Latest Updates: palestine RSS
-
thabet
-
thabet
FACT: There has never been an Israeli peace camp.
In response to this story, Aziz tweeted:
In other words, such an opinion could not be expressed in an open and frank manner in an American newspaper, whereas it can in a major Israeli newspaper.
-
arif
The news is not that he spied, but he became Christian and claims that Palestinians have no hope if they keep holding on to their God. That is pretty incredible.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2010/03/100303_mosab_hassan_yousef.shtml
-
aziz
Agree or disagree with their cause, these Palestinians certainly know how to get publicity for their cause: by dressing up like Na’vi from Avatar, blue face paint and everything.
Incidentally I think that the thing they were protesting, the separation barrier, has overall been a good thing – but it isn’t a permanent solution.
-
johnpi
Palestinians petition UN to stop construction of museum on Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.
Palestinian and international human rights activists on Wednesday petitioned the United Nations to stop the construction of a Museum of Tolerance on the site of a medieval Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem, saying it would disturb centuries-old graves.
Campaigners said they are turning to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights after Israel’s Supreme Court rejected a 2008 appeal to stop the Simon Wiesenthal Center building its museum on part of the Mamilla cemetery.
“We have nowhere else to go,” Rania Madi of the Palestinian rights group BADIL told reporters in Geneva, where the petition was filed. Any response from the U.N.’s top rights official would carry only moral weight and is not legally binding.
The group said construction of the museum would violate Muslim religious and cultural rights, and such a project would never have been undertaken if the site was home to Jewish graves.
-
johnpi
Al Qaeda sympathisers detained in West Bank, Gaza.
Palestinian security forces detained six radical Islamists with explosives in the West Bank in the first known arrests of al Qaeda-inspired militants in the territory, a senior Palestinian officer said.
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by a separate, Hamas-run administration, the authorities announced the arrest of a leader of a pro-al Qaeda group, the latest sign of a crackdown on radicals accused of bombing security offices and Internet cafes.
….Hamas security officials cited 12 bombings which they believed were carried out by radical movements in recent weeks, the highest number of such attacks since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.
Vehicles belonging to two Hamas officials and the office of a Hamas security service were blown up in the bombings. There were no casualties.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said the head of a fundamentalist group known as the Jaljalat was arrested late on Tuesday and that several other members of groups supporting al Qaeda were detained in recent days. “A preliminary investigation linked (him) to several if not all of the bombing attacks against security offices and personnel and Internet cafes. He is being interrogated,” said Ehab al-Ghsain, spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry.
-
johnpi
Today you can hardly utter the acronym BDS without hearing that the very idea is anti-semitic.
But in the February 1921 edition of The Atlantic Magazine, Prof. Albert T. Clay (Assyrologist at the University of Pennsylvania) described how the Zionist incomers to Palestine were imposing their politics on the pre-existing Jewish minority there, which was largely made up of religious, non-Zionist Jews.
Ironically, their tactics comprised
1. Boycotting non-Zionist Jewish businesses;
2. Divestment of Zionist funds from non-Zionist Jews;
3. Sanctions such as threatening the removal of non-Zionist Jews from office, the closure of their businesses, denial of essential services to them, and their exclusion from any dealings with other Jews…
-
aziz
Daniel Larison has a really important post discussing jihadism, anti-jihadism, and Palestine that is must-reading and really explains a lot about how people with sincere anti-jihadist sentiments are usually reflexively pro-Israeli. As someone myself who is critical of Israel but very much anti-hirabist, this is a very helpful analysis in understanding people who by all rights should be my allies but instead end up in oopposition to over a conflict that really has very little to do with our national security.
-
abunoor
Former President Jimmy Carter, author of Palestine: Peace not Apartheid reportedly is seeking the forgiveness of the Jewish community if any words or deeds of his that may have resulted in “stigmatizing” Israel. (via Failed Messiah)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jimmy Carter asked the Jewish community for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel.
In a letter released exclusively to JTA, the former U.S. president sent a seasonal message wishing for peace between Israel and its neighbors, and concluded: “We must recognize Israel’s achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel. As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.”
