Tens of thousands of Palestinian books destroyed after Israel’s establishment, Ben-Gurion University researcher says
(full article…)

[Israeli] operations at Port-au-Prince field hospital concluded with military ceremony. Col. Itzik Kreis thanks team and civilians treated on spot. ‘There are no other nations with strength, willingness, dedication, determination to help in this way. (full article…)

A senior American diplomat recently told representatives of the Israeli Defense and Foreign ministries, “I don’t want your security officers to check our cars. What if there are settlers among them? I will not have my people end up like (slain Prime Minister Yitzhak) Rabin.” (full article…)

The New York Times has all but confirmed to The Electronic Intifada (EI) that the son of its Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner was recently inducted into the Israeli army.

Over the weekend, EI received a tip suggesting this had been the case and wrote to Bronner to ask him to confirm or deny the information and to seek his opinion on whether, if true, he thought it would be a conflict of interest. (full article…)

Israel-Arab claims she was humiliated by two security guards who ordered her off bus after hearing her speak Arabic on cell phone. College: First such incident in 15 years (full article…)

Such a remarkable story could only happen in the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A young gay Palestinian man, who is in grave, life-threatening danger and cannot return to his home with his Israeli partner, was saved by a stranger who came to his aid – a religious West Bank settler. (full article…)

Look at this morally narcissistic story. Does the Israeli media also report that their noble military uses sexual identity as blackmail against Palestinians they hope to use as collaborators? Do they report that Palestinian/Israeli couples (of any sexual orientation) are barred from residence in that racist state?

The residents of Gaza are not waiting on the Goldstone Report to take action. The Defense Ministry and the Tel Aviv Prosecution have reportedly received some 1,500 notices of future civil lawsuits against the IDF over damage caused during Operation Cast Lead. (full article…)

Human rights group Amnesty International said in a report published Tuesday that Israeli restrictions prevented Palestinians from receiving enough water in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The report said Israel’s daily water consumption per capita was four times higher than that in the Palestinian territories. (full article…)

Israeli authorities demolished two Palestinian homes near east Jerusalem on Tuesday, ignoring international concern about the practice. (full article…)

Israeli academics are being watched. Vigilantes check what they say or write – and, if they are judged “anti-Israel,” incite donors to the universities and colleges where they teach to act against them. Students are encouraged to spy on their teachers and to report what they say.

Academics on the left are the targets. They are vilified as “Israel’s academic fifth column” and “our inner scourge.” They are called “traitors” and are accused of “treasonous betrayal” and of wanting “to suck up to and be accepted by the enemy.” (full article…)

Jerusalem’s “chastity squad” is branching out and has recently begun operating in the capital’s Beit Israel neighborhood. According to local residents, several of the neighborhood’s inhabitants have been violently attacked by members of the “modesty guard”. (full article…)

The Temple Mount, revered by Jews as the site of two ancient temples and by Muslims as the site of the Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa Mosque, has been the focus of simmering unrest recently. The compound sits in contested territory that Israel took from Jordan in the 1967 war. (full article…)

“Took” is a euphemism for “conquered” when it comes to coverage of Israel in the New York Times.

With the 2009-2010 academic year under way, 838 Palestinian university students are still waiting for the authorization that will enable them to leave the Gaza Strip in favor of overseas universities. (full article…)

I mean, I read the article [by HRW founder Richard Bernstein]. The word “occupation” does not appear there even one time. He says that Israel is a democracy of seven-million-point-something Israeli citizens. He forgets four million Palestinians, who have to be registered in the Israeli population registry in order to exist. All the Palestinians are registered. He forgot the four million. So what kind of democracy it is, where four million who are in the Israeli Ministry of Interior have to be registered and Israel decides if they are – if they exist? How can you call it a democracy, when half of – when one-third, not to mention the one million Israeli Palestinians, don’t have rights, the same rights? What kind of democracy it is? (full article…)

Court orders IDF to reopen road closed for Palestinian use (full article…)

Any time I see a story like this I can’t help laughing… So the court rules that this single road cannot be part of the apartheid structure? Big deal. What about the hundreds of others illegally constructed roads in the West Bank that have been designated “Israeli only”?

