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

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Anthony Cordesman: Obama, Netanyahu, and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations

15 May 2009

On the eve of Netanyahu’s While House visit on Monday, a report by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & and International Studies was released today, reiterating earlier findings (see below). It criticizes any possible Israeli military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and it points to the potential ramifications such an attack, and the continued Israeli-Palestinian stalement, may have on U.S.-Israel relations.

“President Barack Obama’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raises some of the most serious issues in U.S.-Israeli relations. It is premature to judge how the Netanyahu government will deal with either the Arab-Israeli issue or Iran, but both could be major sources of tension if the two countries do not go deeper than their usual dialogue. The United States and Israel are allies, but this scarcely means that they have identical strategic interests or that U.S. ties to Israel cannot be a liability as well as an asset.”

Israeli attack on Iran: A Study of Options and Consequences

15 May 2009

“[A]ll the declarations about developing the operational capability of IAF aircraft so they can attack the nuclear facilities in Iran, and the empty promises about the ability of the Arrow missile defense system to contend effectively with the Shahab-3, not only do not help bolster Israel’s power of deterrence, but actually undermine the process of building it and making it credible in Iranian eyes.

The time has come to adopt new ways of thinking. No more fiery declarations and empty threats, but rather a carefully weighed policy grounded in sound strategy. Ultimately, in an era of a multi-nuclear Middle East, all sides will have a clear interest to lower tension and not to increase it.”

New West Bank roads jeopardizing chances for peace accord

14 May 2009

[T]he area known as E1, linking the settlement to East Jerusalem… is the only area that [candidate] Netanyahu explicitly committed to developing… His political rival… Ehud Barak also publicly expressed support for building there… All of these developments share a single common denominator – by taking “a dunam here and a dunam there,” they are tightening Israel’s grip on the land… These steps seriously diminish the already narrow possibility of reaching a final-status agreement with the Palestinians. Over the past decade Palestinian officials have hinted that they could come to terms with Ma’aleh Adumim, but that willingness is unlikely to extend to the giant “bubble” developing around the settlement.

IOA Editor: Both Likud and Labor candidates – now government partners – share the vision, plans, and actions designed to sever the West Bank in order to make a future independent Palestinian state impossible. And, “US protest,” and “Obama’s determined veto,” recently mentioned frequently in connection with Israeli settlement expansion are, so far, entirely theoretical: indeed, mere speculations.

Letter to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund

14 May 2009

“We, Israeli organizations, comprised of Jewish and Palestinian women and men and dedicated to building a just peace and to promoting human rights and equal civil rights in Israel/Palestine, call upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory…” [Signed by 20 Israeli/Palestinian organizations]

Gideon Levy: Twilight Zone / PlayStation

14 May 2009

Mohammed Abu Akrub returned from school one afternoon and stood in the street with a few friends, doing nothing, according to him. Six Israel Defense Forces jeeps appeared suddenly and announced a curfew in the village. That was the start of the abuse of Mohammed and his five friends – abuse that continued until dawn, when the six were tossed out of the jeeps, wounded and battered.

IDF probing whether troops forced Gaza man to drink urine

14 May 2009

The latest from the “Most Moral Army in the World:” [C]omplaint was submitted by Omar al-Qanoa to the IDF military advocate general by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

Adam Shatz: Mishal’s luck

14 May 2009

Reviewing Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas by Paul McGeough, Adam Shatz provides an excellent historical review of Hamas: tracing its history and Israel’s role in helping it become a prominent power in the Palestinian social and political arenas.

Palestinians and Israeli Jews to reach equal number by 2016, data shows

13 May 2009

The Jewish and Arab populations in Israel and the Palestinian territories will reach an equal number by 2016, according to figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

Haaretz reporter Amira Hass arrested upon leaving Gaza

12 May 2009

Israel Police on Tuesday detained Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass upon her exit from the Gaza Strip, where she had been living and reporting over the last few months.

Amira Hass: Israel knows that peace just doesn’t pay

11 May 2009

Successive Israeli governments since 1993 certainly must have known what they were doing, being in no hurry to make peace with the Palestinians. As representatives of Israeli society, these governments understood that peace would involve serious damage to national interests.

