Archive for the ‘Palestine’ Category
July 28, 2009
Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, July 27, 2009
One way to keep Bibi Netanyahu from making trouble is to keep him so busy meeting US envoys and diplomats that he doesn’t have time for anything else. That appears to be President Obama’s strategy this week, since Netanyahu will be meeting with a veritable avalanche of Americans, including: George Mitchell, the US special envoy; Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser; Robert Gates, the holdover secretary of defense who is showing no signs that he intends to go away; and Dennis Ross, the neocon-linked NSC official whose actual job remains ever vague.
Continued >>
Tags:"Bibi" Netanyahu, AIPAC, Barack Obama, Israel-Palestine conflict, Robert Dreyfuss
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 28, 2009
Palestinian unity is essential for any peace deal – but the US, Britain and the EU are playing a central role in preventing it
It should be obvious that no settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict is going to stick unless it commands broad support or acceptance on both sides. That is especially true of the Palestinians, who have shown time and again that they will never accept the denial of their national and human rights. The necessity of dealing with all representative Palestinian leaders was recognised by Britain’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee yesterday, which called on the government to end its ban on contacts with Hamas.
But despite the parade of top American officials visiting Israel and the Palestinian territories this week to drum up business for a new peace conference, the US, Britain and European Union continue to play a central role in preventing the Palestinian national unity that is essential if any deal is going to have a chance of succeeding. Far from helping to overcome the split between Fatah and Hamas, the US, Israel and their allies in practice do everything they can to promote and widen it.
Continued >>
Tags:denial of their national and human rights, Fatah, Gaza, Hamas, Israel-Palestine conflict, Palestinians, reports by HR organisations, Seumas Milne
Posted in Commentary, Gaza, Human rights, Palestine, Peace Movement, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 28, 2009
A Palestinian boy holds up a Hamas flag on a destroyed house in Jebaliya, northern Gaza
The High Court has thrown out a legal bid by a Palestinian human rights group to hold the British government to account for its “complicity” in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
Ramallah-based Al-Haq accused the government of failing in its international legal obligations to stop “aid and trade” with Israel, including supplying arms, following Israeli incursions into Gaza in December and January which led to the deaths of 1,400 Palestinians.
Continued >>
Tags:blockade of Gaza, British complicity, British government, Gaza invasion, HR group Al-Haq, Israeli war crimes
Posted in Commentary, crime, Gaza, Human rights, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, war, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 25, 2009
Foreign minister orders diplomats to circulate photo ahead of discussions with President Obama’s envoy
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem | The Independent/UK, July 25, 2009
GETTY IMAGES
As the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the outbreak of the Second World War, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni was a powerful Nazi sympathiser – and an assassination target for the Allies.
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, has triggered fresh controversy by urging diplomats abroad to use a 1941 photograph of a Palestinian religious leader meeting Hitler to counter protests against a planned Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem.
Continued >>
Tags:1941 photograph, East Jerusalem, FM Avigdor Lieberman, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Israeli embassies, Jewish settlements, PM Netanyahu
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 23, 2009
Socialist Worker, July 23, 2009
The Viva Palestina delegation of solidarity activists from the U.S. was allowed to enter Gaza on July 15 with truckloads of desperately needed humanitarian supplies–but under the condition that the convoy leave again within 24 hours.
The delegation, led by British Member of Parliament and antiwar activist George Galloway, met one bureaucratic obstacle after another from Egyptian authorities. After negotiating an agreement with the government, the convoy finally left for the Rafah border crossing after several days, and with some of its supplies barred from getting through.
A number of SocialistWorker.org contributors were part of the Viva Palestina delegation. This is part two of a diary of the 24 hours in Gaza by Tom Arabia, Karen Burke, Ream Kidane, Brian Lenzo, Khury Peterson-Smith and Eric Ruder. The diary begins with “A day in Gaza.”
A building in the Jabaliya refugee camp destroyed by Israeli warplanes (Tom Arabia | SW)
July 16, 10:30 a.m.
From Eric: Haidar and I finished a traditional Palestinian breakfast of bread infused with olive oil and thyme. Then we drove around Remal, the administrative center of Gaza, where the concentration of ministry and legislative buildings, universities and Al Shifa Hospital took many direct hits in December and January. This is also the neighborhood of the Palestinian bourgeoisie that had lived in Tunisia, and returned to Palestine after the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Continued >>
Tags:damage, Gaza, George Galloway, Hamas, Israel, israeli bombing and destruction, Palestine, US convoy, Viva Palestina!
Posted in Commentary, crime, Gaza, imperialism, Palestine, Peace Movement, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 22, 2009
By Mel Frykberg | Inter Press Service News
RAMALLAH, Jul 22 (IPS) – The northern Palestinian West Bank is turning into a flashpoint as Israeli settlers continue to attack Palestinian civilians and their property as part of a “price tag” policy.
On Tuesday Walid Assaf, a Palestinian Legislative Council member, was injured after Israeli settlers near the northern West Bank city Qalqilia threw a rock through his windscreen as he drove past a settlement.
