From Occupied Palestine

Israel's "demographic demon" in court
JONATHAN COOK
Middle East Report Online, 1 June 2006

A low-key but injudicious war of words briefly broke out between Israel's two most senior judges in the wake of the May 2006 decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law. A temporary measure passed by the Knesset in July 2003, the law effectively bans marriages between Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and Israeli citizens.

Impunity on both sides of the Green Line
JONATHAN COOK
Middle East Report Online, 23 November 2005

As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon strode up to the podium at the UN General Assembly on September 15, 2005 to deliver a speech recognizing the Palestinians' right to statehood, government officials back in Jerusalem were preparing to draw a firm line under unfinished business from the start of the Palestinian uprising, five years earlier.

Nonviolent protest offers little hope for Palestinians
JONATHAN COOK
International Herald Tribune, 31 August 2004

Few Palestinians are likely to embrace peaceful protest as a way of attaining statehood - not because Palestinians are hellbent on mindless retribution against Israelis, but because nonviolence is unlikely to be effective as a strategy.

Declining to intervene: Israel's Supreme Court and the Occupied Territories
JONATHAN COOK
Middle East Report, 4 August 2003

In its annual report issued in July 2003, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) painted a familiar yet surprising picture of Israeli army maltreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. A wide range of army practices -- from house-to-house searches in villages to "targeted killings" of Palestinian militants -- came in for harsh criticism, unusually harsh by the standards of the mainstream human rights group. "Most of the abuses occur not as a result of operational necessity on the part of the army," the report continues, "but from vindictiveness on the part of soldiers, who receive implicit approval to denigrate the dignity, life and liberty of innocent Palestinians." ACRI goes on to cite army data revealing that most incidents of possible abuse, including most shooting deaths, are never investigated. Between the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000 and June 2003, the army says it opened 362 internal investigations and brought charges in 46 cases, the majority of them relating to theft of Palestinian property. Only eight soldiers were indicted in shooting incidents. To date, not one has been convicted.

Finishing the job
JONATHAN COOK
al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 612, 14-20 November 2002

Opinion polls show that more than 40 per cent of Israeli Jews support schemes to encourage or force Arabs to leave the occupied territories and Israel. Is transfer inevitable, asks JONATHAN COOK

What caused Benny Morris's recent conversion to the racist ideology of transfer?