Israel was very quick to close the case on allegations of “serious misconduct” during its recent massacre in Gaza.

Earlier this month, several Israeli soldiers revealed the permissive atmosphere towards killing Palestinian civilians during Israel’s invasion. Among other shocking revelations, one soldier recounted the intentional shooting of an unarmed woman and her two children. Commenting on the incident, another soldier elaborated:

“What’s great about Gaza — you see a person on a path, he doesn’t have to be armed, you can simply shoot him. In our case it was an old woman on whom I did not see any weapon when I looked. (more…)

Concluding that the testimonies were “based on hearsay” and had been “purposely exaggerated,” Israel’s head military prosecutor closed the whirlwind investigation and that is apparently as far as the case will go…

Of course, the investigation was a sham — as Israel’s military investigations almost always are. It ignored scores of evidence that illegal orders were given to Israeli soldiers in Gaza… not to mention the liberty some members of the IDF took to destroy civilian property and scrawl racist remarks on the walls of Palestinian homes. But, no… Zionist brutality is just “hearsay”.

According to the Israeli human rights organization, B’tselem:

The speedy closing of the investigation immediately raises suspicions that the very opening of this investigation was merely the army’s attempt to wipe its hands of all blame for illegal activity during Operation Cast Lead. (more…)

Two Palestinian students claimed that they were severely beaten on Saturday by Border Guard officers manning a checkpoint situated between the West Bank city of Jericho and Jerusalem. (more…)

‘It seems that it will be difficult to measure damage these statements incurred on IDF’s image in Israel and world,’ says head military prosecutor. (more…)

It is hard to think of another place in the world where life is ruled by such cruel absurdities. Hamas, Israel and Fatah are all playing with the lives and well-being of these patients, including 57 children from Gaza who need to complete complex, expensive treatments at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Their health is now hanging by a thread. The bombing of Gaza has almost stopped, but the war against the people goes on, from all sides. (more…)

My friend and former colleague, writing from Gaza.

Nasser Al ‘Amoudi, with his biker’s jacket and sunglasses, embodies the essence of a car enthusiast. For years he has been the proud owner of the only BMW spare parts shop in the Gaza Strip. People would travel from every corner to purchase second hand parts from his shop. Now Nasser’s workshop and garage, which were worth $300,000 before the Israeli army destroyed them during their latest offensive, lie in tatters, and his financial security has gone. (more…)

21% of Israeli exporters have been directly affected by the boycott movement since the beginning of 2009. So reports today (29 March) The Marker, a Hebrew-language economic newspaper. This number is based on a poll of 90 Israeli exporters in fields such as high tech, metals, construction materials, chemistry, textile and foods. The poll was conducted in January-February 2009 by the Israeli Union of Industrialists. (more…)

Israeli police dressed in Palestinian garb who have gone under cover to catch violent Jewish settlers got a taste of what Palestinians routinely confront as Jewish settlers attacked undercover officers thinking they were Arabs, Israeli press reported. Six Jewish settlers who mistook under cover Israeli cops for Palestinians attacked them Thursday, throwing stones and damaging a police under cover vehicle, Haaretz reported Saturday after a court ruling on the incident came out Friday. The settlers also tried to run the disguised police over near an illegal Jewish outpost in the West Bank. (more…)

The Jordanian royal family’s dog was secretly rushed to Israel for treatment in the midst of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday. Relations between the royal palace in Amman and the Beit Dagan veterinary hospital have been good for many years now. The Israeli medical team’s expertise has served Jordan a number of times, almost always under a heavy veil of secrecy, as per the royal court’s request. During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the Jordanians once again called on the Israeli veterinarians for help. King Abdullah and Queen Rania’s beloved dog had fallen ill.” (more…)

Discriminatory and unfair division of the shared water sources creates a chronic water shortage in the West Bank. Average per capita daily water consumption of Palestinians in the West Bank is two-thirds of the amount recommended by the World Health Organization. Due to the shortage, many Palestinians have to buy water from tankers at three to six times higher than regular prices, forcing poor families to spend up to one-fifth of their income on water, compared to the slightly more than one percent that average-income Israeli families spend on water. (more…)

Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the “Freedom Party” (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin’s political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. (more…)

Olmert used a similar justification – border violations – for launching last December’s ruthless war on Hamas in Gaza, except that in this case the casus belli was not quite so legitimate: Olmert hadn’t carried out his promised withdrawal from the other part of the Palestinian Territories. There are no internationally recognized borders between Palestine and Israel. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank. (more…)

