Azmi Bishara: Elections under siege

Abbas’s acceptance of the Egyptian-mediated reconciliation deal with Hamas is only because that deal presents new ways for him to destroy his opponents, writes Azmi Bishara Read more »

Haaretz: Stop treading water

The time has come for Obama to summon both sides for serious, continuous negotiations, accompanied by a timetable for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel on the basis of the June 4, 1967 borders. There could be no clearer expression of the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and its future as a Jewish and democratic state.

IOA Editor: There could certainly be no clearer expression of US commitment to all peoples in the Middle East, the inherent conflict between a “Jewish” and a “democratic” state notwithstanding. Read more »

Gideon Levy: Settlements are fertile ground for Jewish terror

When a settlement is born out of sin, the sin of stolen land, the gun rests during the first act, the act of illegally confiscating the land. But you can count on there always being someone to pull the trigger in the final act. Read more »

Akiva Eldar: It’s not peace, Madam Secretary

All of a sudden, after 10 months and who knows how many meetings, freezing construction in the settlements is no longer a precondition for negotiations. True, until now the Palestinians were willing to negotiate the end of the occupation while their partner made it worse. That is how we have gone from 109,000 settlers – not including East Jerusalem – when the Oslo Accords were signed 16 years ago to more than 300,000 today. Read more »

Tony Judt: Justice Goldstone and the Jews

Goldstone’s standing in the world will only rise as a consequence of Israel’s short-sighted attempts to discredit the man, the report and the facts. That our own government has chosen to join in this unworthy exercise should be a source of deep embarrassment and shame. Read more »

Zeev Sternhell: With a conscience that is always clear

Most [friends of Israel] cannot understand the clear conscience of “the only democracy in the Middle East,” which does not hesitate to hold an entire people under occupation and siege, and at the same time punctiliously presents itself as always, in any situation, as the innocent victim of the hostile gentiles.

IOA Editor: This commentary is important in that it reflects the concerns of enlightened Israelis for the loss of the support Israel historically enjoyed in the West. In other words, global pressure against the Occupation and violations of international law works and must continue. Read more »

Aluf Benn: Who decided to go to war in Gaza and why?

I want to know how and why it was decided to embark on Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip and to expand it into a ground offensive… I want to know if those who gave orders to the Israel Defense Forces assumed that hundreds of Palestinian civilians would be killed, and how they tried to prevent this. Read more »

Kenneth Roth: Human Rights Watch applies same standards to Israel, Hamas

A country’s conditions do not remove its obligations under international law… Whether a state is an aggressor or acting in self-defense, whether it faces a regular army or insurgents that commit abuses, the laws of war apply, imposing a duty to minimize civilian harm. And being a democratic country prevents Israel from committing wartime abuses no more than it stopped the United States from torture and unlawful detentions at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Read more »

Shulamit Aloni: Only Jews deserve dignity?

I believe we should be amending the Basic Law: Human dignity and Liberty, and decide that the State of Israel is committed to maintaining the liberty and dignity of a person only if he’s Jewish; Just like we have land that is only for Jews and roads that are for Jews only. By modifying the Basic Law as suggested, we will know that “dignity and liberty” in the Jewish state are only reserved for Jews. Read more »

Zvi Barel: As occupier, Israel must face up to Goldstone report

Goldstone uses the term “continuum,” assessing [the Gaza attack] as part of a chain of events, which also includes the complete closure of the Gaza Strip for three years, the policy of razing homes, the arrests, the interrogations and torture, not only in the Gaza Strip but also in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In short, Operation Cast Lead is not an “incident.” It is a link in a chain as old as the occupation itself… Goldstone puts the symptom under the microscope and derives the illness. The result is a textbook whose title should have been “A manual for the occupier in the fifth decade.”

IOA Editor: Ground breaking commentary. Read more »