How many checkpoints can one country handle?

Apartheid is a complex business to manage: Though a Defense Ministry unit was set up five years ago to oversee checkpoints between Israel and the West Bank, these checkpoints are still run by no fewer than six different agencies, and no single body coordinates their work, Haaretz has found. The agencies running the checkpoints include…

Australian unions, Paul Howes, BDS and loving Israel

My following investigation appears in today’s edition of Crikey: The Middle East “quagmire” is largely “the fault of Israel”, according to Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU). In an interview with Crikey, the author of Confessions of a Faceless Man said that he was a “critical friend of Israel” and the…

Real friends of Israel see it running off a cliff

Gideon Levy in Haaretz on challenging delusional Zionism: Today, your representatives will open your great annual convention, the General Assembly. Between New Orleans’ Marriott and Sheraton hotels, you will be sated with lectures and lecturers, panels and discussion groups. Some will be about you, and some will be about us Israelis. Once again, you will…

When Israelis call their country “apartheid”, we’re in trouble

Zvi Bar’el in Haaretz: Israel is quickly defining the borders of the Arab autonomy and through apartheid legislation it is granting the Arab minority a legal standing of enclaves with lesser rights; of a cultural-ethnic region which, because it is being expelled from the broader who, can also demand international recognition for its unique standing.

Western politicians prefer to ignore Israel’s inherent racism

My following article appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Imagine a mainstream Australian politician saying that Aborigines should be banned from leading tourists around Uluru because they might “present anti-Australian positions” to visitors. The outcry would be furious. But a bill is currently before the Israeli Knesset, led by a parliamentarian from the “moderate” Kadima…

Israel continues settlements and the world smiles with thanks

Wow, tell me something I don’t know: A Haaretz investigation reveals that since the building freeze in the West Bank was lifted ten days ago, bulldozers have been working furiously on the construction of 350 new housing units in various settlements. As the end of the freeze approached, the settlements have made great efforts to…

The massive threat of a non-violent peace activist

Gideon Levy in Haaretz writes in customary fiery fashion (and check out the recent Independent feature on this truly remarkable and unique man) about his country’s seemingly daily descent into deeper intolerance: The photograph was recently distributed by the IDF’s propagandists: Mairead Corrigan-Maguire is seen being taken off the abducted ship Rachel Corrie at Ashdod…

Treat Arabs like dogs, lawless Israel says

So what is Israeli apartheid offering today? Security officers in settlements are confiscating Palestinian workers’ identity cards and holding them while they are in the Jewish communities, under IDF orders, even though there is no legal basis for their action. The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman told Haaretz that the matter is being investigated.

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