30 December, 2006
Former
Longtime Confidant Accuses Ariel Sharon Of
Assassinating Yasser Arafat
By Stephen Lendman
Longtime and now recently deceased confidant to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Uri Dan, published a book in France that may have been his 2006 one titled Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait in which he accused the former prime minister of assassinating Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat by poisoning him
In
Gaza: Democracy And Its Discontents
By Ramzy Baroud
What is taking place in the Occupied Territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip has much less to do with inter-factional rivalries and a lot more with regional and international power plays, in which some foolhardy Palestinians decided to involve themselves for the sake of maintaining personal and factional gains
26 December, 2006
Pre-empting
Arab Mediation
In Palestinian Divide
By Nicola Nasser
The U.S administration and Israel are accelerating their coordinated meddling in the internal Palestinian divide between the Fatah-led presidency and the Hamas-led government to pre-empt a series of Arab mediation efforts, the latest of which is a UAE-Syrian try according to a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization
24 December, 2006
What
Would Happen If The Virgin Mary
Came To Bethlehem Today?
By Johann Hari
Fadia Jemal is a gap-toothed 27-year-old with a weary, watery smile. "What would happen if the Virgin Mary came to Bethlehem today? She would endure what I have endured"
Middle
East Peace Process: Stagnation By Design
By Ramzy Baroud
Amid this deliberate stagnation, the Palestinian people are left with no option but to revolt, as costly and uncertain as it has been throughout the years. Thus, it must be stated that Palestinian resistance, which for the most part has been a nonviolent and popular movement, shall continue as long as the circumstances that contributed to its commencement remain in place
23 December, 2006
Apartheid
In The Holy Land
By Desmond Tutu
I've been very deeply distressed in my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about
22 December, 2006
Jimmy
Carter's Apartheid Charge Rings True
By Saree Makdisi
Former President Jimmy Carter has come under sustained attack for having dared to use the term "apartheid" to describe Israel's policies in the West Bank. However, not one of Carter's critics has offered a convincing argument to justify the vehemence of the outcry, much less to refute his central claim that Israel bestows rights on Jewish residents settling illegally on Palestinian land, while denying the same rights to the indigenous Palestinians
21 December, 2006
Palestinian
Boiling Pot
By Dr. Elias Akleh
It is cynical to notice that external powers, (Israel, US, and UK, the enemy of Palestinians, who rejected their democratic election, and who imposed economical siege against them) had rushed to support “Abbas” call for early election, while most of the Palestinian factions (including within Fatah itself) inside and outside occupied Palestine had rejected it because they believe that the previous election, recognized by international observers as free and democratic, is legal
There
Is Still Another Way For Palestine
By Hasan Abu Nimah & Ali Abunimah
Hamas and all other factions committed to resisting occupation should focus on intensified civil struggle and solidarity. This is the best way to isolate those who would push for civil war in order to retain their privileges and power
20 December, 2006
Palestine
On The Brink Of Civil War?
By Nigel Parry
Since the Palestinian elections on 25 January 2006 brought a resounding Hamas victory, Fatah and its US and Israeli allies have been working to destabilize the democratically-elected government
End
Of The Strongmen
By Jonathan Cook
Do America and Israel want the Middle East engulfed by civil war?
Under
An Iron Fist
By Karma Nabulsi
Palestinians don't want fresh elections in the occupied territories, but a free vote for a truly national ruling body
The
Streets Of Gaza
By Laila El-Haddad
The average person don't know what to think anymore. They are confused and and exhausted and mostly very, very afraid.As a friend of my mother put it today, "We don’t’ know anymore who's right and who’s wrong, and who’s at fault and who isn’t. And we just want it to end."
19 December, 2006
A
Counterproductive U.S. Advice To Palestinians
By Nicola Nasser
Regardless of good will or bad faith, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to go without national consensus to early presidential and parliamentary elections was divisive, counterproductive and conforms to U.S.-Israeli plans to remove the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” from power or pressure it into accepting what its rival Fatah had accepted: A peace process on their dictated terms and conditions
Abbas
Attempts A Political Coup
On Behalf Of Washington
By Jean Shaoul
Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah president of the Palestinian Authority, has announced that he will dissolve the recently elected parliament and call new presidential and parliamentary elections
16 December, 2006
Israeli
High Court Sanctions Political Assassinations
By Bill Van Auken
Israel’s high court Thursday ruled that the Zionist regime’s use of political assassination—so-called “targeted killings”—against members of Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories is not only justified but in conformity with international law
The
Trap Of Recognising Israel
By Jonathan Cook
Regional and possibly global war may be triggered simply to ensure that Israel’s “existence” as a state that offers exclusive privileges to Jews continues
Hudna
Or Not: Palestinian
Rights Must Be Preserved
By Ramzy Baroud
While proposing a hudna is maybe an expression of the current Palestinian government's commitment to peace, or perhaps a way out of a terrible bind; regardless, it should neither override nor cancel out the Palestinian people's uncompromising adherence to their just demands for freedom and rights, determined by a Palestinian national consensus and cemented in international law
Dear
Santa, Or Someone
By Deb Reich
I live in Israel/Palestine and I think I am probably addicted to the big bad conflict we have here. But Our souls are ready to reach past this conflict to a new shared future, as the blades of grass are ready to poke through the dirt again, all over this sorrowing land, reaching up regardless through the blood-soaked soil: little green stalks of life and hope, irrepressible. And over every blade of grass hovers its own angel, whispering: Grow, lovely one! Shaatr! Ta’al! Come to me… Grow!
