Palestinian refugee children die in Iraq
This is a summary of what was said by UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at the press briefing, on 30 November 2007, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.  Two sick Palestinian refugee children waiting for resettlement from Iraq died in the last two weeks, one of them in Al Waleed refugee camp at the Iraq-Syria border and the other one in Baghdad. Another refugee, a 50-year-old man, also waiting to be resettled, died earlier this month in Al Waleed refugee camp. So far seven people have died there, including three young children, since Palestinian refugees started to arrive at the border in March 2006 fleeing violent attacks against them.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/PANA-79FHSD?OpenDocument

Israel high court okays Gaza fuel cuts
Israel's high court on Friday ruled that the state could continue with month-long fuel cuts to the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, but ordered a delay on plans to reduce electricity supplies too, officials said.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jM6VzxBYuCEXcyPfOy2CNL37utTQ


PCHR Weekly Report: 6 killed, 22 wounded, 51 abducted by Israeli forces
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, in the week of the 22nd to 28th of November, 11 Palestinians, including 2 brothers, were killed by Israeli forces, 28 were wounded, and 42 were abducted by Israeli forces this week.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51795


Israeli military invade Nablus and attack two mosques
At least 30 Israeli military vehicles invaded the Balata refugee camp in eastern Nablus in a pre-dawn military operation on Friday.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51799


Israeli army forcibly evacuate at least 200 Palestinians from Kherbet Qessa
At least 200 Palestinian residents of Kherbet Qessa in the Hebron district were left homeless after being forcibly evacuated by the Israeli army in order to establish the annexation wall in their place.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51785


Israeli military invades Al Bireh and kidnaps three from Hebron
Israeli military forces kidnapped three Palestinian civilians from the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, transferring them to an undisclosed detention center.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51801


Palestinian security forces arrest 7 Hamas men in West Bank
Palestinian security services arrested seven members of Islamic Hamas movement in West Bank over the past 24 hours, security sources and Hamas said on Wednesday.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/28/content_7162183.htm


PA police terrorize Palestinian journalists
Palestinian police answerable to Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas have been terrorizing non-conformist Palestinian journalists throughout the West Bank in a manner unprecedented since the creation of the PA following the Oslo Accords in 1993.
http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7fMOXK%2bxWa99RfCnAmldpP6uOVD2j1ICqqxuNyblzSKeMiCfLZ9uAszxjkwved9PB614c%2fkuRsJsonlWD9urRAQmMn3BEr7ZPL3zkTwEa5Vk%3d


Four injured in peaceful Billien protest
On Friday after the weekly prayers, residents of the West Bank village of Bilien, west of the city of Ramallah and a group of International and Israeli peace activists marched in a massive rally.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51806


IDF catches two Palestinian teens with bombs at West Bank checkpoint
Security forces on Friday found three bombs in a bag belonging to two Palestinian teenagers at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus in the West Bank.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929946.html


PHR-Israel emergency appeal for medical supplies for Gaza
The prolonged siege imposed by the Israeli government on Gaza, the closing of its borders, the tightening of policies regarding permission to exit Gaza for medical purposes, and the severe shortage of medications and other medical supplies all severely damage the Palestinian health system and endanger the lives and health of thousands of Palestinian patients.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KARI-79EQH5?OpenDocument


Israeli High Court orders army to allow passage of four terminally-ill Palestinians
After the deaths of three Palestinian patients awaiting permission from Israel to receive medical treatment, the Israeli High Court ordered on Thursday that the Israeli military must allow four other terminally-ill patients to exit Gaza for treatment.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51797


Report: Gaza closure threatens education of 3,000 students
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza has released a report condemning the Israeli ban on the travel of Gaza Strip students to pursue studies in universities and schools abroad. The Center called upon the international community and international organizations, especially UNESCO and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to pressure Israeli Occupying Forces in the Gaza Strip to allow more than 2,700 students to travel so as to avert the negative consequences for their educational future.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51792


Report warns against proposal for funding of W. Bank outposts
The author of a highly influential government report on illegal outposts in the West Bank has recently warned the government against approving a new justice ministry proposal that would allow state funding for outposts, Haaretz has learned.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929745.html


Abbas: Now is the moment of truth for Palestinian statehood
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told his people on Thursday the "moment of truth" on Palestinian statehood has come, following his participation in the Annapolis conference in the United States.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=929692&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1


Israeli Prime Minister: Without two-state solution, Israel will not survive
After meeting with the Palestinian President in the US on Tuesday and Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asserted that a two-state solution between the two peoples is the only possible solution.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51791


PA official: Olmert lying about Temple Mount
Israeli PM claims holy site not up for talks, but Palestinians say he has already agreed to forfeiture.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3477322,00.html


Haj pilgrims call for opening of Gaza border
Hundreds of white-robed Muslims staged a protest at the closed border crossing between Hamas-run Gaza and Egypt on Thursday to demand they be allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia for the annual haj pilgrimage.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2920344020071129


Hamas says it has secret, public contacts with Europeans
Islamic Hamas movement revealed on Thursday that the deposed Hamas government, which still rules Gaza, has "secret and disclosed" contacts with European sides.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/29/content_7169748.htm

