SAN FRANCISCO — In a major win for Palestinian human rights and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS), the popular apartment-rental website Airbnb has announced plans to remove all listings in the Israeli-occupied West Bank that serve illegal Jewish settlers.
Susiya village, overlooking neighbouring mountains in South Khalil. (Photo: Robert Inlakesh)
Robert Inlakesh
21st Century Wire
The Greek Orthodox Church has been plunged into a renewed crisis in the Holy Land as its leaders are accused of selling off land to extremist Jewish settlers in prime locations in Jerusalem's Old City. Hundreds of Palestinians rallied in the city to call for the removal of Patriarch Theophilos III, claiming that he had colluded with a settler organisation.
Israeli settler children are trained on how to use weapons. (Photo: Safa.ps)
Children of Israeli settlers of primary school age were subject to weapons training at a summer camp inside an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli daily reported on Saturday.
Yale College Republican officers during the barbecue (Photo: Facebook)
Last week, campus union organizers at Yale University gathered in a tent outside University President Peter Salovey’s home. The eight-member group was participating in a hunger strike in response to Yale’s unwillingness to negotiate a contract with its graduate teachers.
Israel is to hold lavish celebrations over the coming weeks to mark the 50th anniversary of the occupation. The jubilee is a potent reminder that for Israelis, most of whom have never known a time before the occupation, Israel’s rule over the Palestinians seems as irreversible as the laws of nature. But the extravagance of the festivities also underscores the growth of Israel’s self-assurance as an occupier.
Israeli forces take position during clashes with Palestinian worshippers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City on Oct. 5, 2012.(AP/Mahmoud Illean)
With severe restrictions imposed on Muslims trying to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque, extremist Jewish settlers yesterday raided the Noble Sanctuary protected by a heavy Israeli police presence, Safa news agency has reported.
The choice of US ambassador to Israel has never before incurred such scrutiny or provoked such controversy. David Friedman's confirmation by the Senate's foreign relations committee last week followed a petition signed by tens of thousands of American Jews opposing his nomination. Major Jewish organisations and hundreds of rabbis also objected. But then, Donald Trump's envoy to Israel is no ordinary ambassador.
Some 17 Palestinian municipalities in the occupied West Bank have petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court to strike down a new law that retroactively sanctions the theft of their lands by settlers. Lawyers representing the villages have in the meantime asked the court to impose an immediate freeze on the so-called Regulation Law, passed by the Israeli parliament on Monday night.
The Israeli parliament passed the legalisation law on Monday night – a piece of legislation every bit as suspect as its title suggests. The law widens the powers of Israeli officials to seize the last fragments of Palestinian land in the West Bank that were supposed to be off-limits.
Palestinian leaders warned that the law hammered the last nail in the coffin of a two-state solution. Government ministers gleefully agreed. For them, this is the extension of Israeli law into the West Bank and the first step towards its formal annexation.
