Middle East

NOVANEWS 12/18/2010 Israeli occupation contributes to the water crisis in the South Hebron Hills State Department says it has ‘raised’ Abu Rahmah case with Israelis… Mr President, answer Matthew Lee of the AP: ‘Why is it beneath the United States to come out and say something about this practitioner of nonviolence?’ S. African politicians ‘beaten up by IDF’ & Please sign the petition to free Palestinian children detained by Israel Jeffrey Goldberg likens BDS movement to Nazi Germany policies Say it ain’t so: Zakaria, Huffington and Tom Friedman go to bat for center that is desecrating Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem Dozens tear-gassed in Bil’in as they walk toward lands owned by people of the village At Brooklyn College, the dialogue problem At 6 am, reeling fr...

NOVANEWS Women with strong views campaigning in Gaza Wikileaks bastard children are growing An info-struggle that we must win Thank you for describing Wikileaks for us all This is what Murdoch produces on Wikileaks Cuba ain’t no paradise and the US diplomat there is pernicious This is how America treats people with a conscience And nothing will ever be the same again… Getting out of the West Bank is for real Israeli security   Women with strong views campaigning in Gaza Posted: 18 Dec 2010 03:51 AM PST Palestinian feminist Asma Al-Ghoul pushes for secularism in Islamic Gaza. It’s vital that growing Islamisation under Hamas is challenged: Recently Asma garnered media attention for two incidents with the Hamas police. In the summer of 2009, she walked on a public Gaza be...

NOVANEWS al-shabaka policy brief By Randa Farah December 2010 Overview In this policy brief, Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Randa Farah examines the UNRWA-refugee relationship based on her anthropological research in Jordan.1  She argues that the Agency took on an exaggerated role that mirrored that of a welfare government-in-exile, especially before the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) assumed leadership in the mid-sixties and after it, de facto if not de jure, turned its back on the refugees by signing the Declaration of Principles (DoP) with Israel in 1993.  She proposes that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is a unique humanitarian organization, but is neither static and homogeneous, nor is it apolitical.  Rather, Farah contends that it is a site of multiple and som...

NOVANEWS   Nadia Hijab December 17, 2010 Three aspects of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Saban Center speech on Friday have escaped general notice. First, though she spoke boldly of asking "tough questions and expecting substantive answers" on the core issues of the conflict, the process will not culminate in a "just, lasting and comprehensive peace" as Clinton claimed, but rather a framework agreement. What is a framework agreement? As defined by United States peace envoy George Mitchell in early September at the short-lived revival of direct Israeli-Palestinian talks, this peculiar American innovation is said to be more than a declaration of principles but less than a full-fledged treaty. It is supposed to establish "the fundamental compromises" that would t...

NOVANEWS Dec 17, 2010   GAZA CITY,  A Palestinian teenager fishing off the coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday drowned following firing by the Zio=Nazi Navy, a health official and witnesses said. "Adolescent Zyad el-Bardawil, 15, died after Zio=Nazi pursued his boat at sea," a spokesman for Gaza's health services, Adham Abu Selmiya said. According to witnesses, the Zio=Nazi Navy opened fire on fishing boats off the coast of Rafah when one of the boats overturned and the teenager drowned. The boy's boat was part of a small flotilla of fishing boats that was pursued by a navy patrol boat, the witnesses said. Fishing zones are strictly limited off Gaza by Zio=Nazi which has imposed a blockade of the Gaza Strip.  

NOVANEWS When chocolate isn’t just about eating and enjoying Prosecute Wikileaks and put reporting in jeopardy Australian PM speaks like a drunken autocrat when it comes to rights Assange: “It’s not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning” Our wars are being controlled by somebody else Don’t blame Wikileaks for our incompetance Note to US; Australia is ruled by right-wing people India and Sri Lanka are our mates (and they cause violence) Australia; no laws broken by Wikileaks   When chocolate isn’t just about eating and enjoying Posted: 17 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST My following review appears in today’s Weekend Australian newspaper: Chocolate Wars: From Cadbury to Kraft, 200 Years of Sweet Success and Bitter Rivalries, by Deborah Cadbury, Harper Press, 340pp,...

NOVANEWS   To call in question the society you “live” in, you must first be capable of calling yourself in question    We have come to the time of year when many childhood memories of Santa Claus are evoked and Christians are reminded of the birth of a Son. Some will celebrate the re-birth of a Sun as the low point of the winter solstice is passed and the days at last grow longer. Others will give presents just because it’s so good to give, and as they decorate trees and festoon their rooms with boughs of holly and the like, the pagan origins of this festival will be forgotten. Forgotten too will be the people in present day Bethlehem in their struggle for justice and security. In 1948, many refugees from areas captured by Israeli forces fled to the Bethlehem area of what is now known as t...

NOVANEWS  Freedom isn’t just a slogan on a coffee cup Dalai Lama too keen to avoid agitation with China? American figure defends Wikileaks New York Times no chance of getting award for bravery Daniel Ellsberg backs Aussie group for Assange Soon Israel will be surrounded by walls on all sides “Sweet smell” of (partial) liberation Assange freedom Just watched Pilger’s The War You Don’t See Don’t forget Bradley Manning  Freedom isn’t just a slogan on a coffee cup Posted: 16 Dec 2010 05:30 PM PST Following the appearance in the New York Times of an ad sponsored by Australian activist group Get Up!, Ralph Nader speaks in support of Wikileaks and the importance of transparency in democracy. Bravo.   Dalai Lama too keen to avoid agitation with China?Posted: 16 Dec 2010 ...

NOVANEWS December 15, 2010 by Stuart Littlewood Church leaders from Palestine tell the Irish… “We need only one thing, to be protected by the world against the crimes of  Israel”       Outside the Irish Parliament. Left to Right: Alan Lonergan (SADAKA), Constantine Dabbagh, Fr Manuel Musallam, John Ging, Archbishop Theodosius Hanna.  By coincidence John Ging, director of operations in Gaza for UNWRA, happened to be in town and bumped into the Holy Land trio at the gates of the Irish Parliament. Ging was pleasantly surprised to see familiar Gaza faces in Dublin (see photo above) We are not here as politicians, they said. We come as representatives of the various churches in Jerusalem. But the trio from the Holy Land showed they were more than a match for western politicians who fancy t...

NOVANEWS Israeli government thanks Palestinians for help with the fires… More Recent Articles Search The Only Democracy? By Jesse Bacon ..By not recognizing their names and refusing them entry for award ceremony in their honor. . This should remind us just how arbitrary the whole edifice of permits and checkpoints is that it can keep out people who helped contain the horrible fires and prevent worse disaster. I am also reminded of the U.S. soldier who was the first to die in the Iraq War and was posthumously awarded the citize- nship he was denied in life. Israeli officials on Tuesday canceled a ceremony planned to honor the Palestinian firemen who assisted in battling the Carmel fire last week, after a number of crew members were refused permits to c...