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Dr. Ilan Pappe. (Nir Kafri, Ha'aretz)

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Memorial to 418 Palestinian Villages Which Were Destroyed, Depopulated and Occupied by Israel in 1948, by Emily Jacir, Refugee tent and embroidery thread, 138

Who Will Stop the AIPAC Jews Before it is Too Late?
Common Dreams
Medea Benjamin, Common Dreams 5/9/2009 - While I was being tackled by security guards at Washington’s Convention Center during the AIPAC conference for unfurling a banner that asked "What about Gaza?," my heart was aching. I wasn’t bothered so much by the burly guards who were yanking my arms behind by back and dragging me-along with 5 other CODEPINK members-out of the hall. They were doing their job. more.. e-mail

Palestinians rebuild with mud
Electronic Intifada
8 May 2009 - RAFAH, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Jihad al-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square meter home is a basic one-story, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw. "My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own," Shaar said. more.. e-mail

UN chief defends 'watered down' Gaza report
Electronic Intifada
7 May 2009 - UNITED NATIONS (IPS) - A detailed 184-page report critical of Israeli attacks on UN personnel and buildings during the Gaza conflict last December-January has been meticulously stripped down to a 27-page document -- mostly due to political sensitivities and on security grounds. Responding to charges he had released only a "watered down" version of the report by a four-member UN Board of Inquiry (BoI), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon vehemently denied the accusation. more.. e-mail

Rights orgs: Donor aid shouldn’t underwrite Israeli crimes
Electronic Intifada
7 May 2009 - On 2 March 2009, major international donors convened in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt to collectively respond to the destruction caused by Israel’s 23 day military offensive on the Gaza Strip. During the conference, a total of $4.5 billion was pledged in reconstruction funds for Gaza. In light of the extensive destruction across the Gaza Strip, especially the destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure, reconstruction is urgent. more.. e-mail

Villages call on Norway to divest from Africa-Israel
Electronic Intifada
7 May 2009 - The West Bank Palestinian villages of Bilin and Jayyous and 11 national and international networks from Europe, Palestine, Israel and the US have sent letters calling on Norway to comply with its ethical guidelines and divest from its pension fund holdings in the company Africa-Israel, owned by the controversial diamond magnate Lev Leviev. more.. e-mail

Denied Cement, Re-Building with Mud
In Gaza
7 May 2009 - RAFAH, May 7 (IPS) - Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw. "My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own," Shaar said. "We waited over two years for cement but because of the siege there is none available. What could we do, wait forever?" So he decided to do it with mud. Building earthen structures like bread ovens and... more.. e-mail

Gaza 2009: The Moment of Truth
Palestine Chronicle
8 May 2009 - By Dr. Haidar Eid - Gaza Gaza has returned to its pre-massacre state of siege, confronted with the usual, conspiratorial, "international" indifference after 22 long days and dark nights, during which its brave people were left alone to face one of the strongest armies in the world -- an army that has hundreds of nuclear warheads, thousands of trigger-happy soldiers armed with Merkava tanks, F-16s, Apache helicopters, naval gunships and phosphorous bombs. Gaza now does not make news. It’s people die slowly, its children malnourished, its water contaminated, its nights dark, and yet it is deprived even of a word of sympathy from the likes of Ban Ki Moon and the president of "Change; Yes We Can." Israel could not have carried out its genocidal war, preceded and followed by a medieval, hermetic siege, without a green light from the international community. During the massacre, one Israeli soldier commented: "That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." When apartheid Israel decided to attack the northern part of the Gaza Strip in late February, early March of 2008, we were threatened with a greater shoah (Holocaust) by the deputy minister of war, then, Matan Vilnaii. Around 164 Palestinians, including 64 children were killed. What was the reaction of the international community? Absolutely nothing. In fact, the EU decided... more.. e-mail

No Context: Fatah, Hamas and Flawed Language
Palestine Chronicle
7 May 2009 - By Ramzy Baroud From a distance, the struggle between Hamas and Fatah appears commonplace, a typical third world country’s political scuffle over interpretation of democracy that went out of control, or simply a ’power struggle’ between two political rivals vying for international aid and recognition. In fact, the conflict may appear as if it popped out of nowhere and will continue as long as the seemingly power-hungry Palestinians carry on with their self-defeating fight. Therefore, it’s typical to read such deceptive news reports as that of Ibrahim Barzak of the Associated Press: "Hundreds of Palestinian patients have been trapped in the Gaza Strip, unable to travel abroad for crucial treatment for cancer and other diseases, because of political infighting between Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers and their Palestinian rivals." Such sinister terminology as "Gaza’s Hamas rulers" - which happened to refer to a democratically elected government - is now in common use, in most Western news agencies, and those who readily recycle their reports. Barzak makes no mention of the Israeli factor in the decried Palestinian rivalries, and the only reference to the US in his report was that of the "U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, which controls the West Bank." Is Barzak serious? Even if we willingly overlook the fact that Palestinian rivalry has little influence on Israel’s decision to block the Gaza borders, thus subjugate its inhabitants, and purposely disregarded the US-led international campaign to isolate Gaza and its government, how can one allow such a misreading of so... more.. e-mail

