Yes: The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office must be commended for its decision to cancel renting premises for the UK embassy in Tel Aviv from the company Africa-Israel, owned by Israeli businessman and settlement builder Lev Leviev. This is an encouraging step that should now be backed by stronger sanctions against the building of the…
Showing all posts tagged settlements
This is how the place is defined
A country dedicated to peace? Israel‘s previous government built or issued bids for some 9,000 homes for Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank, despite its promise to pursue a peace deal with the Palestinians, settlement monitors said Monday, summarizing Ehud Olmert‘s three years as prime minister.
Tackling the legal/illegal settlers
A small victory in a long struggle that overwhelms every day: Palestinian and international demonstrators managed to convince Israeli settlers to re-route a road around a West Bank village on Sunday, a house from demolition. By nonviolently blocking construction vehicles on their way to build a road in the village of Umm Al-Kheir, the protesters…
Surveying the Zionist scene in 2009
Jews are the “chosen people”. One of the key problems with this delusion, of course, is that it gives Jews the justification to commit crimes against the Palestinians and defend them because Jews are “chosen” and therefore God will support whatever they do. Take this from the Jerusalem Post: Until our own day, the clannishness…
Western supported colonialism on show
Another day and another announcement that Israel continues to flout international norms, law and decency: Israel has taken a step towards expanding the largest settlement in the West Bank, a move Palestinians warn will leave their future state unviable and further isolate its future capital, East Jerusalem The Israeli Peace Now group, which monitors settlement…
Taking care of your own problems
One of Israel’s leading historians, Benny Morris – a fine scholar who now represents the bigoted underbelly of Israeli society – knows how to solve the Middle East conflict: Morris concludes that a majority of Jews during the Mandate and Israelis in the years since have come to accept the notion of two states for…
A showdown that should only end one way
Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has given his first interview to an Israeli newspaper. After telling a Russian paper earlier this week that, “Believe me, America accepts all our decisions“, his latest thoughts are equally likely to get the vast majority of the world off-side: The international community has to “stop speaking in slogans” if…
If the Americans are truly serious, well…
Progressive Zionist lobbyist MJ Rosenberg wonders why the Israelis think they can ignore the requests from Obama to move towards a two-state solution: There can be no doubt: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu does not much care what President Obama thinks about negotiations with the Palestinians. He seems to be making the same mistake that Obama’s…
Israel to bomb Iran? Don’t believe the hype
My latest column for New Matilda is about the relationship between Israel and Iran and the prospects for war: The Israel lobby want to bomb Iran, but calmer heads can see plenty of reasons not to. This time the lobby may not get what it wants, writes Antony Loewenstein Roger Cohen, a columnist for the…
Durban II, the how, why and who
The farce currently taking place in Geneva, known as Durban II, has already thrown up a veritable collection of freaks, distractions, nutty celebrities (what the hell is Angelina Jolie’s dad, Jon Voight, doing there?) and agendas. What follows is a small selection of the issues raised (and yet more evidence that the Western world, led…