IDF, Shin Bet restraint practices tantamount to torture

24 June 2009 - The public committee against torture in Israel released a harsh report on Wednesday, revealing “pain and humiliation” inflicted by the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service, against Palestinian detainees... often constituting torture. In defiance of Israeli law, High Court rulings and international laws and guidelines, detainees in Israel are usually bound in a way that is designed to cause them pain, and not only to prevent them from escaping, the report says. more

Akiva Eldar: Barak authorizes construction of 300 new homes in West Bank

23 June 2009 - Activists for Bimkom association, which works for justice and human rights in planning and knows a thing or two about the situation in the territories, have discovered that Barak recently authorized the Civil Administration to submit a plan for the construction of 300 housing units in the unauthorized outpost of Givat Habrecha, near the community of Talmon... The new construction is located around 13 kilometers east of the Green Line, on the “Palestinian” side of the separation barrier. more

IOA Editor: As stated on these pages frequently, President Obama’s words, calling Israel to stop expanding settlements, mean nothing without follow-up actions. Your move, Mr. President.

Jewish groups blast ’anti-Zionist’ conference at Toronto university

22 June 2009 - Entitled "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace," the three-day meet features presentations by dozens of speakers, including Palestinian and Israeli scholars.  more

IOA Editor: So-called “Supporters of Israel” (a misnomer because, invariably, they object to an equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian confilct, thus excluding any viable solution) again show their true anti-democratic faces: trying to block an academic conference assessing potential future peace arrangements which they choose not to tolerate. Thus, not for the first time, charges of “anti-Semitism” are leveled. Anyone who experienced the anti-Occupation struggle in the past 42 years is familiar with this dynamic.

For information on the York University conference, and a list of its “anti-Semitic” participants, see Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace.

David Shulman: Where peaceful protest begets jail

19 June 2009 - [I]nside the occupied Palestinian territories [there] is a shadow state where the only real law is the law of the gun, where land is being taken away from its rightful owners every day, and where the very few who stand up to protest, without violence, like Ezra Nawi, are sent to prison. Bad times generally bring out the worst in most of us. more

IOA Editor: Like Ezra Nawi, David Shulman is a courageous anti-Occupation activist who tells it like it is and focuses on the most important aspects of the Occupation: the unceasing, systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people - including the victimization of the weakest, poorest Beduin tribes - and the continuing Israli campaign to crush Palestinian nationhood.

Aluf Benn: West Bank road trip [19 June 2009]

IOA Editor: An important assessment of the realities of the West Bank settlement program, and why the Israeli Occupation is here to stay - unless Israel is forced otherwise. more

Haaretz: Israeli troops humiliate Palestinians - and put it on YouTube

19 June 2009 - Haaretz documents the latest abuses of Palestinians by Israeli Border Police at checkpoints. The Israeli military/police soldiers were so pround of their work that the decided to film it and put it on YouTube for the world to see. Haaretz (Hebrew edition) presents six such video clips, each reflecting the fundamental humanity of the victim, and the fundamental indecency and cruelty of the victimizer.

Since the Haaretz report was published last night, YouTube (owned by Google) has removed at least two of the videos “due to terms of use violation,” or perhaps because they didn’t wish to participate in documenting the daily abuses of the Israeli Occupation. The others may still be available. (Update: It appears that the videos are now available again.)

It is important to note that such ugly and unpleasant behavior is just that: ugly and unpleasant. While accurately reflecting the day-to-day abusive aspects of the Occupation, such behavioral aspects are probably among its least important aspects. For 42 years now, the Israeli occupation, in an orchestrated campaign to dispossess an entire people and to physically destroy Palestinian nationhood, has done far, far worse. more

Assaf Kfouri: What the Lebanese Elections Are and What They Are Not

18 June 2009 - American policies in the average Lebanese voter’s mind are not exemplified by Obama’s pious pronouncements in Cairo on June 4th, but by a long record of unrestricted support for Israel’s meddling in internal Lebanese affairs and oppression of Palestinians, as well as American alliance with despotic Arab regimes, the devastation of Iraq, and aggressive interventions further East. more

U.S. ups pressure on Israel to end Gaza blockade

18 June 2009 - The United States has stepped up pressure on Israel regarding the Gaza Strip: Three weeks ago it sent Jerusalem a diplomatic note officially protesting Gaza policy and demanding a more liberal opening of the border crossings to facilitate reconstruction. more

IOA Editor: Clearly, the “stepped up pressure” is not too onerous on Israel: after three weeks, it has yet to result in any meaningful change in Gaza.

