The US will hold an international economic “workshop” in Bahrain in late June, seeking to encourage investment in the Palestinian territories as the first part of Donald Trump’s long-awaited Middle East peace plan, the White House said on Sunday.
Related: The ‘ultimate deal’? For Israel, maybe. We Palestinians will never accept it | Hanan Ashrawi
Continue reading...Madonna and Icelandic band Hatari displayed the flags at competition’s final in Tel Aviv
The Israeli culture minister, Miri Regev, has criticised the display of Palestinian flags during the Eurovision song contest final in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, including by one of Madonna’s dancers.
“It was an error,” Regev, a rightwing minister known for provocative stances, told journalists before a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
Continue reading...Dancers wearing Palestinian and Israeli flags embraced at the climax of her song Future, with Madonna beseeching the crowd to ‘wake up’
In her much-anticipated and politically contentious performance at Eurovision in Israel, Madonna made an apparent call for peace in the region.
As she and guest star Quavo sang the lyrics “Not everyone is coming to the future / Not everyone is learning from the past”, a pair of her dancers – one wearing a costume bearing a Palestinian flag, another with an Israeli flag – embraced as they climbed a set of stairs at the climax of the performance.
Continue reading...Israeli academics criticise motion, saying it is wrong to conflate BDS and antisemitism
Germany’s Bundestag has become the first parliament in Europe to pass a motion labelling the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel as antisemitic.
The non-binding motion, passed on Friday afternoon, said the campaign to boycott Israeli artists and goods was “reminiscent of the most terrible chapter in Germany history” and triggered memories of the Nazis’ slogan “Don’t buy from Jews”.
Continue reading...Thousands turn out to commemorate mass displacement of people in 1948
Israeli soldiers have shot 16 people at the Gaza frontier on a day of rallies commemorating the mass displacement of Palestinians during the war that led to Israel’s creation in 1948.
Each year, typically on 15 May, Palestinians mark the nakba, or catastrophe, when more than 700,000 people fled or were expelled from towns and villages seven decades ago.
Continue reading...Calling themselves the Gaza skate team, a group of young Palestinians get together to skate and rollerblade amid deprivation and high security
Continue reading...Gulf state reveals funding plan after ceasefire ends latest Israeli-Palestinian hostilities
Qatar has said it is sending $480m (£370m) to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after a ceasefire deal ended the deadliest fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants since 2014.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said $300m would go towards supporting health and education programmes of the Palestinian Authority, while $180m would go toward urgent humanitarian relief, UN programmes and providing electricity.
Continue reading...Protests expected at song contest over country’s treatment of Palestinians
Israel has said it will block activists who plan to disrupt the Eurovision Song Contest from entering the country, as anxiety mounts that the event, watched by a global TV audience, will become a focus for protests against the country’s treatment of the Palestinians.
The world’s longest-running televised song competition will take place on 14-18 May in the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Contestants have begun to arrive, stage lights have been hung and fresh grass has been laid for a massive party on the seafront.
Continue reading...Air and tank strikes kill 19 Palestinians after Netanyahu orders ‘massive attacks’, while rockets kill four in Israel
Militants in Gaza and Israeli forces engaged in a bloody and spiralling clash over the weekend, with Palestinian factions launching hundreds of rockets towards towns and cities in Israel, which retaliated with more than 250 strikes.
In exchanges that marked some of the worst fighting in recent years, 19 Palestinians, including two pregnant women and a toddler, have been killed since hostilities began on Friday, the health ministry in Gaza said. The dead included at least eight militants and a Hamas commander killed in the first targeted assassination Israel has conducted in the strip for years.
Continue reading...Six people have been killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 250 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants on a day that has put further strain on an already fraying ceasefire.
It was the second day of fighting after a month-long lull in violence around the blockaded enclave and came while leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, were in Egypt for talks aimed at restoring the ceasefire.
Continue reading...Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticises attacks as six Palestinians and an Israeli civilian die in renewed violence
Turkey’s president has attacked what he called “Israeli terrorism” after the Gaza office for the Turkish state-run news agency was destroyed during the latest round of hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.
