The Qatari-brokered deal between Fatah Hamas on 6th February has a limited goal – to prepare for Paletiian elections. It’s newsworth because it’s happened at all and may be the fruition of previous deals which seemed unproductive. The Qataris have said they will replace any funding withdrawn from the PA in retribution for dealing with Hamas. Displaced PM Salam Fayyad has welcomed the deal.

Even if Khader Adnan were the most wicked man in the world, a state living under the rule of law would charge him and put him on trial. The Israeli military has held him in adminstrative detention since December 17. He is now gravely ill on the 52nd day (6 February) of a protest hunger strike. As well as Amnesty International and the Palestinian Prisoner Society, Physicians for Human RIghts, Addameer, International Solidarity Movement and the Palestinian Center for Human RIghts are amongst the organisations pressing Israel to either release or charge him.

Hezbollah (or Hizbullah) has added its voice to the hubbub around and about Syria stating it would come to the aid of the Syrian government in the event of any attack from outside.Based in Lebanon, the Shi’ite Hezbollah has long received support from the Shi’ite rulers of Iran and Syria (most Syrians are Sunni). The divisions intersect with military threats to and from Israel. Reports from Naharnet and the Guardian.

Not only may no-one say Palestine is not free on the BBC, in practice no-one may say anything at all about Palestine. Too hot to handle, or too difficult to understand for the BBC’s experienced journalists who have managed to conduct interviews with many Israeli politicians? Ameena Saleem reports on her long period of monitoring BBC output.

Last year, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry lodged a complaint of antisemitism with the SBS Ombudsman about the TV series The Promise shown in Australia last December. The Ombudsman for SBS – Special Broadcasting Service, a public broadcasting network– rejected the complaint. Harold Zwier argues that we need a definition of antisemitism which the mainstream can use. SBS adjudication at end.

Amnesty (1) and Addameer (2), the prisoners’ rights and support association, are both now campaigning urgently for Khader Adnan, arrested on 17 December 2011 and on hunger strike since then. He is held under military administrative detention, which means without trial or prisoners’ rights. He is associated with Islamic Jihad, the assumed reason for his several arrests, but has not been charged with any crime.

A statement from BDS Italy about their annual conference reports discussions of strategic thinking on when and how to run an effective campaign and advice from Hind Awwad to ‘work within a broad base of partners and alliances’ . Meanwhile at the grubby end, the American ADL Stand WIth Us and Prof. Gur are pulling out all the stops to smear this week’s BDS conference at The University of Pennsylvania.

Calling the expanding rag-bag of conflicting and changing rules and regulations and officers and offices a ‘system’ is to flatter the Occupation authorities. In order to stay on top, measures of control are changed as and how the authorities need to. Machsomwatch women try to help Palestinians make their way through the maze – but does this make ‘the empire of prohibition’ work? Amira Hass reports.

In an original argument, Lenore Skenazy suggests that fundamentalists – Judaic and Islamic here – are driven by the need to be different from today’s society and compete with each other to be the most censorious over women’s dress. Followed by news item from Ynet on failure of Israeli police to take seriously a violent attack on Natalie Mashiah by haredim

Despite UN and EU condemnation, only resistance on the ground is putting up a fight against the rapid and repeated destruction of Palestinian homes, community buildings and amenities. ICAHD on what you can do to help the resistance, plus reports from Jeff Halper, the Alternative Information Center and Ma’an news

This time last year, delegates at the Davos World Economic Forum were watching TV coverage of the Egyptian uprising. This year, the new Arab leaders were on stage to reassure them that the new voters want jobs and an open economic system from their Islamic governments, not strict Islamic rule. PM Fayyad said the effect on Palestinians had been an international loss of focus on negotiations for their own state.

The American news channel NBC has uncovered a talk billionaire Sheldon Adelson gave to an Israeli group in July, 2010 when he said he wished he had served in the Israeli Army rather than the U.S. military—and that he hoped his young son will come back to Israel and “be a sniper for the IDF.” This surely gladdened the hearts of his audience if not loyal Americans.

The race to win the Republican nomination for the presidential election has been transformed by the intervention of one man – casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, fanatical supporter of all right-wing causes in Israel and now super-generous donor to Newt ‘Palestinians are an invented people’ Gingrich. It is Newt’s contempt for, and ignorance about, Palestinians that have attracted Adelson’s mega-bucks

Gerald Steinberg, head of NGO Monitor which attacks the funders of any liberal or critical NGOs which work in Israel, has attacked Germany’s Heinrich Böll Stiftung foundation for funding 972 ezine. Their funding, he says, ‘helps provide a platform used to demonize Israel’ and ‘the one-sided perspectives on the Arab-Israeli conflict.’ UPDATE Responses from +972 and the Heinrich Böll Foundation have now been published, and are posted here

Despite a history of (selective) immigration, Israeli state and people are baulking at having to deal with an influx of refugees, mostly from Eritrea. They are not considered asylum seekers, nor given work permits, but end up sleeping rough or huddled into the poorest parts of cities, whose residents respond with racist hostility. Two reports from 972 plus a 2009 Guardian article explaining why so many flee Eritrea

Israel again tops the BCCI index of how ‘militarised’ the countries of the world are. The index measures the ratio of spending on the military and number of military personnel in relation to other forms of spending. It again points to how dependent Israel is, economically and politically on itsmilitary and on the USA. Other measures of military spending are given below the post from Tikun Olam to enrich the context.

Threats, insults, shackled to a chair, hung upside down, deprived of sleep, solitary confinement – the punishments for throwing stones in Israel. But only if you are a Palestinian minor, who can be arrested and detained under military law. Stone-throwing adult settlers walk away free.

Ben White, a familiar name on this website for his blogs on Israel/Palestine, is openly defamed as an antisemite in Ynet news. He regards it as cover for the attack on Arab MK Hanin (Haneen) Zoabi. The use by an Israeli paper of the term that described the persecution and genocide of the Jews in the past to describe a journalist’s critique of Israel today is shocking. The ‘Jewish leaders’ said to accuse White of antisemitism are unnamed, but the Zionist Federation has complained to Amnesty saying Ben White justifies antisemitism.

The Habima theatre company has been booked by Shakespeare’s Globe theatre to perform The Merchant of Venice during the World Shakespeare festival and Cultural Olympiad. Israel’s Boycott from Within says the company has performed to Israeli-only audiences in the West Bank. The Globe says Habima are committed to ‘sensible dialogue’ between Israelis and Palestinians, it’s about words not nations.

The Church of England vicar, Rev Stephen Sizer, has been the regular target of criticism by the Jewish Chronicle, especially by blogger Jonathan Hoffman. Sizer is critical of many policies in Israel, a supporter of boycott campaigns and of inter-faith dialogue. He also made the mistake, common to web novices, of quoting from, thus linking to, sites which lead to other sites with antisemitic links.