Weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory 27 Nov-03 Dec 2008
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MCOT-7LZK74?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P
Israel demolishes dozens of Bedouin and Palestinian houses within own borders
The Israeli government demolished dozens of houses inside its own borders on Wednesday, including an entire Bedouin village which has been destroyed over 20 times. Sources at the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) said the Bedouin village of Twail Abu Jawal, home to between 50 and 100 people living in 10 houses, was flattened by Israeli construction vehicles.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33726
PNN: Um Kamal Al Kurd taking the Right of Return
The Kurd family is again making news after being forcibly expelled from their home in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Now Um Kamal Al Kurd intends to return to her original home in West Jerusalem with a massive nonviolent action planned for Thursday.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/12/03/pnn-um-kamal-al-kurd-taking-the-right-of-return/
Israeli authorities announce that Azzun is to be walled in
Azzun villagers' fears were confirmed when they were delivered a notice that Israeli authorities intend to build a wall between their village and the main road that runs along its northern edge-Road 55.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/12/03/israeli-authorities-announce-that-azzun-to-be-walled-in/
Child Martyrs
On Tuesday 2nd December 2008 Gaza Strip, Palestine added two more child martyrs to its already long list of thousands of dead children, the products of U.S. tax-payer money providing the ways and the means for Israel to continue its genocidal occupation and siege.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2008/12/04/child-martyrs/
IOF troops invade Nablus, storm Palestinian houses
A large number of IOF troops invaded at an early hour Thursday the Nablus city breaking into and ransacking a number of houses in different areas of the city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Palestinians: Settlers from Yitzhar attack Palestinian villagers
Palestinian sources reported Thursday that dozens of settlers from the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar began assaulting Palestinians and damaging property in the nearby village of Bourin. It is estimated that the incident is related to the evacuation of the disputed Hebron house. The IDF has yet to confirm the report.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633592,00.html
Palestinians badly injured by settlers' gunshots near Hebron
Palestinian sources have reported that a Palestinian man was seriously injured by gunshots fired by settlers in the Hebron area. The man is said to have been evacuated to an Israeli hospital by the IDF. The act was apparently carried out in response to the evacuation of the disputed Hebron house. The army has yet to confirm the report.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633605,00.html
Settlers clash with Palestinians following evacuation
After security forces clear disputed Hebron house, right-wing activists damage Palestinian property in West Bank. Residents of village of Bourin report dozens of settlers hurled stones at them.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633603,00.html
Settlers graffiti racist slogans on buildings, vandalize cars in northern West Bank
Settlers graffitied racist slogans about Islam and the Muslim Prophet Mohammad on buildings in the West Bank villages of Azzun, An-Nabi Elyas, Kafr Laqif, Jinsafut, Immatin and Al-Funduq east of Qalqilia on Thursday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33713
In pictures: Hebron settlers fight eviction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/2/hi/in_pictures/7763704.stm
Stakes raised in Hebron stand-off
Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron have been involved in further clashes with Israeli security forces and local Palestinians.
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article714
Settlers to Ethiopian troops: Niggers don't expel Jews
Border Guard officers of Ethiopian descent report rising number of racially motivated verbal attacks from Hebron youths; Druze officers also suffer racist remarks.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633163,00.html
Defense Ministry: Hebron house eviction may spark violence across W. Bank
Defense Ministry sources said Wednesday that settler leaders struggling to retain possession over the disputed "House of Contention" in Hebron know they will not be able to prevent an evacuation the moment Israeli authorities are given the order to carry it out, so these settlers are planning violent confrontations that will keep the security forces occupied throughout the West Bank.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043612.html
Nunu: Zionist settlers exercising racial cleansing against Palestinians
The PA caretaker government on Wednesday charged that the assaults launched by "Zionist settlers" in Al-Khalil in particular and the West Bank in general constituted a kind of racial cleansing.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Extremist settler youths escalate their attacks in Hebron, Barak to meet their leaders on Thursday
Extremist settler youths who fortified themselves in Al Rajabi Palestinian home, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, escalated on Wednesday their attacks against the Palestinian residents and vowed further violence if the Israeli army forcibly evacuates them.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57896
Hebron colonists vow to resist eviction by court 'till the end'
Jewish settlers prepared on Wednesday to battle a forceful eviction after Israel declared a closed military area around a house in Hebron they occupy in defiance of a court order. The military decree followed violent protests on Tuesday involving colonists and their far-right supporters who hurled rocks at Palestinians.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10& categ_id=2&article_id=98234
ANALYSIS /Settlers can't stop evacuation of Hebron house
The Hebron affair refuses to die. The violence may have decreased Wednesday, but the operation by the police and military to evacuate the House of Contention was postponed at the last minute because of another attempt to solve the crisis through an agreement.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043395.html
Senior security official: Youths in Hebron motivated by hatred
Violent Jewish youths in Hebron are motivated by hatred for State, senior security official tells Ynet Wednesday night; rightist hardliner Daniela Weiss likely to be arrested soon, he says.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3633077,00.html
Standing up to Jewish terrorism
The government's decision to declare the House of Contention in Hebron a closed military zone was an inevitable step, but if it does not lead to the necessary phase then it is liable to fail. Following the latest riots two days ago, Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared that the government would not reconcile with the rampaging by "extremist forces." At about the same time, those in charge of the "forces" lashed out at the government, the courts, the army and the media, as if we were dealing with two legitimate, opposing sides.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043413.html
Olmert: Palestinians in Hebron also have rights and a heritage
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday said the House of Contention in Hebron would be evacuated and he will not allow anyone to "raise a hand against Israeli democracy... The Palestinians are also people with rights and a heritage." Olmert spoke at the official memorial ceremony for Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, held at his grave at Sde Boker in the Negev. He praised Ben-Gurion for establishing the authority of the state, and also praised former prime minister Menahem Begin for the stand he took: Jews do not harm other Jews.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043396.html
Abbas: Israel Responsible for Settlers' Crimes in Hebron
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held the Israeli government responsible for the "despicable crime" of the settlers' gangs who have been rampaging Palestinian communities over few weeks now as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) failed to carry out an order by the Israeli High Court of Justice early last week to evict the settlers and their extreme supporters from Faiz Rajabi's house in Hebron, where the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and a Shas member of Knesset have opened offices.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=2146
Settlers Turn Their Sights to 'Juda-izing' Arab Sections of Israel
I have a new correspondent. Can't tell you his name. He's an American Jew who's spent a lot more time in Israel than I have. I've challenged him to come up with a pseud. He's working on it. Welcome to the Israeli settler movement, the 2008 model: the growing priority of settling Palestinian areas inside Israel. This is not a totally new phenomenon, having been seen since the founding of the state in places like Nazareth Illit, but these two important articles in Ha'aretz and the Middle East Report outline the recent efforts to "judaize" the Palestinian centers of the ancient cities of Jaffa and Akko. A similar trend has been seen throughout the Galilee, Negev, the Triangle and any other Palestinian and Arab parts of the country.
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/12/i-have-a-new-correspondent-cant-give-his-name-hes-an-
american-jew-whos-spent-a-lot-more-time-in-israel-than-i-have-ive.html
Year-old report urges IDF not to respond to settler violence by groveling
A good part of recent settler violence resulted from the fact that extremists among the settlers saw an "opportunity" and were not met with a determined enough response by the army, according to a report by the Israel Defense Forces' organizational consultant.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043400.html
Israel opens Gaza border to foreign journalists
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israel on Thursday lifted a four-week ban on international journalists entering Gaza and temporarily eased a blockade on shipments of goods to the coastal strip. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said an entry ban on international aid workers was also lifted. The announcement followed weeks of pressure from foreign governments and the leaders of major news organizations urging Israel to reopen Gaza to the media.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/12/04/news/ML-Israel-Palestinians.php
Israel Eases Gaza Blockade
Israel said it will allow some humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, easing a month-old closure it imposed on the Hamas-ruled territory after a surge in violence. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized the delivery of 70 truckloads of food and basic supplies into Gaza and an unspecified quantity of fuel for the impoverished territory's sole power plant, his office said in a statement. The statement said the decision was taken as a gesture of goodwill ahead of next week's Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice. This would be the fourth time that Israel is opening its crossings with Gaza since violence flared on November 4. Journalists will be allowed to travel to and from Gaza for the first time in a month, an Israeli official said. International aid workers and Palestinians requiring medical treatment also will be allowed through. [end]
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=66280&language=en
Alsarraj: 40 trucks of goods to enter Gaza today
Deputy-minister of economy, Nasser Alsarraj, stated on Thursday that the Israeli side has informed the Palestinian side that 40 trucks of goods and commodities will be allowed into Gaza today.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57899
Palestinian banks in Gaza close as Israel blocks delivery of funds
The Palestinian Monetary Authority in Gaza announced on Thursday that all Palestinian banks in the Gaza Strip will be forced to shut down due to the authority's inability to deliver funds to the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/57900
Take action to end crimes against humanity
"Dear friends: It is only in an Orwellian "might makes right" world that 1.5 million people are kept in a concentration camp literally being starved to death while much of the world governments stand idly watching or occasionally issuing a useless statement or collaborating with the collective punishment (as in the case of Governments of Egypt and the US). 1.5 million are not numbers, they are people like you and me and 60% are children!! Terrorism is defined as punishing civilians to force a change in politics. As such this is the biggest act of terrorism since the end of WWII. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity (as defined by International Law).
