New Additions

 Beware of the BBC 
Stuart Littlewood, Redress - Stuart Littlewood highlights the BBC’s chronic pro-Israel bias, from allowing untruths about Israel’s onslaught on Gaza in 2008-09 to go unchallenged, to its failure to provide accurate context about the Israeli township of Sderot, to its routine willingness to give disproportionate airtime to Israeli spokesmen and lobbyists. more

 Ethan Bronner's Conflict With Impartiality 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Ethan Bronner is the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief. As such, he is the editor responsible for all the news coming out of Israel-Palestine. It is his job to decide what gets reported and what doesn’t; what goes in a story and what gets cut. more

 Noam Chomsky and the pro-Israel lobby: Fourteen erroneous theses 
James Petras - Noam Chomsky has been called the US leading intellectual by pundits and even some sectors of the mass media. He has a large audience throughout the world especially in academic circles, in large part because of his vocal criticism of US foreign policy and many of the injustices resulting from those policies. Chomsky has nonetheless been reviled by all of the major Jewish and pro-Israel organizations and media for his criticism of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians even as he has defended the existence of the Zionist state of Israel. more

 International law is clear: Israeli settlements are illegal 
Iain Scobbie, Los Angeles Times - Eric Rozenman's Dec. 11 Op-Ed article, "Israeli settlements are more than legitimate," is legal nonsense that disregards history. He is correct in his observation that Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine permitted "close settlement by Jews on the land, including state lands and waste lands not required for public purposes," but the conclusions he then draws are flatly wrong. more

 Calling Bono: Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist ... in Graves and Prisons 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - In your recent column in the New York Times, "Ten for the Next Ten," you wrote: "I’ll place my hopes on the possibility – however remote at the moment – that...people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi." Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories. more

 Impressions of Israeli Executions in the West Bank 
Vijay Raghavan - Much planning had gone into our family vacation in Israel-Palestine. We could spare only the last two weeks of 2009, and so had developed an uncompromising itinerary for each day, allowing a mere half-day to recover from jet lag from our trip from California. After devoting most of the first week to visiting holy places in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron and Jericho, we were, in the words of our 17-year-old, quite “churched out.” We are a typical American family in at least one regard: we have two other children (ages five and two), and we are all blessed with limited attention span. Absorbing detailed references to the Old and New Testaments in the places we visited was beyond our capabilities. Our hired tour guide and driver, Issa Habash, had long ago taken notice of our monumental ignorance and had given up on reciting chapter and verse from the Bible. more

 Documentary Video: Shooting the Messenger 
Al Jazeera English - This documentary on the deliberate killing and intimidation of journalists in conflict zones, examines how international reporters became targets. Watch Documentary

 A moment of truth: A word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian suffering 
We, a group of Christian Palestinians, after prayer, reflection and an exchange of opinion, cry out from within the suffering in our country, under the Israeli occupation, with a cry of hope in the absence of all hope, a cry full of prayer and faith in a God ever vigilant, in God’s divine providence for all the inhabitants of this land. Inspired by the mystery of God's love for all, the mystery of God’s divine presence in the history of all peoples and, in a particular way, in the history of our country, we proclaim our word based on our Christian faith and our sense of Palestinian belonging – a word of faith, hope and love. more

 The invisible government: Propaganda Disguised as Journalism 
John Pilger - In a speech in Chicago, John Pilger describes how propaganda has become such a potent force in our lives and, in the words of one of its founders, represents 'an invisible government'. more

 Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them  
Amiram Barkat, Haaretz - A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face. more

 Palestinian child pays price of Israel's siege 
Casey Kauffman, Al Jazeera - Firas Mazloom was born desperately ill in Gaza just as Israel started its siege on the impoverished Palestinian territory two years ago. Al Jazeera's Casey Kauffman reports on the race against time to save two-year-old Firas. WATCH

 Obama Administration Takes from American Farmers, Gives to Israel 
Alison Weir - At a time of financial crisis in the United States in which thousands of Americans have lost their jobs and homes, an Israeli news service reports that President Obama has just signed a presidential memo eliminating a tariff on Israel that protected American dairy farmers and that raised money for the American economy. more

 Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From Moldova to Palestine 
Alison Weir, Washington Report - In August Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing grisly evidence suggesting that Israel had been taking Palestinian internal organs. The article, by veteran photojournalist Donald Bostrom, called for an international investigation to discover the facts. more

