Activism News

Celebrated American author and poet Alice Walker will be aboard the Audacity of Hope, part of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, set sail this month. Ali Abunimah interviews for The Electronic Intifada.

David Cronin interviews Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh, author of the new book Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, on the popular struggle in the occupied West Bank and his experience being arrested and detained by Israeli forces.

Earlier this month in Montpellier, France, more than a hundred activists from nine countries gathered for the first ever European Forum Against Agrexco for two full days of workshops aimed at strengthening the boycott campaign against the Israeli agricultural export giant.

Lucas Koerner, the young American Jewish university student shown violently arrested in a Jerusalem Day video, speaks to The Electronic Intifada about his activism and what happened after his arrest.

Final preparations are underway for the next big flotilla to Gaza, which is scheduled to occur in late June. The US Boat to Gaza will take part in the largest planned fleet yet, with an estimated 1,000 passengers from an array of countries collaborating to break Israel’s blockade.

Antony Loewenstein, a writer and journalist based in Sydney and a founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, speaks to The Electronic Intifada about the growing boycott, divestment and santions movement and the resistance to it in Australia.

In an interview with The Electronic Intifada contributor Max Blumenthal, agronomist and Palestinian rights activist Rami Zurayk described how 150 representatives of Palestinian factions and refugee groups gathered to wrangle over the nascent May 15 movement’s language and long-term strategy.

Late last month AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, held its 2011 annual policy conference in Washington, DC. Just across the street hundreds of social justice activists from all corners of the United States, in addition to a handful of internationals, met with the formidable goal of building a counter-force to AIPAC.

A gleaming new memorial towers over the center of Gaza City’s battered port, bearing the names of the Turkish solidarity activists who died one year ago when Israeli commandos firing machine guns air-dropped onto the Freedom Flotilla.

The British prime minister has stepped down from his position as honorary patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The move comes as pressure on the JNF steps up in Britain, and is being hailed by activists as a big victory in the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.