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The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil,    but because of the people who don't do anything about it    
Commentary

TitleDescriptionDate
To most Israelis, a colonial regime is preferable to dealing with the settlementsZeev Sternhell - Haaretz - The problem lies deep within Israeli society. After nearly half a century of controlling the territories, most Israelis view the colonial regime as something to be taken for granted and the invalidation of the Palestinians’ rights as part of the natural order of things. The segregation of the buses was an interesting symbolic test that reflected reality. The average Israeli will rebel against apartheid only the day he’s barred from trading with Europe and has to wait three months for a visa to visit Paris. [bz]31/5/2015
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Military commentator: Israel and Hamas have discovered no one is going to help them; they will have to get along on their ownAlex Fishman - Ynet - Rocket fire from the Strip towards Israel is answered with a proportional airstrike, and that`s the end of it. There is no response to a response to a response. (...) But if we don’t play the cards that we currently have in our hands right, we will find ourselves in new rounds again. [bz] 30/5/2015
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The leftist Israeli magazine +972 wants to sound the alarm on a Jewish state it believes is destroying itselfLiel Leibowitz - +972 " According to Noam Sheizaf, +972’s editor in chief, only about 20 percent of the magazine’s readers are Israeli, a testament to the growing unpopularity of its progressive politics in a nation governed by a coalition, led by the Likud, of those who place land and faith above all else.Rejected by the Arabs, ignored by the Jews: This is the reality with which the magazine’s 15 or so writers have to contend, writing, as they do, in English for a largely American audience. The magazine’s name is no coincidence: It is a tribute to Israel’s international calling code and an acknowledgement that, increasingly, any serious conversation about Israel’s policies is to be had outside of Israel’s borders." ca29/5/2015
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Media`s Deafening Silence Over West`s and Israel`s Alliance With al-Qaeda in Syria John Hilley - Information Clearing House "independent journalist Asa Winstanley: For several years now there have been propaganda reports in the Israeli press about how Israel is supposedly playing a purely "humanitarian" role in the Syrian war, by treating civilians and sending them back. But this has now been exposed as propaganda. If that were really the case, Israel would be treating combatants from all sides in the Syrian war and furthermore it would arrest suspected al-Qaeda militants. But in reality, all reports confirm that the Israelis are treating only the "rebel" side, including the al-Qaeda militants that lead the armed opposition in that area of Syria (as indeed they do in much of the country). The key difference that disproves the propaganda line, and proves an active Israel-al-Qaeda alliance is that, after treatment, instead of arresting them, the al-Qaeda fighters are sent back to fight in Syria. There is no chance at all that, in the event that Israel captures injured Hamas, Hizballah or Iranian combatants alive, it would send them back to Gaza or Syria to "go on their way", as the unnamed Israeli official put it. Winstanley provides multiple corroboration of Israel`s supportive role, including the testimonies of Israeli military figures and a few braver field journalists." ca29/5/2015
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The untold story of Israeli military exports to South SudanAdv. Itai Mack and Idan Landau - +972 " Since South Sudan’s independence, Israel has continuously sold it weapons, military training, homeland security and surveillance technology. The only problem? They are being used to commit war crimes and potential crimes against humanity." ca29/5/2015
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The Foreign Ministry? No, the Ministry of Divine PromisesAviad Kleinberg - Ynet News "It`s true that no one in the world shares the outlook of the deputy foreign minister and her friends in the Yesha Council, but this outlook is right, at least in the eyes of Deputy Minister Hotovely, Foreign Ministry Director-General Gold and their friends. If needed, they will explain to the surprised gentiles our right to the entire land in the name of the divine promise." ca29/5/2015
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France works to restart talks toward Israeli-Palestinian peaceUri Savir - AlMonitor - To unblock the peace process, an international proposal must be put on the parties` table. For the moment, however, it seems that too much attention is unfortunately being paid by the United States and the European Union to the domestic political predicaments of the conflict parties. [bz]27/5/2015
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Israel drawing up `wish list` of US sweetners over Iran deal Alex Fishman - Ynet - Resigned to fact that deal will be signed, Jerusalem is eyeing huge arms deals US has with Gulf States, and wants a larger aid package. [bz] 27/5/2015
