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Purpose: to provide a varied selection of articles from Arabic, Hebrew and English mainstream media outlets so readers get a flavour of what is being read by the general public about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from different perspectives. The aim is to shine a spotlight for readers on the polarised narratives and constant one-sided messaging that appears in the media of each society, and often also in the international media. Solutions Not Sides makes no attempt to reconcile or support any of these narratives, but we believe it is important to understand each side’s perspective and the way that their society presents events if a negotiated solution is to be reached.
We do not currently have the capacity to provide translations of actual Hebrew and Arabic media, so bear in mind that news agencies that issue articles in those languages may not produce the same content as the English versions of their outlets provided here (e.g. Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English do not simply produce the same content in both languages). The content and opinions of these articles do not reflect our aims or opinions. Our main educational point about media sources on this issue is that they are almost always biased and should never be trusted in isolation. Please BE RESOURCEFUL and research for yourself a diversity of sources for everything you read or hear about Israel-Palestine.
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Story of the Week
This week we are highlighting stories from beyond the conflict, looking at some of the changing social, economic and digital trends occurring in Israeli and Palestinian society.
Christian Science Monitor: Kibbutz in the city? The healing mission of Israel’s new communes.
With a modern pioneering zeal and a passion for social justice, young Israelis are reimagining the kibbutz, planting scores of collectives in disadvantaged neighborhoods around the country…. I n this so-called urban kibbutz, 16 members live here in four apartments, including members with children; another 14 members live in another building nearby, and a smattering live in apartments in the neighborhood. Members share not only living space, but some of their possessions, and pool their incomes. They also share a modern mission: building a rich communal life for themselves, and doing so in a low-income, underserved urban setting in Israel’s so-called periphery with the goal of improving life for local residents, specifically through education…. In the past two decades, some 220 urban cooperatives have been established across Israel, some in the form of kibbutzim and communes with shared economies, others in the shape of individuals or families who are economically independent but live in the same apartment buildings or neighborhoods and see themselves as a unit.
Read more: https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/0802/Kibbutz-in-the-city-The-healing-mission-of-Israel-s-new-communes
Al Monitor: How avocado became king in this West Bank city
Increasing numbers of Palestinian farmers in Qalqilya and Tulkarm are opting to grow avocados given the potential earnings from local demand as well as from export. Yusef Abu Daher, a produce grower from Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, decided five years ago to grow avocados on his land instead of vegetables in a greenhouse. New prospects for marketing avocados inside and outside the Palestinian territories and their price, which is steadily higher than for other crops, make them an attractive fruit to grow. Abu Daher is among some 400 producers in Qalqilya governorate who have opted to cultivate avocados, the harvest of which begins this month. Abu Daher opted for avocados because planting is easier and less costly than for other traditional crops and because avocados maintain the same price throughout the harvest season, selling at no less than seven shekels ($2) a kilo on the local market.
Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/07/avocado-growing-qalquilya-beneficial-despite-lack-experience.html
Reuters: Palestinian app helps drivers avoid Israeli checkpoint bottlenecks
A new locally-developed app helps Palestinian drivers in the occupied West Bank negotiate traffic at Israeli military checkpoints and uncover routes to towns mainstream providers often miss. Launched in June and designed by Palestinians, Doroob Navigator crowd-sources road closures and traffic data from users. It aims to supplant apps like Google Maps and Waze, which rarely account for Israeli restrictions and struggle to navigate between Palestinian cities… Mohammad Abdel Haleem, CEO of Doroob Technologies, said he knew Palestinians needed a new way to get around after a drive with Google Maps between the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Ramallah left him lost in a remote valley. “We had to design our maps completely from scratch. The wall, checkpoints, settlements ... existing mapping software could never account for the complexity here,” Abdel Haleem, 39, said before using the app to drive through a checkpoint separating Ramallah from Beit El, a nearby Israeli settlement. The app, which has garnered 22,000 users in two months, is funded by Ideal, a Ramallah-based transportation and automation software company also led by Abdel Haleem. He says he hopes to monetize the app in the future in part via a delivery feature… Doroob Navigator’s algorithm combines reports from users with manual inputs by engineering staff to help drivers avoid crippling checkpoint traffic and circumvent settlements, which most Palestinian vehicles cannot enter. “Other apps might say the only way to drive between certain Palestinian cities is to cut through a settlement,” Abdel Haleem said. “We’re trying to change that.” The app is also available in the Palestinian coastal enclave of Gaza, though most active users are in the West Bank, Abdeel Haleem says. Palestinians in the past have relied on Facebook groups and word-of-mouth to anticipate West Bank traffic and closures
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinians-tech/palestinian-app-helps-drivers-avoid-israeli-checkpoint-bottlenecks-idUSKCN1UV0VY
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Arab News Sources:
Al Jazeera - Young Palestinian musicians challenge 'system of oppression'
The Palestine Youth Orchestra is touring Europe, having conducted rehearsals via Skype because of travel restrictions… The orchestra was founded in 2004 by Suhail Khoury, the general director of the Edward Said Music Conservatory at Birzeit University in the West Bank, with the aim of bringing together young Palestinian musicians and helping them to develop. "I realised that going around in the area, there were lots of very talented young Palestinian musicians, but as with all the Palestinian people, they were dispersed in different places of the earth," says Khoury. "I decided to bring them together and one in one cultural project. I wanted to say that, wherever you are, whatever generation you're coming from, you are still Palestinian, and if you are a musician, this is your address. The PYO is the group that will bring you all together."… Over the years, PYO has played concerts around the Middle East, within the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and in Europe. The current tour includes concerts in Oslo, Copenhagen and Amsterdam. "Usually, when people speak about Palestinians, it's about occupation and being underprivileged," says Barghouti. "PYO shows the powerful, the beautiful, the creative side that is so present in Palestine."
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/young-palestinian-musicians-challenge-system-oppression-190804104900102.html
Palestine News Network - Israeli occupation costs Palestine over nine billion dollars every year
The occupation negatively affects almost every aspect of daily life in Palestine, imposing a annual huge economic cost. Putting a price tag on the occupation is a difficult and imprecise task, but a report by the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ) has come up with a figure: $9.4588 billion (about 33 billion shekels) in 2017, representing more than 74 percent of Palestinian GDP, which hit 14.5 billion USD according to the World Bank. This figure is likely an under-estimation of the true costs of the occupation, because the report only includes costs for which reliable and relatively precise estimations could be made. The report splits the costs on the Palestinian economy into five categories and calculates the costs imposed by the occupation on each. The biggest share of the costs is due to lost infrastructure, representing 35 percent of the total, 28 percent are due to restrictions on access to natural resources, 17 percent due to human capital losses, 16 percent from the different Palestinian industries and services, and three percent as fiscal revenue leakage from the Palestinian Authority to Israel… It notes that the Oslo Accords have significantly stifled economic growth in Palestine: if pre-Oslo Accords growth trend had continued, Palestinian real GDP per capita could have been at least double its current size.
Read more: http://english.pnn.ps/2019/08/07/israeli-occupation-costs-palestine-over-nine-billion-dollars-every-year/
Arab News - Israel says soldier stabbed to death in West Bank
The body of an Israeli soldier was found with stab wounds near a West Bank settlement south of Jerusalem early on Thursday, the military said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the killing as a terrorist attack and pledged to bring the perpetrator to justice. According to an army statement, Israeli troops and police officers were searching the area near the Etzion settlement bloc where the body was found in the “early morning hours.” Israeli troops entered the nearby Palestinian village of Beit Fajar as part of the search. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said that the soldier was a student in a pre-military Jewish seminary program and was neither armed nor in uniform. He said the military was investigating the circumstances of his death. The soldier was later identified as 19-year-old Dvir Sorek, from the West Bank settlement of Ofra. His remains were found near the military seminary where he studied in the West Bank… Yair Golan, a former army general and a Democratic Union party candidate in the elections next month, said in an interview with Israel’s Kan television that the settlements near where Sorek was found “needed to be encircled ages ago with a security fence that would help to separate between the Jewish population and the Palestinian population.”
