Succumbing to US pressure and unabashed Israeli blackmail, Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Ramallah Palestinian Authority (PA), was reportedly personally responsible for the decision to defer UN Security Council consideration of the Goldstone report. This dashed the hopes of Palestinians everywhere as well as those of international human rights organizations and solidarity movements, that Israel would finally face a long overdue process of legal accountability and that its victims would have a measure of justice. Read more about UN must act on Goldstone and the PA must be dissolved 

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 

US President Barack Obama has placed restoration of the stature of the United States among his primary foreign policy goals. He has already achieved substantial progress in Europe, where polls indicate that he is widely admired. The president’s June Cairo University speech also won praise in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Yet many across the globe still await the substantive policy changes implied by his inspiring words. George Bisharat comments. Read more about Obama must match rhetoric with principle 

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 

The Goldstone investigation into alleged war crimes committed during last winter’s Gaza attacks singles out a particular set of facts, and a limited period of time as its primary locus. However, such a high-profile report, crafted specifically to address what is perceived to be an extreme or peculiar period of time in the lives of Palestinians under occupation, might have significant negative consequences. Goncalo de Almeida Ribeiro, Vishaal Kishore and Nimer Sultany comment for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The risks of de-contextualizing Gaza war crimes 

The summit between US President Barack Obama with and Palestinian and Israeli leaders in New York signaled the complete and terminal failure of Obama’s much vaunted push to bring about a two-state solution. Although the “peace process” will continue to go through sterile motions, the future of Palestine/Israel is actually being decided elsewhere. Ali Abunimah comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Obama's peace effort has failed but our struggle continues 

The recent report by a United Nations fact-finding team investigating allegations of war crimes committed during the attack on Gaza last winter is an historic contribution to the Palestinian struggle for justice, an impeccable documentation of a crucial chapter in their victimization under occupation. Its impact will be felt most impressively on the growing civil society movement throughout the world to impose cultural, sporting and academic boycotts, as well as to discourage investment, trade and tourism with Israel. Richard Falk comments. Read more about The Goldstone report and the battle for legitimacy 

This weekend at the eighth annual US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation national organizers’ conference held in Chicago, delegates from the approximately 300 member groups that make up the US Campaign voted in favor of an academic and cultural boycott of Israel. The vote, and the deep collective breath of relief that followed, will go down in history as the moment US-based Palestine solidarity activists overcame tactical differences that had long hindered us, to finally come together to confront Israeli apartheid. Nada Elia comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about A turning point for the US solidarity movement 

Israel is an apartheid state. It rules over me in Gaza yet does not permit me to vote in an Israeli election. It hoards my resources in the West Bank, it detains me and dictates the terms of my survival. It issues my travel documents and denies me the right to travel. I cannot associate or marry or build or import or consume — in short, I cannot live — without Israel’s permission. Yet, I do not have the right to vote. Ahmed Moor comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about My rights, my remedy