“Al Het” refers to the Yom Kippur prayer asking God forgiveness for sins committed against Him. In modern Hebrew it refers to any plea for forgiveness.
-
johnpi
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
EU to give east Jerusalem to Palestinians: report.
An irate Israel slammed the European Union on Tuesday for the group’s planned proposal to call for east Jerusalem to be named the capital of a future Palestinian state, dividing what Tel Aviv labels its “eternal capital.”
….The document is also said to “imply” that the EU will recognize a unilateral Palestinian declaration of statehood, a move which the Palesitnian Authority said last month they would seek from the United Nations.
-
johnpi
The next Palestinian Authority president could be a Hamas Legislator.
If Abbas decides to forgo the chairmanship before the elections take place, his successor by default is speaker of the Parliament – Hamas lawmaker Aziz Dweik.
Dweik, 59, is not slated to run in the elections as a Hamas candidate. The likely candidate would be Isma’il Haniyya, the current prime minister of the de facto Hamas government in the Gaza Strip. But the very notion of a Hamas leader heading the Palestinian Authority is in itself a symbolic victory for the Islamist movement, and a hair-raising option for Israel and Fatah.
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission announced on Thursday that it did not have the capacity to hold elections on January 24, as originally planned, effectively postponing the elections indefinitely.
How would Fatah respond:
A Hamas figure in power is certainly not something that Fatah would take lightly.
“You’re talking about a rival from a party which carried out a coup in Gaza, a party that is refusing to sign the Egyptian reconciliation paper that Fatah signed,” Dr Milhem said. “So you’re talking about conceding to Hamas. For Fatah this is not acceptable at all.”
Actually, I think it was Fatah that held the coup, not Hamas.
-
abunoor
Jack Teitel told reporters at a Jerusalem court on Thursday that he had no regrets for shooting the pair and trying to kill the others with explosives and poison, and that God would approve of his actions.
“It has been a pleasure and an honor to have served my God,” Teitel, an ultra-Orthodox Jew originally from Florida in the US, said.
Teitel has a total of 14 charges against him including two for murder and three for attempted murder.
-
aziz
learning from 1989: Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this wall.
-
aziz
In the wake of Hillary’s inadvertent revelation of US impotence about Israel’s settlement policy, the fiction of a two-state solution has become all too clear.
What is the likely end game for the middle east conflict, in your esteemed opinions?
-
abunoor
Former Progressive Muslim leader (although self admittedly not a Muslim by belief) Hussein Ibish is here promoted by Jeffrey Goldberg for his attacks on the idea of the one-state solution which is gaining strength among a strand of Palestinian activists here in America.
Ibish, who is currently described as “Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine” (referred by As’ad Abu Khalil as the “Dahlan Lobby” or “Dahlan Embassy” in Washington). Ibish seems to be frustrated that his pro two-state arguments are not being engaged by the one-state proponents, including Ali Abunimah. Ibish used to be at least professionally close with Abunimah, coauthoring several items, but claims that Abunimah views have shifted radically in recent years. He know accuses him of being an extremist and an Islamist sympathizer (all of this discussion is taking place essentially among secularist thinkers, although some Muslims are undoubtedly supporters of Abunimah and Abu Khalil, etc. in their critique at least). Let me be clear that Abunimah does engage with all range of arguments and critiques of his one-state proposal in his book and in the media, but apparently has chosen not to engage specifically with the work of Mr. Ibish.
Now, Mr. Ibish is interviewed at some length by Jeffrey Goldberg (a figure whom I, shall we say, do not admire) about how the one state solution is fantasy. I actually have had some conversations with a Modern Orthodox Rabbi here in Chicago with whom I have done several interfaith programs, who is planning to move next year to Israel, who is also a supporter of a one state solution.
Let me say that although I certainly oppose occupation and support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, I personally find it hard to get excited about or invested in supporting a Abu Mazen/Dahlan bantustan state as the outcome of the long Palestinian/Muslim struggle in the holy land. I understand the difficulties of a one state solution but it is more inspiring to me than the illusory peace process. Again, at the end of the day I am really an observer. Although I am emotionally invested due to the sacredness of Jerusalem, my love for my Muslim brothers and sisters in Palestine, and my concern for all humans everywhere including Israelis and Jews, I realize that it is not up to me to decide what the Palestinian people do, let alone can I determine what Israel will do.
