Netanyahu aims his WMD at Obama

9 September 2015

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is reluctant to unlock horns with the White House, even as he faces almost certain defeat in trying to block President Obama’s deal with Iran. Is Netanyahu hoping to turn the Iran issue into a doomsday electoral weapon against the Democrats, helping to clear the path into the White House next year for a Republican.

With schools starved of funds, Christians question their future in Israel

8 September 2015

With 47 independent church schools in Israel facing closure as they are starved of funding, many Christians are starting to suspect their government is waging a low-level war against them. Christians in neighbouring states are fleeing the Middle East as they face civil wars and threats of persecution. In Israel the mistreatment of Christians may be more bureaucratic than physical, but its effects are likely in the long run to prove just as tangible.

Israel hopes ‘lost tribes’ can boost Jewish numbers

6 September 2015

Israel is examining ways to expand the scope of the Law of Return, defining who is a Jew, to entitle up to three million more people to immigrate. Immigration rights could be extended to “groups with ties to the Jewish people”, including so-called “lost tribes” in India and Latin America. The move appears to reflect mounting concern that Israel is losing the “numbers battle” against the Palestinians.

‘In an endless war on terror, we are all doomed to become Palestinians’

29 August 2015

In an interview about his new book, Jeff Halper argues that Israel is cashing in – both financially and diplomatically – on systems of control it has developed in the occupied territories. It is exporting its know-how to global elites keen to protect their privileges from both external and internal challengers. In a world supposedly mired in an endless war on terror, we may all be facing a future as Palestinians.

Israel’s thug at the UN

25 August 2015

The appointment by Benjamin Netanyahu of one of his most hawkish and outspoken rivals as Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations has prompted widespread consternation. As one Israeli analyst noted last week, Danny Danon’s appointment amounts to a “cruel joke” on the international community. The new envoy “lacks even the slightest level of finesse and subtlety required of a senior diplomat”.

Israeli politician’s Reform Jew comment provokes fury

19 August 2015

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been scrambling to extinguish a firestorm after his religious affairs minister questioned the Jewishness of hundreds of thousands of North American Jews. David Azoulay’s disparaging comments about followers of the most progressive branch of Judaism, known as Reform, threaten to undermine Netanyahu’s policy of trying to encourage Jews to immigrate to Israel.

Outrage at Israeli plan to build on historic Muslim cemetery

19 August 2015

Officials in Jerusalem have approved a massive construction project, including plans for housing, shops and a hotel, on one of the largest and most historically important Islamic cemeteries in the Middle East. A previous project to build a courthouse at the site, part of Mamilla Cemetery, was scrapped earlier after it provoked a storm of protest.

Israel’s endless misery for Gaza is backfiring

22 July 2015

Israel is pursuing a dual policy towards Hamas. On the the hand, it hopes diplomatic gains will bolster Hamas’ political wing against more threatening newcomers like ISIS. On the other, it wishes to weaken Hamas’ military wing to prevent it from developing the capacity to threaten Israel’s control over the enclave. As ever, Israel is keen to sow divisions where possible.

Israel cracks down on TV station for Palestinian minority

18 July 2015

The Israeli government has declared war on a new TV channel financed by the Palestinian Authority that targets Israel’s 1.5 million Palestinian citizens. Despite the channel’s modest budget and ambitions, however, Israel’s public security minister, Gilad Erdan, ordered its closure last week, describing its operations as a “breach of Israel’s sovereignty”.

‘My son was executed by the Israeli police’

12 July 2015

Fifteen years after Israeli police shot her 19-year-old son Ahmed in the eye, killing him instantly, Hadiya Jabareen has yet to lay his ghost to rest. Instead, she has watched Bentzi Sau, the commander who oversaw the police operation in which Ahmed and 12 other demonstrators died, rise rapidly through the ranks. This month she suffered a further indignity when the government made Sau the highest-ranking police officer in the country.

