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

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Israel won’t reveal how many Palestinians are questioned by Shin Bet without a lawyer

31 May 2010

The number of Palestinians under questioning by the Shin Bet security service who are not permitted to meet with an attorney is a state secret, the State Prosecutor’s Office told the High Court of Justice last week.

Sephora taken to court over products from Israeli brand Ahava

30 May 2010

LVMH-owned Sephora has been taken to court by the Palestinian rights organisation CAPJPO-EuroPalestine over the sale of cosmetics brand Ahava, according to press reports. Separately, the US women’s peace organisation, CodePink, organised a boycott of the products.

Israel stations nuclear missile subs off Iran

30 May 2010

The submarines of Flotilla 7… have visited the Gulf before. But the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels. The flotilla’s commander, identified only as “Colonel O”, told an Israeli newspaper: “We are an underwater assault force. We’re operating deep and far, very far, from our borders.” Each of the submarines has a crew of 35 to 50, commanded by a colonel capable of launching a nuclear cruise missile.

UK Ministers move to change universal jurisdiction law

30 May 2010

“It is disgusting that the Foreign Office is exaggerating the impact on the peace process to get a few people who are suspects of very serious international crimes off the hook,” said Daniel Machover, partner at the law firm Hickman & Rose.

Gideon Levy: Gaza flotilla drives Israel into a sea of stupidity

30 May 2010

And facing them on the seas has been the Israeli ship of fools, floating but not knowing where or why. Why detain people? That’s how it is. Why a siege? That’s how it is. It’s like the Noam Chomsky affair all over again, but big time this time. Of course the peace flotilla will not bring peace, and it won’t even manage to reach the Gaza shore. The action plan has included dragging the ships to Ashdod port, but it has again dragged us to the shores of stupidity and wrongdoing.

Zvi Barel: Absentee loyalty

30 May 2010

The word “Arab” is not mentioned in the legislation, but the bill is directed against the Arabs. Will anyone consider stripping Anat Kamm of her citizenship if she is convicted of espionage? … The problem is a viewpoint that considers a community, by its mere existence, ethnic origin, language and links with what are described as enemy states as the target for this legislation. Without Arabs there would be no need for such obscene bills, because only Jews can be loyal to the state.

UN aid group: Israel deliberately hampering West Bank, Gaza relief efforts

30 May 2010

A United Nations humanitarian relief agency is accusing Israel of deliberately disrupting the international community’s aid efforts for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. According to a special report released by the UN’s OCHA, Israel is not permitting construction of buildings for needy Palestinians and is encumbering on the freedom of movement of aid groups and their staffs.

Nehemia Shtrasler: Our bleeding-heart prime minister

29 May 2010

How can we rely on those Palestinians? For 43 years, they have been building the settlers’ homes with the sweat of their brows, paving roads for them and building their fences, and then suddenly, out of the blue, a boycott? Is that the way for partners to behave? Is that how they pay us back after we educated them for so many years to be our hewers of wood and drawers of water?

East Jerusalem eviction orders threaten new embarrassment for Netanyahu

29 May 2010

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads to Washington in a much-feted effort to restore damaged ties with the United States, new tensions in East Jerusalem threaten to rekindle a diplomatic row over Jewish building beyond the Green Line in the city. On Saturday lawyers served eviction notices to two Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, a focus of clashes between Arab residents and settlers.

Adam Shatz: Mubarak’s last breath

28 May 2010

[Mubarak] has developed a partnership with Israel on trade and ‘security’ that is far more extensive than Sadat could have imagined. Their intelligence services work closely together, and Mubarak has supplied weapons and training to the Palestinian Authority in its war against Hamas. The government is also doing what it can to maintain the siege in Gaza.

Jonathan Cook: Israeli human rights activist – “I was tortured”

28 May 2010

Mr Makhoul’s arrest had angered many in Israel’s Palestinian minority, nearly a fifth of the population, who suspect he is being persecuted for his leading role in promoting internationally the boycott movement against Israel and his prominent opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza nearly 18 months ago.

Adalah updates on Makhoul and Said, and on torture methods used against Makhoul

27 May 2010

Adalah: “Trumped-up accusations made in indictments have become alarmingly common practice in security cases in Israel. They aim to justify the complete isolation and use of illegal methods of interrogation against detainees, and the imposition of gag orders on their cases.”

