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

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Yitzhak Laor: NGO bill aims to create a democracy for Jews only

21 November 2011

We must not dismiss the NGO Bill – it truly intends to create a democracy for Jews only; if it were passed, no Arab – whether resident of the territories or Israeli citizen – would have access to the law.

Ran Greenstein: How to fight the Israel-Apartheid analogy in four easy steps – a guide for useful Hasbara idiots

20 November 2011

Start with fragmentation. When talking about Israel refer to a mythical state that existed between November 1966 and June 1967, the only period during which the majority of Palestinians living under Israeli control were NOT subject to military rule.

Tightening the noose around democracy: Israel shuts down broadcasts of Israeli-Palestinian radio station

19 November 2011

The decision to close down the station is part of a general attack on left-wing organizations. The station provided a platform for left-wing groups that are now under attack by a new law that would curb their foreign funding. “Of course there is an attack here that is not only on us. If someone came to the conclusion that this isn’t legal, then after seven years there are different ways to go about it.”

Israel shuts down Palestinian groups in Jerusalem

19 November 2011

The recent forced closures of Palestinian nonprofit organizations in Jerusalem is an example of the Israeli authorities’ continued attacks on the city’s Palestinian identity and their attempts to maintain control over occupied East Jerusalem, according to local human rights groups.

Israel effectively annexes Palestinian land near Jordan Valley

18 November 2011

Israel carried out a de facto annexation of Palestinian land northeast of the Jordan Valley and given it to Kibbutz Merav. Merav, part of the Religious Kibbutz Movement, is about seven kilometers northwest of the parcel. The route of the separation barrier in the area was changed so that the plot in question, about 1,500 dunams (375 acres), would be on the Israeli side.

Israeli writer questioned for helping Palestinians visit Israel

18 November 2011

Author and translator Ilana Hammerman was questioned by the police for the third time this week on suspicion of bringing Palestinians into Israel without a permit. What began as a private initiative turned into a public protest against restrictions on Palestinian when Ilana Hammerman reported on her activities in Haaretz Magazine.

Norman Finkelstein: How to end the Israel-Palestine conflict

18 November 2011

I don’t see how any person can here find objectionable the demand to ‘enforce the law’. I cannot believe you couldn’t reach 80 percent of the British people on that slogan. Of course Israel’s defenders will say ‘oh, the law is ambiguous’, but we can very easily show that it’s not. The law is very clear. There is no respectable institution or organisation in the world today which says that the settlements are legal. You go from the International Court of Justice to human rights organisations… you can’t name one.

Lia Tarachansky: Palestinian “Freedom Riders” challenge segregation

17 November 2011

On Tuesday six Palestinian activists boarded Israeli buses in an attempt to challenge the system of segregation in the West Bank. They were arrested at Hizmeh checkpoint, interrogated by Israel’s internal intelligence agency, the Shabak [Shin Bet], and released. In the West Bank, segregation is both visible with the separation wall, fence, and separate cities for Israelis and Palestinians and invisible with separate legal and security systems for the two peoples.

Ran Greenstein: Israeli Jews, Palestinian Arabs and the Apartheid question

17 November 2011

Apartheid is a system of racial domination, in which a dominant group exploits, oppresses, marginalizes and excludes subordinate groups. The specific forms of these practices may vary from one case to another. They must bear similarities to South African state practices from 1948 to 1994, but need not be identical to them, as long as the general discriminatory thrust is similar.

Amira Hass: Netanyahu is less of a liar than past Israeli PMs

16 November 2011

Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Barack Obama are pissed off at [Netanyahu] because he’s not as good a liar as his predecessors in the PM’s Office. They’re angry because he doesn’t bother to cover up the gap between the words and the bulldozers. It makes it harder for them to conceal the falsehood in US and European policy. A policy which supposedly seeks peace in the region and a state for the Palestinians; in practice, one that collaborates with Israel’s aim to impose a capitulation arrangement on the Palestinians.

The real cost of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians

16 November 2011

Palestinians are losing out on some $6.9 billion a year, a study shows, as restrictions on water use, resources and imports exact their toll.

Fakhri Barghouti: Recounting a lifetime of struggle

16 November 2011

The Palestinian people are under occupation. It doesn’t surprise me that the media has not raised the issue of the thousands of prisoners who are in prison. They have never given us any sense of value or consideration. It was Shalit who was the one who was oppressed. He was the one paying the price. The whole world was talking about Shalit. But no people can ever be victorious as long as the value of an individual is not respected. Up until now, we are worthless to the international community. Because it is westerners who have ‘value.’

