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The Jewish community in the West Bank plans to host up to 500,000 Israelis in the event of a future regional war.In the 1991 Gulf war, thousands of residents from the Tel Aviv area fled to the West Bank for safety from Iraqi Scud ballistic missile strikes. In the 2006 war with Lebanon, about 10,000 residents of northern Israel joined relatives and friends in the West Bank to escape Hizbullah rocket attacks. "Judea and Samaria can be a place of refuge for the nation," Naftali Bennett, director-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip,...

Arab leaders in Israel are preparing a boycott of settlement-made products, following Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s call for such a ban by West Bank Arabs. Starting on Thursday, Israeli-Arab retailers will be urged to place lists of settlement-made items in their establishments, notifying shoppers which products to avoid. Among the 1,000 companies slated to be boycotted are Ahava Dead Sea health products, Beigel & Beigel pretzels, Super Drink soft drinks and Openheimer chocolates. Analysis: Arab-Israeli boycott puts social cohesion at risk“We are launching a campaign across the entire Arab sector to boycott all goods manufactured in the West Bank...

Some 60 members of right-wing youth movement arrive in West Bank town of Birzeit at dawn in bid to establish Jewish community in area. Some 60 right-wing activists from the "Youth for the Land of Israel" movement arrived early Wednesday at deserted buildings near the West Bank town of Birzeit in the Ramallah area. The teens announced their intention to establish a Jewish community named "Beer Zayit" in the area in response to a Palestinian plan to build a new city called Rawabi, which the settlers said would weaken the Jewish holding in the Binyamin region. 'A settlement in practice'...

BEIT UR AL-TAHTA, WEST BANK -- For eight years, Israeli commuters have whizzed between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Highway 443, a road whose West Bank portion is lined with barriers, off-limits to Palestinians who live along the way. Naji Suliman, mayor of the Palestinian community of Beit Ur al-Tahta, thought that would change after a decision by Israel's Supreme Court calling for the ban on Palestinians to be lifted by May. Then, after meeting with an Israeli military commander last week, Suliman concluded that Israel's actions came "just for public relations." To comply with the court ruling, the military...

"Air Force strikes in Gaza" SNIPPET: "IDF retaliates for deadly Qassam attack: Air Force hits several Gaza targets, including metal foundry, smuggling tunnel; Vice PM Shalom says Israel to offer strong response to rocket attack that killed Thai worker Thursday" SNIPPET: "IDF aircraft struck at least four targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday, a day after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a Thai worker in Israel, Hamas security officials and witnesses said." SNIPPET: "Israel also sent a letter of complaint to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is due to visit Israel at the weekend,...

Israel on Wednesday lifted its tight restrictions on Palestinian access to Jerusalem's holiest shrine and called off an extended West Bank closure after days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces. Despite moving to end the lockdown, Israel still kept thousands of police officers on alert as an uneasy calm settled over the holy city. The recent violence has taken place against a backdrop of deep Palestinian frustration over a yearlong standstill in peace talks and dovetailed with the worst US-Israeli diplomatic feud in decades. On Tuesday, the US and Israel signaled they were trying to move beyond the...

Israel and the United States are in a "crisis of historic proportions" over a settlement dispute that has brought relations to a 35-year low, Israel's ambassador to Washington was quoted on Monday as saying. The comments attributed to envoy Michael Oren clashed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attempts to play down tensions with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration over a West Bank settlement project threatening to derail the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian talks. "Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 ... a crisis of historic proportions," the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Oren as telling other...

The Israeli military says it has arrested a senior commander of the Palestinian faction Hamas after he spent more than a decade on the run. Israeli troops and the Shin Bet security service caught Maher Uda overnight Saturday near the West Bank town of Ramallah. Uda has been on Israel's most wanted list since the 1990s. He is considered a founding member of the Hamas military branch in the West Bank. Israel blames him for the deaths of at least 70 Israelis.

Israel has extended a lockdown on the occupied West Bank and restricted access to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem as tensions soared over its latest settlement plans. Defence Minister Ehud Barak has extended until Tuesday at midnight the lockdown on the West Bank, which was due to end on Saturday night, because of a continued risk of attacks, an armed forces spokesman said. Israel sealed off the West Bank on Friday after the announcement that it planned to build new homes for Jewish settlers in mainly Arab east Jerusalem sparked a row with Washington and fuelled anger in...

