(22 Dec; includes video of Hamas leaders, Gazan preparation for defense) Israel is kicking off a public relations campaign with the intention of widening a basis for international support of a military offensive on the Gaza Strip. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has instructed Israeli representatives abroad to begin diplomatic efforts focused on members of the United Nations Security Council and European states. The foreign minister told Israeli delegates to the UN to file an official complaint with Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon and the Security Council stating that Israel would not remain apathetic to the continued firing of rockets from Gaza, adding that it will do everything necessary to protect its citizens.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Hamas accepts 24-hour ceasefire to allow food aid into Gaza
GAZA, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- An Islamic Hamas movement spokesman announced on Monday that Hamas and Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip accepted a 24-hour ceasefire with Israel to allow Egyptian food aids into Gaza. Ayman Taha, Hamas spokesman in Gaza, told reporters that the Palestinian factions had accepted the 24-hour truce with Israel "to allow several trucks loaded with food into Gaza through Rafah border crossing." Meanwhile, the London-based al-Hayat newspaper of Saudi Arabia quoted Egyptian sources as saying that Cairo has asked Hamas to accept a cessation of rocket attacks on Israel for 24 hours. The sources told the Saudi daily that Egypt wants to send around 80 truckloads of food and fuel aids to the Gaza population through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing on the border between Egypt and Israel.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Hamas says holding fire in Gaza at Egypt's request
GAZA, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Palestinian armed factions in the Gaza Strip are observing a 24-hour halt to rocket fire against Israel at the request of Egyptian mediators, a senior official of the ruling Islamist Hamas group said on Monday. Ayman Taha said the brief ceasefire went into effect on Sunday evening. He said Hamas mighty consider a longer truce if Israel were to reciprocate by ceasing all military attacks in Gaza and lifting an embargo on the impoverished territory.
http://africa.reuters.com/
Report says Egypt forestalled major Gaza invasion
(22 Dec) Egypt secured a pledge from Israel not to launch a major invasion of the Gaza Strip for up to two weeks after the end of a six-month ceasefire, an Israeli website reported on Monday. The Independent Israeli Hebrew news website Inyan Merkazi "Central Issues" says Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak asked Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to promise to restrain the Israeli military in order to allow time to renegotiate the truce, which expired on Friday. The report also says the United States pressed Israel to agree to the Egyptian demand. A second report in the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi said Egypt reinitiated talks aimed at restoring the truce. According to this account and to the report in Inyan Merkazi, Egyptian officials have been discussing a renewed truce with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, not the Hamas government in Gaza.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Ynet: 2 more Qassams land in western Negev
(22 Dec) None injured as rocket tally for Monday rises to three, FM Livni concerned situation deteriorating. At Egypt's request Hamas discussing possibility of 24-hour ceasefire, but attacks from Gaza continue
http://www.ynetnews.com/
MK Hasson: Evacuate Gaza Palestinians to stop rocket fire
(22 Dec) The Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip from which rockets are being fired at Israel should be evacuated, Kadima MK Yisrael Hasson said Monday. "We knew how to evacuate 27 settlements in the Gaza Strip with sensitivity and firmness, so there's no reason we wouldn't be able to evacuate seven areas in Gaza with the same sensitivity and firmness, in order to stop the terror attacks on residents of the South," he said. "Internal migrations won't only take place in Israel," he added.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Palestinian armed groups threaten renewed bombing inside Israel in event of Gaza invasion
(22 Dec) Palestinian armed groups threatened on Monday to resume bombing attacks inside Israel in the event of a major Israeli invasion in Gaza or assassination of Palestinian leaders. On Sunday, the two frontrunners in the Israeli general election, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to remove Hamas from power in the Gaza Strip. While the leaders of Palestinian armed groups said they are taking Israel's threats seriously, political leaders in Gaza dismissed the Israeli pronouncements as election season rhetoric.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian representative to Arab League: Israel responsible for collapse of Gaza truce
(21 Dec) Speaking to reporters in Cairo, Mohammad Subeih said that efforts to resume talks regarding the Egyptian-brokered truce were aborted by Israel. Subeih said Israel contributed to the collapse of the truce in Gaza by continuing military action in the West Bank, which was not included in the ceasefire. He said 22 Palestinians were killed and over a hundred injured in the West Bank over the course of six months of truce. The Israeli violations included confiscating lands, isolating Jerusalem, attacking its holy sites and the construction of the Wall all show that Israel is not serious in achieving peace," he said.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Hundreds protest in Hebron in solidarity with Gaza
(22 Dec) The Youth Social Center and the Awada (return) Generation Group, organized on Sunday evening a protest in al-Far'a refugee camp, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Khalid Mansour, a resident of the camp and a social activist, delivered a short speech saluting the residents who gathered in solidarity with Gaza, and said that the Palestinians, all over the world, are one nation facing one enemy, the "Zionist occupation".
