This week’s selection begins with coverage of carnage of Palestinian civilians at the hands of armed Israelis. As included in last week’s summary, not only did Israeli forces shoot live ammunition at the head of a 10-year old child at point-blank range during an anti-Wall protest in the village of Nilin, they also shot an 18-year old in the head during the first boy’s funeral. That second victim died at the beginning of this week according to the BBC in the first piece below. The second completes the gruesome pair by noting the extent to which Israel makes miserable the lives of Gazans. Here the Guardian offers an account of the Israeli refusal to allow disabled and chronically ill Gazans access to medical care unless they agree to serve as collaborators with the occupation.
Sadly, the selection of articles below also includes the painful news of Mahmoud Darwish’s untimely death. The eloquent voice of Palestinian dispossession, Darwish’s poetry has been a beacon of the Palestinian struggle for independence, peace and dignity. Other links to obituaries for Darwish have been posted elsewhere on this blog, but this selection concludes with the simple, sad news of his death.
In between, the selection covers the major items of the week including U.S. pressure on donors to funnel money to America’s chosen faction in Palestine and the final revocation of Fulbright grants to three Gazans after Israel refused to allow them to travel to be interviewed by the U.S. for visas and the U.S. acquiesced in Israel’s “security determinations” about these scholars. Electioneering was in full-swing in Israel this week — it is in this context that one should read Ehud Barak’s promise of new raids in Gaza and Shaul Mofaz’s pledge to keep all of Jerusalem. Gideon Levy’s article (#18 below) mocking the Israeli media’s penchant for treating Netanyahu as the only bogeyman on the Israeli political spectrum is spot-on, especially in light of the nature of the war-mongering-as-electoral-politics being undertaken by Livni, Barak and Mofaz with the blithe acceptance of the Israeli (and indeed world) public. There are a couple of articles covering new announcements of settlement activity (#9 and #16), a reflection by Israeli novelist Avraham Yehoshua on the adverse effects of occupation on Israel’s democracy.
Perhaps the most curious piece from this week’s media coverage of Israel-Palestine is Tanya Gold’s story in the Guardian (#6) following the lives of “Nazi-descended Jews living in Israel,” as it is captioned in the paper. The story reports on relatives of Waffen-SS men and even of Hitler who converted to Judaism and now live in Israel. Also included is coverage of Hebron settlers’ attack on a convoy of British diplomats. Finally, the Israelis have introduced a new tactic following fatalities from the use of live ammunition to disperse Palestinian crowds on the West Bank. They are calling the device the “skunk” — the description from Ynet (#19) is another monument to Israeli ingenuity in evolving more and more sophisticated weapons to dehumanize and pacify Palestinians.
1. WEST BANK TEEN DIES FROM WOUNDS
BBC News (UK)
August 4, 2008
2. ISRAEL’S SECRET POLICE PRESSURING SICK GAZANS TO SPY FOR THEM, SAYS REPORT
By Toni O’Loughlin
The Guardian (UK)
August 4, 2008
3. U.S. URGES DONORS TO PAY P.A. PLEDGES
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
August 4, 2008
4. THREE FULBRIGHT WINNERS IN GAZA AGAIN TOLD THEY CANNOT TRAVEL
By Ethan Bronner
The New York Times
August 5, 2008
5. BARAK: IF YOU MISS GAZA RAIDS, DON’T WORRY — THEY’LL COME
Haaretz (Israel)
August 5, 2008
6. THE SINS OF THEIR FATHERS
By Tanya Gold
The Guardian (UK)
August 5, 2008
7. US REVOKES VISAS TO PALESTINIAN FULBRIGHT SCHOLARS
Agence France Presse (AFP) (France)
August 6, 2008
8. MIDDLE EAST RHETORIC OBSTRUCTING US INTERESTS
By Richard Murphy And Ethan Chorin
Common Ground News Service
August 6, 2008
9. A TROJAN HORSE IN THE JORDAN VALLEY
By Lara Friedman And Hagit Ofran
The Jerusalem Post (Israel)
August 6, 2008
10. MOFAZ: I WILL KEEP JERUSALEM UNITED AS ISRAEL’S ETERNAL CAPITAL
Haaretz (Israel)
August 6, 2008
11. BRITISH DIPLOMATS ATTACKED BY HEBRON SETTLER
By James Hider The Times (UK)
August 7, 2008
12. OCCUPATION HAS ONLY CORRUPTED ISRAEL’S DEMOCRACY
By Avraham Yehoshua
The Daily Star (Lebanon)
August 7, 2008
13. CIVIL WAR IN GAZA IS NOT IN ISREAL’S INTERESTS
By Daniel Levy
Prospectsforpeace.com
August 8, 2008
14. FURY AFTER ISRAELI OFFICER IN CHARGE OF PRISONER’S SHOOTING IS ‘REASSIGNED’
By Donald Macintyre
The Independent (United Kingdom)
August 8, 2008
15. COMMENTARY: HOLOCAUST II?
By Arnaud De Borchgrave
United Press International (UPI)
August 8, 2008
16. ISRAEL TO BUILD NEW HOMES ON OCCUPIED LAND
Reuters
August 8, 2008
17. ZIONISM’S DYING BETWEEN HEBRON AND YITZHAR
By Zeev Sternhell
Haaretz (Israel)
August 9, 2008
18. NETANYAHU THE DEVIL
By Gideon Levy
Haaretz (Israel)
August 10, 2008
19. BORDER GUARD USES ‘SKUNK’ AS NEW CROWD-DISPERSAL MEANS
By Efrat Weiss
Ynet News (Israel)
August 10, 2008
20. PALESTINIAN ‘NATIONAL POET’ DIES
BBC News (UK)
August 9, 2008
August 12, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
Palestinians are throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and you’re angry that they’re using non-lethal tactics….would you prefer they went back to rubber bullets which can pierce the skin and injure people?
August 12, 2008 at 6:04 pm |
What I would prefer is for Israeli soldiers to stop occupying Palestinian land and use neither “skunk” nor rubber bullets nor live ammunition in their attacks on the Palestinian population.
August 12, 2008 at 7:45 pm |
Lisa I agree with you but until there is a peace settlement and whilst there are still flaring tempers on both sides I think it’s obvious that non-lethal methods are the best, and most humane, option.