Israel’s Right-Wing Wrong Politics
Palestine Chronicle
7 May 2009 - By Joharah Baker - Jerusalem When Likud Party leader and right-wing politician Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister, nobody on this side of the fence broke out the bubbly. In the United States, President Barack Obama remained diplomatic, saying his country would deal with any Israeli government regardless of the formation. However, the ominous cloud hovering over the prospect of any move towards peace was unmistakable. Not only is Netanyahu the premier, his second hand man, the foreign minister, is none other than Russian-immigrant and shameless West Bank settler Avigdor Lieberman. For the Palestinians, this was a match made in hell. The winds of change seem to be blowing however, at least in the form of a tiny breeze over Capitol Hill. In the past few weeks, there have been more positive statements coming out of Washington than in the whole eight years of President George W. Bush’s term in office. One cannot help but ponder the possibility that the more intransigent the Israeli government becomes vis-Ã -vis the Palestinians, the more pressure it feels in the opposite direction. During the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference on May 5, US Vice President Joe Biden called on Israel to halt settlement construction and work towards a two-state solution with the Palestinians. "Israel has to work toward a two-state solution," Biden told AIPAC. "You’re not going to like my saying this, but not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement." Netanyahu is... more.. e-mail

The Last Resistance - Book Review
Palestine Chronicle
7 May 2009 - By Iqbal Jassat - Pretoria The Last Resistance. Jacqueline Rose. (London: Verso: 2007) A regular contributor to the London Review of Books, Jacqueline Rose has authored a compelling new book which Sarah Roy of Harvard University correctly predicts is destined to become a standard in the field of literature on Zionism. Rose, a Professor of English at Queen Mary University of London, is also known for the Channel 4 documentary "Dangerous Liaison - Israel and America", which she wrote and presented. What makes The Last Resistance a powerful testament of contemporary Israeli politics is its ability to transcend the notorious Nazi era and position Zionism’s legacy of producing intolerable lives for another people. Being a specialist of psychoanalysis, Rose is able to combine her literary skills and intellectual grasp of many troubling questions pertaining to the creation of Israel as a state intended to save the Jewish people, to produce this masterpiece. In addition, being a compilation of essays, all written after 9/11, Rose succeeds in creating greater depth and diversity in dealing with the term Resistance. She cites Irene Nemirovsky’s SuiteFrancaise, which explores complex personal relations during the Nazi era and also how resistance changes shape and shifts allegiances. "This word", Jacques Derrida writes, "which first resonated in my desire and imagination as the most beautiful word in the politics and history of this country ["¦] charged with all the pathos of my nostalgia, as if what I would have wanted not to miss at any cost would have... more.. e-mail

Palestinians Rebuild With Mud
Inter Press Service
Eva Bartlett, Inter Press Service 5/7/2009 - RAFAH, May 7 (IPS) - Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw., "My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own," Shaar said. "We waited over two years for cement but because of the siege there is none available. What could we do, wait forever?" more.. e-mail

Minion of the Long War
CounterPunch
more.. e-mail

Palestinians Rebuild With Mud
Eva Bartlett, Inter Press Service
     RAFAH, May 7 (IPS) - Jihad el-Shaar is pleased with his mud-brick house in the Moraj district of Gaza. The 80-square metre home is a basic one-storey, two-bedroom design, with a small kitchen, bathroom and sitting room, made mostly with mud and straw., "My wife and our four daughters and I were living with family, but it was overcrowded, impossible. We knew we had to build a home of our own," Shaar said. "We waited over two years for cement but because of the siege there is none available. What could we do, wait forever?"
     So he decided to do it with mud.
     Building earthen structures like bread ovens and small animal pens is a technique many Palestinians are familiar with, but extending the method to houses isn’t a notion that has taken hold in Gaza.
     Jihad el-Shaar got the idea from his travels in Asia and the Middle East. "I travelled in Bangladesh, India, Yemen, Turkey...they all use some similar technique of building houses from earth. All you need is clay, sand and some straw." These he mixed with water, and poured into brick moulds that were left in the sun to dry for three days. Good enough to build a fine house with.
     While some Gaza residents speak of shame at the way life has ’gone backwards’ with the siege - using cooking oil in cars, wood fires for cooking, and horse and donkey carts for transportation - Shaar is proud of his clay home. more.. e-mail

Minion of the Long War
C. G. Estabrook, CounterPunch
     “When we convince the American people that it will be a long war.” -- Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, after the 9/11/2001 attacks, answering a reporter’s question, “How will we know when we’ve won the war on terror?”
     A generation ago, when the Reagan administration came into office, they announced that their foreign policy would be "a war on terror." They rejected with scorn the Carter administration’s assertion that the theme of American foreign policy should be the promotion of human rights (a pious hope at best under Carter, who supported US client dictators in Iran, Indonesia, Nicaragua, and elsewhere).
     Seven presidential terms later, the Obama administration – with its great attention to how something is said – was perfectly willing to continue its predecessors’ policies in this regard, but they knew that the name had to be changed. After the attacks of 9/11/2001, the Bush administration had seized that old Reagan trope and proclaimed a new "War on Terror." Donald Rumsfeld – an apparatchik of the Reagan administration, including “Special Envoy to the Middle East,” while CEO to some of the most disgusting big business enterprises in the country – then Bush’s defense secretary, pointed out that the real object of the talk of a “war on terror” was the American people. He was admitting that a rationale had to be found for a long war that the American elite was determined to continue, but that the American populace opposed. The 9/11 attacks were a wonderful excuse. “Terrorism” could take the place of “Communism,” as the bete noire that would justify America’s imperialist actions around the world, particularly in the Middle East. more.. e-mail