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians protest in Lebanon in solidarity with Gaza
(22 Dec) Lebanese cities and villages on Sunday held massive protests in solidarity with the residents of the besieged Gaza Strip, and in protest to the ongoing Israeli attacks and invasions into the impoverished region. The protest was called for by the secretary-general of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party, Hasan Nasrallah.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Gazans with residencies abroad and students protest Egyptian complicity in siege
(21 Dec) During a sit-in yesterday at the Egyptian Embassy in Gaza City, protesters held banners demanding that the Rafah crossing be opened for passengers. "Hundreds of people are stranded trying to return from work abroad or to their families outside, while so many of us were accepted into scholastic programs but we cannot reach them," a student said...Now there are entire families who have not seen each other for years. Those working in the Arab and Gulf countries, in particular, need to come home to Gaza to see their families. While there are some wives and children in Saudi Arabia, for example, waiting for their husbands and fathers to return from visits to other family".
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Gazans condemn Israeli Ofer prison violence, call it step in chain of Israeli aggression
(22 Dec) Palestinian politicians and leaders of factions and human rights societies gathered in front of the Red Cross Headquarters in Gaza City to condemn the Ofer detention center attacks and affirm Palestinian commitment to resisting Israeli aggression. The regular sit-in is organized by the Wa'id Society for Prisoners' Families. Hamas-affiliated lawmaker Mushir Al-Masri told protesters that prisoners are a top priority for this party, saying Hamas is open to all possibilities for securing the release of prisoners.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Aid ship leaves Gaza with five Palestinians on board
(21 Dec) An aid ship that defied an Israeli naval blockade to sail to Gaza on Friday left Gaza on Sunday night carrying five Palestinians who had been stranded in Gaza. Two envoys from a Qatari charity also came on the ship, along with international and Israeli activists, and an Israeli journalist. A Palestinian anti-siege activist, Amjad Ash-Shaw, said in a telephone interview on Sunday that three of those who arrived on the ship chose to stay in Gaza. He also praised the Qataris as the "first Arab delegation that could arrive in Gaza aboard a ship."
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Jordan's activists delay aid ship voyage to Gaza
AMMAN, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's activists announced Sunday that its aid boat trip to Gaza has been postponed until next month due to logistical hurdles, local daily The Jordan Times reported on Monday. Activists had previously said a ship carrying nearly two tons of medicine destined for Gaza would set sail from the Red Sea port city of Aqaba on Dec. 25. But the organizers could not find a suitable maritime company to carry out the voyage in time, forcing them to postpone the journey
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Israeli airstrike injures two Palestinians in Gaza City; fighters fire at Israeli forces from southern Gaza
(22 Dec) Two Palestinians were slightly injured when an Israeli F16 fighter jet fired a missile at a barracks belonging to the Hamas-allied police in the east of Gaza City, witnesses said. An Israeli military spokesperson had no information about the strike. Meanwhile Hamas' armed wing the Al-Qassam Brigades claimed to have shot at an Israeli soldier in a watchtower along the Gaza-Israel border, south of the Kissufim military base, east of the city of Khan Younis. The same military spokesperson said maintenance workers came under fire at the Kissufim base. No one was injured....