 Michigan Public Radio Censoring Announcement on Palestine event 
If Americans Knew - Michigan Radio (WUOM 91.7), an affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR), is censoring a program announcement. The local chapter of the nonprofit organization If Americans Knew, whose mission is to inform Americans on topics of importance that are under reported or misreported in the American media, is attempting to place a paid announcement on the radio station. more

 Videos: Alison Weir on Organ Harvesting and Israel 
Divining the News - Three videos from an interview with Alison Weir discussing allegations of Israeli organ harvesting, the Israel lobby in the U.S., and her response to accusations of anti-Semitism. WATCH

 Israeli Organ Harvesting: The New "Blood Libel"? 
Alison Weir, CounterPunch - Last week Sweden’s largest daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years. more

Related Videos:

• Donald Bostrom Swedish Journalist on Israeli organ harvesting

• Donald Bostrom: Israeli Govt needs to read about democracy

• Brooklyn Rabbi Trafficking in Human Organs

• Alison Weir on Organ Harvesting and Israel

 UN probe in Gaza: Especially painful testimonies 
Ali Waked, YNet - Richard Goldstone and UN delegates hear testimonies of Gaza Strip residents as part of UN Human Rights Council's investigation of Operation Cast Lead. According to Goldstone, goal of hearing is to bring story of victims to world. more

 Inside Story - Collateral damage? 
Al Jazeera - Human rights watch group says Israeli spy srones killed Palestinian civilians during Gaza war. WATCH

 Precisely Wrong 
Human Rights Watch - During the recent fighting in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed dozens of Palestinian civilians with one of the most precise weapons in its arsenal: missiles launched from an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV)-the latter more commonly known as a drone. Alongside weapons that affect large areas, such as high explosive artillery and artillery-fired white phosphorous, Israeli forces in Gaza used drones in precisely targeted attacks that killed and wounded civilians. more

 AIPAC Bill will Destroy More American Jobs 
Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy - AIPAC legislated restrictions on US businesses and workers already cost 100,000 American jobs per year. New AIPAC legislation targeting Iran could lead to further jobs loss. more

 The End of Free Speech? Criminalizing Criticism of Israel 
Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch - On October 16, 2004, President George W. Bush signed the Israel Lobby’s bill, the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. This legislation requires the US Department of State to monitor anti-semitism world wide. To monitor anti-semitism, it has to be defined. What is the definition? Basically, as defined by the Israel Lobby and Abe Foxman, it boils down to any criticism of Israel or Jews. more

 Why Hamas is Not the Issue – Gaza: History Matters 
Elaine C. Hagopian, CounterPunch - How does one explain the horrific fate that has befallen caged Gaza – a land saturated with rubble and body parts – carpet-bombed by air, invaded by ground, attacked by sea? Put to the test of history, Israeli “explanations” fail the credibility test. more

 Is the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement Harming America? Myths Versus Facts 
IRMEP Press Release, Forbes.com - The US-Israel Free Trade Area (UIFTA) became law in 1985, but ongoing violations of American intellectual property rights and trade laws are fueling heavy losses of American jobs. As the US economy declines many are trying to separate myths from facts about America's first bilateral trade agreement. more

 Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Bar Ambulances 
Democracy Now! - Amer Shurrab is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis and a recent graduate of Vermont’s Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later. By then, it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father. Amer joins us to tell his story. WATCH

 Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines 
We have created a blog on this issue, Israel-Palestine: The Missing Headlines, containing daily news reports from diverse sources to augment mainstream US coverage. more

 Commentary: Saving Lives by Saving Money 
Alison Weir, The Gilmer Mirror Imagine you could help people abroad by keeping your money home. Imagine you could help bring peace to the Middle East, build a safer world and alleviate massive misery. Imagine you could begin to eliminate the requirement for long airport lines, the justification for frisking old ladies, the alleged need to discard our most cherished principles in a quest for ‘security’ against an ill-defined enemy. more

 VIDEO: USS Liberty Memorial - June 8, 2009 
Press TV - On the 42 year anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, survivors demand accountability and the TRUTH!! The following segment is dedicated in commemoration of the Americans who were killed at the hands of their friends or 'ally' more

 USS Liberty Remembered 42 Years Later 
Alison Weir - Today, the 42nd anniversary of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, a memorial service was held at Arlington National Cemetery, sponsored by the White House Commission on Remembrance. About 8 Liberty survivors were in attendance and a few dozen friends, family, and supporters. more