Carter ’distressed’ by Gaza visit

17 June 2009 - Visiting the American School in Gaza, damaged in Israel’s three-week operation, Mr Carter said “it's very distressing to me”. He said the school had been “deliberately destroyed by bombs from F-16s made in my country and delivered to the Israelis”... Gazans “are treated more like animals than human beings,” Mr Carter said. “Never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then been deprived of the means to repair itself”... more

Gideon Levy: The unrest in Iran makes me green with envy

18 June 2009 - It’s true, there is liberty in Israel, but only for us, the Jews. We have a regime that is no less tyrannical than the ayatollahs' regime: the regime of the officers and the settlers in the territories... When you get a chance, go on Friday to Na’alin or Bil’in and see what happens there. Demonstrators are killed here with similar brutality, but in Iran the crowd is standing up to a tyrannical regime, while here only a handful of brave people stand up to the Border Police, who are firing weapons. Moreover, we hardly write anything about the protest being silenced with bullets. It interests no one, and this, too, is called democracy. more

Antony Loewenstein: Why aren’t Jews outraged by Israeli occupation?

17 June 2009 - A thinking, more enlightened Judaism is emerging, a necessity in the face of apartheid realities... Defining a humane Judaism in the 21st century means condemning the brutal military occupation in the West Bank and resisting the ongoing siege of Gaza. more

Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu, Mideast peace and a return to the Axis of Evil

15 June 2009 - The prime minister’s speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush’s “axis of evil.” Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neoconservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children. more

Carter: Netanyahu faces clash with Obama over peace process

14 June 2009 - A day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers what has been described as a key policy speech at Bar-Ilan University, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter told Haaretz in an exclusive interview on Saturday that President Barack Obama will not change his position on the two-state solution and Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Carter added that Israel and the United States are on a collision course if Israel refuses to comply on these two issues. more

IOA Editor: It is good to see Carter helping Obama to further paint himself into the Israeli-Palestinian-conflict corner. Let us hope that Obama, no matter how much he originally intended to deliver, will now feel compelled to maintain his position vis-a-vis Israel’s refusal to cooperate - which is the general assessment based on leaked comments on the Netanyahu upcoming speech.

Given his strong approval rate and the focus on other US and global crises, should Obama choose to change US policies towards the Occupation, it looks like he can now overcome what is often preceived, whether correctly or not, as impossible domestic political opposition.

For 42 years now, all US presidents, Democrat and Republican alike, not only tolerated the Occupation but enabled and facilitated it by providing unprecedented financial aid to Israel. To change all this, Obama will have to evolve from speeches to action. But will he do it?

Poll: 56% of Israelis back settlement construction

12 June 2009 - Nearly six of every 10 Israelis think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should resist U.S. demands to completely freeze construction in Jewish West Bank settlements, according to a new poll released Friday. The poll by the Maagar Mohot Polling Institute comes just ahead of Netanyahu's major policy speech on Sunday that is expected to address a growing divide with Washington. more

Akive Eldar: What about the Arabs’ natural growth?

12 June 2009 - It seems that never before has so much been written and said about the “natural growth” of so few... Maybe it is no coincidence that the government spokespeople insist on describing the homes for “sons returning from the army” rather than homes for young couples, or students. Someone might dare to check the housing situation in Arab villages or East Jerusalem, whose residents actually on Israeli soil as opposed to the settlers. more

Aluf Benn: Netanyahu failed to build bond of trust with Obama

10 June 2009 - A photo released by the White House, which shows Obama talking on the phone with Netanyahu on Monday, speaks volumes: The president is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, as though he were dictating to Netanyahu: “Listen up and write ’Palestinian state’ a hundred times. That’s right, Palestine, with a P.” As an enthusiast of Muslim culture, Obama surely knows there is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of one’s shoes at another person.  more

Gaza bonanza

11 June 2009 - While the Israel Defense Forces calculates how many calories Gaza residents need and strictly regulates the products allowed to enter the Strip, the blockade is giving some Israeli entrepreneurs an opportunity to turn big profits. more

IOA Editor: An important investigative report uncovering the many ways in which the Israel economy, and Israeli companies, profit from the Gaza closure.

Supreme Court: Why won’t state demolish illegal outposts?

10 June 2009 - Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch on Wednesday lambasted the state for neglecting to enforce demolition orders of illegal West Bank outposts... The state prosecutor’s office responded by saying that the government was working according to the priorities set forth by Defense Minister Ehud Barak. more

Noam Chomsky: Turning Point?

7 June 2009 - Obama has praised the [Arab Peace] Initiative and called on the Arab states to proceed to normalize relations with Israel. But he has so far scrupulously evaded the core of the proposal, thus implicitly maintaining the US rejectionist stand that has blocked a diplomatic settlement since the 1970s along with its Israeli client, in virtual isolation. There are no signs that Obama is willing even to consider the Arab Initiative, let alone "promote" it. That was underscored in Obama's much heralded address to the Muslim world in Cairo on June 4... more

Rational Israelis: Don’t turn Obama into an enemy

7 June 2009 - Apart from a few small nuances, George W. Bush could have delivered the same speech. On the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab issue, in particular, not only could Bush have delivered the same speech, he did - almost everything the current U.S. president said in Cairo was said many times over by his predecessor. It was not Obama, after all, who invented the maxim “two states for two peoples” - it was at the very core of his predecessor’s vision, our great friend in the White House, as early as 2002. more

IOA Editor: The hysterical reactions of Israel’s Right (see below) brings about a rational reaction which sees the US as Israel’s most valuable ally, and Obama as not very different than Bush. Judging by Obama’s actions to date, altogether a very reasonable argument.

