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”
A fascinating debate is entering Israel’s political mainstream on a once-taboo subject: the establishment of a single state as a resolution of the conflict, one in which Jews and Palestinians might potentially live as equal citizens. Surprisingly, those advocating such a solution are to be found chiefly on Israel’s political Right. The debate, which challenges …
Continue reading “One-State Debate Explodes Myth About Zionist Left”
The Israeli government is facing legal action for contempt over its refusal to implement a Supreme Court ruling that it end a policy of awarding preferential budgets to Jewish communities, including settlements, rather than much poorer Palestinian Arab towns and villages inside Israel. The contempt case on behalf of Israel’s Palestinian minority comes in the …
Continue reading “Israel Stops Listening to Its Judges”
Hundreds of Israeli college professors have signed a petition accusing the education minister of endangering academic freedoms after he threatened to “punish” any lecturer or institution that supports a boycott of Israel. The backlash against Gideon Saar, a member of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, comes after a series of moves suggesting he …
Continue reading “Israeli Education Minister to Punish Supporters of Academic Boycott”
Jonathan Cook on Gaza’s slow starvation
Israeli authorities are pressing ahead with plans to build a courthouse complex on a large historic Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem that is already at the center of protests over plans to locate a “Museum of Tolerance” there. The proposed courthouse is expected to provoke stiff opposition, especially from Islamic groups, after it was revealed that …
Continue reading “Israel Plans Second Dig in Ancient Muslim Graveyard”
Jonathan Cook defends Helen Thomas
Why are Israelis so indignant at the international outrage that has greeted their country’s lethal attack last week on a flotilla of civilian ships taking aid to Gaza? Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected. There has been little soul-searching about the morality, let alone legality, of soldiers invading …
Continue reading “Israel’s Cult of Victimhood” 