[Obama's] latter-day domino theory of al-Qaida takeovers in South Asia is just as implausible as its earlier iteration in Southeast Asia (ask Thailand or the Philippines). Most of the allegations are not true or are vastly exaggerated. There are very few al-Qaida fighters based in Afghanistan proper. What is being called the “Taliban” is mostly not Taliban at all (in the sense of seminary graduates loyal to Mullah Omar). The groups being branded “Taliban” only have substantial influence in 8 to 10 percent of Afghanistan, and only 4 percent of Afghans say they support them. Some 58 percent of Afghans say that a return of the Taliban is the biggest threat to their country, but almost no one expects it to happen. Moreover, with regard to Pakistan, there is no danger of militants based in the remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) taking over that country or “killing” it. (more…)

When Israeli soldiers expelled Abir Hijeh, her five children and their neighbors from homes in a Gaza war zone, she said they warned her in broken Arabic: Go south or you might get shot. The group went the wrong way and came under fire from Israeli soldiers. Hijeh was wounded and her 2-year-old daughter was killed. Hijeh’s account of a sniper firing on civilians, along with soldiers’ graffiti and destruction seen by The Associated Press in homes they commandeered, lend support to allegations of Israeli army misconduct during the onslaught in Gaza. (more…)

Greater Israel cannot be a democratic state, because there will soon be — if there aren’t already — more Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea than there are Israeli Jews. So, if you give each person one vote, Israel becomes Palestine. (more…)

Rather than ending the occupation, Netanyahu has proposed an “economic peace” that would seek to normalize and better manage it. Instead of a viable Palestinian state, his vision extends no further than a series of disconnected cantons with limited self-rule. (more…)

Despite President Barack Obama’s statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had “chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months,” a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label. (more…)

The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. “This rabbi comes to us and says the fight is between the children of light and the children of darkness,” a reserve sergeant said, recalling a training camp encounter. “His message was clear: ‘This is a war against an entire people, not against specific terrorists. The whole thing was turned into something very religious and messianic.’” (more…)

The tally says 295 civilians lost their lives — about a third of the figure of 926 reported by Gaza’s Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (www.pchrgaza.org), which published a full list of names earlier this month. (more…)

We scholars, inspired by the wishes of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace. (more…)

The US withdrawal from Iraq is under way. Some troops are preparing to go home and others have pulled back from outposts to bases. But the planned pullback of American soldiers from all Iraqi cities by the end of June will probably not be fully met. (more…)

Hebron is another controversial area where settlements have received substantial tax-exempt gifts from America. According to IRS records, the Hebron Fund donated $860,637 in 2005 and $967,954 in 2006 for “social and educational well-being”; the fund’s online mission statement makes clear this is for Israeli settlers inside the city. The Hebron settlement of Kiryat Arba received $730,000 in 2006 from a group called American Friends of Yeshiva High School of Kiryat Arba. (more…)

Young Israelis who refused to serve in army, spent most of their short service in military prison, decide to donate their IDF salaries towards rebuilding of Gaza. (more…)

A Jewish outpost in the West Bank, illegal under Israeli law, appears to benefiting from state funding, the BBC has uncovered. (more…)

If there is a single act that characterizes the plight of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, it is waiting: waiting in lines to pass through the hundreds of checkpoints scattered across the West Bank, waiting for Israel to issue an identification card, waiting for permission to travel to the next village or out of the country, waiting for loved ones languishing in Israeli prisons to be released — waiting for peace, waiting for justice.

And for nearly two months, I found myself sharing the experience of waiting — for Israel to allow me into Gaza.

Last year, I spent an extended period of time in Gaza working with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), helping them to document human rights abuses in the occupied territories. But the abuses I documented then now seem tame in comparison to the recent heights of atrocity Gaza has endured.
(more…)

I don’t know if anyone caught this, but even as Benjamin Netanyahu was pledging his support for the continuation of peace talks and declaring Israel a “partner for peace”, he reached a secret agreement with neo-fascist Avigdor Lieberman to expand the Israeli super-settlement of Ma’ale Adumim by 3,000 housing units.

I just flew into Brussels last night after my aborted attempt at getting into Gaza – and today the online community is all abuzz about Israeli war crimes, thanks to a report just published by the U.S. organization, Human Rights Watch.

