Middle East

NOVANEWS Please read.  This is not the worst that I have heard, but it is bad enough, and will give you some tiny inkling of what it is like to be a Palestinian family living under Israel's thumb. Dorothy  http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/the-reunification-of-my-parents.html#more-28660   The reunification of my parents   by Linah Alsaafin on November 5, 2010     Yesterday my mother crossed the Allenby bridge, from the West Bank to Jordan , to see my father in Amman . What makes this banal act unusual is that she had to wait almost a year to be finally granted permission to cross the border.   Last year my brother wrote about my family's series of unfortunate events which began in August 2009 - how we went from being British citizens living in our homeland on my dad's one year work renewable...

NOVANEWS Just 4 items this evening, since 2 are fairly long.  Item 1 informs us  that “Over the past three years, the State Department has allocated $392 million to the Dayton mission, with another $150 million requested for 2011.13”—the Dayton mission being to build and train the Palestinian security forces.  Why, one wonders, does America with its own serious economic issues continue to sink so much money into producing more military and force in this blood-soaked region.  And, Ethan Bronner in item 2, Why America Chases an Israeli-Palestinian Peace, quotes a top Israeli intelligence official who says that without peace the Palestinian security system might not remain what it is being trained to be.  Is it the purpose of the U.S. to stir more wars here, with an Israeli army facing a Pale...

NOVANEWS ISRAELI SOLDIERS DETAIN FIVE PALESTINIAN SCHOOLBOYS IN SOUTH HEBRON HILLS   [Note: According to the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma'on (Hill 833), are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]   November 21st, 2010 At-Tuwani - Claiming that the children were throwing stones, Israeli soldiers detained five Palestinian schoolboys. Since the beginning of 2005, the children from the village of Tuba wait every morning for an Israeli army escort to accompany them to the school in At-Tuwani, along the shortest road that goes through the Israeli settlement of Ma’...

  NOVANEWS   Israeli media provides a glimpse of how spin drives Israeli diplomacy   Didi Remez | November 21, 2010 at 19:32 | Categories: Diplomacy | URL: http://wp.me/pHlQV-Kq On the front page of this morning’s Maariv, senior columnist Ben Caspit reports [full translation at the bottom of the post; Hebrew original here]: At least three top Likud figures who were briefed recently by officials very close to Netanyahu on the talks with the Americans, on the letter that has not (yet) been written, on the promises that were not made and the stealth bombers that stole away, say that the prevalent view in the Prime Minister’s Bureau about the US administration is that it is “not a credible administration.” That is the reason, these sources say, for Netanyahu’s insistence on...

NOVANEWS 11/21/2010 Mock checkpoint brings the experience of Palestinian students to Columbia University Unfair to Chomsky ‘End Military Aid to Israel’ message reaches thousands of Chicago commuters Wait– we are giving who?? 20 F-35 stealth attack jets?? for what?? Check out Laila El-Haddad’s new book Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between Me and my Israeli cousin Saturday morning cartoons Seeing the elephant in front of you Noah Feldman’s cruel pragmatism Mock checkpoint brings the experience of Palestinian students to Columbia University Nov 20, 2010 Adam Horowitz   For more information visit Columbia SJP and the Right to Education Campaign at Birzeit University. Unfair to Chomsky Nov 20, 2010 Philip Weiss   Outside o...

NOVANEWS 11/20/2010 88 more Palestinian homes slated to be demolished in Silwan DePaul University suspends sales of Sabra hummus; other campuses to follow? The Israeli military left it to settlers to monitor Palestinian farmers during the olive harvest Helen Thomas get standing 0 from 500 as Sam Donaldson declares her the ‘best ever’ Today in Bil’in Khalidi and Mearsheimer offer qualified endorsements of Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions Military industrial complex replaces Oedipus complex in psyche of proud Jew This guy’s right about ‘chosen people’ hocus pocus Quotation of the day Video disproves settler hasbara and demonstrates how the settlements expand through intimidation 88 more Palestinian homes slated to be demolished in Silwan Nov 19, 2010 K...

NOVANEWS   Website reveals details of hundreds of Israeli soldiers it claims took part in Gaza war. 'I stand by everything I did in Operation Cast Lead, and I have nothing to be ashamed of,' says First Sergeant (res.) Ziv Danieli, one of toops included on list Shanni Gurkevitch A website that went online Tuesday has published a list of 200 IDF soldiers which it classifies as directly involved in operations carried out in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Each entry features the soldiers and officers' pictures and personal details, including identification numbers and addresses.   "In underlining them we are purposefully directing attention to individuals rather than the static structures through which they operate," the website states while calling on visitors to spread the info "...

NOVANEWS November 20, 2010 by Alan Hart   Mr. Netanyahu, you and yours are responsible for the “demonization” of  Israel   By Alan Hart/ STAFF WRITTER Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America   When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America recently, he was relaxed, charming and at his deluded best. For Jewish audiences which don’t want to know the truth of history, there’s nobody who can deliver Zionism’s propaganda lines and lies more effectively than him. (Though he didn’t say so, he was obviously delighted that President Obama had taken a hammering in the mid-term elections). I could take issue with Netanyahu on many of his mad assertions but on this occa...

NOVANEWS  Dear Friends, If you would like to have a link to Rifat Odeh Kassis response to Rabbi Warren, here is one which contains also background on the author.  http://chaplainclair.blogspot.com/2010/11/rifat-kassis-responds-to-rabbi-warren.html Please do distribute the letter widely, and also ask your friends to do the same.  It is an important document. As for the 5 items below, the initial one, though very brief, is of essence. It informs us that our own Dalit Baum, researcher and initiator of Israel’s Coalition of Women website Who Profits (www.who.org) (referring of course to who profits from the occupation), will testify before the tribunal on Palestine, and will contend that 2 companies (one British, the other French) are complicit in Israel’s occupation.    Items 2 and 3 treat a ...

NOVANEWS  November 20, 2010    by Tammy Obeidallah   Ever since becoming an activist on behalf of Palestine some ten years ago, I have found ironic humor in the label, “The Middle East’s Only Democracy” used by American policymakers and media in describing the Jewish State. This statement is erroneous on two counts. Anyone with a rudimentary understanding of a democracy knows that Israelis overwhelmingly shun the values associated with such a system; furthermore quite a few countries in the Middle East hold elections regularly. Most recently, Jordan elected a new parliament   Of course there are those who argue that a democracy simply means “majority rule,” or that government leaders are elected, so technically Israel would qualify. “Democracy” is defined by www.thefreedictionary.com, “g...