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Iranian officials stepped up efforts to crush the remaining resistance to a disputed presidential election on Wednesday, as security forces overwhelmed a small group of protesters with brutal beatings, tear gas and gunshots in the air. (more…)

Somehow, I don’t think the Western press has ever referred to Israel’s weekly beating of demonstrators in the West Bank as “brutal”. Apparently, there are good thugs and bad thugs…

The report, ‘Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse’, based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, Jun. 26. It follows a report published in May by the UN Committee Against Torture that had criticised the continued mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel. The UN report also condemned Israel’s refusal to allow access to a secret detention centre known only as ‘Facility 1391′. (more…)

The couple slept together and then he took her to an office in Tel Aviv, where Israeli security service agents apparently confronted her with a video of her in bed with the man, the prosecutors said. They threatened to pass the video back to her family unless she helped them and also apparently promised her 100,000 shekels (£15,500) if she would pass them regular information about a group of militants in Nablus. (more…)

After all, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon assured President George W. Bush of his support for a Palestinian state in April 2004, he referred to Palestinians in the West Bank having what he called “transportation contiguity,” meaning tunnels beneath Israeli bypass roads to settlements that only Israelis could use. That constitutes a viable state? (more…)

Israel’s second largest bank will be forced to defend itself in court in the coming weeks over claims it is withholding tens of millions of dollars in ‘lost’ accounts belonging to Jews who died in the Nazi death camps. Bank Leumi has denied it holds any such funds despite a parliamentary committee revealing in 2004 that the bank owes at least $75 million to the families of several thousand Holocaust victims. (more…)

“If you ask an Israeli, ‘are you in favor of equality for Arabs,’ they will say, ‘yes, of course.’ If you ask them are they in favor of throwing the [Arabs] into the sea, they say, ‘yes, of course.’ And it doesn’t feel like any contradiction to them.” (more…)

During a discussion on sexual harassment in the army, MK Zeev said female troops must be instructed so they know “how to behave.” Later he said that while some female soldiers would interpret certain acts as sexual harassment, others would view them as a compliment. (more…)

The aim of these laws is to impose the Israeli nationalist creed by coercion. It’s really that simple. Over the last decade, the Knesset has experienced several bursts of legislative activity seeking to restrict freedom of opinion and expression on the questions of the Jewishness of the state and the right to resist occupation. The advocates of these laws are indefatigable. If the proposals fail to pass through any of the necessary stages, they are resubmitted over and over again in the hope of wearing out their opponents. (more…)

If the Prime Minister refuses to accept what the U.S. has defined as a ‘national interest’, Israel could well land up being labelled not ‘just one key ally’ in the Middle East, but ‘a problematic ally’. (more…)

Israeli woman denied social benefits for visiting Palestinian husband. (more…)

Israel’s defence ministry has proposed legalising 60 existing homes at a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, and building another 240 homes at the site, despite US calls for a halt to settlement growth. (more…)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi raised the settlement issue in a meeting with Netanyahu in Rome yesterday, telling him that settlement construction may become an obstacle for peace, and must be stopped. (more…)

Who cares what this clown has to say about the settlements? The guy has the moral integrity of Tony Soprano… In fact, I prefer the neo-fascists in the Israeli government.

Two people asked a Pentagon official cooperating with prosecutors in an investigation into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to fake his own death to avoid testifying against two pro-Israel lobbyists charged in the case, according to the Justice Department. (more…)

The army and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) shackle Palestinian security detainees as a form of torture and abuse, the Public Committee against Torture in Israel (PCATI) charged in a report issued early Tuesday morning. (more…)

Nixon is known for making quite a few anti-Semitic remarks during his term, but this did not prevent him from sending weapons to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. (more…)

It apparently takes American pressure to get the Israeli military to allow 350 cows into Gaza today — the first in nine months. This, it should be noted, is for 1.5 million human beings. (more…)

When US President Barack Obama called on Palestinians to practice nonviolence, I laughed just like Mahmoud. Palestinians like Mahmoud have never needed to be told about nonviolence. The English word may be unfamiliar but the steadfast, daily acts of resistance known as nonviolence are nothing new. In the south Hebron hills, Palestinians face Israeli soldiers and violent Israeli settlers who are illegally expanding their settlements and attacking Palestinians, including children walking to school. In response to this profound injustice, Palestinians are organizing demonstrations, refusing to comply with military orders, filing complaints against settlers, and courageously working their land despite the risk of arrest and attack. They don’t need President Obama to tell them to practice nonviolence. (more…)

