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Settlement building in the West Bank is once again underway after the Israeli government allowed the ten month moratorium on settlement expansion to expire. With the peace process under serious threat, what will Abbas do next? And can diplomacy find a way out of this dilemma?
If the Palestinian Authority (PA) maintains its current performance in institution-building and delivery of public services, it is well-positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future.However, no matter how well-developed domestic institutions are, external powers can always sabotage their inner workings. This is the central blindspot of two-state solution advocates. They fail to provide an explanation of how a Palestinian state would assure its own sovereignty.
Yousef Munayyer, the executive director of the Palestine Center and the Jerusalem Fund, appeared on Al Jazeera English on September 1st, 2010. 
An NBC news report takes an inside look into life in Gaza. Reporting on the effects of the blockade is often missed in US media coverage. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
In today's worth reading: Akiva Eldar argues for support of the Palestinian economy; Bradley Burston and Richard Silversetein critique the Israeli police state; Amira Hass questions the list of items prohibited from entering Gaza; Mustafa Barghouthi questions whether the proximity talks can produce anything; and more.Suppose some Palestinian group managed to set up a new settlement on land abandoned by refugees of the 1967 war in the Jordan Valley. What would your average Israeli patriot have to say about an Israeli contractor who agreed to build it, or about Jewish workers clambering on Palestinian scaffolds? >If the secret police ran a Jewish state by Bradley Burston (Haaretz)
If a Jewish state were run by the secret police, Israelis could disappear without a trace. No contact with lawyers. Court-ordered muzzles on broadcast and print news media. >Latest on Ameer Makhoul, Secret Arrest, Gag Order, and Silence of Israeli Press (Tikun Olam)
Those of you who followed this blog during the thick of the Anat Kamm-Uri Blau case, noted a critical juncture at which the weight of the secret gag order charade became too heavy. After the Israeli media itself began obliquely ridiculing the Shin Bet for maintaining a secret that the whole world knew, including many Israelis among them, the gag collapsed like a house of cards. >Why won't Israel allow Gazans to import coriander? by Amira Hass (Haaretz)
The Defense Ministry is refusing - on security grounds, it says - to reveal why Israel prohibits the import into the Gaza Strip of items such as cilantro, sage, jam, chocolate, french fries, dried fruit, fabrics, notebooks empty flowerpots and toys, while allowing cinnamon, plastic buckets and combs. >Latest Israel-Palestinian talks hold little hope by Mustafa Barghouthi (USA Today)
After 18 months with no direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, so-called proximity talks between intermediaries, rather than face-to-face meetings between the direct parties, are scheduled to begin this week. An announcement is anticipated shortly. These shuttle deliberations are expected to continue for four months with Arab League backing. They hold little hope. >Israeli religious forces on the march by Marwan Bishara (AlJazeera.net)
As the Israeli Palestinian 'peace process' marches in place, religious-Zionism is marching into the leadership of the Israeli army, rendering an improbable peace mission impossible. >West Bankers Made Refugees in Their Own Country by Mel Frykberg (IPS)
Several Palestinians have set up a protest tent in no-man's land in the northern Gaza Strip, near the Erez border crossing into Israel, as they protest their deportation from the Israeli occupied West Bank into Gaza where Hamas authorities have refused them entry. >Wagering on Washington by Dina Ezzat (Al-Ahram Weekly)
"This won't work -- indirect talks, proximity talks will not yield results," Israeli Intelligence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said Wednesday. >Nick Clegg to Haaretz: I admire Israel, but won't stop criticizing its government by Adar Primor (Haaretz)
"Clegg is bad news for Israel," one official here said. "His party is running on a human rights platform, and the atmosphere is hostile to Israel. We remind the Liberal Democrats of South Africa during apartheid. Even if Clegg decides not to take the foreign portfolio, the very fact that Liberal Democrats sit in the cabinet is likely to mean trouble for us." >The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
"Details of Gaza blockade revealed in court case" by Tim Franks (BBC News)BBC News has seen documents, submitted to an Israeli Court, which give more detail than ever before about how and why Israel maintains its Gaza blockade. >"U.S. Sets Start of Mideast Peace Talks" by Mark Landler (The New York Times)
