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Beware of Democracy

Rifat Odeh Kassis 6 July 2006


When elections were imposed on the Palestinian people, while still under occupation, we questioned and suspected the whole process. We wondered how a free election could be conducted while the whole nation lives under a military occupation, especially in light of the undeniable correlation between freedom and democracy, as stated on the US Department of State’s website: “Freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous. Democracy is indeed a set of ideas and principles about freedom, but it also consists of a set of practices and procedures that have been molded through a long, often tortuous history. In short, democracy is the institutionalisation of freedom”. 

High street companies accused of complicity in Israeli war crimes

6 July 2006


High street names such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Connex and Caterpillar are implicated in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people, according to a new report on corporate complicity in the Occupation of Palestine from campaigns group War on Want. The report, Profiting from the Occupation, details the extent of the humanitarian crisis currently facing Palestinians as a result of Israel’s intensified operations against them, and examines the role which companies have played in supporting the Occupation. Corporations such as Connex, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Caterpillar, Volvo, and Daewoo are involved in business practices that help to sustain occupation. 

Profiting from the Occupation: The corporate interests fuelling conflict in Palestine

Nick Dearden 6 July 2006


We hear little from the Palestinian Occupied Territories other than endless death, destruction, poverty and despair. While living standards plummet and the death toll rockets, it’s difficult to imagine a less likely place to make a profit. But despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding, and the international attention it receives, names familiar on high streets across Europe and the US are actively supporting Israel’s Occupation of Palestine through their business practices – threatening to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people for many years to come. 

Fight or Flight? History Repeats Itself in Gaza

Jake Bower 6 July 2006


Israel may be preparing to resolve the contentious debate over the expulsion of the Palestinian refugees in 1948 - by repeating it. As Gaza’s civil infrastructure goes into meltdown, worrying parallels are emerging with the chain of events following the withdrawal of the British from Palestine. The demography of the Middle East has always been the biggest obstacle to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel. The Zionist project was built upon the dream of a homeland in which Jews would no longer be a minority. The expulsion of Arab populations in order to found a demographically and politically Jewish state has long been an important theme in Zionist thought. 

Electronic Intifada - Spring 2006 Appeal

6 July 2006


EI is an internationally recognized media phenomenon, widely respected for carving out new - and needed - terrain for comprehending the Palestine-Israel conflict from a rich variety of perspectives. In a world of averted gazes, EI continually strives to bring the Palestinian narrative front and center. Palestinian dignity is sustained by the riches of Palestinian culture and history. EI is sustained by your continuing interest, support, and concern for justice. 

Weekly Report on Human Rights Violations

6 July 2006


Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), and Isolate the Gaza Strip from the Outside World - 9 Palestinians killed by the IOF, 6 by the IOF shelling in the Gaza Strip; two were extra-judicially executed by the IOF in the West Bank. 91 Palestinians, including 18 children, were wounded by the IOF gunfire. IOF warplanes launched a series of air strikes and mock air raids on the Gaza Strip; offices of the Palestinian Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior and a number of civilian facilities were destroyed or damaged. IOF conducted 81 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and reoccupied areas in the Gaza Strip. 

Israeli air strikes and incursions into Gaza kill at least nineteen Palestinians

6 July 2006


Widespread Israeli incursions and air strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least nineteen Palestinians in less than 24 hours. The latest strike on Beit Lahiya in the north of the Gaza Strip on Thursday afternoon has killed at least 12 Palestinians and injured over forty. At least three of the injured are said to be in a critical condition. With this, the number of Palestinians killed in the Strip in the last 18 hours has increased to 19, and the number of injuries is currently in the fifties. Many of these are civilians, women and children. Medical sources said that the casualties were transported to various hospitals in the Strip in spite of the current disruption of electricity which makes the treatment of these casualties critical and difficult. 

Israel's experiment in human despair

Jonathan Cook 6 July 2006


The Alice Through the Looking Glass quality of Israeli disinformation over the combined siege and invasion of Gaza — and its widespread and credulous repetition by the Western media — is successfully distracting attention from Israel’s real goals in this one-sided war of attrition. The current destruction of Gaza’s civilian and administrative infrastructure is reminiscent of the Israeli army’s cruel rampages through the streets of West Bank cities in the repeated invasions of 2002 and 2003, and the Jewish settlers’ malicious attacks on Palestinian farmers trying to collect their olive harvests. Three long-standing motives are discernible in Israel’s current menacing of Gaza. Jonathan Cook reports. 

Israeli Attacks on Educational Institutions in the Gaza Strip Violate International Law

6 July 2006


At around 1:00 am on Tuesday, 4 July 2006, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired one missile at the Islamic University in Gaza City. As a result of the attack, the target, a student council office, caught fire and was completely destroyed. At approximately 1:50 am on Wednesday, 5 July 2006, an Israeli aircraft dropped a bomb on the Dar al-Arqam School in al-Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, destroying a number of classrooms. These attacks came less than a week after the IAF fired a missile at the Islamic University, hitting a football field. 

Doublethinking Palestine

Zachary Wales 6 July 2006


Three weeks ago, U.S. Congressmen Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) and Joseph Crowley (D-NY) solicited a bill concerning the “persecution” of Palestine’s Christian communities. The initiative attempts to intervene in Palestinian-Israeli politics by presuming that the Palestinian Christian minority in the West Bank and Gaza is “systematically” oppressed by the Muslim majority-and that punitive sanctions should apply. It is founded on the sweeping assumption that because Muslims outnumber Christians in the Palestinian territories, and because the Muslim fundamentalist Hamas party now dominates the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Christians are necessarily under threat.