Baker's
Cake
By Uri Avnery
Baker has presented his plan at a time when the US is facing disaster in Iraq. President Bush is bankrupt, his party has lost control of Congress and may soon lose the White House. The neo-conservatives, most of them Jews and all of them supporters of the Israeli extreme Right, who were in control of American foreign policy, are being removed one by one. Therefore, it is possible that this time the President may listen to expert advice
06 December, 2006
An
Appeal For An Abandoned People
By Donald Macintyre
Maybe they are just conveniently forgetting other periods in Gaza's turbulent and blood-stained history, but most Gazans will tell you that 2006 is the worst year they can remember
04 December, 2006
A
Young Man's Chronicle Of Hell
By Randolph T. Holhut
At a time when journalism is under siege by market pressures, by government, by the general dumbing down of the culture, Omer's example of courage, passion and commitment gives me hope that a new generation is rising up to bring us the uncomfortable truths about our world, regardless of the personal cost
03 December, 2006
The
Checkpoint Generation
By Amira Hasss
For nearly a month now, a young Palestinian has been hospitalized at Beilinson Hospital; soldiers shot him at a checkpoint in northern Nablus on Saturday, November 4. Haitem Yassin, 25, is conscious now, but he is still hooked up to a respirator
01 December, 2006
Palestinians
Are Being Denied
The right To Non-Violent Resistance
By Jonathan Cook
If one thing offers a terrifying glimpse of where the experiment in human despair that is Gaza under Israeli siege is leading, it is the news that a Palestinian woman in her sixties -- a grandmother -- chose last week to strap on a suicide belt and explode herself next to a group of Israeli soldiers invading her refugee camp
Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid
By John Dugard
Former President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," is igniting controversy for its allegation that Israel practices a form of apartheid
20 November, 2006
No
Peace, No Place For Palestine
By Sheila Samples
The last Palestinian standing will be waiting for Israel's bombs and tanks and bulldozers. And he'll have a rock clenched in each hand
18 November, 2006
Killing
Hope In Beit Hanoun
By Ramzy Baroud
“God is greater than Israel and America,” was the echoing cry of tens of thousands of Palestinians, who descended into the graveyard in grief stricken Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. They congregated in yet another familiar scene to bury their loved ones, killed by Israel’s brutal war against the Palestinians
Peace
Will Need More Than
David Grossman -- Or Uri Avnery
By Jonathan Cook
But fortunately, whatever Avnery claims, his peace camp is not the only alternative to the sham agonising of Peace Now. Avnery is no more standing at the very edge of the abyss than Grossman. The only abyss Avnery is looking into is the demise of his Jewish state
15 November, 2006
Lieberman
And Israeli Apartheid
By Saree Makdisi
The only thing that distinguishes Avigdor Lieberman from run of the mill politics in Israel is that he is willing to take Israel’s vision of itself to its logical conclusion. Rather than tolerating non-Jews as second or third class citizens, he wants them out altogether
14 November, 2006
Call
It What It Is: A Massacre
By Uri Avnery
News from America pushed aside the terrible reports from Beit Hanoun. Instead of making the headlines, they were relegated to the bottom of the page
South
Africa seen As Model For Palestine
By Ali Abunimah
Palestinians and Israelis would not simply be able to take the new South Africa as a blueprint. They would have to work out their own distinct constitution, including mechanisms for ethnic communities to have autonomy in matters that concern them, and to guarantee that no one group can dominate another
11 November, 2006
Israel
Carries Out Deliberate Massacre In Gaza
By Chris Marsden
Israel’s November 8 massacre of 19 civilians at Beit Hanun in Gaza has sparked angry protests throughout the Palestinian territories and within Israel itself
We
Overcame Our Fear
By Jameela al-Shanti
Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds
Treacherous
Road To Oslo Begins Here
By Ramzy Baroud
The Hamas goverment in palsetine is facing a siege from within and without, aided by occasional, but determined Israeli onslaughts - the latest in Beit Hanun in northern Gaza that has already killed scores, including peaceful women protestors - is pressuring the government to desperately seek alternatives
08 November, 2006
European
Inaction And Complicity As Gaza Burns
By Ali Abunimah
I wholeheartedly agree with that part of your statement which says, "Violence will only aggravate an already grave situation in the region." But violence will not be ended by empty condemnation of the victims and craven appeasement of the occupier. It will end when governments like yours take action to make Israel, as the occupying colonial power, accountable
The
Conflict Cannot Wait
By Roni Ben Efrat
As long as America is paralyzed, very little can change here. In Lebanon, to be sure, the recent war damaged Hezbollah's autonomy. But on the major question, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we can only see years of deep freeze ahead
Pummeling
The Victim
By Rima Merriman
The terrible imbalance of power between the Israelis and Palestinians makes it impossible for Israel, regardless of which government is in power, to deal with the Palestinians in any way except through a lens of assumed moral, cultural, and racial superiority, as though military prowess equates with civilization and home-made rockets equate with savagery and a sub-human status
05 November, 2006
Palestine
As A Foil For People’s Unconnected Dreams
By Ramzy Baroud
Thousands of people recently marched in London to commemorate Quds Day, an annual day of solidarity with the Palestinian people that emanated from Tehran some 26 years ago.However, the scene in London was too surreal, and brought into question the usefulness of such displays of solidarity with the Palestinians
03 November, 2006
Israeli
Left-Right Divide Unmasked As Phony
By Nicola Nasser
Avigdor Lieberman’s ascent to a strategic executive role in Israel has unmasked the artificial divide between left and right and revealed the mainstream ruling elite as still in consensus on the Zionist goals
01 November, 2006
Unmasking
The Second Palestinian Intifada
By Remi Kanazi
A principal impediment facing the Palestinian struggle today is the constant reaffirmation that the Palestinian people—deemed by Israel and the US—are “terrorists,” “militants,” or animalistic beings lesser than those of the “civilized world.” In Ramzy Baroud’s new book, The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of People’s Struggle, this myth is shattered
28 October, 2006
A
Jewish Hitler?