Read more: http://www.arabnews.com/node/1537206/middle-east
Hebrew News Sources:
Ynet News: IDF soldier killed in West Bank stabbing attack; massive manhunt underway
An 19-year-old soldier was stabbed to death and his body found near Kibbutz Migdal Oz in the West Bank in the early hours of Thursday, the IDF said... The soldier was later named as Dvir Sorek from the West Bank settlement of Ofra. He was not in uniform at the time of the attack. Security forces launched a large-scale manhunt for his killer after his body was discovered. The army was working on the growing assumption that the soldier had first been abducted and that he had not been murdered at the site where his body was found... The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization welcomed the murder, calling it "heroic and sending an important message."... Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying that security forces were "in pursuit now in order to capture the despicable terrorist and bring him to account."
Read more: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5565811,00.html
Israel Hayom - Netanyahu: There will be no unity government
Following Israel Hayom columnist Mati Tuchfeld's call on Tuesday for the Right to "commit to its own path," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly responds in a direct letter to the paper's readers, vowing to eschew a national unity government with the Blue and White party after the September 17 election.
"My commitment is clear: To establish a strong right-wing government after the election, which will continue to lead the State of Israel to unprecedented heights and to guarantee the security of Israeli citizens. This is my commitment to Likud voters. There will be no unity government. The citizens of Israel face a single choice in the upcoming election: Who will be the next prime minister of the State of Israel? Will a weak and inexperienced left-wing government led by Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz be established; or rather a strong right-wing government headed by the Likud under my leadership… We cannot repeat the mistake of the last election when right-wing voters squandered seven mandates on parties that failed to pass the electoral threshold. We must not jeopardize the right-wing government; therefore we must vote Likud. Anyone who doesn't vote Likud – is essentially voting for the fall of the right-wing government and rise of a left-wing government headed by Lapid and Gantz.”
Read more: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/08/07/netanyahu-there-will-be-no-unity-government/
Times of Israel - Israel advances plans for over 2,300 settlement homes, most deep in West Bank
Left-wing group blasts approval of project to be constructed right along security barrier after government demolished Palestinian homes in Wadi Hummus built just as close to wall… The majority of the homes advanced will be located deep in the West Bank, beyond the so-called settlement blocs. The batch of approvals followed the security cabinet last month okaying a plan to grant 715 building permits for Palestinians in Israel-controlled Area C in the West Bank, where for decades only several dozen homes have been green-lighted for construction. Due to the political ramifications of the approval, several ministers insisted it be conditioned on the parallel granting of 6,000 building permits for Israeli settlers. Among the plans approved by the Civil Administration this week were three projects in wildcat outposts, thus granting the outposts retroactive legalization: Givat Salit in the northern Jordan Valley, where 94 homes received final construction approval, Ibei Hanahal southeast of Bethlehem, where 98 homes were given final approval; and Haroeh Ha’ivri east of Jerusalem where an educational campus was given final approval. Haroeh Ha’ivri is located several hundred meters from Khan al-Ahmar, a Bedouin hamlet that the state has declared it intends to demolish because it was built without the necessary permits. Also given final approval was a plan for 194 homes in the Ganei Modiin settlement adjacent to the West Bank security barrier near the Israeli city of Modiin. The Peace Now settlement watchdog blasted the government’s decision to authorize the plan when just last month it demolished several buildings in Wadi Hummus, including a number in Palestinian-controlled areas A and B of the West bank, because they were considered to have been built too close to the security barrier.
Read more: https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-advances-plans-for-over-2300-settlement-homes-mostly-deep-in-west-bank/
International News Sources:
Daily Sabah: Palestinians condemn Israel's absence from 'list of shame'
Palestinians expressed resentment over excluding Israel from the U.N. "list of shame," which includes those who violated children's rights last year. "U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres seems to have heard nothing of the violations committed by the Israeli occupation government against Palestinian children on a daily basis," member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Ahmad Majdalani said, wondering how Israel was excluded from the report at a time when it was complicit in the murder and imprisonment of Palestinian children... U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba had mentioned the possibility of Israel's addition to the 2018 list at the end of the year during her July 30 press conference after Israel's absence drew some reaction. Guterres' 2018 report involved a statistic that revealed the deaths of 59 Palestinian children by the Israeli army.