Rashid Khalidi: Ross’s departure

15 November 2011

Ross has played a crucial role in crafting Middle East policies that have prolonged and exacerbated the more than six-decade conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. His efforts contributed significantly to the growth in the number of Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories from well under 200,000 in the 1980s to nearly 600,000 today. It is in no small measure due to him that the two-state solution is all but dead.

Palestinian Freedom Riders: Riding for freedom

15 November 2011

Palestinian activists will attempt to peacefully board segregated Israeli public transportation in the occupied West Bank to travel to East Jerusalem in action reminiscent of the Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides to the US South. UPDATED

Finkelstein highlights international law as powerful weapon for boycott

14 November 2011

Professor Norman Finkelstein stormed UK campuses in November, lecturing to packed auditoriums in London, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham on How to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Army raids homes of prisoners freed in swap deal

14 November 2011

Israeli forces overnight Sunday raided the homes of seven prisoners freed as part of the Oct. 18 prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

Israel stalling release of report proving West Bank outpost built on Palestinian land

13 November 2011

Since February, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to demolish all outposts built on private Palestinian land, right-wing activists have been applying heavy pressure on him to reverse that decision. Publication of the report on Derekh Ha’avot would cause more headaches for the authorities and bring the petitioners back to the High Court.

Gideon Levy: A new Israel in the making

13 November 2011

One day not long from now we will wake up to a different kind of country, the country that’s now in the making. It won’t look like the country we know, which already has its share of flaws, distortions and ills. And when we become aware of this, it will be too late. At that point, the old Israel will be described in glowing terms, a model of democracy and justice, compared to the new version that is taking shape as we close our eyes to it, day after day, new law after law.

Jonathan Cook: Striking Iran – Israel’s war wager

12 November 2011

Former deputy defense minister Ephraim Sneh on the danger of an Iranian bomb: “Most Israelis would prefer not to live here; most Jews would prefer not to come here with families, and Israelis who can live abroad will… I am afraid Ahmadinejad will be able to kill the Zionist dream without pushing a button. That’s why we must prevent this regime from obtaining nuclear capability at all costs.”

Noam Chomsky: Can revolutionary pacificism deliver peace?

12 November 2011

Noam Chomsky has been awarded this year’s Sydney Peace Prize, Australia’s only international peace prize. In his City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, “Revolutionary Pacifism: Choices and Prospects,” Chomsky covers activist A.J. Muste’s concept of “revolutionary pacifism,” the principle of universality, and the long history of violent US behavior around the world, including the Middle East.

Gilbert Achcar: on the US Likudniks’ racist smear campaign

11 November 2011

US Likudniks, who had remained relatively restrained on [book talks] until now, could not stand it any longer. They launched a massive attack against me in the form of a smear article … written by two Campus Watch vigilantes and first published on FrontPageMag… From there, the article was reproduced by countless websites and blogs belonging to the same ideological swarm, and distributed by them to their extensive email lists.

Prisoners representatives: Israel not honoring commitments to detainees

11 November 2011

Palestinian Authority Minister of Prisoners Issa Qaraqe said the situation of Palestinian prisoners was worse than before the Oct. 18 prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas. The deal also included an end to solitary confinement and punitive measures, he said. Director of the parliamentary prisoners’ committee Khalida Jarar said Israel has detained 110 Palestinians since the deal was made.

Haneen Zoabi: Russell Tribunal presentation – Cape Town, Nov 2011

11 November 2011

Haneen Zoabi talks about conditions of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the racism that is inherent to Israel as a Jewish State during the 3rd International Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in Cape Town, November 2011.

Russell Tribunal on Palestine: Cape Town Session – summary of findings

11 November 2011

The Tribunal finds that Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law. This discriminatory regime manifests in varying intensity and forms against different categories of Palestinians depending on their location. The Palestinians living under colonial military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory are subject to a particularly aggravated form of apartheid.

UPDATED
Download the full findings of the Russell Tribunal session HERE

Muslim gravestones desecrated in Jerusalem in suspected ‘price tag’ attack

10 November 2011

Assailants spray paint Mamilla Cemetery headstones with the slogans ‘Death to Arabs’ and the name of a settlement outpost slated for demolition. This is only the last in a series of violent activities against Palestinians and Israeli anti-Occupation activists.

