Middle East

NOVANEWS Armed Militias Loose in Silwan and the "Illegality" of a Peace and Mourning Tabernacle in Sheikh Jarah Jerusalem or Gaza - where is it worse to be Palestinian? The question was posed by veteran journalist Amira Hass two weeks ago. Surprisingly (or not), her detailed answer is that things are worse in East Jerusalem: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/jerusalem-or-gaza-where-is-it-worse-to-be-palestinian-1.313485 . The following eyewitness accounts by prominent Israeli activists corroborate her findings. In her article, Hass discusses a recent report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI):  Unsafe Space: The Israeli Authorities' Failure to Protect Human Rights amid Settlements in East Jerusalem: http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=763. The obvious conc...

  NOVANEWS Dear All, Of the 4 items below, the focus is mainly on Silwan.  2 items—2 and 3  are devoted to it.  There is also a 3rd one that I have not included since items 2 and 4 are quite long.  But I recommend it if you find time.  It’s in the NY Times under the heading Blogging the Conflict on Jerusalem’s streets http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/blogging-the-conflict-on-jerusalems-streets/?ref=middleeast The brief initial item below informs us that Israel’s navy killed a Gaza fisherman.  Don’t let all the Israeli propaganda regarding reasons for the blockade on Gaza fool you.  In 2002 or thereabouts BG (British Gas) discovered offshore gas and oil fields in Gaza’s waters.  Israel wants these. Every Israeli military campaign on Gaza is a campaign to conquer and make the gas-...

NOVANEWS Hi All, Just 7 items tonight—some quite long, some you are unlikely to hear about from your domestic commercial media (as the first item).  The initial item from the Christian Peacemaker Teams relates in brief the Heartbreak of a Palestinian family that awakened to find that 6 dunams (approximately 1½ acres) of their grape vines had been devastated, most likely by neighboring settlers, who cut through a wire fence to enter the property.  Not the kind of neighbors that you or I would want to have. Item 2 is longish but informative.  Israel in August 2005 began implementation of the Wisconsin Plan [for more on it, see http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2006/10/victims-of-israels-wisconsin-plan.html ].  In brief, it requires that a person accept whatever job offer is given (no matter the ...

NOVANEWS Joel Beinin on Silwan Joel Beinin has a typically excellent essay up on Middle East Report online on the protests occurring at Silwan, the new generation of activists organizing the protests at Sheikh Jarrah (especially Matan Cohen), the prospects for peace moving forward, and elliptically, what it means to be a left Zionist in Israel. Beinin writes: "The protest organizers are consciously striving to create a conflict between the many 'left Zionists' among whom it has become fashionable to attend the weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah -- people like prestigious Hebrew University professors Menachem Brinker, Moshe Halbertal, Avishai Margalit and Zeev Sternhell, novelist David Grossman, and former speaker of the Knessset Avraham Burg, who typically function as a loyal oppositio...

NOVANEWS Guess who would like to bring down Iran’s nuclear plans? So this is why we pay Serco so much Ben-Gurion University is ripe for boycott Scahill on Blackwater madness under God and country The Rajapaksa dictatorship America wants faceless men to kill its enemies Guess who would like to bring down Iran’s nuclear plans? 24 Sep 2010 What a story: Little doubt remains that the Stuxnet worm represents one of the most sophisticated digital attacks on critical infrastructure systems that cybersecurity researchers have ever seen. The motives of whoever launched that attack is a far murkier question–but a mounting stack of theories is starting to point to a targeted sabotage of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The latest, put forward by Frank Rieger, a researcher at security and enc...

NOVANEWS     رجل الأمن 23 Sep 2010 خالد برّاج في روايته بعنوان "سيرة رجل حقير" يستعرض الكاتب الفرنسي ديديه داينيكس حياة رجل أمن فرنسي عاصر مراحل و محطات أساسية من تاريخ فرنسا الحديث. فمن زمن الإحتلال النازي خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية مروراً بقيام الجمهورية الخامسة و ثورة الطلاب عام 1968 وصولاً إلى إنتخاب الإشتراكي فرنسوا ميتران رئيساً للجمهورية عام 1981 يظهر كلمان دوبريه (بطل الرواية) كموظّف عادي, لا تعنيه السياسة لا من قريب و لا من بعيد يضع في خدمة مرؤوسيه في مختلف الإدارات و الحقبات ذكاءه و دهاءه الخارقين للحفاظ على النظام السياسي القائم, فهو رجل بوليس في الوحدات الخاصة خلال الإحتلال النازي لفرنسا مهمِته الأساسية إلقاء القبض على اليهود و أعضاء المقاومة الفرنسية و تسليمهم إلى السلطات الألمانية و هو أيضاً المحافظ على أسس و إستمرارية الجمهورية الخامسة خلال سنوات حكم الرئيس شار...

If you have trouble viewing the map on this browser, please try Firefox or Chrome. Overview: Map Use Welcome to the Americans for Peace Now map. You can use this map to explore the data we have collected about settlement activity in the West Bank. The map is organized in several layers that show different kinds of data. In the Layer Selector, you can click on the headings to view different areas of the map with pre-selected sets of layers. Or, you can turn on or off individual layers to customize your view. When you select an individual settlement, we'll show you the data that we've collected about it, such as the year it was established and its population. When we post news stories about events in the West Bank, we'll include a link that takes you directly to the location. Y...

NOVANEWS 24/09/2010 NEW YORK (Ma'an) -- President Mahmoud Abbas met with Palestinian-Americans from across the 50 states on Thursday, for an hour-long meeting where he reasserted his position on a resumption of settlement construction. "I will say this once in front of you, if they want negotiations, then they will continue with settlement freeze otherwise the negotiations will stop, and we are sorry to waste the opportunity," Abbas told assembled guests. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told colleagues during a series of phone calls seeking to find a solution to the settlement issue, "if the Palestinians want peace, they will stay in the talks with us in order to reach a framework agreement within one year." Abbas, speaking at the Egyptian Embassy in New York, made ...

NOVANEWS 24/09/2010 Empty Promises: Obama takes his Middle East peace plan to the UN Jerusalem Syndrome: A report from Silwan Copenhagen city council set to vote on divestment NYU to host debate – ‘Is Judaism fundamentally violent?’ Empty Promises: Obama takes his Middle East peace plan to the UN 23 Sep 2010 Phyllis Bennis  "International law is not an empty promise" - except for Palestinians President Obama's General Assembly speech called on the international community to mobilize behind the U.S.-led "peace process." He called on the Palestinians to "reconcile with a secure Israel" and waxed eloquent on the illegality of killing Israeli civilians. He called on the Palestinians' friends to implement the Arab Peace Plan's proposed normalization with Israel without ever menti...

NOVANEWS 09/23/2010 What settlement freeze? Colonists in occupied Hebron pour concrete for four buildings A history lesson in Jerusalem In grief-stricken Silwan–contempt for politicians, and talk of a third intifadah Will liberal Jews take responsibility for their role in American policy and the suffering of the Palestinian people? On second thought: Abbas signals renewed settlement construction won’t end talks What is Israel’s goal in the peace talks – three states for two peoples? Contrary to reports, Peretz will address Harvard social studies gathering What the demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state means to Palestinians Duss on the Peretz/Thomas double standard Sheikh Bukhary’s wife What settlement freeze? Colonists in occupied Hebron pour concrete for four buildings ...