Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ben White
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Jerusalem mayor boasts of collective punishment of city’s Palestinians
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat likes to present himself to a Western audience as the head of an open, pluralistic city, a place at ease with its ethnic and religious diversity, despite complex “security” challenges. The reality is somewhat different. As reported in Haaretz (with thanks to Ofer Neiman for translation),...
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Increased Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza endanger two-year-old ceasefire
Israeli forces markedly increased their attacks on Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip during the second quarter of 2016, United Nations (UN) data has revealed, with concerns that such violence endangers the viability of the ceasefire that ended ‘Operation Protective Edge’ in 2014. During the period April-June, there were an...
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Israel under scrutiny, as secret trial of international NGO official begins
A senior Gaza-based employee of US-headquartered charity World Vision appeared in an Israeli court on Tuesday, charged with numerous counts of ‘supporting terrorism’. According to the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shin Bet), Mohammad al-Halabi infiltrated the charity on behalf of Hamas, redirecting tens of millions of dollars to Al-Qassam...
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Israeli escalation in Gaza seeks to ‘change equation’ – but at what cost?
Late on Sunday night, the Israeli Air Force launched dozens of airstrikes against targets in the Gaza Strip – as many as 50, according to an official source – after a single rocket had struck Sderot earlier in the day, causing no damage or injuries. The airstrikes, which primarily struck...
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Why we must see Israeli policies as a form of settler colonialism
Israel and its advocates seek to deny the historical record, obfuscate what is happening on the ground today, and undermine strategies for change...
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Israeli civilian courts in a Shin Bet state
In recent years, Israel’s military court system has been the subject of well-deserved – and long over-due – scrutiny, thanks to its almost 100 percent conviction rate of Palestinians in the West Bank. The military courts are a key part of an apartheid regime that sees Israeli settlers tried...
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How much Palestinian land do Israeli settlements really eat up?
The Israeli government and its supporters routinely play down the significance of West Bank settlements as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. One recent example of this came from a Jewish Agency spokesperson, who tweeted: “Jewish communities in the West Bank take up under 2% of the land;...
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The BICOM guide to defending Netanyahu’s Israel
Earlier this year, I took a look at a booklet by the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM) called ‘The Apartheid Smear’, authored by staffer Alan Johnson. Intended as a “vital tool” for fighting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the publication is full of errors and...
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How the Israeli government whitewashes the Gaza blockade
‘Dateline’, a show on Australian television station SBS One, broadcast a report on Tuesday night called ‘The Survivor’s Guide to Gaza’. The segment was based on a week-long visit to the Gaza Strip by correspondent Brett Mason and producer Will West. Dateline has published, in full, a response they received...
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Immunity and impunity: Britain protects Tzipi Livni once again
Once again, Israeli opposition politician and war crimes suspect Tzipi Livni has been granted diplomatic immunity by the British government for a private visit to London. Last week, Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit invited Tzipi Livni to a police interview under caution, in relation to her role in Israel’s attack...
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Five Reasons Why Gaza is Still Under Blockade
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim claimed on Monday that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip had been “largely lifted” as part of the newly-inked reconciliation deal between Israel and Turkey. The normalisation of Turkish-Israeli relations, six years after Israeli forces killed 10 Turkish citizens aboard a ship bound for Gaza,...
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Demolitions as displacement: Israel targets Negev’s Bedouin Palestinians
A new report has revealed how 2,752 structures were demolished in Bedouin Palestinian communities in the Negev over the last three years, part of what human rights activists have described as an ongoing, concerted campaign of displacement by Israeli authorities. ‘Enforcing Distress: House Demolition Policy in the Bedouin Community in...
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Israel’s friends at Westminster ‘hijack’ foreign aid debate
Pro-Israel MPs were accused this week of ‘hijacking’ a Westminster debate on UK government foreign aid in order to attack the Palestinian Authority (PA) and smear Israeli human rights groups. Monday’s debate came in response to an e-petition initiated by The Mail on Sunday, asking the government to “stop spending...
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49 facts about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
This week marked the 49th anniversary of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. So here are 49 facts about a military regime that has lasted almost half a century. The West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip together constitute the Occupied Palestinian...
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Palestinian family must pay the Israeli state to remain in own home
One Palestinian family’s legal battle to remain in their own house is a microcosm of Israel’s institutionalised discrimination. In the 1920s, Salim Khoury Shaya built a large house in Jaffa where his seven children were born and raised. Shortly before the unilateral establishment of the State of Israel in May...
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UK charity under pressure over donations to Israeli settlements
A UK charity is facing regulatory scrutiny and political pressure following revelations that it is acting as a conduit for donations to illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank. UK Toremet receives donations on behalf of vetted ‘recipient agencies’, making it “easier to gift money to charities outside the...
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Hanin Zoabi: don’t whitewash racism of Israel’s old elite
Attacking “fascists” in the Israeli government risks whitewashing the racism of the old elite, according to Member of Knesset Hanin Zoabi (Joint List). Avigdor Lieberman was confirmed yesterday as Israel’s new Defense Minister, after the successful conclusion of talks that brought the right-wing nationalist’s Yisrael Beitenu party into Prime Minister...
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Mark Regev confirms Israel’s institutional racism
Mark Regev, the well-known former spokesperson for the Israeli prime minister’s office, was recently appointed as ambassador to the UK. One of Regev’s first public engagements on assuming his post was to speak at Oxford University (a video of the event can be viewed here). During the post-speech Q&A, Regev...
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The British liberals who have a problem with Palestinians
On the week of Nakba Day, the cover story of New Statesman, a liberal-left weekly British magazine, has dismissed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 as a “tragic consequence of…war.” Nakba Day, held annually on May 15, commemorates the destruction of Palestinian communities that took place with the establishment...
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Calling time on Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood
The former deputy mayor of Jerusalem had a stark warning for his American audience. Using official figures, Meron Benvenisti showed how the Israeli government had “proceeded methodically and effectively toward de facto annexation of the West Bank.” In terms of the West Bank’s “part in a solution” with the...
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Is Israel Jewish like France is French?
On June 11, 1967, days after Israel’s armed forces had conquered the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan appeared on US news show ‘Face the Nation’. Addressing Israel’s ability to “absorb” Palestinian inhabitants of the newly-occupied territory, a journalist asked Dayan if it was necessary to maintain...
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What Zionism has meant for Palestinians
“If there are other inhabitants there, they must be transferred to some other place. We must take over the land. We have a greater and nobler ideal than preserving several hundred thousands of Arab fellahin.” Menahem Ussishkin, chair of Jewish National Fund, 1930. There is a lot of discussion about Zionism...
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Israeli soldiers turn Palestinian family homes into military posts
Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank have used at least three Palestinian family homes as military posts in recent months. On April 18, at around 11.30pm, a dozen Israeli soldiers surrounded a family home in al-Lubban al-Sharqiya, a village located around 13 miles south of Nablus. According to testimony...
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EU body disowns antisemitism ‘definition’ endorsed at NUS conference
A European Union body has disowned a ‘definition’ of antisemitism credited to it at the National Union of Students (NUS) conference yesterday. Motion 404, proposed by student representatives from Oxford University and adopted at NUS national conference in Brighton, urges the student body to do more to combat “anti-Semitism on...