A new Israeli policy makes it nearly impossible for Palestinian citizens from visiting their ailing relatives in the Gaza Strip. All in the name of security. By Michal Luft In a press release published July of 2015, Commander of the Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Sami Turgeman, announced a new policy intended to reduce entry into the Gaza by Israeli civilians, thereby further undermining the already limited ability of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel to see their relatives who live in the Strip. [tmwinpost] The decision came about after it was made public that two Israeli citizens had recently disappeared in…

A nearly averted shootout outside Abbas's house in Ramallah has led to renewed talks about restoring Palestinian autonomy in parts of the West Bank. But outside the framework of a peace process, such steps only help the occupation endure. Israeli and Palestinian security forces came dangerously close to a direct, armed confrontation in late December 2015. An Israeli army unit was on a routine nighttime incursion into Ramallah, deep into Palestinian-controlled territory, when it found itself face to face with armed members of the American-trained Palestinian Presidential Guard. Either the Israeli military’s mapping software didn’t include the security cordon around…

An investigative report finds that numerous Israeli hospitals are openly implementing segregation. But journalists have exposed the phenomenon for at least a decade and nobody seems willing to do anything about it. Despite years of denials and regulators vowing to tackle the problem, a number of major Israeli hospitals continue to segregate Jewish and Arab mothers in maternity wards across the country, according to an investigation published Tuesday by public radio broadcaster Israel Radio. In some hospitals the segregation is unofficial policy; in others it is implemented at the behest of patients. [tmwinpost] The segment on Israel Radio included recorded…

At a time when Israel's education minister sees only Jews as moral, it is worth remembering a prominent Zionist educator who taught us that things could have turned out differently. By Gil Gertel This past week marked "Land Day," in which we commemorate and decry the dispossession of Israel's Arab citizens of their land. Fate also had it that on that very same week, the Israeli public found itself a new national hero, who took the slogan "death to Arabs" and made it a reality. On the day following the Hebron shooting, Education Minister Naftali Bennett attacked those who hurried…

Israelis are right, there is dangerous incitement among Palestinians. Here's what they can do to fight it. The controversy over the Hebron shooter is the gift that keeps on giving. By Saturday, we have already stood to learn that the star of last week's show will not be charged with murder, that a large part of the Israeli public views him as a national hero, and that municipalities will not hesitate to spend taxpayer money on organizing events in support of anyone who shoots a wounded Arab in the head. Lately, we have also geared witnessed to Israelis explaining that…

Now that settler leader Dani Dayan has been appointed as Israel's consul general in New York, will Jewish leaders wake up and realize that the Israeli government supports indefinite occupation over freedom for all? By Yonah Lieberman In 1963, Bull Connor became an international symbol of racism and white supremacy. A year earlier, as commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, Alabama, he shut down all of the city’s 67 parks and eight public pools, rather than desegregating them as ordered by the court. He soared to notoriety when, the following year, he oversaw legions of police officers as they blasted…

The IDF's decision not to charge Abed Fatah al-Sharif’s killer with murder should not surprise anybody — it is entirely consistent with the impunity Israeli security personnel have enjoyed for decades when it comes to killing Palestinians. The Israeli army’s Military Advocate General on Thursday announced that it will not seek murder charges against a soldier who was videotaped executing Abed Fatah al-Sharif, an incapacitated, wounded Palestinian man suspected of stabbing a soldier in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron last week. (The soldier’s identity is widely known but cannot be published here due to a court-imposed gag order.)…

The story of the Hebron shooting is a classic case of the lowly soldier syndrome — mostly Ashkenazi political leaders give the order, yet only those at the bottom of the ladder must pay the price.  By Adi Mazor and Tom Mehager What is the difference between the Israeli soldier who shot 22-year-old Palestinian Abed al-Fatah Sharif in Hebron last week after a stabbing attack, and the soldiers from elite unites who shoot and kill Palestinian suspects? The difference is that the elite soldiers do behind the scenes — when no one is there to capture it on camera. [tmwinpost] Since the…

The prime minister shoots off a sharply worded letter to a senior American senator who dared question Israel's human rights record. That Netanyahu thinks anyone reading it will do anything but howl is worrying sign about his judgement. In mid-February, Senator Patrick Leahy, together with 10 other Democratic Senators, wrote a letter asking U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to investigate the possible violation of human rights by Israel, as a U.S. foreign aid recipient. The letter, which only made news in Israel on Wednesday, was prompted by suspicions of numerous extrajudicial killings of Palestinian suspected attackers over the last…

Abu Saleh, a 73-year-old farmer, speaks with a raspy but strong voice as he points to his crops. “Everything you see around you is food grown from my own land. These carrots, this zucchini, these olives…they are all part of my survival.” He lifts his head, his voice starting to shake with anger. “Now they want to tear down my home and remove me from my livelihood. They want to rip my heart from my land – just to put the heart of someone else.” Abu Saleh is a resident of Ramiya, an Arab community of 50 families nestled within…