According to the report:

Israel “deliberately and recklessly” fired white phosphorus shells in densely populated areas of Gaza in an “indiscriminate” way that killed and wounded civilians and is “evidence of war crimes”. (more…)

Fred Abrahams, a senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch, says that:

“In Gaza, the Israeli military didn’t just use white phosphorus in open areas as a screen for its troops … It fired white phosphorus repeatedly over densely populated areas, even when its troops weren’t in the area and safer smoke shells were available. As a result, civilians needlessly suffered and died.” (more…)

The Israeli military was quick to point out that, ‘This type of humour is unbecoming and should be condemned.’ This isn’t very convincing when you consider the graffiti left by Israeli soldiers who recently occupied houses across the northern Gaza Strip: ‘Death will find you … soon’ scrawled on the bedroom wall of Majeda Abu Hajaj, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers as she attempted to lead a group of civilians to safety after they had been ordered out of their homes by the same soldiers. After killing Majeda, and her 64 year old mother, Raya, the soldiers occupied their house and left graffiti in every room. (more…)

This article was written by my friend and former colleague, Louisa Waugh.

Reservists marked their last night stationed in the southern Hebron Hills by damaging confiscated Palestinian vehicles, their replacements told Haaretz on Monday. The reserve battalion in question was stationed at a small base near the Shekef settlement, and spent three weeks in the south Hebron Hills. They were responsible primarily for patrolling the green line. On their last night at the base, the reservists got drunk and vandalized some of the vehicles they had confiscated from Palestinian drivers, for transporting passengers who lacked permits to enter Israel, soldiers told Haaretz. (more…)

Denmark’s justice minister, Brian Mikkelsen, said: “Terrorism is defined in relation to a legitimate state which builds on the principles of democracy and the rule of law. Part of the evaluation is also whether an act is targeted at, among others, an occupation power.” The prosecution in the case has argued that the defining factor is whether civilians are killed, regardless of whether a national government is democratic. (more…)

So presumably pro-Zionist charities will be prosecuted in Denmark for sending money to Israel—some of which has been used to finance the killing of civilians?

The ultra-nationalist Jewish marchers had two immediate purposes: to commemorate 20 years since their late leader Rabbi Meir Kahane raised a flag on the same spot (a year later Kahane was shot and killed in New York by an Islamic activist), and to demonstrate support for practical policies espoused by his heirs. One of them has just been elected to the Knesset on the ticket of the National Union, which won four seats and was even considered by Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu for inclusion in his coalition. They belong to the fascist branch of the Israeli Right but today their ideas are mainstream right and have gained an aura of respectability among Jewish Israelis. (more…)

Witness reports taken by HRW describe the killing of a bank manager, his wife and two of their children in their car during white phosphorus shelling in the Tel-el-Hawa area of Gaza City on 15 January. According to a Palestinian journalist, Fathi Sabbah, whose own building in the area came under attack, when ambulances came to take the bodies away from the partly melted car, they found “only a few bones” of the four occupants. The report quotes another witness, Muhammad Al Sharif, as saying that a piece of a skull and some teeth lay beside the car. (more…)

I can’t stand how the Israeli left is attempting to explain Avigdor Lieberman as an aberration – an extreme case of neo-fascism in Israeli politics – when Lieberman is simply the product of widespread Israeli bigotry. Neve Gordon, a generally brave and incisive voice in the Israeli peace camp (one of the few remaining), provides a point-by-point list of why Lieberman is a bad guy…

But his list misses the point – anyone with half a brain realizes the guy is an extremist thug. How many Israelis support Liberman’s views so that his party, Yisrael Beteinu (lit. “Israel is our home”), is now the third largest party in the Jewish state?

An analysis of widespread Israeli bigotry is needed, not the views and actions of a petty extremist.

To form the kind of center-right government Mr. Netanyahu says he would like to administer, he needs the Kadima party as a moderating force. (more…)

Netanyahu’s version of “center-right” (and the Christian Science Monitor’s apparently) is not bombing Palestinians into submission, but rather increasing land expropriation and settlement expansion. Oh, and not requiring Israeli Arab citizens to swear loyalty oaths to the state. How moderate of Netanyahu.

