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September 2015

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Mourning the death of Riham Dawabshe.

Riham Dawabshe, 26, the mother of 18-month old Ali who was killed in a settler arson attack on her home in a remote Palestinian village five weeks ago, died Sunday night from injuries sustained in the firebombing. Riham had third degree burns on 90-percent of her body, and has been in a coma and on a ventilator since the July 31st attack.

Refaat Alareer and Laila Al-Haddad lately addressed an audience in Gaza about their new collection, Gaza Unsilenced, which features dozens of writers and authors, including Ali Abunimah, Ramzi Baroud, Diana Buttu, Jonathan Cook, Belal Dabour, Richard Falk, Chris Hedges, Hatim Kanaaneh, Rashid Khalidi, Eman Mohammed

Jennifer Rubin says Democrats have turned against Israel and Jonathan Chait says that the Israel lobby blew the Iran Deal and was never very powerful. They are both wrong. The lobby is alive and well, and split between them.

The Palestinian National Council is expected to meet this month to accept the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Palestinians at home and in exile don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the unfolding spectacle, which may herald a succession process. The 80-year-old Abbas appears to have hand-picked Saeb Erekat to handle the international community and the intelligence chief Majid Faraj to control internal affairs. Erekat was revealed in the leaked Palestine Papers to have bent over backwards to accommodate Israel, including largely giving up the refugees’ right of return to their homes and land. As for Faraj, he has used an iron fist to stabilize the West Bank and he oversees the hated security collaboration with Israel that keeps Palestinians occupied and subjugated.

On August 7, UK citizen Damian Moran posted a petition on the UK Government and Parliament E-petition website calling for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “be arrested for war crimes upon arrival in the U.K for the massacre of over 2000 civilians in 2014”. The petition spread swiftly on social media and as of September 4th it has garnered over 99,000 signatures. The UK government has promised to respond to all petitions over 100,000 signatures including considering them for debate in Parliament.