Palestinian activist Abdullah Abu Rahma has been sentenced to a year in prison for incitement by an Israeli military court. He is a leading organiser of the weekly protests against the separation barrier that Israel has built in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The protests started over five years ago and the activist has already served 10 months of his sentence on remand. The events are normally non-violent, but occasionally confrontations occur. Supporters claim the barrier is necessary to keep out suicide bombers. Protesters view it as an attempted land grab. The International Court of Justice and the Israeli Supreme Court have both declared parts of the wall unlawful.
The Education Ministry has banned a history textbook that includes both the Israeli and Palestinian narrative of the Middle East conflict. The principal of a high school in Sderot was summoned to the ministry after his school was found to be using the book, entitled Learning the Historical Narrative of the Other. The school’s history syllabus, which aims to encourage understanding between the two peoples, was rejected by the head of the ministry’s pedagogic secretariat, Zvi Zamaret.
Al Jazeera is reporting that Assaf Abou Rahhal, a journalist with Lebanon’s Al Akhbar newspaper, was killed today in an exchange of fire between the Lebanese Army and the Israel Defence Forces.
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With the launch of a West Bank radio station, settlers are winning legitimacy and influence. Padraig Reidy and Israeli journalist Anat Balint discuss radio in the occupied territories
Anant Balint is a former media correspondent for Haeretz
For more on the topic read Anat Balint’s article Piracy goes Kosher, which appears in Radio Redux, the new issue of Index on Censorship, out now