 Study: Israel leads in ignoring Security Council resolutions 
Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz - Israel holds the record for ignoring United Nations Security Council resolutions, according to a study by San Francisco University political science professor Steven Zunes. more

 UN Resolutions being violated by countries other than Iraq 
Stephen Zunes, ZNet - In its effort to justify its planned invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has emphasized the importance of enforcing UN Security Council resolutions. However, in addition to the dozen or so resolutions currently being violated by Iraq, a conservative estimate reveals that there are an additional 91 Security Council resolutions about countries other than Iraq that are also currently being violated. more

 Visalian receives Silver Star medal 
Lewis Griswold, Fresno Bee - The spy ship USS Liberty was sailing off the coast of Egypt on June 8, 1967, under clear skies when, without warning, Israeli military aircraft began strafing the ship with 20-caliber rounds, sending shrapnel everywhere and demolishing virtually every antenna on the ship. more

 Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism: Cheney Breaks the Taboo 
Ray McGovern, CounterPunch - If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters – or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz – it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent truth regarding the Israeli albatross hanging around the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East. more

 Draft Israeli Bill Would Ban Commemoration of Nakba 
Tobias Buck, Financial Times - The draft bill would make it a criminal offence – punishable by up to three years in prison – for Israeli citizens to mark the “Nakba”. The term means catastrophe, and is used by Palestinians to describe the year of Israel’s foundation, when between 700,000 and 800,000 of them fled or were expelled by advancing Israeli troops. It is commemorated every year on May 15, and involves demonstrations and marches to destroyed Palestinian villages inside Israel. more

 Nakba - Not a Dirty Word 
Amaya Galili, YNet, Translation from Hebrew: Charles KamenJVoices.com - “Where will you be for the holiday? Are you going to the celebrations in town? To a picnic in the Carmel Forest? It’s really beautiful there! Won’t you come? Everyone’s going.” A few years ago I would have joined them; a picnic out in the country – what could be wrong with that? But something changed. People around me are celebrating, but I’m not. more

 The Death of Bassem Abu Rahme 
Frank Barat, Palestine Chronicle - As it usually happens, as soon as the march reached the corner where the Israeli soldiers can be seen, the tear gas started. A few brave ones continued anyway and reached the beginning of the wall, after a few minutes. Bassem, as usual, was one of those. The Israelis, present at the front of the demonstration started talking with the nearby soldiers in Hebrew and Bassem too, screamed “We are in a non violent protest, there are kids and internationals...”. He was shot in the chest and never managed to finish his sentence. He fell on the floor, moved a little bit, fell again, and died. more

 VIDEO: Nonviolent Protest in Bil'in on April 17, 2009; Bassem Abu Rahme is Killed 
Demonstration by village of Bil'in Friday April 17th 2009, Bassem Ibrahim abu-Rakhma ('Phil") mortally wounded. more

 The Cost of Israel to the American Public 
Richard Curtiss, Speech at the Al Hewar Center for Arab Culture and Dialogue - By now many Americans are aware that Israel, with a population of only 5.8 million people, is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and that Israel’s aid plus U.S. aid to Egypt’s 65 million people for keeping the peace with Israel has, for many years, consumed more than half of the U.S. bi-lateral foreign aid budget world-wide. more

 Guest Opinion in The Oregonian: The truth about Israel 
Alison Weir - In his op-ed "If there were no Israel," Edward Glick asks what the Middle East would look like if Israel had never existed. Instead of answering this, however, he simply gives his own xenophobic distortion of the region today. Worse still, he doesn't explore how many of the region's real woes are attributable to Israel's violent creation 60 years ago and of its actions since. more

 Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009  
Uri Blau, Haaretz - The office at the Adiv fabric-printing shop in south Tel Aviv handles a constant stream of customers, many of them soldiers in uniform, who come to order custom clothing featuring their unit's insignia, usually accompanied by a slogan and drawing of their choosing. Elsewhere on the premises, the sketches are turned into plates used for imprinting the ordered items, mainly T-shirts and baseball caps, but also hoodies, fleece jackets and pants. A young Arab man from Jaffa supervises the workers who imprint the words and pictures, and afterward hands over the finished product. more

 As US arms shipment reaches Israel, President Obama urged to halt further exports 
Amnesty International - The new delivery to Israel of a massive consignment of US munitions, revealed by Amnesty International today, throws into question whether President Obama will act to prevent the US fuelling further Israeli attacks against civilians that may amount to war crimes, as were perpetrated in Gaza. more

