Palestine Think Tank

“Their/our” media is the true Apartheid Wall between Israel and our nation. It strangles our capitol like an elastic beltway that it tightens and loosens according to Israel’s directions.

It is the whip that keeps our cowardly politicians in tow and our populace ignorant of the truth about Israel “our ally and only democratic government in the Middle East”. Israel is the huge sucking sound that drains our money, military, and mind set while we like indoctrinated puppets cheer it on. We are helping Israel in its strategy to create our own national suicide.
And not only that: Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions. If you look closely you will find that the vast majority of these donors are Jewish, many from Wall Street, or Pro-Israel activists.

(artwork by Carlos Latuff) The time has come for looking deeper into the Palestinian political system and empowerment of the Palestinian, Arab and international think tanks worldwide to face the thought-provoking challenges of the Palestinian divide and its negative impacts on the Palestinians, their neighbors and the international community. If it matters, measure it.
Firstly, the [...]

By Jeff Gates *
Israeli officials are right to worry. Gazans too. Yet Americans should worry even more.
Israel's "legitimacy" will not last. Of course, that assumes its legitimacy was deserved. That issue also is now called into question in light of the consistency of Israeli behavior over the past six decades. The emerging issues are these:
When [...]

From: Revealing Gaza, in the eyes of the beholder
I recently was invited to a workshop discussing the Palestinian dialogue and what destiny is waiting for it, I found it very useful for non-political people like me and I thought it would be helpful and eye-opening if I share it with you.  The invitation was from Mr. [...]

WRITTEN By Khalid Amayreh

In its rabid efforts to whitewash the Goldstone report, Israel is likely to carry out another disingenuous probe into its genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip nearly ten months ago.
 
The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, himself a Jew, accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including [...]

Even up until the mass killing, the Samouni family still clung naively to the notion that their working relationship with the IDF would protect them. Haaretz reports that “on January 4, under orders from the army, Salah Samouni and the rest of the family left their home, which had been turned into a military position, and moved to the other, the home of Wael [Samouni], located on the southern side of the street. The fact that it was the soldiers who had relocated them, had seen the faces of the children and the older women, and the fact that the soldiers were positioned in locations surrounding the house just tens of meters away, instilled in the family a certain amount of confidence – despite the IDF fire from the air, from the sea and from the land, despite the hunger and the thirst.”

And then the IDF shelled that home, killing 21 of the Samouni family. Their usefulness had expired.

The Samouni’s had not thrown stones at Israeli tanks and had not waved angry fists at Israeli soldiers. Instead, they had worked dutifully for the Jewish population and had learned its language. But they were not spared. They were not spared because they had not themselves been Jewish. They were not spared because “peaceful co-existence” is merely a phrase bandied about by politicians seeking camouflage.

An entire mythology has been built around the Palestinian resistance movement (which morphed into a party) Hamas. This construct has actually taken on more legitimacy as a factual interpretation of Hamas than the facts themselves. In most of the Western media, no matter if it is on the right or the left, and in some of the “moderate” media in Arab countries, the very name of the party is coupled with terms such as “fundamentalist”, “radical” or “terrorist”. Clearly, this serves to create a fear trigger that will remove the word from being critically and honestly evaluated. The listener will immediately identify Hamas with a negative connotation and is removed from responsibility for understanding that this is a manipulation of reality. The listener is expected to accept the claims that Hamas is “anti-democratic” and “fanatical”. It is child’s play to then convince the listener that Hamas is Bad, that it is the Enemy of all We represent (in our own eyes, tolerance, democracy, Goodness itself). It is possible to then extend that reading to the belief that action must be taken against them, that they are a “cancer that must be gotten rid of”, as quoted by the institutional peacenik, Noa. How does one eradicate a cancer, once it has been diagnosed? By extirpation or bombardment.

What peace, Mr. Nobel for Peace, if you cannot stop settlements? What peace when the British Foreign Secretary considers the Israeli war a democratic decision by a democratic state? What peace when European Union countries have refrained from voting to form an investigation delegation, a mere delegation to investigate the murder of 1,400 Palestinians, three quarters of whom were civilians? We are before a western ethical crisis. These countries, which teach daily lessons on the independence of the judiciary and human rights and the importance of accountability, stand naked at Israeli checkpoints, incapable of demonstrating even minimal credibility. International justice in Belgium retreated before Sharon. In Spain, it retreated before the generals of “Operation Cast Lead”. We have no idea where else in the aging continent (as Rumsfeld calls it) it will retreat. Has the Israeli war criminal become stronger than judicial buildings that are over two centuries old? This is the question before judicial, national, regional and international institutions today.

By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
The recent Turkish decision to exclude Israel from an aerial military exercise over Turkish territory is another indication that Turkey will not allow itself to be blackmailed by criminal international Zionism.
Following the decision, Zionist officials and media sought to mitigate its impact on the increasingly troubled relations with Turkey by claiming [...]

By Alan Hart*
On Monday 12 October, Prime Minister Netanyahu opened the Knesset's winter session by blasting the Goldstone Report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes and vowing that he would never allow Israelis be tried for them. But that was not his main message. It was an appeal, delivered I thought with a measure [...]