Shadi Fadda brings us today's headlines relating to Palestine and other news from around the internet.
Land theft / Evictions / Apartheid
Video: Israeli policy leaves family stranded
For seven years, Saeed Darwish of Bethlehem has had to apply for an Israeli permit to be able to live in his own home in a part of the city that Israel says is under its jurisdiction. But a month ago, Israeli authorities decided not to renew his permit, leaving the family's sole breadwinner stranded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
International solidarity with Gaza
Gaza Freedom Marchers: 38 detained by Egypt
Egyptian security forces detained 38 participants of the Gaza Freedom March from a hotel in Al-Arish on Sunday at noon, according to a statement issued by the event's organizers ... The Freedom March plans to bring more than 1,000 international protesters to Gaza this week to denounce the blockade of the Palestinian territory. The detainees include Spanish, French, British, American and Japanese nationals. Another group of eight people, including citizens of American, British, Spanish, Japanese and Greece, were detained at Al-Arish bus station in the afternoon of December 27, the organizers said. "The Egyptian security forces eventually yielded, letting most of the marchers leave the hotel, but did not permit them to leave the town..." Meanwhile, in Cairo, Egyptian security police broke up a commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza organized by the Gaza Freedom March at the Kasr An-Nil Bridge.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Barred from Egypt, Galloway's group on hunger strike
Over 400 volunteers travelling with British MP George Galloway's aid convoy to Gaza declared a hunger strike on Sunday, protesting the Egypt’s refusal to allow the convoy to dock in the port of Nuweiba, on the Sinai Peninsula ... "Volunteers on the convoy are on a hunger strike and will only take fluids until the Egyptian side gives them the nod," said Alice Howard, the convoy’s press officer. She said the hunger strike began at 11:25 on Sunday, marking the first attack on Gaza during Israel's three-week assault. The convoy has been stranded in Aqaba, Jordan, since Christmas Day, when Egyptian authorities prohibited the convoy from docking at the Egyptian port of Nuweiba. "They told us to double back, return to Europe, then dock at the port of Al-Arish," Howard said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Police detain 16 leftists on Gaza border
Police detained 16 [Israeli] left-wing activists as they were trying to cross into Gaza on Sunday to mark the one year anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said the leftists held a rally without prior authorization. "We detained them and had to employ a reasonable amount of force, but we didn’t beat anyone," he said. Several dozen left-wing activists took part in the protest against the Israeli blockade on the Hamas-ruled territory, claiming it was hindering Gaza's rehabilitation.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
UAE donates 18 ambulances to Gaza
Al-Arish - Egyptian authorities have completed all arrangements to allow into the Gaza Strip 18 ambulances donated by United Arab Emirates through Rafah crossing, Egyptian security officials told Ma’an on Sunday ... With this consignment, the Gaza Strip will have received 650 ambulances from different donors in 2009.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Gaza blockaded by Israel and Egypt
Egypt to use seawater at the Wall of Death to drown tunnel diggers
CAIRO, (PIC)– Well informed sources revealed one of the secrets of wall of death being implemented by the Egyptian government on the border with the Gaza Strip which is a water system to be used for flooding existing tunnels and drowning anyone trying to dig new ones.
The sources said that holes are being dug on the Palestinian side of the fence and pipes, 20 to 30 meters long inserted in the holes. The work on the wall is being carried by Egyptian workers employed by the “Arab contractors” in the presence of foreign engineers on site. According to the sources a 10 kilometre main pipe will carry water from the sea and distribute it to a comb of pipes planted in the ground about 30-40 meters apart which will be used as a first line of defence against tunnel diggers.
