ARGUMENT As Israel and the Palestinians struggle to reach yet another cease-fire, the mediators in Cairo are making the conflict worse -- and empowering radicals in the process. BY MICHELE DUNNE , NATHAN J. BROWN AUGUST 18, 2014 As negotiations on a lasting cease-fire in Gaza grind on in Cairo, it's not only the animosity between Israel and Hamas that is complicating the talks -- it's also Egypt's role as mediator.
by Basem L. Ra'ad Behind the blinding media rhetoric and deceptive narratives and justifications, and digressions from root issues, the latest attacks on Gaza are part of a larger plan. Christian Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for Hamas in 2006. I was in the Jerusalem area, and in Ramallah and Bethlehem, and witnessed this unusual turn. It wasn’t the decisive factor in the crushing win by Hamas over the Authority led by Fatah, but it carried much meaning.
Posted by Baheyya 12 Aug 2014 01:28 PM PDT In the old days, when the Israeli military bombed and shelled Palestinians and sought to destroy their society, Hosni Mubarak used a well-worn formula, fully abetting Israeli actions while uttering pro-Palestine platitudes. Occasionally, when huge protests rocked the streets, he green-lighted theatrical gestures such as his wife heading a relief convoy to Gaza in 2002, and his son fronting a delegation to Beirut when Israel bombed Lebanon in 2006.
Israel's latest war brought its increasingly fascist politics before a global audience. By Scott McConnell • August 6, 2014 Throughout the 1950s and 1960s and continuing through the present, the central issue in the study of European history was the rise of Nazism. Not the documenting of the facts of the long descent to the Holocaust, though this was essential to the enterprise. But the trying to understand how a country that was in many ways the most advanced in Europe could descend so far so fast.
The Islamic University of Gaza bombed by Israeli F16 warplanes, August 02, 2014. (Photo: Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Nazmi Al-Masri on August 12, 2014 Over the one-year period from July 2013 to July 2014, I was supposed to participate in six international academic conferences and meetings as a partner in four international projects: three EU-funded projects (two from Erasmus-Mundus, one Tempus) and one BritishArts and Humanities Research Council-funded project. Because of the siege and the current war, I could not participate in any of these academic gatherings, which were held in the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Jordan, and Cyprus.
More than 1,000 professionals have signed a manifesto, released by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) academic campaign for Palestine, demanding to end all institutional relations with the Israeli academic world, until it stops supporting occupation and apartheid in Palestine. The campaign, which started two years ago, asks for support from professionals from the academic and scientific field, and also from associations linked to this field, such as student’s and worker’s unions, research centres, professional associations, etc.
MARTIN SHAW 31 July 2014 The latest Israeli assault on Gaza is for one scholar an occasion to rethink the fundamental arguments for and against a boycott of the country. Israel’s slaughter in Gaza must make us all pause and ask whether we should rethink our stance on the Palestine conflict. The killing is presented as a regrettable response to Hamas’s provocations, an almost routine police action as the Israeli euphemism "
'Now with the evidence of new war crimes there for all to see, Israel's isolation will only increase, and, despite the predictable backlash, Palestine solidarity campaigning will take a significant step forward.' Ben White Friday, 08 August 2014 16:58 "Carnage" in Gaza – "the killing of children and the slaughter of civilians". Not the words of a Palestinian spokesperson but rather French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Australia's FM Julie Bishop condemned what she called "
By launching a cyberwar. Anonymous — the faceless hacker collective best known for harrasing several American credit card companies, the Westboro Baptist Church and the Church of Scientology — has launched an aggressive assault on the Israeli government for their ongoing ground campaign in the Gaza Strip. And in true Anonymous fashion, they aren't hiding it — they're flaunting it. On July 20, Anonymous announced their plans to "
By Juan Cole This post originally ran on Juan Cole’s Web page. The ill-considered and remarkably brutal Gaza war likely will give further impetus to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement by Western civil society to pressure Israel on its illegal actions toward the Palestinians. A thoroughgoing such European set of sanctions could cost Israel as much as $5 bn a year and more. Roughly a third of Israeli trade is with Europe, and the EU is Israel’s largest single trading partner.