Ban Ki-Moon: Palestinians continue to suffer indignities of occupation
Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that the International Day came at a time when Palestinians continued to suffer the indignities and violence of Israeli occupation.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1861642&Language=en

Olmert: Israel 'finished' without Palestinian state
In unusually frank comments, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned in an interview published today that "the state of Israel is finished" if a Palestinian state is not created, saying the alternative was a South African-style apartheid struggle.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5339295.html


Blair: There won't be Palestinian state unless it is coherently run coherently
On Wednesday morning, the day after dozens of leaders from around the world came to Annapolis to express support for a renewed dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), Quartet envoy Tony Blair was preparing to go to the White House for the ceremony marking the launching of actual negotiations, which was being hosted by President George Bush. We met him at the residence of the British ambassador to Washington, where he lodged during his stay in the U.S. capital.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=929898&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1


The One State Declaration
For decades, efforts to bring about a two-state solution in historic Palestine have failed to provide justice and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish peoples, or to offer a genuine process leading towards them. The two-state solution ignores the physical and political realities on the ground, and presumes a false parity in power and moral claims between a colonized and occupied people on the one hand and a colonizing state and military occupier on the other. It is predicated on the unjust premise that peace can be achieved by granting limited national rights to Palestinians living in the areas occupied in 1967, while denying the rights of Palestinians inside the 1948 borders and in the Diaspora. Thus, the two-state solution condemns Palestinian citizens of Israel to permanent second-class status within their homeland, in a racist state that denies their rights by enacting laws that privilege Jews constitutionally, legally, politically, socially and culturally. Moreover, the two-state solution denies Palestinian refugees their internationally recognized right of return.
http://www.counterpunch.org/onestate.html


James Petras: US Military versus Israel Firsters
The underlying deep and widespread hostility of the high-ranking military officials has nothing to do with Zion-Con charges of 'anti-Semitism' and everything to do with the destruction, demoralization and discredit of the US military.
http://palestinechronicle.com/story-112907171902.htm

After 40 years of occupation "solidarity" is not enough
On this, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, the international community must not only clearly renounce its tacit acquiescence to Israel's violations of international law, but also commit to concrete action to end these violations, and in doing so, end the occupation itself.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9133.shtml

PSL: On the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine, we remember the Nakba
Like all great struggles, it has had many twists and turns, and will have many more. But the root cause of the conflict— the forcible expulsion of a people from their homeland—is neither ambiguous nor confusing. Sixty years ago, this is precisely what happened to the Palestinians in "The Catastrophe," known as "Al-Nakba" in Arabic.
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2007/11/28/psl-on-the-international-day-of-solidarity-with-palestine-we-remember-the-nakba/


Palestinians commemorate 1947 UN resolution creating state of Israel on their land
On Thursday, November 29th, the Palestinian people commemorated the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.  November 29th marks the day on which the United Nations signed a resolution in 1947 recommending the partition of Palestine to create a Jewish homeland, called Israel.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51794

Stuart Littlewood: See Gaza and Weep
(In the run-up to "Annapolis", Stuart Littlewood went to Gaza on an unusual mission. He joined a party of priests bringing moral support to the Christian community and to its Muslim neighbours, all suffering horribly under Israel's collective punishment and cruel siege.) Traffic into Gaza through the elaborate new border "facility" at Erez is down to a tiny trickle these days since Israel branded the Palestinian seaside enclave a "hostile entity". The purpose of our visit was to bring moral support to elderly Fr. Manuel, who ministers to his flock, runs an excellent school (for Christians and Muslims) and is revered as a local hero. Should he ever leave Gaza, the Israeli authorities will not allow his return, so he has allowed himself to be incarcerated there for 9 years. He'd had no visitors since February and when he heard we were coming, said a colleague, he burst into tears.
http://www.unobserver.com/layout5.php?id=4123&blz=1


Shades of grey: Nusseibeh's "Once Upon A Country"
In his new historical autobiography Once Upon A Country, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, who many accuse of selling out due to his comments regarding the right of return, highlights the shades of grey in a conflict that most people prefer to see in black and white. Miko Peled reviews Nusseibeh's new book and finds that it shows that neither Rabin, or Barak or any other Israeli prime minister had ever intended to make peace with the Palestinians. Their intention was, and still is, to turn the Palestinian people into "hewers of wood and drawers of water" for the Jewish state that was established on the ashes of a country that, as the book title suggests, once upon a time existed.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9132.shtml


Photo Flash: West Bank, UK - The Musical
Oren Safdie (Private Jokes, Public Places) and Ronnie Cohen (Jews & Jesus) return to the New York stage with the world-premiere musical West Bank, UK – about an Israeli and Palestinian living under the same roof.
http://broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=23355


CHECKPOINT JERUSALEM BLOG
Going to the movies - in Ramallah: OK, I have a small confession to make: While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were delivering their historic speeches in Annapolis, I was watching a movie. Yes, I missed live coverage of the events, which coincided with the Ramallah debut of "Driving to Zigzigland."
http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/382074.html


