Israeli Police Deport Two 'Flightilla' Activists to Greece (exclusive photos)

Two Israeli police officers confer at the arrivals hall of Ben-Gurion International Airport early Friday morning, July 8, 2011. (Photo: Dave Bender, All Rights Reserved)

The Israel Police ratcheted down visible security at Ben-Gurion International Airport a notch overnight Thursday, after Israel gave foreign carriers a blacklist of more than 300 suspected hostile, pro-Palestinian activists headed here on flights.

See the photos and article here:http://www.demotix.com/news/748787/israeli-police-deport-two-flightilla-activists-greece

Israel's 'Penalty For Early Withdrawal' - in U.S. Terms...

Israeli editorial cartoonist and veteran American immigrant, Yaakov Kirschen's Dry Bones series has faithfully chronicled Israeli history, life and foibles for nearly 40 years.

For the upcoming tete a tete between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American President Barack Obama, he revised a classic Dry Bones cartoon "that, more than 30 years ago, back in 1977, gave Jimmy Carter an accurate history lesson in Occupied Territories."

"If the reports leaking out of Washington are accurate, the new President seems stuck with the old misconceptions that withdrawing from territory will placate those who lust for our destruction and that America can help by negotiating on behalf of the Arab states that refuse to negotiate directly with the Jewish State of Israel."

Many fans think this profound parody of Jewish observance, tradition and cockeyed optimism about the future, in the face of missile attacks during the 1991 Gulf War is one of his best.

Jerusalem: A Streetcar Undesired

(I love headlines that pretty much write themselves, don't you?)


The Wall Street Journal has an excellent feature look at a major imbroglio making tracks across the Holy City. And that's precisely the problem:

At a time when conflict over Gaza is pouring yet more poison into the gulf separating Israelis from Palestinians, a repeatedly stalled and still unfinished Jerusalem tram project is galvanizing the city's feuding camps against a common foe.

The whole project, says Mayor Nir Barkat, voicing a view widely shared across religious and ethnic lines, has been "a very negative experience."

I took photos of the first groundbreaking at the entrance to the city several years ago, for The Jerusalem Post's, "In Jerusalem," weekly metro magazine. I'll add photos and maps soon, so stop back.

Meanwhile, read the rest.

Official project page (Hebrew, with English and photos)

Wikipedia.

Drora has some great photos.

(H-T: Harry)

Contrast & Compare: Jerusalem real estate, and not-so-real-estate

Building on Jerusalem (Dave Bender). I photographed this view of the Dome of the Rock, and construction near the Old City, via the reflection in the glass of the City Hall observation deck. Click the pic for the hi-rez version.

JPost:

Abbas wants state in 98% of West Bank:
Demands include all of Gaza, W. Bank, e. J'lem and areas in e. J'lem demilitarized before '67.

Infolive TV:

Real Estate Is Booming In The Capital:
Infolive.tv brings you the first in a series of special reports on Jerusalem, offering our readers the opportunity to learn about the different aspects of Israel's capital city, including security, the different peace plans concerning the city, real estate, religion and cultural events.

Click here for previous posts about Jerusalem.

(Disclosure: I served as an editor at The JPost, and bureau chief at Infolive: hah, loved the pun about "booming," Patricio, Margot...)

Who you callin' a 'settler?!'

City of Ma'ale Adumim (Google)

Ok. Now it's personal.


David Brinn, managing editor, Israel21c.org

Colleague, mentor, editor, music-reviewer and all-around great guy David Brinn weighs in (...finally, Dave...) about life as a "settler," in - oh, the horror! - Ma'ale Adumim. His riposte is in reply to a book review appearing in Haaretz that dissed him without a second, critical thought:

"I always bristle when I’m referred to as a ‘settler’. It happened recently in the national left-leaning daily paper Ha’aretz, all so innocently, in an article about my friend, author Matt Rees, who just released his first mystery novel, The Collaborator of Bethlehem, about a Palestinian private eye.

