Israel/OPT: Extra-judicial execution
When we think of crimes against humanity, we must be aware that governments and governmental groups can be more dangerous than individuals in this regard. Governments have the most power to inflict harm and are most likely to be recidivist. This kind of terrorism is the most dangerous brand. Extra-judicial killing or physical liquidation is the most prevalent practice of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) against the Palestinians. It reveals the immoral nature of the Israeli government. Extra-judicial execution is a policy which is not new or exclusively used since 2000. It is an old, bloody policy that had been implemented by the Israeli army against Palestinian civilians for decades. The list of the victims of this practice is too long to mention here.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KKAA-79Y5G5?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Israeli military kidnaps two from al Far'aa refugee camp
Two Palestinians kidnapped by Israeli military forces in a pre-dawn invasion on Monday from al Far'aa refugee camp, east of West Bank city of Nablus.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52020

Livni to try to prevent Quartet condemnation of East Jerusalem construction
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will try in the coming days to avoid Quartet condemnation of Israel over its decision to build new homes in a controversial East Jerusalem neighborhood.  The so-called Quartet of Middle East negotiators ? the United States, European Union, Russia, and the United Nations ? are expected to meet at the foreign minister level on the sidelines of Monday's conference of Palestinian Authority donor states in Paris, France.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934751.html

200,000 at Hamas rally in Gaza
About 200,000 Gazans rallied in support of Hamas on Saturday, the 20th anniversary of its founding. It was a significant show of force from Hamas, which took over Gaza six months ago in a rapid rout of Fatah forces. The rally was designed to display popular "samoud," or steadfastness, in the face of the diplomatic and economic isolation of Gaza, which Israel has declared a "hostile entity." It was easily as large as one a month ago for its rival, the Fatah faction, on the anniversary of the death of Yasser Arafat, and estimates ranged up to 250,000 people.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/12/16/MNJFTVFH0.DTL&type=politics

Israel Strikes Hamas After Gaza Rally, Arrests 24 in West Bank
Israeli military aircraft attacked the Gaza Strip, wounding four members of Hamas, in a raid a day after the militant Islamic organization drew more than 200,000 to a rally celebrating its 20th anniversary. Israeli forces also arrested 24 Hamas members in the West Bank city of Nablus, Hamas said in a faxed statement.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ao.fUivfBuyo&refer=home

Settler Violence Report for October-November 2007
On 21 October, in the evening, the settlers who occupied al-Rajabi building last March, to the west of Qiryat Arba settlement, started throwing stones at Palestinian residents who were walking to reach their houses near the building. Additionally, they used dogs against the children.
http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/settler-violence-report-for-october-november-2007-20071217.html

Israeli 'checkpost abuse rife'
Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank have mushroomed since the Intifada in 2000 [EPA] One in four Israeli troops serving at checkpoints scattered across the occupied West Bank have engaged in or witnessed abuse of Palestinians, an Israeli army-commissioned survey says. Twenty-five per cent of the respondents said they had taken part in, seen or heard from colleagues about acts of physical or verbal abuse at the 500 roadblocks. The survey's findings were quoted by army officials and media on Sunday. One soldier reported forcing a Palestinian truck driver to remain on his knees for four hours for lying that he had a permit to cross the roadblock. The abuse includes humiliations, gratuitous delays and bribe-taking. "We knew there was a problem, but we never imagined it was this grave," one senior military officer was quoted as saying by the Yediot.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B837017F-DFD7-4267-AA4A-400BD2812778.htm

Report: Gov't won't grant rights to Palestinians west of fence
The State of Israel will not grant permanent or temporary residency to West Bank Palestinians whose homes were annexed to the Jerusalem municipal area by the separation fence, the Palestinian newspaper Al Quds reported on Sunday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935078

Palestinian child goes free with prisoner-mother
Two-year-old Bara got his first taste of life outside prison on Monday, leaving an Israeli jail in the arms of his mother, a Hamas member who gave birth to the boy behind bars. The child held tightly to his mother, Samar Sbaih, as they crossed into the Gaza Strip from Israel. He began to cry only when a relative tried to pry him away so Sbaih could speak to reporters.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17313993.htm

