Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today. A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Rachel Corrie's family takes Israel to court
The Israeli government and its right-wing supporters have been waging a “McCarthyite” campaign against human rights groups by blaming them for the barrage of international criticism that has followed Israel’s attack on Gaza a year ago, critics say. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel subjecting rights groups to "McCarthy techniques"
Over the past few days graffiti scrawled on walls around the mixed Jewish and Arab town of Jaffa in central Israel exclaims: “Settlers, keep out” and “Jaffa is not Hebron.” Although Jaffa is only a stone’s throw from the bustling coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, Arab residents say their neighborhood has become the unlikely battleground for an attempted takeover by extremist Jews more familiar from West Bank settlements. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Palestinians fight Jewish-only housing in Jaffa
The Israeli courts ordered the release this week of two foreign women arrested by the army in the West Bank in what human rights lawyers warn has become a wide ranging clampdown by Israel on nonviolent protest from international, Israeli and Palestinian activists. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israeli immigration police abducting international activists in West Bank
Jerusalem’s mayor threatened last week to demolish 200 homes in Palestinian neighborhoods of the city in an act even he conceded would probably bring long-simmering tensions over housing in East Jerusalem to a boil. His uncompromising stance is the latest stage in a protracted legal battle over a single building towering above the jumble of modest homes of Silwan. Jonathan Cook reports from Jerusalem. Read more about Jerusalem mayor to raze 200 Palestinian homes
Over the past four decades Israel has defrauded Palestinians working inside Israel of more than $2 billion by deducting from their salaries contributions for welfare benefits to which they were never entitled, Israeli economists have revealed. A new report, “State Robbery,” to be published later this month, says the “theft” continued even after the Palestinian Authority was established in 1994. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Report: Israel stole $2 billion from Palestinian workers
Leaders of the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel warned this week that they were facing an unprecedented campaign of persecution designed to stop their political activities. The warning came after Said Nafaa, a Druze member of the Israeli parliament was stripped of his immunity last week, clearing the way for him to be tried for a visit to Syria three years ago. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Palestinian politicians face tide of persecution in Israel
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament has sparked controversy among Jews and Arabs in Israel over his decision to join an official Israeli delegation commemorating International Holocaust Day today at a Nazi death camp in Poland. Mohammed Barakeh will be the only Arab in a contingent of Israeli parliamentarians and government ministers at Auschwitz to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Arab parliamentarian in Israel visits Auschwitz
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, approved last week the upgrading to university status of a college in a settlement located deep inside the West Bank, a move certain to further undermine Palestinian confidence in the peace process. The decision, authorizing the first Israeli university in Palestinian territory, is expected to entitle the college to significant extra funding, allowing it to expand its student population. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israel upgrades settlement college to university
