Here follow the December 21, 2007 press picks from what was published recently by different sources - posted by TOI-staff on Occupation Magazine. (We do the updating on Saturdays, but OM is updated daily, each day of the week by a different editor. For earlier articles use the powerfull search function & view the sections.) 

 Candle procession in Beit Sahour calling for a Just Peace
George Rishmawi - IMEMC - On Friday Palestinian residents of Beit Sahour marched through the town, east of Bethlehem marking the beginning of the three-day, Joy to the City festival. The marchers carried signs, calling for a Just Peace, and signs against the annexation wall that is being built on Palestinian land.
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24167

 Six wounded in nonviolent Anti-wall protest in Bil`n
Ghassan Bannoura - IMEMC - The Israeli army installed a barbed-wire roadblock to try and prevent the protesters reaching the construction site. As soon as the demonstration reached the roadblock troops showered the protesters with tear gas and metal rubber coated bullets injuring six people. 
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24166

 Ceasefire with Hamas?
Laurie Copans/Aviram Zino/Amos Harel - AP/Y-Net/Haaretz - Olmert and Peres outspokenly reject the possibility, but still the idea of a ceasefire with Hamas gets more establishment support and arouses more of discussion in the mainstream Israeli media than on previous occasions when Hamas raised the idea [ed.].
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24157

 Prerequisites for peace
Mustafa Barghouthi - Baltimore Sun - We have made our most generous offer in agreeing to establish our sovereign state in the West Bank and Gaza, together only 23 percent of historical Palestine. This is roughly half of what the United Nations allocated for us some 60 years ago. We have already more than made our historical compromise with Israel. Compromising the compromise risks leaving us with a shell state. If the two-state solution becomes impossible, future Palestinian leaders may be compelled to demand equal rights within one state. It behooves Israel to hasten toward a two-state solution. 
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24160

 Wishful thinking
Khaled Amayreh - Al-Ahram - The Paris Donor Conference may make the Palestinian Authority richer but it cannot improve the economy of a no-state under Israeli occupation
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24168

 Whoever wants coexistence must first stop the rampaging settlers
Michael Sfard - Haaretz - Israeli society does not need more slogans about how wonderful it would be here if only there were peace. It needs a frank internal discussion about the fascist and racist ideology that guides most of the ideological settlers (and not only the lunatics in the outposts).
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24165

 Sealed Off by Israel, Gaza Reduced to Beggary
Scott Wilson - Washington Post - The batteries are the size of a button on a man`s shirt, small silvery dots that power hearing aids for several hundred Palestinian students taught by the Atfaluna Society for Deaf Children in Gaza City. Now the batteries, marketed by Radio Shack, are all but used up. The few that are left are losing power, turning voices into unintelligible echoes in the ears of Hala Abu Saif`s 20 first-grade students. 
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24164

 Physicians for Human Rights-Israel Gaza Update 19 Dec 2007
PHR-I Press release - Relief Web - Eighteen urgent new medical cases are currently handled at our offices. The majority of these have waited for weeks without receiving any response - negative or positive - from the Israeli authorities. 
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24163

 The right wing`s Jerusalem gambit
Gregory Levey - Salon.com - A new coalition of religious hard-liners with ties to President Bush seeks to scuttle any plans for dividing Jerusalem between Israelis and Palestinians. Its efforts also threaten to cause painful rifts among American Jews, and perhaps shake up some pro-Israel political alliances. 
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24162

 13 groups protest against JNF fund drive for `Canada Park`
JESSE ROSENFELD - NOW Magazine - The fact is, the Park in the Latrun Valley sits on the occupied West Bank on the site of two Palestinian villages, Imwas and Yalu, destroyed by Israel in the 1967 war. [followed by DINA AWAD`s demo report in same paper. ed]
 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=24159