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Netanyahu may be Erdogan, but Israel is not TurkeyNahum Barnea - Ynet - "In his delusions, the prime minister called early elections, dismissed Israel Prize judges, undermined the free press, conducted a racist election campaign, and sold out the core values of the State of Israel and Zionism in shameless coalition deals." - id 26/5/2015
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Netanyahu thanks U.S. for blocking a Nuclear Weapons Free Middle EastEileen Fleming - The Arab Daily News - "U.S. Under Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller announced there was “no agreement” and accused some countries of undermining the negotiations at the 2015 NPT Review Conference." - id 26/5/2015
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Who Will Save Israel? Uri Avnery - Gush Shalom - "The battle is over. The dust has settled. A new government – partly ridiculous, partly terrifying – has been installed. It is time to take stock" [ry]25/5/2015
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Why Sayed Kashua is afraid to give interviewsSayed Kashua--One time, when I was young and naïve, I was asked in an interview a question that journalists typically ask Arabs: “What good things can you say about Israel?” I’m afraid that at the time I ranked freedom of expression at the top of the list. Possibly I had a high regard at the time for freedom of expression in Israel, because in my work as a journalist I had never encountered problems resembling the stories I’d heard in my childhood. Stories about arrests of people who published certain newspapers, about teachers who were fired and arrested only because they dared to deviate from the curriculum, about Palestinian writers and poets who were persecuted and sometimes even liquidated for the views they expressed in their writing. Maybe I had a high regard for freedom of expression in Israel because I tended to draw comparisons with the situation in the Arab world. After all, we Palestinians who dwell in Zion are always being told to be appreciative of our situation, when compared to life in those 22 states in which we are not citizens (all of which we probably can’t even name). Obviously, anyone who grew up watching Jordanian television, with its paeans to King Hussein, will see Israel as a paradise of freedom of expression. dn 24/5/2015
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Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United NationsHenry Siegman-The greetings President Obama extended last week to Israel’s new government may have sounded conciliatory, but Mr. Obama no longer entertains any illusions about Israel’s leaders.dn23/5/2015
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What Israel`s Chief of Staff Is Worried About — No, It`s Not IranJ.J.Goldberg - Forward - What most concerns the military in the short range is the likelihood of renewed flare-ups within the next few years with the heavily armed Islamist militias on Israel’s northern and southern borders, Hezbollah and Hamas. Eizenkot, who took command February 15, is trying to direct every possible resource toward reorganization, reinforcement and intensified training of the army’s ground forces, which will be called on to bear the brunt of that fighting if — or rather, when — it resumes.-rh27/5/2015
Reassessing U.S. Aid to IsraelAllan C. Brownfeld - Information Clearing House "In the new government, what Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, calls “the overtly racist party, HaBayit Hayehudi (Jewish Home),” will control the justice department, the education department and almost all important government offices concerned with the occupation of the West Bank...The new justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, who promises to limit the role of the Supreme Court, became notorious for justifying the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager by Israeli youths in East Jerusalem. She published on Facebook what Rabbi Lerner termed “in effect, genocide for Palestinians.” The posting declared that “the entire Palestinian people are the enemy” and justified its destruction, “including the elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” She also called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to “little snakes.” ca22/5/2015
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Breaking the Silence ‘confessions’ part of the problem, not the solutionGhada Ageel and Rela Mazali - Middle East Eye - The Israeli veterans’ group “Breaking the Silence” on 4 May uploaded a collection of testimonies describing Israel’s assault on Gaza last summer. These accounts, the group said, were given by more than 60 Israeli officers and soldiers who took part in the attack and disclose "systematic policies that were dictated to IDF forces of all ranks and in all zones, [… and which] led to massive and unprecedented harm to the population and the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip”. 21/5/2015
The story behind Palestine`s canonized nunsDaoud Kuttab - Al-Monitor - While the Vatican`s recognition of Palestine and canonization of the two nuns raised the political profile of Palestinians, the words of Francis to Abbas provided support for Palestinian efforts toward peace. Whereas former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman last year had described Abbas’ efforts as “diplomatic terrorism,” Francis saw things otherwise, as evidenced by the "angel of peace" moniker. 21/5/2015
