“On May 22, at 2 P.M., the lectures and the audience arrived at hall 715 in the university. The doors were locked. In the corridor stood the university’s chief of security forces and ten of his henchmen, all armed with pistols and walkie-talkies. I was pushed into a side room by the chief and his lieutenant and handed a personal letter from the president, Yehuda Hayut. This was done in front of my wife and my colleagues, who watched helplessly as the macabre scene unfolded. Outside the corridor, my wife heard two other lieutenants of the chief informing the president over their walkie-talkies, ‘We caught him!’ They also said to each other, ‘High time! They should do the same to all the leftist lectures in the university!’” Dr. Ilan Pappe, a professor at Haifa University, prevents a chilling account in clinical detail of heavy-handed repression of academic speech at his university. Read more about The President, the Dean, and the Historiography of 1948 Palestine 

The exhilaration of some over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s utterance of the word occupation after over three decades of iron-fist military control of the Palestinian people and their land has, like Israel’s conditioned acceptance of the U.S.-drawn road map, received much undeserved credit. Samar Assad comments. Read more about Sharon's Unique Definition of Occupation 

“I follow the lines carefully with my finger on the screen. Mus’ab Jaber was shot dead. Do you ever become accustomed to this, as if it is normal? Why should you? It is not normal. It is excessive, but it never makes it normal. I don’t have the forbearance of many of my Arab friends. When I cried out, my Internet folk brought me a glass of water. That wouldn’t change the news, but I appreciated the care.” Regular EI contributor Annie Higgins remembers one Palestinian boy from Jenin. Read more about The last time I saw Mus'ab 

International aid workers have been shut out from Gaza since Saturday 10th May. Despite the worsening humanitarian situation, the Israeli army says the exclusion could become permanent. Since January, many of us have been refused entry to Israel, cross-examined and even deported. Now aid organisations are talking about pulling out. Read more about End of all aid work in Palestine? 

“The relocation policy of shifting the Bedouin population into official settlements has the added benefit of creating a cheap source of labour for the Jewish economy. Life for the Bedouins is made as difficult as possible in order to pressure them into making that move. With the help of the legal ‘hocus pocus’ involved with the 1965 Planning and Construction Law, Unrecognised Villages became ‘de-legalised’ — existing buildings were unable to obtain permits and those which already possessed them, schools for example, had them rescinded. Whole communities became illegal.” Nick Pretzlik details the vast array of injustices committed against Bedouin citizens of Israel since 1948. Read more about We reap what we sow 

Israel, not Iraq, holds that distinction of being the first country in the region to use weapons of mass destruction with genocidal intent. Salman Abu-Sitta digs into a dark history. Read more about Traces of poison 

The Palestinian people have a genuine chance to achieve their national goals, in spite of the enormous gap between them and their foes, if they pursue a conscious, organized strategy of nonviolent resistance to the occupation on a massive scale. Such a strategy would provide a role for the entire Palestinian people, both inside and outside of Palestine, and would include the Arab world, the international community, and even genuinely peaceloving Israelis. It would focus the energies of the entire nation and move the struggle into an arena that maximizes our natural advantages and neutralizes much of the power of our opponents. Read more about Nonviolent Resistance in Palestine: Pursuing Alternative Strategies 

“Rachel Corrie was my cousin.” With those words, Elizabeth Corrie, an administrator and teacher at the Lovett School in Atlanta, thrust herself into one of the world’s most volatile situations — the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Sheila M. Poole writes in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Read more about Activist's Death in Gaza Moved Atlanta Cousin to Push Palestinian Rights  

[Anthony Hurndall,] the father of a British peace activist left in a coma by an Israeli army bullet has accused the Foreign Office of showing more concern at the killings of Israeli citizens than investigating Israeli responsibility for the shootings of Britons… “I have expressed to the embassy strongly my unease at the fact that immediately following the bombing at the bar in Tel Aviv and the killing of three Israelis, the British government jumped to give a statement of support for Israelis and to freeze funds and make arrests. “In contrast, the almost passive reaction of the British government at the shooting of three of its nationals in Israel is very disturbing,” he said. Read more about Straw under fire for ignoring Israeli attacks on UK nationals 

