In all likelihood, I will be one of the very first non-Jews expected to swear loyalty to Israel as an ideology rather than as a state. Until now, naturalizing residents, like the country’s soldiers, pledged an oath to Israel and its laws. That is the situation in most countries. But soon, if the Israeli parliament …
Continue reading “An Oath for the Few Excludes the Many in an Ethnocracy”
The disclosure of the details of a letter reportedly sent by President Barack Obama last week to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will cause Palestinians to be even more skeptical about U.S. and Israeli roles in the current peace talks. According to the leak, Obama made a series of extraordinarily generous offers to Israel, …
Continue reading “Obama Letter Suggests US Not Honest Broker”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has insisted from the launch of the current peace talks that the Palestinians set no preconditions, while making his own precondition the centerpiece of negotiations. Netanyahu has said talks are futile unless the Palestinians and their leader, Mahmoud Abbas, first recognize Israel as a Jewish state. “I recognized the Palestinians’ …
Continue reading “Israel’s Arab Citizens Are Not a Negotiating Chip”
With the resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank Monday, Israel’s powerful settler movement hopes that it has scuttled peace talks with the Palestinians. It would be misleading, however, to assume that the only major obstacle to the success of the negotiations is the right-wing political ideology the settler movement represents. Equally important are …
Continue reading “Israel’s Reasoning Against Peace”
A vague security offense of "contact with a foreign agent" is being used by Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, to lock up Arab political activists in Israel without evidence that a crime has been committed, human rights lawyers alleged this week. The lawyers said the Shin Bet was exploiting the law to characterize innocent …
Continue reading “Israel Makes Meeting Another Arab a Crime “
Jonathan Cook wonders why 1948 records are locked up
Measures designed to benefit Jewish school-leavers applying for places in Israeli higher education at the cost of their Arab counterparts have been criticized by lawyers and human rights groups. The new initiatives are viewed as part of an ongoing drive by right-wing politicians in Israel to demand “loyalty” from the country’s large minority population of …
Continue reading “No Room for Arab Students at Israeli Universities”
Two of the United States’ closest allies in the Middle East, Israel and Saudi Arabia, are on the brink of signing large arms deals with the US in a move designed to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, according to defense analysts. America has agreed to sell Saudi Arabia 84 of the latest model of …
Continue reading “US Arms ‘Bonanza’ in Middle East “
A police officer known as “Major George” who is accused of torturing Arab prisoners in his previous role as chief interrogator in a secret military jail has been appointed to oversee relations with Jerusalem’s Palestinian population, it has emerged. The decision has been greeted with stunned disbelief from human rights groups, who say unresolved allegations …
Continue reading “Suspected Torturer Gets Key Police Job in Jerusalem”
A rabbi from one of the most violent settlements in the West Bank was questioned on suspicion of incitement last week as Israeli police stepped up their investigation into a book in which he sanctions the killing of non-Jews, including children and babies. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira is one of the leading ideologues of the extreme …
Continue reading “Israeli Settlers Step Up ‘Price-Tag’ Policy” 
