From Occupied Palestine

The Ramon Plan
NAHUM BARNEA and SHIMON SHIFFER
Yediot Aharonot, 7 September 2007, p. B2

[translation: McClatchy Jerusalem bureau]

'All the dreams we had are now gone'
SHAHAR SMOOHA
Ha'aretz Magazine, 27 July 2007

'Gaza is a jail. Nobody is allowed to leave. We are all starving now'
PATRICK COCKBURN
Independent, 8 September 2006

Gaza -- Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq.

What they are fighting for
TANYA REINHART
Yediot Aharonot, [publication postponed]

Whatever may be the fate of the captive soldier Gilad Shalit, the Israeli army's war in Gaza is not about him. As senior security analyst Alex Fishman widely reported, the army was preparing for an attack months earlier and was constantly pushing for it, with the goal of destroying the Hamas infrastructure and its government. The army initiated an escalation on 8 June when it assassinated Abu Samhadana, a senior appointee of the Hamas government, and intensified its shelling of civilians in the Gaza Strip. Governmental authorization for action on a larger scale was already given by 12 June, but it was postponed in the wake of the global reverberation caused by the killing of civilians in the air force bombing the next day. The abduction of the soldier released the safety-catch, and the operation began on 28 June with the destruction of infrastructure in Gaza and the mass detention of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, which was also planned weeks in advance.[1]

Agatha In The Rain
URI AVNERY
Gush Shalom, 1 July 2006

"ISRAEL HAS declared war on the Palestinian people! The Palestinian people will answer in kind! The Palestinian rebellion will go on! The Palestinian fighters are steadfast in the service of the nation! Down with the Nazi-Zionist occupation! Out with the unclean infidels from the Holy Land! Destroyed Rafah - we shall build you anew! Long live the Palestinian revolution! Long live the State of Palestine!"

Bil'in: The ongoing protests against the wall
JON ELMER and KAREN MACKINTOSH
CFRO Red Eye, 11 March 2006

In a thirteen-minute in-studio interview, Jon Elmer and Karen Mackintosh discuss the ongoing protests against Israel's barrier in the West Bank village of Bil'in and the politics of the occupation on Co-op Radio 102.7 FM in Vancouver.

Finished with Likud
GRAHAM USHER
al-Ahram Weekly, 30 March - 5 April, 2006

It was poverty not disengagement that determined the outcome of the Israeli elections

Jerusalem -- The emotions said it all. Israel's next prime minister, a subdued Ehud Olmert, said the victory of his Kadima Party in the Israeli elections on Tuesday was an endorsement of his "convergence" plan. Over the next four years, he averred, Israel will determine its permanent borders, mostly in the occupied West Bank, to ensure its "Jewish and democratic" character. "If the Palestinians are wise enough to act, then in the near future we will sit together at the negotiating table to create a new reality. If they do not, Israel will take its destiny in hand," he said.

Borderline unilateralism
YAAKOV KATZ
Jerusalem Post, 23 March 2006

Seven days before the elections, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is busy. Not, he says, with electioneering and campaigning, however.

Indeed, ensconced in his spacious office on the top floor of Tel Aviv's "Kiriya" military headquarters, he seems confident he will still be here after March 28 to continue doing what he has done most of his life - guarding the country.

Mofaz tells Post: These are Israel's borders
YAAKOV KATZ
Jerusalem Post, 21 March 2006

Israel will begin setting its final borders over the next two years according to a plan based on including the major West Bank settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

'A country that's fun to live in'
ALUF BENN and YOSSI VERTER
Ha'aretz, 10 March 2006

Tell us, we asked Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, must a leader give a personal example to his nation?

"Definitely," he says, with a touch of suspicion.

What will be your personal example to the nation? we wanted to know.