-
aziz
The New Yorker has a long, balanced article about the Gaza war and the abduction of Gilad Shalit. A real must-read.
-
johnpi
A video-game blogger says the the “Mines of Moria” expansion for The Lord of the Rings Online game is based on today’s conflict in the Middle East with various factions staking claim to the same land. The Israelis are represented by the dwarves, and the Palestinians are represented by the goblins and the Morroval (half-women, half-bat like creatures). The author let’s his nasty anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sensibilities shine through when he concludes that he prefers the dwarves for their “greater moral elevation” over the other factions because of their “culture of stark bestiality.”
Khazad-dum was abandoned 7,000 years earlier when the Dwarves dug too deep in their search for Mithril and released the Balrog. That the Balrog is evil isn’t in doubt but what blame do the goblins who took up residence in the abandoned halls of Moria hold beyond doing what they needed to to survive under the brutal tyranny of the Balrog? At what point do the crimes of the past become irrelevant to the modern era? Yes, the Dwarves were kicked out of their home into a diaspora and have finally returned, but by what right do they claim land where hundreds of generations of goblins and Morroval have lived and died?
-
thabet
-
thabet
A question from Nick Kabat, a student at the University of Buffalo, forced Tony Blair to respond to (and lie, dodge, waffle around) the Goldstone report. Apparently, the question was ‘unmoderated’ and upset the university’s vice president.
-
aziz
The Goldstone Report: executive summary and full PDF download.
It’s kind of laughable how it bends over backwards to paint the rockets from Gaza as equivalent “war crimes” to the civilian shields used by the IDF.
UPDATE: excellent op-ed by former Director of BT’selem regarding the report, very balanced analysis.
-
thabet
-
johnpi
UN council mulls emergency meet on Gaza report.
The United Nations Security Council will hold closed-door consultations on Wednesday to consider whether to accept a Libyan request for a meeting mainly to discuss a U.N. report that accused Israel and Palestinian fighters of war crimes during Israel’s assault of Gaza, diplomats said.
Libya’s deputy ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi told AFP that his country circulated a letter on behalf of the U.N. Arab group requesting “an emergency meeting” of the 15-member body to consider the U.N. report.
….A spokesman for Libya’s U.N. mission, Ahmed Gebreel, said his country, which currently has a Security Council seat, had requested a meeting “because of the seriousness of the report and because we think it’s too long to wait until March.”
“We are welcoming Libya’s step that they have asked the Security Council to meet to discuss the Goldstone report,” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in a telephone conversation from Rome.
“Libya’s step is supporting the Palestinian people’s rights.”
Critics of the Palestinian Authority have accused Abbas of letting his people down by agreeing to the postponement. A statement by the Palestinian observer mission at the United Nations said it fully supported the Libyan request for a Security Council meeting.
-
johnpi
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.
-
aziz
Richard Silverstein laments the de-facto end of the Israeli-Palestine peace process, and ultimately Israel herself. It would seem that Israel has indeed picked two.
Here’s the official US spin by Mitchell.
-
johnpi
Mitchell ends Middle East peace bid.
George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East, has returned to Washington after failing to secure a compromise deal for renewed peace talks bewteen Israel and the Palestinians.
-
thabet
The “Moral” IDF:
The Only Democracy In The Middle East:
Partner for peace:
Terror not on your telly:
-
aziz
Rawabi: a West Bank settlement we can all approve of. Though I predict the Israelis may want to “freeze” this one.
I find this development to make an interesting contrast with the situation in Upper Nazareth (article at LRB unfortunately behind the subscription wall)
-
thabet
‘Partner for peace’:
The Only Democracy, etc:
-
thabet
‘Partner for peace’:
“Normal lives” is the phrase Israeli representatives use to refer to construction that allows for the growth of settler [colonialist] families among the West Bank communities [colonies], where 300,000 Jewish Israelis [colonialists] live on occupied Palestinian land.