“Celebration for what?” he said people would wonder. “Killing Palestinians? For Lieberman and Netanyahu?” (more…)

“You have more freedom to express support for Israeli war crimes than to speak about the Palestinian civilian victims in the war on Gaza,” As’ad Abu Khalil, professor of political science at California State University, told AlArabiya.net. “There is a general climate that is very sympathetic and solidly dogmatic in favor of Zionism then it is to Palestinians and its supporters,” he said, adding that as people start pay attention to Israeli crimes Zionists are clamping down on any dissent by exerting “horrendous forms of pressure on school administrations … Academic freedom is not equally distributed here in the U.S.,” he said. “There is a tremendous illogical moral and ethical asymmetry on college campuses.” (more…)

Call me cynical, but this kind of story makes me wonder if Israeli children will be performing for survivors of al-Nakba any time soon.

History tells us that Washington is quite willing to look the other way when it comes to corruption as long as the crooks under their control do its bidding. Indeed, the very presence of US forces and money is part of the dynamic which encourages such corruption. Apparently, Mr. Karzai is no longer considered to be playing by those rules and attempts to unseat him are growing. (more…)

Under international law the whole area of East Jerusalem seized by the IDF in 1967 is still–like the rest of the West Bank–judged to be “occupied territory.” Under the Fourth Geneva Convention Israel is therefore prohibited from either implanting its own population as settlers into East Jerusalem or in any other way materially changing the lives of the city’s indigenous Palestinian residents.

Successive Israeli governments flouted these prohibitions from the beginning. In 1967 Israel unilaterally expanded the municipal boundaries and then annexed the whole of the expanded city. That act of Anschluss has never been judged legal by the United States or any other significant government. Since 1967 Israel has implanted nearly 200,000 Jewish-Israeli citizens into settlements in East Jerusalem. (more…)

Jewish tourists who spend more than 180 days in Israel, even without violating the terms of their tourist visas, are being increasingly harassed by border patrol officials, detained at the crossings and, in some cases, deported to their port of origin or forced to make aliya against their will, according to a Tel Aviv law firm. (more…)

Of some 120 criminal investigations brought against security force members since the beginning of the intifada, there had only been one conviction – against the Arab-Israeli soldier who shot British peace activist Tom Hurndall dead in Gaza. (more…)

“Palestinian laborers are forbidden to walk around the community of Har Adar in the Jerusalem corridor. They are allowed to work, but cannot simply roam the area. This is the local council’s policy.” (more…)

Contrary to the views of the likely incoming right-wing government of Israel, most U.S. Jews favour peace negotiations with a Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas, according to a new poll released here Tuesday by the year-old, pro-peace Jewish lobby group, J Street. (more…)

Since the beginning of Operation “Cast Lead” at the end of 2008, there has been a sharp rise in reports of violence perpetrated by security forces against Palestinians in the West Bank. During this nearly three-month period, B’Tselem documented 24 cases in which police officers and soldiers beat Palestinians, using rifle butts, clubs and other means of injury. 16 of the cases were especially serious and their victims suffered heavier injuries. (more…)

“800 terrorists and 300 civilians, who we did not want to harm, were killed in the last operation,” Galant said. “This ratio of almost a quarter [of the individuals] uninvolved [in the fighting] is an achievement unmatched in the history of this kind of combat,” he added. (more…)

Israel includes police officers in this tally (they consider domestic police to be terrorists) and in one particularly appalling attack at the beginning of the recent assault, they killed a large number of police at their graduation ceremony in Gaza.

Remember the Palestinian attack on a couple of Israeli police officers last week? Was it not labelled senseless terrorism? Oh, Israeli police officers are not terrorists… I see.

By the way, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, published a tally of 960 civilians of the 1,434 dead? and that still assumes that we can count police officers as terrorists…

In scene one of the play, Farmer Jones assassinates the animals’ leader. In scene two, the animals – a few horses, a donkey, a crow, a chicken and some pigs – rally around a revolutionary sow named Snowball, who leads an uprising against their oppressive master.

“Intifada!” the animals scream, using the Arabic word for uprising. Strobe lights flash and heavy metal music blares as they chase Jones from the farm. (more…)

The man who is set to become Israel’s chief diplomat is known for many things, but not his talent for diplomacy. Words like compromise or consideration have been absent from his vocabulary so far. When then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon proposed releasing 350 Palestinian prisoners in 2003, Lieberman uttered one of his notorious sentences: “It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea.” (more…)

The Israeli police were following the orders of Israel’s Public Security Minister Avi Dichter to use whatever force was necessary to prevent the Palestinian Authority (PA) from celebrating “Jerusalem as the capital of Arabic culture for 2009.”