By Justin Raimondo
With the entry of Avigdor Lieberman into the government as deputy minister for "strategic threats" – essentially in charge of preparing for war with Iran – Israel makes a qualitative step toward a regime that increasingly resembles, in all its essentials, a rogue state, and, I might add, potentially a very dangerous one
27 October, 2006
Lieberman
Is Not An Israeli ‘Internal Affair’
By Nicola Nasser
The absence of a proportionate Palestinian reaction to the ascendancy of Israel’s far right leader, Avigdor Lieberman, into the mainstream strategic decision-making in Tel Aviv has indicated of how dangerously the inter-Palestinian divide is overshadowing the Israeli threats
26 October, 2006
World
Silent As Fascists Join Israel Government
By Ali Abunimah
In a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition government. Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous extremist party with fascist tendencies that has openly advocated the "transfer" of Palestinians, including the transfer of Arab towns within Israel to a Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity
Out
Of The shadows: Israel's
Minister Of Strategic Threats
By Jonathan Cook
So why are Israel’s politicians, of the left and right, so comfortable sitting with Lieberman, the leader of Israel’s only unquestionably fascist party? Because, in truth, Lieberman is not the maverick politician of popular imagination, even if he is every bit the racist -- a Jewish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen. In reality, Lieberman is entirely a creature of the Israeli political establishment, his policies sinister reflections of the principles and ideas he learnt in the inner sanctums of the Likud party
25 October, 2006
Israel,
Palestine And Canada
By John Chuckman
Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper said that his government supports a two-state solution in the Middle East. That is the policy of most Western governments, and there was nothing original in Harper's way of stating it. It was the kind of vague, tepid stuff we might hear from Olmert himself
19 October, 2006
The
Palestinian Cause: A Routine For Deception
By Ghali Hassan
It is becoming a routine for Western leaders to use the “Palestinian cause” as a way to further their own interests at the expense of Palestinian lives and Palestinian struggle to self-determination. The main objective is to manipulate public opinion and serve U.S.-Israel Zionist agenda
Viable
Solutions For Israeli-Palestinian Peace
By Sonia Nettnin
Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Professor Jeff Halper spoke about the Israel-Palestine conflict and viable solutions to bring peace to the Middle East
17 October, 2006
The
Great Experiment In Gaza
By Uri Avnery
Is it possible to force a whole people to submit to foreign occupation by starving it?The governments of Israel and the United States, in close cooperation with Europe, are now engaged in a rigorous scientific experiment in order to obtain a definitive answer.The laboratory for the experiment is the Gaza Strip, and the guinea pigs are the million and a quarter Palestinians living there
14 October, 2006
The
Logic Behind Rice's Grin
By Ramzy Baroud
Rice's visit to the region was neither intended to "reinvigorate" the peace process nor to support the voice of "moderation" in the region. It was meant to ensure the fortitude of her allies and secure and extend the collective punishment of the Palestinian people until they repent and throw out their democratically elected government
13 October, 2006
Abusing
The Arab Peace Initiative
By Nicola Nasser
The failed Qatari mediation in the still unresolved inter-Palestinian divide was in practice an American success in turning the Arab Peace Initiative (API) into a pressure tool that further exacerbates fractures both in Arab and Palestinian ranks
12 October, 2006
A
Re-Run Of The Lebanon War In Palestine?
