After the recent Gaza war, reports emerged that rabbis instructed religious soldiers to kill Arabs in the name of God. Fundamentalism is being bred in the West Bank and the Israeli state is more than happy to support it. The BBC reports that military rabbis are expanding their reach: I visited an orthodox Jewish seminary…
Showing all posts tagged West Bank
The kind of Palestinian leader loved by Western elites
Newsweek profiles Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The tag-line for the story speaks for itself: Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s unorthodox approach is winning plaudits from the West. That could be his undoing. While the Western-backed Palestinian Authority talks about “economic development”, the West Bank occupation merely deepens. This is no recipe for an independent Palestine…
One state, two state”¦who cares so long as there’s a solution?
My following article appears in today’s Crikey: US President Barack Obama has consistently stated that he imagines a two state solution in the Middle East, with viable Jewish and Palestinian nations alongside each other. Israel, in a clear sign of who runs the show, announced last week that it intended to continue building colonies in…
So the mad settlers now run Israeli policy
Amos Harel writes in Haaretz: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows his control over the land of outposts is flimsy. He is not the one who will decide how many caravans will be placed on hill 725, or how many Palestinian orchards will be uprooted near Yitzhar. A senior defense official told Haaretz: “Israeli law was…
The US government helps ethnic cleansing
We constantly read about Israel stealing property from Palestinians in Israel proper and the West Bank. This piece of information in the Khaleej Times is intriguing and in need of further investigation: As the Israeli government orchestrates increasing demand for Palestinian property, ordinary American Jews wishing to escape their credit card debts buy up stolen…
Black is white and Israel is a pure nation
Sometimes it’s important to understand the mindset of Zionist extremism, its profound hatred for Arabs and belief in Jewish exclusivity. George Gilder, “the world’s foremost technology futurist”, published an essay in July in the journal of the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute. Its message? At the heart of anti-Semitism is resentment of Jewish achievement. Today that…
How one Western government is showing the way against apartheid
The recent decision of the Norwegian Finance Minister to divest from an Israeli company deeply involved in the occupation is celebrated by Ilan Pappe (and rightly so): The significance of this alas, short lived exposure of what lies behind the apartheid wall and the fences that encircle the West Bank and the Gaza Strip stems…
Carter discusses one-state realities
Jimmy Carter, who recently visited Israel and Palestine, writes in yesterday’s Washington Post that the one-state solution is an increasingly likely option: We saw considerable interest in a call by Javier Solana, secretary general of the Council of the European Union, for the United Nations to endorse the two-state solution, which already has the firm…
Palestinians are being told they shouldn’t get along
When one side of Palestinian politics (Fatah) has been bought and sold by Israel and the Americans, true reconciliation seems very far away: The leader of Hamas has called for Palestinian reconciliation before elections, saying unless his movement is accepted by its rival Fatah, democracy will not lead to unity. Khaled Meshaal, who lives in…
Can you be an Israeli patriot and believe in co-existence?
Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery spoke out against a boycott of his own country last week and received huge condemnation (and probably praise) in the process. I don’t share his optimism in the Israeli people somehow recognising the rights of Palestinians and ending the occupation (he appears to seriously ignore the ever-growing power of the…