Jonathan Cook

Israeli authorities are pressing ahead with plans to build a courthouse complex on a large historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem that is already at the center of protest over plans to locate a “Museum of Tolerance” there. Jonathan Cook reports.

The ostracism of Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps, over her comment that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Poland, Germany, America and elsewhere is revealing in several ways. In spite of an apology, the 89-year-old has been summarily retired by the Hearst newspaper group, dropped by her agent, spurned by the White House, and denounced by long-time friends and colleagues. Jonathan Cook comments.

An Israeli parliamentary committee recommended stripping an Arab MP of her privileges yesterday in a move to prepare the ground for putting her on trial for participating last week in the Gaza-bound aid flotilla attacked by Israeli commandos. Jonathan Cook reports.

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament who was on board the international flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to deter future convoys. Jonathan Cook reports.

A leading human rights activist from Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority was charged yesterday with the most serious security offenses on Israel’s statute book, including espionage. Prosecutors indicted Ameer Makhoul, the head of Ittijah, an umbrella organization for Arab human rights groups in Israel, with spying on security facilities on behalf of Hizballah after an alleged meeting with one of its agents in Denmark in 2008. Jonathan Cook reports.

Israel faces unprecedented pressure to abandon its official policy of “ambiguity” on its possession of nuclear weapons as the international community meets at the United Nations in New York this week to consider banning such arsenals from the Middle East. Jonathan Cook analyzes.

Unemployed computer engineer Morad Lashin would like to work in Israel’s Electricity Company, a large state utility, but admits his chances of being recruited are slim. The reasons were set out in graphic form this month when a parliamentary committee revealed that only 1.3 percent of the company’s 12,000 workers are Arab, despite the Palestinian Arab minority constituting nearly 20 percent of the population. Jonathan Cook reports.

The construction of sections of a controversial segregated road network in the West Bank planned by Israel for Palestinians — leaving the main roads for exclusive use by settlers — is being financed by a US government aid agency, a map prepared by Palestinian researchers has revealed. Jonathan Cook reports.

The recent arrest of two respected public figures from Israel’s Palestinian Arab minority in nighttime raids on their homes by the Shin Bet secret police — brought to light this week when a gag order was partially lifted — has sent shock waves through the community. Jonathan Cook analyzes.

Job interviews for the position of imam at mosques in Israel are conducted not by senior clerics but by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, a labor tribunal has revealed. Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajwa, 36, is fighting the Shin Bet’s refusal to approve his appointment as an imam in a case that has lifted the lid on Israel’s secret surveillance of the country’s Islamic leaders. Jonathan Cook reports from Jaffa.