Middle East Watch

475 Article

• Devouring Jerusalem

  27 March 2009, by Khalid Amayreh

  In its increasingly rabid efforts to consolidate control of traditionally Arab-East Jerusalem, Israel this week moved to suppress Palestinian cultural activities associated with the city being declared the capital of Arab culture for 2009.
  On 19 March heavily armed paramilitary police violently dispersed a meeting at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, confiscating posters, leaflets, placards and computers.
  Israeli police also raided schools, social clubs and community centres to (…)

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• Soldier says rabbis pushed "religious war" in Gaza

  20 March 2009, by Douglas Hamilton

  Rabbis in the Israeli army told battlefield troops in January’s Gaza offensive they were fighting a "religious war" against gentiles, according to one army commander’s account published on Friday.
  "Their message was very clear: we are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle, God brought us back to this land and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land," he said.
  The account by Ram, a pseudonym to shield the soldier’s (…)

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• U.N. urges Israel: halt Jerusalem demolition policy

  1 May 2009, by Douglas Hamilton

  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel should immediately stop evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in Arab East Jerusalem where thousands are threatened with displacement, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday.
  Statistics in a report from the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Affairs say some 1,500 demolition orders are pending for homes built without a permit from Israel’s Jerusalem Municipality in the east of the city.
  If the demolition orders were implemented, (…)

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• Obama and "Two States"

  30 April 2009, by Ellen Cantarow

  A false claim is wafting through the press: Obama is hanging tough with Benjamin Netanyahu, he’s going to “twist Israel’s arm” and at long last force the Jewish state into a two-state agreement, settling the Israel-Palestine question for good. There’s even talk that Obama backs the Arab League’s 2002 peace initiative, complete with its main demand: Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders.
  There’s no proof for any of this. Obama has said nothing about when, where, and with what boundaries a (…)

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• L’Onu somme Israël de cesser les démolitions à Jérusalem-Est

  1er mai 2009, par Douglas Hamilton

  Selon un rapport du Bureau des Nations unies pour les affaires humanitaires, 1.500 démolitions de maisons sont programmées dans la vieille ville arabe, officiellement parce qu’elles n’avaient pas bénéficié de permis de construire.
  Si ce plan, qui suscite des tensions intercommunautaires en ville, était mené à bien, ce serait quelque 9.000 Arabes qui seraient chassés de Jérusalem-Est, occupée et annexée par Israël à la faveur de la guerre de 1967.
  Les projets de démolition, qui ont l’aval (…)

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• La création d’un État palestinien minée par la poursuite de la colonisation en Cisjordanie

  28 avril 2009,

  La poursuite au rythme actuel de la colonisation israélienne en Cisjordanie occupée risque d’anéantir les chances de création d’un État palestinien aux côtés d’Israël, a mis en garde hier l’ONG israélienne Ir Amim. « Si la colonisation continue, il sera bientôt trop tard pour une solution au conflit basée sur deux États. Ce sera l’impasse absolue », a averti l’avocat Daniel Seidemann, à la tête de cette ONG, qui s’est spécialisée dans le suivi de la colonisation de la partie orientale de (…)

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• If I were a Palestinian

  27 avril 2009, par Akiva Eldar

  In a moment of candor, Ehud Barak once said : "If I were a Palestinian of the right age, I would join, at some point, one of the terrorist groups."
  If I were a Palestinian, of any age, I would declare an all-out war on all terrorist groups and fulfill the demand of the Jews to recognize the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Furthermore, as a present on the birthday of the Jewish people, as it completes 61 years of existence, I would announce that I also respect its (…)

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• Durban II, délire et désinformation

  22 avril 2009, par Alain Gresh

  Rarement une conférence des Nations unies aura donné lieu, en Occident, à une campagne aussi puissante de désinformation, de fantasmes et de mensonges.
  Libération, le 21 avril, titre à sa Une : « Un antisémite à l’ONU ». Avec, en explication : « Après le discours du président iranien, qui s’en est pris à Israël avec une rare violence, la conférence Durban II est mal partie ».
  Le président Ahmadinejad est un personnage peu recommandable. Il a fait des déclarations négationnistes. Il (…)

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• Ahmadinejad, time for a change of tactics?

  21 April 2009, by Mary Rizzo

  Every time I see Ahmadinejad go to speak at a forum, I start to put my hands in my hair. It is not that I disagree with the man, it’s simply that I can’t figure out why he has still not yet learned how the game works at least where the majority of the world’s power structure is located. It is enough for him to be announced as a visitor, be it at Columbia University, the UN General Assembly or an international forum on racism, and all the players line up to go through the motions. While his (…)

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• Ahmadinejad: “Read My Lips”

  21 April 2009, by Gilad Atzmon

  Once again I find myself saluting Iranian President Ahmadinejad, in full support of his words. No one could do better bringing to light European racial discriminatory sentiments.
  What we saw yesterday at the UN Anti Racism Forum was crude collective institutional Islamophobic racism in its making, a coordinated show of rabid western chauvinism. A bunch of European diplomats behaving as a herd of sheep, exhibiting complete denial of the notion of freedom of speech and the culture of debate. (…)

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