One of this month's biggest pieces of news was the resignation of Western backed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. There were widespread hunger strikes in Israeli prisons in protest against the death of an inmate suffering from cancer who had also faced medical neglect by the Israeli authorities, while hunger striker, Samer Issawi, ended his hunger strike following a deal struck with the same authorities.

Writing about the resignation of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, NYT columnist Thomas L Friedman described it as "very bad news". Unelected Fayyad, you see, "was the 'Arab Spring' before there was an Arab Spring". This was a prime example of the conundrum facing Western liberals who want to export democracy but only if the right people win elections.

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This month, the two and a half years of rocky diplomatic relations between Turkey and Israel following the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 appear to be coming to a close with Natanyahu finally offering an apology. Several NGO reports have revealed the systematic Israeli detention and abuse of Palestinian children. Obama's first visit to the Holy Land proves wholly underwhelming. And the long-time supporter of the Palestinians Cause, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, sadly loses his battle with cancer.

The month got off to a fiery start with the fall-out from Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remark equating Zionism with "a crime against humanity". He was duly rebuked by America's new Secretary of State, John Kerry who also had the task of "salvaging some chance of an improvement in ties between Turkey and Israel - the first a moderate Muslim-majority nation and important NATO ally and the other the principal United States ally in the Middle East". No mean task.

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This January, a main focus of news has been the demonstrations and uprising caused by the death of Palestinian Prisoner, Arafat Jaradat, in Israeli custody. The event has helped to somewhat focus attention on the plight of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisoners; however, mainstream media is yet to give the issue the attention it deserves.

An Israeli soldier sparked outrage by posting a photograph on the social networking site, Instagram, which appears to show the back of a Palestinian boy's head in the crosshairs of his sniper rifle. Although the context of the photo posted on 20 year old Mor Ostrovski's personal site could not be verified, the aggressive message was clear for all as one observer put it, "The minarets and Arabic architecture of the village captured in the background suggest the boy and the town are Palestinian. Ostrovski is an Israeli soldier in a sniper unit."

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This January, a main focus of news has been the elections in Israel which have led to much analyses, discourse, soul searching and censure from Israel's supporters and critics alike. The spotlight has also been shone on the persistent and ever worsening Israeli abuse of basic Palestinian human rights sending the Zionist Lobby into overdrive.

The MP for Bradford East, David Ward, criticised Israel in the House of Commons this month after pledging commitment to Holocaust Memorial Day. He said: "Having visited Auschwitz twice - once with my family and once with local schools - I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza."

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