http://palestinianpundit. blogspot.com/2008/12/take-action-to-end-crimes-against.html
No cooking gas for Eid; industrial fuel being transfered into Strip
Israel allowed a shipment of 50 thousand liters of industrial diesel into Gaza on Thursday afternoon, with another 400 thousand liters expected after the partial opening of the Nahal Oz crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday. Shipments of cooking gas for Gaza, however, were blocked for the 29th consecutive day, leading most locals to assume they will not be able to prepare the traditionally large Eid Al-Adha meals.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33717
"We are slowly dying"
Israel has further tightened the screw on Gaza, where some areas have been completely plunged into darkness as fuel shortages shut down Gaza's sole power plant 25 days ago. The power cuts affect all activities dependent on electrical power as the remaining power sources provided by Israel and Egypt cannot serve the needs of the whole of the Gaza Strip. Access to drinking and irrigation water is affected, as well as sewage treatment, risking disease. Sameh A. Habeeb reports from the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10008.shtml
A psychological siege
Israel's siege on Gaza, now in its 19th month, has wreaked havoc on all aspects of life and significant attention has been paid in particular to the economic consequences of border closures and blockade. However, an overlooked epidemic threatens the social and familial ties that bond the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Living under a constant state of crisis in which their livelihoods have been denied, the people of Gaza's once exemplary resilience and determination are giving way to an unfathomable sea of depression and psychological illnesses. EI contributor Safa Joudeh reports on one Gaza family's story.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9995.shtml
Gaza: A Bare Life Zone
With the latest Israeli maneuvers' of tightening the siege imposed on Gaza, more life necessities vanished. The key power plant shut down 25 days ago resulted in tremendous direful outcomes. More than 75% of the Gaza strip faces severe power cuts and some areas completely plunged into darkness.
http://www.countercurrents.org/habeeb031208.htm
Scholars of Gulf countries urge Muslims to break Israeli siege on Gaza
The association of Sharia scholars of Gulf countries appealed to all Muslims in the world to assume their religious responsibilities toward breaking the siege on the besieged Gaza people.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
India concerned over Israel blocking aid to Gaza Strip
India on Tuesday evening expressed concern over reported moves by Israel to block humanitarian aid to the Palestine-held Gaza Strip. "We remain concerned at the adverse effects of the closure of access points into the Strip (and) on the prevailing humanitarian situation," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a meeting of the India-Arab Forum hosted by the Indian Council of World Affairs.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/india-concerned-over-israel-blocking-aid-to-gaza-strip_
100126463.html
China Urges Israel to Lift Siege of Gaza
China on Wednesday called on Israel to lift its siege of the Gaza Strip and allow the passage of international aid into the region, where over 1.5 million people are struggling to survive in a dire humanitarian situation, Xinhua reorted on Wednesday. Minister Counselor of China's UN mission La Yifan told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that China was "deeply concerned" over the developments regarding the Libyan ship Al-Marwa.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=2144
Hezbollah Renews Solidarity with Palestinian People
Once again, Lebanon witnessed a solidarity activity with the Palestinian nation against the continuous "non-human" blockade in the Gaza strip. On Wednesday, Hezbollah organized a solidarity meeting with Palestinians at Al-Saha restaurant in Beirut's southern suburb amid a political, diplomatic and religious participation from Lebanon and Palestine. The meeting included speeches that generally praised the Palestinian Resistance and called for ending the blockade as soon as possible. Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said that what was happening in Gaza was an organized and systematic starving scheme that aims at kneeling the Palestinian Resistance and people and push them towards surrender.
http://almanar.com.lb/NewsSite/NewsDetails.aspx?id=66221&language=en
Scores of children protest against Israel's siege of Gaza Strip
SIDON: Palestinian children in the Southern refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh protested Tuesday in solidarity with their fellow children who are living under Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of children participated in the protest, which fell within the "Week of solidarity with the Palestinian people," organized by Hamas. "We the children of Ain al-Hilweh, the children of Palestine demand an end to the siege over Gaza and urge all Arabs and Muslims to rise and help their brothers," said a Palestinian boy.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1& categ_id=1&article_id=98195
Ship from Qatar to land in Gaza during Eid; Two million USD in medical supplies on board
wo million US dollars in medical supplies and a delegation of Qatari dignitaries will be on board the next ship that attempts to enter Gaza waters, said member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Jamal Al-Khudari. The ship, according to Al-Khudari, will land in Gaza during Eid Al-Adha, and the delegates will spend the holiday with Gazans. They will distribute supplies and tour the area in order to get a sense of what life in the besieged area is like.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33712
Arab MKs to sail to Gaza
Arab Knesset members decide to take action, say they want 'Gaza babies to smile for a day'. A ship carrying Arab Knesset members and humanitarian aid, including medicine, food, and toys will be departing from the Jaffa Port Sunday and heading to the Gaza Strip.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3632973,00.html
Khudari: Ships will continue to sail to Gaza
MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular anti siege committee, stressed that the ships trying to reach Gaza would continue to attempt to break the siege that is increasing in ferocity.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
UN council to take up Israel blockade of Libya ship: source
AFP-The UN Security Council on Wednesday was to take up a complaint by Libya that Israel unlawfully intercepted one of its cargo ships in waters off Gaza, a diplomatic source told AFP.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081203/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazalibyaun
Row In Jordan Parliament Over Gaza Aid Boat-Lawmaker
Jordanian lawmakers stormed out of a parliamentary meeting Wednesday after the speaker postponed talks on plans to dispatch an aid boat to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, a leading Islamist lawmaker said. Twenty-one lawmakers, including the six-member parliamentary block of the powerful Islamic Action Front opposition party, walked out of the meeting, which was to discuss a petition by 23 deputies to send the boat to Gaza, Hamzah Mansur said.
http://www.easybourse.com/bourse-actualite/marches/row-in-jordan-parliament-over-gaza-aid-boat
-lawmaker-573001
MPs walk out as debate over Gaza aid ship delayed
AMMAN-More than 20 lawmakers walked out of a Lower House meeting Wednesday, protesting a decision to put off a debate over a proposal to send a relief aid ship to Gaza. House Speaker Abdul Hadi Majali justified his decision to halt the debate "to allow authorities enough time to make diplomatic arrangements to ensure the success of the mission".
http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=12580
Gaza protests leads to Egypt opposition arrests
Egyptian police on Thursday arrested 64 members of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group for organizing protests against the siege of the Gaza Strip, the Islamists said. The arrests were made during dawn raids in the northern city of Alexandria, the Suez Canal town of Ismailya and other.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/12/04/61366.html
Egypt police hold 60 Islamists over Gaza protests
Egyptian police raided the homes of members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday and took away about 60 of them, including organisers of recent protests against the government's role in the blockade of Gaza. The dawn raids were in the Nile Delta provinces of Sharkia and Gharbia, the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the Suez Canal town of Ismailia, police and Brotherhood sources said.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL4704857.html
Wounded Gaza Looking for Love and Peace-Palestinians Breaking the Siege with Music
GAZA-While the darkness prevails in the streets of Gaza, in particular in the vicinity of the Rashad Shawa, the Cultural Center of lyrical attention was the place of love and peace. Here, in the heart of Gaza, people sang both Arabic and English songs about freedom, amid voices was heard from oppressed advocates: "Gaza is wounded, looking for love and peace". The scene in the event-hall of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, was one night in the last week, completely unlike and far away from the black-thread-and-needle Gaza blockade, a millstone around the neck of more than a million and a half of Palestinians.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_28934.shtml
Palestinian rights groups urge end to Israeli 'discrimination'
AFP-The UN Human Rights Council must ensure Israel ends "institutionalised racism and discrimination" against Palestinians when it examines the Jewish state's rights record, Palestinian groups urged Wednesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081203/wl_mideast_afp/mideastisraelpalestiniansunrig hts
Revoking Israel's UN Membership
The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world. The situation grows steadily more insufferable for the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. Deliveries of food, medicine and fuel are made difficult or stopped altogether. Child malnutrition is increasing. Water supplies and drainage have ceased to function. Children die for lack of healthcare. Tunnels to Egypt, dug by hand, are the only breathing space. Journalists and diplomats are denied entry. Israel is planning more military efforts. The Palestinians in Gaza are now to be starved into surrender and become an Egyptian problem.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14445
Report: Israeli mineral water company closes site due to Scottish boycott
A Gush Shalom report claims that European anger at Israeli companies producing goods beyond the Green Line is causing real harm to some companies, one of which is reportedly mineral water producer Mayanot Eden.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043425.html
MP Khudari hails Euro parliament for not voting to raise relations with Israel
MP Jamal Al-Khudari hailed the European parliament for deciding to postpone the vote to raise the level of relations between the European Union and Israel because of the latter's blockade on Gaza.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Gaza groups reportedly will not renew ceasefire with Israel
According to Israel Radio, Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that Palestinian organizations do not intend to renew the ceasefire with Israel, which expires December 19. A Hamas representative in Gaza reportedly told the newspaper Al-Hayam, that the reality on the ground does not encourage organizations to extend the ceasefire but that a decision would be made after discussions on the matter.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702429783& pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Hamas pins renewal of Gaza truce to Israel commitment
The Islamic Hamas movement said Thursday a ceasefire between Palestinian militant groups and Israel, due to expire later this month, would not renew if Israel continues to violate its terms. "Hamas and the Palestinian factions hold internal consultations to make a decision regarding the lull with the Zionist occupation," said Khalil al-Haya, a Hamas leader in Gaza.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/04/content_ 10457928.htm
PFLP boycotts meeting with Hamas on Gaza truce
The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) refused to meet on Thursday with the Hamas government of Gaza regarding the future of a shaky truce with Israel. The PFLP accused Hamas of seeking to extend the agreement over the objections of the other factions that signed on to the Egyptian-brokered truce in June.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33719
Renegotiating the ceasefire
Ghassan Khatib-Bitterlemons-Why does a ceasefire that lasted successfully for five months face these problems only a month before it was due to end or be extended?The answer would seem rooted mainly in domestic Israeli politics and to a lesser extent in Gaza. This is primarily because Israel is the determining factor in deciding the state of relations with Gaza, whether peaceful or violent. Hamas, furthermore, has benefitted from the ceasefire and is clearly interested in renewing it, particularly because the calm enabled the Islamist movement to consolidate its power in Gaza.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_ file.asp?num=30345
Palestinians recount abuses in West Bank jails
Allegations of torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses of due legal process have long been common from Palestinians in the West Bank. But lately more such accusations are levelled not at Israeli occupying forces but at fellow Palestinians, part of the bitter factional rivalry that has divided families and made the two Palestinian territories fiefdoms of the warring camps--Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip and secular Fatah in the West Bank.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2664881.htm
EXCLUSIVE-With Abbas's clampdown, reports of torture grow
Forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, are rounding up suspected Islamist activists and allegations of torture and abuse of legal procedure are mounting sharply. "They shouted 'You're Hamas! Tell us what you're up to!' as they were hitting me," one man recounted to Reuters of an ordeal last month in a Palestinian prison in Hebron. He spoke, too, of being forced to hang or stand for hours in "stress positions".