Earthquake rumour panics West Bank Palestinians
Ramallah - Schools, high building and even some government offices were evacuated Thursday in the West Bank and East Jerusalem after a rumour said an earthquake was about to hit the territory.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/middleeast/news/article_1377495.php/Earthquake_rumour_panics_West_Bank_Palestinians


NPR Watch: Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
All Things Considered coverage of the Annapolis meeting reinitiating Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks was a big disappointment. Ordinarily, such an event would prompt ATC to present a solid half hour of coverage, including providing listeners with the historical and factual background needed to understand and interpret the event.
http://www.counterpunch.com/pace11292007.html


Robert Fisk: A different venue, but the pious claims and promises are the same
Haven't we been here before? Isn't Annapolis just a repeat of the White House lawn and the Oslo agreement, a series of pious claims and promises in which two weak men, Messrs Abbas and Olmert, even use the same words of Oslo. "It is time for the cycle of blood, violence and occupation to end," the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday. But don't I remember Yitzhak Rabin saying on the White House lawn that, "it is time for the cycle of blood... to end"?
http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article3204054.ece


Op/Ed: Bush isn't the only 'decider'
Despite the show at Annapolis, this week's main diplomatic initiative has concerned Iraq, not Israel. Without any fanfare, the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced that the United States and Iraq will begin negotiating a long-term agreement that will set the terms of Washington's Iraq policy for "coming generations." President Bush is again in legacy mode. His White House "czar" on Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, explained that the administration intends to reach a final agreement between the two countries by July 31, 2008. In describing the negotiations, he made a remarkable suggestion: Only the Iraqi parliament, not the U.S. Congress, needs to formally approve the agreement.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ackerman29nov29,0,3241305.story


Not Through Annapolis
As the U.S. convenes a Mideast summit in Annapolis, Maryland today, we spend the hour on the Israeli-Palestine conflict with two of the world's leading thinkers: former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and world-renowned linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky says U.S. backing of continued Israeli occupation and annexation of Palestinian land is the biggest obstacle to peace. He says: "The crimes against Palestinians...  are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it's likely to harm them. We have to face the reality that our actions have consequences, and they have to be adapted to real-world circumstances, difficult as it may be to stay calm in the face of shameful crimes in which we are directly and crucially implicated.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18795.htm


Two Ships Passing in the Dark?: The Meaning of Annapolis
Last week, as participants in the latest international peace conference on Israel- Palestine prepared to wend their way to Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, in Tel Aviv senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) officials were wrapping up a three-day headquarters exercise focusing on urban terror. Media reports said the drill was the largest in eight years to test reactions to and prevention of terror incidents.
http://www.counterpunch.com/smith11292007.html


Annapolis: US prepares Palestinian civil war
Rallies Arab support against Iran.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/nov2007/anna-n29.shtml


Paint by numbers
The Israeli vice premier and minister of strategic threats (officially strategic affairs) Avigdor Lieberman doesn't let any opportunity pass without mentioning that the positions of the extreme right Israel Beituna Party that he heads have come to form a central "national" consensus in Israel. Lieberman does not conceal his relief that more parties and political movements in Israel have begun to adopt his party's position calling for the implementation of a land swap between Israel and a Palestinian state. In such a swap, the Palestinian leadership is supposed to agree to Israel annexing the major settlement conglomerations in the West Bank in return for annexing to a Palestinian state some of the residential areas in Israel in which the Palestinians live.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/873/re71.htm


Annapolis is About War, Not Peace
"Those claiming to see signs of a plausible peace process in the events that began at Annpolis on Tuesday are clutching at straws. You only have to look at the joint declaration adopted by the Israeli and Palestinian sides under U.S. prodding to see why....The key statement in the declaration adopted at Annapolis, however, is in its concluding paragraph: "Implementation of the future peace treaty will be subject to the implementation of the road map, as judged by the United States."
http://tonykaron.com/2007/11/29/annapolis-is-about-war-not-peace/


Flexibility versus escalation
Israel doesn't need bombs to abort the Annapolis meeting. The incendiary rhetoric with which Israeli officials and media are arming Arab and Palestinian opponents to Annapolis should do the trick.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/873/op11.htm


Demoralisation and absence
A once profound and widely read commentator recently claimed he no longer writes about the Palestine/Israel conflict because "Palestinians are killing each other". Feeling his words have ceased to carry weight he simply decided not "to take sides".
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/873/op12.htm


Madrid redux
Bush's brilliant brainstorm to hold a meaningless, lustreless peace conference is like dry lightning, which brings not the prayed for rain. The US administration needed something to prove that its policy towards the Arab region was not a drastic failure. It came up with nothing better than to restage the Madrid peace conference that was engineered by James Baker, secretary of state under Bush's father. For some reason, Republicans regard the Bush Sr-Baker policy following the war in Kuwait a success story worthy of commemoration and emulation. So we have a conference, today, that has brought the Arabs to Washington, flushed with gratitude to the imperial grace for bestowing its attention again upon the Palestinian cause.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/873/op55.htm