Posted on September 23rd, 2009 by Marian Houk
Palestine Television aired a rather poorly-staged interview with a stiff and ill-at-ease Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) this evening, with a shiny Palestinian flag partly draped across the background. The angles and the lighting was not good, and at one point the camera cut away to a shot of the Palestinian flag by itself, [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Gaza, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, UN General Assembly, USA
Posted on September 21st, 2009 by Marian Houk
U.S. President Obama went public with his plea/request/invitation for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to meet him at the UN in New York on Tuesday , on the margins of the annual high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly. The invitation came after Obama’s Special Envoy George Mitchell’s extended efforts [...]
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Filed under: Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Palestine & Palestinians, UN General Assembly, USA
Posted on September 20th, 2009 by Marian Houk
“Donor countries will have to keep giving large amounts of aid to the Palestinian government in the foreseeable future, unless Israel eases access of Palestinian goods to Israeli and world markets, the World Bank said in a report Friday”, according to a story published by Israel’s YNet on Friday. YNEt added that “The warning came [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Donors, Gaza, Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions
Posted on September 19th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The U.S. State Department spokesman very deliberately made a statement on Friday about the 574-page report delivered on Tuesday to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva by a team led by South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone. For the past two and a half days, the U.S. has been studying the report, but the U.S. [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on September 18th, 2009 by Marian Houk
On Thursday, the IDF announced a “total closure” of the West Bank until “after” (whatever that means) the Jewish New Year holiday of Rosh Hashona. On Friday, the fourth and last Friday of the sacred month of Ramadan, there were relatively few Palestinians at the main Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem — but there [...]
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Filed under: Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on September 18th, 2009 by Marian Houk
In an OpEd piece published yesterday in the New York Times — thanks to Sam Bahour for the tip — South Africa’s Justice Richard Goldstone wrote that he accepted “with hesitation” the appointment to lead the UN Human Rights Council’s Fact-Finding mission on the “Israel’s three-week war in Gaza last winter”. The strong Israeli reaction [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Marian Houk
The Jerusalem Post reported today (Thursday) that “A day after the release of the scathing Goldstone Commission report that accused Israel of war crimes, Jerusalem on Wednesday revealed its defensive strategy: convince the world’s democracies the report handcuffs them in their fight against terrorism, and keep discussion of the document confined to the Human Rights [...]
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Filed under: Environment, Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions
Posted on September 16th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Israel is mobilizing its considerable resources in a new war — against the findings about last winter’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and the policy that surrounds it, as well as its effects, presented yesterday in a report by a committee appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and headed by South Africa’s [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians
Posted on September 15th, 2009 by Marian Houk
A UN press release reports that the Goldstone Commission looking into Israel’s 22-day Operation Cast Lead in Gaza from 27 December to 18 January has published its findings — some 574 pages worth of findings — today. The Goldstone Commission report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva can be consulted in full here [...]
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Filed under: Gaza, Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, International Law, International Tribunals, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions, UN Security Council
Posted on September 13th, 2009 by Marian Houk
Here are excerpts from the new article just published by Jeff Halper, “Dismantling the ‘Matrix of Control’ “. Halper, the head of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, originally published his “Matrix of Control” in the year 2000: “Almost a decade ago I wrote an article describing Israel’s “matrix of control” over the Occupied Palestinian [...]
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Filed under: Boundaries & Borders, Human Rights, Israel, Middle East Peace Process, Negotiators and negotiations, NGOs, Palestine & Palestinians
