Pittsburgh may be known for its steel mill past and its high-tech present, but is now emerging as the seat of a lively debate concerning Palestinian food, free speech, and criticism of Israeli policies. The Conflict Kitchen is a take-out eatery that only serves food from countries with which the United States is in conflict. The restaurant began serving Palestinian food on October 6. On November 8, restaurant co-director Jon Rubin received a letter containing a death threat. As a result, Mr. Rubin temporarily closed the Conflict Kitchen.

A video shot on an Israeli bus shows a Jewish Israeli man demanding to be able to inspect a Palestinian woman’s handbag. The exchange reveals something extraordinary about how racism is embedded within Jewish Israeli society.

On November 2, Linda Wafi participated in the 26.2 mile-New York City Marathon. The 33-year-old Palestinian resident of Washington, D.C. was not just running for exercise, though. Wafi was raising money for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a nonprofit that brings injured children from the Middle East to hospitals around the world for treatment. The fund is busy these days with helping Palestinians who were injured during Israel’s last military operation in the Gaza Strip, an area Wafi lived in for ten years.

Australia’s immediate past Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has dramatically changed his views with respect to Israel and Palestine. In his article “Why I’m Now a Friend of Palestine” published in last Saturday’s The Weekend Australian he explains his change of heart. He writes: “Forty years ago I signed up to be president of Labor Friends of Israel; I still count myself a friend of the liberals in that country but it serves the cause of a just peace better by me this week becoming a patron of Labor Friends of Palestine.”

Ritualized solidarity remains the name of the game in Israel-Palestine, as the fate of Jerusalem hangs in the balance once again. So it was when church leaders in Jerusalem showed a sign of solidarity to Islam and the Muslim community by gathering at the Al Aqsa mosque for a photo-op last week. They also issued a statement on the need to respect the rights of Muslims to worship freely and show respect for holy places. But as the church leaders and their advisors know well the backdrop for their visit isn’t about freedom of religion or worship. The backdrop for increasing tensions at Al Aqsa is occupation and the dwindling place of Palestinians in Jerusalem and the land itself. It’s about an occupied and ghettoized Palestinian people with their backs to the Apartheid (political and religious) Wall.

The Day Israel Attacked America, a timely expose by Al Jazeera, says the Israeli attack on the US spy ship Liberty in 1967 was deliberate and was covered up by the US government due to political threats by the Israel lobby.

The New Israel Fund (NIF) has partnered with The Israel Football Association (IFA) to form a new campaign called “Kick Racism Out of Israeli Football”. However, during the initial stages of this new partnership the IFA chose to segregate the Israeli children’s national football league in Israel’s Triangle area which is home to the majority of Israel’s Palestinian citizens.

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate and his co-horts at the Israeli American Council (IAC), launched off their first ever inagural “Israeli-American Conference” in D.C. over the weekend. The talk of the town is the “spirited public discussion” between Adelson and Haim Saban, the billionaire democrat fundraiser and media mogul. Adelson challenged Haim Saban to team up and purchase The New York Times because the Times is so mean to Israel. It sounds like they’re jealous Amazon’s Jeff Bezos swept in and bought the Washington Post right out from under their noses.

The following statement was issued by the Rasmea Defense Committee: “In a travesty of justice, Rasmea Odeh today was found guilty of one count of Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization. For over a year, Rasmea, her supporters, and her legal team have been battling this unjust government prosecution, saying from the start that the immigration charge was nothing but a pretext to attack this icon of the Palestine liberation movement. And although there is real anger and disappointment in the jury’s verdict, it was known as early as October 27th that she would not get a full and fair trial.”

A new front in the war on freedom of expression has emerged from the pages of the international medical journal, The Lancet. A letter critical of Israel, published in July in the online edition, and subsequently republished in the August 2 issue, provoked the usual hasbara sequence of events: vociferous expressions of outrage and hurt, attacks on the character of the letter writers, insinuations that the Lancet editor is anti-Semitic, and demands for a retraction.