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NOVANEWS In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine, in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here. One of the subjects investigated in the Survey of Palestine is land use; specifically, which crops were Palestine's leading agricultural products at the end of the British Mandate, and whose farms were producing them. So, according to the Survey of Palestine, who really made the barley fields of Beersheba bloom? The British government survey found that in 1944-45 Palestine’s farmers produced approximately 210,000 tons of grain. About 1...

NOVANEWS Here’s some supreme propaganda for your weekend. Murdoch’s Australian places this story on page one, written by their favourite establishment supporting “reporter” Greg Sheridan – victims of Western wars, what are talking about? – and demands that Australia ignore Israel’s criminality: TONY Abbott has called on the Rudd government not to expel an Israeli diplomat over allegations the Israeli secret service, Mossad, used forged Australian passports in the assassination of a Hamas terrorist in Dubai. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai on January 20 this year. The Dubai authorities later established he had been murdered. The Opposition Leader wants the Rudd government to ignore the precedent set by Gordon Brown’s government in London, which expelled an Israe...

NOVANEWS One of the few Australian academics to actually publicly challenge Australia’s deep relationship with Israel and America is Scott Burchill. Here’s his latest missive: This mysterious story appeared on AM (ABC Radio) on Friday. Just dropped out of the blue. Nothing newsworthy about it. In fact the story is mostly nonsense – including accusations that Iran has chemical weapons. Says who? Even the Israeli government doesn’t make such a claim. Almost identical stories have been broadcast before. I suspect the explanation is that the local Israeli lobby is turning up the heat on the ABC again, after critical stories on Mossad’s identity theft fiasco and bad blood between Netanyahu and Obama. It’s a sympathy trip. No reason for its appearance, other than to portray Israeli citizens as h...

NOVANEWS The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is now a an online-only newspaper, surviving and seemingly thriving in a new age. But its ability to report deeply on various issues has been reduced due to a lack of senior staff. Non-professional journalists have been asked to provide stories. Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is about to enter a brave a new world, charging people for wonderful content that details the wonders of Western liberation campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan: “Adios. Give me a call when you’re free again,” posted Jeannine Steward on Times Online yesterday, shortly after Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced that from June it would be charging £2 a week for access to the websites of The Times and The Sunday Times. The introduction of this internet paywall, first announced by ...

NOVANEWS Next time you read in the corporate press about the desperate situation for Afghan women (caused by the Taliban, of course, never the foreign occupation), remember this: ‘Out-of-the-box’ CIA think tank proposes concerns over women’s rights, fear of terrorism as ways to boost support for Afghan war Evidently spooked by the collapse of the Dutch government over the country’s involvement in Afghanistan, the CIA has put together a strategy proposal to prevent what it fears could be a “precipitous” collapse of support for the war in Afghanistan among European allies. A document marked “confidential / not for foreign eyes,” posted to the Wikileaks Web site, suggests strategies to manipulate European public opinion on the war, particularly in France and Germany. The document doesn’t prop...

NOVANEWS Two Zionist soldiers have been killed during clashes with Hamas fighters on the Gaza Strip’s southern border. Two other soldiers were wounded during the fighting which broke out east of the town of Khan Younis. Two Palestinian civilians were also killed in the clashes inside the Gaza Strip, sources say. During the clashes, a BBC correspondent says it appears there may have been an opportunistic bid to seize a soldier. According to Palestinian sources, Zio=Nazi army used tank shells and heavy machine guns. Speaking to Reuters news agency, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida is quoted as saying: “This was our work, but was carried out for defence.” Zio=Nazi spokeswoman Avital Leibovich described the killings of Zionist soldiers as both “tragic” and “painful” ?. “I think it’s true to say tha...

NOVANEWS In the West Bank, there is a two-tiered system of justice, including for minors. For settler children, justice is administered according to Israeli domestic law, with all the due process protections that affords. They cannot be charged as adults until they reach 18, in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. For Palestinian children, military law applies, and that pretty much means due process, and the tenderness of their years, is irrelevant. Their childhood itself is cut short, both by the circumstances of the Occupation and the letter of military law. Until recently, they could be charged as adults as young as 12 years of age. A recent military order “reformed” that anomaly by setting their age of majority at 16 ...

NOVANEWS “الأمن” يتحسس مسدّسه عند اشتمامه رائحة “الحريّة” الأمن اللبناني يمارس الحريّة وأخيراً، وجد الأمن اللبناني ما يقوم به. خلع عنه بريستيجه والبذلة الأنيقة التي يستخدمها كفلكلور ديمقراطي، يزهو به أمام المدهوشين من الديمقراطية التوافقيّة. هي لحظة نشوة للنظام اللبناني. هي لحظة حسب بها الأمن بأنه “أمن”. خبرته الطويلة التي اكتسبها على أيدي البعث السوري ومخيّمات التدريب الأميركي تخوّله الخروج من الخزانة شاهراً “تذاكيه” وقوّته على الناس. اليوم، تمر البلاد بهدنة هشّة بين الطوائف، بدأت مع المجيء بالجنرال ميشال سليمان، من ساحة حرب مخيم نهر البارد إلى سدّة الرئاسة. هذه الهدنة تعني في المقلب الآخر من النظام اللبناني: استحداث لائحة من الخطوط الحمراءالمحظّر المساس فيها، أو حتى المرور بجانبها. في وقت سابق، كتبتُ مقالاً عن سلسلة الانتهاكات التي تتعرّض لها الحريّات العامة في البلاد (المقال هنا). اليوم...

NOVANEWS The Lebanese Army (just like Lebanon) has been since its inception a joke. An Army that only showed its heroism against the Palestinian civilians through the ages. A Lebanese blogger, Khodor Salamah, was recently summoned by Lebanese Army intelligence and warned against mocking the Lebanese President or the Lebanese Army. I could not believe that this took place, and I had to check with people and with the blogger himself to confirm it. I now can confirm that indeed the Lebanese Army Intelligence threatened ("legal action"?) against the blogger in question. I have been quite unhappy of the Lebanese press disregard for the significance of the story. They think that they can pick on a lone blogger who is not protected by a syndicate or association. Lebanon is being penetrated and vi...

NOVANEWS by Philip Weiss I keep flailing the American press for not showing people what East Jerusalem looks like; how far settlements like Gilo and Ramat Shlomo are from the Old City. Well the Times has a pretty good editorial supporting Obama over Netanyahu here, and it is accompanied by a map of East Jerusalem that goes a long way in the direction I want. I wish the wall weren’t indicated by a faint gray line; this conveys nothing of the real sense of the wall. Also it would be good to have photographs of the carving-up of Jerusalem, so you understand what it is like to look at Gilo from the village of Wallajeh just to the southeast, how Gilo towers over the village whose land it is gobbling.