For the past few weeks, Israeli machinery and bulldozers have been working at the northern entrance of Bethlehem city to construct the Segregation Wall. The path of the wall is almost complete in the area, confiscating Palestinian land and olive groves, and segregating Palestinian houses in the vicinity. Yesterday (March 30), the residents of Bethlehem city went out to peacefully protest against the Israeli policies and the theft of their land for the on-going construction of the Segregation Wall. The demonstration was part of a national day of action to commemorate Yom Al-Ard (“Land Day”) in Palestine, commemorating the killing of six Palestinians by Israeli police in 1976 at a protest against land confiscations in the Galilee. Read more about Yom al-Ard in Bethlehem 

Last week’s announcement that Israel is constructing 3500 housing units in E-1, a corridor connecting Jerusalem to the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim, seals the fate of the Palestinian state. As a key element of an Israeli “Greater Jerusalem,” the E-1 plan removes any viability from a Palestinian state. It cuts the West Bank in half, allowing Israel to control Palestinian movement from one part of their country to another, while isolating East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory. Since 40% of the Palestinian economy revolves around Jerusalem, the E-1 plan effectively cuts the economic heart out of any Palestinian state, rendering it nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations. Read more about E-1: The end of a viable Palestinian state 

Tim Llewellyn was the BBC’s Middle East correspondent twice from 1976 - 1982 and from 1987 - 1992. Based in Beirut and Cyprus, Llewellyn covered the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian Revolution, the Tanker Wars, the first Palestinian intifada, and the first Gulf War. He was one of the first foreign correspondents to enter the camps of Sabra and Shatila after the massacres there by Phalangist Forces under the auspices of the Israeli army in September 1982. In this interview, exclusive to the Electronic Intifada, Llewellyn talks candidly about the BBC, and the pressures that organization and its correspondents are under, when reporting from the Middle East. Read more about BBC reporting doesn't tell the whole story 

To judge by the political discourse, being a leftist today means supporting Ariel Sharon. Even when his government decides yet again to postpone the evacuation of the illegal outposts to an unknown future date, the pundits explain that the mere fact that he even raised the matter for discussion in the government is indicative of the seriousness of his intentions. Sharon will evacuate Gaza first, they say, and afterwards the outposts, and in the end maybe even the West Bank. And those who believe the most that Sharon will dismantle settlements are the Leftist parties. Read more about The Israeli Left is Opting for Suicide 

This week Palestine Report Online interviews Orient House Mapping and survey director Khalil Tufakji on the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank: “The expansion of Maaleh Adumim is part of this plan, which is to create facts on the ground, to annex the settlement blocs to Israel and finally to alter the demographic reality to Israel’s advantage in terms of Jerusalem and basically impose a twofold reality on the Palestinians: the first is the geographical aspect and the second, the demographic aspect.” Read more about Gaza disengagement means West Bank settlement expansion 

“It’s a safe bet that not even a fraction of those who recognize Terri Schiavo’s name and vacant face would know who Rachel Corrie is, what she stood for, or how she was mowed down by a US-supplied armored D9 Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza while she and others bravely confronted the Israeli army. Unarmed with anything but a megaphone and her convictions, Rachel was crushed with all the impunity and inhumanity that her killers could muster. Rachel Corrie’s story - shocking, stirring, incredible - is just as heartbreaking as Schiavo’s.” EI co-founder Laurie King-Irani examines troubling deficiencies in the Republican party’s “culture of life” campaign. Read more about The passionate minority and the silenced majority 

In recent weeks, Jordan has been embroiled in crises with its neighbors Iraq and Syria and has been subjected to harsh regional criticism for apparently proposing that Arab states normalize relations with Israel without Israel withdrawing from any occupied territories. EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah, who spent four decades as a Jordanian diplomat writes, “In order to understand how we got here, and see how we can restore the good relations and reputation that Jordan should enjoy, we need to make an objective assessment of recent events and actions, including missteps by Jordan’s diplomats.” Read more about Jordanian diplomacy falters on Palestine, Syria and Iraq 

The Palestinian Authority has denied Israeli press reports citing concessions from President Mahmud Abbas on the issue of Palestinian refugees’ right of return. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Monday quoted unnamed Palestinian sources as saying that Abbas would present Palestinian leaders, who are due to meet in Cairo on Tuesday, with a new position on the “right of return”.  The new position would seek to convince faction leaders to recognise that the refugees’ right of return could not be implemented in full given current political and demographic realities, Haaretz said. The PA called the report a “fabrication”. Read more about PA: Palestinian refugees' right of return paramount 