 New Section: U.S. President Barack Obama: Pressure Groups, Advisors, and More 
We have received numerous queries about President Obama’s likely policies on Israel-Palestine. In this section are some of the best articles we’ve found giving important background on this subject. A particularly interesting piece – and one of the least known – was in the Chicago Jewish News: ‘Obama and the Jews’. more

 US Envoy Writes of Israeli Threats 
Barbara Crossette, The Nation - In the wake of the accusation by Chas Freeman that his nomination to lead the National Intelligence Council was derailed by an "Israeli lobby," a forthcoming memoir by another distinguished ambassador adds stunning new charges to the debate. The ambassador, John Gunther Dean, writes that over the years he not only came under pressure from pro-Israeli groups and officials in Washington but also was the target of an Israeli-inspired assassination attempt in 1980 in Lebanon, where he had opened links to the Palestine Liberation Organization. more

 Chas Freeman and the imaginary Lobby 
Stephen J. Sniegoski - In the Washington Post for March 12, an editorial adamantly rejects as a crackpot "conspiracy theory" the allegation that the Israel Lobby was behind the attacks on Charles W. ("Chas") Freeman Jr.'s appointment to chair the National Intelligence Council. However, on the front page of the very same issue, an article by Walter Pincus cites the groups and individuals who successfully worked to prevent Freeman from taking the job – AIPAC spokesman Josh Block, former AIPAC lobbyist Steve Rosen (indicted for espionage on behalf of Israel), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Zionist Organization of America (harder-line than AIPAC), Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard, and Jonathan Chait and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. Anyone with a functioning brain can see the pattern – it was a smear campaign orchestrated by the Israel Lobby. more

 Israel on Trial 
George Bisharat, New York Times - Chilling testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While Israel disputes some of the soldiers’ accounts, the evidence suggests that Israel committed the following six offenses: more

 Changing the rules of war 
George Bisharat, San Francisco Chronicle - The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." more

 Consent and advise  
Yotam Feldman and Uri Blau , Haaretz - On the first day of Operation Cast Lead, the air force bombed the graduation ceremony of a police course, killing dozens of policemen. Months earlier, an operational and legal controversy was already swirling around the planned attack. According to a military source who was involved in the planning, bombing the site of the ceremony was authorized with no difficulty, but questions were raised about the intent to strike at the graduates of the course. Military Intelligence, convinced the attack was justified, pressed for its implementation. Representatives of the international law division (ILD) in the Military Advocate General's Office at first objected, fearing a possible violation of international law. more

 Israeli army rabbis criticized for stance on Gaza assault 
Richard Boudreaux , Los Angeles Times - The winter assault on the Gaza Strip was officially portrayed in Israel as an attempt to quell rocket fire by militants of Hamas. But some soldiers say they also were lectured about a more ambitious aim: to banish non-Jews from the biblical land of Israel. more

 IDF rabbinate publication during Gaza war: We will show no mercy on the cruel  
Amos Harel, Haaretz - During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the religious media - and on two occasions, the Israel Defense Forces weekly journal Bamahane - were full of praise for the army rabbinate. The substantial role of religious officers and soldiers in the front-line units of the IDF was, for the first time, supported also by the significant presence of rabbis there. more

 'Shooting and crying' 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - Less than a month after the end of Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, dozens of graduates of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military preparatory program convened at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon. Since 1998 the program has prepared participants for what is considered meaningful military service. Many assume command positions in combat and other elite units of the Israel Defense Forces. The program's founder, Danny Zamir, still heads it today and also serves as deputy battalion commander in a reserve unit. more

 Israelis fashion T-shirts depicting Gaza killings 
Al Jazeera - The Israeli military has condemned as "unacceptable" t-shirts worn by soldiers depicting the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The shirts came into fashion following disclosures that soldiers who took part in Israel's military offensive in Gaza complained about rules of engagement allowing them to kill civilians and destroy property. WATCH

 Confirmed figures reveal the true extent of the destruction inflicted upon the Gaza Strip; Israel’s offensive resulted in 1,417 dead, including 926 civilians, 255 police officers, and 236 fighters 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - The Israeli offensive launched on the Gaza Strip between 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 resulted in extensive death, injury and destruction throughout the Gaza Strip. Only now is the true extent of the devastation becoming apparent. more

