Israel’s War Against Palestine: Documenting the Military Occupation of Palestinian and Arab Lands

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Jonathan Cook: ‘It’s time for Palestinians in Israel to stand firm against the Bantustan plan of Oslo’

14 November 2012

Awad Abdel Fattah: “Our [Palestinian Israelis'] traditional strength derived from the fact that we, as a community, survived the ethnic cleansing of 1948 [the Nakba]. We remained in our homeland, even as it was transformed into a Jewish state.”

Noam Chomsky: Impressions of Gaza

7 November 2012

Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment

Jonathan Cook: Israeli Ministry of Tourism map annexes over 60% of the West Bank

2 November 2012

Is Israel preparing to annex Area C, as a growing number of analysts have recently been speculating? This week, on a visit to the Israel’s tourism bureau in Nazareth, Jonathan Cook came across an official brochure, “Your Next Vacation: Israel”, that suggests the answer.

Jonathan Cook: Israel’s formula for a starvation diet

24 October 2012

There can be no doubt that the diet devised for Gaza – much like Israel’s blockade in general – was intended as a form of collective punishment, one directed at every man, woman and child. The goal, according to the Israeli defence ministry, was to wage “economic warfare” that would generate a political crisis, leading to a popular uprising against Hamas.

Moshé Machover: On Israeli Apartheid

24 October 2012

In my opinion the whole semantic discussion of Israeli “apartheid” skirts around the fundamental question: the underlying political economy of Zionist colonization.

How Chomsky came to Gaza: a statement by eight who accompanied him

24 October 2012

The eight signatories of this letter are members of the group that traveled with Noam Chomsky to Gaza. We have spent three and a half days here in Gaza with Chomsky, who departed yesterday. We would like to clarify the circumstances surrounding Chomsky’s visit.

Chomsky makes first Gaza visit

19 October 2012

Jewish-American scholar and activist Noam Chomsky reportedly called for an end to Israel’s siege of Gaza, on his first ever visit to the Hamas-ruled enclave on Thursday. Chomsky, who was in the Gaza Strip for a conference at the Islamic University, called “to end the Israeli siege on Gaza.”

Jonathan Cook’s new website

18 October 2012

An announcement from frequent IOA contributor, Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook: I am excited to announce the launch of my new website – Jonathan Cook: the View from Nazareth – and a related public page on Facebook. The website should make following my work easy, and the Facebook page will, for the first time, give you the chance to participate by commenting and posting your own thoughts directly.

Noam Sheizaf: Between anger and denial – Israeli collective memory and the Nakba

17 October 2012

A new documentary by frequent IOA contributor Israeli-Canadian journalist Lia Tarachansky aims to decipher some of the anxiety that accompanies the Israeli debate over the events of 1948.

Support Lia Tarachansky’s Seven Deadly Myths – vote for it to win funding

15 October 2012

IOA contributor Lia Tarachansky’s film project Seven Deadly Myths is competing for funding as part of the Cuban Hat Pitching Contest. Lia’s work figures prominently on the IOA website. A key reason why we find Lia Tarachansky’s work to be so important, and why it is unique, is because Lia’s coverage keeps current events and the post-1967 occupation in an historical context: in her work, as well as in her film, Lia discusses West Bank settlements in the context of the Nakba.

Russell Tribunal: Israel’s crimes not Possible without US support

9 October 2012

After two days of expert testimony by notables such as public intellectual Noam Chomsky and Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, heard before a packed crowd that included actors Harry Belafonte and Wallace Shawn at Cooper Union’s Great Hall, jurors concluded, “Israel’s ongoing colonial settlement expansion, its racial separatist policies, as well as its violent militarism would not be possible without the US’s economic, military, and diplomatic support.”

Seven Deadly Myths

8 October 2012

Upcoming documentary profiles Israeli journalist Lia Tarachansky’s return to the settlement where she grew up, to uncover a buried history and a landscape of denial. The film tells the stories of four veterans of the 1948 war that erased from the Israeli landscape hundreds of Palestinian villages and connects their stories to the modern-day Palestinian dispossession through the occupation and settlements.

US warns European governments against supporting Palestinians at UN

3 October 2012

Hanan Ashwari: “Typical American behaviour but also overkill. It is ridiculous and unconscionable the way they put themselves at the service of Israel in such a blatant way. This is tremendous American pressure and bias.”

