Organisations and individuals involved in the peace, human rights and solidarity movements have been universally condemnatory of Israel’s intervention. Here is a selection of statements…

Jews For Justice For Palestinians (the largest alternative voice of Jews in the UK or Europe) utterly condemns Israel’s aggressive military interception of the peaceful Free Gaza aid flotilla. We hold Israel responsible for the tragic deaths and injuries which this action caused…
PLUS: statement issued by Scottish Jews for a Just Peace

The big story of the week was the Gaza Freedom Flotilla – though you wouldn’t have known it until the last minute if your only source of information was the British media. Eight large boats and with more than 10,000 tonnes of supplies, including water-filtration units and pre-fabricated homes, have caused a near panic reaction in Israel. More than anything else, it has brought home the sheet cruelty as well as illegality of Israel’s policy toward Gaza, with Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, reiterating a call for an immediate end to Israel’s blockade. As this summary was being prepared there was as yet no news as to the fate of the convoy…

The vexed question of how Israeli and Palestinian school textbooks leave massive holes in children’s education was given an airing at an IPCRI organised seminar in Jerusalem on Wednesday, with contributions from Gershon Baskin, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Israeli researchers from IMPACT-SE and a former director of curriculum development for the Palestinian Authority.

Ben White writes: “There is a real crisis here – but it is that of the international “peace process”, for so long considered untouchable, heading increasingly swiftly towards its ultimate demise…”

Obama is preparing for the mid-term elections in November by wooing the Israel lobby. “Optimists believe that on that morning, a new era will start. No further elections are planned before November 2012, when Obama’s first term expires. For an entire year, at least, he will be free to act… But there is also an opposite forecast: Obama will continue to disappoint, as he has disappointed until now… “

A call form Ta’ayush for solidarity and support for gaoled non-violent activist Ezra Nawi…

Richard Silverstein writes: “Yesterday night, the Israeli secret police and their judicial subordinates announced the indictments of Ameer Makhoul and Omar Said. And I’m sorry to say both for the victims and the State of Israel that the bill of particulars is a laughingstock. Nevertheless, the Shin Bet, with these lurid, barely supportable charges has put blood in the water of the body politic. Now Israelis, prone to see “the Arabs” as a fifth column already, will be like sharks circling for the kill. Get them, burn them, hang them, expel them. You will hear all this and more from Israeli Jews…”

And, in a separate piece, Ameer’s partner and his brother write about his ordeal…

The Palestinian Summer Celebration 2010 gives you the change to enjoy Palestine , learn from the Palestinians, and share with Palestinians your time and efforts…

Rachel Shabi reports: The Palestinian Authority has recently passed a law prohibiting the sale of such goods, with potential fines and prison terms imposed on those that flout it. The authority has dispatched 3,000 volunteers to canvass door to door in the West Bank, explaining what products should be boycotted and why…

Latest: Deaths as Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship. Emergency demonstration today Monday at 2.00pm outside Downing Street.

29 May: Swedish author Henning Mankel hasn’t turned up for his planned speech at the Hay book festival – according to the Guardian he ‘has an excuse not many will be able to argue with’ – because he’s ‘leading an aid convoy to Palestine,’ which has been ‘delayed, and is in the process of negotiating entry into Israeli waters’…

“Israel will try to block flotilla from reaching Gaza, but will let aid through…” Links to articles by the ISM (“Israel’s Disinformation Campaign”), Diaa Hadid for AP (“Israel’s Gaza blockade baffles residents”), Isabel Kershner NYT (“Ships Head to Gaza, in Defiance of Israeli Blockade”, and the Gaza Freedom flotilla website among others…

A series of five laws, proposed by right-wing party Israel Beiteinu, nicknamed the ‘loyalty=citizenship laws’, are being considered by the Knesset…

Ehud Krinis of the Villages Group has let us know that “Our dear friend Ezra Nawi – a colleague of ours for eight years of work in south Mt. Hebron, is now behind bars in an Israeli gaol.”

Chris McGreal reports: “Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons…”

The liberal US Jewish Daily Forward carries an informed and interesting overview of calls for a cultural boycott of Israel [...]

Gary Younge writes: “To rubbish the former judge’s report on Gaza, Israel has dredged up his record in South Africa – while forgetting its own.”

In briefest: a week with lots more bad news…

Jonathan Cook on a Knesset committee report just published that “presents an image of massive under-representation of Arab citizens across most of the public sector, including in government companies and ministries, where the percentage of Arab staff typically falls below two per cent of employees [...]

Following lobbying efforts by the Italian Coalition Against Carmel-Agrexco, two major Italian supermarket chains, COOP and Nordiconad, announced the suspension of sales of products from Agrexco, the principal exporter of produce from Israel and the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. [...]

Neve Gordon writes about how a major part of the strategy to rebrand Israel positively is to undermine the reputation of anyone who dares to question Israel’s human rights record…