Peace
Now: Israel continue to expanding West Bank settlements
The
report shows that the Israeli government continued to build homes
inside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and demolished at least
eight Palestinian homes after the Annapolis conference held in
Moreland city USA in late November.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52034
Israeli
official: "We don't need American approval" to expand
settlements
An Israeli official announced Monday that
Israel will allow construction within settlements that have already
been established on Palestinian land in the West Bank, rebuffing a
U.S. critique of one planned settlement expansion.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52030
Officials:
Israel to allow construction in existing W. Bank settlements
Israel
will allow construction within built up areas of existing Jewish
settlements in the West Bank, but will not expand beyond those areas,
Israeli officials said on Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935491
Israeli
neighborhood in Arab east Jerusalem haunts peace talks for second
time in a decade
The Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa,
with its small supermarket and barbershop, white stone buildings and
billboards hawking new real estate projects, has now managed to
disrupt Israeli-Palestinian peace talks for the second time in a
decade. Israel's announcement this month that it plans to build
307 new homes in this east Jerusalem neighborhood, on land
Palestinians want for the capital of their future state, drew
international condemnation and was the first wrench thrown into peace
negotiations relaunched last week after a violent seven-year hiatus.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/16/africa/ME-GEN-Israel-
Contentious-Neighborhood.php
Quartet
for Middle East Peace 'concerned' over Israeli settlement
expansion
In a concurrent meeting with the Paris donor's
conference Monday, representatives from the four bodies that make up
the Quartet for Mideast Peace: the U.S., Russia, the U.N. and the
E.U. issued a statement condemning Israel's plan to expand a West
Bank settlement.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52028
Apartheid
Masked: Settlements being built and Palestinian homes demolished
under the shadow of "peace" talks
Peace Now
Settlement Watch says: "Although Olmert declared a settlement
freeze, we see that on the ground there is construction in
settlements all over the West Bank, in all kinds of settlements, and
as long as the Government does not stop settlement activity on the
ground, the negotiations cannot succeed." A group of
activists documented this continued construction in several
settlements. They also documented the demolition of Palestinian
houses which has continued after the peace conference, eight homes
having been destroyed since Annapolis. They filmed construction in
Nof Zion and Har Homa last week, and also took pictures of
construction going on in Modi'in Illit, Ma'ale Adumim, Karnei
Shomron, Alfei Menashe, and the Barkan industrial area.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/12/17/apartheid-masked-settlements-being-built-
and-palestinian-homes-demolished-under-the-shadow-of-%e2%80%9cpeace%e2%80%9d-talks/
12
Killed in Gaza Airstrikes
Israeli aircraft launched an
assault on the radical Islamic Jihad organization in Gaza, killing
the group's overall commander and nine other militants in three fiery
strikes ending early Tuesday. A fourth attack on a security post in
southern Gaza killed two Hamas militants.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jD4YSkDPlclqd9dHvg2f0Ij18zEgD8TJTD8G1
A
leader of al Quds brigade killed in Qabatiya by Israeli gunfire
In
a pre-dawn military operation by Israeli Special forces, a leader of
the al Quds brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad was killed
by military gunfire and another two were injured in the northern West
town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin city.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52032
Undercover
Israeli unit kills Islamic Jihad leader in West Bank
Ramallah
- An undercover Israeli military unit Tuesday shot and killed an
Islamic Jihad leader in the West Bank town of Qabatia, according to
official Palestinian
sources.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1381776.php
Israeli
air strike kills four Gaza militants
An Israeli air
strike in the Gaza Strip killed at least four Islamic Jihad gunmen on
Tuesday, Palestinian medical workers and militants said, a day after
Israel stepped up attacks against the militant group. Islamic
Jihad said four of its militants were killed by the air strike as
they walked out of a mosque in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern
Gaza. An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed there had been an air
strike.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17754390.htm
Three
Palestinians killed, seven wounded in an Israeli air strike on
Gaza
Three Palestinians have been reportedly killed and
seven others wounded in a new Israeli air strike on Gaza city.