Fifteen months after President Obama took office promising to kick-start the Middle East peace process, the United States finally plans to open talks between Israel and the Palestinians. >"Palestinian Roads: Cementing Statehood, or Israeli Annexation?" by Nadia Hijab & Jesse Rosenfeld (The Nation)
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has staked his political credibility on securing a Palestinian state by 2011 in the entire West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, a program enthusiastically embraced by the international community. Ambitious PA plans include roads and other infrastructure across the West Bank, with funds provided by the United States, Europe and other donors. >"Who Lives in Sheik Jarrah?" by Kai Bird (The New York Times)
Despite talk of a slowdown in Israeli construction in East Jerusalem, Nir Barkat, Jerusalems mayor, toured Washington earlier this week and told officials that the expansion into Arab neighborhoods is going ahead at full speed. >"10 Israel Prize winners: Let Gazans study in West Bank" by Yaheli Moran Zelikovich (YNetNews.com)
Ten Israel Prize laureates and some 50 intellectuals sent a letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday urging him to revoke Israel's prohibition of the movement of Palestinian students from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank for academic purposes. >The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality. The following recently published articles are worth reading.A Palestinian member of the Israeli parliament is demanding that a newspaper be allowed to publish an investigative report that was suppressed days before Israel attacked Gaza in winter 2008. >Deporting Gandhi from Palestine by Jamal Dajani (The Huffington Post)
The Israeli government's recent announcement of Army order No. 1,650 was just the latest act of provocation in a series of calculated measures to derail any possible resumption of peace negotiations. Under this new draconian measure, anyone who doesn't have a "permit" to be in the West Bank is to be considered an "infiltrator" and subject to expulsion or risk up to seven years in jail. >Pitch black under siege by Saleh Al-Naami (Al-Ahram)
Dr Moawya Hassanein, head of Emergency Medicine at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, warns that the lives of thousands of patients with kidney failure who require dialysis three times a week are at risk because of power failures. >Bad Faith in the Holy City by Rashid Khalidi (Foreign Affairs)
The Israeli government's announcement in March that it would further expand East Jerusalem settlements was just the latest in a decades-old series of calculated slights to the United States. >Obama hints that "two-state solution" may be impossible by Juan Cole (Salon.com)
President Barack Obama acknowledged Tuesday that, despite the expenditure of substantial political capital by his administration, progress may not be made on Israel-Palestine peace. The AP quoted his reply to a question about how recent successes in negotiating nuclear arms reduction with Russia -- and getting 48 nations to sign on to a nuclear material security agreement -- might translate into diplomatic successes elsewhere. >Case exposes dark underbelly of Israel's security state by Jonathan Cook (Middle East Online)
What is misleadingly being called in Israel the "Anat Kamm espionage affair" is quickly revealing the dark underbelly of a nation that has worshipped for decades at the altar of a security state. >ElBaradei: Gaza, world's largest jail (Press TV)
Former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei has expressed support for Palestinian resistance, calling Gaza the world's largest jail. >Israel's latest population transfer scheme by Amjad Atallah (Foreignpolicy.com)
Israeli reporter Amira Hass describes the latest round in increasingly dangerous provocations by the Israeli government in its attempt to ensure Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territory. And for the Palestinians, it clearly sets out the potentially fatal weakness of American government efforts to represent Palestinian interests in any meaningful way. >The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
Textbooks, Grasshoppers, and the Question of Incitement by Ghassan Khatib (The Huffington Post)There is a great opportunity in the next few months to reach a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians. This may seem a surprising view just now, but there is a competent and responsible Palestinian government in place which is serious about establishing a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel. And there is strong public support for this objective. The evidence is all around you if you come to see the reality. >Israeli settlement push hurts U.S. interests, peace process (USA Today)
