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OpEdNews - Article: One year later...and the doors to the world's largest prison are still sealed shut

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Op Ed News - By Pam Rasmussen - Nov. 19 (Opinion) - Since January 2006, when Palestinians had the audacity to choose their own government (led by Hamas) in elections widely recognized as free and fair, Israel has imposed collective punishment on the people of Gaza in the form of a crushing blockade. Less than a quarter of the volume of supplies they normally need have been allowed in since December 2005 – and in some weeks, the trickle permitted by Israel is significantly less. Israel maintains a list of “duel-use” items such as steel pipes and fertilizer, which it says could be used to manufacture weapons. These are never allowed in, with rare exceptions for "special humanitarian cases."

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PM heads to Washington, under threat of Palestinian statehood declaration

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Haaretz - By Barak Ravid, Natasha Mozgovaya - Nov. 08 (News) - Concerns are growing in Israel's government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which could potentially be recognized by the United Nations Security Council.

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Mahmoud Abbas Threatens to Step Down in Light of Ongoing Israeli Colonization of West Bank

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Informed Comment - By Juan Cole - Nov. 06 (News Analysis) - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says he wants to stand down and he declines to run in the upcoming Palestine Authority elections. The decision came in the wake of the US failure to convince the Israelis to halt colonization of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. It also followed a series of embarrassing flip-flops by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who praised hard line right wing PM Netanyahu for his efforts in favor of the peace process. Even for a diplomatic statement, this tack is is a little embarrassing in its obsequiousness toward Netanyahu, who has undermined the peace process at every turn and rejects out of hand the US demand that he freeze settlements. Reactions of Arab allies of the US were sharp.

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Lawrence Wright: What really happened during the Israeli attacks?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Lawrence Wright - Nov. 04 (Special Report) - rom the Israeli perspective, at least, the Gaza problem was supposed to have been solved in August, 2005, when Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister, closed down the Jewish settlements on the Strip and withdrew Israeli forces. The international community and the Israeli left wing applauded the move. But, almost immediately, mortar and rocket attacks from the Strip multiplied. Five months later, Hamas won its parliament victory. Ari Shavit, a prominent columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told me recently in Jerusalem, “We dismantled the settlements, and then we sat back and said, ‘Let’s have a new beginning.’ What we got was rockets and Gilad Shalit. People became very angry, and Shalit becomes an icon of that frustration.”

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House repudiates U.N. report on Gaza war

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - Nov. 03 (News) - The House on Tuesday condemned a U.N. report that accuses Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes in the Gaza Strip last winter as "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy." ......... Thirteen Israelis and more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed during the Dec. 27-Jan. 18 conflict.

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Thirsty Gaza

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Heather Sharp - Oct. 27 (News Report) - Gaza's aquifer and only natural freshwater source is "in danger of collapse," the UN is warning. Engineers have long been battling to keep the densely populated strip's water and sewage system limping along. But in September the UN Environment Programme warned that damage to the underground aquifer - due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, conflict, and years of overuse and underinvestment - could take centuries to reverse if it is not halted now.

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Which Way for Hamas?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Nicolas Pelham, Max Rodenbeck - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Hamas's officials struggle to sound upbeat. The burly interior minister, Fathi Hamad, whose predecessor was killed by an Israeli bomb, defiantly shuns security precautions at his makeshift office in Gaza City's main police station. "Claims that we are trying to establish an Islamic state are false," says the minister, who says his preference would be pursuing a degree in media studies. "Hamas is not the Taliban. It is not al-Qaeda. It is an enlightened, moderate Islamic movement."

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Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Robert L. Bernstein - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

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My mission - and motivation

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Jerusalem Post - By Richard Goldstone - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - I begin with my own motivation, as a Jew who has supported Israel and its people all my life, for having agreed to head the Gaza mission. Over the past 20 years, I have investigated serious violations of international law in my own country, South Africa, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and the alleged fraud and theft by governments and political leaders in a number of countries in connection with the United Nations Iraq Oil for Food program. In all of these, allegations reached the highest political echelons. In every instance, I spoke out strongly in favor of full investigations and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions. I have spoken out over the years on behalf of the International Bar Association against human rights violations in many countries, including Sri Lanka, China, Russia, Iran, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

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Al Jazeera English - Middle East - UN delay on Gaza report condemned

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Aljazeera - Oct. 04 (News Report) - New York Daily News. UN delay on Gaza report condemned. Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have condemned the decision by the UN to defer voting on the Goldstone report, that highlighted war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the formers' offensive on the territory in December. ...

