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

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Aluf Benn: What Obama needs to do for Mideast peace

25 September 2009

Only one thing does bother the Israelis, according to the polls: fear of a diplomatic embargo and an international boycott. The Goldstone Report and the International Court of Justice in The Hague are arousing concern and interest, far more than Obama’s peace speeches.

IOA Editor: The importance of this commentary is the confirmation of the growing public concern in Israel about possible global isolation due to the boycott campaign and the increasing, however slowly, diplomatic pressure. The assessment of Obama’s ME failure is rather narrow, leaving out the close alliance between the US and Israel – the fundamental reason for Obama’s non-action. See: US ships arrive ahead of joint drill, covered here earlier this week.

Jonathan Cook: Israel bids to stop interracial dating

25 September 2009

“The Jewish soul is a precious, all-too-rare resource, and we are not prepared to give up on even a single one”

Death in the Samouni compound

25 September 2009

The soldiers left behind graffiti in the home of Rashad Samouni, which Haaretz saw and photographed: “1 down, 999,999 to go,” “The People of Israel lives,” “God is the king, there is nothing besides him,” “Almighty God, we love you,” “We have no one to rely on but our father in heaven,” “Arabs need to die,” “Less than 300 days left ’til I’m released,” “We haven’t drank our fill of blood.”

Gideon Levy: Netanyahu’s speech / Cheapening the Holocaust

25 September 2009

Then came the kicker: Operation Cast Lead was a pinpoint attack. Israel telephoned thousands of people to tell them to leave their homes. Where to, Mr. Prime Minister? Into the sea? He said the IDF, which killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, exhibited unprecedented restraint.

Israel relieved as Goldstone Report scantly mentioned at UN

24 September 2009

Following the release last week of the Goldstone commission findings which accused Israel of committing war crimes during its offensive in the Gaza Strip, [Israeli] diplomatic officials feared that the report would weigh heavily on the agenda of this week’s United Nations General Assembly meeting. Israel’s fears proved to have no basis in fact as the report was cited by just a few world leaders.

Daoud Kuttab: Obama should publicly declare Israel’s failure to honor international obligation

24 September 2009

While Obama, Abbas and Netanyahu are posing for the photos, President Obama should use the presence of the press to state what the Road Map obliges the Quartet to do. Publicly point his finger to the party which has not fulfilled its obligation to the international will.

ICC may try IDF officer in wake of Goldstone Gaza report

24 September 2009

A senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague said Monday that he is considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an Israel Defense Forces reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed during the IDF’s three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip this winter.

Appeal filed against Spain’s shelving of Gaza probe

24 September 2009

In their appeal filed Thursday the two civil parties argued that “there is no independent judicial system in Israel and that the current universal jurisdiction applies in the case of Gaza”.

Talbiyeh, Jerusalem house for sale

23 September 2009

The house was built, in great luxury, in the late 1920s by the Christian Palestinian family headed by Elias Mughanam, a lawyer who was the secretary of the Palestinian Congress. The asking price? US$9,000,000. Not a bad return for what was, 61 years ago, a free or nearly-free house for the new “owners.”

30 Religious Leaders Send Letter of Support to Obama for Comprehensive Middle East Peace

23 September 2009

MPAC leaders joined more than 30 of the nation’s most prominent and diverse religious leaders in signing onto a public letter in support of “strong U.S. leadership to achieve a negotiated sustainable resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the letter, which was coordinated by Churches for Middle East Peace, the leaders said that the opportunity for a two-state solution for achieving peace and security was “rapidly closing.”

The anatomy of Finkelstein’s Monster

23 September 2009

The reasons America’s Zionist sympathizers feel compelled to silence Finkelstein will be no surprise to habitués of this region. He is among a handful of US intellectuals to present forceful, reasoned and systematic critique of Israeli policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian people.

MK Barakeh: Gaps a result of systematic discrimination

23 September 2009

Hadash Chairman Mohammad Barakeh said the statistics were the result of long term government policies: “We are living in two states here. This is the result of actions by generations of Israeli governments. The data speaks for itself… It’s a policy meant to place the Arab citizens under siege and it translates into poverty”

Goldstone’s gambit

23 September 2009

“I was driven particularly because I thought the outcome might, in a small way, assist the peace process,” he told the Forward. “I really thought I was one person who could achieve an even-handed mission.”