'Life is blind now'
Electronic Intifada
6 May 2009 - Mahmoud Mattar spent his 15th birthday in February this year, lying in the intensive care unit of Egypt’s Sheikh Zayid hospital. He is one of the 1,606 children who were injured during Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, some of who sustained horrific disabilities, head and spinal injuries, facial disfigurement, burns and amputation. more.. e-mail

Israeli Activist to Be Jailed for Caring
Palestine Chronicle
6 May 2009 - By Neve Gordon - Israel Ezra Nawi was ridiculed and arrested for trying to protect people’s homes. Only international attention can help him now Without international intervention, Israeli human rights activist Ezra Nawi will most likely be sent to jail. Nawi is not a typical rights activist. A member of Ta’ayush Arab-Jewish Partnership he is a Jewish Israeli of Iraqi descent who speaks fluent Arabic. He is a gay man in his fifties and a plumber by trade. Perhaps because he himself comes from the margins, he empathizes with others who have been marginalized - often violently. His "crime" was trying to stop a military bulldozer from destroying the homes of Palestinian Bedouins from Um El Hir in the South Hebron region. These Palestinians have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services and are continuously harassed by Jewish settlers and the military - two groups that have united to expropriate Palestinian land and that clearly have received the government’s blessing to do so. As chance would have it, the demolition and the resistance to it were captured on film and broadcast on Israel’s Channel 1. The three-minute film - a must see - shows Nawi, the man dressed in a green jacket, not only courageously protesting against the demolition but, after the bulldozer destroys the buildings, also telling the border policemen what he thinks of their actions. Sitting handcuffed in a military vehicle following his arrest, he exclaims:... more.. e-mail

Israel’s Human Rights Abuses out in Open
Palestine Chronicle
6 May 2009 - By George S. Hishmeh The revelation that harsh interrogation methods, including torture, were used against detainees during the US-led war in Iraq by the George W. Bush administration, continues to reverberate here and overseas. The actions, sanctioned in legal memorandums, were recently released by US President Barack Obama. The repercussions of Obama’s actions, however, are being felt by key US government officials, especially those within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as well as within several other countries including Great Britain and Israel. Tel Aviv’s American supporters were quick to justify its anti-Palestinian harsh interrogation techniques not much different from the abuse meted out at the Abu Ghraib prison camp in Iraq. On the other hand, Hamas has been reprimanded by Human Rights Watch for its attacks on its opponents, some of whom have been physically eliminated. Although Israel’s Supreme Court has prohibited torture, an editorial in Forward, an American Jewish daily, found that the 1999 decision had some "disturbing loopholes". Even the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Hagai Al Ad, wrote in an April 26 Huffington Post article, titled Torture: The Truly Painful Lessons from Israel, that the Israeli court actually "never said ’never’ to torture". J.J. Goldberg noted in a Forward article that the ongoing torture debate "is just a first step on a long road as America exorcises the bullying, blustering, unilateralist legacy of the Bush years" and, in turn, "Israel has allowed itself to become closely identified in the popular mind with... more.. e-mail

The Two-State Solution: the Pacifier Slogan
Palestine Chronicle
6 May 2009 - By Hasan Afif El-Hasan The ’two-state solution’ phrase was first coined in the 1947 UN General Assembly Resolution 181 to create two independent states in historical Palestine. Israel has been created and recognized within undefined borders and the phrase today implies whether and how to create the second state. The "two-state" solution has different meanings for the different parties involved in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. For the Palestinians, it means a sovereign state in all the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and the refugees right of return to their homes in Israel proper; for the Israelis, it means a slightly different version of the status quo in the occupied lands, a self-rule over disconnected enclaves or "Bantustans" that have the faÃ§ade of a state with a president, ministers, legislative council, Judiciary, ambassadors and security forces that control the population and guarantee Israel’s security, but no control over Jerusalem, the borders, water resources, shore and airspace. The recognized state of Israel on 78 percent of Palestine has not fulfilled the ambitions of the Zionists who have been striving to have all of Palestine. The Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper wrote on November 28, 2007 that Israel plans to create a Palestinian state that consists of "tiny Bantustan on four or five cantons, all encircled by Israeli settlements. Israeli control of the entire land, whether for religious, national or security reasons, is a given". And for the US, the "two-state" solution has been used mainly as a public relations slogan to manage... more.. e-mail

Farewell to Gaza’s Courageous Priest
Palestine Chronicle
6 May 2009 - By Stuart Littlewood - London I hear that Fr Manuel Musallam, the Catholic priest in Gaza, has finally retired at 71. His is a hard act to follow. Many of us feared that ill health had forced him to hang up his cassock last year, but he returned to the fray to be with his community during their darkest hour when Israel, with a nod from America and the EU, unleashed its blitzkrieg intended to finally crush the isolated and half-starved Gazans. This is simply the continuation of a hateful religious war by Zionist fanatics to oust Muslims and Christians from the Holy Land. And they are happy to vaporize and maim Palestinian women and children to gain exclusive control. But who cares? Certainly not those in high places in Washington and London whose strings are pulled by the Israel Lobby, a despicable breed who hold life, law and human rights so cheap that they have permitted - no, encouraged and equipped - racists and land thieves to bomb, dispossess and ethnically cleanse Palestinian civilians for 61 years"¦ with impunity. The trouble is, the Palestinians don’t take it lying down. I was privileged to meet the crusty old churchman in 2007, when things in Gaza were already unbearable after 18 months of blockade and savage sanctions. For nine years Fr Manuel had been unable to leave the Strip to see his family for fear that the Israelis would block his return and leave his church and school without a priest.... more.. e-mail

