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A Matter of Timing

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Uri Avnery

SOME WEEKS the news is dominated by a single word. This week’s word was "timing".

It’s all a matter of timing. The Government of Israel has insulted the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, one of the greatest "friends" of Israel (meaning: somebody totally subservient to AIPAC) and spat in the face of President Barack Obama. So what? It’s all a matter of timing.

If the government had announced the building of 1600 new housing units in East Jerusalem a day earlier, it would have been OK. If it had announced it three days later, it would have been wonderful. But doing it exactly when Joe Biden was about to have dinner with Bibi and Sarah’le – that was really bad timing.

The matter itself is not important. Another thousand housing units in East Jerusalem, or 10 thousand, or 100 thousand – what different does it make? The only thing that matters is the timing.

As the Frenchman said: It’s worse than criminal, it’s stupid.

 

EU Parliament Backs Goldstone Report

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The Palestine Monitor

A resolution voted by the European Parliament last Wednesday demands a strong EU common position on the follow-up of the Goldstone Report and close monitoring of its implementing measures.

The resolution, tabled by Political Groups S&D, ALDE, Greens/EFA and GUE/NGL groups, was approved with 335 votes in favour, 287 against and 43 abstentions.

All parties should respect human rights

"Respect for international humanitarian law and international human rights law by all parties under all circumstances and trust-building between Israelis and Palestinians are essential components of a peace process leading to two states living side by side in peace and security" says the resolution, which stresses "once again the importance of achieving a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, and between Israelis and Palestinians in particular".

 

The Decline of Israel and the Prospects for Peace

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(This interview first appeared on the website of the New Left Project at: http://newleftproject.org/)

In a wide ranging interview journalist Jonathan Cook describes the increasingly repressive nature of Israeli society and the prospects for a solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict

What did you make of Ehud Barak’s recent comparison of Israel to South Africa?

We should be extremely wary of ascribing a leftwing agenda to senior Israeli politicians who make use of the word “apartheid” in the Israeli-Palestinian context. Barak was not claiming that Israel is an apartheid state when he addressed the high-powered delegates at the Herzliya conference last month; he was warning the Netanyahu government that its approach to the two-state solution was endangering Israel’s legitimacy in the eyes of the world that would eventually lead to it being called an apartheid state. He was politicking. His goal was to intimidate Netanyahu into signing up to his, and the Israeli centre’s, long-standing agenda of “unilateral separation”: statehood imposed on the Palestinians as a series of bantustans (be sure, the irony is entirely lost on Barak and others). Barak knows that Netanyahu currently has no intention of creating any kind of Palestinian state, even a bogus one, despite his commitments to the US.

 

 

America does not get it!

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Sami Jamil Jadallah | The Jefferson Corner

In the last few days I have been following the visits of both Vice President Joe Biden and Senator George Mitchell to the Middle East and the different and competing messages coming out of Washington, Ramallah, Tel-Aviv and Cairo the seat of the Arab League.

Vice President Joe Biden is a seasoned politician with over 30 years in the US Senate with many years of tenure at Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee and one would assume is a smart man who can understand words and actions. He seemed to lose both while on his visit to Israel.

It seems the Obama-Biden’s White House does not get it. V.P Biden statement quoted in Haaretz “ Palestinians, Israelis must decide for themselves if they want peace” sound very good but when it comes from some one like Joe Biden such statement is not only stupid but reckless as well.

All of the US administrations with the exception of Eisenhower and Kennedy including Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II and now Obama has always acted not as an unbiased arbitrator but as partners with Israel and always gave Israel the legal, political, economic and military cover needed to continue with its occupation, with its expanding settlements, with its seizures and closers, its never ending daily aggression and pretended always to ignore the fact that Israel whether Labor, Likud, Kadima, Shas or whatever never was interested in peace with the Palestinians based on land for peace. One can only explain US-Israel relationship as one of a “pimp and his bitch” with Israel being the “pimp” of course.

 

Rachel Corrie family finally puts Israel in dock

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Court hears how army bulldozer killed peace activist
Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today.

A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah.

Corrie’s parents, Craig and Cindy, who arrived in Israel on Saturday, said they hoped their civil action would shed new light on their daughter’s killing and finally lead to Israel’s being held responsible for her death. They are also seeking damages that could amount to millions of dollars if the court finds in their favour.


 

Juan Cole: Israel Humiliates Biden, Announces Further Colonization on Eve of US-Brokered Talks

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Juan Cole | http://www.juancole.com/

The far rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu in Israel majorly sandbagged Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday, demonstrating once again that it has not the slightest interest in pursuing a just peace with the Palestinian people or in trading a cessation of its colonization of the Palestinian West Bank for a comprehensive peace with the Arab world.

