All Content

All Eyes on Jerusalem as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Allied Groups Prepare for WorldPride 2006

10 May 2006


8 May 2006, Jerusalem - WorldPride, a week-long international lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) event, will be held in the Holy City August 6-12, 2006. Jerusalem Open House, lead organizer of Jerusalem WorldPride, will collaborate with thousands of activists and organizers from around the globe for a week of discussion, camaraderie and community. Major events include an Multifaith LGBT Clergy Conference, a Pride March and outdoor festival, Human Rights Day, LGBT Health Day, an International LGBT Youth conference, an LGBT Film Festival, and the Keshet Gaava annual conference. 

Poverty in the Gaza Strip

10 May 2006


The conditions in the OPT has exacerbated the humanitarian situation for Palestinian civilians. Unemployment and poverty rates have increased dramatically. The rate of unemployment is 34% in the OPT as a whole and 44% in the Gaza Strip. This rate rises to 55% during times of complete closure imposed by Israeli Occupation Forces. Likewise, the poverty rate in the OPT is nearly 50%, with the Gaza Strip rate at approximately 70%. This in turn has impacted the per capita income, which decreased by 32% over the past three years, and is actually 40% lower today than it was three years ago. On the economic front, the gross national product decreased to dangerous levels, threatening the agricultural, industrial, commerce, transportation and tourism sectors. 

Helping Israel kill Palestinians

Ali Abunimah 10 May 2006


“Suppose I were to leave my office here in Chicago and walk the short distance to the kidney dialysis unit down the road and pull out the tubes to which four elderly patients were attached, making them seriously ill or killing them.” EI co-founder Ali Abunimah argues that this, effectively, is what the so-called international community is doing to Palestinians by cutting off aid in an attempt to blackmail Hamas into changing its policies. Reports from hospitals in Gaza say that at least four people have died due to lack of medicine due to Israeli closures and the EU aid cut off. 

At UN session, Middle East diplomatic Quartet endorses direct aid to Palestinians

10 May 2006


With donors still balking at funding a Hamas-led Palestinian Government that has yet to renounce violence, and with conditions in the West Bank and Gaza deteriorating, key international partners in the Middle East peace process meeting at the United Nations today endorsed a temporary mechanism to funnel assistance directly to the Palestinian people. The move came after senior officials of the diplomatic Quartet – the UN, European Union (EU), Russia and the United States – held daylong consultations hosted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, including a meeting with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. 

Palestinians allowed into Syria after two months on the Iraq-Jordan border

9 May 2006


A total of 244 Palestinians, including more than 100 women and children, stranded at the Iraq-Jordan border for the past two months were allowed into Syria on Tuesday. The group consists of 181 Palestinians who left the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, in March fleeing death threats, intimidation and kidnapping. They were subsequently joined by additional families escaping the city. On April 22, the Syrian Government announced that it would welcome the stranded group into Syria, under the auspices of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which takes care of Palestinian refugees in the Near East. Arrangements for the transfer took two weeks given the security situation in Iraq and other formalities. 

UN hosts meeting on Israeli-Palestinian conflict at crucial juncture in search for peace

9 May 2006


Key international partners seeking Israeli-Palestinian peace began a series of crucial meetings at United Nations Headquarters in New York today at a critical juncture for the process with political progress deadlocked and a humanitarian crisis looming in the occupied Gaza Strip. Foreign ministers of the so-called Diplomatic Quartet – the UN, European Union (EU), Russia and the United States – hosted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, kicked off their day-long consultations with a meeting with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Following the meeting with the regional ministers, the Quartet principals are set to consult among themselves, and then hold a news conference at 5:00 p.m. 

World Bank Report: "Palestinian crisis is worse than expected"

8 May 2006


The World Bank circulated a new report on the Palestinian financial crisis. The report says that the crisis is worse than expected and it threatens to provoke a humanitarian crisis and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. According to the report, 2006 is shaping up to be the worst year in recent times for Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories. The report follows the recent cut-off of financial aid to the Palestinian Authority. On Tuesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan will host a high-level meeting on Tuesday of the diplomatic Quartet, the partnership of the United Nations, European Union (EU), Russia and the United States amid a potentially dangerous deterioration looming on the horizon. 

Film Review: Rashid Masharawi's "Waiting"

Ali Abunimah 8 May 2006


A young woman stands before a camera refusing to take the chair the director has set up. He asks why? “I have come to sing,” she says. Irritated, the director orders her, “You must act, didn’t they tell you we are looking for actors here?” With calm assertion she insists, “I do not know how to act. I have come to sing. Come on, you film and I will sing…” This scene illustrates a main theme running through Rashid Masharawi’s latest feature film Waiting: Palestinians forced to speak from someone else’s script, writes Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah in this review of Masharawi’s latest feature which had its Chicago premiere at the Chicago Palestine Film Festival 2006. 

Book Review: The Case Against Israel

Raymond Deane 9 May 2006


Michael Neumann’s “The Case Against Israel” is “the most comprehensive and devastating critique of Israel in print,” writes EI reviewer Raymond Deane. Yet it will make uncomfortable reading not only for Israel’s apologists but also pro-Palestinian activists. Neumann argues that although “Israel is the illegitimate child of ethnic nationalism,” its existence is “protected by the same useful international conventions that allow others” to retain “their ill-gotten gains.” Seeing that Palestinians have no true options to resist save violence, Neumann nevertheless advocates “the most extensive international sanctions possible”, undeterred “by the horrors of the Jewish past.” 

Israel and the West: New Government, Old Policies

Nick Dearden 6 May 2006


Coming only four weeks after the European declaration of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, Ehud Olmert’s announcement of a new Israeli Government should raise profound questions in any Western country truly interested in a ‘balanced’ approach towards the Middle East. Olmert’s government does contain many politicians responsible for the last five years of terror and impoverishment on the West Bank, who fall foul of the conditions the Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia) has seen fit to place on the Palestinians.