Al-Aqsa standoff: Palestinian anger mounts over holy site restrictions
July 21st, 20170 JERUSALEM — For the first time in decades, Israel closed the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City to worshipers on Friday, July 14. The closure followed an attack near an entrance to the compound that houses the al-Aqsa mosque, one of the holiest sites for Muslims, following a deadly shootout that killed two Israelis and...
Palestinian driver shot dead after ramming car into Israeli soldiers
July 18th, 20170 JERUSALEM - A Palestinian driver rammed his vehicle into a group of Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday and was shot dead by the troops, the Israeli military said. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials. According to Israel's Magen David Adom, two of their soldiers were slightly wounded. "In...
Israeli ‘counter-terrorism boot camp’ a tourist attraction in occupied West Bank
July 17th, 20170 GUSH ETZION SETTLEMENT, WEST BANK – Taking in the scene of a simulated fruit market in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank, a group of tourists ponders whether a poster-size figure of an Arab man holding a cellphone is a threat and should be shot. The aim of the mock scenario is to teach rapt foreign visitors how to deal...
50 years later, the 1967 Naksa continues to shape policies and inflict misery
June 10th, 20171 DEARBORN — The 1967 Six Day War was one of the most salient events of the Arab-Israeli conflict, its effect evident through its shaping of Israeli and Arab political discourse. While its byproducts continue to resonate, the events of the Six Day War are solidified largely through oration and narrative. "There's historical...
Trump delays moving U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem by six months
June 1st, 20170 WASHINGTON — President Trump signed an order on Thursday to keep the U.S. Embassy in Israel in Tel Aviv temporarily instead of relocating it to Jerusalem, despite his campaign pledge to go ahead with the controversial move. After months of fierce debate within his administration, Trump chose to continue his predecessors' policy of...
Jewish nation-state bill: Israel’s precarious identity is Palestine’s nightmare
May 19th, 20170 The Israeli Knesset (parliament) has hurriedly passed a new bill that defines Israel as the "national home of the Jewish people." Although the association between Jewishness and Israel goes back to the foundation of the state, the new law also carries clear discriminatory elements that target the country's Arab communities, numbering...
Palestinian killed as settler opens fire during clashes
May 19th, 20170 WEST BANK — A Palestinian man was killed in the occupied West Bank on Thursday when an Israeli settler opened fire as protesters crowded around his car and pelted it with rocks, according to multiple accounts. A Reuters photographer and other witnesses said hundreds of Palestinians had gathered near the city of Nablus to show...
Trump visit seen as long shot to revive Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking
May 19th, 20170 JERUSALEM — Just four months after taking office, Donald Trump will make the earliest foray into Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by any U.S. president next week. But with mounting obstacles at home and abroad, he faces long odds of succeeding where more experienced predecessors have failed. Even as last-minute changes are being made...
Palestinian killed as settler opens fire during peaceful protest
May 18th, 20170 WEST BANK ― A Palestinian man was killed in the occupied West Bank on Thursday when an Israeli settler opened fire as protesters crowded around his car and pelted it with rocks, according to multiple accounts. A Reuters photographer and other witnesses said hundreds of Palestinians had gathered near the city of Nablus to show...
‘I had no choice:’ Odeh accepts plea deal, resists admission of guilt
April 27th, 20170 DETROIT— Hours before Rasmea Odeh entered her plea in court on Tuesday, dozens of supporters, ranging from organizers and Chicago-based defense team members, rallied outside the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in opposition to the parameters set around her conviction. Groups in attendance included the U.S....
BREAKING: Federal government drop charges against AMP staffers
April 24th, 20170 WASHINGTON, D.C.- Federal authorities have dropped charges against AMP (American Muslims for Palestine) staffers Taher Herzallah and Kareem El-Hosseiny. The two men, both employees for the group, faced charges for disrupting David Freidman's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, vocalizing opposition to the U.S. Ambassador to...
Israeli troops kill Palestinian who rammed West Bank bus stop
April 20th, 20170 BETHLEHEM ― Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian driver who rammed his car into a bus stop in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday injuring a pedestrian, the army and a hospital spokesman said. An army statement said the car rammed a bus stop at Gush Etzion Junction, a busy intersection near a cluster of Israeli West Bank...
