Israel-Palestine Live Coverage (6 November): Moves by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority Before a UN Vote

1920 GMT: Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon critical of three tanks crossed into the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel last week and of Syrian gunfire hit an Israeli military jeep on Monday.

1830 GMT: Fatah central committee member Azzam al-Ahmad said they are committed to go to the UN. He continued:

We know there is an Israeli ministerial committee to discuss the issue and to start setting punishments on use but we have decided and it's not over, we're going despite the results.

1800 GMT: After Israeli decision to construct new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem and in Ariel in the West Bank, PLO leader Hanan Ashrawi said:

Such organized efforts to construct more units in the illegal settlements of Pisgat Zeev, Ramot, and Ariel are a deliberate attempt to breach international law and to destroy all chances for peace.

With today’s announcement, it is obvious that such actions are in response to our decision to go to the United Nations, which serves to rescue the failed peace process and end the illegal occupation. 

As such, this sends a clear message to both the international community and to the Palestinians that Israel is more committed to annexing Palestinian land than committing to any peace resolution with the Palestinian people.

Click to read more ...

Israel-Palestine Live Blog (23 October): Gaza, Settlements, Iran, and Elections

Tzipi Livni and Ehud Olmert1830 GMT: In a ceremony attended by Qatar's Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the former laid the foundation stone for Hamad Medical City project in the Gaza Strip. 

1825 GMT: A rocket fired from Gaza hits Eshkol Regional Council. No injuries reported. 

1740 GMT: The IDF says the army is better than the intercepted Finnish-flagged Gaza-bound civilian vessel when it comes to efficiency. 

1615 GMT: Greek activists who were arrested aboard the Finnish-flagged Estelle by Israeli commandos on Saturday denounced the Israeli army's action.

Vaguelis Diamantopoulos, a Greek MP, said: "The balaclava-clad commandos from the Israeli marine carrying heavy weapons came aboard the boat and acted like a militia." 

The boat's captain Vangelis Pissias said: "They sent out the army for 30 activists."

Activists claimed that Israeli soldiers had used tasers on board. However, Israeli officials denied such accusations. 

Click to read more ...

Israel-Palestine Live Blog (19 October): A Centre-Left Alternative to Netanyahu?

1540 GMT: Former Israeli Ambassador to UN, Gabriella Shalev, says in an interview with the Israeli daily Haaretz that she is “more Zionist, feminist and critical” after her return to Israel. 

To summarize, Shalev strongly criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “unilateral” Iranian policy, his “support” to the US President Barack Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney; all of which Shalev says make Israel “become a burden instead of an asset” in the eyes of the “great, important and true friend”, the United States.

After framing the complicated relations at the UN, Shalev says that the reason of Israel’s delegitimization is the “failure to recognize the right of the Jewish people to exist in Zion” and adds that “without the United States Israel would be denounced and isolated”. On the other hand, Shalev recognizes the “importance of the Iranian threat”, calls Iran as a "terrible country" that "will not sit by quietly."

 

The "need" for Israel's dependence on Washington on the traditional values of Zionism can be clearly seen in Shalev’s sentence: “The State of Israel cannot exist as an independent state here, in this small and pathetic territory that we received.”

1400 GMT: In a statement, the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine says Free Syrian Army rebels shot dead its leader Adel Hasan in Deraa refugee camp.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Israel-Palestine (16 October): Netanyahu's Threats That Will Dominate the Elections

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

1945 GMT: The State Attirney's Office announced that it is appealing the acquittals of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the Jerusalem District Court corruption case to the Supreme Court. At a time when Olmert was mulling a political comeback, he could go to jail if the appeal is rejected. 

1900 GMT: Israel Defense Forces have confirmed that a Strela (SA-7) anti-aircraft missile was fired at an Israeli helicopter over the Gaza Strip for the first time last week.

1825 GMT: A rocket fired from Gaza hits Hof Ashkelon Regional Council in southern Israel. No injuries reported.

1730 GMT: The Palestinian Authority's public workers union has called for full strike Wednesday, Thursday and again next week in protest of the government's failure to pay salaries. 

1650 GMT: The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, says the elected government of Gaza in 2006 was "the first model which led to the breakout of a sweeping Arab revolution in the Islamic region."

