It is striking how far Israelis are living inside Operation Protective Shield – a world in which they are in little real danger from rockets and tunnels but in which they – and some supporters outside – insist they are living under siege by a hugely powerful Hamas and are thus in the front line of the war against terror. Articles from Ynet reveal their ignorance of how the lethal IDF strikes against people in Gaza are seen by most of the world.

Due to the large number of donations to JFJFP in recent weeks, Paypal without warning froze access to our account meaning that we cannot withdraw any of our own money.

Facebook has banned the page admin from posting anything to Facebook anywhere, for at least 24 hours.

The reason for this is that a second picture was censored by Facebook as violating their community standards.

As JfJfP’s social media strategist Aaron Dover has said before on this website, traffic to the site and to our new Facebook page has increased enormously during the attack on Gaza. The number of JfJFP signatories has jumped by107 to 1874 in the 6 weeks since the beginning of July. Haaretz looks at the phenomenon – which also sees an increase of interest in the Zionist Federation which has redefined itself as ‘centrist’ rather than right-wing.

If it weren’t so funny it would make you weep. Adam Shatz brings out the self-love and self-delusions of the liberal zionist through an imaginary interview with an imaginary novelist in Tel Aviv.

Whether there will be IDF shelling and Hamas rockets by the time you read this one thing is certain: the children of Gaza, who make up such a large proportion of the population and of those killed and maimed – will still be in a traumatised state. Even the charity War Child, which has long been running a programme of counselling for shell-shocked children in Gaza, has had to suspend its programme. Most of the young children have only known Israel as an invisible enemy which inexplicably rains bombs on them and kills and wounds their friends and families. What sort of future will they make?

For many people the photographs of small children killed, mutilated, traumatised by the IDF has been the defining factor in their turn against Israel, whose causus belli has been either the destruction of tunnels or of Hamas militants. The Israeli NGO B’Tselem wanted to broadcast on Israeli media the names of children killed. They were told they could not as it breached rules of ‘controversy’. The Attorney General is now trying to change the rules to ensure such a broadcast would fall foul of the law.

Four weeks after the last mass international protest at the onslaught on Gaza demonstrators across the world again assembled with demands ranging simply from a halt to the military offensive to an ending of complicity in the Israeli occupation by governments or companies in their countries. Marches in London and Capetown were the largest. Given the August emptying of cities by residents in many countries the size and spread of the peaceful protests was remarkable.

Nathan Thrall reviews the options that faced Hamas after former allies in Egypt, Iran and Syria demanded unacceptable terms for their continued support. One of these is trying to make the unity government work, something which Israel will also have to consider.

Jerry Haber doesn’t ‘like’ Hamas. Nor do most people outside Gaza – who properly elected them. That doesn’t mean Hamas doesn’t have the right to resist the occupation, a right which those who promote liberal values should defend not abandon in tough times.

The smashing of Gaza’s already fragile infrastructure is causing a potential health catastrophe. Exhausted, homeless, traumatised people are trying to keep the filth of uncollected garbage and ruined buildings away with little fresh water – most has been polluted – or functioning sanitation. Agencies are raising the alarm.

Meeting point for the Jewish Bloc on Saturday OUTSIDE CAFFE NERO 273 REGENT STREET, W1R 7PB. (JUNCTION WITH GREAT CASTLE STREET) As you walk up from Oxford Circus tube towards Portland Place Caffe Nero is on the left. Please assemble there between 11.30 and 12 noon after which we will join the march as a […]

The massive edifice of the Israeli military, blind enthusiasm for smashing Gaza and propaganda about evil Hamas rests on a very febrile base thinks Uri Avnery. The reality is that Hamas are not jihadists for sharia law and the IDF in Gaza was a cumbersome machine stuck in a rut. The super-patriotism, with its fascist current, might yet devour Netanyahu.

This week the long-running argument about the morality, efficacy and limits of boycotting Israeli products as a means of pressing for change from the outside hit the headlines. London’s Tricycle theatre did not want to accept the Israeli state-funding for the Jewish Film Festival which it hosts. Although the theatre offered to make up the funding itself, the JFF rejected the offer on grounds of principle.

The primary purpose of this report from Human Rights Watch is to detail incidents of the IDF firing on Palestinian civilians – a war crime- as they fled the Khuza’a massacre. It also provides a glimpse of the harrying of Palestinians as they run from place to place seeking safety as one building after another is shelled.

The IDF’s Hannibal directive – in this and earlier posts – was little-known until the death of Hadar Goldin was announced. First reported captured, to maximum Israeli alarm, then dead, to their relief, it has since emerged he was killed by his own side rather than let him be captured. A death is simple and done with; a capture is complex and drawn-out – and irrecoverably shameful. One more life claimed by Israeli pride.

The use of women as a metaphor for the land which might be raped (man’s national property) is not new but still shocking in 2014 yet it’s rife in Israeli social media. Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer, tells Ma’an news about the new sexualised violence in Israeli discourse – first expressed by a Zionist from Brooklyn.

Ben Kfir’s daughter was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. He chose to join the Parents Circle Families Forum for bereaved Palestinians and Israelis. He does not believe all Palestinians are terrorists, rather that ‘the infrastructure is poverty, ignorance, hopelessness, despair and the basic absence of security. These are not things the IDF can handle’. He talks to Al Monitor about why he does not despair.

A young woman from Gaza does everything expected of her to be a good citizen — she votes, she is highly educated, she stands up for her nation. She finds her vote makes her a terrorist, her education cannot find her a job or water and power for her home and, though having committed no crime, is forced to live in wretchedness because ‘an occupying nation came from nowhere to claim exclusive ownership of my land on which an endless chain of my ancestors lived’.

Although written before the IDF pulled out of Gaza (with nothing but corpses and rubble to show for it) this sharp critique by Richard Silverstein of the IDF’s shameless destruction and its likely consequences is timeless. Israel is destroying the very thing it went to war for – its own security.