Middle East

NOVANEWS November 12, 2010 by Debbie Menon     Robert Fisk Five years after Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was killed, rising sectarian tensions and a teetering government are threatening a new conflict in Lebanon, Robert Fisk wrote on Friday. In an article in British daily The Independent, Fisk pointed to the vibrations witnessed by Lebanese, noting that last week, F-16 fighter aircraft was flashing over the seafront and the streets of Beirut. “What message were the Israelis sending this time? That they do not fear the Hezbollah? That they can humiliate Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri?” he wondered. “Heaven knows, they hardly need to do that, when Hariri has several times taken the desolate road to Damascus for a friendly chat with the man he believes murdered his father...

NOVANEWS 11/12/2010 Video shows Israeli soldiers celebrating the demolition of houses in Gaza We would not have had to interrupt Netanyahu if the world listened to Palestinian voices Israeli military threatens to raid West Bank secondary school unless they end commemoration of Yasser Arafat Dana: ‘I ask myself if I would have the moral clarity to behave as the Palestinians do if I were in their situation’ An open letter to participants in the Arava Institute’s online event “With Earth and Each Other” Now On Display: Israel’s Palestinians Arizona State University students protest IDF speaker Would Julius and Ethel be Zionists had they lived? Video shows Israeli soldiers celebrating the demolition of houses in Gaza Nov 11, 2010 Adam Horowitz The video above ...

NOVANEWS Two freshman at Cornell University did not like the posters for the Joseph Dana talk that my student group, United for Peace and Justice in Palestine, recently hosted. They disliked it so much that they wrote us a letter, and because one of them placed it in the public domain on her blog (Shalom from Home) I am quoting it in full: Carl, We recently came across a poster for the UPJP event, Anarchists Against  the Wall. The poster's message, "SMASH ISRAELI APARTHEID," offended us personally as supporters of Israel and Jews. The message implies that  Israel is an Apartheid state and Israel's supporters condone the alleged Apartheid. Israel is not an Apartheid state. Apartheid is a legally enforced system that  institutionalizes segregation, discrimination, and oppression based on rac...

NOVANEWS   שלום לכולן בעקבות הדוח שפרסמנו על הרכבת המהירה מתל אביב לירושלים שעוברת בשטחים וגוזלת אדמות (לדו"ח: http://www.whoprofits.org/articlefiles/WP-A1-Train.pdf)אנא חיתמו והעבירו הלאה לכל הרשימות: www.change.org/petitions/view/stop_the_train_corporations_must_stop_building_an_israeli_train_through_palestinian_lands?share_source=popup-widget_em Dear all, Following our report about the Tel Aviv- Jerusalem fast train, which would pass through the West Bank and take up Palestinian land (See the report here: http://www.whoprofits.org/articlefiles/WP-A1-Train.pdf), there is an internet petition going around, calling upon the companies to withdraw their involvement: Please sign and send around to all lists: www.change.org/petitions/view/stop_the_train_corporations_must_stop_building_an_...

NOVANEWS In This Issue... Welcome to the Zoo More Recent Articles Search The Only Democracy? By Audrey Farber, crossposted at   Photo by Audrey Farber   My neighborhood doesn’t have street signs. And when it does, they don’t refer to names of streets anyone is familiar with. House numbers, too, are scarce. I didn’t know my own street address until yesterday – four and a half months after my arrival. My neighborhood doesn’t have the big plastic-and-glass street- side recycling cages that are conveniently placed around the rest of the city. Its streets are narrow and winding, and children on bikes navigate the obstacle course created by their siblings and cousins and neighbors playing soccer between doorway goal posts. There is one bus stop, few t...

NOVANEWS Dear Friends, Count your blessings.  Only 2 items this evening due to the combination of a meeting that I had to attend and to the news in the newspapers.  Of course there is in addition to the 2 items below some news about the Clinton-Netanyahu talks.  The best part of that report is the picture of the two, Clinton with a big big smile on her face, Bibi lips tightly closed and looking quite unhappy.  Would almost seem to suggest that Clinton said something that clipped Bibi’s wings.  But I doubt it, unfortunately.  You can see the picture here http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-serious-on-peace-talks-netanyahu-tells-clinton-1.324198 To get down to serious matters (not that peace is not a serious matter; only that I don’t believe that these talks even if they res...

NOVANEWS 11/11/2010 U.S. Justice Department prepares for the ominous expansion of law prohibiting ‘material support’ for terrorism Bil’in invaded for the fourth time in three days Why I disrupted Bibi’s speech – A response to Ben Sales at New Voices Thinking of Rachel Corrie during the olive harvest in the Galilee Israel carried out 35 attacks against Palestinians in East Jerusalem during October The Mavi Marmara is set to hit the big screen in Turkey My meeting with Henry Waxman NYT implies Muslims are the hostile ‘other’ The fight has broken out inside the Jewish family You’d have to give Chris Matthews sodium pentathol to find out why we invaded Iraq U.S. Justice Department prepares for the ominous expansion of law prohibiting ‘material support’ for terrorism Nov ...

NOVANEWS 11/10/2010 My meeting with Henry Waxman Jewish Values vs. Israeli Policies: Why five young Jews disrupted PM Netanyahu in New Orleans Memo to NYT: fix your boilerplate Sisyphus in the South Hebron hills Gaza’s hospitals: Bring your own medicine Wait– Zionist uses choke-hold on Netanyahu protester… a woman… in the USA? De Gaulle/Arafat Obama, they’re laughing at you Night raid in Bil’in Video of activists disrupting Netanyahu at Jewish Federations General Assembly My meeting with Henry Waxman Nov 09, 2010 Brian Van Slyke  Disclaimer: I wrote the following a couple of hours after my encounter with Congressman Henry Waxman today. This is not verbatim, it is not a transcript, but it is my recollection of the conversation. I've kept in everyth...

NOVANEWS John Ging: Conditions in Gaza have not changed since Israel declared it would ease the blockade 11 November 2010   John ging: 'No tangible change has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Israel announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.' The Director of Operation for the UN Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA] in the Gaza Strip, John Ging, has confirmed that "no tangible change" has occurred to the lives of Gaza's people since Zio=Nazi announced it would ease its economic blockade of the Strip last June.   Zio=Nazi army announcement that it would lift some of the restrictions imposed on Gaza to allow the entry of more food and consumer goods followed the international pressure it came under after nine Turkish peace activists were killed by Zio=Nazi g...

NOVANEWS 11 November 2010 By Seumas Milne In a quiet street in the Sheikh Jarrah district of occupied East Jerusalem 88-year-old Rifka al-Kurd is explaining how she came to live in the house she and her husband built as Palestinian refugees in the 1950s. As she speaks, three young ultra-orthodox Jewish settlers swagger in to stake their claim to the front part of the building, shouting abuse in Hebrew and broken Arabic: "Arab animals", "shut up, whore". There is a brief physical confrontation with Rifka's daughter as the settlers barricade themselves in to the rooms they have occupied since last winter. That was when they finally won a court order to take over the Kurd family's extension on the grounds that it was built without permission – which Palestinians in Jerusalem are almost nev...