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Today in Palestine! ~ Headlines ~ |
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Bil’in village land out of bounds for internationals
In recent days internationals have been told by soldiers stationed at the checkpoint at the wall cutting through the village, that orders have been given forbidding access to this land. For the past year internationals have been able to cross the wall to visit and stay at the outpost built on village land and to help work the agricultural land. Settler-colonists from the illegal colony of Matityahu East have in the past set fire to the outpost, making the need for a permanent presence at the outpost essential.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/12/09/bilin-outpost-ban/
Israeli settlers kidnap Nablus man
Israeli settlers in the northern West Bank have kidnapped a Nablus man, as reported by resident eyewitnesses. A social worker and education director was taken by settlers from Shilo Settlement between Nablus and Ramallah yesterday. The man was on his farm when a group of settlers drug him to a car and took him to the settlement built on the lands of a neighboring village.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1171
Sheikh issues fatwa as Israelis continue with plans to build Museum of Tolerance in Muslim cemetery
For several months protests have mounted and letters have been written, while the Israeli court issued a ruling to move a parking lot in the museum plans in order to overtake less of the cemetery. After studying forensic evidence, statements from the nation's scholars and scholars of the Islamic faith, the Sheikh has ordered it absolutely forbidden to “attack Islamic graves in any part of Palestine occupied in 1948.”
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1168
The latest proposed prisoner swap in Palestine
Although the Palestinians have captured Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories in years past, this is the first time they carefully concealed their operation and then immediately insisted on a swap. For Israel, this has been both humiliating and unacceptable. Israel started putting a great deal of pressure on the Palestinians in the hopes that the soldiers would be released. It started waging attacks that have claimed so far the lives of 520 Palestinians and resulted in thousands of injuries, the demolition of many homes, and the destruction of many industrial and agricultural installations.
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/177166.html
The last casualty?
In the past month, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces was 45 times greater than the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians. The Palestinian dead included 13 minors. All in one deadly month. The last name on the list is Ayman Abu-Mahdi, a 10-year-old boy who had come home from school and gone out to get a little air with his siblings and friends. He was sitting on a bench in front of his house. The time: 15 hours before the cease-fire in Gaza.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798266.html
Israeli soldiers kill child with toy gun
Miras al-Azza, 12, was shot in the belly when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a group of children playing with a plastic rifle in the Aydah refugee camp. The soldiers fired from a military position at the camp's entrance, the sources added. The Israeli army had no immediate comment.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1068303
Young Tuqu' residents kept for questioning in Friday night stone-throwing
Under the pretext of searching for boys who threw stones, Israeli forces stormed southern Bethlehem's Tuqu' Village late night Friday. Dozens of young men were forced into the streets for at least two hours while Israeli soldiers tore through the contents of family homes.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1162
Palestinian Factions "agreed On Borders Of State" - Hamas
In a speech at the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, said that all the Palestinians are now agreed on the establishment of a state "taking into consideration the right of return, Jerusalem and the release of all detainees."
http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_4897-Palestinian-Factions-agreed-On-Borders-Of-State-Hamas.html
Witnesses: IDF troops shoot and wound two Palestinians in Gaza
Israel Defense Forces troops shot and wounded two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Friday, Palestinian sources said, a day after Israel's prime minister said he could order renewed assaults if needed to prevent militant factions posing a threat to a shaky truce.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=798691
Right of Return Center Director: UNRWA has failed the refugees
Badrsawi said Saturday that with the arrival of the second Intifada, the UNRWA “failed the minor role required of it,” while “attempting to pass off its poor services as resulting from 'lack of funds.'” He says that cuts in service are political. Finally, Badrsawi emphasized that United Nations Resolution 194, the Right of Return, is an individual and collective right that cannot be negotiated away by any party, wholly rejecting any draft agreements that detract from a refugee's ability to go home.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1169
UN Beit Hanoun investigation committee to arrive in Gaza December 14
The committee was slated to arrive on December 11 but UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, instructed it to head to Gaza after the Geneva Human Rights Committee, headed by bishop Desmond Tutu finishes its investigation. Therefore, the UN committee delayed its arrival until December 14.
http://www.imemc.org/content/view/23118/1/
Gaza police storm parliament over unpaid wages
The demonstrators prevented deputy parliament speaker Ahmed Bahr, a member of the ruling Hamas movement, from addressing them and instead hurled insults, the security official said. The Palestinian security forces are dominated by supporters of Abbas's secular Fatah faction and have clashed periodically with the ruling Islamists.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061209/wl_mideast_afp/mideastpalestiniangazastrike_061209105449
PLO officials: Abbas to dismiss parliament, call early elections
"At the end of the speech, he is going to announce that he will resort to early presidential and legislative elections but will keep the door open" for forming a unity government with Hamas, said committee member Khalida Jarar.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798670.html
PM open to Italian proposal to send international force to Gaza
Italy has floated the idea several times since this summer, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has long called for an international presence in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel, however, has opposed the idea.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798712.html
Finkelstein (at 23 min 41sec of full interview video)
MEMRI is a main arm of Israeli propaganda. MEMRI recently posted what it alleged was an interview I did with Lebanese television on the Nazi holocaust. The MEMRI posting was designed to prove that I was a Holocaust denier. Below I juxtapose the MEMRI version of my interview (both the actual broadcast version as well as the transcript it prepared) against what I actually said in the interview.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=605
Palestinian journalists call for immediate union elections
This morning's call reads, “We, the undersigned, Palestinian journalists and members of the media, out of our sense of responsibility and interest in the Palestinian media, trade unions and human rights, call to implement the principle of democracy and elections in the Palestinian Journalists Union.”
