vjp-global

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/palestinian-message-disappear.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=5a864db2f6-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-5a864db2f6-398495333   [Concluding paragraphs]…Well, Israel has given it its best shot. After grabbing almost all the land, driving most of the Palestinians out, imprisoning and impoverishing them in tiny enclaves in both Israel and the Occupied Territory, after burying the Palestinian presence and patrimony under Israeli-only cities, towns, kibbutzim and national parks, after assassinating its leaders and leaving its youth with no hope of a future, it now brings the full force of one of the best-equipped militaries in the world against two million poor people living in an area the size of Mobile, Alabama. More than 2000 killed in Gaza, another 12,000 injured. Some 20,000 homes destroyed, 475,000 people displaced. Six billion dollars in damage to buildings...

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/ENCOUNTERING-PEACE-A-time-to-destroy-a-time-to-build-372551 … It is hard to imagine how Hamas could declare victory and mean it. It is hard to imagine that anyone in the Gaza Strip could share that opinion. But that is the way it is. Hamas entered this war at its weakest position in the past seven years and emerged, at least for the moment, stronger than ever. Hamas's strength is not measured by how many rockets or tunnels it has left, or how many of its commanders or soldiers have survived.   Hamas's strength is measured by the support that it receives from Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza, and from the Arab world…     The people of Israel and especially those living next to Gaza must also now be given the chance to rebuild and to live with hope that this will be the last round of war from Gaza against them. No one could tolerate living with what they went through. I...

http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/19019/after-the-ceasefire_searching-for-accountability Palestinian-American lawyer Noura Erekat reflects on the terms of the ceasefire and human rights and international law. A must read.

Full article: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.612788 Gideon Levy finds it impossible not to wonder: How did one journalist – and not the country's  most widely read or most widely distributed – become an object of such rage and hatred? Submitted by Miriam Thompson, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

Full article: http://mjrosenberg.net/2014/08/25/the-day-the-top-ny-times-columnist-threatened-to-get-me-for-criticizing-israel/ The sensational piece about AIPAC in this week's New Yorker (by my friend Connie Bruck) reminds me of the first time I saw the true face of AIPAC in all its ugliness. It's a horror story. It was in 1988 and I was a foreign policy aide to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI). One February day, Levin called me into his office to say that he was disturbed at a quote he saw in that day's New York Times. An article quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir saying that he rejected the idea of withdrawing from any of the land Israel captured in the 1967 war: Mr. Shamir said in a radio interview, "It is clear that this expression of territory for peace is not accepted by me." Submitted by Peggy Rafferty, posted by Sam Br...

Full article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/friends-israel The lobbying group AIPAC has consistently fought the Obama Administration on policy. Is it now losing influence? Submitted by Peggy Rafferty, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/26/us-mideast-gaza-ceasefire-details-idUSKBN0GQ1XQ20140826 Following are the broad parameters of the agreement, which Israeli and Palestinian negotiators have been working on through indirect talks in Cairo over recent weeks.  [including cease fire, doubling the limits for fishermen, opening more border crossings, the Palestinian Authority administering Gaza, and Israel cutting it's security border by 2/3, allowing farmers more access to their lands]. As part of the deal, both sides have agreed to address more complex issues dividing them - including the release of Palestinian prisoners and Gaza's demands for a sea port - via further indirect talks starting within a month. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/25/mowing_the_grass_and_taking_out_the_trash_hamas_israel_gaza   [Both sides are divided] …rival groups are constantly baying at Hamas's heels: Palestinian Islamic Jihad and militants in Gaza with an ideology closer to al Qaeda than Hamas criticize any break in the fighting as a sign that Hamas has given up on freeing Palestine. At times, rival groups have launched attacks on Israel in spite of Hamas's orders, and at other times Hamas has looked the other way while they acted. There is one ironic danger of Israel's war against Hamas -- for deterrence to work, you don't want your enemy to become too weak…   A weaker Hamas makes rogue attacks more likely, and disarming Hamas, which Israeli leaders have at times called for , would risk Gaza being controlled by even more extreme groups…   … After the latest destructive round of violence, Gaza is back on t...

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/26/a_conversation_with_martin_indyk_netanyahu_gaza_israel_palestine_hamas?wp_login_redirect=0   In an interview with David Rothkopf, former US Envoy for Middle East Peace Martin Indyk said, "As nice as it is to have strategic alignments, none of that solves Israel's existential problem: What is it going to do about the 2.6 million Palestinians it has responsibility for now? And if it doesn't find a way to resolve that issue, that existential dilemma, if Israel continues to control 2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank, it's going to have to decide. Also, Israel's new allies, the Gaza blowup, and why Washington shrugged when the peace process collapsed Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/friends-israel Connie Bruck looks at AIPAC and its influence. Interesting as AIME - and others - consider meeting with their Members of Congress. Submitted by Donna Hicks, AIME member

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/salaitas-illinois-declarations.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=dc052c797f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-dc052c797f-398495333   [The offending tweets, the legal history, the Chancellor's letter, The Board of Trustees, student reactions]   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://blogs.forward.com/forward-thinking/204630/how-to-sell-americans-on-israels-wars/   Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi and Meagan Buren, both experts in public opinion and formerly with The Israel Project, set out to find a real-time answer to this question   [what really works with an American audience?].   [Answer:   Use focus groups.   Don't talk about history, which makes people think the conflict has been going on forever and is insoluble.   Exception:   Israel's 2005 pullout from Gaza, which people need to be reminded of.   Don't put Israel into the context of the Middle East, which allows people to confuse Israel and Iraq.   Do emphasize Israel's wish for peace for   both sides.]   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/anti-occupation-activists-in-new-york-blast-united-jewish-appeal-for-supporting-attacks-on-gaza.html?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=26dd42f39f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86bace129-26dd42f39f-398495333 Submitted by Judith Ferster, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/california-activists-arrested-us-senators-office-they-demand-halt-israel?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=fe5179954a-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e802a7602d-fe5179954a-299155689 Submitted by Judith Ferster, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/worldwide-protest-israeli.html Submitted by Judith Ferster, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/mourning-for-a-judaism-being-murdered-by-israel#comment-583394 Submitted by Judith Ferster, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/16/world/middleeast/henk-zanoli-israel-gaza-holocaust-ziadah.html?_r=0 THE HAGUE — In 1943, Henk Zanoli took a dangerous train trip, slipping past Nazi guards and checkpoints to smuggle a Jewish boy from Amsterdam to the Dutch village of Eemnes. There, the Zanoli family, already under suspicion for resisting the Nazi occupation, hid the boy in their home for two years. The boy would be the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. Seventy-one years later, on July 20, an Israeli airstrike flattened a house in the Gaza Strip, killing six of Mr. Zanoli's relatives by marriage. His grandniece, a Dutch diplomat, is married to a Palestinian economist, Ismail Ziadah, who lost three brothers, a sister-in-law, a nephew and his father's first wife in the attack. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Hassan...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mathias-mossberg/israel-palestine-get-rid-of-borders_b_5656281.html Submitted by Judith Ferster, posted by Sam Bryan, AIME members