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Canada`s Plan to Make Boycotting Israel a `Hate Crime` is Stupid and Counterproductive Robert Fisk - Information Clearing House - If I decline to buy Israeli-produced oranges at a British supermarket, this doesn’t make me a Nazi murderer. To criticise Israel doesn’t turn Canadians into Jew-haters. A number of liberal Jewish groups have protested against Harper’s proposed extension of existing ‘hate laws’ – far too many Jewish organisations have praised it – on the grounds that it assumes that all Jews support Israel or approve of its actions. And since Jews are also members of boycott-Israel groups, Harper’s expanded definition of the law would have to put Jews on trial in Canada for anti-Semitism.-rh 21/5/2015
Is being a critic of Israeli state policies the same as being an anti-Semite? David Palumbo-Liu - Salon - Being an anti-Semite means denigrating, persecuting and victimizing a people solely because of the fact they are Jewish. Being a critic of Israel’s policies means criticizing a set of actions undertaken by a government. This seems self-evident, but those who wish to make the equation between anti-Semite and critic of Israeli state policies care less for accuracy and more about silencing and punishing critics with any means available, legitimate or not.-rh 21/5/2015
Confederation Is the Key to Mideast PeaceYOSSI BEILIN - NYT - "My thinking dates from comments Mr. Husseini made to me in 1993, when I was the deputy foreign minister in Yitzhak Rabin’s cabinet, seeking talks with the Palestinians." - id 20/5/2015
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Parodies of Parity: Israel & PalestineRichard Falk - IMEMC - "Looked at objectively, by assessing behavior and apparent motivation, it is the Palestinians that have no partner for genuine peace negotiations, and should have stopped long ago acting as if Israel was such a partner." - id 20/5/2015
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Israeli soldier testimonials stoke Gazans` claims of war crimesAdnan Abu Amer - Al Monitor - "Palestinians believe a report of firsthand accounts by Israeli soldiers and officers who fought in the 2014 Gaza war prove that Israel committed war crimes in its conduct of the conflict." - id 20/5/2015
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A circus in Jerusalem and cinema among the Gaza ruinsAdam Keller - Crazy Country - "Miri Regev....As a Knesset Member she became known mainly for repeated bouts of crude racist demagoguery - against Arab citizens of Israel (in particular, against the Arab woman Knesset Member Haneen Zoabi) and most particularly against refugees from Africa who maintain themselves within the slums of south Tel Aviv." - id 20/5/2015
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Give Up on Netanyahu, Go to the United NationsHenry Siegman - NYT - Only a far-right government that so deeply offends American democratic sensibilities — as this one surely will — could provide the political opening necessary for a change in America’s Middle East policy. Mr. Netanyahu has wasted no time providing that offense by appointing as his justice minister a Knesset member, Ayelet Shaked, who approvingly posted an article on her Facebook page that called for the destruction of “the entire Palestinian people, including its elderly and its women, its cities and its villages, its property and its infrastructure.” The victory of Israel’s far right has thus provided an unexpected, if narrow, opening for Mr. Obama, allowing him to call for a reassessment of America’s peace policy. [bz]19/5/2015
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Parodies of parity: Israel & PalestineRichard Falk - AIC - The relation between oppressor and oppressed is a paramount precondition for sustainable peace. Unless the structural distortion and illegitimacy is acknowledged, no viable political arrangement will be forthcoming [ry]18/5/2015
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End the infighting and honour NakbaDaoud Kuttab--Palestinians are divided by political alignment and country of residence but all can unify around the idea of statehood.dn17/5/2015
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The Vatican and the PalestiniansNYTimes Editorial Board--The practical effect of the Vatican’s decision to sign a treaty recognizing the state of Palestine is debatable, but it is a symbolic victory for Palestinians who are struggling to keep alive their dream of a Palestinian state, which has been thwarted by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.dn17/5/2015
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A tale of two tragedies: From Beitunia to Vienna on Nakba DayNatasha Roth--On Nakba Day last year, Israeli Border Police killed two Palestinian teenage protesters and gravely injured a third. Two days after witnessing one of the shootings, I find myself at a memorial service in Vienna, honoring my relatives who perished in the Holocaust. The dizzying identity carousel never stops revolving.dn17/5/2015
