The week in brief, 3-9 January 2010

This week saw the tail end of the saga of the Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza and the Gaza Freedom March. Footage from Al Jezeera shows Members of the much-delayed Viva Palestina convoy passing through Egypt’s Rafah border; Gush Shalom reports on the Tel Aviv demo commemorating one year after the war; and both Seamus Milne and Amira Hass look at the sorry role Egypt has played in recent weeks (as Uri Avnery did last week).

Gazan realities on the ground are revealed in two brief extracts from Ross Kemp’s Sky1 TV programme on Gaza (shown in a YouTube posting); and in B’tselem-inspired videos of daily life made by 15 young volunteers in Gaza, mostly students starting their studies in communication or journalism.

Apartheid-like realities on the West Bank are highlighted by Henry Siegman, Michael Ratner and Akiva Eldar, while Member of Knesset Ahmed Tibi’s attempt to give Israeli citizens who happen to be Palestinian equal access to the land in green-line Israel was rejected…

The Magnes Zionist revisits the question of the illegality of the West Bank settlements.

Bradley Burston calls the Goldstone Report Israel’s Frankenstein Monster, saying it ‘is easy to critique but impossible to ignore’; and in a significant about-turn, former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak has recommended that Israel join the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Ruchama Marton, Psychiatrist, and founder of Physicians for Human Rights- Israel puts the World Medical Association’s refusal to investigate  Israeli physicians’ complicity with torture under the spotlight once again.

Lady Scotland has opened a can of worms with her commitment to make the application of universal jurisdiction subject to political pressure and the convenience of the government of the day;

A group of retired German ambassadors created a stir when they launched an appeal to the German Government to reconsider German Middle East policy.

Seth Freedman discusses the work of Combatants for Peace and Rotem Mor invites you to join him on his guided walks of Jerusalem…