It has never been a secret that the United States pays a steep price in the Muslim world for being Israel's staunchest ally. But when a U.S. official actually says so, as Gen. David Petraeus did during a Senate hearing last month, it's a sure sign that tension between the allies is rising. And so it has, reaching a peak not seen in some time. >A dangerous step by As'ad Ghanem (Haaretz)
It is hard not to be impressed by Akiva Eldar's forgiving attitude toward Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. During his interview about Fayyad's plan to declare a Palestinian state in the course of 2011 ("Palestinian PM to Haaretz: We will have a state next year," April 2), Eldar allowed the prime minister to present his plan without raising a single challenging question. Any such question could reveal the weakness of that plan. >The Principle and Practice of Universal Jurisdiction: PCHR's Work in the occupied Palestinian territory (PCHR)
This detailed and comprehensive work on universal jurisdiction is the first one on this topic in the Arab world. >Hamas Rule in Gaza: Three Years On by Yezid Sayigh (Crown Center for Middle East Studies)
Three years after taking control of Gaza, Hamas has established a stable and effective governing system despite a crushing siege and political challenges from Fatah and Salafist groups. In this brief Prof. Sayigh explores both the policies and the fortuitous circumstances that have enabled Hamas to consolidate its control over Gaza and to maintain its domestic legitimacy. If international law matters to any American president, it ought to be President Obama who has taught constitutional law. >The US-Israel Standoff over Settlements by Victor Kattan (Jurist)
The Obama administration is on solid ground in its confrontation with the Israeli government over its refusal to stop constructing settlements in East Jerusalem morally, legally, and politically. >Turning a Blind Eye: Impunity for Laws-of-War Violations during the Gaza War (Human Rights Watch)
This 62-page report details the steps both Israel and Hamas have taken over the past year to investigate alleged violations of the laws of war and possible war crimes, and how those investigations have fallen far short of international legal standards. >IDF order will enable mass deportation from West Bank by Amira Hass (Haaretz)
A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years. >To achieve Mideast peace, Obama must make a bold Mideast trip by By Zbigniew Brzezinski and Stephen Solarz (The Washington Post)
More than three decades ago, Israeli statesman Moshe Dayan, speaking about an Egyptian town that controlled Israel's only outlet to the Red Sea, declared that he would rather have Sharm el-Sheikh without peace than peace without Sharm el-Sheikh. Had his views prevailed, Israel and Egypt would still be in a state of war. Today, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, with his pronouncements about the eternal and undivided capital of Israel, is conveying an updated version of Dayan's credo -- that he would rather have all of Jerusalem without peace than peace without all of Jerusalem. >Archbishop Desmond Tutu to UC Berkeley: Divesting is the Right Thing To Do by Desmund Tutu (Salem-News.com)
It was with great joy that I learned of your recent 16-4 vote in support of divesting your university's money from companies that enable and profit from the injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights. >IDF bid to expel West Bank Palestinians is a step too far (Haaretz)
A new military order will take effect this week, enabling the army to deport tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and prosecute them on infiltration charges, which carry long prison terms. The order, uncovered by Amira Hass in Haaretz yesterday, bears the signature of Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni in his previous capacity as commander of the Israel Defense Forces in Judea and Samaria. >Ramallah is not Palestine by Sandy Tolan (Middle East Online)
In Ramallah, on a sliver of land inside the occupied West Bank, it's possible to imagine what Palestinian freedom might feel like. Major Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints are down or unmanned, allowing drivers who used to be stalled, fuming, to travel nearly unimpeded from Jericho, up the ancient hills to Ramallah, and on to Nablus in northern Palestine.Yet the improved conditions in this part of the West Bank -- known as Area A, a creation of the Oslo process in which Palestinians have been given civil autonomy -- deepen the resentment of other Palestinians who remain locked down in Area C--where Israel retains full control. >Views expressed on this post or on linked web pages do not represent the Palestine Center, the educational program of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development. All content is for educational purposes only.
