The Israeli-Palestinian conflict often inspires a sense of powerlessness. What can average Americans do to bring an end to this decades-old conflict when our leaders have failed so miserably? And what good is speaking out about Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land as the primary obstacle to peace when even former President Jimmy Carter and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu are condemned for their criticism of Israeli policies? Bill Fletcher, Jr. comments. Read more about Tactics that ended apartheid in S. Africa can end it in Israel 

A ceasefire went into effect in Gaza last week, offering some respite from the violence that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and five Israelis in recent months. It will do nothing, however, to address the underlying cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Intermittent spectacular violence may draw the world’s attention to the occupied Palestinian territories, but our obsession with violence actually distracts us from the real nature of Israel’s occupation, which is its smothering bureaucratic control of everyday Palestinian life. Saree Makdisi comments. Read more about Occupation by bureaucracy 

The young, dark-haired woman behind the glass stamped the American passport in front of her. “Welcome to Israel,” she said cheerily. The line in front of me receded quickly as passport after passport was stamped, and traveler after traveler admitted entry. I made my way to the desk and slid my passport under the glass. Sumia Ibrahim writes from Palestine. Read more about Palestine is illegal 

BEIRUT (IRIN) - Loud screams break the quiet of a Beirut neighborhood in the early hours of Sunday 15 June: It’s Angelique, a 26-year-old domestic worker from Congo, crying for the police as she runs to the balcony. From inside the apartment, a man’s voice yells her name, swearing in Arabic and French. There are the sounds of fists and slaps and more screams, before all falls silent. Read more about Few rights, low pay for 200,000 migrant domestic workers 

USH GHRAB, West Bank (IPS) - East of Beit Sahour in Ush Ghrab, the tree line stops and the bronze, rocky desert begins. In a flat clearing on this hilltop, a small, abandoned military post is being slowly transformed from an assorted collection of cement-grey barracks into a virtual oasis for the region’s children, families and tourists. Read more about Beit Sahour reclaims military base site 

BEIRUT (IRIN) - Of the 10 million refugees worldwide, half are children, estimates UK-based World Vision — children who will grow up as a “lost generation” unless more is done to address their needs. “To preserve the young generation growing up today, we need to shield children from violence, enhance humanitarian access and provide more resources targeted to children’s specific needs,” World Vision said in a report highlighting the plight of Iraqi refugee children in Jordan, released to coincide with 20 June, World Refugee Day. Read more about "Lost generation" of Iraqi refugee children in Lebanon 

After the unremitting hell that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza, one can only feel relief and even joy at the ceasefire agreed between Hamas and the Jewish state that took effect this week. Its significance extends well beyond Gaza and opens new possibilities as the disastrous Bush Doctrine begins to lose influence. Ali Abunimah comments. Read more about Rays of hope from the Gaza ceasefire 

JERUSALEM (IRIN) - Lower incomes and the increasing cost of food have contributed to higher food insecurity in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, without a change in the political situation the only solution remains emergency humanitarian aid, a new UN report has said. Israel has said restrictions on movement and the wall are needed for security purposes and efforts are being made to make life easier for Palestinians. Read more about Politics mostly responsible for Palestinian food insecurity - UN 

CAIRO (IPS) - In the last two months, popular and parliamentary opposition to the sale of Egyptian natural gas to Israel has mounted. As a result, in a rare nod to public opinion, the government recently announced it was “revising” the terms of the sale agreement. “The government was finally embarrassed into partially addressing our concerns,” Mohammed Anwar al-Sadat, former MP and spokesman for the recently founded Popular Campaign against Gas Exports told IPS. Read more about Egypt bends on Israel gas deal 

It started out as a normal Saturday morning. We were hanging out in Ibdaa Cultural Center in Deheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem. We were all sitting in the cafe at Ibdaa, which is on the fourth floor and has windows around three sides of the building. We were drinking coffee, chatting, watching television and all of a sudden there was a loud sound like a grenade or a bomb. Marcy Newman writes from Deheisheh. Read more about Israeli forces terrorize Deheisheh refugee camp 

Israel has now been granted the highest level of European Union relations available to a non-member state, despite the EU’s own finding that “little concrete progress” has been made on issues raised between Israel and the EU, namely Israel’s human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. EI co-founder Arjan El Fassed comments on the efforts towards a “more intense, more fruitful, more influential cooperation” between the EU and Israel. Read more about Israel has won the European cup: a special relationship 

One of the most repeated quotes among Palestinian refugees is: “The old will die and the young will forget,” words reputedly spoken by Israel’s founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion. However, the young have not forgotten. Everywhere I have traveled in the Arab world Palestinian children tell me the names of their original villages that they still hope to see someday. Even the youngest of children will say things like, “If I don’t return to my village, then my children or their children will.” Hanna Mermelstein writes. Read more about The urgency of 1948 

