BY:  SAMI JAMIL JADALLAH The issue of continuing and expanding Jewish settlements came back to haunt the Palestinian leadership that negotiated Oslo and continued to negotiate with Israel for the last 16 years while Israeli continued to build and expand its settlements, not to mention building the Apartheid Wall. Now 16 years later finally the Palestinian leadership discovered there is a problem with the Jewish settlements. One has to wonder why did Arafat continue to negotiate with Israel while Israeli continued with its settlement program? And why did Abbas continue to negotiate with Netanyahu predecessor Olmert while Olmert continued with...

On Friday October 9 2009, the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Quds published a statement of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), Karen Koning AbuZayed in which she announced the discontinuation of some important activities of the UNRWA, such as scholarships for Palestinian students. According to Al-Quds, the statement of Koning came during a political interview which she gave to the “Middle East Report” from London. According to Koning: “the UNRWA has a financial deficit estimated at $100 million, and that the UNRWA does not get a sufficient budget to cover its emergency activities”. (Click...

Addameer, Al Haq, Al Mezan, Badil, Civic Coalition for Jerusalem, DCI- Palestine. NSAN Centre, Independent Commission for Human Rights, Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Ramallah Centre for Human Rights Studies, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, wrote a statement: Justice Delayed is Justice Denied, Decision of Palestinian Leadership and International Pressure an Insult to the Victims Yesterday, 2 October 2009, the Palestinian leadership, under heavy international pressure lead by the United States, deferred the draft proposal at the Human Rights Council endorsing all the recommendations of the UN Fact Finding Mission (the...

BY:  PAUL J. BALLES Paul J. Balles views a major public relations manual for Israel lobbyists. Written by Dr Frank Luntz, a US Republican political consultant and pollster, on behalf of The Israel Project, a US media advocacy group, it teaches pro-Israel propagandists how to hoodwink people about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how to silence critics and how to avoid making statements that produce negative reactions. More than 50 years ago, Vance Packard shook the commercial world with the publication of his book The Hidden Persuaders. It was, as the book jacket claims, “A revealing, often shocking explanation of new techniques...