“Just as it is apparently impossible for the President of the United States to visit the Middle East without a corresponding visit to Buchenwald, it is apparently also impossible to have a news article on Palestinian humanity without a corresponding reminder that Arabs do not understand the Holocaust.” So writes Belén Fernández in a comment on how The New York Times covers the work of Palestinian musicians. Read more about Music, The New York Times and the politics of a Palestinian state
When the Israeli navy seized the Spirit of Humanity and its 21 passengers on 30 June, did the commandos commit acts of piracy under international law? Civil rights attorney Radhika Sainath argues that the laws of piracy should not be selectively applied to poor Africans who hijack huge tankers belonging to rich corporations, but enforced against Israel as well. Read more about Is Israel guilty of piracy?
HeidelbergCement, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of building materials, is reportedly trying to sell its Israeli investments as it has become the target of legal action because of its activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Adri Nieuwhof reports for EI that the move comes amid growing pressure by the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement on transnational companies profiting from Israeli occupation. Read more about HeidelbergCement tries to sell West Bank mines as legal, boycott pressures grow
While Israel has been buying yet more time with Washington in bickering over a paltry settlement freeze, it has been forging ahead with the process of creating two Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that, despite supposedly emerging from occupation, are in reality sinking ever deeper into chronic dependency on Israeli goodwill. This is creating a culture of absolute Israeli control and absolute Palestinian dependency, enforced by proxy Palestinian rulers acting as mini-dictatorships. Jonathan Cook comments. Read more about The victory of defeat
Israel has never been short of pretexts for obstructing progress towards a Middle East peace settlement. But recent moves to push Arab and Muslim states to normalize ties with Israel as a reward for agreeing to freeze settlement construction will likely provide Israel with more opportunities for obstruction rather than incentives for cooperation. Hasan Abu Nimah comments. Read more about Offering Israel new opportunities for obstruction
A February 2008 report by the pro-Israel media watchdog CAMERA claimed the existence of an overwhelming pro-Arab, anti-Israel agenda in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times in “guest op-eds” over a 19-month period. The Electronic Intifada found CAMER ignored articles that undermined its claims. CAMERA responded with another report reaffirming most of its findings, but The Electronic Intifada finds that once again, CAMERA’s analysis fails to pass the credibility test. Read more about CAMERA's broken lens revisited
In a major policy speech on 25 June 2009, Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, tried to do what may be impossible: present the Islamist Palestinian resistance organization as a willing partner in a US-led peace process, while holding on to his movement’s political principles and base. This is the dilemma that every Palestinian leadership, and perhaps almost every liberation movement, has eventually had to confront. It is a choice, as political scientist Tamim Barghouti has pointed out, between recognition and legitimacy. Ali Abunimah analyzes. Read more about Hamas' choice: Recognition or resistance in the age of Obama
Israel’s housing minister called for strict segregation between the country’s Jewish and Arab populations last week as he unveiled plans to move large numbers of fundamentalist religious Jews to Israel’s north to prevent what he described as an “Arab takeover” of the region. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Minister calls for Jewish takeover of Palestinian areas in Israel
The power of posters, as not merely symbolic weapons but also sites of hegemonic struggle during Lebanon’s civil war, is a central theme of Zeina Maasri’s new book Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War. A mix of text and image, the book is a rich and visually engaging work that tackles a dimension of war long-neglected by Lebanese historians. Hicham Safieddine reviews for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Book review: Lebanon's political posters as sites of struggle
GAZACITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - “They told us ‘go west or we will shoot you,’” says Ashraf Sadallah. “Initially, we refused, so they began shooting very close all around our boat.” At 6am on 16 June, Sadallah and his brother Abdel Hadi Sadallah, in their early twenties, went roughly 400 meters out to sea off the coast of Sudaniya in Gaza’s northwest. “We wanted to bring in nets we had left out the night before,” says Sadallah. Read more about Gaza's sea a "no-go zone" for fishermen
