Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Ben White
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The anti-Corbyn campaign becomes a parody of itself
It hasn’t taken long for the anti-Jeremy Corbyn smear campaign to become a parody of itself, a succession of articles and allegations that in their predictability and desperation resemble that wonderful old ‘Daily Mail-o-matic‘ headline generator. Fittingly then, the latest instalment of this mud-slinging version of Six Degrees of Kevin...
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Self-pity and privilege: Etgar Keret and Israel's 'liberal left'
Etgar Keret, according to some, is “the most loved and widely read Israeli writer working today.” Hailed as “one of the most prominent Israeli writers on the international literary scene”, Keret has recently published a memoir, his first non-fiction book following five short story collections. To mark its release, Keret...
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The bloody cost of apartheid: Israel kills twice in two days
Israeli occupation forces have killed again: the victim this time was Falah Abu Maria, a 52-year-old father shot dead in Beit Ummar, a village in the southern West Bank. Abu Maria’s death came just a day after 21-year-old Muhammad ‘Alawna had been shot dead near Jenin. Israel has now killed...
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Shoot and lie: Israeli forces are killing civilians with impunity
On Sunday, an undercover unit of Israel’s Border Police conducted an arrest raid in Shuafat refugee camp, an area of Occupied East Jerusalem locked behind the Separation Wall. Encountering resistance from local residents, the undercover forces requested assistance, and a large number of uniformed Israeli forces entered the camp. The...
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Israeli government funds teen camp run by Im Tirtzu-linked army vet
The Israeli government is funding programmes for Israeli youths, some as young as 16-years-old, which combine military training with nationalist indoctrination, managed by an army veteran with links to the radical Right. The Tavor Academy for Social Leadership, located in Nazareth Illit in the Galilee, has been hailed by a...
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The Washington Post whitewashes the violence of Israel's occupation
The Washington Post published an article today by their Jerusalem correspondent William Booth about “seven major attacks against Israelis in Israel and the West Bank over the past two weeks.” The seven attacks cited in the report date back to June 19, and include shootings and stabbings that have...
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Mossad-linked group holds anti-BDS legal seminar
Shurat HaDin, an organisation with links to Israel’s government and security services, is holding a seminar this week in Jerusalem “to train lawyers from abroad to litigate BDS.” The gathering follows a period of intensified attacks by Israeli officials on the Palestinian-led boycott movement, including reports of imminent Justice...
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Waiting on ICC, Israeli war crimes suspects already fear arrest abroad
Over the last two weeks, two Israeli war crimes suspects entered the UK. One, former Israeli minister Tzipi Livni, received diplomatic immunity in dubious circumstances. A second, former Israeli army chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, visited for just 48 hours and left before the authorities acted. These visits have...
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Livni dodges arrest in London – again
Israeli politician and war crimes suspect Tzipi Livni once again evaded arrest this week, during a visit to London where she spoke at Fortune’s “Most Powerful Women International Summit.” The former justice minister’s trip was granted ‘Special Mission’ status by the Foreign Office (FCO), thus giving her diplomatic immunity. She...
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Rumours of war, rumours of peace: Assessing Gaza's uneasy status quo
Almost a year on from the beginning of Israel’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ and the ceasefire that ended hostilities has largely held, albeit with dozens of Israeli attacks on Gaza civilians, the continued blockade, and some half a dozen rocket launches. While the Israeli army and Palestinian factions prepare themselves...
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Israel's High Court rejects petition against apartheid planning regime
Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice (HCJ), has dismissed a petition to restore planning rights to Palestinian villages in ‘Area C’ of the West Bank. The decision is the latest example of Israel’s judiciary rubber-stamping elements of Israel’s apartheid system. The petition had been brought by...
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Ban Ki-moon buckles - and Palestinian children will pay the price
-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has overruled his colleagues’ recommendations and removed Israel from a list of parties guilty of grave violations of children’s rights, it was revealed Monday. The decision to exclude Israel from the list, part of the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict presented to the...
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British NGO targeted by the Israeli government looks set for UN accreditation
A UN committee has recommend special consultative status for a UK-based Palestinian organisation, despite Israel’s efforts to block the move. The vote comes as a blow to the Israeli government and its lobby groups, who have vowed to contest the decision. At a meeting in New York on Monday, the...
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Netanyahu's 'death blow' to Foreign Ministry risks leaving Israel vulnerable
The Israeli government’s foreign policy is currently being managed by seven senior officials, a division of responsibilities shaped by domestic political concerns – but with more serious, global implications. Since forming his coalition government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has himself retained the post of Foreign Minister. Likud’s Tzipi Hotovely was...
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Did the Metropolitan Police send staff to Israel during last year's Gaza assault?
Last November, a post appeared on the blogging platform Medium which claimed that between March 1, 2014 and August 31, 2014 – a period of six months – some 80 employees of London’s Metropolitan Police had “travelled to Israel.” This overlaps in part with Israel’s unprecedented assault on the Gaza...
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Israel confirms its new ministers – where are the sanctions?
Israel’s new ministers took up their posts on Sunday, after the country’s 34th government was sworn-in late Thursday. This is a government of extremists, whose ministers back settlements and war crimes, as well as openly express racist incitement towards Palestinians. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs “We won’t...
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Nakba Day is not just about remembering - it is about the Palestinians' return
67 years ago, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine unfolded through expulsions, massacres, and demolitions. Hundreds of villages were emptied, then levelled; centres of Palestinian urban life and community disappeared; columns of refugees took flight at the barrel of a gun. A society was dismembered and fragmented. In the months and...
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Israeli military uses The New York Times to confirm plans for future war crimes
In an extraordinarily-crude propaganda piece in The New York Times published earlier this week, the Israeli military confirmed its plans to commit war crimes as part of any future attack on Lebanon. The article, written (literally) through the “lens” of the Israeli army, is focused on claims that Hezbollah has...
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Israel fears FIFA red card, as Palestinians’ campaign gains momentum
In just over two weeks, the annual FIFA Congress will convene in Zurich. On the agenda – a “proposal by the Palestinian Football Association for the suspension of the Israel Football Association.” The Palestinian drive to get Israel shown the red card, supported by global solidarity activists, has been...
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Israel's safety belt: the US Christian Right pushes new anti-BDS initiative
‘On April 21, Tennessee’s General Assembly formally condemned the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign, the first US state legislature to do so. Joint Resolution 170 was approved 93-1 by the House of Representatives, following a 30-0 vote in the state Senate. The resolution calls BDS “one of the main...
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When law is the target: Israel's campaign will whitewash war crimes everywhere
In 2011, and in response to accusations of war crimes during the final months of conflict with the Tamil Tigers two years previously, the Sri Lankan government convened a conference where then-Minister of External Affairs G. L. Peiris declared that “the entire body of international law must be revisited.”...
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Attacks on Gaza - January-March 2015
Late on Thursday, a rocket was fired from inside the Gaza Strip into Israel, causing no damage or injuries. Subsequently, Israeli forces shelled a Hamas base in northern Gaza, also causing no injuries. This was the first rocket fired from Gaza this year, according to the Israeli military, and the...
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Courting apartheid: how Israel's top judges rubber-stamp discrimination
Israel’s Supreme Court has long been held up as a resolute defender of liberal values. Recent decisions handed down by its judges, however, provide an important opportunity to revisit this claim, and to interrogate its past and present validity. According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Supreme Court “upholds...
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Voting patterns on the Middle East in the British parliament
Most MPs at Westminster have an easy option available to them for registering their opinion about a particular topic, as well as gathering support about the subject in question. An EDM is a motion with a short title and a text no longer than 250 words. Technically, an EDM...