JAI: An Eye on Palestine – 31 January 2017

JAI: An Eye on Palestine – 31 January 2017

The YMCA-YWCA Joint Advocacy Initiative issues this bi-weekly newsletter to keep you updated on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories related to the Israeli occupation.

INTERACTIVE: Mapping the latest Israeli settlement expansion

This week, Israeli authorities have announced the advancement of significant numbers of settlement housing units in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)

This includes 566 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem (announced 22 January), and more than 2,500 housing units in the occupied West Bank (announced 24 January).

The US embassy’s move to Jerusalem won’t happen soon

Signs coming from Washington seem to point out that the intended decision to move the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem might not be implemented so quickly. But this should not be a reason for complacency.

In fact, if the embassy is not moved, such a decision might be the outcome of a backroom dealing which may result in a US policy even more biased towards Israel than has been seen from Washington for decades.

While Israelis are very much in favour of obtaining legitimacy for their insistence that the unified Jerusalem is Israel’s capital forever, the embassy move is more of a priority for Donald Trump than it is for Israel.

G4S turned to UK government after Israeli threats

The multinational security and incarceration firm G4S wrote to the UK government after an Israeli minister threatened it for yielding to pressure from the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, according to emails obtained by the Financial Times under a freedom of information request. At the end of last year UK-based G4S announced it had sold off virtually all its Israeli business interests.