Website policy


We provide links to articles we think will be of interest to our supporters, informing them of issues, events, debates and the wider context of the conflict. We are sympathetic to much of the content of what we post, but not to everything. The fact that something has been linked to here does not necessarily mean that we endorse the views expressed in it. _____________________

Human-rights observers wanted


The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine & Israel (EAPPI) provides protection by presence, monitors human rights abuses, supports Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and advocates for an end to the occupation.
Apply to be a volunteer - closing date 21st June 2013.

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Did you know?


Today, 30th March, is land day.
On 30 March 1976, thousands of Palestinians living as a minority in Israel mounted a general strike and organised protests against Israeli government plans to expropriate almost 15,000 acres of Palestinian land in the Galilee.The Israeli government, led by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and defence minister Shimon Peres, sent in the army to break up the general strike. The Israeli army killed six unarmed Palestinians, wounded hundreds and arrested hundreds more, including political activists. All were citizens of Israel.
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"In 2011, 722,000 Israelis lived beyond the Green Line, including in settlements and East Jerusalem. This was a 5% increase over 2010."
source: Richard Silverstein via Yisrael HaYom
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* Out of 103 investigations opened in 2012 into alleged offences committed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied territories, not a single indictment served to date
Yesh Din, 3 Feb 2013
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* In total, out of an area of 1.6 million dunams in the Jordan Valley, Israel has seized 1.25 million − some 77.5 percent − where Palestinians are forbidden to enter.
Haaretz editorial, 4 Feb 2013
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A Heartfelt Wish/DVD


order here

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Posts

Bending the laws to keep Arabs out of Jerusalem

The official – if barely legal – policy of the mayor of Jerusalem is simple and brutal: keep the ratio of Jews to Arabs at 70 to 30. Ben White describes the measures taken to ensure this result. An extract from Israel’s founding declaration, on equality for all, is included at the end.

Jerusalemites, caught between the rock of Israeli rule and the PA’s hard place

There is no doubting the increase in applications for Israeli citizenship by Arabs living in Jerusalem. The question is why. Here Yehudit Oppenheimer (1st) of Ir Amim argues that it is a survival strategy while Khaled Abu Toameh, 2nd, suggests Israeli citizenship confers more rights than the impotent PA is able to provide.

Target Al Aqsa: settler incursions into Muslim shrine

There has been a mosque on Temple Mount since the eighth century. It is the third holiest centre in Islam, as well as having religious significance for Jews and Christians. For the last month it has been under attack by Jewish zealots who claim the right to pray and practise Jewish rituals there – endorsed last week by a Jerusalem magistrate. Calls are growing for an Arab summit to protect the Muslim site.

Jerusalem city boss asks IDF to govern Arab residents on other side of the Wall

The Arab residents of Jerusalem have been confined behind a wall in the eastern part of the city where they lack most amenities. To enter the main city, where the services are, they have to have a permit. Now the director-general of the municipality has asked the IDF to take control of providing sanitation and supervising construction in what is becoming a cramped and unhygienic ghetto. Ben White reports.

Right-wing figures stoke spread of racist violence in Israeli cities

Unlike EU countries and the USA, it appears quite OK for political figures in Israel to issue hate speech against black people and Muslims. The violent attacks on a poor district in Tel Aviv last month broke out in Jerusalem this week with an arson attack on Eritreans. Quotes from +972, Ynet on Ministerial incitement, Netanyahu’s plan for mass expulsions, Harriet Sherwood on growing intolerance

Israel pours money into cutting Palestinians out of Jerusalem

At huge expene Israel is creating a new map of the West Bank through separate Israeli/Paleinian roads and checkpoints. The hub of the new lines of division is Jerusalem whose Palestinian residents will now come under the authority of the Civil Administration instead of the Jerusalem muicipality.

Jerusalem – a Solomon would weep

Jerusalem, sprawling metropolis, split into two unequal parts – store the factsheet if only for the figures which speak of the tremendous inequality between East and West. First an account of the continuing demolition by the Israeli authorities of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem.

