Rabin supported it, too
The order prepares the ground for annexing a large and controversial area known by the name of E1, which connects Ma'aleh Adumim to Jerusalem. In order to allow the Jews to enjoy territorial contiguity, the Defense Ministry and the IDF, which are commanded by Ehud Barak, will grant the Palestinians "transportational contiguity." This is no new invention. The patent for it was registered many years ago in the name of Ariel Sharon, who claimed he had proposed building bridges and tunnels throughout "Judea and Samaria" for use by the Palestinians. We on top and they below. Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the man who signed the Oslo Accords, was the person who ordered that E1 be added to Ma'aleh Adumim's jurisdiction, way back in 1994. And indeed, already then it was possible to discern a considerable gap between the peace accords and what was happening in the territories.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/910756.html

 
U.S. 'grills' Israel over road planned on Palestinian land
Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that she asked the Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Sallai Meridor for clarifications about an Israeli plan to build a road near Jerusalem, partly on confiscated Palestinian land. Palestinians charge the construction will cut them off from Jerusalem. Rice told reporters on the way to Moscow that she has not received a reply. The IDF recently issued an order expropriating over 1,100 dunams of land from four Arab villages located between East Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim. The land is slated to be used for a new Palestinian road that would connect East Jerusalem with Jericho. That in turn would "free up" the E-1 area between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim - through which the current Jerusalem-Jericho road runs - for a long-planned Jewish development consisting of 3,500 apartments and an industrial park.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912135.html

 
Yesha halts talks with government after settlement construction frozen
The Yesha Council of settlements has broken off talks with the Defense Ministry, which it said on Thursday is blocking construction in West Bank settlements to increase pressure on residents to leave dozens of illegal outposts. Defense Ministry sources confirmed the freeze on building in the West Bank, but a spokesman for Barak declined to comment. [What settlement freeze?]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912036.html

 
Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem is incitement – by Danny Rubenstein
The deliberate settling of Jews in the heart of East Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods is an unacceptable act of incitement. Thirty years ago Mohammed Said Burkan wanted to buy a house in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and his request was denied. He turned to the High Court of Justice, and Justice Haim Cohen, who rejected his request, determined that there was no discrimination in the fact that the Jews would have a quarter of their own, as in the past. "Each quarter and its ethnic group," wrote the justice. After the state denied Burkan, why shouldn't the Arab neighborhoods remain Arab?
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912127.html

 
Video – Neither here nor there
Israel has already disengaged from parts of Jerusalem , without considering the permanent Israeli residents living in them. Some 60,000 East Jerusalem Arabs who hold blue identity cards and live in the "Jerusalem envelope" area have found themselves on the other side of the fence, cut off from the city's municipal service
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/911156.html

 
Armed Israeli settlers bar Palestinian farmers from their land at start of olive harvest  
east of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, near Alon Murreh settlement. Eyewitnesses told Ma'an's correspondent that the settlers clashed with a group of Palestinians and, at gunpoint, barred them from reaching their land. Israeli forces fail to intervene to stop the settlers during regular attacks on Palestinian farmers in the area.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25820

 
AIC: Settler violence report for August-September
Far too many incidents to summarize here.  Report well worth looking at.
http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/settler-violence-report-for-august-september-2007-20071011.html

 
Book Review: Israel's settlers – One reason for the absence of peace
TWO months ago Heftsiba, an Israeli construction firm, went bust. One reason for its woes was a court order last year to freeze work on a big housing project on an Israeli settlement just inside the West Bank. The land, it turned out, had in effect been stolen from private owners in a neighbouring Palestinian village, Bilin. Yet after the bankruptcy, the same court ruled that the apartment blocks — and their prospective buyers, who had broken in and occupied them at the news of Heftsiba's impending collapse — could stay. And thus it has always been.  . . In this thorough and eye-opening book [Lords of the Land], Idith Zertal, a historian, and Akiva Eldar, a journalist, explain how a few tens of thousands of people bent the state to their purpose. Settlements were not on the official agenda after Israel's surprise capture of the Palestinian territories in 1967. But pressure from ardent young religious Zionists found a secular echo among military men, who came to see security benefits to having Israelis live in the West Bank.
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9941757