 Sderot Built on Ashes of Ethnically Cleansed and Defaced Najd 
Um Khalil Blog - We often hear about Palestinian rockets hitting the Israeli town of Sderot. What is often left out of these reports is that these rockets almost never kill or injure anyone, and only rarely cause damage. In addition, as this article describes, Sderot was built on the remains of a Palestinian town that had been ethnically cleansed by Israel’s founders in 1948. more

 3 Videos: Guardian investigation uncovers evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza 
Clancy Chassay and Julian Borger, The Guardian of London - The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals. A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target. WATCH and read more

 Parents of critically injured US peace activist demand justice from Israel 
Rory McCarthy, Guardian of London - The parents of an American peace activist who was severely injured by Israeli forces at a demonstration in the occupied West Bank called on the Israeli government today to take "full responsibility" for the shooting. more

 Breaking the Taboo on Israel's Spying Efforts on the United States 
Christopher Ketcham, AlterNet - Israel runs one of the most aggressive and damaging espionage networks targeting the U.S., yet public discussion about it is almost nil. more

 IDF in Gaza: Killing civilians, vandalism, and lax rules of engagement 
Amos Harel, Haaretz - During Operation Cast Lead, Israeli forces killed Palestinian civilians under permissive rules of engagement and intentionally destroyed their property, say soldiers who fought in the offensive. more

 Press Release, Updates, & Video: American citizen critically injured after being shot in the head by Israeli forces in Ni’lin 
International Solidarity Movement - Friday, 13 March 2009, Ni’lin Village: An American citizen has been critically injured in the village of Ni’lin after Israeli forces shot him in the head with a tear-gas canister. more

 Democracy Now! Video: US Consul General Says Awaiting Israeli Report on IDF Shooting of American Citizen 
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! - An American activist from Oakland, California was critically injured Friday when Israeli soldiers fired a tear gas canister directly at his head at the close of a weekly nonviolent protest against the wall in the West Bank village of N’alin. Thirty-seven-year-old Tristan Anderson underwent brain surgery on Saturday, and parts of his right frontal lobe and shattered bone fragments were removed. He remains in critical condition. We go to the hospital in Tel Aviv to speak with Anderson’s partner, Gabrielle Silverman, and to Andrew Parker, the US Consul General in Tel Aviv. more

 Monthly Summary of Israeli Violations: 01 January 2009 - 31 January 2009 
Palestinian Monitoring Group - During the month of January 2009, the Israeli army killed 785 Palestinians, including 5 in the West Bank and 780 in the Gaza Strip. The majority of Palestinians killed were in the Gaza Strip. As a result of attacks and air attacks waged during the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip districts, scores of children, women, and elderly civilians were killed. Corpses were also extricated from under the rubble of destroyed houses and buildings. Of those killed were 283 children; 101 female civilians; 92 elderly civilians; 12 medics; 16 civilians from the same family; and 4 journalists. more

 Statement of Joel Kovel Regarding his Termination by Bard College 
Joel Kovel - In January, 1988, I was appointed to the Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies at Bard College. As this was a Presidential appointment outside the tenure system, I have served under a series of contracts. The last of these was half-time (one semester on, one off, with half salary and full benefits year-round), effective from July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2009. On February 7 I received a letter from Michèle Dominy, Dean of the College, informing me that my contract would not be renewed this July 1 and that I would be moved to emeritus status as of that day. She wrote that this decision was made by President Botstein, Executive Vice-President Papadimitriou and herself, in consultation with members of the Faculty Senate. more

 Hammad’s death barely made the news 
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights - On the 14 of February 2009, almost a month after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, thirteen year old Hammad Silmiya was grazing his sheep and goats in northeast Gaza, about 500 metres from the border with Israel. An Israeli military jeep patrolling the border opened fire on him and his teenage friends. Hammad was shot in the head and he died almost instantly. more

 Alternate View of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 
Alison Weir, The Hillsboro Argus - Eight years ago I shared the typical American's lack of information on Israel-Palestine. I had watched "Exodus," was sympathetic to Israel and horrified at the Holocaust. I knew little about Palestinians beyond what I read in newspapers and saw on TV. more

 Statement on Access 
Joe Donnelly, Permanent Delegate to the United Nations - ACCESS ACCESS ACCESS. One word which makes extraordinary difference for everyone's life in Gaza, as well as everyone outside Gaza seeking to provide normal, as well as heightened, emergency assistance to the 1.5 million Palestinian people surviving that extraordinarily densely populated sliver of land on the Mediterranean coast, adjacent to Israel at the Eretz border crossing. more

 Human Rights Watch Goes to War 
Mouin Rabbani, Middle East Report - The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States. The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. In the case of Israel such organizations also face a powerful and influential domestic constituency, which often extends to senior echelons of such organizations, for whom forthright condemnation of Israel is anathema. more

 A month on from Gaza ceasefire up to 100,000 people remain homeless 
Save The Children - At least 100,000 people, including up to 56,000 children, remain displaced with many continuing to take shelter in tents or crowding into remaining homes with other families, one month since the Gaza ceasefire was declared. more

 Now I've Seen Everything: A spy goes to work for a thinktank 
Justin Raimondo, AntiWar.com - Of course there's nothing all that unusual about a spy going to work for a Washington thinktank. Ex-CIA employees do it all the time: so do all sorts of other spooks, who would otherwise be haunting the world's darkest corners. No big deal. But what I've never seen, and don't recall ever hearing about, is the spectacle of a spy for a foreign country being hired by any organization that hopes to influence U.S. foreign policy. Well, here's one for the record books: the Middle East Forum has hired Steve Rosen, once the head of policy development for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosen is accused of stealing highly classified information from the U.S. government and passing it on to Israeli government officials. more

 Understanding the Crisis in Gaza: Important Facts and Context about the Recent Violence 
If Americans Knew - Read or download this fact sheet containing historical context, specific facts about the recent crisis in Gaza, and important statistics. more

 Killing Palestinians doesn't count: Is a ceasefire breached only when an Israeli is killed? 
Alison Weir, Poynter.org - On January 27th media headlines trumpeted that Palestinians had broken the latest cease-fire: a bomb had killed one Israeli soldier and injured two or three. Virtually every media outlet reported this action as a major breach in the ceasefire that had begun on January 18th: Associated Press, CNN, Fox News, CBS, the New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times, the McClatchy Newspapers, etc, all pinned the resumption of violence on Palestinians. There's just one problem. Israeli forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times. more

 BBC chief holds peace talks in Jerusalem with Ariel Sharon 
Guy Adams, The Independent - The BBC is often accused of an anti-Israeli bias in its coverage of the Middle East, and recently censured reporter Barbara Plett for saying she "started to cry" when Yasser Arafat left Palestine shortly before his death. Fascinating, then, to learn that its director general, Mark Thompson, has recently returned from Jerusalem, where he held a face-to-face meeting with the hardine Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. more

 Israel Violated Cease-fire 7 Times: US Media Misreport Latest Gaza Violence 
If Americans Knew - American media are reporting violence that took place along the Gaza-Israel border on January 27th as, in the words of CNN, "the first incidents of violence since last week's Mideast cease-fire," telling the public that Palestinians broke the ceasefire. The reality, however, is that Israel had already violated the cease-fire at least 7 times, the Israeli military killing 2 Palestinian civilians and injuring at least 5, at least one of them a child. more

 Gaza invasion: Powered by the U.S. 
Robert Bryce, Salon.com - Taxpayers are spending over $1 billion to send refined fuel to the Israeli military -- at a time when Israel doesn't need it and America does. more

 UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza 
Sir Gerald Kaufman, Labour Member of UK Parliament - was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine. WATCH

 UK Press bias towards Israeli Ambassador 
Peter Tatchnell - The London-based press watchdog, Arab Media Watch (AMW), has produced research demonstrating that British press reporting of the Middle East conflict has massively favoured the Israeli Ambassador to the almost complete exclusion of the Palestinian Ambassador. more

 Family members die in Israeli house demolition 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - Israeli forces demolished the house of the Sammouni family in Gaza City after ordering them to remain in it for safety. WATCH

 Gaza Is a Concentration Camp 
Ellen Cantarow, AlterNet - One Israeli official promised a holocaust in Gaza; it is impossible to keep pace with the death toll. more

 Bomb a Ghetto, Raise a Cheer 
Max Blumenthal, Alternet - Pro-Israel Rally Attended by Big-Time NY Dems Descends into Obscene Calls for 'Wiping Out' Palestinians. WATCH

 Dennis Kucinich on Israeli use of American Weapons 
C-Span - We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with U.S. weapons being illegally used to kill children. WATCH

 Aftermath of attacks on Tar El Hawa district 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera - The Tar El Hawa neighbourhood has been the scene of particularly heavy fighting. Red Crescent facilities, a hospital and residential apartment blocks were among the buildings hit by the Israeli bombardment. WATCH