Israeli Arab activist ‘spied on IDF bases for Hezbollah’

27 May 2010

In indictment against Ameer Makhoul, state prosecutors claim prominent political campaigner was recruited in Denmark to spy for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah… Makhoul has denied all charges against him.

Amnesty: 4 of 5 Gazans dependent on aid due to blockade

27 May 2010

In annual report, international human rights group says Israeli blockade ‘hit hardest on the most vulnerable – children, the elderly, the homeless and the sick’; claims Israel ‘forcibly evicts Palestinians, demolishes their homes and expropriates their land.’

Janan Abdu, Issam Makhoul: Ameer Makhoul’s arrest is an assault on all Palestinians in Israel

26 May 2010

Today is the 21st day since the arrest of Ameer Makhoul at his home in Haifa, Israel, under the cover of darkness, by officers of the International Crimes Investigation Unit and General Security Service (GSS or Shabak). The arrest was conducted in a brutal and terrifying manner.

Noam Chomsky: US must change policy before Israel-Palestine peace deal can be reached

26 May 2010

Citing the US and Israeli refusal of the Arab Peace Initiative since 1976 until this day, Chomsky countered the mainstream argument that it is Palestinian rejectionism that is blocking a settlement. “These facts are not part of general discourse because they lead to the wrong conclusion. The most crucial facts are invisible if they do not conform to the interests of power,” he said. “If the US changes its policy, Israel has no option but to go along – the parameters agreed upon at Taba would be a start.”

Aluf Benn: Prayer for the health of the rais

26 May 2010

Of all the world’s statesmen, the one closest to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. They have met four times since Netanyahu returned to power, and unlike U.S. President Barack Obama, Mubarak has no qualms about shaking Netanyahu’s hand in public. “Ties are much closer than they seem,” said a highly placed Israeli source.

IOA Editor: A credible analysis, from an Israeli-standpoint, of the very close relationship between the Mubarak government and Israel.

Jonathan Cook: Israel’s nukes out of the shadows

26 May 2010

Israel faces unprecedented pressure to abandon its official policy of “ambiguity” on its possession of nuclear weapons as the international community meets at the UN in New York this week to consider banning such arsenals from the Middle East. Israel’s equivocal stance on its atomic status was shattered by reports that it offered to sell nuclear-armed Jericho missiles to S. Africa’s apartheid regime in 1975.

Ameer Makhoul to face charge of wartime aid to enemy state

26 May 2010

Makhoul’s brother, former MK Issam Makhoul… accused the Shin Bet of employing illegitimate means to “trump up” charges against his brother. The Shin Bet has denied allegations that it used torture to extract information from the suspects. “We will demand that an outside body headed by a judge investigate this matter,” Issam Makhoul said. “We will not hesitate to appeal to an international agency. There’s no doubt that we are about to see a trumped-up case manufactured by the Shin Bet, which operated in dark corners and backrooms to put this together. The results of their investigation should be viewed with doubt.”

Controversial ‘loyalty’ bill clears first Knesset hurdle

26 May 2010

The bill, which was proposed a few weeks ago, struck resonance with a ministerial committee that on Sunday approved the bill, following the arrest this month of Israeli Arab Ameer Makhoul on suspicion of spying for Hezbollah.

Bil’in filmmaker barred entry to Israel despite acquittal

26 May 2010

Although photojournalist Imad Bornat from Bil’in was acquitted over a year ago on charges of assaulting an officer, police still regard his case as “open” and continue to bar him from entering Israel.

Akiva Eldar: Who says Jews and racism don’t go together?

25 May 2010

Defense Minister Peres, 1974: “This cooperation [Israel - South-Africa] is based not only on common interests and on the determination to resist equally our enemies, but also on the unshakable foundations of our common hatred of injustice and refusal to submit to it.”

President Peres on judge Richard Goldstone: “A small man, devoid of any sense of justice.”

Tough Love: Israeli civil rights lawyer Emily Schaeffer

25 May 2010

“I guess most Israelis would view me as a traitor… They would ask what right does someone who wasn’t born in Israel and who didn’t serve in the army have to criticize the state? But I came here out of great love, and I don’t intend to keep quiet just because I came from afar. I believe that there is no choice, that Israelis and Palestinians will live together. When I try to build connections between the two sides, I’m working for Israel’s good. The Bil’in people are very special… But they are not a rare species. There are many Palestinians like them.”

Fraying Jewish-Arab ties could shatter calm in Israel, study warns

25 May 2010

Sixty-five percent of Arab citizens believe in a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, compared to 90 percent seven years ago. Forty percent said they don’t believe in Israel’s judicial system, and a similar number said they support boycotting Knesset elections (compared to one in three in 2003).