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian woman injured in Israeli shelling of Gaza
(22 Dec) Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday night that a woman was wounded after the Israeli Army fired a surface-to-surface missile at a group of fighters east of Gaza city. Medical sources at Kamal Adwan hospital reported that the Palestinian woman suffered mild-to-moderate wounds. On Sunday evening, Israeli military helicopters shelled Tal Qleibo area, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip; damage was reported, but no injuries.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
More missile strikes, more victims
(22 Dec) By Eva Bartlett. Salah Oukal, 46 years old, had gone outside to collect herbs for dinner, harvesting in the dark as the power was out again. It was just before 9pm and he was watering the trees next to his home in Jabaliya, when the missile struck, killing him instantly. A second missile followed immediately but did not explode. Oukal's family spent the next hour searching without success for the father of seven and the family's sole provider. Only with the headlights of an ambulance was Oukal's dismembered body finally retrieved. The ground-to-ground missile fired from the Israeli side of Gaza's eastern border injured an additional three residents, including Oukal's son Ahmed, seven years old, who suffered rocket shrapnel wounds to his hand and head. Israeli authorities claimed that the missile was a response to rockets being fired from the area. However, Oukal's family and neighbors report all had been quiet.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Israel says Apache helicopter came under fire before attack
(22 Dec) An Israeli [American-made] Apache helicopter came under fire from Palestinian fighters while before it fired on the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday night, the Israeli military said. The military said the helicopter fired back at the fighters, who were also preparing to launch homemade projectiles. Mua'waiyah Hassanein, the Ministry of Health's director of Ambulance and Emergency Services said that four Palestinians were injured in a strike on the Shuja'iyya neighborhood of Gaza city. One of the injured was a child. The airstrike was one event in a day of continued violence in Gaza....
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PFLP fighters fire two homemade projectiles at Kfar Azza
(22 Dec) The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, claimed responsibility on Sunday evening for firing two homemade projectiles from Gaza at the Israeli border town of Kfar Azza. The group said in a statement that even if Israel begins a policy of targeted assassinations, it would not be stopped from shelling Israeli targets.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Gazan man killed as tunnel collapses under border with Egypt
(22 Dec) A Palestinian man, 22-year-old Mousa Issa Abbas was killed on Monday as a tunnel collapsed underneath the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Medical sources at Abu Yousif an-Najjar Hospital in the city of Rafah confirmed the death. Abbas was reportedly delivering goods to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian warns of risk of Gaza water shortage
(22 Dec, AP) The head of the Palestinian Water Authority says seawater and sewage are polluting Gaza's drinking water and putting the coastal strip at risk of water shortages and waterborne diseases like cholera. Shaddad al-Attili made the warning at a water conference in Jordan on Monday. Officials from countries around the Mediterranean attended the conference to discuss projects such as a proposed conveyance canal between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea to help save the rapidly evaporating desert sea.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gaza near to collapse as Israel tightens grip
(22 Dec) Israel's blockade of Gaza is pushing the territory to the brink of collapse and fuelling the growth of a black money market controlled by Hamas, the World Bank warned yesterday. As tit-for-tat attacks across the Gaza border began to intensify following the end of a six-month truce on Friday, the World Bank said that an acute cash shortage in Gaza was playing into Hamas's hands. The militant Islamists, who took control of Gaza in June 2007 following violent street clashes with their more secular rival, Fatah, have large stashes of shekels which they have been selling on the black market at a premium because of the cash shortage.There is also a worry that Hamas, with its dominant militant and bureaucratic control of Gaza, will begin to replace the shekel with US dollars, which are more easily obtained, to smuggle through the tunnels from Egypt in the south.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Israeli blockade 'forces Palestinians to search rubbish dumps for food'
(21 Dec) UN fears irreversible damage is being done in Gaza as new statistics reveal the level of deprivation -- Figures released last week by the UN Relief and Works Agency reveal that the economic blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza in July last year has had a devastating impact on the local population. The figures collected by the UN agency show that 51.8% - an "unprecedentedly high" number of Gaza's 1.5 million population - are now living below the poverty line.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
'In Gaza, all dreams and hopes are gone'
(21 Dec) Ameera Ahmad, 25, gave birth to daughter Layan six months ago. Here, she tells of life under siege and of her struggle to bring up a child after 18 months of Israeli blockade
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
From Beirut to Gaza: Siege as an Israeli policy
(21 Dec) By Lubna Massarwa.During my time in Gaza, I was reminded of Sheikh Said in East Jerusalem, of the village of Nu'aman, and in general of all the Palestinians that Israel imprisons between checkpoints and walls. The siege on Gaza is part of an overall offensive policy that Israel implements also in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
http://www.alternativenews.
