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…

Written in between the lines of the EU heads of mission report on Israeli settlements is a sense of frustration with the EU's inaction against Israel. The EU makes regular statements against Israel's illegal settlement enterprise, but takes no action despite the existing tools it has at its disposal. At face value, the European Union heads of mission report on the Israeli settlement enterprise is a scathing indictment and call to action against Israel’s illegal settlement activities. In between the lines, however, the report reflects a frustration by European diplomats and bureaucrats at their own governments’ inaction. They are not…

European diplomatic heads of mission in Jerusalem submit report to Brussels calling on the EU and its member states to take economic measures to stop Israel's settlement enterprise, and to prevent European companies from supporting the settlements. European diplomats in the Palestinian Authority called on Brussels and their respective European states to take concrete measures to stop Israel’s “systematic, deliberate and provocative” settlement enterprise, including preventing economic and financial support for settlements – actions that could described as sanctions. The report, obtained by +972, describes Israeli settlements as “the biggest single threat to the two-state solution,” and recommends specific measures…

Prepared by the European Union heads of mission to the Palestinian Authority, the report is a strongly-worded and very critical of Israel's settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The draft, obtained by +972 Magazine and published here in full, is to be presented to the EU's Political Security Committee (PSC/COPPS). Among its recommendations are preventing financial transactions that support settlements and informing EU companies of the legal and financial risks of doing business with and in Israeli settlements. The report was prepared in January 2013 and covers 2012. Read a news report based on the document here and…

The last paragraph of the UN Human Rights Council-sanctioned report on Israeli settlements may lay the legal and practical foundations for a new, untried regime of economic and trade sanctions against Israel, or at least provide new tools to those already advocating BDS. The UNHRC-sanctioned International Fact Finding Mission’s report on Israeli settlements is by no means the harshest UN document on Israel. But its last paragraph introduces one element that previously existed only in small pro-Palestinian and human rights activist circles. Namely, it puts the “S” back in BDS. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign has had mixed, but…

An understanding of the profitable side of the occupation - way more considerable than most people imagine – could force us to change our entire political thinking. Ami Kaufman (on his +972 blog) and Emily Hauser (Open Zion) join the debate regarding the financial burden the occupation puts on the Israeli economy. As Ami notes, this is something that goes hand in hand with the conversation on J14 (a.k.a the "social justice" protest). Terminating the occupation and the expensive settlement project, the saying goes, would benefit Israeli economy more than any other measure the protesters offer. As both Emily and…

Nuclear talks fail; hot summer ahead. What's missing is courage. Even the New York Times is now reporting that what we've got with Iran is a "drift toward war." The nuclear talks in Moscow ended yesterday, the NYT wrote, with "little visible progress toward a compromise that would stop the drift toward war." The "little visible progress" was an agreement to at least give the appearance of keeping the talks alive by scheduling a much more limited, lower-level exchange between the Iranians and the world powers on July 3 in Istanbul. If you like the current Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, you'll love the current Iran nuclear negotiations. "Drift toward war" refers to a couple…

An impassioned speech by South African activist at Israeli Apartheid Week in London quickly gains attention. The global symposium Israeli Apartheid Week kicked off a few days ago in cities and campuses around the world. Of particular note was an impassioned lecture given by a South African activist and PhD candidate called Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in London on Wednesday, on the connection between the struggle to end South African apartheid and what he described as an ‘evolved,’ and indeed worse, case in Israel. Ndlozi’s statement stands in stark contrast to the recent video interview with Normal Finkelstein, who says plainly that…

The controversy surrounding business ties of shipping companies owned by Israeli tycoons to Iran took a surprising turn in the Knesset today, leading to a torrent of security-oriented rumors and hints of covert operations this post was updated. It's been several days that the Israeli media is revealing information regarding alleged violations of the economical boycott on Iran by Israel's richest business tycoons, Sammi and Yuli Ofer. The affair, which was first covered by the business sections of the papers, has come to dominate the news cycle in the last 24 hours, following a bizarre chain of events. The Ofer…