Despite the predictions, the Israeli left has been soundly beaten in Tuesday's elections by its more honest "right wing", whose commitment to the total eradication of the Palestinians as any kind of political entity is openly stated. The defeat of the Zionist Union, ostensibly committed to negotiations and a two-state solution, should not, therefore, be read as the defeat of any genuine desire [...]

This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu broke with American protocol and delivered a speech before the US Congress without consulting the White House first. Many Democrats viewed the speech as an attempt by a foreign leader to chastise and change Washington’s foreign policy efforts, specifically with regards to Iran over its alleged efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. [...]

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has rejected "Israel's threats of war on Lebanon," saying it is fully prepared to defend the country, while an Israeli MP said in the event of war the IDF would return Lebanon "to the Stone Age." Addressing a mass gathering of Lebanese Shiites celebrating the Islamic holy day of Asura in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Nasrallah warned Israel of the consequence [...]

Israel has said it's shutting the only two operating Gaza border crossings indefinitely. This comes a day after a projectile hit Israel from the strip, but caused no damage. Border closures threaten to isolate already devastated Gaza completely. The move will affect both the Kerem Shalom and Erez border crossings, Haartez reported, quoting Israel’s defense establishment. [...]

After six years, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has nearly weathered his chilly relationship with President Obama and can expect to coast through the next two years ignoring Obama’s appeals. But Obama is not the first U.S. president to be played by Israel, as Morgan Strong wrote in 2010. At the end of a news conference on April 13, 2010, President Barack Obama made the seemingly obvious poi [...]

Washington harshly criticized Israel's decision to move forward with new settlements in east Jerusalem on Wednesday, adding that the plan could alienate Tel Aviv from "even its closest allies." US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the development – which calls for more than 2,600 new homes in a highly contested area of east Jerusalem – would make world nations “question Israel� [...]

Israeli intelligence has given up to modern trends and introduced an online questionnaire for would-be spies. Unlike the businesslike CIA or MI5 web draft campaigns, Israelis are luring volunteers with mystery halo always shrouding Mossad's activities. Mossad has become one of the last intelligence agencies in the world that vouchsafed to recruiting volunteer spies online, facilitating the indu [...]

What’s wrong with this picture? Israel gets $3 billion a year in military aid from the US. Over the last 60 years, the Jewish state has received about $250 billion worth of airplanes and armaments. Yet when Obama appeals for a “a broad international coalition” to fight ISIS, which supposedly threatens the whole Middle East, Israel is not asked to join. Canada, Germany, Australia, France, T [...]

A Belgian feminist activist group LilithS literally painted Liege Airport red with a hundred liters of fake blood at the facility's role in arming Israel. The red pool of "blood" symbolized their perceived "slaughter" of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel. Six women took part in the protest at 11.30 am on Tuesday. The members were all wearing t-shirts bearing the colors of the Palestinian flag as w [...]

Palestine will ask the UN Security Council to set a "timetable" for Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories, a senior official said. If the request is denied, Palestine will take senior Israeli officials to the ICC over the killing of thousands. The Palestinian leadership is going to submit the application to the UN Security Council on September 15, Ma'an News Agency reported, citin [...]

LANCE TAPLEY, lance.tapley at gmail.com Investigative reporter for Common Dreams, Tapley just wrote an extensive piece entitled: “The Double Identity of an ‘Anti-Semitic’ Commenter: Smearing a Progressive Website to Support Israel,” which states: “Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. [...]

RAMALLAH: Israeli restrictions have left two of the world’s most prominent HUMAN RIGHTS organisations struggling to collect evidence of potential war crimes in Gaza, group representatives have revealed. Amnesty International and HUMAN RIGHTS Watch (HRW) staff have not received permits to enter Gaza despite lobbying Israel and Egypt since the early days of the conflict,& [...]

Israel derailed the Obama administration's attempts to mediate the Gaza crisis by striking an arms deal with the Pentagon and using leverage on the Congress, the WSJ reported. The relations are now at a low and the quarrel is personal. The strain between the White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet has left the US in a position of an observer rather than active mediat [...]

The State of Israel's ability to flout international law at will is measured in the fact it has ignored or violated 32 UN Security Council resolutions since 1982, more than any other UN member, all as a result of US vetoes. Compare this to Iraq, which under Saddam violated two UN Security Council resolutions, with the result that two wars were waged against it, along with a 13-year long period [...]

Gazans rush back to UN-run shelters as Israel retaliates against rockets fired before and after 72-hour truce expired. Israel launched air strikes on Gaza on Friday morning after Islamist groups there refused to extend a ceasefire and resumed rocket fire. At least 35 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel after a 72-hour ceasefire expired at 8am local time. Several more had been fired duri [...]

As critics of Israel's policy in Gaza lose faith in governments to take action, a new app is helping them to it themselves. Buycott is one of the hottest items on the market as shoppers are using it in their droves to avoid purchasing Israeli products. The Buycott app has a number of groups, which its users can join, with one of the most successful being the “Long live Palestine, boycott Isra [...]

Ministers say contracts for military equipment will be individually examined to ensure they are not being used in Gaza offensive. The UK government is reviewing the sale of £8bn in arms and military goods to Israel to see whether each licence is "appropriate" in light of the conflict in Gaza, Downing Street has said. [...]

UN chief Ban Ki-moon tells Israel to 'end this madness' after bombardment kills at least 10 people and injures dozens. A third deadly attack on a United Nations school sheltering people fleeing bombardment in Gaza was strongly condemned by both the UN and the US on Sunday, with UN chief, Ban Ki-moon, calling it a "moral outrage and a criminal act" and pleading for an end to "this madness". [...]

Israel gets signals from the US that it can do whatever it wants, so Tel-Aviv keeps refurbishing its weapons so that it could kill more Gazans, independent researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich told RT. It seems that we are having incremental ceasefires for an incremental genocide. One has to understand the thinking that is behind all this as much as one does regret a single death; I do [...]