The Electronic Intifada

CNN's Jerrold Kessel decides that the existence of the Israeli military occupation is merely 'a point of view'

Ali Abunimah and
Nigel Parry
12 April 2001

Any suggestion that the 34-year-old Israeli military occupation is a Palestinian “opinion”, rather than an internationally established fact, represents the extreme end of irresponsible and inexact international media reporting. CNN’s Jerrol Kessel goes there.

The New Yorker’s Israel: Where Objectivity Fails

Zachary Wales
5 June 2004

Where objectivity fails, investigative and feature-oriented journalism plays a potent role. On May 31, the New Yorker published Jeffrey Goldberg’s 21-page “Among the Settlers.” Unfortunately, his essay is not more than an attempt to legitimize Zionism, an ethnically exclusive colonial project, as a liberal idea. Moreover, by eliminating the legitimate and empirical arguments against Zionism, Goldberg leaves his readers with few moral conclusions. The direction he intends those conclusions to take is partly revealed in his omission of the most convincing anti-Zionist argument: the right of return.

Crippled Justice: Limping Towards the Wall

Andreas Mueller
2 June 2004

With the construction of the ‘Separation Wall’ in the West Bank being brought before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, for the very first time an aspect of the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been transferred from the usual forums of international debate (the UN Security Council, General Assembly, and subsidiary bodies) to an international judicial body. This novelty raised considerable optimism on some sides. Andreas Mueller, argues however that these expectations have to be closely examined in view of the legal and political limits of the ‘World Court.’

Film review: Remembering Palestine and Writers on the Borders

Maureen Clare Murphy
3 June 2004

Like every other aspect of Palestinian life, art and culture, though not destroyed, have been crushed under the heavy weight of the Israeli occupation’s tanks and curfews. The documentary films Writers on the Borders and Remembering Palestine feature international writers and artists who visit Palestine and find a shocking landscape of destruction. But, as the narrator Dominique Dubosc explains in Remembering, the question is not so much one of succeeding to restart art schools in the West Bank and Gaza, as being there to bear witness.

Film review: Jihad!

Maureen Clare Murphy
2 June 2004

Boldly using one of the most misused words in the U.S. press as its title, a word that strikes at the greatest anxiety of Americans towards Islam, the new feature film Jihad! informs its viewers that what the word is really about is zeal and struggle. Following Ed, a young Palestinian New Yorker who struggles between his homeland’s tradition and the American lifestyle, the film stresses that the most important jihad is the struggle within oneself. Read the review of Palestinian-American Muhammed Rum’s film, to be premiered at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival this week.

"In our hearts and in our work": The continuing influence of Rachel Corrie in Olympia

candio.
1 June 2004

One year after the murder of activist Rachel Corrie by the Israelis in Gaza, her local community has not forgotten her. Ms. Corrie continues to inspire and lead in Olympia, it may even be possible that she has become more powerful in death than in life. There is some solace in this ability to affect change postmortem, to have truly achieved martyr status, but it is an aching solace tinged with loss. At the same time, there is this harsh and parallel realization that Olympia has lost but one life to the Occupation. It is sobering and hard to truly imagine the sorrow of the Palestinians who have lost so many and so much. candio. reports from Olympia.

Taking a call for justice in the Middle East to Kerry's doorstep

Tom Wallace
1 June 2004

In the aftermath of the horror that has been visited upon Rafah over the past two weeks in particular but the past three years in general, Americans across the country are asking their congress people to stop military aid to Israel. On Friday 21 May 2004, there were sit-ins and other similar actions at congressional offices in San Francisco, Louisville, New Orleans, Albuquerque, Olympia, New York, and more. Following a week of calling representatives, Senators and the White House, Bostonians marched to the campaign office of John Kerry. Tom Wallace reports for EI.

Film review: Ford Transit

Maureen Clare Murphy
30 May 2004

”Staying in one place is killing me,” says Rajai, the charismatic West Bank refugee who serves as the center of the Palestinian feature film Ford Transit. Although this comment was made while explaining his unorthodox career choice of being a taxi driver, Rajai’s attitude can be applied on a larger level to describe the feeling of a generation of refugees who live under the thumb of Israeli occupation. Read the rest of the review of this excellent new film by acclaimed Palestinian director Hany Abu Asad.

Photostory: Suffering and desolation in Rafah, 23 May 2004

Mahfouz Abu Turk
27 May 2004

Mahfouz Abu Turk is a Palestinian photojournalist based in Jerusalem. Abu Turk has taken photos for Agency France Press, Associated Press, the Washington Report, has seen his work exhibited around the world, and currently works with Reuters. Abu Turk was the first journalist to enter the camp of Jenin following the invasion in May 2003. On 24 May 2004, he went to Rafah and brought back these images from the aftermath of Israel’s “Operation Rainbow”.

The Crimes of War: Between Al-Zeitoun (Gaza) and Rafah

Tamar Gozansky
Rafah,
Gaza Strip
26 May 2004

Tamar Gozansky is an former member of the Israeli Knesset and a member of the political bureau of the Israeli Communist Party. She visited Gaza on 19 May 2004: “Attention is now drawn to the Israeli war crimes committed by the IDF in Rafah on May 19; especially to the numerous victims of the shelling by Israeli tanks of a civilian demonstration, mostly youth and children, at high noon. I watched the horrific live TV images of wounded children, youth running for shelter and smoke rising from the shelled location, in the company of the head of the Palestinian Internal Security in Gaza City, Rashid Abu Shbak, alias Abu Khatem.”

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