The blatant attack that Ya’alon has been waging ever since he slammed the door by leaving the Israel Defense Forces has shown acute anti-democratic symptoms. Ya’alon has lashed out at the High Court of Justice in particular and the justice system in general, while expressing scandalous support for illegal settlements, making irresponsible accusations against his colleagues and superiors and stating views that are considered illegitimate even in the right wing.
IOA Editor: We continue focusing on Ya’alon because he is a central figure of Israel’s government and in many ways he is the government. Read more »
The U.S. State Department on Wednesday criticized Israeli restrictions placed on foreign nationals entering the West Bank via the Allenby Bridge, calling the new regulations ‘unacceptable’.
“We have repeatedly told the Government of Israel that the United States expects that all American citizens to be treated equally, regardless of their national origin or other citizenship,” a statement issued by the State Department said Wednesday. Read more »
For 15 years, Sabawi entered and left the country with no problems, as a senior partner in an insurance company and as chairman of a construction company. But in April, he was denied entry at Ben-Gurion International Airport.
IOA Editor: Quite a contrast to Natanyahu’s “economic peace plan” – Israel’s latest propaganda tool used to avert a meaningful dialog with the Palestinians, and to protect the Occupation. Read more »
Israel has recently been putting up more obstacles for foreign nationals who enter [Israel] if they have family, work, business or academic ties in the West Bank. It now restricts their movements to “the Palestinian Authority only.” The people concerned are citizens of countries that have diplomatic ties with Israel, mainly Western countries. Read more »
A fierce debate has erupted among senior Israeli politicians over whether the jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti – regarded by some Israelis as an “arch-terrorist” and by others as the only man who can deliver a lasting peace – should be released from prison after his election to Fatah’s key central committee. Read more »
[T]he prosperity in Ramallah and Nablus is misleading, just as it was misleading between 1996 and 2000, when the Israeli media and the Oslo spin doctors were impressed by all the coffee shops and high-tech companies. Today, as back then, the people so impressed are visitors-for-a-moment who engage in occupation denial. Read more »
[T]he IMF says that if Israel does not continue to remove the restrictions on internal trade, the gross domestic product per capita will decline later in the year. Incidentally, according to the report the unemployment rate still stands at an extremely high 20 percent (less than Gaza’s 34 percent). Read more »
There are now more than 300,000 residents living in Jewish West Bank settlements, according to a Israel Defense Forces Civil Administration report covering the first half of 2009.
As of June 30, the settlements had 304,569 residents, an increase of 2.3 percent since January. Read more »
The U.S. administration has issued a stiff warning to Israel not to build in the area known as E-1, which lies between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. Any change in the status quo in E-1 would be “extremely damaging,” even “corrosive,” the message said.
IOA Editor: As the seeming confrontation between the Obama Administration and the Israeli government is presented in a crisis-like light, it is worth noting that, so far, no actions were taken by the US to restrain Israel’s on-going colonization efforts on the West Bank. However, it is reassuring to see that the Administration understands how crucial Israeli development of Area E1 would be to a future Palestinian state – essentially, making it no longer viable. Now, the responsibility for preventing such development from happening falls squarely on the White House. Read more »
America’s best Jewish minds are wracking their brains, trying to find a magic formula that will put the settlements close to the hearts of Israel’s supporters, not to mention its critics. A new guide to the perplexed, disseminated by the leadership of the Israel Project, the organization spearheading Israel’s public relations efforts in the United States, offers a glimpse into its very own internal confusion Read more »
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