· November, 2012

Stories about Israel from November, 2012

More Camps to Accommodate Detained Asylum Seekers in Israel

  11 November 2012

In June 2012 Israel began implementing the amendment to the Anti-Infiltration Law according to which all asylum seekers who cross the Israel-Egypt border are automatically jailed for a minimum period of three years without trial. Citizens of ‘enemy states' (such as Sudan) are jailed indefinitely. Elizabeth Tsurkov shares blog reactions as more prison camps are erected to receive the influx of refugees.

Israeli Netizens Celebrate Romney's Defeat

  9 November 2012

Israeli netizens closely followed the elections in the United States, many of them staying up until the early morning hours to find out who of the candidates crossed the 270 electoral vote threshold. The Israeli social media and blogosphere scene is dominated by people who lean to the Left and thus most hoped that Obama would be re-elected. Liberal Israelis are generally disappointed with Obama's inaction regarding the peace process and human rights violations inside Israel, but Romney is seen as the worst of the two.

Palestine: President Abbas Abandons Palestinian Right of Return

  2 November 2012

During an interview given to the Israeli Channel 2 News, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that he does not have the right to live in Safed, his birth town, now part of Israel. The declaration was considered by proponents of the "right of return" as an abandonment of Palestinian refugees' right to return to the villages and the homes they were forcibly displaced from during the 1948 occupation of Palestine and the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.