vjp-global

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/us/politics/trump-unrwa-palestinians.html?action=click&module=In%20Other%20News&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=Latest&pgtype=Homepage The United States government has decided to stop all funding it gives to a United Nations agency that provides assistance to millions of Palestinian refugees, ending a decades-long policy of supporting it, according to a former senior United States aid official   The move was pushed hardest by Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and top adviser on the Middle East, as part of a plan to compel Palestinian politicians to drop demands for many of those refugees to return to what they call their homeland, said the former official, R. David Harden, who worked at the United States Agency for International Development until April…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/how-can-israel-and-hamas-reach-deal-1965239184 Hamas is negotiating with Israel, through Egyptian brokerage, for a truce aimed at ending violence and easing the Gaza blockade. The only party that seems vehemently opposed to any deal is the Palestinian Authority.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/30/trump-aid-cuts-hitting-palestinians-hard-agencies-warn Critics accuse US of using issue to force through White House-imposed peace deal, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians suffer impact.   Sweeping new US cuts in humanitarian aid to Palestinians are already hitting hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people, amid accusations that the Trump administration is using the issue to "blackmail" Palestinians into accepting a peace deal that critics say will favour Israel…   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://972mag.com/why-is-israel-forbidding-a-poet-from-receivingfamily-visits-in-prison/137545/ The Israel Prison Services (IPS) are preventing Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour, who was sentenced last month to five months imprisonment for incitement to violence, from receiving family visits, say her family members.  Tatour, who was convicted over poems and statuses she published on her personal Facebook page, was sent to a special ward for Palestinian women security prisoners in Damoun Prison on August 8th. Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

http://fathomjournal.org/oslo25-we-must-liberate-our-thinking-from-the-oslo-straitjacket-an-interview-with-hussein-agha/   … Looking back, I have concluded that Oslo was more than anything else an attempt by Israel to resolve its security predicament by making the Palestinians responsible for Israel's security in the territories and saving Israeli money allocated for basic services in these areas. That required giving up some already-Palestinian areas that they were not interested in keeping, like Gaza. The idea was that instead of Israel being in the front line of containing Palestinian violence, it would be the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It didn't work out perfectly, but that was the idea… When Palestinians are close to reaching an agreement and are genuinely faced with giving up 78 per cent of their homeland, they feel surrender, so they recoil. Whenever Israelis find themselves at a similar point and try to justify giving up material assets...

https://972mag.com/israel-occupation-palestinian-rights-democracy/137459/ It is not news to many Israelis that their government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, is pushing all those who do not align with his spirit of nationalism and racism to the margins of society. Ongoing legislation against the LGBTQ community, the Jewish Nation-State Law, and intense incitement against left-wing activists continue to degenerate Israel's delicate social fabric. Recent detainments of Jewish American public figures and activists at Ben Gurion Airport, including the journalist Peter Beinart, serve as a blaring reminder of this climate. However, they are merely a symptom of years of Netanyahu's policies, and of the generation that was comfortable in ignoring the occupation...Ronald Lauder is among that generation, and in his article, " Israel, This Is Not Who We Are ," recently published in the New York Times , he describes the drastic ideological and iden...

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/campaign-forces-israels-zim-halt-shipments-tunisia Palestinians are hailing a campaign that has led Israel's Zim shipping line to halt its routes to Tunisia.   "Zim was forced to indefinitely suspend its services to the Tunisian port of Radès following a popular and trade union boycott campaign in Tunisia and the Arab world," the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) said on Sunday…The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee asserted that while resisting normalization with Israel was always a duty, it is particularly important a time when Israel is stepping up the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and the Naqab , and maintaining its maritime blockade of Gaza and its restrictions and lethal attacks on Gaza fishers … Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://israelpalestinenews.org/the-history-of-zionist-collusion-with-nazis/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=56b421d5-b0ad-46fb-802a-ce7f378d90c5   … At first glance,  a close relationship between Jewish Israelis and European Neo-Nazis   seems as grotesque and bizarre a misalliance as one could imagine, but after recently reading Brenner's fascinating book, my perspective quickly shifted. Indeed, the main difference between then and now is that during the 1930s, Zionist factions represented a very insignificant junior partner to a powerful Third Reich, while these days it is the Nazis who occupy the role of eager suppliants to the formidable power of International Zionism, which now so heavily dominates the American political system and through it, much of the world.   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://israelpalestinenews.org/palestinian-art-and-culture-as-a-battlefield-for-israel/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=56b421d5-b0ad-46fb-802a-ce7f378d90c5   In recent weeks, Israel has targeted not only unarmed protesters, medics, journalists, and children, but also symbols of Palestinian art and culture..  [Here are examples how Israel is sabotaging or even destroying Palestinian culture, and with it, Palestinian identity – or so Israel hopes.] Middle East Eye, Ha'aretz, IMEMC, Al Jazeera, Arab News   Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

https://www.timesofisrael.com/bennett-rejects-potential-truce-deal-with-hamas-as-reward-for-terrorists/ Jewish Home leader says his party will oppose any long-term ceasefire accord, warns it harms Israel's deterrence; defense minister dismisses 'empty slogans'… A key coalition ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday harshly criticized any deal for a long-term ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, adding that ministers in his party will oppose it. "Liberman's gestures to efense officials took part in the meeting, Liberman's office said… This week, Israeli authorities noted a significant drop in incendiary kite and balloon attacks f Palestinian enclave.   Senior Israel officials maintain the country has not agreed to the ceasefire that Hamas announced late Thursday and said went into effect at midnight. Hamas, a terror group that seeks to destroy Israel, claims the deal was mediated by Egypt and other ...