Anti-Israel activists urge Leonard Cohen to nix Tel-Aviv show

11 May 2009

A recent letter, co-signed by a hundred Israelis and Palestinians, stated that Israel’s “ruthless, criminal bashing of the Palestinians has met with little international criticism.”

IOA Editor: Using “anti-Israel,” rather than “anti-occupation,” activists, even when referring to Jewish Israelis, reflects the difficult challenges facing boycott activists: On this matter, Haaretz echoes Israel’s official propaganda machine.

Parks Fortify Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem

10 May 2009

UN Special Coordinator: “Everything Israel does now will be highly contentious,” warning the Israeli authorities “not to take actions that could pour oil on the fire.”
Israel’s Interior Minister: “This is the land of our sovereignty. Jewish settlement there is our right.”
Tel Aviv University Archeologist: “The sanctity of the City of David is newly manufactured and is a crude amalgam of history, nationalism and quasi-religious pilgrimage… the past is used to disenfranchise and displace people in the present.”

Daniel Levy: From ’comfort zone’ to ’decision zone’

8 May 2009

With renewed American interest in delivering a two-state reality, the leaderships in both Jerusalem and Ramallah appear to share one common goal: finding a comfort zone, a place where the peace process can continue ad infinitum, and hard decisions can be avoided.

Netanyahu: Israel will never withdraw from Golan

8 May 2009

“Remaining on the Golan will ensure Israel has a strategic advantage in cases of military conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said during a briefing he gave to the reporters.

Settlement expansion seeing biggest boost since 2003

7 May 2009

West Bank construction has been accelerating for several months, putting Israel on a collision course with a U.S. administration taking a hard line on settlement expansion…

IOA Editor: The extent of this widely predicted “collision” remains to be seen.

UN demand for IDF compensation in Gaza could reach $11m

6 May 2009

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Israel Tuesday of lying about attacks on the facilities, including one said to have killed more than 40 people outside a school compound… [A] UN investigation found conclusively that Israel was responsible for attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the organization’s Gaza headquarters. Some of the weapons used in these attacks contained white phosphorous.

Hasan Abu-Nimah: Ban Ki-moon’s moral failure

6 May 2009

The UN does not exist only to protect its personnel and installations. The UN flag alone ought to provide that kind of real protection… But Israel has repeatedly attacked UN facilities, schools, peacekeeping forces and personnel in Palestine and Lebanon knowing full well that it, not the UN, enjoys immunity for its actions. The next time Israel attacks a UN facility, part of the responsibility will lie with those who failed to act correctly this time around.

Rela Mazali: Israel’s war against youth

5 May 2009

Protesters, activists and draft evaders are being targeted by a broad programme of state repression.

Dahpna Golan: For sale – Great location

5 May 2009

[The White House] could also inform the Israeli prime minister and his cohorts that they will be welcome to come and discuss continued American support once construction for Israelis in the occupied territories has truly come to an end.

PA working to root out Hamas, Hezbollah secret agents

5 May 2009

Israeli security sources said that the PA has made a focused effort to uncover foreign agents… Israel passed on the handling of the containment effort to the PA… [T]he Palestinians are more effective in this role than the Israel Defense Forces or the Shin Bet security services.

Bashir Abu-Manneh: The Lessons of Gaza 2009

5 May 2009

Months before the expiration of the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which Israel violated and refused to renew, the IDF began its preparations. Palestinians needed to be punished for supporting and democratically electing Hamas, for resisting the Israeli occupation, and for believing that their national rights are within the realm of possibility.

Stephen R. Shalom: The United States and Gaza

5 May 2009

But in creating this nightmare for the people of Gaza, Israel didn’t act alone.

It had the support of Egypt, which kept the Rafah crossing closed. It had the support of the European Union, which joined in the shunning of the elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

And most importantly, Israel had the decisive support of the U.S. government. Many of the weapons used by the Israelis in their ferocious assault were provided by the United States: the aircraft, the helicopters, the bunker-buster missiles. But the United States provided as well crucial diplomatic backing, making sure that no resolution would emerge from the Security Council that could interfere with Israel’s agenda.

