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

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Lamis Andoni: The Arab world must face its demons

10 January 2011

In the wake of the recent attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, warned that Christians face a campaign of “religious cleansing in the Middle East”. But, given Western governments’ colonial history and double standards on human rights, Arab Christians would be better served by an end to destructive Western intervention in the region than by sympathetic statements.

Gideon Levy: The IDF’s bag of lies

9 January 2011

Instead of working toward revealing the truth behind the recent death of an anti-fence demonstrator the IDF is behaving like the propaganda ministry of an authoritarian regime.

Richard Falk: Hopes of Gaza cast in lead

8 January 2011

Israel is gearing up for another major offensive into Gaza, yet the world community still remains bafflingly silent.

Amira Hass: Gaza on the edge of no return

8 January 2011

“Although it was not my usual custom, I made a point of kissing my children every night,” one young father from Gaza City told me. “I never knew which of us would still be alive the next day, and I wanted to say goodbye properly.”

Gideon Levy: When did it become illegal to be a Leftist in Israel?

6 January 2011

It’s high time a legal ban on the Israeli left be instituted. Why do we continue beating around the bush? Why do we need such a taxing, exhaustive legislative process in enacting law after law? What’s the use of all these various proposals and amendments? In lieu of all the aforementioned, let’s just do one very simple thing: declare the left an illegal entity in the State of Israel. From then on, whoever thinks left, acts left, demonstrates left or tolerates left will belong in jail.

Danny Schechter: Helen Thomas – Thrown to the wolves

6 January 2011

Once you are labeled and stereotyped – especially if you are denounced as an anti-Semite – you are relegated to the fringes, pronounced a hater beyond redemption, and even beyond explanation.

‘Dangerous’ political websites blocked from viewing at Israel’s airport

6 January 2011

Breaking the Silence director: “This is an extremely absurd and stupid policy, because whoever wants to block Internet access to people at an airport will ultimately have to consider preventing them from traveling abroad.”

Knesset votes to probe Israeli groups accused of ‘delegitimizing’ IDF

5 January 2011

Panel of inquiry will primarily look into these groups’ funding sources, particularly to examine whether foreign state or terror-linked organizations are involved.

Rashid Khalidi and Aluf Benn on Charlie Rose

4 January 2011

Rashid Khalidi: “Palestinian statehood is 62 years overdue. It should have happened at the time of the partition plan, a Jewish state, an Arab state. That’s what the U.N. mandated. It’s 44 years since the West Bank and the Gaza and Jerusalem were occupied, and we’re still waiting for a peace process that is going absolutely Nowhere, in fact, has made things much worse.”

Tears and gas: a call to mobilise

4 January 2011

As 2010 came to a close in the West Bank under the regular, weekly cloud of teargas experienced among the villages bordering Israel’s 1967 Green Line, 2011 started with the death of Palestinian woman from the village of Bi’lin and the arrest of 19 Israeli activists in the Tel Aviv area.

Noam Chomsky: Breaking the Israel-Palestine Deadlock

3 January 2011

While intensively engaged in illegal settlement expansion, the government of Israel is also seeking to deal with two problems: a global campaign of what it perceives as “delegitimation” – that is, objections to its crimes and withdrawal of participation in them – and a parallel campaign of legitimation of Palestine.

We’re not looking for revenge, says family of Palestinian protester who died after rally

2 January 2011

“We have no problem will the people of Israel. We have a problem with the army and the occupation… We know that our land will be returned to us even if someone is killed every day. We say this to Netanyahu: The demonstrations here will not end until we get our land back. We believe in a popular struggle, a non-violent struggle. We don’t want a violent struggle.”

Gazan youth issue manifesto to vent their anger with all sides in the conflict

2 January 2011

An anonymous group of students has created a document to express their frustration born of Hamas’s violent crackdowns on ‘western decadence’, the destruction wreaked by Israel’s attacks and the political games played by Fatah and the UN.

Israeli forces kill female protester in Bil’in

1 January 2011

Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, was evacuated to the Ramallah hospital yesterday after inhaling massive amounts of tear-gas during the weekly protest in Bil’in, and died of poisoning this morning. Abu Rahmah was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah who was also killed during a peaceful protest in Bil’in on April 17th, 2010.

Bil’in protester dies after exposure to tear gas shot by IDF

1 January 2011

A resident of the West Bank village of Bil’in died on Saturday morning in a Ramallah hospital after she was exposed to tear gas that was shot by IDF soldiers to disperse the crowd of demonstrators against the separation wall in the village on Friday.

Gideon Levy: The year of truth

1 January 2011

At midnight, when the French champagne is flowing like water, perhaps we will understand that next year will be the last year we can still save something, and be grateful the truth came out.

Avi Shlaim: Obama and Israel – The pessimistic perspective

30 December 2010

The American-Israeli special relationship is a classic example of the tail that wags the dog. As a result of its palpable partiality towards Israel, America has lost all credibility in the eyes not only of the Palestinians but of the wider Arab and Muslim worlds. The so-called peace process has been all process and no peace. It is worse than a sham. Peace talks that go nowhere slowly provide Israel with just the cover it needs to pursue its relentlessly expansionist agenda on the West Bank.

Rabbis’ wives: Don’t date Arabs

29 December 2010

New letter signed by rabbis’ wives appeals to women urging them to stay away from Arabs. ‘As soon as they have in you in their grasp – everything becomes different. Attention will be replaced with curses, physical abuse and humiliation,’ letter states.

