Gideon Levy: Pulp journalism

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman should have sent a big bouquet to Donald Bostrom, the Swedish photographer and journalist who wrote the article claiming that the Israel Defense Forces harvested organs from dead Palestinians… It has been a long time since such a propaganda asset has fallen into the hands of the friends of the occupation. It has been a long time since such damage has been caused to people seriously attempting to document its horrors. Read more »

Palestinians in Israel fight to reclaim Beersheva’s Great Mosque

“There is so much paranoia from the government, the municipality and the courts about Muslims using this mosque again,” said Nuri al-Uqbi, a 67-year-old Bedouin activist in Beersheva. “It was built with money raised from the local Bedouin and we should have the right to pray in it.” Read more »

Akiva Eldar: Don’t blame Bogie Ya’alon alone

Rather than demand an apology, the Israeli peace camp needs to send Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon a large bouquet of flowers… His statements are straight-from-the-source, first-hand proof of the decisive role the senior military echelon has played in thwarting the peace process.

IOA Editor: True, and very important to recognize. However, what Eldar calls the lack of courage to deal with settlers and fear of “presenting a map which demarcates the state’s permanent borders,” reflect, first and foremost, a lack of commitment to such demarcation.

Historically, right-wing (“Revisionist”) Zionism has viewed Israel’s eastern borders as located somewhere between the Jordan River (“less extreme”) and deep inside Jordan (“more extreme”). So-called “moderate” Labor Zionism, on the other hand, has viewed Israel’s borders with infinite flexibility: initially influenced by the availability of contiguous land and by low Palestinian population density, and ultimately driven by opportunities. For example, the Jordan Valley was first to be included in the future Greater Israel by Labor policy makers, and subsequently settled by Labor-led governments. Future settlements, increasingly deeper in the heartland of the West-Bank, were built as opportunities (often domestic politics) presented themselves – following the old pre-State adage “dunam here and dunam there” (dunam is unit of area approximately equal to 1/4 acre). Read more »

Yitzhak Laor: The soft underbelly and the victim

The name of this Israeli ethos is “who are you to tell us?” We are destroying Arab East Jerusalem? Who are you to tell us that it is wrong? We killed masses of Palestinians in Gaza? Who are you to tell us anything? We have maintained a brutal dictatorship in the territories for 42 years – longer than any other military occupation of the post-World War II era? Who are you to tell us? We’re allowed. We’re your victims. The past belongs to us. We will do as we please with it. Read more »

Haaretz editorial: Verbal rioting

The blatant attack that Ya’alon has been waging ever since he slammed the door by leaving the Israel Defense Forces has shown acute anti-democratic symptoms. Ya’alon has lashed out at the High Court of Justice in particular and the justice system in general, while expressing scandalous support for illegal settlements, making irresponsible accusations against his colleagues and superiors and stating views that are considered illegitimate even in the right wing.

IOA Editor: We continue focusing on Ya’alon because he is a central figure of Israel’s government and, as described by Haaretz, in many ways he is the government. Read more »

Israel Harel: Chivalrous defenders of human rights

[Joe] Stork wrote to Haaretz that rather than deal with the content of the report, Yemini chose to “shoot the messenger… The quotes he attributes to me are more than 30 years old. Most of them I do not recognize, and they are contrary to the views I have been expounding for decades now.” Stork wrote. “I have dedicated much of my adult life to the protection of human rights for all and to fighting the idea that civilians can be attacked for political reasons.”

IOA Editor: Israel Harel is a right-wing Israeli commentator, as is Ben Dror Yemini. Joe Stork is the deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division. This attack on HRW and its dedicated staff reflects the opinions of many Israelis who reject any outside criticism of IDF behavior and Israeli actions in the occupied territories.

See IOA coverage of the HRW report. Read more »

Neve Gordon: Boycott Israel

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right. Read more »

Amira Hass: Fatah’s gauntlet

The decision by Fatah’s Sixth Congress that the movement is sticking to negotiations as a means of achieving independence, statehood and peace is an admission that the use of arms during the second intifada was disastrous. That is a difficult admission for a movement founded on the sanctification of the armed struggle. And despite being tacit, it is a brave admission for Fatah at a time when most Palestinians are convinced that Israel does not want peace. Read more »

Nehemia Shtrasler: Israel wrecked Arafat, crowned Hamas, and gave birth to Al-Qaida in Gaza

During the entire period of our rule in the territories, we have destroyed the existing leadership, which led to the rise of more extreme leaders. We destroyed the Palestinian Authority and Yasser Arafat, who had agreed to a two-state solution and was capable of “delivering the goods.” And we brought about Hamas’ seizure of the Gaza Strip. Now we are cultivating the third stage: Al-Qaida.

IOA Editor: This Israeli-centric commentary is rare in its honesty as to who is responsible for where the dialog between Israel and the Palestinians is. For Israel, the more extreme and violent the enemy, the easier it is to ‘prove’ the claim that “there is no one to talk to…” Whether this is brought about via an assassination campaign directed at Palestinian moderates (1980s), the derailing of the meaningful negotiations in Madrid by the introduction of Oslo, the settlement program, the violent crushing of the Intifada and the destruction of Palestinian national infrastructure, or the strangulation of and attack on Gaza – it all serves the same purpose: to crush Palestinian nationhood. Read more »

Ezra Nawi’s Appeal

UPDATED 18 Aug 2009: Ezra Nawi’s sentencing hearing took place on August 16, 2009, and Jewish Voice for Peace was there with over 20,000 of your signatures. The judge will render her sentence on September 21st, 2009.

“I always knew that many people silently supported me, and that if I ever got into trouble they would stand behind me. This moment has come.”

Join Naomi Klein, Neve Gordon, Noam Chomsky and thousands of others and tell Israel not to jail Ezra Nawi, one of Israel’s most courageous human rights activists. His crime? He tried to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins in the South Hebron region. Read more »