Middle East

NOVANEWS Dear All,   This evening you receive an overview of what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza, first the Today in Palestine compilation (from yesterday), and following the OCHA Protection of Citizens weekly report.  Just glancing through both gives you an overview of what is happening.  A few of the items I've distributed previously.  My apologies for duplications.   All the best, Dorothy December 10, 2010 Settlers/ Land, Property, Resource Theft & Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing Israel to Destroy Electric Infrastructure Near Hebron Israeli officials ordered destruction of electricity infrastructure, on Thursday, in two Palestinian villages in the southern area of Hebron, local sources said. http://www.imemc.org/article/60137 Barak: When I was PM we built much more in West Bank...

NOVANEWS 12/11/2010 Reverse peristalsis moment Two Gaza teens killed playing with leftover IDF artillery; 2 year old among injured during weekly anti-wall protests Proportionality: ‘Human Rights Watch’ files report on Jordanian restaurant turning away Israeli Jews Today in Bil’in Former Israel ambassador Lubrani says using force against Iran would be giant mistake Debate over Peto thesis reaches the halls of government as Israel/Palestine proxy battle rages on in Canada Let the government know what you think about the criminalization of peace activism move over rover and let Europe take over U of Miami to host conference on Walt and Mearsheimer to which the authors are not invited Jim Crow journalism, now in the LA Times     Reverse peristalsis moment Dec ...

NOVANEWS 12/10/2010 Support grows for Israeli rabbis’ racist letter Inconceivable– the MSM once reflected an Arab perspective The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s perverted stance on ‘tolerance’ Support grows for Israeli rabbis’ racist letter Dec 09, 2010 Seham   And other news from Today in Palestine:   Settlers/ Land, Property, Resource Theft & Destruction/Ethnic Cleansing Gilo Settlement to Expand by 130 Units; US Promises $200 Million for Israeli "Iron Dome" Jerusalem – PNN - One day after American negotiators officially gave up their bid to press Israel for a settlement freeze in the West Bank, the Israeli District Planning and Building Committee authorized 130 new residential units in the settlement of Gilo, near Jerusalem.  The decision was approved last week for the set...

NOVANEWS 12/09/2010 ‘The Palestine Cables’: WikiLeaks expose European chill on Israel after Cast Lead, and Lebanese advice on defeating Hezbollah Why is the White House sending its Iran negotiator to a neocon conference in D.C.? US’s greatest contribution to the peace process has been to reveal Israeli intransigence While the US stumbles with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, others are taking the lead Twelve homes in East Jerusalem razed in one week, West Bank village Tana razed, school in Nablus razed . . . Halfway there! Please help us meet our matching fund goal in December. The US has failed in the peace process, bring in the international community Jim-Crow Journalism: Were there really no Palestinian analysts available for latest NYT article? Another sile...

NOVANEWS Wikileaks, the Australian angle Guess which two countries are most angry towards Wikileaks? Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on big Sydney Wikileaks rally Wikileaks exposes the bromance between journalists and politics   Wikileaks, the Australian angle Posted: 10 Dec 2010 07:26 AM PST Philip Dorling scored the exclusive Australian Wikileaks cables. He explains today how he did it: Getting to WikiLeaks’s secret headquarters took quite some time and was not without complications. This year a careful reading of statements by the WikiLeaks co-founder, Julian Assange, led me to conclude his small organisation had landed what could be the biggest leak of classified information – a vast trove of US documents that, among other things, would provide deep insight into the realities ...

Uri Avnery December 11, 2010   THE JUDGE: “You are accused of murdering your wife and two children. How do you plead: Guilty or not guilty?”   The accused: “Your honor, I do not deal with the past. I think about the future!”   No, not a scene from a comedy. Something very similar really happened. That is how Eli Yishai, the Minister of the Interior, Binyamin Netanyahu and the other nincompoops responded this week to the accusations of gross negligence which resulted in the unprecedented giant firestorm that ravaged large parts of Mount Carmel and caused the deaths of 42 people.     THE EPITOME of chutzpah was reached by Eli Yishai (Shas). In bygone days, a Japanese minister would have committed harakiri on the very first day of the conflagration. But Yishai addressed the public on the last...

NOVANEWS Mubarak for life is Washington’s dream We are fighting growing PR power so we must strike back Nothing to criticise because hating Arabs isn’t such a big deal Top Aussie journalist calls for colleagues to defend Wikileaks Assange and Serco, quite a relationship Karzai is about as statesmanlike as Mugabe Google, Twitter et al on path to helping US imperialism Challenging authority is only beginning Why is the national broadcaster giving so much air-time to a propagandist? The rape of Africa, courtesy of shiny Shell   Mubarak for life is Washington’s dream Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:54 PM PST This is the reality of US foreign policy in the Middle East. Dictatorships for life: Hosni Mubarak, Egypt‘s long-serving president, is likely to seek re-election next year and...

NOVANEWS December 9, 2010 by Stuart Littlewood  … a long-overdue Christmas present for the imprisoned Christians and Muslims alike from a heroic Santa. Fanciful thinking? Of course, given the international community’s spineless leaders.   Fakenham, in Norfolk,Christmas Tree Festival Rarely do I enter a church unless it’s to admire the medieval architecture, a soaring testament to man’s faith in a more dangerous and uncertain age. One reason being that church leaders, by and large, ignore the fate of the Holy Land, which of course underpins the whole structure of their faith.  The performance of our bishops, who have a voice in the House of Lords but never use it, is beyond pathetic. However, every year at this time I make a point of visiting the parish church in the small market town of...

NOVANEWS December 9, 2010 by Prof. William A. Cook  Perhaps Crowley’s “change in tactics” means that the US will abandon its role as “negotiator” and do, as the British Government did in 1947, give the resolution for peace in the mid-east to the UN where it belongs since the UN carved the Mandated land into two states in Resolution 181.   by William A. Cook Philip Crowley - U.S. State Department Philip Crowley, speaking for the State Department, seemed to imply a new beginning for the US as it halted the peace negotiations it had started last May, when he noted there “may well be a change in tactics.” (Aljazeera.net “US Fails in settlements freeze bid: the US suspends efforts to persuade Israel on settlement building freeze” 12/8/2010.) Perhaps Netanyahu’s bribery of billions of US doll...

NOVANEWS   A Message From Abdullah Abu Rahmah on International Human Rights  Day A year ago tonight, on International Human Rights Day, our apartment in Ramallah was broken into by the Israeli military in the middle of the night and I was torn away from my wife Majida, my daughters Luma and Layan, and my son Laith, who at the time was only nine months old. As the coordinator of the Bil'in Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements I was convicted of "organizing illegal demonstrations" and "incitement." The "illegal demonstrations" refer to the nonviolent resistance campaign that my village has been waging for the last six years against Israel's Apartheid Wall that is being built on our land. I find it strange that the military judges could call our demonstrations illegal and charg...