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On Nakba Day, Pope Francis Gives Palestinians a Symbolic VictoryJanine di Giovanni and Yemile Bucay--It’s a day of mourning and memory, and one that shows the other side of Israeli independence. In 1948, as war raged across the former British colony, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes during the fighting. Few would ever be permitted to return. For Palestinians, Friday was the 67th day of commemoration of this loss, known as the nakba,” which means “catastrophe” in Arabic. It is a solemn day for the Palestinian diaspora and their 7 million descendants—many of whom still carry the keys to their former homes.dn 16/5/2015
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Nakba.. 67 years and a day after .. a reflectionNadia Harhash--Some parents practically locked up their teen-agers from leaving their homes ( I was among those he literally begged my teenager not to leave the house for any reason . i was into any of his blackmailing tactics in such an occasion ), because the pain of last year two teen-agers in this very timing is still open with its wound. It is not that the loss of one or two is problematic. It is probably about how cheap life passes by. dn16/5/2015
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Boycott, divest and sanction: Zero tolerance for Israel apartheidMurray Dobbin--The CBC`s recent revelation that Conservative Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney has called for "zero tolerance" of criticism of Israel and that Canadian hate laws could be applied to those campaigning for BDS -- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions -- against Israel is repugnant enough. But the truly disturbing irony in this outrageous declaration is that the more extreme the Israeli government becomes, the more illegal settlements it builds, the more explicit its open contempt for world opinion and the more outrageous Netanyahu`s statements, the stronger is the support from the Harper government. It raises the question: is there any action, including the actual expulsion of Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories that Harper would not support? dn16/5/2015
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It`s not the government system, it`s NetanyahuChaim Weizmann - Ynet - "Instead of creating a stable, functioning unity government with the Zionist Union and Kulanu, Netanyahu decided to let every single MK become an extortionist." - id 15/5/2015
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Why does Germany’s young generation hold negative views of Israel? BENJAMIN WEINTHAL - Jpost - The peerless Middle East historian Bernard Lewis wrote nearly 30 years ago in his groundbreaking book Semites and Anti-Semites that German guilt after the Holocaust contributed to the positive response to the founding of Israel. However, he warned presciently that “such feelings are a dwindling asset to Israel, and must inevitably die away as the memory of Nazi crimes recedes into the past.” [bz]12/5/2015
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Israeli colonialism, plain and simpleAmira Hass - Haaretz - is it relevant that Sohlberg is a resident of a West Bank Jewish settlement? It is no more and no less relevant than the fact that the other justices of the Supreme Court and their families, and every other Jewish Israeli (including myself), are entitled at any time to move to a West Bank Jewish settlement, and that they – we – live on the Israeli side of the Green Line in manicured neighborhoods for Jews only and in some instances on land from which Palestinians were expelled 65 years ago or yesterday. [bz] 12/5/2015
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A Day and Night-mare Uri Avnery - Gush Shalom - “But there is a much worse day-and-night-mare for Netanyahu: in a 61-member coalition, ‘every bastard is a king’ as a Hebrew saying goes. Each and every member can obstruct any bill produced by the government, allow any opposition motion to win, absent himself from any crucial vote. Every day would be a field day for blackmail of all kinds. Netanyahu would be compelled to accede to every whim of every member. Even in Greek mythology no such torture was ever invented” [ry]11/5/2015
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Campus Debates on Israel Drive a Wedge Between Jews and MinoritiesJENNIFER MEDINA and TAMAR LEWINMAY--College activists favoring divestment have cast the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a powerful force’s oppression of a displaced group, and have formed alliances with black, Latino, Asian, Native American, feminist and gay rights organizations on campus. The coalitions — which explicitly link the Palestinian cause to issues like police brutality, immigration and gay rights — have caught many longtime Jewish leaders off guard, particularly because they belonged to such progressive coalitions less than a generation ago.dn10/5/2015
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An odyssey from Birthright to the BDS movementNaomi Darom--Sussman isn’t the only American to visit Israel on a Birthright or similar program and return filled with questions that morph into criticism. Many of these young people I spoke with say that after Birthright they became activists in left-wing organizations. They reflect the way some people see Israel when visiting for the first time — as well as young American Jews’ changing relationship with the land of their ancestors.dn10/5/2015