http://intifada-palestine.com/
Newspaper: Egypt is building an electronic fence around Rafah city
CAIRO, (PIC)-- The Egyptian Al-Shaab newspaper reported Saturday that the Egyptian authorities embarked on building an electronic fence around the city of Rafah in Egypt in order to reduce the entry of goods into the besieged Gaza Strip. The newspaper said that this security fence would make the Egyptian town of Rafah isolated from the Sinai Peninsula, adding that the Egyptian authorities would establish three gates inside this fence. In a related context, hundreds of Palestinian children on Saturday participated in a sit-in at the Rafah border crossing in protest at the steel wall being built by Egypt on its borders with Gaza.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Hamas evacuates headquarters for fear of attack
Organization controlling Gaza fears escalation on backdrop of ongoing construction of Egyptian fence, possible failure of prisoner exchange deal. 'If the siege worsens, firing rockets will be inevitable,' says source in Strip
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Gaza gov't: Egypt to open Rafah crossing in January
The Crossings Authority of the de facto government in Gaza said on Sunday that the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing will be open on 3, 4, and 5 January. In a statement the body said an announcement by crossings official Ghazi Hamad on Saturday was incorrect. Hamad had said the terminal would be open for four days during the last week of December.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Anniversary of Israeli assault on Gaza
'Just the beginning of an all-out war'
During the first four minutes of Israel's devastating winter assault on the Gaza Strip, launched 11:25am local time one year ago today, over 60 warplanes struck 50 targets, ultimately killing and injuring hundreds by midnight. At least 228 Palestinians lost their lives during the opening hours of the offensive, including 25 women and children, making 27 December 2008 the deadliest day for the local population in the occupied territories since Israel first invaded in 1967. Medical officials say some 700 Palestinians were injured by nightfall, 140 of them seriously. Hospitals turned away patients as doctors performed multiple surgeries in the same operating theaters, as well as in ordinary examination rooms ... The first attacks came during scheduled lunch breaks for tens of thousands of school children, a choice of timing widely blamed for the day's inordinate toll in killed and injured minors.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Gaza: Siren, moment of silence for war victims
At precise time at which Operation Cast Lead started, siren sounded throughout Gaza Strip in memorial for its victims. Hamas prime minister: We forced enemy to retreat without violating our principles. Memorial activities to last 22 days, same as war
http://www.ynetnews.com/
In Gaza: Remembering the martyred #1
(with photos) In Ezbet Beit Hanoun, family and friends of those martyred on 4 and 5 January during the Israeli massacre of Gaza gathered to honour their martyrs, one year later. “The pain is still fresh, I still can’t get over my sons’ murders,” said Sabbah Abd el Dayem, mother of two sons, both in their twenties, both gruesomely murdered by Israeli soldiers. “Every time I think of them, every time I sit by their grave, I feel like I’m going to crumble. I was so happy with them,” she said.
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
Living under the bombing of Gaza
On December 27, 2008, 27-year old Khulood Ghanem was in Gaza City when Israel launched its massive three-week military assault on the captive population of Gaza. 1400 Palestinians were killed, a majority of them non-combatants and 400 of them children. Much of Gaza's infrastructure was destroyed. Khulood kept a diary every day of the Israeli assault ... What follows is an adapted excerpt from Seven Days From A Gaza Diary, a performance for three voices adapted by Edward mast from the diary of Khulood Ghanem, Gaza, 2008-2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Aftermath of assault
War and siege leave Gaza children traumatized
...Osama Damo, aid worker for Save the Children in Gaza, said: “This is a traumatized nation. Many children we work with are not able to sleep at night for fear of soldiers returning. Others cry at the sound of loud noises, mistaking them for military jets and tanks coming to bomb their homes. Young children in Gaza are surviving under extreme levels of stress, which will pose long-term dangers not only for their mental health, but for the future of the region.”
