ISRAELI WATER THEFT: Mohammed Abbas is sick, with chronic diarrhoea. Not for the first time.

He and his family live in a Palestinian village with no running water, no sewage system, and no prospect of getting either any time soon.
Watching her son, eyes closed, clutching his stomach on a mattress on the floor, his mother, Sunna, told me she is desperate.
Water tanker, Faqua village, West Bank
Faqua residents complain they have [...]

Israel ‘using tourist sites to assert control over East Jerusalem’

Peace groups say government’s secret plans with settler groups could prevent two-state solution
Israel is quietly extending its control over East Jerusalem in alliance with rightwing Jewish settler groups, by developing parks and tourist sites that would bring a “drastic change of the status quo in the city”, according to two Israeli groups.
Ir Amin, a group [...]

Despite everything, Hebron is still Palestinian

The Pachao family was out Saturday for a Sabbath walk. Sarah and Yosef pushed the baby carriage, and the little ones, Ahuva, Gershon, Hananel and Noah, crowded into the carriage or walked behind it. Why did you come to live here, I asked? “Because of the good air.” The Pachaos, who are members of the [...]

World Bank: Palestinian economy could flourish if Israel eased restrictions

The Palestinian economy has “incredible potential” that could be unleashed if Israel eases restrictions on Palestinian movement, the area’s World Bank chief said Wednesday, a day after a high-level World Bank delegation inaugurated a sewage storage facility in a rare trip to Hamas-ruled Gaza.
It took three years, rather than the scheduled nine months, to build [...]

THE RIGHT TO RETURN, A BASIC RIGHT STILL DENIED*

Palestinian refugees represent the longest suffering and largest refugee population in the world today.
• In 2005, there were approximately 7.2 million Palestinian refugees, equivalent to 74% of the entire Palestinian population which is estimated at 9.7 million worldwide.
• The breakdown of the refugee population is as follows:
During the creation of the Zionist state in 1948, [...]

The Zionist plan for Middle East / “A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”

In his Complete Diaries, Vol. II. p. 711, Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, says that the area of the Jewish State stretches: “From the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”
Rabbi Fischmann, member of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared in his testimony to the U.N. Special Committee of Enquiry on [...]

Jersualem Diaries: Apartheid Policies in Jerusalem

Numerous Palestinian residents of Jerusalem do not believe the past two incidents involving tractors in Jerusalem were in fact attacks. The common wisdom is that the first incident involved a person with deep personal problems who ran amuck, while the second involved a traffic accident in which the driver panicked following the intervention of armed [...]

Arnon The Arab Counter And The Animals Of Gaza

Sometimes you hear people involved in the I/P conflict complain of the other side: “They don’t want peace”. I think that’s a silly thing to say, because everybody wants peace – who wouldn’t? It’s just that some people want other things a little bit more. “Of course everyone wants peace, but every bugger wants it [...]

‘Dutch Jimmy Carter’ accuses Israel of terrorism in new book

The emotion in Andreas Van Agt’s voice as he lambastes Israel’s behavior seems puzzling for a man of his status. It is especially intriguing when one is reminded that this blue-eyed professed idealist is an astute statesman who presided as the Dutch prime minister for five years, until 1982.
“My involvement in the Middle East [...]

‘Jewish settler attack’ on film + Three Palestinian shepherds tell police: We were attacked by masked settlers in Hebron Hills

A Palestinian woman, 57, was badly injured and her husband and another relative were battered, in an assault by masked Israelis in the southern Hebron Hills yesterday. The police are investigating whether the Israeli attackers hailed from the West Bank settlement of Susia, as the injured Palestinians claim.

The three, Thamem al-Nawaja, 57, her husband [...]