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Arabisto: Countering Benjamin Netanyahou's Orwellian Spin at the UN

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

arabisto.com - By Eileen Fleming - Sep. 29 (News Analysis) - In defense and support of freedom of the press, conscience and speech; this article should be read which counters every point Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's spun at the UN on September 24, 2009.

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Goldstone report: Israel's failings

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By George Bisharat - Sep. 19 (Opinion) - Will Israel's decades-long impunity from international law finally come to an end? That is the question facing the international community in the aftermath of the just-released Goldstone report.

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Goldstone's Rosh Hashanah Bomb

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Jamal Dajani - Sep. 18 (Opinion) - The news hit Israel like a bomb, and I do not use this word lightly for a region riddled with bullets that has seen its share of real bombs that kill and maim people.

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UN Inquiry Finds Israel "Punished and Terrorized" Palestinian Civilians, Committed War Crimes During Gaza Assault

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Norman Finkelstein - Sep. 16 (News Report) - A United Nations fact-finding mission has found Israel “punished and terrorized” civilians in its three-week assault on Gaza earlier this year and cited strong evidence that Israeli forces committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. More than 1,400 Palestinians—about a third of them women and children—were killed in the assault.

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Gazans welcome UN war crimes report

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ben Hubbard - Sep. 16 (News Report) - GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Gazans who lost loved ones during Israel’s winter offensive against Hamas militants said Wednesday they’re taking some solace from a U.N. report that accuses both sides of committing war crimes, but they’re skeptical anyone will be brought to justice.

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Gaza water supplies in danger of ‘collapse,’ U.N. says

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Grist - Sep. 15 (News) - “The underground water supplies, upon which 1.5 million Palestinians depend for agriculture and drinking water, are in danger of collapse,” the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) said in a statement accompanying a new report.

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Israel and the West Bank: Prepare to freeze

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - THE Israeli government’s approval this week of 455 new housing units in the West Bank settlements was announced with a wink and a nod, and seems to have elicited winks and nods all round. Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected soon to agree, reluctantly and under American pressure, to a temporary freeze on settlement building, and the new homes are widely seen as an act of face-saving political expediency on his part.

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Holocaust Still a Political Football

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Ira Chernus - Sep. 04 (Opinion) - Matthew Rothschild and I both thought of Edward Said when we read about two Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council insisting that Gaza's schools should not teach the history of the Nazi Holocaust. Cleric Yunis al-Astal said this would be "marketing a lie" and a "war crime." Jamila al-Shanti commented, "Talk about the Holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage, and religion."

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The Settlements Issue

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 31 (Editorial) - The last American president to openly challenge Israel on settlements was George H.W. Bush and we commend President Obama for demanding that Israel halt all new construction. The controversy must not obscure Mr. Obama’s real goal: nudging Israel and

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Why Eileen Fleming is no longer a Feature Correspondent for The Palestine Telegraph

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Op Ed News - By Eileen Fleming - Jul. 26 (Advocacy) - Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" "But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" "And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right."-Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Sizing Up President Obama's Foreign Policy After 6 Months

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By David Ignatius - Jul. 19 (Opinion) - Six months on, how is Barack Obama doing in foreign policy? Some leading experts give the new president high marks for improving America's battered image abroad, but they warn that the hard work is still ahead. Obama's first priority was boosting America's standing in a world angered by the Bush administration's arrogance and unilateralism. Obama rightly saw this as a major national security threat, and he used his charisma to change that image in a hurry.

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VIVA PALESTINA ARRIVES IN GAZA--speech by George Galloway!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

dignity.ning.com - Jul. 15 (News) - (Video report)

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Rabbis start fast for Gaza

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Jewish Telegraphic Agency - Jul. 10 (News) - An ad hoc group of rabbis is organizing a monthly communal fast to protest Israel's actions in Gaza.

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John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the Corporate Media, Obama's Wars and Resisting the American Empire

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By John Pilger, Amy Goodman - Jul. 06 (Interview) - Award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker, John Pilger, joins us for a wide-ranging conversation on on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, the media, health care, and Obama’s wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pilger has has written close to a dozen books and made over 50 documentaries on a range of subjects including struggles around the world for a more just and peaceful society and against Western military and economic intervention.

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UN Probe Into Gaza Conflict

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Erin Cunningham - Jun. 29 (News Report) - In a tearful and gruesome testimony, Salah Al-Samouni spoke of the two days of Israeli helicopter attacks in the Zaytoun area of Gaza that claimed 29 members of his family on Jan. 5 and 6. "They hit us, they hit us with Apaches," Mr. Samouni told United Nations war crimes investigators in Gaza City on Sunday. "I found my 2-year-old daughter, she was dead.... Why?"

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