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=
Living in rubble, Gaza unchanged one year on
The war might as well have ended yesterday for all the rubble, desolation and uncertainty. With the onset of winter, survivors living in makeshift shelters are still searching for more permanent living quarters. Finding a way to make a living is not much easier, families say, and there is little support from the government, which says it can do nothing until Israel lifts its blockade. The Gaza government’s Ministry of Public Works Undersecretary Ibrahim Radwan said all reconstruction efforts came to naught because of the ongoing siege.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Study: 77% of Gaza women subject to abuse
...According to the study, 63.7% of the respondents were responsible for earning a living for their families, while 66.3% of them depend mainly on humanitarian aid. Of those surveyed, 52% live under the poverty line, subsisting on less than 474 US dollars per month while 36% live on less than 180 US dollars a month. The study found 39% of the respondents were forced to leave school at early age due to poverty or early marriage, and 68.4% of respondents who identified themselves as working women said they cannot dispose of their salaries as they see fit. 31% of married women surveyed were divorced or had been threatened with divorce for economic reasons ... 67% of respondents said they suffered from verbal abuse; 71% suffered from psychological abuse; 52.3% suffered from physical abuse; 14.6% suffered from sexual abuse; 44.6% suffered from more than one aspect of abuse
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Gaza officials say land contaminated by Israel
Palestinian officials reaffirmed earlier claims that Gaza’s soil was contaminated by chemicals released by Israeli weapons during last year's war on Gaza, a statement from the de facto government Ministry of Agriculture said on Saturday ... Nizar Al-Wahidi, the deputy director of planning and policy in the Palestinian agriculture ministry, estimated that the prohibition on farming in some areas would affect the livelihoods of 8,478 farmers and 33,000 agricultural workers.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
The heart goes out to Gaza
By Shahanaaz Habib. It has been a year since the Dec 27 Israeli strike on Gaza. Just a day ago, Haifa, my Palestinian friend who lives in Gaza City, e-mailed me about the situation inside. “GAZA! I don’t know where to start. People here are alive and not alive at the same time. The situation is really bad and getting worse every day. Nothing has changed since the war. People are still living in tents and the borders are still closed.
http://thestar.com.my/news/
One year on, Gaza war violations still unpunished - HRW
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Human Rights Watch on Saturday accused Israel and Hamas of failing to take punitive action against members of their own forces accused of atrocities during Israel's war on Gaza a year ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
One year on, Ban bemoans lack of 'durable' Gaza cease-fire
Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson on Sunday said the United Nations Secretary-General was "deeply concerned" by the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead, on the first anniversary of Israel's campaign against Hamas in Gaza. "While violence has been at lower levels this year, incidents continue and there is no durable cease-fire in place," said the spokesperson in a statement. "The quality and quantity of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza is insufficient, broader economic and reconstruction activity is paralyzed, and the people of Gaza are denied basic human rights."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Exclusive excerpt from Joe Sacco's groundbreaking new book: Footnotes in Gaza
As we approach the one year anniversary of Israel’s attack on Gaza, we are proud to be able to share with you an exclusive peek at Joe Sacco’s new [graphic] book Footnotes in Gaza. Rather than focus on the current phase of the conflict, the book deals with an often forgotten, or unknown, event – the massacre of 111 Palestinians by Israeli forces in the Gaza towns of Rafah and Khan Younis in 1956 ... Sacco’s book takes us back to 1948 and 1956 to show us how we arrived at the point we are today.
http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/
Gazans' survival and sumud
Gaza children recycle rubbish into useful materials
GAZA, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Gaza-based Creative Women Association hosted on Saturday a gallery for children displaying recycled rubbish materials into useful items for household use. The project entitled "The Environment Club" is funded by the Welfare Association, a local non-government organization, and it was implemented by the help of 150 students from five elementary schools for both genders in the Gaza Strip. Raw material was used in the creating of items of this gallery including old unwanted trash and plastic.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
How Gaza became a rich canvas for Palestinian art
Art is flourishing in the carnage left behind by Israel's military onslaught last year. Donald Macintyre reports. ...Ms El-Daya, 33, is one of a growing, younger generation of talented painters helping to bring Gaza – and indeed Palestinian – art to the well deserved attention of a wider public. If Gaza's economy has ground to a standstill, its modern art appears to be flourishing. And remarkably, the majority of the richly varied works on display in the "Colours of Hope" exhibition at the Alhambra Palace this month make little or no overt reference to last winter's war. In the case of Ms El -Daya, who has a daughter Salma, six, and a three-year-old son, Adam, this isn't because she was unaffected by the war; quite the opposite.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Photoessay: An obsession with hearts in Gaza
For a Strip that has been repeatedly battered by the world’s bully, has been under siege for nearly 4 years, has been ostracized and isolated –even mocked–by the international community of decision -makers and corporate media, Gaza sure is full of love and signs of it.