Medical sources reported that corpses of the killed reached the
hospital dismembered as some children were among those injured in the
air strike.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52026
Report:
Three killed in Israeli attack on Gaza
Palestinian
officials said that at least three people were killed in Israeli
airstrike south of Gaza City Monday
night.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3483774,00.html
Gaza
Strip at risk from sewage lake
The vast, foul-smelling
lake lies just above the Palestinian village of Beit Lahia in the
northern Gaza Strip. It covers a surface of more than 280,000 square
metres and is up to six metres deep, filled to the brim with the
barely treated overflow of the local sewage plant. For years,
the plant has been struggling - and failing - to recycle the waste
water from households across the northern Gaza Strip. Stretched to
the limit, the dam of a separate sewage basin at the site broke in
March this year; the flooding killed five people.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77fb02b8-ad0a-11dc-b51b-0000779fd2ac.html
Income
drops in Gaza since Hamas takeover
Hundreds of thousands
of households in Gaza have suffered a sharp drop in income since June
when Hamas seized the Gaza Strip and Israel tightened sanctions, the
U.N . food agency said on Monday. The World Food Program said
the deterioration was particularly alarming for the more than 460,000
non-refugees who live in Gaza, home to 1.5 million
people.
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1744866520071217
Gaza
blockade worsens health care
In the halls of al-Shifa
hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, patients
queue outside the dialysis centre for treatment and medication.
However, they know there is a good chance they may get neither. An
Israeli economic blockade of the Gaza Strip has meant that medical
supplies are
scarce.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/1A371A8C-8F97-4239-9369-AD936013DD0F.htm
Sealed
off, Gazans struggle daily
The batteries are the size of a
button on a man's shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids
for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna
Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City. Now the batteries are all but
used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into
unintelligible echoes in the ears of 20 1st-grade students.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-gaza_mondec17,1,7340434.story
Barriers
erode life for Palestinians
TO understand something of the
frustration of Palestinian life in the West Bank, it is only
necessary to negotiate one of the hundreds of Israeli checkpoints
that impede movement there. These checkpoints are a huge barrier to
the resumption of routine economic life, much less development, which
all analysts agree is essential to normalising life on the West Bank
- and any peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22946105-2703,00.html
Hamas-Run
Gaza Will See Little of Aid
Hamas-ruled Gaza will likely
see little of the unprecedented $7.4 billion in aid promised to the
Palestinians by the international community on Monday. While donor
countries say they won't ignore the growing suffering in that
isolated territory, they don't seem eager to channel large sums there
that could inadvertently help prolong Hamas rule.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ipgKx75hlmAeo-4hZG-ZWxV2hxcQD8TJH0BO2
Gazans
pay the price of Israeli
sanctions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-j-0vE_RLQ
B'Tselem:
Israeli army is doing nothing to combat violence on the checkpoints
B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights
in The Occupied Territories, indicated that results of the military
poll made about the violence carried out against Palestinians on the
Israeli checkpoints are appalling but come as no surprise.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52033
'IDF
doesn't prosecute civilian deaths'
In the past seven
years, the IDF has indicted just 10 percent of soldiers suspected of
criminal offenses against Palestinians, an Israeli human rights group
reported Tuesday, saying the figures raise questions about Israel's
willingness to prosecute. The Yesh Din group said just 9% of
investigations led to convictions. The conviction rate was less than
7%when the investigations focused on the killing and injury of
civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, it
said.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847371034&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Gazans:
IDF restrictions deny us of animals for holiday sacrifice
Israel's
closure of its border with the Gaza Strip has caused a shortage of
livestock for sacrifice at the annual Eid al-Adha Muslim holiday
beginning Wednesday, according to merchants in the coastal
territory. Ibrahim al-Kedra, a senior agriculture ministry official
in Gaza said the average demand for the feast among Gaza's
overwhelmingly Muslim population of 1.5 million is around 10,000 cows
and 50,000 goats.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935541
Hamas
support shows scant faith in peace talk-poll
Hamas
Islamists have maintained their popularity in the Palestinian
Territories, reflecting an "almost total lack of confidence"
in relaunched peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian survey said on
Monday.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17544033.htm
Poll:
Support for Hamas stable despite worsening conditions in Gaza
A
lack of confidence in recently renewed peacemaking between Israel and
the Palestinians has kept Palestinian support for Hamas stable
despite worsening conditions in the Gaza Strip, according to a poll
released Monday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935450
Report:
Palestinian NGOs pull plug on Madrid forum
A major meeting
of non-governmental organizations and activists fell into disarray
when the Palestinian delegation announced its withdrawal just days
before the event.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52029
Donors
pledge $7bn to Palestinians
Bernard Kouchner, the French
foreign minister, said on Monday that the Palestinians would receive
the pledges over the next three
years.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/832F5407-F559-457E-B583-6064941EAF43.htm
The
long road from Paris to Palestine
An international donors'
conference that was convened in order to secure pledges of financial
support for the Palestinian Authority closed in Paris yesterday.
