Bush administration to pledge about US$500 million for West Bank Palestinians
The money would go toward a goal of $5.6 billion (€3.9 billion) that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair hopes to raise to rescue the tattered Palestinian economy and reinforce institutions that would become the backbone of any eventual independent Palestinian state.  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will deliver the pledge at a conference Blair has called Monday in Paris, the officials said. Rice cannot promise that she can deliver on the pledge, which must be approved by the U.S. Congress. The money includes about $400 million (€275.7 million) that the White House has already announced, but that has not been approved by Congress.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/14/america/NA-GEN-US-Palestinians.php

Al-Qaida's No. 2: Annapolis summit was betrayal of Palestinians
Al-Qaida's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri said last month's U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference was a betrayal aimed at selling out the Palestinians in a new message, the terror group's first reaction to the gathering.  The Egyptian-born al-Zawahri denounced Mubarak's government, saying it had turned Egypt into a base to supply the crusader war on Muslims and Islam. He denounced Egypt's sealing of its border with Gaza after the takeover of the Palestinian territory by the militant group Hamas and Cairo's support for Abbas' West Bank-based government. He called on Bedouin living in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on the border with Gaza and Israel to rise up against Mubarak,
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934715.html

IDF: Ill-timed Gaza campaign may result in mass casualties to Israeli forces
Israeli Defense Forces officials warn Security Cabinet against launching military operation in Strip too soon. Gaza incursion may take longer than Israel thinks, they say – The IDF estimates a Gaza operation will be a lengthy one, taking at least several months. For the IDF to reclaim control of the Philadelphi Route – which is needed in order to prevent weapons' smuggling from Egypt to the Strip, it would have to put some 100,000 Palestinians under Israeli rule.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3482586,00.html

Rallies in Gaza mark 20^th anniversary of the birth of Hamas
Hamas reiterated its refusal to acknowledge the state of Israel on Saturday, as crowds took to the streets of Gaza to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the movement. Marches in support of Hamas took place in different parts of the Gaza Strip from the early morning. Prominent Hamas leader 'Usama Al-Mazini addressed the crowd gathered in Gaza City, and reiterated his movement's acceptance of unconditional dialogue with Fatah, calling on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to give an answer to this.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26785

Fatah spokesman: No dialogue with Hamas
There is no dialogue between Fatah and Hamas, despite what has been reported in the media, Fatah spokesman Fahmi Az-Za'ari said on Saturday. Az-Za'ari said that any dialogue with Hamas is incumbent on them retracting their mid-June military takeover of the Gaza Strip. He emphasized that recent media reports of secret negotiations between the rival factions are unfounded.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26790

PLO: Hamas must give up power in Gaza to begin dialogue with Fatah
Al-Agha blamed Hamas for the impasse in talks between the two factions, saying that Fateh has always been willing to talk.  This contradicts the actions on the ground by the Fateh party, which has banned Hamas rallies in the West bank and has brutally attacked such rallies when they occurred, in addition to arresting members of the Hamas party in the West bank. Hamas, which holds power in Gaza after being democratically elected by the Palestinian people in January 2006 and finally taking power in June 2007, has not banned the Fateh party.  But al-Agha says the party's actions in arresting Fateh members and raiding Fateh offices amount to a de facto ban on the Fateh party in Gaza.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51999

Qassam hits Negev factory; Israeli gov't declares 'special situation' in areas near Gaza border
A Qassam rocket struck a western Negev factory Friday, hours after the cabinet declared a "special situation" in Sderot and in other communities bordering the Gaza Strip due to constant Qassam rocket attacks. The factory, which operates around the clock, sustained damage. None of the employees who were at the factory at the time of the attack were wounded. The decision to declare a 'special situation' will have to go before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in order to go into effect, where it will remain until March 2008. The declaration essentially transfers emergency authority from the state to the army.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934335.html

Haniyeh: Gaza City funeral blast part of Fatah conspiracy to sow chaos
At least four people were killed in an explosion at a funeral for Fatah militants. "Some 30 people were wounded in a Friday morning blast, during a funeral procession, as hundreds of mourners marched through Gaza City ," hospital officials said. Witnesses said a man carrying explosives in a jacket accidentally detonated them. Standing on top of a moving car with a loud speaker, the man opened up the jacket to show off the explosives and then jumped off the car, triggering the explosion and instantly killing himself and the others, the witnesses said. Hamas security officials offered a differing version of events, saying a mourner threw a pipe bomb from the procession when it bounced off a wall and exploded.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934677.html

