Yesh Din, Palestinian village council head file petition to High Court of Justice demanding interim order against construction in nearby settlement on what they say is private Palestinian land be halted immediately. 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 »
“The fact that the Palestinians elected him or that someone here in Israel thinks that he can be a partner is not a sufficient excuse for his release,” Livni said.
IOA Editor: So much for “moderate” Israelis being more open to finding a basis for compromise with Palestinians as equal partners. Yet another ‘missed opportunity’ for the Occupier to reconcile with the Occupied: ‘Missed’ as a direct result of a calculated policy, not an oversight. Read more »
Israeli Interior Minister and Knesset chairman call for Israel to continue to divide, and rule, the West Bank – expanding East Jerusalem to the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement by developing Area E1. Read more »
While the MKs were touring the neighborhood, a member of the Gawi family yelled at them “you learned the Apartheid laws from South Africa. East Jerusalem will be free, this is our land. We didn’t expel you, why are you expelling us?” Read more »
It is impossible to ignore the injustices of 1948 while hundreds of thousands of refugees rot in the camps. No agreement will hold water without a solution to their plight, which is more feasible than Israel’s strident scaremongers suggest. But rulings like the current one make it harder to distinguish clearly between Sheikh Jarrah and Sheikh Munis, between the conquest of 1948 and the conquests of 1967. My house stands on land stolen by force, and it is the obligation of Israel and the world to redress the injustice without creating injustice and new dislocation. Read more »
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman summoned… Israel’s ambassador to Washington, to tell him that the United States views Sunday’s eviction of two Palestinian families from homes in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood as a “provocative” and “unacceptable” act that violates Israel’s obligations under the road map peace plan. 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 »
“These actions are contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory. They also contravene the united calls of the international community, including the Quartet’s, which in its recent statement urged the Government of Israel to refrain from provocative actions in East Jerusalem, including house demolitions and evictions. The UN rejects Israeli claims that this is a local matter dealt with by the courts.” Read more »