By Hasan Abu Nimah & Ali Abunimah
There are ominous signs that the long-contemplated plan to overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority cabinet is about to enter its most dangerous phase: a political coup, supported by local militias, with foreign and regional backing. This could ignite serious intra-Palestinian violence
10 October, 2006
The
King Of The Jungle
By Rima Merriman
When it comes to imposing law and order on the Palestinians, what applies is not international humanitarian law, but the law of the jungle. And, of course, it is quite clear who the king of the jungle is
09 October, 2006
Hazardous
Intent: US Brokers In Palestine
By Remi Kanazi
The Palestinians for their part have fallen into the trap set by Israel and America -- divide and conquer each other. Hamas and Fatah know well that the way forward is together rather than in disgruntled factions vying for power. Civil war status will bear fruit for no one
07 October, 2006
Just
Another Mother Murdered
By Alison Weir
Foolishly or valiantly, how is one to say, the 35-year-old woman had interfered. She tried to explain that her husband was deaf, screamed at the soldiers that her husband couldn't hear them and attempted to stop them from hitting him. So they shot her. Several times. Her name was Itemad Ismail Abu Mo'ammar
06 October, 2006
Palestinian
Power-Struggle: Siege Within
By Ramzy Baroud
The current leadership struggle in Palestine is an illustration of the misguided priorities of Palestinian leaders, and for once, Palestinians must possess the courage to realise and confront it
The
Struggle For Palestine's Soul
By Jonathan Cook
If the goal of establishing a Palestinian state cannot be realised, then the danger is that many Palestinians will look elsewhere for their liberation, not necessarily in national but in wider, regional and religious terms. The Islamic component of the struggle -- at the moment a gloss, even for Hamas, on what is still a national liberation movement -- will grow and deepen. National liberation will take a back seat to religious jihad
05 October, 2006
The
Siege Of Gaza Goes On
By John Dugard
In August last year Israel withdrew its settlers and armed forces from Gaza, claiming that this brought to an end 38 years of military occupation. Of course, it did nothing of the sort. Israel retained power over Gaza by controlling its air space, sea space and external borders
The
Economy Of Gaza
By Sara Roy
The pauperization of Gaza's economy is not accidental but deliberate, the result of continuous restrictive Israeli policies (primarily closure), particularly since the start of the current uprising six years ago, and more recently of the international aid embargo imposed on Palestinians
03 October, 2006
Paralysis
Of The Palestinian 'Authority':
What's To Be Done?
By Rima Merriman
The paralysis of the present Palestinian Authority has simply highlighted to the world and to the Palestinians themselves, who are persistently in denial about this, the real Wizard-of-Oz nature of their Authority and public institutions
Road
Map To Nowhere
By Eric Hazan
Interview With Tanya Reinhart
02 October, 2006
Sixth
Anniversary Of Al-Aqsa Mosque
Intifada Passes Still Unresolved
By Stephen Lendman
September 28 marked the sixth anniversary of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (the Noble Sanctuary for Muslims and Temple Mount for Jews and Christians) that caused the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada still raging today with Palestinians on the painful receiving end of most of it
Seeing
The Forest For The Trees
By Rima Merriman
The Quartet (along with the international
community generally) has failed to enable the Palestinian president
to act credibly towards the goal of making "progress towards
a two-state solution through dialogue and parallel implementation
of obligations."
29 September, 2006
Bad
Faith And The Destruction Of Palestine
By Jonathan Cook
But why should we think Israel is acting in good faith, even if in bad temper, in destroying Gaza’s power station? Why should we assume it was a hot-headed over-reaction rather than a coldly calculated deed?
23 September, 2006
How
Israel’s 'New Anti-Semitism'
Is Leading To Nuclear Holocaust
By Jonathan Cook
Faced with the evil designs of the “Islamic fascists”, such as those in Iran, Israel’s nuclear arsenal -- and the nuclear Holocaust Israel can and appears prepared to unleash -- may be presented as the civilised world’s salvation
The
Next Palestinian Struggle
By Ramzy Baroud
But amid the rush to form a government, key questions won't be laid to rest: Who will speak on behalf of the Palestinian people internationally? Who will formulate their foreign-policy agenda? And who will be entrusted with the task of defending or redefining their national constants. Will it be Abbas, chairman of the PLO, or the elected legislative council and government?
20 September, 2006
'Quiet
Transfer' In East Jerusalem
Nears Completion
By Elodie Guego
Israel is close to implementing a long-term plan to transform the demographic structure of annexed East Jerusalem. Policies to revoke the residency permits of Palestinian Jerusalemites and to Judaise the city have been described as ethnic cleansing
19 September, 2006
The
Children Killed In A War The World
Doesn't Want To Know About
By Donald Macintyre In Rafah
Nayef Abu Snaima says his 14-year-old cousin Jihad had been sitting on the edge of an olive grove talking animatedly to him about what he would do when he grew up when he was killed instantly by an Israeli shell
08 September, 2006
'Gaza
Is A Jail - We Are All Starving Now'
By Patrick Cockburn
Gaza is dying. The Israeli siege of the Palestinian enclave is so tight that its people are on the edge of starvation. Here on the shores of the Mediterranean a great tragedy is taking place that is being ignored because the world's attention has been diverted by wars in Lebanon and Iraq
06 September, 2006
Kidnapped
In Gaza: Chaos As A Strategy
By Ramzy Baroud
The kidnapping episode will certainly be milked for all its worth – while the deliberate targeting of the two Reuters journalists by the Israeli army will hardly register for more than a day or two as a fleeting and extraneous piece of news
Palestinian
Donors: What Mission?
