October 22, 2009

The value of the human rights frame

Michael Goldfarb, who was the deputy communications director for John McCain's campaign, worked for a while in that temple of neoconservative organizing, the Project for a New American Century, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 PM | Fulltext link (39 comments)

October 19, 2009

Nozette: Pollard, 2.0?

So, Obama's Justice Department has finally decided to play some degree of hardball with Israel? Back in May, Obama's Justice Department decided to back down on the indictment against AIPAC's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:38 PM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

October 18, 2009

Olmert, author of assault on Gaza, shunned in Chicago

The Harris School for Public Policy at the University of Chicago presumably thought it was quite "normal" and appropriate-- perhaps, even a boon for fundraising!-- to invite former Israeli p.m....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:25 AM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

October 16, 2009

UN-HRC endorses Goldstone; Netanyahu's over-reach unraveling?

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today endorsed the report of the Goldstone Commission that identified probable war crimes and and crimes against humanity committed by Israel and by...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:08 PM | Fulltext link (44 comments)

October 15, 2009

'The Nation' piece on AIPAC's Tom Dine

This piece is online now, here. It was really fascinating to work on-- just as it has been really interesting to work with Dine on the US-Syria Working Group, as...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:22 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 08, 2009

Daniel in the lions' den

Charismatic British-Israeli peacenik Daniel Levy made a remarkable presentation this morning, at a big conference on US-Israeli relations organized by the extremely rightwing, pro-Israeli think-tank, the Hudson Institute. Luckily Matt...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:30 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

October 07, 2009

Israelis reconsidering views of 'the Other'

Haaretz has had two interesting stories in recent weeks detailing attempts by Jewish Israeli peace activists to stimulate discussion and reconsideration among their compatriots regarding their views of 'the Other'....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:12 AM | Fulltext link (35 comments)

October 06, 2009

Goldstone's careful documentation & argument

I've had the chance to be reading more of the report of the Goldstone Commission Report (PDF). It's 425 pages long, so not an easy or light read! But I've...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:53 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

October 03, 2009

Goldstone's mission gets key acknowledgment

While Israeli PM Netanyahu has been trying to downplay the importance of the Goldstone report, denigrate its principal author, and generally discredit the UN Rights Council's whole venture of commissioning...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:38 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

September 29, 2009

Israel's religio-nationalists considered

Peter Martin had a very informative article in Saturday's Toronto Globe & Mail about the rapid emergence of a new kind of religio-nationalists in Israel. They even, he says, have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:14 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

September 18, 2009

IPS piece on Obama-Netanyahu tussle over priorities

With all the fast-moving developments of the past couple of weeks, I felt it was time to draw out the main theme behind them.... I tried to do that in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:30 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 17, 2009

Barak: Iran not existential threat

Ehud Barak to Yediot Aharonoth: "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel." Barak said "Israel is strong, I don't see anyone who could...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:58 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

September 14, 2009

Another blunt No from Netanyahu

Netanyahu just loves to poke his finger in America's eye... again, and again, and again... Today, with Pres. Obama's peace envoy George Mitchell still in Israel, Netanyahu bluntly told a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:58 AM | Fulltext link (30 comments)

September 12, 2009

In 2009, as 2001: US needs Iran, Russia

On September 12, 2001, as US military planners started examining the options they had t counter-attach against Al-Qaeda and its hosts in Afghanistan, they and their colleagues in the State...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 11, 2009

IPS piece on the rights war over Gaza

... is here, also here. My last word on this important subject for now....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:49 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

September 10, 2009

Marc Garlasco's little "hobby"

There is a huge commotion in the blogosphere about the fact that Marc Garlasco, the senior military affairs specialist at Human Rights Watch, has long sustained a hobby of collecting...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:50 PM | Fulltext link (71 comments)

September 09, 2009

500 new settlement homes in Jerusalem...