 
Book Review: Over the Line - Lords of the Land by Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar
There are two Israels: one inside the Green Line, the 1967 border, the other an occupying power extending beyond it. . .  Across the Green Line, the West Bank, captured in 1967, is another country, neither Israel nor Palestine, but a lawless place, where the Jewish settler, rifle in one hand and prayer book in the other, is undisputed king. [Not that Israel within the Green Line is any paradise for its Palestinian citizens either, let us not forget]
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/LeBor-t.html?ref=review

 
One killed, five wounded in Israeli air strike on Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip
on Saturday morning.  Palestinian sources reported that Hassan Na'eem, 21, a member of the al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, was killed and five civilians wounded in the attack, which took place near the Gaza-Israeli borders.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50864

 
Gazans barred from medical treatment in Israel
Six Gazans, including a 16-year-old girl and two women in their early 20s, suffering from cancer and other serious ailments and who desperately need treatment in Israel are being prevented from entering the country by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the organization Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) told The Jerusalem Post Thursday. One of those on the list, according to Ran Yaron, project coordinator for the Occupied Territories Project at PHR, was turned away because she refused to become an informer for the Shin Bet. Inas al-Najar, 20, a mother of two, had already been treated twice before at Ichilov Hospital for recurring bone cancer. The last treatment was in July.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1191257286944

 
Israeli forces seize man from Artas village
Israeli forces on Saturday at dawn seized a Palestinian citizen from Artas village, south of Bethlehem. Several military vehicles stormed the village and surrounded the home of 26-year-old Walid Muhammad Shehadeh, before taking him to an undisclosed destination.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25821

 
Israeli soldiers arrest 5 West Bank citizens
Israeli forces arrested four citizens from different cities in the West Bank at dawn on Friday. Israeli sources reported that troops stormed Bethlehem, Ramallah and Hebron and arrested the four before taking them to unknown area. The identities of those arrested has not yet been released.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25810

 
Hamas says Palestinian security forces stormed mosque in Nablus
Security forces surrounded the Abu Bakr Al-Sadiq mosque in Nablus after the evening prayer. They then stormed the mosque and removed all the banners belonging to the Islamic brigade.  They arrested a Hamas party member in Jenin on Thursday. They gave the man's name as Abd Al-Rahim Hafez Rabay'a, from Jenin.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25812

 
PA security forces raid several West Bank mosques
on Saturday morning, confiscating printed material.  The raids took place in the cities of Hebron, Nablus and Salfit. The security forces confiscated leaflets and banners put up by Hamas. In addition, the forces removed some decorations and lights put on the mosque to celebrate the Eid festivals, eyewitnesses reported. Local sources said that during the raid of the mosque, Palestinian troops entered the holy buildings with their guns and shoes on, against the tradition and custom to take shoes off when entering a mosque.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50863

 
PA Security source: Hamas operatives hand in weapons
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told IMEMC that the act came out of a belief on the part of some Hamas activists that there should be only one weapon and one authority. In all, at least 50 firearms were handed over across the West Bank the source said. The source stated that those who handed over their weapons would not be subject to any legal procedures, calling on all Hamas activists to follow the steps of their colleagues.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50861

 
45% of Ma'an Arabic readers say security chaos in Gaza is an ongoing problem
A questionnaire on Ma'an Arabic website has revealed that a majority of readers believe the recent bout of internal violence in the Gaza Strip is part of ongoing security issues. 24,594 people participated in the poll. 40% of respondents said that the security chaos is a revolt against the Hamas government in Gaza. 11% of participants in the survey said that the violence is part of organized criminal activity in Gaza and 3% said they were unsure of the reason for the violence.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25822