Beilin quits Meretz leadership race
In a press conference at Tel Aviv's Beit Sokolov, Beilin said he had never intended to run for the Meretz leadership when he joined the party and that he was glad to be able to focus on advancing the peace process as a regular MK. But Meretz officials said that once Oron joined the race two weeks ago, Beilin had no chance of winning, so he preferred to leave gracefully. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847350672&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Key Olmert ally vows to nullify Annapolis
Strategic-Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman threw down a clear challenge to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Wednesday when he said that his Yisrael Beiteinu party's mission was to "make sure that nothing comes out of the Annapolis process". Mr Lieberman announced his position during a tour of Har Homa in Jerusalem, where building tenders caused tensions last week between the Israeli and United States governments.
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s19&SecId=19&AId=56975&ATypeId=1

Israeli right-winger redraws the battle lines
IF there is an unacceptable public face of the Israeli Government it is Avigdor Lieberman, the Strategic Affairs Minister in the coalition Government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  Lieberman, a Russian immigrant to Israel, leads a right-wing, predominantly Russian party. In some ways, he is more open to compromise than many Israelis. He would be willing to cede Israeli land to a Palestinian state.  What makes Lieberman controversial, and unacceptable to many, is his view that as well as territory, Israel should give away people, too, in particular its Muslim Arab citizens. He doesn't want to expel them exactly, just redraw some borders so that some Arab towns and villages move into a new Palestinian state nextdoor, thus making Israel a more Jewish state. http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22933199-15084,00.html

The Israeli government approves work at Al Mugrabi gate
Israeli media sources reported on Monday that the Israeli government approved a decision that allows the Jerusalem Jewish municipality to resume digging at Al Mugrabi gate.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52022

States attending PA donors' summit to urge Israel to remove W. Bank roadblocks
The international donors' conference to the Palestinian Authority is expected to issue a statement in Paris on Monday, calling on Israel to remove roadblocks in the West Bank, European diplomatic sources said over the weekend.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935132

Palestinians Win $650M EU Aid Pledge
PARIS (AP) — The European Union on Monday launched a day of pledges of aid to the Palestinians by promising $650 million in 2008, a substantial contribution from a key donor amid a renewed international push for a Palestinian state.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iiJF_K2TY_t3bDU8qqlvjhJk63xwD8TJ1RR80

Abbas: Palestinians close to 'catastrophe'
Mahmoud Abbas has urged the international community to increase support for the Palestinians or risk a "total catastrophe" in the occupied territories.  French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas at the donors conference in Paris. The Palestinian president used a donor conference in Paris to appeal for $5.6bn (£2.8bn) in aid by 2010 to help work towards setting up a viable Palestinian state.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/17/wabbas117.xml

Blair's uphill battle to revive Palestinian economy
Tony Blair faces his first big Middle Eastern moment at the Palestinian donors conference in Paris. But can cash help advance the stalled peace process? Ian Black reports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,,2228780,00.html

Galilee militant gets life term for kidnap-murder of IDF soldier
Mohammed Anbatawi, 23, a member of a group of Israeli Arabs which authorities have called a terrorist organization, was sentenced Monday to life imprisonment for the murder of IDF soldier Oleg Shaichat in July 2003.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935434

If we're going by the numbers, it doesn't add up
The run-up to the end of 2007 is upon us and the papers are going to be full of various unimportant statistics of how many this year, more or less, and what can we expect for 2008. Hiding somewhere on the back pages, beneath all these meaningless figures will be the immigration numbers for the last year. Don't hold your breath, they're going to be down again. The January to November figures paint a very clear picture, and if there wasn't a sudden wave this month (and there wasn't), then immigration will have been down 7 or 8 percent this year. Only about 18,000 Jews came from around the world this year to live in the Jewish state. And what makes the statistics even more grim reading is the country-by-country numbers; there are no signs of hope for the future.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934477.html

Eva Bartlett: A Son's Spleen and Mother's Lungs
Mohammed now anxiously awaits the doctor's verdict: how he will survive without his spleen, how many doctors' visits will be necessary, how much all of this is going to cost the family, when he can return to school to continue his education.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-121607165301.htm

Property destruction in Hebron
Two shopkeepers from Hebron's old city told ISM that at 3pm yesterday approximately 70 settlers and tourists, many in Jewish religious garb, came through the old city from the direction of the Ibrahimi Mosque, accompanied by roughly 15 soldiers. On the way through they knocked, scattered and stamped on merchandise from a jewelry and handcraft shop. The shopkeeper reports that he approached a soldier to complain about this, but the soldier just smiled at him. He says this has happened many times before. The traders report that the group was predominantly teenagers young adults, both male and female, many of whom were carrying guns.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/12/16/property-destruction-in-hebron/