Israeli artillery fire on funeral in Jabalia, seriously injuring three children
Three Palestinian children were injured when Israeli artillery fired at mourners during the funeral procession of two of Thursday's victims of Israeli shelling in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources announced on Friday.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26778

Report: Hamas requests political asylum in Qatar for 450 of its leaders
The Hamas leadership has requested political asylum from the Qatari government for 450 Hamas political and military leaders in the Gaza Strip who were involved in the Hamas takeover of the coastal region, Israeli radio reported on Friday. Palestinian sources were quoted as saying that the head of Hamas politburo in exile, Khalid Mash'al, also suggested that Hamas will hand over the major security headquarters and institutions to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas through Qatari and Egyptian mediation in exchange for negotiating with Fatah.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26771

Sealed off by Israel, Gaza reduced to beggary
The Israeli government is increasingly restricting the import into the Gaza Strip of batteries, anesthesia drugs, antibiotics, tobacco, coffee, gasoline, diesel fuel and other basic items, including chocolate and compressed air to make soft drinks. This punishing seal has reduced Gaza, a territory of almost 1.5 million people, to beggar status, unable to maintain an effective public health system, administer public schools or preserve the traditional pleasures of everyday life by the sea. "Essentially, it's the ordinary people, caught up in the conflict, paying the price for this political failure," said John Ging, director of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, which serves the majority refugee population.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22268682/ 

A Palestinian girl's plight shows two faces of Israel
Far from the Gaza Strip, in a bright room with a view of Jerusalem visible above the green cedar spires outside her window, Maria Aman lives with her father and brother. The 6-year-old girl with curly dark hair and a wide smile navigates the Internet with her chin. She operates her wheelchair the same way. In 2006, as a taxi carrying her family in downtown Gaza City passed a car carrying a leader of the armed Islamic Jihad organization, two Israeli missiles fired from a helicopter far above slammed into both vehicles. Her spine was virtually severed. Her mother, older brother, grandmother and uncle were killed. [No mention of the fact that Israel is trying to expel the girl from Israel.]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121402194.html

PA security services arrest 26 Hamas members across the West Bank
The arrests were aimed at preventing Hamas from commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the movement, according to a Hamas statement.  The Palestinian Authority has banned all celebrations in the West Bank, marking the twentieth anniversary of founding of Hamas.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26781

Hamas blame PA security for father's death during son's arrest in Qalqilya
Hamas said in a statement that fifty-five-year-old father of ten Al-Hajj Ma'zouz Radwan died on Friday night during a raid by security services in the village of Azzoun, north of Qalqiliya. The statement said that Al-Hajj Radwan suffered a stroke and died after security services opened fire above his head and shot at his feet as he tried to prevent them from arresting his son Muhammed, a student at Al-Najah university, who was accused of distributing pro-Hamas propaganda. The security services refute the allegation, saying the man died of natural causes.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26787

Israeli soldiers detain ambulance crew near Bethlehem in search for explosives
The ambulance crew said they were transferring cancer patient, Bouthayna Khalil, from Jericho to Beit Jala, near Bethlehem . Israeli soldiers forced the crew out of the ambulance at gunpoint, claiming they were looking for explosives. Director of ambulance and emergency at the Red Crescent Abed Al-Halim Ja'afreh told Ma'an that ambulance officer Mohammed Abu Ajamieh and driver Bilal Abu Awwad were detained for about 40 minutes. The Israeli soldiers broke all the equipment in the ambulance, he added. He accused the Israeli forces of endangering the life of the patient. No explosives were found in the ambulance.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26786

Bethlehem kicks off Christmas, encouraged by more tourists
Palestinians lit a four-story Christmas tree in this biblical town on Saturday, kicking off a holiday season that officials say will bring the most pilgrims in seven years in light of the recent resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. "We see encouraging signs with more tourists here," said Hanna Tofian, a university professor, as he emerged from prayers at the Church of the Nativity to a square crowded with tour buses. "It is because of the diplomatic atmosphere and because there is movement in talks with Israel."
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/15/africa/ME-GEN-Palestinians-Christmas.php

Five injured in peaceful march on Road 443 near Ramallah
At least five Palestinian nonviolent protestors have been injured when Israeli troops attacked a peaceful protest opposing the Israeli military order to prevent Palestinians to drive on a road built on their lands. The residents were deprived from using the road since seven years. The protestors came from the village of Kharabtha al-Misbah southwest of Ramallah. Road 443, where the protest took place is one of many that the Israeli government decided few years ago to identify as "Jewish only" roads, preventing Palestinians from using them. One Israeli officer used the term "Sterilized Roads" as a description.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52004

