Palestine/Israel is a strange place; here separateness is valorized by many decent people and presented as the ‘peace option’ and the not-so-nice-ones openly preach ethnic cleansing. Yet those who preach ethnic cleansing are often viewed as persons that ‘we can do business with’. In South Africa, apartheid was regarded by the world as the problem; here in Israel they, and much of the rest of the world, present it as the solution. For many otherwise decent people who do not experience dispossession and discrimination on a daily basis, stability in its preferred and somehow morally elevated package as ‘peace’ becomes the single most important objective that one must yearn for. Read more about The Choice to be Struck? 

Settlement growth and the diminishing size of the village of Singel are intrinsically related. Singel’s families continue to brace themselves in the face of unchecked land grabs awarded to newly created Israeli settlements. While Israeli tax collectors are quick to furnish documentation that links Palestinians to their land for taxation purposes, they are quicker to dismiss these records when issuing evacuation orders. Rarely do Israeli authorities balk at this double standard with regard to settlement expansion. Read more about A Land for Growing, not Settlement Growth 

East Jerusalem, March 7, 2005 — Tonight, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility met with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at St. George’s Hostel in East Jerusalem. Mr. Vanunu is famous around the world for exposing Israel’s secret nuclear weapon’s program at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel. Vanunu was convicted to 18 years in prison and spent 11 of these years in total isolation. He describes psychological torture intended to break his will and says Israeli authorities tried to brand him as a criminal. Read more about WaPSR Delegation Diary 3: Our Dinner with Mordechai Vanunu