September 26, 2010

23% of Israelis ready to leave Israel at any hint of problems?

In the latest issue of the always informative journal Middle East Policy, University of Pennsylvania prof Ian Lustick expresses the notable observation that, Last year, a poll by David Menashri...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:58 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

August 01, 2010

'Ethnic cleansing 101' for Israeli high-schoolers

The ever-dogged Max Blumenthal has a deeply disturbing post on his blog about the fact that, when the Israeli security forces destroyed an entire village of (ethnic Palestinian) Israeli civilians...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:11 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 27, 2010

Arrest campaign against Syrian citizens in occupied Golan

The Syrian citizens who live in Israeli-occupied Golan don't get nearly as much international media coverage as the Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza. But the situation they live...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 AM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

July 26, 2010

Foreign investment in Israel plunged in 2009

Haaretz today: Foreign direct investment in Israel fell by 64% in 2009 to only $3.9 billion, down from $10.9 billion in 2008. Israel fell from 54th place in 2008 to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:35 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

July 19, 2010

550 IDF soldiers interrogated re possible war crimes in Gaza war

Huge kudos to Max Blumenthal, who found a report in yesterday's Yediot stating that (in Max's translation), More than 550 officers and men of IDF who participated in the “Cast...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:38 AM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

July 16, 2010

Plea of the Israeli political prisoner's wife

Read this powerful article penned for Electronic Intifada by Janan Abdu, spouse of Palestinian-Israeli political prisoner Ameer Makhoul, who has shockingly been held without trial since May. Abdu quotes the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:36 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 11, 2010

Military spending: The real crisis for Israel and the U.S.

Thanks to the ever-vigilant Didi Remez we learn that many of the 'scare stories' about Hizbullah, Lebanon etc, that have been coming out of Israel's defense ministry in recent days...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:42 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 05, 2010

IDF Hasbara does Keystone Cops

Yesterday, or was it Thursday, the IDF's disinformation (hasbara) units released a Youtube clip with audio, allegedly recorded in the leadup to Monday's murderous assault on the Mavi Marmara, in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:26 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

June 04, 2010

See the racist hate in today's Israel

The present era in Israel is one in many members of the Jewish majority are expressing anti-Arab race-hate more openly and more frequently than ever before. But there are also...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:30 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Flotilla: Pictures, bios of the known dead

Look at Lawrence of Cyberia's page on this, and weep for these murder victims. 28 children have now been left fatherless. And remember, these are still only the known dead...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:53 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

Blumenthal: IDF, Netanyahu precisely intended violence

Read Max Blumenthal's great post here. It explains how the Israeli state violence against the Mavi Marmara was planned in advance, most likely to strengthen Netanyahu's appeal to an increasingly...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:48 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 03, 2010

IDF press office (partially) retracts Al-Qaeda slander

Max Blumenthal has a great post describing how he and a colleague called out the IDF's press office on its claim that some of the flotilla participants were Al-Qaeda members....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:54 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Flotilla: American citizen among fatalities

Reuters and others are now reporting that a U.S. citizen, 19-year-old Furkan Dogan, was among those murdered by Israel during its piratical assault on the Mavi Marmara on Monday. No...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:35 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

June 02, 2010

Flotilla: Ann Telnaes gets it

When you need a moment for light relief watch her short animation, here. HT: Mondoweiss-- who also noted the great detail about the bath-towel stitching....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Flotilla: Crisis growing inside NATO?

The very well-informed Craig Murray has a great piece about this on his blog today. (HT: Mondoweiss.) Murray's bottom line: There are already deep misgivings, especially amongst the military, over...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:31 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Flotilla: Names of victims starting to appear

One of the many inhumane aspects of Israel's murderous raid on the aid flotilla Monday has been its tardiness in releasing the names of the killed and wounded and its...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:01 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

How to end the siege of Gaza

I've been thinking through some of the challenges any Israeli government would face as it considers ending its four-year-long siege of Gaza. (And that, it is becoming increasingly clear, is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:43 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Turkey shows the way

The Turkish government has successfully persuaded Israel to immediately release all Turkish nationals illegally captured by Israel on the high seas on Monday, and has sent civilian planes and military...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:27 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 01, 2010

Jeffrey Goldberg, his Israeli friends, Marcy Winograd

I don't usually spend much time reading the blog that the eager Zionist apologist-- the eager Zionist!-- Jeffrey Goldberg writes at The Atlantic. Today, I didn't spend a long time...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:07 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Ireland shows the way