Rorschach ’Rachel’
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon, Salon.com 5/3/2009 - An Israeli film explores the ambiguous death of Rachel Corrie, peacenik angel to some and "terrorist-loving swine" to others., Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Simone Bitton’s documentary "Rachel," which premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, is what’s not in it. Bitton, a Moroccan-born Jewish filmmaker who spent many years in Israel and now lives in France, conducts a philosophical and cinematic inquiry into the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American activist who was killed under ambiguous circumstances in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip in March 2003. But the political firestorm that followed Corrie’s death, which saw her beatified as a martyr for peace by some on the left and demonized as a terrorist enabler by some on the right, is virtually absent from the film., We do not see the infamous photograph of the keffiyeh-clad Corrie burning an "American flag" -- not a real flag, but a crude children’s drawing of one -- at a demonstration about a month before her death. Nor do we see the torrent of exaggerated and often shocking verbal abuse to which Corrie was subjected, postmortem, on right-wing bulletin boards and Web sites. Corrie, who suffered massive internal injuries when she was either crushed by a bulldozer or buried under construction debris, was routinely dubbed "Saint Pancake" in such venues, or described as "terrorist-loving swine." (That’s without getting into the grotesque sexual fantasies and elaborate conspiracy theories.) more.. e-mail

The Spies Who Got Away
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com 5/3/2009 - And one who didn’t, After five years of legal maneuvering and orchestrated protests from the Lobby’s amen corner, Israel’s point men in Washington have finally succeeded in their efforts to quash the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been charged with committing espionage on behalf of Israel. It is a victory that not only signals the continuation of the Lobby’s dominance in Washington, in spite of growing popular revulsion against lobbyists in general, but also gives the Israelis a blank check to spy on their American patrons to their hearts’ content., The hosannas being sung by the Lobby’s media echo chamber - the Washington Post, the neocon blogosphere, and the official conservative movement represented by National Review and the Weekly Standard - are all about "vindication." That is the word used by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s Israel-centric columnist, to describe the decision to drop the charges, but - as usual - his interpretation of the facts leaves much to be desired., The statement from the prosecutors avers that the case was dropped due to the success of the "graymail" strategy pursued by the defense. The government had to consider "the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial," as well as the "changed landscape" of the case, a reference to the many rulings by judge T.S. Ellis that forced prosecutors to delay going to trial for five years. more.. e-mail

Month in pictures: April 2009
Electronic Intifada
5 May 2009 - The below photographs are a selection of images from the month of April 2009. "The month in pictures" is an ongoing feature by The Electronic Intifada. If you have images documenting Palestine, Palestinian life, politics and culture, or of solidarity with Palestine, please email images and captions to photos A T electronicintifada D O T net. more.. e-mail

Israel’s war on dissent
Electronic Intifada
5 May 2009 - About six months after Israel’s attorney general publicly announced an effort to criminalize dissent, state authorities have upped the ante in their "war" -- as the Israeli daily Haaretz called it last September -- against Israel’s youth; against the broad, grassroots movement slandered by officials as "draft shirkers." Rela Mazali comments for The Electronic Intifada. more.. e-mail

AIPAC conference comes amid turmoil
Electronic Intifada
5 May 2009 - WASHINGTON (IPS) - The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Washington’s powerful and hawkish pro-Israel lobby, kicked off its annual policy conference this weekend during a period of unusual turbulence both for the organization and for the US-Israel relationship. AIPAC won a notable victory on Friday, when prosecutors moved to dismiss charges against two former AIPAC staffers who had been accused of committing espionage violations by passing classified information to the Israeli government and to reporters. more.. e-mail

Gaza laborers injured in Israel left to dry
Electronic Intifada
5 May 2009 - More than 700 Palestinian workers in Gaza who suffered on-the-job accidents inside Israel used to receive monthly disability payments from Israeli employers. But in January 2009, workers stopped receiving these payments as the Israeli courts decided that Israeli insurance companies are no longer liable towards Palestinians living in what the state has declared a "hostile entity." Rami Almeghari reports for The Electronic Intifada. more.. e-mail

fallen journalists
In Gaza
3 May 2009 - * Fadel Shana’a , killed in April 2008 by invading Israeli tanks’ shelling (photo source unknown ) " Journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict shall be considered as civilians "¦ They shall be protected as such under the Conventions and this protocol, provided that they take no action adversely affecting their status as civilians"¦" -Article 79 - Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Protocol 1) Fadel Shana’a is among the most prominent of Palestinian journalists and media workers recently killed by Israeli soldiers. The 23 year old was targeted by an invading Israeli tank which, after observing Shana’a filming for a number of... more.. e-mail

The New Discourse on anti-Semitism
Palestine Chronicle
5 May 2009 - By Shafiq Morton - Cape Town Those who criticize Israel or those who interrogate Zionism (the ism that gave birth to Israel) are often labeled "anti-Semitic" by the Zionist lobby. This lobby, a world-wide movement, is seen to be most influential in the United States where it vigorously defends the interests of Israel. To view Israel unsympathetically means vilification by this group: it avows political critique is something that threatens the existence of all Jews. Yet, ironically, some of the most ardent critics of Israel have been Jews - academics and political liberals who have not denigrated their Jewishness in any way because of their conscience. The truth is that the Jewish community (13, 3 million worldwide) is hardly a monolithic group that unquestioningly supports Israel’s policies. Studies by American academics, such as Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, have graphically - if not uncomfortably - pointed to this. In the multi-faceted Diaspora, it’s becoming evident - particularly since Gaza - that reservations have emerged about Zionist hasbara. This is the spin that suggests Israel is a country enjoying an exclusive right to be a victim, and that Israel can spurn international law because of this. Often depicted as the "Israeli David" versus the "Arab Goliath", the scenario is met in the Arab street with the comeback that the reverse is true. Israel has the deterrent of nuclear power and the best-equipped military in the Middle East. The Palestinians don’t even have generals. The curse is that if a Jewish person... more.. e-mail