Israeli officials: U.S. leaves no choice but to okay Palestinian state

6 June 2009 - Officials in Jerusalem told Israel Radio on Saturday that there is no alternative but to ultimately agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state... [T]he quicker Israel adopts the road map for peace as the preferred diplomatic initiative, the more likely it will ward off American pressure to concede to a Palestinian state within the framework of an alternative plan that is less agreeable to Israel. more

IOA Editor: While it remains to be seen how far Obama will go in putting pressure on Israel - so far, support at the UN, (increased) military aid, and massive financial aid are to continue - the Israeli government may be preparing its citizenry for the “hard choices” that Obama is talking about. Important to remember: The Bush Administration was also against expansion of settlement, while it kept on financing them. Talk is cheap; the ultimate test is in actions.

Protestors march in Tel Aviv to mark 42 years of occupation

6 June 2009 - About 1,000 demonstrators marched in the rally. The speakers demanded that Israel stop settlement building and heed calls by U.S. President Barack Obama to restart the peace process. more

Palestinian Lawyers Take on Israel

5 June 2009 - Dozens of attorneys around the world -- in Norway, Britain, New Zealand, Spain and the Netherlands -- are working on the Gaza lawsuits. In a globalized world, justice is also global: The basis for the initiative is the principle of universal jurisdiction in international law, which makes it possible to file suits worldwide for war crimes, genocide, torture and crimes against humanity. more

Galilee communities: We're not racist, we just don't want Arabs

5 June 2009 - Residents of the Misgav bloc of communities in the Galilee consider themselves to be liberal, peace-loving people who support coexistence with their Arab neighbors... Which is why they were shocked this week when proposals raised at local council meetings to accept only applicants who shared their Zionist principles drew negative headlines and criticism for alleged racism. more

Akiva Eldar: The Great Land Robbery

5 June 2009 - An important report on how settleres, settlement organizations, and the Israeli government, working in close cooperation, methodically rob Palestinian farmers of their lands and transfer them to Jewish settlers. Incidentally, similar methods were used by the Israeli government in the early 1950s to transfer lands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to Jewish hands. more

Theater of the Absurd: under house-arrest since February

5 June 2009 - Samieh Jabbarin, 40, a native of Umm al-Fahm, is a theater director and an Ibna al-Balad activist who normally resides in Jaffa. He has been under house-arrest in Umm al-Fahm since February, after being falsely accused of violence in an election related demonstration, with a court hearing now scheduled for 7 June 2009.

The Committee for Solidarity with Samieh Jabbarin has been campaigning for his release, including a petition and recent statement in advance of the court hearing. more

Gilbert Achcar: Obama’s Cairo Speech

5 June 2009 - Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo... definitely lived up to expectations -- provided we agree on what could have been expected. With regard to the form, Obama fully lived up to his role as the new black and human face of America in its relation with the rest of the world in general, and with the Muslim world in particular. He respected the specifications of his mission, seeking to repair the huge damage caused to America’s image and “soft power” by the previous administration... The world witnessed a spectacular attempt at seducing the Muslim world -- its youth in particular. more

Israeli Settlers: “We’re launching a campaign against anti-Semitic Obama”

3 June 2009 - “We are launching a campaign against Barack Hussein Obama. He is bad for the people of Israel and for the state of Israel and his policies could bring about disaster. We expect our prime minister to say ’no’ to anyone who tries to harm us.” more

IOA Editor: Obama’s popularity among West Bank settlers is taking a hit, but he has yet to earn these new credentials: So far, it’s been talk, and only talk. Bush also spoke about his ’vision’ of a viable Palestinian state, with territorial contiguity, living alongside Israel in peace, etc. Obama’s words will become meaningful only if and when they are backed up by action. We’ve been told already that US support of Israel at the UN is not going to change, and it has yet to be suggested that financial or military support of Israel is at risk should Israel not freeze settlements, let alone agree to remove them.