During a previous harvest she had to be taken to hospital after she was hit over the head with an iron bar by an Israeli security guard from one of the nearby settlements. On another occasion settlers threw stones and human excreta at her and other volunteers, while shooting into the air. (full article…)

China will oppose discussing the Goldstone report at the United Nations Security Council, Chinese members of parliament told a delegation of visiting Israeli officials in Beijing on Wednesday. (full article…)

The State Prosecutor’s Office has decided to close a criminal investigation against Border Guard officers documented beating Palestinians. (full article…)

While the IDF has expressed objection to the formation of an external inquiry committee to probe Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, a top General Staff official told Ynet on Wednesday that more could be done on the PR front. (full article…)

Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s military offensive against the Gaza Strip, had an impact on the press. As regards its internal situation, Israel sank 47 places in the index to 93rd position. This nose-dive means it has lost its place at the head of the Middle Eastern countries, falling behind Kuwait (60th), United Arab Emirates (86th) and Lebanon (61st). (full article…)

Among the atrocities committed by IDF troops on the show are the murder of an infant, beatings of innocent Palestinians, and death by firing squad.

“This is without a doubt an expression of a calculating will to consciously encourage hostility and anger towards Israel and the Jews,” the letter says. (full article…)

“What peace process are they talking about? There isn’t one. The Israeli foreign minister doesn’t want one at all.” (full article…)

But in Israel, the force is seen as an expedient for countering Hamas and other militant groups – a vehicle to enable the Palestinian Authority to fight terror within its own cities so that Israel doesn’t have to. (full article…)

I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of the mission’s mandate we would receive the cooperation of the Israeli government. Its refusal to cooperate was a grave error. My plea for cooperation was repeated before and during the investigation and it sits, plain as day, in the appendices of the Gaza report for those who actually bother to read it. (full article…)

For those who criticize the Goldstone report for not addressing Sderot in detail, just remember that it was the Israeli government that denied Goldstone access and would not allow him to investigate Palestinian rocket attacks…

A U.N. investigation into explosions in south Lebanon indicated on Sunday that Israel had planted spy devices on Lebanese land in what a senior U.N. official said would be a violation of a ceasefire agreement.

The UNIFIL peacekeeping force in Lebanon said its preliminary probe into two explosions in the south showed they had been caused by the detonation of underground sensor devices.

…

UNIFIL was investigating what had caused the devices to blow up. A Lebanese security official said they appeared to have been detonated by remote control from Israel after their discovery by Lebanese security forces. (full article…)

One of the taboo topics in the American media is how the U.S. Government routinely violates the principles we espouse for, and try to impose on, the rest of the world. We systematically torture Muslims and then cover it up and protect our torturers while preaching accountability and the rule of law; we condemn deprivations of due process while maintaining and expanding lawless prison systems for Muslims; we demand adherence to U.N. dictates and international law while blocking investigations into U.N. reports of war crimes and possible “crimes against humanity” by our allies; we righteously oppose aggression while invading and simultaneously occupying numerous countries, while threatening to attack still more, and arming countries like Israel to the teeth to wage still other attacks, etc. etc. (full article…)

The council has a long history of focusing on Israel, while ignoring human rights abuses in other member states like China and Saudi Arabia. (full article…)

A Palestinian taken by ambulance to a Jerusalem hospital was denied entry by hospital security, which may have been a factor in his death, according to a suit filed last week in the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court. (full article…)

The only difference between AIPAC and J-Street, is that J-Street thinks apartheid is bad for Israel. That is the only debate among Zionist when it comes to Palestine… Killing Palestinians is fine, but if we want to preserve our racially exceptionalist entity, then apartheid makes that just too darn difficult.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official rebuked Turkey’s acting ambassador on Thursday over a Turkish television series that, among other things, appears to depict an Israeli soldier murdering a Palestinian child. (full article…)

The vandals came at night from Adei Ad, a Jewish settlers’ outpost deemed “illegal” even by the Israeli government, near Shvut Rachel, an established West Bank settlement that is judged illegal in international but not Israeli law. Working fast, unnoticed by Palestinian landowners in the nearby Arab village of al-Mughayir, the settlers cut down nearly 200 olive trees, of which 70 belonged to Mr Abu Awad. As a result, he reckons to have lost income worth around $3,400 that he would have earned from this year’s harvest. But that is not all. “I planted these trees with my own hands 35 years ago”, he says, wistfully touching the stumps, now wrapped in sackcloth to protect them from the sun. Mr Abu Awad hopes his trees will recover and one day bear fruit again. . . . Mr Abu Awad says he is determined to fight to keep his land. “I’ll sleep on my land to protect it,” he says. “I tell my children: if I die, they should bury me where my blood was spilled. I’m in love with my land.” (full article…)

