On Sunday, September 18, 2011, Partners for Progressive Israel (Meretz USA) President Dina B. Charnin, Chair Theodore Bikel, and Executive Director Ron Skolnik issued the following statement on behalf of the organization:
The
Palestinian decision to advance their statehood drive via the United Nations,
and outside the framework of negotiations with Israel, is a diplomatic turning
point that creates risks but also offers new openings for progress toward
peace. For the benefit of both the
Jewish and Palestinian peoples, we urge the government of Israel to focus on
the positive elements we expect to be contained in the Palestinian request, as
outlined below, and to refrain from precipitous responses that would escalate
tension and serve the agenda of both sides' extremists.
The most unsettling aspect of Prime Minister Netanyahu's flat rejection
of the Fatah-Hamas agreement, signed this past Wednesday in Cairo, wasn't the
substance of his critique. It was the desperate
and amateurish haste with which he rushed to pronounce judgment and slam the
book.
This past week, Al Jazeera and The Guardian released on their websites a set of 1,684 confidential Palestinian Authority documents known as "The Palestine Papers". These internal emails, minutes of meetings, maps, preparatory notes and other materials are a treasure-trove of political and diplomatic information regarding Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations between 1999 and 2010.
Although some of the more eye-catching documents have already been widely reported, there is much more to the Palestine Papers than just these attention-grabbing headlines.
Three documents recently released by Israel's Defense
Ministry clearly show that Israel's Gaza closure policy was based not only on
security (dual-use goods), but also on additional political criteria. These criteria included the connection
between meeting Gaza's needs and political
support for theHamas regime, as
well as the impact on Israel's international PR.
The documents also expose an explicit policy of "deliberate
restriction" on goods, although the Defense Ministry contends that this option
was never employed in practice.
Meretz USA is saddened and dismayed by the deaths of at least nine international activists taking part in the Gaza-bound "Freedom Flotilla", following the Israel Defense Forces' armed raid of the Mavi Marmara shipping vessel.
In response to a court petition by the Israeli NGO, Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the government of Israel has for the first time admitted that it has specific written guidelines for its Gaza Strip blockade which outline which goods it will, and which it will not, allow into Gaza, and in what quantities.
Last week, Haaretz correspondent, Amira Hass, reported on two new IDF orders that amend the legal definition of the terms "infiltrator" and "infiltration" with regard to the occupied West Bank (not including East Jerusalem).
Amira Hass reported in Haaretz this week that Palestinian lawyers have gone on a protest strike after Israel severely restricted access to their clients at the military tribunal west of Ramallah, in the West Bank. The lawyers have been told that they can no longer pass through the Beitunia checkpoint, only ¼ mile from the court. They are now being required to travel instead via the Qalandia checkpoint, in the section of northern Jerusalem annexed by Israel after 1967.
The new restriction involves not only a much lengthier route. Since Israel regards Qalandia as sovereign territory, the lawyers are also required to first file for an entry permit to the country. But permit requests can take weeks to process, and are not always approved by the Israeli authorities.
For the first time in its 50-year history, the Palestinian Fatah party - the party of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, and the dominant party in the PLO - has officially adopted the principle of a two-state solution.
Holding its first convention since 1989, before the inception of the Oslo process, Fatah decided in Bethlehem earlier this month that its goal is the creation of a State of Palestine alongside a sovereign State of Israel in the pre-1967 borders. (The umbrella PLO had already made such a decision, years ago.)
So why isn't the Israeli government applauding - especially after Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu begrudgingly adopted a watered-down two-state formula back in June?
The most unsettling aspect of Prime Minister Netanyahu's flat rejection
of the Fatah-Hamas agreement, signed this past Wednesday in Cairo, wasn't the
substance of his critique. It was the desperate
and amateurish haste with which he rushed to pronounce judgment and slam the
book. 
In response to a court petition by the Israeli NGO, Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, the government of Israel has for the first time admitted that it has specific written guidelines for its Gaza Strip blockade which outline which goods it will, and which it will not, allow into Gaza, and in what quantities. 
Amira Hass reported in Haaretz this week that Palestinian lawyers have gone on a protest strike after Israel severely restricted access to their clients at the military tribunal west of Ramallah, in the West Bank. The lawyers have been told that they can no longer pass through the Beitunia checkpoint, only ¼ mile from the court. They are now being required to travel instead via the Qalandia checkpoint, in the section of northern Jerusalem annexed by Israel after 1967. 
For the first time in its 50-year history, the Palestinian Fatah party - the party of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, and the dominant party in the PLO - has officially adopted the principle of a two-state solution.
