If truth is the first casualty of war then those who record the truth embody the first casualty. Palestinians have learned that their best weapons of defence are sight and sound recorders. Here The Media Line casts a jaundiced eye over the denial of free speech throughout the MidEast.

People living in the oPt – occupied Palestinian territory – are starved of information by both the Palestinian and Israeli authorities. Both fear that free reporting would damage their authority. Hamas, the PNA and Israel all enforce restrictions which Israel, at least, would not dare enforce on its home ground.

The PA will brings its case against settlement building to the UNSC next week. It has consulted with several Israeli peace groups and B’Tselem has said it will join the informal discussion at the UN

Using both Arendt’s theory of the banality of evil (from Eichmann in Jerusalem) and the Milgram experiments in obedience, Eva Illoutz argues that Israel is not ‘evil’ but in the grip of the settlers. Others take issue with her substitution of sociological theories of mass behaviour for Arendt’s stress on the power of ideology. Daniel Blatman stresses the division of labour as key to genocide. All worth reading.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has long been helpless in relation to the Israeli occupation and Palestinian human rights because the USA always uses, or threatens, to use its veto. As Obama lives out his last months as president there is speculation he will use them to let the Palestinians present their case anad not use the veto.

What Pres. Abbas gained by his attendance at the funeral of Shimon Peres he lost at home where it was seen as distinctly unPalestinian to display sadness at the death of a man who had been instrumental in the quashing of Palestinian hopes.

The sudden halt to the local elections in the oPt upset many but not, it seems, Fatah. As Hamas had agreed to take part, and had candidates in the West Bank, analysts are now saying the High Court decision was either set up or used by Fatah to buy time to ensure the continuation of its one-party rule in the West Bank.

Yesh Din -volunteers for human rights – has analysed the means Israel uses to confiscate Palestine land and declare it state land. Yesh Din also helps Palestinians bring legal challenges to these seizures, with some success.

This week, October 3rd-9th, the row centring on Jackie Walker seems, like most moments of hysteria and hyper-aggression, to be dwindling as anger about her persecution has spread. Many have sprung to her defence: Jews for Jackie. The Jewish Labour Movement has been handing out accusations of antisemitism like a neurotic headmaster faced with a […]

When the Jewish Labour Movement began pouring boiling oil on Jackie Walker (in their view, for denying the reality of antisemitism) she issued a statement in which she recommended the definition by David Schneider which we post here.

Hillel Cohen’s history of how the 1929 Arab riots made the protagonists into Palestinians and Zionists is an unedifying story of violence, of dividing Palestinians into competing fractions, of blackmail and forced collaboration. Reviewer Yonatan Mendel says it ‘will make Jewish and Palestinian readers equally uncomfortable’.

Here are two documentary videos from telesur-English that show, first, what it says in the title and second ‘Inside Palestine’s refugee camps’. Could be shown to groups for discussion,

The PM, with his very small majority, is said to want Labour to join his coalition. The Labour leader does not trust him, with good reason. Should the party move to the right and embrace the dominant ‘security first’ strategy or split between left and right factions?

It is extremely sad to see that Momentum has succumbed to the right-wing charge of Labour antisemitism and ditched Jackie Walker, a JfJfP signatory, as Vice-Chair of Momentum. Her knowledge of the African ‘holocaust’ is an asset to any group concerned with genocide; her question about the definition of antisemitism is timely. Momentum leaders are clods for failing to value her and to inform themselves about the debate on antisemitism.

The official line was that BDS campaign was puny. With the appointment of two ministers to run a very well funded anti-BDS unit the talk is now of ‘existential threat’ – another one!- and all security services put on alert to identify them and keep them out of Israel.

Since last October, 56 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli ‘security’ forces. One of them was killed yesterday by a 40-mm flare bomb launched directly at his head which it set on fire. The IDF denies all responsibility. DCI and Ben White report.

Ma’an follows up the fate of the 13 women whose boat to Gaza – the fourth attempt to reach Gaza by sea since 2010. Eleven of them are in Givon prison, Ramla. The location of the other two has not yet been identified.

State funerals can be great occasions to display loyalty. No wonder most Palestinians ignored the ceremony for the death of Peres. Why should they pretend to be equal and integrated citizens when they so obviously are not?

The Women’s Boat to Gaza set out from Sicily last week, carrying 13 women. It was stopped and boarded by the Israeli navy on October 5th – although it was in international waters and such invasions constitute piracy. The Israeli action was illegal. The women’s was not.

Unit 8200 is famous through its work of spying, hacking and assassination. It boasts of recruiting the top 1% of the top 1%. It has produced its own refuseniks who object to the power this gives them over Palestinians. Too much material here for a quick read but not too much for the subject matter.