In taxis, those ubiquitous hearts dangling from windshields or decorated fluffy white kitten teddy bears. On walls, heralding another wedding....
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
Assassinations / Extra-judicial executions
Despite US rap, Netanyahu says IDF will keep 'aggressively' defending Israelis
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces would respond to every assault on Israelis, one day after undercover commandos killed three Fatah militants behind a terror attack last week, an operation which prompted a request for clarification from the White House. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades operatives killed in Nablus on Saturday were suspected of shooting 45-year-old Rabbi Meir Hai to death in an attack on his car in the northern West Bank on Thursday ... Senior Obama administration officials requested on Saturday that National Security Adviser Uzi Arad explain the IDF raid in Nablus.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Fayyad warns Palestinians against retaliating for killing of three fighters in Nablus
...Fayyad expressed hope that the Palestinian people would not get themselves into a spiral of violence and chaos, and attempt to undermine the stability and security achieved by the popular rallying around the efforts made by the PA in this regard. “Our people are aware that the main objective of Israel from such acts and practices of aggression is to evade its political and security obligations,” he said. For its part, Fatah said Saturday that the PA security apparatuses disarmed a few days ago the three Palestinian fighters who were killed today by Israeli troops in Nablus.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Al-Ahrar Center: The assassination of Sarkaji is a war crime
NABLUS, (PIC)-- Al-Ahrar center for prisoners’ studies and human rights said Saturday that the Israeli assassination of ex-detainee Ra’ed Al-Sarkaji in addition to two other Palestinians in Nablus is a war crime in every sense of the word. Director of the center Fouad Al-Khafsh stated that Sarkaji was released about one year ago after he spent more than seven years in Israeli jails. Khafsh added that the assassination of ex-detainees must prompt the Palestinian parties in charge of the prisoner swap file to demand international safeguards preventing Israel from assassinating prisoners after their release.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Palestinian allegedly attacked in 1972 by Israel dies in Jordan
Anis Sayegh, a Palestinian intellectual who suffered serious injuries from a 1972 letter bomb that he alleged was sent to him by Israeli agents, died in Jordan over the weekend at age 78. Palestinian envoy to Jordan Ata Khairy said Sayegh died of heart failure in a Jordanian hospital on Saturday. Sayegh, a close confidant of former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, had alleged in his memoirs that Israel targeted him. In 1972, his face was disfigured and he sustained partial hearing loss and blindness in a letter bomb sent to his Beirut office.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Video Nakba Oral History (Tiberias): Interview with Dr. Anis Sayegh
http://www.
