EI in the Press

The Electronic Intifada’s exclusive footage of the multiple disruptions of former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s speech in Chicago last week has now been seen by millions all over the world. EI’s exclusive video report of this event, posted on YouTube, had 100,000 views and had been reposted or cited as a source by news organizations all over the world.

This month The Electronic Intifada, an independent online publication about Palestine and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, marks its eighth anniversary. When we started, the co-founders did not realize that we were engaging in an early experiment in what is now called “new media” or “citizen journalism” before those terms were coined. The Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah writes for bitter-lemonsinternational.org.

As the war in Gaza continues, accurate reporting has been complicated by the closure of borders, unreliable telecommunications, and the highly political nature of the conflict. Ali Abunimah co-founded The Electronic Intifada in 2001, hoping to provide independent and fearless coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He spoke with Rebecca Lewis of Australia’s SBS Radio about his assessment of the media’s coverage of this complex, decades-old conflict.

Palestinian-American journalist and EI co-founder, Ali Abunimah joins host Antony Funnell on Australian Radio, ABC, and discusses visibility in the media and the preconceptions and stereotyping that tag some people as less than desirable and see others ignored altogether.

What if they decided to pursue the Arab-Israeli conflict by other means? Inevitably, it would take place on the Internet. And inevitably Wikipedia would be involved. In what was probably not a very smart idea, Gilead Ini, a senior research analyst for CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, put out an e-mail call for 10 volunteers “to help us keep Israel-related entries on Wikipedia from becoming tainted by anti-Israel editors.”

As the news out of Gaza makes international headlines, Democracy Now! took a look at where the Republican and Democratic presidential contenders stand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Democracy Now! spoke with Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah on 24 January. Abunimah commented, “What we’ve seen from Gaza and what we’ve seen time and again in Lebanon is that resistance will continue, that people will not quietly accept the fate that has been designed for them in the boardrooms of the Pentagon and the White House and the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. People will resist.”

EI co-founder Ali Abunimah and EI contributor and author Jonathan Cook were interviewed on Flashpoints radio out of Berkeley, California on Monday, 7 December 2007. The two were invited on just days before US President George W. Bush’s first ever presedential visit to the Middle East and discussed past Israeli “generous offers” including Camp David in 2000, and Ehud Olmert’s continued policy of ethnic cleansing.

On November 25, EI Co-founder Ali Abunimah, author of One Country, joined Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator and adviser in the Israeli prime minister’s office and Nadia Hijab, senior fellow and co-director at the Institute for Palestine Studies to preview the Annapolis Conference and debate the prospects for a single democratic state in Israel-Palestine. The discussion, hosted by Amy Allison, was broadcast on KPFA’s The Morning Show.

Reality on the ground has many — once again — questioning the viability of a two-state solution and whether the controversial one-state proposal is even worth talking about. On 24 September 2007, EI’s Ali Abunimah appeared on the Canadian Brodcasting Corporation program, The Current with host Anna Maria Tremonti. Abunimah was invited to take part in a debate with Israeli journalist and political columnist for Haaretz, Akiva Eldar to discuss the feasibility, desirability and seeming impossibility of a one-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On Friday, 27 August 2007, EI’s Ali Abunimah appeared on WBEZ Chicago’s Worldview, on which he discussed with host Jerome McDonnell the events that have transpired since Hamas routed Fatah in the Gaza Strip last month. Since then, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has created a new government of dubious legality with technocrat and US darling Salam Fayyad. The US and Israel have offered aid money and sent 1,000 M-16 weapons through Jordan to bolster Abbas’s forces while Fatah security head Mohammad Dahlan has resigned.