ISM: No news is good news
Today roughly 15 internationals and Palestinians joined the Jabri family of Hebron (AKA al-Khalil) for a mid-morning action on the Jabri family land. The Jabri land is uncomfortably nestled between two particularly notorious Jewish settlements, Kiryat Arba and Givat Ha'avot. The expansion of these settlements onto the Jabri property–meaning the theft and colonization of Palestinian land–is currently a work in progress. The Jabri family, with support from Israeli and international solidarity activists, continue to nonviolently resist this process of expropriation. Today was much like other Fridays–we dug up some brush, cleared away some weeds, tilled the soil a bit — except for one thing: no trouble. We had our friends, our tea, and all the sunshine and fresh air you could want. For once, it really was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/12/15/no-news-is-good-news/ 

Dutch website puts messages on fence
Strange graffiti is invading the eastern face of the Separation Fence. The graffiti slogans, which appear in several different languages, are products of Sendamessage. The Dutch-Palestinian initiative was formally launched on Sunday in protest of the barrier Israel is erecting along the West Bank. The idea, sired by a team of advertisers from the Netherlands who visited Ramallah last Spring, allows Internet users to put a personal message on the wall through the project's Web site - www.sendamessage.nl. Customers pay online, type their communique and send. The dozen-odd Palestinian "wallwriters" do the rest. Van Oel says the project is aimed to send a single, simple message: "Palestinians are human beings, just like anyone, with a sense of humor and a lust for life."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934516.html

Debating the first Palestinian uprising – by Chris Gelken
This article is based on the international debate program "Middle East Today" hosted by the author and first broadcast by PressTV on Saturday 8th December, 2007 – Ramzy Baroud, author of The Second Palestinian Intifada – A Chronicle of a People's Struggle' ; Rev. Stephen Sizer, author of Christian Zionism – Roadmap to Armageddon?; Deroy Murdock of National Review Online.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-121207154423.htm

Palestinian security critical for building momentum for peace – by Ziad Asali
[Asali is president of the American Task Force on Palestine.] Palestinians face a double threat when it comes to their own security. First, they face the security threats inherent in an occupation by a foreign army and the abuses and confrontations that result in deaths of both combatants and innocents. Second, Palestinian society lacks a well organized and disciplined security service and its towns are plagued with political militias and criminal gangs, as well as ad hoc violence.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26783

A state exclusively for Jews – by As'ad Abdul Rahman, editor of the Palestinian encyclopedia
A Jewish Israeli state simultaneously means the annulment of the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees. Moreover, it may mean an expulsion of Arabs will accordingly be "justified", for Israel is a "Jewish state" and subsequently non-Jews have no right to live there.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/07/12/15/10174870.html

Neutralize Hamas – with a cease-fire
Should we be initiating contacts with Hamas today, on the assumption that, extreme as it is, it will eventually face reality and go along the route that the PLO took years ago? Should we be engaging leading Hamas figures in discreet discussions, in much the same way that Shamir approved years ago? Last Friday's Ma'ariv put that question to 10 Israeli personalities, from the Left and the Right. Six out of the 10 favored speaking to Hamas. Hamas today is the one major factor that can stymie any move to an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. Even on the assumption that we, on our side, will be able to overcome the objections of our own extremist "negationists," the division of the Palestinians geographically and ideologically into two virtually enemy camps makes a settlement almost impossible unless Fatah and Hamas can come to terms with each other.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847336361&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Purple fingerprints on letters
Ramzi was a disabled Palestinian 11 year-old I sponsored several years ago.  One of four children, his mother had a physical disability and walked with a limp and his father had a mental disability, preventing him from any real employment.  Ramzi suffered from both types of disabilities, and it was hard not to choke up when I first saw his picture.  Wearing a white T-shirt, Ramzi had to be held up by two individuals in order to sit up. Two years later, I was informed that Ramzi's school, "The Ihsan Charitable Society for the Aged, Handicapped, and Orphans" was shut down by the Israeli Army because it allegedly "harbored terrorists."
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-12140735605.htm

Har Homa is not in Jerusalem
Israel announced a plan last week to build 307 new housing units in what most international media are calling "a Jewish neighborhood of East Jerusalem." Har Homa's white apartment blocs are draped on a hillside overlooking the city of Bethlehem, where I work. Like other West Bank settlements, it was erected on high ground, with the intention of intimidating the Palestinian population below. Spatially speaking, Har Homa is no more in Jerusalem than Bethlehem itself is.
http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=26737

