20 January 2010
[I]n 1948, the Israelis wanted to create a state without Palestinians, and they almost succeeded in driving them out. In 1967, their victory reunited the refugees with those who had remained in Israel. We were scattered, they brought us back together. The Israelis are sowing their own failure by their success. The colonization of Jerusalem and the West Bank, which makes impossible a two-state solution, will force Israel to live with a sizable Arab population and to reconsider its democratic system.
IOA Editor: Sari Nusseibeh has long advocated the Two-State solution. After decades of relentless Israeli colonial settlement in the West Bank, he now sees it as a near-impossibility.
20 January 2010
Amira Hass: The Interior Ministry has stopped granting work permits to foreign nationals working in most international nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, Haaretz has learned.
IOA Editor: This is part of a broader clamp down on non-violent Occupation-resistance activities in the West Bank that has taken place in the past few months. It includes a systematic campaign to arrest Palestinian and Israeli protesters (e.g., in Bil’in, Ni’ilin, Sheikh Jarrah), to expel or prevent entry to journalists, and now to limit visa and work permits to international aid organizations. All the while, Gaza remains under a tight siege controlled by both Israel and Egypt, with US approval.
The clamp down is now mentioned in mainstream US media. The “only democracy in the Middle East” is finally getting less than favorable press, after it illegally “detained the leader of a leading Israeli human rights group during a vigil against the eviction of Palestinian families whose homes were taken by Jewish settlers.” See AP report in the Washington Post: Israel accused of silencing political protest
