Middle East

By: Tony Greenstein NOVANEWS What Happened When the Israeli Army Came Calling The Israeli army invaded our neighborhood at 1:30 AM Tuesday morning waking up my mother, wife and sister. Heavily-armed soldiers blocked roads during "the operation". When my family opened the door, they demanded to see me. They were told I have already left to the US. After many more questions, they left a paper that states I am to appear at the military liaison office next Monday. My sister and wife told them I will not be back by then. Clearly the warning from that military officer at Ush Ghrab that I mentioned in my last email, was based on knowledge of this. I guess I am a wanted man now for engaging in nonviolent protest! Those who were at that event and have video, please contact me. What disturbs me is n...

NOVANEWS As the anti-Goldstone, human rights-bashing Lawfare Project’s opening event on March 11 wrapped up, I asked its chairman, Columbia University Law School Dean David Schizer, for an interview. Schizer, who had just attacked the Goldstone Report from the podium, pointedly refused to speak to me and looked for the exit. As Schizer was leaving, he was politely confronted by Columbia Law School Professor Katherine Franke, who heads the school’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Law. "Why didn’t you invite any speakers with an alternative perspective?" Franke asked Schizer.His reply was curt. "We invited one or two but they couldn’t make it," Schizer claimed before hurrying away. Schizer was understandably nervous about his exposure. After all, he had just presided over a day-long conferen...

  NOVANEWS If granted one simple wish to raise awareness in the US Congress about where America’s annual Israel subsidy goes, it would be this: before the next pro-Israel vote, members of Congress would  sit down and watch YNET’s ninety second video of Israeli settlers holding a  Purim Party in East Jerusalem  in the neighborhood where Israel is forcibly evicting Arabs who have lived there for generations so Israelis like these can move in.   It’s not an atrocity, not the casual cruelty of soldiers at a checkpoint, or “at war” against a defenseless civilian populace in Gaza.  These are Israelis far from the stresses of combat, Israelis in a festive mode.  They are singing a song of praise for Baruch Goldstein, the American born Jewish doctor who shot and killed twenty-nine Palestinian...

NOVANEWS "The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a recent spate of press freedom violations in the West Bank, including detentions, censorship, harassment, and physical attacks by Israeli soldiers. We ask that you ensure that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) examine the cases outlined below and discipline any individuals who are found to have committed violations.Since the beginning of February, CPJ has documented seven cases and spoken directly to the journalists involved. A request for comment from the IDF on the cases was not immediately returned."

NOVANEWS "The paper is very poorly-written, repetitive and at times barely coherent. One passage reads: "Accreditation papers cannot be presented to the US Administration and to others without the Palestinian paper. These issues bear a significant link with the forcible take-over of the Gaza Strip, which cannot be construed except by accurately understanding regional developments and how to present accreditation papers." There is much more of this jumbled, and seemingly nonsensical language -- all those governments should wonder what their money is really buying!"

NOVANEWS "Nearly half of Zionist's high school students do not believe that Palestinan-Israeli- are entitled to the same rights as Jews in the Zionist state of 'Israel', according to the results of a new survey released yesterday. The same poll revealed that more than half the students would deny Arabs the right to be elected to the Knesset. "

NOVANEWS Police set for riots in east Jerusalem due to approval of housing units, march led by extremists http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3861596,00.html  Shmulik Grossman  Jerusalem Police and the Border Guard deployed backup forces in the eastern side of the capital Thursday, including the Old City and the Palestinian villages, due to intelligence saying teens are planning to riot there Friday. Last Friday's riots were instigated by a government decision to include east Jerusalem holy sites in its new heritage plan. This week police fear Israel's announcement of the approval of 1,600 new housing units in the eastern city will spark a similar response. As usual in times of tension, police will limit Friday prayer on Temple Mount. Muslim men over 50 carrying an Israeli ID and wom...

NOVANEWS Haaretz:  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155639.html By Nir Hasson  Some 50,000 new housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods beyond the Green Line are in various stages of planning and approval, planning officials told Haaretz. They said Jerusalem's construction plans for the next few years, even decades, are expected to focus on East Jerusalem. Most of the housing units will be built in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods beyond the Green Line, while a smaller number of them will be built in Arab neighborhoods. The plans for some 20,000 of the apartments are already in advanced stages of approval and implementation, while plans for the remainder have yet to be submitted to the planning committees. The planned construction includes the 1,600 homes in the ultra-Orthodox East J...

NOVANEWS Published on 10 March 2010 in Israel. 1 Comment Tags: Gaza, Judaism, Palestine, settlements, Syria, West Bank, Zionism. Who said brutally occupying another people is a barrier to global acceptance? An exclusive club of the world’s most developed countries is poised to admit Israel as a member even though, a confidential internal document indicates, doing so will amount to endorsing Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories. Israel has been told that its accession to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is all but assured when the 30 member states meet in May. But a draft OECD report concedes that Israel has breached one of the organisation’s key requirements on providing accurate and transparent data on its economic activity. The...

NOVANEWS Jewish extremism in Israel is often dismissed as the rantings of a minority. It is true, only a small percentage of the Israeli population truly hates Arabs, but they receive massive political support and sing songs of praise to mass murderer Baruch Goldstein. Andrew Sullivan is right: Maybe AIPAC will wake up one of these days and see the reality that less informed and educated observers cannot miss. No, this is not representative of all Israeli opinion, as massive Israeli demonstrations against this latest provocation reveal, and as another brilliant column by Bradley Burston demonstrates. But open your eyes. Something is happening in the soul of Israel. And it carries great foreboding for peace … for the West, and above all, for Israel: ShareThis See: www.antonyloewenstein.com...