Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process. The decision, authorizing the first Israeli university in Palestinian territory, is expected to entitle the college to significant …
Continue reading “Israel Creates First ‘Army-Owned’ University”
Israel unveiled “Iron Dome” last week, a missile-defense system that is designed to strike a knock-out blow against short-range rockets of the variety fired into Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah. In the short term, Iron Dome is supposed to herald the demise of the rocket threat to Israeli communities near Gaza four years after Hamas …
Continue reading “Israel’s Rocket Defense System Tightens Screws on Gaza”
Jonathan Cook says Israel encourages its own suicide bombers
Some 35,000 Bedouin residents of Israel’s southern Negev have been denied the right to hold their first local council election after the Israeli parliament passed a law at the last minute to cancel this month’s ballot. The new law gives the government the power to postpone elections to the regional council, known as Abu Basma, …
Continue reading “Israel’s Bedouin Denied Right to Elections”
South Africa deported an Israeli airline official last week following allegations that Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, had infiltrated Johannesburg international airport in an effort to gather information on South African citizens, particularly black and Muslim travelers. The move by the South African government followed an investigation by local TV showing an undercover reporter …
Continue reading “South Africa Deports Israeli Airline Official After Investigation”
An Israeli judge made a historic ruling last week when he decided that an Arab teenager needed "protection" from the justice system and ordered that he not be convicted despite being found guilty of throwing stones at a police car during a protest against Israel’s attack last winter on Gaza. Prosecutors had demanded that the …
Continue reading “Judge Warns of Israel’s Two-Tier Legal System”
Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the "witch-hunt" tactics of the U.S. academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn. The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publication in a …
Continue reading “Campus Watch Copycats Close in on Israeli Professors”
Tension over control of the Haram al Sharif compound of mosques in Jerusalem’s Old City has reached a pitch unseen since clashes at the site sparked the second intifada nine years ago. Ten days of intermittently bloody clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in Jerusalem culminated yesterday in warnings by Palestinian officials that Israel …
Continue reading “Tensions Mount Again at al-Aqsa “
Israel celebrated over the weekend its success at the United Nations in forcing the Palestinians to defer demands that the International Criminal Court investigate allegations of war crimes committed by Israel during its winter assault on the Gaza Strip. The about-turn, following vigorous lobbying from Israel and the United States, appears to have buried the …
Continue reading “How Israel Killed UN’s War Crimes Probe”
Demands from Israel’s chief commander this month that all Israeli citizens should be required to perform national service has turned the spotlight on a rarely discussed group of soldiers: members of Israel’s Palestinian minority. Though no official statistics are available, an estimated 3,000 of Israel’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens have broken one of their society’s …
Continue reading “Call for Universal National Service Raises Uncomfortable Questions in Israel” 