GAZA CITY, 16 June (IPS) - When the broiling sun sinks behind the rolling Mediterranean sea in Gaza, hundreds of fishing boats turn on their motors and assemble ragged nets to round up the evening catch. Flickering blue lights scatter across the shallow seas as the boats gather offshore in close quarters. Mackerel, sardine and grey mullet are caught in nets and dumped into plastic crates to be sold in the street markets. Read more about Net tightens around Gaza fishermen  

Tuesday morning at 9:00am, 220 Palestinian children gathered at al-Sherouq and al-Amal children’s club in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis refugee camp. Dressed in colorful clothes accompanied by cheerful smiles, the children lined up in rows to listen to their trainer. The children were attending their first day of a three-week-long program of training and activities at the club. EI correspondent Rami Almeghari visits this oasis in the besieged Gaza Strip. Read more about Shelter from the siege 

“National suicide” will soon be an incantation by neoconservative and other pro-Israeli pundits and politicians on the “bomb Iran” bandwagon. Its strategic implications are clear: We can’t trust irrational regimes because they are not deterred by threat of annihilation. Therefore, extraordinary actions — such as preemptive attack — may be not only justified but necessary. George Bisharat comments. Read more about The fallacy of Islamic "national suicide" 

Neo-liberal economic policies adopted by successive political parties since Lebanon’s 15-year civil war came to an end in 1990 have left the country in economic ruins. All of the main political parties neglect the growing poverty rates, crumbling economy and staggering emigration in Lebanon today. Karim Makdisi, a professor in the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, spoke with Stefan Christoff about Doha and the economic and social policies of the government and opposition forces in Lebanon. Read more about Karim Makdisi discusses the Doha Agreement and Lebanon's economic crisis 

On a massive and wide-ranging scale, every single aspect of life in Gaza is punctuated by the Israeli occupation and the blockade. There are 1.5 million people here, trapped and hermetically sealed, in this 22-mile by 6-mile strip of devastated open-air prison compound. Fuel is scarce and the streets are thick with the soupy smoke of cooking gas, falafel oil and benzene as Israel’s collective punishment policies force people to fill their cars with their families’ gas rations. Nora Barrows-Friedman writes from Gaza. Read more about Blue sky, toxic sea 

The West Bank is fragmented by checkpoints, settler-only roads, closed military zones and Israeli-declared “nature reserves.” The road barriers come in many forms — barbed wire, metal fences, cement blocks, dirt mounds, trenches and permanent border crossings or terminals like Qalandia around every Palestinian city. The one at Qalandia actually says “Welcome to Israel,” as though it was an international border. Cathy Sultan writes from the occupied West Bank. Read more about Hatred is too heavy a burden to carry 

For cynics who still consider the above too little progress for the given timeframe, I can only reiterate what a South African comrade once told us: “The [African National Congress] issued its academic boycott call in the 1950s; the international community started to heed it almost three decades later! So you guys are doing much better than us.” EI contributor Omar Barghouti argues that boycott, divestment and sanctions are the most reliable and moral path to freedom, justice, equality and peace in Palestine and the entire Middle East. Read more about The most reliable path to freedom 

It may be too early to determine what truly lies behind the secret Syria-Israel “peace talks.” With Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert positioned to leave office under a cloud of scandal and after a rash of policy failures across the Middle East, the Bush Administration is now counting its last days in power. Thus, it appears that the Syrian government has chosen an opportune time to attempt to usher in a new positive period for itself. Whatever the intentions of the parties involved in these negotiations, at least one thing can be said that makes them irrelevant. Yaman Salahi comments for EI. Read more about Normalizing occupation: Syria, Israel and "peace talks" 

Israel needs a Palestinian state — or at least the illusion of one — to mask the reality of apartheid where millions of Palestinians, soon to be the majority population between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, are ruled by a Jewish sectarian government in which they have no rights. EI co-founders Arjan El Fassed and Ali Abunimah comment. Read more about Beyond the make-believe of negotiations 

WASHINGTON, 2 June (IPS) - Israel and the US said Friday they would “revisit” a policy that prevents Palestinians from leaving the Gaza Strip to pursue their educational goals one day after a controversial US State Department decision to withdraw all Fulbright Scholarships from students living in the territory. Read more about Gaza Fulbrights, small yet symbolic 

Haaretz.com, the website of the Israeli newspaper often cited as an example of Israel’s liberal, critical media carries paid advertisements from a website openly advocating the total destruction of the Palestinian people, the murder of large numbers of Muslim civilians, the assassination of the family members of Arab rulers, and the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons against dozens of countries. Read more about Haaretz.com promotes website advocating genocide and terrorism