Dueling Narratives on Mid East Policy By Yousef Munayyer (Palestine Center Blog)For years, the Bush administration argued that the "evil doers" hated our freedoms. Supposedly, this was the underlying cause of the Muslim world's angst toward the United States. >Stargazing Gazans by Karin Laub (The Star Online)
Suleiman Baraka's journey could be measured in light years. The eldest of 14 children of a butcher, he rose from humble beginnings in violence-wracked Gaza to become an astrophysicist, space weather expert and researcher for NASA, the United States (US) space agency. Now, at 45, he is back home with a new mission: to teach kids to look up from their blockaded, beaten-down surroundings and into the limitless beauty of the universe. >O Pioneers! by Kayvan Farzaneh and Andrew Swift (Foreignpolicy.com
Portraits of Israel's endlessly controversial outposts, neighborhoods, and settlements. >On "dual loyalty" by Stephen M. Walt (Foreignpolicy.com)
Last week, the online journal Politico published a story by reporter Laura Rozen on certain divisions within the Obama administration on Middle East policy. What made the story especially explosive was a quotation from an unnamed administration source describing senior White House aide Dennis Ross as being "far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests." >The Centrality of Jerusalem by Yousef Munayyer (Palestine Center)
If international law matters to any American president, it ought to be President Obama who has taught constitutional law. >Peace for Israelis and Palestinians? Not without America's tough love by Jonathan Ben-Artzi (The Christian Science Monitor)
More than 20 years ago, many Americans decided they could no longer watch as racial segregation divided South Africa. Compelled by an injustice thousands of miles away, they demanded that their communities, their colleges, their municipalities, and their government take a stand. >Petraeus wasn't the first by Mark Perry (Foreignpolicy.com)
For me, George Marshall was an icon: the one officer who, more than any other, was responsible for the American victory in World War Two. He was the most important soldier of his generation - and a man of great moral and physical courage. >The limits of Israeli infiltration by Galal Nassar (Al-Ahram Weekly)
That Israel's relations with the West have entered a completely new phase is easy to spot. Britain, author of the Balfour Declaration, has expelled an Israeli diplomat over the use of forged British passports in the assassination of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai several weeks ago. Tensions between London and Tel Aviv have rarely been allowed to spill into the open. >
John L. Esposito: Can the US broker a breakthrough? (Al Jazeera)A leader of the Tea Party movement recently characterised the passage of the Healthcare Bill-which for a while appeared to have been on life support - as a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Barack Obama now has a Phoenix-like opportunity to achieve what no US president was able to do - broker a lasting peace in the Palestine-Israel conflict. >Sasha Polakow-Suransky: When AIPAC said 'no' to Israel (Foreignpolicy.com)
The U.S.-Israel relationship has entered into a tailspin for the first time since 1991, when Secretary of State James Baker refused loan guarantees to Yitzhak Shamir's Likud government. >Ensure Israel arms curbs, say MPs (BBC)
The UK government must ensure that military equipment sold to Israel is not used in the occupied territories, MPs have said. >'Teenager killed' in Gaza clashes (BBC)
A Palestinian teenager has died in a clash near Gaza's southern border, according to medical sources. >Roger Cohen: Lo, the Mideast Moves (The New York Times)
The passage of the U.S. health care bill is a major foreign policy victory for President Barack Obama. It empowers him by demonstrating his ability to deliver. Nowhere is that more important than in the Middle East. >Paul McGeough: The big shift: US puts Israel on notice (The Sydney Morning Herald)
At times it is hard to tell where the main game is in the Middle East, or to identify just when history has veered off at a tangent that might make a big difference. >Laura Rozen: Fierce debate on Israel underway inside Obama administration (Politico)
Since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's tense visit to the White House last week, an intense debate inside the Obama administration about how to proceed with Netanyahu to advance the Middle East peace process has grown more heated. >Christopher Hazou: Israel glorifies its own murderers (Los Angeles Times)
In their March 17 Times Op-Ed article, "Why glorify the murderers?" Ron Kehrmann, Yossi Mendelevich and Yossi Zur make a number of misleading statements and remove all historical context in their effort to demonize Palestinians as people who hate Israeli children more than they love their own. >A wall of suspicion (The Economist)
Glum Israelis likened the event to thieves entering in the night. When Binyamin Netanyahu and his aides met Barack Obama in the White House on March 23rd, the president forbade any media coverage-not even a quick photograph-in the Oval Office. The encounter with Israel's prime minister did not seem to lead to the jovial reconciliation that politicians on both sides, after a fortnight of angry mud-slinging between Washington and Jerusalem, had hoped for. >The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
Michael Young: Israel is losing the battle of narratives (The Daily Star)Some will argue that the United Kingdom's expulsion this week of an Israeli diplomat, by most accounts a Mossad agent, was a transitory spat between allies, following Israel's use of forged British passports in the recent assassination of a Hamas operative in Dubai. >Adrian Hamilton: Israel's interests are not the same as ours on Palestine (The Independent)