Israel 141st out of 144 in Global Peace Index

3 June 2009 - Only three countries in the world are less peaceful than Israel, according to Global Peace Index figures released this week. more

The 2009 Global Peace Index Rankings

Akiva Eldar: Nothing natural about “natural growth”

2 June 2009 - The myth of “natural population growth” doesn’t impress Col. (res.) Shaul Arieli, nor do the stories about little children from good Jewish homes who are left without a kindergarten. Arieli... did the calculations and found that one third of Israelis living in the territories (not including East Jerusalem) settled there during the Oslo years and another third after the peace process was suspended. more

IOA Editor: Note our 31/5/2009 comment (below): A whole lot can happen when the “peace process” is in “process...” Today it would be making a future “viable Palestinian state” no longer viable. This means that settlement development - new, expansion of the old, and so-called “natural growth” - has to stop. Now.

Akiva Eldar: What will happen if Israel ’defeats’ Obama?

1 June 2009 - Does Israel really have an interest in winning the battle over the settlements? What will happen if we destroy the prestige of the strongest man in the world and portray him as an empty vessel, incapable of halting the settlement program of a U.S. protege? Will an Israeli “victory” strengthen the status of the U.S. in the international campaign against Iran? more

Israeli proposal: Make Jordan the official Palestinian homeland

1 June 2009 - “It has done big damage,” says Mamdouh Abbadi, a member of the Jordanian parliament who has been among the most vocal in calling for government action against the proposal. “Even if it's not passed, when 53 members of the parliament [Knesset] accept this law in the first reading, this is very important. We can't think it's just for show; it's the real thinking of the Israeli parliament and they represent the people.” more

Israeli ministers: No West Bank settlement freeze

31 May 2009 - “I want to make it clear that the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria [West Bank],” Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio. more

IOA Editor: The Israeli government may be testing the Obama Administration's limits, perhaps thinking that Obama's bark is bigger than his bite. In the meantime, the risk of peace resulting from immediate settlement removal has, for now, abated [see next item].

Obama offers olive branch of ’respect’ to Middle East

31 May 2009 - According to The Sunday Times, “Administration officials say privately that Obama has given himself two years for a diplomatic breakthough on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, despite the opposition of Binyamin Netanyahu... to America’s minimum demand for a freeze on all settlement building in disputed territory.” more

IOA Editor: Those following the subject already know that a whole lot can happen in two years: wars, massive attacks against civilian populations, government changess that cause delays, and other events which invariably permit the expansion of the Occupation - settlements, population, infrastructure development for some and destruction for others - likely making a future viable Palestinian state no longer possible. In other words, nothing short of immediate action can halt the Occupation dynamics of the past 42 years.

Israeli Ministers reject Yisrael Beiteinu’s loyalty oath bill

31 May 2009 - The ministerial legislative committee rejected on Sunday a bill stating that those who wish to retain Israeli citizenship would have to declare their loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. more

Haaretz: Netanyahu must rein in Lieberman’s racist proposals

31 May 2009 - The sanitized language in these bills cannot conceal their true objective: the institutionalization and deepening of discrimination against Arab citizens. They stain Israeli democracy, exacerbate the rifts in society and intensify the sense of ostracism and oppression of the Arab community in its relations with the state. more

Uri Avnery: Racists for Democracy

30 May 2009 - A million and a half Arab citizens cannot be expected to recognize Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State. They want it to be “a state of all its citizens” – Jews, Arabs and others. They also claim with reason that Israel discriminates against them, and therefore is not really democratic. more

Zochrot’s response to proposed Israeli law banning Nakba

28 May 2009 - “The proposal to legally bar the commemoration of the Nakba on Israel’s Independence Day reflects growing trepidation in Israel about the inevitable encounter with the Palestinian Nakba and the understanding that the Nakba is a foundational part of Israeli identity.” more

IOA Editor: Citing a Greek philosopher, “the law is what is good for the stronger,” Eitan Bronstein points to challenges facing those fighting to incorporate the Nakba into Israel’s own history. Zochrot, a courageous Israeli organization, set out to do just that. The challenges are far greater than the ’mere’ acceptance of a Palestinian state alongside Israel: more akin to having Nuremberg trials applied to the winning party.

Israel's Knesset is expected to consider, and possibly pass into law, additional proposals requiring loyalty to the State, as a Jewish and Zionist state, and further limiting expressions of disagreement. If successful, ultimately anything Palestinian may be banned by the laws of “The Only Democracy in the Middle East...”

Knesset okays initial bill to outlaw denial of ’Jewish state’

27 May 2009 - The Knesset plenum gave initial approval on Wednesday to a bill that would make it a crime to publicly deny Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, punishable by a sentence of up to a year in prison. The measure was the latest of several introduced in the past week by right-wing lawmakers and denounced by critics as an assault on free speech, particularly for Israeli Arab citizens... more

Israel's Latest Initiative: Wishing Palestine Away

27 May 2009 - Israeli MK: Palestinians must be given Jordanian citizenship - Jordan is essentially the Palestinian state... Ehud Barak and other Laborites among the legislative supporters. more

IOA Editor: Barak’s support of this initiative illustrates the narrow gap separating Israel’s leadership from its most extreme, racist elements.