More than a thousand Palestinians in Israeli jails begin hunger strike
April 17th, 20170 WEST BANK ― Hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli jails began a hunger strike on Monday in response to a call by prominent prisoner Marwan Barghouti, widely seen as a possible future Palestinian president. Palestinians termed the open-ended strike a protest against poor conditions and an Israeli policy of detention without trial that...
Two JDL members arrested for brutally beating Palestinian man outside AIPAC conference
April 1st, 20170 WASHINGTON, D.C. ― A 55-year old Palestinian-American instructor at a North Carolina community college was “brutally beaten” by members of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) whil e walking through a protest outside the AIPAC conference in Washington D.C. on Sunday. The man was identified as Kamal Nayfeh. The JDL members...
Israeli ban targeting boycott supporters raises alarm abroad
March 24th, 20170 JERUSALEM — A law barring foreigners from entering Israel if they back boycotts against the country is causing alarm among liberal American Jews and others who perceive an attempt to suppress critical political opinion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government has long campaigned against the Palestinian-led Boycott,......
As drugs flood into Gaza, Hamas getting tougher on smugglers
GAZA — Marijuana and prescription painkillers are flooding into the Gaza Strip as never before, prompting officials from the ruling faction Hamas to seek tougher punishments for smuggling drugs into the blockaded territory. The quantity of drugs seized in Gaza in January was as much as for the whole of 2016, officials said. Eight...
Obama transferred $221 million to Palestinian Authority in his final hours in office
January 26th, 20170 WASHINGTON — In his last hours in office, the Obama administration transferred $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that despite opposition from GOP members of Congress, officials say. A State Department official and several congressional aides told the Associated Press that the outgoing administration and former Secretary of......
Israel deliberately forgets its history
Every Israeli knows that he or she is the direct and exclusive descendant of a Jewish people which has existed since it received the Torah in Sinai. According to this myth, the Jews escaped from Egypt and settled in the Promised Land, where they built the glorious kingdom of David and Solomon, which subsequently split into the...Palestinian group considers end of two-state strategy
WASHINGTON An informal group of prominent Palestinian academics, politicians, entrepreneurs and activists has published a report that raises questions and offers solutions regarding Palestinian national strategy. It follows a growing sense of doubt that two decades of negotiations will culminate in an outcome fair to...
Israel pushes ahead with settlement expansion
September 6th, 20080 JERUSALEM (IPS) Israel has published tenders for the construction of 1,761 illegal housing units for Israeli settlers in occupied east Jerusalem alone, according to the Israeli rights group Peace Now. The expansion plans come despite promises by the Israeli government at last year's peace summit at Annapolis, Maryland (in the...
Free Gaza boats challenge Israel’s siege
August 29th, 20080 An international group of peace activists took on Israel's crushing siege of the Gaza Strip. After two years of organizing two ships to sail to Gaza's shores, the ships made their journey in defiance of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. The ships left with several Palestinians in need of medical treatment and others......
Illegal Israeli settlements get tax breaks
JERUSALEM (Reuters) The United States says Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threaten any peace between Israel and the Palestinians yet it also encourages Americans to help support settlers by offering tax breaks on donations. As Condoleezza Rice flew in on Monday for another round of peace talks, Israeli and American...Israel clears soldiers in killing of Palestinian journalist, youths
The Israeli government has announced it won't prosecute soldiers involved in the death of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana and eight Palestinian youths. The twenty-four-year-old Palestinian died on April 16 in Gaza when an Israeli tank shelled his vehicle clearly marked "press." Shana's final piece of footage shows the tank firing a......
Little hope of peace after Olmert
CAIRO (IPS) With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's recent resignation announcement, the self-proclaimed Jewish state is headed for new leadership. Egyptian commentators, though, entertain few hopes that Olmert's successor whoever he or she may be will temper Israel's hard-line approach to the peace process. "Israeli...Gaza and West Bank in muddied separation
RAMALLAH (IPS) Over a hundred Fatah fighters loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement fled to the West Bank from Gaza last week, fearing for their lives at the hands of Hamas, the Islamic movement which took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007 after it routed Fatah forces. The Fatah men barely managed to escape......
