Palestine Affairs

NOVANEWS Brief notes on the emerging right-wing one-state solution Posted: 17 Jul 2010 Years ago I was close to relatives in the religious settler camp.  They were generally warm, generous and honest toward members of their families and communities, but unapologetically racist toward Arabs.  I remember one woman who walked miles in the summer heat every Sabbath to visit elderly synagogue members in the hospital, but frowned with distaste when she saw Arab women there.  One man explained to me matter-of-factly that here in (Greater) Israel, Arabs are guests who may stay only if they behave themselves.  Another referred to them off-handedly as stinking Arabs, "aravim masrichim."  A third expressed hope that in the next war, we could drive all the Arabs out, because the Arabs are the ...

NOVANEWS 18 July 2010 The 'Only Democracy in the Middle East' Strips Arab Knesset Member of Privileges A Fake Iranian Passport Handed to Haneen Zoabi MK The Day Israel's 'Democracy' Officially Died Yes I can hear the laughter of my Palestinian friends. But it's true. You see even Britain, the biggest colonial power the world has known, maintained democracy of the bourgeois type at home even whilst it perpetrated massacres at Amritsar in India and the Hola Camp atrocities in Kenya. It is one of the ironies of imperialism that democracy at home was bought at the price of repression abroad. But as Karl Marx noted in the Communist Manifesto, a nation that oppresses another nation shall not itself be free. Marx was referring to Ireland but Palestine always was a very similar scenario, as...

NOVANEWS Knesset revokes MK's privileges over flotilla support Friday, July 16, 2010 Interview: M.K. Haneen Zoabi (Zou'bi) Diplomatic Privileges Revoked in Israeli Knesset Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies Israel's parliament revoked the privileges of Palestinian Knesset member Haneen Zoabi on Tuesday for her participation in May's Gaza-bound aid flotilla attempting to break Israel's blockade. Following the announcement, Zoabi told Ma'an radio that she was expecting the majority of her peers to vote in favor of invalidating her diplomatic passport and revoking her right to receive funding for legal expenses. "Israel began to incriminate Arab citizens and accuse them of treason, and what I am facing is part of a collective procedure which started with Azmi Bishara, who was accused of treason and e...

NOVANEWS MISHOR ADUMIM, Palestinian Territories — Israeli settler and industrialist Avi Elkayam, 35, has no patience with the Palestinian boycott of settlement products. "It's economic terrorism," he shouts shaking his fist. The months-old campaign has had a limited financial impact so far but it has a catastrophic potential, he says. "It's economic terrorism that will lead to real terror when thousands of people lose their jobs," says Elkayam, who heads the bosses union in Mishor Adumim, the largest Israeli industrial park in the occupied West Bank. A new Palestinian law imposes prison sentences of up to five years and fines of up to 22,000 dollars (18,000 euros) for trading in settlement goods, but the Palestinian Authority (PA) has yet to pass a proposed legislation that would severely ...

NOVANEWS Israeli authorities have threatened four Palestinian politicians with expulsion from Jerusalem because of their affiliation to Hamas in a case which could have wide ramifications for others deemed undesirable by the Jewish state. Mohammed Abu Tir, 59, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), is in police custody for failing to leave the city by the end of last month. Instantly recognisable for his dyed orange beard, Abu Tir was released from an Israeli prison in May after almost four years, and was immediately told he must abandon political activity or leave Jerusalem. Two other members of the PLC and a former Palestinian minister have moved into the grounds of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in East Jerusalem in protest at the deportation orders. The me...

NOVANEWS by Ofer Neiman A popular colloquial expression in Hebrew regards the futility of “selling ice to an Eskimo”. Perhaps the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof should take note. In a recent blog entry, Kristof wrote that “Israeli civil society promotes democratic values in Palestinian communities”, and that “…the weekly Sheikh Jarrah protests in East Jerusalem, in which Israeli Jews play a major role, offer a useful model of peaceful protest”. Unfortunately, Kristof presents a patronizing and misinformed view of the history of the Palestinian struggle against Israel’s policies of land grab and occupation. It is true that some Palestinians, especially former prisoners who have risen to leadership roles, openly state that they have learned a lot about Israeli society during their impriso...