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2555999.htm
TEXT-Response of Palestinian govt to torture claims
Following is translated text of the response from spokesman's office of Palestinian Authority government to questions from Reuters about allegations that suspected Hamas activists have been subjected to arbitrary detention and torture in the West Bank. "Political detention is defined as the detention of a political figure because of his or her activity. But the prisons of the Palestinian security forces are empty of such figures.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L3131172.htm
Palestinian ambassador urges factions to resume national unity talks
Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt Nabil Amr on Wednesday called on Palestinian factions to resume national unity dialogue in a bid to heal the current inter-Palestinian rift. To continue the inter-Palestinian dialogue under the sponsorship of Egypt unconditionally is the only way to save the Palestinians from their division and solve the problem in Gaza, Amr told a seminar held Wednesday afternoon by the Egyptian state MENA news agency.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/04/content_ 10452718.htm
Nassif: Abbas has to free political inmates to confront Israeli assaults in WB
Rafat Nassif, a noted Hamas leader, called on Abbas to issue orders to his security apparatuses to release political prisoners in the West Bank so that they can defend the Palestinian people there.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Jenin: A model for the West bank?
Sirens blare as four patrol cars crammed with khaki-clad Palestinian security men speed through the streets of central Jenin. Milling locals look up briefly, before turning their attention back to shopping for the weekend. This is the new normality in a town previously dubbed the Martyrs' Capital because of the stream of suicide bombers it supplied during the intifada, or uprising, that started in 2000.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7759765.stm
The "Other," Older Palestinian Coup D'etat
On 23 November, PA President Abbas convened the rubber stamping Fatah-dominated Central Council of the PLO in the West Bank city of Ramallah to elect him also President of the State of Palestine. While Mahmoud Abbas, President of the autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA) failed to substantiate a credible "legal" basis to extend his term from the Basic Law—the constitutional terms of reference that govern the rotation of power and the renewal of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the PA—Abbas in his capacity as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) convened the rubber stamping Fatah-dominated Central Council of the PLO in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 23, to elect him also President of the State of Palestine.
http://www.alternativenews.org/content/view/1443/104/
Report: Obama advisors want NATO troops in West Bank
US President-elect Barack Obama is considering a deployment of NATO forces to the West Bank as part of a plan for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict, an American newsmagazine reported on Wednesday. Former US-national security advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski reportedly endorsed the strategy in recent days. Meanwhile, Obama's nominee to head the National Security Council, Gen. James Jones, apparently favors the idea, all according to Newsweek, a weekly American newsmagazine.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33699
Blair wants new Gaza strategy, fears for two-state solution
AFP-Middle East envoy Tony Blair called here Wednesday for a new strategy to bring the Gaza Strip back into the peace process and warned a proposed two-state solution risked slipping away.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081203/pl_afp/mideastdiplomacyquartetblair
Former British leader urges push for Mideast peace
AP-Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, offered praise Wednesday for President-elect Barack Obama's selections to lead his national security team, and he expressed hope that Obama's administration will press hard and immediately for progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081203/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_mideast
Britain To Hold Separate Talks With Israelis And Palestinians
LONDON (Reuters)-Britain will hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in London this month on the political and economic situation in the Middle East, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday. "We are bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to London later in December to establish how best we can use 2009 to make real progress toward political and economic solutions in the region," Brown told parliament. He did not elaborate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/03/britain-to-hold-separate_n_148108.html
Swiss expert: The western world went wrong when it boycotted Hamas governments
Swiss expert Gabriel Galis stated that the western world committed a mistake when they boycotted the two Palestinian governments formed after Hamas won elections. http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/En/
Fayyad: We are ready to fly Gaza pilgrims to Saudi Arabia; Hamas: Egypt did not tell us Rafah was open
The Palestinian caretaker government is ready to transfer Gaza pilgrims to Saudi Arabia by air, at its expense, if Hamas allows them to leave through Rafah, the Palestinian prime minister pledged on Thursday in Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=33725
Saudi Arabia: Palestinian pilgrims welcome to haj no matter when they arrive
Saudi Arabia is prepared to receive Palestinian pilgrims who arrive late due to visa restrictions for the haj pilgrimage which starts this week, an official said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043713.html
Recipe for a Riot: Parsing Israel's Yom Kippur Upheavals
On October 8, 48-year old Tawfiq Jamal got into his car with his 18-year old son and a friend, and set out for the house of his relatives, the Shaaban family, who lived as of then in a new, predominantly Jewish neighborhood on the eastern edges of Acre. A walled city on the sea, mainly famed in the West for having served as the CENTCOM of the crusading Richard the Lionheart, Acre is today a "mixed" Israeli town, inhabited by Jews as well as Arabs like Tawfiq. That day, he was on his way to pick up his daughter, who had been helping the Shaabans prepare cakes for a wedding scheduled for the following week. He insists that he drove slowly and quietly, with his radio turned off. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, one of the holiest days of the Jewish religious calendar, on which the streets of Israel's Jewish cities and towns customarily empty of traffic.
http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/lagerquist_ interv.html
UNWRA, Palestinian association hold day of solidarity with disabled
The Palestinian Association for the Disabled and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) Disabled Program held a day of solidarity with people with disabilities at the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp in Tyre on Wednesday. The event was held at the camp's Abu Jihad al-Wazir Rehabilitation Center.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1& categ_id=1&article_id=98221
Twilight Zone /Out of prison, By Gideon Levy
Osama wakes up early every morning these days and goes to work in his well-kept garden. Afterward he goes for a walk. It's hard for him to sit at home. "It's hard for me to stare at walls," he says. He is 45 years old, and 19 of those years were spent behind walls, bolts and locks. Ten years ago, when we were first introduced through the letters he wrote me from prison, using green ink and in excellent Hebrew, he wrote that he dreamed of taking his other pen pal, a young man named Hagai Matar, horseback riding around his village.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043714.html
Finding a Wall of Paranoia and Fear in Israel
"Where is your Palestinian ID card?!" A soldier stationed at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah demanded as she dumped out my purse onto the hood of an armored Jeep. "I don't have one," I protested. "I'm American--I live in New York!" When I'd first been asked to get out of the car on my way into Jerusalem, I was scared. As a Palestinian-American, traveling through Israel and the West Bank is an especially unpredictable experience. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the checkpoints between cities can choose to treat me as either an American or as a Palestinian. The former entitles me to some degree of respect; the latter, significantly less.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zaina-arafat/finding-a-wall-of-paranoi_b_144995.html
Welcome new thinking on the Palestine Question
In Washington today former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset Naomi Chazan had some great advice for President-elect Obama. Noting that Israel's election comes just 20 days after Obama's inauguration, she said Obama should wait 20 days before announcing the US's new policy on the Arab-Israeli peace--"but he shouldn't wait any longer than 21 days." The US might, she said, present its own peace plan. (She didn't spell out whether Obama should do that right then, or a little later.)
http://justworldnews.org/archives/003246.html
Gilad Atzmon-The Lady Between the Queen and the Tribe
In spite of the fact that I monitor Israeli press and Jewish activism on a daily basis, I must admit that almost once a day I come across something new and refreshing about my ex-brethren. As it happened, yesterday I learned about an organisation named the "International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists" (IAJLJ). An association with such a name didn't take me by complete surprise. By now I am used to the concept of 'primarily-Jewish' organisations and associations. At the end of the day, it shouldn't take any of us by surprise, Israel, as we know, is the 'Jews-only' state. Furthermore, Israel's very few sporadic vocal opponents within the Jewish world tend for some reason to operate also in similar racially orientated primarily Jewish political settings such as 'Jews For Peace', 'Jews for Justice in Palestine', 'Jewish Independent Voice', etc.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/03/gilad-atzmon-the-lady-between-the-queen-and-the-tribe/
Can Gaza and Sderot Make Common Cause?
"I feel great walking in the streets of Gaza...and not having that fear of a car being attacked by Israel, by a drone or a helicopter," said the Gaza-based New York Times journalist Taghreed El Khoudary. The townspeople of Sderot no doubt express similar relief at the absence of rockets from Gaza. The five-month Hamas-Israel ceasefire was holding, as even the AIPAC-allied Washington Institute for Near East Policy acknowledged in a recent piece. And then Israeli forces pushed into the Gaza Strip to blow up a tunnel while the world focused on the US elections, and it's now back to the clashes and rockets.
http://zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticlePrint/19838
Kawther Salam-Correction to the Speech in Favor of Israel by Ban Ki-moon
During the event commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians, which I attended at the UN in Vienna, a message of UNSG Ban Ki-moon was read by Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, DG of the UN in Vienna.
