PCHR Weekly Report: Five Palestinians killed, 18 wounded by Israeli forces
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has released its weekly report on Israeli human rights violations in the West Bank and Gaza for the week of November 1st to 7th, 2007. During the week, Israeli forces killed 5 Palestinians, including a father and son.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51388

Two kidnapped, three injured during peaceful demonstration near Bethlehem
The villagers of Um Salamunah, located near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, along with Israeli and international peace activists, on Friday gathered in a peace protest against the illegal wall Israel is constructing on the village land.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51395

Five injured and two kidnapped in the weekly protest at Bil'in
On Friday, the villagers of Bil'in joined their international and Israeli supporters and marched against the wall that is built illegally on the village land.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51396

Army kidnaps an Islamic Jihad leader in Birzeit University near Ramallah
Palestinian sources reported that the Israeli soldiers manning the container checkpoint east of Bethlehem city, in the southern part of the West Bank, have kidnapped the leader of the Islamic Jihad student block in Birzeit University on Thursday evening.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51398

Rights group: State must allow Gaza patients treatment in Israel
Physicians for Human Rights petition High Court to order State, Shin Bet to allow patients' entry with no preconditions. 'Patients' condition meets all necessary criteria, refusal puts lives at risk,' they say.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3469357,00.html

Israeli authorities detain doctor escorting patient at Erez crossing
Israeli forces detained a Palestinian doctor named Nabih Abu Sha'ban at Erez Border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Sha'ban was accompanying his son to Israel fro medical treatment.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26198

Israel, PA agree future deals hinge on implementing road map
Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed on Thursday that any future agreement between them will be conditional to the implementation of the first stage of the road map, which includes Palestinian counter-terrorism operations and a freeze on construction in the settlements.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=922066&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Short on substance
After months of talks, and ahead of Annapolis, not a single key issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been agreed upon, writes Khaled Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/870/re83.htm

Palestinian negotiators lower expectations for Annapolis Summit
Following a disheartening speech by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian negotiators have lowered their expectations of what they can accomplish during a U.S.-led peace summit to be held November 26th.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51380

Israeli intelligence: Abbas is too weak
Army Radio reported Thursday morning that Israel's intelligence community considers Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a powerless leader, who even has difficulty controlling car thieves and drug dealers in his own territory.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1192380765162&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Mizhir: "US, Israeli agendas of the upcoming conference contradict with the Palestinian aspirations"
Jamil Mizhir, member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), stated on Thursday that the US and Israeli agendas to the upcoming Fall Peace Conference in Annapolis contradict with the Palestinian national aspirations.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51381

Hamas calls for dismissal of Palestinian envoy to the UN
Deposed Hamas government spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum called for the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, to be dismissed and prosecuted for harming Palestinian national interests on Thursday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26196

Rights group condemns detention of Palestinian journalists by PA forces
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PHCR) condemned the detention of two journalists by the Palestinian Preventive Security Services on Thursday. Freelance television journalists Alaa Al-Titi and Asyad Amarna were detained while reporting in the West Bank city of Hebron on Wednesday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26202

Hamas gunmen fire on Gaza protestors
Hamas gunmen opened fire on demonstrators in Gaza today as hundreds gathered to protest about the deaths of three children, killed on their way to school yesterday.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/international_politics/hamas+gunmen+fire+on+gaza+protestors/1022952

US okays $155m arms package for Israel
The US Congress on Wednesday approved a $155 million arms package for Israel, aimed at the development of the Hetz and David mid-range defensive missile systems and for the development long-range defensive missile systems.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3469018,00.html

Countdown to the offensive
Last Sunday Zaher Al-Orr had a surprise for his son Ashraf and his friend Mohamed Abu Herbid. He prepared breakfast for them before going home, after their night shift. The three worked as guards in a bathroom fittings factory near Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Normally they would have breakfast after returning from work. But this was going to be a special morning. Another worker who clocked in early joined them in the meal. Things didn't go exactly as Al-Orr planned. Minutes after the men sat down to eat an Israeli artillery shell exploded on their dining table. All four men died.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/870/re82.htm

Teaching Israeli and Palestinian Children to "Get Along" at Best Only Buries the Real Problems, Meeting the Other in Israel and Palestine
One hesitates to criticize these enterprises. They're so well meaning, and it seems so curmudgeonly. But the myriad efforts around the world to bring the children of political conflicts, most notably the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, together in some kind of forced intimacy -- schools or camps or the like -- so that they can get to know each other and learn that each is human, can and often do actually perpetuate the conflict. These well intentioned efforts ultimately divert attention from real problems, real grievances, and lull people into thinking that all this sweetness and light is some kind of progress toward resolving the conflict.
http://www.counterpunch.com/christison11082007.html

In Our Orbit
Reading Music at the Limits (Columbia, $29.95), a posthumous collection of Edward Said's music criticism, much of which appeared in this magazine, brought me back to my freshman year at Columbia. My profs for the core humanities course were, would you believe, Susan Sontag in the fall and Edward Said in the spring. They made for quite a contrast. Sontag was ready to bolt from academia. She would appear for our 9 am session a quarter-hour late, bleary, bloodshot and seductively bohemian. (I was smitten and carried her Time magazine photo in my wallet.) She refused to teach Faust--"It's just everyone's pain in the ass," I remember her saying. She also liked to range far from the syllabus: one week she required that we watch Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic Freaks. Said, by contrast, was just beginning his teaching career, yet his bearing was aristocratic, his suits looked tailor-made and his demands on us, whether we were reading Shakespeare or Dostoyevsky, were for nothing less than total devotion to the text.
http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20071126&s=schiff

My god, what did we do?
Michelzon remembers the first time she saw the Erez checkpoint: "It was like mouse cages. I was in shock. I'd never seen Palestinians from Gaza carrying sacks on their head, dressed in rags. The poverty stunned me. This is Israel's backyard. I had to change my skin to fit in there - everything was said there with shouting, everything's a matter of life and death.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/922009.html