NEWS: News Updates

This week, November 30-December 6, ISIL/Daesh is making the most news here, as elsewhere even though the group has no obvious footprint in Israel or Palestine. Perhaps Netanyahu is disappointed by this (no-one was taken in by his insistence that Hamas and ISIL were the same; indeed, the linking made Hamas seem relatively mild and civilised

Posted in News

Bibi pops in to climate summit – to talk about terrorists

Posted on December 6, 2015 by sarahbenton

Another example if it were needed of Netanyahu’s cognitive power being addled by his phobia about Palestinians is given by Rina Bassist of Al Monitor: at the last minute he agreed to go to the Paris climate change summit when he heard it would be full of world leaders with whom he could claim to be in an anti-Arab-terrorist brotherhood.

Posted in News Tagged cop21, netanyahu-terrorism

Congress passes laws to counteract US settlements policy

Posted on December 5, 2015 by sarahbenton

Lara Friedman’s piece for American for Peace Now might read like a text for policy wonks. It’s important. She noticed that Congress – both houses – had passed, without fanfare, various bits of legislation that prohibits ANY restrictions on trade. This means that government policy on not recognising settlements as part of Israel is effectively undermined. AIPAC is named as the initiator of the legislation. We have added some notes to make it a little clearer.

Posted in News Tagged settlements, trade law, US Congress

Human rights improve security

Posted on December 5, 2015 by sarahbenton

The response by the governments of the USA and France to terrorist attacks has been to increase ‘security’ measures at the expense of many freedoms. Israel has built its state on restricting freedom for Palestinians on the grounds they are a ever-present security threat. But, argues Mitchell Plitnick, this equation is wrong. Harsher repression creates more anger and disaffection. Improving human rights for the excluded does much more to make societies safe.

Posted in News Tagged checkpoints, home demolition, security,state, terrorism

Enduring racism

Posted on December 4, 2015 by sarahbenton

An Israeli TV commercial – marketing property in a ‘white’ neighbourhood when a vulgar Mizrahi family moves next door to proper, Ashkenazi Jews – has been quickly withdrawn. Viewers did not want the attitudes which the ad makers had clearly divined broadcast. Edo Konrad charts the contempt for backward orientals from the foundation of Israel.

Posted in commentary, history Tagged mizrahim, racism, yemen

Israel main buyer of ISIL’s stolen oil

Posted on December 4, 2015 by sarahbenton

ISIL’s ability to feed, clothe and arm its small army depends on its large oil revenue. A long article by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed traces the route by which the oil ends up with Israeli buyers who then sell it on. Posted here is the summary by Globes, the Israeli business publication.

Posted in News Tagged isil and oil, israeli oil imports

In the global society of the spectacle ISIL is on a roll

Posted on December 4, 2015 by sarahbenton

In an essay for the LRB Adam Shatz analyses why he thinks ISIL has made its gains – and how President Hollande has helped them and jeopardised the safety of French Muslims. The ISIL campaign has little attraction for Palestinians who want their own nation-state. ISIL wants to abolish nation-states.

Posted in Analysis, history Tagged daesh, isil, nation-states, paris attacks

We must end our lie of being victims

Posted on December 3, 2015 by sarahbenton

In a short, concise article historian Yechiam Weitz says Israel cannot both assert its sovereignty and cling to its victim status which it uses to bully others into not supporting those whom it has made victims – the Palestinians whose land and dignity the settlers have stolen.

Posted in News Tagged '67 war, 1948, victimhood

Another leadership for another liberation strategy

Posted on December 3, 2015 by sarahbenton

Loss of faith in the founding institutions of Palestine is so widespread that Palestinian intellectuals and civil society groups have begun organising to create a movement for national resistance and liberation. Here George Bisharat tells us why they need a frank, inclusive discussion on Alternative Strategies for Realizing Justice in Palestine.

Posted in News Tagged alternative strategies, civil society, palestinian intellectuals

Refusal to be crushed in the Jordan Valley

Posted on December 3, 2015 by sarahbenton

The Israeli state has long wanted the Jordan Valley for itself – it is a large area of good arable land. But first they have to get the Palestinians out. The Civil Administration seems to see this as its mission by depriving them of water, electricity, built structures – and repeatedly demolishing their makeshift homes. Palestine Monitor tells one man’s story.

Posted in News Tagged house demolition, ica, Jordan valley

Apartheid abyss ahead warns de Klerk

Posted on December 3, 2015 by sarahbenton

FW De Klerk, the last apartheid-era President visited Israel in the last week of November for an anti-racism conference. Ynet’s Nahum Barnea nabbed him in Tel Aviv (he doesn’t like interviews) and asked him how Israel compares with apartheid South Africa. De Klerk was clear that practices of unchecked racial discrimination lead inexorably to apartheid.

Posted in News

When politics fails

Posted on December 2, 2015 by sarahbenton

Disappointment and political alienation help push young Muslims into Daesh. In this essay from American Prospect Gershom Gorenberg warns Netanyahu to note the danger signs on his own doorstep. If he thinks Israel has Arab friends he is deluding himself about the centrality of Palestine in Arab opinion.

Posted in News Tagged isil, israel-saudi, palestinian youth, sunni-shia

The occupation has made brutes of us

Posted on December 1, 2015 by sarahbenton

The headline comes from a 2011 blog by David Shulman which was surprisingly difficult to find – the NY Review of Books seems to have expunged all trace of it. Perhaps it doesn’t fit with its current position, the promotion of Palestinian pacifism – all to the good if it is accompanied by a collective campaign of civil resistance. David Shulman talks with Sari Nusseibeh who reviews Breaking the Silence’s book, about non-violent resistance and David Shulman contributes the final piece, the elusive ‘And no-one wants to know’.

Posted in commentary, review Tagged api, bts, one-state

The evidence, for those with courage to listen

Posted on December 1, 2015 by sarahbenton

A book of soldiers’ testimonies, published in 2010 in Hebrew as ‘Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000-2010′ has been reissued in English as ‘Our Harsh Logic’. Its theme – its punching point – is that the Israelis who send them to fight Palestinians refuse to know what this entails for Palestinians or for the Israeli soldiers. They have broken the silence – but not unblocked the ears. The fact that the first reviewer, a Palestinian, had not heard of Breaking the Silence says something profound about the gulf of knowledge even between Israeli and Palestinian progressives.

Posted in News Tagged bts, not wanting to know, palestinian-israeli progressives

Funds diverted from Israel’s poverty traps to expanding settlements

Posted on December 1, 2015 by sarahbenton

Labour leader Isaac Herzog has not quite managed to oppose Likud’s policy of unlimited settlement construction, but he has spoken out against the government’s diversion of funds earmarked for poverty spots in Galilee and the Negev to shoring up smaller settlements. 

The Palestinian National Authority has never been a vigorous body. It is dependent for its income on international donors and on revenues collected on its behalf by Israel – which are sometimes withheld as punishment. A functioning PA has served the interests of other countries, if not Palestinians themselves. Now Israel is considering letting the PA collapse – entirely in terms of its assessment of its own interests. Barak Ravid reports, plus some similar reports from 3 years ago.