The Silent Population
Palestine Chronicle
4 May 2009 - By Joharah Baker - Jerusalem If it weren’t for two little boys hitching a ride with us, this article would never have been written. Thanks to the mysterious way the universe operates, I will admit I am glad for the bizarre events of yesterday so that I could be reminded of a sector of Palestinian society all too often disregarded. I am talking about the Bedouins, those silent nomads of whom I was reminded because of two tiny first graders who needed a ride home. To and from Jericho, two checkpoints meet you. One is Israeli and the other, just a few hundred meters away is manned by Palestinian police. After saluting the Palestinian guards at the checkpoint with a friendly "salaam", we instinctively slowed down as we approached the Israelis, not wanting to be accused of storming the checkpoint or trying to evade an inspection. On the side of the road, small children with oversized backpacks were walking through the dust, some so tiny it was hard to believe they were of school age. After answering the customary, "Where are you from" and "Where are you going" from the Israeli soldier, we were met with an unorthodox request. "Could you take these kids with you if you’re on your way to Ramallah?" the soldier inquired from my husband in Hebrew. "They live near Nabi Musa," the soldier clarified. Before I knew it, two tiny, timid and dark-skinned boys slipped into the back seat, sitting uncomfortably upright and looking so... more.. e-mail

Has a Stake Been Driven through Neocon Foreign Policy?
Palestine Chronicle
4 May 2009 - By Ivan Eland Neo-conservatives used the Republican Party as a vehicle to promote and employ their policies of muscular nation-building overseas. But like the parasite that eventually kills its host, the Republican Party’s virtual collapse, in large part because of the failed nation-building adventure in Iraq, has left neo-conservatives discredited and facing policy extinction. Unfortunately, neo-conservatism will probably live on by changing hosts. Throughout American history, the structure of the political systems has ensured that only two major parties would be viable at any one time. They haven’t always been the Democrats and Republicans. They have always been the Democrats and one other party. First, it was the Federalists, then the Whigs, and finally, from just prior to the Civil War to the present, the Republicans. The Republicans started out as a regional party of the Northeast. The only reason they ever took power away from the Democrats, the only true national party at the time of the Civil War, was because the Democratic Party split into northern and southern wings over the slavery issue. Thus, the Civil War was essentially caused by the fracture of the Democratic Party. Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election with only 39.8 percent of the national popular vote, beating two Democrats and one minor party candidate. Southern states, fearing a Republican’s potential policies on slavery, didn’t even wait until Lincoln’s inauguration before they began to secede from the union. Ironically, today, the Republican Party, which once had hopes of becoming the majority party in... more.. e-mail

When, Where the Pope Inspires No Hope
Palestine Chronicle
3 May 2009 - By Nicola Nasser - Bir Zeit, West Bank Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to be the third pontiff to visit the Holy Land from 8-15 May, following in the footsteps of Paul VI in 1964 and John Paul II in 2000, on a mission officially described as a "pilgrimage" and one of "peace and reconciliation." However, the Pope will be stepping into "a diplomatic minefield," where the Catholic highest spiritual authority will be unmercifully scrutinized by the protagonists of the one hundred year old Arab-Israeli conflict for the Holy Father’s every step, word and handshake, which would force him into the defensive in an impossible balancing act that will rule out any hope his presence is supposed to inspire, especially among the down-trodden Arabs of Palestine, whether those who are "Israelis" living as second class citizens since 1948 or those Palestinians living under the Israeli military occupation since 1967. Even the pontiff’s own Catholic diminishing flock in the Holy Land seems in controversy over the timing and the itinerary of his pilgrimage. "We will ask him why he came, what he intends on saying "¦ and why he isn’t coming to Gaza," Father Manuel Mussalam, the pastor of the only Catholic church of about 300 believers in Gaza, out of 3000 Christians in the Israeli besieged Mediterranean strip, was quoted by AFP as asking. "We’ll tell him that this is not the right moment to come and visit the holy places, while Jerusalem is occupied," Mussalam added. In November 2006,... more.. e-mail

The complicit silence continues
The Palestine Telegraph
Dr. Haidar Eid, The Palestine Telegraph 5/1/2009 - Millions of people looked forward to Barack Obama’s presidency with a sense of pride and hope. But Obama’s first 100 days have raised critical questions about the limits of what we can expect from a Democrat in the White House--and what it will take to get the change we want., What do you think of Obama’s 100 days? And what does the left need to do now to move the struggle forward? We asked a group of writers and activists for their answers to these questions. This commentary is from Haidar Eid, a professor, a resident of Gaza City, and a leading activist in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel’s apartheid., I NEVER had high expectations for Barack Obama, because he still represents the Democratic Party, which is a part of the American establishment. Obama’s victory in the presidential elections did not produce a change in the nature of American imperialism., I think the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. is similar to the difference between Likud and the Labor Party in Palestine., I thought, even prior to his taking office, that Obama’s role would be to bring about a new fiction--or rather renew the of fiction--of a two-state solution in Palestine-Israel. That is, to breathe new life into the idea that one state for Jews and another state for Palestinians will bring peace to the region. more.. e-mail