Jonathan Cook: Israel’s impossible plan for refugees is just a stalling tactic

1 October 2012

In the shadow of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s theatrics at the United Nations last week, armed with his cartoon Iranian bomb, Israeli officials launched a quieter, but equally combative, initiative to extinguish whatever hopes have survived of reviving the peace process. For the first time in its history, Israel is seeking to equate millions of Palestinians in refugee camps across the Middle East with millions of Israeli citizens descended from Jews who, before Israel’s establishment in 1948, lived in Arab countries.

Russell Tribunal on Palestine – New York session, 6-7 October 2012

19 September 2012

The Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) will be holding its fourth international session in New York City on Saturday, October 6 and Sunday, October 7. The RToP is an International People’s Tribunal created in response to the international community’s inaction regarding Israel’s recognized violations of international law. The Tribunal aims to bring attention to the complicity and responsibility of various national, international and corporate actors in the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the perpetuation of Israel’s impunity under international law.

Wally Shawn: On the necessity of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine

19 September 2012

Actor Wally Shawn explains why the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is, at this moment in time, crucial, and why you should join.

APJP: End all demolitions in Al Bustan, Silwan and all of East Jerusalem!

16 September 2012

Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine call upon the mayor of Jerusalem to put an end to all house demolitions in Al Bustan, Silwan, and the rest of East Jerusalem.

Jonathan Cook: US love affair with Israel masks a real history of mistrust

10 September 2012

Politicians may prefer to express admiration of Israel, and hand over billions of dollars in aid, but the US security establishment has – at least in private – always regarded Israel as an untrustworthy partner. The distrust has been particularly hard to hide in relation to Iran. Mounting pressure from Israel appears to be designed to manoeuvre Washington into supporting an attack on Tehran to stop it supposedly developing a nuclear weapon.

Lia Tarachansky: Israeli Defense Minister rumored cooling on attacking Iran

10 September 2012

According to local press, the Israeli leadership has been “climbing down from the tree” this week with a distinct change in tone from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding attacking Iran. The change in mood is said to be linked to rising tensions with the Obama administration and new rumors that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has changed his mind and is no longer supporting a unilateral attack by Israel.

Noam Chomsky: Why America and Israel are the greatest threats to peace

5 September 2012

Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. It persists in illegal settlement in occupied territory, some annexed, all in brazen defiance of international law and the U.N. Security Council. It has repeatedly carried out brutal attacks against Lebanon and the imprisoned people of Gaza, killing tens of thousands without credible pretext.

Lia Tarachansky: Israel denies food and entry to 20 Eritrean refugees

5 September 2012

Israel’s anti-refugee policy reached a new peak this week when Ha’aretz reported that a group of 20 asylum seekers was being denied entry and was stuck in the fenced area between the Sinai Desert in Egypt and the Israeli border. The group has been sitting outside the fence since last Thursday, without food. The soldiers in the field were given an order to give the refugees “as little water as possible.” On Tuesday night, Israeli activists decided to deliver food they bought to the refugees themselves.

Nurit Peled-Elhanan: The presentation of Palestinians in Israeli schoolbooks

5 September 2012

Tzipi Livni: “The national solution for Israel’s Arabs lies elsewhere: in order to maintain a Jewish-Democratic state we must constitute two nation-states with clear red-lines. Once this happens, I will be able to come to the Palestinian citizens of Israel, whom we label Israel’s Arabs, and tell them that their national solution is elsewhere.”

New Matzpen website

4 September 2012

IOA Editor: For 50 years now, Matzpen, an Israeli anti-Zionist activist organization, has been a leading voice for Palestinian rights, and against the Israeli occupation. Its new website covers decades of steadfast, principled opposition to injustice. Please visit the new Matzpen website, help disseminate it, and link to it from your website or Facebook profile/page. Thank you!

Gideon Levy: Arab villages, bulldozed from our memory

31 August 2012

Our beloved Tel Aviv, whose reputation for enlightenment and openness is world renowned, is built in part on ruined Palestinian villages – and refuses to acknowledge it.

Sami Michael: An immigrant in his own country

31 August 2012

The Occupation is the embodiment of disaster for Israel. Greater Israel, the enthusiasm to conquer, rule and colonize in the very heart of a dense Palestinian population, that sweeping wave was fostered in the very bosom of Zionism that sees itself as civilized, secular and socialistic. The term “Greater Israel” germinated not in the Likud or in the yeshivas of national-religious Judaism, rather it was coined at Kibbutz Ein-Harod by poets, writers and intellectuals, nearly all of them from the moderate secular stream.

