Jerusalem

The Middle East is Heating Up — Again: An Interview with Richard Falk (with C.J. Polychroniou)
 

The ‘deal of the century’ is a farce. We suspected that, of course, but, upon his return from Washington, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, revealed in more detail why the long-anticipated plan of the administration of US President Donald Trump has no basis in reality.

The ‘usual suspects’ have again tried to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the UK Labour party and damage his prospects of becoming prime minister by firing another anti-Semitism broadside.
They are the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Jewish Leadership Council, members of various Friends of Israel and assorted Israel lobby dogsbodies and flag wavers including Tony Blair.

Palestine Chronicle | March 22, 2018 Under a recently enacted law, Israel’s Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has expressed his intentions to strip the residency status of 12 Palestinians in Jerusalem, accusing them of being involved in “terror”. Four of the 12 are elected Parliamentarians affiliated with the Hamas Movement. The law, passed two weeks ago, […]

Seemingly unrelated events all point to a tectonic shift in which Israel has begun preparing the ground to annex the occupied Palestinian territories.
Last week, during an address to students in New York, Israel’s education minister Naftali Bennett publicly disavowed even the notion of a Palestinian state. “We are done with that,” he said. “They have a Palestinian state in Gaza.”

In the town of Umm al-Fahm, more than a third of all letters never reach their destination. Identity cards, passports and drivers’ licences go missing, welfare cheques are lost, appointments expire, and penalties mount up over unpaid fines.
GPS navigation apps like Waze fail, taxis struggle to find customers, and private delivery companies have to be met at the town’s entrance and escorted in.

In Umm al-Fahm, more than a third of letters never reach their destination. Identity cards, passports and drivers' licences go missing, welfare cheques are lost, appointments expire, and penalties mount up over unpaid fines. For decades the town's 301 streets have lacked any names or house numbers. And five years after the municipality submitted a list of names, Israeli officials are still dragging their feet.

After seven years of delays, the Israeli governing parties have agreed the final terms of controversial new legislation that would define Israel exclusively as “the nation-state of the Jewish people”.
The bill is now expected to be fast-tracked through the Israeli parliament and on to the statute books in the coming weeks.
Approval by the parliament’s justice committee this week of the Basic Law, which carries much greater weight than normal legislation, marks a dangerous turning-point for Palestinians, according to analysts.

(MEMO Op-ed) — Declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel was meant to be a major part of US President Donald Trump’s master plan in striking what he called the “deal of the century.” Fast forward one hundred days and the decision to break with international consensus is proving to be more like the failure of the century. […]

Having announced his intention to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in December of last year, reversing years of U.S. policy and violating international law, President Donald Trump seems determined to further rub salt in the wound.
He announced weeks ago that the new embassy would open on May 15. No more provocative a date could have been chosen.
May 15 marks 70 years since the state of Israel was established in a process that saw 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homes and over 450 towns and villages destroyed.