In an interview with the 'New York Times,' Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid rejects the idea of a settlement freeze or compromise on Jerusalem, instead offering an updated version of the Oslo Accord as an interim solution. Yair Lapid, the surprising star of the last elections and Israel's current finance minister, gave an interview to the The New York Times in which he left only “a little daylight” between himself to Prime Minister Netanyahu on the Palestinian issue, as the Times’s Jodi Rudoren put it. That was clearly an understatement. Except for paying lip service to the need to…

By choosing to avoid the Presidential Conference - an annual meeting of Israeli generals, politicians and business elites with their international fans, Prof. Hawking reminds that the occupation cannot be forgotten or avoided. A response to Haaretz's Carlo Strenger. The British Guardian on Wednesday reported that Prof. Stephen Hawking has cancelled his appearance at the fifth Presidential Conference due to take place this June, in protest of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. The report was later confirmed by Cambridge University. A spokeperson for the Jerusalem-based conference called Hawking’s decision “outrageous and improper." One of Haaretz’s leading lefty columnists, Carlo Strenger, wrote an open letter to Hawking echoing…

For the last 10 days I have not been able to think of the occupation or political mini-dramas of the new government. I read the New York Times every morning, but I can hardly recall the headlines. Even, god help me, the butchery in Syria and now the Israeli involvement seem further from my heart momentarily than a very local story. It is so local, I wonder if +972 readers would or should care. It is so mundane, based on subtleties and slippery facts, that I wonder how I can possibly allow it rival the importance of towering life or…

On Sunday, three Palestinian boys were detained by the IDF in Hebron, along with a Swedish activist who seems to have tried to calmly prevent their arrests. (Footage of the arrest is below, and highly disturbing to watch). According to the International Solidarity Movement, who put out a report on Sunday and has since been updating, the children were released a few hours later, but the Swede is still being held and attempts are being made to deport him. According to sources from Youth Against Settlements and B'Tselem with whom I spoke, the children were detained because settlers from the extremist…

Following the murder of a settler from Yitzhar on Tuesday, dozens of Israeli settlers from the region attacked several Palestinian villages. They threw stones at Palestinians, at cars and buses, smashed windows and burned houses. These videos, taken by B'Tselem photographers from the villages Asira al-Qibliya and Urif, show how IDF forces allow the riots against the Palestinian farmers to take place. In several cases the soldiers talk to the rioters or try to shove them away. In others, they simply provide escorts for them as they throw stones or storm the villages. Video from Asira al-Qibliya: Video from Urif: Video from Asira al-Qibliya (An officer…

One Palestinian journalist's meditation on being forced to pay for Haaretz, the only paper he can rely on, but one that also espouses a nationalist ideology he cannot accept. 'I'm fated to be a reluctant reader -- and a reluctant citizen.' By Hakim Bishara It’s morning and I desperately need the news. Where I live, one needs to know what awful things to expect outdoors before leaving the house. I often think of those people who have a favorite newspaper of choice. They develop an easy kinship to the paper: “Have you seen my newspaper?”, they ask around the house;…

Israeli Ta'ayush activists who were accompanying Palestinian shepherds in the southern West Bank village Umm al Amad on Saturday were confronted by a soldier who lost his cool, to say the least. According to Guy, the Israeli activist who filmed the video below, this is private Palestinian land (the Otniel settlement is nearby) that the IDF and settlers routinely try and keep the Palestinian residents out of.  In the video below, the soldier can be seen first approaching the Palestinian shepherd, screaming in his face in Arabic: "You better watch it!"  Then Guy tells the soldier not to scream at…

A Facebook post expressing shock and dismay about the occupation by new MK Adi Koll of the 'centrist' Yesh Atid party went viral over the weekend. Has segregation between Israelis and Palestinians become so entrenched in Israeli society that expressing empathy for Palestinians is a shocking aberration? After reading MK Adi Koll's Facebook status that Noam Sheizaf translated and posted, which has gone viral in both Hebrew and English since it came out Sunday, I paused and thought to myself: Why is this getting so much attention? What's the big deal? Okay, a Knesset member posted a comment about how awful…

Adi Koll, a relatively unknown Knesset member from Yair Lapid’s centrist Yesh Atid party, posted this picture along with an uncharacteristically long and emotional status on Facebook, the day after she paid a visit to the home of a Palestinian friend in Ramallah. (Translated in full below) Warning! This post will be long, controversial and without color photos, even though I have plenty of photos. I made sure to take pictures throughout the day with the intention posting them to Facebook so I can show what we would all rather forget. But now it feels pointless. No picture can describe…

An unprecedented letter by former European leaders and peace process veterans recognizes Western support for the occupation and calls for immediate steps that will bring an end to it. 13 European states support labeling products from Israeli settlements. A group of senior former European officials, including former prime ministers, foreign ministers and diplomats, is urging the European Union to abandon the Oslo process and come up with new urgent measures that will put an end to the occupation, Ali Gharib reports for Open Zion. In a letter addressed to the Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy…

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry estimates that the two-state solution will be "over" in a year and a half. Kerry spoke at the House Foreign Affair Committee hearing on U.S. interests abroad. While many analysts have been discussing the closing of a window of opportunity for the two-state solution for several years, setting such a short time frame by the secretary of state is unprecedented. Hannah Allam of the McClatchy Newspapers tweeted: The window for a 2-state solution is shutting, we have a year, year and a half before it's over [...] For Israel, for us, for world, not to strengthen the Palestinian Authority amounts…

Most Jewish Israelis will admit the 'occupation' is bad, but few have ever gotten a taste of what it feels like to be anywhere near the receiving end of it. No matter how liberal an Israeli you are, if you have not experienced it in some way, first hand, the concept of Israeli occupation has an entirely different meaning to you than someone who has. This article was originally published in The Forward on April 15, 2013. Veteran Israeli journalist Amira Hass stirred up a controversy in the media here with an op-ed in Haaretz on April 3 that opens: “Throwing stones is the birthright and…

Last month the Israeli army pointed to the cancellation of the Gaza marathon as proof of the lack of freedom under Hamas rule. Now the IDF is denying the same runners travel permits to run in the Bethlehem Marathon The first official Palestinian marathon is set to take place this Sunday, April 21, in Bethlehem. There will be races for 10 km, a half Marathon and full Marathon (42.2 km), all within area A. The start and finish lines are at the Church of Nativity. Twenty-five runners – 24 men and a woman - from Gaza were planning to take…