RAMALLAH – The inevitable has happened. Simmering tensions between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have left six Palestinians dead, in the bloodiest confrontation between the two groups since Hamas ousted Fatah from Gaza in June 2007. A bloody gun battle broke out Sunday morning in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilia between a …
Continue reading “Bloody New Battles Suit Israel”
Deny it and go straight to jail, says Uri Avnery
A couple of days ago, during a pleasant lunch-hour chat, my good friend treated me to a charming story about his 8-year-old son. Essentially, the story involved my friend asking his son what he wanted to be when he grew up, and the son responded, with endearing, childlike innocence, that he wanted to grow up …
Continue reading “Dream Big! Become an Israeli Spy!”
JERUSALEM – Israel is set to approve a radical new bill that threatens to legalize discrimination against its sizable Arab minority for the first time. The bill, approved this week by the ministerial committee for legislation, would make it illegal to relate to the creation of the state of Israel on May 15, 1948, as …
Continue reading “Israel Threatens to Outlaw Palestinian Memory”
Stephen Zunes on legal lightweights for the Lobby
End these contradictory, counterproductive policies, says Ivan Eland
RAMALLAH – On a cool and overcast day, a procession of grim-faced people filed silently past pictures of heaps of skeletons piled high, of emaciated survivors with blank stares corralled behind barbed wire, barely clinging to life. The memorial and museum commemorating the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II could …
Continue reading “Palestinians Honor Holocaust Victims”
U.S. President Barack Obama’s first meeting on Thursday with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas was less remarkable for the actual talks between the two leaders than it was for the changed Washington political climate in which it took place. The meeting between Obama and Abbas seemed to contain no real surprises, as both leaders …
Continue reading “Abbas Visit Comes as US-Israeli Tensions Mount”
Conn Hallinan on covert operations out of control
RAMALLAH – "I heard voices, I turned around to look, and saw a group of Israeli settlers assaulting my brother Hammad," says Abdallah Wahadin, 82, a Palestinian farmer from Beit Ummar near the southern West Bank city of Hebron. "Three of them surrounded me, while a fourth threw a rock at the back of my …
Continue reading “Humanitarian Crisis Deepens in West Bank” 
