Nora Barrows-Friedman

Since 24 March, Israeli forces have sealed the southern occupied West Bank village of Beit Ommar for an indefinite amount of time as soldiers continue to arrest young Palestinian residents and hold them in Israeli detention centers.

Eleven University of California students face criminal charges and possible jail terms for protesting and disrupting a speech by an Israeli official as the Orange County district attorney’s office engages in what one of the students’ attorneys calls “selective and discriminatory prosecution”

Matthew Cassel, photojournalist and an editor with The Electronic Intifada, is currently in Cairo and has been documenting the unfolding of the Egyptian revolution. He spoke with Nora Barrows-Friedman today about the unflagging steadfastness of the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

For decades the United States government has attempted to criminalize work in the Palestinian community in support of their national liberation cause. A special feature by The Electronic Intifada shows that in recent years, this repression has increased dramatically.

Nora Barrows-Friedman reports on the response of Palestinian citizens of Israel to the Israeli Foreign Minister’s plan proposed to the United Nations to strip Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship.

As direct negotiations are underway between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, activists with dissenting political parties are being arrested and worse in the occupied West Bank. Nora Barrows-Friedman reports from Dehiesheh refugee camp.

As US officials arrived in Jerusalem last week to meet with Palestinian Authority and Israeli government officials, The Electronic Intifada interviewed Ramallah-based lawyer and former PLO advisor Diana Buttu about this week’s US-brokered direct talks between the two parties.

Salt of This Sea (2008), Annemarie Jacir’s groundbreaking feature film, premieres in the US this week after two years on the road and winning over 20 awards in countless international film festivals. Nora Barrows-Friedman interviewed the film’s star, Suheir Hammad, for The Electronic Intifada.

Since the 31 May attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla, during which Israeli naval commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara ship in international waters and killed nine unarmed activists, international organizations and several governments have condemned Israel for its actions at high sea. Nora Barrows-Friedman reports for The Electronic Intifada.

Within hours of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla being intercepted and besieged in international waters by Israeli commandos, news of the bloody attack had spread across the globe. Rage, condemnation and calls for an international investigation followed. Meanwhile, Israel’s campaign to spin the attack, distort the facts and quell an outraged public was already in full swing. Abraham Greenhouse and Nora Barrows-Friedman analyze for The Electronic Intifada.