Palestinian and Israeli Human Rights Organisations call for End to International Donor Complicity in Israeli Violations of International Law

4 May 2009

[A]s Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, we must note that by agreeing to reconstruction without specific, binding assurances from the State of Israel, international donors are effectively underwriting Israel’s illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Poll: Most Jewish Israelis back attack on Iran

4 May 2009

A large majority of Israeli Jews support military action aimed at destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to a survey sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.

David Shulman: Pogrom at Um Safa

3 May 2009

For the last ten days or so, settlers from Bat ‘Ayin in the so-called Etzion Bloc have been paying violent daily visits to their Palestinian neighbors in Um Safa… They’ve already killed four innocents, and another eleven or twelve have been wounded by gunfire… the soldiers have apparently been making common cause with these settlers, opening fire readily at the villagers.

Gideon Levy: Poets beware

3 May 2009

Yitzhak Laor, our best protest poet, may soon face arrest. On Independence Day eve he published a poem in Haaretz’s literary supplement with the lines: “Perhaps shame prevents me from getting up to embrace my son / And warning him of those who want to enlist him.” Arresting Laor for having written such lines may sound like fiction, but something similar has already happened.

Regrettable statistical error

2 May 2009

B. Michael says official Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics annual Independence Day report claiming that Jews comprise 75% of Israel’s population is inaccurate.

End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel

1 May 2009

Dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are demolished each year because they do not have planning permits. Critics say the demolitions are part of an effort to extend Israeli control as Jewish settlements continue to expand.

Photographer Ryuichi Hirokawa’s best shot

30 April 2009

I took this in 2002, at Al-Ram checkpoint on the West Bank. All the checkpoints had been closed by Israeli troops and these women were demonstrating to have them opened, so that food and medical supplies could come through. An hour before, a group of men had been demonstrating, but the soldiers pulled out their batons so the women – who were both Palestinian and Israeli – moved to the front.

Israel Stripping West Bank Quarries

30 April 2009

Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din is taking the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Israeli civil administration and a number of Israeli mining companies to court [for] illegally stripping Palestinian West Bank quarries of raw construction material for the benefit of the Israeli construction industry and the building of illegal Israeli settlements.

Meron Benvenisti: The binationalism vogue

30 April 2009

But in any event, discussion about a binational state should not be of interest only to the radical left. For if the two-state option melts away, the burden of coping with a binational reality will fall on all of us.

John Pilger: Obama’s 100 Days – The Mad Men Did Well

30 April 2009

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the power of advertising – from the effects of smoking to politics – as he reaches behind the facade of of the first 100 days President Barack Obama.

Israel warns EU to stop criticizing Netanyahu government

30 April 2009

“A public confrontation was created that required Prime Minister Netanyahu, and even opposition head Tzipi Livni, to intervene. We have noted that the large European countries have respected our request and are granting the government time, but it is important that Europe be uniform in this matter… Israel is asking Europe to lower the tone and conduct a discreet dialog… However, if these declarations continue, Europe will not be able to be part of the diplomatic process”

Israeli Arabs mark 61st anniversary of Nakba

29 April 2009

Hadash Chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh: “Passing our heritage from one generation to the next is essential for our steadfastness and survival in our homeland. Our survival is not open to interpretation or negotiation, and is our formative feature as a community that narrowly escaped the threat of expulsion and remained in its country.”

Yad Vashem fires employee who compared Holocaust to Nakba

29 April 2009

“Yad Vashem talks about the Holocaust survivors’ arrival in Israel and about creating a refuge here for the world’s Jews. I said there were people who lived on this land and mentioned that there are other traumas that provide other nations with motivation,” Shapira said.

Scholars condemn attack on academic freedom at UC-Santa Barbara

29 April 2009

Chomsky: “They try to label any criticism as anti-Semitic, but they never respond to the criticism itself, because they can’t… Decades ago, the ADL was an authentic and serious organization that defended civic rights, but in the last 40 years it’s become a Stalinist-style organization dedicated to supporting anything Israel does and to destroying all opposition to Israeli policies.”