Miri Regev, Israel’s culture minister, is an ambitious and successful woman who makes headlines with populist racism. She is taken to task by fellow Mizrahi woman, Mazal Mualem, for cultivating a public persona as a victim of racist exclusion which sits oddly with her life experience.

oD. Sami Zubaida contrasts the alienated, frustrated enemy status of many young Muslims in the West with their collective memory of a glorious Islamic past. The Israel/Palestine conflict, he says, converts anachronistic antisemitic tropes into a fitting idea.

The military leaders of Egypt and Israel have long enjoyed good relations, having in common the priority of keeping Palestinians down. This is quite out of step with Arab citizens – Egypt is the most populous Arab country – who, a new poll reveals, have support for Palestinians and hostility to oppressor Israel in common.

If the big powers are hoping for ‘deconfliction’ in the Levant and a possible new world order it seems as though Israel won’t have a say in what shape that could take. Having failed to create any new allies for itself or to stop the better relations with Iran – which supports Hezbollah and the Assad regime – Israel has no big power to speak for it.

As Dani Dayan is known as ‘the most effective leader the settlers have ever had’ (NY Times) it is not surprising that Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is demurring at accepting him as Israel’s next ambassador to her country. Netanyahu wants him there either to get him out of the way or because “Israel is focused on developing trade ties with international markets in South America, with the emphasis on Brazil,” the statement said. “Brazil also has a blooming population of over 40 million Christian lovers of Israel.”

  This week, 21st-27th September 2015 Don’t forget: Rabbis speak out – IJV meeting in London on 1st October. Independent Jewish Voices has organised a meeting at which four rabbis, from the Reform, Liberal and Mazorti traditions of Judaism, are speaking out on social justice in Israel/Palestine. Another week, another series of injustices. In Lest […]

Crazy Country is Adam Keller’s blog from Israel in which he regularly takes stock. As he shows here, a week can be an even longer time in Israeli politics than usual. His report ranges from the Israeli reaction to Reykjavik’s call for a boycott of Israeli goods, to a delegation of former Israeli diplomats calling on the Brazilian embassy not to recognise the appointment of settler leader Danny Dayan as the new Israeli ambassador to Brazil, from the simmering fires on the ground as daily incidents – confrontations, shooting and the hurling of stones and Molotov cocktails – continue under occupation, to Netanyahu’s proposals to deal with the discontent by shooting stone throwers and fining their parents…

Crazy country, indeed…

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research is the premier opinion polling organisation in the Palestinian territories. It has just published the results of a new poll showing a shift in Palestinian opionion: a (bare) majority no longer supports a two-state solution.

We carry Ali Sawafta’s report in Haaretz, and full details of the extensive survey itself.

We reprint this article not because there is anything particularly new in it, nor because we agree with all its protagonist says. But for a mass circulation Israeli newspaper/website, Yedioth Ahronoth/Ynetnews, to devote over 4 thousand words to a broadly sympathetic portrait of a BDS activist is an extraordinary event.

Perhaps something is stirring in the Israeli conscience?

Dror Etkes has been monitoring the settlements for nearly 20 years through a series of roles – initially in Peace Now, then in other organisations. His new detailed report, “Walled Garden – Declaration of Closed Areas in the West Bank” concludes: “The State of Israel is making sweeping use of closure orders in the West Bank for varied purposes, first of all closing off areas for military training maneuvers. Research shows that the continued closure of the vast majority of the training zones does not answer to any military need…”

Come and hear four rabbis, from the Reform, Liberal and Mazorti traditions of Judaiasm, speaking out on social justice in Israel/Palestine.

Chaired by Rev Giles Fraser.

Don’t miss it!

We reported a few days ago about the brutal shooting at Checkpoint 18 in Hebron in Lest we forget the price of occupation.

B’tselem has investigated the incident and in measured, cautious language says that “the soldiers at the checkpoint acted disproportionately. They did not try to subdue al-Hashlamun and take her into custody without resorting to live fire. The claim that al-Hashlamun tried to stab soldiers, repeated by the media, cannot be reconciled with the fact that there was a metal barrier between her and the soldiers at the time of the shooting. Furthermore, the soldier who opened fire continued shooting after she had been hit in the legs and no longer posed a danger.”

We call it murder.

We often hear Palestinian textbooks being accused of teaching hatred. As we reported back in 2013 in Israeli textbooks also obliterate ‘the other’, Israeli textbooks can be pretty shabby. Now, from the Yesha Council comes Occupation Shmuccupation a pure “hasbara booklet for kids” designed to incite hatred, not just of “Arabs” but of Israeli “left-wing organisations” as well.

Story by Ben Norton on Mondoweiss.

UK registered charity, Toremet, is run by Jonny Cline who previously stood on Naftali Bennett’s Jewish Home list in Israel’s 2013 municipal elections. A study by Ben White reveals that Toremet is acting as a conduit for donations to Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Since settlements are illegal under international law, Chris Doyle, Director of Caabu (Council for Arab-British Understanding), said “charities have a duty not to assist in the violation of such laws”, and urged the Charity Commission to “take immediate action.”

A week ago, the Guardian published a piece that unquestioningly reproduced demands from so-called leaders of the Jewish community that Jeremy Corbyn clarify claims that originated with a self-confessed Holocaust denier. Corbyn has answered these allegations numerous times but that didn’t stop them being simply regurgitated yet again. Jews for Jeremy sent an immediate response but, sad to say, the Guardian has chosen not to publish it. We reproduce it here.

Robert Cohen gives us an opportunity to replay PM Netanyahu’s recent visit to London where a petition for his arrest to be tried for war crimes was – unfortunately but not unsurprisingly – turned down by HM Government. Cohen reflects wryly on aspects of the visit.

An International Solidarity Movement report from Shuhada Street checkpoint 56 in Hebron.

Short and anguished. Cold-blooded murder. Impunity in action. We wait to see someone held to account, but not with bated breath…

Update: supplemented by a report by Philip Weiss, with video evidence

Amjad Iraqi argues that “the only permanent cure to Jerusalem’s sickness lies not just in ending the occupation (the foremost and most urgent step), but in ending the nationalist-religious mantras of ownership of the city in both Israeli and Palestinian social and political thought.”

A few days ago the Jerusalem city council approved thirty Hebrew street names for roads in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian neighborhoods. The slow strangulation of Palestinian identity continues, symbolised in this small-minded, grubby decision.

Deborah Lipstadt, renowned Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies, helps but agonises over helping the Syrian refugees. In particular she “almost” agrees with Netanyahu’s decision not to accept any refugees. Lisa Goldman responds differently: ” I don’t think anyone would retroactively ask for nuance in judging those who once turned away desperate Jews during the Holocaust, consigning them to genocide, because they were not Christian and might not fit in.”