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Month: March 2012

Faith under Occupation
By Ludwig Watzal (Faith under Occupation. The Plight of Indigenous Christians in the Holy Land, published by EAPPI/JIC/WCC, Jerusalem, February 2012.) In the West, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is viewed as only a Muslim-Jewish one. Totally […]

Israel Casually Bars UN Fact Finding Team
By Sami Zaatari Imagine if Iran had recently denied allowing a UN fact-finding team from entering their country to inspect and investigate their atomic energy program. What kind of reaction would most likely come out? […]

Unity Coalition for Israel: Corrupting the Biblical Message
By Stuart Littlewood If you are as puzzled as I am how a true Christian could possibly be taken in by Zionism, a short paper on the phenomenon is available from Sadaka: "The destiny of […]

Protester Killed as Palestinians Mark Land Day
Israeli troops have shot dead a Palestinian man in northern Gaza after a day of protest which saw thousands of people rallying to mark Land Day, a medical spokesman said. Israeli security forces also fired rubber […]

Deportee Urges Shalabi to Reject Gaza Deal
A Palestinian who was deported to Gaza in 2002 has urged Hana Shalabi not to accept a deal under which she will be deported. Shalabi, from Jenin, ended a 43-day hunger strike on Thursday after […]

Israeli Forces Open Fire on West Bank Protesters
Israeli troops and Palestinians clashed in the occupied West Bank city of Qalandiya on Friday. A dozen other demonstrations were also planned for after the Friday Prayers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip as […]

Third Intifada: Barghouti’s Manifesto
By Uri Avnery Marwan Barghouti has spoken up. After a long silence, he has sent a message from prison. In Israeli ears, this message does not sound pleasant. But for Palestinians, and for Arabs in […]

This Land is Ours
By Stephen Williams We climbed the hill at Al Khader, overlooking Bethlehem, and marvelled at the view of the city and, to our right, the extensive Israeli settlement of Gilo. Reaching the summit, Mohammed and […]

Words! – A Poem
By Samah Sabwai I’ve been down this road before: Someone tries to teach me how to use words that can ‘open doors’. Offering me tips in communication. “Instead of saying ‘Apartheid’ try a ‘system of segregation’”. […]

Fuel Crisis: Egyptian MPs in Gaza to Hold Talks
An Egyptian parliamentary delegation has arrived in the Gaza Strip to hold talks with the Palestinian movement Hamas on the ongoing fuel crisis in the coastal sliver. The delegation, which consists of 28 Egyptian lawmakers, […]

Abbas Backs Arab Peace Plan at Iraq Summit
President Mahmoud Abbas urged regional leaders Thursday to support the Arab peace initiative, adopted in Beirut in 2002, to reach a comprehensive peace between Israel and Palestine. In an address to an Arab League summit […]

Water Used to Coerce Bedouin Villagers: NGO
Salim Abu al-Qi’an’s family live in Israel’s Negev desert in the ‘unrecognized’ Bedouin village of Umm al-Hieran, 9km from the nearest source of clean water. “There is no water in the village. We truck it […]

Activists Plan Land Day Events
International activists are making the final preparations for the Global March to Jerusalem to commemorate the Palestinian Land Day on March 30. Pro-Palestinian activists plan to hold a demonstration near the southern Lebanese border on […]

In Defense of Helen Thomas: What’s Wrong with History?
By Tony Phillips On Monday The Huffington Post ran a story by Michael Calderone covering the White House Correspondents Association’s decision to deny veteran journalist Helen Thomas a table at its upcoming dinner at the […]

Computing Intifada: When Will Palestinians Revolt?
By Ramzy Baroud When will the Palestinians revolt? The answer, according to an Israeli official: not this year (as quoted by Agency France Press). An internal Israeli Foreign Ministry report last month also concluded that […]

‘Friends of Syria’: Fateful Times for Turkey
By Jeremy Salt – Ankara These are fateful times for Turkey. It has invested heavily in the rebellion against the Syrian government. It threw its weight behind the establishment of the so-called Syrian National Council […]

Israel Court Rejects Plea on Outpost Removal
Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected the state’s request to postpone the dismantling of a large illegal West Bank settler enclave until 2015, dealing a blow to the settler movement’s hopes to keep dozens of such […]

Israel Cuts Ties with UN Human Rights Council
Israel has severed ties with the UN Human Rights Council after the committee launched an international investigation into Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Tel Aviv would prevent the […]

Helping Ex-detainee Children Cope with Trauma
A year after his arrest and detention by the Israeli military in Bethlehem, Hamza, a 17-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank, is seeing a social worker to try and overcome the trauma he suffered in […]

Balandi is America’s My Lai
By Ramzy Baroud Like Vietnam, Afghanistan is a lost cause, and more troops will do nothing but push the US deeper into the quagmire. Some of us warned about the Vietnamisation of Afghanistan as early […]

Groups Urge Arab Summit to Address right of Return
Organizations supporting Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are calling on the Arab League to include refugee rights in the agenda of Thursday’s Arab League summit. The petition to Secretary-General of the Arab League Nabil al-Arabi and […]

Israeli Court Rejects Hunger Striker’s Appeal
An Israeli military court has rejected the appeal of a Palestinian woman on hunger strike for 39 days. "The Israeli military court rejected the appeal and now we will go to the High Court," lawyer Jawad […]

Insight into Post Arab Spring
By Jamal Kanj The results of a 2011 polling study conducted by the Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies in Doha offer a great insight into post Arab Spring. Covering 12 Arab countries, the […]

100 Years of the ANC: Palestinians Resisting Israeli Apartheid
By Ahmed Kathrada (Message from Ahmed Kathrada on the Occasion of the 8th International Israeli Apartheid Week, held recently at the University of Johannesburg — Kathrada, spent 18 years as a political prisoner on Robben Island during […]

Kandahar and Toulouse: A Tale of Two Cities
By Sarah Gillespie ‘Western civilization? I think it would be a good idea.’ — Mahatma Gandhi The US army staff sergeant Robert Bales, who shot dead Afghani civilians in their homes two weeks ago, has […]

Confined Cruelty: Israeli Treatment of Palestinian Minors
By Graham Peebles For many Palestinian children their childhood is lived under a cloak of fear, and the threat of violence and abuse at the hands of an armed force that stalks the streets of […]

Israel Rejects Cooperation with UN over Settlements
Israel has rejected to cooperate with the United Nations in an investigation by the world body’s Human Rights Council to probe the impacts of Israeli settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin […]

Fuel to Restart Power Plant Arrives in Gaza
Israel has opened a key crossing point to allow a large shipment of industrial fuel into the Gaza Strip, Palestinian and Israeli officials said Friday. The move was intended to alleviate an energy crisis brought […]

The Ghetto Within: Exploiting Toulouse
By Uri Avnery Racist hate crimes are particularly ugly. If the victims are children, they are even more so. If they are committed by an Arab against Jewish children, they are also incredibly stupid. This […]

Pearson’s Peacekeeping
By Jim Miles (Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping – The Truth May Hurt. Yves Engler. RED/Fernwood Publishing, Vancouver/Winnipeg, 2012.) This short book, or elongated essay, concerns the political attributes of one of Canada’s more revered politicians, Lester […]