The Irish Times reports that the Irish aid ship the MV Rachel Corrie is still steaming toward Gaza-- and that Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Brian Cowen has warned Israel that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:54 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Flotilla murders: The Turkish/NATO angle

The WaPo's Glenn Kessler reported this about Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu , who's been in Washington today: With anger and sarcasm, ... Davutoglu lashed out Tuesday at Israel's attack...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:19 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Keep watching Egypt

Egypt's compliance with Israel in maintaining the siege of Gaza has been an essential element in the siege's inhumane "success" until now. But as Issandr el-Amrani blogged yesterday, Israel's lethal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:26 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

C. Murray: Raid not piracy but war

Former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray makes a strong argument here that the Israeli commandos' assault on a Turkish-flagged civilian vessel in the high seas was an act not...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:07 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Haaretz on Israel's chaotic decisionmaking

Barak Ravid has an informative piece in Haaretz today, underlining the chaos in Israel's top strategic decisionmaking circles over the flotilla raid. It seems like the same old story-- from...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:34 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Flotilla: U.S. supports a U.N. enquiry (oops, no?)

I just read the report of the consultations the UNSC held yesterday and in the wee hours of this morning into the flotilla massacre. The presidential statement and most of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:23 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

May 31, 2010

Israel's flotilla violence changing everything, Part 2

A. The fact that PM Netanyahu has decided that fallout from the IDF's gratuitously violent flotilla assault requires him to cancel his planned meeting in Washington Wednesday and return to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

Arabist and others on the flotilla massacre

Issandr el-Amrani of the Arabist has been doing some of the best blogging on today's IDF flotilla massacre. Among his great posts have been these: How Israel sets the TV...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:48 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

May 26, 2010

Chilling reports on prisoner of conscience A. Makhoul

JNews, out of London, is reporting that Palestinian-Israeli civil society organizer Ameer Makhoul was finally allowed to see his lawyers on May 17, after his first eleven days of being...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

IDF takes Obama aide, family to occupied Golan

There has been a longstanding policy in the U.S. that serving government officials should not take private visits to Israeli-occupied territories. So why has Pres. Obama's highest ranking adviser, Rahm...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:30 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

May 23, 2010

New docs on Israel's nuke deal with apartheid SA

Kudos to the Guardian's Chris McGreal for having published and interpreted a series of official agreements concluded between Israel and South Africa in the mid-1970s, when the government in South...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:10 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

Settler extremists on Facebook

Here's a good report on the settler extremists' extensive presence on Facebook. It includes things like this: The Givot Olam outpost, east of Nablus, also opened a Facebook group. They...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:48 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

Israeli general warns about settler violence

The IOF officer in charge of the West Bank region, Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi, recently told a group of the officers under his command that extremist settler activity could "set the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:19 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 17, 2010

Livni shows a little real vision on the Iran issue?

I just read this account, from the BBC's Tim Franks, of what looked like some kind of cross between a 'war-game' and a panel discussion about Iran's nuclear program, held...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:45 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

May 02, 2010

"Another Acre and Another Goat"

I am very happy to be able to publish this essay by veteran Israeli peace activist Amos Gvirtz of Kibbutz Shefayim. The essay vividly captures the continuity in the conduct...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:37 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

April 14, 2010

When will this nation be 'ready' to govern itself?

Scandals of bribery and administrative and sexual impropriety continue to plague the highest levels of Israeli society. (Not to mention war crimes.) The latest, about former Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupolianski,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:25 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

April 13, 2010

Obama's 'Nuclear Security' showcase, Israeli nukes, etc

The police helicopters have been droning overhead for a couple of days here in Washington DC, as scores of world leaders sit with Pres. Obama at the 'Nuclear Security Summit'....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:48 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 08, 2010

But is the U.S. able to secure Palestinian-Israeli peace?