 How Israel's Propaganda Machine Works 
James Zogby - As in past Mideast conflicts, both the media story line and political commentary here in the U.S. has closely followed Israel's talking points on the war. This has been an essential component in Israel's early success and in its ability to prolong fighting without U.S. pushback. Because it recognizes the importance of the propaganda war, Israel fights on this front as vigorously and disproportionately as it engages on the battlefield. more

 Is "pundit" actually Israeli military officer? 
Alison Weir - CNN, CBS and others use an analyst who appears to be in the foreign military on which he is commenting and yet don't divulge this fact. more

 Reigniting Violence: How Do Ceasefires End? 
Nancy Kanwisher, Johannes Haushofer, & Anat Biletzki, Huffington Post - “As Israel and Palestine suffer a hideous new spasm of terror, misery, and mayhem, it is important to ask how this situation came about. Perhaps an understanding of recent events will afford lessons for the future. more

 Israel: Stop Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza 
Human Rights Watch - “White phosphorous can burn down houses and cause horrific burns when it touches the skin. Israel should not use it in Gaza’s densely populated areas.” more

 Respected Human Rights Group: 85% of Palestinians Killed in Gaza are Civilians 
Jennifer Loewenstein - Here are some newsworthy items out of Gaza that are unlikely to be making it to the Western presses. I received this information directly from one of the staff of the Mezan Center for Human Rights about twenty minutes ago. more

 Rebuttal of Senate Resolution 
Rebuilding Alliance - The following is a point-by-point rebuttal of the US Senate’s resolution supporting Israel passed on January 8th. The House of Representatives passed a virtually identical resolution on January 9th. more

 How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe 
Avi Shlaim, The Guardian of London - Oxford professor of international relations Avi Shlaim served in the Israeli army and has never questioned the state's legitimacy. But its merciless assault on Gaza has led him to devastating conclusions. more

 Gaza: ICRC demands urgent access to wounded as Israeli army fails to assist wounded Palestinians 
International Committee of the Red Cross - On the afternoon of 7 January, four Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) managed to obtain access for the first time to several houses in the Zaytun neighbourhood of Gaza City that had been affected by Israeli shelling. The ICRC had requested safe passage for ambulances to access this neighbourhood since 3 January but it only received permission to do so from the Israeli Defence Forces during the afternoon of 7 January. The ICRC/PRCS team found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses. more

 Children make up third of Gaza dead 
Agence France Presse - Almost a third of the 689 Palestinians killed in Israel's Gaza offensive are children, with most killed since the start of a ground offensive after a week of aerial bombardment, medics say. more

 Palestinians Will Never Forget 
Susan Abulhawa - How can anyone watching Gaza burn escape the bitter realization that history repeats itself? Many have compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Apartheid South Africa. But not in their cruelest hour did the Apartheid regime wreak such wanton murder and destruction. Let us stop mincing words. What is happening to Palestinians now whispers of Warsaw and Lodz. more

 Israeli strikes hit UN schools 
Roza Ibragimova, Al Jazeera - The United Nations has called for an independent investigation after a third UN school has been hit by an Israeli strike, killing 40 people and injuring 45. It's the third strike on a UN school in the last 24 hours, as Al Jazeera's Roza Ibragimova reports. WATCH

 CNN Finally Confirms Israel Broke Ceasefire First 
Rick Sanchez, CNN - Rick Sanchez does the research and finds that Israel violated the terms of the ceasefire first by killing 6 Gazans on November 4. Shouldn't media outlets check the facts before running with a story? WATCH

 Gazans flee homes and seek refuge in UN schools 
Sherine Tadros, Al Jazeera English - As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsens, many families are being displaced. About 13,000 people have fled their homes because of Israel's continuing assault on Gaza. Many lived on the outskirts of the Strip and are now in Gaza City, staying at UN schools that have been turned into makeshift shelters. WATCH

 Gazan father mourns death of baby 
Al Jazeera English - Al Jazeera obtained this account from a Palestinian father whose seven-month-old child has just been killed in the conflict. WATCH

 More children killed as war on Gaza continues 
Mohammed Vall, Al Jazeera English - The assault on Gaza is now into its tenth day. As the death and injury toll continues to rise hospitals are becoming increasingly overwhelmed. Israel however insists there is not a humanitarian crisis. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 1 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Inside story - What is next for Gaza? - Part 2 
Al Jazeera English - The Israeli army has entered Gaza from five different positions almost all around the Strip. Tanks were reported to be in battles around Gaza City and the northern towns of Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. WATCH