IOA Editor: Mamilla Cemetery, a historic Jerusalem and Muslim landmark, has now been relegated by a junior Haaretz journalist to a site “next to the [yet-to-be-built] Jerusalem Museum of Tolerance.” The cemetery, containing centuries of Palestinian history, has been desecrated for decades by Israeli governments intent on eradicating Palestinian history. The museum, representing a distorted view of Jewish history, and imported from the US, is intended to physically replace yet another bit of Palestinian history — in Jerusalem, the very heart of Israeli-Palestinian contention. The Mamilla Cemetery case is crucially important: it is a very real, yet also a very symbolic, representation of Israeli ethnic cleansing in action.

The Arabs and the Holocaust: an interview with Gilbert Achcar

10 November 2011

Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London; his latest work is The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. Achcar discusses what he calls the “Nazification” of the Arabs, what implications this narrative has had on the past and present political situation in the Middle East, and some of the context from which anti-Semitism and Holocaust-denial has taken root in a segment of Arab society.

Irene Gendzier: Why the US recognised Israel

9 November 2011

The US and Israel have both been intent on forestalling the appearance of the Palestinian Authority before the UN, in case it succeeded in winning support for its unilateral declaration of Palestinian independence. This is a reversal of history: in 1948, the US regarded the prospect of an Israeli declaration of independence as a threat to its interests in the region, and the State Department, Defence Department and CIA were worried about such an outcome.

Outspoken Israeli Palestinian parliamentarian in trouble

7 November 2011

Haneen Zoabi: “Israel will not stop being racist unless it pays the price of its racism and unless it loses the support of the international world. Israel keeps being racist because it enjoys also the support of the international community.”

Israel plans 50,000 homes in East Jerusalem

7 November 2011

A study commissioned by Israel’s Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat to address housing shortages in the city, obtained by Hebrew daily Maariv, shows designs for 60,718 housing units in the city, with the majority — 52,363 homes — planned for East Jerusalem.

Bomb threat at Israeli peace group office

7 November 2011

The Jerusalem office of Israeli group Peace Now was evacuated after receiving a bomb threat on Sunday evening, the organization said. Unknown assailants warned the building would explode in ten minutes in a “price tag” attack over the office intercom, the group said in a statement.

Anonymous open letter to and cyber-attack on Israeli government

6 November 2011

It appears that Anonymous carried out a major cyber-attack against Israeli government websites. Haaretz reports that IDF, Mossad, Shin-Bet, and several other government websites are currently inaccessible. Watch video for an accurate and sophisticated political statement.

US military official: We are concerned Israel will not warn us before Iran attack

5 November 2011

The US is “absolutely” concerned that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and this concern is increasing… as is US “watchfulness” of Iran and Israel over the past few weeks by US Central and European Commands, which watch Iranian and Israeli developments.

IOA Editor: Whether information or disinformation, none of this has stopped the US from tightening its close military relations with Israel even further. The US, as the ‘senior partner’ in the US-Israel relations, could stop any Israeli action if it seriously wanted it.

UPDATED Top Israeli firm: World more likely to accept nuclear Iran than pay high cost of war

Israel, US to embark on largest joint exercise in allies’ history

5 November 2011

US Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro says security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper, more intense than ever before.

Israel is a strategic asset for US national interests, according to new report (updated)

5 November 2011

US cooperation with Israel [includes] various security concerns, from Israel’s undertakings of tasks the US might not be willing to do, to sharing intelligence and missile defense cooperation, to the Israeli expertise in cyber security that has already benefitted U.S. banking, communications, transportation and utilities.

IOA Editor: The full report on which the article is based, entitled Israel: A Strategic Asset for the US, can be downloaded on the article page. Highly recommended by Moshé Machover as “an antidote to the widespread thesis that the Israeli/Zionist tail is wagging the US dog. The US imperialists are not innocents coerced or manipulated by the evil Zionists. In fact, they are senior and junior partners, respectively.”

Occupy Boston occupies Israeli consulate

5 November 2011

Watch video…

Rifat Kassis: Palestinian children face abuse in Israeli military courts

5 November 2011

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Israel’s prolonged occupation has led to astonishing detention statistics. Since 1967, over 700,000 Palestinians have been detained: this figure amounts to around 20 percent of the existing Palestinian population in the OPT, which consists of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Among the most egregious aspects of Israeli detention policy is its treatment of child prisoners.