Stephen Zunes: California state assembly seeks to stifle debate on Israel

30 August 2012

The California State Assembly has just passed a bipartisan resolution (HR 35) by voice vote which constitutes a serious attack on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty to raise awareness about human rights abuses by U.S.-backed governments. While purporting to put the legislature on record in opposition of anti-Semitism on state university campuses, it defines anti-Semitism so widely as to include legitimate political activities in opposition to Israeli government policies.

Probing the bureaucracy of occupation

30 August 2012

Yael Berda: “The administrative flexibility, waste of resources and the frequent administrative friction that is part of granting work permits leads to two desired results in the governmental system. It makes the Palestinian civilian population dependent on the administrative system, enabling the system to control, monitor and apply pressure and it preserves the principle of keeping the two populations separate.”

Rachel Corrie ruling ‘deeply troubling’, says her family

28 August 2012

Attorney Hussein Abu Hussein: “This verdict is yet another example of where impunity has prevailed over accountability and fairness. Rachel Corrie was killed while non-violently protesting home demolitions and injustice in Gaza, and today, this court has given its stamp of approval to flawed and illegal practices that failed to protect civilian life.”

Lia Tarachansky: “Phantom Control” – Israel’s Secret Service and the Occupation

28 August 2012

In recent years Israel’s control over the Palestinian people in the occupied territories has changed. While the presence of the Israeli army has been greatly reduced, the occupation has taken a more invisible form. In her new book The Bureaucracy of Occupation, attorney Yael Berda sheds light on how the Israeli secret service (the Shabak) exploits every point of contact with Palestinians, especially the imposed permit system, to recruit informants to further its control over the population. Activist Anan Quzmar of Birzeit University’s Rights to Education campaign tells how this form of “phantom control” makes political involvement and activism nearly impossible.

Yitzhak Laor: Apologize to Vanunu

22 August 2012

A nuclear demilitarization of the Middle East is the answer to the Israelis greatest quandary. The validity of this demand has never been more clear. The religion that has developed here – the basic belief that only we should have nuclear weapons, because we are the arm of God – has reached a dead end.

Petition calls for IDF combat pilots to refuse Iran attack orders

15 August 2012

The petition cautioned that in the event an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities caused the dispersal of radioactive materials among civilian populations “Israel as a country, as well as those carrying out the bombing might be charged with war crimes.”

Amid talk of Iran strike, IDF set to reactivate long-range intelligence drone

13 August 2012

The “Eitan” drone can take off and land automatically, is able to stay in the air for 36 straight hours and reach a maximum flight height of 45,000 feet. In addition, the craft can carry cargo weighing up to one ton. All of these qualities make the Eitan especially suited for long-range and advanced reconnaissance and intelligence missions.

Reaffirming the legality of the Occupation: Hanan Hever responds to David Grossman

13 August 2012

One can conclude from Grossman’s article, probably contrary to his intent, that in theory things could have been different. In theory the occupation could have been sustained with the upholding of the law – that is, in an enlightened and democratic manner, without dumping an entire people by the side of the road. Furthermore, one can also conclude that if and when we annul the corrupting occupation we will be able to continue the enlightened existence of the small and just State of Israel of the pre-1967 era. [Not so.]

Simon Tzabar: A dialogue on the nature of security

13 August 2012

A brilliant work by Shimon Tzabar (1926, Palestine – 2007, London), an artist, writer, poet, satirist, amateur mycologist, and a vocal fighter against the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel. As relevant today as it was when it was first published in 1968, well before the term ‘racial profiling’ was known.

IDF raids Hebron-area village; residents fear impending demolition

7 August 2012

An unusual operation by the Israel Defense Forces in the South Hebron Hills region has intensified suspicions among Palestinian residents that Israel is moving forward with its plan to demolish villages in the area and expel their residents. IDF helicopters ferried masked, armed soldiers to isolated Palestinian village of Jinba, where they raided homes, photographing and mapping the site, say residents.

Moshé Machover: Netanyahu seeks war with Iran so he can ethnically cleanse the West Bank

7 August 2012

All the problems in this region stem from the way that the imperial powers France and Britain divided the region after the First World War, to serve their purposes… Syria, Lebanon, and a country called Palestine were created or refashioned. This new country, Palestine, was an invention of British imperialism following World War I; and it was designed explicitly as a domain for Zionist colonization. A whole complex of problems, including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict are a fallout from the fragmentation and parcelization of the Ottoman Empire.