When will this end??? BBC: Israel says it is pushing ahead with delayed plans to build almost 500 more homes for Jewish settlers in Jerusalem. The project is for the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:38 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

B'tselem's figures on Gaza assault toll

The Israeli human-rights group B'tselem today released its final report on the death toll in Gaza from the highly asymmetrical fighting of last December-January. Their figures differ a little from...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:19 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 07, 2009

Sweden, and the Israel-linked organs story

I realize I'm coming into the Israel-linked organ-trafficking story late. But my old editors at the CSM always stressed the value of working assiduously at a story to get it...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:21 PM | Fulltext link (18 comments)

September 05, 2009

Cook and Elam on Israel's organ-removal problems

Jonathan Cook had a great piece in The National yesterday, in which he pulled together from exemplary Israeli sources the history of serious problems at Israel's government institute of forensics...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:37 PM | Fulltext link (48 comments)

September 03, 2009

More on Norway's targeted divestment

The compendiously smart and well-informed blogger Profco has a lot of great background about Israeli-Norwegian relations over at TPM Cafe today. S/he wrote it, of course, in light of Norway's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:15 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

Bravo, Norway!

Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen today announced that the country's $400 billion-strong sovereign wealth fund, the Oil Fund, has divested itself of all investments in the large Elbit company, based...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:12 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

September 01, 2009

Naomi Klein and her Hebrew-language publisher discuss BDS

... in this excellent interview, from Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voices for Peace. The words of Klein's publisher, Yael Lerer-- a Jewish Israeli-- are particularly hard-hitting. She says, As an...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:33 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 30, 2009

BDS: Avnery's dangerous argumentation

I have a lot of respect for the veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery. The first time I met him was in the PLO headquarters in Tunis in the late...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:30 PM | Fulltext link (85 comments)

Neve Gordon and BDS: Update

Most JWN readers are probably well aware of the firestorm of controversy that erupted after Neve Gordon, the chair of the Politics Department at Israel's Ben Gurion University published this...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:45 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

August 29, 2009

Saturday reading: Two plans for the West Bank

One of the docs I'm reading today is the full text of the "Fayyad Plan", aka the Program of the Thirteenth PA Government. If you recall that the PA was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

Feeling Jewish hate in Jerusalem's Silwan

Richard Silverstein had a chillingly informative post on his blog this week that contained an English translation of a short piece Israeli journo Meron Rapoport wrote about a recent visit...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:04 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 25, 2009

Palestinians and Israelis reclaiming a village's memory

I just got the latest mailing from the great Israeli organization Zochrot, about a tour they organized last Saturday to the ruins of the Palestinian village al-Damun. This report is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:29 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 23, 2009

Hints of Obama's peace plan--but a notable J. Diehl mistake

Jackson Diehl broke some important news in today's WaPo: As the U.N. General Assembly meets in late September, Obama aims to announce the opening of a new negotiating process between...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:19 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

August 22, 2009

IPS piece: 'Republicans Attack Obama on Palestine Policy'

... is here, and also archived here. It deals primarily with Huckabee but also with other important US pols who went on partisanly sponsored junkets to Israel and the OPTs...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:12 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 19, 2009

'Rumors' of settlement freeze just that

Steve Clemons blogged this morning that, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be using his skills as a crafty political executive to sidestep some of his more bureaucratic and recalcitrant allies...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:20 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 17, 2009

More on Bil'in, Dov Khenin, etc

[Editorial note: I received today the following commentary from Israeli leftist Yonatan Preminger on the recent JWN post on Dov Khenin/Chainin, Bil'in, etc; and I'm publishing it here with his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:54 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

August 15, 2009

Jewish-Israeli Knesset member gassed-- by IOF

The leftist MK Dov Khenin took part in Bil'in's weekly anti-Wall demonstration yesterday, and along with all the other protesters-- Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals-- he was subjected to the truly...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:57 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 12, 2009

Sweatshops: The 'fruit' of Arab-Israeli peace 'processing'

There are many different ways of using economic integration to tie countries together after recent wars. The "European Coal and Steel Community" pioneered between France and Germany after 1945 was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:23 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

