News and Analysis 3/6/23

Israel is determined to continue its oppression of Palestinians even on Muslim and Jewish holidays, and even if they are American citizens:

• Israel’s Parliament Votes to Extend Ban on Palestinian Family Unification (Haaretz)
• Israel to Close Palestinian Territories During Jewish Festival (New Arab)
• Israel to Continue Demolishing Palestinian Homes During Ramadan (Middle East Eye)
• Palestinian Human Rights Advocates Refused Entry to US, Blocked from Leaving Palestine (Middle East Eye)

U.S. withdrawal from JCPOA bears its inevitable fruit:

• Iran Can Make Fissile Material for a Bomb ‘in About 12 Days’ – U.S. Official (Reuters)

Fearing he “would be snubbed by the U.S. administration” over his call for genocide during his upcoming visit to Washington, Smotrich now says he “misspoke”:

• Netanyahu Tries to Calm Outcry over Minister’s Remarks on Palestinians (Reuters)

“If the poisoning of students is proven, those behind this crime should be sentenced to capital punishment and there will be no amnesty for them” — Khamenei:

• Iran Leader: Those Who Poisoned Schoolgirls Deserve Death (AP)

There is no end in sight for the nearly daily violence by soldiers and settler:

• Three Minors Among Seven Palestinians Detained by Occupation Forces in West Ban (Wafa)
• ‘I Couldn’t See if My Brother’s Murderer Was a Soldier or Settler’ (972 Magazine)
• Four Palestinians Injured in Confrontations with Israeli Soldiers in Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp (Wafa)

“The brutality began as an effort to disrupt Muslims praying together but morphed into a protracted effort to punish those who prayed”:

• ‘Stop Praying Now’: Bonne Terre Prison Guards Beat, Pepper-spray Muslim Inmates, Lawsuit Alleges (KSDK)

Premodern Muslim scholars accepted that “variety, disagreement, and even outright contradiction are the inevitable outcomes of the human endeavor to comprehend God’s message” …

• The Ambiguities of Being Muslim and Modern (Marginalia)

… unlike today’s Bahraini government that prohibits “discussion and questioning of Islamic law” as mockery:

• Bahrain Prosecutes Religious Reformers: Traditionalists Fight Back (Middle East Soccer)

“Kashmiris have had the colonial concept of ‘state lands’ mobilized against them as [a ploy] to cast Indigenous communities as illegal occupants of their own land”:

• Report on ‘India’s Impunity in Kashmir’ Reveals Israel Connection (Palestine Chronicle)

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