We need to tell our story, which has been hijacked and trampled upon – that most inspirational story of Zionism. The story of the Jewish people coming back to their own land has been swept away. We need to reclaim it.” Aharoni, while agreeing that BDS can’t be ignored, cautions against using all of Israel’s hasbara (public diplomacy) ammunition in battling the accusations and campaigns against it.

Two large potholes appeared on the highway leading to the village, the result of bad weather and human negligence. Numerous accidents occurred there, claiming many victims. As in Chelm, the who’s who of the village convened to discuss the serious problem. The first suggested positioning an ambulance at the site, while another wondered whether, if there was to be an ambulance, there should possibly also be a clinic to treat the injured. And a third, who was most worried about his tires, suggested opening a tire shop.

More than a dozen congressional Democrats say they plan to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to a joint session of Congress amid conflicting signals over whether he will pull out from the March 3 address. Netanyahu struck a defiant tone during a campaign event in Israel on Monday, saying he was “determined” to present the case for why Israel opposed the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran “before the members of Congress and the American people.”

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 Na

Three weeks ago, UK Jewish Film began receiving anxious emails and phone calls from the Tricycle Theatre, the north London home of the UK Jewish film festival for the past eight years. The board asked to be allowed to view in advance all of the films that were made with Israeli backing in order to approve their content. When the UKJFF dismissed this as censorship, the Tricycle conceded the point. But it refused to back down on another demand: that the festival should hand back the small percentage of its funding that came from the Israeli embassy. 

Recently, two surviving founders of Pink Floyd sent the rock band equivalent of a diplomatic cable — an open letter published in Salon — to the Rolling Stones. They asked Mick Jagger and his crew to cancel their first-ever concert in Israel to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle against occupation. But Pink Floyd hit a wall.

Jay Leno, Ellen DeGeneres and others are backing boycotts of the Beverly Hills Hotel and Hotel Bel-Air because of new laws targeting gays and women in the Southeast Asian sultanate of Brunei.