By Nicola Nasser
The Palestinians have been too grateful and too helpless for too long to be critical of the political agenda of their donors who have practically nailed them down as political hostages to the donors’ money, which was promised initially to help build an independent Palestinian state, but ended as a political instrument effectively used by the Israeli occupying power
05 September, 2006
Gaza
Doctors Encounter 'Unexplained Injuries'
By Donald Macintyre
Doctors in Gaza are reporting what they say are unexplained injuries among the dead and wounded in operations by the Israeli military, which have killed more than 200 Palestinians in the past nine weeks
04 September, 2006
Genocide
In Gaza
By Ilan Pappe
A genocide is taking place in Gaza. This morning, 2 September, another three citizens of Gaza were killed and a whole family wounded in Beit Hanoun. This is the morning reap, before the end of day many more will be massacred. An average of eight Palestinian die daily in the Israeli attacks on the Strip. Most of them are children. Hundreds are maimed, wounded and paralyzed
31 August, 2006
Hurtling
Towards The Next Intifada
An Interview with Jonathan Cook
Sooner or later they will find a way to fight back, even from behind their walls. My guess is that the next intifada will be called the Qassam intifada after the homemade rockets Palestinians fire out the Gaza Strip to try to hit Israeli communities. We are going to see more of that kind of resistance
Murder
On Rucarb Street
By Eliza Ernshire
Palestine has been so reduced and so humiliated that it is now a country where the Occupying force can walk into a main city on nightfall, can walk down the main street of that city and kill a man and then walk away again as if that is a damn right of theirs and no one is going to blink an eye at it
22 August, 2006
Israeli
Apartheid: The striking Parallels
To South Africa
By Bruce Dixon
Someday the sun will rise on a post-apartheid Jerusalem, one that belongs to all the people who live there of whatever origin. This is bound to happen because Palestinians as well as substantial numbers of Israeli Jews do and will continue to resist the regime. They will do what they can. What will we do?
19 August, 2006
Don't
Forget Gaza
By Khaled Amayreh
With the UN-sponsored ceasefire between Israel and Hizbullah going into effect, Palestinians are apprehensive that Israel might embark on a fresh rampage in Gaza in order to boost the morale of a conspicuously dispirited Israeli public
18 August, 2006
The
Gaza "Disengagement" Plan
And West Bank "Expansion" Plan
By George Bisharat
Thus, the Gaza "disengagement" plan is also the Jerusalem and West Bank "expansion" plan. The number of Israelis settling in the West Bank this year exceeds the number withdrawn from Gaza
17 August, 2006
Palestinian
Self-Defeating Unilateralism
By Nicola Nasser
With the Palestinian – Israeli peace process dormant, deadlocked and declared “dead” and at least two thirds of the Palestinians living in exile hosted and influenced by regional powers, the Palestinian leadership is facing an overdue review of its self-defeating unilateral approach to change course towards a multilateral, or better a collective, Arab approach to resolving the conflict with Israel
09 August, 2006
"Positive
Conditions" - The Water Crisis In Gaza
By Alice Gray
The political rhetoric and frequent violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often serve to mask underlying environmental issues which, if not resolved, may pose an even greater threat to the well-being of the Palestinian population than the guns and bombs of the military occupation
07 August, 2006
Israel
Tightens The Siege Of Gaza
By Rick Kelly
While the world’s media has focused attention on Israel’s four-week offensive in Lebanon, a no less ferocious assault is also underway in Gaza. The Palestinian territory’s 1.4 million residents have been subjected to an unrelenting Israeli military offensive, as well as an air, land, and sea blockade which threatens a humanitarian catastrophe
17 July, 2006
The
BBC: A Zionist Propaganda?
By Ghali Hassan
A study by Greg Philo and Mike Berry of the Glasgow University Media Unit in Scotland reveals that the British media, including the BBC denying the public an opportunity to understand the rights of the Palestinian people resistance to Israel’s terror and Israeli occupation of Palestinian land
Why
Is Israel Back In Gaza?
