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Palestinian shepherds' livelihoods in jeopardy

2 December 2007


DHAHARIYA, WEST BANK, 2 December (IRIN) - Palestinian herders in the southern part of the West Bank are facing increased poverty due to rising costs of fodder and water, as well as limitations on their access to grazing land, the herders and UN officials said. “Due to global droughts and the rising demand internationally for corn and barley bio-fuels, the prices of corn and barley fodder products have risen dramatically,” said Santiago Ripoll, a food security analyst with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization working in the Hebron area in the southern West Bank. 

The Palestine that we struggle for

Jamal Juma' 1 December 2007


The gulf between the PA and the Palestinian people is becoming increasingly obvious. Indeed the whole range of Palestinian political and social forces joined in condemning the repression on Tuesday. The choice for the PA is clear: either to go along with the dictates of the US and the occupation; or to radically alter their course, to return to the people and remember that they are leaders of the Palestinian national struggle. The grassroots movement against normalization with the occupiers will continue to grow. Resistance will continue as the Palestinian people assert their fundamental rights. Jamal Juma’ comments. 

The One State Declaration

29 November 2007


“For decades, efforts to bring about a two-state solution in historic Palestine have failed to provide justice and peace for the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish peoples, or to offer a genuine process leading towards them.” So begins a statement calling for a one-state solution signed by among others prominent Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists. The statement, issued to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the UN Partition Resolution sets out principles for “a just, and thus enduring, peace in a single state.” 

After 40 years of occupation "solidarity" is not enough

29 November 2007


Over the past 40 years Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has aggressively targeted both the land and the people of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Not simply haphazard structures of concrete, steel and tarmac, Israel’s settlements and their accompanying maze of bypass roads, hundreds of checkpoints, other movement restrictions and the Annexation Wall, are ever-increasing monuments to the dispossession and subjugation of the Palestinian people, at the expense of their fundamental rights guaranteed under international law. 

Shades of grey: Nusseibeh's "Once Upon A Country"

Miko Peled 29 November 2007


In his new historical autobiography Once Upon A Country, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, who many accuse of selling out due to his comments regarding the right of return, highlights the shades of grey in a conflict that most people prefer to see in black and white. Miko Peled reviews Nusseibeh’s new book and finds that it shows that neither Rabin, or Barak or any other Israeli prime minister had ever intended to make peace with the Palestinians. Their intention was, and still is, to turn the Palestinian people into “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the Jewish state that was established on the ashes of a country that, as the book title suggests, once upon a time existed. 

Mission accomplished

Osamah Khalil 29 November 2007


So it is over. The much heralded Annapolis “meeting” attended by over 50 countries and organizations has ended, and the result is a vague, non-binding agreement to begin negotiating. In typical fashion, the Bush administration has hailed the conference of low-expectations and even less tangible results as a “success.” Instead of donning a flight suit and landing on an aircraft carrier, US President George W. Bush offered his best Bill Clinton imitation presiding over a ceremonial handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, like an approving father or Roman emperor. Osamah Khalil comments for EI. 

Ali Abunimah discusses Annapolis on KPFA

Morning Show 28 November 2007


On November 25, EI Co-founder Ali Abunimah, author of One Country, joined Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator and adviser in the Israeli prime minister’s office and Nadia Hijab, senior fellow and co-director at the Institute for Palestine Studies to preview the Annapolis Conference and debate the prospects for a single democratic state in Israel-Palestine. The discussion, hosted by Amy Allison, was broadcast on KPFA’s The Morning Show. 

Hundreds converge on Ramallah for boycott summit

28 November 2007


An important milestone in building the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign was achieved in Ramallah on 22 November 2007. Some 300 activists, members of unions, associations and NGOs in towns, villages and refugee camps of the occupied West Bank, with monitors from the global solidarity movement in Britain, Canada, Norway, Spain and South Africa, convened for a day of discussion and debate about ways to promote all forms of boycott against Israel among Palestinian community organizations, unions, as well as political, academic and cultural institutions. 

Palestinians protest the Annapolis summit

Rami Almeghari 28 November 2007


“We do not recognize those who hold talks in Annapolis; they do not represent the Palestinian people,” said Ismail Haniyeh, the dismissed Palestinian Prime Minister, in response to the Washington-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli summit in Annapolis. The streets of Palestine bore witness that it isn’t only the Hamas leader who doesn’t grant legitimacy to the Palestinian negotiating team at the Annapolis conference. On Tuesday, 27 November, large crowds of Palestinians in Gaza poured out of their homes — as did their brothers and sisters in the West Bank — to protest what they call the “renunciation of Palestinians’ legitimate rights.” EI correspondent Rami Almeghari reports from Gaza. 

PA forcefully disperses peaceful demonstrations, killing one

28 November 2007


Yesterday hundreds of participants took part in peaceful demonstrations and rallies in Hebron, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Nablus that were organized by several political parties and civil society organizations to protest the Annapolis conference in the US. Since the early morning hours of the day, hundreds of security personnel armed with guns and batons were deployed in main streets and areas designated for these assemblies. As soon as people started gathering in these areas, fist fights broke out between the security forces and demonstrators. The security forces attempted to disperse the demonstrators with batons and beatings.