right of return

The Arab rebellions are being created by the social movement — by the people — in all its currents and forces that seek change; in other words, by the great majority of the peoples in revolt. Ameer Makhoul writes from Gilboa Prison.

Earlier this month in Montpellier, France, more than a hundred activists from nine countries gathered for the first ever European Forum Against Agrexco for two full days of workshops aimed at strengthening the boycott campaign against the Israeli agricultural export giant.

Victor Kattan argues that UN membership for a State of Palestine would be a strategic asset to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, although there are risks involved.

While Lebanon’s Naksa Day demonstrations were prevented by Lebanese security, demonstrations went on throughout the occupied West Bank as well as by Palestine supporters worldwide.

In an interview with The Electronic Intifada contributor Max Blumenthal, agronomist and Palestinian rights activist Rami Zurayk described how 150 representatives of Palestinian factions and refugee groups gathered to wrangle over the nascent May 15 movement’s language and long-term strategy.

“The old will die and the young will forget” — this was the prediction of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. Sixty-three years later, I still wonder what made him think so.

The Electronic Intifada speaks with Jon Elmer (www.jonelmer.ca), a Canadian independent journalist based in Bethlehem who documented protests in the occupied West Bank today.

When I Return is an online participatory campaign that features simple notes by Palestinians, Arabs and allies describing what they hope to do when Palestine is free and/or they return to Palestine. It seeks to unleash the internal life of our longing for home, and highlight the imaginative expanse of our dreams.

A shack made of aluminum sheets and wood, and a few cows and chickens are all that Suleiman al-Urjani, 45, owns in this world. It is the kind of dwelling that al-Urjani, his father Auda and their families have lived in since 1948 when the family was first displaced by Zionist forces from their original home in what is now Israel.