Eighty-seven countries and international organisations were in
attendance, including the host, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, US
secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Palestinian president Mahmoud
Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad, Israeli foreign minister Tzipi
Livni, Quartet special envoy Tony Blair and representatives of many
Arab states. According to initial reports, pledges of $7.4bn were
secured, exceeding the target set for the conference. On the face of
it, this is impressive stuff and builds on the momentum of the peace
summit held in Annapolis three weeks ago. This is the first pledging
conference for the Palestinians of its kind since 1996. And the
Palestinian economy is certainly in dire need of help, with per
capita GDP falling 40% since 1999, unemployment standing at 23% and
the PA expecting a fiscal gap for current and capital expenditures of
around $1.8bn in 2008 according to the World Bank. This is also an
international vote of confidence in prime minister Fayyad, his
Palestinian reform and development plan and the sincere efforts he is
making to produce a workable program to improve Palestinians'
economic prospects. But the journey from Paris to Palestine is a long
one, the obstacle course is daunting and the lessons from previous
failed and similar journeys are in danger of not being learned.
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/daniel_levy/2007/12/the_long_journey_from_paris.html
Int'l
aid to PA no guarantee for bolstering moderates
Since its
establishment in 1994, the Palestinian Authority has received
billions of dollars in international aid. The money was supposed to
help the Palestinians build a strong economy and government
institutions. The assumption back then was that economic prosperity
would weaken radicals and boost the moderates among the Palestinians.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847366262&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
FACTBOX-Aid
pledged to Palestinians at Paris conference
An
international donors' conference in Paris on Monday pledged $7.4
billion in aid to the Palestinians over the next three years. The
Palestinian government had asked for $5.6 billion over the 2008-2010
period, including $3.9 billion for budget support. Below are details
on some of the pledges announced, by country and organisation...
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/11979189816.htm
Arab
postage stamp launched to support Palestinians
The league
of the Arab States has decided to release a joint stamp of the Arab
nations as an indication of support for the
Palestinians.
http://www.imemc.org/article/52023
Newly
appointed U.S. Mideast envoy to visit Israel Tuesday
The
Unites States' most recently appointed envoy to the Middle East,
retired General Jim Jones, is expected to arrive in Israel Monday
night in order to take part in a number of meetings with both the
defense establishment and political officials Tuesday.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=935492
Barenboim
criticizes Israel after musician blocked from Gaza
BERLIN
- Conductor Daniel Barenboim criticized Israel Monday for preventing
a Palestinian musician in an ensemble that was to perform at a music
festival from entering the Gaza Strip for a concert. Barenboim said
his group of about 20 musicians from England, the United States,
France and Germany, as well the Palestinian musician, had been
authorized by Israeli authorities to travel to Gaza for a baroque
music festival, where they were to play on Sunday.
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-42iKkICa59irvBZ4uXdAtEtpwA
Israel
bars violinist from Gaza peace concert
Famed conductor
Daniel Barenboim spoke out against Israel Monday, following the
refusal of the Israeli authorities one day earlier to allow a
prominent Palestinian violinist to pass through the Erez border
crossing and perform in a peace concert in the Hamas-controlled Gaza
strip.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847364767&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Building
hope from rubble
In the dirty streets of the Nuseirat
refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, the sparse fruit stands carry only
rotten fruit, because it is all the market's vendors can afford to
sell, and all the refugees can afford to buy. "It will still be
gone in an hour," says Dr. Mona El-Farra, "because they
have to eat something." Of Gaza's 1.5 million residents more
than 60 percent are under 18. The effects of malnutrition are seen
not only in the kids' hunger, but also in their brain function. They
are unable to focus in school, and have become violent. Sarah Price
reports from Gaza.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9168.shtml
To
Die With the Philistines
The most famous words ever
spoken in Gaza were the last words of Samson (Judges 16:30): "Let
me die with the Philistines!" According to the Biblical story,
Samson took hold of the central pillars of the Philistine temple and
brought down the whole building upon the lords of the Philistines,
the people of Gaza, and himself. The teller of the story sums it all
up: "So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they
which he slew in his life."
