JERUSALEM (IPS) - A showdown over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is looming between Israel and the United States barely a week after the encounter at the White House between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the 18 May encounter was no friendly “getting-to-know-you” meeting between a new president and a new prime minister of the Middle East’s most enduring alliance. Read more about US pressures Israel over settlements
Contrary to the heavily-hyped image according to which the policy output of Finland is even-handed and neutral in the Israel/Palestine conflict, Finland is actually a major arms trading partner with Israel. Recent reports by the Committee of 100 in Finland, Amnesty International, as well as an article in Finland’s biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, all revealed Finland’s deeply troubling attitude towards the actions of the State of Israel. Bruno Jäntti comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Finnish-Israeli arms trade flouts EU regulations
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - While the US appears to be optimistic about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, inter-Palestinian rivalry, a recalcitrant Israeli government, and an international community with its own agenda could well scuttle a settlement. For the first time in decades the US, under President Barack Obama’s new administration, appears to be putting pressure on Israel through Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his new hard-line and far-right government. Read more about The PA's small window of opportunity
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - A banking and liquidity crisis is affecting the lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: Civil servants are struggling to get their salaries, and humanitarian aid is being delayed. Thousands of welfare benefit recipients are not getting their dues. This week Israel allowed the transfer of 50 million new Israeli shekels (NIS - equivalent to $12.7 million) to Gaza towards the payment of 65,000 employees of the Ramallah (West Bank)-based Palestinian Authority. Read more about Gaza banking system on verge of collapse
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for his first meeting with US President Barack Obama earlier this week, preliminary construction began on the Maskiot settlement in the Jordan Valley, which forms the Eastern Bantu of the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, it will be Israel’s first new settlement in the northern West Bank in 27 years. Omar Yousef Shehabi comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Back to the future with Netanyahu's subterfuge
TELAVIV (IRIN) - Israeli army bases in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and Israel are contaminating land and water sources, says a letter addressed to Major General Gadi Shamni, commander-in-chief of the central command in Israel. According to the 12 May letter signed by Issac Ben David, deputy director at the Ministry of the Environment, and seen by IRIN, five bases in the OPT are a major source of contamination due to poor handling of diesel fuel and oil. Read more about Israeli army contaminating water sources
In pledging to trim ineffective spending, US President Obama declared that “there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it’s time their government did the same.” By asking earlier this month for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel in his FY2010 budget request, it would seem that on this important policy issue President Obama’s commitment is more rhetorical than substantive. Josh Reubner comments. Read more about Time for US to stop fueling the conflict
*GAZACITY (IPS) - The lives of hundreds of critically ill Gazans continue to be jeopardized by the power struggle between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah, and political blackmail by Israel. Mohammed Zibdeh, 12, who has cancer of the brain is waiting in Gaza City for a permit to travel to Israel for advanced treatment. He is dependent on a ventilator connected to his throat for survival. Last year Mohammed was able to secure a permit to travel to an Israeli hospital where he received chemotherapy for his brain tumor, causing the tumor to shrink significantly. Read more about Power struggle killing patients
On the morning of 4 May 2009, Israeli troops set fire to Palestinian crops along Gaza’s eastern border with Israel. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that 200,000 square meters of crops were destroyed, including wheat and barley ready for harvest, as well as vegetables, olive and pomegranate trees. Local farmers report that the blaze carried over a four-kilometer stretch on the Palestinian side of the eastern border land. Eva Bartlett reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Israel destroying Gaza's farmlands
Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) is calling for the replacement of committees, which control the West Bank’s water, for having “failed both sides” with “catastrophic” consequences. “It is time to replace the failed mechanism of the Joint Water Committees established under Oslo [the peace accords of the mid-1990s], with an institution where Palestinians and Israelis are true partners in both water supply and management responsibilities,” said Nader Khateeb, the Palestinian Director of FoEME. Arwa Aburawa reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about West Bank water access mired in politics