Obama and ’Two States’
CounterPunch
Ellen Cantarow, CounterPunch 4/30/2009 - A false claim is wafting through the press: Obama is hanging tough with Benjamin Netanyahu, he’s going to "twist Israel’s arm" and at long last force the Jewish state into a two-state agreement, settling the Israel-Palestine question for good. There’s even talk that Obama backs the Arab League’s 2002 peace initiative, complete with its main demand: Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders., There’s no proof for any of this. Obama has said nothing about when, where, and with what boundaries a Palestinian state might be established. Neither did George Bush. The slide from one regime to the next has been seamless on the score of Israel and Palestine as on much else., In regard to a critical document invoked by Obama in his first policy speech about the region last January -- the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative -- Obama has not changed an iota, at least publicly. He gave the speech before State Department employees last January, announcing George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy. Most important, the speech delineated the clear outlines of Obama’s Middle East doctrine, as I described in my "The Problem Isn’t Avigdor Lieberman", Obama’s reference to the Arab Peace Initiative was crucial for what it omitted -- the proposal’s first part, the precondition for everything that follows: "Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon." Only after these preconditions have been laid out does the document continue: "Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following"¦." In "Consequently," the intent is unmistakable: Once Israel fulfills the crucial condition requiring Israel’s withdrawal to the 1967 lines, the Arab countries will do x, y, and z. One of the corollaries following the "Consequently" clause reads: "Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace [emphasis mine]". Nothing could be clearer. Moreover, the Arab League’s request of Israel, "the context," expresses the international consensus for the past 30 years, routinely blocked by the US and Israel. more.. e-mail

Second annual Palestine Festival of Literature launches this month
Electronic Intifada
3 May 2009 - The second Palestine Festival of Literature will take place from 23-28 May 2009. Because of the difficulties Palestinians face under military occupation in traveling around their own country, the festival group of 17 international writers will travel to its audiences in the West Bank. It will tour Ramallah, Jenin, al-Khalil/Hebron and Bethlehem. To mark Jerusalem’s status as Cultural Capital of the Arab World for 2009, the festival will begin and end in Jerusalem. more.. e-mail

Gaza citizens at risk from rubbish, rubble, unexploded ordnance
Electronic Intifada
2 May 2009 - GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IRIN) - Unexploded ordnance and the uncontrolled dumping of rubbish pose the greatest environmental and public health risks to residents of the Gaza Strip, according to the UN Development Programme. A further study is planned by the UN Environment Programme. more.. e-mail

Hamas gaining international legitimacy
Electronic Intifada
2 May 2009 - JERUSALEM (IPS) - Delegations from the rival Fatah and Hamas organizations have again failed in Cairo to bridge their differences meant to usher in a Palestinian unity government, but this has in no way slowed inroads which the Islamist movement has been making to increase its international legitimacy -- much to Israel’s concern. more.. e-mail

Israel stripping West Bank quarries
Electronic Intifada
2 May 2009 - RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) - Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din is taking the Israeli military, the Israeli civil administration and a number of Israeli mining companies to court. The rights group alleges they are illegally stripping Palestinian West Bank quarries of raw construction material for the benefit of the Israeli construction industry and the building of illegal Israeli settlements. more.. e-mail

Netanyahu Has a Plan; The Emperor’s Old Clothes
Palestine Chronicle
3 May 2009 - By Uri Avnery Everybody’s is talking about the first 100 days of Barack Obama. And there’s a lot to talk about. Like a young bull he stormed into the arena. A deluge of new ideas in every direction, a tsunami of practical initiatives, some of which have already begun to be implemented. Clearly he had been thinking about them for a long time and intended to put them into practice from his first moment in office. He put his team together long ago, and his people started to act even before his triumphal entrance to the White House. During the first days he appointed the ministers, most of whom he had designated long before - this seems to be an effective cabinet, whose members are up to their tasks. Everything according to a rule that was laid down long ago: what a new president does not initiate in his first 100 days, he will not accomplish later on. In the beginning everything is easier, because the public is ready for change. An Israeli cannot, of course, resist comparing Obama to Binyamin Netanyahu, our old-new Prime Minister, who did not exactly storm into the arena. He crawled into it. One could have expected that Netanyahu would trump even Obama in this respect. After all, he has already been there. Ten years ago he was sitting in the Prime Minister’s chair, gathering experience. And from experience - especially bad experience - one can and should learn. Moreover, Netanyahu’s victory was no great... more.. e-mail

Oil and Aguardiente in the Ecuadorian Elections
Palestine Chronicle
3 May 2009 - By BelÃ©n FernÃ¡ndez - Puerto Francisco de Orellana, Ecuador In the run-up to the Ecuadorian elections of April 26, 2009, Guadalupe Llori - the Pachakutik movement candidate for prefect of Orellana province in the eastern Amazonian region - promised the Quechua community of Pako Rumi a paved road. The road would connect Pako Rumi with the highway to the provincial capital of Puerto Francisco de Orellana, colloquially known as Coca; the promise was made after the Pachakutik candidates had traveled the road themselves several times while preparing for a community dance. Llori’s name had become intimately linked with the practice of road paving in 2007 during a prior term as prefect, when 40 kilometers of asphalt destined for the road from Coca to the oil producing town of Dayuma were reduced to 23 kilometers of asphalt due to the state-´s failure to pay the road construction company. Following a November strike by the residents of Dayuma, whose complaints also included the lack of adequate compensation for oil contamination and the lack of motivation on the part of the oil companies to hire local labor, Llori was deemed to be a strike instigator, removed from the prefecture, and imprisoned for 10.5 months in Quito on counts of terrorism and sabotage. As the strike impeded oil production more than did the missing 17 kilometers of asphalt, Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa expanded the terrorism charge to apply to all those who were opposed to the country’s development. Hugo ChÃ¡vez offered a slightly more... more.. e-mail