http://www.antiwar.com/avnery/?articleid=12069
"Follow
Us Not Them" - The Ramallah Model: Washington's Palestinian
Failure
A Conflicts Forum Monograph, by Geoffrey Aronson,
November, 2007
(Geoffrey Aronson is on the Conflicts Forum
Advisory Board. He is Executive Director of the Washington, DC-based
Foundation for Middle East Peace) "George Bush's "vision"
of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is based on the
supremacy of the "Ramallah model" over the "Gaza
model." U.S. policy intends that the advantages championed by
Ramallah in negotiations with Israel and the economic revival enabled
by international assistance will "strengthen Abu Mazen" and
undermine the Palestininian majority for Hamas. In this contest,
however, Hamas, from its base in Gaza, retains significant
advantages. As long as the limitations of U.S. policy prevent an end
to occupation, the Ramallah model will be compromised and the process
of "strengthening Abu Mazen" will continue the process of
Fateh's marginalization and Hamas's empowerment that has been the
legacy of the Oslo era....."
http://conflictsforum.org/briefings/Follow-Us-Not-Them-Aronson.pdf
Racism
in Israel
Racism is no laughing matter, but for many
people living in Israel and under the Israeli occupation, humour
might help to ease the tensions. Arab Labour is an award winning
comedy series poking fun at the stigmas and stereotypes of everyday
reality in Israel. Al Jazeera's David Chater spoke to the
show's writer regarding his personal take on the ongoing conflict.
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2007/12/18/racism-in-israel/
Students
hired to promote Israel
An advocacy group is hiring
students as on-campus promoters of Israel. StandWithUs is offering up
to $1,000 a year this semester to 38 Emerson fellows, Jewish student
leaders at key colleges and universities targeted by the
organization. Their duties will include bringing in speakers and
films that show Israel in a positive light. Officials from
StandWithUs told reporters that they gave particular consideration to
applicants from "problem campuses" such as Columbia, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan,
which the organization identifies as hotbeds of anti-Israel
sentiment. More than 100 students applied for the fellowships, funded
by California-based philanthropists Rita and Steven Emerson.
StandWithUs is an international pro-Israel education organization
founded in 2001.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/105928.html
Israel
will never be recognized as a 'Jewish state'
Israel, with
US support, is seeking to replace the traditional understanding of
the conflict as one that can be resolved by upholding Palestinian
rights with one where Israeli rights take center stage. This has
serious consequences for the Palestinian people in general and the
Palestinian minority in Israel in particular. Israel is not only
trying to replace Palestinians on their land, but replace them as the
victims of the
conflict.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=87526
US
Must Reevaluate Its Relationship
With IsraelI have for
some time now publicly articulated my sympathy and support for the
state of Israel, even while criticizing those cases that I believed
constituted poor judgment and bad policy. My stance was based upon my
past experiences with Israel, which began indirectly in 1990-1991
when I was involved in counter-SCUD activities during Operation
Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and continued in a much more direct
fashion as a weapons inspector with the United Nations Special
Commission (UNSCOM), charged with disarming Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=12064
American
Jews on War and Peace:What Do the Polls Tell Us and Not Tell Us?
Once again, a poll recently released by the American
Jewish Committee (AJC) (1) has confirmed that on some questions of
major significance there are vast differences between the opinion of
the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations and the
mass of American Jews. On questions of the Iraq war, the
escalation of US military forces in Iraq (the 'Surge') and military
action against Iran, most Jewish Americans differ from the leaders of
the major American Jewish organizations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18908.htm