American officials say Washington will likely exercise its veto power if report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza is brought to a Security Council vote. (full article…)

A wonderful war. (full article…)

Gaza has managed to replenish its fuel supply by using smuggling tunnels from Egypt, and residents of the Strip rejoiced as benzene prices hit a low of just NIS 1.5 (around 40 cents) per liter, after having previously paid up to NIS 7 (around $1.9). (full article…)

By the Israeli military’s count, 1,166 people were killed in the war: 295 noncombatants, 709 of what it called Hamas terrorist operatives, and 162 men whose affiliations remain undetermined.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza said 1,417 died: 926 civilians, 236 combatants and 255 police officers.

Israel says about 400 Gazans die of natural causes every month, possibly accounting for the discrepancy in the numbers. (full article…)

Of course the NYT fails to mention that hundreds of sick Palestinians have died after being denied permission to leave Gaza by the Israeli government. The author also does not write that Israel’s manipulation of figures was rejected by Israeli human rights organizations.

The abstaining countries included: Bosnia, Burkina-Faso, Cameron, Gabon, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Belgium, South Korea, Slovenia and Uruguay. (full article…)

MK Danny Danon attacked the Goldstone report during a speech in Knesset Wednesday and ripped up a synopsis of it. (full article…)

The political echelon in Jerusalem has decided to use the explosion that occurred at the Hezbollah member’s house in Tyre this week to divert international attention from the Gaza war report to be debated in the UN starting Wednesday. Israel is hoping to put the spotlight on Hezbollah’s violation of Resolution 1701 that ended the Second Lebanon War. (full article…)

Abu Ahmed lived through last winter’s Gaza war in a daze. Though the district where he lives was invaded by Israeli ground forces and came under heavy fire, including the use of white phosphorus shells, he felt little fear. For by then, the 45-year-old unemployed father of 10 was popping tablets of the painkiller Tramadol to feed an ever more dangerous habit.”Of course you care about the children but [with the drugs] you forget about yourself,” he explains. “You feel less frightened.” (full article…)

Throughout Israel, young Jewish men are forming vigilante groups to end interracial relationships between Arab men and Jewish women, which are occurring with increased frequency as Jewish settlements dig deeper into Arab territory. The vigilantes say Arabs lure Jewish women with money and “bad boy” personalities. (full article…)

Yousef Abu Zuhri, a Hamas member and brother of the movement’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, died in an Egyptian jail. Hamas is outraged, claiming he was tortured to death. (full article…)

The operation was aimed at the rockets and those who fired them (full article…)

Netanyahu: PA must recognize Israel as Jewish state for there to be peace (full article…)

Didn’t he just say that there weren’t going to be preconditions? It’s not fun exposing Netanyahu’s contradictions, because they occur so frequently.

I have a precondition for you… Since you are infatuated with the whole “right to exist” (something no other state has, by the way) why not recognize the Palestinians’ “right to exist” as a sign of reciprocity. No, of course you won’t.

“It’s hard to find a country friendlier to Israel than Canada these days. Members both of the coalition and the opposition are loyal friends to us, both with regard to their worldview and their estimation of the situation in everything related to the Middle East, North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Somalia. No other country in the world has demonstrated such full understanding of us.” (full article…)

“We are facing very large challenges. The first is renewing peace talks; they should be renewed without any preconditions,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Likud faction meeting on Monday.
(full article…)

He added, “However, the peace process will not go forward unless the Goldstone Report is dropped. That’s our only precondition, even if in principle we agree that there should be no preconditions…”

Israeli defence officials told the Jerusalem Post they were rethinking arms sales to Turkey and would end support for Turkey in its efforts to stop the US Congress voting to declare the mass killing of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks a genocide. (full article…)

“We Jewish and Arab teens from throughout Israel hereby announce that we object to Israel’s oppressive policy in the occupied territories and within the state of Israel, and therefore we will refuse to take part in these activities, which are carried out in our name by the Israel Defense Army,” says the letter, signed by 80 students. (full article…)

More than a month into the school year, the Israeli restrictions have caused severe shortages that leave students unable to afford supplies such as notebooks. Students are obliged to share or take turns studying from used textbooks and workbooks. Some did not receive any books for this year’s classes. Supplies smuggled through tunnels underneath Gaza’s southern border with Egypt have failed to make up for the shortages caused by Israel’s arbitrary restrictions on imports of educational materials. (full article…)

