For nearly 20 years, the two-state solution has been promoted as the agreed framework for negotiations and ultimately peace to end the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. But two decades on, it has failed to bear fruit. Co-founder of the Electronic Intifada and author of the book, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, discusses his book with Al Jazeera’s Laila El-Haddad. Read more about Al Jazeera interviews EI's Ali Abunimah
The US decision to back Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in the recent turmoil virtually guarantees an escalation in violence. Abbas has installed an unelected “emergency” government to replace the democratically elected Hamas-led national unity government. Some have portrayed, Hamas’ takeover of Palestinian Authority security compounds in Gaza as a “coup.” But many Palestinians do not view it that way. EI’s Ali Abunimah writes in The Chicago Tribune. Read more about In search of justice in the Middle East
The following letter to the editor by EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was published by The Irish Times on 19 June 2007: As a Palestinian, I am appalled that the European Union and the United States have backed Mahmoud Abbas’s so-called “emergency government” in Israeli-occupied Ramallah. The Palestinian Basic Law makes no provision for such a development. Hamas, no matter what one thinks of it, won the January 2006 election fair and square. On the eve of its victory, it had already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel. Read more about Division among Palestinians
EI’s Ali Abunimah appeared on Democracy Now!, interviewed by host Amy Goodman, on Friday, 15 June 2007. He was joined by journalist and mother living in Gaza, Laila El-Haddad. Abunimah and El-Haddad discuss the current situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as Hamas takes control over the Gaza Strip. The two discuss US and Israel’s involvement in the recent fighting between Fatah and Hamas which has been commonly referred to as a civil war. Read more about Audio/Transcript: Ali Abunimah and Laila El-Haddad on the situation in Gaza
EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was interviewed on Flashpoints Radio on Wednesday, 23 May 2007. He joined host Nora Barrows-Friedman to discuss the corporate media’s response to the refugee issue in Lebanon within the context of the latest fighting in Nahr al-Bared camp between the Lebanese military and Fatah al-Islam. Abunimah told Barrows-Friedman, “It’s amazing how much context is missing from the corporate media … I have seen them [Fatah al-Islam] portrayed in the US media as a Palestinian group, they are not a Palestinian group.” Read more about Ali Abunimah discusses the recent fighting in Lebanon on Flashpoints
In the Christian Science Monitor, Ali Abunimah cites the successes of South Africa’s and Ireland’s unity governments as evidence that a single Israeli-Palestinian state could work: “In both places,” he observes, “it was only when the dominant group dropped its insistence on supremacy that a political settlement could be reached. What was once unimaginable happened.” Read more about Cross Country: Leaving Iraq, Engaging Iran
EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was interviewed on Flashpoints Radio on Monday, 7 May 2007. He joined host Nora Barrows-Friedman to discuss the persecution of Azmi Bishara, who recently resigned from the Israeli Kenesset and is now effectively living in exile, unable to return to his country. Abunimah told Barrows-Friedman, “The reason Israel announced the investigation when Bishara was outside the country, and then … announced that he could face the death penalty if he returned, was that Israel wants him out of the country because they do not want the Palestinian community in Israel to be galvanized around the message of democracy…” Read more about Ali Abunimah discusses the persecution of Azmi Bishara on Flashpoints
The Palestinian right of return was overwhelmingly supported at the latest Doha Debate on March 28. The issue is seen by many as the most intractable barrier to a Middle East peace settlement. Yossi Beilin, a Knesset member and Chairman of the Meretz-Yachad party, and Bassem Eid, a long-time Palestinian human rights campaigner, argued for the motion. They were challenged by Israeli academic Ilan Pappe and Ali Abunimah co-founder of Electronic Intifada.net. Watch the latest Doha Debate: ‘This House believes the Palestinians should give up their full right of return’ on BBC World on April 14th and 15th. Read more about Palestinian Right of Return: EI co-founder in Doha Debates on BBC
Tapping into the restlessness among young left-wing Jews might be a place to start. “I meet these kids all the time on campuses all over the country,” says author Ali Abunimah. “This generation of young Jews is not as tied to the romantic Exodus story of their parents. They want a free and open debate about the rights and wrongs of supporting a country that privileges people based on arbitrary characteristics.” “The danger for AIPAC is that once Humpty Dumpty drops off the wall, you can’t put him together again,” says Abunimah. “And what is keeping the debate from happening now is political brute force. That’s what we see in the Obama case.” Read more about AIPAC Alternative?
The Palestinian Right of Return was considered 28 March 2007 at the Doha Debates, a public forum for dialogue and freedom of speech in Qatar. Yossi Beilin, a Knesset member and Chairman of the Meretz-Yachad party, and Bassem Eid, of the Palestine Human Rights Monitoring Group, argued for the motion that “the Palestinians should give up their full right of return.” Ali Abunimah, cofounder of The Electronic Intifada, and Israeli academic Ilan Pappe challenged the motion, which was rejected by almost 82 percent of the audience. The following is an email exchange between Bassem Eid and Ali Abunimah published on the Guardian’s Comment is free blog. Read more about Bassem Eid v Ali Abunimah
