OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM (IPS) - Israeli authorities are increasingly targeting and intimidating nonviolent Palestinian grassroots activists involved in anti-occupation activities who are drawing increased support from the international community. Read more about Israel targeting grassroots activists 

George Habash, the late leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), called China Palestine’s “best friend.” Indeed, he was on an official PFLP visit to China when the conflict between Palestinian forces and the Hashemite Kingdom erupted in Jordan in 1970, the events later known as “Black September.” However, if there are actors today hoping that China might offer an alternative to US hegemony and pushing the international community into a more just position on Palestine, it is not likely to happen soon — if ever. Sarah Irving analyzes for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about What does China's ascendance mean for Palestine? 

It may be too early to hope that the Goldstone report will result directly in Israeli leaders facing trial in international courts; there are still too many opportunities for Israel and its backers to block such action. But Goldstone marks another major breach in the wall of Israeli impunity that is slowly but surely crumbling. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Another breach in Israel's wall of impunity 

For his continued wars against Pakistanis, Afghans, and Iraqis, his support for the overthrow of democracy in Honduras, his abetting dictatorships across the Arab and Muslim worlds (which his government finances, arms and trains in torture methods), his planning for a possible invasion of Iran, and his enthusiastic support for the racist Israeli settler colony (and its colonial wars and occupations against Palestinians), US President Barack Obama received the Nobel “Peace” Prize. Joseph Massad comments. Read more about Obama's peace 

The tactics of Israel seem to promote armed resistance. They refuse to release just one of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners currently rotting away in Israeli jails, but when an Israeli soldier is taken hostage, they are willing to negotiate. How can I convince the mothers of those martyred and those imprisoned that nonviolent resistance is the way forward? But in my heart, I know that nonviolent resistance is the path to freedom for our nation. From my small village of Bilin, I hope our actions can set an example for others to follow. Ahmed A. Khatib’s story as told to The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre. Read more about Believing in the nonviolent struggle 

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Thousands of Gazan farmers may be unable to replant their crops during the region’s main planting season in October due to agricultural land still damaged by the Israeli offensive at the start of the year, and a lack of agricultural materials like seeds and fertilizers, according to officials. Read more about Gaza farmers struggle with damaged agricultural land 

SHEIKH ZAYED, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - On a searing summer morning, workers are adding layers to the mud-brick police station being constructed in Sheikh Zayed, northern Gaza. “We started building on 20 June,” says Mohammed al-Sheikh Eid, a consultant engineer with Gaza’s Ministry of Interior. “Since this is the first time we’ve built something on this scale with mud bricks, we can’t estimate exactly how much longer it will take to complete. Maybe another two months or so.” Read more about Rebuilding Gaza's infrastructure with mud 

On 7 October 2009, Tony Blair gave a lecture at a New York university. In responding to an unexpectedly direct student question, he publicly joined, for the first time, the US and Israeli Zionist consensus rejecting the Goldstone report. Jim Holstun comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Tony Blair and the business of covering up war crimes 

Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation would have to be suppressed and the population pacified if the occupation was to be sustainable. Thus began an evolutionary relationship that continues to this day, that of the Palestinian resistance versus Israel’s policy of permanent occupation. Jimmy Johnson analyzes for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israel's export of occupation police tactics 

The uproar over the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) collaboration with Israel to bury the Goldstone report, calling for trials of Israeli leaders for war crimes in Gaza, is a political earthquake. The whole political order in place since the 1993 Oslo accords were signed is crumbling. As the initial tremors begin to fade, the same old political structures may appear still to be in place, but they are hollowed out. This unprecedented crisis threatens to topple the US-backed PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, but it also leaves Hamas, the main Palestinian resistance faction, struggling with fateful choices. Ali Abunimah comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about After Goldstone, Hamas faces fateful choice 

Whether or not the clumsy attempt to shelve the Goldstone report on last winter’s Gaza attacks is the tipping point for Mahmoud Abbas’s rule, the succession process has been underway for several years. However, it is being coordinated by the US and Israel and is no reflection of the wishes and desires of the Palestinian people. Abbas’s likely successor is Salam Fayyad, who somehow manages to be an even more uninspiring and unpopular character. Osamah Khalil comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about A poverty of leadership 

Tension over control of the Haram al-Sharif compound of mosques in Jerusalem’s Old City has reached a pitch unseen since clashes at the site sparked the second Palestinian intifada nine years ago. Ten days of intermittently bloody clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem culminated yesterday in warnings by Palestinian officials that Israel was “sparking a fire” in the city. Israel’s Jerusalem Post newspaper similarly wondered whether a third intifada was imminent. Jonathan Cook reports from Nazareth. Read more about Haram al-Sharif sovereignty under threat 

Jonathan Cook is a British journalist based in Nazareth, the largest Palestinian city in Israel, whose work is regularly published by The Electronic Intifada. His latest book, Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair, was published by Zed Books last October. He recently sat with Jeff Gore to discuss his work and his analysis of the current situation on the ground. Read more about From boycotts to Bilin: An interview with Jonathan Cook 

I continue to struggle with not being cynical about the situation in Palestine and in Gaza in particular. It is not a healthy place for me to be, spiritually or emotionally. But the Gaza Strip is a heart-breaking catastrophe in so many ways and the people there have been suffering for so long. It makes me think about the ways that we in the US are irrelevant — in the sense that it is less about what we need to do and more about what we need to stop doing. Timothy Seidel comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The things that make for peace 

Bereft of any credible or legitimate leadership, the Palestinian people will have to look to themselves to continue their struggle for freedom, justice and equality. Indeed, their struggle has been at its best, for example, during the first intifada of the 1980s, when the official leadership — at the time in exile in Tunis — was actually least involved in it. Saree Makdisi comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Time to re-engage with people power 

Just when it seemed that the Ramallah Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas could not sink any lower in their complicity with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the murderous blockade of Gaza, Ramallah has dealt a further stunning blow to the Palestinian people. The Abbas delegation to the United Nations in Geneva (officially representing the moribund Palestine Liberation Organization) abandoned a resolution requesting the Human Rights Council to forward Judge Richard Goldstone’s report on war crimes in Gaza to the UN Security Council for further action. Ali Abunimah comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Abbas helps Israel bury its crimes in Gaza 

The list of successful boycott, divestment and sanctions actions has now become too long to list, yet, there are still many out there who do not believe in this movement and have reservations on a number of grounds, offering two main concerns that are rarely tackled, and when they are it is only cursory. The first is the criticism of why a boycott movement against Israel and not countries like China, Sudan or the US. The second concerns the argument that boycott is against dialogue. Sami Hermez comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Answering critics of the boycott movement