Richard Falk: The Goldstone report and the battle for legitimacy

22 September 2009

Ever since the Gaza war the solidity of Jewish support for Israel has been fraying at the edges, and will likely now fray much further. More globally, a very robust boycott and divestment movement has been gaining momentum ever since the Gaza war, and the Goldstone report will clearly lend added support to such initiatives. There is a growing sense around the world that the only chance for the Palestinians to achieve some kind of just peace depends on shaping the outcome by way of the symbols of legitimacy, what I have called the legitimacy war. Increasingly, the Palestinians have been winning this second non-military war.

Despite Summit – West Bank settlement lays groundwork for new neighborhood

22 September 2009

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to meet U.S. President Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday in New York, workers in the West Bank settlement of Betar Ilit will continue… laying the groundwork for new homes… The fact that the hill is outside the perimeter of existing buildings runs contrary to the Israeli contention that construction is being performed within the existing built-up areas.

IOA Editor: Business as usual: Under US diplomatic blessings, and naval protection, the Empire continues to grow – “dunam here, and dunam there,” as the old Zionist expression goes.

How Israel silenced its Gaza war protesters

22 September 2009

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

Israeli textbook under review for giving Palestinian version of ‘nakba’

22 September 2009

The Education Ministry will be reexamining a new Hebrew-language history textbook… [that] gives expression to the Palestinian perspective on the Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic), which is the Palestinians’ term for what happened to them in the War of Independence.

Spain boycotts Ariel college for being on ‘occupied territory’

22 September 2009

“The decision was made by the Spanish government based on the fact that the university is located in occupied territory in the West Bank. The Spanish government is committed to uphold the international agreement under the framework of the European Union and the United Nations regarding this geographical area.”

Udi Aloni: Seinfeld, you were wrong to condemn our Toronto protest

22 September 2009

Maoz did not dedicate his film “Lebanon” to the victims of that criminal war, the product of the Israeli government’s arrogant and violent brain. Nor did he ask forgiveness for his participation in the war. Nor did he speak of the Palestinians who are still suffering under a terrible occupation at the hands of the same army with which Shmulik had served in Lebanon. He dedicated his film to the soldiers all over the world who return from battle with psychological damage, and who have not yet recovered even though they have children and families.

American Task Force for Lebanon Legislative Council: Cluster Bombs – Letter to Obama

21 September 2009

Write your Senator: The threat that cluster munitions pose to civilian populations is well known due to their wide area effect and large number of unexploded submunitions or bomblets. In some cases, up to 40% of cluster submunitions fail to explode initially and, in effect, become de facto landmines.

Anas Altikriti: Hamas is not al-Qaida

21 September 2009

Meshal clearly stated that the Palestinian struggle was anything but a conflict between Muslims and the Jewish people. He insisted that the Palestinians were fighting against the occupier who had dispossessed them of their homes and lands, regardless of religion, creed or race.

Yitzhak Laor: The national choir

21 September 2009

Israeli democracy functions for Jews, who are well represented, but has been denying any representation to 4 million people for 42 years. It allows itself to do whatever it wants with them in the name of the democratic “national consensus.” Who will protect them?

US ships arrive ahead of joint drill

21 September 2009

US Navy missile ships started arriving in Israel on Sunday ahead of next month’s joint missile defense exercise between the IDF and the American military’s European Command.

Akiva Eldar: A summit can be a very dangerous thing

21 September 2009

The all-too-long history of the “peace process” has taught us that a summit can be a desirable goal, but also a place of unsurpassable danger. When participants come with insufficient preparation, and without a safety net, the depth of the fall can be as high as the summit itself.

IOA Editor: Eldar rightly points out that Hamas will not miss “an opportunity to present the summit as yet more proof of its claim… that support for Fatah is flimsy.” But he does not analyze what a shift in favor of Hamas would mean for Israel. Historically, Hamas has been Israel’s preferred enemy: the argument that Hamas cannot be a partner, although fundamentally wrong, has been readily accepted in the West. Thus, as Hamas’ popularity among Palestinians grows stronger, Israel can more easily repeat the convenient untruth that “there is no Palestinian partner,” when it is the Israeli government itself that refuses to become a partner to a peace agreement.