Gideon Levy: How to talk to a right winger

28 May 2009 - [T]he right has no vision of how the country will look less than a generation from now, when the Arabs make up the majority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean... For how many more years will millions of people continue to live without basic rights while the world remains silent? In the outside world such a country is called an apartheid state. more

Aluf Benn: Netanyahu bringing Israel closer to war with Iran

26 May 2009 - In talks on going to war, the ministers and officers compete over who is more patriotic, not who is wiser or more rational. At decision time, no one will dare go down in history as having reservations and risk being portrayed as a coward. more

Israel’s Yaalon: “Israel won’t yield to U.S. demands, won’t halt settlement construction”

23 May 2009 - “[U.S. Middle East envoy George] Mitchell will come, and we’ll talk to him. I suggest that Israel and the U.S. don’t set a timetable. We won’t let them threaten us... From the banks of the Potomac in Washington it is not always clear what the real situation here is...” more

IOA Editor: Test of the seriousness of Obama's ME intentions:
How tolerant those on the Potomac are of Israeli arrogance.

Noam Chomsky: The Torture Memos

23 May 2009 - “[T]orture has been routine practice from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and then beyond... Small wonder that the President advises us to look forward, not backward - a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance.” more

France: Jerusalem should be capital of two states

22 May 2009 - “In France’s eyes, Jerusalem should, within the framework of a negotiated peace deal, become the capital of two states... In broad terms, France condemns the ongoing settlement, including in East Jerusalem. We reiterate the need for a freeze on colonization activities, including those linked to natural population growth.” more

Poll: “1 in 4 Israelis would consider leaving country if Iran gets nukes”

22 May 2009 - “The findings are worrying because they reflect an exaggerated and unnecessary fear,” Prof. David Menashri, the head of the [Iranian Studies] Center, said. “Iran’s leadership is religiously extremist but calculated and it understands an unconventional attack on Israel is an act of madness that will destroy Iran. Sadly, the survey shows the Iranian threat works well even without a bomb...” more

Yossi Melman: Israel’s military option against Iran is dead

22 May 2009 - The supreme tenet of Israeli defense policy states that Jerusalem must not launch any strategic initiative that stands in contradiction, or places in harm's way, the clear interests of the United States. This stance has underpinned every fateful decision taken by Israel relating to matters of war and peace... If this tenet remains the cornerstone of defense policy, then Israel once again will not act against the explicit wishes of the U.S. more

US Senators Warn Obama on Dangers of Peace (to Israel)

21 May 2009 - A Majority of 76 Senators urged President Barack Obama Tuesday to advance Middle East peace talks while minding the “risks” Israel faces in a two state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians.  more

Gideon Levy: A friend of Israel

21 May 2009 - We must be thankful to Obama... he is trying to rescue Israel, the Middle East, and basically the entire world... The ball is in Netanyahu's court. If he ends the occupation, he'll get peace and security; if he doesn't, he won't. more

IOA Editor: Levy's unbridled enthusiasm about Obama's Middle East plans is not justifiable but may be explained as a desparate desire for someone to step in and block Netanyahu - a sincere hope, but not one grounded in reality.

Mustafa Barghouthi: Can Obama meet Netanyahu's challenge?

18 May 2009 - I am increasingly convinced that if Obama fails to speak out now, it will doom the two-state solution forever. Further fiddling in Washington -- after eight years of it -- will consign Jerusalem, the West Bank and the two-state solution to an Israeli expansionism that will overwhelm the ability of cartographers to concoct a viable Palestinian state. more

Peace Now: ’Natural growth’ - Israel’s trick for West Bank expansion

17 May 2009 - As Akiva Eldar reports,figures for 2006-07 reveal that the housing shortage in settlements stems largely from “migration” from Israel proper to communities beyond the Green Line, as well as the addition of new immigrants from abroad. more

Amira Hass: Israel bans books, music and clothes from entering Gaza

17 May 2009 - Altogether only 30 to 40 select commercial items are now allowed into the Gaza Strip, compared to 4,000 that had been approved before the closure Israel imposed on Gaza following the abduction of Gilad Shalit, according to merchants and human rights activists. more

Liverpool cuts funding for festival that includes ’anti-Semitic’ play

17 May 2009 - Since its February debut, Jewish leaders have condemned “Seven Jewish Children” as anti-Semitic. The play is said to tie the Nazi murder of Jews during the Holocaust with the killing of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel. It also depicts an Israeli’s decision to tell a child not to feel sorry for dead Palestinians. more

More about “Seven Jewish Children”

Poll: 40% of Israeli Arabs believe Holocaust never happened

17 May 2009 - The survey shows that Holocaust denial among Israeli Arabs has become more prevalent in recent years... “This radicalization in the positions of Arabs was caused by a series of factors such as the Second Lebanon War, the stalemate in the negotiations with the Palestinians...”  more

UN: Israel should reveal secret torture centers

16 May 2009 - A United Nations report published Friday by the world body’s Committee Against Torture urged Israel to reveal secret torture facilities. more

Obama, Netanyahu, and the Future of U.S.-Israeli Relations

15 May 2009 - On the eve of Netanyahu’s While House visit on Monday, a report by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic & and International Studies was released today, reiterating earlier findings (see below). It criticizes any possible Israeli military attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, and it points to the potential ramifications such an attack, and the continued Israeli-Palestinian stalement, may have on U.S.-Israel relations.

