By Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel A new Adalah report documents the parallels between two Palestinian villages, Al-Araqib in Israel and Susiya in the West Bank, which share a single story of struggle against home demolitions and forced displacement. The report sets out the methods of displacement used by Israel to expel Palestinian communities from their land on both sides of the Green Line, and examines the legal context in which it takes place. Read more: PHOTOS: Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day with rallies and protests Remembering the Nakba, understanding this is a shared land…

The Prawer-Begin Plan is not the first time the state has displaced Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev). But it is a sign of how, 65 years after the state’s establishment, Israel still treats thousands of its Palestinian citizens no differently than those in the territories. By Amjad Iraqi On April 25, a bus carrying Bedouin residents of Al-Araqib drove from the Naqab (Negev) in Israel to the Palestinian village of Susiya in the West Bank. The people were meeting for the first time to watch a screening of a new film by Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights…

Dennis Ross presents a framework for renewing the peace process, which he apparently lifted directly from the Israeli PM's hard disk - including de facto recognition of permanent Israeli control over eight percent of the West Bank.  Veteran U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross had a full page op-ed in The New York Times this weekend, in which he presents a 14-step program that is supposed to establish a framework for renewing the diplomatic process. The piece includes a lot of talk about peace, but the action items are lifted from Netanyahu’s policy book, demonstrating again why the Palestinians were right when they refused to meet Ross –…

Beit Safafa is a Palestinian neighborhood just south of West Jerusalem, inside annexed and occupied East Jerusalem, all within the boundaries of Israel's vast Jerusalem municipality. It is situated between the Green Line to its northern perimeter, and the Israeli settlement of Gilo on its southern perimeter. (To find Beit Safafa on Ir Amim's map below, move your eyes directly down from "West Jerusalem" and you will see it, just below the Green Line.) Until 1967, Beit Safafa was divided between Israeli-controlled West Jerusalem and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank. Train tracks ran through it along the 1949 Armistice Lines. When Israel occupied East…

A stroll west of West Jerusalem can lead to a surprising discovery, confronting the casual walker with various layers of the Palestinian tragedy. I just finished an ordeal at the Knesset. The next thing on the agenda was a long phone call, one that would last for at least an hour. Instead of walking about West Jerusalem for an hour, I decided to begin heading west on foot. The brisk winter day was gorgeous. Beneath me, past the last row of city blocks, lay the gulley separating West Jerusalem from a ridge of lofty hills to the west. The slopes…

Until we find a way of measuring the efficacy of one form of protest or another, surely we must encourage all forms and enable all those who desire change to express their desire in the way they think will be most effective. By Yonatan Preminger Roee Ruttenberg’s recent post criticized the way a group of “pro-Palestinian” activists in Berlin disrupted a concert by the Israeli choral group Gevatron. The gist of his article is that the protesters were childish attention-seekers, and that this form of protest is ineffective. This piece raises a thorny question: how are we to gauge the…

Whether in Area C of the West Bank, in the Negev, the Galilee or the 'mixed cities,' Regavim has one clear goal: the selective implementation of planning and construction laws, encouraging the state to demolish Palestinian homes or public buildings. By Rona Moran and Miryam Wijler It all began one bright morning in April, after reading an outrageous op-ed by the right-wing journalist Karni Eldad [Hebrew] about Dahamash – an “unrecognized” village in the Ramle-Lod area that we hold quite dear. Karni Eldad’s text can be summed up as a pathetic attempt at comparing the status of Jewish settlements and outposts in the Occupied…

Brom Barkai to Rosh Ha'ayin, via a tragic location for charming weddings, an educational paradise, a fallen people's republic and a Yemenite drug dealership. At the Border Police monument, Israel becomes exceedingly slender. Less than 20 kilometers separate the Green Line from the sea shore. Here I am also a quick 40-minute drive away from Tel Aviv by sherut (minivan). It only makes sense, therefore, that while exploring the western edge of the West Bank, I'll spend my nights at home. The city overwhelms me. Nine days in the countryside caused me to forget its magnitude, and the one night…

In 2004, Israeli officials were up in arms about an impending Bedouin Intifada. But the Bedouin didn't rebel and now, despite plans to expel tens of thousands of them from their homes in the West Bank and the Negev, things remain relatively quiet. Why? As Israel steps up its expansionist policies both inside and outside the Green Line, the Bedouin community has come under particularly intense pressure. Inside Israel, the state seeks to Judaize the Negev (Naqab) desert. This “development” includes last  year’s Prawer plan, which recommends that Israel relocate between 30,000 and 40,000 Bedouin citizens, ripping them from their…

The revolutionary social struggle taking place in Israel today is nearing a critical juncture: either it crumbles under the boot of "security needs" and racial segregation, or breaks free from all previous dogmas and reboots our political system. Perhaps it is due time to say these words out loud: friends, partners, comrades – we on the left have been fighting for a lost cause. For ages now we've been fighting against occupation, apartheid, Zionist racism and the likes, with very little to show for it. In recent decades, Israel's rule over the Palestinian Occupied Territories has become ever-more sophisticated, more…

After a long day walking in the hot sun with the kids in the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Malcha, our next destination was Bet Shemesh. Him: Hun, can you find on WAZE (Israeli-made “social-GPS” system) the quickest way to Bet Shemesh? Her: Sure Hun. Let’s see... OK, it says to go through route 375. Him: OK. Let’s go... Driving... suddenly we're on our way to the Tunnels Road, which leads to Gush Etzion. Him: Hun, doesn’t this go past the Green Line? Shouldn’t WAZE tell you that? Her: You’re right. Let me check. Hmmm.. this is what it says in…