Biden went to the Mideast to kick off negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, and reassured the latter of undying US support for them. On Chris Matthews' Hardball, Biden explained that when you marry someone, you tell them you love them, but that does not remove the obligation to keep saying it years later. Apparently, however, Washington is henpecked by Tel Aviv to the point almost of being a battered spouse. In response to Biden's loyal support for Israel over decades, the Likud-led government kicked him in the teeth. Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai abruptly announced that he would build 1600 new households (for 8,000 people?) in a part of the Occupied West Bank that the Israeli government had annexed to Jerusalem District. It was precisely such new and increasing Israeli building on Palestinian territory that had led Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to reject negotiations and to threaten to resign. The announcement put in doubt whether the negotiations would go forward, and made Biden and the United States government look like fools.


 

Is Europe planning seal of approval for Israeli settlers?

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Jonathan Cook in Nazareth

An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories.

Israel has been told that its accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May.

But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of the organisation’s key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data on its economic activity.


 

Al-Khalil/ Hebron and Jerusalem Protests Point to the Dangers of Nationalizing Sacred Space

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Juan Cole | http://www.juancole.com/

Abraham has been an important figure for theologians, philosophers, chroniclers and religious poets and lyricists among Jews, Christians and Muslims. All three monotheistic religions honor him and claim him as a patriarch or in Islam's case as a prophet of the one God. All tell the story of his willingness to sacrifice his son for God. Jews and Arabs see him as an ancestor, Jews claiming descent through his implausibly aged first wife Sarah and Arabs through his second wife (held in some Jewish and Muslim traditions to have been a Pharaonic princess), Hagar. They hold him to be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs in al-Khalil in the Palestinian West Bank, which the Israelis call "Hebron," where Muslims erected the Mosque of the Abraham, which is split, with part of it used by Jews and the other part by Muslims.

 

Israeli army wants me

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Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in cybersopace, a villager at home

The Israeli army invaded our neighborhood at 1:30 AM Tuesday morning waking up my mother, wife and sister.  Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during "the operation". When my family opened the door, they demanded to see me.  They were told I have already left to the US.  After many more questions, they left a paper that states I am to appear at the military liaison office next Monday.  My sister and wife told them I will not be back by then. Clearly the warning from that military officer at Ush Ghrab that I mentioned in my last email, was based on knowledge of this. I guess I am a wanted man now for engaging in nonviolent protest!  Those who were at that event and have video, please contact me.  What disturbs me is not the risk to me; any action against oppression is taken knowing there are personal risks.  What disturbs me is that this has an effect on my family and thousands of friends around the world who care (and some of it unpredictable).  My 76 year old mother asks on the phone that I not go back and that I work in the US for a while, a very painful suggestion for a mother to make about her only remaining son near her!  I try to assure her that I have done nothing wrong and will not leave her…but she brings up many examples of people who also did not do any violence and were arrested, imprisoned, and their families had to go through a lot.  A friend who heard about this stated I have nothing to worry about, that this was to hassle me to get us to stop being active. Another lost sleep trying to figure out what we can do.   I assure her that I will carry on with my speaking tour as planned and that this will
blow over one day. (the song “we shall overcome someday” comes to mind).

 

Report from Sunday and arrival in the US

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Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in cyberspace, a villager at home

I just arrived in the US to give a series of talks on Palestine as part of the 6th International Israeli Apartheid Week www.apartheidweek.org (my schedule is below*).  The day I left Palestine was a bizarre/strange day to say theleast.  The second Sunday in Beit Sahour to hold events to protest the increased military presence was to contain a land reclamation activity.  The torrential rains put a damper on that option but lifted our spirits since it proclaimed a great planting and harvest season.  In three days, we received over 85% of the total needed rainfall for the season!! Nothing like thishappened here in over 15 years.  But there was enough of a clearing that over 60 people gathered at Ush Ghrab.  It included Dr. Moustafa Barghouthiand his supporters.  Because we had originally planned no demonstration for this Sunday, we (the members of the popular committee in Beit Sahour) asked that they do not chant and that they fold their banners.  Because there was no military, we decided to honor a request from our visitors and give them a quick tour of the military camp site.  But just after we arrived at the topof the hill and were about to spend five minutes  explaining the tumultuous history of this site, the Israeli soldiers came barreling up the hill intheir military jeeps.  Giving us five minutes to go back down and refusing to negotiate, things unfolded rather quickly. The soldiers threw about a dozen concussion grenades.  Three young people from those who came fromoutside Beit Sahour tried to throw stones.

 

 

Ethan Bronner and conflicts of interest

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Jonathan Cook

A recent assignment of mine covering Israel’s presumed links to the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh provoked some more thoughts about the New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner. He is the Jerusalem bureau chief who has been at the centre of a controversy since it was revealed last month that his son is serving in the Israeli army. Despite mounting pressure to replace Bronner, the NYT’s editors have so far refused to consider that he might be facing a conflict of interest or that it would be wiser to post him elsewhere.