The tough crackdown, on what on the surface appeared to be a harmless and fun cultural event, underlines the growing conflict between the Israel government and the PA over the division of the city between Israeli West Jerusalem and Palestinian East Jerusalem. (more…)

Man I hate this airport… the security is a farce. After ritualistically informing me that some evil Palestinian may have placed a bomb in my bags, they emptied everything and I was strip searched (not completely, but pants off).

It took two hours to get through and they personally escort me to my check-in booth to ensure that I really am flying on the flight I told them. And then finally, they escort me into the waiting lounge and I skip the main round of bag scans, where all the “innocent” people go because I already had the “special” treatment. Then my escort – this cute Israeli girl – tells me that I should have gotten my organization (the Palestinian Center for Human Rights) to contact the airport and get me through without the security check. I knew Israelis were misinformed about the occupation, but this was too much… I almost laughed and told her that the Israeli military does not even recognize my organization – let alone give them special security waivers. What a joke!

Anyway – now I’m through and waiting to board. Good riddance.

…from Tel Aviv to Athens and then on to Brussels… too much layover… See you in Belgium.

Israel will not demolish nine houses in a West Bank settlement in spite of a court order to do so, because they were inhabited months ago and are within the confines of the Ofra settlement. (more…)

Former U.S. Mideast peace negotiator Martin Indyk is leading discussions between Israeli and Palestinian advisors and officials at a three-day, off-record Brookings event that got underway last night. Among those said to be attending are longtime Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. (more…)

“The goal of the march is to make it clear to a group of unrulies in the Arab sector who is the owner of State of Israel,” said Itamar Ben Gvir, a former Kach Party activist and one of the organizers of the demonstration. (more…)

Ben Gvir, an aid to radical MK Baruch Marzel, is the same nutcase that heckled us in Hebron recently and who shouted at Barack Obama when he toured Israel during the election campaign.

In 2008, at least 2,390 people were known to have been executed in 25 countries and at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries around the world. As in previous years, the five countries with the highest number of executions in 2008 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States of America (Fig. 1). Together these five countries carried out 93 per cent of all executions carried out in 2008. These countries provide the greatest challenge towards global abolition of the death penalty. (more…)

An officer who fought in the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza and was slated to receive a citation for his performance was arrested recently on suspicion of assaulting a Palestinian girl in the Hebron area, Ynet has learned. (more…)

“The State of Israel is the Jewish people’s state. We are here to voice our truth and not to create provocations.” (more…)

How could marching into a predominantly Israeli Arab town waving flags and demanding “loyalty to the State” be a provocation? That’s just silly…

Medics and ambulance drivers said they were targeted when they tried to tend to the wounded. Sixteen of them were killed. According to the World Health Organisation, more than half of Gaza’s 27 hospitals and 44 clinics were damaged by Israeli bombs. Two clinics were destroyed. In one incident, paramedics were fired on by a tank using a shell filled with 8,000 lethal metal darts as they were carrying a wounded man to an ambulance. (more…)

The US and its European allies are preparing to plant a high-profile figure in the heart of the Kabul government in a direct challenge to the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, the Guardian has learned. (more…)

Earlier this month, newspapers here in Cairo carried front-page photographs of Clinton being kissed by Israeli President Shimon Peres during her visit to Jerusalem. Arabs saw in that a clear message. Ditto what she said – and did not say – about Gaza, Israeli settlements, Hamas, and human rights in Egypt. Many Arabs fear it’s Condoleezza Rice redux. (more…)

Israel can erect walls to seal out the Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Gaza. It can fire missiles at terrorist suspects. It can bomb government buildings in Gaza. It can bulldoze Palestinian homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, but if in widening numbers Israeli Jews hold fast to the idea that Israeli Arabs — who are Israeli citizens — are the enemy within, the Jewish state will end up ripping itself apart. (more…)

‘My impression is that IDF behaved ethically and morally. If there were incidents, they were limited,’ says Gabi Ashkenazi in his first response to soldiers’ testimonies on wrong doings in Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead. (more…)

Limited? 960 of 1,434 dead?

