[I]n 1948, the Israelis wanted to create a state without Palestinians, and they almost succeeded in driving them out. In 1967, their victory reunited the refugees with those who had remained in Israel. We were scattered, they brought us back together. The Israelis are sowing their own failure by their success. The colonization of Jerusalem and the West Bank, which makes impossible a two-state solution, will force Israel to live with a sizable Arab population and to reconsider its democratic system.
IOA Editor: Sari Nusseibeh has long advocated the Two-State solution. After decades of relentless Israeli colonial settlement in the West Bank, he now sees it as a near-impossibility. Read more »
January 20, 2010 | Posted in
Diplomacy,
Occupation,
Others |
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Amira Hass: The Interior Ministry has stopped granting work permits to foreign nationals working in most international nongovernmental organizations operating in the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, Haaretz has learned.
IOA Editor: This is part of a broader clamp down on non-violent Occupation-resistance activities in the West Bank that has taken place in the past few months. It includes a systematic campaign to arrest Palestinian and Israeli protesters (e.g., in Bil’in, Ni’ilin, Sheikh Jarrah), to expel or prevent entry to journalists, and now to limit visa and work permits to international aid organizations. All the while, Gaza remains under a tight siege controlled by both Israel and Egypt, with US approval.
The clamp down is now mentioned in mainstream US media. The “only democracy in the Middle East” is finally getting less than favorable press, after it illegally “detained the leader of a leading Israeli human rights group during a vigil against the eviction of Palestinian families whose homes were taken by Jewish settlers.” See AP report in the Washington Post: Israel accused of silencing political protest Read more »
The IDF also uses networking sites to its own ends: The army spokesperson’s office makes regular use of Facebook and Twitter, as well as publishing regular blogs. In the last year the military has intensified its online activities in an attempt to broaden its public relations drive to reach young people who increasingly gather information from unofficial sources, rather than traditional news providers.
IOA Editor: The reach and importance of online ’social networks’ is often underestimated: Facebook, for example, has over 300 million global users. To the IDF, social networks provide a nearly limitless global arena for propaganda dissemination – for example, using what Israel does in Haiti to whitewash what it does in Gaza.
The IOA on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Israeli.Occupation – ‘fan’ us…
The IOA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/IsOccupation – follow us. Read more »
Keeping culture alive in a conflict zone is a daunting challenge. The Israeli Occupation involves not only the destruction of Palestine as a political entity, but the dissolution of its social and cultural life. Resisting that process and fighting the occupation through creativity is what drives Ahmad al-Bakri and Abdel Merizar, two exceptional and enigmatic young actors from Hebron. Read more »
[A]s far as the Middle East is concerned, Mrs. Merkel has paid scant attention to the miserable living conditions of Palestinians in Gaza as well as Israel’s settlements and detention policies. German legislators and analysts say that of all chancellors of the postwar period, Mrs. Merkel is considered the most pro-Israeli. “The chancellor is particularly close to Israel.” Read more »
Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barghouti said on Sunday that returning to negotiations with Israel is not possible until a complete settlement standstill, including in occupied East Jerusalem, is enforced, as well as population growth, during a reception for the European Council. A timeline for negotiations, Barghouti added, must be identified in order to resume talks. “The Israeli government is trying to deceive the world with talks of its settlement freeze while construction is plainly increasing in Jerusalem and the West Bank.” Read more »
Analysts say it is no surprise that the main effort to restore the relationship is coming from the two militaries, which have formed its bedrock ever since the alliance was formed in the mid-1990s… Israel and Turkey signed more than 20 military agreements in the 1990s. One called for four joint air force training sessions a year in each country. The two navies participated in joint exercises and staff officers collaborated on war-game simulations…
IOA Editor: In addition to being an important Israeli military industries’ customer and a strategic military partner, Turkey also provides the “Northern Route” alternative for an Israeli air-force attack on Iran, which is not mentioned in this WSJ article. See Anthony Cordesman and Abdullah Toukan’s Israeli attack on Iran: A Study of Options and Consequences Read more »
“Whereas the bulk of the (Goldstone) report addressed violations by Israel, the occupying power, it also considered violations by Palestinian armed groups and the Palestinian authorities in Gaza and the West Bank… We urge you to immediately take clear and public steps toward holding to account all those who prove to be responsible for the violations detailed in the report” Read more »
A few days before Israeli physicians rushed to save the lives of injured Haitians, the authorities at the Erez checkpoint prevented 17 people from passing through in order to get to a Ramallah hospital for urgent corneal transplant surgery… So what if the Goldstone Commission demanded that Israel lift the blockade on the Strip and end the collective punishment of its inhabitants? Only those who hate Israel could use frontier justice against the first country to set up a field hospital in Haiti.
See also: Larry Derfner: The pride and the shame Read more »
Amir Nizar Zuabi: “I don’t draw the line between: you’re Israeli, he’s Palestinian, or Muslim or Christian. I draw the line in a different place completely. I draw the line between people who believe that all people were born equal, and hence deserve the same things, same rights, same duties, same everything, and people who say, ‘Yes, but I am more special.’” Read more »
