All Content

Report: Family members used to pressure Palestinians in Israeli detention

22 April 2008


“They said that if I confessed to everything they wanted, they would release my wife, and that she was in the isolation cell because of me.” This and similar testimonies of detainees interrogated by the Israeli intelligence during the past year indicate a phenomenon whose gravity must not be minimized: the use of a detainee’s family to “break” him. 

Dubai called on to boycott Leviev stores over Israeli settlements

19 April 2008


New York human rights activists, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewelry stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements. According to a flurry of recent media reports, Leviev is opening jewelry stores in Dubai during 2008. 

Popular Conference: preserving collective identity

Noura Erakat and Monadel Herzallah 21 April 2008


The goals of the National Popular Palestinian Conference to be held in Chicago in August 2008 include cultivating our national Palestinian-Arab identity, exploring grounds for cooperation and collective expression, and motivating and organizing the US-based Palestinian community to assume a greater role in realizing Palestinian national objectives and preserving our collective identity. Noura Erakat and Monadel Herzallah outline the goals and history of the conference. 

EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia

21 April 2008


A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged. A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a “war” on Wikipedia. 

The other evangelicals

Ben White 19 April 2008


Last week in The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Lee Marsden wrote about how Republican US presidential candidate John McCain has managed to pick up the support of Christian Zionist heavyweight John Hagee. While Hagee praises McCain’s position on Israel, McCain himself is presumably happy to receive the endorsement of a man whose Christians United for Israel organization links up with thousands of potential voters. Ben White comments on a different strain of American evangelicals seeking to counter the impact Christian Zionists have on US foreign policy. 

Thousands attend funeral of slain Gaza journalist

Mohammed Omer 18 April 2008


GAZA CITY, 18 April (IPS) - Fadel Shana’a just had to go to the scene of the Israeli bombing. As a Reuters cameraman, that was his job. He wasn’t the only one killed, but through his pursuit of attacks as they happen, he was always more at risk than most others. Fadel Shana’a was killed Wednesday because he was in the firing line, but also because, eyewitnesses said, he had begun to film the tanks that were firing. A barrage of metal shrapnel pierced his body as a tank missile landed close to him. 

Eight children, journalist among yesterday's Gaza dead

17 April 2008


In the past 24 hours, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have escalated attacks against the Gaza Strip, while they maintained the tightened siege imposed on Strip. On Wednesday evening, 16 April 2008, and in less than half an hour, IOF killed 13 Palestinian civilians, including a journalist, eight children and two brothers, and wounded 32 others in Juhor al-Dik village. 

Israeli forces in Gaza "willfully kill" journalist

17 April 2008


The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the crime committed by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on Wednesday evening, which took the life of Fadel Shana’a, a Palestinian journalist, when he carrying out his job in Gaza. PCHR expresses utmost concern over continued crimes committed by IOF against journalists and media professionals, which is a reflection of excessive use of force against civilians, and systematic targeting of journalists to prevent them from covering crimes committed against civilians.