Madison Rafah Journal

Jeffrey Heller, Reuters, 15 March 2010

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected any curbs on Jewish settlement in and around Jerusalem, defying Washington in Israel's deepening crisis with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration.

"For the past 40 years, no Israeli government ever limited construction in the neighborhoods of Jerusalem," he said in a speech in parliament, citing areas in the West Bank that Israel captured in 1967 and unilaterally annexed to the city.

The United States condemned Israel's plan to build 1,600 new homes for Jews in Ramat Shlomo, a religious settlement within the Israeli-designated borders of Jerusalem, whose future status is at the heart of the Middle East conflict.

Israel's announcement of the project during a visit last week by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden embarrassed the White House. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in unusually blunt remarks, called it an insult.

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Commemorating the life of Rachel Corrie

Sunday, March 21
4:30-5:30 pm Silent Auction viewing and bidding
5:30-6:30 pm Vegetarian Dinner by Lulu's restaurant
6:30-9:00 pm Program
Fellowship Hall, First United Methodist Church
203 Wisconsin Avenue, Madison [Map]

A benefit dinner and program sponsored by the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project and Madison Playgrounds for Palestine.

Tickets for the dinner and program are $15 for adults and $10 for children 12 and under. All proceeds will help provide Palestinian children with a new playground in Beit Sahour, West Bank through Playgrounds for Palestine, and a water purification system for a school in Rafah, Gaza through the Maia Project of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA).

Besides information on these two humanitarian projects, the program will mark the seventh anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death on March 16 with (Read on …)

ARON HELLER, Associated Press, March 9, 2010

JERUSALEM – Vice President Joe Biden condemned an Israeli plan to build hundreds of homes in disputed east Jerusalem on Tuesday, casting a cloud over a high-profile visit that had been aimed at repairing ties with the Jewish state and kickstarting Mideast peace talks.

Israel's Interior Ministry said late Tuesday that it had approved construction of 1,600 new apartments, an embarrassing setback for Biden after a day of warm meetings with top Israeli officials.

Although ministry officials said the announcement was procedural and unconnected to the visit, a top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was blindsided and tried to contain the damage at a late-night dinner with Biden.

Nonetheless, Biden issued a harshly worded statement after the dinner, saying its timing was especially troubling by coming on the eve of a new round of U.S.-mediated peace talks.

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Israel builds still more facts on Palestinian ground, while stalemate persists

The Economist | Mar 4th 2010 | JERUSALEM

EVEN as the Americans strive to jump-start fresh talks between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli government has been using the hiatus to intensify the refashioning of East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as their future capital. This week the city’s Israeli mayor, Nir Barkat, unveiled his latest plan to turn Palestinian districts into Jewish biblical heritage parks. Fearing that their half of the city is being cast in an increasingly Israeli mould, Palestinian stone-throwers clashed with Israeli forces on the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, which Muslims venerate for its al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third-holiest shrine, and which Jews revere as the site of the biblical Temple. While George Mitchell, Barack Obama’s envoy, is yet again bidding to open “proximity talks” between the two sides, the Palestinians have been literally losing ground.

Unlike previous Israeli prime ministers, who built on the open hilltops above Arab population centres in the West Bank and on the edge of Jerusalem, Binyamin Netanyahu and his officials are concentrating on Jewish settlements bang in the midst of them. Car-parks and conservation areas, rich with Israeli symbols, are sprouting across East Jerusalem. Settlers with state protection are opening religious schools there. Scarcely a week passes without an Israeli newspaper heralding new Jewish housing units being built in Arab districts. Israeli archaeologists are scraping away the eastern parts of the city’s Arab surface in search of a Jewish past. Last month one of them declared she had “probably” found King Solomon’s city walls.

Inside the Old City itself (see map), the Israeli government’s East Jerusalem Development company has begun to interrupt the main Palestinian artery into the ancient centre, for sewage works. Mr Barkat says the project will improve services, but Palestinians fear it presages fresh archaeological digs aimed at exposing Jewish ties along the pilgrims’ route to the Temple that Jewish groups from the religious right seek to rebuild. To fulfil millennial Jewish yearning to restore the tabernacle, the company is also repairing what it says are ancient ablution pools.

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A Film Screening & Presentation with Discussion to Follow
Tuesday, February 16, 7:00pm
Rainbow Bookstore Coop
426 W. Gilman St.
Madison

Emmy-nominated screenwriter and documentarian Matt Sienkiewicz will be presenting Live From Bethlehem in a special screening at Rainbow on February 16th.

The Bethlehem-based Ma'an News Agency (MNA) emerged out of the ashes of the second Intifada to become a significant independent news network in the Occupied West Bank and an increasingly prominent and influential journalistic force in the wider Middle East.
Live from Bethlehem tells MNA's remarkable story. It chronicles the agency's struggles and successes through the eyes of the station's reporters, producers, and photographers, in the process quietly revealing the humanity of ordinary Palestinians as they go about their daily business.

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The message below is from Cassandra Dixon, who is about to leave for Palestine for a two-month stay in the West Bank with Christian Peacemaker Teams, accompanying Palestinians to deter attacks by settlers. (I hope that Cassandra will be allowed into Palestine, since earlier this month, two people who were scheduled to lead a CPT delegation were arrested at the Israeli airport, deported and told they could not return for 10 years. Two CPT members were similarly turned away last fall (more on that story).

If you would like to be on Cassandra's e-mail list for updates while she is in Palestine, please contact her at chrepairs(at)yahoo.com.

Note that she is also in need of support for this trip.

Thanks,
Barb Olson

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