Canada’s chief diplomat in Israel has been honored at an Israeli public park — built on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law — as one of the donors who helped establish the park on the ruins of three Palestinian villages. (more…)

Activists campaigning for an end to Gaza’s blockade by Israel will sail to the Hamas-run enclave from Cyprus despite the presence of the Israeli navy, they said on Thursday. (more…)

The people who are living in Tel Aviv want to be able to get on a bus safely, and get to where they’re going without worrying about any sort of bomb blast. And what are the people worrying about in the Palestinian areas? They want to be able to make sure their children have a bright future, a good education, and can actually realize their dreams. (more…)

Sure, Israelis are scared of bombs attacks and Palestinians are only concerned with the education of their children… And this is considered a radical position in the United States.

In his speech last Sunday, the prime minister failed to address the continual growth of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank, where close to 300,000 Israeli settlers live. (more…)

East Jerusalem is on the Palestinian side of the Green Line (notwithstanding Israel’s illegal annexation of it) and the number of settlers expands to approximately 500,000 when you account for that. I’ve noticed recently that the media (on both sides) consistently ignores this fact.

If either party has a claim on protection from the other side’s violence, the Palestinians surely have the more reasonable claim. They have suffered by far the most violence in the long conflict. And Israel will certainly keep a massive margin of military superiority no matter what the future brings. Imagine the United States insisting that Cuba or Haiti must be demilitarized because its army might threaten the very existence of America. That’s how absurd this Israeli fear seems to most Palestinians. (more…)

Once again, most Israelis can snuggle up around what appears to be a daring and generous offer, but what is in fact, as usual, a compromise between the anxieties, the weakness and the self-righteousness of the center just-to-the-right and the center a-little-left. But what a great distance between them and the harsh demands of reality, as well as the legitimate needs and rightful claims of the Palestinians, now accepted by most of the world, including the United States. (more…)

The UN said 128 Palestinians, including 66 children and 34 women, were displaced from this agricultural land, deep inside the occupied West Bank and barely a few miles from the border with Jordan. Eviction orders still hang over dozens more farmers in the area, all of whom live close to three Israeli agricultural settlements which are among many built along the fertile Jordan valley. The demolitions drew little international attention: they happen often and these farmers are remote and poor, at the bottom of the Palestinian social scale. (more…)

Little wonder the Palestinians sounded sorely disappointed: Netanyahu gave no commitment to end the occupation, reiterated Israel’s determination to retain the whole of Jerusalem as its “united capital”, rejected any possibility of a compromise on Palestinian refugees, and even had fulsome praise for the Jewish settlers in the West Bank whom he called “Israeli pioneers”. (more…)

In addition to the relatively new condition (i.e., something Ben Gurion or Rabin never demanded) that the Palestnians accept not only recognize Israel’s existence (something the PLO already did back in 1988), but also recognize it as “the state of the Jewish people.” Moreover, after saying that neither side should “threaten its neighbor’s security and existence,” he insisted that the Palestinians agree to permanent state of abject vulnerability. Specifically, once the Palestinians agree to have no army, no control of their air space, and to forever forswear military treaties — then Israel “will agree to a real peace agreement.” (more…)

Netanyahu adopted the language of the day before yesterday. No Palestinian people, rather a “Palestinian population” that lives in Judea and Samaria. He invoked the infamous lexicon of Golda Meir, not of occupation rather “Israeli presence” in the West Bank.

