vjp-global

http://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-war-pushed-palestinian-economy-into-recession-imf/ [Subtitle] Recovery in 2015 in doubt as economic activity declined by 15%, hampered by summer war and sluggish reconstruction …While the West Bank managed a 4.5 percent expansion last year, Gaza's economic activity declined by about 15 percent, the IMF said, linking it to Israel's bombing and shelling of the Gaza enclave and slow progress on rebuilding… Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/netanyahu-boehner-congress-american-jews-get-lost By accepting Speaker Boehner's invitation to address Congress, the Israeli leader has chosen to side with political forces opposed by many US Jews. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_PALESTINIAN_GIRL_DETAINED?SITE=SCAND&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT   The fate of a 14-year-old Palestinian girl, tried before an Israeli military court for hurling rocks at passing cars in the West Bank and sentenced to two months in prison, has gripped Palestinians who say her treatment demonstrates Israel's excessive measures against stone-throwing youth…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

Full text: http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/01/27/israel-violated-rules-of-war-in-strikes-on-gaza-homes-group Israeli group: Most of the dead in 70 Gaza home strikes were women, children and the elderly Posted by Sam Bryan, AIME member

Full story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/25/chris-wallace-shep-smith-netanyahu-fox-news_n_6542454.html?utm_hp_ref=media Watch the video. Snippet: "I'm shocked," Wallace said, calling the move "wicked." Wallace noted that the Israeli ambassador had met with John Kerry earlier in the week and apparently didn't mention anything about the trip. Posted by Sam Bryan, AIME member

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-22/netanyahu-mossad-split-divides-u-s-congress-on-iran-sanctions The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad has broken ranks with Prime Minister Netanyahu, telling US officials and lawmakers that a new Iran sanctions bill in the US Congress would tank the Iran nuclear negotiations. Already, the Obama administration and some leading Republican senators are using the Israeli internal disagreement to undermine support for the bill, authored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez, which would enact new sanctions if current negotiations falter.. .     Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://972mag.com/israels-truthiness-on-palestinian-academic-freedom/101290/ In denying that Israel limits academic freedom in Palestine, the Israeli embassy in Washington seems to forget about the Palestinian students and academics whose movement it restricts. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://972mag.com/war-on-gaza-a-promise-israeli-politicians-can-keep/101141/ As they head into elections, Netanyahu, Livni, Herzog, Lapid and Yishai can agree on one thing: even after nine military operations in 14 years, the only solution to the conflict with Gaza is another war with Hamas. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://fpif.org/latest-blow-israeli-palestinian-peace/ The United States blocked the latest UN resolution to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine for the most disingenuous of reasons…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

Third Thursdays for Israel/Palestine Tell your elected officials :  Don't punish the Palestinians for signing international treaties and conventions, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Following the defeat of a UN Security Council resolution that would have set parameters and a timeline for addressing the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas signed a number of international treaties and conventions including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), paving the way for Palestine to join the ICC.   Palestine’s membership in the ICC is scheduled to take effect on April 1, 2015 if everything proceeds according to protocol.  

Full text: http://972mag.com/is-christian-zionism-going-out-of-style/101367/ Snippet: America’s largest Christian Zionist organization boasts about its numbers. But while their influence is a given, many Christians are slowly but surely seeing the justice of the Palestinian cause. Posted by Sam Bryan, AIME member

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.636453 Campaign, launched after Paris attacks, 'severely weakens and damages the Jewish communities that have the right to live securely wherever they are,' EJA [Europiean Jewish Association] director says...   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