Dancers protest at men who can’t bear the sight of them

This seems a skimpy story: men in Jerusalem demand a shield against the sight of dancers’ feet but, like the fulminations of the Taliban and Iranian police who want all women enclosed in cloth bags, it signifies what sort of society the (increasingly powerful and numerous) ultra-religious want in Israel

Advance with bricks and bulldozers

Lost for meaningful words, the Israeli government – like the settlers – resorts to physical force. Over 50,000 new homes for Jews and Israeli citizens are to be bult in occupied East Jerusalem 1), on Beit Zala (Palestinian Christians) land 2). Ancient sites are threatened by Israeli claims that all belongs to ‘their heritage’ (3

Merkel furious at Israel’s new-build

Long Netanyahu’s best ally in Europe in blocking UN recognition of Palestine , Angela Merkel is very angry that all her moves to get talks restarted have been thwarted by the announcement of a new 1,100-home Jewish settlement in Jerusalem

Anti-Arab feeling dominant amongst Israeli youth in Jerusalem

Documentary maker Eli Ungar-Sargon, aware that Palestinians are seen in the US and srael as very anti-Semitic, set out to investigate racism amongst Israelis – and found a disturbingly high level of anti-Arab feeling – and ignorance of the political options – which, unlike the ‘marginal’ anti-semitism of Palestinians, is ‘mainstream’ in Israel

Place-name cleansing

In the name of ‘our biblical heritage’ right-wng Israelis are trying to eradicate all evidence of Arab habitation and culture in the land , including from maps and road signs

Jews and Arabs march in Jerusalem for independence – or liberation – of Palestinians

A march in Jerusalem last Friday attracted 1500 supporters – watch it on youtube,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWZaq_o7e6g&feature=player_embedded.
They marched for Palestinian statehood – or freedom. Jerry Haber’s blog is followed by a critical, but hopeful, blog by Jalal Abukhater

Israel prefers the rule of the forces of disorder rather than that of PA police

Take an area where traditional heads of household have been dispossessed of all political and economic authority, add guns and drugs, take away any police authority and you are left with the violent chaos that is the Palestinian village in Area B

Where the lines are drawn on Israeli borders

reuters

Reuters has produced this brief history of who supported which borders, when

Edward Said’s lost essay on Jerusalem

jerusalem-quarterly

The renowned Palestinian intellectual Eward Said (1932-2003) first delivered this paper in London in 1995. It is a passionate account of Jerusalem’s actual history of many faiths and cultures and deplores the failure of Palestinian leaders to provide their own history and vision of the city. Now reprinted by Jerusalem Quarterly

2-year old secular kids not allowed to mix with religious children of the same age

haaretz.com

A fence has been built on a West Jerusalem playground to keep children from a secular nursery school from playing with peers at an ultra-Orthodox one. Ultra-Orthodox parents said they were displeased that the secular school was so close, and their representatives lobbied the municipality for a fence, completed last week…

The folly and arrogance of it all – the Museum of “Tolerance”

haaretz.com

Bradley Burston’s writes about the proposed Museum of “Tolerance” which he characterises as a settlement being built in West Jerusalem: on disputed land, causing direct and prolonged damage between Palestinians and Israelis, tarnishing Israel’s image as a democratic state – and more…

Jerusalem and its holy sites

magneszionist

Jeremiah Haber responds to Jeffrey Goldbert who asked in a recent blogpost “Would Muslims Give Up Control of Mecca?”, He shows quite how miscast this question is in the context of Jerusalem’s history and reality today.

Firas Maraghy update – letter to Daniel Barenboim

firasm28Aug10

The Berlin based campaign in support of Firas Maraghy continues to grow. At 4pm yesterday, a letter with 115 signatories was sent to Daniel Barenboim, the Argentinian/Israeli conductor – text below. We only had 24 hours to collect signatures but they came in from all over the world. In the meantime, the two petitions are [...]