Israel accused of racism over case of Ethiopian Jew missing in Gaza

10 July 2015

The belated admission by Israel that one of its citizens was last seen entering Gaza 10 months ago, and that little is known of his fate since, has caused outrage among the country’s small community of Ethiopian Jews. Avraham Mengistu’s family, able to speak for the first time after a gag order imposed since September was lifted, accused the government and security forces of foot-dragging and racism.

If the ‘product’ is wrong, a rebrand won’t help Israel

6 July 2015

As Benjamin Netanyahu warns that Israel must “rebrand” itself to avoid pariah status, ordinary Israelis are being conscripted into an army of spin doctors in a campaign termed “hasbara” – Hebrew for “public diplomacy”. In the latest offensive, the education ministry has launched a compulsory hasbara course for students travelling abroad so that they can learn how to justify Israel’s policies in the occupied territories to outsiders and challenge those who “seek to delegitimise Israel”. It is yet more evidence that hasbara has become a national obsession in Israel.

Church-run schools in Israel face ‘death sentence’

29 June 2015

Israel is seeking to bring dozens of church-run schools under government control, a move that community leaders warn will curb the last vestiges of educational freedom for the country’s large Palestinian minority. The schools, which educate Christians and Muslims and are among the highest-achieving in Israel, are the only hope for most families trying to escape dire conditions in the government-run Arab education system.

Israel’s Arab citizens fight for a roof over their heads

25 June 2015

The Israeli authorities razed Tareq Khatib’s home for the second time in two months last week. Now under house arrest at a friend’s home, he expects to be billed hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover the costs of the demolitions and security operations. Fingering prayer beads, the 48-year-old father of five asked: “Where are my family and I supposed to live? It seems the government thinks the only place for us is out on the street, without a roof over our heads. It’s like they are waging a war against their own citizens.”

Israel’s behaviour will bankrupt it over time

15 June 2015

Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself. The reports should be generating a tidal wave of concern in Israel but have caused barely a ripple. The status quo – of occupation and endemic racism – still seems preferable to most Israelis.

Netanyahu is king in a world of perpetual fear

6 June 2015

Barack Obama used an Israeli TV interview last week to gently rebuke Israel’s prime minister, warning Benjamin Netanyahu that his security obsessions made him able only to “see the worst possibilities”. The Israeli prime minister has proved himself a master of mining the rich seam of fear that dominates Israeli political discourse. He understands it is the source of his power.

Is Netanyahu waging ‘war’ on critics at home?

6 June 2015

A month into resuming his premiership, Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of an increasingly autocratic rule, as critics warn his new government is preparing to take a draconian line against institutions opposing its policies. Israel’s rightwing coalition has already indicated it will make a priority of tackling three fronts – human rights organisations, the media and the Supreme Court.

Sunbathing at the crime scene: the Israeli resort that covers up a massacre

4 June 2015

There are few clues today at the site of the single worst massacre committed by the Israeli army during the 1948 war that established a Jewish state on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland. For Israelis, the area is known as Dor, a popular beach resort south of Haifa. But in May, some 300 activists met in the resort’s car park in an attempt to end the long-enforced silence about Tantura in Israelis’ collective memory.

Why Israel’s cabinet will be a headache for the US

28 May 2015

Only a few weeks into Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government, the intense strain of trying to square its members’ zealotry with Israel’s need to improve its international standing is already starkly evident. But even faced with a cabinet of settlers, ultra-nationalists and religious extremists, President Barack Obama is still choosing to shower Israel with arms and favours.

Israeli court says Arab village must make way for Jewish town

15 May 2015

Israel’s Palestinian minority is preparing to hold a ‘day of rage’ to protest against a supreme court ruling last week that cleared the way to destroy an entire Bedouin village so that it can be replaced with a Jewish town. The decision marks the end of a 13-year legal battle by the 800 villagers of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev. There are widespread fears the ruling will reopen the door to controversial legislation requiring the destruction of dozens more Bedouin villages.