In case you missed it:
Book review: The martyr who did not die
(from March) KILL KHALID -The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas by Paul McGeough. Actuarial tables are not kind to the leaders of Hamas. The Israeli security forces reserve a special fury for the radical Islamic group, and it's tough to be taken seriously as a Hamas leader unless you can prove that the Israelis tried to kill you at least once. The group's most notorious bomb maker was killed by an exploding cellphone in 1996. Its quadriplegic founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, was in his wheelchair on his way home from a mosque when an Israeli missile struck him down in 2004. This past New Year's Day, a one-ton Israeli bomb flattened the apartment building that housed Hamas firebrand Nizar Rayyan, killing him, all four of his wives and 11 of their children. Given this history, Khalid Mishal, a key figure in Hamas since the group was founded two decades ago, can consider himself very lucky indeed. His brush with death came on the streets of Amman, Jordan, in 1997, when an Israeli Mossad agent squirted an exotic poison in his ear.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Violence / Detention
IOF soldiers detain two young men, beat up a third
AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Sunday detained two Palestinian young men in Beit Ummar village, Al-Khalil [Hebron] district, and beat up a third in Nuba village in the same district. Local sources in Beit Ummar said that the IOF troops stormed the town shortly before midnight Saturday and arrested Turki Al-Allami, 25, and Mohammed Al-Allami, 27, from their homes. Another group of IOF soldiers beat up Hasan Dababse in Nuba village to the northwest of Al-Khalil after detaining him for hours.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Locals say settlers fired on Palestinian woman
Israeli settlers opened fire on a woman while she was herding sheep near Hebron on Sunday, onlookers said. Witnesses identified the woman as Khadra Al-Hathalin, saing she collapsed and fainted during the alleged attack, in which settlers reportedly fired from the Caramel settlement, adjacent to the Palestinian village of the same name. The onlookers also said Israeli forces arrived on the scene and transferred the woman to the police station inside the illegal Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron. Separately, Mohammad A’wad, a spokesman for the Palestinian Solidarity Project in Beit Ummar, near Hebron, said Israeli soldiers arrested Ahmed Ibrahim Ikhleilel, 18, under the pretext that he was carrying a knife. Meanwhile, an Israeli military representative said three soldiers were injured in a "violent riot" in Hebron, including one who was "bitten by [a] protester."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
InGaza photoessay: Cemetery casualties
Mohammed Abu Sharrar (22) was with 3 friends, walking to the eastern cemetery, east of Jabaliya, early on 27 November when he was hit by the shrapnel. Said Sharrar, “a UAV (drone) dropped a missile next to me. I was hurt the worst.” Around 6 am and quiet, according to Sharrar, there was no activity in the area, no reason for the Israeli army to target them. It was the first day of ‘Eid. We were going to visit the grave of a friend who was killed one year earlier, also during ‘Eid.” ... Days later, Shahin Abu Ajuwa (17) returned for his second time to land near the eastern cemetery to gather stones and blocks of concrete from demolished houses and buildings to re-sell for construction uses. As they worked next to their donkey cart, still before 9 am, Israeli soldiers fired a flechette shell at them, without warning. Flechette shells, otherwise known as dart bombs, are deadly shells packed with thousands of razor-sharp, inches long darts.
http://ingaza.wordpress.com/
Israeli woman hurt when firebomb hits bus in West Bank
A young Israeli woman was moderately wounded on Sunday when Palestinian militants hurled a firebomb at the bus in which she was riding south of the West Bank city of Hebron. The 18-year-old woman suffered second degree burns after the flaming bottle made contact with her bus, on the main road leading the isolated settlement of South Mount Hebron.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israel releases Hamas lawmaker
Israel released on Sunday a Hamas-affiliated member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) who was originally arrested in 2006. Lawmaker Muhammad At-Tal was first detained by the Israeli military in June 2006 following the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by fighters from Gaza. At-Tal was seized by Israeli soldiers in his hometown of Adh-Dhahariya, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. Eight government ministers and 20 members of parliament were taken the same night.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Ghoul: Israel holding nine Gaza prisoners under the law of unlawful combatant
GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian minister of prisoners’ affairs Mohamed Al-Ghoul stated Friday that Israel is still holding nine prisoners from Gaza without any charge or trial using the law of unlawful combatant to keep them in prison, although most of them had completed their imprisonment term. In a statement, Ghoul said that Israel, since its pullout from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, had lost the power to issue administrative detention orders against Gaza citizens and considered Gaza a hostile area, so it resorted to roundabout ways to circumvent international law and detain Gazans without any charge or trial.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Political news
Abbas: We'll go after Israeli war criminals
Marking the anniversary of the Israeli assault on Gaza, President Mahmoud Abbas vowed to seek prosecution for Israeli leaders he termed war criminals. "While commemorating the first anniversary of the Israeli offensive on Gaza, we reiterate that we are determined to go after the war criminals who committed the most gruesome crimes against innocent children, the elderly, and women in every international court until they receive their just penalty," he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Lieberman: No Turkish mediation as long as I'm in office
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been calling on the Palestinians now and again to return to the negotiating table, but Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman views them as "terrorists who are not mature enough to sign a peace agreement which will end the conflict."
