Reporters pressed State Dep’t’s Jen Psaki over a “double standard” — her threat to assistance to Palestine over its decision to take international legal steps even as the U.S. has never threatened aid to Israel over its neverending construction of settlements in occupied territories
In response to the Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court, pro-Israel members of Congress are threatening to cut off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. gives the PA about $500 million annually, and U.S. law states most of it will be cut off if the PA initiates an investigation targeting Israel at the ICC. But analysts say that it is unlikely the U.S. will, in fact, cut off aid, since it would be a blow to the PA’s economic standing and could destabilize the authority’s rule.
Dennis Ross revives his career as Israel’s lawyer in the NYT, saying that Palestinians, rooted in “grievance,” have three times rejected fair deals to create a state
As casually as if he is unpacking groceries, Yaacov Lozowick, Israel’s chief archivist, picks up the gun used to kill Yitzhak Rabin and displays it to a rightwing blogger
New figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health to mark the end of 2014 reveal that the number of casualties from Israel’s summer assault on the Gaza Strip is significantly higher than previously reported, 2310, up 100 from earlier counts.
Phan Nguyen debunks the misreadings of the Salaita report from the University of Illinois, in particular the claim that the report said that donors did not influence the decision to fire Salaita. The record is clear, the report did not establish the facts in that connection and didn’t treat damaging emails showing the Illinois chancellor juggling her schedule to meet an angry donor.
Religious-ethnic background as the basis of national identity is an anachronism in the 21st century. All states must protect individual rights from all communities. So goodbye to the era of self-determination, when the self is ethnicity.
+972 says Obama is looking into Friday’s attack by settlers on State Department officials investigating destruction of Palestinian olive trees, but the NYT doesn’t even call it an attack. Settlers threw stones, is the headline of a one-paragraph story.
Ahmad Samih Bdeir, 39, was crushed to death at an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarem as he was trying to go to his construction job inside Israel. Palestinians are often crowded into metal pens inside the checkpoints, unable to leave or enter, and Israeli soldiers rarely respond to requests for movement from those stuck inside.
From Roger Cohen to Tom Friedman to David Brooks to Paul Krugman, the NYT’s columnists reflect a liberal Zionist to rightwing Zionist discourse. The Times should hire a columnist to echo the burgeoning criticism of Israel in the Democratic party’s base.