The middle-of-the-night eviction last week of an elderly Palestinian couple from their home in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers is a demonstration of Israeli intent towards a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd are now on...
The Real Goal of Israel’s Blockade
The latest tightening of Israel's chokehold on Gaza ending all supplies into the Strip for more than a week has produced immediate and shocking consequences for Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants. The refusal to allow in fuel has forced the shutting down of...
Israel Tightens Chokehold on Village of Entrepreneurs
The sun is sinking fast behind the trees of an olive grove on the outskirts of the West Bank village of Nilin. After a day of confrontations between the Israeli army and the Palestinian villagers over Israel's building of its separation wall on Nilin's land, the...
Travesty of Tolerance on Display in Jerusalem
Israel seems to have little time for the irony that a modern Jewish shrine to "coexistence and tolerance" is being built on the graves of the city's Muslim forefathers. The Israeli Supreme Court's approval last week of the building of a Jewish Museum of...
Palestinian Kristallnacht
In a conflict that has produced more than its share of suffering and tragedy, the name of Kafr Qassem lives on in infamy more than half a century after Israeli police gunned down 47 Palestinian civilians, including women and children, in the village. This week Kafr...
Israel Bars Visit to Father’s Grave
Salwa Salam Qupty clutches a fading sepia photograph of a young Palestinian man wearing a traditional white headscarf. It is the sole memento that survives of her father, killed by a Jewish militia during the 1948 war that established Israel. "He was killed 60...
Israel’s ‘City of Coexistence’ Shows Its True Colors
Israel has been suffering its worst bout of inter-communal violence since the start of the second intifada, with a week of what has been widely presented as "rioting" by Jewish and Arab residents of the northern port city of Acre. The trigger for the...
Israeli Bestseller Breaks National Taboo
No one is more surprised than Shlomo Sand that his latest academic work has spent 19 weeks on Israel's bestseller list and that success has come to the history professor despite his book challenging Israel's biggest taboo. Dr. Sand argues that the idea of a...
Israel’s Army and Settlers Fall Out
The Israeli army officer in charge of the occupation of the West Bank, Gen. Gadi Shamni, has lambasted extremist Jewish settlers, blaming rising levels of violence on the encouragement of their leadership and right-wing rabbis. It is rare for a senior commander to...
Israel’s Breeding Ground for Terrorism
The words "Jewish" and "terrorist" are not easily uttered together by Israelis. But just occasionally, such as last week, when one of the country's leading intellectuals was injured by a pipe bomb placed at the front door of his home, they find...