One benefit of President Obama cancelling his trip to Indonesia for the Health Reform vote, said a Senator in Washington this week, was that it enabled him to see Benjamin Netanyahu on his visit to the US capital. Well, if that was the bonus, it didn't seem to achieve much. Agreement to disagree is the polite phrase for a meeting that ended in a frozen silence. >Seth Freedman: The real price of Israel's settlements (The Guardian)
The cost of building Israeli settlements in the occupied territories stands at more than $17bn, according to a report released this week. The painstaking study into the economics of construction in the West Bank encompasses every building and road in the settlements, which cover a combined space of 12m square metres, and in doing so quantifies the enormity of the 43-year-old project of colonisation. >Ben Saul: Time to stop handling Israel with kid gloves (ABC.com)
Britain's expulsion of an Israeli diplomat is a lesson for Australia to stop handling Israel with kid gloves. >Noura Erakat: Its Either Me or the Settlements: A Marriage on the Rocks? (Huffington Post)
Recurring Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu met with President Obama in Washington this week and, without flinching, attributed the stalled peace process to the U.S. Administration's concern with illegal settlements and not to Israel's violation of the peace process's terms, which unequivocally mandate the cessation of settlement expansion. >Ben White: Marginalisation in Israel's Knesset (New Stateman)
Arab members of Israel's Knesset (MKs) are accustomed to political marginalisation, as well receiving abuse and threats to their positions. Recently, however, there has been a further deterioration, as two elected representatives of the non-Jewish minority, Mohammed Barakeh and Said Naffaa, face criminal proceedings. >Robert Wright: Against 'Pro-Israel' (New York Times)
Are you anti-Israel? If you fear that, deep down, you might be, I have important news. The recent tension between Israel and the United States led various commentators to identify hallmarks of anti-Israelism, and these may be of diagnostic value. >Tony Karon: Israel Won't Change Unless the Status Quo Has a Downside (TomDispatch.com)
Uncomfortable at the spectacle of the Obama administration in an open confrontation with the Israeli government, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman -- who represents the interests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party on Capitol Hill as faithfully as he does those of the health insurance industry -- called for a halt. >Ali Abunimah: Mideast peace effort is a charade (CNN.Com)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Monday speech to America's leading pro-Israel lobby took on added significance in light of the spat between the U.S. and Israel over the expansion of Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem. >
Report: Breaking Down the Walls (Presbyterian Church USA)U.S. Presbyterian Church committee releases report on Israeli-Palestinian conflict. >Israel must allow Palestinians access to adequate water supplies (Amnesty International)
Amnesty International has on World Water Day urged the Israeli authorities to end discriminatory practices against Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that violate their right to adequate water supplies. >Avi Shlaim: Cut off the cash and Israel might behave (Independence)
Israelis are not renowned for their good manners, but their treatment of Vice-President Joe Biden during his recent visit to their country went beyond chutzpah. >Netanyahu says 'no concession' on Jewish settlements (BBC)
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out any concession on the building of settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite international pressure. >UN chief says Gaza suffering under Israeli blockade (BBC)
The UN chief has said Israel's blockade of Gaza is causing "unacceptable suffering," during a Middle East visit to reinvigorate the peace process. >Ian Black: Middle East quartet's cut-and-paste diplomacy (Guardian)
If carefully crafted diplomatic statements could solve conflicts, the quartet would be a winner. But its latest pronouncement on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations does little more than serve as a reminder of the international ground rules if peace is ever to be achieved. >IDF vs. democracy and freedom of speech (Haaretz)
The Israel Defense Forces decision to declare the Palestinian villages Bil'in and Na'alin closed military zones on Fridays for the next six months is a serious anti-democratic move. The order issued by the GOC Central Command implementing this restriction is an act against the freedom to demonstrate. >Fareed Zakaria: Israel is making a big mistake (cnn.com)
Israel's government is missing an opportunity to secure the country's future and build a coalition of nations to counter increasing Iranian influence, according to analyst Fareed Zakaria. >John Mearsheimer: Taking Sides (IMEU)
In the wake of Vice President Joe Biden’s ill-fated trip to Israel last week, many people would agree with the Israeli ambassador Michael Oren’s remark that ‘Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975… a crisis of historic proportions.’ Like all crises, this one will eventually go away. However, this bitter fight has disturbing implications for Israelis and their American supporters. >From time to time, the Palestine Center distributes articles it believes will enhance understanding of the Palestinian political reality.