“The Arabs were beaten just because they are Arabs,” claimed a resident of Neve Shalom, whom the students turned to for help. Neve Shalom is a joint-Arab-Jewish cooperative village next to Latrun built around the idea of coexistence. (full article…)

One element of the blackmail, which reportedly has been exercised by the Israelis on the Palestinian Authority in order to persuade them not to go forward with consideration of the Goldstone report in Geneva, was a denial of the granting of a license to a second Palestinian cell phone company in the Occupied Territories. (full article…)

Israel had repeatedly warned the PA that if it continued to support Goldstone’s report it would withdraw permission for a second cellular telephone company to be established in the West Bank, an issue of critical economic importance to the PA leadership and to the civilian infrastructure of the West Bank. (full article…)

How does Obama’s suppression of Israeli war crimes in the Goldstone Report factor into his silly prize?

According to Israeli press reports, Israel is planning a massive new settlement in the vicinity of Jerusalem, on land owned by Palestinians of al-Walajah. The project, expected to be approved by the Israeli ministry of the Interior, could become the single most populous settlement built in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967 according to the Israeli daily Maariv. The project plans prepared by the ministry of the Interior and the Jerusalem municipality call for 14,000 housing units for 40,000 settlers on 3,000 dunums of land which would require the demolition of al-Walajah residents’ homes, according to the paper. (full article…)

Israel continues to threaten to invade Iran. (full article…)

Jewish settlers on Tuesday cut off 250 Palestinian fruitful olive trees in Deir Ammar village, west of Ramallah city, local sources reported. (full article…)

The U.S. administration is furious over Israeli incitement against President Barack Obama, Democratic congressmen close to Obama told an Israeli source who returned from a visit to Washington this week. (full article…)

“I am very sorry for all those who were killed in Gaza,” Ms. Malka said, “but I expect my country to defend me no matter how.” (full article…)

A day after the story was published by the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, Ramat Gan Mayor Tzvi Bar announced that he was “shocked to read the story,” adding that “it is an abuse of helpless animals.” (full article…)

In Gaza, posters appeared on walls on Wednesday calling Mr. Abbas a traitor and saying he should be consigned to “the trash heap of history.” Gaza is controlled by Hamas, the militant Islamic group that is the Palestinian Authority’s main rival. (full article…)

…then they would mention that resentment of the Mahmoud Abbas and the Zionist Collaboration Regime is not confined to Hamas, but most sectors of Palestinian society. Reading this in the Times, you would imagine the poster is simply political posturing by Hamas (which certainly exists), but faced with a regime that runs the Israeli occupation by proxy and crumbles to US/Zionist demands almost without exception, Palestinians of all stripes oppose this clown. Imagine that Richard Goldstone cares more about pursuing justice in Gaza than the lousy regime in Ramallah!

Stockholm’s foreign minister urges UN human rights council to discuss report probing Gaza war despite expressed reservations as to its credibility (full article…)

Israeli youth who refuse to cooperate with Israel’s military occupation are sent into a lengthy and relentless labyrinth of court martials and consecutive jail terms in what Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard, representing Shministim, calls a “price tag” meant to deter other young Israelis from non-participation. “Otherwise,” he says, “[the Israeli government's] argument says, everyone — of ideological or personal reasons — will refuse to serve.” (full article…)

According to the latest figures compiled by DCI-Palestine from sources including the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and temporary Israeli army detention facilities, the number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the end of September, was 326. (full article…)

“It’s really pathetic that the Israeli state has nothing besides gay rights to promote their liberal image,” says Maikey. “Ridiculous, and in a sense hilarious, because there are no gay rights in Israel.” (full article…)

Commander Aharon Franco slams Arab protestors, calls them ‘ungrateful’ for rioting during High Holidays after allowing to attend Ramadan prayers; says steps will be taken against Sheikh Raed Salah who is believed to have instigated recent rioting (full article…)

He’s right. They should grateful for any crumb Israel tosses to them. In fact, they should be happy Israel hasn’t slaughtered them en masse as in Gaza.