By Ramzy Baroud
It’s not clear where this Israeli experiment is heading. But what is hardly unmistakable is that by maintaining low intensity warfare in Gaza, Israel is creating the perfect cover up to its army bulldozers to partition the rest of the West Bank and Jerusalem in accordance with the second phase of Olmert’s Disengagement Plan which intends to slice up the West Bank into various enclaves with no physical continuity
15 July, 2006
Israel’s
Latest Bureaucratic Obscenity
By Jonathan Cook
Israel’s interior ministry has been quietly implementing a new rule since April that allows it to refuse entry to Palestinians holding foreign passports to Israel and the occupied territories. Most of those affected are Palestinians who today have citizenship in America or Europe
14 July, 2006
Racism
Plagues Western Media Coverage
By Ramzy Baroud
By not challenging the Israeli narrative in any meaningful way, the uncritical media has become a tool in the hands of Israel's war strategists and their eternal concoctions
13 July, 2006
“Nobody
Is safe”
By Mona El-Farra
MONA EL-FARRA is a physician and human rights activist living in Gaza. She has been writing a blog from her home since the beginning of Israel’s assault--when the flow of electricity permits. Here, we reprint excerpts from her blog entries
12 July, 2006
My
Life In Gaza
By Mona El-Farra
Most Gazans also believe that Israel's latest assault was pre-planned, that the soldier's capture is merely a trigger. Israel dropped thousands of shells on Gaza, killing women, children and old people, long before his capture
11 July, 2006
A
One-Sided War
By Uri Avnery
The world cup is over and now the public can return to less important matters, such as the daily killing and destruction, the captured soldier, the launching of Qassam rockets and everything else connected with the invasion of Gaza
10 July, 2006
The
‘Roadmap’ To Palestinian Ghettos
By Ghali Hassan
Just as the civilised world stood together against Fascism and Apartheid, so it today must join to condemn Israel and call on it to stop committing crimes against the Palestinian people
Global
Powers Failing Palestinians Once Again
By Jamal Juma
This year the 9th of July is a bitter day for Palestinians. The Occupation Army besieges Gaza, massacres its people and attacks its infrastructure. The ghettos of the West Bank take shape as the Apartheid Wall edges closer to completion and the Palestinian exodus from Jerusalem has begun
It’s
Time To End The "Last Taboo"And
Hold Israel Accountable For Its Actions
By Stephen Lendman
Will the world community finally take note and act to stop a likely impending slaughter. The past record indicates it won’t. It’s the purpose of this writing to demand it does so and quickly and to hold a criminal Israeli leadership accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity
The
Reoccupation Of Gaza:
Israel And The Big Lie
By Chris Marsden
There is arguably no modern state that more shamelessly employs the propaganda technique of the Big Lie than Israel. Since July 6, Israel has been deploying its military forces in an operation to reoccupy Northern Gaza, killing dozens of Palestinians, including civilians, and injuring many more
09 July, 2006
Israel's
Experiment In Human Despair
By Jonathan Cook
If this experiment in human despair works in the small Gaza Strip, its lessons can be applied to much bigger effect in the West Bank ghettoes left behind after convergence. This is how ethnic cleansing looks when it is designed not by butchers in uniforms but by technocrats in suits
08 July, 2006
The
Second Palestinian Intifada:A Chronicle
Of A People’s Struggle
Book Review By Jim Miles
A chronicle is a “continuous register of events on order of time” and within that framework, Ramzy Baroud recounts the reality of the Intifada as seen from inside the wall, through the distorted lenses of the western media, as well as a more analytical view of politics
12 May, 2006
Israel’s
Road To ‘Convergence’ Began With Rabin
By Jonathan Cook
With his coalition partners on board, Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert is plotting his next move: a partial withdrawal from the West Bank over the next few years which he and his government will declare as the end of the occupation and therefore also any legitimate grounds for Palestinian grievance.From hereon in, Israel will portray itself as the benevolent provider of a Palestinian state
08 May, 2006
The
Long Path Back To Umm al-Zinat
For Palestine’s Refugees
By Jonathan Cook
On Wednesday 3 May, Israel celebrated its 58th Independence Day, marking the declaration of statehood on midnight 14 May 1948.But not everyone was included in the celebrations. One in five of Israel’s population is Palestinian. The names of their dead from the 1948 war -- including unarmed women and children killed in a spate of massacres documented by Israeli historians -- were not listed on television
04 May, 2006
Call
A Spade A Spade
By Remi Kanazi
How long is a sane man expected to sit on his hands while his enemy slaps him in the face? The Palestinian people have endured a prolonged aggression by a pariah state, and yet the world not only expects them to sit on their hands, the world blames them for it
29 April, 2006
Hamas’
Impossible Mission
By Ramzy Baroud
It should be established by now that most Western governments are the least interested in honoring the decided democratic choice of the Palestinian people, which elevated to power a movement that is branded ‘terrorist’ by Israel, thus by much of the Western hemisphere