Read more: https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2019/08/06/palestinians-condemn-israels-absence-from-list-of-shame
Jewish Chronicle - Labour members 'radicalised into attacking Jews and Israel after Corbyn became leader'
Labour members who said nothing about Israel became "radicalised" about Jewish people and the Jewish state after Jeremy Corbyn became leader, a landmark report has found. The research, by prominent research David Collier, identified a pattern whereby members had previously said nothing online about Jewish people or Israel but then began to "dip their toes in anti-Israel ideology" online, culminating in outright attacks on Jews. Mr Collier, who has written previous reports that identified antisemitism within the infamous Palestine Live Facebook group of which Mr Corbyn was a member, identified one member who posted nothing on social media about the Gaza War in 2014, then shared two articles about Israel in 2015, the year Mr Corbyn became leader, 22 in 2016 and more than 300 in 2018. In his 200-page dossier, which has been submitted to equalities watchdog the EHRC as part of its probe into whether Labour is institutionally antisemitic, he provided 14 case studies of members whose social media activity followed similar lines. They follow a pattern of becoming suddenly interested in Israel when Mr Corbyn took power in September 2015, joining pro-Corbyn Facebook groups, posting often inaccurate claims about Israel, posting more about Israel than any other subject, attacking the media for being "Zionist", sharing antisemitic conspiracy theories from alternative news sources, insisting it is not antisemitic to criticise Israel, making antisemitic arguments in their own words, promoting Jewish Anti-Zionists' defences of Mr Corbyn and finally displaying "outright hostility towards mainstream British Jewry".
Read more: https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour-members-radicalised-to-talk-about-jews-and-israel-after-joining-party-1.487104
The Guardian - UK council refused to host Palestinian event over antisemitism fears
Tower Hamlets officials did not divulge real reason for turning down Big Ride for Palestine. Officials at a London council that refused to host a charity event in aid of Palestinian children did not tell the organisers the decision was based on fears their criticism of Israel could breach antisemitism guidelines, internal emails have revealed. The exchanges among officials at Tower Hamlets council also reveal they thought the event should be turned down, in part because of the row over antisemitism in the Labour party. The council told The Big Ride for Palestine, which has raised nearly £150,000 for sports equipment for children in Gaza since 2015, that the event’s “political connotations” meant that the closing rally of this year’s bike ride could not go ahead in the borough “without problems”. Officials told organisers there was a risk speakers might express views which contradicted the council’s policies on community cohesion and equality. Behind the scenes, council staff raised fears of a “real risk” that the event and its organisers could be seen to have breached the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism because of references on their website to apartheid and ethnic cleansing. One official said there were concerns “not least because of the recent furour [sic] within the Labour party over Anti Semitism [sic]”.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/03/uk-council-refused-to-host-palestinian-event-over-antisemitism-fears
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Photo of the Week: Israeli Police Plant Gun in Palestinian's Home for TV Docudrama
In the course of a TV series on the Jerusalem police force, police planted a weapon in the house of an East Jerusalem Palestinian resident and then documented its discovery.