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1165
Ahmadinejad to Haniyeh: Do not recognize Israel, continue fighting it
"The Iranian nation will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Palestinian people until Jerusalem is liberated... and will never fall short in any kind of support," Ahmadinejad told Haniyeh in Tehran, the semi-official ISNA students news agency reported.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798756.html
Amnesty chief: No sign of leadership for peace on Israeli, Palestinian sides
"Ordinary people are suffering and there is no sign of leadership on either side, or even among the international community, to talk about peace, human rights and justice," said Irene Khan, secretary-general of the international human rights group.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/06/africa/ME_GEN_Israel_Amnesty.php
More Palestinians flee homelands
A technician armed with $7,000 in savings and a tourist visa plans to seek political asylum in Europe. Travel agents report a brisk demand for visas to Cuba, one of the few places that welcomes Palestinians. More than 20 factories have moved out of Gaza in recent months. Driven by fear of civil war and increasingly bleak economic prospects, Palestinians are fleeing their violence-wracked lands in growing numbers. Many are skilled and educated, and are leaving behind an increasingly impoverished and fundamentalist society.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061209/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_leaving_gaza_1
Even the pro-Israeli New York Times is reporting on some of the more revolting developments
For instance, on October 11 the Times ran an article titled “Israel Bars New Palestinian Students From Its Universities, Citing Concern Over Security,” and in September it had published a “human interest” piece profiling the long struggle of Palestinian community leader Sami Bahour to gain a residency permit in Ramallah, the place where he has lived and worked for the past 15 years
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2006/12/08/p12776
Zizek and the Zionist-Nazi alliance
The deciding date in the history of anti-Semitism is September 26 1937. On that date, Adolf Eichmann boarded a train in Berlin en route to Palestine, in order to meet Haganah underground activist Feivel Polkes and discuss with him the "mass immigration of German Jews to Palestine." There you have it, the ultimate match-making of history, and the key to finding out the secret of the Jewish state: The dark alliance between the Jews and Nazism.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3337805,00.html
OCCUPATION 101: Terrorism, Truth and the Deconstruction of Myth
"It is useless and futile for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks against an un-armed civilian people," Mandela says. It then juxtaposes overwhelming force with civil disobedience. Writing on the wall reads, "We shall avenge our dead." The sequence ends with the title of the film followed with the subtitle, "Voices of the silenced majority" slammed into the screen with a burst of gunfire. The filmmakers, Abdallah and Sufyan Omeish, did not leave any doubt as to how they felt about occupation and resistance.
http://www.infocusnews.net/content/view/548/135/
James Zogby: Bush and the ISG
The long list of solid proposals of what the U.S. needs to do are in such stark contrast to what the Administration is actually doing, that it only reveals a damning gap in performance. Many of the recommendations have been made before and most make such sense, a reader of the report is compelled to ask, "How did policy get so detached from reality?"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061209/cm_huffpost/035904
Baker report urges Madrid-style summit with Israel, Syria and PA
One of the major conclusions of the bipartisan advisory panel on Iraq headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton is that the United States is unable to achieve its goals in the Middle East without direct involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/797933.html
Arab world welcomes Iraq Study Group report
To average Iraqis, the report seems to be an abstract exercise unlikely to end the war there anytime soon. But it is being eagerly read elsewhere in the region, with a number of Arab states welcoming the report as a sign that their advice is starting to be heeded. In Israel, however, it's being viewed with apprehension because of its calls for direct US engagement with Syria and Iran.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1208/p01s02-wome.html
Rice cool to idea of talks with Iran on quieting dissent in Iraq
In her first comment about the Iraq Study Group report, Rice was cool to its recommendation that the United States actively engage with Iran and Syria to try to stabilize Iraq, a key proposal from the bipartisan advisory panel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798729.html
Olmert declines to rule out military action against Iran
"I am anything but happy," Olmert was quoted as saying in an interview released ahead of publication on Sunday. "I expect significantly more dramatic steps to be taken. Here is a leader who says openly that it is his aim to wipe Israel off the map. Israel is a member of the United Nations."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798736.html
The probe matters more than the truth
Hirsch is leaving the IDF to protest the recommendations of the report by Major General (res.) Doron Almog, banning him from a command position. Meanwhile, the commander of the Gaza division at the time of Shalit's kidnapping, Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi, was appointed as chief of operations at the General Staff.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/798468.html
Europeans circulate revised UN resolution on Iran sanctions
The Russians and Chinese had complained that the proposed sanctions in the original draft were too broad. The new draft keeps a travel ban and asset freeze on companies, individuals and organizations involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs, despite Russian opposition.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=798725
Saudi Intelligence Chief: Israeli nukes provoking arms race
Israel's nuclear arsenal is the largest strategic threat to the Middle East and appears set to trigger a regional arms race, said Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Friday." The existing Israeli nuclear capability is the most dangerous strategic threat to Gulf security in the short and medium term," Prince Muqrin told the International Institute of Strategic Studies' conference.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=798724
U.S., Iraqi troops seal off Haditha - residents
The U.S. military said troops were manning checkpoints and building a sand berm to crack down on insurgents in Haditha and in neighbouring Barwana. It said U.S. troops were protecting "the population and good citizens of Haditha".
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO861117.htm |
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