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Netanyahu warns Shalit deal may not be possible
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Sunday that he would head to Egypt on Tuesday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak. "I believe we have an interest in moving the peace process forward in a variety of ways," Netanyahu, announcing the visit, told reporters at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting ... Netanyahu also cautioned that Israel was still a long way off from a deal to secure the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Netanyahu: Livni should join coalition like Begin did in 1967
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday repeated his call for opposition leader Tzipi Livni to bring her Kadima party into the coalition, urging her to act as then opposition leader Menachem Begin before the Six Day War. ... Senior Kadima official Dalia Itzik said on Israel Radio that Netanyahu's offer to Livni was "rotten and deceptive."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israel news
Kfar Darom evacuees to get new town
The government voted unanimously in favor of building a new permanent community for the evacuees of Kfar Darom, which will be situated near Moshav Nir Akiva in the Netivot area. According to the plan, the evacuees, who were put up in a residential building in Ashkelon since the Gaza pullout in 2005, will be transferred to a temporary residential site until the new town is completed.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Jewish women risk arrest, insults to pray at holy site
(AFP) Once a month a group of Jewish women risk arrest and brave a crowd of angry ultra-Orthodox men calling them Nazis, to pray at the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism.
In this Holy City, where the focus of differing opinions is more often on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these religious Jews say they face discrimination just because of their gender.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Rabbi calls on haredim to visit Western Wall at night
Rabbis backing 'kosher bus lines' say modesty at holy site cannot be maintained during daytime
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Mock 'chastity squads' protest segregated bus lines
A mock "chastity squad" divided the walking routes leading up the government offices in Jerusalem for men and women on Sunday morning in protest against the segregated bus lines in public transportation in the capital ... The aim of the protest is to pressure Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz into accepting the public committee's recommendations regarding the legality of the "mehadrin lines".
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Opinion / Analysis
Was Israel's Gaza offensive worth it? / Gideon Levy
Today offers us an ironic conjuncture of commemorations: the fast of the 10th of the Hebrew month of Tevet and the first anniversary of Operation Cast Lead. On the day of the fast, which commemorates the Babylonian siege on Jerusalem, few Israelis are thinking about Gaza, under Israeli blockade for twice the time ancient Jerusalem was besieged. On the anniversary of the attack on Gaza, few people are doing any real soul-searching. One way or another, the year since December 27 was a year of shame for Israel, greater shame than any other time. It is shameful to be Israeli today, much more than it was a year ago
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israel attacks Gaza
John Ging, a UN relief director, on why hope endures despite three weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza strip -- ...Looking forward I see a real basis for hope. In Gaza, notwithstanding the awful experiences of the people, they remain decent and civilised in their outlook and behaviour. They are not consumed with hatred, they want nothing more than basic freedoms and basic rights, and they want the conflict resolved in a political way. I also know that the Israelis are a decent and civilised people and therein lies the basis of progress. What's very clear to us is that the political leaders are failing their citizens.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Culture of violence
Isabel Kershner’s tragic piece in the NYT from inside Israel (and totally inside the Israeli mindset), "Tough Military Stance Stirs Little Debate in Israel," offering the rationale for the horrifying Dahiya doctrine, prompts this response from a regular correspondent: Broadly speaking, Israeli society and its intelligentsia supports increasing violence directed at Palestinian civilian population. There is no guilt, no second-guessing, and absolutely no empathy with the victim. This needs to be juxtaposed against Tom Friedman’s (NYT) constant refrain: where are the moderate muslims that denounce and renounce violence? Where are they within Israeli society? Unlike friedman’s grotesque generalizations, they exist.