While Israeli analysts and government officials for years referred to the threat of terrorism as a justification for imposing a security regime on the Palestinian people, recent events show this line of thinking was not intended to encourage non-violent resistance.masked Israeli forces entered the neighborhood of Ras Al-Amud and kidnapped 3 residents. The forces then told the families that 'they (the forces) will take all the men involved in the protests.'If more information follows, we will update this post.
Rory McCarthy: Quiet revolution that is freezing Palestinians out of Jerusalem (Guardian)Jerusalem is not any city: it is at the heart of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and planning projects like this are political and potentially volatile. The area under the spotlight is Bustan, part of Silwan in east Jerusalem, home to Palestinians and, increasingly, to well-funded, heavily guarded Jewish settlers. >Separation wall to isolate Bethlehem village from Beit Jala (Maan)
Israeli authorities confiscated 300 dunums of Palestinian land in Beit Jala, Bethlehem to complete the separation wall's construction, the head of the Bethlehem anti-wall committee said on Sunday. >Rory McCarthy: Joe Biden and George Mitchell arrive to kick-start Israeli-Palestinian talks (Guardian)
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, is due in Israel tomorrow for an American diplomatic initiative to start indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. >Hamas calls for boycotting municipal elections (Xinhua)
Islamic Hamas movement on Sunday urged Palestinians to boycott municipal elections which the Palestinian government decided to hold in July. >Khaled Amayreh: Policy of provocation (Al-Ahram Weekly)
Israeli provocations, including annexing Islamic sites to an alleged heritage list, are creating a powder keg in the occupied territories. >Micheál Martin: Gaza a Year Later (New York Times)
Israeli provocations, including annexing Islamic sites to an alleged heritage list, are creating a powder keg in the occupied territories. >
ME anger at Israeli 'escalations' (BBC)Clashes between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters over the issue of holy sites have provoked a wave of condemnation in the Arab press for Israel's behavior. >Daniel Flitton: Israel has lost friends (Sydney Morning Herald)
This vote is clearly an act of retaliation by Australia - and by Britain, France and Germany. Israel has lost friends thanks to the sordid affair in Dubai concerning fake passports and murder, and the stink will hang in the air a good while yet. >Josh Ruebner: U.S. Can't Afford Military Aid to Israel (Huffington Post)
In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to "go through the budget line by line to eliminate programs that we can't afford and don't work." One week later, he sent his FY2011 budget request to Congress, which included a record-breaking $3 billion in military aid to Israel. >Report: Palestinian Women and Security: Why Palestinian Women and Girls Do Not Feel Secure (English/Arabic) (DCAF)
This report presents the perspectives of Palestinian women and girls on issues related to security as well as their assessment of the services provided by local authorities and/ or the international community to address their security needs. It concludes with a series of recommendations made by Palestinian women and girls for improving these services. >Paul Daley: With friends like Israel (Sydney Morning Herald)
"What Mossad is doing is endangering every single Australian," said Kazak, who has previously warned Canberra that the Israeli spy agency was using forged Australian passports.Rory McCarthy: Clashes as Israel puts West Bank religious sites on heritage list (Guardian)
He is right. Australians traveling in parts of the Middle East would do well to be very wary. >
Israeli troops and Palestinians clashed for the fifth successive day in Hebron today, the latest fallout from an Israeli government decision to include two sites on the occupied West Bank in a new "national heritage" list. >Israeli authorities back 600 new East Jerusalem homes. (BBC)
The move comes as the Palestinians are refusing to restart peace talks unless Israel stops all building in the area, where they want their future capital. >UN Gives Gaza Investigations 5 Extra Months (AP/NY Times)
The U.N. General Assembly voted Friday to give Israel and the Palestinians an additional five months to conduct independent investigations of alleged war crimes during last year's conflict in Gaza and warned of possible "further action" by U.N. bodies, including the Security Council, if they don't. >
Tony Karon: Israel Gets More Comfortable with Status Quo (Time)"If, and as long as between the Jordan (River) and the [Mediterranean] Sea there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or nondemocratic," warned Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak last week. "If the Palestinians vote in elections it is a binational state, and if they don't vote it is an apartheid state."Jerome Slater: The New York Times and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Bronner Affair (Huff Post)