I listened to the message read by Mr. de Costa, and I found that the language used in the speech of SG Ban Ki-moon was not fit for the occasion to the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians. The speech was based on contradicting standards which ignore the UN resolutions related to the historical facts surrounding Palestine and Palestinians, and replaced them with improper phrases which honoring the criminal Israeli occupation and their alliance, and harms the feeling of Palestinian participants who live in the exile since 60 years ago.
http://palestinethinktank.com/2008/12/03/kawther-salam-correction-to-the-speech-in-favor-of-israel-by-
ban-ki-moon/
Running the Distance for Palestine
We build playgrounds for Palestinian children. It's our way of using love to resist Israel's miserable occupation of Palestine. Love of children. Love of play. Love and admiration of the dauntless Palestinian heart that continues to endure, year after worsening year.
There are many ways we could have chosen to raise money for another playground, but this year two of us-Susan Abulhawa and Ramzy Baroud-decided to run a marathon. Our doctors advised us against such a grueling physical task, and our friends called us "crazy".
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14446
A travelogue through the Palestinian condition
CAIRO: Rashid Masharawi has written an entertaining moment of crisis into his film "Laila's Birthday," an emotional meltdown for Enlightenment stalwarts, for whom the last resort famously attributed to frustrated postal workers ("Buy a gun and kill 'em all") won't do. Abu Laila (Mohamed Bakri), exhausted by the litany of insults and disasters that have kept him from his one self-appointed task of the day, pulls his taxi into a gas station. He surveys the chaos of incivility on the street before him. Unable to absorb any more, he strides over to a police 4-by-4 at the next pump, turns on its public-address system, and begins to hector Ramallah's residents.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1& categ_id=4&article_id=98207
New film by 'Or' director promises to make waves in Israel and abroad
European film crews have recently taken over Givataim and Jaffa for the making of a new film that is seems destined to be a hot item in Israel and abroad. Jaffa tracks the upheavals experienced by an Israeli couple whose lives are disrupted when their daughter, played by Dana Ivgy, falls in love with the Arab son of her father's employee.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043361.html
New initiative threatens male domination over Bedouin sheep farming
The winds of change are blowing through Israel's Bedouin sector. For hundreds of years, Bedouin men tended their flocks, while women cooked and raised the children. Now a new initiative is threatening to disrupt this ancient balance. A joint venture between the Agriculture Ministry and the Danish Foreign Ministry will teach women from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan to raise flocks of dairy sheep and develop sheep's milk product businesses. This idea, however is facing stiff opposition from the mayor of the Bedouin town of Rahat, who contends that women are to help their husbands only in educating their children.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043383.html
SATIRE: Long-Standing Conflict Ends As Israel Returns Lawn Mower To Palestine
JERUSALEM—Decades of ethnic tension ceased instantaneously Monday when Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas shook hands over a comprehensive agreement to return a faded green lawn mower first borrowed by Israel in 1949.The historic accord, whose sole term was the long-awaited return of the hotly contested lawn-care device, was signed amid cheers and applause from representatives of both nations. Celebrations were reported across the Middle East, as Jews and Muslims came together by the thousands to rejoice in the streets. The return of the disputed item brings an end to half a century of violence and bloodshed in the borrowed-lawn-mower-torn region.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/long_standing_ conflict_ends_as?utm_source=onion_rss_daily
Palestine's secret oasis
As the sun rises between the hills and disperses low-hanging mist, Ramallah wakes up to a normal, urban life. Vegetable shops roll out their shining, fleshy wares. The exhausts of the city's orange taxis shake off the chill of night. And although, unlike most other cities, Ramallah has been many decades under occupation, this, for its inhabitants, is just another day.
http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2008/12/bank-city-palestinian-ramallah
Palestinian 'Bisan Systems' Gets Arab GoldenChip Award
Bisan Systems, a leading Palestinian software development firm based in the West Bank city of Ramallah was awarded the Arab GoldenChip Award for best online application for commerce for its financial management package on its 20 year anniversary, http://www.ameinfo.com reported on Monday.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/details.asp?cat=1&id=2140
Iraq presidency council approves U.S. security pact
Reuters-Iraq's presidency council has approved a security pact with the United States that paves the way for a complete U.S. troop pullout by the end of 2011, a spokesman for the council said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081204/ts_nm/us_iraq_pact
Wednesday: 16 Iraqis Killed, 16 Wounded
Excerpt: Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq a high priority in the coming months. Violent attacks left at least 16 Iraqis killed and another 16 Iraqis wounded. A blast in the Green Zone left an unknown number of casualties as well. Meanwhile, a journalist was jailed for writing a story on homosexuality, and a Kuwaiti subcontractor denies confining workers.
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13850
Suicide bombings in Iraq hit Fallujah, prompt lockdown
BAGHDAD — Authorities sealed off the city of Fallujah Thursday after two suicide bombings killed 15 people and wounded more than 100, Iraqi police said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/57034.html
Two US soldiers killed by car bomb in Iraq
AFP-Two US soldiers were killed and nine Iraqis wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, the US military said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081204/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestus
Iraqi army Mosul HQ mortared
NINEWA /Aswat al-Iraq: Six mortar shells have fallen on a military unit headquarters in eastern Mosul, leaving no casualties, an Iraqi army source said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday evening, six mortar shells landed on the headquarters of Regiment 1, Brigade 7 in al-Intisar neighborhood, eastern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "No casualties have been reported," [...]
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=104135
Iraqi guards open fire as migrants riot about deportation
Iraqi guards opened fire above the heads of 1,000 migrant workers who staged a mini-riot today in protest at their poor treatment in Baghdad and the prospect of being sent home without pay. The men, from Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, will be flown to Dubai after the Kuwaiti company that hired them failed to secure enough contract work at dining facilities inside a number of US military bases across Iraq. Their passports have also been taken.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article5279431.ece
Iraqi army finds 80 bodies in four mass graves
Reuters-The Iraqi army unearthed 80 decomposed bodies from four mass graves in northern Iraq's volatile Diyala province, a security source for the region said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081204/wl_nm/us_iraq_graves
Reconciliation needed in Iraq's most violent city
AP-It's a dirty, numbing, dangerous job in Iraq's deadliest city, and pays a modest $500 a month. But when the police department recently advertised for college graduates to fill 200 positions as traffic policemen, it was deluged with 2,000 applications.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq_fixing_ mosul
Iraq's Bloodiest City Is Largely Ignored By Government
MOSUL, Iraq — It's a dirty, numbing, dangerous job in Iraq's deadliest city, and pays a modest $500 a month. But when the police department recently advertised for college graduates to fill 200 positions as traffic policemen, it was deluged with 2,000 applications.
"Half of the terrorists would be defeated if we defeat unemployment," says police Gen. Khalid Soltan, citing an example of how desperately Mosul citizens scour for jobs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/03/iraqs-bloodiest-city-is-l_n_148117.html
CNN: Declassified government docs show U.S. let Saddam gas Kurds for farm deal
CNN found that intervention is often weighed against political and economic costs. Declassified U.S. government documents show that while Saddam Hussein was gassing Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. opposed punishing Iraq with a trade embargo because it was cultivating Iraq as an ally against Iran and as a market for U.S. farm exports. According to Peter Galbraith, then an idealistic Senate staffer determined to stop Hussein from committing genocide, the Reagan administration "got carried away with their own propaganda. They began to believe that Saddam Hussein could be a reliable partner."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_ all&address=389x4568179
Al Anfal remains mourned at last
For more than 20 years, Aska Ali Ameen waited for her husband to come home.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10264585.html
Iraq bids to stop Christie's sale of ancient earrings
The jewelry could belong to the treasures of Nimrud, officials say.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1204/p07s02-wome.html
U.S. citizen allegedly tortured in United Arab Emirates
ACLU says Naji Hamdan, a naturalized American, was detained at the behest of the U.S. government and has been charged in the Persian Gulf nation with a terrorism-related offense. A former Hawthorne man detained in the United Arab Emirates since Aug. 29 has been tortured and ultimately charged with a terrorism-related offense, according to a lawyer with the ACLU of Southern California.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/latimes/middleeast/%7E3/474439416/la-me-detain4-2008dec04,0,4617504.story
Arab-American hate crimes down after 9/11-report
Hate crimes against Arab Americans have decreased steadily since the Sept. 11 attacks but are still more common than they were before the hijackings, a civil rights group said on Thursday. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it received an average of 120 to 130 reports of ethnically motivated attacks or threats each year between 2003 and 2007, a sharp decrease from the 700 violent incidents it documented in the weeks following the 2001 attacks.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03327749.htm
U.S. court upholds $156 million judgment against Palestinian charities
A federal appeals court has upheld a $156 million judgment against three Palestinian charities accused of bankrolling terrorism. But it has dropped the lone individual from the long-running civil suit.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043371.html
Charity is Not a Crime: Fallacy of Justice
When twelve good American jurors acquit a group of defendants from all charges, and twelve other good American jurors convict them of all the charges in a second trial, one cannot help but wonder what kind of judicial system we have. And when the defendants are a group of compassionate Americans, who raise funds to feed hungry families, to open schools to educate young minds, and build clinics and hospitals to care for the sick, the disabled and the elderly, one wonders what had happened to compassionate America, who offers aid to poor nations. The trial case of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that provided aid to impoverished families in other countries as well as some American families, raises such wonders.