The Lethargy Virus
Palestine Chronicle
3 May 2009 - By Ralph Nader The Swine Flu (or H1N1 virus) is in the air. The public health authorities are acting "in excess of caution" to curb its spread from Mexico into this country. Already, however, this virus and the publicity around it is providing another occasion to question our nation’s priorities. Let’s put it this way"”the gravest terrorists in the world today are viruses and bacterium and their astonishing ability to mutate, hitchhike and devastate human beings. Yet despite small outbreaks"”such as the SARS virus from China"”we collectively seem to be waiting until the "big pandemic" before we come to our senses and redefine national security and national defense. It is not that we are unaware of the massive toll that tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and many other infectious diseases exact year after year. Just those three diseases take over 5 million lives a year. It is not that we fail to realize how international trade, tourism and other travels"”together with environmental disruptions"”accelerate the spread and range of these silent forms of violence. Our lethargy stems from the fact that the causes of such casualties are seen as impersonal, unlike 9/11 terrorists or state inflicted terrorism which is viewed as anthropomorphic. That is, they are attributed to proper names of specific people, gangs, armies and nations. In 2004, when I was on the Bill Maher show, Bill asked me why I was running for president outside the two major parties. I replied that one reason was to call public attention to such... more.. e-mail

Rorschach ’Rachel’
Salon.com
Andrew O’Hehir, Salon, Salon.com 5/3/2009 - An Israeli film explores the ambiguous death of Rachel Corrie, peacenik angel to some and "terrorist-loving swine" to others., Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Simone Bitton’s documentary "Rachel," which premiered this week at the Tribeca Film Festival, is what’s not in it. Bitton, a Moroccan-born Jewish filmmaker who spent many years in Israel and now lives in France, conducts a philosophical and cinematic inquiry into the death of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American activist who was killed under ambiguous circumstances in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip in March 2003. But the political firestorm that followed Corrie’s death, which saw her beatified as a martyr for peace by some on the left and demonized as a terrorist enabler by some on the right, is virtually absent from the film., We do not see the infamous photograph of the keffiyeh-clad Corrie burning an "American flag" -- not a real flag, but a crude children’s drawing of one -- at a demonstration about a month before her death. Nor do we see the torrent of exaggerated and often shocking verbal abuse to which Corrie was subjected, postmortem, on right-wing bulletin boards and Web sites. Corrie, who suffered massive internal injuries when she was either crushed by a bulldozer or buried under construction debris, was routinely dubbed "Saint Pancake" in such venues, or described as "terrorist-loving swine." (That’s without getting into the grotesque sexual fantasies and elaborate conspiracy theories.) more.. e-mail

The Spies Who Got Away
Antiwar.com
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com 5/3/2009 - And one who didn’t, After five years of legal maneuvering and orchestrated protests from the Lobby’s amen corner, Israel’s point men in Washington have finally succeeded in their efforts to quash the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been charged with committing espionage on behalf of Israel. It is a victory that not only signals the continuation of the Lobby’s dominance in Washington, in spite of growing popular revulsion against lobbyists in general, but also gives the Israelis a blank check to spy on their American patrons to their hearts’ content., The hosannas being sung by the Lobby’s media echo chamber - the Washington Post, the neocon blogosphere, and the official conservative movement represented by National Review and the Weekly Standard - are all about "vindication." That is the word used by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s Israel-centric columnist, to describe the decision to drop the charges, but - as usual - his interpretation of the facts leaves much to be desired., The statement from the prosecutors avers that the case was dropped due to the success of the "graymail" strategy pursued by the defense. The government had to consider "the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial," as well as the "changed landscape" of the case, a reference to the many rulings by judge T.S. Ellis that forced prosecutors to delay going to trial for five years. more.. e-mail

Petition seeks expulsion of Palestinian activist from Israeli university
Electronic Intifada
4 May 2009 - A self-styled McCarthyist academic monitor group in Israel has launched a petition calling for the expulsion of Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, from Tel Aviv University, where he is enrolled as a doctoral student. more.. e-mail

Lebanon’s empty notion of justice
Electronic Intifada
4 May 2009 - On 1 March 2008, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon came into effect pursuant to the request of the Lebanese government and United Nations Security Council resolutions 1644 and 1757. The trial is intended to bring to justice to those who carried out the assassination of former Prime Minister of Lebanon Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. Sami Halabi comments for Electronic Lebanon. more.. e-mail

Palestinian women settlement workers’ plight
Electronic Intifada
1 May 2009 - Umm Raed’s sick husband hasn’t worked in more than 20 years. Her own family can’t, or won’t, help support her and her seven children. So her job in the Royalife factory in the Barkan industrial zone, built on illegally confiscated Palestinian land in the Salfit governorate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was the household’s main source of income. Sarah Irving reports for The Electronic Intifada. more.. e-mail

nicer days 2
In Gaza
1 May 2009 - Sara wasn’t stuttering or visibly stressed when I saw her yesterday.- Of course, these things don’t just disappear because of a trip to the beach, but the sea air can’t hurt either. It was a gorgeous day, warm but slightly cooled by the breeze, the kind of day where you later discover your sunburn.- We met at Hamsa’s and, with his horse, trotted along Gaza’s main streets, Sara, Saud (Hamsa’s uncle with schizophrenia), Hamsa and myself, en route to the coast. Donkey and horse carts are completely normal in the middle of any given Gaza street, and only seem to raise attention when they slow or block taxis behind them.... more.. e-mail

