Friday, November 23

Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines November 23, 2007 ~

Brought to you by Shadi Fadda
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PCHR Weekly Report: 6 killed, 22 wounded, 51 abducted by Israeli forces
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, in the week of the 15th to 21st of November, 6 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, and two terminally ill Palestinians died after being denied exit from Gaza for treatment. In addition, 22 Palestinians, including 7 children, and a Japanese human rights activist, were wounded by Israeli forces in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israel to start gradually reducing Gaza power supply December 2
Israel to begin gradually reducing the power supply to the Gaza Strip on December 2, in response to the ongoing Qassam rocket fire at Israeli communities along the Strip, Attorney General Menachem Mazuz told the High Court of Justice on Thursday. According to the State Prosecution, the defense establishment has finalized preparations meant to ensure that the power reduction does not cause humanitarian harm Gaza.

Israeli army attacks a peaceful demonstration in a Bethlehem village

Dozens of residents of al Me'sarah village near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem were joined by a group of Israeli and International peace activists on Friday at noon to protest the confiscation of their land. The Israeli army installed road blocks to prevent the peace activists from reaching the village.

Palestinian villagers protest on Road-443, Israel prevent them from using it
Residents of a number of villages in the Ramallah area organized a protest joined by a number of International and Israeli peace activists at Highway 443, on Friday after the noon prayer.

Six wounded, five detained in Bil'in's Anti-wall protest
Residents of the village of Bilin near the West Bank city of Ramallah organized their weekly Anti-Wall nonviolent protest this Friday, and were joined by a number of international and Israeli peace activists.

An endless pool of prisoners

Why is Israel releasing 440 Palestinian prisoners specifically ahead of the Annapolis conference, and not 500 or 300, or 2,000 as the United States had expected? The impression is that no one is exercised by the security risk entailed in releasing prisoners - aside from politicians who want to make political capital off of it - and that all the wheeling and dealing revolves around the question of how many prisoners "are worth wasting" on this or that event. This regular game with the fate of people - some 10,000 of them - who are incarcerated in Israel, taking no account of the length of their prison sentences but only the political utility their fate can serve, warps Israel's image as a law-abiding state. If at any given moment there is a pool of candidates for release, it stands to reason they could have been released long ago.

Hamas accused P.A security forces of arresting 13 supporters
Hamas media sources stated on Thursday that Palestinian Security Forces arrested on Thursday at dawn thirteen members and supporters of the movement in Beit Umren village west of Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank.

Cancer patient's death sparks Gaza blockade anger

Israeli authorities are under fire after the death of a 21-year-old Palestinian man who was barred from leaving the Gaza Strip for cancer treatment in Israel.

Gaza closure threatens 3,000 students' education rights

Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip off from the outside world since 10 June 2007 by enforcing a complete closure on all the strip's border crossings, especially Rafah International Crossing on the Egyptian border. As a result, Gaza students studying abroad are deprived the right to travel to pursue their education. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights' preliminary investigation and information from the Ministry of Civil Affairs indicate that approximately 7,500 Gazans are waiting for the opportunity to travel abroad for various purposes such as work, education, and treatment.

ANALYSIS: PA should have set the bar higher at the outset

"Neither side will make any move to change the status of the West Bank and Gaza Strip until the agreement is fully implemented," says one item in the Palestinian draft of the joint accord for Annapolis.

Pact Unlikely Before Talks in U.S., Palestinian Insists

A senior Palestinian official said here on Thursday that it would be a "miracle" if the Palestinian and Israeli negotiating teams agreed on a joint document, as they had hoped, to present at the American-sponsored Middle East peace gathering set to start Tuesday in Annapolis, Md.

Annapolis, as seen from Gaza
If history has taught the people of Gaza anything, it's that they never have much of a say in their destiny. Even in the worst of times, there's one thing we're never short of in our troubled part of the world: another conference, meeting, declaration, summit, agreement. Something to save the day, to "steer" us back to whatever predetermined path it is we are or were meant to be on. And to help us navigate that path.

Entire world accepts Israeli stance, says Livni

Foreign minister to leave for US on Saturday evening ahead of Annapolis peace conference; tells Ynet summit's success is fact that it will jumpstart move in which State of Israel's security is inseparable part of agreement.

Syria softening refusal on peace summit

DAMASCUS, Syria - Syria is softening its refusal to attend the Annapolis peace conference and already has won dividends, including a visit from Jordan's king that marked an end to regional isolation. But as it bends, it risks alienating Palestinian militants and its ally Iran.