http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14444
Wajahat Ali: Abusing a charity to distract from US failings against the real terrorists
Prosecuting a charity such as the Holy Land Foundation reveals the callous contempt within the Bush administration.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/dec/03/holy-land-foundation-trial
Jimmy Carter writes new book on Middle East
AP-Former President Jimmy Carter has written a new book on the Middle East with a title he hopes will not be as controversial as the last one, which was called, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_re_us/carter_mideast_ book
Middle East Sees "Explosion" Of Comedy, First Stand Up Festival In Arab World
1. Do Arabs actually laugh?2. Do Arabs understand jokes?3. Don't they hate you because you are American?, Those are just a few of the actual questions I have heard when I tell people in the US that I'm performing stand up comedy in the Arab world. This week's historic Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival in Jordan-as well as the other recent shows I have performed in the Middle East-have answered those questions as follows: 1. Arabs do laugh (In fact, many are very funny themselves); 2. Arabs do understand the jokes in English; 3. No, they don't all hate us-in fact, a large number of Arabs actually love us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-obeidallah/middle-east-sees-explosio_b_148357.html
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
Israel demolishes dozens of Bedouin and Palestinian houses within own borders
The Israeli government demolished dozens of houses inside its own borders on Wednesday, including an entire Bedouin village which has been destroyed over 20 times. Sources at the Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) said the Bedouin village of Twail Abu Jawal, home to between 50 and 100 people living in 10 houses, was flattened by Israeli construction vehicles.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
PNN: Um Kamal Al Kurd taking the Right of Return
The Kurd family is again making news after being forcibly expelled from their home in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Now Um Kamal Al Kurd intends to return to her original home in West Jerusalem with a massive nonviolent action planned for Thursday.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Israeli authorities announce that Azzun is to be walled in
Azzun villagers' fears were confirmed when they were delivered a notice that Israeli authorities intend to build a wall between their village and the main road that runs along its northern edge-Road 55.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
Child Martyrs
On Tuesday 2nd December 2008 Gaza Strip, Palestine added two more child martyrs to its already long list of thousands of dead children, the products of U.S. tax-payer money providing the ways and the means for Israel to continue its genocidal occupation and siege.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/
IOF troops invade Nablus, storm Palestinian houses
A large number of IOF troops invaded at an early hour Thursday the Nablus city breaking into and ransacking a number of houses in different areas of the city.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Palestinians: Settlers from Yitzhar attack Palestinian villagers
Palestinian sources reported Thursday that dozens of settlers from the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar began assaulting Palestinians and damaging property in the nearby village of Bourin. It is estimated that the incident is related to the evacuation of the disputed Hebron house. The IDF has yet to confirm the report.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Palestinians badly injured by settlers' gunshots near Hebron
Palestinian sources have reported that a Palestinian man was seriously injured by gunshots fired by settlers in the Hebron area. The man is said to have been evacuated to an Israeli hospital by the IDF. The act was apparently carried out in response to the evacuation of the disputed Hebron house. The army has yet to confirm the report.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Settlers clash with Palestinians following evacuation
After security forces clear disputed Hebron house, right-wing activists damage Palestinian property in West Bank. Residents of village of Bourin report dozens of settlers hurled stones at them.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Settlers graffiti racist slogans on buildings, vandalize cars in northern West Bank
Settlers graffitied racist slogans about Islam and the Muslim Prophet Mohammad on buildings in the West Bank villages of Azzun, An-Nabi Elyas, Kafr Laqif, Jinsafut, Immatin and Al-Funduq east of Qalqilia on Thursday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
In pictures: Hebron settlers fight eviction
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-
Stakes raised in Hebron stand-off
Jewish settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron have been involved in further clashes with Israeli security forces and local Palestinians.
http://www.palestinemonitor.
Settlers to Ethiopian troops: Niggers don't expel Jews
Border Guard officers of Ethiopian descent report rising number of racially motivated verbal attacks from Hebron youths; Druze officers also suffer racist remarks.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Defense Ministry: Hebron house eviction may spark violence across W. Bank
Defense Ministry sources said Wednesday that settler leaders struggling to retain possession over the disputed "House of Contention" in Hebron know they will not be able to prevent an evacuation the moment Israeli authorities are given the order to carry it out, so these settlers are planning violent confrontations that will keep the security forces occupied throughout the West Bank.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Nunu: Zionist settlers exercising racial cleansing against Palestinians
The PA caretaker government on Wednesday charged that the assaults launched by "Zionist settlers" in Al-Khalil in particular and the West Bank in general constituted a kind of racial cleansing.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Extremist settler youths escalate their attacks in Hebron, Barak to meet their leaders on Thursday
Extremist settler youths who fortified themselves in Al Rajabi Palestinian home, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, escalated on Wednesday their attacks against the Palestinian residents and vowed further violence if the Israeli army forcibly evacuates them.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Hebron colonists vow to resist eviction by court 'till the end'
Jewish settlers prepared on Wednesday to battle a forceful eviction after Israel declared a closed military area around a house in Hebron they occupy in defiance of a court order. The military decree followed violent protests on Tuesday involving colonists and their far-right supporters who hurled rocks at Palestinians.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
ANALYSIS /Settlers can't stop evacuation of Hebron house
The Hebron affair refuses to die. The violence may have decreased Wednesday, but the operation by the police and military to evacuate the House of Contention was postponed at the last minute because of another attempt to solve the crisis through an agreement.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Senior security official: Youths in Hebron motivated by hatred
Violent Jewish youths in Hebron are motivated by hatred for State, senior security official tells Ynet Wednesday night; rightist hardliner Daniela Weiss likely to be arrested soon, he says.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Standing up to Jewish terrorism
The government's decision to declare the House of Contention in Hebron a closed military zone was an inevitable step, but if it does not lead to the necessary phase then it is liable to fail. Following the latest riots two days ago, Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared that the government would not reconcile with the rampaging by "extremist forces." At about the same time, those in charge of the "forces" lashed out at the government, the courts, the army and the media, as if we were dealing with two legitimate, opposing sides.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Olmert: Palestinians in Hebron also have rights and a heritage
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday said the House of Contention in Hebron would be evacuated and he will not allow anyone to "raise a hand against Israeli democracy... The Palestinians are also people with rights and a heritage." Olmert spoke at the official memorial ceremony for Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, held at his grave at Sde Boker in the Negev. He praised Ben-Gurion for establishing the authority of the state, and also praised former prime minister Menahem Begin for the stand he took: Jews do not harm other Jews.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Abbas: Israel Responsible for Settlers' Crimes in Hebron
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held the Israeli government responsible for the "despicable crime" of the settlers' gangs who have been rampaging Palestinian communities over few weeks now as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) failed to carry out an order by the Israeli High Court of Justice early last week to evict the settlers and their extreme supporters from Faiz Rajabi's house in Hebron, where the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and a Shas member of Knesset have opened offices.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
Settlers Turn Their Sights to 'Juda-izing' Arab Sections of Israel
I have a new correspondent. Can't tell you his name. He's an American Jew who's spent a lot more time in Israel than I have. I've challenged him to come up with a pseud. He's working on it. Welcome to the Israeli settler movement, the 2008 model: the growing priority of settling Palestinian areas inside Israel. This is not a totally new phenomenon, having been seen since the founding of the state in places like Nazareth Illit, but these two important articles in Ha'aretz and the Middle East Report outline the recent efforts to "judaize" the Palestinian centers of the ancient cities of Jaffa and Akko. A similar trend has been seen throughout the Galilee, Negev, the Triangle and any other Palestinian and Arab parts of the country.
http://www.philipweiss.org/
american-jew-whos-spent-a-lot-
Year-old report urges IDF not to respond to settler violence by groveling
A good part of recent settler violence resulted from the fact that extremists among the settlers saw an "opportunity" and were not met with a determined enough response by the army, according to a report by the Israel Defense Forces' organizational consultant.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Israel opens Gaza border to foreign journalists
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Israel on Thursday lifted a four-week ban on international journalists entering Gaza and temporarily eased a blockade on shipments of goods to the coastal strip. Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said an entry ban on international aid workers was also lifted. The announcement followed weeks of pressure from foreign governments and the leaders of major news organizations urging Israel to reopen Gaza to the media.
http://www.iht.com/articles/
Israel Eases Gaza Blockade
Israel said it will allow some humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, easing a month-old closure it imposed on the Hamas-ruled territory after a surge in violence. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak authorized the delivery of 70 truckloads of food and basic supplies into Gaza and an unspecified quantity of fuel for the impoverished territory's sole power plant, his office said in a statement. The statement said the decision was taken as a gesture of goodwill ahead of next week's Eid al-Adha, the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice. This would be the fourth time that Israel is opening its crossings with Gaza since violence flared on November 4. Journalists will be allowed to travel to and from Gaza for the first time in a month, an Israeli official said. International aid workers and Palestinians requiring medical treatment also will be allowed through. [end]
http://almanar.com.lb/
Alsarraj: 40 trucks of goods to enter Gaza today
Deputy-minister of economy, Nasser Alsarraj, stated on Thursday that the Israeli side has informed the Palestinian side that 40 trucks of goods and commodities will be allowed into Gaza today.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Palestinian banks in Gaza close as Israel blocks delivery of funds
The Palestinian Monetary Authority in Gaza announced on Thursday that all Palestinian banks in the Gaza Strip will be forced to shut down due to the authority's inability to deliver funds to the besieged Gaza Strip.
http://www.imemc.org/article/
Take action to end crimes against humanity
"Dear friends: It is only in an Orwellian "might makes right" world that 1.5 million people are kept in a concentration camp literally being starved to death while much of the world governments stand idly watching or occasionally issuing a useless statement or collaborating with the collective punishment (as in the case of Governments of Egypt and the US). 1.5 million are not numbers, they are people like you and me and 60% are children!! Terrorism is defined as punishing civilians to force a change in politics. As such this is the biggest act of terrorism since the end of WWII. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity (as defined by International Law).