Continued >>
Tags:Israeli settlers, olive trees destroyed, Palestinian West Bank, Palestinians under attack, violence, Walid Assaf injured
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 21, 2009
The Al Dostour Jordanian newspaper reported that Bassam Abu Sharif, the former advisor of the late Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat, revealed new information regarding the assassination of Arafat.
Yasser Arafat – Image alsbah.net
Abu Sharif said that Arafat was poisoned by Israel, without any help from any Palestinian party, and slammed the statements of Farouq Qaddoumi, who claimed that the current president, Mahmoud Abbas, was involved in the death of Arafat.
Abu Sharif said that the poison was administered to Arafat through his medications, and added that the Israeli intelligence agency, , replaced Arafat’s medications with similar poisoned medications manufactured in Israel.
He added that while Arafat was besieged by the Israeli army in his Ramallah headquarters, all medications that he took, and the food and drinks were brought to him by a Palestinian ambulance, and that the army forcefully held the driver away from the vehicle for at least 30 minutes while the soldiers searched it.
Abu Sharif then stated that this incident facilitated Israel’s plot to replace Arafat’s medications with poisoned ones.
He also slammed the statements of Fateh’s secretary-general, in which he accused Jordan of arranging the press conference of Farouq Al Qaddoumi, and defended the nation, adding that Jordan always welcomed the leaders of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and always supported the Palestinian rights.
Tags:assassination of Arafat, Bassam Abu Sharif, Israel, Mossad, President Yasser Arafat
Posted in crime, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 21, 2009
A new set of revelations by soldiers who participated in the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operation in Gaza offers a disturbing picture of the actions carried out in that territory. Testimony regarding their conduct in Gaza by Breaking the Silence, an organization of Israeli soldiers, confirms previous denunciations by human rights organizations and signals that urgent attention must be paid to the economic and medical needs of a repeatedly abused civilian population.
Operation “Cast Lead” was initiated December 27, 2008 and ended January 18, 2009. Over 1400 Palestinians were killed, 900 of them civilians (65%), including 300 hundred children (22%). Extensive areas of Gaza were razed to the ground and thousands of people were left homeless, even months after the operation ended. The economy of Gaza was all but destroyed.
Full article
Tags:Breaking the Silence, Cesar Chelala, children, civilian casualties, economy of Gaza, Gaza, homes destroyed, human shields, Israel Defense Forces, Israeli invasion, Operation Cast Lead, Palestinians killed and injured, white phosphorus shells
Posted in Commentary, crime, Gaza, Human rights, Palestine, Uncategorized, war crimes, War Criminals, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 21, 2009
Critically thinking Israelis – a negligible minority – already know the pattern: no matter how extreme our new prime minister is, it won’t take more than a couple of months for the media to portray him as the sane, moderate, and pragmatic leader of the political center. If even the warrior General Sharon could be reborn as “a Man of Peace,” why can’t Netanyahu? The landmark was his “Bar Ilan Speech” of June 14, after which mainstream Israeli columnists, lead by the pathetic Ari Shavit (Ha’aretz) and his lowbrow twin brother Ya’ir Lapid (Yedioth Achronot), all resorted to ludicrous narratives of Rebirth, Revolution, and Rubicon for the allegedly new leader of peace-loving Israel.
Full article
Tags:General Sharon, PM Netanyahu, President Obama on settlements, President Peres, Ran HaCohen
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »
July 19, 2009
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| Farouk Kaddoumi |
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Farouk Kaddoumi, a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official, has told Al Jazeera he stands by documents that he says show that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Yasser Arafat, his predecessor.
Abbas’s Fatah party has dismissed Kaddoumi’s claim that Abbas had in a meeting with Ariel Sharon, the ex-Israeli prime minister, discussed Arafat’s killing.
Kaddoumi, the head of the political department of the PLO and the second-most senior leader of Fatah, first levelled the allegations on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, he defended his charge and said: “I have not made accusations against anyone, but I have meeting transcripts which accuse people … Transcripts of meetings between Sharon, Abu Mazen [Abbas], and [former Palestinian security adviser Yasser Arafat Mohammad] Dalan.
Continued >>
Tags:Abbas and Ariel Sharon, Al Jazeera, conspiracy to assassinate Arafat, Farouk Kaddoumi, Mohammad Dalan, PLO, President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Monday July 20, 2009 09:43
by Saed Bannoura – 
Peace and Justice Post 
Real Peace — Or A Mirage?
July 28, 2009One way to keep Bibi Netanyahu from making trouble is to keep him so busy meeting US envoys and diplomats that he doesn’t have time for anything else. That appears to be President Obama’s strategy this week, since Netanyahu will be meeting with a veritable avalanche of Americans, including: George Mitchell, the US special envoy; Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser; Robert Gates, the holdover secretary of defense who is showing no signs that he intends to go away; and Dennis Ross, the neocon-linked NSC official whose actual job remains ever vague.
Continued >>
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Tags:"Bibi" Netanyahu, AIPAC, Barack Obama, Israel-Palestine conflict, Robert Dreyfuss
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Palestine, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | Leave a Comment »