JfJfP is supporting the annual lobby of parliament, organised by PSC. We need your help to tell Parliament to help end the siege on Gaza, to act now on Jerusalem and to stop arming Israel…

New York academic and activist Bruce Robbins is making a film about how people have changed their minds: “what they were told about Israel and their Jewish identity as they were growing up, what they went through as they started looking at things differently, what Israel and Jewish identity mean to them now…”

Sheikh Raed Salah has lost his appeal against deportation from the UK. JfJfP issued a statement for the hearing opposing the move to deport him (see http://jfjfp.com/?p=25764#salah2). We carry a highly critical report on the judgment by the Middle East Monitor; and another by the CST welcoming the decision of the immigration tribunal.

Ghoulish gazers get to ogle a horrifying Halloween history from the Forward’s Artist in Residence, Eli Valley. Gasp at the graphics and view the visceral video if you dare, dear reader.

Valley’s latest work for Halloween pokes fun at Zionists for never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity… And there is more.

The next session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will take place on the Southern tip of Africa, in Cape Town. The Tribunal will gather 5-7th November 2011 in the historic District 6 Museum. Frank Barat reports from the Tribunal.

A new DCI-Palestine report “Voices from East Jerusalem: The Situation facing Palestinian Children”, sheds light on the day-to-day hardships faced by those living under prolonged military occupation. It paints a disturbing picture of the realities of house demolitions, settler violence and violence against children during arrest and detention.

A new campaign, Eretz Yoshveyh, is attempting to open up new avenues of analysis and action that might take up beyond the one-state/two-states paradigm. Ran Greenstein explores…

Far-right Republicans, joined by the “Emergency Committee for Israel”, are attempting to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement as antisemitic. Prof of Journalism Eric Alterman points out that “The question to ask about anti-Semitism is not whether it exists, but whether its existence has any significant political or cultural implications.” Not in OWS, with, as you would expect in New York, a significant Jewish presence in its ranks.
Plus a message of support from members of the British Jewish community for ‘Occupy London’…

The Bedouin are in Israel’s sights. After sustained attacks on the Bedouin of the Negev (see e.g. Israel’s war on its Bedouin citizens at http://jfjfp.com/?p=21672) it is now the turn of those on the West Bank who stand in the way of the expansion of the illegal settlement at Maale Adumim. This report by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours expands on Amira Hass’s , carried a while back (see http://jfjfp.com/?p=25422).

28 extended refugee families of displaced Palestinians were rehoused in Sheikh Jarrar in East Jerusalem in 1956. They are now being evicted in a process which a visiting delegation of lawyers, in a measured report, finds illegal and discriminatory, ‘are the consequence of inbuilt and structural discrimination against the Palestinian population’.

Alex Miller of Yisrael Beiteinu is head of the Knesset’s education committee and determined to eliminate any Palestinian perspective on history as taught in the schools of East Jerusalem. So no nakba, no Palestinian flags, no occupation, no intifada: “the whole curriculum should and must be Israeli.”

The IDF want to release some Fatah prisoners to bolster Abbas’s weakened Palestinian Authority against Hamas. But Netanyahu and his close advisers are determined to maintain pressure on Abbas as punishment for his unilateral bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state.

A supposedly neutral parliamentary commission (see http://jfjfp.com /?p=24325) has found the growing anti-semitism in Canada that its methods ensured it would. They are subject to detailed analysis by CJPME. Meanwhile a poll by Canadian Studies finds ‘positive feelings’ towards Jews are almost double those towards Muslims

In the most comprehensive of the commentaries on the prisoner swap, Uri Avnery looks at what this moment in Israeli politics – where government, armed forces and public were united against the right wing, settlers and ultra-religious – could mean for acceptance of Palestinian statehood, though the deal was Netanyahu’s attempt to scupper it

The UN Security Council is expected to vote on 11 November whether to recognize Palestine as a member state, 1st, 2nd article. 3rd, in interview on Jordanian TV President Abbas assesses all he achieved by non-violent means – apart from the still-elusive national independence

Netanyahu has not only reversed the policies of previous Prime Minsters (that outposts – precursors of settlements – were illegal and would be removed) but it is reported that outposts built on privately-owned West Bank land will be ‘legalised’. Report from Peace Now, and Lara Friedman and Hagit Ofran on this abuse of law

Richard Kuper, former chair of JfJfP discusses the phenomenon of diaspora Jewish criticism of Israel’s policies towards Palstinians with David Landy, author of Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights, Zed Books at SOAS, London on 25 October 2011. (See article by David Landy on his book at http://jfjfp.com/?p=24482)

We post here the first four and the last of 57 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence through interviews with nearly 40 soldiers who have served in Hebron during thepast three years. There is also video testimony on their website http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies/videos/

In Israel’s public spaces, segregation goes unchallenged. Orthodox women have to sit at the back of the bus, and walk on the other side of the road, to save Orthodox men from impure thoughts. The courts have ruled segregation on the bus is OK, but not on the streets. It’s more trouble than it’s worth for police to enforce the law.

A Hamas claim that Gaza siege will be lifted as part of prisoner swap deal is not confirmed – is in fact denied by most as highly improbable – but the release of Shalit has intensified the demand that it must be. Three news reports from Haaretz, Ma’an News and Xinhua news agency and statement from PSC