Strangling Gaza to near death while pretending to be the victim
(21 Dec) By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem. No one is enthusiastic about the latest escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip, except perhaps the warmongers in Tel Aviv and the American-backed Arab and Palestinian traitors who would do anything and go to any extent to please their masters in Washington, D.C. In Israel, the Gaza Strip is becoming the central election issue in a country deeply menaced by political and religious extremism. Israeli political leaders from right and left are already promising the Jewish public that they will destroy Gaza and murder untold thousands of poor Gazans if only they are elected in the 10 February polls.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/
B'Tselem: Ofra an illegal outpost
(22 Dec) A report released by the B'Tselem human rights group on Monday states that the settlement of Ofra, located northeast of Jerusalem, is in fact an illegal outpost which must be evicted under the stipulations of the Sasson Report.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
B'Tselem: 33-year-old settlement as illegal as any outpost
(22 Dec) The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem released a report on Monday concluding that the legal status of the 33-year-old Israeli settlement Ofra is identical to that of any so-called "unauthorized outpost" in the West Bank. Using data obtained from the Civil Administration, a branch of the Israeli force occupying the West Bank, B'Tselem found that 58% of Ofra is built on land owned privately by Palestinians. The Israeli state differentiates between more than 130 sanctioned settlements, including Ofra, and dozens of "outposts." B'Tselem's argument is that all such settlements are illegal under international law, and even violate Israel's own criteria. Israeli government decisions and high court resolutions prohibit building settlements on private Palestinian land. Ofra, located between the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Nablus, was first built in 1975 and is home to some 3,000 Israeli Jewish settlers.
In February 2006 the Israeli military evacuated one so-called "unauthorized outpost," Amona, located in Ofra's backyard. Hundreds were injured when throngs of settlers confronted the Israeli military.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
B'Tselem Publications December 2008: Ofra - an illegal outpost
Summary report with map, photo, link to full report
http://www.btselem.org/
Settlers attack Palestinian home in Hebron
(21 Dec) Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian house in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday evening, the latest in a series of attacks in the city. Nedal Fareed Al-Awawi, a resident of Hebron's settler-occupied Old City issued an appeal to international human rights organizations to protect him and his family. Al-Awawi says Israeli police were present at the time of Sunday's attack, but made no arrests. "'I saw that settler attack on you, you should file a complaint. Be careful of settlers tonight,'" Al-Awawi says the police told him. Al-Awawi's home still smells of smoke from the riots over two weeks ago. During the rampage, one room of the house was completely burned, and the house's electricity and water connections destroyed. He says settlers assaulted him when he was installing a new water tank on the roof of his home, and destroyed the new tank as well.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Not all US olim are extremists
(18 Dec) By David Forman. Having recently returned from a lecture tour in the United States, most of the Jewish audiences I addressed had the impression that virtually all new Jewish immigrants to Israel from America were religious extremists. Obviously, this is a skewed perception based on the reportage of the news networks. Unfortunately however, religious settlers like former Americans Daniella Weiss and Baruch Marzel, ever-willing to talk to anyone from the international press, have become the face of American Jewish immigration to the country - they, with their shameless pontifications about Israeli police and army carrying out pogroms against the settlers. Meanwhile, it is they who encourage the mini-pogroms that their compatriots perpetrate against Palestinians.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
West Bank settler eviction offers warning, hope
(21 Dec) HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israel's swift eviction of Jewish zealots from one of the most volatile West Bank flashpoints offers encouragement to people both inside and outside Israel who hope it is still possible to uproot settlers to make room for a Palestinian state. But the shooting and arson attacks by settlers on Palestinians following the eviction were a reminder of how quickly the West Bank could plunge into violence, taking down any hopes of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. An increasingly alienated minority of the 280,000 Jews who have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured it from Jordan in 1967 is taking matters into their own hands.