Following a report in Haaretz, Israel's public broadcaster Kan removed all episodes available online, and the police apologized, and said they would investigate the incident
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Opinion:
Guardian - ‘I called out Palestinian suffering – and was met by antisemitic abuse’
Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan was trying to improve lives for sick children, but she unleashed a torrent of trolling… She had gone to Israel not as a politician but “with my doctor’s hat on”, to investigate the availability of healthcare for Palestinians, particularly those living in Gaza, from where travel is strictly controlled by the Israeli government. When she returned to the UK, she decided to use her weight as an MP to pursue the issue. She wrote to Jeremy Hunt, then foreign secretary, urging the government to “lean on Israeli authorities to overhaul this inhumane system of deterrence and restricted access to healthcare”. She went on the Today programme to talk about the difficulties faced by parents of sick children in Gaza in getting permits to travel to visit them in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, Sharon Bar-Li, also appeared on the programme. She invited Allin-Khan to continue their discussion at a meeting at the embassy. After that meeting Allin-Khan tweeted: “It was a pleasure to meet @SharonBarli again at the Israeli Embassy to continue our constructive discussions about access to healthcare for Palestinians. I look forward to continuing to work together on such crucial humanitarian issues.” And that’s when it all kicked off. “The pushback was just horrific, unlike anything I have ever experienced,” said Allin-Khan. “I didn’t anticipate a backlash of this nature at all. I was genuinely astonished, and deeply disappointed, at this unleashing of antisemitic abuse on Twitter.” The tweets included accusations that she was a “direct collaborator in apartheid” for having held talks with Israeli diplomats, and of having been “bought by the Zionists for a bag of silver and a duplex in Marbella”. One said: “Disgusting. Collaboration with occupiers and oppressors. Shameless.” Allin-Khan responded with a Twitter thread on antisemitism, explaining the background to her meeting. She wrote: “Instead of supporting my work, those purporting to support the Palestinian cause have spouted horrible antisemitic abuse … these views are abhorrent – but also misguided and ill-informed. This behaviour does nothing to help the Palestinian cause.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/03/rosena-allin-khan-israel-children-hospital-human-rights
Al Jazeera - Israel fears a visit by Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib
While officially welcoming them, the Israeli authorities are trying to block the two congresswomen from entering Israel… Last week, the Israel Law Center (ILC), also known as Shurat HaDin, a self-declared NGO, appealed to the Jerusalem District Court to prevent Omar and Tlaib from gaining entry into Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories due to their support for the constitutionally-protected right to engage in BDS. The ILC bases its case on Amendment No 28 to the Entry Into Israel Law, which prohibits entry of any foreigner who makes a "public call for boycotting Israel" or "any area under its control"… Israel's flip-flopping on the matter of Omar and Tlaib's entry is far from accidental. The involvement of the ILC as a so-called NGO enables the Israeli government to avoid direct accountability for its racist, diplomatically controversial targeting of an elected US official while setting a precedent against prominent BDS supporters. Further, it degrades Omar and Tlaib as Muslim women and as American elected officials while sidestepping potential diplomatic embarrassments Donald Trump as president would need to address. Thus, Israel is working in tandem with the White House to target and humiliate Omar and Tlaib, both outspoken critics of American and Israeli policies in general, and Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular.
Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-fears-visit-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib-190802102205045.html
Jewish News - Why is Benjamin Netanyahu still so popular?
Like him or not, Benjamin Netanyahu is one of the most successful leaders in the democratic world. After a first stint in office from 1996-1999 be bounced back from defeat in 2009 and has been Israeli Prime Minister ever since. In April’s election, after a decade in power and despite facing charges of bribery and fraud, his Likud party won 35 seats and 1.1 million votes. Its best result for 16 years and the most votes the party has ever won. But Netanyahu failed to form a Government so has to fight another election in September. Currently, 42 per cent of Israelis tell pollsters he is their preferred Prime Minister, only thirty per cent prefer opposition leader Benny Gantz… Anshel Pfeffer, author of a recent biography of Bibi, says there are four elements to his support: “He has delivered ten years of relative calm and economic prosperity, has a strong right-wing base and a lack of alternative candidates.”… But this election is different. For the first time Netanyahu faces a fight on both flanks. Avigdor Lieberman on the right is toxifying Bibi’s long-term alliance with the ultra-orthodox, Gantz in the centre is attacking him for corruption and Barak is attacking him for everything. This will require a very different campaign with an exceptional level of versatility. Circling back to Pfeffer’s point about the lack of alternative candidates, Bibi has been lucky with his opponents. For many Israelis surveying what’s on offer, Netanyahu remains the best option.
Read more: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-is-benjamin-netanyahu-still-so-popular/
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