“President Barack Obama’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raises some of the most serious issues in U.S.-Israeli relations. It is premature to judge how the Netanyahu government will deal with either the Arab-Israeli issue or Iran, but both could be major sources of tension if the two countries do not go deeper than their usual dialogue. The United States and Israel are allies, but this scarcely means that they have identical strategic interests or that U.S. ties to Israel cannot be a liability as well as an asset.” more

Israeli attack on Iran: A Study of Options and Consequences

15 May 2009 - In advance of Netanyahu’s White House visit on Monday, Haaretz published a detailed report covering Anthony Cordesman’s and Abdullah Toukan’s (Center for Strategic & and International Studies) March 2009 military and political anaylsis of possible Israeli attack scenarios and their consequences. Haaretz concludes:

“[A]ll the declarations about developing the operational capability of IAF aircraft so they can attack the nuclear facilities in Iran, and the empty promises about the ability of the Arrow missile defense system to contend effectively with the Shahab-3, not only do not help bolster Israel's power of deterrence, but actually undermine the process of building it and making it credible in Iranian eyes.

The time has come to adopt new ways of thinking. No more fiery declarations and empty threats, but rather a carefully weighed policy grounded in sound strategy. Ultimately, in an era of a multi-nuclear Middle East, all sides will have a clear interest to lower tension and not to increase it.”

Haaretz: Here's how Israel would destroy Iran's nuclear program

CSIS: Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities

“Despite US protest, the plan to expand Ma’aleh Adumim and bisect the West Bank is advancing”

14 May 2009 - [T]he area known as E1, linking the settlement to East Jerusalem... is the only area that [candidate] Netanyahu explicitly committed to developing... His political rival... Ehud Barak also publicly expressed support for building there... All of these developments share a single common denominator - by taking “a dunam here and a dunam there,” they are tightening Israel’s grip on the land... These steps seriously diminish the already narrow possibility of reaching a final-status agreement with the Palestinians. Over the past decade Palestinian officials have hinted that they could come to terms with Ma’aleh Adumim, but that willingness is unlikely to extend to the giant “bubble” developing around the settlement. more

IOA Editor: Both Likud and Labor candidates - now government partners - share the vision, plans, and actions designed to sever the West Bank in order to make a future independent Palestinian state impossible. And, “US protest,” and “Obama’s determined veto,” recently mentioned frequently in connection with Israeli settlement expansion are, so far, entirely theoretical: indeed, mere speculations.

Letter to the Norwegian Government Pension Fund

14 May 2009 - “We, Israeli organizations, comprised of Jewish and Palestinian women and men and dedicated to building a just peace and to promoting human rights and equal civil rights in Israel/Palestine, call upon the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory...” [Signed by 20 Israeli/Palestinian organizations] more

Gideon Levy: Twilight Zone / PlayStation

14 May 2009 - Mohammed Abu Akrub returned from school one afternoon and stood in the street with a few friends, doing nothing, according to him. Six Israel Defense Forces jeeps appeared suddenly and announced a curfew in the village. That was the start of the abuse of Mohammed and his five friends - abuse that continued until dawn, when the six were tossed out of the jeeps, wounded and battered. more

IDF probing whether troops forced Gaza man to drink urine

14 May 2009 - The latest from the “Most Moral Army in the World:” [C]omplaint was submitted by Omar al-Qanoa to the IDF military advocate general by the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights. more

Adam Shatz: Mishal’s Luck

14 May 2009 - Reviewing Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas by Paul McGeough, Adam Shatz provides an excellent historical review of Hamas: tracing its history and Israel’s role in helping it become a prominent power in the Palestinian social and political arenas. more

Palestinians and Israeli Jews to equal in number by 2016

13 May 2009 - The Jewish and Arab populations in Israel and the Palestinian territories will reach an equal number by 2016, according to figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. more

Journalist Amira Hass freed on bail following detention after leaving Gaza

12 May 2009 - Israel Police on Tuesday detained Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass upon her exit from the Gaza Strip, where she had been living and reporting over the last few months. more

Amira Hass: Israel knows that peace just doesn’t pay

11 May 2009 - Successive Israeli governments since 1993 certainly must have known what they were doing, being in no hurry to make peace with the Palestinians. As representatives of Israeli society, these governments understood that peace would involve serious damage to national interests. more

