The European Parliament has adopted a resolution recognizing Palestinian statehood in principle. A total of 498 MEPs voted in favor, while 88 were against. A parliamentary session in Strasbourg on Tuesday could not decide on the matter, opting for further negotiations, but on Wednesday the European Parliament eventually adopted a resolution that “in principle” grants the troubled region sta [...]

The EU General Court has ordered that the Palestinian militant group Hamas be removed from the bloc's terror blacklist. The move comes over four years after Hamas appealed its terror designation before the EU. The European Union first banned Hamas’ military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in 2002, though the organization’s social and political divisions were not put on the terror li [...]

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. [...]

Washington will not be the one to decide Sweden’s policies, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said after the US criticized Stockholm’s plans to officially recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. “It's not the US that decides our politics,” Wallström said, adding that the new Swedish authorities expected to “get criticism” after their announcement on Palestinian statehood [...]

For the past three years, Official Washington has viewed the Syrian civil war as “white-hatted” rebels against “black-hatted” President Assad, but finally some of the “gray-hatted” reality is breaking through, though perhaps too late, Robert Parry reports. By Robert Parry In late summer 2013, Official Washington was rushing to the judgment that the “evil” Syrian President Bas [...]

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 [...]

Official Washington honors international law when it’s politically useful, such as in condemning a global adversary, but then dismisses it as useless if it gets in the way of some desired U.S. action. This “international law a la carte” undermines the concept’s fundamental value, says Lawrence Davidson. International law is vital to the welfare of every man, woman and child on this plan [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Comedian Russell Brand took to his web series The Trews to rip Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly for “getting the wrong message” from history after suggesting that the Berlin Wall is an example of how to solve the influx of immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border. [...]

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 [...]

Experts say attacks go beyond Israel-Palestinian conflict as hate crimes strike fear into Jewish communities. In the space of just one week last month, according to Crif, the umbrella group for France's Jewish organisations, eight synagogues were attacked. One, in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, was firebombed by a 400-strong mob. A kosher supermarket and pharmacy were smashed and looted; the cr [...]

George Galloway has suggested the UK city of Bradford should be "an Israel-free zone," and has called for the district to issue a blanket boycott of Israeli goods, services, academics and tourists. Speaking on behalf of the Respect Party in Leeds, the MP for Bradford West encouraged a crowd gathered at a public meeting to back his stance and “do the same.” [...]

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 [...]

The turmoil gripping the Middle East is a direct result of the provision of cash, weapons and surveilla's "helpless detachment" is just for show, the Intercept's Glenn Greenwald writes. In a bold examination, the former Guardian journalist reveals the amazing contrast between what the United States says publicly, and what it does behind the curtain. [...]

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. [...]

New information indicates that Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on telephone conversations by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Sources told SPIEGEL the government then used the information obtained from the calls during negotiations in the Mideast conflict. SPIEGEL has learned from reliable sources that Israeli intelligence eavesdropped on US Secretary of State John Kerry during Middle East p [...]

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 [...]