Former President Jimmy Carter suffered a verbal pummeling three years ago for comparing the standoff between Israel and the Palestinians to apartheid... >
The central issue in this dispute is less that of Ethan Bronner than it is of the New York Times itself. Close observers of Times' news coverage and commentary about Israel have long known that it is typically slanted in a "pro-Israeli" direction... >Bill Fletcher Jr: Don't deny peaceful protests in West Bank (CNN)
When we celebrate the courage and vision of freedom fighters such as King or Fannie Lou Hamer and the countless others who are remembered during Black History Month, we should think of those Palestinian Kings and Fannie Lou Hamers whose nonviolent struggle for freedom, justice and equality continues. >1000 Demonstrators Mark 5 Years of Protest in Bil'in by Dismantling Wall. (AIC)
One week after work to reroute the path of the Wall in Bil'in had began, more than a thousand demonstrators celebrated five years of struggle by dismantling a section of the Wall and taking over a military post. >VIDEO: UNRWA Commissioner: No peace without Palestinian refugees solution in line with UN resolutions (Palestine Video)
Finding a solution to the plight of millions of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East is key to peace in the region, says the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees... >James Carroll: Untie knot of Palestinian evictions (Boston Globe)
Today, as on every Friday for months now, several hundred Israelis gather here in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood in Arab East Jerusalem, to stand in vigil as a protest against the eviction of Palestinian families from homes they have lived in for decades. >Patrick Seale: What Does Netanyahu Want? (Middle East Online)
A new report finds that Israel committed "theft" by deducting billions from Palestinian worker's salaries over the past four decades. >Ami Kaufman: Everyone (Except Obama) Knows Netanyahu is Weak (Huff Post)
The U.S. administration has played it all wrong with Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. >In pictures: Life in the shadow of Israeli settlements (BBC)
During a meeting with Mossad chief Meir Dagan and members of the alleged hit squad, Mr. Netanyahu approved last month's assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai, reports the Sunday Times. >Israeli agents go on PR offensive (Independent, UK)
Israel is sending more agents abroad, this time on an even more difficult mission: to project a peaceful and positive image of the Jewish state. >A Mossad hit backfires on Netanyahu … again. (Sydney Morning Herald)
That same old feeling for Benjamin Netanyahu must be excruciating. And it is probably cold comfort for the Israeli Prime Minister that his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, is likely to suffer along with him. >
Roger Cohen: Hard Mideast Truths (New York Times)For over a century now, Zionism and Arab nationalism have failed to find an accommodation in the Holy Land. Both movements attempted to fill the space left by collapsed empire, and it has been left to the quasi-empire, the United States, to try to coax them to peaceful coexistence. The attempt has failed. >Stephen Walt: I don't mean to say I told you so, but... (Foreign Policy Blog)
Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003... This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along. In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions. >Robert Fisk: The uninvited ghosts that populate Israel's art history (Belfast Telegraph)
The Palestinians celebrate their lost land with poetry and art, but always it is a place of lost oranges and olive trees and snug village houses; of Arab men, leaning on ancient wells beside classical ruins, proving that Palestine was not, as the popular Zionist narrative would have us believe, a land without people. >Amira Howeidy: Mum's the word on Gaza probe (Al Ahram)
Is the UN preparing to bury the damning findings of the Goldstone Report on Israel's Gaza assault of one year ago? >Isabel Kershner: Museum Creates New Jerusalem Divide (New York Times)
In a dispute that reflects the religious and political divides in this contested city, representatives of long-established Palestinian families petitioned the United Nations on Wednesday for help in trying to stop Israel and the Simon Wiesenthal Center from constructing a museum on part of a centuries-old Muslim cemetery. >Saree Makdisi: A Museum of Tolerance we don't need (Los Angeles Times)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center should abandon its plan to build a facility on the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. >Jonathon Cook: Report: Israel stole $2 billion from Palestinian workers (Electronic Intifada)
A new report finds that Israel committed "theft" by deducting billions from Palestinian worker's salaries over the past four decades.>