The New York Times: Parks Fortify Israel’s Claim to Jerusalem

UN Special Coordinator: “Everything Israel does now will be highly contentious,” warning the Israeli authorities “not to take actions that could pour oil on the fire.”
Israel’s Interior Minister: “This is the land of our sovereignty. Jewish settlement there is our right.”
Tel Aviv University Archeologist: “The sanctity of the City of David is newly manufactured and is a crude amalgam of history, nationalism and quasi-religious pilgrimage... the past is used to disenfranchise and displace people in the present.” more

Netanyahu: Israel will never withdraw from Golan

8 May 2009 - “Remaining on the Golan will ensure Israel has a strategic advantage in cases of military conflict with Syria,” Netanyahu said during a briefing he gave to the reporters. more

Financial Times: US renews sanctions against Syria

8 May 2009 - The Obama administration has renewed its sanctions against Syria for another year, citing a continuing “national emergency” facing the US from Syria’s support for terrorist organisations and weapons trade. more

Daniel Levy: From ’comfort zone’ to ’decision zone’

8 May 2009 - With renewed American interest in delivering a two-state reality, the leaderships in both Jerusalem and Ramallah appear to share one common goal: finding a comfort zone, a place where the peace process can continue ad infinitum, and hard decisions can be avoided. more

Haaretz: Protesters Arrested in Clashes with West Bank Settlers

8 May 2009 - [IDF] and the Israel Police evacuated dozens of Palestinian and left-wing activists who staged a demonstration at an illegal outpost near Kiryat Arba on Friday... The activists had arrived in the area with the intention of erecting their own outpost near the illegal outpost named Hilltop 26. Some news agencies reported that the activists had assembled a makeshift structure and waved Palestinian flags. more

Haaretz: Settlement expansion seeing biggest boost since 2003

7 May 2009 - West Bank construction has been accelerating for several months, putting Israel on a collision course with a U.S. administration taking a hard line on settlement expansion... more

IOA Editor: The extent of this widely predicted “collision” remains to be seen.

Hasan Abu-Nimah: Ban Ki-moon’s moral failure

6 May 2009 - The UN does not exist only to protect its personnel and installations. The UN flag alone ought to provide that kind of real protection... But Israel has repeatedly attacked UN facilities, schools, peacekeeping forces and personnel in Palestine and Lebanon knowing full well that it, not the UN, enjoys immunity for its actions. The next time Israel attacks a UN facility, part of the responsibility will lie with those who failed to act correctly this time around. more

UN demand for IDF compensation in Gaza could reach $11m

6 May 2009 - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accused Israel Tuesday of lying about attacks on the facilities, including one said to have killed more than 40 people outside a school compound... [A] UN investigation found conclusively that Israel was responsible for attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the organization's Gaza headquarters. Some of the weapons used in these attacks contained white phosphorous... more

Human Rights Organisations call for End to International Donor Complicity in Israeli Violations of International Law

4 May 2009 - [A]s Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, we must note that by agreeing to reconstruction without specific, binding assurances from the State of Israel, international donors are effectively underwriting Israel’s illegal actions in the occupied Palestinian territory. more

Rela Mazali: Israel's war against youth

5 May 2009 - Protesters, activists and draft evaders are being targeted by a broad programme of state repression. more

Hebrew University Law Prof: Active Settlement Construction, Active Government Lies

5 May 2009 - [The White House] could also inform the Israeli prime minister and his cohorts that they will be welcome to come and discuss continued American support once construction for Israelis in the occupied territories has truly come to an end. more

Israeli-PA Cooperation: Rooting out Hamas, Hezbollah

5 May 2009 - Israeli security sources said that the PA has made a focused effort to uncover foreign agents... Israel passed on the handling of the containment effort to the PA... [T]he Palestinians are more effective in this role than the Israel Defense Forces or the Shin Bet security services...  more

IOA Editor: Treating Hamas as a “Foreign Agent” is an interesting twist of the Occupation. Divide and Rule is an old Israeli strategy: when PLO peace overtures were a threat (1980s), Israel initiated an assassination campaign against PLO representatives in Europe, and supported ’Muslim extremists.’ In many ways, Hamas remains Israel’s preferred enemy: one that can be easily presented as a ’non-partner.’

David Shulman: Pogrom at Um Safa

3 May 2009 - For the last ten days or so, settlers from Bat 'Ayin in the so-called Etzion Bloc have been paying violent daily visits to their Palestinian neighbors in Um Safa... They've already killed four innocents, and another eleven or twelve have been wounded by gunfire... the soldiers have apparently been making common cause with these settlers, opening fire readily at the villagers. more

IOA Editor: Local Settlers’ Views

Gideon Levy: IDF draft dodgers are heroes

3 May 2009 - Yitzhak Laor, our best protest poet, may soon face arrest. On Independence Day eve he published a poem in Haaretz's literary supplement with the lines: “Perhaps shame prevents me from getting up to embrace my son / And warning him of those who want to enlist him.” Arresting Laor for having written such lines may sound like fiction, but something similar has already happened. more

IOA Editor: Yitzhak Laor’s commentary can be found on the IOA website.