A Palestinian Critique: Durban Review Conference
Palestine Chronicle
1 May 2009 - By Haidar Eid - Gaza "There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism." --Walter Benjamin. The Durban Review Conference, held in Geneva on April 20-24, was supposed to review the implementation of the Programme of Action of the World Conference against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. Some western countries boycotted the conference altogether, and some walked out in protest against Ahmedinejad’s speech in which he dared to reiterate the obvious; namely, the racism inherent in Zionist ideology. These countries are, historically, either racist, or settler-colonialist. The conference itself was actually hijacked by the West. Palestinian voices were almost nonexistent. The major problem for those countries was, then, the equation of Zionism with racism. So, what we have here is a complex issue: one seems to be dealing with a colonist who denies his colonialism and argues to the contrary, and with a victim whose victimisation has been denied for decades. This ought to be scrutinized. Dr. Haidar Eid is Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine. Dr. Eid is a founding member of the One Democratic State Group (ODSG) and a member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). The conflict in Palestine is between a colonial party, Israel, and a weaker, colonized one, the Palestinians. The problem with what has been presented to us by those countries which boycotted the Durban Review Conference (DRC) is that... more.. e-mail

A Decade of Dedication: One More Reason to Give Today
Palestine Chronicle
1 May 2009 - To our deeply esteemed readers and supporters, Our fundraiser should have officially concluded on May 1st, 2009. While we are so grateful for the generous contributions we received from many of you, we are still short of our goal by $2,500. We have decided to extend our efforts for one more week, and we hope that you will consider giving to us today. You can plainly see your contributions at work through the launching of the newest aspect of our site, the Palestine Chronicle video page: http://www.justmedia.net . Our video page was just launched this week after a year of planning, designing and restructuring. We hope you will take a look at it and be convinced that this is one more reason that Palestine Chronicle needs to continue with its work. It is so rare to have access to an authentic Palestinian platform that provides a non-partisan, anti-factional presentation of the aspirations of the Palestine people. The Palestine Chronicle is one of very few venues that provides that platform to the world every day, with commentary, news reports, videos and much more, updated every day, free of charge and available to everyone. Please help us to make this happen for six more months. We cannot continue without you, and it is because of you that we have come this far in the past ten years. Thank you for a decade of dedication and support! We have complete trust that you will pull us though another six months. Please Click Here to... more.. e-mail

Clinton’s Unpromising Start
Palestine Chronicle
30 Apr 2009 - By Ramzy Baroud Incongruous. One can hardly think of a more suited term to describe the new US administration’s approach to peacemaking in the Middle East. Though there is little evidence that previous US administrations had genuinely attempted to play a balanced role in forging a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians, many hoped -- and a few still hope -- that Barack Obama’s administration would bring about new standards. However, if recent comments made by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suffice as a general indication of the administration’s Middle East policy, then little change is on the horizon. Clinton told US legislators 23 April that the key to peace between Israel and the Palestinians was Tehran; that without getting tough on Iran, Israel could not be expected to pursue peace with the Palestinians. "The two go hand in hand," she emphasised. What a baffling approach to peacemaking. In order for peace to prevail, Israel should engage Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in "discussions" aimed at inspiring the isolation of Iran, for reasons entirely pertinent to US interests and Israeli "security". While Clinton’s approach rests on luring Israel into her proposed peace discussions, what is Clinton’s promise to the Palestinians, the Arabs, and indeed Iran but endless chatter, a regional cold war and sectarian divisions? Hasn’t the Middle East seen enough of that? Is it not time to relegate such detrimental language and focus on positive engagement, regional stability and economic cooperation? In fact, there is concrete evidence that supports... more.. e-mail

Understanding Lebanon’s June Elections
Palestine Chronicle
30 Apr 2009 - By Rannie Amiri ".. it is in the interest of Lebanon and its stability that there is understanding and partnership among Lebanese in running their country’s affairs." -- Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, on Lebanon’s upcoming parliamentary elections. "We will not take part in the government if the [Hezbollah-led] March 8 Alliance wins the elections .." -- Parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri. In the Middle East, there are "elections" and there are elections. The majority, when they do occur, invariably fall under the first category. There are a few however, that fall under the second - transparent, legitimate, meaningful contests that have both domestic and regional implications. One of the most notable took place in January 2006 when Hamas swept Palestinian parliamentary polls, giving them the majority in the Palestine National Council and the ability to form a government. Monitored by the Carter Center, former President Jimmy Carter called them "open, honest, and fair contests." The reaction they engendered in the U.S., Israel and Egypt - and the subsequent punishment meted out on the electorate - needs little elaboration. This June, two Middle East countries will be holding elections of consequence a mere five days apart; Lebanon on June 7 and Iran on June 12. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s faceoff against reformist candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi was recently discussed. Due to the Lebanon’s complex, sectarian-based political framework, understanding the mechanics and dynamics behind its upcoming parliamentary vote is more complicated. March 8 vs. March 14 In Lebanon today... more.. e-mail

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