, Jewish Voice for Peaceâs Rebecca Vilkomerson, and Columbia student organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine, Shazah Abushi Delah speaking at the forum.
In her presentation, Professor Franke makes references to legislation then pending in the New York State legislature that would punish those who chose to do business with any entity that supported the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Please note that that legislation has now been signed into law by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.
This Week In Palestine (a weekly part of Truth and Justice Radio) is an award-winning three-quarter-hour segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. It's a regular part of Truth and Justice Radio, aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, streaming and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; TJR's website, truthandjusticeradio.org, has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008; earlier editions are obtainable from radio4all.net or by navigating through our playlists. (At this important time, TJR has been airing Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine.) We hope you'll write to us at stanrob@world.oberlin.edu if you rebroadcast our work, or have questions or comments.
This Week In Palestine 7-3-2016
BDS, the 'Palestine Exception' to the First Amendment, but first ...
![<?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/rp-navimg.gif)
![Support the <?php echo $config['site_title']; ?>](/static/images/support.png)