22 April, 2006
The
Real Meaning Of Deporting
Hamas Members Of Parliament
By Jonathan Cook
In the wake of Monday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv Olmert revoked the rights of three Hamas MPs and a Palestinian cabinet minister, Mahmoud Abu Tir, to reside in Jerusalem. The intention is to deport them to the West Bank.Apparently Israel is considering extending this punishment to other members of Hamas in Jerusalem and possibly anyone working for the Palestinian Authority
21 April, 2006
A
Case For The Palestinian Government
By Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, being punished for making a democratic choice that has been deemed unacceptable from an Israeli point of view and from its benefactors elsewhere
11 April, 2006
Palestinian
Health Care Conditions
Under Occupation
By Sonia Nettnin
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 36 health care workers have been killed, 447 health providers have been wounded and 129 patients have died at Israeli checkpoints. How? There have been 375 attacks on health care centers, 383 attacks on ambulances, with 38 ambulances destroyed altogether. Since September 28, 2000, at least 67 women have given birth at Israeli checkpoints. As a result, 39 newborns died or they were delivered stillborn
06 April, 2006
Another
Brick In The Wall
By Robert Fisk
The wall will soon run from top to bottom of the occupied Palestinian West Bank - and it is going to stay
05 April, 2006
US
Attitude To Hamas: The Disturbing
Parallel With Nicaragua
By Ramzy Baroud
What is currently transpiring in the Occupied Territories is by far a worst-case scenario, ironically one made possible with the direct help of many Palestinians themselves. The democratically elected Palestinian government is now officially isolated.The final outcome is that turning Palestine into another Nicaragua is working
04 April, 2006
The
Israeli Elections - A Decisive
Vote For Apartheid
By Omar Barghouti
The Israeli majority has chosen apartheid. And since Western governments have welcomed the result as a breakthrough for peace, Israel's Wall and colonies can only be expected to grow more aggressively under the pretence of "consolidation" and "separation," condemning the entire region to endless bloody conflict
01 April, 2006
Rachel’s
Words Live On
By Remi Kanazi
On March 22, a congregation of ardent supporters gathered to commemorate Rachel’s life and spread her words in the very church Martin Luther King first chastised the war in Vietnam
30 March, 2006
The
New Israel: Plans To Redraw
Border On West Bank
By Donald Macintyre
Election victory gives Ehud Olmert a mandate to implement his controversial plan to redraw border and annex Palestinian territory
Narrow
Victory For Kadima In Israeli Elections
By Chris Marsden and Julie Hyland
The victory of Kadima in Israel’s general election has been hailed as a popular mandate for the unilateral redrawing of the country’s borders by 2010 and the creation of a new “political centre-ground.” In reality, the vote reveals a deeply fractured society that is politically, economically and socially unstable
The
Suffering Palestinian
Women Undergo Every Day
By Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Speech Nurit Peled-Elhanan delivered at the European Parliament, Strasbourg, on March 8 on the occasion of International Women's Day
29 March, 2006
Are
Israel’s Interests In Americas’ Interests?
By Ghali Hassan
The war against the Iraqi people proves to be a carbon copy of the war on the Palestinian people. In the same way Israel is destroying Palestine, US illegal war on Iraq has destroyed the entire nation. Why a premeditated mass murder of innocent civilians is good for the Jewish people or the American people?
Galilee
Bishop Speaks For Justice,
Friendship And Peace
By Sonia Nettnin
Rev. Dr. Abuna Elias Chacour spoke about the need for security and peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He said people need to take responsibility for one another by befriending people they consider their enemies
24 March, 2006
Israel
Announces Plans To Annex
More Palestinian Land
By Jean Shaoul
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s acting prime minister, whose Kadima party is expected to win the national election on March 28, recently announced that Israel would unilaterally redraw its borders by 2010, annexing Palestinian land without negotiations with the Palestinians
A
Disgusting Exercise
By Uri Avnery
Many Israelis believe that the Jericho action was a brilliant exercise. I found it simply loathsome
23 March, 2006
US
Media Bias: Covering Israel/Palestine
By Remi Kanazi
I understand why The New York Times and CNN reports the way it does. They are media hacks run by the corporate dollar. Injustice is injustice. Murder is murder. While Palestinian suffering goes on unreported children like Ragheb Al-Masri remain dead and forgotten, and the American press remains biased and forgiven
The
Power Of Saying No
By Jeff Halper
The vote for Hamas was not a closing of the door at all, but a rational, intentional and powerful statement of non-cooperation in a political process that is only leading to Palestinian imprisonment. Hamas, if anything, stands for steadfastness, sumud, the refusal to submit
22 March, 2006
The
Jericho Prison Raid
By Ramzy Baroud
Could it be possible that the Israeli army raid on a Jericho prison on March 14 was done without careful coordination between Israel, the United States and Britain?
