Exiles within: Palestinian internal refugees get organized
By Isabelle Humphries, The Electronic Intifada, November 6, 2002
“As part of the entire Arab-Palestinian people, we wish to declare: The refugee issue is the heart of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homeland and homes is a sacred right whose implementation must be based on UN Resolution 194. We warn of the consequences of conspiracies against Palestinian refugee rights, whether conducted openly or behind closed doors. We state with a loud voice that there will be no just solution without a solution of the issue of the refugees and the internally displaced." - (The National Committee for the Rights of the Internally Displaced Palestinians in Israel -- February 2000)   The promotion of a resolution foregoing refugees' right of return by the Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem minister Sari Nusseibeh and his interlocutor, former Shabak head Ami Ayalon, has infuriated Palestinians worldwide. A recent human rights award given by an international cosmetics company, The Body Shop, has focused attention on an oft-ignored group of Palestinian refugees struggling against such initiatives: those living as exiles inside Israel.

Affirming the Presidency
By MIFTAH, October 30, 2002 
Despite the serious threat of a vote of no confidence that lead the former Palestinian cabinet to resign on September 11, 2002, Yasser Arafat still unveiled a new cabinet with barely any new faces. At first, it seems a surprise that the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) approved this cabinet, however, a second glance would reveal that such a result was imminent given the political developments on the ground. Of particular significance is Fatah's desire to affirm Arafat's presidency following Israel's siege and destruction of his compound, a move that was aimed at humiliating the Palestinian leader, and U.S. efforts to sideline him. The misguided notion that a vote of no confidence is in essence a vote for Sharon means that Palestinians once again face a cabinet incapable of delivering a hopeful future.

Deported!
By Kathy Kern, The Electronic Intifada, November 5, 2002
"I did not kill that Dutchman on the moor!" I read on the wooden slab of the bunk above me in my prison cell. The author had written an address in Essex, England below it. A woman from Ghana had written in broken English that it was better to be dead than African in Israel. Unlike my cellmates from Malawi and Russia, facing deportation -- probably for overstaying a visa and prostitution respectively -- I was being deported for working with a human rights organization. That afternoon, the young woman at passport control had stamped my passport with a three month visa and sent me, as per the usual routine for suspicious characters, to a security person for further questioning. He laughed when he saw me, because he had interrogated me before. The next steps normally would have involved him asking me further questions, putting my luggage through a scanning machine and letting me go.

Interview with Mahmoud Al-Aloul, Governor of Nablus
By MIFTAH, October 10, 2002 
Mahmoud Al-Aloul has been the Governor of Nablus since 1995. Capitalizing on the Oslo Accords, Nablus became a revitalized city, contributing to the advancement of Palestinian culture and society while celebrating its epic and powerful history. Sadly, the days of prosperity are but a fading memory as Nablus has been crippled by the Israeli forces over the past two years. Suffering from the most severe curfews, with longest lasting over 100 days, Nablus has been brought to a standstill. MIFTAH sat with Mr. Al-Aloul to ask him about the dire circumstances in Nablus and his reflections on the situation.

Settlers and Trash
By Walid Hamad, Mayor of the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh, Palestine Chronicle, November 8, 2002
AL-BIREH, West Bank - While the Israeli military strangulation of the West Bank tightens by the day, the Israeli settler community of Psagot, a settlement illegally erected near my City of Al-Bireh, is taking advantage of the Israeli government's determination to militarily crush the Palestinian society to pursue their three decade old policy of illegal land confiscation. Just as the Israeli Occupation to suppress the entire Palestinian population has taken on new shapes and forms in the absence of any international considerations, Israeli settlers are camouflaging this latest round of land confiscation with a facade of environmental issues, namely a solid waste landfill site on the Eastern front of our City.

Sharon's Appendix: The bankruptcy of Israel's "Peace Camp"
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 7 November 2002
It is the traditional role of the Israeli Labor party to pose as the "peace party," a notion that in the past some Palestinians, "moderate" Arab states, and the wider international community have accepted out of a mixture of naivete, wishful thinking and political expediency. Whenever Labor wins, however, lofty words, are replaced with policies that more resemble than contrast with the "hard-line" they were supposed to replace. In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became prime minister, following the "hawkish" Yitzhak Shamir. This lead to the signing of the Oslo accords, but it also heralded the biggest colony construction binge since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip began, designed to solidify Israel's control. For Palestinians it marked the beginning of the period in which Israel was free to continue all the practices of military occupation, except now with a veneer international legitimacy.

Bluffing time is over
By Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz. November 8, 2002 
Last week, when the unity government fell apart, we said good-bye and good riddance. This week, with the resignation of the government and the call for early elections, we can say it even louder. Sharon may think he's made a brilliant move that will put an end to Bibi and allow him to return to power newly strengthened. The trouble is that things don't always work out the way we want them to. Two of our prime ministers, Rabin with his "clever trick" and Peres with his "stinky trick," lost their seats instead of getting a better grip on them. With the early elections trick, you know how it starts, but there's no guarantee how it will end.

What is needed is a real peace plan for a change
Hasan Abu Nimah, The Electronic Intifada, November 6, 2002
 AS OUR region awaits the threatened war on Iraq, is it conceivable to see a "promise" of peace on the Palestinian-Israeli front with so much activity, and supposedly hope, from the American and the European Quartet joint efforts that have recently produced a peace plan which, this time and obviously for a good reason, was called a "road map"? Although a road map is definitely not the same as a peace plan, in the sense that it is only meant to help those who truly want to reach their desired destination, but may need direction, the case in question is entirely different. The real issue is not how to get "there". It is rather to define first where "there" is, what it is in fact, and if the parties truly want to reach it.

Marshall Bush is no Gary Cooper
By William Hughes, Palestine Chronicle, November 6, 2002 
BALTIMORE (PC) - George W. Bush likes to pretend that he’s just a good old boy from the Wild West, who once was a managing partner of the Texas Rangers A.L. baseball team. When George W. Bush Jr. struts into a room to hold a news conference, you’d think you’re looking at the late Gary Cooper walking across the screen in one of his cowboy movies, like the classic, “High Noon.” Those cowboys, like the one played by the legendary Cooper, however, had something that Bush Jr., no matter how many 10 gallon hats he wears, can never have. They had an “honor code!” The code of the stoic Western lawman said that the good guy must fight the bad guy, no matter what the odds against him. And, the fight must always be clean and fair, too. This is also the American way. The tradition goes back to the frontier ethos of the revolutionary heroes, who founded the Republic. The good guy can’t run away from the fight either, like Cooper was severely tempted to do in “High Noon.”