Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The new government of extreme-right Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, set to be approved on Sunday afternoon by the Israeli parliament, has big plans for Occupied Palestine. Nidal Muhammad Watad at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that Bennett boasts that his government, despite being based on an 8-party coalition that […]
Like an Arab Dictator faced with Massive Protests, Israel’s Netanyahu offers to Resign if his Likud Party can remain in ruling coalition
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Basil Maghribi of the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Friday, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a last-ditch attempt to derail parliament’s installation of the Change Coalition as the Israeli government, which is expected to take place on Sunday. Netanyahu sent people from his circle to talk […]
Israeli Security Forces won’t Vaccinate Occupied Palestinians, Ban Palestinian Health Worker Committees that Do
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amnesty International complains that, on the morning of June 9, Israeli forces invaded the headquarters in Ramallah of the Palestinian Health Worker Committees. They stole the computers and memory drives in the office and banned the organization for six months. The HWC has been a key actor in the Palestinian […]
Another Tinderbox: 1,500 Palestinians in Silwan, East Jerusalem, under threat of Expulsion from Homes by Israeli Authorities
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Watan reports that the Israeli-controlled Jerusalem municipality on Tuesday issued a letter to 13 families in Silwan near the Old City of Jerusalem giving them 21 days to get their families and possession out of their homes, after which the homes would be demolished. The homes were built on land […]
Netanyahu’s Poison Pill: Militant Squatter-Settler March through Palestinian E Jerusalem set for Tuesday after New Israeli Gov’t is Installed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – At the insistence of outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli cabinet authorized the so-called “Flag Day” march of militant Israeli squatter-settlers through Palestinian East Jerusalem for next Tuesday. So reports Mahmoud Mujadala at the Arab 48 Israeli newspaper. Netanyahu denied charges that his fixation with humiliating Palestinians with […]
How the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood Saved Israeli Democracy from Netanyahu
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Mervat Oaf writes for al-Jazeera on how Mansour Abbas and his Muslim Brotherhood-inspired United Arab List became unlikely kingmakers in Israeli politics. Israelis of Palestinian heritage comprise a little over 20 percent of the Israeli population, and most of them are Muslims. Their politics, however, has skewed toward leftist parties. […]
Capitol Insurrection in Jerusalem? Netanyahu Calls New Government a “Fraud,” calls for Massive Squatter Protests
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bilal Daher reports at the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 that outgoing prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Likud Party bloc in the parliament or Knesset on Sunday, alleging that the multiparty coalition that was formed to unseat him is the “greatest election fraud” . . . “in the history of […]
Israel, ‘Only Mideast Democracy,’ Criminalizes Journalism, arrests Al Jazeera Reporter for Covering E. Jerusalem; What is being Covered Up?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli police took another step toward criminalizing journalism on Saturday when they arrested al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Givara al-Budeiri while she was covering a demonstration in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem marking the anniversary of the Naksa, the Setback. That term is how Palestinians refer to the 1967 […]
Israelis Actively Plotted “indefinite” Occupation of Gaza, West Bank, back in 1960s– the 6 Day War was just a Pretext: Haaretz
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I can’t tell you how many times I have heard Israeli officials talk as though the 1967 Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza were a kind of accident that left them with a dilemma. One told me it was like having a used car that you […]