Tuesday, veteran WaPo columnist David Ignatius published a very insidery report to the effect that Obama is considering rolling out a specifically "Made in America" plan for a final peace...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:22 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

April 06, 2010

Too much to blog about, #1: Anat Kam

The 'Anat Kam' story has been developing a lot over the past week. It's the story of two Haaretz journalists, Anat Kam and the older Uri Blau, who have been...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:49 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 26, 2010

Aluf Benn on how Netanyahu misread America

Benn has a great piece in Friday's Haaretz about the overweening self-confidence with which PM Netanyahu launched his 'triumphal visit' to AIPAC this week-- and how seriously he misread the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 24, 2010

"Israel's 'consensus on Jerusalem' has cracked" -- Ben Meir

Today's Haaretz carries a very significant op-ed from Yehuda Ben Meir, a former MK from the National Religious Party who, looking at the results of two recent polls asks, Who...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:44 AM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 13, 2010

Max Blumenthal on N.Y. 'Lawfare Project' conference

Blumenthal went to this seven-hour conference, held Thursday by the 'Lawfare Project' in New York, and has written a great blog post about it at Mondoweiss. The Lawfare Project has...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:11 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 10, 2010

The Biden factor: Iraq, Palestine-- and Israel

Breaking news: late Wednesday evening in Cairo, Abu Mazen and his buddies at the Arab League decided there will be no 'proximity talks' between the PLO and Israel. I'm kind...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:43 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

March 08, 2010

Obama, Biden cave to Netanyahu

So Vice-President Biden arrives in Israel-- and the very same day the Israeli government announces it will build 112 new apartments in the settlement of Beitar Illit. This despite PM...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:15 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

March 07, 2010

New life for Israel's anti-occupation left?

Didi Remez has a great post today about the gradually snowballing effect of the weekly anti-occupation demonstration's in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah district. He writes, Thousands of demonstrators, Jewish and Palestinian,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:54 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 05, 2010

As'ad AbuKhalil, the Mossad, and Israel's KoolAid

As'ad AbuKhalil has an excellent piece on the Al-Jazeera English website, in which he examines all the hasbara-fueled myth-making around the alleged prowess of Israel's Mossad. As I noted in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:55 AM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

March 01, 2010

Israel Ballet bombs (artistically) in DC

The Israel Ballet, which reportedly receives around $1 million annually in funding from the Israeli government, gave a performance Saturday in suburban Washington DC that was panned by influential WaPo...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:46 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

February 27, 2010

Iran "calling" Israel's nuclear-related blackmail?

Speculation is reportedly rife among Washington insiders over why, a couple of weeks ago, the Iranian authorities moved nearly all their stockpile of low-enriched uranium from its previous, deep-underground bunker...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:47 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

February 26, 2010

The ultimate in chutzpah??

Israeli citizens living quite illegally in the settlement of "Ateret" in the occupied West Bank are now protesting the Palestinian Authority's pursuit of a project to build the first-ever Palestinian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 25, 2010

Leveretts on Israeli-Iranian 'proxy war'

Shortly after I published this post earlier today about the Spy Wars underway between the Israeli team and the pro-Iranian team, I saw this post that Flynt Leverett and Hillary...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:45 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Excellent BDS victory in Brussels!

Lengthy efforts by those trying to get targeted sanctions imposed against products made in Israel's illegal settlements have won a great victory in the European High Court. It ruled today...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:46 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

Spy Wars heat up!

The long-simmering Spy Wars between Israel on the one hand, and Iran and its allies in the Jebhat al-Mumana'a (Blocking Front) on the other, have been heating up a lot...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:11 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 24, 2010

Dan Halutz's 'recipe' for success... against Iran?

Why does it so frequently seem as if members of Israel's political elite have no shame? Case in point: Dan Halutz, the former IDF chief of staff who was last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:35 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

Tel Aviv municipality supports racist 'chastity' patrols

Tel Aviv is often portrayed by Israeli hasbaristas as a hip, modern, and very liberal kind of place. So why do we learn now, from Dimi Reider, that the city...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:20 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 20, 2010

More questions about Mossad's Dubai debacle

Israeli military analyst Ronen Bergman had an interesting contribution in yesterday's WSJ about the almost-certainly-Mossad killing of Hamas operative Muhammad al-Mabhuh in Dubai last month. (HT: Phil Weiss.) It's true,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:53 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

February 18, 2010

Israelis call for talks with Hamas

On February 15, Israeli 'refusenik' soldiers Arik Diamant and David Zonscheine published a short, tightly argued piece in the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' section under the title 'Talk to Hamas'....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:44 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

February 17, 2010

Far-right Israeli gov't cracks down-- on members of US Congress!

Well, they do say that those whom the Gods want to destroy, first they make crazy... And here is the evidence that it this is indeed happening in today's Israel....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:52 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)