http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/
It is easy for Netanyayu to circumvent Obama
By Zvi Bar'el. It was supposed to be a daunting year for Benjamin Netanyahu, a year of American vision and Arab hope ... And still, this American jitterbug has quickly become a tap dance - a bit of graceful gliding and snazzy clothes, but mostly just a lot of noisy hopping in place. The peace process has not been renewed either with the Palestinians or Syria, and dialogue with Iran has been replaced by downgraded American sanctions. And Mitchell, the Mideast envoy? It's been a long time since we heard from him. The only achievements Barack Obama can claim on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in extorting a declaration from Netanyahu that he is amenable to the two-state vision and a temporary and limited suspension of settlement construction.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Observer editorial: One year on, we need progress in Gaza
IN THE 12 months since Israel's devastating assault on Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, conditions in the Strip "remain wretched", to use Amnesty International's phrase. The Israeli economic siege has remained in place since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections and enforced its rule within Gaza ... So what we have is an increasingly dangerous stasis in which all issues, save for the stop-start negotiations for prisoner exchange, are on hold. Palestinian national reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, the West Bank and Gaza, has made little headway; Israeli-Palestinian talks are on hold; the economic stranglehold of Gaza goes on. All largely ignored by the international community.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
A monster beyond control?
By Alan Hart. On the first anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip – in my view it was a demonstration of Israeli state terrorism at its most naked - it’s not enough to say that the governments of the Western powers (and others) are complicit in Israel’s on-going collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, 53% of whom are children. What is actually happening in the blockaded Gaza Strip, and less obviously on the occupied West Bank, is the continuation by stealth of Zionism’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine ... The question that provokes in my mind is: Why, really, are the major powers (and others) allowing it to happen? The only answer that makes some sense to me is this. They have concluded, but cannot say, that nuclear-armed Israel, with the assistance of the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations, is a monster beyond control.
http://intifada-palestine.com/
Gaza ceasefire in jeopardy as six Palestinians are shot
Eruption of violence comes as Israelis who opposed the war a year ago say they are being silenced and vilified - By Rachel Shabi, Tel Aviv . ...The two incidents have followed recent warnings from both Israelis and Palestinians that frustration among a younger generation of al-Aqsa members – which signed an amnesty deal with Israel in 2007 – over the lack of progress in the almost moribund peace process was in danger of boiling over ... The shootings have come as Israeli human rights campaigners issued a stinging critique of how Israelis who opposed the war in Gaza have been treated by the state, claiming that they have been silenced, accused and vilified.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Targeting Muslims - Paying the price for Europe's identity crisis / Ramzy Baroud
...Unfortunately, France is not alone; it merely highlights the most obvious manifestation of growing anti-Muslim sentiments throughout Europe. Unearthing the reasons behind the disturbing phenomena is hardly an easy task, for it arguably requires a greater examination of the political, economic and social woes of European states than it does of the ‘shortcomings’ of Islam.
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Iraq
Saturday: 16 Iraqis killed, 51 wounded
Excerpts: In Baghdad, three people were killed and 16 more were wounded at a tent providing food and drinks to Shi’ite pilgrims traveling through the New Baghdad neighborhood. A bomb in Fadhiliya left three dead and six wounded. Another refreshements tent suffered a grenade attack; six were wounded there. In what may be a fourth attack, five people were wounded during a blast at a Zaafaraniya petrol station. Gunmen killed a lieutenant colonel. A late evening bomb killed one person and wounded 10 others in Abu Dsheer. Gunmen wounded a policeman and killed his wife in Mansour. A policeman was killed during a blast in Tikrit. An unknown number of people were also wounded. A Sunni tribal chief was killed when a bomb exploded out side his Abu Ghraib home.
