One Choice: Fight to Win
1 month ago
For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.
Both governments carry out arbitrary arrests, ban rivals from travel, exclude them from civil service jobs and suppress opposition media, [Palestinian] rights groups say. Torture in both West Bank and Gaza lockups includes beatings and tying up detainees in painful positions.
With each incident, the wedge is hammered deeper and the hostility grows between the two halves of what is meant to be a future Palestine, just as the U.S. relaunches Mideast talks at the White House this week in hopes of getting an agreement within a year.
-The Islamic-Christian Front for defending Jerusalem (ICF) says the 14th World Jewish Congress (WJC), which is set to be held on Wednesday in Jerusalem, is a blatant provocation to the Arab and Islamic nation as a whole.
As preparations intensify for a Palestinian-Israeli summit meeting in Washington on Thursday, the crude outlines of a Palestinian state are emerging in the West Bank, with increasingly reliable security forces, a more disciplined government and a growing sense among ordinary citizens that they can count on basic services.
According to Bronner, the only thing that's necessary for 'normal life' in Judea and Samaria is for the Jews to leave.
On the issue of incitement, Abbas accepted that there was some incitement in official Palestinian media, according to meeting participants. However, he expressed frustration that Israel did not recognize his efforts to end incitement in the mosques, saying he was the only Arab leader to centralize Friday sermons and to remove imams who incited against Israel.
Jerusalem Post, June 10, 2010
Well, the question is about settlements. I mean, you know, what you hear from Abbas is if they go back into the settlements that he cuts off the talk.
Last time the reason the talks got cut off was because Israel launched an offensive in Gaza. So now we have a break. The question is can Netanyahu hold together as — his forces in Israel in terms of Israeli politics to say, “You know what? We are best served by some sort of peace, despite the pressures,” and I think there are tremendous pressures on Israel, that there has to be a sense that we are about peace first and foremost.
And I think for the — for the last few times that negotiations have taken place, the emphasis has been on asserting that Israel has been victimized by terrorist activities, by Hamas, by the failure of the Palestinians to govern themselves.
The conflict in Northern Ireland had been intractable for decades. Unionists backed by the British government saw any political compromise with Irish nationalists as a danger, one that would lead to a united Ireland in which a Catholic majority would dominate minority Protestant unionists.
The British government also refused to deal with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein, despite its significant electoral mandate, because of its close ties to the Irish Republican Army, which had carried out violent acts in the United Kingdom.
Both governments carry out arbitrary arrests, ban rivals from travel, exclude them from civil service jobs and suppress opposition media, the rights groups say. Torture in both West Bank and Gaza lockups includes beatings and tying up detainees in painful positions.
Hamas and Abbas' Fatah organization have harassed each other ever since the Islamic militant Hamas seized Gaza in 2007. However, the crackdowns have become more sweeping in recent months as each aims to strengthen its grip on its respective territory.
Both the Palestinian Authority and Arab governments have gone along with previous U.S.-Israeli deals by which construction was to be limited to inside the periphery of settlements near Israel -- since everyone knows those areas will be annexed to Israel in a final settlement. Before the 2007 Annapolis peace conference organized by the Bush administration, Saudi Arabia and other Arab participants agreed to what one former senior official called "the Google Earth test"; if the settlements did not visibly expand, that was good enough. [emphasis added]
Jackson Diehl, Washington Post, June 2009
I would like to point out here that our attitudes toward the settlements and their legitimacy and to the settlement expansion has not changed. I must say that today, frankly and clearly that we were informed by all parties, including the American sponsor of the negotiations before we agree to participate, that the Government of Israel alone will have to bear responsibility for these negotiations, and the possibility of total collapse and failure, in the event of continued settlement expansion in all its forms and manifestations in other parts of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.[emphasis added]
Im Tirtzu to Ben-Gurion University: Fire Leftist Professors Or We'll Drive Away Donors
Im Tirtzu threatens boycott of Israeli university over 'anti-Zionist' bias.
"If You Don't Fire Leftist Professors, We'll Drive Away Donors"
The statement confirmed all previous statements of the Quartet ... the statement underlined the need to end the occupation that took place in 1967, including East Jerusalem, and not to recognize the Israeli annexation [of any territory.]
[T]he status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties...
The artists can't be dragged to Ariel in blunt contradiction of their political beliefs; they can't be driven on our Jewish-only apartheid roads.
PARIS — France wants the European Union to have a seat at the table during next week’s start of US-backed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in Washington.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said it would be “too bad” if the EU were locked out — noting the bloc’s political involvement in the region and its role as a top contributor of financial aid to the Palestinians. — Jerusalem Post