There was also the repeated flight from the subject of final borders, the lack of even superficial reference to the road map peace plan, the repetition of “Jerusalem forever undivided,” the repeated claim that “they started it,” and the ridiculous, excessive demand that Palestinians recognize the Jewish state by one who has failed to recognize the Palestinians as a people. (more…)

“This particular settlement is not one that I envision ever being abandoned, or changed over into a Palestinian territory,” Carter said. “This is part of the close settlements to the 1967 line that I think will be here forever.” (more…)

The Land of Israel Faithful group said Monday it has a plan to construct 30 new outposts in the West Bank over the summer, in response to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech a day earlier in which he said that no new settlements would be built and no additional land would be expropriated for settlement development. (more…)

A Hamas operative died in a Hebron prison overnight Monday after being interrogated by Palestinian Intelligence personnel. (more…)

As the day progressed Danny said he realized the scene he had witnessed was not an isolated incident. “It kept repeating itself. At one point I asked the people at the register if they really weren’t letting Arabs in and they answered straight out that they were not. One of the workers told me that the men just aren’t let in alone, but families are. I asked why and she said that they bothered the female tourists… she said there’s nothing that can be done, it’s just the way it is. (more…)

This speech was nothing new or interesting on Netanyahu’s behalf. The man is a racist and his speech reflected this very clearly. It was aimed simply at reassuring his fellow extremists in Israel (and in the settlements) that he is not about to “sell-out” to Washington. I won’t go into his ridiculous distortions of history because the are easily refuted by anyone with the most basic appreciation for the facts.

The thrust of his speech had to do with the Palestinians recognizing Israel—not merely as a state with an inherent right to exist (as Israel had previously demanded), but as a specifically Jewish state with a right to exist. The second point of his speech had to do with his vision for a Palestinian state, namely a demilitarized enclave subordinate to Israeli security needs.

To the first point, this is fluff. Israel is unprepared to recognized the West Bank as a specifically Muslim or Palestinian entity (and it shouldn’t in any case). But Israel cannot bring itself to recognize the basic right to Palestinian existence even without silly ethnic or religious predicates. So demanding the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel as a specifically Jewish state is intended simply to undermine peace negotiations by precluding discussion over the right to return for the 1948 refugees. After all, why should Israel negotiate over refugees if the Palestinians have themselves granted legitimacy to Jewish apartheid? So on the issue of recognition, Netanyahu has only further radicalized Israel’s position.

On the second point regarding Netanyahu’s vision of a Palestinian state, we can clearly see Bibi’s racist outlook. For him, any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and subordinated to Israeli security interests. He did not mention Israel’s intention of holding onto the Jordan Valley… probably because his position has not deviated from Sharon’s. Israel will continue to surround the remaining fragments of the West Bank by securing the Jordanian border and controlling entry and exit rights to the region. As agreed under the Oslo Accords, Israel will retain the sole rights to Palestinian airspace and will likely continue to operate the heavily militarized Jerusalem-Allenby Bridge highway (which is blocked for Palestinian use).

But all this misses the main assumption upon which his arguments are based: Israel’s needs are fundamentally superior the needs of Palestinians. As the director of ADL Abraham Foxman remarked:

“[Netanyahu's] willingness to talk about a Palestinian state as long as it is based on Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish state and is demilitarized and no threat to Israel should now provide the framework for moving the peace process forward and for easing potential tensions between the U.S. and Israel,” said Foxman. (more…)

Given the stark disparity in the balance of powers, isn’t it intuitive to demand Israel demilitarize? Of course, this is not even up for discussion. The victims of colonialism must do as their imperial masters dictate. That a future Palestinian state could pose a real threat to Israel is laughable. Israel’s military dominance is so horrifically overwhelming, there is no question of Israel’s security being seriously challenged. But you have to understand that Israeli lives are more important than those of Palestinians and Netanyahu knows this very well. It is for this reason, he knows that his demands will be well-respected in the United States and much of the international community will also sympathize with his ‘reasonable’ appeal.

So in the end, we are left with a painful problem. 1,400 slaughtered Gazans cannot compete with a single injury from rocket-fire in Sderot (let alone a death). And a single Israeli soldier weighs more heavily on the hearts of the world than 10,000+ Palestinian prisoners ineligible for civil rights and held under military law, mostly without charges brought before them. In his speech, Netanyahu is able to ignore the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948, to justify the ongoing oppression in the occupied territories and to blame the victims of imperialism for their suffering because he knows that in the scheme of things, Palestinian hopes for self-determination and peace come second to Israel’s right to colonization, dispossession and brutality.