http://palestinianpundit. blogspot.com/2008/12/take-
No cooking gas for Eid; industrial fuel being transfered into Strip
Israel allowed a shipment of 50 thousand liters of industrial diesel into Gaza on Thursday afternoon, with another 400 thousand liters expected after the partial opening of the Nahal Oz crossing in northern Gaza on Wednesday. Shipments of cooking gas for Gaza, however, were blocked for the 29th consecutive day, leading most locals to assume they will not be able to prepare the traditionally large Eid Al-Adha meals.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
"We are slowly dying"
Israel has further tightened the screw on Gaza, where some areas have been completely plunged into darkness as fuel shortages shut down Gaza's sole power plant 25 days ago. The power cuts affect all activities dependent on electrical power as the remaining power sources provided by Israel and Egypt cannot serve the needs of the whole of the Gaza Strip. Access to drinking and irrigation water is affected, as well as sewage treatment, risking disease. Sameh A. Habeeb reports from the occupied Gaza Strip.
http://electronicintifada.net/
A psychological siege
Israel's siege on Gaza, now in its 19th month, has wreaked havoc on all aspects of life and significant attention has been paid in particular to the economic consequences of border closures and blockade. However, an overlooked epidemic threatens the social and familial ties that bond the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Living under a constant state of crisis in which their livelihoods have been denied, the people of Gaza's once exemplary resilience and determination are giving way to an unfathomable sea of depression and psychological illnesses. EI contributor Safa Joudeh reports on one Gaza family's story.
http://electronicintifada.net/
Gaza: A Bare Life Zone
With the latest Israeli maneuvers' of tightening the siege imposed on Gaza, more life necessities vanished. The key power plant shut down 25 days ago resulted in tremendous direful outcomes. More than 75% of the Gaza strip faces severe power cuts and some areas completely plunged into darkness.
http://www.countercurrents.
Scholars of Gulf countries urge Muslims to break Israeli siege on Gaza
The association of Sharia scholars of Gulf countries appealed to all Muslims in the world to assume their religious responsibilities toward breaking the siege on the besieged Gaza people.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
India concerned over Israel blocking aid to Gaza Strip
India on Tuesday evening expressed concern over reported moves by Israel to block humanitarian aid to the Palestine-held Gaza Strip. "We remain concerned at the adverse effects of the closure of access points into the Strip (and) on the prevailing humanitarian situation," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a meeting of the India-Arab Forum hosted by the Indian Council of World Affairs.
http://www.thaindian.com/
100126463.html
China Urges Israel to Lift Siege of Gaza
China on Wednesday called on Israel to lift its siege of the Gaza Strip and allow the passage of international aid into the region, where over 1.5 million people are struggling to survive in a dire humanitarian situation, Xinhua reorted on Wednesday. Minister Counselor of China's UN mission La Yifan told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that China was "deeply concerned" over the developments regarding the Libyan ship Al-Marwa.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
Hezbollah Renews Solidarity with Palestinian People
Once again, Lebanon witnessed a solidarity activity with the Palestinian nation against the continuous "non-human" blockade in the Gaza strip. On Wednesday, Hezbollah organized a solidarity meeting with Palestinians at Al-Saha restaurant in Beirut's southern suburb amid a political, diplomatic and religious participation from Lebanon and Palestine. The meeting included speeches that generally praised the Palestinian Resistance and called for ending the blockade as soon as possible. Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Kassem said that what was happening in Gaza was an organized and systematic starving scheme that aims at kneeling the Palestinian Resistance and people and push them towards surrender.
http://almanar.com.lb/
Scores of children protest against Israel's siege of Gaza Strip
SIDON: Palestinian children in the Southern refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh protested Tuesday in solidarity with their fellow children who are living under Israeli siege in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of children participated in the protest, which fell within the "Week of solidarity with the Palestinian people," organized by Hamas. "We the children of Ain al-Hilweh, the children of Palestine demand an end to the siege over Gaza and urge all Arabs and Muslims to rise and help their brothers," said a Palestinian boy.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Ship from Qatar to land in Gaza during Eid; Two million USD in medical supplies on board
wo million US dollars in medical supplies and a delegation of Qatari dignitaries will be on board the next ship that attempts to enter Gaza waters, said member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Jamal Al-Khudari. The ship, according to Al-Khudari, will land in Gaza during Eid Al-Adha, and the delegates will spend the holiday with Gazans. They will distribute supplies and tour the area in order to get a sense of what life in the besieged area is like.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Arab MKs to sail to Gaza
Arab Knesset members decide to take action, say they want 'Gaza babies to smile for a day'. A ship carrying Arab Knesset members and humanitarian aid, including medicine, food, and toys will be departing from the Jaffa Port Sunday and heading to the Gaza Strip.
http://www.ynetnews.com/
Khudari: Ships will continue to sail to Gaza
MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular anti siege committee, stressed that the ships trying to reach Gaza would continue to attempt to break the siege that is increasing in ferocity.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
UN council to take up Israel blockade of Libya ship: source
AFP-The UN Security Council on Wednesday was to take up a complaint by Libya that Israel unlawfully intercepted one of its cargo ships in waters off Gaza, a diplomatic source told AFP.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Row In Jordan Parliament Over Gaza Aid Boat-Lawmaker
Jordanian lawmakers stormed out of a parliamentary meeting Wednesday after the speaker postponed talks on plans to dispatch an aid boat to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, a leading Islamist lawmaker said. Twenty-one lawmakers, including the six-member parliamentary block of the powerful Islamic Action Front opposition party, walked out of the meeting, which was to discuss a petition by 23 deputies to send the boat to Gaza, Hamzah Mansur said.
http://www.easybourse.com/
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MPs walk out as debate over Gaza aid ship delayed
AMMAN-More than 20 lawmakers walked out of a Lower House meeting Wednesday, protesting a decision to put off a debate over a proposal to send a relief aid ship to Gaza. House Speaker Abdul Hadi Majali justified his decision to halt the debate "to allow authorities enough time to make diplomatic arrangements to ensure the success of the mission".
http://www.jordantimes.com/?
Gaza protests leads to Egypt opposition arrests
Egyptian police on Thursday arrested 64 members of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group for organizing protests against the siege of the Gaza Strip, the Islamists said. The arrests were made during dawn raids in the northern city of Alexandria, the Suez Canal town of Ismailya and other.
http://www.alarabiya.net/
Egypt police hold 60 Islamists over Gaza protests
Egyptian police raided the homes of members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday and took away about 60 of them, including organisers of recent protests against the government's role in the blockade of Gaza. The dawn raids were in the Nile Delta provinces of Sharkia and Gharbia, the Mediterranean city of Alexandria and the Suez Canal town of Ismailia, police and Brotherhood sources said.
http://africa.reuters.com/
Wounded Gaza Looking for Love and Peace-Palestinians Breaking the Siege with Music
GAZA-While the darkness prevails in the streets of Gaza, in particular in the vicinity of the Rashad Shawa, the Cultural Center of lyrical attention was the place of love and peace. Here, in the heart of Gaza, people sang both Arabic and English songs about freedom, amid voices was heard from oppressed advocates: "Gaza is wounded, looking for love and peace". The scene in the event-hall of the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center, was one night in the last week, completely unlike and far away from the black-thread-and-needle Gaza blockade, a millstone around the neck of more than a million and a half of Palestinians.
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/
Palestinian rights groups urge end to Israeli 'discrimination'
AFP-The UN Human Rights Council must ensure Israel ends "institutionalised racism and discrimination" against Palestinians when it examines the Jewish state's rights record, Palestinian groups urged Wednesday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Revoking Israel's UN Membership
The Gaza Strip is now the largest concentration camp in the world. The situation grows steadily more insufferable for the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. Deliveries of food, medicine and fuel are made difficult or stopped altogether. Child malnutrition is increasing. Water supplies and drainage have ceased to function. Children die for lack of healthcare. Tunnels to Egypt, dug by hand, are the only breathing space. Journalists and diplomats are denied entry. Israel is planning more military efforts. The Palestinians in Gaza are now to be starved into surrender and become an Egyptian problem.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Report: Israeli mineral water company closes site due to Scottish boycott
A Gush Shalom report claims that European anger at Israeli companies producing goods beyond the Green Line is causing real harm to some companies, one of which is reportedly mineral water producer Mayanot Eden.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
MP Khudari hails Euro parliament for not voting to raise relations with Israel
MP Jamal Al-Khudari hailed the European parliament for deciding to postpone the vote to raise the level of relations between the European Union and Israel because of the latter's blockade on Gaza.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Gaza groups reportedly will not renew ceasefire with Israel
According to Israel Radio, Palestinian sources in the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that Palestinian organizations do not intend to renew the ceasefire with Israel, which expires December 19. A Hamas representative in Gaza reportedly told the newspaper Al-Hayam, that the reality on the ground does not encourage organizations to extend the ceasefire but that a decision would be made after discussions on the matter.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/
Hamas pins renewal of Gaza truce to Israel commitment
The Islamic Hamas movement said Thursday a ceasefire between Palestinian militant groups and Israel, due to expire later this month, would not renew if Israel continues to violate its terms. "Hamas and the Palestinian factions hold internal consultations to make a decision regarding the lull with the Zionist occupation," said Khalil al-Haya, a Hamas leader in Gaza.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
PFLP boycotts meeting with Hamas on Gaza truce
The leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) refused to meet on Thursday with the Hamas government of Gaza regarding the future of a shaky truce with Israel. The PFLP accused Hamas of seeking to extend the agreement over the objections of the other factions that signed on to the Egyptian-brokered truce in June.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Renegotiating the ceasefire
Ghassan Khatib-Bitterlemons-Why does a ceasefire that lasted successfully for five months face these problems only a month before it was due to end or be extended?The answer would seem rooted mainly in domestic Israeli politics and to a lesser extent in Gaza. This is primarily because Israel is the determining factor in deciding the state of relations with Gaza, whether peaceful or violent. Hamas, furthermore, has benefitted from the ceasefire and is clearly interested in renewing it, particularly because the calm enabled the Islamist movement to consolidate its power in Gaza.