On Demographics: Regrettable statistical error

2 May 2009 - B. Michael says official Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics annual Independence Day report claiming that Jews comprise 75% of Israel’s population is inaccurate. more

IOA Editor: Might the missing key word here be Apartheid?

UN to Israel: End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem

1 May 2009 - Dozens of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem are demolished each year because they do not have planning permits. Critics say the demolitions are part of an effort to extend Israeli control as Jewish settlements continue to expand. more

RELATED STORY: Israel annexing East Jerusalem, says EU

The Environment: Israel Stripping West Bank Quarries

30 April 2009 - Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din is taking the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the Israeli civil administration and a number of Israeli mining companies to court [for] illegally stripping Palestinian West Bank quarries of raw construction material for the benefit of the Israeli construction industry and the building of illegal Israeli settlements. more

Israeli Arabs mark 61st anniversary of Nakba

29 April 2009 - Hadash Chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh: “Passing our heritage from one generation to the next is essential for our steadfastness and survival in our homeland. Our survival is not open to interpretation or negotiation, and is our formative feature as a community that narrowly escaped the threat of expulsion and remained in its country.” more

Yad Vashem fires employee who mentioned Nakba

29 April 2009 - “Yad Vashem talks about the Holocaust survivors’ arrival in Israel and about creating a refuge here for the world’s Jews. I said there were people who lived on this land and mentioned that there are other traumas that provide other nations with motivation,” Shapira said. more

IOA Editor: As the Haaretz report reads, no actual comparison between the Holocaust and the Nakba was made, as claimed by Yad Vashem and echoed by the reporter. Rather, it was the mere mentioning of the Nakba at the Yad Vashem building, located a stone-throw from where Deir Yassin once stood, that caused the firing.

Egypt selling goods seized on way to Gaza

26 April 2009 - Egyptian authorities invite local merchants to participate in auctions of goods confiscated before being smuggled into Gaza. Palestinians furious as they are paying for merchandise they will never receive... Egyptian business sources reported that most of the products offered in the auctions are food products, led by the rice, biscuits, beans, candy and salt. They are followed by household utensils and electrical appliances, including computer equipment. more

Gaza merchants urge Israel to release goods

26 April 2009 - Palestinian traders have had enough of seeing their merchandise rot in containers at Ashdod Port, call on international community to find urgent solution. more

Akiva Eldar: Netanyahu’s Mideast policy threatens Israel’s a planned EU-Israel relations upgrade

23 April 2009 - An internal [Israeli] Foreign Ministry document last week stated that following Operation Cast Lead, diplomatic bodies in a number of European countries have called for a freeze on the upgrade, citing the pressure of domestic public opinion. Four European states have already said that if Israel did not agree to a two-state solution, they would oppose upgrading relations. more

Related Haaretz report: Livni urges EU: Don't halt EU-Israel relations upgrade

Gideon Levy on Israel’s long history of calculated ’Peace Talks’ delay tactics: Word games

22 April 2009 - Twenty evacuated settlements are worth more than a thousand peace formulas, and 2,000 released prisoners will move the sides forward more than 10,000 words. If only Israel agrees to implement what it has agreed to, from the release of prisoners to a freeze on settlements... more

Israel’s MI Chief: Obama's Mideast policy threatens Israel

20 April 2009 - Military Intelligence Chief Amos Yadlin said Monday that the Middle East policy of U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration could endanger Israel... In a surprising shift, Yadlin also said that the Islamist Hamas movement has been deterred and is now interested in reaching a peace settlement with Israel. more

IOA Editor: It is unclear precisely what the surprise or shift is. As the second story below indicates, agreement with Hamas was possible in the past, well before Israel’s massive killing of Gaza civilians. As to Obama’s ’threat’ to Israel, nothing the new administration has said or done so far suggests a meaningful change from past US attitudes, especially towards the Israeli occupation and the basis for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

A former senior Israeli police officer reveals his many prison discussions with Hammas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin: “Israel could have made peace with Hamas under Yassin”

17 April 2009 - “So the father of the Hamas movement told you he recognized the State of Israel?  ’Yes. He was smart and brave. Cruel, but credible. He gave his life in the war for the freedom of his people. I tend to think that if we had tried for an agreement with him, we would have succeeded. He thought the reason the Israelis were dealing with [then PLO leader] Yasser Arafat is that they were very smart, because we knew we would get nowhere with him. In his opinion, Arafat was thoroughly corrupt.’” more