JERUSALEM, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military will soon begin equipping reserve forces with its most advanced assault rifle, Ma'ariv daily reported on Thursday.
Plans to train and equip reservists with the rifle Tavor TAR-21 were accelerated in the wake of Operation Pillar of Defense, the army's eight-day airstrike in the Gaza Strip last month to curb rocket attacks.
Arab League calling in pledges to fund PA
Media Outlet:
Ma'an News Agency
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- The Arab League has begun calling in donor pledges to Palestine from its members, but cannot confirm the exact date the so-called Arab safety net will be transferred to the government.
Assistant Secretary General of Palestine Affairs in the Arab League Mohammad Sbeih told Ma’an on Thursday evening that the group had opened communications with Arab states over the $100 million monthly payment promised on Sunday.
Abbas mulls forming confederation with Jordan
Article Author(s):
Khaled Abu Toameh
Media Outlet:
The Jerusalem Post
Palestinian Authority officials confirmed Thursday that they were studying the possibility of establishing a confederation with Jordan, but stressed that this would take place only after the creation of an independent Palestinian state within the pre-1967 line
Gaza’s Fishermen Testing the Limits
Article Author(s):
Linda Gradstein
Media Outlet:
The Media Line
Israel says it has eased restrictions, but Palestinians are not so sure
Indictment of Israeli FM to have limited political ramifications
Article Author(s):
Adam Gonn
JERUSALEM, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Thursday announced that he would charge Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman on accounts of fraud and breach of trust. However, Weinstein dropped the more severe charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice.
The decision by Weinstein marks the end of the 12 year process during which Lieberman has been under investigation for allegedly pocketing millions of U.S. dollars from foreign businessmen via shell companies.
The myth of an Israeli-Palestinian demographic disaster
Article Author(s):
Oded Carmeli
Since the 19th century, and more intensively since the 1960s, demographers like Paul Ehrlich, who was interviewed in this magazine last week, have been telling us that the world is a ticking bomb because of the population explosion. When we think about the “population explosion” we conjure up street crossings in New York or, alternatively, refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. But the truth is that the world is quite empty of people.
Feiglin: Israel's clear and present danger
Article Author(s):
Sara Hirschhorn
This is the story of Moshe Zalman Feiglin, an Israeli ultranationalist activist who “had a dream” to lead the government of the Jewish state - and that day may well arrive soon.
On January 22, Israelis will go the polls to elect, in all likeliness, a new Likud-Israel Beiteinu slate that some consider the most right-wing in the party’s history - a candidate list where even MK Benny Begin, the heir of the Revisionist movement, has now been edged out in favor of a new identity politics and ideological orientation.
'Neutralizing' East Jerusalem
Article Author(s):
Salman Masalha
All of a sudden, everyone is protesting vehemently - those who are called left-wing here, and all the other sorts of hypocrites from the rest of the world - about the plans to build in the area known in the Zionist secret code as E-1. I must admit that I haven't fully understood those who are protesting. Because in which way is this site more outrageous than the other conquests we have witnessed in the past decades, so that it has aroused their ire?
Israel winning in Europe
Article Author(s):
Arsen Ostrovsky
Before the ink was even dry on the Palestinian vote at the UN last week, headlines already started flooding on how Israel 'lost Europe.' The reality however, could not be further from the truth, as Israel continues to make stunning headway in its trade and bilateral relations with the EU.
A Middle East union of young progressives
Article Author(s):
Uri Savir
Media Outlet:
The Jerusalem Post
I have a young Egyptian friend, Ahmed Meligy, who also happens to be a Jerusalem Post blogger.
At the moment that this article is being written, he is taking part in pro-democratic demonstrations in Cairo, as he did continually during the Tahrir revolution. The courage and outspokenness of Meligy and his peers is the hope for the Middle East to steer toward greater democratization and peace.
Palestine: Diary of a historic month
Article Author(s):
Raja Shehadeh
Media Outlet:
The Guardian
9 November It was inevitable that at some point Jewish settlements in the West Bank would endanger even the trees. This was the thought I had as I was driven through the northern part of the West Bank on a field trip organised by Oxfam, which is working with Palestinian NGOs to help local cooperatives improve their agricultural practices and open up local and international markets to them. The villagers told us that tens of thousands of olive trees have been uprooted to make way for the construction of the Israeli separation barrier.
On Israel, Obama brings Moynihan to mind
Article Author(s):
Gil Troy
Media Outlet:
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Those who view American-Israel relations through a dualistic “are you pro-Israel or anti-Israel” lens must be confused. In one week, the United States stands virtually alone with Israel against the Palestinians’ upgrade of their status at the United Nations, then immediately condemns Israel’s settlement expansion. Similarly, despite Republican warnings that a reelected Barack Obama would “throw Israel under a bus,” the president backed Israel during the recent Gaza War.
How Unilateral Moves Can Help
Article Author(s):
Ami Ayalon
Media Outlet:
The Daily Beast
Several signs lately reinforce the conclusion that the direct negotiations paradigm for resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict has failed and must be replaced. The recent U.N. vote accepting Palestine as a non-member state is one such sign: 138 states supported the Palestinians’ resolution, only 9 voted against it, including the United States (a prisoner of the old paradigm).
After Abbas
Article Author(s):
Jonathan Schanzer
Media Outlet:
Foreign Policy
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas went to the United Nations last month and brought his people one step closer to statehood. But amid all the fanfare, Western diplomats quietly conceded that the General Assembly vote to upgrade the Palestinians' U.N. mission was not simply a step taken to advance their national project. It also reflected a desire to counter Hamas's growing influence, particularly after the Gaza-based terrorist group claimed victory in its war with Israel in November.
Meshal's folly
Article Author(s):
Henry Siegman
Just as the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly recognized Palestine as a state in the occupied territories beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders, providing new hope and encouragement to those who have not given up on the struggle for a Palestinian state living in peace alongside the State of Israel; and as major European countries condemned in unprecedentedly strong terms Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to enlarge the settlement project in the Jerusalem area and elsewhere, a move that would prevent such a two-state outcome, Hamas' political bureau chief Khaled Meshal las
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