Middle East

In Israel and the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Israel’s Foreign Minister has dismissed the prospect of Palestinian statehood within the next two years, by 2012. Avigdor Lieberman made the comment to reporters in Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is due in Washington next week for talks with President Obama.

Over sixty years have passed with Palestinians under occupation by the Israel government and the situation is continuously getting worse for the Palestinians. Far from giving up, local people gang together and insist on demonstrating for their rights. With international pressure an acceptable situation has to finally result, anything else is unthinkable.

When a hitherto ‘straight’ well-known individual breaks into a protest fast, it certainly raises eyebrows and draws attention to the particular issue. This is the case with the Diamond Industry, a certain Mr Rappaport, and a campaign to include Israel among the nations branded as part of the Conflict Diamonds debacle.

Gypsies have been universally discriminated against because, as nomadics, they were seen as strangers everywhere and that attitude is only slowly changing. Valery Novoselsky tells his story and how, despite that Israel is very keen on building up its resident population in general, for him it was the same story played out yet again.

The Israeli military has announced that it will conduct its own internal investigation into last week’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that killed nine Turkish passengers dead. Israel has rejected calls for an international tribunal. On Monday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said there should be an international presence in the inquiry.

What started as joyous preparations to welcome 700 activists on breaking the siege at Gaza’s Harbor the Israeli government maneuvered into a tragic turn of events. Their naval forces’ savagely attacked the Gaza Freedom Flotilla carrying 700 solidarity activists from 40 countries and materials for an impoverished Gaza Strip.

Israeli troops took control of the Free Gaza movement MV Rachel Corrie aid ship while its sealing to the Gaza Strip to deliver aid and break the Siege. According to the Israeli army soldiers took control of the ship without any clashes with the 20 people on board the ship. MV Rachel Corrie was rerouted to the Israeli sea port of Ashdod near the Gaza Strip.

As the NPT conference comes to an end with no hope on the horizon for a speedy disarmament, Hillel Schenker, from the Jerusalem-based Palestine-Israel Journal talks about the often talked about Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Middle East. “One thing is clear—asking Israel to sign the NPT is a futile exercise, because it will not unilaterally disarm.”

Call it perfect timing or a sheer historical coincidence; be it because they feel caught between the Israeli nuclear hammer and the Iranian might-be atomic anvil or just because they truly want it, the fact is that the leaders of 22 Arab countries have launched an unprecedented massive and pressing call to free the world from nuclear weapons.

Now that nuclear arsenals reduction is much in the news, the US and Russia have agreed to downsize their stockpiles by 30% and 22 Arab countries called for a nuke-free world, it’s time to ask how many countries have decided to eliminate the threat of a devastating nuclear war and consequently managed to liberate themselves from the most atrocious weapons of mass destruction.