Israel Defense Forces soldiers used an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield during the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a group of UN human rights experts said Monday. (more…)

But Code Pink did not break the siege: they arrived in Gaza through the back door (ie via Rafah instead of the Israeli crossing at Erez) and their visit here will make no difference to Israel’s siege of Gaza, which is going as strong as ever. Gaza needs activists who are prepared to come and sit out the siege inside the Strip and work alongside communities, not international delegations flitting in and out laden with presents for Women’s Day. (more…)

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has told the United States and the European Union that Israel will lift restrictions on food items, such as pasta and cheese, entering Hamas-ruled Gaza, diplomats said on Monday. (more…)

This is about as far as Obama is willing to pressure Israel. The level of discourse about the siege on Gaza does not even approach the basic immorality of imprisoning 1.5 million people. Instead, it directs attention to the minutia of whether or not toilet paper constitutes a necessary humanitarian supply and people no longer wonder about why Israel decides these things to begin with.

Oh, sorry… I forgot that Israel no longer occupies Gaza.

Anti-Arab verbal and physical attacks inside Israel have spiked in the wake of elections held earlier this year in which right-wing parties made major gains, a human rights group said on Sunday.

The Mossawa Centre for the Rights of Arab Citizens in Israel has documented 250 incidents of aggression against Arab Israelis since the start of the year, compared to 166 in all of 2008, the group said in a report. (more…)

A Hadera elementary school has been accused of racial discrimination, for its singling out of a number of students of Ethiopian origin, all born in Israel, for extra Hebrew lessons. (more…)

More cars – at a cheaper price.

The demonstrators said pressure should be put on Hamas to release Shalit by worsening the conditions of the almost 11,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails. (more…)

Just imagine if these people put all this effort towards demanding an end to the occupation.

“We Americans,” he said in reference to this far-off war. Then he quickly caught himself and added, almost sheepishly, “and NATO.” (more…)

Again, Gorbachev sees the turn of events as the U.S.’s just deserts. “Who created the Taliban? Saudi Arabia financed it with the political support of the United States,” he said, sipping tea with lemon and honey. (more…)

Why, in fact, were such simple projects never implemented? The answer proved to be surprising, and it helps, in part, to explain the dismal fate of the Bush administration’s version of Afghan “reconstruction.” Virtually none of the $5.4 billion in taxpayer money that USAID has disbursed in this country since late 2001 has been invested in Bamiyan Province, where the total aid budget, 2002-2006, was just over $13 million. (more…)

Report: Israel dropped from new Durban II draft

An investigation by a group of former Israeli soldiers has uncovered new evidence of the military’s conduct during the assault on Gaza two months ago. According to the group Breaking the Silence, the witness statements of the 15 soldiers who have come forward to describe their concerns over Operation Cast Lead appear to corroborate claims of random killings and vandalism carried out during the operation made by a separate group of anonymous servicemen during a seminar at a military college. (more…)

For those who have not seen my photographs of a “Breaking the SIlence” tour of Hebron: go here.

The answer of the Ministry of Justice lawyers let the cat out of the bag. It asserts, for the first time, in unequivocal language: “The state of Israel is at war with the Palestinian people, people against people, collective against collective.” (more…)

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR) said Israel attacked 34 medical care facilities and prevented Palestinian medical teams from reaching the wounded during the offensive in December and January. (more…)

“Karzai is not delivering. If we are going to support his government, it has to be run properly to ensure the levels of corruption decrease, not increase. The levels of corruption are frightening.” (more…)

“Palestinian medical sources reported on Sunday morning that two children were killed after unexploded ordnance, dropped by the Israeli army during the Gaza war, exploded near them in Gaza City.” (more…)

“Rules of Engagement: Open fire also upon rescue,” was handwritten in Hebrew on a sheet of paper found in one of the Palestinian homes the Israel Defense Forces took over during Operation Cast Lead. A reservist officer who did not take part in the Gaza offensive believes that the note is part of orders a low-level commander wrote before giving his soldiers their daily briefing. (more…)

Most fundamentally, we see a growing assault on both the legitimacy and security of the State of Israel. (more…)

A state built on oppression and the racist vision of a mono-ethnic state has no legitimacy. As more and more people realize this, it becomes clearer that Zionism is a failed ideology.

London will not push through changes in legislation that permits the arrest of Israel Defense Forces officers visiting Britain on war crimes, as previously promised, Jerusalem has learned. (more…)

There are two toilets on every floor, but the soldiers urinated and defecated everywhere else in the building, in several rooms of which they had lived for about a month. They did their business on the floors, in emptied flowerpots, even in drawers they had pulled out of desks.

They defecated into plastic bags, and these were scattered in several places. Some of them had burst. Someone even managed to defecate into a photocopier. (more…)