A single bullet to the heart fired by an Israeli soldier was enough to kill 17-year-old Imam Jamil Ahmad Dweikat, a youth from the town of Beita south of Nablus slain today while walking with a friend in his home village. The 50th Palestinian killed in the West Bank this year.
Happy New Year from Mondoweiss! In 2014 we had just under 17 million visits to the site and Annie Robbins’s post on Boston subway ads against the occupation got nearly 1,000,000 views, topping our list of the ten most popular posts of the year.
A day after begin rebuffed by the UN Security Council on a bid to end the occupation, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has surprised the world by signing the Rome Statute, to be able to bring charges against Israel to the International Criminal Court. The US and Netanyahu seethe.
Gaza produced ‘tenfold’ increase in level of hatred toward Israel, Cary Nelson marvels in Tel Aviv, and Dalit Baum responds: “You ask why there is more criticism of Israel in the world? Because of Israeli policies!”
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The Palestinian leadership’s resolution to end Israel’s occupation through negotiations failed to pass the United Nations Security Council Tuesday evening. While Palestinian leaders had hoped to garner the nine votes needed to be approved by the 15-member council, only eight countries supported the measure. The United States and Australia voted against it while five others abstained. U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said, “We voted against it because we know what everyone here knows, as well—peace will come from hard choices and compromises that must be made at he negotiating table. Today’s staged confrontation in the UN Security Council will not bring the parties closer to achieving two-state solution.”
Late Monday evening Jordan submitted an updated version of a draft resolution seeking to end Israel’s occupation to the United Nations Security Council. The latest document maintains a 2017 deadline for an end to the Israeli occupation but contains a handful revisions, with substantive changes on the status of Jerusalem and Israel’s separation wall.
When the ambassador of the Arab League said that Israeli occupation is fostering Islamic radicalism, Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt bridles, saying he’s “rather offended” that he would “shlep” that view into a DC thinktank.
Senator Lindsey Graham wanted to visit Israel “in the most desperate way” to convey to Netanyahu that Congress will have “violent pushback” against a Palestinian statehood bid at the U.N., and that Congress will reimpose sanctions on Iran “at the drop of a hat.”
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