Nahr al-Bared treated outside of the law
Many actors play a role in alleviating the plight of the Nahr al-Bared displaced Palestinian refugees. The most important actor has been the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. In spite of its slowness, as some interviewees complain, it has done a great job. Donors [1] and international and local nongovernmental organizations [2] have provided financial support and have assisted the population and ensured the basic needs of the displaced population and the returnees. In addition to these institutions, the Saudi Arabia paid seed money ($1200) to each family through the Lebanese government, and some Lebanese political parties, especially the Future Movement, provided food for the families.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9165.shtml

Ben White: Boycott: The Backlash
Can anyone seriously believe that 40 years of military occupation and rapacious Israeli colonialism will simply melt away, through the promotion of 'dialogue and reconciliation'?
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-121607170930.htm

Prerequisites for peace
As one who for decades has supported a two-state solution and the nonviolent struggle for Palestinian rights, I view the recent conference in Annapolis with a great deal of skepticism -- and a glimmer of hope. Seven years with no negotiations -- and increasing numbers of Israeli settlers, an economic blockade in Gaza and an intricate network of roadblocks and checkpoints stifling movement in the West Bank -- have led us to despair and distrust. Any commitment must be made not only to conclude an agreement before the end of 2008 but also to end Israel's occupation.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9164.shtml

John Whitbeck: Palestine: Democracy Not Zionism
No one would suggest that the moral, ethical and intellectual transformation necessary to achieve a decent "one-state solution" will be easy. However, more and more people now recognize that a decent "two-state solution" has become impossible.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-121607170616.htm

Devorah Brous: Bedouin of Negev – Interview
On two fronts, Bedouin are seemingly trapped. From one side, they are staving off pressures from rapacious development and the State's land grab, and from the other side, they're faced with economic pressures from the global industrial machine.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-121607170140.htm

Issa Khalaf: The No-State Solution
The one state solution is a massive fantasy, not because its political analysis and moral assumptions are necessarily wrong, but because these assumptions necessarily ascribe rational motives and behavior to Zionism.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-121607161839.htm

Bill includes U.S.-Israel missile coordination
Congress is set to approve a plan to integrate the U.S. and Israeli missile defense systems.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/105895.html

Israel's bold new UK strategy
Israeli diplomats are to mount an aggressive new strategy in Britain, making Israel's case more actively in the media and taking their message out of London.
http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11&SecId=11&AId=56954&ATypeId=1

International day of solidarity with the Palestinian people
November 29, 2007 is the 30th International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. This year it also coincides with the 40th anniversary of the occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and the 40th anniversaries of both Caritas Jerusalem and Development and Peace.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KKAA-79Y4M2?OpenDocument&rc=3&emid=ACOS-635PFR

Bethlehem profits from peaceful Christmas
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) - Bethlehem souvenir store owner Mike Canawati is gearing up for his merriest Christmas in years.  A steady stream of pilgrims are trickling into his shop, snapping up olive wood crosses and nativity scenes as keepsakes from the town revered as Jesus' birthplace.
http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSL1730742220071217

Experts warn major Israel quakes fast approaching
As if political instability and rampant insecurity in the Middle East are not worrying enough, Israeli experts are warning that a major earthquake could strike the region at any time. Three minor quakes over the past month have served as a reminder that Israel and the West Bank sit atop one of the most sensitive fault lines in the world, where earthquakes have a history of causing havoc. "We can say with certainty that an earthquake of a magnitude of six on the Richter scale could take place in the coming years," said Yefim Gitterman from the seismology department at the geophysical institute of Lod, near Tel Aviv.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=071217130844.3w52g9f2&show_article=1

Thanks, But No Thanks, Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
The Palestinian state has now become the universal standard for all solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The international community applauds the concept. President Bush proudly proclaims it as his "vision". The Israelis have come to it belatedly, after years of steadfast refusal and rejection.
http://www.counterpunch.com/khalidi12152007.html

Photostory: The month in pictures, November 2007
The above slideshow is a selection of images from the month of November 2007. The month in pictures is an ongoing feature of the Electronic Intifada. If you have images documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos A T electronicintifada D O T net.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9166.shtml