http://www.google.com/
Israeli troops detain three men from Ni'lin, destroy property in village
(22 Dec) Local sources said Israeli troops invaded the village Monday before dawn and saw dozens of military vehicles along with a bulldozer. The jeeps fired rubber bullets and tear gas as they toured the village. Eyewitnesses reported that troops broke into the house of Ibrahim Mustafa Amira and his brothers Sami and Ahmad. Soldiers broke several windows in the home and opened fire at the water tanks above the home. Before leaving troops detained Ibrahim Amira, a university student, as well as Mahmoud Dahoud and Muhammad Zarul Amira.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Israeli troops seize at least ten Palestinians in West Bank raids
(22 Dec) Israeli forces seized at least ten Palestinians on Monday morning during raids in the West Bank, the Israeli military confirmed. According to the military, three were arrested in the city of Jenin and seven from the city of Nablus. The Israeli military asserted the detainees were "wanted." The Palestinian security forces said that three others, not mentioned in the military account, were taken from their homes near the Israeli separation wall in the town of Zeita, north of the city of Tulkarem.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
New Israeli crossings hurt Palestinian trade
(21 Dec) JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A new network of crossing points for Palestinian goods, built into Israel's barrier in and around the occupied West Bank, may hurt exports, not facilitate them as Israel claims, the World Bank said on Monday. Israel will require all Palestinian commercial traffic to move through these crossing points once the barrier, made up of concrete walls and wire fences, is completed, the international lending agency said in a report. Contrary to Israeli assertions that the crossings will allow the Israeli army to ease the movement of people and goods within the West Bank, the World Bank said internal restrictions have only increased and the new system has the potential to become "another serious constraint to Palestinian businesses."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/
Stop the Wall: "Our struggle will continue until the Wall is torn down!"
(20 Dec) By Mohammed Othman - Jayyous 19-12-2008 - To view the Stop The Wall website click here -- A massive demonstration against the Wall was held in Jayyous on December 19, with about 700 people, mostly youth, protesting against the new path of the Wall that will permanently confiscate nearly 6,000 dunums of village land. The demonstration, which lasted for nearly five hours, resulted in several injuries to villagers, international solidarity activists, and four soldiers.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
PA security forces in Nablus arrest prominent Hamas leader thought to have been dead since 2002
(22 Dec) Sources in the security forces in the West Bank city of Nablus told Ma'an they detained 36-year-old Rajab Ash-Sharif from Shweitra Street in western Nablus after two months of preparation. In 2002 Hamas' armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed that Ash-Sharif was killed by Israeli forces during an incursion in Nablus' Old City. His body was never found. The PA security services now claim they have been hunting for Ash-Sharif since 2004.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Fatah youth say Hamas arrested leaders in Gaza
(22 Dec) The Fatah youth organization Shabibah alleges that Hamas-allied forces in the Gaza Strip detained some of the group's leaders in the Gaza Strip on Friday. In a statement the youth movement claimed the Hamas-run government launched an arrest campaign that culminated in the detention of leader Aadel Jum'ah, and a raid on the home of leader Nadiya Ad-Dalou.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Abbas: Hamas' abuse of religion for political end is unacceptable
(21 Dec, DPA) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on a visit to Russia, strongly criticized the radical Islamic Hamas movement on Sunday, saying the organization's "abuse of religion for political ends" was unacceptable, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. Speaking in Grozny, the capital city of the Chechen Republic in Russia, Abbas said that extremists were to blame for Islam receiving so little respect in the world at present. In reality, terrorists have no relationship with religion, he declared.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Abbas and Medvedev to meet in Moscow today
(22 Dec) Abbas is visiting Russia at the invitation of President Medvedev. Abbas was in Grozny on Sunday for a meeting with Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov. Although this will be Abbas' 16th visit to Russia in the past decade, this will be his first meeting with President Medvedev. Many analysts are calling this current visit 'a farewell', because Abbas' office will expire on January 9 and general elections are to be held in Palestine.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Russian FM lauds President Abbas' efforts on Palestinian unity
MOSCOW, Dec 22 (KUNA) -- Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov lauded here Monday efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to bring his countrymen together.
