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Welcome to Palestine Today, a service of the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org, for Wednesday November 9, 2011
The Russell tribunal finds Israel guilty of Apartheid and the International Quartet Committee announced plans for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks , these stories and more coming up; so stay tuned.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine has ruled that Israel is guilty of Apartheid and Prosecution crimes.
The tribunal held extensive talks for two days and unanimously determined that the Israeli violations are defined under international law as apartheid, stating that “Israel subjects the Palestinians to institutionalized regime of domination, mounting to apartheid.”
They called on the United Nations General Assembly to hold a special session to investigate Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinian people.
This comes as the International Quartet Committe announced that it will be holding separate meetings with Palestine and Israeli leaders in an effort to restart peace talks.
The quartet has been trying to negotiate proposals meant to reduce the gap between the stances of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, on issues related to security arrangements, settlements, and the efforts to ensure the establishment of an independent Palestinian State.
In other news, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has filed a draft for a new law that calls for enforcing more restrictions on foreign funding to Arab organizations and leftists groups in the country.
Analysts believe Netanyahu is trying to appease the countries right wing groups following the Israeli governments removal of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
These same right wing groups attacked the home of the Israeli Peace Now Movement member Hagit Ofran, spraying swastikas and graffiti on her home.
It is worth mentioning that the Peace Now office in Jerusalem was vandalized earlier this week, and a bomb threat was reported on Sunday. The Star of David was also sprayed on the gates of the office.
Over in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Air Force has carried out air strikes near Khan Younis. Two missiles were fired into the area with a number of residents suffering minor injuries with no reports of causalities.
In international news, fissures appear in the relationship between Israel and South Korea, after Tel Aviv considers scraping a USD$1 billion arms deal.
South Korea is outraged after learning that Israel has signed a preliminary agreement with Italy to purchase new training planes. Seoul has hinted that the reneging of the deal would result in the annulment of all previously signed Israeli-Korean arms procurements, worth an estimated $280 million per year to Israel.
Pressure has increased on Iran following the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report suggesting that Tehran may have been undertaking activities to develop nuclear weapons. The West has called for increased sanctions on the Islamic republic while Israel has not ruled out military intervention.
That’s all for today from the IMEMC News, this was the Wednesday November 9th daily roundup of news from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. We hope you will join us again tomorrow. This was brought to you by Husam Qassis and myself, Adam Carey.
