Palestine Affairs

NOVANEWS Traduction en Français de Roseline Derrien [merci pour Roselien. Dorothy] Nurit Peled Elhanan, Prix Sakharov pour les Droits de l'Homme, membre du Cercle des Familles Endeuillées pour la Paix, et co-initiateur du Tribunal Russell sur la Palestine. Je porterai le deuil pour la Nakba. Je porterai le deuil pour la Palestine disparue que, dans sa plus grande partie je ne connaîtrai jamais. Je porterai le deuil pour la terre sainte qui perd son humanité, son paysage, sa beauté et ses enfants sur l'autel du racisme et du mal. Je prendrai le deuil pour les jeunes Juifs qui envahissent et profanent les maisons de familles à Sheikh Jarrah , jettent les habitants dans la rue et dansent et chantent en mémoire de Baruch Goldstein , le meurtrier infâme d'enfants Palestiniens , pendant que les...

NOVANEWS This is why the problem is Zionism. The United States will not take aid off the table and Israel will continue its settlement project until an internal demographic, propelled by one or another sort of external pressure, forces it to. Jamie: Israeli Vice Prime Minister, Minister for Strategic Affairs and close Netanyahu ally Moshe Ya’alon explains that Netanyahu’s attempts to resume “indirect negotiations” with the Palestinian Authority are just a “maneuver” designed to “create the illusion that an agreement can be reached”: “And I say so out of knowledge,” Ya’alon told Yediot. “Nobody in the forum of seven [senior cabinet ministers] thinks that we can reach an agreement with the Palestinians.” Yediot Ahronot reports (print version, translated from Hebrew): Q: So why all these game...

NOVANEWS Nurit Peled-Elhanan The “Nakba law” passed in a first reading last Tuesday . The law forbids mourning the Nakba on Zionist's Independence Day. Breaking the law will result in high fines and withdrawal of governmental financing from municipal authorities. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Sakharov Human Rights Prize laureate, member of Bereaved Families for Peace and a co-initiator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine I will mourn on Nakba Day. I will mourn for vanished Palestine most of which I never knew. I will mourn for the holy land that is losing its humanity, its landscape, its beauty and its children on the altar of racism and evil. I will mourn for the Jewish youngsters who invade and desecrate the homes of families in Chikh Jarakh, throw the inhabitants into the street, and then sing ...

NOVANEWS   Here's Mike Marqusee on the charges facing the Edinburgh 5 over their protesting the visit of "ambassadors for Israel", the Jerusalem Quartet, about 18 months ago: March 29th will see the resumption in an Edinburgh court of an extraordinary trial with disturbing implications for freedom of expression and campaigners for Palestinian rights. Back in August 2008, five members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign disrupted an Edinburgh performance of the Jerusalem Quartet, who are promoted and indeed contracted to act as official ambassadors of the Israeli state and specifically the Israel Defence Forces. The protesters shouted “End the siege of Gaza”, “Boycott Israel”, “Israel is an apartheid state”, “Stand up for human rights” and similar slogans, were detained by se...

NOVANEWS Adalah is an Israeli organisation that focuses on legal rights for the country’s Arab minority. Its new short film, Targeted Citizen, highlights the inherent discrimination against non-Jews in Israel. The only democracy in the Middle East, indeed: see; www.adalah.org

NOVANEWS Matti Tuchfeld Kadima Council Chairman Haim Ramon is working to sabotage the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians -- say high-ranking political officials. The senior officials say that according to information recently obtained by intelligence agencies that was placed on the desk of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak, Ramon is working with senior PA officials to prevent negotiations from being launched between Jerusalem and Ramallah. According to this information, PA sources confirmed this. It was also said that other figures in Kadima might be partners Ramon’s activity. Political sources say that Ramon has been urging Palestinian and European figures to wait for Kadima to come to power, saying that this would make it possible to launch neg...

NOVANEW Thank you so much to all of the people who joined us on Wednesday night to support the ASUC bill urging divestment from companies that directly fund Israel's illegal occupation and war crimes (General Electric and United Technologies), and to all who sent letters in support of the bill to senators these last couple of weeks. We could not have accomplished the 16-4 win without the massive support we received from the UC community and beyond. Now, we need your help one last time to get this bill fully passed. Tomorrow is the last day ASUC President Will Smelko can VETO this bill and we have believe he is considering such action. We hope you can find one last surge of energy and put it toward emails to President Smelko. We know he is now receiving a large number of emails urging him t...