“The result is that, while Israel claims to be hitting at the “terrorist infrastructure”, the consequence last week was a two-mile funeral procession through Gaza City, in which mourners chanted “no to Abu Mazen”, the new pro-roadmap Palestinian prime minister. In Gaza, as in the other Palestinian territories, the space for moderation gets smaller with every minor humiliation and every death. You don’t have to be a peace activist to understand that this is a kind of madness. If ordinary Israelis and their friends in other countries were to spend even a few hours in Gaza, or talking to people on the West Bank, then it is difficult to imagine them supporting the policies of the present Israeli government.” Read more about Why friends of Israel should see Gaza 

The Israeli military yesterday began obliging foreigners entering the Gaza Strip to sign waivers absolving the army from responsibility if it shoots them. Visitors must also declare that
they are not peace activists. The move came hours before an autopsy on James Miller - the British cameraman killed in a Gaza refugee camp - confirmed that he was almost certainly killed by an Israeli soldier, despite the army’s assertions to the contrary. Yesterday, the British government demanded an Israeli military police criminal investigation into Miller’s death and the shooting of another Briton by the army in Gaza, Tom Hurndall, a peace activist. Chris McGreal reports for The Guardian. Read more about Gaza visitors must sign waiver in case army shoots them 

“Salwa Ziada would like to keep learning about computers and the Internet, but Israeli-imposed curfews keep the Palestinian girl from reaching the community computing center set up for refugees like her.” Oscar S. Cisneros reports for Wired News. Read more about The Trouble With Wiring Palestine  

Law professor and pro-Palestinian agitator Francis Boyle expected to have a lot of e-mail waiting for him after his two-and-a-half-week vacation. But he never imagined that there would be 55,000 messages packing his inbox — many of them hurt, even belligerent, notes from friends and fellow activists. The message that supposedly came from Boyle was a forgery — one of thousands sent out in the names and from e-mail addresses of prominent advocates for the Palestinians — designed to sow dissension, create confusion and waste time in the activist community. Noah Shachtman reports in Wired. Read more about Return to Sender -- 55,000 Times   

“Late on Friday night, I received a phone call: Reuters was reporting that a man had been shot dead in Rafah, on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. That the man was a cameraman and director called James Miller. The sense of shock and fury with which I put the phone down has still not faded: James was a man with whom I spent some of the most extraordinary times of my life, a man of talent, intelligence and integrity. A man I was plotting to go down the pub with in a few weeks’ time.” Cassian Harrison remembers her friend James in the pages of The Guardian — and joins a growing call for a complete investigation into his murder by the IDF. Read more about My friend James 

Scepticism about the Middle East Roadmap is warranted: in its current form, it is unlikely to lead to its stated destination – a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 2005. But it could still be a catalyst for change. The International Crisis Group published a report making specific recommendations to the Quartet, U.S., Israelis and Palestinians about how to maximise the effectiveness of the new approach. Read more about A Middle East Road Map to where? 

Even before its publication, Israel’s supporters in the United States launched a vigorous campaign to sabotage the US-sponsored ‘Road Map’ for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Nearly 400 members of the US House and Senate signed letters circulated by the pro-Israeli lobby opposing the plan, and key figures have spoken out against it. EI’s Ali Abunimah looks at the arguments being used by the pro-Israel lobby to undermine the Road Map, and asks what chance there is of success in the face of this sustained campaign. Read more about Who's afraid of the Road Map? 

“Young Western activists living with Palestinians to act as human shields against Israeli raids are debating how to minimize their risk of dying after suffering a sudden rash of casualties.” Nidal al-Mughrabi reports for Reuters from Rafah in the Occupied Gaza Strip. Read more about Western human shields battered in Mideast; rethink strategies 

“Rachel Corrie represented the finest tradition of nonviolent peacemaking,” said Rachael Kamel of the Jewish Mobilization for a Just Peace, in Philadelphia. “An investigation is needed not only to clarify the circumstances of her death, but also to help Congress and the American public understand more fully the violence carried out every day in the occupied territories. “Rachel Corrie is a hero,” said Washington-based Charles Lenchner, president of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel. “These international volunteers represent the best of what American values are all about—Martin Luther King-style action.” Philip Weiss of the New York Observer examines growing sympathies among American Jewish groups with the goals of Americans like Rachel Corrie. Read more about Rachel Corrie Died In Palestine Rubble, But Her Issue Lives