Latest Updates: israeli occupation RSS

  • johnpi 10:07 am on January 26, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ethan bronner, , , israeli occupation, , , , ,

    Conflict of interest: New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief’s son may have enlisted in the Israeli army.

    The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army.

    Tikun Olam has more:

    Since the Times has no full correspondent in Gaza or the West Bank, Bronner is in effect the editor covering all those theaters. As such he MUST be able to report dispassionately from the Palestinian as well as Israeli perspective.

    Many of my readers have followed my ongoing critique of Bronner’s reporting, which shows decided, though perhaps not fully conscious bias towards Israel’s narrative. Given this, the possibility that his son serves in the army that maintains the Occupation and is the locus of injustice raises glaring questions of conflict of interest.

     
  • johnpi 12:25 pm on December 21, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Barghouti, , israeli occupation, , , ,

    Al Jazeera reports that a deal may be near to exchange kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for a group of Palestinians that includes Marwan Barghouti, who is seen by many to be the Palestinian equivalent of Nelson Mandela.

    This would be a huge development in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that would potentiate change, though it’s hard to know what or how much change is possible given the current political climate in Israel.

     
  • johnpi 8:28 am on October 31, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , israeli occupation, , , ,

    If members of the Organization of Islamic States can get an anti-blasphemy rule passed at the UN to curtail conversations about activities that some Muslims consider Shariah (female genital mutilation, stoning and child marriages), then will the rule also prevent OIC states from criticizing Israel and Israeli settlers for taking Palestinian land, since that too is said to be prescribed by religion?

     
  • johnpi 6:33 am on October 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , israeli occupation, ,

    For the first time, the Israelis have arrested a Palestinian, Mohammad Othman, solely for promoting a boycott and divestment from Israel. Othman was very effective in his advocacy:

    While thousands of Palestinians supportive of the international boycott campaign have been arrested by Israel for various reasons, activist groups believe Othman to be the first Palestinian whose imprisonment can be credited solely to international boycott advocacy. Othman was attempting to return to the West Bank following a trip to Norway, where he had met with senior government officials in an effort to convince the country to boycott companies doing business with the Israeli military or involved in Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

    Othman took Norwegian officials on a tour of the West Bank, traveled to Norway and played a major role in convincing a Norwegian state pension fund to divest the $5.4 million from Elbit, one of Israel’s largest defense firms. Norwegian Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen, whom Othman met, announced the decision early last month.

     
  • johnpi 8:00 am on September 26, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , israeli occupation, , , , ,

    Palestinian-Israeli conflict could get much worse if tolerated.

    If he [Obama] allows Israel to continue to stall and to demonstrate that it will make no end to the West Bank occupation, he will disappoint the highest hopes that have existed among both Jews and Arabs since 1967 that a positive outcome is possible between Israel and the Palestinians.

    In that case, there may be still another, and more violent, intifada, and more regional violence and terrorism. Or perhaps nothing will happen. An apartheid Israel will survive, and the Palestine population will grow, whether within or without the legal frontiers of Israel.

    The Palestinian leaders, their people, the Hezbollah and Hamas leadership, and the Palestinians’ external Arab supporters, as well as the Israelis themselves, will decide that, and will have to accept the consequences.

    But there will be other consequences. The present condition of low-level but generalized war, or state of terrorism, or institutionalized hostility by Muslims against the United States and against Americans, will continue and undoubtedly widen.

    Americans convinced that America must dominate the Middle East will grow in influence; there will, in some sense, be a restoration of the national leadership and outlook that existed under George W. Bush.

    The governments and public opinion of the European Union will disengage from U.S. pro-Israeli policies. There will be sanctions on Israel of various kinds, and no doubt measures of intellectual, cultural, sportive and other boycotts of Israel, of the kind already envisaged in some Western circles.

    Emigration from Israel of the young, the talented, the morally alienated—also a reality today—will increase. But further speculation is undoubtedly unprofitable.

     
  • johnpi 11:14 am on June 3, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , israeli occupation, ,

    Al Arabiya’s general manager weighs in on Obama and the Arab world:

    Usually, pleasing the Arabs is an unachievable aim, because they blame Washington nearly for everything, whether it interferes or stays away. Washington is blamed for the dictatorships if it deals with them, and if it topples them, it will be accused of wanting to impose its political culture. It is blamed for all the contradictions: poverty, ignorance, occupation, terrorism, oppression, the support for the extremists, the hunt down of the Islamists, and even for the divorce of wives. Practically, Washington is the devil who is blamed for everything evil.

    The truth is that Obama is not required to please 300 million Arabs, to settle all the issues as there are 1,000 issues in the region, or to fight all the wars. Obama can reduce his project to one issue, the Arab-Israeli conflict.

     
  • richard 2:43 am on September 26, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: israeli occupation, , , zeev sternhell

    Israeli Rightists Wound Ze’ev Sternhell in Bomb Attack

    Haaretz reports that distinguished Hebrew University political scientist Zeev Sternhell was lightly injured by a pipebomb blast at his home. Police found flyers nearby which offered a $300,000 reward for anyone who killed a member of Peace Now:

    More

     
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