The absence of an effective Palestinian political body that could mobilize and represent refugees as a collective national group, combined with repressive state policies, catapulted UNRWA to center stage. Taking on a unique and visible role, it assumed many of the functions of a welfare government.
2010
26 former top EU officials, including ex EU chief Solana and former German President Richard von Weizsacker, urge world powers to confront Jerusalem over its refusal to obey international law.
Noam Chomsky will be giving a talk at Cardiff University on 11 March next year. Just 48 hours after it was announced on Facebook philosopher Noam Chomksy would be giving a talk at Cardiff University next year, 2,000 people had signed up to attend the event. After one week, the list of those interested was more than 4,000.
Jews must not rent homes to “gentiles”. That was the religious decree issued this week by at least 50 of Israel’s leading rabbis, many of them employed by the state as municipal religious leaders. Jews should first warn, then “ostracise” fellow Jews who fail to heed the directive, the rabbis declared.
The idea of dissolving the PA has many supporters – both inside the Palestinian territories and among the Palestinian diaspora. But this must not be a leap in the dark: the Palestinians must be prepared for the consequences of such a move and it must be undertaken as part of a clearly defined resistance strategy.
“We don’t need to help Arabs set down roots in Israel,” Rabbi Shlomo Aviner of the Beit El settlement, said. Aviner explained that he supported the move for two reasons: one, a Jew looking for an apartment should get preference over a gentile; and two, to keep the growing Arab population from settling too deeply. “Racism originated in the Torah,” said Rabbi Yosef Scheinen, who heads the Ashdod Yeshiva. “The land of Israel is designated for the people of Israel. This is what the Holy One Blessed Be He intended and that is what the [sage] Rashi interpreted.”
Settlement leader: “European countries must understand that without a state of Israel there is no one to stop the Muslim wave from eroding Europe, and without Judea and Samaria, Israel is unable to exist.”
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman: The decision was highly “damaging because they are in fact shattering the foundation of the peace process.”
IOA Editor: Like, say, the settlements?
We must gather up our courage and teach our children to refuse. Refuse to take part in an organization that is led by war criminals, murderers of children. An organization like that cannot be anything but a crime organization. Avoid it like you would avoid live fire, we should tell them, and think of other ways to contribute to the society in which you live.
In a move that took Washington by surprise, Brazil has recognized the state of Palestine along the 1967 borders before Israel’s seizure of the West Bank… Brazil’s outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva issued the recognition in a letter responding to a request from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Washington’s pathetic capitulation to Israel while pleading for a meaningless three-month freeze on settlement expansion—excluding Arab East Jerusalem—should go down as one of the most humiliating moments in U.S. diplomatic history.
According to the [US] ambassador, “Segments of the Irish public … see the [Shannon] airport as a symbol of Irish complicity in perceived US wrongdoing in the Gulf/Middle East.”
IOA Editor: And what might that be, one wonders?
RELATED Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks cables reveal “profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership”
The head of the Israeli secret service, who the Egyptians nicknamed “Superman” after the assassination of Hamas senior official al-Mabhouh earlier this year, concluded on Monday eight years at the helm of the organization.
Noam Chomsky speaks about the WikiLeaks documents release, comparing it to the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers in which he had a role. Chomsky covers US-Israel relations in the context of the Occupation, the illegal Gaza siege, the separation of Gaza from the West Bank – in direct violation of the Oslo agreement, and much more.
Noam Chomsky speaks about the US economy, US mid-term elections, climate change, Haiti, Honduras, China and North Korea, and much more. This is Part II of a DemocracyNow interview with Amy Goodman held on 30 November 2010.
Approximately 86 percent of Israeli Jews believe any final Knesset decision regarding the country’s future political arrangement must be approved by a Jewish majority, according to a poll by the Israel Democratic Institute.
Underlying the gossip and analysis sent back to Washington is an awareness from many US officials stationed abroad of quite how ineffective — and often counter-productive — much US foreign policy is… The possibility that Israel might go it alone and attack Iran is contemplated as though it were an event Washington has no hope of preventing. US largesse of billions of dollars in annual aid and military assistance to Israel appears to confer zero leverage on its ally’s policies.
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk: “The Palestinian experience suggests the need for a new protocol of international humanitarian law… some outer time limit after which further occupation becomes a distinct violation of international law, and if not promptly corrected, constitutes a new type of crime against humanity.”
Amnesty director Kate Allen: “The so-called ‘easing’ of the Gaza blockade does not change the fact that there’s still a cruel and illegal blockade collectively punishing the entire civilian population… The only real easing has been the easing of pressure on the Israeli authorities to end this cruel and illegal practice.”
Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs: “Israel’s failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future.”
