12 February 2010
The Israeli courts ordered the release this week of two foreign women arrested by the army in the West Bank in what human rights lawyers warn has become a wide ranging clampdown by Israel on nonviolent protest from international, Israeli and Palestinian activists. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israeli immigration police abducting international activists in West Bank
12 February 2010
Wael al-Faqeeh has been held without charge by the Israeli military since his arrest on 9 December 2009. The 28 January hearing that lasted approximately three minutes here in Salem court resulted in the extension of his detention by a further ten days. Bridget Chappell writes for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israel wields iron fist against nonviolent resisters
10 February 2010
WASHINGTON (IPS) - A campaign of attacks against the New Israel Fund (NIF), a US-based progressive organization that supports human rights groups in Israel, has gained attention in both the Israeli and US media, raising questions about the role played by foreign non-profits and nongovernmental organizations in influencing Israeli government policy. Read more about Rights group targeted over Goldstone report
10 February 2010
The results of the first year of Netanyahu’s economic peace are visible. While there has been no progress on the political front, security and economic cooperation with the PA has never been better. The American-trained security forces have kept a tight grip over West Bank towns squashing dissent and keeping “order.” Ziyaad Lunat comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The Netanyahu-Fayyad "economic peace" one year on
9 February 2010
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Pressure exerted on the Palestinian Authority by international and regional officials has given Gazans a last minute reprieve, albeit temporary, from plunging into darkness and plummeting temperatures. “The emergency has been temporarily halted after the PA released urgent funds to finance two fuel tankers entering Gaza on Sunday,” says Osama Dabou from Gaza’s Power Plant authority. Read more about Gaza's energy crisis continues
10 February 2010
The Palestinian submission to US pressure that Israel’s large West Bank settlement blocs be annexed to Israel against a fictitious land swap is another vindication of the Israeli belief that facts created are facts accepted. But if West Bank land east of the 1967 border is still contested, so is Israeli land to the west. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about The false sacredness of the 1967 border
8 February 2010
Jerusalem’s mayor threatened last week to demolish 200 homes in Palestinian neighborhoods of the city in an act even he conceded would probably bring long-simmering tensions over housing in East Jerusalem to a boil. His uncompromising stance is the latest stage in a protracted legal battle over a single building towering above the jumble of modest homes of Silwan. Jonathan Cook reports from Jerusalem. Read more about Jerusalem mayor to raze 200 Palestinian homes
8 February 2010
Once the Gaza Freedom March arrived in Cairo I repeatedly heard justification that organizers did not want to put Egyptian protesters at risk. Yet, Egyptians regularly protest in Egypt despite the risks. For a group of outsiders to justify the exclusion of our involvement without asking our opinion — in spite of the good intentions of “protecting” us — felt paternalistic and demeaning. Philip Rizk comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about United solidarity with Gaza
8 February 2010
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Gazans hoping for a modicum of justice following Israel’s indiscriminate military assault on the coastal territory during December 2008 and January 2009 — which left 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead — could be waiting in vain. The Israeli government has taken the offensive in the propaganda battle and attacked United Nations-appointed Justice Richard Goldstone’s report into war crimes committed during the war. Read more about Justice denied in Gaza
5 February 2010
Citing “security reasons” — the ubiquitous and unanswerable catch-all phrase against which it is almost impossible to mount any defense — Israel’s Ministry of the Interior has just issued a six-month travel ban on map expert Khalil Tafakji. Tafakji, like almost all other Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem, is a “permanent resident,” but not a citizen of Israel. Marian Houk reports. Read more about Israel slaps six-month travel ban on Palestinian map expert