 Delicate EU-Gaza Diplomacy 
Jonah Hull, Al Jazeera English - With Israel's ground offensive into Gaza has come accelerated diplomacy to end the conflict. The Czech government is the new head of the European Union - but it did not get off to the best start. Jonah Hull reports. WATCH

 Videos about the Dec 2008 - Jan 2009 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of videos on the December 2008 - January 2009 attack on Gaza. more

 Statement of the President of the 63rd Session of th UN General Assembly 
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, Ma’an News - The behavior by Israel in bombarding Gaza is simply the commission of wanton aggression by a very powerful state against a territory that it illegally occupies. more

 Israel claims success in the PR war 
Anshel Pfeffer, The Jewish Chronicle - The Gaza attack is the first major demonstration of Israel’s total overhaul of its ‘hasbara’ operation following the Second Lebanon War. While the military aspects of the operation were meticulously planned, a new forum of press advisers was also established which has been working for the past six months on a PR strategy specifically geared to dealing with the media during warfare in Gaza. more

 Gaza and the world: Will anything change? 
Ramzy Baroud, Ma’an News - In times of crisis, most Arabs tune in to Al-Jazeera television. Sometimes it’s comforting for the truth to be stated the way it is, with all of its gory and unsettling details, without blemishes and without censorship. When Israel carried out massive air strikes against Gaza on Saturday, 27 December, terrorizing an already hostage and malnourished population, I too tuned in to Al-Jazeera. more

 Molten Lead 
Uri Avnery, Ma’an News - Just after midnight Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel was reporting on events in Gaza. Suddenly the camera was pointing upwards towards the dark sky. The screen was pitch black. Nothing could be seen, but there was a sound to be heard: the noise of airplanes, a frightening, a terrifying droning. more

 Analysis: Operation Cast Lead extends a war doomed to fail 
Editorial, Ma’an News - Israel’s offensive in Gaza has not, and will not, achieve its stated goals. Either the goals are different from what has been stated publically, or the military establishment has backed itself into a corner and has no option other than proceeding with a course doomed to failure. more

 Gazans face ‘humanitarian crisis’ as Israeli raids intensify 
Kim Sengupta, The Independent - After six days of Israeli bombardment, aid agencies say that Gazans are facing a humanitarian crisis with air strikes causing severe problems in getting food, medicine and fuel supplies to the besiegedcivilian population. more

 The Facts about Israel’s War on Gaza 
Adam Sheets - It is crucial that one has her/his facts straight about Israel’s war on Gaza. What events brought about this dreadful situation? What needs to be done to make it stop? These questions will be answered in the content of this article, using concrete facts from a variety of news sources. more

 Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’ 
Chris Hedges, TruthDig - Israel’s siege of Gaza, largely unseen by the outside world because of Jerusalem’s refusal to allow humanitarian aid workers, reporters and photographers access to Gaza, rivals the most egregious crimes carried out at the height of apartheid by the South African regime. It comes close to the horrors visited on Sarajevo by the Bosnian Serbs. It has disturbing echoes of the Nazi ghettos of Lodz and Warsaw. more

 Gaza children too scared to step outside 
Mohammed Dawwas, The Independent - You can tell those moving about Gaza City by the mattresses on the car roofs. The streets are mostly deserted but some people are shifting from one house to another, trying to guess where the bombs might land and put distance between themselves and possible targets. Others are heading to the bakeries where there are long queues for bread. There is wreckage everywhere. more

 Five sisters killed in Gaza while they slept 
Donald Macintyre and Said Ghazali, The Independent - The five Palestinian sisters were fast asleep when a night-time Israeli airstrike hit the next-door mosque in Gaza. One of the walls collapsed on to their small asbestos-roofed home and they were all killed in their beds. The eldest sister, Tahrir, was 17 years old, the youngest, Jawaher, just four. more

 Statement by Prof. Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories 
United Nations Human Rights Council - The Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip represent severe and massive violations of international humanitarian law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, both in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war. more

 Bloodied in Gaza 
Laila El-Haddad, Guardian - Silently, the world watches. And silently, governments plotted: how shall we make the clouds rain death on to Gaza? more

 December 2008 Attack on Gaza 
This section contains a number of articles on the December 2008 attack on Gaza. more