US$5.4 Billion Pledged for Gaza
October 15, 2014
This Update deals with the international donors conference for Gaza that took place in Cairo on Sunday, and led to pledges of US$5.4 billion in money to be divided equally between Gaza reconstruction and the Palestinian Authority.
We lead with a critique of the likely effects of the conference from veteran Israeli Arab Affairs journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Toameh argues that despite the promises to funnel the money through the Palestinian Authority (PA), the donors are nonetheless empowering Hamas, which will benefit politically from the money and be able to use its other resources to dig tunnels and rebuild weapons.
Efforts to stop a Nuclear Iran coming to a bad end?
October 8, 2014
This Update is devoted to some increasingly pessimistic prognoses that are appearing for the p5+1 (US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany) nuclear talks with Iran that are scheduled to be completed by Nov. 25.
First up is Canadian-American author and columnist David Frum, who congratulates Iran’s negotiators, arguing they have convincingly won the encounter with their American and allied counterparts, even though, as of last year, the cards seemed to all be in the Americans’ hands as sanctions were having significant negative effects on the Iranian economy.
Givat Hamatos – the origins and significance of yet another settlement controversy
October 8, 2014 | Gabrielle Debinski and Tzvi Fleischer
Media coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meeting with US President Barack Obama at the White House on October 1, was largely dominated by concurrent statements from the White House and US State Department respectively, denouncing an Israeli decision to persevere with the planning of 2,610 housing units in the Givat Hamatos area in east Jerusalem.
This not only detracted from other important issues but also symbolised of dysfunctional and immune from basic factual reality the debate about Israeli settlements has become internationally.
Some take-out from Julia Gillard’s “My Story”
October 3, 2014 | AIJAC staff
This week former Prime Minister Julia Gillard released her autobiography, My Story – detailing and justifying her experiences and decision-making during her three year and three day term as Prime Minister of Australia. It contains her personal account of Australia’s developing relationship with the international community, the government’s efforts to secure a seat on the UN Security Council and of her relationships with key government figures, among other things.
Terror apologist Yvonne Ridley given a free ride on the ABC
October 2, 2014 | Gabrielle Debinski and Tzvi Fleischer
On September 26, controversial British Muslim convert and journalist, Yvonne Ridley, delivered an address at a radical Islamic conference in Melbourne. Promoting her ‘speaking tour’ in Australia, the contentious Ridley, who converted to Islam in 2003 after she was kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, appeared on ABC Radio‘s “AM” program the following day. Ridley is well-known for her role as a former presenter and current frequent guest on Press TV, the Iranian government’s English language station, notorious for its anti-Zionist, anti-Western propaganda, and for her apologetics – sometime sounding almost like justification – for Islamist and Arab terrorism.
Not that you would know any of this from the ABC interview itself.
On Hebron’s Palestinian agitprop tours, it’s all Israel’s fault
October 2, 2014 | Ahron Shapiro
Targeting curious tourists who venture into Hebron to see the Cave of the Patriarchs, a cadre of Palestinian “guides” flog “pay what you feel” tours aimed at delegitimising Israel and portraying it as a villain through a one-sided and non-contextual traipse along the seam between Israeli and Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Abbas/Netanyahu Speeches at the UN
October 2, 2014
Over the past week, both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu spoke at the opening session of the UN General Assembly (their speeches are available in full here and here respectively). Abbas’ speech was regarded almost universally in Israel as particularly confrontational – not only accusing Israel of planned “genocide” in Gaza and seeming to justify terrorism, but apparently declaring it “impossible” to return to negotiations – and was even condemned by the US State Department as “counterproductive” and containing “offensive characterizations that were deeply disappointing”. Netanayhu’s speech – a useful summary of its key points is here – responded in detail to Abbas on Gaza making it clear Hamas was to blame for the destruction and death in Gaza (and showed a photo of Palestinian kids playing around rocket launchers); addressed the spread of Islamist extremism in the Middle East while especially warning of the threat of a nuclear Iran; and finally contained a new element – a call for a ” “broader rapprochement” between Israel and the wider Arab world which might help faciliate a two-state peace. This Update deals with the implications of both speeches.
Hamas and the welfare of Gazans
September 24, 2014
This Update, dealing with some realities of Gaza post-conflict, and especially Hamas’ role in them, leads with an extraordinary collection of testimony from Gazans.
The testimony, collected by British-based Palestinian writer and commentator Mudar Zahran, comes from an impressive variety of anonymous individuals from different walks of life in Gaza explaining their experience of the recent conflict and the general situation of living under Hamas rule.
What really happened in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that broke down in April?
September 17, 2014 | Allon Lee
One of the most persistent myths, and one which was repeatedly hammered before, during and after the recent Gaza war by some supposedly knowledgeable commentators, was the accusation that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was ultimately to blame for the war’s outbreak because he has stymied all efforts at establishing a Palestinian state.
Yet if one looks at the totality of the evidence the picture being painted of Israeli intransigence spoiling peace hopes does not hold water.
43 out of tens of thousands in 8200
September 16, 2014 | Gabrielle Debinski
The international media has been abuzz with stories about the petition letter signed by 43 reservists of the elite IDF intelligence unit 8200 on September 12. The letter, which is addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, IDF General Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz and Military Intelligence Director, Major General Aviv Kochavi, states that the reservists refuse to continue service in the elite intelligence division, citing mistreatment and “extortion” of Palestinians under Israeli surveillance as the driving force behind their “moral” stance.