August 11, 2009

Agha, Malley, and some other ideas

Hussein Agha and Rob Malley have continued the slightly bizarre "madcap chase" around the arena of Israeli-Arab peacemaking that they launched with this recent essay in the NYRB, by publishing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:26 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

August 10, 2009

Palestinian Israelis: Equality quest continues

Some 20% of Israel's citizens are ethnic Palestinians-- that is, Palestinians who in 1948 managed to remain (and are descendants of those who managed to remain) in or near their...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:42 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 04, 2009

Key Zionist pioneer renounces Zionism

I've never met Dov Yermiya, a Jewish Israeli peace activist who is now 94 years old. But I read of course the book he published in 1983 in which he...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:08 PM | Fulltext link (56 comments)

Israeli occupation and western taxpayers

The fearless Akiva Eldar does a great critique in today's Haaretz of Netanyahu's claim that his policies have already improved the economy of the West Bank. (The other part of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 02, 2009

Ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem continues...

The Israeli authorities are continuing with their campaign to expel Palestinians from East Jerusalem and replace them there with Jewish settlers. At some point before dawn this morning, black-clad Israeli...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:19 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

August 01, 2009

Just how inept is Ross as a 'Mideast expert'??

Short answer: extremely. In case anyone is in any doubt, they should read the transcript of what Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at the end of his meeting...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:54 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

July 31, 2009

Tax-exempt US group sends western Jews to Israeli settlements

Nefesh b'Nefesh is an organization that is tax-exempt in the US that woks to help implant US-origined and European-origined Jews as settlers in Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:08 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

July 22, 2009

How occupations end

We here in Washington DC currently have a front-seat view of how a country undertakes the ending of the military occupation by its ground forces of another country's territory. Today,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:15 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

July 20, 2009

Israeli and pro-Israeli propaganda: Nuttier every day!

"The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews..." "When I see a human rights...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:37 AM | Fulltext link (48 comments)

July 15, 2009

Netanyahu spokesman uses racist attack against HRW

For many years now, successive governments of Israel-- and their blind-love cheering sections in western countries-- have tried to "shoot the messenger" when human rights groups or international bodies like,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:28 AM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

July 13, 2009

Max B. "feels the hate" in Tel Aviv

The gifted video-journo Max Blumenthal has now brought us a vivid picture of the racist hatred that is so freely expressed by some young people in Tel Aviv. This adds...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:10 PM | Fulltext link (82 comments)

Younger Israeli peaceniks: Dov Kheinin

One Israeli/American friend commented on my BR piece that it seemed I interviewed mainly Israeli peace movement people who are over 65. He suggested--and I agreed-- that it would have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:06 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

My piece on the decline of the Israeli peace movement

... is now up on the Boston Review website, here. I found it a really tragic article to work on. I have admired the Israeli peace movement since its inception....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:47 AM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

More great blogging from N. Sheizaf on the 'Wall' ad

Maariv journo Noam Sheizaf, who blogs at 'Promised Land' (!) has a couple more great posts on the Israeli cellphone ad question. In this one he argues that a "big"...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:22 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

July 12, 2009

How people 'see' Israel's Apartheid Wall (contd.)?

The indefatigable Adam Horowitz published a post at Mondoweiss yesterday drawing attention to the sick ad an Israeli cellphone company is running that makes the Apartheid Wall seem like just...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:53 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

July 10, 2009

A. Harel on IDF-settler symbiosis

This is a very informative article by Haaretz's Amos Harel on the close symbiosis that exists between settler activists-- including those responsible for most of the so-called "illegal" or "unauthorized"...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:48 PM | Fulltext link (20 comments)

Newsweek gives us the scoop...

... in the form of the whole (PDF) text of the "Not for distribution or publication" real Hasbara Handbook from "The Israel Project". For anyone who's followed the various interventions...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:56 PM | Fulltext link (67 comments)

July 09, 2009

Netanyahu: Panic and disarray?

