Latest Links: Israel/ Palestine

Israel 'to ease' W Bank friction
Israel orders troops to avoid "unnecessary friction" in the West Bank, as a truce in Gaza enters a second week.

BBC News

Qatar 'to pay Palestinian wages'
Qatar will pay the salaries of 40,000 Palestinian education workers for several months, says the Palestinian PM.

BBC News

ForeignPolicy: Israel-Palestine: Reconciliation Is in Everyone's Interest
A new documentary that looks at the people most affected by the Israeli-Palestinian divide reminds us that lasting peace will come from popular movements, not political leaders.

AlterNet.org

Black Church Delegation Focuses on Palestine
A delegation of black church leaders say conditions in Palestine remind them of injustices in pre-civil rights America and South Africa during apartheid, says a report from The Arab American News of Dearborn, Mich.

news.newamericamedia.org

Two Palestinians killed in W Bank
Israeli soldiers shoot and kill two Palestinians, one a 16-year-old, in separate incidents in the West Bank.

BBC News

Discussing his new book on "The NewsHour ...
Discussing his new book on "The NewsHour," Carter observed that "there hasn't been a day of negotiation orchestrated or promoted by the United States between Israel and the Palestinians in six years."

Cursor.org

Impeachment, Nancy Pelosi and Israel/ Palestine

Nancy Pelosi has her work cut out for her. She has a Congress to clean up, many of her crop of new Senators are young and inexperienced, and she lost the battle for John Murtha. For the record, I don't believe this was a "stumble" as reported by Time. To me it seemed like a carefully choreographed dance, rather than a knockdown drag-out fight. Do I have any sources that support this? No, it's just a feeling.

Then there's impeachment. She's going to have to answer to many progressive democrats and others who feel that we have farther to go as a nation. Pelosi has said that democrats are not interested in revenge and many respond that the idea of "revenge" is a red herring. Impeachment is not about revenge, but about holding those who are in positions of power ultimately responsible for the lies and spin that lead to war. Impeachment is about discovering the depth and breadth of those lies.

Pelosi also faces another major challenge. For those who watch the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Pelosi has been an influential figure in shaping the debate. Recently, with her anticipated move to Speaker of the House and the media coverage of the Middle East which has been slowly acknowledging that the war on Iraq is not simply about Iraq, but also about Iran, Israel, Palestine, Syria, et al., Pelosi's feelings toward Israel in particular have come under some scrutiny.

It remains to be seen whether she can be less the idealogue and more a leader for peace in the U.S. and abroad.

Annotated Links

The Pelosi-Harman Fault Line

Nancy Pelosi and Jane Harman have been on a collision course for some time. They are both very tough-minded, opinionated, media savvy Democrats on the rise, and they have been knocking into each other for some time while still feigning mutual admiration ...

The Huggington Post

Is the "Israel lobby" distorting America's Mideast policies?

Two leading academics have tried to break the taboo against criticizing Israel's powerful U.S. lobby. It's a worthy aim, but their clumsy argument may backfire.

For Pelosi, Israel is Personal
"She [Pelosi] likes to say that, growing up in Baltimore, she went to a bar or bat mitzvah ... JTA also quotes a speech that Pelosi gave before an AIPAC crowd three years ago. Talking about her Jewish son-in-law, Pelosi told the crowd: ...

NJDC's Blog - http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/

Jim Kirwan - Pelosi Revisited
by FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Nancy Pelosi, the darling Democrat from the Bay Area who leads her party in the House. Pelosi's recent speech to the Israel-American lobby AIPAC, the second largest lobby in Washington, was monumental - truly unparalleled in its candor. ...

FPF - HENK RUYSSENAARS - http://forpressfound.blogspot.com

Latest Links: Israel - Palestine

International">Protest Forces Israel to Call Off Gaza Airstrike
Israel halted an airstrike against the house of a suspected Palestinian militant after neighbors surrounded the building.

NYT > International

Welcome the New Neighbors:
An ambitious new group blog called Good Neighbors is "designed to increase dialogue and understanding between all of the neighboring countries in the Middle East including Jordanians, Lebanese, Israelis, Palestinians, Egyptians, Saudis, Iranians, and Syrians on a cross-country level, as well as to increase understanding, respect and dialogue among the various strata of society within our countries." Quite a challenge.

Pajamas Media

NAM Awards Winner: Ray Hanania
The writer has received a New America Media Ethnic Media Award for 2006 for a series of humorous commentaries on Israeli-Palestinian relations, reprinted here. NAM recognized outstanding ethnic media reporters this week in Washington, D.C.

news.newamericamedia.org

Israel Encourages Citizens to Return to Homeland
For the first time, Israeli government officials are touring the United States and Canada to help Israeli immigrants connect to employment opportunities and invite them to return home.

news.newamericamedia.org

WSU law professor candidate protested
A pro-Israel group says the son of a prominent Palestinian intellectual should not be considered for a law professor post at Wayne State University, and local leaders of Palestinian and Arab descent say the effort is part of an attempt to marginalize their community in Metro Detroit.

Stateline.org

palestine journal: 16 november - the lame duck massacres
soooo... while the lame-duck congress in the US goes ahead with passing some of the most draconian laws yet, like the one they passed yesterday that makes protesting animal cruelty at a circus or an animal lab a terrorist act (!) -- which, by the way, goes right along with their stated priorities of 'who is a threat'...... ie. not bin laden or the saudis who fund him.... but instead, as the FBI has stated publicly on multiple occasions, their 'Number One Domestic Terrorist Threat' is the 'animal liberation front', an organization that has never ever been charged with killing or hurting anyone, but whose only purpose is to rescue animals from cruel conditions (!)....

Portland Indymedia

Israeli aircraft strike Hamas car
Israeli missiles hit a car carrying Gaza militants, injuring several people, after Palestinian rockets hit Israel.

BBC News

Kill Hamas Now: "They ... have to disappear, to go to paradise, all of them, and there can't be any compromise."
"Israel's deputy prime minister [Avigdor Lieberman] on Saturday said Israel should assassinate Hamas' leadership, ignore the moderate Palestinian president and walk away from international peace efforts, the latest in a string of hard-line positions voiced by the newest member of the Cabinet."

(Breitbart/AP)