There are serious concerns in Israel that the new Likud-Labour coalition government may not survive intense pressure from the extreme right within Likud, Ariel Sharon’s own party. On Monday, 13 Likud lawmakers in the Knesset voted against the new coalition government, forcing the Israeli prime minister to rely on the centre-left Yahad and the Arab parties to bail him out from certain government collapse. According to an Israeli commentator, the split in Likud places the Sharon-Peres government in real jeopardy and might very well spell its end. Read more about Sharon coalition on borrowed time
The average American finds unfathomable the desperation that drives suicide bombers. Yet Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is a recipe for producing violence. It robs Palestinians of their livelihood, their dignity, and their faith in the future. U.S. acquiescence in Israeli policies that render Palestinians’ lives untenable in order to force them off their land makes a mockery of Washington’s pretense at being an honest broker in this conflict. Across the Arab and Muslim world, suffering in the Occupied Territories provokes bitter hostility. Read more about US must act to stop ethnic cleansing in Palestine
On 22 April 1980, during the hostage crisis in the American Embassy in Tehran, the EU imposed sanctions against Iran for violating the laws of diplomatic immunity. The EU acted after the Soviet Union vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Council that sought to impose sanctions on Iran. It justified its act by saying “the situation created a concern for the whole international community.” If the EU could then act without express authorisation from the Security Council, it could surely do so today. Victor Kattan reports. Read more about EU's pivotal role in Middle East peace
With “election elation” in the air (as a Palestinian journalist put it), people ask me here in the United States how I feel about the potential for peace in the occupied Palestinian territories. Much as I long to feel elated, I must admit to a sinking heart. The reason for my pessimism is based on the rhetoric that continues to be put out by both sides and by the US and on Israel’s continuing project of “creating facts on the ground”. Neither side in the conflict is listening to what the other is saying. Certainly no one is listening to what the Palestinians have to say. Read more about Election deflation
Ron Kampeas, writing on JTA, “The Global News Source of the Jewish People,” on December 14, 2004, reports that President Bush’s views of the Middle East have been formed by Israeli Minister Natan Sharansky’s book, “The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror.” If true, this story is just one more example of the poor sources of information used by the current US administration. Susan Hussein reports for EI. Read more about Where does Bush get his (bad) information?
Democrats, searching for ways to regain ground lost to Republicans in November, should take guidance from an unusual source: a just-reported Defense Department study of attitudes toward the United States in the Arab and Muslim worlds. That study confirms that we are resented worldwide not for our freedoms but for our policies. In particular, it is our support for Israel, and more recently our occupation of Iraq, that most offend 1.2 billion Arabs and Muslims. Friendly relations with this big slice of humanity are key to our economic and strategic well-being. Read more about Advance U.S. -- not Israel's -- interests
The FBI resumed its investigation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, on December 1st when agents searched its offices for the second time in three months and served subpoenas on four senior AIPAC staff. Those subpeonaed are required to appear at a grand jury regarding the alleged acts of espionage involving a Pentagon employee and AIPAC. The man at the center of the investigation is Larry Franklin, an Iran analyst who works in the office of William Luti, who in turn is in charge of the Iran desk in Douglas Feith’s office. Read more about AIPAC Investigation Resumes After Hiatus
I’m in the living room of a family friend. The subject changes from yoga to Israel-Palestine, and I tell her that I think Americans need to change their foreign policy towards Israel. She says, “in what way, so that the Arabs will throw the Jews into the sea?” It takes four minutes of back and forth for the conversation to degenerate. She finally says, “Look, what I have to say isn’t pretty, but I’m not afraid. I’m going to say it anyways. The Palestinians are nothing but vermin. They make trouble in every country they live in. Even the other Arab countries don’t want them.” Read more about The Wrath of the Jews
The saddest thing about the American election of George Bush is that in the long run it will make the United States irrelevant in all matters save that we have the power to blow the world up, many times over, through our military might. To elect a man who has brought a great nation from astonishing surpluses to the brink of fiscal and cultural bankruptcy, whose sense of moral superiority is elitist and obscene and who in the name of Christ, whose message was to love ones enemy, has declared war on an emotion - terror - and in the process killed over 100,000 people - boggles the mind. And of course, there’s always Zionist Israel and its minions pushing and prodding and mega-manipulating the message. Read more about Bush Folly, Campaign 2004 and the Middle East
“Only 11 per cent of Canadians polled said that the media is biased against Israel. More significantly, one-third of Canadians believe that the media is being unfair to the Palestinians,” says the summary prepared by GPC International, communications advisers for the committee. Shimon Fogel, the chief executive of the Canada-Israel Committee, said the poll results ‘are a reality check for my constituents’.” Jeff Sallot reports in the Toronto Globe and Mail on some interesting findings of a poll commissioned by leading Israeli lobbying groups in Canada. Read more about Canada calling: neutrality on Mideast favoured, polls find
