Simone Zimmerman  🔥

Terrifying to think of my friends and loved ones in Tel Aviv hearing the explosions right now. Terrifying to think of the people in Gaza who live this kind of reality every single day of their lives.

Was just on the phone to my family and I heard several loud blasts. The phone line was then cut. I tried to call my mom again. She picked the phone and said, "We cannot talk now. We will call as soon as we can". Things are terrifying in Gaza.

4) When you hear about “clashes” and “scuffles,” what’s really happening is Palestinians are protesting for their freedom and rights against heavily armed Israeli police and soldiers using tear gas, stun grenades, coated steel bullets, and skunk water, to violently suppress them.

THREAD: 6 Things to Know about Jerusalem violence Amidst all the headlines and breaking news, it can be confusing to make sense of what’s happening in #Palestine/#Israel right now. Here are 6 things you need to know to understand what’s going on:

The rockets are criminal and will achieve nothing beyond more deaths and destruction. We've seen this before so many times. But the attention allows Hamas to claim they're leading the fight, after weeks of popular protests in Jerusalem that had nothing to do with them.

Those who have said almost nothing for three weeks - despite repeated warnings that Israeli policies in Jerusalem are leading to a major blowup - and now wake up to condemn the rockets and call for peace, are proving Hamas right: apparently only this kind of violence registers.

This lobby’s ascendence over the decades tracks that of other interest groups that advance agendas that are fundamentally at odds with the stated preferences of many if not most Americans (3)

It’s really critical to contextualize the outsized power of the Israel lobby vis-à-vis a number of shifts over the last half century that have made America’s very incomplete democracy even less responsive to democratic pressures (2)

Many will tell you Israel has a right to defend itself, to safety and security, but are silent on whether Palestinians have those rights too. Until we can defend the rights of Palestinians just as we do Israelis, we have no leg to stand on when it comes to justice or peace.

To members of the NYC Council, the mayor, & all New York electeds: Do not defend this in our name. Do not hold back your condemnations and your solidarity in our name. We are your Jewish constituents. We reiterate that Palestinians deserve as much dignity, respect and care as us.

All local struggles are connected — from Palestine to Colombia, U.S. to India. And when supremacist violence is carried out by those chanting words of Torah, we feel even more responsible to speak out. Our hearts are with Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation tonight.