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Forcing Arab-Israeli culture to conform - or witherHaaretz Editorial--Fascist-like tendencies are on display in the defunding of Haifa`s politically nonconformist Al-Midan theater. Tendencies that can only be expected to grow stronger under the incoming government. dn10/5/2015
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Israel and ethnic-based exclusionRachel Shabi--As one commentator has already noted, some appointments in Israel`s new cabinet seem to be a case of letting the fox guard the chicken coop. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week announced his new government, with a wafer-thin-majority, the rightwards lunge was written all over it - and all over crucial cabinet positions in particular. So, in charge of the justice ministry, meet the settler-stalwart Jewish Home party`s Ayelet Shaked.dn 10/5/2015
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Netanyahu coalition to repeal limit on size of governmentMoran Azulay--Incoming government seeks to pass bill allowing unlimited appointments of ministers and deputies, claiming proposal will not affect budget despite expected costs in tens of millions of shekels.dn10/5/2015
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EU slams Israeli plans to build in east JerusalemAFP--The European Union on Saturday added to United States and Palestinian criticism over Israeli plans to build 900 homes in east Jerusalem. "Israel`s determination to continue its settlement policy despite the urging of the international community not only threatens the viability of the two state solution but also seriously calls into question its commitment to a negotiated agreement with the Palestinians," the EU said in a statement. dn 10/5/2015
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An Initiative Worth SupportingJames Zogby--For his part, Sam made a seamless transition using both his business and political acumen to contribute to setting up the first Palestinian telecommunications company, PALTEL, and the first modern Palestinian shopping center, PLAZA. Sam focuses his organizing around key issues of importance to the Palestinian American community. For many years now, Sam has been the central resource for information on the difficulties Israel has created for Palestinian Americans traveling to and working in the Palestinian Authority areas. When then Senator Barack Obama made his first visit to the West Bank in 2006, Sam joined the Palestinian business community to brief the Senator about the burdens imposed on them by the Israeli authorities. On his return to the U.S., Obama thanked me for the introduction and told me how much he had learned from the group. dn10/5/2015
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Israel`s new and dangerous governmentHaaretz editorial - Habayit Hayehudi people, like many in the Likud faction, want the justice system to serve as a rubber stamp for the coalition’s decisions and not the defender of individual and minority rights. From now on Shaked will head the Ministerial Committee for Legislation and the Judicial Appointments Committee and have considerable influence on the selection of the attorney general who will replace Yehuda Weinstein. [bz]9/5/2015
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Next head of `Civil Administration` said Palestinians are sub-humanJohn Brown*--After the Oslo Accords, the Israeli army renamed the Military Government of the West Bank the Civil Administration. MK Eli Ben-Dahan was just appointed to oversee the Administration, which oversees the theft of Palestinian land, settlement expansion and controls the movement of millions of Palestinians.dn9/5/2015
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No Palestinians need apply to new Israeli government– and American liberals don’t noticeJames North and Philip Weiss--How would black Americans feel if they voted and knew that no black person would serve in the U.S. Cabinet? Well, Israel is undertaking just such an exclusion with an even larger segment of its population and the Obama administration is celebrating the process. dn 9/5/2015
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Probe Gaza rules of engagement, Israel - or face the ICCAeyal Gross - Haaretz "Until now, the number of civilians killed in Gaza and pictures of the destruction left behind by the IDF have cried out to heaven. But now, the chilling testimony that appears in Breaking the Silence’s report completes the picture of the soldiers’ behavior and the orders that, according to this testimony, they were given...Only a serious, independent investigation examining how the rules of engagement were set and the orders these soldiers describe is likely to be considered a genuine investigation. And if that doesn’t happen, the orders described in the report are liable to be the subject of careful scrutiny by Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague." ca8/5/2015
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Israel’s new justice minister considers all Palestinians to be ‘the enemy’Ishaan Tharoor - Washington Post "Shaked is known for her strident (some would say extremist) views regarding Palestinians and the enfeebled Israeli left. In July, in a controversial post on Facebook, the then-member of the Knesset posted the text of an article by the late Israeli writer Uri Elitzur that referred to Palestinian children as "little snakes" and appeared to justify the mass punishment of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. The post has since been deleted, but an archived version remains." ca8/5/2015