Read the following IOA items for coverage of Hamas and its attitude toward agreements with Israel:

1. Israel could have made peace with Hamas under Yassin
2. Adam Shatz: Mishal’s luck

Israel’s ‘Prisoners of Conscience’

20 September 2009

Both young women come from the most recent refusal movement… against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. In December 2008, Amnesty International officially endorsed this campaign of solidarity led by American activist group Jewish Voice for Peace, garnering 20,000 letters of support. Amnesty International considers them to be “prisoners of conscience” and “calls for their immediate and unconditional release.”

Juan Cole: Ahmadinejad Spews Raving Lunatic Anti-Semitism on ‘Jerusalem Day’

19 September 2009

One of the dangers of the right-wing Zionists’ tactic of smearing as “anti-Semitic” all criticism of any Israeli policy is precisely that they end up trivializing this deadly, soul-killing phenomenon, and by crying wolf so often may actually decrease vigilance toward the real thing.

IAF chief: We must stop S-300 delivery

18 September 2009

Israel needs to make every effort to stop the S-300 missile defense system from reaching countries where the air force may need to fly, IAF commander Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan has told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.

UN General Assembly president “frustrated” in his attempts to end blockade of Gaza

18 September 2009

“My greatest frustration this year has been the Palestine situation,” he told the 192-nation assembly in his final address on 14 September… He found it “disgraceful” the way influential members of the UN Security Council had shown “passivity and apparent indifference” about the long and cruel Israeli blockade of Gaza.

IOA Editor: Thank you, Messrs Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and our very own Mr. Obama.

Nuclear watchdog voices ‘concern’ at Israel

18 September 2009

Initially, Western states tried to stop the resolution from going to a vote, arguing it would be counterproductive to single out Israel, particularly after a resolution had been passed the day before calling on all states in the Middle East to foreswear nuclear weapons.

AHAVA Occupied for a Second Time in support of Palestine

18 September 2009

At 11am today two people entered the Ahava store in Monmoth Street, Covent Garden and closed the shop by locking themselves inside. Under the banner of ‘Stolen Beauty from Stolen Land’, they set out to highlight the sale of beauty products manufactured on illegal Israeli Settlements on Occupied Palestinian land.

Many delays on Jerusalem rail line

18 September 2009

Jonathan Cook: When the transit system contract was signed in 2005, Ariel Sharon, the prime minister at the time, said it would “sustain Jerusalem for eternity as the capital of the Jewish people”. Omar Barghouti, a founder of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement, which has been targeting Veolia and Alstom over their involvement, wrote this month in the Jerusalem Quarterly magazine that the railway was part of “a comprehensive, long-term strategy… to cement the integration of those [settlement] blocs into an ever sprawling ‘Greater Jerusalem”.

Brzezinski: Block Israeli attack on Iran – by force, if necessary

18 September 2009

“What if [the Israelis] fly over anyway?”
“Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.”

Ken Livingstone interviews Hamas leader

17 September 2009

The conflict is the outcome of aggression and occupation. Our struggle against the Israelis is not because they are Jewish, but because they invaded our homeland and dispossessed us. We do not accept that because the Jews were once persecuted in Europe they have the right to take our land and throw us out. The injustices suffered by the Jews in Europe were horrible and criminal, but were not perpetrated by the Palestinians or the Arabs or the Muslims.

Khaled Amayreh: Revolving doors

17 September 2009

American failure to pressure Israel is increasingly frustrating the Palestinian leadership which dreads a repetition of the futile peacemaking efforts that characterised the Bush administration. One Palestinian official was quoted this week as saying that the Mitchell approach was “unconvincing and raises a lot of question marks”.

Richard Goldstone: Justice in Gaza

17 September 2009

I ACCEPTED with hesitation my United Nations mandate to investigate alleged violations of the laws of war and international human rights during Israel’s three-week war in Gaza last winter. The issue is deeply charged and politically loaded. I accepted because the mandate of the mission was to look at all parties: Israel; Hamas, which controls Gaza; and other armed Palestinian groups. I accepted because my fellow commissioners are professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation. But above all, I accepted because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm.

TUC backs boycott of Israeli goods

17 September 2009

The TUC today backed a targeted boycott of Israeli goods originating from illegal settlements and an end to arms sales to Israel to ramp up the pressure “for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories”. The decision to step up its position was triggered by widespread dismay by unions at the Israeli offensive in Gaza in January.