http://www.kibush.co.il/show_ file.asp?num=30345
Palestinians recount abuses in West Bank jails
Allegations of torture, arbitrary arrest and other abuses of due legal process have long been common from Palestinians in the West Bank. But lately more such accusations are levelled not at Israeli occupying forces but at fellow Palestinians, part of the bitter factional rivalry that has divided families and made the two Palestinian territories fiefdoms of the warring camps--Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip and secular Fatah in the West Bank.
http://www.alertnet.org/
EXCLUSIVE-With Abbas's clampdown, reports of torture grow
Forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president, are rounding up suspected Islamist activists and allegations of torture and abuse of legal procedure are mounting sharply. "They shouted 'You're Hamas! Tell us what you're up to!' as they were hitting me," one man recounted to Reuters of an ordeal last month in a Palestinian prison in Hebron. He spoke, too, of being forced to hang or stand for hours in "stress positions".
http://www.alertnet.org/
TEXT-Response of Palestinian govt to torture claims
Following is translated text of the response from spokesman's office of Palestinian Authority government to questions from Reuters about allegations that suspected Hamas activists have been subjected to arbitrary detention and torture in the West Bank. "Political detention is defined as the detention of a political figure because of his or her activity. But the prisons of the Palestinian security forces are empty of such figures.
http://www.alertnet.org/
Palestinian ambassador urges factions to resume national unity talks
Palestinian Ambassador to Egypt Nabil Amr on Wednesday called on Palestinian factions to resume national unity dialogue in a bid to heal the current inter-Palestinian rift. To continue the inter-Palestinian dialogue under the sponsorship of Egypt unconditionally is the only way to save the Palestinians from their division and solve the problem in Gaza, Amr told a seminar held Wednesday afternoon by the Egyptian state MENA news agency.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
Nassif: Abbas has to free political inmates to confront Israeli assaults in WB
Rafat Nassif, a noted Hamas leader, called on Abbas to issue orders to his security apparatuses to release political prisoners in the West Bank so that they can defend the Palestinian people there.
http://www.palestine-info.co.
Jenin: A model for the West bank?
Sirens blare as four patrol cars crammed with khaki-clad Palestinian security men speed through the streets of central Jenin. Milling locals look up briefly, before turning their attention back to shopping for the weekend. This is the new normality in a town previously dubbed the Martyrs' Capital because of the stream of suicide bombers it supplied during the intifada, or uprising, that started in 2000.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
The "Other," Older Palestinian Coup D'etat
On 23 November, PA President Abbas convened the rubber stamping Fatah-dominated Central Council of the PLO in the West Bank city of Ramallah to elect him also President of the State of Palestine. While Mahmoud Abbas, President of the autonomous Palestinian Authority (PA) failed to substantiate a credible "legal" basis to extend his term from the Basic Law—the constitutional terms of reference that govern the rotation of power and the renewal of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the PA—Abbas in his capacity as the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) convened the rubber stamping Fatah-dominated Central Council of the PLO in the West Bank city of Ramallah on November 23, to elect him also President of the State of Palestine.
http://www.alternativenews.
Report: Obama advisors want NATO troops in West Bank
US President-elect Barack Obama is considering a deployment of NATO forces to the West Bank as part of a plan for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict, an American newsmagazine reported on Wednesday. Former US-national security advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski reportedly endorsed the strategy in recent days. Meanwhile, Obama's nominee to head the National Security Council, Gen. James Jones, apparently favors the idea, all according to Newsweek, a weekly American newsmagazine.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Blair wants new Gaza strategy, fears for two-state solution
AFP-Middle East envoy Tony Blair called here Wednesday for a new strategy to bring the Gaza Strip back into the peace process and warned a proposed two-state solution risked slipping away.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Former British leader urges push for Mideast peace
AP-Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, offered praise Wednesday for President-elect Barack Obama's selections to lead his national security team, and he expressed hope that Obama's administration will press hard and immediately for progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Britain To Hold Separate Talks With Israelis And Palestinians
LONDON (Reuters)-Britain will hold separate talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in London this month on the political and economic situation in the Middle East, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday. "We are bringing Israeli and Palestinian leaders to London later in December to establish how best we can use 2009 to make real progress toward political and economic solutions in the region," Brown told parliament. He did not elaborate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Swiss expert: The western world went wrong when it boycotted Hamas governments
Swiss expert Gabriel Galis stated that the western world committed a mistake when they boycotted the two Palestinian governments formed after Hamas won elections. http://www.palestine-info.co.
Fayyad: We are ready to fly Gaza pilgrims to Saudi Arabia; Hamas: Egypt did not tell us Rafah was open
The Palestinian caretaker government is ready to transfer Gaza pilgrims to Saudi Arabia by air, at its expense, if Hamas allows them to leave through Rafah, the Palestinian prime minister pledged on Thursday in Ramallah.
http://www.maannews.net/en/
Saudi Arabia: Palestinian pilgrims welcome to haj no matter when they arrive
Saudi Arabia is prepared to receive Palestinian pilgrims who arrive late due to visa restrictions for the haj pilgrimage which starts this week, an official said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Recipe for a Riot: Parsing Israel's Yom Kippur Upheavals
On October 8, 48-year old Tawfiq Jamal got into his car with his 18-year old son and a friend, and set out for the house of his relatives, the Shaaban family, who lived as of then in a new, predominantly Jewish neighborhood on the eastern edges of Acre. A walled city on the sea, mainly famed in the West for having served as the CENTCOM of the crusading Richard the Lionheart, Acre is today a "mixed" Israeli town, inhabited by Jews as well as Arabs like Tawfiq. That day, he was on his way to pick up his daughter, who had been helping the Shaabans prepare cakes for a wedding scheduled for the following week. He insists that he drove slowly and quietly, with his radio turned off. It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, one of the holiest days of the Jewish religious calendar, on which the streets of Israel's Jewish cities and towns customarily empty of traffic.
http://www.merip.org/mero/
UNWRA, Palestinian association hold day of solidarity with disabled
The Palestinian Association for the Disabled and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) Disabled Program held a day of solidarity with people with disabilities at the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp in Tyre on Wednesday. The event was held at the camp's Abu Jihad al-Wazir Rehabilitation Center.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Twilight Zone /Out of prison, By Gideon Levy
Osama wakes up early every morning these days and goes to work in his well-kept garden. Afterward he goes for a walk. It's hard for him to sit at home. "It's hard for me to stare at walls," he says. He is 45 years old, and 19 of those years were spent behind walls, bolts and locks. Ten years ago, when we were first introduced through the letters he wrote me from prison, using green ink and in excellent Hebrew, he wrote that he dreamed of taking his other pen pal, a young man named Hagai Matar, horseback riding around his village.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Finding a Wall of Paranoia and Fear in Israel
"Where is your Palestinian ID card?!" A soldier stationed at the Qalandia checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah demanded as she dumped out my purse onto the hood of an armored Jeep. "I don't have one," I protested. "I'm American--I live in New York!" When I'd first been asked to get out of the car on my way into Jerusalem, I was scared. As a Palestinian-American, traveling through Israel and the West Bank is an especially unpredictable experience. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the checkpoints between cities can choose to treat me as either an American or as a Palestinian. The former entitles me to some degree of respect; the latter, significantly less.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Welcome new thinking on the Palestine Question
In Washington today former deputy speaker of Israel's Knesset Naomi Chazan had some great advice for President-elect Obama. Noting that Israel's election comes just 20 days after Obama's inauguration, she said Obama should wait 20 days before announcing the US's new policy on the Arab-Israeli peace--"but he shouldn't wait any longer than 21 days." The US might, she said, present its own peace plan. (She didn't spell out whether Obama should do that right then, or a little later.)
http://justworldnews.org/
Gilad Atzmon-The Lady Between the Queen and the Tribe
In spite of the fact that I monitor Israeli press and Jewish activism on a daily basis, I must admit that almost once a day I come across something new and refreshing about my ex-brethren. As it happened, yesterday I learned about an organisation named the "International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists" (IAJLJ). An association with such a name didn't take me by complete surprise. By now I am used to the concept of 'primarily-Jewish' organisations and associations. At the end of the day, it shouldn't take any of us by surprise, Israel, as we know, is the 'Jews-only' state. Furthermore, Israel's very few sporadic vocal opponents within the Jewish world tend for some reason to operate also in similar racially orientated primarily Jewish political settings such as 'Jews For Peace', 'Jews for Justice in Palestine', 'Jewish Independent Voice', etc.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
Can Gaza and Sderot Make Common Cause?
"I feel great walking in the streets of Gaza...and not having that fear of a car being attacked by Israel, by a drone or a helicopter," said the Gaza-based New York Times journalist Taghreed El Khoudary. The townspeople of Sderot no doubt express similar relief at the absence of rockets from Gaza. The five-month Hamas-Israel ceasefire was holding, as even the AIPAC-allied Washington Institute for Near East Policy acknowledged in a recent piece. And then Israeli forces pushed into the Gaza Strip to blow up a tunnel while the world focused on the US elections, and it's now back to the clashes and rockets.
http://zcommunications.org/
Kawther Salam-Correction to the Speech in Favor of Israel by Ban Ki-moon
During the event commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians, which I attended at the UN in Vienna, a message of UNSG Ban Ki-moon was read by Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, DG of the UN in Vienna.