There's been quite a bit of commentary in the US blogosphere about the unsourced observation in this Haaretz article today that Israeli PM Netanyahu has been heard to refer to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:34 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

June 29, 2009

Israel's settlements: Beyond the freeze

To some extent, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is right. The big issue in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is not the freeze on additional settlement construction that's being demanded by the US and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:01 AM | Fulltext link (41 comments)

June 23, 2009

Ehud Barak and the ghost of Labour past

Ehud Barak, who in 1999 was briefly the "peace candidate" for PM before he became the peace movement's executioner in December 2000 and then went on to design and unleash...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

June 18, 2009

Theo-bureaucracy in action: Israel

And while so many of us are watching the workings of a powerful theobureaucracy so dramatically exposed in Tehran, let's not forget this... Israel's perennial debate over 'Who is a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:13 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

June 14, 2009

Netanyahu: Tactical withdrawal from one disposable position?

As widely predicted, in his speech at Bar-Ilan University this evening, Bibi Netanyahu cautiously abandoned one of the many outer defenses he had thrown out around his core project to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:33 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

June 13, 2009

Syrian negotiations with Israel: the short version

So presidential envoy George Mitchell has now had his meeting with Pres. Bashar al-Asad in Damascus. Afterwards he said, ""We are well aware of the many difficulties ... yet we...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:40 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 12, 2009

"Israel's horse in Iran's Race" Pt. 2

Nearly two weeks ago, I posted a short question asking if Israel and/or its current leadership would have a favorite in Iran's elections. While one poster accused me of being...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 07:24 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

June 10, 2009

Settlers going 'crazy' as pressure mounts

Haaretz's Bradley Burston reported this yesterday: On the Sabbath, Israeli television viewers were treated to the recorded-on-a-weekday observations of Arele, a resident of the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:37 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

June 09, 2009

Mitchell includes Syria, Lebanon

It's now confirmed. US peace envoy George Mitchell, now on his fourth trip to the Middle East, will travel to both Syria and Lebanon this week. He met this morning...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:43 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 03, 2009

Big days ahead for the Middle East...

Tomorrow, Pres. Obama will give his much-awaited address "to the Muslim world" in Cairo. On Sunday, Lebanon holds parliamentary elections-- and Iran holds its elections June 12. I'm in Damascus...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:02 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

June 01, 2009

Obama-Mitchell peace mission gains a little momentum

Haaretz's Barak Ravid had more details yesterday of the meeting an official Israeli delegation held in London last Tuesday with Obama's special Mideast peace envoy Sen. George Mitchell and his...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:34 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Olmert (and Ross?) and a new concept of the Jewish state

Ariel Beery had a very interesting piece in Haaretz yesterday. It describes a new movement among Israelis-- and key friends of Israel like Dennis Ross-- to fashion a new concept...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:48 AM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

May 30, 2009

Israel's horse in Iran's race?

Which candidate would Israel favor the most in the upcoming Iranian Presidential contest? It's of course a loaded question. No candidate in Iran would wish to be seen as favored...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 02:32 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

May 29, 2009

Gvirtz: Prioritizing Peace over Settlements

I am pleased to be able to publish this important essay from Amos Gvirtz, a longtime member of Kibbutz Shefayim, in Israel. JWN readers may recall the interview I published...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:46 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

May 28, 2009

George Mitchell is doing what??

In this piece on the Israeli settlements issue in the NYT today, Isabel Kershner and Mark Landler report this: Mr. Mitchell has been negotiating reciprocal measures with Israel’s Arab neighbors,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:05 PM | Fulltext link (64 comments)

May 26, 2009

Does Obama understand Israel's war goal in Iran?

