Another Ceasefire has Not Ended the War

In Gaza there is a sad inevitability that this current ceasefire will not be the end of the conflict. While the tentative peace lasts the sides are busy negotiating the future, not only of Gaza but also that of the West Bank. Israel has never taken the discussions with Palestine seriously and has always managed to find a way around previous agreements in relation to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the question of the Settlements which have been a central instrument in the cantonisation of the occupied territories. Israel and its US allies well know that a meaningful peace between Israel and a hypothetical Palestinian state will damage their colonial and strategic ambitions for the territories. Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader of the Palestinian unity government, which is still supported by Hamas, is largely rejected by the people of Palestine as a US-Israeli stooge, and the fact that Operation Protective Edge did not include the invasion and systematic destruction of the West Bank does point in this direction. Since Arafat the US and Israel have been looking for a ‘moderate’ Palestinian who will be happy to accept a dictated peace on Israeli terms, and in Abbas they certainly do seem to have their man. Going on the past record of the State of Israel in using any pretext to invade Gaza in order to exterminate Hamas, it is unlikely that any of the demands of Hamas will be taken into consideration in the current negotiations.

Gaza Ceasefire Holding

An open-ended ceasefire in the Gaza war between Israel and the Palestinians held on Wednesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced strong criticism in his country’s newspapers over a campaign in which no clear victor emerged. On the streets of the battered, Hamas-run Palestinian enclave, people headed to shops and banks, trying to resume the normal pace of life after seven weeks of fighting. In Israel, sirens warning of incoming rocket fire from the Gaza Strip fell silent, but media commentators voiced deep disappointment over Netanyahu’s leadership during the most prolonged bout of Israeli-Palestinian violence in a decade. “After 50 days of warfare in which a terror organisation killed dozens of soldiers and civilians, destroyed the daily routine (and) placed the country in a state of economic distress…we could have expected much more than an announcement of a ceasefire,” analyst Shimon Shiffer wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper. “We could have expected the prime minister to go to the President’s Residence and inform him of his decision to resign his post.”

One Last Splash

With the installation of water meters underway and the arrival of our first water charges just over the horizon the charitable Irish have taken to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in a big way. The point of this viral shenanigan is to raise awareness for a serious disease, and raise some much needed funds for research and the treatment of sufferers. As the ‘ALS Challenge’ it has become something of a misnomer on this side of the Atlantic. Where in the States it is for the ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) Association, in the United Kingdom it is to raise awareness of and raise funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, and here in Ireland it’s all about IMNDA (Irish Motor Neuron Disease Association). It all starts when your little cousin, or someone you know, who never usually mails to your Facebook page, posts a video on their own page of them having a bucket of ice water (complete with ice-cubes) tossed over their head. Just prior to their humiliating drenching they make a hostage-style speech letting the world know that they will be donating to the charity – or, controversially enough, to another charity – and then nominate you. Thanks very much Nicola!

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Britain has a long tradition of economic migration. Over the past five hundred years England led the world in the colonial project by resettling people from the British Isles in far-flung parts of the world in the formation of the British Empire. In more recent times Britons have continued to migrate for economic and other […]

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Former Chair of Labour Friends of Israel set to Lead Scottish Labour

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