I listened to the message read by Mr. de Costa, and I found that the language used in the speech of SG Ban Ki-moon was not fit for the occasion to the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinians. The speech was based on contradicting standards which ignore the UN resolutions related to the historical facts surrounding Palestine and Palestinians, and replaced them with improper phrases which honoring the criminal Israeli occupation and their alliance, and harms the feeling of Palestinian participants who live in the exile since 60 years ago.
http://palestinethinktank.com/
ban-ki-moon/
Running the Distance for Palestine
We build playgrounds for Palestinian children. It's our way of using love to resist Israel's miserable occupation of Palestine. Love of children. Love of play. Love and admiration of the dauntless Palestinian heart that continues to endure, year after worsening year.
There are many ways we could have chosen to raise money for another playground, but this year two of us-Susan Abulhawa and Ramzy Baroud-decided to run a marathon. Our doctors advised us against such a grueling physical task, and our friends called us "crazy".
http://palestinechronicle.com/
A travelogue through the Palestinian condition
CAIRO: Rashid Masharawi has written an entertaining moment of crisis into his film "Laila's Birthday," an emotional meltdown for Enlightenment stalwarts, for whom the last resort famously attributed to frustrated postal workers ("Buy a gun and kill 'em all") won't do. Abu Laila (Mohamed Bakri), exhausted by the litany of insults and disasters that have kept him from his one self-appointed task of the day, pulls his taxi into a gas station. He surveys the chaos of incivility on the street before him. Unable to absorb any more, he strides over to a police 4-by-4 at the next pump, turns on its public-address system, and begins to hector Ramallah's residents.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
New film by 'Or' director promises to make waves in Israel and abroad
European film crews have recently taken over Givataim and Jaffa for the making of a new film that is seems destined to be a hot item in Israel and abroad. Jaffa tracks the upheavals experienced by an Israeli couple whose lives are disrupted when their daughter, played by Dana Ivgy, falls in love with the Arab son of her father's employee.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
New initiative threatens male domination over Bedouin sheep farming
The winds of change are blowing through Israel's Bedouin sector. For hundreds of years, Bedouin men tended their flocks, while women cooked and raised the children. Now a new initiative is threatening to disrupt this ancient balance. A joint venture between the Agriculture Ministry and the Danish Foreign Ministry will teach women from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan to raise flocks of dairy sheep and develop sheep's milk product businesses. This idea, however is facing stiff opposition from the mayor of the Bedouin town of Rahat, who contends that women are to help their husbands only in educating their children.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
SATIRE: Long-Standing Conflict Ends As Israel Returns Lawn Mower To Palestine
JERUSALEM—Decades of ethnic tension ceased instantaneously Monday when Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas shook hands over a comprehensive agreement to return a faded green lawn mower first borrowed by Israel in 1949.The historic accord, whose sole term was the long-awaited return of the hotly contested lawn-care device, was signed amid cheers and applause from representatives of both nations. Celebrations were reported across the Middle East, as Jews and Muslims came together by the thousands to rejoice in the streets. The return of the disputed item brings an end to half a century of violence and bloodshed in the borrowed-lawn-mower-torn region.
http://www.theonion.com/
Palestine's secret oasis
As the sun rises between the hills and disperses low-hanging mist, Ramallah wakes up to a normal, urban life. Vegetable shops roll out their shining, fleshy wares. The exhausts of the city's orange taxis shake off the chill of night. And although, unlike most other cities, Ramallah has been many decades under occupation, this, for its inhabitants, is just another day.
http://www.newstatesman.com/
Palestinian 'Bisan Systems' Gets Arab GoldenChip Award
Bisan Systems, a leading Palestinian software development firm based in the West Bank city of Ramallah was awarded the Arab GoldenChip Award for best online application for commerce for its financial management package on its 20 year anniversary, http://www.ameinfo.com reported on Monday.
http://www.palestine-pmc.com/
Iraq presidency council approves U.S. security pact
Reuters-Iraq's presidency council has approved a security pact with the United States that paves the way for a complete U.S. troop pullout by the end of 2011, a spokesman for the council said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/
Wednesday: 16 Iraqis Killed, 16 Wounded
Excerpt: Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made the accelerated withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq a high priority in the coming months. Violent attacks left at least 16 Iraqis killed and another 16 Iraqis wounded. A blast in the Green Zone left an unknown number of casualties as well. Meanwhile, a journalist was jailed for writing a story on homosexuality, and a Kuwaiti subcontractor denies confining workers.
http://www.antiwar.com/
Suicide bombings in Iraq hit Fallujah, prompt lockdown
BAGHDAD — Authorities sealed off the city of Fallujah Thursday after two suicide bombings killed 15 people and wounded more than 100, Iraqi police said.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/
Two US soldiers killed by car bomb in Iraq
AFP-Two US soldiers were killed and nine Iraqis wounded when a suicide car bomb exploded in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, the US military said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
Iraqi army Mosul HQ mortared
NINEWA /Aswat al-Iraq: Six mortar shells have fallen on a military unit headquarters in eastern Mosul, leaving no casualties, an Iraqi army source said on Wednesday. "On Wednesday evening, six mortar shells landed on the headquarters of Regiment 1, Brigade 7 in al-Intisar neighborhood, eastern Mosul," the source told Aswat al-Iraq. "No casualties have been reported," [...]
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=
Iraqi guards open fire as migrants riot about deportation
Iraqi guards opened fire above the heads of 1,000 migrant workers who staged a mini-riot today in protest at their poor treatment in Baghdad and the prospect of being sent home without pay. The men, from Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, will be flown to Dubai after the Kuwaiti company that hired them failed to secure enough contract work at dining facilities inside a number of US military bases across Iraq. Their passports have also been taken.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
Iraqi army finds 80 bodies in four mass graves
Reuters-The Iraqi army unearthed 80 decomposed bodies from four mass graves in northern Iraq's volatile Diyala province, a security source for the region said on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/
Reconciliation needed in Iraq's most violent city
AP-It's a dirty, numbing, dangerous job in Iraq's deadliest city, and pays a modest $500 a month. But when the police department recently advertised for college graduates to fill 200 positions as traffic policemen, it was deluged with 2,000 applications.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Iraq's Bloodiest City Is Largely Ignored By Government
MOSUL, Iraq — It's a dirty, numbing, dangerous job in Iraq's deadliest city, and pays a modest $500 a month. But when the police department recently advertised for college graduates to fill 200 positions as traffic policemen, it was deluged with 2,000 applications.
"Half of the terrorists would be defeated if we defeat unemployment," says police Gen. Khalid Soltan, citing an example of how desperately Mosul citizens scour for jobs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
CNN: Declassified government docs show U.S. let Saddam gas Kurds for farm deal
CNN found that intervention is often weighed against political and economic costs. Declassified U.S. government documents show that while Saddam Hussein was gassing Iraqi Kurds, the U.S. opposed punishing Iraq with a trade embargo because it was cultivating Iraq as an ally against Iran and as a market for U.S. farm exports. According to Peter Galbraith, then an idealistic Senate staffer determined to stop Hussein from committing genocide, the Reagan administration "got carried away with their own propaganda. They began to believe that Saddam Hussein could be a reliable partner."
http://www.
Al Anfal remains mourned at last
For more than 20 years, Aska Ali Ameen waited for her husband to come home.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/
Iraq bids to stop Christie's sale of ancient earrings
The jewelry could belong to the treasures of Nimrud, officials say.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/
U.S. citizen allegedly tortured in United Arab Emirates
ACLU says Naji Hamdan, a naturalized American, was detained at the behest of the U.S. government and has been charged in the Persian Gulf nation with a terrorism-related offense. A former Hawthorne man detained in the United Arab Emirates since Aug. 29 has been tortured and ultimately charged with a terrorism-related offense, according to a lawyer with the ACLU of Southern California.
http://feeds.latimes.com/%7Er/
Arab-American hate crimes down after 9/11-report
Hate crimes against Arab Americans have decreased steadily since the Sept. 11 attacks but are still more common than they were before the hijackings, a civil rights group said on Thursday. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said it received an average of 120 to 130 reports of ethnically motivated attacks or threats each year between 2003 and 2007, a sharp decrease from the 700 violent incidents it documented in the weeks following the 2001 attacks.
http://www.alertnet.org/
U.S. court upholds $156 million judgment against Palestinian charities
A federal appeals court has upheld a $156 million judgment against three Palestinian charities accused of bankrolling terrorism. But it has dropped the lone individual from the long-running civil suit.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/
Charity is Not a Crime: Fallacy of Justice
When twelve good American jurors acquit a group of defendants from all charges, and twelve other good American jurors convict them of all the charges in a second trial, one cannot help but wonder what kind of judicial system we have. And when the defendants are a group of compassionate Americans, who raise funds to feed hungry families, to open schools to educate young minds, and build clinics and hospitals to care for the sick, the disabled and the elderly, one wonders what had happened to compassionate America, who offers aid to poor nations. The trial case of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity that provided aid to impoverished families in other countries as well as some American families, raises such wonders.
http://palestinechronicle.com/
Wajahat Ali: Abusing a charity to distract from US failings against the real terrorists
Prosecuting a charity such as the Holy Land Foundation reveals the callous contempt within the Bush administration.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Jimmy Carter writes new book on Middle East
AP-Former President Jimmy Carter has written a new book on the Middle East with a title he hopes will not be as controversial as the last one, which was called, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
Middle East Sees "Explosion" Of Comedy, First Stand Up Festival In Arab World
1. Do Arabs actually laugh?2. Do Arabs understand jokes?3. Don't they hate you because you are American?, Those are just a few of the actual questions I have heard when I tell people in the US that I'm performing stand up comedy in the Arab world. This week's historic Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival in Jordan-as well as the other recent shows I have performed in the Middle East-have answered those questions as follows: 1. Arabs do laugh (In fact, many are very funny themselves); 2. Arabs do understand the jokes in English; 3. No, they don't all hate us-in fact, a large number of Arabs actually love us.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
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