Yes, it is that time again: Time for a Week In Review In Occupied Palestine. Much to report this week.

First, some good news: Spain’s joins the increasing number of nations divesting or boycotting or sanctioning Israel. First, the European Union is labeling all Israeli goods produced in the occupied territories as a product of occupation. Then, Britain refused to rent office space from an Israeli businessman whom funds illegal settlements. And then, Britain’s +six-million strong TUC union voted in favor of a boycott of Israeli goods. And then still Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divested from an Israeli company profiting from the occupation. And now Espana has banned Israeli companies from a prestigious conference, the world’s premier, on solar power:

The University Center of Ariel in Samaria (AUCS) has been excluded from the Solar Decathlon, an international university competition promoting sustainable architecture. The self-styled AUCS, claiming to represent Israel, though situated in the illegal settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank, was one out of 20 architecture teams short-listed from university entries last April to compete for the Solar Decathlon-Europe 2010. The Spanish Government together with the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid organizes this most prestigious competition for sustainable architecture in the world.

As is well-known, Israeli Jews are allowed to be armed to the teeth in Israel while Palestinian citizens in Israel are allowed a hunting rifle at most. But, boy, do Palestinians have fun with those rifles. During Arab festivals and celebrations, Palestinians are known to fire rounds in the sky. Sometimes fireworks are available, if not do your best with a gun. Well, you see, those guns make noise and while Israelis do not know the Arabs making the noise since they shun their Arab citizens in their racism; they nonetheless have their poor ears subject to such unfortunate noise. Poor Israelis. I mean, how cruel can the Arabs be? They now have to engage in noise terrorism as well. Clearly, this is a human-rights abuse and the rights or privileges of Arabs in Israel obviously need to be restricted some more. No has a right to fun:

Custom of shooting guns into the air celebrations in Arab villages has been around for years, but the residents of Carmiel are finally fed up. City resident says, ‘Police say not to leave the house if I’m scared. Is that a solution?’ Mayor petitions minister of internal security on issue

And here is a Palestinian puppet/collaborator behaving like a world-renowned buffoon. Lieberman is an unabashed racist whom wants to stripe Arabs in Israel of their citizenship and lives in an illegal settlement in the West Bank, but the idiots of Fatah will do anything for a photo-op. Did Lieberman send his Eid wishes?

Lieberman, a far-rightist who has proposed forcing Israeli Arabs to swear an oath of loyalty to the state, exchanged seasonal greetings with Erekat at the meeting, which was hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama. The Palestinian negotiatior wished him a happy new year, referring to the recent Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

And speaking about Lieberman, his blunt speaking does come in handy to make clear just how useless Obama has been on Israel-Palestine. The U.S. gives Israel $3 billion annual and carries Israel’s diplomatic waters, but months of U.S. pressure could not get Israel to agree to even a temporary settlement freeze. This is something that should not even be any issue. Settlements are illegal, and an Israeli concession to not build more of them isn’t even a concession on Israel’s part since its not Israel’s to make in the first place and simply an act abiding by international law. That reminds me: I would like to thank Mexico for its concession not to build settlements in Texas. Israel is going ahead with construction and will continue to build in the dense illegal settlement blocs. Obama is now signaling that the U.S. will back-down from its demand. So here is where Obama is: Israel gets money, Israel continues to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land, Palestinians lose land, and then Obama has the temerity to take about a new peace process while Israel continues to colonize Palestinian land and asks Arabs for normalization:

Israel’s foreign minister said Wednesday that the summit of Israeli, U.S. and Palestinian leaders proved Israel could successfully fend off international pressure to freeze West Bank settlement construction. Palestinian officials expressed disappointment with Tuesday’s meeting in New York.

And speaking about Obama’s cowardice. Here’s what Israel was recently accused of doing by the United Nation’s report on Gaza:

THE 550-page report released yesterday by the UN investigating committee on war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during Israel’s invasion of Gaza in December and January, chaired by Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, is pretty damning. The Israeli and Hamas responses to the report, meanwhile, are pretty feeble. The report recommends that the UN Security Council demand Israel conduct its own investigations into its alleged war crimes, and, if it fails to do so adequately, that allegations of war crimes be remanded to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. If the Security Council does consider requiring Israel to conduct such investigations, America will be faced with deciding whether it can continue to play its traditional role of defending Israel with its veto, this time against specific, credible, and numerous charges of war crimes. Israel can make that decision easier, however, by continuing its current strategy of refusing to accept any responsibility for Palestinian civilian deaths. Easier, that is, for America to vote against its ally.

The cases detailed in the commission’s report are far too serious to ignore. The commission conducted 188 interviews and visited the sites of dozens of incidents. These included Israeli shelling attacks on two hospitals and the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency, then housing over 600 refugees. They include seemingly intentional gunfire on defenseless civilians, such as a case in which civilians walking with white flags after being ordered to leave their houses were allegedly fired on at close range by Israeli tanks. (The gunfire killed two of them; 21 more were killed later when the house they took refuge in was destroyed by yet-to-be-ascertained Israeli munitions, possibly helicopter-fired missiles.) They include four cases in which Israeli soldiers allegedly used Palestinian civilians as human shields. They include the apparently deliberate destruction of Gaza’s only flour mill; intentionally destroying a civilian population’s source of food is a war crime.

But Obama does not want to hold Israel accountable, but, rather, help it evade responsibility for the death of hundreds of children (during which Obama was too busy playing golf too notice) under the reasoning that it does not become a distraction from his meaningless (see above) peace process:

A top White House official told Jewish organizational leaders in an off-the-record phone call Wednesday that the U.S. strategy was to “quickly” bring the report — commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council and carried out by former South African Judge Richard Goldstone — to its “natural conclusion” within the Human Rights Council and not to allow it to go further, Jewish participants in the call told JTA.

If you’re visiting Saudi Arabia, and if your non-Muslim you’ll probably not have the opportunity, make sure to catch the exciting King Abdual Aziz museum and his collection of cars (I am being sarcastic). One of his cars, by the way, was a gift from Hitler. The late founding King of Saudi Arabia had no books (could barely read), no writings, and nothing else of value. So the cars are the only thing that pretty much fill this so-called museum:

And, finally, the unhelpful Queen from the unhelpful royal family in the unhelpful nation:

Now, there have been unhelpful steps on the ground. For example, the issue of the settlements has been a major issue.

Somebody tell Queen Rania, who is in a never-ending quest to please the American Arab-hating establishment, that her cliche-ridden words are not only unhelpful but a torture crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Stay Tuned for Another Update Soon.