Not before time: Israeli peace activists are planning to ratchet up their campaign against groups in the United States that raise money for settlers by highlighting how tax exemptions are helping to fund the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank. Gush Shalom, a small peace group that advocates Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied…
Showing all posts tagged West Bank
Hold Israel to fair standards or pay the price
The justified outrage over the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) spotlighting Tel Aviv (and ignoring Israel’s occupation and abuses in the West Bank and Gaza) is rightly causing waves. Naomi Klein explains that critics who accuse us of demonising Israel are deliberately missing the point: Imagine that this year the Toronto International Film Festival had…
A politician’s desire to shut down Israel debate
The Australian newspaper ran an extract of Michael Danby MP’s attack on Independent Australian Jewish Voices blogger Michael Brull and yours truly on the weekend (more about the news here). Below is our unpublished response: MP Michael Danby’s outrageous attack on us (Cut and Paste,12/9) is motivated by one wish: to prevent anyone from challenging…
How much of an internal threat are Israel’s home-grown enemies?
The New York Times investigates the Jewish settler movement and argues that removing them from illegal colonies will be less of a problem than is generally assumed: Of the hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, those who live in unauthorized hilltop outposts like this one, a hardscrabble unpaved collection of 20…
Truth proves elusive in a confusing trouble spot
My following book review appears in this week’s Sydney Morning Herald Spectrum section: Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East By Joris Luyendijk Scribe, 241pp, $29.95 “A journalist who limits himself to the role of middleman,” writes Dutch reporter Joris Luyendijk, “is actually siding with the team that is best able to influence the news…
How the Elders captured a glimpse of Israeli apartheid
Following the recent visit to Israel/Palestine by The Elders, an Israeli lawyer, Emily, Schaefer, wrote this detailed report on her experiences with the group to a select list… (but she has given permission for publication). She helped organise The Elders visit to a Palestinian village: Dear friends, family and comrades, Yesterday might just have been…
A life of barriers and walls
Israel will be isolated as long as it occupies Palestinian land. The trailer for the film, Kalandia (the name of the checkpoint near Jerusalem):
What the Muslim world needs from Israel
Saudi Arabia, despotic and a US ally, is a key player in the Middle East, mainly due to its oil reserves. In the New York Times, Prince Turki al-Faisal, former director of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and ambassador to the United States, writes that until Israel gives up its colonial addiction to land, the Arab…
ABC Radio National on My Israel Question
I was interviewed on ABC Radio National‘s Saturday Extra yesterday about my book My Israel Question, the Western-backed Palestinian Authority and chaos in Gaza:
The West Bank terror
Roi Maor and Dror Etkes write in Haaretz: The settlement issue has been at the top of the public agenda for the past several months, with the Israeli political scene abuzz in the face of talks between the Israeli government and envoys of U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration on a “freeze” of construction work in…