The impetus for Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution, as editor Jamil Hilal states in his introduction, is the increasing recognition within the Palestinian nationalist movement and among some Israelis that “the Oslo process has collapsed and the two-state solution has reached an impasse.” This collection of eleven essays aims “to show in some detail why and how this collapse has happened, and why some new solution has to be found.” Ali Abunimah reviews. Read more about Book review: "Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution"
Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani12 June 2008
CAIRO, 12 June (IPS) - After an eight-year hiatus, Israel and Syria have resumed negotiations — albeit via Turkish middlemen — on the issue of the strategic Golan Heights, occupied by Israel since 1967. But according to analysts in Cairo, neither side appears entirely genuine in its desire to reach a final settlement. Read more about Israel and Syria in diplomatic charade
JABALIYAREFUGEECAMP, Gaza, 11 June (IPS) - In the brightly painted new intensive care unit wing of al-Awda, northern Gaza’s only emergency medical facility in the massive Jabaliya refugee camp, doctors, nurses, aides and administrators are ready to provide emergency surgery services for the area’s 300,000 people. Read more about Gaza hospitals in need of care
“National suicide” will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the “bomb Iran” bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can’t trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions — such as preemptive attack — may be not only justified but necessary. George Bisharat comments. Read more about The fallacy of Islamic "national suicide"
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and US President George W. Bush follow contradictory policy tracks. In the major media offensive accompanying last November’s US-sponsored Annapolis peace conference both leaders presented themselves as the peace makers of the region. In Annapolis, Olmert committed to freezing settlement expansion. However, since that time according to numerous sources Olmert’s government has been accelerating illegal settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land. Read more about Israel accelerates settlement expansion after Annapolis
WASHINGTON, 9 June (IPS) - With the Iranian nuclear “threat” in the crosshairs, discussion of Palestinians or a Syrian-Israeli detente was virtually non-existent. But then again, one should not expect many overtures for peace when attending the annual policy conference for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Read more about Pledging allegiance to AIPAC
GAZACITY, 6 June (IPS) - In the early hours of Friday morning, Israeli warplanes targeted a Hamas-run security post in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, injuring 29 Palestinian civilians, according to Gaza medical sources. In the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of al-Shuja’iya, a 27-year-old man was shot dead by Israeli special forces during another invasion. Read more about Palestinian leaders take step towards reducing rift
In 1948 the state of Israel declared independence on the destroyed historic homeland of Palestine, an event Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). During this period, the majority of the indigenous inhabitants of the land were forced to flee, and the descendants of those approximately 750,000 refugees now number in the millions. The above slideshow is a selection of images all addressing this anniversary. Read more about Photostory: The month in pictures, May 2008
Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of US complicity in Israel’s barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as “the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel.” Margaret Kimberley comments. Read more about Slow death in Gaza
The siege of Gaza has many layers. I work here as a journalist, amid near-daily air and land assaults from Israel, amid the unending killings and destruction of land and livelihood, which are all made more unbearable by critical shortages of fuel, food, medicine, electricity for hospital machinery and electricity for my work. Recently I returned from fieldwork to find cheerful news from John Pilger: that I have won the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, along with my respected colleague Dahr Jamail. Read more about An award for the voiceless in Gaza
