As Israel’s Remembrance Day and Independence Day roll past again some reflection is in order. Combatants for Peace and the Forum of Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Parents organise a joint meeting on the eve of Remembrance Day, Uri Avnery reports. And Tony Karon writes about 65 years of Israeli independence – only it was 60 years when he wrote it, but who’s counting? Karon: “without justice for the Palestinians, Israel is no closer now than it was 60 years ago to being able to live in a genuine peace with its neighbors…”

A sobering discussion by Adam Horowitz on what it is to be Jewish and who still counts as family, what transgressions are acceptable and what unpardonable.

Anyone who sees Eli Valley’s cartoons and his brilliant creations such as Bucky Shvitz, Sociologist for Hire or Stuart, the Jewish Turtle is unlikely to forget them in a hurry. But Valley, like other bitingly satirical cartoonists you can name, does not have an easy ride. Here the anonymous blogger of the Philosophy and Law website defends Valley against the charge leveled against him in Commentary magazine of being – you guessed it – self-hating. And we link back to earlier postings about Eli Valley on this website.

What is going on within Unicef, asks John Lyons? A Jerusalem press conference on Israeli treatment of Palestinian children in the military courts was held in the most bizarre of circumstances, with reporters treated to 5 minutes of praise for how Israel was cooperating with Unicef. Further filming was banned as was reporting of what Unicef officials said! Only then was the critical report unveiled, and “widespread, systematic and institutionalised” mistreatment of Palestinian children revealed…

Ahead of President Shimon Peres’s visit to France to discuss the Middle East peace process instructions were issued that there be “no blacks or Arabs” among the baggage-handling staff, because “no Muslim employees should greet the Israeli head of state”. It follows on the heels of Air France being fined for taking a student nurse off a plane to Ben Gurion on the grounds that she was “not Jewish”…

Zvi Bar’el writes: “The nakba terrifies Israel. We cannot forgive the Arabs for exiling themselves from Palestine, for destroying their own villages, for becoming refugees and for causing the cleansing of the War of Independence. Neither can we forgive them for the fact that many of them remained in Israel, destroying its aspiration to be a pure Jewish state, not only a state for Jews… We may one day have “peaceful coexistence” with the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza. With the Arabs of Israel, it will take much more. We need sincere reconciliation.”

Tony Klug argues that President Obama’s visit may not be quite the disaster from a Palestinian point of view that so many feel it was. By appealing to ordinary Israelis over the heads of their leaders he emulated what Sadat did thirty-five years earlier. Maybe it will prove an important step in a changing the mood in Israel. Uri Avnery shares the optimism about Obama’s speech – “perfect” from an Israeli point of view – but he sees it as utterly lacking in empathy for the Palestinians

Dissatisfaction with a two-state approach to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict is tempered by the fact that the difficulties with a one-state approach appear at least as great, with neither Israelis nor Palestinians willing to give up their legitimate claims to self-determination. And in international diplomacy the two-state approach is the only game in town. Many discussions are currently taking place in Israel-Palestine about this dilemma and a search for other approaches:

1.Oren Yifachel, author of Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics in Israel/Palestine, elaborates on his idea for a confederation as a possible solution to the colonial deadlock he diagnoses; and

2. Jeff Halper of Icahd reflects on the deafening silence which greeted Icahd’s move to endorsing one state last year, provides an overview of who holds what position, and rethinks the options. He also provides an extensive reading list!

The debate on the politics and morality of stone-throwing continues, after Amira Hass lobbed in her grenade that “Throwing stones is the birthright and duty of anyone subject to foreign rule.” She follows up with an article arguing that stone-throwing is an old Jewish custom and quotes from a wonderful Bundist song Barikadn: ““The police are running to and fro − the children are throwing stones.”‏ And Mairav Zonszein argues that “Israelis who don’t know occupation can’t preach to Palestinian stone-throwers: only those who have seen occupation can understand”.

A new report published by Al Haq – Water For One People Only: Discriminatory Access and ‘Water-Apartheid’ in the OPT – focuses on the control of water as an instrument of exploitation and subordination along colonial, racial lines in the Occupied Territories. It is – surprise, surprise – in violation of International Humanitarian Law.

On 9th April 2013 political prisoner Samer Issawi, now in his eight month on hunger strike and perilously weak, issued a moving call to Israelis to visit him in hospital. Two who tried were immediately arrested. One group of Israeli authors and scholars including Amos Oz responded, not by calling for his release but for him to call off his hunger strike. Another group responded in the spirit Issawi wished for, expressing their profound solidarity with him and the cause he is willing and ready to die for.

The Palestinian village of Bil’in has filed a complaint with the United Nations against Canada for failing to prevent Canadian-based companies from aiding and benefiting from Israel’s settlement enterprise.

You can die for Israel, but still be second class. The rabbis decide who is Jewish – or Jewish enough – to be buried in the central section of Israeli cemeteries. Lesser breeds – those who are not “real Jews” as well as Christians or Muslims are buried in the wings. As a biting Haaretz editorial puts it: “Those who were deemed second-class citizens in life in the Jewish state are also relegated to second-rate status in their burial, with the consent of the Israel Defense Forces.”

Support the solidarity protest outside G4S headquarters in central London on International Palestinian Prisoners Day and get your MP to sign Early Day Motion 1222.

How complicit is Israel’s architectural profession with the consolidation and extension of the occupation? And is the prestigious Wolf Prize in effect a prize awarded by the state of Israel with a political agenda in mind?

Building Design journal reports on the controversy raised by the decision to offer world-renowned architect Souto de Moura the 2013 Wolf Prize for Architecture and by his decision to accept it.

A simple story by Yossi Gurvitz highlights the complicity of the IDF in the illegal settlement enterprise. Relentless pressure on Palestinian farmers in a repetitive pattern: attacks by people described by the victims as settlers, the stealing of equipment, cutting off trees, burning trees, attacks during the harvest… And generally the soldiers, when they see anything at all, stand idly by…

Yesh Din, on whose website this story is reported, works to defend the human rights of the Palestinian civilian population under Israeli occupation. It takes up individual cases and uses the accumulation of individual incidents to highlight structural violations of human rights and campaign for change…

Israel’s new defence minister, former IDF chief Moshe Yaalon, has wrecked a rare ceremony, organised by Combatants for Peace, in which Palestinians and Israelis can acknowledge and honour the suffering experienced by the other. Yaalon has banned Palestinians from taking part this year because, says Richard Silverstein, it destroys the Israeli myth of their unique suffering.

An enterprising and energetic Palestinian politician-turned-farmer has found that the diversion of water and land to settlers, reluctance of banks to invest , checkpoints blocking movement and inertia by the PA are all causing needless obstacles to Palestinian farming.

Companies making goods for export in the oPt claim their production is for the good of Palestinians who make the goods. Apartheid South Africa told the same story in the contemptous belief that the alien worker cared for nothing but earning a wage. Stephanie Westbrook (1) challenges the story and Alon Aviram (2) describes the hardship of wage-labour for Palestinians in Israel.

We Believe in Israel, spawned from BICOM to counter the growing disaffection with Israeli policy in the UK is run by Labour Councillor Luke Akehurst. He is particularly exercised by the BDS movement and has been active in trying to get local councils, which decide on contracts, to resist campaigns such as Dump Veolia. Here, Councillor Grahame, JfJfP signatory, crisply tells him why she is no longer a believer.