Memorial on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre

First it was the ABC, now senator has new target
Jason Koutsoukis, October 22, 2006
KEY Howard loyalists are set to launch a scathing attack on multicultural broadcaster SBS and force it to answer accusations of blatant left-wing bias.

Influential Victorian Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson will lead the assault on SBS and its executives at a special Senate estimates hearing next week.

He singled out SBS's coverage of the recent Hezbollah-Israel conflict as one of the most appalling examples of biased reporting he had ever seen. "Their commentary on international events, particularly the conflict between Lebanon and Israel, just displayed a clear lack of impartiality and completely lacked any balance whatsoever," Senator Ronaldson said.

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Israel's scandalous siege of Gaza
Patrick Seale, October 27, 2006
The situation is all the more urgent because, according to reports from Israel, something bigger and still more lethal is in prospect. Fresh from the indiscriminate slaughter they unleashed on Lebanon this summer - and no doubt eager to efface the memory of that fiasco - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and the chief of staff, General Dan Halutz, are said to be about to mount a military offensive against Gaza, on a far larger scale than the bombardments and armored incursions of recent months.

"What We Did Was Insane and Monstrous"
Israel's Cluster Bomb War
Saree Makdisi, October 23, 2006
When the count of unexploded cluster bomblets passed 100,000, the United Nation's undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland, expressed his disbelief at the scale of the problem. "What's shocking and, I would say to me, completely immoral," he said, "is that 90% of the cluster-bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we really knew there would be an end of this."

Mystery Of Israel's Secret Uranium Bomb
Robert Fisk, 28 October 2006
Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

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Israel's Minister of Strategic Threats
Jonathan Cook, October 25, 2006
The furore that briefly flared this week at the decision of Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, to invite Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beiteinu party into the government coalition is revealing, but not in quite the way many observers assume.

Lieberman to power
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 16 October 2006
Peace-seekers should support the move to bring Avigdor Lieberman into the government. It is impossible to understand the opposition of several Labor party ministers to having Yisrael Beitenu join the government after all, just what precisely are they afraid will happen? That Israel will embark on an unnecessary war? That the settlement enterprise will be reinforced? That the government will reject Syria's peace proposal? That racism toward Arab citizens of Israel will increase, or that the occupation army will be cruel to the Palestinians?

An empty car
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 22.10.06

Labor accepts inclusion of ultra-nationalist in Israeli government

Hamas touts 10-year ceasefire to break deadlock over Israel
Ewen MacAskill and Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, November 1, 2006
Hamas is urging Britain to back its proposal for a ceasefire of up to 10 years as a way of breaking the impasse over its refusal to recognise the state of Israel.

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Ramallah Friends School Hit by Denial of Entry Policy
Paul D. Pierce, Quaker International Affairs Representative - Jerusalem
October 2006
When Renee Bowyer left Ramallah for Jordan at the beginning of October, she thought she would spend a couple of days in Amman, Jordan and return to teaching English at The Friends School in Ramallah the following week. Unfortunately, when she tried to re-enter Israel and renew her three-month visa at the Allenby Bridge in the middle of October, she was denied entry. Her 7th grade students at the Friends School would have to do without their teacher as a result. Bowyer, who holds an Australian passport, joins hundreds and perhaps thousands of foreign passport holders who have been denied entry as a result of a new Israeli policy.

Not Only the Right to Worship is Sacred
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 25 October 2006
During the past two weeks, there has been fresh proof of the importance of collective struggle: The U.S. State Department has complained about the ethnic discrimination Israel practices at border crossings when it restricts the entry of American citizens of Palestinian and Arab origin into the occupied territories. An American complaint like this - though only against one of the aspects of the policy of oppressing Palestinian freedom of movement - is a rare thing.

Even Palestinian-Americans are being turned back at the border
Amira Hass, Haaretz, 18.10.06

Keepers of the Peace
Rima Merriman, 24 October 2006

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Art of resistance
October 21 2006, The Guardian
Ahdaf Soueif on how Palestinians are reaching out across the globe creatively

Book Review: The Persistence of the Palestinian Question
Sally Bland, 26 October 2006
Taking stock over a decade later, it is obvious that the pragmatic approach was not at all pragmatic, for it failed miserably. Far from ushering in peace, the Oslo accords paved the way for Israel to grab more land and tighten its control over Palestinian lives. Massad doesn't waste time bemoaning this outcome, but rather seeks the roots of the problem, delving into awkward corners that most prefer to ignore.

Dems Repudiate Carter Book
"Top Democrats are rushing to repudiate former President Carter's controversial new book on the Middle East, in which he accuses the Israeli government of maintaining an apartheid system. Two key party leaders - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, party chairman, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi - and several congressmen issued statements Monday saying that the book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," does not represent their views on the Jewish state."

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Settlements grow on Arab land, despite vow to U.S.
Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent
A secret, two year investigation by the defense establishment shows that there has been rampant illegal construction in dozens of settlements and in many cases involving privately owned Palestinian properties.

The information in the study was presented to two defense ministers, Amir Peretz and his predecessor Shaul Mofaz, but was not released in public and a number of people participating in the investigations were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements.

According to security sources familiar with the study, the material is "political and diplomatic dynamite." In conversations with Haaretz, the sources maintained that the report is not being made public in order to avoid a crisis with the U.S. government.

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Tel Rumeida Diary: The Israeli Idea of "Quiet"
Mary, October 14th, 2006
This is the "quiet" of the Israeli army. The settlers, no matter how badly they behave or how unreasonable their demands, are always put first. The Palestinians, no matter how conciliatory they are, always come last.

Olive Harvest in Tel Rumeida under Threat from Settlers
H has experienced continual harassment from the settlers who want to force him out and occupy his house and land. They have put razor wire across a path so that he cannot access a safer way to his home and have built their own steps down onto this land so that they can work it themselves. One of the main people responsible for this is a woman who recently moved to the Tel Rumeida settlement after having been evicted from the settlements in Gaza.

Israeli barrier and settlement to leave West Bank village with nowhere to go
Rory McCarthy in Wadi Fukin
Monday October 30, 2006
Land confiscation and pollution threaten future of ancient farming community

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Twilight Zone / Loss upon loss
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, 20.10.06
Mohammed was 53 years old; Ismail was 27 and Hanan was 15. Their only crime, according to the evidence, was that they emerged from their house in the middle of the night, frightened by the thunder of the shell or missile that landed on their house. And then the soldiers standing in the street fired at them, killing them one after the other.

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MEMORIAL on the 50th Anniversary of the Kafr Qasem Massacre
Fifty years ago, on October 29, 1956, 49 Palestinian residents of Kafr Qasem were murdered by Israeli border police who at that time were officially attached to the military. Countless more were wounded and left bleeding and unattended. Their families were unable to offer aid because of a 24 hour curfew lasting for some two days and three nights. Violation of the curfew was punishable by death.

For Arabs Only: Israeli Law and Order
Jonathan Cook, June 14, 2006
Arab citizens have not forgotten the massacre of 49 men, women and children by a unit of soldiers who enforced a last-minute curfew on the Israeli village of Kfar Qassem in 1956, executing the villagers -- Arabs, of course -- at the checkpoint one by one as they innocently returned home from a day's work in the fields. During their trial, the Haaretz newspaper reported that the soldiers received a 50 per cent pay increase and that it was obvious the men were "not treated as criminals but as heroes". Found guilty of an "administrative error", the commander was given a one penny fine.