Gaza: No right to life

A Border Guard officer who shot and killed a Wadi Ara man during a police chase in January 2006 was acquitted of manslaughter on Monday. (more…)

The poll also found that 58% of Israeli Jews back the continued expansion of West Bank settlements. (more…)

The prime minister’s declaration that Jerusalem will remain he “undivided capital” of Israel – only Israel – slammed the door before the entire Muslim world. And his Hebron is solely the city of the Jewish patriarchs; the Arabs have no such rights at all. The Palestinians can have a state, but only if those foreign invaders show us they know how to eat with a fork and knife. Actually, without a knife. (more…)

To be sure Verwoerd was correct. Both apartheid South Africa and Zionist Israel were colonial, settler states created on the basis of the harsh dispossession of the land and birthright of the indigenous people. This is unblushingly documented in Israel’s case from the time of Herzl through Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan to Sharon et al. Both states preached and implemented a policy based on racial ethnicity; the sole claim of Jews in Israel and whites in South Africa to exclusive citizenship; monopolized rights in law regarding the ownership of land, property, business; superior access to education, health, social, sporting and cultural amenities, pensions and municipal services at the expense of the original indigenous population; the virtual monopoly membership of military and security forces, and privileged development along their own racial supremacist lines – even both countries marriage laws are designed to safeguard racial “purity”. The fact that the Palestinian minority within Israel is allowed to vote hardly redresses the injustice in all other matters of basic human rights. In any case those Palestinians allowed to stand for election to the Knesset do so on condition that they dare not question Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. (more…)

But this morning there’s no relief on the horizon for Palestinians hoping to ease their desperate housing shortage. Only a day earlier, employees of Jerusalem’s Israeli-run municipality handed house demolition orders to three more families in the Al-Bustan area of Silwan, which lies alongside Wadi Qadoum and abuts the walls of the Old City. All of the homes in Al-Bustan – 90 in total – are slated for demolition, despite ongoing negotiations between residents and City Hall. (more…)

After four pages filled with detailed charts of the number of grams and calories of every type of food to be permitted for consumption by Gaza residents (broken down by gender and age), comes this recommendation: “It is necessary to deal with the international community and the Palestinian Health Ministry to provide nutritional supplements (only some of the flour in Gaza is enriched) and to provide education about proper nutrition.” Printed in large letters at the end of the document is this admonition: “The stability of the humanitarian effort is critical for the prevention of the development of malnutrition.” (more…)

“We have been waiting for a permit from the Israelis to install a water network since 2000,” Dr. Amer Abu Farha, head of the village council told IPS. “But they refuse to give us one. We are also not allowed to dig deep wells or repair current wells. The Israeli settlements are allowed to dig wells far deeper than us, and to repair their other wells.” (more…)

A former Pentagon analyst who pled guilty to passing secret information to two former AIPAC staffers had his sentence drastically reduced. (more…)

Ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children (more…)

[M]any settlers say the West Bank is Jewish land and if Palestinians want to live there they must abide by Israeli law. (more…)

Fine, then annex the West bank once and for all and give the Palestinians full rights as Israeli citizens. Oh, but this would end the Jewish demographic balance… Ok, then you have another choice: get out now.

Though Mr Deeb, 40, is not the self-pitying type, the reaction of his colleagues was understandable. For among the many thousands of Gazans bereaved by the war, few lives can have been as shattered as his. Alerted by phone, he had rushed back from work on the afternoon of 6 January to find the family home in Jabalya hit by two Israeli 120mm mortar shells in the same series of attacks that killed up to another 30 civilians outside the UN Al Fakhoura school a mere 100 metres away. The 11 dead included five of his six children, aged between four and 22, his wife, his mother, one of his brothers, two of his nephews, and a niece. (more…)

Former Gaza Division Commander Brig.-Gen Moshe “Chico” Tamir plans to appeal a military court decision on Thursday to demote him to the rank of colonel for permitting his underage son to drive an IDF dune buggy and attempting to cover-up a subsequent accident. (more…)

But for participating in the massacre of 1,400 Palestinians—now that’s a whole different story.