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Bennett to advance Judaism, not democracy, in education systemAkiva Eldar - Il-Monitor - Future Education Minister Naftali Bennett is likely to advance his own ultra-Orthodox perceptions of Jewish heritage at the expense of democratic values and pluralism in Judaism.-rh6/5/2015
The Battle Between American-Jewish Political Donors Heats UpJonathan Cook - Information Clearing House - With potential candidates for next year`s US presidential elections starting to declare their hand, the chief donors on both sides of the political divide appear to have one issue uppermost in mind: Israel.-rh 6/5/2015
At this square in the heart of Tel Aviv…Adam Keller - Crazy Country - "Now it`s official: Mohammed Deif lives - and he has resumed his activity in the military wing of Hamas. The State of Israel did not succeed in "eliminating" him." - id 6/5/2015
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Double standards and pro-Israel hypocrisy slam al-Jazeera AmericaRay Hanania - The Arab Daily News - "Now, the allegations of one obscure employee is being used to challenge the professionalism of the news organization which provides the only real balanced coverage of Arab, Muslim and Middle East issues in America." - id 6/5/2015
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My Palestinian mother was like Baltimore’s Toya GrahamNadia Naser-Najjab - +972 - In the first Intifada, my mother recognized the need to resist but she also wanted to keep her daughter safe — so she locked the doors and hid the keys. But if we are to be consistent, shouldn’t police officers’ mothers be responsible for stopping brutality? Shouldn’t Israeli soldiers’ mothers put a stop the arrests and mistreatment of Palestinian children? [ry]4/5/2015
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Red Rag column: nuclear submarines, Mordechai Vanunu etc. Gideon Spiro - A few days ago I read in the news that Israel had taken delivery of the fifth submarine Germany made for it. Like her sisters, that submarine is armed with nuclear missiles, and I wonder if Chancellor Angela Merkel has ever asked herself why a small state like Israel needs to be armed with nuclear-missile-carrying submarines. gm4/5/2015
WATCH: The conflict starts in schoolSocial TV--Documentary filmmaker Tamar Erde went to five Israeli and Palestinian schools to find out what role state education plays in shaping children’s notions about politics. dn3/5/2015
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Among Nepal’s earthquake survivors: Israeli gays and their surrogate babiesRuth Eglash--It was Tuesday, 10 days since baby Maya’s birth in Kathmandu, Nepal. But already she and her new family — her two fathers, Amir and Alon Michaeli-Molian, and toddler sister, Shira — had experienced a devastating earthquake, a daring rescue operation and a flight on an emergency medical jet. Now there was the endless stream of Israeli journalists who had been traipsing through their modest apartment since the family arrived home 24 hours ago.dn3/5/2015
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A boy called BibiUri Avnery - Gush Shalom - Who is this Netanyahu? Contrary to popular opinion, he is a man of very strong beliefs – the beliefs of his far- right father. The entire world is out to kill us at all times, we need a powerful state to defend ourselves, all of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan has been given us by God (whether he exists or not). Everything else is lies, subterfuges, tactics. When, in a famous speech at Bar-Ilan university near Tel Aviv, Netanyahu embraced the principle of "Two States for Two Peoples", those who knew him could only smile. It was as if he had recommended the eating of pork on Yom Kippur. gm2/5/2015
Palestine and the Injustice of the World CommunityRobert Fantina - PNN - "One asks what it will take for the world to wake up to the horrendous, unspeakable conditions under which Palestinians are victimized by Israel." - id for ca1/5/2015
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Israel eases Gaza blockade, hopes for Hamas stabilityBen Caspit - Al Monitor - "Israel understands that Hamas is in Gaza to stay and is now searching for balance between easing the blockade for Gaza residents and limiting Hamas` military activity." id for ca 1/5/2015
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Israel must seize the opportunity for a deal with the PalestiniansAviad Kleinberg - Ynet - "In the new map of interests in the Middle East, created by radical Islam`s attack on pro-Western Arab states, the price Israel will be required to pay for a solution to the conflict is exceptionally low." - id for ca 1/5/2015
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Another kind of memorialAdam Keller - Crazy Country - "Conspicuously absent from the speech of Israel’s Prime Minister was the word "peace" and the phrase "Our hand is always extended in peace to our neighbors," which Israeli Prime Ministers traditionally tend to include in their speeches - even if it often seems no more than lip service. It was the speech of a leader preparing his people for a total war without compromise, without presenting his listeners with the slightest hope of an end to the bloodshed ever." - id for ca1/5/2015