"‘Rees lives with his wife in the Old Katamon neighborhood of Jerusalem. He has organized an office where he can sit in front of the keyboard and look out at the city’s landscapes through the window. There is a guitar in the room. He is also a musician and plays bass guitar in an ensemble formed by some of his friends who live in Jewish settlements in the territories.’"

I just happen to be one of Matt’s band mates. And all right, I do live in Ma’aleh Adumim, a city situated three miles from Jerusalem, just over the ‘Green Line’ - that invisible boundary that separates Israel from the West Bank.

Read the rest.

(Full disclosure: David Brinn was my editor and bud over at Israel21c.org. Here's a partial list of articles that I wrote, and he edited. I also posted to their blog, Israelity). Here's a video slideshow I photographed and produced of an event co-sponsored by Israel21c:

What now for the Palestinian Authority?

Click image for a candid video interview with Toameh,
on media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Highly-respected journalist Khaled Abu Toameh offers a clear-eyed, close-up assessment of methods Israel and the world community should consider in dealing with the Palestinian Authority. His analysis comes in light of the power-struggle and chaos in Gaza and the West Bank, and the violent ideological chasm between Fatah and Hamas:

• The January 2006 election that brought Hamas to power was mostly about: "Let's punish these Fatah thieves." Hamas was building schools and kindergartens and clinics, while the PLO was building a casino and villas for its leaders. I believe some 30-35 percent of the Palestinians who voted for Hamas did so as a vote of protest because they were unhappy with the way the Palestinian Authority was running the show.
• Let Mahmoud Abbas and the PLO and Fatah start rebuilding their institutions, reform themselves, get rid of the corruption, and come up with a new list of candidates. Then run in another free and democratic election and offer the Palestinians a better alternative to Hamas.
• The Palestinians do not need more guns and military training. If the U.S. has $86 million and wants to help the Palestinians, then help them build civil institutions, help them build freedom, educate them about good things. What's the point in taking 200 Presidential Guards to Jericho to train them? Who are they going to fight at the end of the day? In Gaza they were defeated.
• What should Israel do at this stage? Nothing. There is no one to deal with on a serious basis on the Palestinian side. Abbas doesn't even have control over his own Fatah militias. Israel should just sit and wait. Don't repeat the mistake of unilateralism, when Israel left Gaza to Hamas and Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda-affiliated groups.
• It is ironic that the West is supporting the guys who are suppressing the moderates and people who want democracy. The West is actually undermining its own goals. Worth reading.
  

Here's a candid video interview with Toameh, on media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Full disclosure: I worked with Toameh at The Jerusalem Post, both as an interviewer/producer for their internet radio operation, and as a night-desk editor on the print edition)

The 1967 War 40 Years On: Causes & Consequences (battle videos)

This is a very well prepared, comprehensive site coving the events before, during and apre' la guerre in Israel and the vicinity in June, 1967.

Bookmark this one; it's worth a long, considered look, as the reverberations of that conflict continue to wrack the area 40-years later...

High points:

• Timeline
• Players
• Long-term effects
  
  
  Aish has a good fact sheet, as well:

Why are we talking today about the West Bank and the "Palestinian question"? How did Israel get into this situation where it is reviled as an "occupier" and accused of a refusal to trade "land for peace"?

Prior to June 1967, Israel did not "occupy" any Arab land and did not seek to expand its territory. Israelis were not talking about populating Judea and Samaria or establishing "Greater Israel."

Similarly, Palestinians were not calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, which was controlled by Jordan, or in the Gaza Strip, which was ruled by Egypt.

And here, is an 11-part (!) series, in English, released by the Israeli government soon after the war. Extensive, and what I take to be exclusive footage shows the course of the battles. The rest of the segments are here.

From the poster:
On Monday June 5, 1967, 14 Arab countries came thundering down on Israel. Their armies far exceeded hers. Their Russian-backed weapons resources were vast. Yet in six dramatic days, the little country not only won a decisive victory, but also changed the map of the Middle East. This was the Six Day War.