“Let’s assume that what the Israelis are saying is true and that they are imposing this siege because of the capture of the Israeli soldier. If that is true then they are admitting to the most serious war crimes that can be committed under international law because the Geneva Convention makes it very clear that it is a serious crime to punish a civilian population for political reasons. Here Israel says they are punishing the civilian population in order to secure the release of a prisoner of war. I think that, if nothing else should alert people to the true nature of this regime.” Read more about "One Country": An Interview with Ali Abunimah 

The highlight of the Rabin Memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv on 4 November last was, by common consent, David Grossman’s speech directed rhetorically to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. This text has already done the rounds of the world’s liberal media, and there is general agreement that it represents Israeli pacifist humanism at its very best. Of Israeli literature’s “three wise men”, Grossman is the one who universally gleans most respect. Amoz Oz’s reputation survives outside Israel primarily because the repentant Germans dutifully worship at his shrine. A. B. Yehoshua put his foot in it once too often when in a Ha’aretz interview he prescribed the use of “full force against the entire population” of Gaza. Read more about The Anatomy of a Beautiful Soul 

In a recent interview published in Haaretz, Naftali Tamir, the Israeli ambassador to Australia, articulates a perennial need for ‘white’ collaborators that has defined the Zionist project since its inception. He speaks bluntly of an Israeli partnership with Australia, founded on racial solidarity, to “enhance” Israeli influence over East Asia. Only perhaps in the nineteenth century could a Western diplomat have spoken so plainly about race as the basis of a political alliance. Infinitely better armed against their Arab victims, the Israelis have no need for caution. They can dispense with diplomacy, with political correctness. Read more about Two White Sisters in Asia: Israel and Australia 

The terrible imbalance of power between the Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for Israel, regardless of which government is in power, to deal with the Palestinians in any way except through a lens of assumed moral, cultural, and racial superiority, as though military prowess equates with civilization and home-made rockets equate with savagery and a sub-human status. The savagery, though, belongs to Israel and to anyone who has the power to stop a bully in his bloody pummeling of a much weaker opponent but instead stands aside, watching under the cover of the manufactured excuse that the bully is defending himself against his hapless victim. Read more about Pummeling the victim 

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has brought Yisrael Beitenu into his coalition, a party that has openly advocated the “transfer” — ethnic cleansing —of Palestinians, and has made clear that a Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. Yet spokesperson for European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana affirmed that the EU would take no action against Israel. In contrast, the EU has imposed crippling sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, starving ordinary Palestinians for having elected a government of the which the European Union disapproves. EI co-founder investigates a new low in western double standards and appeasement of Israeli extremism. Read more about World silent as fascists join Israel government 

There are ominous signs that the long-contemplated plan to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet is about to enter its most dangerous phase: a political coup, supported by local militias, with foreign and regional backing. This could ignite serious intra-Palestinian violence. EI co-founder Ali Abunimah and contributor Hasan Abu Nimah write that with Iraq providing a dreadful warning of how foreign occupation can foster civil bloodshed, everything must be done to expose and thwart this dangerous conspiracy. Read more about A re-run of the Lebanon war in Palestine? 

When it comes to imposing law and order on the Palestinians, what applies is not international humanitarian law, but the law of the jungle. And, of course, it is quite clear who the king of the jungle is. The Palestinian Israeli conflict is about survival, about the right of one strong party backed by a superpower to “exist” as a Jewish state at the expense of the indigenous non-Jewish population of historic Palestine and their descendants who are not allowed to “exist” in a separate but unequal state of their own. It is about the right of the weak party to negotiate for its own autonomous survival on bits and pieces of leftover “territories”, but only if it first concedes its dispossession, if it ensures the security of the strong party and remains its “client”. Read more about The King of the Jungle