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…
Showing all posts tagged West Bank
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…
History will keep repeating until a solution is found
With the Durban circus continuing, the editor of the Independent Australian Jewish Voices opinion and letters page, Sara Dowse, has a few reflections: In June 1975 I was a member of the Australian delegation to the UN Conference for International Women’s Year. It was held in Mexico City, where for the first time a motion…
Divide, conquer and rule
Amira Hass, of Haaretz, writes on Bitterlemons about the profound separation between West Bank and Gaza and Israel’s effective plan to make a unified Palestinian entity virtually impossible: The total separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is one of the greatest achievements of Israeli politics, whose overarching objective is to prevent a…
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…
We will no longer accept your normal behaviour
Something is stirring at the New York Times. Columnist Roger Cohen has spent the last months writing piece after piece about Iran, Israeli extremism and war. Yesterday he was back with another round, titled, ‘Israel, Iran and Fear‘: A core contradiction inhabits Israeli policy. While talking about a two-state solution — at least until Netanyahu…
You can’t touch us
Richard Silverstein asks the question that the mainstream media should be asking: So here’s a question: when are IDF personnel ever held accountable for their misdeeds? Answer: only when it’s captured on video and the entire world watches via YouTube. IDF Moral: ensure there is no video documentation of its misdeeds.