Lavrov said in a joint news conference with Abbas that Russian would support the Palestinian President's efforts for unity, hoping that regional countries such as Egypt would continue to help Palestinians on this aspect.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/
Palestinians unhappy with Abbas' frequent absences
(21 Dec, AP) RAMALLAH, West Bank: In four years as Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas has traveled to the far corners of the earth, but never set foot in the West Bank's largest city, Hebron. Ordinary Palestinians have long grumbled about their leader's trips abroad, some taken during times of intense crisis, such as last year's fierce internal fighting that led to the takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant Hamas.
http://www.iht.com/articles/
PA to distribute aid to poor after Italian donation
(21 Dec) Social allowances will be disbursed by the Palestinian Authority beginning on Monday after a donation from the Italian government, the Palestinian Minister of Social Affairs, Mahmoud Habash, announced on Sunday. Social allowances will not reach the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli blockade. Israel refuses to allow banks to transfer funds to their branches in Gaza. Habash said the Palestinian Authority is working with the European Union to overcome this problem. Italy made the donation through PEGASE, the European mechanism that channels aid to the Palestinian Authority. The Italian contribution was intended for 47,000 needy families, who will receive 1000 Israeli shekels each.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Palestinian government forced to save birthplace of Christ as monks squabble over restoration
(20 Dec) When they wash the grotto's marbled altar and guard its silver lamps, they are watching over the cradle of the Christian world: the exact spot where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born. Yet despite this sacred trust, a ten-year row between the different sects that manage the church has forced the Palestinian government's Muslim leaders to intervene to prevent the basilica's ancient lead roof from collapsing on its mosaic floors.Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian national authority, has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a decree that the church must be repaired.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Dina Hamdan on The Lemon Tree
(21 Dec) While so much attention has been given to the Israeli animated film "Waltz with Bashir", which was hailed as a brave account of Israel's complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, another Israeli film, "The Lemon Tree", deals with the Israeli-Palestinian issue on a different, and perhaps, more profound level.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
2008 marks record-breaking year for returning Israeli citizens
(22 Dec) The number of returning citizens has increased by a record-breaking 95-percent this year and is, for the first time in Israel's history, higher by 50 percent of the number of new immigrants, according to the Absorption Ministry's annual statistical roundup for 2008 which was released Sunday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Facts @ a glance
(21 Dec) The full-scale Israeli occupation of Palestine began in 1967 after the Six Day War. This ongoing Israeli military occupation has severely affected every aspect of Palestinian life in the West Bank and Gaza, and has resulted in millions of Palestinians being forced to live as refugees throughout the Middle East, and around the rest of the world. The Palestine Monitor offers an overview of the main issues related to the occupation of Palestine, providing brief data and up-to-date statistics. The key facts are gathered here. For more information please refer to specific factsheets in column at left.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Video: UN and Israel apartheid
(22 Dec) President of UN General Assembly urges Israel to be recognized as an Apartheid State
http://www.zcommunications.