Click to read more ...

Israel-Palestine Opinion: No Pleasure in Bad News --- The Bad Math of the Zero-Sum Game

Human Rights Watch on the abuse in Gaza's prisons

---

Zero-sum logic ignores the fact that, like it or not, we are all in this together. Each act of political violence that occurs in Israel and Palestine these days is deeply intertwined with the failure to make peace and the cycle of violence that has arisen in its stead. Torture on either side of the Gaza border will never enhance security on the other.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (29 August): Side-Stepping Syria at the Summit

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon meets the Supreme Leader today

See also The Latest from Iran (28 August): The Propaganda Display at the Summit

---

2040 GMT: Summit Watch. Looks like the meeting between United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and the Supreme Leader was quite feisty for a diplomatic encounter....

Ayatollah Khamenei replied to Ban's concerns on the nuclear issues (see 2015 GMT) with the challenge that the United Nations is "defective", given the "dominance" of the US and its allies in the Security Council.

The Supreme Leader also spoke at length on Syria and "the victimisation of the innocent people of this country", criticising "a flood of weapons" to "irresponsible groups" and the opposition for a "proxy war".

Ayatollah Khamenei's website did not present his responses to Ban's comments on human rights issues and "offensive and inflammatory statements" on Israel.

Click to read more ...

Lebanon Feature: Is Hezbollah's Syria Policy A Regional and Domestic Mistake? (Barnard)

Lebanese man with poster of Hezbollah's Sayyid Hassan Nasrullah and Syrian President Assad, 11 January 2012 (Photo: Louai Beshahra/AFP)

---

Though Hezbollah’s base in Lebanon remains strong, it runs an increasing risk of finding itself isolated, possibly caught up in a sectarian war between its patron, Iran, the region’s Shiite power, and Saudi Arabia, a protector of Sunni interests in the Middle East. Its longtime ally, Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, has distanced itself from the Assad government, moving its headquarters out of Damascus, and Sunni revolutionaries in Syria have explicitly denounced Hezbollah as an enemy. At home, its Lebanese rivals sense a rare opportunity to erode its power.

Click to read more ...

Iran & Turkey Feature: Tehran v. Ankara in Battle for Hearts and Minds (Akyol)

Turkish President Erdogan & Supreme LeaderThe Arab Spring has heightened the ideological tension between Ankara and Tehran, and Turkey's model seems to be winning. Last spring, Iran often claimed that the Arab revolutions were akin to the Iranian one decades before and would usher in similar governments. Yet in Tunisia and Egypt, for the first time, leading figures in mainstream Islamist parties have won elections by explicitly appealing to the "the Turkish model" rather than to an Iranian-style theocracy. What's more, in December 2011, the Palestinian movement Hamas salted the wound when a spokesman announced the organization's shift toward "a policy of nonviolent resistance", which reflected its decision to distance itself from Syria and Iran and to move closer to Egypt, Turkey, and Qatar.

Click to read more ...

Turkey Live Coverage (19 March): New Year Celebrations, Clashes, and the Syria Crisis

See also Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: Heavy Fighting in Damascus?

---

1815 GMT: Publisher Ragıp Zarakolu and Professor Büşra Ersanlı are facing up to 10 and 15 years in jail respectively, due to charges of leading and aiding a "terrorist organization".

Zarakolu and Ersanli were arrested  in November on terrorism charges as part of an investigation into the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), claimed as an umbrella group for the urban sections of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Click to read more ...

Israeli Jets Kill 14 in Gaza; Rockets Fired into Southern Israel (Brulliard/Abdulkarim)

An explosion in Gaza today from an Israeli airstrike

---

An escalation of cross-border violence continued for the second day on Saturday, as the death toll from Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip rose to 14 militants and militant factions fired dozens more rockets into southern Israel.

Two militant groups in Gaza said those killed in at least 10 airstrikes from Friday to Saturday were their fighters, among them a top commander. Witnesses and medics said the latest airstrike, at midday Saturday, killed two militants in the crowded Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis.

Militants vowed revenge after the initial strike that killed a leading commander on Friday, and they claimed responsibility for a subsequent torrent of more than 90 rockets that the Israeli military said were launched from Gaza toward southern Israel.

Click to read more ...