Israeli Army Engaged in Fight Over Its Soul
Doubts, Criticism of Tactics Increasingly Coming From Within

The hunt for suspected militants sent Sgt. Lirom Hakkak bashing his way through a wall into a Palestinian family's threadbare living room, his slender frame sweating under nearly 35 pounds of body armor and combat gear, his M-16 rifle ready.

He noticed the grandmother first, her creased face so blanched with terror that she appeared on the verge of collapse. A middle-aged couple huddled close by, trembling.

"They could be my parents," Hakkak, the 22-year-old son of an Israeli poet, recalled thinking. In that split second of recognition, he said, "you really feel disgusting. You see these people and you know the majority of them are innocent and you're taking away their rights. You also know you must do it."

With the Israel Defense Forces in the fourth year of battle with the Palestinians, the most dominant institution in Israeli society is also embroiled in a struggle over its own character, according to dozens of interviews with soldiers, officers, reservists and some of the nation's preeminent military analysts.
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The captain has to go

It's not an easy thing to say that the prime minister is at a crossroads, fast approaching his last stop. It's no lightheaded matter to say that the prime minister, wildly applauded at the opening of the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities of North America now in session in Jerusalem, has failed in his job of leading the country.
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Background / Preaching the end of Palestine

The ad was sponsored by the unapologetically maximalist Ariel Center for Policy Research, whose logo includes a unpartitioned map of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza forming an integral part of a Star of David.

The ads preach the end of the concept of an independent Palestine in the territories, in favor of a resolute Israeli assertion of sovereignty.

A recent policy paper of the center, based on the principle of "peace without negotiation," concludes that, "It therefore is incumbent upon Israel to refuse any political negotiations with the Arab world generally and the Palestinians specifically, thereby denying them this tool for weakening Israel without truly recognizing her national existence.
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Bitter harvest in West Bank's olive groves
Jewish settlers wreck fruit of centuries of toil to force out Palestinian villagers

Abdula Yusuf is too afraid to climb the rocky terraces beyond his village and see the damage for himself. "They'll kill me," he said, waving a hand at the container homes on the top of a neighbouring hill. "If they can do that thing to trees as old as the Roman times, they will not hesitate to do it to me."
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Internalizing defeat: How Zionism planned to "finish the job" and why the right of return is so important

The New York Times is willing occasionally to publish letters to the editor that speak about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But editors meticulously screen out any discussion of the refugees, Israel's apartheid laws, Israel's racist laws such as land ownership laws, or the so-called "Jewish law of return." If occasionally mentioned, these core issues are briefly glossed at using the unique art of "doublspeak." Thus we hear that Israel (and Dr. Sari Nusseibah) want Palestinian refugees not to be repatriated because they form a "demographic threat." The NY Times thus refuses to even acknowledge the 4th Geneva Convention or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but may be willing to discuss "excessive use of force". This strategy is common in the corporate owned media in the US but has also now infected some people who otherwise advocate human rights in places as diverse as Rwanda, China, and Southern USA. .The strategy is a clever approach designed to shift the dialogue and to obfuscate reality to make it possible to relegate Palestinians to Bantustans/Ghettos with the main purpose of Palestinian government being to guarratee the colonizer's security and "resettle" Palestinian refugees outside their lands and homes. Basically it is a strategy to legitimize a theft of people's lands and properties.
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Storm warnings
As Israel's image reaches new lows worldwide, Jews from abroad - including many of those converging on Jerusalem this month - say their lives are being disrupted by growing anti-Semitism and fears for the future.

Fanning the flames of hatred

The rhetoric of the perpetual victim is not a sufficient answer for the question of the timing. Why all of a sudden have all the anti-Semites, or haters of Israel, raised their heads and begun chanting hate slogans? Enough of our whining, "The whole world is against us."

After all, every country first takes care of its national interests and no other country has to be included among the fans of the Zionist effort. The time has come to look at the facts and admit the simple but bitter truth - Israel has lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the world and we are guilty for what has happened. This generalization is a bit harsh for me, so I will be more precise - not all of us, but our government. Even though I am absolutely certain that each one of its ministers really wants what is best for the country, the government is mistaken and is bringing calamity upon us.
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Israelis leave their land, forced out by a battered economy and years of violence

Jean Max emigrated from Britain to Israel in 1970 as a committed Zionist. Her three children were born and grew up in Israel. But since they reached adulthood, all three have left for new lives in the United States.

And Ms Max, now divorced, is planning to follow them. Her American visa has arrived, she is going to Boston, where her daughter lives, to look for work. If she finds it, she is leaving Israel after 33 years.

Ms Max and her family are part of a growing phenomenon that has the Israeli political establishment worried. New figures from the Immigration and Absorption Ministry stunned the establishment. Those figures show 760,000 Israeli citizens now live abroad. The ministry says its figures are an informal estimate, based on research by Israeli embassies around the world.
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