 
Hamas warns Abbas peace talks a 'trap' – by Ibrahim Barzak
"Don't fall into the trap of the coming conference. Don't make new compromises on Jerusalem, on our sovereignty,'' Haniyeh said.  Hamas' Syria-based supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal, echoed the warning in his own Eid holiday message, accusing Israel and the U.S. of taking advantage of the Palestinian rift to try to wrest concessions in peace negotiations. Israel has been pressing for a vaguely worded document that would gloss over the toughest issues - borders, control over disputed Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinian refugees who lost their homes in the 1948 war that followed Israel's creation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6993454,00.html

 
Lead Palestinian negotiator: Israel, Palestinians must forge detailed agreement before summit
Ahmed Qureia emphasized that negotiating teams that began work last week have not forged a written agreement on any of these issues - final borders, the status of disputed Jerusalem and a solution for Palestinians who lost their homes during the war that followed Israel's 1948 creation. The document that is to be presented at the conference "should be a detailed, clearcut document on the final status issues," Qureia said after meeting with US diplomat David Welch.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1191257293751&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 
Mideast conference and the illusive peace – by Hasan Afif El-Hasan
Despite the repeated warnings that Abbas may not attend the conference unless certain conditions are met, he and the so called Arab moderates will not turn the invitation down. They are desperate for any action on the Palestinian issue and they have no control over events on the ground. Abbas government which is wholly dependent on the Americans, politically and financially, is not in a position to rebuff its main supporter, the US. And besides, the conference will be the only game in town.. . The Palestinian people are desperate for having peace with justice, but they are afraid the conference will lead only to protracted negotiations rather than the end of occupation. They should be suspicious if the pre-conference Palestinian-Israeli joint agreement does not refer to Israel as an occupier and the West Bank and Gaza as occupied land. Otherwise the occupied land will be treated as a disputed territory as the Israelis and their supporters continue to call it in order to claim the areas that they intend to annex.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-101007224000.htm

 
Economy in Gaza Strip on brink of collapse
Truckloads of basic commodities, badly needed by half a million people in the Gaza Strip are still stranded at the crossings into the Strip, manned by Israeli forces. Warehouses are empty and the economy of the Gaza Strip is on the brink of collapse. Maher At Tabba', head of public relations in the Chamber of Commerce said that there are more than 5,000 factories in Gaza but because of the current situation about 95% are not functioning. He added that if the siege continues 750,000 workers will be unemployed within a month.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=25815

 
Israel security minister says Egypt not doing enough to halt arms smuggling
Avi Dichter said in a Friday meeting with the United Nations Envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, that Egypt can halt arms smuggling through the Sinai Peninsula into the Gaza Strip in a "single day", if it acts against it. Israeli online daily, Haaretz, reported. Haaretz added that the two leaders met to discuss preparing a strong worded message which Israel sent to the United States complaining that arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip is ongoing and is threatening the upcoming peace summit in the United States.
http://www.imemc.org/article/50855

 
Killing Rami – by Philip Rizq
This is the first time in Gaza's recent history for a Christian to be kidnapped and killed. In Gaza, Muslims and Christians live and die side by side. Gaza is deeply entrenched in violence. In Gaza victims of bloodshed often themselves become shedders of blood. Rami experienced the harshness of occupation, the limitation of curfews, Israeli military incursions, civilian targeted sonic booms, restrictions on travel beyond the 365km2 confines of the Gaza Strip and the strife of civil war. Rami chose to respond to violence with laughter, love and peace. The strength to live such a life is what I hope for Rami's killers, it is what I hope for every Palestinian living and born into the living hell of Gaza today.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-101107173749.htm

