At least 15 protesters were arrested yesterday as several hundred left-wing Israelis held their biggest demonstration yet against demolitions and evictions of east Jerusalem Palestinians designed to make way for Jewish settlers.

Exciting news! These are the sorts of stories that help to break down the notion that all Israelis are anti-Palestinian. Donald Macintyre again shows he's willing to report on stories from the ground and not just the press room.

I also encountered a vibrant youth culture that falls outside the good vs. evil, protester vs. hard-line cleric dichotomy that has been frequently bandied about this summer. Where, after all, do underground fashion designers, an English teacher who listens to hip-hop but doesn't believe in the Holocaust, freshly minted investment bankers, and skateboard punks fit into our view of Iran? Iran is not all mad mullahs in training, Molotov-throwing young protesters armed with a Facebook account, or brainwashed baton-wielding Basij militiamen, many still in their teens. They are, granted, a part of the fabric of this 2,500-year-old culture, but the Islamic Republic today is much more nuanced.

This excellent article by Jerry Guo shows how much more complicated the mythical "under 30" population of Iran is than is often presented by Western media. Not every young person is craving for the ending of Islamic rule. The more we look at the real diversity of views in Iran, the sooner we will be able to develop peaceful relations.

After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected – whether or not their children's children return to Haifa anytime soon. While Saudi Arabia may not wish to host Israeli tourists, it can easily afford to integrate the estimated 240,000 Palestinian refugees who already live in the kingdom – just as Egypt, which has received close to $60bn in US aid, and has a population of 81 million, can grant legal rights to an estimated 70,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One can only imagine the outrage that the world community would rightly visit upon Israel if Israeli Arabs were subject to the vile discriminatory laws applied to Palestinians living in Arab countries. Surely, Palestinian Arabs can keep their own national dream alive in the countries where they were born, while also enjoying the freedom to work, vote and own property?

A practical solution to the crisis of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries will focus on Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which together play host to approximately 3 million of the estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza. While each of these countries has chosen different legal and political approaches to the 1948 refugees and their descendants, they share a political desire to sublimate the rights of Palestinian residents, treating them as unwanted guests or as tools to be used in pursuing wider political interests – but rarely as fully-fledged members of society. Lebanon, where Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat are widely blamed for having sparked the 1975 civil war, is the worst offender against international norms. Yet even in Jordan, which is in many ways a model for the humane treatment of a large refugee population, Palestinians today feel markedly less secure than they did two decades ago, or even five years ago.

Judith Miller and David Samuels have written an excellent article that gives an overview of the situation of Palestinian refugees over the last sixty, as well as providing short term solutions to help Palestinians until they have their own state.

Rather than giving African smallholders the tools they need for self-determination and sustainable agriculture-smallholder land rights; local control over grazing, water, seed varieties, livestock breeds and fisheries-and rather than regulate the global markets and giant grain monopolies that have destroyed African food production over the last three decades; the Green Revolution's view of progress is to enact market-based land reforms to promote the most efficient users (and evict the rest), and give farmers inputs and microcredit to turn them into agribusiness capitalists. By ignoring the true needs of smallholders and injecting agrochemicals, western ‘expertise,' and GMO seeds into African soils the Green Revolution will only serve to fill the coffers of biotechnology corporations and agro-input dealers while the rural poor remain food insecure and Africa's agriculture is taken out of the hands of African farmers.

Another good piece that shows how many "solutions" to dealing with hunger issues are actually forms of neocolonialism that make wealthy countries wealthy and keep poor countries poor and hungry.

Promoters created the idea of a “Ho Chi Minh Golf Trail,” a series of eight courses whose label is as good a sign as any of where Vietnam seems to be headed — its heroic wartime past redefined as a sales pitch.

Yet another reason why golf is one of the world's worst sports.

But slowly, I began to wake up from the dream. Two years later, our situation hasn't changed. For me, I will never return to armed resistance, now that I have a family to look after. But I see the entire village as my family, and I really want to see something good for them -- for the wall to be destroyed, and for the people of Bilin to return to our lands. I am still waiting for that moment.

Unfortunately, the tactics of Israel seem to promote armed resistance. They refuse to release just one of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners currently rotting away in Israeli jails, but when an Israeli soldier is taken hostage, they are willing to negotiate. How can I convince the mothers of those martyred and those imprisoned that nonviolent resistance is the way forward?

But in my heart, I know that nonviolent resistance is the path to freedom for our nation. From my small village of Bilin, I hope our actions can set an example for others to follow.

Excellent piece on the Palestinian nonviolent resistance movement.

Just as one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, one man's ``climate change'' is another man's ``climate justice''. This fundamental difference in perspective goes to the heart of the environmental challenge as well as many other facets of the emerging world order.

To the developed world, climate change and global warming is largely a technical _ and universal _ problem. To the developing world, it requires much deeper reflection _ how did this problem arise? Who caused it? And who should pay to fix it?

Developing countries rightfully demand that developed countries that became rich by burning low-cost oil in abundance over the last four decades should both bear the brunt of cutting their greenhouse gas emissions and provide the money and technological support to help them switch over to a low-carbon economy.

Great editorial on the way that the developed countries want everything. We need more justice in this world!

Pampered by the state since 1967 to cement Israel’s hold on the West Bank, the settlers have an institutional clout that far surpasses their numerical strength. They are entrenched in government bureaucracy, the legal and educational systems, and, above all, the armed forces, a traditional path of upward mobility and the backbone of Israeli society.

Good discussion of the role of the religious right in Israeli politics and the challenges they present to peace.

While there is much on the surface that makes Tel Aviv enticing, this picture must be not be allowed to mask the dark underlying history of ethnic cleansing and land expropriation on which Tel Aviv was built, and that still continues today, even in Jaffa, while savouring the Israeli food and the Bauhaus architecture. In fact, the whole myth of Tel Aviv being built on empty sand dunes has been taken apart by various Israeli scholars, but none of this will feature in the promotional events.

Good piece on the reality of Tel Aviv as the city celebrates its centenary.