  http://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu/publications/rethinking-politics-israelpalestine-partition-and-its-alternatives   This volume brings together the voices and views of leading Palestinian, Israeli-Jewish, and European intellectuals, politicians, and activists who propose alternative approaches and "out of the box" thinking on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. More specifically, this unique volume aims to contribute to the emerging efforts of re-examining the current strategies and paradigms through proposing and exploring new perspectives, visionary discourses, and alternatives to partition in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Put differently, it seeks to enrich European public discourse with original and refreshing views and alternative paradigms to settling this lingering conflict.     Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/46-examples-of-muslim-outrage-about-paris-shooting-that-fox-news-cant-seem-to-find/   Every time an extremist who is Muslim commits an act of terrorism, people ask where the moderate Muslim voices condemning violence are. (Interestingly, as a Jew, I don't usually get asked to condemn extremism when it is perpetuated by Jewish fundamentalists…)  And the same thing is happening following this week's deplorable, pathetic, and tragic killing of 12 people at the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Not surprisingly, much of the "where is the Muslim outrage" outrage is coming from… Fox News, as  Media Matters notes . Fox's own Monica Crowley, for example, said that Muslims "should be condemning" the attack and that she hadn't "heard any condemnation… from any groups." Fox News'  America's Newsroom guest Steve Emerson complained ,   "you don't see

For full text: http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/retaliation-against-palestine-s-welcome-accession-to-icc-must-stop Snippet: Israel, the USA and EU member states must refrain from punishing or threatening Palestine for taking the positive step of granting the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over crimes under international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Amnesty International said today. Submitted by Edith Garwood, posted by Sam Bryan, Member of AIME

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/02/what-would-happen-if-intl-criminal-court-indicted-israels-netanyahu   …Over a third of Israeli trade is with Europe, and technology transfers from Europe are crucial to Israel. It could be kicked out of European scientific and technological organizations, where it presently has courtesy memberships. And Israeli leaders could end up being afraid to visit European capitals lest they be arrested, Pinochet style (even if governments ran interference for them, they could not be sure to escape lawsuits by citizen groups and could not be insulated from activist judges). The world wouldn't end for Israeli leaders if they were convicted, as it hasn't ended for al-Bashir. But the consequences would be real and unpleasant, and over time could have a substantial impact.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1420212779/ …From the beginning of the effort to this very day, not a single piece of evidence of the ancient history was found. Not a single indication that the exodus from Egypt, the basis of Jewish history, ever happened. Nor of the 40 years of wandering in the desert. No evidence of the conquest of Canaan, as described at length in the Book of Joshua. The mighty King David, whose kingdom extended - according to the Bible - from the Sinai peninsula to the north of Syria, did not leave a trace. (Lately an inscription with the name David was discovered, but with no indication that this David was a king.) Israel appears for the first time in sound archeological findings in Assyrian inscriptions, which describe a coalition of local kingdoms which tried to stop the Assyrian advance into Syria. Among others, King Ahab of Israel is mentioned as the chief of a considerable military contingent. Ahab, who ruled today&

http://972mag.com/judge-equality-in-the-west-bank-just-not-for-palestinians/100665/   A Jerusalem judge [Dov Pollock] acquits an Israeli man who broke through an West Bank checkpoint into Palestinian-controlled territory, ruling that it's unacceptable for an Israeli citizen to be discriminated against by virtue of his religion. (Arab — but not Jewish — citizens of Israel are allowed to enter 'Area A'.) But the ruling means nothing for the vast majority of West Bank residents who face discrimination on a day-to-day basis. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189340#.VKWk4iglYqc Businessman [Hezi Bezalel] working abroad in Africa said to be behind other defenses of Israel, quietly helped rally support against PA.    Bezalel operates primarily abroad , mostly in Africa, and has a special relationship with the leaders of those countries. Bezalel currently serves as honorary consul of Rwanda in Israel… … Sources close to Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said that the countries who abstained in which the foreign minister has spent the most time in the last few years and strengthened ties with them…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-thanks-african-leaders-for-thwarting-palestinian-un-bid/   Netanyahu calls Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan; Liberman says vote shows 'provocation will not achieve anything…. …During the vote on Tuesday, the US and Australia voted against the resolution; Russia, China, France, Luxembourg, Jordan, Argentina, Chile and Chad voted for the resolution; and Britain, Nigeria, South Korea, Rwanda and Lithuania abstained…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member