History according to Bibi
(22 Dec) By Brian Whitaker. Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping to become Israel's next prime minister, has never been one to knowingly undersell his political thoughts. Here he is in Paris, declaring that Iran is the "greatest historical challenge" the world faces.We have never had a situation in the history of the world in which a radical regime with a retrograde ideology and apparently no inhibitions on the use of force will get access to the weapons of mass death. Er, really? What about the Soviet Union? China? And didn't Hitler have a "retrograde ideology" and a penchant for "mass death"?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Bush's parting gift to Israel
(20 Dec) In accepting that it must rely on a US shield, Israel may have answered the Middle East's biggest question of 2008: will it launch a go-it-alone strike against Iran's presumed nuclear weapons program? Notes Jonathan Cook.
http://www.middle-east-online.
Celebrities further dissociate from settlement financier
Press release, Adalah-NY, 21 Dec 2008 -- Thirty human rights carolers braved the cold and ice on 20 December to serenade Manhattan's holiday shoppers with a call, for the second year, to boycott the jewelry store and companies of Israeli settlement-builder and diamond mogul Lev Leviev. Leviev's Madison Avenue store has been the site of 12 protests since it opened in mid-November 2007, and protests against his businesses have spread to London, Dubai and the West Bank villages where he is building settlements. Additionally, during the past year the UN children's agency UNICEF and the Oxfam coalition have renounced Leviev, major Hollywood stars have distanced themselves from him, and the governments of United Kingdom and Dubai are under pressure to boycott Leviev's businesses.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Walt: The evidence is piling up that American leaders are turning away from the [Israel] lobby
(21 Dec) What is happening, I hope, is a redefinition of what it means to be "pro-Israel." Thoughtful people are beginning to realize that uncritical support for the Jewish state isn't "pro-Israel," because it has encouraged policies that threaten Israel's long-term future. Similarly, critics of certain Israeli policies like Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinki, Avraham Burg, and John and myself aren't "anti-Israel"--they simply think that the "special relationship" is no longer good for either country (if it ever was), and that a normal relationship would be better for both.
http://www.philipweiss.org/
Sunday: 2 GIs, 7 Iraqis killed; 4 Iraqis wounded
(21 Dec) Excerpt: At least seven Iraqis were killed and four more were wounded in the latest attacks. Meanwhile a U.S. soldier died of non-combat related injuries. A Marine died in a non-combat related incident as well..
http://www.antiwar.com/
We have 15 thousand detainees - US commander
(20 Dec) BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: A commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq said that the forces currently have around 15 thousand detainees in Iraq, including 160 Arab citizens, explaining that releasing 100 Iraqi detainees on Saturday is the last dispatch before transferring the rest of them to the Iraqi authorities.
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=
Iraqi shoe thrower: I'd do it again
(21 Dec) The Iraqi journalist who shocked the world by throwing his shoes at the US president reportedly says he would do it again if given the opportunity. "In a letter to Iraqi prime minister, Muntadhar al-Zaidi has only apologized to Nuri al-Maliki himself," Fardanews reported, citing comments by an Iraqi source familiar with the case.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Iraq shoe-thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi to go on trial at end of month
(22 Dec) The Iraqi journalist thrust to instant fame when he threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush will go on trial this month on charges that carry up to 15 years in jail. Investigating judge Dhiya al-Kenani rejected new allegations by the journalist's family that he had been tortured in custody that were levelled after a brother was allowed a first prison visit.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Shoe-assault served Bush well, some US citizens say
(20 Dec) San Francisco: US President George Bush deserved the shoes-assault by Iraqi journalist, some US citizens told Gulf News. "A number of shoes should be hurled at him, equivalent to the number of deaths he has caused since the start of the Iraq's war in 2003," said Luci, a female cashier at one of Walgreens stores in San Francisco city.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/
Jail that veil
(20 Dec) So, a Muslim woman is jailed by a US judge for refusing to remove her hijab in court. Apparently, this particular judge has a preoccupation with disciplining Muslim women who wear the hijab in his courtroom...The woman in question was merely asserting her rights in a secular state, yet I have an almost clairvoyant sense that someone, somewhere, will already be preparing a 'secular' defense of the judge's actions.
http://leninology.blogspot.
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