News Highlights:
- Abdallah Abu Rahmah, leader of non-violent protests in the Palestinian village of Bilin, has been sentenced to one year imprisonment by an Israeli military court.
- The European Union urges Israel to guarantee the equality of all its citizens, especially the Palestinian Israelis; meanwhile, Israeli artists protest against the new Israeli bill that would require only non-Jewish citizens to pledge allegiance to an exclusive Jewish state.
- The Canadian government abandons its bid to gain a seat on the UN Security Council, after the second ballot shows it would lose the vote.
Feature:
Another in our series of Eyewitness Palestine reports, this one highlighting the solidarity efforts of two families, one American and the other Israeli. The first report was the family of Rachel Corrie and detailed what is happening in their lawsuit currently being heard in an Israeli court for the unlawful killing of their daughter. The latest development has been the decision of the court to allow the Israeli soldiers involved in Rachel’s killng to testify behind a screen. The second report was from two brothers Yonatan and Itamar Shapira, one a former Israeli airforce captain and the other a former solider in an elite army unit, who were both passengers on the Jewish aid boat to Gaza. They told their story about how brutally they were treated by the Israeli navy units that boarded and hijacked the ship.
Focus on Zionism:
Highlights of a report about 12 Palestinian teenagers injured by Israeli forces while trying to eke out a living collecting old gravel and concrete near the border, as UN agencies and the Israeli human rights group Btselem call for an investigation into Israel’s self-imposed “buffer zone”.
Here is an audio file of this show: