'Unseen' News and Views
18 December 2016 (Pressenza)* – “Prayer of the Mothers” is a song by singer and songwriter Yael Deckelbaum. It was created together with women of the movement “Women Wage Peace” which aims for a peaceful and nonviolent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since its creation in summer 2014 during the escalation of the conflict in Gaza, which saw over 2,200 people killed, it is bringing together women from all nations and of all religions to set in motion a dialogue to end war and violence and to awaken a new spirit of hope and fundamental change, which can only be created by embracing the power of women, the power to care, to protect and to nourish.
24 December 2016 (WSWS)* – On Friday [24/12/2016], the United Nations Security Council passed a toothless resolution censuring Israel’s expansion of settlements. The vote followed a decision by the Obama administration to abstain, rather than exercising its veto power.
**Photo: “Gas the Arabs” painted on the gate outside a Palestinian home in Hebron by Israeli settlers. It is signed “JDL” (Jewish Defence League). | Author: Magne Hagesæter | Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
A vote on the resolution was postponed on Thursday by its initial sponsor, Egypt, following the intervention of US president-elect Donald Trump. It was reintroduced on Friday with new sponsors New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal.
24/10/2016
DONALD TRUMP has spat in my face.
Uri Avnery
Not only in my own face, but in the faces of at least half the Israeli population.
He has appointed a bankruptcy lawyer named David Friedman to the job of US ambassador in Israel.
This sounds like a bad joke. But it is brutal reality. It sets a precedent unknown in the annals of international diplomacy
FIRST OF all, it is bad practice to appoint an ambassador to a country with which he has a deep personal connection.
You don’t send a Cuban-American Castro-hater to be the US ambassador in Havana. You don’t send Kuomintang Chinese from Taiwan to be US ambassador in Beijing.
True, it is not the first time an American Jew has been appointed ambassador to Israel. There have been two or three, who could just as well have served as Israeli ambassadors to Washington. But they were far less opinionated than this specimen.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 23 December 2016 welcomed the adoption of a Security Council resolution which states that the establishment of Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, have “no legal validity,” constitute a “flagrant violation” under international law and are a “major obstacle” to a two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.
The Security Council votes on resolution reiterating its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem. The vote was 14 in favour, with one abstention (United States). UN Photo/Manuel Elias
“The resolution is a significant step, demonstrating the Council’s much needed leadership and the international community’s collective efforts to reconfirm that the vision of two States is still achievable,” the UN chief’s spokesperson said in a statement.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 