 
Twilight Zone / Family disunification – by Gideon Levy
Until a year ago, Jihad divided his nights meticulously, a night on each floor, a night with each wife, but for the past 10 months the parents' bedroom on the third floor has been empty. The bed is made, the perfumes in place, but Miada is gone. Israel is prohibiting her return, even for a visit. She made the mistake of her life when she went to Jordan to visit her ailing mother, and now she cannot return. Her six children keep asking about their mother, speak to her by phone every few hours, and the text messages also fly back and forth
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912066.html

 
Refugees return to Lebanon camp
Buses and mini-vans hired by the relief agency and bearing Palestinian flags dropped off the first families at the camp located outside Tripoli. The majority were either empty-handed or carried small plastic bags filled with a few personal items. Each family was given two handouts, one bearing photos of live munitions that still litter part of the camp and the other specifying areas that remain off-limits. The authorities say it could take up to four years to rebuild the community at an approximate cost of $400 million.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-101107173906.htm

 
No more excuses [read this quickly before Ynet disappears]
why do we hold so many thousands of prisoners? A large part of them are prisoners with "blood on their hands." Others hold important positions in the terrorist establishment and their release may significantly boost terror groups. Some possess knowledge, connections, and other "advantages" and their release could make the war on terror more difficult. Others are merely vile, as Prime Minister Golda Meir would say. The definition "blood on their hands" changed over time. Initially it meant that the prisoner murdered Israel is with his own hands. Later the definition included direct abettors to murder, and today it includes most of the network that envelops the small circle directly involved in the murderous terror attack – including drivers, lookouts, advisors, planners, and technicians. The clear boundary between murderers to others has been completely blurred. Our prisons are home to thousands of Palestinian prisoners, with the main benefit in holding them being the fact they serve as bargaining chips. Their ongoing imprisonment involves great damage
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3456061,00.html

 
Ynet news site closing down
Ynet, the news Web site of the Yedioth Ahronoth publishing group, is closing down its English version. The plug will apparently be pulled in a few days. The Hebrew version of the online news source will continue to operate as usual. Simply, the English version of Ynetnews wasn't generating satisfactory amounts of advertising revenues.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912080.html

 
State's witness: Palestinians won't employ caregivers
Palestinians will never bring a stranger home - certainly not a woman - to help out with the house work. That would be 'a serious violation of Islamic tenants [sic]', which can end in murder over 'family honor'. Women in the territories do not wear pants, do not drive in cars alone, and do not work outside their home without some family supervision. Or so the State of Israel thinks, based on the testimony of an 'expert witness' on its behalf, at a court hearing on the compensation due a Palestinian injured by IDF gunfire during the first intifada. The 'expert witness' is Moshe Elad, colonel (res.) and a former senior official in the civil administration in the territories Dr. Mahajna challenged Elad's conclusions, saying that in Palestinian society in the West Bank it is perfectly acceptable to have strangers as caregivers for the handicapped in private homes. [Deliver us from 'experts' on other people's cultures]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912093.html

 
Book Review – And we both say 'hello' with the word 'peace'
Testimony: Photographs by Gillian Laub, Essays by Ariella Azoulay and Raef Zreik - The book begins with quite routine photographs of individuals or groups, as if to say, "Let me introduce Israeli and Palestinian youth in their natural habitat." But in short order the viewer comes to the heart of the matter: young people from both sides who were victims of terror and who expose their wounds: amputated limbs, burn scars, bizarre orthopedic devices growing out of their bodies. Crutches, wheelchairs, eyes that will never see again - portraits of the catastrophe, of the war. The images are provocative and uncompromising but not pugnacious or humiliating. Nearly all the subjects were innocent passersby, who were wounded by chance.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/912052.html

 
First Chapter – of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt
America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. . . on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country-Israel-as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/chapters/0923-1st-mear.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 
The Israel Lobby – letter to the NY Times from Mearsheimer and Walt
Leslie H. Gelb gets a number of things wrong in his review of our book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" (Sept. 23), but two points require immediate clarification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/books/review/Letters-t-1.html?ref=review