AUB conference tackles themes of Palestinian citizenship, identity
According to Khalidi, "indeed, one could say that often in the Palestinian case, it was the very lack of citizenship and the denial of statehood, whether enforced by the great powers, Israel, or the Arab states, that fed the sense of nationhood and national identity." Even though many Palestinians remain without citizenship, many of them have acquired foreign identity cards. Yet, "their identity cards are not fully representative of their identity," argued Khalidi.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=1&article_id=87502

Israel to release Jordanian prisoner who spent over two years in prison
Israeli authorities released the captive Jordanian Mustafa Asaad Abu Haniya after he spent in Israeli prisons over two years. The rapporteur of the National Committee for Jordanian Prisoners and Missing in Israeli Jails -- Maisara Mals --told Kuwait News Agency  today that the freed captive returned to Amman after he served in Israeli prisons his full sentence of 27 months, pointing out that Haniya had been arrested on King Hussein Bridge in the month of October in 2005 during his return from visiting his family in the West Bank. The total of Jordanian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons is 30 prisoners in addition to 25 missing, said Mals.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1868827&Language=en

Why us – and why now? – by Lisa Goldman
Four months after I had reported about my trips to Lebanon for Channel 10 TV news and "Time Out Tel Aviv," I was being accused of endangering Israeli security. I was accused of violating the Law to Prevent Infiltration, a 1954 regulation intended to prevent infiltration from Arab states. I had never heard of the law, which was later amended to forbid Israeli citizens from traveling to enemy states; nor had any of my Israeli friends and colleagues - although many of them have traveled to enemy countries on their foreign passports, as I did using my Canadian passport. The police told me I could face a four-year jail sentence if convicted.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934660.html

A racist, wicked policy – by Shulamit Aloni
Why does State ignore law and expel non-Jewish partners of Jews who passed away? – We had some cases where the Jewish partner passed away while the widowed partner has not yet been granted citizenship or all the other rights given to an immigrant by the Interior Ministry. And then, the Jewish State's Interior Ministry gladly rushes to expel the "gentile" from Israel. He or she has already been denied citizenship, and now that they no longer have a Jewish partner comes the order: Get out!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3482121,00.html

Karnit Goldwasser: Barak not concerned with kidnapped soldiers
Wife of soldier held captive by Hizbullah says defense minister 'not doing anything' to facilitate kidnapped troops' release. 'It took me two days to recuperate from my last meeting with him,' she says
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3482890,00.html

Scapegoats in an unwelcoming land
Palestinians had once again become Lebanon's scapegoats, victims of a land in which they have long faced slaughter and discrimination. Attacking them may be personally risky, but it's also often good politics; the assassinated general's boss, army commander Gen. Michel Suleiman, is poised to become Lebanon's next president. Suleiman isn't the first army commander to punish the Palestinians, and he won't be the first president to do so, either. Between 1958 and 1964, President Fuad Shehab created an elaborate, ruthless secret-service network to monitor the Palestinian camps . . . The rights of the Palestinian refugees have been ignored for six decades by a world that has wished them away. But the Middle East will never know peace or stability until they are granted justice.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/14/AR2007121401329.html

As tension between Israel and Syria remains high, UN extends Golan mandate
The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights has had its mandate extended for six months, due to a directive issued Friday by the United Nations Security Council. The Golan Heights is a Syrian region that has been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967, due to its strategic geographic location, mountains and water sources.  Israel has refused to remove its forces from the Golan Heights , and has moved Israeli civilians into the area to set up developments. The UNDOF has been in place since 1974, when the Security Council authorized a withdrawal of Israeli troops, and sent the UN troops to mandate the withdrawal.  Israeli forces, however, never withdrew from Golan, and the UNDOF troops have been in place ever since.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52009

Striving for peace
[too bad every school everywhere doesn't do this] The Hillside School in Marlborough [Massachusetts, USA ] is a private boarding school for 150 adolescent boys. For a three-month term, its ninth-graders have a new addition to their curriculum: peace studies. Students are asked to keep a "media manipulation" log, where they record events they see in the news, on television, in video games, and elsewhere, and "analyze the underlying message of what the media conveys," Laliberte said. After introducing his students to techniques of negotiation and compromise, Laliberte has them play a computer game called Peacemaker, where they take on the role of the Palestinian president or Israeli prime minister and try to find a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It was a little bit difficult," said Cameron Gillies, who also took the peace studies course last term. "You did one thing that made someone happy, but it made someone else unhappy."
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/13/striving_for_peace/