A Military Police investigation into a soldier’s killing of a Palestinian near Hebron in January has been going on for seven and a half months, and there is still no end in sight. Yet the sector commander has been giving briefings for the past few months based on his own inquiry into the incident, which he describes as “a serious failure in moral and professional terms.” Read more »
[A] firm demand… to put an immediate end to the policy of arrests and draconian interrogations currently conducted against the Arab-Palestinian community in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; to free ALL political prisoners; to halt the current wave of legislation aimed at curbing and restricting the civil rights of Israel’s residents and citizens; to stop the violent, racist policy now implemented against refugees and migrant workers; and to condemn crimes of hate and violence against ethnic, religious or gender minorities. Read more »
If there is any truth in the reports that came out of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Europe – that the United States agreed Israel can go on building in East Jerusalem – the headlines should have read “Obama has pulled out of the Middle East peace process.” Read more »
About 7,700 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israel, including about 450 without the benefit of a trial. Most of them are not murderers, although they are all automatically labeled as such here. The demonstrators at Megiddo would do well to realize this. Some of the prisoners are political detainees in the full sense of the word, from members of the Palestinian parliament imprisoned without trial, which is a scandal in and of itself, to those behind bars because of their “affiliation.” Innocent people are among them as well as political activists and nonviolent protesters.
IOA Editor: In this Israeli-centric commentary, Levy calls attention to the status of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Read more »
“You don’t make peace with friends,” he told Ma’an in Ramallah. “You negotiate with those who are regarded as pariahs.”
Photo: Desmond Tutu, center, placed a stone on a grave on Thursday in Bilin, site of weekly protests against the Israeli Wall. With him, from left: Gro Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Ela Bhatt and Abdullah Abu Rahma.
Also: The New York Times coverage of The Elders’ Bilin visit Read more »
he number of Israelis who see US President Barack Obama’s policies as pro-Israel has fallen to four percent, according to a Smith Research poll taken this week on behalf of The Jerusalem Post. Read more »
“The lesson that Israel must learn from the Holocaust is that it can never get security through fences, walls and guns,” Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa told Haaretz Thursday… Tutu also commented on the call by Ben-Gurion University professor Neve Gordon to apply selective sanctions on Israel. “I always say to people that sanctions were important in the South African case for several reasons… it actually did hit the pocket of the South African government…” Read more »
Palestinians have finally started to act in a different way. Instead of cursing the occupation, the new strategy is aimed at building up the desired Palestinian state. The idea is to force the Israelis to the negotiating table rather than beg them to come. The way to do that is to work for a state as if there were negotiations. This idea has been brilliantly developed by the Palestinian prime minister. Read more »
So let us admit the truth: The occupier deserves to be boycotted. As long as the Israelis pay no price for the occupation, the occupation will not end, and therefore the only way open to the opponents of the occupation is to take concrete means that will make the Israelis understand that the injustice they are perpetrating comes with a price tag. Read more »
“Where there is no law and no one to turn to, Ezra is seen as a law breaker, while the state itself breaks the law and fails to uphold its basic obligations. Ezra is the savior of these people. He blocks with his body settlers who stop the farmers from working on their land. You could call him Robin Hood of the Wild West,” she said. Read more »