S. spent all of her childhood years and some of her adolescence with nine siblings: four brothers and five sisters. All of them lived in fear of their father, whose violence excluded none of them. Her father, rendered unemployed by Israeli closures on the Gaza Strip, only communicated with his children through physical and verbal abuse. S.’s story is one that is becoming increasingly common in Palestinian society. Statistics show that instances of domestic abuse have trebled in the years of the Intifada, and most experts agree that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Read more about Victims of violence 

Since the war in Iraq and Bush’s re-election we have witnessed the collective surrender by large segments of European and Arab ruling elites, as many allow themselves to become tools of Bush administration policies, write EI contributor Hasan Abu Nimah and EI co-founder Ali Abunimah. UN missions in Lebanon, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s visit to Jerusalem, and recent EU statements about about Iran represent the reassertion of a western double standard that reinforces regional fears that international law is a weapon to be used only to punish disobedient Arab and Muslim countries, while Israel is totally exempt from all enforcement action. Read more about Fear and loathing across the Middle East 

Palestinians in Gaza have reacted to the Hamas decision to contest legislative elections this July with a mixture of ambivalence and approval. For some the decision was not particularly significant. Some are excited to hear about the decision and say they woul vote for Hamas candidates. Hamas won a significant majority in seven of the 10 municipalities and local councils that held elections on 27 January. The councils consist of 118 elected officials, 77 of whom are Hamas representatives. Hamas had previously boycotted legislative elections in 1996 because of its opposition to the 1993 Oslo peace accords that mandated the ballots. Read more about Hamas move gets mixed reactions in Gaza 

In a hospital room in Nablus’ Specialty Hospital, two gunshot victims share a room. The young men are both awake and alert, and their room is filled with relatives and colleagues. They look fine, though one only speaks with some difficulty and the other has to lie on his side because of his injuries. The scene is not an unusual one in a Palestinian hospital after four years of the Intifada, but the circumstances of their shooting have rocked Nablus. The two are policemen and were wounded when clashes broke out between the police and members of an armed group, the Fateh-affiliated Al Awda Brigades, on March 4. Their colleagues are not only there to wish them well but to protect them from possible further attacks. A policeman is stationed at the entrance to the hospital. Read more about Nablus rocked by clashes 

You won’t hear about the story of my Palestinian friend Ali Zbeidat and the threatened demolition of his “illegal” home, either from the hundreds of international correspondents in Jerusalem or from the Hebrew media. None of them will tell you about the story of Ali’s family and the imminent physical and financial ruin of their lives by Israel, even though Ali’s plight is far from unique. There are tens of thousands of other Palestinians in the same desperate situation as Ali, living in homes Israel defines as illegal. The problem for Ali is not just that he is Palestinian; if he were, you might learn of his story. Ali’s problem is that he is also a citizen of Israel. Read more about Apartheid targets Palestinian home-owners inside Israel  

“Our Western culture is radically ethnocentric. This makes it difficult to widen one’s view. To use a phrase from Juan Rulfo, ‘The world is wide and belongs to no one.’ We have think tanks full of experts who tell us that the economy requires this or that, all of these things that are just assumed. This is a very narrow vision of reality. The problem is that if this reality doesn’t count — that is, if it doesn’t matter what people of color think, what Africans think, what Asians think — then we can just go on living in ignorance of them, constructing our everyday world and believing that we are the only thing that matters in the world.” Part 2 of an interview with award-winning Spanish journalist Teresa Aranguren. Read more about Spanish perspectives II: an interview with Teresa Aranguren (Part 2) 

Sixty-two-year-old Shafiqa Massoud is, for all intents and purposes, the head of the household. Hers is a typical peasant family that lives in the Qalqilya area directly up against the Green Line. Her husband, 66-year-old Amin Hindi is unemployed due to chronic illness and her four children are all married. In all, her extended family comprises 27 members. The rainy season should have been the best time of the year for farmers like Shafiqa’s family. But in Qalqilya, the season brought more hardship than joy this time around. Israel’s separation barrier, in this area an eight-meter high wall, formed a concrete dam, trapping the water and preventing it from flowing out west. Read more about "Damming" West Bank farmers 

On the morning of Friday, February 25, 2005 a group of approximately 300 Israelis, Palestinian refugees and international activists gathered near the highway leading out of Jerusalem towards Tel Aviv. In the valley below lay the ruins of the ancient Palestinian village of Lifta. The event was part tour, part protest, and part homecoming. It had different meanings for each of the groups involved. The organization responsible for planning the event, Zochrot (Hebrew for “Remembering”) takes Israelis on tours of depopulated and partially destroyed Palestinian villages. They bring Palestinian refugees to tell the stories of their village and plant signs in Arabic and Hebrew that explain what happened there. This event, however, was also a protest aimed at stopping the impending demolition of what remains of Lifta. Read more about Ethnic Cleansing 101: The Case of Lifta Village