More than 24 hours of heavy fire continued into Sunday, as militants launched rockets out of the strip and Israel responded with air attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to launch more “massive strikes” on Gaza and move tanks, artillery and infantry to the edge of the enclave.
Continue reading...Three fatalities reported in Gaza after Israel respond to 200 rockets fired by Palestinian militant
An infant, her pregnant mother and an adult have been killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 200 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants, further straining an already fraying ceasefire.
Two days of fighting have brought an end to a month-long lull in violence around the blockaded enclave. It came while leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, were in Egypt for talks aimed at restoring the faltering ceasefire deal.
Continue reading...Israeli air strikes kill two Hamas members before troops shoot two Palestinian protesters, Gaza health ministry says
Israel has killed two Hamas militants in air strikes on Gaza, and two Palestinian protesters have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces along the enclave’s border.
The strikes on Friday were a response to gunfire from southern Gaza that wounded two Israeli soldiers, the Israeli military said.
Continue reading...Trump son-in-law says upcoming Middle East peace plan will be ‘very acceptable’ to Palestinians
Jared Kushner has revealed aspects of the US peace plan for the Middle East, indicating it would pull back from longstanding mentions of a two-state solution with the Palestinians and accept Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Kushner, the son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, is expected to present a long-awaited deal next month on behalf of the US administration, which has closely aligned itself with Israel’s rightwing.
Continue reading...Stephen Fry, Marina Abramović and Sharon Osbourne among stars describing the boycott movement as ‘an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis’
Public figures including Stephen Fry, Sharon Osbourne, Marina Abramović and pop mogul Scooter Braun have signed a letter speaking out against a proposed boycott of this year’s Eurovision song contest, which is to be held in Tel Aviv in May.
Their letter states that Eurovision’s “spirit of togetherness” across the continent is “under attack by those calling to boycott Eurovision 2019 because it is being held in Israel, subverting the spirit of the contest and turning it from a tool of unity into a weapon of division”.
Continue reading...As the co-founders of Seret, the UK Israeli film and television festival, we are surprised that, yet again, there has been a call for a boycott on screening films from Israel here in the UK, from film-makers who believe that they are supporting the “Palestinian cause” (Letters, 26 April).
Israeli films are distributed globally, and the cinemas they are screened in are delighted and proud to show them to their audiences.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Oliver Holmes describes his quest for positive news in one of journalism’s most notoriously difficult beats
I had pretzels and a beer ready to pop. It was after 10pm and I was watching a live feed of mission control. An Israeli-built spacecraft was approaching the lunar surface and due to touch down within minutes. It was a straightforward good news story – the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.
Flight engineers had their eyes glued to screens and I was listening to one talking through the details in Hebrew. Then, amid the technical jargon, I heard a jolting phrase in English: “Not OK”.
Continue reading...Roger Waters’ mother imploring her son to “decide for yourself” and execute the “right thing to do” was no doubt in reference to the juvenile politics of the playground (If you believe in human rights, Madonna, don’t play Tel Aviv, 17 April). Unfortunately, these simple values can not be transposed to the labyrinthine issues of the Middle East in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.
Sadly “bad stuff” occurs in all conflicts, which are not as clearcut as Waters would suggest: baddie Israelis (“apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing”, “slaughter”) versus goodie Palestinians (“fortitude”, “grace”, “heads high”).
Continue reading...Exclusive: letter from former officials says Europe must stand by the two-state solution
High-ranking former European politicians have condemned the Trump administration’s one-sided Israel-Palestine policy and called in a letter for Europe to reject any US Middle East peace plan unless it is fair to Palestinians.
The letter, sent to the Guardian, the EU and European governments, was signed by 25 former foreign ministers, six former prime ministers, and two former Nato secretary generals.
Continue reading...For as long as she can remember, Mary Giacaman, a Christian Palestinian, has watched the outcome of the Israeli election on TV. “But not this year,” she explained. “It was too depressing, and anyway I knew what would happen.”
This Holy Week, the 56-year-old Catholic will be attending mass each morning as usual at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity across the square from her olive wood carved souvenir shop; she will spend a festive Easter day with her sons, daughters and six grandchildren. If nothing else, it will be a welcome distraction from a “very bad” election result, which saw a decisive victory for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...