Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel
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For those interested in keeping up with events in Palestine/Israel, there is no better digest than VTJP.

News

International Middle East Media Center

Erekat: “Olmert verbally offered joint control over East Jerusalem”
29 Mar 2009 - Palestinian Chief Negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erekat, stated on Saturday that outgoing Israel Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, offered President Mahmoud Abbas, joint control over East Jerusalem, in addition to annexing 6.5% from the West Bank and giving the Palestinian 5.8% from “Israeli lands”. ...

Three residents injured, two international activists detained in Hebron
28 Mar 2009 - Palestinian sources in Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank, reported Sunday that Israeli soldiers attacked a peaceful protest against Israeli settlements in the Old City of Hebron, and demanding the army to reopen Al Shuhada Street in the city; three residents were wounded, and two international activists were detained. ... 

Arabs, Jewish activists, protest home demolitions in Jerusalem
28 Mar 2009 - Israeli sources reported on Saturday that approximately 150 Jews and international peace activists joined Arab residents in their protest against Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in Silwan neighborhood in East Jerusalem. ... 

Dekel back in Cairo for swap talks, Olmert’s office denies
28 Mar 2009 - Israeli sources reported on Saturday that Ofir Dekel, special negotiator for prisoner affairs assigned by outgoing Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, arrived in Cairo for continued indirect prisoner-swap talks between Israel and Hamas. ...

Hamas releases detained Fateh members in Gaza
28 Mar 2009 - Khalid Al Batsh, one of the leaders of the Islamic Jihad, reported on Saturday that the Hamas-controlled security devices in the Gaza Strip, released Fateh supporters who were detained earlier on Saturday for planning a political activity at Al Azhar University in Gaza City. ...

Erekat: “Olmert obstructed a peace deal with the Palestinians”
28 Mar 2009 - Dr. Saeb Erekat, head of the Negotiations Department at the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), denied the statements of Israel’s outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, in which he claimed that he offered president Palestinian Mahmoud Abbas a full peace settlement and that he still awaits a response. ...

Hamas denies it agreed on the deportation of detainees
27 Mar 2009 - In an interview with the Arabs48 news website, Fawzi Barhoum, media spokesperson of the Hamas movement, said that Hamas did not agree on the Israeli condition to deport some of the detainees who would be freed in the framework of a prisoner exchange deal. ... 

EU presses Netanyahu to commit to a two-state solution
27 Mar 2009 - The European Union told the Israeli Prime Minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Friday that relations between the European Union and Israel could be at odds if he does not accept a two-state solution. ...

Bardaweel: “Hamas will not be committed to previously signed peace deals�
27 Mar 2009 - Salah Bardaweel, one of the political leaders of Hamas movement, stated on Friday that the movement will not recognize peace agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). ...

Settlers who attacked Israeli policemen freed
27 Mar 2009 - Five violent Israeli settlers of an illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank were released by a court decision on Friday after they were remanded for attacking under-cover Israeli policemen and vandalizing their vehicle. ... 

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Tales To Tell
March 29: Happy birthday K!
29 Mar 2009 - K shows birthday rabbit to baby brother, You might recall we visited K and her family once already, via the lovely Atfaluna School for the Deaf. J from 14 Friends of Palestine, who sponsor K, asked me to go back again for her birthday; I’d been meaning to go anyway as I had the rest of the money J had sent over to deliver to them. J suggested I buy some food and toys for the family with a little of the money. In the end, I decided that my blog readers might like to share in celebrating with K too, so I put in some of the money you’ve sent; this meant that K’s mum S received all the original cash from 14 Friends and the food and toys were an extra bonus. Read the rest of this post », You might recall we visited, K and her family , once already, via the lovely Atfaluna School for the Deaf. J from, 14 Friends of Palestine , , who sponsor K, asked me to go back again for her birthday; I’d been meaning to go anyway as I had the rest of the money J had sent over to deliver to them. J suggested I buy some food and toys for the family with a little of the money. In the end, I decided that my blog readers might like to share in celebrating with K too, so I put in some of the money you’ve sent; this meant that K’s mum S received all the original cash from 14 Friends and the food and toys were an extra bonus., Read the rest of this post » 