16 March, 2006
Israel's
Attack On Jericho: Palestinians
Remain Without Protection
By Ali Abunimah and Arjan El Fassed
The Israeli attack on Jericho and kidnap of a number of Palestinian prisoners, including the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) demonstrates once again the fiction that there is a functioning Palestinian "government" in the occupied territories
15 March, 2006
Mass
Starvation And Democracy Prevention
By Ghali Hassan
Nothing has displeased the US and its allies more than free and fair democratic elections. The recent Palestinian elections are just a case in point. While Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections freely and fairly, the next step for the US, Israel and their European vassals is to demonise Hamas, undermine democracy and continue the violence and the destruction of the Palestinian society
13 March, 2006
The
European Union Dilemma: Israel,
Palestine And The Geneva Initiative
By Am Johal
The European Union, as well as other parties, will need to utilize their economic arrangements with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to meet the stated obligations both nations have committed themselves to under the Roadmap to Peace process and earlier agreements
10 March, 2006
Middle
East Democracy And The Hamas Factor
By Ramzy Baroud
While Israel sees little harm in making Palestinians a 'whole lot thinner' as a result of its economic sanctions policy, the US' rash response in chastising Palestinians will likely scar US credibility, or whatever remains of it
24 February, 2006
Punishing
Hamas Is Punishing
The Palestinian People
By Hasan Abu Nimah
Punishing Hamas for being elected and punishing the Palestinians for practising their right to democratic life is wrong, irresponsible and not conducive to peace and security
16 February, 2006
Clearing
The Jordan Valley Of Palestinians
By Amira Hass
The Palestinians have disappeared from the valley, aside from a few thousand who live there plus some to whom Israel agrees to give daily entrance permits for various reasons
14 February, 2006
Life
In Occupied Palestine
By Stephen Lendman
If real justice is ever to be achieved, 6 decades of Israeli Zionist oppression must be fully exposed and condemned for what it's been and still is - crimes as grievous as everything the Nazis did to the Jews except for the mass production death camps. The Zionists have their own type death camps - slow motion genocide behind the false facade of conciliation
08 February, 2006
The
Third Intifada
By Sam Bahour
welcome to the third Palestinian intifada. The first was with stones, the second a mix between non-violent and more violent means, and this one via a ballot box. With Hamas' landslide victory in the Palestinian elections breaking years of political stagnation, we are witnessing, right before our eyes, a chapter of history being made
Olive
Oil In North America
By Sonia Nettnin
An economic market with international growth potential that has emerged recently is the fair trade of Palestinian products in North America. Farmers in village cooperatives and farming collectives have the opportunity to sell goods, such as olive oil and olive soap at fair prices
Is
It really So Surprising? –
Hamas Victory In Palestine
By Brita Rose
This is not the end of the peace process, which is no worse of than it was a month ago – going nowhere. If Hamas channels its energies on more realistic goals like negotiating with the international community and a nation that already exists like it or not, it will gain respect
31 January, 2006
The
Only Democracy In The Middle East
By Remi Kanazi
These elections have proven the failure of unilateralism. An occupier cannot force the occupied into concession by pretending they don't exist. In this case, the occupied shifted towards a conservative movement that does a better job feeding Palestinian children, sending them to school, and rebuilding bulldozed houses. Hamas chose to fight against injustice, rather than give into it
The
Hamas Victory: Democratization –
But Not what The US Expected
By Laurie King-Irani
Wednesday’s landslide victory for Hamas over Fatah in the Palestinian legislative elections should surprise no one. More than a dozen years after the Oslo accords, Palestinians have passed a public verdict on the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the old guard that it represents
30 January, 2006
Hamas
Success
By Ghali Hassan
Hamas had won the elections so overwhelmingly and fairly should encourage the West, and the U.S. in particular, to reach out to the Palestinian people, and act as honest brokers for a just and lasting peace in Palestine
New
Paradigm After The Victory Of Hamas
By Sam Bahour
The US and Israel shouldn't set pre-conditions on duly elected leadership
27 January, 2006
Hamas
Election Victory: A Vote For Clarity
By Ali Abunimah
Hamas' success is as much an expression of the determination of Palestinians to resist Israel's efforts to force their surrender as it is a rejection of Fatah. It reduces the conflict to its most fundamental elements: there is occupation, and there is resistance
The
Hamas Victory
By Uri Avnery
Many of the votes given to Hamas had nothing to do with peace, religion and fundamentalism, but with protest
25 January, 2006
Illusion
Of Democracy: The Palestinian Elections
By Saree Makdisi
With about 80 percent of eligible voters registered, and more than 700 candidates running in a hotly contested campaign for 132 seats on the Palestinian Legislative Council, the stage is set for what is being packaged as an impressive exercise in democracy when Palestinians in the occupied territories go to the polls on Wednesday
19 January, 2006
Despair
Plagues Exiled Palestinians
By Sam Bahour and Michael Dahan
The 38-year Israeli military
occupation of Palestine and 57 years of ongoing Palestinian dispossession
at the hands of the State of Israel has brought us to a point of total
despair. Today, in 2006, Palestinians have been condensed into pockets
of caged-in communities, taking on varying shapes and forms
13 January, 2006
Israeli
Army Uprooting Olive Groves
By Khalid Amayreh
"They uprooted the huge olive trees with the jackhammers, trimmed the bigger branches with large electric saws and then lifted the trees aboard awaiting trucks apparently in order to replant them elsewhere in Israel."
08 January, 2006
The
Dying Of Ariel Sharon
By Andrew Wilsom
What if he was reincarnated in the womb of a Palestinian woman?
07 January, 2006
Ready,
Aim, Cease-Fire
By Remi Kanazi
birds living in Gaza are collectively punished. The "promised" bombardment of Gaza began the last week of December,striking a Fatah office and ten roads. But it's ok because Israeli forces dropped leaflets, in Arabic and English, to warn Gazans that "Israel is on the attack."
Three
wishes For The New Year
By Hasan Abu Nimah
The new year is a moment to wish and campaign for meaningful change in the way the world is. And despite the breathtaking enormity of human progress, there remains too much to wish for still in terms of ending violence, injustice and poverty. For our region I have three specific wishes which if realised, would contribute substantially to a safer and better-managed world
03 January, 2006
Torture:
The Israeli Denial
By Ghali Hassan
As the U.S. methods of torture are exposed around the world, Israeli methods of systematic torture on the Palestinians remain unbroken taboo