 

Harvard Professor's Modest Proposal: Starve the Gazans into Having Fewer Babies

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Juan Cole

Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans for its effect on reducing the number of Gazans.

M. J. Rosenberg argued that Kramer's speech is equivalent to a call for genocide. It certainly is a call for eugenics.

It is shocking that Kramer, who has made a decade-long career of attacking social science understanding of the Middle East and demonizing anyone who departs even slightly from his rightwing Israeli-nationalist political line, should be given a cushy office at Harvard as a 'fellow' while spewing the most vile justifications for war crimes like the collective punishment of Gazan children.

Kramer is after all not nobody. He was an adviser to the Giuliani presidential campaign. He is listed as an associate of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the influential think tank in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He is associated with Daniel Pipe's 'Middle East Forum,' a neo-McCarthyite organization dedicated to harassing American academics who do not toe the political line of Israel's ruling Likud Party.

 
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Well Said!

“Remember the solidarity shown to Palestine here and everywhere... and remember also that there is a cause to which many people have committed themselves, difficulties and terrible obstacles notwithstanding. Why? Because it is a just cause, a noble ideal, a moral quest for equality and human rights.”

- Edward Said

 

This brief review of Israel’s record over the past four decades makes it difficult to resist the conclusion that it has become a rogue state with "an utterly unscrupulous set of leaders". A rogue state habitually violates international law, possesses weapons of mass destruction and practises terrorism - the use of violence against civilians for political purposes. Israel fulfils all of these three criteria; the cap fits and it must wear it. Israel’s real aim is not peaceful coexistence with its Palestinian neighbours but military domination. It keeps compounding the mistakes of the past with new and more disastrous ones. Politicians, like everyone else, are of course free to repeat the lies and mistakes of the past. But it is not mandatory to do so.

-Avi Shlaim


Palestine Monitor Factsheet

The 2009 Factbook is a Reference Guide for Negotiators, Researchers and Civil Society Leaders Concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

 

FactBook picture

The Factbook is being released in hardcopy, in sections and full version online, to coincide with the one year anniversary of the Annapolis Peace Process launched in November of 2007. The topics discussed within are the economy, the plight of Palestinian children, refugees, prisoners and torture, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, Settlements, Checkpoints and Movement Restrictions, the Wall, Water and Non Violence.

Each section has been thoroughly researched and referenced to provide readers with the most up-to-date information available from only the most credible sources.

The aim of our hard work is to make your research and advocacy on behalf of the Palestinian cause easier and more accurate. We encourage you to go to our site www.palestinemonitor.org to download our factsheets and disperse them as widely as possible.

In this most controversial of topics in international relations, Palestine Monitor hopes to arm you with the facts.

 

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Factbook - Online version
Download the designed factbook version -including references and endnotes- factsheet for screen reading and printing 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would you like to Donate and help a Palestinian Family? Please check out the following organizations.

Link Tomorrow's Youth Organization
Tomorrow's Youth Organization (TYO) is a 501c3 non-profit organization that works in disadvantaged areas of the Middle East, enabling children, youth and parents to realize their potential as healthy, active and responsible family and community members.

Link PALESTINE CHILDREN'S RELIEF FUND
The Palestine Children's Relief Fund was established in 1991 by concerned people in the U.S. to address the medical and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian youths in the Middle East. It has since expanded to help suffering children from other Middle Eastern nations, based only on their medical needs. The P.C.R.F. helps to locate free medical care for children from the Middle East who are unable to get the necessary and specialized treatment in their homeland.

Link Islamic Relief
Islamic Relief strives to alleviate poverty and suffering wherever it is found, paying no heed to gender, race or creed.

Link Dalia Association
At Dalia Association, we believe that many of the resources we need for social change and sustainable development already exist within the community.

Link United Palestinian Appeal, Inc.
UPA is a member of the Independent Charities of America, a participating agency of the Combined Federal Campaign, and is registered with USAID as a private voluntary organization engaged in foreign aid

LinkJewish Voice for Peace
Jewish Voice for Peace is a diverse and democratic community of activists inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, and human rights. We support the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians for security and self-determination.

Link Free Gaza
We are these human rights observers, aid workers, and journalists. We have years of experience volunteering in Gaza and the West Bank at the invitation of Palestinians. But now, because of the increasing stranglehold of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, many of us find it almost impossible to enter Gaza, and an increasing number have been refused entry to Israel and the West Bank as well. Despite the great need for our work, the Israeli Government will not allow us in to do it.

(This list by no means is complete, please help by submitting a link here.)