The Myth of Middle East Peace

This week the forces of good will assemble in the city of Ann, the Queen who presided over her colonies, an apt gesture as the Israeli colonialist state meets to consider the fate of its Palestine colony, the one carefully preserved behind its apartheid wall of infamy, to attempt once again the fraud perpetrated on the American people and the United Nations that Israel is sincere in wanting peace. The moguls that control our press and TV channels sing the praises of Ehud Olmert and the Israeli Knesset as custodians of peace seeking to bring justice to the war weary peoples of Palestine. Thus are sown the seeds of discord that will reap the whirlwind of bitter disappointment, followed by the weeping and gnashing of teeth by these perpetrators of deceit.

ANALYSIS-U.S. push on Palestinians has Iran motive
The United States hopes one byproduct of its Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will be a moderate Arab alliance to counter Iran's influence in the region, but analysts are skeptical the strategy will work.

Rice: own life makes her sensitive to Israeli, Palestinian plight (ha ha, birth pains anyone?)
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who hopes to relaunch Middle East peace talks at a conference next week, said her childhood in segregated Alabama made her sensitive to the plight of both the Palestinians and Israelis. While saying she does not like to indulge in personal introspection, she said her experience in the southern state torn by racial strife helped her connect to the difficulties and hopes of the two peoples.

UN official says Israel's siege of Gaza breeds extremism and human suffering
A senior United Nations official has issued an unprecedented appeal to British MPs to use their influence to try to alleviate the impact of "indiscriminate" and "illegal" Israeli sanctions in Gaza which display "profound inhumanity" and are "serving the agenda of extremists".

Palestinian sues Shin Bet for abuse
Young Palestinian said to be involved in suicide bombing attempt says prolonged confinement in handcuffs left his arms paralyzed

Some Arab countries are funding our government in Gaza
In an interview with the Al Quds Al Arabi newspaper, based in London, Dr Mahmoud Al Zahhar, a senior official of the Hamas movement said that "there are Arab countries that are still funding the Palestinian government in Gaza, headed by Ismail Haniyya of Hamas.

Rightist manifesto: Settler evacuation is 'crime against humanity'
About 150 right-wing activists, including academics and Israel Defense Forces reserves officers, have signed a manifesto to be published Friday calling on security forces to refuse evacuating West Bank settlers on the grounds that it is a "crime against humanity."

New Yorkers hold another protest against Israeli settlement funder

Lev Leviev, Israel's richest man, is again facing protests by human rights activists demanding that he cease his funding of Israeli settlements in the West bank.

US storm over book on Israel lobby

But this presumed influence is also a delicate issue in the US, and is rarely analysed. How does the lobby work? Is its power truly legendary, or just a legend?

Israeli: Syrian site hit not a reactor
JERUSALEM - A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September was probably a plant for assembling a nuclear bomb, an Israeli nuclear expert said Thursday, challenging other analysts' conclusions that it housed a North Korean-style nuclear reactor.

Twilight Zone / The tahini trail

It started at my supermarket in Ramat Aviv. Suddenly huge wooden pallets piled with raw tahini (known in Hebrew as tahina) appeared in the store. The packaging was old-fashioned, the labels tattered, the graphic design uninspired, the Hebrew riddled with errors. But the taste was marvelous. The telephone number listed on the underside of the plastic jar piqued my curiosity. The dove of peace is not dead, nor even bleeding. More and more jars with doves on them have appeared on the shelves of the supermarket. There is Dove Symbol tahini from Nablus, Peace Dove tahini from Mishor Adumim (a Jewish industrial area in the West Bank), and the tahini I discovered, which the supermarket poster calls Dove Tahini, also from Nablus.

Bush: I would understand if Israel chose to attack Iran
The United States lacks sufficient intelligence on Iran's nuclear facilities at this time, which prevents it from initiating a military strike against them, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told European politicians and diplomats with whom she has recently met.

Why AIPAC Took Over Brookings
The following is an excerpt from Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee From the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal.

Giuliani, Robertson, Israel and Thanksgiving
Many from across the political spectrum seemed surprised when Pat Robertson recently endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president, but this was only the most recent manifestation of one of the worst aspects of the relationship between Christianity and the state. As Blase Bonpane, whose books include "Liberation Theology and the Central American Revolution" has written...

Israeli, Palestinian youth "just want to have fun"
Both young and articulate with a penchant for cappuccino, Israeli Noa Tamir-Helfgott and Palestinian Nelly Soudah share common goals: leave the Middle East conflict behind and live a normal life. As Israel and the Palestinians head to Annapolis, Maryland for a U.S.-led Middle East conference, Tamir-Helfgott, 28, longs for a peace deal that will free her husband from annual army reserve duties and remove the fear of suicide bombings.

IDF Maj. charged over bid to spy for Iran, Hamas

Tel Aviv District Court on Friday indicted over espionage charges a psychiatric doctor who serves as a Major in the Israel Defense Forces reserves for offering information to Iran, Russia and Hamas.

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