If Israel launches a military attack (= act of war) against Iran, what would the main goal of this attack be? There is good reason to believe that the goal...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:23 AM | Fulltext link (88 comments)

May 22, 2009

More on 'natural growth' in settlements

My friend A writes: The right figure regarding 'Natural Growth' (Israeli) of Judea and Samaria on 2007, according the statistical abstract of Israel Shows: no reason for building becomes: Left...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:41 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

May 21, 2009

Why Israel's 'natural growth' claim is dishonest: Four reasons

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Tuesday, Secretary Clinton unequivocally called on Israel to halt all construction activity connected with its settlement project in the occupied West Bank. She said, First,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:03 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

May 15, 2009

My IPS piece on Netanyahu's big meeting with Obama

... is here. Also here. What I didn't have the space to put in there were two things: 1. My judgment (as explored here before now) that Bibi might well...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 PM | Fulltext link (23 comments)

Uzi Arad in Washington

So controversial Netanyahu aide Uzi Arad has been in Washington this week, doing advance work for his boss's upcoming visit with Pres. Obama. From June 2007 until this week Arad...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:56 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

May 13, 2009

Uzi Arad and other aspects of Netanyahu's Washington visit

Richard Sale had an excellent post on Pat Lang's blog yesterday, in which he surveyed some of the key problems in the relationship between Pres. Obama and Israeli PM Benjamin...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:55 AM | Fulltext link (33 comments)

May 11, 2009

J. Cook on the Pope in Nazareth

Jonathan Cook, aka the Sage of Nazareth, is back from his vacation and doing some timely reportage on the background to the Pope's imminent visit to Nazareth. See this piece...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

May 09, 2009

Obama and Israel's nukes

My IPS news analysis piece yesterday was on the Obama administration's intriguing injection of Israel's nuclear weapons into the global and regional diplomacy. It's here (and here.) The piece attempts...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:10 AM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

May 03, 2009

Discussing Hamas with Allister Sparks

I had the very good fortune to spend a couple of hours today chatting with Allister Sparks, the legendary South African journalist who was editor of the gutsy Jo'burg paper...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:37 PM | Fulltext link (41 comments)

May 02, 2009

New reports on press and other freedoms

I meant to mention this AFP report in my last post, but I'm tired so the brain is working a little groggily at this point. It says this: Press freedom...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:13 PM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

April 28, 2009

Netanyahu and the 'Palestinian state' card

Israel's former failed prime minister and current defense minister, Ehud Barak, is now saying that PM Netanyahu will present the U.S. administration a diplomatic plan in line with the principle...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:58 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

April 26, 2009

Ahmadinejad: "Whatever decision they (Palestininians) take is fine with us"

ABC's This Week program today featured an extended interview, conducted apparently last Wednesday, with Iran's President Ahmadinejad. (A/N) Here's the full transcript, and (H/T to Nader) here's a new link...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 05:56 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

Destruction of mosques in Israel after 1948

An argument that I heard from many peace activists in Israel and Palestine during my recent visit is that the Nakba-- that is, the dispersal of the Palestinians from their...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:43 PM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

April 24, 2009

IPS piece on coming Obama-Netanyahu spat

It's out today, here (and archived here.) My sense of these two guys is that right now they're circling each other warily like massive Sumo wrestlers before a match. Who...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:12 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

April 22, 2009

Give Me An I

and an S, and an R,A,E and L Whaddya got? You got the Israel 2009 pep rally, more formally known as the "AIPAC Policy Conference: The pro-Israel community's preeminent annual...
Posted by Don Bacon at 12:37 PM | Fulltext link (66 comments)

April 19, 2009

The IDF's 'Dahiyah Doctrine', applied in Gaza

Kudos to Inter-Press Service's Daan Bouwens for this piece of reporting in which he reminded readers that Israel's strategic decisionmakers had integrated a policy of major, intentional destruction of civilian...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:22 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

April 02, 2009

Lieberman: No more 'Israbluff'

Anyone who expected that his appointment as Foreign Minister would somehow 'tame' Avigdor Lieberman got a rude shock yesterday when he bluntly told a foreign ministry gathering that Israel was...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:05 AM | Fulltext link (90 comments)

April 01, 2009

Israelis, mainly peaceniks, Pt. 5: Menachem Klein

Okay, I'm changing my own rules a bit here since I originally intended to use this "Israelis, mainly peaceniks" rubric to collect the highlights from the interviews I conducted with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:08 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

Netanyahu, Iran, and the US MSM's shameful silence

Aluf Benn writes in Haaretz today that, In political circles the view is that yes, Netanyahu as prime minister brings Israel closer to war with Iran. Politicians in touch with...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:22 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 31, 2009

Netanyahu promises... continuous negotiations!