Hope is not for the practical and the sophisticated, the cynics and the complacent, the defeated and the fearful. Hope is what the corporate state, which saturates our airwaves with lies, seeks to obliterate. Hope is what our corporate overlords are determined to crush. Be afraid, they tell us. Surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe from terror. Don’t resist. Embrace the alienation of our cheerful conformity. Buy our products. Without them you are worthless. Become our brands. Do not look up from your electronic hallucinations to think. No. Above all do not think. Obey.
Use The Guardian’s interactive guide to discover what has been revealed in the leak of 250,000 US diplomatic cables. Mouse over the map below to find stories and original documents by country, subject or people.
Israeli democracy at its best: The entire people will decide on the next peace arrangement, but not on the question of settlements and annexation, and not on the question of wars. Israeli trickery at its best: Legislators pass laws relating to the day an arrangement is forged whose point is to defer that day’s arrival for as long as possible. And Israeli morality at its best: A manifestly immoral question is formulated for a referendum, and insult is added to injury because only we Israelis, members of the chosen people, will decide on the fate of another people which has for generations lived under occupation, and we dare to call all this tomfoolery democracy. In fact, this is Israeli chutzpah at its worst.
Jonathan Cook, reporting on Israel and the Occupation for over a decade now, provides a comprehensive review of the many ways in which Israel attempts to suppress, control, shape and bias media coverage of the Occupation – globally, locally, and via its far-reaching international Hasbara propaganda network.
RELATED Why NGO Monitor is attacking The Electronic Intifada
Jonathan Cook, reporting on Israel and the Occupation for over a decade now, provides a comprehensive review of the many ways in which Israel attempts to suppress, control, shape and bias media coverage of the Occupation – globally, locally, and via its far-reaching international Hasbara propaganda network. (Part II)
Two days ago in Rafi’ah
nine Arabs were killed,
yesterday six
were killed in Hebron,
and today — just two.
Last year
as we were marching
from Shenkin Street
The sixth Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture organized by the Department of English and Comparative Literature, American University in Cairo, by Judith Butler.
Knesset approves bill mandating referendum before decision to withdraw from Israeli territory, but does not enable appeal against decision to reject a peace agreement… The wording of the question contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that the referendum “enables to pass with strong public support an agreement that answers the national interests of Israel.”
Palestinian resident of the building: “The settlers arrived in the morning and began to break the lock… We were frightened. The children are scared of them and of their guards… Why do they come here? They have a whole country. So why here of all places, in our house?”
The Arab League slammed a new Israeli law mandating a national referendum ahead of any withdrawal from annexed east Jerusalem or the Golan Heights. The League’s deputy secretary general, Ahmed bin Helli, said the law “showed clearly the hostile nature of the Israeli government and the fact that it does not take international law and the foundations of the peace process seriously.” (See next item.)
[The State of] Minnesota’s investment in two Israel bonds supports Israel’s apartheid system in both Israel and the Palestinian Territories and enables widespread abuse of human rights. Israel Bonds finance infrastructure projects including settlement building on the Palestinian West Bank and in East Jerusalem; these settlements displace Palestinians from their own lands.
Columbia University student Maya Yechieli Wind organizes campus display depicting IDF soldiers abusing Palestinian students at checkpoints. Israeli students form counter-protest. ‘Many think this is what really goes on,’ one of them says.
IOA Editor: Perhaps it is precisely because this is what actually goes on… Flag-wrapping not withstanding, even this ‘pro-Israeli’ coverage of anti-Occupation activism at Columbia University fails to materially challenge the protesters’ message.
Top Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, are engaged in “very serious” discussions about whether to abandon negotiations with Israel and seek United Nations recognition of a Palestinian state, a senior Palestinian official said yesterday.
Israeli political analyst Yossi Alpher: “In effect, [the new law] weakens the authority of the Knesset to decide these issues and turns it over to a system that has never been tried in Israel. It’s extremely difficult to predict how the [new] system will behave. It is clearly intended to make it more difficult to approve withdrawal from these territories. It really strikes at the heart of the Israeli parliamentary system.”
IOA Editor: Why is this important? The new law makes Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and of Syria’s Golan Heights more permanently secured by making a negotiated compromise by a future Israeli government (however theoretical and hard to imagine) much more difficult to carry out.
For historical context, read about the 1967 expulsion of Syria’s Golan Height population, which was strikingly similar in methods and means to Israeli actions in the 1948 Nakba:
At the beginning of his term, Barack Obama became the first US president to call for a halt in Jewish settlement construction in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories as a prerequisite for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. But if a deal that stipulates a partial 90-day freeze of settlement building in return for US military and political incentives is reached, he will become the first US president to legitimise the Jewish colonies.
