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Blue sky, toxic sea

Nora Barrows-Friedman Gaza Strip 9 June 2008


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. 

Photostory: The month in pictures, May 2008

9 June 2008


In 1948 the state of Israel declared independence on the destroyed historic homeland of Palestine, an event Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). During this period, the majority of the indigenous inhabitants of the land were forced to flee, and the descendants of those approximately 750,000 refugees now number in the millions. The above slideshow is a selection of images all addressing this anniversary. 

Quebec student federation joins international boycott movement

9 June 2008


A grassroots response in opposition to Israeli apartheid is growing throughout the world sparked by an appeal launched by Palestinian civil-society organizations in 2005 for an international campaign directed at the government in Israel, a campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions. Today students in Quebec are now joining the international boycott campaign in large numbers including L’Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Etudiante, an important Quebec-wide student federation representing over 42,000 students. 

Slow death in Gaza

Margaret Kimberley 6 June 2008


Each American claim to moral authority becomes a foul excretion in light of US complicity in Israel’s barbaric and illegal treatment of the Palestinians. Washington deploys its superpower apparatus to smother dissent against its Middle East policy in Europe and elsewhere, leaving former president Jimmy Carter and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu as lonely defenders of Palestinian human rights. No change in American policy is on the horizon, as “the rot in America goes beyond this administration, and so does the rot in Israel.” Margaret Kimberley comments. 

Hatred is too heavy a burden to carry

Cathy Sultan West Bank 10 June 2008


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. 

No time to celebrate

Deborah Agre San Francisco, United States 6 June 2008


Frankly, I’ve always been a little uneasy about explicitly Jewish actions around Palestine. Isn’t this a human rights issue in which all voices are equally needed and valued? What difference does one’s background make when one is speaking up for justice? I worry that people will listen more to what a group of Jews has to say than to Palestinians and other activists. I don’t believe in a a special “Jewish position” on Palestine. Deborah Agre writes from San Francisco. 

An award for the voiceless in Gaza

Mohammed Omer 6 June 2008


The siege of Gaza has many layers. I work here as a journalist, amid near-daily air and land assaults from Israel, amid the unending killings and destruction of land and livelihood, which are all made more unbearable by critical shortages of fuel, food, medicine, electricity for hospital machinery and electricity for my work. Recently I returned from fieldwork to find cheerful news from John Pilger: that I have won the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, along with my respected colleague Dahr Jamail. 

Dutch bank agrees: Jerusalem tramway is illegal

Adri Nieuwhof 5 June 2008


Last week, the managing director of SNS Asset Management, a division of the Dutch SNS Bank, sent me a letter explaining the bank’s position on divesting from Veolia. Veiola is a European company contracted to build a tramway on illegally seized Palestinian land that connects Israeli settlements on the West Bank, constructed in open violation of international law, with neighborhoods in West Jerusalem. EI contributor Adri Nieuwhof reports. 

Crossing the Line interviews professor Joel Beinin

5 June 2008


This week on Crossing The Line: US President George W. Bush recently wrapped up a five-day visit to the Middle East meeting with Arab leaders at the World Economic Forum, pledging a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, given Bush’s dismal approval rating, what are the odds that Bush will have any real effect on the situation? Joel Beinin, Director of Middle East Studies at American University of Cairo joins host Naji Ali to talk more on the subject. 

Gaza's 700 (and counting) stranded students

5 June 2008


For the mainstream press, the story of the Gaza Fulbright seven “moved quickly” and has now concluded with a positive ending. But hundreds of other Palestinian students remain stranded inside the Gaza Strip, and the number is expected to rise this summer. According to data from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, almost 700 Palestinian students are still waiting to leave Gaza in order to pursue studies, and scholarships, abroad.