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The Real NakbahJafar Ramini - The Arab Daily News - "That day is known as The Nakbah – Catastrophe. That catastrophe was and still is of gigantic magnitude that still affects us all today and will continue to do so for generations to come unless we stem the tide." - id 15/5/2015
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Israel’s snub of Carter is a rejection of peaceRay Hanania - The Arab Daily News - "Last week, former President Jimmy Carter traveled to Israel and Palestine but was rebuffed by Israeli leaders. Carter, who ushered in the peace process in the 1970s that Israel has since turned into a circus of rejection, doesn’t want to be reminded that peace requires it to end its war crimes and to compromise by returning Palestinian lands it occupied in 1948 and in 1967." - id15/5/2015
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Making It Explicit in IsraelAnat Biletzki - The New York Times (The Opinion Pages) - Netanyahu voiced an “anti-norm” — what he made explicit were not universal democratic values, which are often loudly touted in official Israel, but the bald, unadorned Zionist norms of exclusive Jewish rights and exclusion of Arab citizens.-rh13/5/2015
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Israel Coalition Scrapes By First Knesset TestMaayan Lubell - Forward - The guidelines of the right-leaning government, released on Wednesday, made no mention of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - the foundation of U.S.-led peace efforts, which collapsed in April last year.-rh13/5/2015
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Vatican to Recognize Palestinian State in New TreatyGAIA PIANIGIANI and RICK GLADSTONEMAY - The New York Times - Formal recognition of a Palestinian state by the Vatican, which has deep religious interests in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories that include Christian holy sites, lends a powerful signal of moral authority and legitimacy to the efforts by the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, to achieve statehood despite the long paralyzed Israeli-Palestinian peace process.-rh 13/5/2015
The two-state solution is dead: Just ask Israel`s own ministers.Mehdi Hasan - Aljazeera - "It is time to acknowledge that the peace process, as we know it, is dead. There is no longer a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict." I wrote these words in 2009. Yet, six years later, most of the West`s leading politicians and pundits - especially of the liberal/left variety - continue to stick their heads in the proverbial sand, refusing to acknowledge this inconvenient truth.-rh 27/5/2015
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The Israeli nuclear plan is to be addressedMaria Botros - Gulf News - The Israeli nuclear plan is to be addressed because it will be the only nuclear programme located at the centre of the Arab world only a few kilometres away from the Saudi Arabian, Egyptian, Jordanian and Palestine borders, said Amr Mousa, former Secretary-General of the Arab League.-rh 13/5/2015
Israeli General Sees ‘Shared Interests’ With HamasJason Ditz - Antiwar.com "In a move that represents a dramatic softening from usual Israeli statements, Major General Sami Turgeman, a top commander, said he believes Israel and Hamas have “shared interests.” ca 13/5/2015
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A bold proposal: Palestine should give its refugees citizenshipFateh Azzam - Ma`an News Agency "In fact, Palestine is already a state, under both the declarative and constitutive approaches to state recognition in international practice. The PLO`s Declaration of Independence on November 15, 1988 in Algiers, as deposited with the UN, implied, ipso facto, acceptance of the pre-1967 armistice lines as borders, specifically encompassing Arab Jerusalem. As such, the entire territory of Palestine as declared in 1988 remains under Israeli occupation...What is proposed here is that the State of Palestine can begin conferring citizenship, in accordance with the Declaration of Independence, and in exercise of its sovereign right to do so as a state, albeit still under occupation and even though its citizens are unable yet to exercise their right to return to their homeland. Importantly, this would be the first act by the State of Palestine to give priority to its hitherto almost-forgotten constituency, the stateless refugees. There are of course benefits and risks." ca13/5/2015
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America as Dangerous Flailing BeastJohn Chuckman - Information Clearing House "...America has carried on a bizarre relationship with Israel, a relationship which is certainly against the America’s own long term interests, although individual American politicians benefit with streams of special interests payments...in exchange for blindly insisting Israel is always right, which it most certainly is not. An important segment of Israel’s population is American, and they just carried over to Israel the same short-sightedness, arrogance and belligerence which characterize America, so much so, Israel may legitimately be viewed as an American colony in the Middle East rather than a genuinely independent state."13/5/2015
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