NEWS: News Updates...

 

 No partners for peace in any likely new coalition

February 2nd, 2013

President Peres formally asks Netanyahu to form the next government after several days of intense negotiation. The only question of interest seems to be whether or not Yair Lapid will be offered the role of Foreign Minister. Known: none of the parties with Arab MKs will be invited to join. Unknown: the effect of airstrikes against Syria or Lebanon. News report and commentary by Noam Sheizaf and Uri Avnery.

UN: all settlers must leave West Bank or face International Criminal Court

February 1st, 2013

The long tolerance extended to Israel by the UN, despite that member state's flouting of its conventions, ended this week. The Universal Periodic Review was detailed, and clear: the settlers must leave the West Bank, private firms should not operate in settlements, Palestinians have a right to self-determination and human rights which Israeli policies obstruct. Plus Britain's FCO adds its own voices of 'concern'.

Slurs, vendettas and antisemitism

February 1st, 2013

Two linked but very different pieces.First from Souciant a comparison between W. Germany, (FDR, 1949-90) which accepted culpability for the Nazi Holocaust and E. Germany (DDR), which didn't. It rebuts an attack on Jacob Augstein, a critic of Israeli policies, which calls him 'an antisemitic muckraker'. This was picked up by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre who listed Augstein as no. 10 in its list of Top 10 Antisemitic/Anti-Israeli Slurs (2). Most on this list are accepted as antisemitic but others are not; the whole seems shoddily compiled with no clear criteria, context, or sources, producing its own muckraking slurs. None of the producers of seriously antisemitic websites is mentioned.

Truth as the first casualty

February 1st, 2013

Whether the remark 'truth is the first casualty of war' is attributed to 5th C Aeschylus, 20th C Senator Hiram W Johnson or anyone else, the 2013 Press Freedom Index, confirms the axiom, especially if dictatorship is counted as war against the people. Because of conflict, neither Palestine nor Israel scores well, but whereas Israel has dropped 20 places, Palestine, rarely among Arab countries, has risen 7 places.

Israel only country ever to refuse UN’s universal human rights check

January 31st, 2013

All 193 member states of the UN are subject to the Universal Periodic Review of their human rights record. Only one country has ever refused to take part - Israel. At its 2008 UPR Israel undertook to address the inequalities in its society. In its submission to the UN Adalah details the outstanding inequalities of Israeli society which the UPR should examine while 15 NGOs warn of the consequences of this boycott.

Pictorial guide to antisemitism and its abuse

January 31st, 2013

The people and organisations which are quickest to cry 'antisemitism' - think Anti-Defamation League (ADL) or many of the so-called Jewish representative groups in the UK - seem to have no grasp of what actually constitutes antisemitism and its true horror. To help them master their hysteria, and provide a service to our sensible readers, we post the Daily Beast's 17 point guide to antisemitism and the abuse of that term.

Regavim v. Susya villagers

January 30th, 2013

Susya settlers have already seized about one sixth of Palestinian land around the old village of Susya. Since last summer, the villagers have been defending their residence against aggressive legal attacks from the right-wing Zionist body, Regavim. On Thursday, the Supreme Court should arrive at a judgment on Regavim's petition for the destruction of all Palestinian structures in Susya and the villagers' petition for access to their land..

One state is formula for status quo

January 30th, 2013

M.J. Rosenberg is an any-stater - any state that produces a just peace is OK. But he's not swept up in the new enthusiasm - or desperation - for a one-state solution. simply because he is sure it will never happen. So it is a recipe for no change. So that leaves the 2-state solution to be pursued.

Trees in, Palestinians out

January 30th, 2013

As in many Jewish households, Robert Cohen's gave money to the Jewish National Fund, inspired by the idea of creating forests in the barren desert. As in many Jewish households he later realised that where the trees were planted, Palestinian villages were forcibly deserted. He finds the rich Biblical imagery of trees as a phenomenon of nature to be in stark contrast to the Israeli practice of forced environmental change.

Drawing the line: cartoons and antisemitism

January 30th, 2013

Here is a range of cartoons and comments on cartoons condemned as antisemitic. We have not reproduced undoubtedly antisemitic cartoons which show a stereotypical and thus anonymous Jewish character who has an inherent tendency to wreak destruction on the path to world domination. We at JfJfP postings do not think Netanyahu stands for all Jews or imagined 'Jewish traits'; rather he stands for policies which many people abhor.

Palestinian intellectual treasure stolen in Nakba

January 29th, 2013

The history of Muslim intellectual work is long and distinguished. When Israeli soldiers looted Palestinian homes in 1948 they found a treasure trove on the shelves of educated former residents -- and promptly stole the books, about 40,000 of them. Some have been located in Israel's National Library, some have disappeared into private ownership and trade. Dalia Hatuqa on a documentary about this little-known pillage.

56 Palestinians killed since 2005 with ‘crowd control’ weapons

January 29th, 2013

The death toll of Palestinians armed with nothing more lethal than stones, mounts. BTselem, in a re-issued report on the crowd control weapons used by the IOF, has counted 56 Palestinians killed since 2005 by the IOF combatting protesters. Live ammunition has been used as well as rubber-coated metal bullets prohibited for use inside Israel.

Words which don’t allow the truth to be told

January 29th, 2013

Don't say peace, occupation, Palestinians; instead say security, normalcy and Arabs - that would seem to be the way to gain political dominance in Israel. But, says Jeff Halper, with a combination of good Israeli and Palestinian leadership or strong outside pressures, Israelis could be induced to give the Occupation up. It's up to the critics to devise what sort of shared living space would be do-able.

Anger at the ‘deadweights’ gave Lapid his vote

January 28th, 2013

Adam Keller did his civic duty by manning a polling booth, from where he observes that the social movement of 2011 was a protest at the unequal burdens Israelis carry; but while some raged at the well-connected tycoons who twist things in their favour, others focussed on the exemptions from most civic duties of the ultra-Orthodox. It was the latter group who gave Lapid his votes. Can he go beyond this grievance?

Palestinian woman student killed in random shooting by IOF

January 28th, 2013

22-year old Lubna Munir Hanash was shot dead by the IOF while walking to college last week. Her companion was injured in what appears to be a burst of indiscriminate firing from men in a civilian car (1 and 2). While boys had thrown stones at the car in a nearby main road, there were none in the road the women were walking along (3). She is the sixth Palestinian to have been killed by Israeli forces this month.