Two women I’ve talked to in Gaza have offered me similar reports on both Senator John Kerry, who visited Gaza in February, and President Obama, who is about to come out to Cairo: that these powerful men both “get” the…
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Monthly Archives: May 2009
Violence and Repression, from occupied Safa to Tel Aviv
Max Blumenthal reporting for Mondoweiss from Israel and the occupied territories: TEL AVIV–Violence erupted in the Palestinian town of Safa today as fanatical masked settlers from the Jewish settlement of Bat Ayin set upon a group of activists from the…
‘The Hill’ reporter responds to post on reporting bias
Bridget Johnson responded to my post on her reporting in The Hill entitled “‘The Hill’ covers Obama-Abbas meeting with a Likudnik spin.” She requested that we run the following correction and clarification, which we’re happy to do. Johnson: “I used…
Germany mimics Obama Administration on settlements
Bruce Wolman writes from Norway: German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier demanded an end to all settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank in an interview with the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, published on Saturday, and then widely distributed…
I asked her why she said Gaza is worse than the prison she worked in back in Pennsylvania
My group is leaving Gaza over the next couple of days. A few of us don’t want to leave. We feel connected to the place, and the people have been universally welcoming. They all say the same thing. They want…
Ging: World leaders have at last come to Gaza, and seen that the people are ‘civilized to the core’
This is John Ging, the head of UNWRA, the United Nations Works and Relief Agency, in Gaza. Today two western delegations comprising nearly 60 people met with him in Gaza City compound. Ging was surprised by the turnout, but thanked…
According to WaPo, Obama has turned Abbas into a hardliner
Bruce Wolman writes: President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority came to Washington yesterday to meet President Obama. As a warm-up for his big event at the White House, he sat down for an interview with the two editors of…
Update from New Profile: Israel ‘is very far from the democracy [it] claims to be.’
We have been following the ongoing intimidation of the Israeli anti-militarism organization New Profile by the Israeli government. Today the organization sent out an update that places their experience squarely within a broader trend in Israeli society – the “systematic…
Holy Land Foundation trial reflects misguided US policy towards Hamas
From Scott McConnell: A Dallas judge has meted out heavy sentences to five Arab American men, associated with the Holy Land Foundation, for funneling $12 million to Hamas, designated by the US government as a terror organization. The defendants maintained…
‘The Hill’ covers Obama-Abbas meeting with a Likudnik spin
Yesterday, the well respected Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill ran an article entitled “Before Obama-Abbas meeting, members chime in.” The article, written by online editor Bridget Johnson, offered a state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict inside the beltway leading up to…
Abunimah in ‘The Nation’: ‘Obama shouldn’t defend the institutionalized bigotry [in Israel] that the civil rights movement defeated in this country’
Back in January, in the wake of the carnage in Gaza, we posted a video featuring Ali Abunimah, Mark Green, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, where Abunimah challenged progressives to speak out more on Israel/Palestine. Green was defensive (and offensive) whereas…
Obama begins to state his case: Ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in US interests
One takeaway message from the Obama-Abbas meeting is that the realists are getting heard in the Obama administration. Much has been made of Hillary Clinton’s recent hardball approach with Israel regarding settlements. On Wednesday she told reporters that the administration…
Gaza is alive
My group got into Gaza two days ago, and it feels like a month already. I think the most significant impression I can convey is my surprise at how vibrant and alive the place is. I’d steeled myself to see…
Abbas meets with Obama today, but does it matter?
Last week’s meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama was a circus. Surrounded by intense media scrutiny and intrigue, the meeting was preceded and followed by endless speculation and analysis. Today’s meeting with Mahmoud Abbas? Not so much. The face…
‘Einstein on Israel’ reveals essential history of debate over Zionism and a Jewish state
Fred Jerome begins his new book, Einstein on Israel and Zionism, with a great quote from Albert Einstein to a close friend, “Though everybody knows me, there are very few people who really know me. I am a revolutionary.” Jerome’s…
Growing understanding of the Nakba in Israel is sign of ‘deepening fissures in the Iron Wall’
Today, Eitan Bronstein has an oped on Ynet (hebrew site only) responding to the proposed legislation in the Knesset to ban commemorations of the Nakba. Bronstein is Director of Zochrot, a Tel Aviv-based organization which directs education and advocacy campaigns…
Israel tries to shut down Palestinian literary festival, but the word about occupation still gets out
The Palestine Festival of Literature is currently taking place in the occupied territories. The Festival received some unexpected attention when the Israeli occupation forces attempted to shut it down on its opening night. Writing in the Guardian, Rory McCarthy reported,…
This is beginning to look like panic – Israeli Knesset considers bill making it illegal to criticize Israel as a Jewish state
First there was the Nakba law, then the loyalty oath, now the Israeli Knesset is considering a bill that would institute a one year jail sentence for anyone who speaks “against Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.” According…
Iran discussion takes center stage
The commentary on the Iran/US/Israel triangle is coming fast and furious. It’s too much for me to try to put together into a coherent post, so I thought I’d just give a rundown and links. We can sort it out…
Is this getting stabbed in the back or the front?
I guess it should maybe come as no surprise, but criticism of President Obama’s Middle East policy has come from an unlikely source – one of his special envoys tasked with carrying it out. Ha’aretz is reporting that in his…
Faced with Israeli restrictions in Jerusalem, Palestinians are trying to move into settlements
Al Jazeera recently produced this interesting report on Palestinians trying to move into Israeli settlements in Jerusalem: It’s interesting that Israel’s massive restrictions over Palestinians in Jerusalem is forcing them to find the loophole, which in this case is moving…
Israeli settlers threaten to rebuild and fight as outposts get torn down
This morning Joseph Dana (aka Ibn Ezra) sent us the following email: This morning the army dismantled parts of hilltop 26 (18), the place that we wrote the article about. Check out the news here (editor note: you can read…
Most volunteers allowed into Gaza, just not those trying to return home
Update from Phil (sent by phone): Looks like were getting in. At egypt emigration. Police let us thru checkpoints. Feeling good, though who of all our number didn’t get okd? A Palestinian trying to go home, papers out of order….
Israel wants to keep the settlements, PA says they can stay as Palestinian citizens
The Obama administration is putting Israeli settlements front and center and Israeli politicians are doing their best to spin the issue. Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely has held her conference opposing the two-state solution where Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon argued…
Palestinian students have to pass admissions process, and military screen, to study in Israel
The growing movement for an academic boycott of Israel has been criticized as limiting academic discourse and debate. Defenders of the boycott point out that the discourse is already limited by Israeli occupation policy which shuts down Palestinian universities arbitrarily,…