Amira Hass: Israel’s Qassam strikes on Gaza

29 December 2010

Vilnai is depending on Israelis’ total indifference to our Qassams: our soldiers’ nearly daily firing on Gaza civilians, regularly wounding and sometimes killing them.

Ban on Arabic in Jaffa classroom sparks protests

29 December 2010

Students question why teachers stop them from speaking Arabic, but don’t do so when immigrant students speak Russian between themselves.

‘Shin Bet tortures prisoners and denies access to lawyers’

28 December 2010

As many as 90% of Palestinian prisoners are denied this basic right despite civilian and military legislation, says study produced by Public Committee Against Torture and Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

US declined to cooperate in Dubai probe of Mabhouh killing, WikiLeaks shows

28 December 2010

The U.S. last year denied reports that it had received a request for assistance from Dubai, but a recently released WikiLeaks cable proves otherwise.

Jonathan Cook: God-TV helps Israel oust Bedouin

28 December 2010

Half a million trees planted over the past 18 months on the ancestral lands of Bedouin tribes in Israel’s Negev region were bought by a controversial Christian evangelical television channel that calls itself God-TV.

Shin Bet puts Israeli ‘anarchists’ in crosshairs

27 December 2010

Shin Bet: “[W]e know what you are doing and … it will have repercussions. At the moment, what you are doing is on the borderline of the law and it is quite possible that information on you will show your actions are illegal. We know about all your files.”

Groundbreaking report details Israel’s inhumane conditions for isolated prisoners

27 December 2010

Israel Bar Association: “Keeping human beings in such unreasonable conditions for extended periods of time, dangerous though they may be, deals a critical blow to the most basic human rights.”

‘The great book robbery’

27 December 2010

The Israeli army’s “looting” of books belonging to Palestinian intellectuals is the subject of a documentary being made by Dutch-Israeli film maker Benny Brunner. He claims as many as 30,000 Arabic books and manuscripts, some of them rare and valuable, ended up in Israel’s National Library after the 1948 war.

Daniel Blatman: 1932 is already here

27 December 2010

No society is immune to deterioration into violent racism. In the Israel of today, we can observe quite a few conditions whose presence in other societies and among other peoples led to racial separation, ethnic cleansing and even genocide. There are minority groups (Arabs and foreigners ) who are ostracized by the majority, a growing racist ideology, attempts to limit the political activities and civil rights of the minority, a tense security situation and strong political elements with vested interests in territorial expansion.

Zvi Barel: Is Judaism a race? Ask Israelis

27 December 2010

The Israeli race defines its identity as Zionism… The territory is neither that which was recognized by the UN, nor what was promised to the Jews as a national home, nor a sanctuary from anti-Semitism. Rather, it is a boundary-less sprawl that sends satellites into the land of another people and refuses to confine itself in a defined national container. The territory that has been allocated to this Israeli entity is too small for it. The state is only the beginning of the age of redemption, not its consummation.

Gaza doctor takes Israel to court

27 December 2010

A Palestinian doctor is filing a lawsuit against Israel for the death of his three daughters, just a day before the second anniversary of Israel’s war on Gaza. Dr Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish’s daughters were killed during the military assault when Israeli forces fired on his home.

Jerusalem mayor holds off eviction of settlers from East Jerusalem home

26 December 2010

“Postponing the eviction of Beit Yonatan is a premeditated move by [Jerusalem mayor] Barkat and the settlers to use the Palestinians as an excuse to avoid the order of the court,” said Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer.

Arabs flee home due to racist threats

23 December 2010

Four Muslims and a Druze forced out of rented flat in Tel Aviv after neighbors, who say rabbi told them Arabs must leave, vandalize their home and threaten to attach explosives to their car. ‘I felt humiliated by hatred,’ says Abbas, who served in IDF.

Ahmed Tibi: Jews and Arabs must fight Israel’s racism together

22 December 2010

Something evil is occurring in Israeli society. Racism and xenophobia are consuming its enlightenment and tolerance, and democracy is becoming more and more endangered. Phenomena that had been on the sidelines are now moving to the forefront.

Seattle Mideast awareness campaign: Gaza vigil and metro bus ad campaign

21 December 2010

Please come join us in a walking vigil to remember the ongoing siege and attacks on Gaza.

IOA Editor: Also, read about the group’s upcoming Seattle Metro bus ad campaign, and the predictable reactions to it.

Richard Falk: The delusions of the peace process

21 December 2010

Given [Israel's] predispositions, combined with the disparities in bargaining power between the parties, as well as the one-sided hegemonic role of the United States, who but a fool could think that a just peace could emerge from the such a deformed pattern of geopolitical diplomacy?

Nadia Hijab: The Devil’s in the Discourse

21 December 2010

Clinton illustrated how completely the administration has bought into the Israeli discourse. In her eagerness to support an Israel that is both Jewish and democratic, she skated perilously close to racism. She warned that “the long-term population trends that result from the occupation” were endangering the Zionist vision. In other words, that another four million Palestinians might soon demand equal rights in an Israel that has effectively controlled all of mandate Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea since 1967.

Jerusalem scrambles as European states move to upgrade ties with Palestinians

21 December 2010

After reports reached Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority is trying to persuade about a dozen European Union member states to upgrade the PA’s diplomatic status, the Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered every Israeli envoy abroad to begin “urgent” diplomatic activity. The aim is to thwart Palestinian efforts at drafting a United Nations resolution that would recognize a unilateral declaration of statehood and put international pressure on Israel to halt settlement construction.