The security cabinet decided on Wednesday that any opening of crossings into the Gaza Strip would be linked to progress in the case of kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit. (more…)

Yeah, and the rockets are tied to the 10,000 kidnapped Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli forces seized four Palestinian children during a raid the West Bank village of Hizma, northeast of Jerusalem early on Wednesday morning. (more…)

The years of closed borders has severely crippled Gaza’s health sector, denying patients vital medicines, replacement parts for hospital equipment, access to outside medical care, and preventing the entrance of outside expertise. Moreover, Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was devastated during Israel’s three week assault on Gaza (December 2008-January 2009), making the treatment of patients within the tiny coastal territory near impossible. (more…)

“Just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” said Obama, “does not serve Israel’s security.” That was all. The killing of 1,300 people in what is now a concentration camp merited 17 words, cast as concern for the “security” of the killers. This was understandable. During the January massacre, Seymour Hersh reported that “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ’smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” for use in Gaza. (more…)

[Israeli] military sources said that Monday’s incident was the most complicated one the soldiers have had to deal with since the end of Operation Cast Lead. (more…)

Israeli authorities ordered a Palestinian to demolish his own home in the Old City of Jerusalem on Tuesday. (more…)

Salah claimed that 120 mosques and dozens of churches have been razed since the State of Israel’s establishment, adding that new neighborhoods were established at sites previously used as cemeteries. (more…)

“We feel proud that we found a way to defy the situation,” said Najar. “It is difficult, but we must survive. When people see this collective punishment against them they have to find ways to live their lives.” (more…)

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) has released a report confirming that Israel is practicing both colonialism and apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). (more…)

In letter to defense administration heads Yesh Din reports of alarming increase in number of attempts to uproot or damage Palestinian farmers’ trees as part of settlers’ efforts to ‘achieve political goals through terrorists acts’ (more…)

“Our opinion is supportive of Obama’s interpretation of the road map, and that is, a freeze is a freeze,” Mr. Nir says. “A total freeze applies to everything, pending a final settlement of the conflict which will determine what Israel annexes.” (more…)

American “peace” organizations are no better than Israeli “peace” organizations. Look how it’s not even disputed that Israel will annex Palestinian land in any final settlement… I bet they will call it a “generous offer” when Israel decides to annex only the Ariel, Gush Etzion and Jerusalem settlement blocs as Israel has always said it will.

With a population of around 20,800, Palau is one of the world’s least-populated countries. It was a US trust territory until it gained independence in 1994 and still maintains close ties to the US, as well as relying significantly on American aid. (more…)

Makes you wonder why Palau always sides with Israel and the U.S. in the U.N. General Assembly against virtually all other member countries.

The so-called Israeli Regional Committee for Construction and Planning in Haifa, issued orders for the evacuation and demolishing 25 Arab stores in the Market area, near the main road of Wadi Ara, in Um Al Fahim Arab town. (more…)

A community in northern Israel has changed its bylaws to demand that new residents pledge support for “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land” in a thinly-veiled attempt to block Arab applicants from gaining admission. (more…)

A group of prominent gay opinion-shapers from around the world are to visit Israel to grapple with the country’s sexuality issues on a five-day seminar centering around Tel Aviv’s gay pride parade, scheduled for Friday. (more…)

Somehow, I doubt they will report on the IDF’s practice of threatening gay Palestinians with exposure in their communities if they refuse to collaborate with the occupation.

He said about 150 Palestinians, some as young as 14, were bound, blindfolded and detained at the village school during the operation, which lasted from 3am to 3pm. He was told it was aimed at preventing village youths throwing stones against nearby settler roads. It was clear many of the people detained had done nothing wrong, but they were held to gather intelligence, he said. (more…)

Lt.-Col. Avinoam Stolevitch, commander of the 13th Battalion, told Army Radio that future assaults of this sort would put Hamas at risk of a second Operation Cast Lead. (more…)

One bill sought to prohibit marking the day Israel declared its independence as a day of mourning. A second prohibits negating the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The third bill would have required Israeli citizens, including Arabs of Palestinian descent, to sign oaths of loyalty to the state, its flag and national anthem, and to perform military or civil service. (more…)

“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle),” Friedman wrote in response to the question posed by Moment Magazine for its “Ask the Rabbis” feature. Friedman argued that if Israel followed this wisdom, there would be “no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.” (more…)

I don’t know what is more disturbing: the guy’s rhetoric or the “Ask the Rabbis” feature.