Palestine Chronicle
Biberman & Co.
29 Mar 2009 - By Uri Avnery – Israel Is this the government of Biberman (Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Liberman) or perhaps of Bibarak (Bibi and Ehud Barak)? Neither. It is the government of Bibiyahu. Binyamin Netanyahu has proven that he is a consummate politician. He has realized the dream of every politician (and theatergoer): a good place in the middle. In his new government he can play off the fascists on the right against the socialists on the left, Liberman’s secularists against the orthodox of Shas. An ideal situation. The coalition is large enough to be immune from blackmail by any of its component parties. If some Labor members break coalition discipline, Netanyahu will still command a majority. Or if the rightists make trouble. Or if the orthodox try to stick a knife in his back. This government is committed to nothing. Its written “Basic Guidelines” – a document signed by all partners of a new Israeli government – are completely nebulous. (And anyhow, Basic Guidelines are worthless. All Israeli governments have broken their agreed Basic Guidelines without batting an eyelid. They always prove to be rubber checks.) All this was acquired by Netanyahu on the cheap – a few billions of economic promises that he would not dream of fulfilling. The treasury is empty. As one of his predecessors in the Prime Minister’s office, Levy Eshkol, famously said: “I promised, but I did not promise to keep my promises.” He also bestowed ministries on all and sundry. This little country will have...

Banning Galloway Mocks Canada's Criminal Code
29 Mar 2009 - By William A. Cook Canada's border security officials and Jason Kenny, the immigration minister, banned George Galloway, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, from Canada where he was scheduled to speak in Toronto on the 30th. “A spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada said the decision … was based on a ‘number of factors’ in accordance with section 34 (1) of the country’s immigration act” (Guardian.co.uk 3/20/09). This action denies Galloway entrance as a foreign national on security grounds for one or more of 6 reasons including “engaging in terrorism,” and “engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada.” The CJC, the Canadian Jewish Congress, supporting the decision, noted that it should be seen as an “issue of security law, not a dispute over free speech” (Mar. 27, 2009, Montreal Gazette). Indeed, other Jewish organizations like the League of Human Rights of B’nai B’rith, not only supported the action but took some credit for the banning of Galloway. Galloway’s talk, “Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar,” sponsored by the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, would have provided Canadians with a first hand account of conditions in Gaza following Israel’s invasion and destruction of that walled in strip of Palestinian land during the three week war from December 27 to January 18, 2009. Galloway is one of a handful of foreigners to see the devastation that others could glimpse only from You Tube videos made available through Al Jazeera news...

Arabesque: More Significant than Apparent
29 Mar 2009 - By Dan Lieberman The Kennedy Center's festival of Arab culture, which brought to Washington's principal cultural center the music, voices and heritage of the 22 Arab nations, proved to be a political breakthrough. Within artistic displays, theatrical expressions, and a panorama of contributions from Arab civilization, were statements that ordinarily don’t appear at Washington’s Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. This is the same Kennedy Center, which despite being partially funded by the U.S. taxpayer, hosted several anniversary celebrations for the foreign nation of Israel, the only nation of the tens of nations created since World War II whose birthday the Center has observed. Another puzzling aspect is that the Concert Hall lounge is named the Israeli lounge. Partially self-restrictive; the lounge attracts those who side with Israel in the Middle East conflict and is shunned by those who vehemently disagree with Israel’s polices. The Kennedy Center departed from previous presentations with unique commentary in an exhibit of traditional Arab wedding dresses, with staging of a controversial play from Ramallah, and with depiction of Arab accomplishments during the Golden Age that influenced the European Renaissance. In one exhibit, a Kennedy Center entrance hall featured traditional wedding gowns. The descriptions of the bridal gowns and their history reveal what is usually hidden from American audiences; that the traditions, cultural expressions and heritage of the Palestinian people mingled with adjacent Arab lands and dated back to the time of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, many of these traditions and cultural aspects from early...

Boycott, Surrender or War
29 Mar 2009 - By Jeremy Salt - Ankara The spate of reports coming out of the Middle East in the past two weeks are signs of a coming danger greater than the region has known in its modern history. The Israeli onslaught on Gaza; the massacre of civilians; the strafing of hospitals, ambulances and medical staff; the vandalisation of Palestinian homes; the violent, racist graffiti scrawled on walls; the soldiers’ t-shirts patterned with graphics showing a pregnant Palestinian woman in the cross hairs of a rifle; the support by 85 per cent of the Israeli population for an attack on civilians which killed hundreds of children; the evidence of Israeli soldiers themselves of how civilians were murdered in cold blood; the march on Umm al Fahm by the followers of Meir Kahane, at the same time as Palestinian cultural festivals in Jerusalem were being prohibited; the choice of a settler racist as Israel’s Foreign Minister; the two-tier colonial society established on the West Bank, reminiscent of Algeria in the 19th century; the wall, the checkpoints, the closures, the daily humiliation, the seizure of land and demolition of homes; the continuing demographic war against the Palestinians in Jerusalem; the recent attack on Sudan by unknown planes said to have been Israeli; the wars of the past and now the preparations for an attack on Iran - what more evidence could anyone need of how utterly dangerous the state of Israel is to regional and global stability? The misdeeds of soldiers are not an aberration....