Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

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More on the current status of the IOA HERE.

Chris Hedges: Imploding the myth of Israel

5 November 2013

Israel has been poisoned by the psychosis of permanent war. It has been morally bankrupted by the sanctification of victimhood, which it uses to justify an occupation that rivals the brutality and racism of apartheid South Africa. Its democracy—which was always exclusively for Jews—has been hijacked by extremists who are pushing the country toward fascism. Many of Israel’s most enlightened and educated citizens—1 million of them—have left the country. Its most courageous human rights campaigners, intellectuals and journalists—Israeli and Palestinian—are subject to constant state surveillance, arbitrary arrests and government-run smear campaigns. Its educational system, starting in primary school, has become an indoctrination machine for the military.

Noam Chomsky: The one state/two state debate is irrelevant as Israel and the US consolidate Greater Israel

26 October 2013

[I]t is assumed almost universally that there are two options for cis-Jordan: either two states — Palestinian and Jewish-democratic — or one state “from the sea to the river.” Israeli commentators express concern about the “demographic problem”: too many Palestinians in a Jewish state. Many Palestinians and their advocates support the “one state solution,” anticipating a civil rights, anti-Apartheid struggle that will lead to secular democracy… The analysis is almost universal, but crucially flawed. There is a third option, namely, the option that Israel is pursuing with constant US support. And this third option is the only realistic alternative to the two-state settlement that is backed by an overwhelming international consensus.

Noam Chomsky: The Obama Doctrine

8 October 2013

At the fringes, some observers reject the shared [US] assumptions, bringing up the historical record: for example, the fact that “for nearly seven decades” the United States has led the world in aggression and subversion — overthrowing elected governments and imposing vicious dictatorships, supporting horrendous crimes, undermining international agreements and leaving trails of blood, destruction and misery.

Moshé Machover: DeZionization – strategic considerations

8 October 2013

As [the conflict] is caused by colonization, resolution requires decolonization. In this specific case, as the cause is Zionist colonization, what is required is deZionisation, overthrow of the Zionist project and its state.

Remembering Fouzi El-Asmar, poet of the Palestinian liberation struggle

3 October 2013

Fouzi’s work centered around Israel and the Palestinians, with particular focus on the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Following in the footsteps of his mother, Najla El-Asmar, who was an activist long before Israel’s establishment in 1948, Fouzi helped found al-Ard, an anti-Zionist political organization committed to the defense of the civil and political rights of “Israeli Arabs.”

Palestinian journalist/author/poet/activist Fouzi El-Asmar, R.I.P.

2 October 2013

Journalist Magda Abu Fadil remembers Palestinian activist Fouzi El-Asmar who died last month in the Washington DC area.

Fouzi El-Asmar: Al-Ard – the seed of the Palestinian struggle

2 October 2013

Fouzi El-Asmar discusses Al-Ard (The Land), a political organization he helped found in Palestine during the late 1950s whose history and perspective have been marginalized if not largely absented from most narratives about the Palestinian liberation movement.

Noam Chomsky: Why the Israel-Palestine ‘negotiations’ are a complete farce

7 September 2013

The negotiations provide a cover for Israel’s takeover of the territories it wishes to control and should spare the United States some further embarrassment at the UN.

Noam Chomsky weighs in on Syria strike

4 September 2013

“As international support for Obama’s decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world,” Chomsky said.

Noam Chomsky: Israel’s West Bank plans will leave Palestinians very little

4 September 2013

One prevailing assumption is that there are two options: either a two-state settlement will be reached, or there will be a “shift to a nearly inevitable outcome of the one remaining reality — a state ‘from the sea to the river’.” … There is a third option, the most realistic one: Israel will carry forward its current policies with full U.S. economic, military, and diplomatic support, sprinkled with some mild phrases of disapproval.

Assaf Kfoury: The background to the July 3, 2013 military coup in Egypt, according to The New York Times

2 September 2013

The greatest illusion about the cataclysmic events shaking Egypt is that, during the truncated one-year presidency of Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian military had been forced to accept civilian rule and then vacate the political stage. How much did we get from the New York Times (and other mainstream papers) to think otherwise? What information, or misinformation, did the Times pass on to its readers, so that the events since late June of this year would not hit them like a freak summer storm?

IOA status update

3 August 2013

After nearly five years of operation, the IOA website is suspending regular content uploads. Having started immediately after Israel’s attack on Gaza in December 2008 – January 2009, the Israeli Occupation Archive project has expanded its coverage of the Israeli occupation, its daily practices, relevant analysis and commentary on it, and its history – going back to the pre-1948 years. As regular readers have noticed, the website has undergone several changes over the years, and it is now time for another change.

Jonathan Cook: When they fail, peace talks will only deepen crisis for Palestinians

2 August 2013

It may not have reached the level of fevered expectation unleashed by that famous handshake between Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the White House lawn in 1993, but the sense of hope inspired by the long-awaited revival of peace talks is both tangible and deeply misplaced.

Jonathan Cook: Israeli army recruitment plan aims to incite Christian-Muslim tensions

1 August 2013

Leaders from the [Israeli] Palestinian community, Christian and Muslim, who have spoken against this new [IDF] enlistment effort have been called in for investigation by Israel’s secret police. In an Orwellian inversion, they have been accused of “incitement to violence.”

Noam Chomsky on Israel-Palestine peace talks, Middle East, US role, and Snowden (video)

29 July 2013

Noam Chomsky covers the upcoming Israel-Palestine ‘peace talks’ and the history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations; settlements, the Occupation and the ‘One-State’ and ‘Two-State’ solutions; US strategic control of the Middle East; Syria and Egypt; the ‘Iran threat'; Edward Snowden, and much more.

Michael Sfard: ‘The peace process has become a major enemy of human rights’

29 July 2013

Michael Sfard: “While talks are happening Israel gets away with anything. Land grabs, the expansion of settlements, even [Operation] Cast Lead was waged while there were peace talks.”

Jonathan Cook: Filmmaking as resistance – Hany Abu Assad’s dream of a new Palestinian cinema

28 July 2013

Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad: “I want my films to put fear into Israelis. My job is to disturb their dreams, to wake them from the fantasy that there is no occupation.”

Weiner’s bigotry towards Palestine is worse than his sexting

27 July 2013

While everyone is so caught up with Weiner’s wiener, and the many puns that can be created for headlines, the real scandal and reason why he should not be running for office is going unnoticed. The outrage should be over his bigotry towards Palestinians and how he has misused his past position in Congress to support punitive policies against the Palestinians.

Moshé Machover: Israel-Palestine – déjà vu all over again

26 July 2013

Watch US secretary of state John Kerry assuming the mantle of our lord: just as JC resurrected Lazarus, JK is about to revive the dead-as-a-doornail talks between the Israeli government and the captive so-called Palestinian ‘Authority’. Though, unlike old Lazarus, this corpse will talk and talk and talk … but will not walk.

Jonathan Cook: Israel’s thriving arms trade is a setback to peace agreement

23 July 2013

Former Israeli defence (then industry) minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer: “People like to buy things that have been tested. If Israel sells weapons, they have been tested, tried out. We can say we’ve used this 10 years, 15 years.”