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday the Palestinians deserve a "viable" independent state with contiguous territory, seeking to reassure them of U.S. support after Israel announced plans to expand a Jewish neighborhood in disputed east Jerusalem. The Israeli move has overshadowed Biden's visit, meant to promote a new round of U.S.-led negotiations, and drawn Palestinian accusations that Israel is not serious about peace. Israel apologized for embarrassing Biden with the timing of its announcement, but made clear it has no intention of reversing its plan. Capping a day of meetings with Palestinian leaders, Biden told his...

For the past three days the Palestinians have been protesting in the city of Hebron (Chevron in Hebrew). The reason, Israel added two West Bank sites to their "Heritage Sites" list, The Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Patriarchs. This designation means that resources would be invested in infrastructure and in making holy sites more accessible to more worshipers. Israel would continue to uphold its policy of freedom of worship for all faiths. Hamas and Fatah are using the move to rile up the public saying that it is an Israeli takeover of their land. The Mainstream Media...

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned. Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures. (snip) During the second intifada, intelligence Yousef supplied led to the arrests of a...

During the recent Herzliya Conference, billed as the platform for articulating Israel’s national policy, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu departed from the usual script of Israeli premiers. Instead of focusing on security, Netanyahu talked about Israel’s Jewish heritage and the right of the Jewish people to Judea and Samaria (termed the West Bank by the media) and Jerusalem. In this article I’ve taken much from my friend Jerry Verlin, who has literally written a book on the subject. (See below) The media use the descriptions “Arab East Jerusalem” and “Jewish West Jerusalem.” But what is called (capital-E) “East Jerusalem” was only...

I don’t know whether Israel did or did not assassinate the leader of the Hamas military wing, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. But assuming for argument’s sake that the Mossad made the hit, did it have the right to engage in this “extrajudicial assassination?” Not all extrajudicial killings are unlawful. Every soldier who kills an enemy combatant engages in an extrajudicial killing, as does every policeman who shoots a fleeing felon. There are several complex legal questions involved in assessing these situations. First, was the person who was killed a combatant, in relation to those killed him? If Israel killed Mabhouh, there can...

Shahada and Gendered Spaces Bethany Stotts, February 2, 2010 For the Palestinian people, martyring themselves in an attempt to attack their Israeli “occupiers” has become a sign of honor, not only for men but also women. At a recent convention one Professor of Language and Cultural Studies explored the “gendered space[s]” of Palestinian women’s resistance against Israel in the context of the First Intifada. The First Intifada, from December 1987 through September 2000, claimed the lives of 186 Israelis and 1,491 Palestinians within the “occupied territories,” according to the B’Tselem Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories....

Note: The following text is a quote: Holy Land Foundation Representative Arrested United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced today that Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka, a 47-year-old native of Syria, was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection when he attempted to enter the United States from Canada via the Ambassador Bridge. Mr. Masfaka made his initial appearance in federal court in Detroit on an Indictment charging him with Attempted Naturalization Fraud, False Statements, and Perjury. Joining in the announcement was Brian Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Investigations for Ohio and Michigan...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli authorities could soon use special commando units, unmanned spy planes and cellphone-jamming equipment to enforce a moratorium on new settlement construction in the West Bank, military officials said Sunday, deepening a showdown between the government and Jewish settlers. Enraged settlers leaders vowed to resist the plan, prompting Defense Minister Ehud Barak to warn that settlers would face the full wrath of the military if they continue to flout the 10-month construction slowdown. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the settlement slowdown last month in an attempt to restart peace talks with the Palestinians. But the Palestinians...

What if, in response to intense diplomatic pressure from the world community, the United States government one day issued the following statement? “We have determined that it is in the national best interest of the United States to disengage from the state of Indiana.” WHAT?

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/December/09-ag-1289.html Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, December 1, 2009 United States Transfers a Guantanamo Bay Detainee to France WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice today announced that a detainee has been transferred from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the control of the government of France. As directed by the President’s Jan. 22, 2009 Executive Order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of this case. As a result of that review, the detainee was approved for transfer from Guantanamo Bay. In accordance...

Major Adrian Agassi did not make the connection between the Bible, the land and the Jews when, fresh out of university, he left England for Israel in search of his roots. He was not even a practising Jew. But over the past quarter of a century, the Israeli army lawyer and then military judge at the forefront of arguably the most significant battle in the occupied West Bank – the confiscation of Palestinian land for the construction of Jewish settlements – has come to see himself as in service of a higher duty. In an unusually frank interview, which offers...