Richard Irvine

Legal mechanisms developed after the end of the Second World War to more easily prosecute war criminals are now being taken off the books to preserve Israeli impunity from accountability.

In the wake of Egypt’s revolution, Israeli and Western commentators have called the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty “cornerstone” of regional peace and stability. That Israel always viewed the treaty as a blank check for war, however, is evident both in its behavior and in fears that the abrogation of the treaty might mean Israel will have to curtail its military interventions. Richard Irvine comments for The Electronic Intifada.

As Israel’s self-imposed and largely irrelevant settlement freeze ends, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked settlers to show “restraint.” It is an interesting choice of adjective, for people who show restraint are the injured and outraged; they are victims who although entitled to a full measure of justice settle for less to maintain good will and harmony. Richard Irvine comments.

A young Jewish Israeli woman and a young Palestinian Jerusalemite had consensual sex. Afterwards, the Jewish woman discovered that her partner was in fact not Jewish at all, but horror of horror, a Palestinian. But there was more, the Palestinian had called himself “Dudu,” his nickname, but one most often used by Israeli Jews, and from this the young woman concluded she had been deliberately deceived and in fact raped. Richard Irvine comments for The Electronic Intifada.

No one can accuse history of not having a sense of irony. Sixty-three years ago in July 1947 a passenger ship destined for Palestine and named The Exodus was stopped and boarded by the British Navy. The ship was crowded with Holocaust survivors determined to make a new life for themselves in British controlled Palestine. Today another small flotilla of ships is making its way to Palestine. Richard Irvine comments for The Electronic Intifada.