Neve Gordon: Even picnics in Israel are political

25 May 2010

Nawi’s conviction points to a relatively recent development regarding the restriction of resistance, to extremely passive modes of protest. And, in some cases, even these kinds of protests are prohibited, as in Sheikh Jarrah where activists are repeatedly arrested simply for demonstrating against the seizure of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

Avi Issacharoff: Why is Israel torturing the Palestinian residents of Sheikh Sa’ad?

25 May 2010

The Palestinian village of Sheikh Sa’ad has been essentially disconnected from the outside world by the Israeli defense establishment. This is one of those stories that make me, as an Israeli, feel truly shameful.

Al-Jazeera video: 10 Years to Israel’s Withdrawal from South Lebanon

24 May 2010

Review and debate, including Robert Fisk, Charlie Wolfe, Ibrahim Mousawi

Prints by Israeli artist Shimon Tzabar to finance Palestinian artists under siege

24 May 2010

The Israeli artist and writer, Shimon Tzabar, lived in London in a self imposed political exile, in protest against the Israeli occupation. Shimon died in 2007, but his legacy of supporting the Palestinians is still alive. Four limited edition prints will be sold to raise funds for Palestinian artists in Yibna refugee camp in Gaza. The prints prices range from £400-600.

Amira Hass: Otherwise Occupied – the irrational stage

24 May 2010

“Denying my entry to the West Bank was a minor event, but significant because it indicates irrational behavior on the part of Israel,” the linguist Noam Chomsky said at the start of his lecture last Tuesday to a few dozen students and faculty members of Bir Zeit University. He delivered his lecture, “Americans and the World,” by video conference, of course: He in Amman, his audience in one of the university’s lecture halls.

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

23 May 2010

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

Noam Chomsky: Israeli TV interview

23 May 2010

Noam Chomsky interviewed by a raving Israeli Channel 2 News reporter.

Israel and apartheid: a marriage of convenience and military might

23 May 2010

Alon Liel, former Israeli ambassador to Pretoria: “When we came to the crossroads in 86-87, in which the foreign ministry said we have to switch from white to black, the security establishment said, ‘You’re crazy, it’s suicidal’. They were saying we wouldn’t have military and aviation industries unless we had had South Africa as our main client from the mid-1970s; they saved Israel. By the way, it’s probably true.”

Protest the barring of Noam Chomsky: Sign Letter to Israel’s Minister of the Interior

23 May 2010

Please consider adding your name to the protest of Israel’s barring Noam Chomsky from entering the West Bank in order to deliver a speech at Birzeit University.

Ahmed Tibi Interview: On being an Arab lawmaker in Israel

23 May 2010

The state land authority has been allowed to hire or purchase land only for Jews. Non-Jews are not allowed… land that was ours in the past and confiscated. In the early 1950s, we [Palestinian Arab citizens] owned 80% of the private land. Now we own 3% of the private land.

Omar Baddar: Missing the Nuance – Abunimah’s Criticism of Noam Chomsky

23 May 2010

[N]either Chomsky nor I are have any illusions about the limits of the aforementioned initiatives or their possible (if not probable) failure in the face of Israel’s hubris and the power disparity between the parties. But Chomsky also alluded to the lesson of a movement that succeeded, not by waiting for favorable political conditions to hand it the vision it sought, but by moving ahead with building its project and waiting for the right political conditions to incrementally achieve what it did.

‘Shame on you, democracy,’ Vanunu yells as he returns to prison

23 May 2010

Mordechai Vanunu: “Shame on you Israel… The stupid Shin Bet and Mossad spies are putting me back in prison after 24 years of speaking nothing but the truth. Shame on you democracy, the Knesset, synagogues and the world media. Shame on you all the Arabs that are allowing me to be put back in prison. Shame on you Senate, congress, and the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency for not protecting my freedom. Shame on you all the world’s religions, the stupid spies, the Jews, Christians and Muslims… Everyone knows that Israel has nuclear weapons, but no one is talking about it… The world doesn’t want nuclear weapons – not in Israel, not in the Middle East and not anywhere in the world.”

IOA Editor: In the original Hebrew version of this news story, Haaretz conforms to common Israeli practice by referring to Vanunu as the “nuclear spy” – knowing fully well that whatever he did involved no espionage whatsoever.