Israel has refused to cooperate with investigation of its conduct during an offensive on Gaza earlier this year, depriving Judge Richard Goldstone and his team access to military sources and victims of ongoing rocket attacks. (more…)

Israel consistently complains that the UN fails to investigate rocket attacks against Israeli civilians while it unduly criticizes the Jewish state—yet now it comes out that Israel is blocking these investigations!

What exactly was U.S.-Israel agreement on settlements?

Israeli forces on Monday killed four gunmen from Gaza who attacked an army patrol along the Gaza border in one of the most audacious raids since Israel ended its military campaign in the Palestinian coastal strip in January. (more…)

When has Isabel Kershner ever described Israeli attacks as “audacious”? Israeli attacks are always “anguished retaliation” in the Times…

“The Israel lobby is possibly the most powerful lobby in the United States, and what they do is label any criticism of anti-Israeli conduct and practices as anti-Semitic,” Robinson said. “This campaign is not just an attempt to punish me. The Israel lobby is stepping up its vicious attacks on anyone who would speak out against Israeli policies.” (more…)

GW Bush, Rose Garden, 24 June 2002: “It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve… My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security.”

BH Obama, Cairo University, 4 June 2009: “They endure the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable… The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.” (more…)

A Palestinian protestor was killed and another sustained wounds after being shot by Border Guard forces during an anti-security fence protest in Naalin, Palestinian sources said. (more…)

Palestinians families who suffered property damage during riots that followed 2008 evacuation of ‘disputed house’ to receive total of $63,000 restitution payments. (more…)

Amer al-Dayah, 28, is the only member of a family of 23 who survived the bombardment of his parents’ house. The dead included his parents, three brothers, three sisters-in-law, two sisters and 12 nieces and nephews. Al-Alami shows some of the photos in the files. One depicts a child’s head in the rubble, eyes wide open, limbs severed. There was nothing left of nine of the victims, and al-Dayah found parts of his mother’s body as far as 100 meters (328 feet) away. “My family was simply gone,” says al-Dayah, a stout man with a boyish face. (more…)

Of course, I didn’t expect much, but I found Obama’s brief remarks yesterday about the Palestinians extremely disingenuous and misleading. After pontificating to the audience in Cairo on the Holocaust (as if he were addressing a crowd of affirmed anti-Semites), Obama said the following about Palestine:

“[I]t is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation.”

Suffered in pursuit of a homeland? They had a homeland—and it was stolen from them in 1948. Let’s call a spade a spade. This was ethnic cleansing, not the “pain of dislocation” as Obama euphemises.

And why did Obama not mention Israel specifically in relation with the Palestinians’ suffering? Instead, your average viewer in the United States is justified in coming away with the impression that the occupation is prosecuted by some nameless evil. Everyone talks about a change in rhetoric from Washington, but I don’t see it. When it comes to the Middle East, the ritual transition of power called democracy in the U.S. causes a mere fluctuation in the degree of slavish support for the Zionist project.

Rabin, who had commanded the troops during the war and was about to head to Washington as Israel’s ambassador, did not want to return the West Bank to Jordan. He looked for a way to overcome the demographic problem: “We are not going to relocate half a million Arabs,” he said. Eshkol was dubious. “Will the new state have an army?” he asked. Rabin said it would have a police force, not an army. “Who determines that?” asked Eshkol. Rabin answered: “We do.” (more…)

Israeli Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, a leading “three-state” advocate who was also featured at the Jerusalem conference in May, claimed that “the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is too small to create two viable states”. (more…)

On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel “cannot freeze life in the settlements,” calling the American demand “unreasonable.” (more…)

He added, “But we sure as hell will continue freezing life in Gaza!”

The Israeli ministry of Interior gave its approval to plans that want to demolish a kindergarten and wholesale market in East Jerusalem to construct a new hotel. (more…)

“Israel must seriously address the issue of settlements,” agreed Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Florida) in a conversation with The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. But he stressed that Israel was not being asked to act unilaterally, saying that freezing settlements must be accompanied by “significant, concrete steps in the Arab world to normalize relations with Israel.” (more…)

Senior Hamas member Sami Abu Zuhri rushed to respond to the Qalqilya incident, referring to it as “a gift from the Palestinian Authority to Israel and to (US President Barack) Obama in honor of his visit to the region.” (more…)