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World Bank: Israel is to blame for Palestinian financial woes, dependence on foreign aid

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Written by Amira Hass Amira Hass
Published: 08 October 2013 08 October 2013

According to a new report issued by the international development institution Israeli restrictions in the West Bank cost the Palestinians more than $3.4 billion annually.

Restrictions imposed by Israel on most of the West Bank are to blame for the Palestinian Authority's excessive dependence on foreign aid, the World Bank said in a report released Tuesday.

The global financial institution also drew a direct link between what it called the "regime of restrictions" practiced by Israel in the West Bank's Area C and the weakness of the Palestinian private sector. These restrictions alone cost the Palestinian economy roughly $3.4 billion annually.


"The key to Palestinian prosperity continues to lie in the removal of these restrictions with due regard for Israel's security," the reads the report, titled "Area C and the Future of the Palestinian Economy."

Read more: World Bank: Israel is to blame for Palestinian financial woes, dependence on foreign aid

NSA Spied On Martin Luther King Jr., Declassfied Documents Reveal

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Written by Chris Gentilviso Chris Gentilviso
Published: 26 September 2013 26 September 2013

Newly-declassified documents reveal that the National Security Agency targeted one of America's most revered civil rights icons.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University released the information Wednesday, showing that Martin Luther King Jr. was on the agency's watch list during the 1960s. Also mentioned as targets in the report were fellow civil rights leader Whitney Young, boxer Muhammad Ali, and two prominent members of Congress, Sens. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee). The program was also viewed by some officials as "disreputable if not outright illegal," the report adds.

According to the report, knowledge of King as an NSA target first emerged in the 1970s, but Wednesday's release marks the first time that the documents were classified. The FBI had him as a wiretap target shortly after the 1963 March on Washington, thanks to worries over his connections to chief adviser and former Communist Party member Stanley Levison.

[Read more on Huffington Post]

Two-State Illusion

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Written by IAN S. LUSTICK IAN S. LUSTICK
Published: 15 September 2013 15 September 2013



THE last three decades are littered with the carcasses of failed negotiating projects billed as the last chance for peace in Israel. All sides have been wedded to the notion that there must be two states, one Palestinian and one Israeli. For more than 30 years, experts and politicians have warned of a “point of no return.” Secretary of State John Kerry is merely the latest in a long line of well-meaning American diplomats wedded to an idea whose time is now past.

True believers in the two-state solution see absolutely no hope elsewhere. With no alternative in mind, and unwilling or unable to rethink their basic assumptions, they are forced to defend a notion whose success they can no longer sincerely portray as plausible or even possible.

Read more on the NY Times

URGENT ACTION: Forced evictions of Palestinians to go ahead

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Written by Amnesty International Amnesty International
Published: 12 September 2013 12 September 2013

Further Information on UA: 170/13 Index: MDE 15/013/2013 Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories        Date: 11 September 2013
Eastmed <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

URGENT ACTION
Forced evictions of Palestinians to go ahead
Some 1,000 Palestinians living in the south of the occupied West Bank, nearly half of them children, are still facing forced eviction by the Israeli army; the Israeli High Court of Justice did not rule in favour of their rights.
The Israeli army plans to expel and forcibly evict from their homes all the residents of eight villages situated in the hills south-east of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, to make way for a military training zone, Firing Zone 918. The villages are Safai, Majaz, Tabban, Fakhit, Halaweh, Mirkez, Jinba and Hillet al-Dhaba’a. If the evictions go ahead they have the potential to violate a range of residents’ rights including adequate housing, water, sanitation, health and education.

Read more: URGENT ACTION: Forced evictions of Palestinians to go ahead

NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans' data with Israel

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Written by Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill
Published: 11 September 2013 11 September 2013

• Secret deal places no legal limits on use of data by Israelis
• Only official US government communications protected
• Agency insists it complies with rules governing privacy
• Read the NSA and Israel's 'memorandum of understanding'

Read more on the Guardian

More Articles ...

  1. The Flawed Case for US Intervention in Syria
  2. Amnesty: Accountability needed for killings in Israeli raid on West Bank refugee camp
  3. SOUTH HEBRON HILLS URGENT ACTION: Ask U.S. Secretary of State Kerry to heed Israeli jurists' and writers' petitions against forced evacuation of people in Firing Zone 918
  4. John Kerry’s doomed peace process is deja vu all over again
  5. Consensus wisdom: The boycott of Israel is working
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