Israel/ Palestine

(By Quinn Coffey) Just weeks before Pope Francis’ first official visit to the Holy Land, a number of Christian holy sites in Israel and Palestine have been targeted in ‘price tag’ attacks by the radical Israeli settler movement. These attacks have been increasing since 2008. Just weeks before Pope Francis’ first official visit to the […]

Human Rights

Jazz legend John McLaughlin Plays Ramallah, Palestine to counteract Palestinian “Isolation”

Juan Cole

Jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin plays for Palestine (via AFP) The Palestinian territories are rarely a destination for jazz musicians let alone stars of an art form that is more at home in big cities such as New York and Chicago. Which makes the performance of jazz guitar legend John McLaughlin before a packed… […]

Human Rights

Military Occupation as Bullying: The Palestinian Struggle for Dignity in Hebron

Juan Cole

(By Johannes A. Makar) Eyewitness Hebron: Follow young Badr in his city of bullies This February, after crossing the Taba-Eliat border from Egypt, less than 36 hours before the deplorable bomb attack there, I arrived in Jerusalem. After spending a couple of days in the city, I hopped on the bus to Hebron from the […]

Human Rights

Made Homeless by Israel, defiant Bedouin vow to stay in Jordan Valley

Juan Cole

Homeless but defiant, Bedouin to stay in Jordan Valley (via AFP) Two weeks after their fragile tin shacks were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers, Atiya Bani Minna and his family are still sleeping under the stars, struggling to resume some semblance of normal life. For this 50-year-old Bedouin shepherd, it is the third… ——- Related […]

Featured

Poof! John Kerry Blames Israeli Squatting in E. Jerusalem for breakdown in Peace Talks; Bennett: It’s Just Zionism

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) You heard it first here. I had argued on Sunday that that the actions and statements of the far rightwing Israeli Likud government had sunk the peace negotiations with Palestine. Secretary of State John Kerry gave a similar narrative [my points 9 & 10] on Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee […]

Featured

Top Ten Ways in which it was Actually the Israeli Gov’t that Derailed the Peace Talks

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Right wing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday blamed the Palestinians for the collapse of peace negotiations that began last August under the auspices of Secretary of State John Kerry. In fact, the Palestinians took no Israeli land whatsoever since August, whereas the Israelis doubled their pace of building squatter settlements […]

Human Rights

US: Stop Blocking Palestinian Rights! (HRW)

Juan Cole

(By Human Rights Watch) (Jerusalem) – The US government should support rather than oppose Palestinian actions to join international treaties that promote respect for human rights. On April 1, 2014, the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, signed accession instruments for 15 treaties, including the core treaties on human rights and the laws of war. On April 2, […]

Israel Lobby

Jon Stewart/ Daily Show: Adelson will accept “Outer Israel” as term for Occupied West Bank

Juan Cole

The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Indecision Political Humor,The Daily Show on Facebook Jon Stewart and Samantha Bee of The Daily Show send up “Zionist billionaire” Sheldon Adelson’s recent attempt to buy Republican presidential candidates and his imposition on them of euphemisms about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Featured

Palestine’s Abbas finally says will Go to UN over Israeli Squatters

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Palestine president Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday signed a some 15 international treaties and UN legal instruments, including the Geneva Conventions, in preparation for going to the International Criminal Court over Israel’s illegal flooding of hundreds of thousands of Israeli squatters into the West Bank. These squatters have for the most part never […]