After Ehud Barak nearly arrested in London, Minister Ya’alon cancels his trip to Britain ‘in light of legal recommendation.’ However, together with Mazuz, only two lawyers handling some 1,000 foreign lawsuits against politicians and military officers. ‘Situation intolerable,’ said a senior official in Jerusalem (full article…)

The brewery was started in 1995 by David Khoury and his brother Nadim, who had returned from the United States with his head full of ideas about hops and German beer-purity laws as well as his own recipes. They almost went broke during the intifada that erupted in 2000, and while never directly challenged by Islamist groups, they feared that the enterprise would be pushed to the fringes of Palestinian society. (full article…)

Reading this article, you would imagine that the second intifada was a conflict between Islamists and these friendly beer-brewing Christian Palestinians. Israel is not even mentioned. But according to the standards of the Washington Post, Israel posed no threat at all to Palestinian businesses with is random demolition of buildings, destruction of numerous offices and all-out assault on large parts of West Bank civilian areas. No, these nice Christians only faced difficulties from the Islamists.

PA source: US to press Israel on settlements (full article…)

Israel should consider ousting Norwegian monitors from Hebron due to Oslo’s “hostility” toward Israel, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the cabinet Thursday. (full article…)

“We need to ask you some questions,” she said. She took me aside. I was so nervous. She clarified my name and email, then she asked me about my time in Beirut. I told her it was a study program, organized by a translation service.She frowned. “Why do you like Arabs?” I didn’t know what to say. Is it a crime in Israel to love Arabs? Is it a crime to study Palestinian art?

“Palestinian art?” she said, “like what?” “Lots of stuff,” I said, ” Plays, movies, books; everywhere, all over the world.” (full article…)

It was misleading for the commission to examine only the 13 months from June 2008 to July 2009, she said. Palestinians in Gaza had fired rockets into Israel for eight years. (full article…)

During the national election campaign in 1996, when Netanyahu was first elected prime minister, Chabad publicly supported him with the slogan, “Bibi is good for the Jews.” Netanyahu still has strong ties with Chabad. (full article…)

“A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long,” Goldstone, a former UN war crimes prosecutor, told the UN Human Rights Council.

“The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible war crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence.” (full article…)

“No arrest warrant has been issued, and in any event, he has immunity due to his being a minister in the government,” the bureau said in a statement. “Therefore, his program will continue without disturbance.” (full article…)

“The PA has reached the point where it has to decide whether it is working with us or against us,” senior figures in the defense establishment have said. (full article…)

Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel’s ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behavior as a threat to the state’s Jewishness. One of the few polls on the subject, in 2007, found that more than half of Israeli Jews believed intermarriage should be equated with “national treason.”
(full article…)

I am innocent of any crime, says Olmert (full article…)

At 8:00 am, on 22 September 2009, Mohammad arrived at the Allenby Bridge Crossing. He was returning home, to the West Bank, via Jordan, from his travels in Norway where he attended several speaking events and advocacy meetings. At the Israeli border control, Mohammad’s passport was taken away, and he was asked to wait on the side. Mohammad waited until 10pm at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing without any information for the reasons of his detention. At 10pm, he was arrested and transferred to Huwwara provisional detention center, located on the outskirts of Nablus. Two days later, on 24 September, he received a visit from an International Committee of the Red Cross delegate and was allowed to see a lawyer. Since the moment of his arrest, he has not been either questioned or interrogated once. Mohammad is due to appear before the military court on Tuesday, 29 September 2009. (full article…)

A new report from Adalah shows how the courts and police attempted to stamp out opposition to Operation Cast Lead. “This is a time of war, and every incident harms the people’s morale.”

This was not a sentence in a right-wing journal, but rather a statement by an Israel Police representative during Operation Cast Lead seeking to persuade the Tel Aviv District Court to block anti-war protesters from the city. (full article…)

No less demagogic was his attack on the Iranian regime. They shoot demonstrators there, he protested vehemently. As if they don’t do that in our Bil’in and Na’alin.

Then came the kicker: Operation Cast Lead was a pinpoint attack. Israel telephoned thousands of people to tell them to leave their homes. Where to, Mr. Prime Minister? Into the sea? He said the IDF, which killed nearly 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, exhibited unprecedented restraint. (full article…)

But it was Cohen who “missed the point,” Hever said. “Palestinians don’t want appeasement, they want recognition of their rights.” Israelis “point out the willingness of people like Madonna and Leonard Cohen to give shows as a sign that Israel is normal, like a European country. It evades responsibility,” he added.(full article…)