http://original.antiwar.com/
US commander: Iraq must be fair to Sunnis
BAGHDAD – A top American commander called on the Iraqi government to take care of tens of thousands of unemployed anti-al-Qaida Sunni fighters, saying proper treatment for the men is critical for national reconciliation. The U.S. military's support for Sons of Iraq, who played a key part in subduing al-Qaida, comes at crucial time when a number of checkpoints in Baghdad province manned by the Sunnis will be closed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Lebanon
Hamas confirms two members killed in Beirut blast
Hamas leader Ayman Taha in Gaza told the news network Al-Arabiya that two members of the movement were killed and three injured. He said an investigation was underway to find out who was behind what appeared to be an attack on the movement. The bomb targeted a car in the Hizbullah-controlled Hert Hreik district of the Lebanese capital, near the local Hamas offices, news reports said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/
Hezbollah chief asks Egypt to stop building Gaza border wall
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday called on Egypt to stop building a steel wall along the Gaza border that could obstruct smuggling tunnels which provide a lifeline for the blockaded enclave. The smuggling tunnels provide not only munitions but food, cars, motorcycles, drugs, medicine and fuel, much more than what Israel allows into the Strip through the official border crossing. Nasrallah told a crowd of tens of thousands of Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims marking the Ashura religious ceremony that Egypt should be condemned if it does not stop building the wall.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Army, UN forces uncover boxes of explosives in south Lebanon
Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers found 12 boxes of the explosive TNT in a village in southern Lebanon, a security source said Sunday. The source said the discovery was made in the village of Khiam in Hamames overnight by the Spanish battalion of the United Nations Interim Forces in South Lebanon (UNIFIL). The army and UNIFIL have cordoned off the area to investigation. The source said the TNT was not rigged to explode.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Yemen
FACTBOX: Roots of Yemen's conflict with northen rebels
Dec 27 (Reuters) - The leader of Yemen's Shi'ite rebels may have died after being severely wounded by government forces in the north of the country, a Yemeni government website and media said on Sunday. Yemen's conflict with the rebels has intensified since August, when the army launched Operation Scorched Earth to try to crush an intermittent revolt that first erupted in 2004.
http://www.alertnet.org/
U.S.
US visa easements may help Israeli investors
WASHINGTON – The US Congress is currently legislating a bill that, if passed, will make it easier for Israeli businessmen and investors to receive a visa to the US. The initiative is meant to limit the red tape that many investors come up against when applying for work visas to the US. This type of visa is extended to many countries in the West, but for historical reasons, not to Israel. Three days ago, the first step was taken to rectify this.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Carter U-turn or "told you so"
I think we may be in a bit of a "told you so" situation here. Apparently Jimmy Carter is trying to ingratiate himself with the Israel lobby. As coincidence would have it, his grandson is going into politics. This is from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
http://jewssansfrontieres.
Wealthy, quiet, unassuming: the Christmas Day bomb suspect
The inside story of the privileged [engineering] student who embraced al-Qa'ida and tried to blow a transatlantic jet out of the sky - and the lessons for us all. ...Abdulmutallab, 23, had lived a gilded life, and, for the three years he studied in London, he stayed in a £2m flat. He was from a very different background to many of the other al-Qa'ida recruits who opt for martyrdom ... His father, Umaru, is the former economics minister of Nigeria.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Why do engineers become terrorists?
By Kevin Lewis. Among those who carried out the 9/11 attacks, eight were engineers. Among Islamic extremists worldwide, engineers are significantly over-represented, relative to their prevalence in the general population or the population of those with a university education. Why? A recent analysis argues that the combination of an engineering “mindset” and the socioeconomic status of engineers in Islamic countries is to blame rather than any recruiting strategy. The engineering mindset tends to seek definitive solutions to problems, an approach that happens to dovetail with the extremists’ black-and-white worldview.
http://www.boston.com/
www.TheHeadlines.org
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