Give me a break! The Palestinians have had nearly continuous negotiations with Israel since the Madrid Conference, held 17.5 years ago. 'Negotiations' aren't lacking. Successful peace negotiations-- that is, negotiations...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:49 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 29, 2009

Waltz with Bashir: See it!

I was finally able to get to the movie Waltz with Bashir last night. I was blown away. I thought it was tremendous.... very moving indeed. I know some people...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:29 PM | Fulltext link (46 comments)

Israelis, mainly peaceniks, Pt. 4: Amos Gvirtz

Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:48 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Israelis, mainly peaceniks, Pt. 3: Moshe Ma'oz

Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:50 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

Israelis, mainly peaceniks, Pt. 2: Naomi Chazan

Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:42 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

Israelis, mainly peaceniks, Pt. 1: Daphna Golan

I have so much great material in my notebooks from my recent trip! Now, I'm going to start presenting some of the highlights from the interviews I did with various...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

March 27, 2009

Problems of the west's extreme casualty aversion, Afghanistan and Gaza

The extreme aversion of the US and Israeli armies to own-soldier casualties has huge and often unintended consequences in the realms of both strategic effectiveness and ethics. This is now...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:15 PM | Fulltext link (37 comments)

March 21, 2009

Those revelations of IDF violations in Gaza

Kudos to Haaretz for publishing the first English-language accounts of the "spill the beans" session held at Oranim Academic College February 13 in which dozens of IOF soldiers who had...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:10 PM | Fulltext link (27 comments)

March 18, 2009

Israelis' Nakba-deception exposed

My life as a writer frequently involves my sense of time spooling around itself in interesting ways. After arriving back in the US after my recent trip to the Middle...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:36 AM | Fulltext link (77 comments)

March 06, 2009

Lieberman as Israeli foreign minister?

If so, then let's hope this clarifies the true nature of Israel to the whole of the outside world. Including the United States....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:54 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

March 03, 2009

Likud strategic thinker Inbar’s self-confident view of the world

Jerusalem, March 3—Israel’s government should try to block the reconstruction of Gaza; incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu might try to send the military back into Gaza at some point; the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:56 PM | Fulltext link (11 comments)

March 02, 2009

Reconstruct Gaza? A Likud adviser says 'No'

Egypt is today hosting a big conference in Sharm al-Sheikh to rally (mainly pro-western) donors to the task of rebuilding the large amounts of housing and public infrastructure in Gaza...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:25 AM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

February 27, 2009

My IPS piece on Israel's lurch to the right, and peace prospects

... is here. Also here. It contains some key points from my recent interview with Ramallah PM Salam Fayad....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:56 AM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

February 21, 2009

US and Israel: End 'Manhunting' now!

Pres. Obama has apparently 'seen the light' regarding one of the anti-humane and illegal practices instituted by the Bush administration in its "Global war on terror": the use of Guantanamo...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:49 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

February 19, 2009

And the winner is... Bibi!

So Israel's far-right political kingmaker Avigdor Lieberman has now informed Pres. Shimon Peres that his preference is for Likud's Netanyahu. No real surprise there. Probably no surprise in the fact...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:18 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 12, 2009

US opinionators fazed by rise of Israeli right?

Normally, the opinionators of the NYT and other mainstream US media are quick to express their views of every small development in the Israeli-Arab arena. However, the resounding success won...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:17 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

February 11, 2009

Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's king-maker

The outcome of Israel's elections may well be the worst possible-- worse, even, than a clear victory by Likud. What we have instead, with 99% of the votes now counted,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:25 AM | Fulltext link (45 comments)