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One Morning in Palestine

Fadi Abu Sa'da Bethlehem 8 July 2004


It was 2am Thursday morning, when I went to sleep, After following the news as usual, I was having a very tough migraine. I have experienced these tough migraines for a while because of the stress I have working as a journalist. I keep the walky-talky next to my head when I go to sleep, so that I can hear anyone calling me with urgent news, even while I’m having this migraine and at this time in the morning. I fell asleep, before someone began shouting on the walky-talky at 6am, and I jumped from bed to answer. His voice was deeply sad, and he was hardly able to talk, and he said “Fadi… Fadi… Ten Palestinians were just killed in Beat Hanoun village”. 

Live Internet video coverage of the reading of the Court’s Advisory Opinion

8 July 2004


The reading of the Advisory Opinion to be rendered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), principal judicial organ of the United Nations, in the case concerning the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (request for advisory opinion), will be transmitted in full, live, on the Court’s website on Friday 9 July 2004, from 3 p.m. The general public, civil society organizations and the media worldwide, contributed to this decision. 

Nablus: When does it stop?

Arjan El Fassed Nablus, Palestine 9 July 2004


“Where is your howiya?” shouts an Israeli soldier at me. “I don’t have one,” I reply. Huwara checkpoint seems quiet. Israeli women from Makhsoom Watch try to speed up the process by watching at the scene. Palestinians are standing in line awaiting inspection. “It’s forbidden to enter Nablus for foreigners and Israeli citizens,” the soldier says. Since my father left Nablus in 1963 and since I was born in The Netherlands I don’t have an Israeli occupation identity card, also known as “howiya”. It takes some time to explain the immigrant soldier that I want to visit my family. 

Hunger strike against Israel's Apartheid Wall enters fourth day

6 July 2004


Azmi Bishara’s hunger strike against the construction of the Israeli Apartheid wall is now entering its fourth day. The hunger strike is a call to focus attention and rally support against the Apartheid Wall being built by Israel which will cantonize the West Bank and Jerusalem, severing Palestinians familial, social, cultural and economic ties and separating parents from children and brother from sister. The Hunger Strike and solidarity tent set up at the northern entrance of Jerusalem at the point where the wall is currently being built has seen a continuous stream of solidarity delegations from all over the country. 

Azmi Bishara on Hunger Strike Protesting the Construction of Israel's Separation Wall

4 July 2004


Member of Knesset Azmi Bishara of the National Democratic Assembly (NDA) has declared an open hunger strike protesting the Israeli government’s construction of the separation wall in the occupied West Bank and in the surrounding areas of Jerusalem. Upon declaring his hunger strike, Bishara was immediately joined by Palestinian national figures Ahmed Ghneim, Hatem Abdel Qader, Abdel Latif Gheith, As’ad Musilmani, Suheir Khader, Terry Bulata, Jamal Jum’a, Musa Abu Gharbiyeh and Judeh al Jamal. The hunger strikers will remain in a protest tent that has been pitched in the town of Ar-Ram, adjacent to one of the sites of on going Israeli wall construction. 

Israel as the powerful party should take the first clear step towards peace

Jeff Handmaker and Adri Nieuwhof 7 July 2004


One of the biggest challenges amongst activists concerned with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a growing divide in the perspectives of peace advocates on one side and human rights advocates on the other. In attempting to explain or justify the use of violence, one can easily forget that that one party has a heavily fortified military with nuclear weapons capability; the other a population so oppressed and desperate, that some are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to claim casualties on the other side. Jeff Handmaker and Adri Nieuwhof critically examine whether these perspectives are reconcilable through promoting participation of Palestinian refugees. 

Speakers at Capetown meeting compare situation in Palestine with South African apartheid

1 July 2004


Representatives of civil society concerned with the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict met in Cape Town today to explore the role of civil society in supporting a peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During the meeting, a number of speakers described the similarities and differences between the Palestinian and South African struggles and urged the conference to call for a boycott of products from Jewish settlements. International isolation, internal resistance, underground movement and armed resistance, pillars of the South African struggle, should be kept in mind when talking about a platform for a solution to the Palestinian question. 

U.S. Peace Activist Remains in Detention After Hearing

7 July 2004


American peace activist Ann Petter who has been detained for 14 days at Ben Gurion airport, appeared today before Judge Oded Mudrik at Tel Aviv District Court. Petter was charged with being a security threat to the State of Israel. Judge Mudrik postponed the decision on Petter’s case until Thursday, July 8, 2004 at 11:30 a.m. in Tel Aviv District Court. Petter is a 44-year old graphic designer from New York who planned to attend a nonviolent peace march organized by the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Judge Mudrik refused to release Petter from detention while the decision is pending. 

The State Cannot Legislate On Matters Of Love

Am Johal 7 July 2004


Recently Israeli President Moshe Katsav publicly stated that human rights are basic rights and cannot be based on obligations set by the state — in other words, these rights are inherent to being human and cannot be taken away or limited by the state. In Israel where the desire for the security of the state and its citizens is used as a pretext to limit the advancement of human and civil rights both in Israel and the Occupied Territories, this is enlightened thinking coming from the head of state. Am Johal reports. 

About A Wall

Glenn Bowman 9 July 2004


“Israel simultaneously extends its protective wall outwards so as to encompass and protect all the members of a globally distributed ethno-religious population that it views as its ‘concern.’ Like the United States, which, with the demise of the Soviet Union, is able to celebrate its power to defend its citizens and its interests everywhere, Israel has, with its victories over the antagonisms against which it established itself, become unrestrained in its will to sovereign power both within and beyond its borders.” Anthropologist Glenn Bowman of the University of Kent examines the socioeconomic contexts and the cultural underpinnings of Israel’s Apartheid Wall.