News Highlights:
- Palestinian PM says Jan. 25/06 legislative elections will be postponed if Jerusalem not included in voting process.
- Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that illegal permits issued for West Bank settlement expansion; Modiin Illit construction is happening on private land belonging to the Palestinian village of Bili’in.
- Israeli PM Ariel Sharon to undergo heart procedure on Jan. 5th, and has reduced workload since December stroke.
- Ariel Sharon plans to scrap the roadmap plan and annex occupied West Bank land, according to Maariv newspaper on Jan. 2nd; paper says plan has already been presented to the Bush administration.
Feature:
VOP was unable to connect by phone with Mansour Mansour, ISM campaign coordinator from Biddu village, about the civil disobedience actions against Israeli settlement expansion. Instead, the in studio collective discussed the leading stories in the week’s news, particularly the exposure of the illegal “dirty tricks” used to expand Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, and the upcoming Palestinian elections.
Focus on Zionism:
Highlights of a Jan. 2nd, 2006 Haaretz article about the new checkpoints Israel is putting up inside the West Bank that are really border crossings.
Here is an audio file of this show: