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Diplomatic Quartet backs international mechanism to aid Palestinian people

17 June 2006


The diplomatic Quartet on the Middle East – made up of the United Nations, United States, European Union (EU) and Russian Federation – today issued a statement elaborating on an EU proposal for channeling aid directly to the Palestinian people and voiced hope that others will participate in it. The “temporary international mechanism” would be limited in scope and duration and operate with full transparency and accountability, the Quartet said in a statement, pledging to review whether it is still needed after three months. 

Former Dutch Ambassador Calls for Sanctions if Israel Refuses to Comply with International Law

Adri Nieuwhof 19 June 2006


Some weeks ago I heard Jan Wijenberg, a retired Dutch Ambassador, speak about what the International Community could do to break with its complicity to the ongoing violations of international law and human rights by the Israeli regime. Wijenberg served over a decade as an ambassador for the Dutch government in Jemen, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia. He regularly writes to Dutch ministers and politicians to remind them of the responsibility of the Dutch government and the EU to hold Israel accountable to international law. His views are expressed in this article. 

The (Anti-) Palestinian Authority

Joseph Massad 18 June 2006


One of the most important measures that the Israeli and Palestinian architects of the Oslo agreement took in order to guarantee the structural survival of what came to be known as the Oslo “peace process” was the creation of structures, institutions, and classes, that would be directly connected to it, and that can survive the very collapse of the Oslo agreement itself while preserving the “process” that the agreement generated. This guarantee was enshrined in law and upheld by international funding predicated on the continuation of the “Oslo process”… 

Israel Blows Up World

16 June 2006


Israeli Mossad agents used too many explosives in a Gaza car bombing today and blew up the world. Israeli Major General Yoav Galant told reporters that only 12 armed militants were killed in the blast, but Pentagon experts believe the death toll could be much higher. “The Pentagon is a biased, anti-Semitic radical left wing organization,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in response to the allegations, “Their findings cannot be taken seriously.” 

Constitutional chauvinism

Azem Bishara 16 June 2006


A family is an entire world. But instead of making every effort to guard the right to a family life, the High Court of Justice decision regarding the petitions against the Citizenship Law confirmed the invasion, rending and destruction of this personal world by the state. This is a generalization, since in Israel of 2006 the right to a family life is recognized as a constitutional right, which is entitled to protection from invasive harm on the part of the state. But that is not the case when it comes to Israel’s Arab citizens who have chosen to marry partners from among their people who live under Israeli occupation. At least not according to the opinion of the majority in the High Court, which was written by the outgoing deputy president of the Supreme Court, Mishael Cheshin. 

Growing crisis in Palestine

16 June 2006


Trócaire’s local partner in Jerusalem is appealing urgently for over 1.5 million euro to help Palestinians scrape by as salaries at the Palestinian Authority, which provides jobs for more than 150,000 people, go unpaid. The salaries have been frozen since Hamas won the January elections, prompting Israel and international donors to withhold funds destined for the new government. Those government employees directly or indirectly support a quarter of the entire Palestinian population of 1.3 million people. Other international organisations and donors also halted direct funding of the Palestinian Authority. About 40 per cent of children in Gaza already suffer from malnutrition because of the area’s absolute poverty. 

Politics of Starvation: the Humanitarian Crisis in Palestine

16 June 2006


The continuing obstruction of mobility by the IDF, forced upon not only Palestinian civilians but international aid workers as well, has dramatically increased the unemployment rate and prevented food and foreign aid to reach the civilian population in the Palestinian territories. With the poverty rate in Gaza alone now standing at a staggering 67% and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimating that 51% of Palestinians cannot meet their daily food needs, how will the Palestinians survive? 

Letter from Ma'ariv Editor Justifies Lack of Gaza Beach Coverage

16 June 2006


This is a translation of correspondence between Keshev, an Israeli organisation that monitors the Hebrew media, and Amnon Dankner, the editor of Israel’s second largest newspaper, Ma’ariv. Keshev wrote to Dankner after the paper failed to offer coverage on its front page of the shelling of a beach in Gaza on Friday 9 June that killed seven members of one family and caused dozens of injuries. All of the Palestinian dead were civilians. Maariv buried the details of the deaths inside the Sunday paper, the first to be published after the incident. 

On Boycotts, Activism and Moral Standards

James Brooks 16 June 2006


As a citizen of the United States, I have been an activist working to end US support for Israel’s occupation. With other anti-occupation activists, I demonstrated and wrote repeatedly against the Iraq war before it began. But once it was underway I had to make a difficult decision; would I continue as before, or focus on the long fight against our crimes in Iraq? The thought of becoming yet another person to abandon the Palestinians was abhorrent. So I stayed at my post. It remains a difficult decision today, but I do not regret it. 

Where is the hand? The shifting of Middle East perceptions toward America

Timothy Seidel 16 June 2006


“When I was a boy, my family received a bag of flour from the United States,” tells Musa Taha, a Palestinian farmer from the village of Qatanna. It was right after the Nakba or “Catastrophe” of 1948 that left between 750,000 and 900,000 Palestinians as refugees, expelled from their homes and dispossessed of their land, that Musa remembers receiving this gift. He vividly remembers the sacks themselves and the picture on the front of two clasping hands with the label “A present from the people of the U.S.A. to the Palestinian people.”